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The Obama campaign Thursday kicked off a grassroots organizing effort — dubbed “Veterans and Military Families for Obama” — led by retired Naval officer and Iraq war veteran Rob Diamond.

“It’s no secret to anyone where our military bases are in this country and where our veterans and military communities are located,” Diamond said of the strategy on a conference call with reporters. “And the goal of our program is to mobilize and energize and activate those folks where they live.”

“Obviously, a state like Virginia is a critically important state with a large military presence, and that’s where our veterans and military families live, states like North Carolina and a state like Florida,” he said.

Obama lost the veterans’ vote in 2008 to John McCain (himself a veteran), 55 to 45 percent. But campaign officials now believe that changing demographics in the country and the military, coupled with Obama’s record on veterans issues, could give him an edge.

“We’re going to break down that mythology about the military voting history and veteran voting history,” Diamond said.

The campaign is highlighting Obama’s support for the post-9/11 GI Bill, tax credits for businesses that hire veterans, public-private partnerships to boost veteran employment, and increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as foreign policy achievements like ending the war in Iraq and killing Osama bin Laden.

Central to the pitch to veteran voters is first lady Michelle Obama, who appears with the president in a web video announcing the political outreach effort.  She has spent the past few months traveling the country to mark the one-year anniversary of her Joining Forces initiative, which promotes support for veterans and their families.

The White House and Obama campaign have insisted her efforts have had no ties to politics.  “Obviously the first lady’s Joining Forces effort is part of her initiatives at the White House and not linked to the campaign,” campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Thursday.

But the president himself suggested that his wife’s advocacy is a part of his pitch for a second term.

“There’s nothing I take more seriously than my responsibility to those who sacrifice their own safety to defend ours,” Obama says in the video. “That’s why Michelle and I have made supporting veterans and military families a top priority from the start.”

The president’s backers say “tens of thousands” of veterans have already enlisted with the Obama campaign group.

“They’re stepping up because they know voters will face a clear choice in November,” said Delaware Attorney General, Army veteran and son of the vice president, Beau Biden. “Veterans know the vision and leadership we need in a commander-in-chief and they know the stakes and the consequences of sitting on the sidelines and would wake up on the morning after election day would be too late.”

The campaign has been sharply critical of Romney on veterans issues, claiming that his support of the House Republican budget would mean veterans programs would be cut by $11 billion a year. They also say he would reduce veterans health care benefits by privatizing the system, pointing to the governor’s November 2011 suggestion that benefits could be delivered as vouchers.

Romney allies have pointed to his record as governor of Massachusetts as evidence that he would be a staunch advocate for veterans and their families. They also say his economic policies would do more to boost economic status of veterans overall.

Veterans “are not being well served today because of some of the policies in place under the Obama administration,” said former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, who served in the Bush administration and is a Romney supporter.

“Today, we see a significantly higher unemployment rate amongst those young men and women who are coming home and can’t find meaningful jobs. And it impacts their well being; it impacts their mental health which is another area that they are not being well served,” he said.

The unemployment rate for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan was 9.2 percent in April, according to the Labor Department.  Among all veterans, the jobless rate was 7.1 percent.

The national unemployment rate was 8.1 percent during the same period, the government reported.

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Trayvon Martin, 17, was fatally shot by neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman. (ABC News)

The revelation came as prosecutors in the case prepared to release to the public hundreds of pages of new evidence along with videos and crime scene photos.

Martin’s death sparked public outrage after police released Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman, without any criminal charges for the killing.

Zimmerman, 28, a multi-racial Hispanic man who shot the black high school junior at close range on Feb. 26, claimed self-defense, though Martin was unarmed. Zimmerman was later charged with second-degree murder, and the killing provoked widespread debate about racial profiling.

The autopsy report shows traces of the drug THC, which is found in marijuana, in Martin’s blood and urine.

The autopsy also shows that Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance of between one inch and 18 inches away, bolstering Zimmerman’s claim that he shot Martin during a struggle that landed Zimmerman on his back, Martin straddling him and banging Zimmerman’s head on the ground.

Martin’s autopsy report also revealed that there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on the left fourth finger of Martin, another indication of a possible struggle. The teen, who lived in Miami, was in Sanford while serving a suspension for a bag of marijuana being discovered in his possession.

Later Thursday, a trove of documents that are part of the discovery in Zimmerman’s trial are expected to be released on a website run by the state’s attorney, including 67 CDs’ worth of documents, video of Martin on the night of the shooting, his autopsy report and videos of Zimmerman’s questioning by police.

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As media and investor interest in Facebook’s IPO has grown over the past weeks, the company priced its IPO at the highest end of its earlier estimates. On Tuesday, Facebook raised its IPO price range to $34 to $38 a share, from $28 to $35.

To satiate the growing investor appetite for shares of the social media company, on Wednesday Facebook increased the number of shares to be sold at the market debut by 25 percent.

The company is offering 421.2 million shares of common A stock, which includes 180 million new shares that will be sold by the company and 241.2 million shares sold by existing shareholders such as early investors and Facebook’s founders.

Facebook’s investment bank underwriter, Morgan Stanley, ultimately determines who gets shares of the company before shares are sold to the larger public on Friday, said Jim Krapfel, IPO analyst with investment firm Morningstar.  All of the 421 million shares will be sold Thursday night at the offering price to those investors who met the minimum buy-in requirements, which was millions of dollars for institutional investors.

“The higher your account size and the more business you do with the company, or if your track record indicates you purchased technology IPOs in the past, you’re more likely to receive shares and are likely to get a higher allocation, but there’s no guarantee,” Krapfel said.

Investor consensus predicts the stock will trade higher Friday and close up, but to what extent is unknown, said Krapfel. Morningstar has valued the company at $32 a share.

“It wouldn’t be surprising to see the stock trade up into the 50s intraday and into the close,” he said.

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Romney on Thursday disavowed the conservative group that The New York Times said had planned to possibly bankroll the ads.

“I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they’ve described,” Romney told the conservative website Townhall.com. “I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity, particularly for those in the middle class of America.”

The Times reported Thursday that a $10 million plan developed by “a group of high-profile Republican strategists” and Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, will seek to link “Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.”

“The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an ‘extremely literate conservative African-American’ who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a ‘metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln,’” the Times reported.

But a statement released on behalf of Ricketts argued that the Wright plan was only one being considered by the PAC. Brian Baker, president of the Ending Spending Action Fund, said Ricketts is an independent who is focused on fiscal policy to help defeat President Obama.

“Not only was this plan merely a proposal – one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors – but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,” according to the statement released by Baker.

“Mr. Ricketts intends to work hard to help elect a president this fall who shares his commitment to economic responsibility, but his efforts are and will continue to be focused entirely on questions of fiscal policy, not attacks that seek to divide us socially or culturally.”

Romney said if anyone is guilty of launching personal attacks, it is the Obama campaign, which he accused of “character assassination” against him.

“I think what we’ve seen so far from the Obama campaign is a campaign of character assassination,” he added. “I hope that isn’t the course of this campaign. So in regards to that PAC, I repudiate what they’re thinking about….It’s interesting that we’re talking about some Republican PAC that wants to go after the president [on Wright]; I hope people also are looking at what he’s doing, and saying, ‘Why is he running an attack campaign?  Why isn’t he talking about his record?’”

Prior to the candidate’s own remarks about the report, first reported by The New York Times, Romney had told the media aboard a charter flight that he had yet to read the papers and couldn’t comment.

Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, also issued a statement distancing the campaign from the unaffiliated GOP group and arguing that Romney would run his campaign based on issues, unlike, according to Rhoades, the Obama campaign.

“Gov. Romney is running a campaign based on jobs and the economy, and we encourage everyone else to do the same,” Rhoades said in an email statement. “President Obama’s team said they would ‘kill Romney” and, just last week, David Axelrod referred to individuals opposing the president as ‘contract killers.’ It’s clear President Obama’s team is running a campaign of character assassination. We repudiate any efforts on our side to do so.”

Prior to Romney’s interview with Townhall, the Obama for America campaign accused Romney of “falling short” in his campaign’s response.

“This morning’s story revealed the appalling lengths to which Republican operatives and SuperPacs apparently are willing to go to tear down the President and elect Mitt Romney,” it said in a statement Thursday. “The blueprint for a hate-filled, divisive campaign of character assassination speaks for itself.  It also reflects how far the party has drifted in four short years since John McCain rejected these very tactics.  Once again, Governor Romney has fallen short of the standard that John McCain set, reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.”

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The U.S. will also ease its ban on new investment in Burma, Obama announced.

After her meeting with the foreign minister of Burma, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that while the U.S. is suspending sanctions, it is not lifting them altogether. “We will be keeping relevant laws on the books as an insurance policy, but our goal and our commitment is to move as rapidly as we can to expand business and investment opportunities.”

Clinton stressed that the emphasis will be in responsible investment, and that U.S. companies will be held to “best practice” standards implementing transparency and worker’s rights. However, in a follow-up conference call senior administration officials admitted that the standards are still being hashed out and they will not be legally enforceable by U.S. law.

Human rights groups have complained that it’s still too early to ease sanctions on Burma, and that the U.S. should have worked out standards of conduct before opening up Burma for American business.

Here is the president’s full statement:

Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in the relationship between the United States and Burma. Since I announced a new U.S. opening to Burma in November, President Thein Sein, Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma have made significant progress along the path to democracy.  The United States has pledged to respond to positive developments in Burma and to clearly demonstrate America’s commitment to the future of an extraordinary country, a courageous people, and universal values. That is what we are doing.

Americans for decades have stood with the Burmese people in their struggle to realize the full promise of their extraordinary country. In recent months, we have been inspired by the economic and political reforms that have taken place, Secretary Clinton’s historic trip to Naypyidaw and Rangoon, the parliamentary elections, and the sight of Aung San Suu Kyi being sworn into office after years of struggle. As an iron fist has unclenched in Burma, we have extended our hand, and are entering a new phase in our engagement on behalf of a more democratic and prosperous future for the Burmese people.

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“I have been disappointed with the president’s campaign to date, which is focused on character assassination,” said Romney. “I just think that we’re wiser to talk about the issues of the day, what we do to get America working again, talk about our respective records.”

When asked to specify what he considers to be a character assassination, Romney pointed to the recent advertisement released by the Obama reelection campaign that pegged him as a “job destroyer” for his time at Bain Capital.

“Obviously his efforts to look at my work at Bain is to try to characterize me in a way that isn’t accurate,” said Romney. “My effort at Bain Capital, as you know, was in effort case designed to make the enterprises we invested in more successful, to grow them.”

“There’s this fiction that some have that somehow you can be highly successful by stripping assets from enterprise and walking away with lots of money and killing the enterprise.  There may be some people who know how to do that. I sure don’t,” said Romney. “And the purpose of the president’s ads are not to describe success and failure but to somehow suggest that I’m not a good person or not a good guy and I think the American people will know better than that if they don’t already.”

Romney, referring to a New York Times report Thursday morning that detailed the plans of a conservative group to develop an ad that would link Obama to the controversial pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., said that he saw glimpses of character assassination in that ad, too.

“Having a campaign focused on character assassination is one of the things I find offensive among many others in the PAC description that came in the New York Times,” said Romney.

“If that’s accurate, why, that’s something I repudiate,” said Romney.

Romney also revealed that his own campaign plans to release a television ad in the next few days that will be positive.

“I certainly hope that you get a chance to see our first ad, that’ll come up in I think a couple of days, it will be a positive ad on what I would do if I were president,” Romney said. “It’ll be contrasting with the president’s ad, which again is a character assassination ad.”

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It was only in February that Breyer was robbed at knifepoint in his vacation home on the Caribbean island of Nevis.

He’s not the first Supreme Court justice to become a victim of crime. In 2004, Justice David Souter was mugged while jogging, and in 1966, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her purse snatched.

Supreme Court Justices receive government protection when outside Washington, D.C., and when traveling abroad, from the U.S. Marshals Service.

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Jim Spellman/WireImage

“This guy just thinks he can rip us off by engaging in this scheme,” Casey, D-Pa., said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “We’ve got troops overseas that are sacrificing on our behalf every day, all the values that we hold dear. And Mr. Saverin spits in their eye, he spits in the eye of the American people. It’s an insult. He should be held accountable.”

Saverin, 30, relinquished his U.S. citizenship in September 2011 before the company announced its planned initial public offering of stock, which will debut this week. The move was likely a financial one because he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public.

“Saverin has turned his back on the country that welcomed him and kept him safe, educated him and helped him become a billionaire,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “This is a great American success story gone horribly wrong.”

Saverin, who was born in Brazil, raised in Miami and educated at Harvard, would reap the benefit of tax savings by becoming a permanent resident of Singapore, which levies no capital gains taxes. He has lived there for several years.

“This tax-avoidance scheme is outrageous,” Schumer added. “Eduardo Saverin wants to ‘defriend’ the United States of America just to avoid taxes we aren’t going to let him get away with it.”

So to stop Saverin, and others who have relinquished their citizenship for tax avoidance, Sens. Schumer and Bob Casey, D-Pa., unveiled the “Ex-PATRIOT” – “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy” – Act. The act is intended to respond directly to Saverin’s move, which they call a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”

The plan would re-impose taxes on expatriates like Saverin even after they flee the United States and take up residence in a foreign country. If the Internal Revenue Service determines that people renounce their citizenship to avoid taxes, according to the proposal, they would then be subject to a 30 percent capital gains tax on future investment gains in the United States, regardless of where they live. But most notably, the plan would bar individuals like Saverin from ever re-entering the United States again.

The proposal would affect any American who has $2 million in net worth or an average income tax liability of at least $148,000 for the previous five years and then seeks to renounce his or her citizenship. The person will be presumed to have renounced his or her citizenship for tax avoidance purposes unless the individual can demonstrate otherwise to the IRS.

The burden of proof would be on people to show that they didn’t relocate for tax purposes. There would be no penalty if it turned out that they renounced their citizenship for legitimate reasons.

The law now is already supposed to bar re-entry for individuals like Saverin, but there have been problems enforcing it, the senators say, pointing to the 1,700 people last year who gave up their U.S. passports, up from 235 in 2008. The law, passed in 1996, contains no enforcement provisions. No individual has ever been barred from returning to the United States for tax avoidance, so the proposal would add an enforcement component.

“Pay your taxes in full or don’t ever try to visit the U.S. again,” Schumer said.

Saverin has defended his move to Singapore in a statement to ABCNews.com.

“My decision to expatriate was based solely on my interest in working and living in Singapore, where I have been since 2009,” he wrote. “I am obligated to and will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to the United States government. I have paid and will continue to pay any taxes due on everything I earned while a U.S. citizen.”

“It is unfortunate that my personal choice has led to a public debate, based not on the facts, but entirely on speculation and misinformation,” he continued.

But some, like Schumer, don’t buy this argument.

“Anyone who believes Mr. Saverin didn’t do this at least in good part for tax purposes is quite gullible,” he said today.

If Saverin, or anyone else, changes his mind, he could pay his back taxes and return to the United States.

The Senators plan to move on this bill “as soon as possible” in the Senate.

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Davis was a media consultant for McCain’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2008, having come up with the “celebrity” ad that generated some buzz, and an attack ad focused on Wright that McCain refused to green-light. But he retained his relationship with the Senator and came up with the media for McCain’s successful Senate re-election campaign in 2010, including the “complete the dang fence” ad.

Mark Salter, a close friend and top adviser to McCain, says of Davis, “Fred is a creative guy, but he requires round-the-clock adult supervision. If you take your eyes off him for a moment, you’re chasing demon sheep, witches and the yellow peril.”

Salter was referring to Davis ads for ultimately unsuccessful Republican candidates: one for GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina that depicted a primary opponent as a “demon sheep”; one for GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell in which she denies being a witch; and one for Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra that uses some unfortunate images.

Davis could not be reached for comment, but he has said, “If I picked what’s on my tombstone, it would be: ‘If you don’t notice it, why bother?’”

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