By Grant Gross
IDG News Service

The U.S. needs a broadband policy targeting unserved areas that's backed by action, not just words, said several speakers at a technology forum in Denver.

The U.S. has gone from "leader to laggard" in broadband rollout and adoption during the past eight years under Republican President George Bush , said Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, speaking Tuesday at a forum hosted by Silicon Flatirons, a tech law center at the University of Colorado, held in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

In early 2004, Bush called for broadband to be universally available across the U.S. by 2007, but that hasn't happened, Rockefeller said at the technology forum, which was webcast. "Despite all the rhetoric about improving Americans' access to broadband, the Bush administration never made achieving their goal a serious matter," he added. "Why? For starters, deploying broadband is really hard work."

While several other speakers at the forum joined Rockefeller in calling for a more aggressive broadband rollout policy, others at the event questioned if the U.S. was as behind other nations in broadband adoption as some studies have suggested. Commonly quoted statistics from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which rank the U.S. 15th among its 30 member nations in broadband adoption per capita, ignore several factors, said Michael Katz, an economics and business professor at New York University and former chief economist at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

If researchers look at the percentage of the population that has access to broadband, instead of broadband lines per capita, the U.S. would be eighth, Katz said. The countries in front of the U.S. generally have smaller household sizes or a higher population density, he added.

"Let's start with the facts," Katz said. "Let's try to have a rational basis for the policy, instead of relying on knee-jerk reactions and slogans. Yes, it'd be great for everyone to have broadband, but how about we look at what it'd cost?"

Other panelists suggested a national broadband policy is necessary because there remain large populations who don't have access to broadband or can't afford it. Less than half of African-Americans, Latinos, rural residents and people making less than US$20,000 a year have broadband, said Larry Irving, president of the Irving Group and a former assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

"Whether you think that's important or not, some of those people do," Irving said. "There are young, bright kids in barrios; there are young, bright kids in Appalachia; there are young, bright kids born in the projects who are not getting out because they're not able to go home every night and do their homework."

For many areas of the country, there isn't accurate information to know where broadband does or does not exist, he added. Better statistics and mapping should be a first step, Irving said.
Broadband can help solve several issues facing the U.S., including providing a better education system and access to health care, Irving added.

One way to step up broadband rollout would be to refocus the Universal Service Fund, which has been used to bring broadband to schools and libraries, toward more general broadband rollout, said Dorothy Attwood, senior vice president for public policy at broadband provider AT&T. But policymakers need to think more broadly about the benefits of broadband, she said.

Policymakers need to realize that "broadband is essentially important to solving our problems," she said. "It isn't a broadband policy in isolation. We need to say, 'How do we look at the problems that are confronting all of us?' and recognize that broadband is part of the solution."

I loved Michelle Obama's "the way the world should be speech." It should have been given to background music of John Lennon's "Imagine."

I can't help but think though if the world were the way it should be it would start with better candidates from which to choose, not the community organizer (insert debate club president) who gave one speech oversease as his foreign policy "cred" on the Democrat side, and a man who lives in the past like it were an old John Wayne war movie and believes we should stay the course on current economic policy on the Republican side in spite of evidence to the contrary.

A world where people don't fly planes into our buildings, and foreign countries acknowledge all that America has done for them in their time of need, instead of hate us out of envy becuase they choose to stick to antiquated ideaology and oppressive regimes, while despising us for our success.

David DiBello
Lakewood

By BETH FOUHY

Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. - Barack Obama and his newly named running mate will campaign together Saturday at the place where the Democratic presidential hopeful formally launched his White House bid.

A senior Obama adviser told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday that the Illinois senator and his choice for vice president will appear in Springfield, Ill., at the former state Capitol where Abraham Lincoln once served.

The last time Obama appeared there he announced he was running for president.
Obama strategist Anita Dunn sidestepped the question of whether the event would be Obama's first appearance with his vice presidential pick, but suggested the two wouldn't necessarily be related. The campaign's announcement Tuesday said only that Obama would begin the trip to his party's national convention at Saturday's event. The Democratic convention begins Monday in Denver.

"We could pick up the VP. any time," Dunn said.

The campaign has said it will announce the choice via cell phone text message to supporters.
The list of possibilities, meanwhile, is believed to be down to Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who planned to campaign in his home state Thursday with Obama.

At a town-hall meeting Tuesday night in Raleigh, N.C., Obama repeatedly said "he" when discussing the qualities he sought in a potential running mate, even as campaign officials cautioned reporters not to read too much into his choice of pronouns.

"Let me tell you first what I won't do: I won't hand over my energy policy to my vice president and not know necessarily what he's doing," Obama told the audience. "My vice president ... will be a member of the executive branch. He won't be one of these fourth branches of government where he thinks he's above the law," he said, an apparent reference to Vice President Dick Cheney's handling of the office.

Those thought to be on Obama's short list stayed mum.

Biden coyly told reporters staking out his Delaware home, "I'm not the guy." Sebelius, in an interview with the AP before stumping for Obama in Michigan, professed no inside knowledge of when word would come.

"A week from tomorrow we will all know," she said, referring to the running-mate acceptance speech set for next Wednesday at the convention.

Only Obama, his wife, Michelle, a handful of his most senior advisers and his two-member search committee know for certain who has made the cut.

The running mate decision also looms large for McCain, too.

In hopes of grabbing the post-convention spotlight from Obama, McCain is considering announcing his choice in the few days between the end of the Democratic convention in Denver and the start of the Republican gathering in St. Paul, Minn.

McCain's top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Other possible choices are former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential pick in 2000 who now is an independent.

Underscoring how seriously McCain may be considering Ridge or Lieberman, Republican officials say top McCain advisers have been reaching out to big donors and high-profile delegates in key states to gauge the impact of putting an abortion-rights supporter on the GOP ticket.

But conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh warned that the GOP base "will totally turn on McCain" if he picks an abortion-rights running mate and predicted such a move "will ensure his defeat."
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Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler in Chicago contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
McCain: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_el_pr/storytext/veepstakes/28693238/SIG=10rupm89i/*http://www.johnmccain.com
Obama: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_el_pr/storytext/veepstakes/28693238/SIG=10sclkvnl/*http://www.barackobama.com

DUBOIS – State Rep. Dan Surra and members of the House Majority Policy Committee kicked off a series of public hearings in DuBois Tuesday on a plan to extend health insurance to hundreds of thousands of uninsured adults in Pennsylvania.

The hearing focused on a proposal known as Pennsylvania Access to Basic Care, or PA ABC, that was drafted by House Democrats and passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year. The Senate has not yet acted on it.

Surra, who hosted today's meeting, said PA ABC would extend affordable health-insurance coverage, through the private insurance market, to more than 270,000 uninsured adults in Pennsylvania, many of whom are working but cannot get coverage through their employer or cannot access coverage because of a pre-existing condition. This would include immediate coverage for 80,000 Pennsylvania adults who are on the waiting list for the state’s current subsidized insurance program, adultBasic.

"There are more than 8,000 uninsured adults in Elk and Clearfield counties – many of them working full time and supporting families," said Surra, who represents residents in both counties in the General Assembly. "These people face the constant threat of financial disaster if they get sick, need an operation or develop a serious illness.

"Beyond that, all of us have to pay more for health care when the uninsured are forced into emergency rooms for routine care, or when people with diabetes or other long-term illnesses forego treatment and medication because they cannot afford it. When they eventually have no choice but to go to the hospital, the care they need then is much more expensive than managing their disease or illness early on."

State Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, chairman of the House Majority Policy Committee, said holding public hearings across the state in communities like DuBois are vital to obtaining information and feedback from everyday citizens, as well as highlighting the need for the Senate to take action on the PA ABC proposal.

"We heard from local organizations and constituents who echoed the sentiment that health-care reform is necessary and critical to working Pennsylvanians," Eachus said. "It’s been nearly six months since House Democrats led the fight to improve access to health insurance for working families and employers by passing PA ABC. And in the meantime hundreds of thousands of people are still without insurance coverage. This plan would provide commonsense, affordable, preventative care to working people all over the state – saving lives and saving money for all Pennsylvanians."

Other components of the PA ABC plan would make $42 million in state grants available to small businesses that already provide coverage to their employees, and assist doctors by continuing to help them pay their medical malpractice insurance premiums for another 10 years.

"We can't lower health-care costs for businesses and individuals while we still have hundreds of thousands of people who are forced to use the emergency room as the family physician or wait until the health problem they do have is an emergency before they seek care," Surra said.

Testifying during today's hearing were: State Deputy Insurance Commissioner George
Hoover; Secretary of Health Calvin Johnson; Past President of the Pa. Medical Society Dr. Mark
Piasio; Free Medical Clinic of DuBois founder and board member Sister Rita Kartavich; and St.
Mary's constituent Crystal Karenchak.

More information about PA ABC is available online at www.pahouse.com or at Surra's legislative Web site, www.pahouse.com/Surra .

By HILLEL ITALIEAP

National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Going negative against Democrat Barack Obama isn't just a campaign strategy for Republican John McCain. It's also a good formula for selling books.
Three anti-Obama releases were in the top 20 of Amazon.com's best-seller list on Tuesday, despite little critical attention or mainstream media coverage.

"There's a pent-up demand from people on the right side of the aisle who feel that the mainstream media is effusively covering Barack Obama and not critically covering him," says Marji Ross, president and publisher of the conservative Regnery Publishing, Inc., which just released David Fredosso's "The Case Against Barack Obama."

Until recently, the most widely read narrative of Obama's life was written by Obama, in the million-selling "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." The new releases, like McCain's campaign ads, attempt a counter-narrative.

The subtitles are the giveaway: Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," Fredosso's "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate" and Dick Morris' "Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want to Kill Talk Radio, the Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, and Washington Lobbyists for Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us ... and What to Do About It."

The authors allege that Obama is not a benign spokesman for hope and unity, but an ideologue with close ties to 1960s radicals and the Chicago political machine. Corsi is already known as a co-author of "Unfit for Command," the influential attack against the war record of Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' presidential candidate in 2004. Fredosso is a reporter for National Review Online, while Morris is a former aide to President Clinton who has since made a career of bashing Democrats.

"With book like these, the minute some people know they're out there, they must have them," says Cal Morgan, a vice president and executive editor at HarperCollins who worked on Morris' book and, at the other end of the spectrum, Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men."

Steve Ross, president and publisher of the Collins division of HarperCollins, released Obama's books when Ross was head of the Crown Publishing Group at Random House Inc. He thinks that the audience for anti-Obama books will grow through the fall, but doubts that sales will reach the levels of the senator's own books.

"The anti-Obama readership is largely one that has already made up its mind and is looking for validation, while the Obama readership comprises both those who have already made up their minds and those who are curious about him," Ross says.

Fredosso's book, which officially came out Tuesday, has nearly 300,000 copies in print. The Corsi book, released late last week, is already in its third printing, with a total of 375,000 copies in print so far. "Fleeced," released in June and now in its eighth printing, has 210,000 copies. Books taking on the Bush administration, including Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side," are selling well, but no anti-McCain works are currently attracting attention.

"Obama is a fresh subject — it's all new ground," says Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, which released Scott McLellan's "What Happened," a best-selling criticism of Bush by the president's former press secretary. "McCain doesn't have the same kind of resonance, it's nothing in comparison, because you can still shape people's view of Obama, but it's way too late to shape their view of McCain."

The anti-Obama books share not just a point of view, but a path to success that has worked for both liberals and conservatives— online word of mouth and appearances with sympathetic interviewers, such as Fox News' Sean Hannity, who has had Corsi, Fredosso and Morris on his show. Ross says that Hannity is not just an interviewer, but an "enthusiast for books" who "gets people excited about the idea of reading a book."

"Books from both the left and the right often work this way," Morgan says, noting that Moore's book was also a best seller, even though it was ignored by reviewers.

"They begin at the grass roots. They begin with a direct channel between the author and the consumer. They're not mitigated by rumors or secondary comments. They're a kind of vote the consumers cast for the author's point of view."

MEMORANDUM
To: Interested PartiesFrom: DNC CommunicationsDate: August 1, 2008
Re: Week in Review: "A Very Respectful Campaign"
==================================================================
John McCain wrapped up his week by telling reporters in Florida that he thinks he is running "a very respectful campaign" and that he doesn't think his campaign "is negative in the slightest." In reality, independent organizations, Republican strategists and media observers alike have criticized him all week for taking the low road. In fact, if you're looking for the right word to sum up McCain's week, try one of these: "desperate," "dishonorable," "outright lies," "off the mark," "nasty," "the gutter," "baloney," or "baseless."

McCain may be proud of his shameful campaign tactics, but the voters expect and deserve better. Polls consistently show the American people are looking for real leadership that offers big ideas for confronting the big challenges facing our country. Since voters already agree that McCain's policies are too close to President Bush's and he has failed to offer proposals that will create jobs, provide tax relief for middle class families or help Americans stay in their homes, McCain has apparently decided that embracing the same old politics is his only path to victory.

All of this from a candidate who promised to run a respectful campaign as recently as June.
The following is a brief summary of what McCain apparently thinks constitutes "a very respectful campaign."

The Trenton Democratic Club is hosting a citywide Voter Registration Drive tonight during Trenton's 2008 National Night Out activities. This initiative is being launched to educate Trentonians about the voting process, encourage voter participation on Election Day as well as support the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, Sen. Barack Obama.

"The Trenton Democratic Club is pleased to be able to provide an opportunity to educate and encourage the citizenry of Trenton to access their right to vote and to become an integral piece of our democratic process," explained Trenton Democratic Club Chairwoman Annette Lartigue. "Moreover, our organization is excited about edcuating voters about the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama and the historic nature of his run for the White House. The fact that we are able to provide this information during such a great neighborhood event as National Night Out which promotes civic participation is just a bonus!."

Tonight, the voter registration booths will be set up througout the city at neighborhood sites celebrating National Night Out. Eligible Trentonians will be able to register to vote or pick up information during the neighborhood events. The voter registration booths will be located at:

- Chambersburg Civic Association
- Hiltonia Civic Association
- Center Street Civic Association
- Oakland Street Civic Association
- Euclid Avenue Neighborhood Watch
- Hillcrest Avenue Civic Association