Bumping this back to the top -- see updates in red. Originally posted 2008-08-24 16:51:13 -0500. This is a call for action and more researchers.

UPDATE 2: "DENVER – Police have arrested three people they believe are linked to a white supremacy group in connection with a threat to possibly assassinate Sen. Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention."

UPDATE 1: Via the Denver Post, two men have been arrested on weapons charges after a fortuitous traffic stop may have been involved in an assassination plot against Barack Obama. Hat-tip GregMitch of DailyKos.

Call for Researchers: The story below loosely indicates the possibility of a disturbing -- and perhaps encouraged -- trend toward violence. Volunteer information, links or participation in the effort to dig out and analyze whether or not this is a real trend or simply a set of disparate, depressing and deadly incidents.

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Is this what we've come to? If a party that lives by fear-mongering can't win and gets desperate, it relies on the unhinged to become their assassins?

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Man arrested with weapons at Pelosi hotel
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 08/24/2008 12:47:18 PM PDT

DENVER—A man who tried to carry two hunting rifles and two pistols into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's downtown hotel remained in police custody Sunday.

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More below the fold.

Reuters carries a story about Wal-Mart Warning Managers of Labor Bill by Nicole Maestri and Ted Kerr. Seems that as part of Wal-Mart's opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act--legislation that would once again allow workers to have a secret ballot for or against a union shop--the company has been holding meetings with U.S. store managers warning them about the danger of a Democratic victory in the coming election. Why?

cross-posted @ This Week With Barack Obama

the presumptive nominee with wife, michelle at the xcel energy center in st. paul, mn

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“This isn’t the party I planned but I sure like the company,” Hillary said as she opened her concession speech at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

Speaking to the “18 million...from all walks of life,” who voted for her, Hillary congratulated and endorsed Barack Obama, stating:

"The way, the way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passions, our strengths and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States."

until Hillary Clinton is out of the Democratic Primary Process.

What do I mean? Read the following:

We must have our eyes WIDE OPEN, wit in check, and counter punches ready for November.

While many are worried, or not worried (I am not) about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the GOP should be deathly worried about the MSNBC/Wall Street Journal Poll.

Bush is the albatross, the elephant in the room, the oxygen sucker for the GOP and John McCain.

I woke up today to read two stirring diaries by two of my favorite diarists, kid oakland and teacherken. Both thought provoking and on point.

But I am going to go further, because I can being African American and growing up in this community.

And I will go even a greater step further. If the Democrats do not stand up and get a spine they will lose in November.

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OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: After spending months dawdling over a bill that will redefine Ohio’s energy system for years to come, the Public Utilities Committee in the Ohio House yesterday got a sudden burst of energy that kept them sequestered into the wee hours of the morning in a subterranean meeting room, as they accepted a new, possibly industry-built version of a bill that the majority Republican party accepted and passed out of committee without Democrats even being in the room.

Democrats voiced concerns that they were given precious little time to read the new version of the bill, which one source reported had the digital fingerprints of a known utility insider on it and also said the committee chairman’s denial of their request to meet in private to review amendments they had not seen before was a case of disrespect to minority members.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, both as a candidate for the job and during the 14 months in the job, has said solving Ohio’s education puzzle – constitutional funding for primary and secondary education and taming the lions of higher education that have produced a college education in Ohio more expensive than others -- will be the central issue in his first-term, one that will define whether he has been a success or not.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: From her first day on the job in January 2007 as Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner has acted as if she was bullet proof. To those who found themselves at odds with her proposals or directives in one way or another, she has given no quarter in using the authority of her position as chief election officer more as a political bludgeon than a tool to heal the divides that have opened between her, local boards of elections and the officials that run them and other stakeholders in Ohio's system of elections.

So it has pretty much been adopted by many of those who still deny reality that the “decrease in violence” is the proof that the ill fated escalation worked. And it is also evident that John W. McCain has been a chief proponent and certainly the main beneficiary of this absolutely over simplistic and erroneous line of thinking.

But, buried in the hullabaloo of the latest Democrat to be in the cross hairs (due in large part to his own actions), as well as the obsession over the Clinton/Obama tit-for-tat is some news from Iraq that really does not bode well. I offer a bit of analysis, but more in the way of information as to the situation on the ground.