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"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal"

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	Did you know that Obama finishes EVERY speech with "we will change America ... and we will change the WORLD" ...
	The real Obama does not exist. We learned that from his book. The man is a talking identity crisis -- a stew of sentimental politically -- inspired vignettes and platitudes that he reads from a teleprompter. However, his wife, the Reverends, Rezko and the terrorists, Ayers and Dohrn, are real.
1/16/07	Obama says he is taking a first step toward running for president next year. "I will be filing papers today to create a presidential exploratory committee," the Illinois Democrat said, adding that he will announce his final decision February 10 from his hometown of Chicago. Obama’s announcement also included this gem: "I know that I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." Even Jesse Jackson was asking, "What did he say?"
1/24/07	The Obama Exploratory Committee released the following statement, "To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. This statement is amended by the campaign on March 14th, to say, "Obama was never a practicing Muslim." Is it clear yet? Maybe not, because the official Obama 08 website currently contains this statement: "Obama Has Never Been A Muslim." This demonstrates the fundamental problem with Obama, his dissimulation. One just doesn't know what to believe.
2/10/07	Two weeks later, on February 10th, Obama, standing in front of a cheering crowd, formally announces he is a candidate for the Office of the President of the United States of America. Obama told the crowd he would tackle problems like poor schools, economic hardships and oil dependence. He also implored the crowd to demand that there be "universal health care in America by the end of the president's first term." He called the Iraq war a "tragic mistake" and said, "It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war. That's why I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008. In his speech, he lauds what he called the founding fathers' "genius" in creating a system of government that can be changed. Please notice, the change Obama speaks of is changing the system* of government. So, when you hear Obama speak of change, remember what he is speaking about -- changing the system of government!*
2/11/07	Prime Minister John Howard of Australia blasts Obama, saying his policy of withdrawing troops from Iraq will destabilize the entire Middle East. "I think he's wrong. I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory." "If I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."
2/13/07	Obama says that the lives of more than 3,000 American soldiers killed in Iraq had been "wasted." (video) Within a day, Obama apologizes for saying troops' lives were "wasted."
2/14/07	On the 14th, in her column, Maureen Dowd writes that Barack Obama looked as if he needed a smoke and he needed it bad. So there he was, trying to meet the deep, inexhaustible needs of both Iowa activists and the global press behemoth on his first swing across the state, while giving up cigarettes. He was a tad testy. "I’ve been chewing Nicorette all day long," he told reporters at a press conference in Ames on Sunday. The question begs asking, how much of a striver can he be if he's also a smoker?
2/21/07	Obama begins the process of cleaning up his loose ends by paying $400 in parking tickets to Cambridge and $71 in excise taxes to Somerville for fines and taxes incurred while he was living in Massachusetts and attending Harvard Law School during the early 1980's. Obama’s operatives paid 17 outstanding tickets in Cambridge for a vehicle with Illinois plates. Demonstrating how Democratic politicians help each other, the two cities wave the penalties and fees on the 17 year old tax bill, which I can tell you from personal experience, are considerable.
3/7/07	Obama is put on the defensive over stock purchases from companies whose investors included his political donors.
3/12/07	Obama, asked if homosexuality was immoral, in the wake of comments by Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Peter Pace, sidestepped the question. After pressure from gay groups, Obama issued a statement stating he did not agree with Pace "that homosexuality is immoral."
3/17/07	An analysis of "lifetime voting records," shows Obama as the most liberal Democrat in Congress, with a score of 84.3 after two full years in the Senate. The most liberal score possible was 99. The study, released in March by the National Journal, a respected inside-the-Beltway research report, places Obama even in front of Dennis Kucinich, with a lifetime score of 79.4.
4/4/07	Obama's campaign announces that they raked in $25 million for his presidential bid in the first three months of 2007, placing him on a par with front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and dashing her image as the party's inevitable nominee. And the link is to al Jazeera, that will continue to report Obama's campaign in great and sympathetic detail.
4/14/07	During his first public Tampa campaign appearance, Obama says, "The sun is shining on me, that's what's going on." "At each and every juncture in American history, ordinary folks said, 'We don't care about the world as it is, we imagine the world as it might be. We want to write a new chapter,'" Obama told the crowd. "That is the moment that we are in right now."
4/21/07	'We don't care about the world as it is, we imagine the world as it might be. We want to write a new chapter,'" Obama told the crowd. "That is the moment that we are in right now."
4/29/07	Obama shows his affinity for more socialism by endorsing "comparable worth," a truly bad idea. In case you don't know what comparable worth is, it's an idea concocted by feminists in the 1970s or early 1980s. They said that jobs typically held by women pay less than jobs typically held by men. To eliminate this inequity, somebody–the courts, maybe, or some administrative agency, presumably with appeals to the courts–should decide what those jobs were really worth, based on some sort of convoluted criteria. So that it could be possible to prove that secretaries were of comparable worth to truck drivers and should be paid the same wages. Comparable worth would subject the private-sector economy to the equivalent of the federal civil service system. Bureaucrats would have to classify every job, with their classifications subject to administrative and judicial review.
4/30/07	The New York Times has a report on its front page about Obama's strained relationship with his pastor, also known as his "spiritual mentor." The Times does tend to downplay some of the harsher statements that Pastor Wright has made about Israel, Wright's support for Louis Farrakhan; trips to Libya and more. The Times does tend to downplay some of the harsher statements that Pastor Wright has made about Israel, Wright's support for Louis Farrakhan; trips to Libya and more. Pastor Wright is a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in 1984 traveled with him to visit Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi, an archenemy of Israel and America and a firm supporter of terror groups. Wright has also been a severe critic of Israel. In his own words: "The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism."
5/2/07	Obama receives Secret Service protection -- earliest ever. Aside from former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama is the only presidential candidate with Secret Service protection. The code name used for Obama by his Secret Service detail is "Renegade." He was given his choice of several names starting with R, and that's the one he picked.
5/8/07	Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died. The death toll was 12. "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser. His excuse for this blunder was, "There are going to be times when I get tired," he said. "There are going to be times when I get weary. There are going to be times when I make mistakes." Obama is the youngest candidate running and he "was tired." How would he respond to a terror attack if he tires so easily?
2007	Related -- Obama spent the better part of his remarks criticizing U. S. automakers for not building more hybrid vehicles like Toyota and Honda. Well, we're glad to see Obama's shifting the blame from the consumer to the automakers. That must explain why the Illinois Senator and Presidential candidate owns a HEMI-powered V8 Chrysler 300C. Obviously it's Chrysler's fault Obama bought a big 5.7-liter engine from them -- he just didn't have a choice.
2007	John McCain responded to Obama's recent remarks in tough enough, if predictable, language: "While Senator Obama's two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security." But, McCain being McCain, he can't help himself and goes the next step in the statement's kicker: "By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket." Which is McCain's way of saying, "there is only one of us in this argument who has ever worn the uniform." (my words) And if you still don't get it, a McCain aide blows away the anthill with, well, a rocket. "Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."
2007	Seeking to add heft to his presidential bid, Democrat Barack Obama is offering a sweeping plan that would require every American to have health coverage and calls on government, businesses and consumers to share the costs of the program.
2007	Presidential candidate Barack Obama will give $16,500 in contributions linked to indicted donors to charity, part of the Democrat's effort to distance himself from a friend and fundraiser. The donations came from two Chicago businessmen who worked with indicted entrepreneur Antoin "Tony" Rezko, Obama's friend since his Harvard days and financial beard in the purchase of Obama's home and property. Rezko has pleaded not guilty to charges that he shook down investment firms that wanted to do business with the state of Illinois. Obama last year gave charities $11,500 to clear his campaign fund of donations that had come directly from Rezko.
2007	Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, on Monday (6/19), said his campaign made a "dumb mistake" when it circulated a memo criticizing rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's financial ties to India. In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama disavowed the memo which carried the headline -- "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab) -- and referred to Bill and Hillary Clintons' investments in India; her fundraising among Indian-Americans; and the former president's $300,000 in speech fees from Cisco, a company that has moved U.S. jobs to India. "It was a dumb mistake on our campaign's part and I made it clear to my staff in no uncertain terms that it was a mistake," Obama told the AP in a brief interview in which he referred to the memo as "unnecessarily caustic."
2007	Despite often-lofty rhetoric that he plans to bring the nation a ''new kind of politics,'' Sen. Barack Obama has surrounded himself with operatives skilled in the old-school art of the political back stab. Yet when Obama was criticized this week for opposition research memos critical of Sen. Hillary Clinton's ties to India and Indian-Americans, he was quick to blame his staff. /snip/ It was at least the third time since February the Illinois Democrat has blamed his staff for a glitch.
2007	Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right-wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division. "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.
2007	PowerLine blog thinks that Obama is "Clueless." To say that Barack Obama is not ready for prime time understates the case. He isn't ready for a 3:00 a.m. infomercial. The latest from Obama: "Obama: Shift Troops to Fight al-Qaida": "We cannot win a war against the terrorists if we're on the wrong battlefield," Obama said. "America must urgently begin deploying from Iraq and take the fight more effectively to the enemy's home by destroying al-Qaida's leadership along the Afghan-Pakistan border, eliminating their command and control networks and disrupting their funding." Our military commanders have repeatedly stated that the number one foe they are fighting in Iraq is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda's leadership has declared Iraq the main front in their war against civilization. Zawahiri has urged radical Muslims to "hurry to Iraq." Bin Laden has declared Baghdad "the capital of the Caliphate." Iraq is the one place on earth where al Qaeda has chosen to risk its prestige on an effort to engage our forces, exhaust our patience, and drive us from the field. John Wixted offers a more detailed, and excellent, rebuttal to Obama here.
7/18/07	On July 18th, ABC News' Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson report that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood that sex education for kindergarteners is "the right thing to do." Can't teach homosexuality too soon -- gotta get 'em while they're young (video at link).
7/19/07	His "solutions" will sound familiar to those who listened to Lyndon Johnson's poverty gurus and their fellow travelers under Jimmy Carter who promised massive government assistance: "When I'm President, I will raise the minimum wage and make it a living wage by making sure that it rises every time the cost of living does. I'll start letting our unions do what they do best again – organize our workers and lift up our middle-class. And I'll finally make sure every American has affordable health care that stays with you no matter what happens by passing my plan to provide universal coverage and cut the cost of health care by up to $2500 per family." "The philosophy behind the project is simple – if poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence; failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works." It was federal government policies and programs that caused most of the problems of the inner city today. The fact that Obama wants to try more of the same only shows that absolute dearth of ideas emanating from the left regarding urban policy. They just can't help themselves. And Obama can no longer disguise his far left policies by advocating them using soothing, non-threatening rhetoric. If it walks like a Socialist, talks like a Socialist and spends like a Socialist, it must be ...
7/19/07	Obama says, "the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there," even though he admits, "it's likely there would be increased bloodshed if U.S. forces left Iraq." Screw 'em, just like the Southeast Asians -- way to go Obama -- the dhimmicrats never change their defeatist ways.
7/22/07	Obama is in South Florida to address the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Hispanic so-called civil rights group. La Raza is Spanish for "the race," although NCLR claims it means "community" on their website. La Raza supports legislation such as the Civil Liberties Restoration Act, which would roll back policies adopted after Sept. 11 designed to protect national security. It supports the "DREAM Act," which would mandate states to offer in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens -- thus providing them with benefits not available to U.S. citizens from other states. The group opposes the "Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act of 2003" and the "Homeland Security Enhancement Act" would give state and local police officers the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. "While the safety and security of our communities and our country are of the utmost importance, new policies that would allow local police departments to enforce federal civil immigration law will hinder terrorist and other criminal investigations, and have a serious negative impact on Latino communities," La Raza explains. The group also supports legislation to ensure illegal immigrants' ability to obtain driver's licenses. La Raza continues to lobby the Senate for virtual open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens. La Raza's motto is, "Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada," which translates to ""For The Race everything. Outside The Race, nothing." The La Raza movement teaches that Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon and parts of Washington State make up an area known as "Aztlan" -- a fictional ancestral homeland of the Aztecs before Europeans arrived in North America. As such, it belongs to the followers of MEChA. These are all areas America should surrender to "La Raza" once enough immigrants, legal or illegal, enter to claim a majority, as in Los Angeles. The current borders of the United States will simply be extinguished. This plan is what is referred to as the "Reconquista" or the re-conquest, of the western United States. But it won't end with territorial occupation and secession. The final plan for the La Raza movement includes the ethnic cleansing of Americans of European, African, and Asian descent from "Aztlan." No surprise here -- a Marxist addressing Marxists.
7/24/07	At Monday night’s Democratic debate in Charleston, SC. A questioner, speaking via debate sponsor YouTube, asked whether, in the spirit of “bold leadership,” the candidates would “meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration…with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries.” Obama had a ready answer. "I would," he said without hesitation. With those words, Obama seemed to commit himself to talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong Il -- separately, without precondition. Sen. Barack Obama’s closest political adviser, David Axelrod, wants you to know that Obama did not say what he appeared to say. "He said that he would be willing to talk," Axelrod explained. Sen. Joseph Biden, who has emerged as the clear-eyed antiwar realist in the Democratic race, told National Review Online that the idea of a president meeting with Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and others was "naïve." "World leaders should not meet with other world leaders unless they know what the agenda is, so you don’t end up being used." This guy truly is a babe in the woods and his advisor, David Axelrod, is a bold-faced liar.
7/25/07	At a closed-door, off-the-record meeting with media mavens and corporate titans at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan Tuesday evening, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the freshman senator who just three years ago was an Illinois state senator, said he had better judgment about foreign policy than any presidential candidate in either party. "One thing I'm very confident about is my judgment in foreign policy is, I believe, better than any other candidate in this race, Republican or Democrat." Obama clarified his remarks by saying, "What I was drawing on was a set of experiences that come from a life of living overseas, having family overseas, being able to see the world through the eyes of people outside our borders." So, what qualifies Obama to be Commander in Chief, in a time of war, is the fact that he lived as a Muslim in a Muslim country and all his relatives overseas are Muslims. Now, doesn't that give you a warm feeling?
7/26/07	Following up on the above absurd statement, Obama said, in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, that he would send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive. The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid. Hello? Hello?! Is this Pockiston? "Let me make this clear, there are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005 (of course he neglects to mention Bill Clinton' refusal to accept bin Laden from the Sudan in 1998). If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." You got that, Obama condemns the Bush Administration for invading an enemy country, Iraq, but suggests we should invade an ally in the fight against terrorists. This guy proves once again that he is a complete idiot and shouldn't be let anywhere near the White House. Did you carefully look at the telephone?
8/2/07	Obama proves he's definitely not ready for prime time with the following statement, "I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance." When asked whether his answer also applied to the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, he said it did.
8/7/07	Obama, who majored in political science with a specialization in international relations at Columbia University, has repeatedly claimed to be the most knowledgeable Democratic candidate in the area of foreign affairs. On the 7th, during the Democrat Party presidential debates, Obama was asked if he would scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as president. His response was that he would, "immediately call the president of Mexico (and) the president of Canada" to discuss the issue. Of course, Canada has no "president," but a Prime Minister. This gaffe further shows Obama's unfamiliarity with foreign nations -- even our next door neighbor -- proving his unsuitability to lead our country during an era where foreign policy will be of prime importance. Obama must have been smoking pot the day they discussed Canada at Columbia.
8/9/07	Obama, calling a televised forum focusing on gay rights, "a historic moment ... for America," argued for civil unions for gays. Obama said he wanted to tap into the "core decency" of Americans to fight discrimination against gays and lesbians, and argued that civil unions for same-sex couples wouldn't be a "lesser thing" than marriage. Brian Graden, LOGO president, said, "We already won because the candidates are here." LOGO, the lesbian & gay channel, is owned by MTV Networks. Obama's church, the United Church of Christ, has supported gay marriage since 2005. Obama is on board.
8/12/07	Obama, sharing his vision of America as welfare state with the annual meeting of the National Council of La Raza, compared last year's massive immigration rallies, led by Hispanics, to the civil-rights marches of African-Americans in the 1960's. To the Harvard-trained lawyer, the illegal immigrants are just "undocumented immigrants" who just haven't had a chance to get the paperwork done. It certainly is new for someone, campaigning for our nation's highest office, to see representation of the millions who are here illegally, as part of those responsibilities. Can it be that Obama thinks he is running for secretary-general of the United Nations and not president of the United States?
8/13/07	Appearing before about 800 people in Nashua, NH, Obama, when asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism elsewhere, he brought up Afghanistan and said, "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." Someone ought to tell this fool that the Taliban and al-Qaeda ARE CIVILIANS. Is Obama suggesting we shouldn't KILL the ENEMY?
9/5/07	A man who has long been dogged by charges that the bank his family owns helped finance a Chicago crime figure host a Windy City fund-raiser tonight for Sen. Barack Obama. Alexi Giannoulias, who became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, has pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator's Oval Office bid. Before he promised to raise funds for Obama, Giannoulias bankrolled Michael "Jaws" Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution. Giannoulias is so tainted by reputed mob links that several top Illinois Dems, including the state's speaker of the House and party chairman, refused to endorse him even after he won the Democratic nomination with Obama's help. Giannoulias was the bank's vice president and chief loan officer for most of the more than $15 million in loans.
9/07	Obama spent September rattling off a laundry list of goofy notions he would implement as president. On the 12th, Obama committed his latest gaffe by describing ethnic cleansing as a positive thing, saying, "We've seen a very modest reduction of violence in Baghdad, partly because entire neighborhoods have essentially been ethnically cleansed. Those are all positive things, but we are now back at the levels of violence we were 18 months ago." On the 16th, Obama recommended a 12.4 percent Social Security tax hike on "the rich" -- those who make more than $97,000 per year. The tax would be paid by employees and half would be paid by employers. On the 17th, Obama, Hillary and Bill Richardson attended the Steak Fry of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in Indianola, IA, where Obama disrespected the National Anthem. Ethnic cleansing is good, tax the rich, collaborate with despots, relax the drug laws and do the crotch salute. Richardson and Clinton have their hands on their heart, but not Obama who plays with his crotch. Does he perhaps believe that, like wearing the flag pin, the hand on the heart isn't "true patriotism" or is that the Muslim salute? Obama's reluctance to salute the flag may be more sinister. A Muslim's allegiance is to Allah, he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt and when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran's 99 excellent names. Why else does he stand there like a foreigner? You tell me.
9/07	On Tuesday, September 18th, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, on a tour of South Carolina to register new voters, sharply criticized presidential hopeful and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for "acting like he’s white." On the 24th, despite the controversy that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York City has triggered, Obama still vowed to meet with rogue leaders if he is elected. On the 27th, Obama's Campaign moved quickly to dampen expectations raised by Michelle Obama, who said that her husband had to win Iowa. On the 28th, Obama said that, as president, he would relax drug sentencing laws and address vast racial inequities in the justice system as part of his crime policy. On the 29th, Obama said his public service experience trumps that of rival Hillary Rodham Clinton's, and he tried to use her husband's words to make his point.
10/21/07	Obama urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the Dream Act, a bill that would make illegal immigrant students who graduate from high school eligible for college aid. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar measure last year. The legislation would make sure "more students can see that a college education isn't a faraway dream," Obama said. Obama wants free money and education for illegals.
10/29/07	Obama, once again, puts his foot in his mouth. A supporter asked the '08 presidential hopeful if Obama would consider taking "the wind out of Hillary’s sails" by asking Nobel prize winner former Vice President Al Gore to be his running mate before the primaries. Obama's response was priceless: "I can promise you that as president I will have him involved in our administration in a very senior capacity in his role," Obama responded that, "having won the Nobel Peach Prize and an Oscar that being Vice President again would be probably a step down for him." Got that? The Nobel Peach Prize -- just Wow! And Al Gore has never won an Oscar. The Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth" was won by the film's director, Davis Guggenheim,and its producers.
11/1/07	Obama made this startling comment, "We've got to make sure that people who have more money help the people who have less money." Obama agrees with Karl Marx on income redistribution.
11/3/07	On November 3rd, Obama took a cheap shot at the Administration, saying, "For the first time in a long time, the name George Bush will not appear on the ballot," he told the crowd of about 500 people at Converse College in Spartanburg. "The name Dick Cheney, my cousin, will not appear on the ballot," Obama said. "We had been trying to hide that cousin thing for a long time. Everybody's got a black sheep in the family. A crazy uncle in the attic." Like his real relatives in Africa are something to write home about.
11/7/07	On the 7th, Obama complained about an Internet photo that showed the Democratic presidential candidate didn't hold his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. The Time photo and accompanying text never claimed any such thing (see Sep 17, above). Obama said the photo was taken during the singing of the National Anthem, not the Pledge of Allegiance, which was exactly what Time.com reported. However, that is a distinction without a difference because the tradition is to place the hand over the heart for the Anthem as well as for the Pledge. The United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10, Sec. 171, states that "during rendition of the National Anthem, when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform should stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart."
2007	End of story -- Here is the video. One must ask, Is Obama simply following this advice from "Ask the Imam?" Question: Could we sing national anthem and say the plegde of allegience to the secular state while the flag is being raised up? Answer: As Muslims, our pledge of allegiance is only to Allah and His Rasul (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam). However, as Muslims in a non-Muslim state, we are obliged to follow the laws of the country which are not contrary to Shari’ah. The allegiance of pledge by singing the national anthem of a secular state which has many un-Islamic laws, for example, legalising homosexuality, lesbianism, pornography, etc. is not permissible. And Allah Taãla Knows Best. Was salaam Mufti Ebrahim Desai Or this? Question: Should I stand up for the national anthem? Should I stand up when a judge enters the court and everyone is ordered to stand up? Answer: 1. No. 2. It is not necessary to stand up, you should not do so. and Allah Ta’ala Knows Best Mufti Ebrahim Desai
11/16/07	Barack Obama "has been the most aggressive of presidential candidates in using his leadership PAC-money to help the campaigns of state and local candidates in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. "More than one-third of his leadership PAC money is being used this way," Alex Knott reported. "Some of the recipients of Hopefund's largess are state and local politicians who have recently endorsed Obama's presidential bid," John Solomon reported November 26, 2007, in the Washington Post. "The bulk of donations from Obama's PAC to state and local candidates this year went to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In addition, there were more than $60,000 in donations to national candidates in those same states, including $9,000 for Rep. Paul W. Hodes, the first member of Congress from New Hampshire to endorse Obama earlier this year. "In addition to donating to individuals, Hopefund donated to several key Democratic groups in the battleground states, including $30,000 each to the Iowa House Truman Fund and the Iowa Senate Majority Fund and $15,000 to New Hampshire's Friends of a Democratic Senate," Solomon reported. Hopefund Inc. also made two $5,000 contributions to the New Hampshire Democratic Party: on July 26, 2007, and September 27, 2007.
11/20/07	Obama told a group high school students that when he was their age he was hardly a model student, experimenting with illegal drugs and drinking alcohol. "You know, I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about. You know, got into drinking. I experimented with drugs," he said. "There was a whole stretch of time that I didn't really apply myself a lot. It wasn't until I got out of high school and went to college that I started realizing, 'Man, I wasted a lot of time."' "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final fatal role of the young would be black man," Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Obama wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it. Five or six years of drugging and drinking is some experiment and he still doesn't have the personal will to stop smoking tobacco. And, he clearly conveyed the message -- Hey, it's OK to do drugs while your in high school and college. You can straighten out later.
11/27/07	Obama said a president should be unafraid to meet with the tyrannical leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea during his first year in office and provide them with political and economic incentives. He also said he would restore the nation's moral authority by ending torture, closing Guantanamo Bay's military prison and helping fight global poverty and AIDS. (video here) Responding to criticism of Obama's lack of experience, Bill Clinton's former national security adviser Tony Lake said ,"His life experiences of living abroad (as a Muslim an a Muslim country) when he was young, traveling by bus in Kenya, have given him a real grasp of the troubles around the world." Yo, Obama, you idiot, we don't torture anybody and where you gonna put those fanatics in Gitmo? Hey, how about in that house the Rezko's put you and Michelle into? Fighting global poverty and AIDS = billions into the empty pit called Africa.
11/29/07	Speaking at a rally in Harlem, Obama said, I don't want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college." Obama has repeated this false claim to predominantly African American audiences, even after The Washington Post pointed out the mistake to his campaign. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 106,000 African American men ages 18 to 24 were in federal or state prisons at the end of 2005. An additional 87,000 were temporarily held in local jails in mid-2006. According to 2005 census data, 530,000 African American men in this age group were in college. Black male college students outnumber black male prisoners even if the age group is expanded to 30 or 35. The Obama campaign has not responded to several requests for statistical data to support the senator's remarks, and it has not explained a similar claim that he made to an NAACP audience on July 12.
12/16/07	Obama says, "I have the kind of experience the country needs right now." But, Bill Clinton says, "I mean, when is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?" Remember that -- one year of national experience. Prior to that, Obama was a less than impressive back-bencher in the Illinois State Senate.
1/3/08	Obama wins his first of many election contests with a win in the Iowa Democratic caucus with about 37.5% of the vote.
1/9/08	Obama appeared on "American Morning." Fresh off his second place finish in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, he told host John Roberts high taxes were in the best interest of the American economy.
1/10/08	Why isn't Barack Obama's speech, which he touts on his presidential website, being used as exhibit A, not only for using words that reach out to his community, but also as an example of how he's using race whenever he can and when it suits his needs and benefits his candidacy? As the South Carolina primary campaign built to a climax, Obama addressed a largely African-American audience in Sumter. In this video, Obama drops his eloquent Harvard accent, and says, "They're trying to bamboozle you. It's the same old okie-dokie. -- Y'all know about okie dokie, right? -- They try to bamboozle you. -- Hoodwink ya. Try to hoodwink ya. Alright. -- I'm having too much fun here. ... " This speech had been borrowed from one of Obama's heroes, Malcolm X, who said, "You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, led amok. You’ve been bamboozled." It is strange that a candidate, who belongs to an "Afrocentric" church, that bestows awards on Louis Farrakhan, would borrow from Malcolm X, who was a spokesman for the Nation of Islam, right before complaining about e-mails claiming he is Muslim.
1/15/08	Hot on the heels of Barack Obama’s rout of Hillary Clinton in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, the Obama campaign announced today it’s forming a “truth squad” of California supporters who’ll refute what they say are mistruths spread by Clinton’s campaign. California Truth Squad members include House Education & Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Martinez, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Lakewood; Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank; Assembly Majority Floor Leader Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles; state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-East Los Angeles; San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris; and LA Federation of Labor Executive Secretary/Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo.
1/29/08	Obama sent out an email (with the disrespectful subject line "My response to Bush") after the State of the Union speech. It contained the following statements: "Next year, when it will be the job of someone new to report on the state of our union, the entire nation can have a president they believe in." "And with your help in the coming days and weeks, that's the kind of president I will be." Obama should be advised that State of the Union addresses aren't given by newly inaugurated presidents. Therefore, contrary to this promise, Obama's first prospective State of the Union would not be "next year," but would be in 2010.
1/30/08	In California, in order to garner support from Hispanics, Obama announces his support for granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. "Barack Obama has not backed down" on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton administration Cabinet member and Denver mayor now supporting Obama. "I think when the Latino community hears Barack's position on such an important and controversial issue, they'll understand that his heart and his intellect is with Latino community."
1/30/08	The National Journal identifies Barack Obama, D-Ill., as the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.
1/31/08	Obama said he would hold a summit with Muslim countries if he is elected president. "Once I'm elected, I want to organize a summit in the Muslim world," he told the French magazine Paris Match, "with all the heads of state, to have an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows every day between Muslims and the West," adding he would "listen to their concerns." Obama added, "I want to have direct talks with countries like Iran and Syria because I don't believe we can stabilize the region unless not just our friends but also our enemies are involved in these discussions." The Illinois senator added that to repair the image of the United States in the world, he would "put an end to the war in Iraq." "Occupying the country has put the odds against us with the world," Obama said.
1/31/08	Obama said he would pay for his proposed new programs, including mandatory health insurance, by imposing higher taxes on "the wealthy" and raising the tax on Social Security wages. He added, "What we have had right now is a situation where we've cut taxes for people who don't need them." According to recent Gallup data, "The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 percent of the income, but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent -- those below the median income level -- now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes.
2/1/08	Obama employed and continues to employ Farrakhan acolytes in high positions on his campaign and office staffs. Among those are Cynthia K. Miller, treasurer of his U. S. senate campaign. There’s also Jennifer Mason, who is Obama’s Director of Contituent Services in his U. S. Senate office and in charge of selecting his interns. Shakir Muhammad held an important role in Obama’s state senate campaign.
2/208	The cult-like status of Obama is a function of a personality that simply resonates with anyone who meets him: buckets of charisma and charm. And aware of managing expectations, not only for his campaign but what might be beyond, he constantly refers to the challenges ahead. "We can do this," he told ecstatic supporters on Tuesday night. "It will not be easy. It will require struggle and sacrifice. There will setbacks and we will make mistakes." But then Obama, in the next sentence, in attempt to appeal to more voters out there, didn't even mention the Democratic Party but instead his "movement," saying: "I want to speak directly to all those Americans who have yet to join this movement but still hunger for change: we need you. We need you to stand with us, and work with us, and help us prove that together, ordinary people can still do extraordinary things". Well known political journalist Joe Klein of Time magazine, who was traveling on the campaign plane this week with Obama, too, wrote of a nagging concern about this kind of rhetoric of inspiration over substance, noting "there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messiahnism." As Klein notes, this is "not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. "Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause -- other than an amorphous desire for change -- the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is." I hear that too in the voices of Obama's staff constantly, themselves referring to this "cult of Obama".
2/2/08	While on the subject of "Obama as messiah" -- just take a look at this website: Is Barack Obama the Messiah? "... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama" - Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008
2/4/08	Consider these numbers on recent Google searches using only Obama's name plus one other word: Obama + messianic 75,200 Obama + savior 226,000 Obama + prophet 312,000 Obama + Christ 504,000 Obama + change 4,540,000 A number of internet postings indicate that a great many see Obama in not only political terms, but also wrapped in the untarnished cloak of some vague spiritual-awakening.
2/11/08	The Obama Campaign Office in Houston, TX, is decorated with the flag of Cuba, this hemisphere's longest-lived totalitarian communist dictatorship, with psychotic Marxist thug Che Guevara's image superimposed: It's particularly ironic that this is a campaign volunteer office of a candidate standing for office in a free election, and it's decorated with the flag of a nation that hasn't had a free election in three generations.
2/17/08	Sen. Barack Obama, giving America a preview of his priorities, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations. The nice-sounding bill, called the "Global Poverty Act," sponsored by Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a $845 billion global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations. The scary part of the bill is this: In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning “small arms and light weapons” and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Millennium Declaration also affirms the U.N. as "the indispensable common house of the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and development." The U.N.'s "Millennium Project," says that the U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of its GNP in increased foreign aid spending would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.'s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the "Millennium Development Goals," this amounts to $845 billion. And the only way to raise that kind of money is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Will somebody tell this idiot that it's not the job of the United States to cut global poverty by taxing its citizens and giving those monies to the corrupt United Nations. Welfare doesn't work in America and its sure not going to work anywhere else. It's just more billions and trillions down the toilet.
2/17/08	Sen. Barack Obama, giving America a preview of his priorities, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations. The nice-sounding bill, called the "Global Poverty Act," sponsored by Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a $845 billion global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations. The U.N.'s "Millennium Project," says that the U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of its GNP in increased foreign aid spending would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.'s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is expected to meet the "Millennium Development Goals," this amounts to $845 billion. And the only way to raise that kind of money is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
2/18/08	Two weeks after Obama names Zbigniew Brzezinski as his Chief Foreign Policy Advisor, Brzezinski arrives in Damascus, Syria, to begin talks with the terrorists and political assassins of the Assad regime. The visit was not coordinated with America's embassy and will not be covered by the press, although Syrian press accounts said the delegation would visit Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad; vice president, Farouq al-Sharaa, and foreign minister, Walid Mouallem. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) commented, "I remember thinking, 'Why are we listening to him?' (Brzezinski) He was the national security adviser for Jimmy Carter 30 years ago. He proceeded to talk to us about Iran, and I said, 'Let me see, didn't the ayatollahs come to power, didn't we have this problem when you were in the White House?'" Brzezinski was also the great promoter of Islamic fundamentalism, which he celebrated as the greatest bulwark against Soviet Russian communism. Using the Islamic fundamentalists, Brzezinski hoped to make the entire region between the southern border of the USSR and the Indian Ocean into an "arc of crisis," from which fundamentalist subversion would radiate into Soviet territory, first and foremost into the five Soviet republics of central Asia, Azerbaijan, etc. It was in the service of this Islamic fundamentalist card that Brzezinski first helped overthrow the Shah of Iran, and then insisted that the replacement could be no one else than Ayatollah Khomeini.
2/18/08	Obama has repeatedly said he would fight lobbyists, even as they provide him with $10 million. Obama received $9,819,390 from lawyers and lobbyists. McCain $2,980,037. Democrats in fact received 3 times the money from lawyers and lobbyists this election cycle than Republicans. These numbers are easily obtainable online from Open Secrets.
2/19/08	The Obama Campaign 2008 publishes the "Obama Blueprint for Change -- Barack Obama's Plan for America." The campaign staff basically took the Howard Dean plan and did a global Acrobat change, substituting "Obama" for "Dean" and "Barack Obama" for "Howard Dean" -- it's the same old liberal promise to make the United States a socialized society, just like the Europeans, they so admire. There is one glaring omission -- not a word on Defense.
2/20/08	No less than six of Obama's recent rallies, fans have reportedly fainted. Those incidents were caught on video or audio. In each, Obama -- who never even thinks to put down the microphone or ask a campaign aide to take care of the matter -- narrates to the crowd as medical volunteers show up to minister to the stricken. In two of the videos, he picks up a bottle of water and offers it to the poor, overcome admirers. I don't mean to suggest that all this is staged. I'm saying it straight out: It's staged. Obama is supposedly Mr. Authentic -- the man who naturally radiates charisma and magnetic charm. His pheromones are so powerful they strike unwitting audience members into a stupor. He's the Beatles. He's Elvis. More than anything, he's the new JFK, a young, vibrant leader who will lead America into a bright new future. Riiiiight. Obama is inauthentic. His creepily similar responses to the fainting incidents are too identical to be spontaneous. The rash of swooning, star-struck supporters at Obama's speeches smacks of insincerity. Instead of offering his fainting followers water, he ought to be offering them Kool-Aid.
2/25/08	The Washington Post published Obama's top Flip-Flops. 1. Special interests -- In January, the Obama campaign described union contributions to the campaigns of Clinton and John Edwards as "special interest" money. Obama changed his tune as he began gathering his own union endorsements. He now refers respectfully to unions as the representatives of "working people" and says he is "thrilled" by their support. 2. Public financing -- Obama replied "yes" in September 2007 when asked if he would agree to public financing of the presidential election if his GOP opponent did the same. Obama has now attached several conditions to such an agreement, including regulating spending by outside groups. His spokesman says the candidate never committed himself on the matter. 3. The Cuba embargo -- In January 2004, Obama said it was time "to end the embargo with Cuba" because it had "utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro." Speaking to a Cuban American audience in Miami in August 2007, he said he would not "take off the embargo" as president because it is "an important inducement for change." 4. Illegal immigration -- In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked if the government should "crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants." He replied "Oppose." In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised debate, he said that "we do have to crack down on those employers that are taking advantage of the situation." 5. Decriminalization of marijuana -- While running for the U.S. Senate in January 2004, Obama told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use. In the Oct. 30, 2007, presidential debate, he joined other Democratic candidates in opposing the decriminalization of marijuana.
2/27/08	Toward the end of February, critics began to quietly voice their fear that Obama and his campaign have deliberately adopted the tone and tactics of an evangelical preacher, whipping up "Obamamania" at the expense of more serious discussion of policy and government. There is "something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism" deployed by the black senator and his supporters, observed Joe Klein, the veteran political commentator the first to latch on to the political potency of Bill Clinton, then an obscure Arkansas governor, early in the 1992 White House campaign. "The message is becoming dangerously self-referential," he wrote in Time magazine. "The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is." At the campaign's "Camp Obama" -- a training program run ahead of primaries in key states -- volunteers are schooled to avoid talking to voters about policy, and instead tell of how they "came" to Obama, just as born-again Christians talk about "coming to Jesus." New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote: "Obama's people are so taken with their messiah that soon they'll be selling flowers at airports and arranging mass weddings."
2/27/08	Obama is a Rorshach test: liberals see in him whatever they like. They are free to assign to him whatever belief they hold most dear because he has no record, no substance to limit their fantasies. He enables bratty child armies of baby boomers to place their political wishes beneath their pillows and dream of a 'post partisan' future, whatever that means. There's nothing new about Barack Obama. He's the latest in a long line of foppish flim-flam men who offer verbal enchantment to the voters in order to achieve power.
2/27/08	The Obama Campaign showed its "Muslim sensitivity" by condemning the Clinton Campaign for allegedly releasing a photo of Obama dressed as a Somali elder (see: Obama and Africa) and referring to Obama by his middle name. Obama dressed himself as a Somali elder. Obama walked around dressed like a Somali elder. Obama posed for the picture dressed like a Somali elder. What is his campaign whining about? And, why is the campaign crying foul for anyone using Obama's middle name? Are they ashamed of it or are they concerned that it reminds people of the fact that Obama was a Muslim.
2/28/08	There are those who suggest that Obamamania has become something of a cult. Of course it is a cult, manifesting what writer James Wolcott refers to as "salvational fervor" and "pure euphoria." Listen to what the Anointed One said in South Carolina, which he alludes to as tent revivals: "At some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you'll say, 'I have to vote for Barack!'" Something insidious is happening beneath this rapture.
2/29/08	The Obama campaign told Canadian Television (CTV) that no message was passed to the Canadian government suggesting that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated. (Video) However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama’s senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago. Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the Canadian government on the NAFTA issue. On Thursday night, CTV spoke with Goolsbee, but he refused to say whether he had such a conversation with the Canadian government office in Chicago. He also said he has been told to direct any questions to the campaign headquarters. CTV didn’t stop there. They announced that their sources, at "the highest levels of the Canadian government," reconfirmed the story to CTV and one of their primary sources provided a timeline of the discussion to CTV.
2/29/08	Billionaire business mogul Penny Pritzker was named the national finance chairman of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Someone should ask Obama about Pritzker -- the same Penny Pritzker that headed Superior Bank, which shut down in 2002. One reason Obama might not want to talk about the role of financially irresponsible bank board members in creating the subprime mortgage foreclossure financial disaster is that Pritzker, is a former chairman of the board of the failed Superior Bank S&L that engaged in irresponsible subprime mortgage lending during the 1990s, many to minorities. And this woman is running the finance campaign for Obama. Does Obama have no shame? He is such a hypocrite! Pritzker was into subprime lending before it became all the rage starting in around 2000. Prtizker's chairmanship was to concentrate on subprimelending, principally on home mortgages, but for a while in subprime auto lending, too, after the Pritzkers' bank acquired its wholesale mortgage organization division, Alliance Funding, in December 1992. Back then they called it "predatory lending." And Obama claims he is against these kinds of banks. Ha! It is all smoke and mirrors. It is all talk. The people that are financially raping Americans and robbing them of the American dream with these predatory loans, are the same kind of people running Obama's campaign.
3/2/08	Obama criticized Clinton expressly for failing to read the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons capabilities, a report available at the time of her October 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war. He said that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a fellow Democrat from neighboring West Virginia, had read the intelligence estimate as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and after a brief pause said the then-chairman had voted against the war resolution. However, Rockefeller was not the chair at the time and voted in favor of the war authorization. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida was the intelligence committee chair in 2002 and voted against the resolution. Obama did not mention Graham’s name in the passage. "She didn’t read the National Intelligence Estimates. Jay Rockefeller read it. But she didn’t read it. (And after a 13-second pause) I don’t know what all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a National Intelligence Estimate and the chairman of the national…umm…Senate Intelligence Committee says you should read this, this is why I’m voting against the war, that you should probably read it. I don’t know how much experience you need for that." Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement to FOX News, "Sen. Obama is so desperate to divert attention from his limited national security experience that he’s not just misleading voters about Sen. Clinton, he’s also misleading voters about his own supporters. That is not change you can believe in."
3/2/08	Obama told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not make him "less Christian." "I don't think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state," said Obama. "If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans," in which Paul's Epistle to the Romans condemns homosexual acts as unnatural and sinful. Obama's mention of the Sermon on the Mount in justifying legal recognition of same-sex unions may have been a reference to the Golden Rule: "Do to others what you would have them do to you." Or it may have been a reference to another famous line: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."
3/2/08	Obama made yet another gaffe while criticizing Hillary Clinton, and of course, she is trying to slam the future Democrat nominee with it: Obama said that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a fellow Democrat from neighboring West Virginia, had read the intelligence estimate as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and after a brief pause said the then-chairman had voted against the war resolution. However, Rockefeller was not the chair at the time and voted in favor of the war authorization. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida was the intelligence committee chair in 2002 and voted against the resolution. Obama did not mention Graham’s name in the passage. His exact words are, "She didn’t read the National Intelligence Estimates. Jay Rockefeller read it. But she didn’t read it. I don’t know what all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a National Intelligence Estimate and the chairman of the national, um, Senate Intelligence Committee says you should read this, this is why I’m voting against the war, that you should probably read it. I don’t know how much experience you need for that."
3/3/08	According to Obama, he rejects campaign funding from "lobbyists," "Political Action Committees" and "bundlers" who bundle individual contributions into blind block contributions. But according to FactCheck, he does accept "bundled" contributions from "lobbyist groups" as well as individual campaign contributions from the spouses of well-known Washington lobbyists. He also receives tons of "bundled" funds from labor unions and Democrat 527 organizations. When pressed on the issue, (on rare occasion), he admits "Money is the original sin in politics and I am not sinless" and states "Lobbyist influence comes from access, not money." In short, Obama is funded by the same lobbyists and special interest groups as all other Democrats. He's just slicker about covering the money trail.
3/3/08	According to Obama and CAF, who gives him a 100% rating, indicating a strong position for energy independence, Obama will solve the problem of dependence on foreign oil and skyrocketing gas prices. But according to OnTheIssues, Obama voted to defund U.S. domestic oil exploration, voted to ban U.S. drilling in ANWR and block all efforts to increase U.S. refining capacity, voted to force Americans to reduce their oil consumption by 40% by 2025 instead of the 5% supported by the balance of congress, voted to force Detroit to build more hybrids, voted to burn more ethanol (food) and factor the Global Warming Scam into all national energy policies. Obama takes the most liberal position in congress on energy and keeps the U.S. dependent upon foreign oil as a result.
3/3/08	Obama claims to oppose all forms of racism, including "racial profiling" (aka criminal and terror profiling). But he has a strong record of supporting affirmative action, which provides special advantage to specific citizens over all other citizens, strictly on the basis of race. He also supports treating drug dealing as a "minimum wage problem" and not a criminal activity, based on drug trafficking being prevalent in black communities.
3/3/08	Obama claims strength in Foreign Policy, National Security and the advancement of Democracy around the globe. But he opens his campaign rhetoric with this statement, "When I am this party's nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq," a post 9/11 foreign policy initiative supported overwhelmingly by both parties in both houses of congress as a vital matter of both national security and the advancement of democracy in parts of the world important to America's strategic interests. Further, he "didn't vote for war in Iraq" because he was not a member of Congress when that vote took place, nor did he have access to the intelligence reports over twelve years beginning in 1991, that caused the vast majority of Congress and his opponent Hillary Clinton, to support deposing the Hussein regime and liberate, not invade, the Iraqi people.
3/4/08	Obama's first promise of change comes in the form of a call for retreat and defeat in Iraq, which every international expert can tell you will destabilize Iraq's current progress towards secure democratic reform, an idea Obama claims to hold dear, but won't support. He wants to bring our troops home immediately, but in defeat, not victory. He wants to launch a new era of dialogue and cooperation with the worlds most brutal and committed enemies of the west in North Korea, Iran, and China, with folks like Chavez and Castro. He says that "China is our competitor, not our enemy," even as Chinese spies are being brought to justice for infiltrating the most secret of U.S. national security agencies. But he wants a U.S. Military enforced "no fly zone" in Africa, where the ancestors of his father live in tyranny, oppressed by African war lords and corrupt African politicians, not American slave traders. He talks about a more secure and sovereign America as he pushes to erase U.S. borders, legalize illegal migration -- including with full voting rights for illegals, and calls for "increased tax-payer investment in our relationship with Mexico" while asking for "$50B annually to strengthen weak states at risk of collapse," not American states, third world dictatorships.
3/4/08	Obama said that America, under his Presidency, will stop being a "bully." (Video) He also said an Obama presidency would work to regain the trust of Muslims worldwide with Washington-led aid programs in Muslim countries.
3/5/08	Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO), Sen. Barack Obama’s Missouri co-chairman and pledged Obama super-delegate, said Obama will gain the support of 50 undecided Democratic super-delegates later this week, according to the Columbia Missourian. Said Clay: “She (Sen. Clinton) will not make up those numbers. This race is over.” Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw first reported yesterday that Obama had about 50 secretly committed superdelegates. However, The Hotline quotes an unnamed Obama campaign aide who says the report is "wrong."
3/6/08	Obama assures us that "Nobody is proposing we leave (Iraq) precipitously." But actually, somebody is proposing that -- and that somebody is Barack Obama. In January 2007, for example, he outlined a plan to begin "redeployment of U.S. forces no later than May 1, 2007" and "remove all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008." Today, he vows to "immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq." That is the very definition of precipitous. Hedging a bit, Obama recently explained that "If al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad." McCain couldn't resist pointing out the obvious: "Al Qaeda is in Iraq. And that's why we're fighting in Iraq." Even as Obama vows to cede the battlefield in Iraq, where the Iraqi government is fighting alongside Americans against the jihadists, he proposes bombing the jihadists in Pakistan -- over the objection of the Pakistani government. "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," he has warned. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, the Bush administration has attacked targets in Pakistan -- with and without the permission of the AWOL Musharraf. But Obama's anti-terror strategy seems to be premised on the notion that the United States can't fight jihadists in Iraq and Pakistan. In truth, the United States can and must fight the enemy wherever it is -- the Sahara and the Horn of Africa, Iraq and Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the list goes on. It's all the same war! However, there's more -- and less -- to Obama's foreign policy than pulling out of Iraq and pummeling Pakistan. Obama, who reminds us that his grandfather served in "Patton's army and marched across Europe" and helped shut down Hitler's death camps, says it is not America's job to prevent genocide -- n Iraq or elsewhere, apparently. The AP reported it this way in July 2007: "Presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there." His defense of this position sounds surprisingly, jarringly, similar to that of isolationists on the far fringes, who always justify non-intervention somewhere by pointing out that America has not intervened everywhere. But the problems with Obama's fusion foreign policy don't end there. When a questioner during the CNN-YouTube debate asked whether as president Obama would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, his answer was unequivocal. "It is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them," he intoned. Worse, as the New York Times reported last November, Obama made it clear "that he planned to talk to Iran without preconditions." Without preconditions? The mullahs wouldn't have to stop funding and fomenting the guerilla war that is killing American troops in Iraq, or come clean with the IAEA on their subterranean nuclear program, or stop arming Hamas with rockets that terrorize and kill Israeli civilians?
3/6/08	The question was raised, "Did Barack Obama use indicted campaign fund-raiser Tony Rezko as a conduit to get jobs for people in Gov. Blagojevich's administration?" The question arises from a list of 39 people Rezko's lawyers said in a court filing he urged Blagojevich to give state jobs. Among those on the list were two people who appear to have Obama links and a third who's now an Obama presidential campaign staffer. But did the names come from Obama? His campaign staff's short answer: Don't know -- but it's possible. "We do not know how decisions were made to fill specific state positions, and we have no records of any individual recommendations we were asked to make or made," says Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "But we do know that Tony Rezko, among others, was helping to gather names for the positions coming open with a new administration, and, if it is established any names came through our office, we would have no reason to doubt it."
3/6/08	The question of Obama's Iraqi Oil for Food connection was raised when U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve jailed Obama supporter, Tony Rezko, saying he had disobeyed her order to keep her posted on his financial status. Among other things, he failed to tell her about a $3.5 million loan from London-based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi -- a loan that was later forgiven in exchange for shares in a prime slice of Chicago real estate. Rezko gave $700,000 of the money to his wife and used the rest to pay legal bills and funnel cash to various supporters." Funds from Auchi's loan may have also helped finance a complex series of transactions between Rezko and Obama involving the 2005 purchase of Obama's Chicago mansion and Rezko's purchase of an adjoining landlocked parcel. The Times of London reports: "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. Mr. Obama says he never used Mrs. Rezko's still-empty lot, which could only be accessed through his property. But he admits he paid his gardener to mow the lawn." The sudden emergence of Auchi into this story indicates Rezko's deals may include a money trail leading back to dead Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Auchi's Saddam links trace back to a failed 1959 assassination attempt on the life of then-Iraqi-prime-minister Abdul Karim Qasim. Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings company was also the largest private shareholder in Banque Nationale de Paris which later merged with Paribas to become BNP Paribas. At Saddam's insistence, billions of dollars of Oil for Food transactions passed through BNP from its 1995 inception until 2001. The Auchi-Obama links go beyond the mansion deal. The Times of London (February 1) reports uncovering, "state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to (an) Obama fundraiser in May 2005. Fintrade's directors include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr. Auchi's wife." Obama has refused to sit down at length with the Chicago reporters who have worked this story for years. But as reporter, Dana Milbank, has pointed out, "The questioning...has only just begun." With old-time Chicago corruption now going international-and Presidential -- finding those answers is more urgent than ever.
3/8/08	In an interview with National Journal magazine, an intelligence adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign broke with his candidate’s position opposing retroactive legal protection for telecommunications companies being sued for cooperating with a dubious U.S. government domestic surveillance program. "I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview. "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context."
3/8/08	Obama senior advisor Samantha Power paid for her "monster" dig by resigning Sunday, but Hillary Clinton's campaign seized on potentially more damaging remarks suggesting Barack Obama might renege on his pledge to pull U.S. troops from Iraq promptly. Even before the Harvard professor and Obama's chief outside foreign policy adviser stepped down, the Clinton camp was gleefully circulating another interview where Power called Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan "the best-case scenario." "[Obama] will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. senator," Power told the BBC in what the Clinton campaign flagged as eyebrow-raising remarks. "He will rely upon a plan -- an operational plan -- that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn't have daily access now, as a result of not being the President," she said. -- (Video)