You can view Obama's original birth certificate In The National Statuary Hall. The original certificate has been on display since 2009.

For security reasons, the White House has decided to use the ultra-secure Eastwood invisible case display.

TAMPA, Fla. -- The GOP risks being “relegated to being a minority party” for years if it fails to “find a way to make that connection” with Latino voters, former Republican national chairman Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida warned Wednesday.

Speaking along with Martinez at a forum on Republicans and Latinos, sponsored by ABC News, Univision and the National Journal, Republican consultant Ana Navarro offered an even blunter assessment of the party’s current standing.

“Where his numbers are right now, we should be pressing the panic button,” she said, referring to Mitt Romney’s level of Latino support.

The party had a “huge missed opportunity” to resolve its tensions in 2007, when Republican opposition forced President George W. Bush to scrap his effort to push a comprehensive immigration reform bill, said Martinez, who was secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Bush’s Cabinet and then served one term in the Senate. He was chairman of the party in 2006 and 2007.

Bush’s bill would have toughened border security and allowed some of the country’s estimated 11 million illegal residents to become citizens. Since the bill’s failure, the party has “lost its way” on immigration, Martinez said. “We have to go back to the drawing board.”

The mathematics of the issue are stark, said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. “There’s a critical need for Republican candidates to do a great deal better” among Latinos than they currently are, he said.




http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republican-minority-party-20120829,0,3047039.story

“Let’s talk about your polling,” Benson said. He grabbed from my hand an Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey showing that middle-class blacks and Hispanics are far more optimistic about their children’s future than are whites of the same economic status. “What do you think the unemployment rate is among blacks? In Detroit, it’s probably 40 percent. If the unemployment rate is that high, why is it that they are so optimistic about their future and the future of their children?”


Benson paused, heard no reply, and answered his own question.


“Subsidization.”


http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-election/why-and-how-romney-is-playing-the-race-card-20120829

I share this story to crack the code – the subtle language of distrust and prejudice that whites use to communicate deep-set fears, and that cynical politicians translate into votes. Translating Miller and Benson:


“Subsidization” = Welfare

“Generational Apathy” = Lazy

“They Slept All Day” = Blacks Sleep All Day

“I Feel Like a Fool” = I’m Mad As Hell

As I’ve been saying, Romney’s welfare strategy is all about reviving an old-school politics that’s designed to redirect middle-class and lower-middle-class resentment downwards. The main Romney ad on the topic actually shows a worker wiping the sweat off his brow while a narrator tells you that Clinton (the “good” Democrat who did away with handouts to the undeserving) required work for welfare, while Obama (the “bad” kind of Democrat who wants to take away what’s rightfully yours and redistribute it to others) wants to send people “welfare checks” for not working.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/ron-fournier-romney-is-playing-a-racial-game/2012/08/29/6273f244-f213-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html

It remains an open question. Congressman Paul has not endorsed Romney, and the Republican National Committee has angered many Paul supporters by changing its rules and procedures specifically to undercut Paul's influence. For example, though Paul supporters had managed to capture 20 of Maine's 24 delegate slots, the GOP replaced 10 of them. Some Paul supporters walked out of the convention in protest.



But images broadcast from the convention floor give little sense of a potential rift. All signs trumpet Romney campaign themes and mention only two people – Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan. But that doesn't mean there aren't Ron Paul signs out there. As a Ron Paul tribute played on the large screen behind the podium Wednesday night, Paul supporters rose throughout the hall to cheer. But when one began waving a "Ron Paul 2012" sign, then... Watch the video and see what happened.



Security at the convention has been taking away Ron Paul signs, The Huffington Post reports. When one delegate resorted to waving a Ron Paul mouse pad at the camera, that, too, was confiscated, according to the report. "They're violating the integrity of their own process," Mike Zentz, an alternate delegate for Paul from Honolulu, told HuffPo. "What's the point of the convention if they won't listen to the voice of their own people? We may as well just ask the RNC to pick the nominee from now on."