photo credit: jwalsh

Good morning fellow Geeks! Hope you are enjoying your morning coffee, yes I am doing this late so that cup is probably empty by now. Meanwhile I hope you were born within the strict confines of America’s 50 states. You wearn’t? Well the New York Times thinks you might not be able to run for president, sorry, how about dog-catcher? They are probably wrong, but be forwarned, the paper who claimed an affair for McCain with no evidence now says he might not be able to be president.

Anyway, onto the news.

- As I noted the New York Times published a piece questioning John McCain’s ability to be president because the constitution says, “natural born citizen”. John McCain’s father had the inconvenient task of serving his country at the time of the Senator’s birth, his son was delivered at a military base in the Panama canal zone. The piece gives little definitive on the subject and most seem to agree he can probably run. Still the headline.

- In a surprising twist some in the media are starting to focus on what Obama might mean to American policy if he becomes president. Not US Magazine which instead asked the Senator “boxers or briefs”, he refused to answer saying only he looks good in whichever it is, instead the Wall Street Journal was left doing heavy lifting.

Specifically the journal probed Obama’s support of the Patriot Employer Act a piece of legislation he introduced in the Senate. The bill would declare certain companies “Patriot employers”, taking four pages to describe what that means. Included in the description employers would, from the article, “pay at least 60 percent of each employee’s health care premiums” take a position of “neutrality in employee [union] organizing drives” maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in the United States relative to the number of full-time workers outside of the United States”; pay a salary to each employee “not less than an amount equal to the federal poverty level”; and provide a pension plan.

- The LA Times reports on the Obama campaign’s soon to be massive phone banking operation in Texas.

- As reported yesterday the Tennessee GOP caused controversy when it put up a Web page referring to Senator Obama’s middle name Hussein and attempting to make connections between the candidate and terrorism. After saying it stood by the decision, the state party received complaints from the National GOP and decided to remove the references to Hussein and a picture of Obama in African garb from its site.

The McCain camp said on the subject, “There will be times in this campaign where people do and say stupid things.”

- Rep. Senfronia Thompson, of Houston, is the latest of Clinton’s superdelegate backers to switch sides over to Obama.

Where Are They Today?

- Clinton is in Ohio

- McCain is in Texas

- Obama is in Ohio & Texas