How did O do on home turf ? July 31, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Ethnicity, Government , add a commentIf we are going to think about having “O” preside over our country, lets remember how he handled his other tasks as a representative.
For more than five weeks during the brutally cold winter of 1997, tenants suffered without any heat in a government-subsidized apartment building. The 31-unit building in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood had been “rehabbed” just four years prior at taxpayer expense, no less.
How cold was it? Temperatures routinely dipped around ten below zero. With wind-chills factored in, the effective temperatures approached 30 below.
And the residents of the building had no heat for more than a month.
The building’s owner — Rezmar Corporation — didn’t bother to turn on the heat for weeks. In fact, it didn’t do so until it was sued.
And the Englewood building wasn’t the only one of Rezmar’s properties that had scores of code violations. At least a dozen times, Rezmar had to be sued in order to simply turn on the heat in its properties.
17 buildings ended up in foreclosure, 6 are boarded up, hundreds of apartments are vacant and require repair… and taxpayers were stuck with millions in unpaid loans.
All of these buildings were in — or just blocks away — from a single state senator’s district. A district belonging to a young, up-and-coming politician named Barack Obama.
In fact, during the brutal winter of 1997, even while Rezmar refused to heat its Englewood apartments, it was donating $1,000 to state senator Obama’s campaign fund.
During the winter or the scores of subsequent code violations, did state senator Obama ever lift a finger to protect his constituents from “predatory slumlords” like Rezmar?
The answer appears to be a resounding “No“. In 2007, Obama’s own campaign staff stated, “Senator Obama does not remember having conversations… about properties that [Rezmar] owned..”
The shivering tenants in in and around the district were left defenseless. Assailed on one side by predatory slumlords like Rezko, they were — for all intents and purposes — left out in the cold by their state senator, Barack Obama.
There’s a simple reason Obama didn’t lift a finger to protest these horrific violations. His political patron, Tony Rezko, was a driving force behind the Rezmar schemes. And Rezko helped raise a quarter of a million dollars for Obama’s various campaigns.
And after stating he’d “never done any favors for” Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times discovered letters Obama wrote to city and state officials supporting Rezko’s bid for $14 million in taxpayers’ money for an elder-care facility.
While Obama didn’t expend an ounce of energy to protest Rezko’s outrageous violations, he did take time to write letters on behalf of Rezko in his efforts to secure an additional $14 million in taxpayer funds.
State senator Obama couldn’t effectively represent his abused constituents… perhaps because he was otherwise occupied helping his slumlord patrons with their various flim-flam operations.
And as a so-called “community organizer” and then a state senator, Obama couldn’t even keep federally subsidized housing complexes like Grove Parc habitable.
Barack Obama couldn’t effectively represent a tiny district in Chicago’s south side.
Now extend that kind of failure to the entire United States.
Related reading:
• The Illustrated Results of Obama’s “Community Organizing”
• The State Senator Who Couldn’t Keep His Constituents From the Cold
• The Obama-Rezko property map
Linked by: American Thinker, National Conversation and SondraK. Thanks!
My concerns for America July 31, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Ethnicity, Government , add a comment
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I arrived home last evening to find an interesting op-ed from Jon Voight in my inbox. VOIGHT: My concerns for AmericaObama sowing socialist seeds in young peopleOP-ED We, as parents, are well aware of the importance of our teachers who teach and program our children. We also know how important it is for our children to play with good-thinking children growing up. Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset. The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America. The Democrats have targeted young people, knowing how easy it is to bring forth whatever is needed to program their minds. I know this process well. I was caught up in the hysteria during the Vietnam era, which was brought about through Marxist propaganda underlying the so-called peace movement. The radicals of that era were successful in giving the communists power to bring forth the killing fields and slaughter 2.5 million people in Cambodia and South Vietnam. Did they stop the war, or did they bring the war to those innocent people? In the end, they turned their backs on all the horror and suffering they helped create and walked away. Those same leaders who were in the streets in the ’60s are very powerful today in their work to bring down the Iraq war and to attack our president, and they have found their way into our schools. William Ayers is a good example of that. Thank God, today, we have a strong generation of young soldiers who know exactly who they are and what they must do to protect our freedom and our democracy. And we have the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, who has brought hope and stability to Iraq and prevented the terrorists from establishing a base in that country. Our soldiers are lifting us to an example of patriotism at a time when we’ve almost forgotten who we are and what is at stake. If Mr. Obama had his way, he would have pulled our troops from Iraq years ago and initiated an unprecedented bloodbath, turning over that country to the barbarianism of our enemies. With what he has openly stated about his plans for our military, and his lack of understanding about the true nature of our enemies, there’s not a cell in my body that can accept the idea that Mr. Obama can keep us safe from the terrorists around the world, and from Iran, which is making great strides toward getting the atomic bomb. And while a misleading portrait of Mr. Obama is being perpetrated by a media controlled by the Democrats, the Obama camp has sent out people to attack the greatness of Sen. John McCain, whose suffering and courage in a Hanoi prison camp is an American legend. Gen. Wesley Clark, who himself has shame upon him, having been relieved of his command, has done their bidding and become a lying fool in his need to demean a fellow soldier and a true hero. This is a perilous time, and more than ever, the world needs a united and strong America. If, God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way. Jon Voight is an Academy Award-winning actor who is well-known for his humanitarian work. |
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My take:
I have a different view of some of the same facts, but in accord with what I stated in the post on Saturday morning, I believe that Obama has peaked and that the press being a cheer leading section is going to be countered by people saying enough is enough.
In 2006 the democrats took advantage of a anti-incumbancy movement and took power again in Washington DC promising monumental change. Well, we have had some real change under this congress, none of which is positive. This Congress is the least popular Congress on record and Senator Obama is among it’s most liberal members who is in lock-step with all of its policies and running on a platform of change. America is losing its sanity if it believes a change for the good is going to come from this pool.
The underreported subplot in all of this is that there was a true power play for the power core of the democratic party and at the very core of the Obama candidacy is the root of Mayor Daley’s political machine coming on to the national scene to take advantage of the long time split between the Al Gore wing of the party and the Clinton power mongers. This comes less from being a political visionary than having lived in a Daley political environment, it may be hard to describe but you know it when you see it.
This has really been the subtext of the candidacy, many young democrats see Obama as a person to unite their party and take it back from the aforementioned factions that have controlled the party for so long. Short a electoral landslide loss, I believe they have accomplished their initial goal, and that was to wrestle control back from the old political machines who held a firm grip on the party. The only caveat is that the Daley political machine are nobodys chumps and if you think they will just walk away from control of the democratic party once they have it , you need to put the crack pipe down awhile.
The Origins of the Muslim Brotherhood “Project” July 31, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Ethnicity , add a commentWake-up
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine.com
In May 2006, when I first introduced American readers to the Muslim Brotherhood strategic plan known as “The Project” (including the first complete English translation of such, published here at FrontPage), very little was known about the document beyond what had been reported in the European press and Swiss journalist Sylvain Besson’s book, La conquête de l’Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes (Paris: Le Seuil, 2005).
We knew at that time from Besson’s research that the document had been recovered from the home of Yousef Nada, the head of the Al-Taqwa Bank in Lugano and the de facto Foreign Envoy for the international Muslim Brotherhood movement, during a raid of his compound in November 2001 investigating Al-Taqwa’s involvement in terrorism financing. The strategic plan has received considerable discussion and analysis in the Western intelligence community ever since. As Besson notes in his book, Nada admitted that the document was genuine but declined to elaborate about the circumstances of its drafting.
A new book, however, sheds fresh light on the background of “The Project” and offers new details on the fundamental realignment of Muslim Brotherhood strategy and doctrine that it represents. The book in question, HAMAS: A History from Within (Northhampton, Mass.: Oliver Branch, 2007), is authored by a well-known international Muslim Brotherhood operative and HAMAS insider, Azzam Tamimi, who heads the Institute of Islamic Political Thought HAMAS front organization in London.
Tamimi outlines the circumstances and dramatic changes inside the Muslim Brotherhood that led to the adoption of “The Project” strategic plan at the historic 1983 Amman conference of international Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Here’s what Tamimi wrote about that event and the formation of “The Project”:
It is now known that Palestinian Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood – ed.] members in the diaspora had also been pressing for military action. Their efforts were assisted by the unification of their organizations at the end of the 1970s, a project that reached its culmination in the historic conference convened secretly in Amman in 1983. Representatives of the Palestinian Ikhwan attended from within Palestine, both from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, as well as from Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf countries, Europe, and the United States. The purpose of the meeting was to lay the cornerstone for what became known as the Islamic “global project for Palestine,” a project proposed to the conference by the delegates from Kuwait. At this conference, a unanimous decision was taken to give financial and logistic support to the effort of the Ikhwan in Palestine to wage jihad. (p. 45)
What Tamimi describes in his book is that “The Project” represented several fundamental shifts in both ideology and methodology of the global Muslim Brotherhood leadership. Rather than waiting for the creation of an Islamic state that would undertake the liberation of Palestine, they would militarize the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood organization by reviving the terrorist “secret apparatus”, which would eventually culminate in the announcement of the creation of HAMAS in December 1987 and the unveiling of the HAMAS charter in August 1988.
Thus, the claims of a spontaneous creation of HAMAS at the beginning of the first intifada are entirely myth, as Tamimi claims that military preparations had been long underway and the secret cells made operational years prior to 1987. According to Tamimi’s account, the Palestinian Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood established the Jihaz Filastin (the Palestinian Apparatus) in 1985 to coordinate global activities in support of the new jihadist movement in accordance with “The Project”. Two other organizations were also created by Palestinian Ikhwan leader (and HAMAS founder) Sheikh Ahmed Yasin within the territories along the lines of the : the al-Majahidun al-Filastiniyun (the Palestinian Mujahidin), which would conduct terrorist operations against Israeli military targets; and Majd (glory), an internal security force which would target and kill non-cooperative Palestinians. These would later become active arms within the HAMAS infrastructure.
Two factors contributed to this shift: 1) the failure of outside Arab armies to effect liberation; and 2) the creation of the competing Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The catastrophic military failures of 1967 and 1973 led to Egypt, who bore the brunt of those defeats, signing the Camp David Accords in September 1978 and the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979. Those developments dashed the hopes of continued outside military assistance and led to the abandonment of what Tamimi describes as the “Messianic fatalism for the emergence of the Islamic state that would lead the jihad to liberate Palestine” (p. 47).
Inside the Palestinian territories, Fathi Al-Shiqaqi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, had launched Al-Tal’I’ Al-Islamiyah (the Islamic vanguards), which later was renamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Adopting Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb’s revolutionary methodology, Al-Shiqaqi began recruiting for jihad amongst the members of the Ikhwan (which led to his expulsion) and forged an alliance with Saraya al-Jihad, which was already conducting terrorist operations against Israeli military personnel. Among Saraya al-Jihad’s leadership was future Al-Qaeda founder Abdullah Azzam. This new organization and their terrorist operations quickly gathered the attention and support of the younger Palestinians, and threatened the Ikhwan’s position of leadership inside the territories.
The realignment in ideology and methodology amongst the Muslim Brotherhood global leadership by institutionalizing Qutb’s top-down, revolutionary approach also permanently secured Qutb’s ideological dominance throughout the organization. The crackdown in Egypt on the Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s led to the scattering of the membership across the Middle East and into the West, which removed the immediate pressure to moderate their ideology. From these new locations, they could fully embrace Qutb’s vanguardist ideology.
The push of the organization into the West was largely the result of the efforts of Said Ramadan, son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Brotherhood (see Ian Johnson’s recent essay on the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West). Meanwhile, Ikhwan leaders who had sought refuge in Saudi Arabia forged a theological link with Salafi/Wahhabism that has marked the group ever since. Through these leaders in diaspora came the international organizations (Muslim World League, World Assembly for Muslim Youth), financing (various “charities” and the Al-Taqwa Bank, headed by Yousef Nada, in whose possession “The Project” document was found), and ideology that would not only result in the formation of HAMAS, but would influence and support virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the world.
For this reason, understanding the historic role of “The Project” as part of the global strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood is essential. Fortunately, Azzam Tamimi’s account fills in several blanks that had gone unreported:
- Its adoption at the 1983 Amman Conference;
- Its actual title – the “global project for Palestine”;
- Its origination by the Kuwaiti Ikhwan leadership (Tamimi also reports that they donated $70,000 in start-up money for the Palestinians to buy arms and to send leaders to Jordan for military training);
- Its strategic role in defining how the Muslim Brotherhood would focus its efforts and resources to Palestine to make that a key issue in advancing their global Islamic supremacist agenda;
- Its ideological importance representing the shift in methodology to a more revolutionary approach and the embrace of Sayyid Qutb’s vanguardist vision by the organization globally.
Tamimi’s account provides new details about “The Project”, and his status as a high-ranking international Muslim Brotherhood figure adds considerable weight to authenticate much of what had already been reported, notwithstanding some of his revisionist history elsewhere in his book. An examination of that strategic plan, as well as the many exhibits that came from the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial last summer in Dallas (see my colleague LTC Joseph Myers’ overview of those documents) gives us a glimpse at the Muslim Brotherhood’s global playbook and how far they have come in achieving their long-term goals of infiltrating the West and establishing a global Islamic state ruled by Islamic law. What we find by those measures and from seemingly daily reports is that their relentless coordinated campaign for Islamic global dominance has met with astounding success.
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=66337E98-996A-47E9-A5D4-A9FA5C854AA2
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3546
Waiting for a redeemer July 24, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government , add a comment|
I hate to say I TOLD YOU SO but…… German Analyst on Obama: People Waiting for the ‘Political Redeemer’ 07-24-2008 2:29 pm - BBC World
“We have a severe case of Obama mania in this town, and in Germany, I think, in general people are waiting for the political redeemer. It’s seven years of Bush that have made people right for a new face, for a change. People are willing to fall in love again with the United States.” In Obama’s world Obama tells countries they have to trust each other when political parties don’t trust each other ‘This is the Moment’: Obama Tells Crowd in Berlin We Must ‘Trust Each Other’ 07-24-2008 2:36 pm - AP
Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle. Hubris redefined Why even have an election? Just start the transition Obama Team Begins Work On Presidential Transition With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation’s 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition. “Barack is well aware of the complexity and the organizational challenge involved in the transition process and he has tasked s small group to begin thinking through the process,” a senior campaign adviser said. “Barack has made his expectations clear about what he wants from such a process, how he wants it to move forward, and the establishment and execution of his timeline is proceeding apace.” Last month, the Post’s Chris Cillizza reported that campaign advisers were sounding out John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and currently the president of the Center for American Progress, for his advice. An aide confirms that Podesta will probably be asked to head the transition team, which would take over from the campaign if Obama wins in November, and would be tasked with ensuring a smooth handover of power. Podesta’s Center for American Progress is working with the Third Way think tank on a Homeland Security Presidential Transition Initiative; its director is Michael Signer, a former senior policy aide to Ex-Sen. John Edwards. Cassandra Butts, a longtime Obama friend who is a CAP executive vice president, is working closely with Podesta. Butts, via e-mail, would not confirm her participation in the project. Podesta remains a close friend of both Clintons and his participation will help assuage the concerns of Clinton-era Democratic policy and political appointees who might have felt abandoned in an Obama administration. MSNBC will be the Redeemer’s official station? Fox? Obama: How Did Fox News Get the Hook-Up at Military Installations? 07-24-2008 10:21 am - Fox News
“He [Obama] was sort of wondering if that was by the order of the Commander in Chief. I told him, based on my knowledge, that’s a decision made by the base personnel.” Don’t ask, Don’t tell Barack
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Just gotta love O! July 24, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government , 2commentsObama has something for everybody! Shut up and listen and no backtalk either !
These anchors have a crush on Big O !
Obama Unsure How Many Troops He Will Leave In Iraq
07-23-2008 5:47 pm - CBS News
“I will always listen to the commanders on the ground. And I will make an assessment based on the facts at that time.”
See and you were worried he would pull troops out, he only tells the party extremists that, right?
Obama at the wailing wall
Raw: Obama Heckled as He Places Note in Wailing Wall During Predawn Visit
07-24-2008 3:05 am - AP
“Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale! Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale!”
Peace Maker
Obama Vows To Be An Important Partner In Peace Talks
07-23-2008 11:02 am - Reuters
White House candidate Barack Obama met top officials in Israel, including president Shimon Peres. He told Peres that he had been a key player for most of Israel’s 60 years.
Jewish Head Covering
Raw: Obama Visits Israeli Holocaust Shrine
07-23-2008 9:20 am - AP
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama began his busy day in Israel and the Palestinian territories at a breakfast meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
CNN being mean to Obama
Obama Falsely Claims Membership of Banking Committee While Touting Bill
07-24-2008 1:35 am - MSNBC
CNN: Barack Obama pointed to a bill “we passed” in the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that tightens sanctions and authorizes divestment from Iran. “My committee,” he called it. Except that he isn’t a member of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
MSNBC won’t let them get away with being mean to Barack!
Joe Klein joins in
Time’s Klein: McCain’s Comment On Obama Wanting To Lose War ‘Most Scurrilous’ He’s Ever Heard
07-23-2008 1:18 pm - CNN
“What he said about Barack Obama being willing to lose a war to win an election is the most scurrilous thing that I’ve heard a presidential candidate say in the nine elections that I’ve covered.”
And NAS doesn’t like free speech either, and breaks the race card out
Rapper Nas Collects 620,127 Signatures Protesting Fox News’ Coverage of Obama
07-23-2008 10:21 pm - YouTube
“Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news. This should outrage every American that Fox uses hateful language to talk about the person that may be the first black president.”
John Kerry places the race card too
‘Tar Baby’: Kerry Uses Racist Term to Characterize McCain Attack on Obama
07-22-2008 3:48 pm - MSNBC
“I think John [McCain] is trying to throw that big tar baby out there. You want to lose, you don’t want to win. Of course Barack Obama wants America to be successful.”
Do you think I can get an interview Katie?
07-22-2008 8:20 pm - CBS News
World interest in the election campaign has reached an all time high. And as Katie Couric reports, Barack Obama’s foreign tour gives him a chance to share his vision with a global audience.
Listen to her close, telling us that Obama is going to teach us and the world his vision. With all the press coverage why doesn’t america and the world already know Obama and his vision? Simple, they are not doing their job -they are campaigning for him.
It’s turned into a mass media love fest- NBC called it his tour of duty. Right.
Photo Ops and ‘Fake Interviews’ and Dixie July 23, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government, Media , add a commentPhoto Ops and ‘Fake Interviews’: Obama’s Excellent Overseas Adventure
July 22, 2008 - by Jennifer Rubin
Barack Obama’s campaign trip abroad was thought to be an effort to show him operating freely on the world stage. Instead, it has been a carefully managed exercise, designed to expose Obama to no contrary or potentially embarrassing viewpoints, and most of all, to shield him against the possibility that the media might capture a gaffe.
THE PREGAME
Obama had a rocky week before his overseas trip. He settled on a unique approach to national security: shoot first and ask questions later. Before his major overseas adventure he set his views in stone with a [1] New York Times op-ed and a major [2] policy address.
Having boxed himself into a position designed to appeal to his netroot supporters — adhere to a 16-month timetable for withdrawal and continue to deny the relevancy of Iraq to the broader war on terror — he encountered opposition before he even landed in Kuwait.
[3] General Petraeus did not mince words in an interview with Andrea Mitchell. The message was clear: there could be no fixed withdrawal schedule.
John McCain was making the most of the growing sense that Obama had stumbled by locking in his position before a trip. He released [4] two [5] hard-hitting ads. Then in his weekly radio address [6] McCain declared:
My opponent, Senator Obama, announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable.
This is similar to the mistake Senator Obama made when he confidently declared that the surge in Iraq could not possibly reduce sectarian violence there, and might well increase violence. He was so certain the surge would fail that he called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible. Senator Obama’s previous statements against the surge have been hastily removed from his campaign website, in the audacious hope that no one would notice. But we all remember quite well that he said the surge would fail, and today we know that he was wrong.
Mainstream [7] media pundits had [8] already taken Obama to task for his disinclination to shape policy based on conditions on the ground. (And Obama’s surrogates like [9] Bill Richardson seemed only to highlight Obama’s closed-mindedness by confirming that Obama wasn’t much interested in picking up any new information.)
AFGHANISTAN — THE SHELTERED TRAVELER
The weekend was taken up by Obama’s surrogates wrestling with McCain’s team over the meaning and exact wording of Prime Minister Maliki’s comments on the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Depending on [10] the translation Maliki either supported the 16-month time frame [11] or didn’t. It was either a lifeline for Obama or “[12] inartful” wording as McCain’s foreign policy advisor described it.
To McCain’s credit, he kept nipping at Obama’s heels, reminding voters at every turn that it was his sponsorship of the surge which had saved the day and Obama’s opposition which would have sunk it.
And Obama? We saw some photos and were told about some meetings, but he was never exposed to the glare of media. He neatly steered clear of really engaging anyone who could upset his choreographed routine — foreign press or leader — in public. He appeared only after a meeting held far from cameras with [13] President Karzai and declined to give a presser. He met with troops, but we don’t know if they or their leaders imparted any information which might impact his assessment of the political and military situation.
To say the trip was “[14] stage managed,” as one liberal blogger let on, would be a gross understatement. For all intents and purposes Obama was play-acting the role of a traveling statesman, eating meals and smiling but doing and saying nothing of consequence with what veteran network correspondent Mitchell [15] described on “Hardball” as an unprecedented level of press restriction and manipulation.
He didn’t have reporters with him, he didn’t have a press pool, he didn’t do a press conference while he was on the ground in either Afghanistan or Iraq. What you’re seeing is not reporters brought in. You’re seeing selected pictures taken by the military, questions by the military, and what some would call fake interviews, because they’re not interviews from a journalist. So, there’s a real press issue here. Politically it’s smart as can be. But we’ve not seen a presidential candidate do this, in my recollection, ever before.
He did manage to slip in a real interview for Face the Nation. But even in an interview so gentle as to give “softball” a bad name, he managed a couple of cringe-inducing moments, suggesting he might be president for [16] eight or ten years, and ending with some braggadocio that he “[17] never” had doubts about himself.
IRAQ
Obama arrived the day after McCain surrogates spread out on the Sunday shows to make their case. [18] Senator Joe Lieberman argued that McCain had been the one to turn around our policy, that Obama’s trip would not have been possible without the surge, and that chaos would have reigned had we followed Obama’s policy of defeat and retreat. (Lieberman explained, “You can’t choose to lose in Iraq and win Afghanistan.”) [19] McCain kept up the drumbeat of criticism himself on the [20] morning shows.
Obama spent a day in Iraq and did meet, finally, with General Petraeus and with Prime Minister Maliki. Once again, however, there were no cameras present, no observers likely to divulge if Petraeus counseled him in private to give up his notion of a fixed timetable and no way of knowing if Maliki expressed pique that Obama has repeatedly declined to recognize his remarkable political progress in creating a sovereign, truly national government.
Obama managed to navigate throughout Iraq unmolested by the press. He was able to get by with only the briefest description (”constructive’) of his meeting with Maliki. (Later it was revealed that Obama didn’t actually bring up his fixed timetable withdrawal plan.) Meanwhile, [21] McCain pounded him from the homefront, declaring his judgment universally wrong” and labeling his adherence to a fixed timetable in the face of expert advice from Petraeus as “stubborn.”
The irony was great: with a [22] press conference with former President George H.W. Bush and an interview with [23] Israeli TV McCain had given more foreign press than had his opponent.
But, before departing for Israel, Obama finally let the mask of reason slip. In an eye-popping interview with ABC’s Terry Moran Obama declared that he still would have opposed the surge, even knowing what he knows now. Moreover, in brash terms he confided that General Petraues took strong exception to his fixed timetable schedule, but that Obama didn’t much mind. And Obama wasn’t going to be pinned down between a choice between fixed and unfixed timetables for withdrawal. Uh huh.
So for those who thought Obama was persuadable by reason and by evidence, or tha he might more influenced by a near-victorious U.S. commander than his netroot base, it was a sobering performance.
WHAT DID WE LEARN?
In the first half of Obama’s trip we learned that Obama is desperate to get Iraqi leaders to agree with fixed timetable, but doesn’t think Iraq was worth saving or that America’s defeat was worth avoiding. (It is an odd formula which takes the Iraqis’ as gospel but places virtually no value on the goal of securing their country.) We saw that Obama loves photos and cameras, but just not when they might capture a tense or unplanned interaction with a foreign leaders. And we learned he thinks General Petraeus’ advice that a pre-fixed schedule for withdrawal can be ignored.
He did have accumulated lots of nice pictures and plenty of fawning U.S. media. And that was really the point of the whole venture, to create the aura — but not the reality — of competence and resolve.
Unfortunately, by refusing to concede what is now obvious — the surge saved America and Iraq from chaos and defeat — Obama may have only created more questions than he answered.
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My note: These campaigns keeps bordering between a comedy and a tear-jerker. What the American people are buying through wholesale spoon feeding just continues to amaze me.
Think the Press coverage isn’t a cheering section?
NBC News Refers to Obama’s Trip as ‘Tour of Duty’
please………
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And last but not least, the important news of the day is Dixie:
Dixie fell off the piano bench trying to get to our neighbors dog Saturday. Blood all over the kitchen floor, from where her nail split up in her paw, but fortunately I had the (yellow powder) clotting agent handy. Notice this always happens when vets are closed too.
Monday she was still limping which is unlike her, so I took her to the vets to get nail removed and antibiotics/pain med. She has been doing her best to get the bandage out by quietly licking it.
Dixie is a 3 1/2 year old 42.6 pound pug/chow mix
The Obama Iraq Documentary & Road Tour July 22, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government, Media , add a commentHey groupies!
Here is a documentary that will answer all those mean spirited right-wingers who are just trying to keep the man down because they are clinging to guns and God.
http://video.xanga.com/ProvokingThought/dcab8821744/video.html
Our Barack’s own words on his positions on Iraq- tell them to listen close!
When Barack talks people need to listen! Go Barack! Go Barack!
Whatever the Politics Demand WE WILL DO!
#2 Time Article
Is Time selling out to the great right wing conspiracy? Call Joe Wilson and have him blame George Bush again.
Obama’s Trip: Substance or Drive-By?
By ABIGAIL HAUSLOHNER / BAGHDADMon Jul 21, 5:00 PM ET
Barack Obama may be spending only 24 hours in Iraq, but his visit has been jam-packed with events designed to bring him up to speed on the war and to assuage any doubts among voters back home that he isn’t up to the job of Commander in Chief. His day in Iraq began with a visit to Basra - the Iraqi government’s proudest military conquest in recent months - and ended with a meet and greet for excited staff at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. After being greeted by General David Petraeus at Baghdad International Airport, Obama toured the capital via a Blackhawk helicopter with Petraeus and his two congressional traveling companions, Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Later, he visited wounded U.S. troops at a military hospital in Baghdad and held closed meetings with five of Iraq’s top political leaders - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, Vice Presidents Adil Abdul Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashemi and Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salah. In the evening, he met again with Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Consistent with the secrecy surrounding the Senator’s movements in Iraq throughout most of the day, U.S. embassy and military officials would not indicate - even vaguely - where Obama would be spending the night, for fear of attracting “incoming fire,” according to one top U.S. military official. On Tuesday, the Senator and his delegation are expected to travel outside of Baghdad before heading to Jordan, but the specific locations have not yet been announced, according to a U.S. military official.
While Obama’s trip has been getting saturation media coverage in the U.S., however, the Iraqi media has barely batted an eye. Obama’s visit got only a vague mention on the local TV networks’ afternoon news hours, and it failed to make the front page on any of Iraq’s top newspapers. Only in Al-Dustour did an article make reference to the visit, quoting Iraqi politician (and former Bush Administration favorite) Ahmad Chalabi as saying: “Obama wants to prove that he’s qualified enough to be Commander in Chief.”
Indeed, while many Iraqis say they like Obama, few are optimistic about the difference he can make for their country as a result of his one-day visit, or even as President. “They are all the same - Democrats and Republicans, their agenda is the same, and that is to exert American control all over the world,” says Nasir al-Saadi, a parliamentarian in the Sadrist movement, which is fiercely opposed to what it sees as the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In the central Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour, local Sunni community leaders - and political enemies of the Sadrists - say much of the same thing. “American policy does not depend on the President. When a new President comes up, he just continues the pre-set policy,” says Sunni Awakening leader Ahmed Bassam. Although Obama reportedly discussed the future of the U.S. troop presence in Iraq with Prime Minister Maliki, Bassam remains skeptical. “American policy for Iraq was probably set 20 years ago,” he says. “So I don’t think American forces are going to leave. But maybe small things will change. Obama said on TV that if he wins the election, he will designate $2 billion for Iraqi refugees outside Iraq.”
It is Obama’s second trip but the Iraq that he is seeing now presents a stark contrast to the Iraq he saw as part of a congressional fact-finding mission in 2006, when sectarian civil war had plunged the country into a pit of fear and despair. Iraq’s current position at a four-year low in violence could work for or against Obama. U.S. military commanders in Iraq attribute much of the calm to the success of a controversial yearlong U.S. troop surge that ended this month, which Obama opposed and McCain backed. At the same time, Obama may be able to use the reports of improved security that he is likely hearing firsthand to further bolster his calls for a 16-month troop drawdown.
Obama’s stance on Iraq may be crucial to his chances in the election. Earlier this month, an ABC-Washington Post poll found that 72% of the Americans surveyed believed that McCain would be a good Commander in Chief; only 48% thought Obama would be up to the job. McCain has stressed the need for a long-term U.S. troop presence in the country until it is stabilized, though it appears that the Republican’s position may now be shifting as well.
After a visit to Afghanistan this weekend, Obama said on Sunday that he wanted to focus U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the threat is higher. “I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job [in Afghanistan]. … We got distracted by Iraq,” he said. The question now is whether he’ll stick to that statement following his new drive-by assessment of Iraq.
“Breathtaking” July 16, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government , 3commentsObama ‘Completely Misunderstands the World’
There are many things I did not agree on about the way we managed this war in Iraq, but the one thing I do remember is that it was clearly stated it is better to take it to them than to have them bring it to us. And it has been over there and not on our streets.
We did not secure their borders allowing terrorists to invade Iraq-that is a good thing. Would we rather chase them through caves and tunnels or allow them to come to us, like ants drawn to food at a picnic?
Below are some other video links of the Gaffe Express:
Obama: Iraq Distracting From Other Threats
Obama Backtracks on ‘Undivided Jerusalem’ Ahead of Israel, West Bank Trip
And for good measure- equate law enforcement with terrorism
Obama: Communities ‘Terrorized by ICE Immigration Raids’
Senator Obama isn’t even waiting until he gets into office to complain that we are arresting illegal immigrants on unannounced raids and that they don’t make a fair wage. So much for the rule of law, and the idea that the president is to uphold the laws of the land.
No one cares if you know it is a scam July 16, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government , 1 comment so farUltra-Rich Cash in on Global Warming Hoax
By Alan Caruba
Recently I emailed a gentleman who is highly regarded, nationally and internationally, as one of the top strategic, military and economic long-range thinkers of our times. He is the author of several bestselling books about the way globalization is impacting the lives of the Earth’s population.
In addition to having read his books and magazine articles, I occasionally visit his blog to read what he is thinking about currently. I noticed that he was casually referencing “global warming” in a post, so I emailed to let him know that there is no scientific proof or basis for the endless global warming claims. I cited all the usual data that disputes it and I provided the URLs of several websites that could provide him with even more.
His response was quite revealing. “It doesn’t matter one way or the other. All the same fixes are required for sheer pollution reasons on a global scale given population increase and consumption increase. You’re arguing the past.” He would later post that, so far as the data debunking global warming, he was “beyond caring.”
As I interpret this, no matter how utterly false the justifications are for the global warming hoax given by Al Gore, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and others, leading to efforts to replace, slow or deter the use of energy sources such as coal, natural gas and oil, this particular influential intellectual was beyond caring because the world’s population was responsible for pollution and consuming too much of everything.
At this point global warming has made Al Gore a famous and wealthy man. He and the IPCC received a Nobel Peace Prize and Hollywood conferred an Oscar on the “documentary” that advances global warming lies. He now enjoys the lifestyle of the ultra-rich.
The “solutions” offered to stop a non-existent global warming include a Gore suggestion that “pollution” be taxed; that there must be a mandated reduction of all carbon dioxide emissions; the instituting of a bogus cap-and-trade credit system for all utilities, manufacturing, transportation, and other activities; biofuels, greater use of energy alternatives such as wind and solar; and ultimately, limits on how much energy people are permitted to use who drive cars, own homes, or run businesses of all kinds.
In California, for example, proposals and legislation has been put forth to eliminate the inclusion of fireplaces in the construction of new homes and that heat or cooling should be controlled by a central command that will monitor individual energy use and, without concern for the welfare of the individual user, determine the temperature of their living space. This is Big Brother writ large.
The federal government long ago imposed standards on how much mileage a car or truck must have for each gallon of gas consumed and has since mandated that each gallon must include the engine-destroying, energy-poor addition of ethanol. The ethanol mandate has created higher prices for food as corn and wheat supplies diminish.
This is the same government that has already banned the sale of incandescent light bulbs in the coming years. In time, it proposes to eliminate the use of all light bulbs except fluorescent ones that both consume less energy and give less light.
It is the same government contemplating declaring the thriving polar bear population “endangered” for the sole purpose of putting areas off limits that are believed to be rich in new oil reserves, not unlike the prohibition on extracting oil from ANWR.
Iti s the same government that has declared 85% of the nation’s continental shelf off-limits to any exploration, discovery, and extraction of our own oil and natural gas reserves.
Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
When the movers and shakers, the rich and powerful of our time get together in their meetings in Davos or wherever, have they secretly concluded that “pollution” and “consumption” by the Earth’s six billion people can only be reduced by reducing the world’s population? Do they see great profits in forcing us to only drive electric cars and the mandatory adoption of similar “green” technologies?
Serendipitously, the International Herald Tribune published an article by Andrew Ross Sorkin on March 20 titled, “At island retreat, Branson and friends seek to save a world ‘on fire’.” It was an astonishing revelation as it described a retreat hosted by Richard Branson, “the British magnate” among whose guests was Larry Page of Google, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now a senior advisor to J.P. Morgan Chase.
Richard Stromback, the chief executive of Ecology Coatings, “joked that a gathering like this might seem nefarious to some people.” The reporter noted that, “Many executives and financiers, including some in attendance at the retreat, have a lot of money riding on global warming.”
Look nefarious? Yes, it does. Some of the ultra-rich have a stake in the global warming hoax as a means to further enrich themselves.
If that means cloaking their opinion that the world’s population needs to be reduced by appearing concerned for the fate of the planet, than there is no better way of doing that than advancing the goals of the environmental movement.
This is why “strategic thinkers” looked away when the use of DDT was banned worldwide and millions, particularly in Africa, continue to needlessly die from malaria.
This is why “strategic thinkers” looked away when one of the world’s most extraordinary and affordable refrigerants and fire suppression chemicals, Freon, was banned from use worldwide with a bogus claim that “ozone holes” were destroying the atmosphere.
Note, too, that these bans, the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are instrumentalities of the United Nations. These fraudulent environmental issues benefit the ultra-rich whose financial interests transcend national borders.
Presently China, India, nor any of the nations around the world whose economies are responding to the growth in global trade and the improvement of living standards for their people are going to voluntarily accept such limitations.
China has apparently concluded that, if the tradeoff is air and water pollution, that is acceptable until they reach a point where costly technology can be installed to reduce the pollution. This is already an option that a wealthy nation like the United States has adopted.
Another case in point has been the utter failure of the signatories to the original Kyoto Protocol to limit CO2 emissions and subsequent negotiations to achieve an impossible reduction of carbon dioxide, a gas that constitutes a mere 0.038% of the Earth’s atmosphere.
I am still trying to understand why our government and others around the world are subsidizing “alternative energies” to the tune of billions for wind and solar power when neither is a reliable source of energy and, together, they produce such miniscule amounts of electricity as to be essentially worthless.
But my strategic thinker guru says, “You’re arguing the past.” No. I am arguing the future.
I am arguing about issues such as private property and the right to use it for personal gain and profit, the bedrock foundation of our economy, guaranteed in our Constitution. It is becoming a scare commodity as the U.S. government continues to declare vast areas as U.N. heritage sites, wildlife refuges, national parks, and other excuses to deny their use as sources of timber, coal, natural gas or oil.
I am arguing about the Green Revolution of genetically modified crops that can feed the vast population of the Earth without using more forested land. Despite this, supplies of corn and soy are being depleted for the purpose of burning these food sources as fuel. The nation’s supply of wheat has been depleted as acreage is diverted to grow these crops and the cheaper dollar underwrites increased exports.
What better way to reduce the world’s population than a manmade famine?
I am arguing against plans to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union to facilitate exports from China and Asia.
Meanwhile, the great engine of the world’s economy and the beacon of liberty to the world is being undermined by a fifth column of environmentalists and those who expect to benefit from their agenda.
Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.
© Alan Caruba, March 2008
Note: both of our Presidential candidates are down with the HUMAN INDUCED global warming scam. Our government does not give a FRA about you, the air, the environment or any of it. It is all about power and cash.
Live Offensively July 10, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Theology , 2commentsEver use props to teach? Last night I used the t shirt below. The purpose of the prop was to get people away from their fixed ideas of a familiar passage and mindset of passivity and get them to really think what God is trying to convey to us in a practical application.
If we listened to the world we would keep Christianity and our beliefs to ourselves and not let it interfere with our opinions and decision making processes. (Of course they are driven by their belief systems and ideologies and do not separate them for their decision making process.)
We have been commissioned by the King of King and the Lord of Lord to take our message out to people, so we are doing so with the very authority of God Himself. It is our right to share it.We have been given such great news we should never have to be on the defensive, but rather realize we have the message of life, we have what the world is searching for and not finding and we need to quit being sheepish or apologetic about sharing the message of life. If we are confident that we are sharing is the prescription the world needs for life, we will begin to understand what it means to truly live offensively.
Far to long we have just lived around “offensive Christians” who love to shove their moralistic ways and religion in peoples face as a way to show their superiority to others. They hate the sinner because they sin , yet have merely conformed to a religious group who hides sin and hides behind their religion. These are the same people, only with different props, that were in the temple in Jesus day, and “this same Jesus who is coming back again” is the same Jesus whose life and teachings interfered with their religion and their rackets. These are the same people who had a form of godliness but denied its power.
Christian’s role in the world is to be influencers of the world! Not to hide from it, or ignore it, or alienating them from us! We have to find a way to influence it (See Matt. 24:14; Rom. 10:18; Col. 1:6; 23; 2:20-23) without being influenced negatively by their sin and corruption ourselves ( See Matt. 6:19-24; 32; Luke 12:13-21; I John 2:15-17). We may not all be called to be Paul on Mars Hill, but he gives us the model of how we should share the news of life with those who cling to death.
Jesus warned us that the attitude the world will take offence to the things of God and attack us for following truth and righteousness, because they do not want to be reminded of their sin nor convicted of it, so they turn it around on us, as if we are in the wrong and they are merely exercising their freedom of the will (Matt. 5:10-12).
In teaching on Romans 12, which is a turning point in Romans, listen to what Paul is saying to us in the amplified version.
Romans 12: 1,2 (Amplified Bible)
“ I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].”
If one really studies how Paul is delivering this exhortation, it is not as a legalistic at all, but rather a straight-up direction on how to live the Christian life. Surrender all, don’t conform to the world, but be transformed, renew your mind and worldview, and you live your life unto the Lord, because He calls the shots now.
I have heard this preached from a legalistic viewpoint as a list of do’s and don’t and thought either God doesn’t want us to enjoy our life or the religious people want us to suffer and fail. But the good news is God is not a killjoy, but rather the author of joy. When I was studying this passage I began to see the correlation in between this and the teachings on sexuality purity until marriage, and in fact, the same thoughts ran through my mind, because the same precepts were transmitted wrong.
This call in Romans 12 correlates to the instruction Paul gives the Corinth church in that we serve God in the body, not in spirit alone, meaning it is not mere philosophy but action that accompanies the Christian life. Jesus came to live as a man in a body to defeat sin that occurs when we are living in the world in our bodies. Listen to the reality of recognizing our temptations in this verse:
Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. ( 1 Cor. 7 )
People married young because their burning desire for each other in biblical times was every bit as strong as it is today. Sexual urges and desires and immorality have been with us since the fall. God invented sexual relations and wants it to be all it can be and so commands us, if we can’t control ourselves, we should marry. His instructions, not mine.
When we understand this concept it is easier then to understand His exhortations in Romans 12 of how to live for him. He knows our desires to live religious enough, or try to be good enough to appease Him and the folly of that end. It is conforming to what man has done since the fall- believe he can actually appease God’s wrath. Paul is instructing us, don’t conform to this belief of the world and of religion, but rather, get into God’s Word, and have your mind transformed by it.
God is expressing His love for us in instructing us how to be joyous Christ followers and to avoid the pitfalls of religion. It is the worlds way of religion- mans attempt to appease God, that robs of us joy.