Wednesday, April 30, 2008

In Barack Obama's Own Words...

"Hope is a four letter word. So is Hate." - my words


Barack Obama in His Own Words

Audacity of Hope: "Lolo (Obama's step father) followed a brand of Islam...." "I looked to Lolo for guidance".

Dreams of my Father: "The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam."

Dreams of my Father: "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school"

Dreams of my Father: "I Studied the Koran."

Audacity of Hope: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

Dreams of My Father: "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race".

Dreams of my Father: "The emotion between the races could never be pure..... the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart."

Dreams of my Father: "Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning."

Dreams of My Father: "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."

Dreams Of My Father: "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself."

Dreams of My Father: "That hate hadn't gone away," he wrote, blaming "white people some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives."

Dreams of My Father: "There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs," he wrote. "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."

Dreams of my Father: "Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

Dreams of my Father: "To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy."

Dreams of my Father: "there was something about him that made me wary," Obama wrote. "A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white."

Dreams of my Father: "the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you."

Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X's autobiography "spoke" to Obama "it stayed with me," he says. "He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged."

There is much, much more in the Crypt - http://pnews.org/crypt/

The above includes some copying from other sources.
Attributions have been provided where required.
All copying is in compliance with the Fair Use
Doctrine of Copyright law as per
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, Copyright Law.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Reverend Wright...or "wrong?"

Once again I ask: Who IS this man, Barack Obama???

Seems like the Reverend would like to tell us.

I, for one, would LOVE to hear more from him.

Something tells me he's got a LOT more to say...I say, let the man speak! After 20 years of knowing his congregant, surely he knows a bit more about Obama than I do.

Reverend Wright? Could you please VET this candidate for us? No one else seems to want to. And I'm being polite here...not too bad for a "white" girl, huh?

Please, sir, I'm all ears.

Oh, and one more thing...God BLESS you, Reverend.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Pssst...There's a WAR going on..

And no, I don't mean the one between gender and skin color -

I MEAN IRAQ!!

I MEAN AFGHANISTAN!

ANDDDDDDD, the ABOUT-TO-BE IRAN!!!

Oh, right...no one's told you. Ok. I'll give you that IF you're one of typical Americans thinking you can go home after a long day at work, exhausted, stressed and stretched in every which way, who believes you're going to catch up on the macro-view of the world and tune into your network of preferred "news." Huh, you say? About to be war with Iran? What's this ditz talking about? Isn't somebody out there saying they're going to end the war? Oh, the writer must have made a typo...a "n" for a "q" probably.

Trust me. I use "spellcheck."

We are locked and loaded in the Persian Gulf (our favorite place to meddle) - on a hair trigger point of nuclear disaster. On the brink, so to speak. Don't believe me? Fine. Google it for god sakes. And while you're there, see if you can find a relationship, connection, an OMG moment where it suddenly comes clear to you that all the while we've been being fed a steady, relentless, diversionary diet of Brittany, Clemens, Paris, missing white girls, pseudo presidential races and the like, the "Decider's" Demon in Chief, DICK, has been v e r y busy putting the final pieces in place to commit FURTHER war crimes and atrocities against Iran. Guess why? Can't guess? Hint. WMD. The selling of arms...oooo terror, terror, terror. Ya, you've heard that kind of "stuff" before, right? And if you've REALLY got your thinking cap on, you might even be able to recall the phrase "the build-up" to the Iraq war. ding*ding*ding! Any lightbulbs going off yet? Iran. No typo there.

The American Mainstream Media is GONE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS??? DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS TO YOU??? Yes, YOU!

You can, however, find some highly paid, millionaire, jesters and fools today behind cameras hijacking your tv screens waiting with bated breath to report the results of the meaningless "primary" (pardon me while I scornfully laugh and choke at the same time) results in today's Democratic race. Sickening. Absolutely, horrifyingly sickening.

Ah but I digress.

So, now what? Had enough yet? If you haven't already been "terror-fied" by now, this might be a good time.

Hope ya got your emergency plans in place.


Click here: http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ IF you can bear the truth.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

I Know You're Worried about Flag Pins But...

Hey, could you redirect your attention from American Idol, folks, and give just a wee bit of thought to this? And by the way, Sheeple, Republicans and Democrats alike, keep in mind that THIS writer coulda shoulda been our next president.

But race and gender are FAR more entertaining to you, huh? Kinda like a game show.

The disgust I feel with ALL of it is simply ineffable. And that disgust extends to every, single, one of you so-called Democrats who believes that "hope" and "change" are anything more than simple, emotional-touchpoint, words.

I have a bulletin for you all. The following words are R-E-A-L-I-T-Y:



John Edwards LTTE in the New York Times

April 8, 2008
Letter
Broken Soldiers, and a Broken System

To the Editor:

In “For Wounded Veterans and Their Families, a Journey Without Maps” (Editorial Observer, March 24), Lawrence Downes missed an important opportunity to explain why both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs are unprepared to care for the service members who have been hurt in the Iraq war.

The reason is that the frequently reported number of the wounded in action (29,320 as of March 1) does not include everyone who’s been hurt.

The complete number of nonfatal casualties in Iraq is 60,645. Most assume the wounded number includes all, but it does not. It leaves out another 8,273 injured and 23,052 who became ill and required medical air transport from the war zone. The Department of Defense releases two reports: one with the weekly numbers of those wounded and killed, and then another monthly report with the complete numbers. After five years, it is time for respected news organizations to use the complete number.

The public needs this information so that we can better prepare for the care of all of our veterans from this war and others. The struggle for them and their families your article addressed is happening all across this country. Nearly 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have already sought care from the V.A.

The system is broken. That is why so many veterans are still fighting for the care they earned. That is why their families struggle with paperwork and months of delay. And that is why 154,000 veterans sleep on grates or under bridges every night.

We have tens of thousands set to come home, and we aren’t prepared. Every day we should honor the more than 4,000 lives lost: every suicide, bullet or serious accident.

And every day we should honor those who have been hurt. That number is 60,645 and rising.

John Edwards
Chapel Hill, N.C., March 31, 2008

The writer is the former presidential candidate and former senator from North Carolina.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/opinion/l08edwards.ht...

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Does Obama have Alzheimer's???

He claims he "doesn't remember" being there. Kinda scary, no?



With all credit to the New York Times:





http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/us/politics/15rezko.html?
_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=politics&adxnnlx=1208260840-
ccxqRvo3gfjrynzT1mPqWA



At Developer's Trial, Witness Recalls Seeing Obamas at 2004 Party for
Investor


By CHRISTOPHER DREW


Published: April 15, 2008

A government witness testified on Monday at the trial of the Chicago
businessman Antoin Rezko that Senator Barack Obama attended a party
in 2004 that Mr. Rezko held to court a controversial Iraqi-born
investor for a large real estate project.

Mr. Obama's presidential campaign has long said that the senator does
not recall meeting the investor, Nadhmi Auchi, a billionaire who has
been convicted on fraud charges in Europe. Mr. Obama's spokesman,
Bill Burton, said again Monday that the senator had no recollection
of attending any such event.

Questions about the senator's ties to Mr. Rezko, a former political
fund-raiser who is on trial on corruption charges, have dogged his
campaign. Mr. Obama has repeatedly said he never did anything to help
Mr. Rezko.

The witness, Stuart Levine, who once served on state boards, said
Monday that Mr. Rezko held the party at his Mediterranean-style home
in a Chicago suburb. News reports from the courtroom said Mr. Rezko
wanted to impress Mr. Auchi, who ultimately poured nearly $170
million into the real estate venture.

Several former Rezko associates have said that Gov. Rod R.
Blagojevich of Illinois attended a similar dinner that Mr. Rezko
hosted for Mr. Auchi at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago. And while
Mr. Obama was not at that dinner, he recently acknowledged that he
had stopped by the hotel at another time when Mr. Rezko was
entertaining business associates.

Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, has said that Mr. Rezko raised at
least $250,000 for his earlier political campaigns. Mr. Rezko also
bought a lot next to the Obamas' house and later sold them a 10-foot-
wide strip to expand their yard in a set of transactions that Mr.
Obama has since described as "boneheaded" on his part.

Mr. Rezko's lawyers have raised questions about Mr. Levine's
credibility on other issues, and Mr. Levine offered few details on
Monday about the party at Mr. Rezko's house. Mr. Levine said Mr.
Obama's wife, Michelle, was there. Mr. Obama's campaign said she had
no recollection of the event. Mr. Auchi's lawyer, Alasdair Pepper,
has said that his client does not remember meeting Mr. Obama.

Mr. Rezko's trial focuses on accusations of influence-peddling
involving state contracts, and Mr. Obama has not been implicated in
any of those dealings.

But Mr. Obama has faced questions from rival candidates about his
judgment in dealing with Mr. Rezko, whom Mr. Obama has described as a
longtime friend.

Former business associates of Mr. Rezko say Illinois newspapers had
raised enough questions about Mr. Rezko's influence in state
government by 2005 that Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago told them
he would not approve city-related financing for part of the real
estate project if Mr. Rezko was involved. They said that decision
came a month or two before the Obamas closed on their house and Mr.
Rezko bought the adjacent lot.

Prosecutors in Mr. Rezko's case have said that Mr. Rezko asked
Illinois officials to help obtain a visa for Mr. Auchi's visit to
Chicago. The officials have not been identified, and Mr. Obama's
campaign has said he was not involved in that effort.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Obama "barely knew Rezko"...HA!

Hey, don't blame me..those were HIS words, not mine.



Rezko Trial Witness Says Obama Attended Party for Auchi at Rezko's Mansion
By Jeralyn, From TalkLeft
Posted on Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 03:50:49 PM EST

There was a surprise at the Tony Rezko trial today. The Government's star cooperating witness, Stuart Levine, said Barack Obama was at a party for Iraqi-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi at Rezko's house.

Stuart Levine, the prosecution's star witness, said he and Obama were at a party Rezko threw at his Wilmette mansion on April 3, 2004, for Nadhmi Auchi, a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who Rezko was trying to get to invest in a South Loop real-estate development.

Auchi, now a citizen of the United Kingdom, has faced criminal charges in Europe. He also figured in the revocation of Rezko's bond early this year after attempting to wire him more than $3 million.

... The Rezko party in 2004 was designed to induce Auchi to pour money into the South Loop investment. Obama's presence at the party was not previously known. At the time, Obama was fresh off a surprise win in the Illinois Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and was riding a crest of national publicity.

Background on Auchi and the bond violation is here. [More...]

Obama's spokesman Bill Burton previously has said Obama doesn't recall ever meeting Auchi. They, amay have briefly met as Obama was leaving a meeting at the Four Seasons hotel when he briefly stopped by a private room where Auchi was being honored at an event.

According to ABC News:

In a court hearing in Chicago, prosecutors detailed a $3.5 million wire transfer from a bank in Beirut, Lebanon that they said was moved through a series of accounts until it reached Rezko or some of his relatives who had posted property for his bond.

...According to the court filings, the money came from a company, General Mediterranean, owned by a British-based Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who was convicted in France on fraud charges.

The filing says when Auchi was unable to obtain a visa to visit the United States in 2005, Rezko intervened and "asked certain Illinois government officials" to appeal the State Department's ruling.

The officials who Rezko approached are not specified. Sen. Obama had just taken office as a U.S. senator in 2005, the same year he sought Rezko's help in the purchase of his home.

Some have questioned whether Rita Rezko got the money to buy the lot next to Obama's home from Auchi.

A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin "Tony" Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.

Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city's South Side while Mr Rezko's wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.

....It is unclear how Mrs Rezko could have afforded the downpayment of $125,000 and a $500,000 mortgage for the original $625,000 purchase of the garden plot at 5050 South Greenwood Ave.

In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had "no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations."

Even if she did, it doesn't connect Auchi to Obama. Also, Auchi has plenty of positive commendations.

The biggest problem for me is that the testimony comes from Stuart Levine, whose testimony the Government has purchased with promises of leniency for his own misdeeds.

It was previously reported that details of fundraisers Rezko held at his Williammette Mansion would come up at trial. The fundraiser Rezko held for Obama was in 2003. Did the then-drug addled Levine get his dates and parties mixed up? Wouldn't surprise me.

I continue to believe and want to stress again there is no suggestion here that Obama did anything wrong or illegal in his dealings with Rezko. The issue with respect to Obama is one of judgment.
< Offensive
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/14/165049/441#18

__._,_.__
_

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Obama's True Colors

What arrogance, huh? Keep it comin' though...the more he opens his mouth and inserts his foot, the more thinking folks will finally "get" who Obama is...So, from the Associated Press comes:

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., speaks during a t...
By JIM KUHNHENN, AP
18 hours ago

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — In the midst of an assault from his rivals, a defensive Barack Obama said Friday that many working-class Americans are angry and bitter over economic inequalities and have lost faith in Washington — and, as a result, vote on the basis of other issues such as gun protections or gay marriage.

The Illinois senator's analysis of what motivates working-class voters came after chief rival Hillary Rodham Clinton accused him of looking down on such voters. Clinton rebuked Obama on Friday for similar remarks he made privately last Sunday to a group of donors in San Francisco.

"People don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody is going to help them," Obama told a crowd at a Terre Haute, Ind., high school Friday evening. "So people end up voting on issues like guns and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in their faith and their community, and their family, and the things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington."

The Huffington Post Web site reported Friday that Obama, speaking of some Pennsylvanians' economic anxieties, told supporters at the San Francisco fundraiser: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years. ... And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

In Terre Haute, Obama said he did describe some voters as bitter when a donor asked why working-class voters in Pennsylvania were not getting behind his campaign.

"Well, that's not my experience," Clinton told a Drexel University crowd, describing the state's residents as resilient, optimistic and hardworking.

"Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them," she said. "They need a president who stands up for them."

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Republican candidate John McCain, described Obama's comments as "condescending" and "out of touch."

In Terre Haute, Obama chided McCain for not responding promptly to the home mortgage crisis and criticized Clinton for voting for a bankruptcy bill supported by credit card companies.

"No, I'm IN touch," he said. "I know exactly what's going on. People are fed up, they are angry, they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington."

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Friday night, "Instead of apologizing for offending small-town America, Senator Obama chose to repeat and embrace the comments he made earlier this week."

Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain, said Friday: "Only an elitist would say that people vote their values only out of frustration. ... You can't be more out of touch than that."

"There is nothing worse than gangrene of the soul."
Mike Malloy
1/20/2005

Thursday, April 10, 2008

FBI finds Lieberman's Campaign Hacking Own Site

Well, well, Senator Holy Joe Lieberman - seems you can hide your tracks for just so long but in the end, the Feds outted you. Oh, no doubt, your response would be that you couldn't possibly have known what your entire staff was engaged in but we all know that all accountability finally lies at the top. How well I remember the Lamont campaign telling you that the hacking did not originate with them but rather, speculated it was either about your substandard .com folks OR about the ethics of those you had surrounding you. In fact, as I recall, Tim Tagaris, website manager for Lamont, even offered to HELP you out during this peculiar event at the time. No wonder his offer was spurned. From the Stamford Advocate, herewith is the following:


FBI probe: Lieberman campaign to blame for crashing own Web site
By Brian Lockhart
Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/09/2008 01:00:00 AM EDT

A federal investigation has concluded that U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's 2006 re-election campaign was to blame for the crash of its Web site the day before Connecticut's heated Aug. 8 Democratic primary.

The FBI office in New Haven found no evidence supporting the Lieberman campaign's allegations that supporters of primary challenger Ned Lamont of Greenwich were to blame for the Web site crash.

Lieberman, who was fighting for his political life against the anti-Iraq war candidate Lamont, implied that joe2006.com was hacked by Lamont supporters.

"The server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured. There was no evidence of (an) attack," according to the e-mail.

A program that could have detected a legitimate attack was improperly configured, the e-mail states.

"New Haven will be administratively closing this investigation," it concluded.

The e-mail, dated Oct. 25, 2006, was included in a technical packet of information recently sent to The Advocate in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act filed in late 2006 with the offices of state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor.

The Advocate filed the requests after Blumenthal and O'Connor closed the case but declined to divulge details. They stated only that they found no evidence that Lamont supporters were to blame.

Visitors who tried to access Lieberman's site at the time received a message calling on
Advertisement
Lamont to "make an unqualified statement denouncing this kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease and desist immediately."

The Lieberman-Lamont race captured national and international attention.

Blumenthal denied The Advocate's FOI request on the grounds it was a federal matter, and it took more than a year for the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice to respond.

The Lieberman campaign alleged it was the target of a "denial of service attack," which can involve bombarding a Web site with external communications to slow it or render it useless.

"Our Web site consultant assured us in the strongest terms possible that we had been attacked," former Lieberman campaign spokesman Dan Gerstein said in December 2006.

According to the FBI memo, the site crashed because Lieberman officials continually exceeded a configured limit of 100 e-mails per hour the night before the primary.

"The system administrator misinterpreted the root cause," the memo stated. "The system administrator finally declared the server was being attacked and the Lieberman campaign accused the Ned Lamont campaign. The news reported this on Aug. 8, 2006, causing additional Web traffic to visit the site.

"The additional Web traffic then overwhelmed the Web server. . . . Web traffic pattern analysis reports and Web logging that was available did not demonstrate traffic that was indicative of a denial of service attack."

_____________________________

Gee, sounds to me that there ought to be a criminal component to this, wouldn't you say, Joe? I know you're very busy crawling up the warmongering McInsane's orifice where the sun don't shine but do you think it might be a good idea to give your lawyer a head's up? If I had MY way, you'd have been impeached already but as we know, that's not an option here in CT. However, at least we do still have a legal system, yanno?

And by the way, can you PLEASE give your REPUBLICAN candidate a tutorial on the difference between the Sunnis and the Shiites so that he stops making a fool of himself (easily done) whenever he opens his mouth on the "conditions on the ground" in Iraq? Not only does he LOOK as out of touch as we know he is, it further enhances your resemblance to Gepeto - although, he never looked quite as yellow standing next to Pinnochio as you do next to McInane.

Could you do us all a favor, Joe? Could you just simply resign? Surely you could be enjoying, given your age, a WONDERFUL retirement, doncha think? Come on, give it some thought. Bring those grandchildren of yours down to the beachfront a few more times before they have to look at the Natural Gas Bomb you're planning to install in our beautiful Long Island Sound. Please. Just get the hell out of our party, ok?

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

And it's Hillary that will "do anything to win???"

Is anything this Rovian creation says true???

Obviously, Obama has never been vetted. And I fear, Democratic sheeple, it's far too late. Yet YOU need to know the truth....then again, do you even care anymore?
Obama's role on liberal survey
By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 3/31/08 4:35 AM EST

Barack Obama
But the questionnaires provide fodder to question BarackObama’s ideological consistency and electability.
Photo: AP

During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion — positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he has projected during his presidential campaign.

The evidence comes from an amended version of an Illinois voter group’s detailed questionnaire, filed under his name during his 1996 bid for a state Senate seat.

Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he “never saw or approved” the questionnaire.

They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position.”

But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer.
See Also

* Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills
* Superdelegates: A guide to the undecided
* Gore launches $300 million campaign

The two questionnaires, provided to Politico with assistance from political sources opposed to Obama’s presidential campaign, were later supplied directly by the group, Independent Voters of Illinois — Independent Precinct Organization. Obama and his then-campaign manager, who Obama’s campaign asserts filled out the questionnaires, were familiar with the group, its members and its positions, since both were active in it before Obama's 1996 state Senate run.

Through an aide, Obama, who won the group’s endorsement as well as the statehouse seat, did not dispute that the handwriting was his. But he contended it doesn’t prove he completed, approved — or even read — the latter questionnaire.

“Sen. Obama didn’t fill out these state Senate questionnaires — a staffer did — and there are several answers that didn't reflect his views then or now,” Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, said in an e-mailed statement. “He may have jotted some notes on the front page of the questionnaire at the meeting, but that doesn't change the fact that some answers didn't reflect his views. His 11 years in public office do.”

But the questionnaires provide fodder to question Obama’s ideological consistency and electability. Those questions are central to efforts by Obama’s presidential rival Hillary Clinton to woo the superdelegates whose votes represent her best chance to wrest the Democratic nomination from Obama.

Taken together — and combined with later policy pronouncements — the two 1996 questionnaires paint a picture of an inexperienced Obama still trying to feel his way around major political issues and less constrained by the nuance that now frames his positions on sensitive issues.

Consider the question of whether minors should be required to get parental consent — or at least notify their parents — before having abortion.

The first version of Obama’s questionnaire responds with a simple “No.”

The amended version, though, answers less stridently: “Depends on how young — possibly for extremely young teens, i.e., 12- or 13-year-olds.”

By 2004, when his campaign filled out a similar questionnaire for the IVI-IPO during his campaign for U.S. Senate, the answer to a similar question contained still more nuance, but also more precision. “I would oppose any legislation that does not include a bypass provision for minors who have been victims of, or have reason to fear, physical or sexual abuse,” he wrote.

The evolution continued at least through late last year, when his campaign filled out a questionnaire for a nonpartisan reproductive health group that answered a similar question with even more nuance.

“As a parent, Obama believes that young women, if they become pregnant, should talk to their parents before considering an abortion. But he realizes not all girls can turn to their mother or father in times of trouble, and in those instances, we should want these girls to seek the advice of trusted adults — an aunt, a grandmother, a pastor,” his campaign wrote to RH Reality Check.


CONTINUE ON PAGE 1 2 3

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Professor Pinocchio..oh, I mean Obama!

Once upon a time, there was this dude who used to tell folks about his prior career as an Air Force pilot. Turned out the truth was he was an A.W.O.L. drinkin' and druggin' kinda guy...one everyone wanted to have a beer with....

I wonder if Senator Obama ever heard that story? Didn't work out well for him it seems.

"What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." The Bard



No 'Professor' Obama at U. of C.
TAUGHT CLASSES | Political flap over his precise law school title

March 30, 2008


BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

WASHINGTON -- The University of Chicago released a statement Thursday saying Sen. Barack Obama "served as a professor" in the law school -- but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed on Friday.

"He did not hold the title of professor of law," said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an assistant dean for communications and lecturer in law at the school.

The University of Chicago released a statement Thursday saying Sen. Barack Obama "served as a professor" in the law school -- but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed on Friday.
(Courtesy)

The U. of C. statement was posted on the school's Web site two days after the Clinton campaign issued a memo headlined: "Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama's Record of Exaggerations & Misstatements."

CONTINUED -- http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/867973,CST-NWS-sweet30.article

The Truth about Hillary's Hospital Story....

Knock me over with a feather...This piece is from Anne Kornblut, hardly one of my favorite Washington Post reporters and aka frequent consultant to the Cable Entertainment News Channels. Never a favorite of mine as I find her spinning for the other side, playing loose w/facts and opinions that always make it exceptionally easy for the viewer to play "Guess Which Side She's On" and the liberal Dems always lose. But here, she comes forward with the little gem below...Gee, Anne..thanks...how ya doin', girlfriend?

Trina Bachtel Family: Clinton Told The Truth
By Big Tent Democrat, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 07:28:19 PM EST

By Big Tent Democrat

WaPo:

Clinton Told True Tale of Woe, Says Kin

By Anne E. Kornblut

The aunt of a young pregnant woman who died after a hospital told her she needed to pay $100 up front for care said in an interview on Monday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been telling the story accurately on the campaign trail -- following claims by a different Ohio hospital that it did not turn the patient away.

When can we expect retractions and apologies from the Obama News Network? Oh by the way, from the Obama blogs? what a disgraceful episode.

< Countdown Update | You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way >
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/7/202819/2022

Monday, April 07, 2008

Obama the Warmonger...

Surprised?

I'm not.

From the New York Sun:


Obama Adviser Calls for Troops To Stay in Iraq Through 2010 | The New York Sun

Obama Adviser Calls for Troops To Stay in Iraq Through 2010
By ELI LAKE, STAFF REPORTER OF THE SUN | April 4, 2008

WASHINGTON — A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

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The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement,” Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”

Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq. A shorter and less detailed version of this paper appeared on the center’s Web site as a policy brief.

Both Mr. Kahl and a senior Obama campaign adviser reached yesterday said the paper does not represent the campaign’s Iraq position. Nonetheless, the paper could provide clues as to the ultimate size of the residual American force the candidate has said would remain in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat brigades. The campaign has not publicly discussed the size of such a force in the past.

This is not the first time the opinion of an adviser to the Obama campaign has differed with the candidate’s stated Iraq policy. In February, Mr. Obama’s first foreign policy tutor, Samantha Power, told BBC that the senator’s current Iraq plan would likely change based on the advice of military commanders in 2009. She has since resigned her position as a formal adviser.

The political ramifications of the disclosure are yet to be seen. The perception of a harder line in Iraq could help Mr. Obama combat charges by Senator McCain in a general election that Mr. Obama favors a hasty surrender and retreat in Iraq. But it could hurt the Obama campaign with anti-war voters in the Democratic primaries. Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Clinton, has called for withdrawing troops from Iraq, but an architect of the surge has told the Sun that she has been wary of a precipitous withdrawal. In a situation with some parallels to this one, Mr. Obama suffered some political damage on the trade issue when he called publicly for a renegotiation of NAFTA while a policy adviser reportedly met with Canadian officials and downplayed the chances of a NAFTA retreat.

In an interview yesterday, a senior Obama foreign affairs adviser, Susan Rice, said the Iraq working group is not the last word on the campaign’s Iraq policy.

“We have experts and scholars with a range of views and Barack appreciates this range of views. They are in think tanks and like me they write in their own voice, they are people who do their independent scholarship. Barack Obama cannot be held accountable for what we all write,” she said. Ms. Rice said she had not seen the paper, which is marked as a draft and “not for attribution without author’s permission.”

Mr. Kahl yesterday said, “This has absolutely zero to do with the campaign.” He added, “There are elements that are consistent with the Democratic Party’s approach, and I will leave it to others to find out if there are elements that are not.”

Mr. Kahl’s approach would call on the remaining troops in Iraq to play an “over-watch role.” The term is used by Multinational Forces Iraq to describe the long term goal of the coalition force presence in the country, Mr. Kahl said in an interview.

“It refers to the U.S. being out of the lead, largely in a support role. It doesn’t mean the U.S. does not do things like targeted counter-terrorism missions or continue to train and advise the Iraqis,” he said. “It would not be 150,000 Americans taking the lead in counterinsurgency.”

Mr. Obama’s policy to date also allows for a residual force for Iraq. In early Iowa debates, the senator would not pledge to remove all soldiers from Iraq, a distinction from his promise to withdraw all combat brigades. Also, Mr. Obama has stipulated that he would be open to having the military train the Iraqi Security Forces if he received guarantees that those forces would not be the shock troops of one side of an Iraqi civil war.

But the Obama campaign has also not said how many troops would make up this residual force. “We have not put a number on that. It depends on the circumstances on the ground,” Ms. Rice said. She added, “It would be worse than folly, it would be dangerous, to put a hard number on the residual forces.”

Mr. Kahl’s paper laid out what he called a “middle way” between unlimited engagement in Iraq and complete and rapid disengagement. The approach is contingent, he said, on the progress and willingness of Iraq’s major confessional parties in reaching political accommodation.

“There is a fundamental difference in the assumption between the Democratic approach and the Bush-McCain approach. That approach is premised on the assumption the Iraqi government wants to reach accommodation and what they need is time. The surge is premised on the notion of creating breathing space,” Mr. Kahl said. He added that his strategy would pressure and entice the Iraqi government to begin political accommodation by not only starting the withdrawal, but also by stating that America had no intention to hold permanent bases in the country.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Andy Martin Suing NYT for Libel over "Obama" Attacks

Andy Martin takes on the Liberal Establishment Media

Andy Martin sues New York Times for libel over "Obama" attacks


Andy Martin
2008-04-05 07:21:49 - Martin says Bill Clinton was wrong: Obama does not peddle fairy tales some of the time; Obama peddles fairy tales all of the time. Chicago media are embarrassed by Martin's cutting-edge commentary. Local newspapers act like Chamber of Commerce newsletters for Obama's illusions and delusions. (hmm - getting pretty close to a psych diagnosis, eh?)

ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com

'Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct'

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

ATTENTION DAYBOOK/ASSIGNMENT EDITORS

ANNOUNCEMENT OF CHICAGO NEWS CONFERENCE APRIL 9, 2008

"OBAMA" REMARKS IN NEW YORK TIMES PROMPT LIBEL LAWSUIT BY ANDY MARTIN

"IT IS TIME FOR THE LIBERAL MEDIA ESTABLISHMENT TO STOP LYING ABOUT BARACK OBAMA, AND ABOUT ME," SAYS ANDY MARTIN

"NOW THE NEW YORK TIMES AND ITS ACOLYTES CAN TELL THEIR 'FAIRY TALES' TO A JUDGE."

(CHICAGO)(April 5, 2008) Chicago-based Obama expert and Internet columnist Andy Martin will hold a 4:00 P.M. Chicago news conference Wednesday, April 9th, to announce that he has sued the New York Times, John Wiley & Sons and Farhad Manjoo for defaming him by publishing claims that Martin published "rumors" about Senator Barack Obama's Muslim "roots" that have been "debunked." The Dallas Morning News will also be named as a defendant.

"On March 25th I sent the New York Times, John Wiley & Sons, the Dallas Morning News and Farhad Manjoo a libel notice. They have not responded. Now I will take them to court in Illinois to make them respond for publishing lies about me and fairy tales about Barry Obama.

"Almost four years ago I published a cutting-edge commentary accurately disclosing Barack Obama's Muslim family heritage. That commentary is now generally acknowledged as the Plymouth Rock of truth-telling about Obama's lies, prevarications, evasions and endless stream of excuses, explanations and distortions concerning his past and present.

"My ongoing commentaries have trigged a continuing national dialog on Obama, Islam and the nature of religion in American politics. My 2004 prediction that Obama was fearful of a Jewish backlash has been corroborated in 2008. Fairly or unfairly, many American Jews are concerned. Likewise, Christians are shocked and dismayed by the jeremiads of Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

"My original column has been criticized because it was too brief. Too conclusory. Too summary. Too popular. But the claims in that column have stood the test of time. They were clearly only part of a companion news conference. More importantly, my original column and the steady stream of investigative commentary that has followed in its wake have ripped open the curtain of secrecy Obama uses to evade searching inquiry of his past and present. Bill Clinton was criticized in South Carolina for claming Obama dealt in 'fairy tales.' Clinton was only half-right. Obama is almost totally and completely a 'fairy tale' and a fabrication of the mainstream media.

"Since 2004 I have correctly predicted many of the twists and turns in the Obama journey. When the media said over a year ago Obama's religion was 'closed' as an issue, I begged to differ. www.contrariancommentary.com/community/Home/tabid/36/mid/363/new ... The issue of Obama and religion is going to run, run, run right down to November 4th.

"Along the way, I have humiliated the news media in Chicago. Chicago's print media have been, and largely continue to be, trained seals for Obama's circus. They seek to avoid and evade any unpleasant truths about their local 'franchise.' They scramble for crumbs from Obama's table.

"It was my writing that first pierced the veil of secrecy that Obama imposed on his extensive links to Tony Rezko. The full truth about Rezko is still not known. Stay tuned.

"Likewise, starting with incomplete information in 2004
we managed to slowly drag tidbits of the truth from Obama about his religious history.

"We published a 'Psychological Profile' of Obama in 2007. A year later that analysis is still the gold standard in comprehending Obama's troubled psyche. www.contrariancommentary.com/community/Home/tabid/36/mid/363/new ..

"Newsweek recently put it slightly differently, " The choice [of Barack vs. Barry] is part of his almost lifelong quest for identity and belonging-to figure out who he is, and how he fits into the larger American tapestry."
www.newsweek.com/id/128633/output/print

"But at the end of the day, facts are facts. For the Times to claim my facts had been 'debunked' is a lie. The Liberal Media Establishment is relentlessly trying to undermine my news operations because we continue to expose and analyze Obama in a way no other media does. The media has tied to make me the issue, not Obama. But it's not working.

"My answer to these media attacks? I am taking the New York Times to court. Because I am a public figure I have to prove 'actual malice.' The term 'actual malice' is a technical legal expression that is misleading. 'Actual malice' does not mean maliciousness. It means 'reckless disregard of the truth.' In my opinion, the New York Times' attack on me was false, defamatory and libelous. The writer recklessly ignored the truth I have presented. Wednesday, April 9th we will file suit and ask a judge to determine who is right.

"In anticipation of the lawsuit, this weekend and next week we will be publishing an accelerated series of columns on Obama. We had previously promised 'Black Rage' next. But that topic will come in a slightly different sequence. Getting at the truth about Obama is not an easy job, because he wears a leaden mask to conceal his identity. Even Newsweek acknowledged that. The media pounce on anything and everyone they wish to suppress as part of their liberal agenda. But the battles continue. And we will prevail"

NEWS CONFERENCE DETAILS:

WHO: Internet Columnist-Editor/media critic Andy Martin
WHERE: Southeast corner of Huron and Wabash Streets, Chicago

WHEN: Wednesday, April 9, 4:00 P. M.

MEDIA
CONTACT: (312) 440-4124

WEBSITE: ContrarianCommentary.com

E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
-
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of www.ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He has been a candidate for U. S. Senator from Illinois. www.AndyforUSSenator.com. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Add'l media contact: (866) 706-2639.



Too bad there aren't a few more journalists willing to keep the spotlight on Mr. Obama. Good work, Mr. Martin. MSM might stand to learn a bit from you.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Yoohoo, Senator Obama, Where Areeee Youuuu???

EXCLUSIVE: Clinton and McCain Are Set to Share the Stage Tomorrow in Memphis. Will Obama Join Them?


Andrew Romano


With only three candidates remaining in the presidential race--one of whom (John McCain) has already pivoted to the general election and another two (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) who are hopscotching from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to Indiana, sometimes in the same day--it's not often that the campaigns cross path the way they did back in, say, Iowa.

But according to my NEWSWEEK colleague Holly Bailey, who's currently traveling with McCain in Florida, that's exactly what might happen tomorrow.


Here's the deal. Friday is the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, and McCain is scheduled to honor him with an appearance in Memphis. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has put out a press release saying she too is trekking to Memphis "in remembrance" of King's death--and that there are "additional details to be announced." Speculation has swirled about whether they'll bump into each other; according to the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, "both campaigns' roadshows are slated to arrive at the airport at about the same time... and spent the night at hotels about six blocks apart." But what hasn't been reported--and what Holly has discovered--is that both Clinton and McCain are sticking around longer than expected to participate in an NBC News forum on the legendary civil rights leader--together.


This will be the first time the Democratic and Republican rivals have appeared on the same stage since posing for a photo-op in between the back-to-back Republican and Democratic debates in New Hampshire on Jan. 6. (They also returned to the Senate last month.) Top McCain aide Steve Schmidt says he expects the two candidates to "share remembrances of Dr. King," adding that the format will be strictly be about King and they don't plan any talk about issues in the campaign. "This is not a political event," he says. Although don't be surprised if McCain mentions that he learned of King's slaying from guards at the Hanoi Hilton. After all, he is in the midst of his nationwide "Memory Lane" Tour 2008.


Eagle-eyed readers will notice that one name is missing from the Memphis Meet-Up list: Barack Obama. According to Holly, Schmidt says that there's an "expectation that all presidential candidates" will participate, but Obama has not yet confirmed his attendance. (His staff will only say that they "should be advising his full schedule soon.") There's some precedent here: Obama skipped Tavis Smiley's Feb. 21 "State of the Black Union" event in New Orleans, even though Clinton made the trip. (Ah, the politics of race.)

At the moment, Obama has only one event on tomorrow's docket: a 5:30 p.m. keynote address at the Democratic-NPL Party State Convention in Grand Forks, N.D. Coincidentally, Clinton follows him on stage there at 7:30 p.m.

Seeing as flights from Memphis to Grand Forks are scarce--and global warming is only getting worse--may we suggest a plane-pool?


On second thought, maybe not.


UPDATE: No Obama. “While he would have enjoyed participating in the event in Memphis, he had a prior commitment to the North Dakota Democratic Party that he is also looking forward to attending," says spokesperson Jen Psaki.