I guess now that Obama is elected it is ok for this information to be released. Even more ridiculous is that Good Morning America is going to give this unrepentant terrorist a platform.
In a new afterword to his 2001 book, Bill Ayers, former leader of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground, describes President-elect Barack Obama as a “family friend” and denies he wished his group had set off more bombs in the 1960s.
Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adds few new details about his relationship with Obama in the afterword to Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist. The book is being reissued this month.
“We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.
But right-wing commentators tried to use those connections to smear Obama, he says.
Stop The ACLU points this out. According to reports Iran tested some missiles near the Iraqi border. I must say I am a little skeptical especially with these pictures that seem to be edited. You be the judge:
An FBI informant helped agents uncover a visa fraud and gun smuggling scheme run by two Annandale men, one of whom told the informant he could sell him a missile that “can reach the Pentagon,” according to a sworn statement unsealed Monday.
The investigation started when the informant met with Amjad Hamed, a Jordanian native and legal U.S. resident since 1978, in Hamed’s Annandale home in April 2006, the affidavit said. Hamed reportedly asked the informant to obtain visas for six associates who wanted to immigrate to the U.S. from Jordan and the West Bank.
Hamed reportedly told the informant that three of the of the six passports and visas were for people who had been arrested by the Israeli government. Hamed added that he had been jailed in Israel three times. Months later, between May 2007 and June 2007, Hamed sold three firearms — a fully automatic AR-15 assault rifle and two handguns, one with a serial number scratched off — to the informant, the affidavit said.
In June 2007, the two met in an Annandale parking lot, where the informant asked about buying a missile. “When I say missile, it is with everything ... with the controls if you want you can reach the Pentagon,” the affidavit said Hamed responded. In August 2007, the informant met with Hamed’s cousin Ibrahim Hamed, a Jordanian immigrant living legally in the U.S. since 1989. Ibrahim has been charged with transporting a firearm with an obliterated serial number across state lines. Amjad has been charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud.
Gregory Stambough, Ibrahim Hamed’s attorney, said the affidavit was “overblown” and “is not really reflective of the events as they actually took place.” Amjad Hamed’s attorney did not return calls Tuesday. Both men are being held without bail.
A left-leaning San Francisco radio host who doubles as a columnist for the Huffington Post has been dismissed from his broadcast job for an expletive-laden, on-air diatribe in which he called for the death of "Joe the Plumber."
On his own website, Charles Raymond Bouley Jr., more popularly known as Karel, confirmed he was fired from his weekend KGO radio show for the rant, which happened when he thought he was off the air.
"With a two-minute phone call and one-paragraph letter I have been fired from KGO. I'm told the engineer that made the mistake has been as well," he wrote.
The target of Bouley's venom was Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who became known during the presidential campaign as Joe the Plumber after his videotaped exchange with Barack Obama. Wurzelbacher's objection to Obama's desire to "spread the wealth," calling it socialism, became a major theme for the McCain campaign in its final weeks.
Alaska holds enough recoverable natural gas trapped in ice to heat more than 100m homes for 10 years, according to the first government assessment of a resource expected to become increasingly important as the world outlook for oil supplies dims.
The US Geological Survey found that the US state holds 85,400bn cubic feet of natural gas recoverable with today’s technology. As the industry continues to invent new technologies to access further natural gas hydrates, that number could rise significantly.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday named an Islamic charity as a group aiding Hamas militants in the Middle East and prohibited Americans from dealing with the Union of Good organization.
The Union of Good helps funnel money to Islamist fighters in the West Bank and Gaza, the Treasury Department said, adding that the government will seize any funds in the United States controlled by the charity.
"Terrorist groups such as Hamas continue to exploit charities to radicalize vulnerable communities and cultivate support for their violent activities," Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levy, said in a statement.
Hamas, which seized Gaza last year after routing the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is pushing for an independent Palestinian state.
Reconciliation talks between Abbas and the political wing of Hamas collapsed last week, with a key dispute over when to hold an election.
The FBI has arrested Tarek Mehanna and charged him with lying in an affidavit about his relationship to Daniel J. Maldonado, "a former Methuen resident who was suspected of training at an Al Qaeda terrorist camp to overthrow the Somali government." Maldonado pled guilty to receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization and is currently serving time in a U.S. federal prison.
The FBI picked up Mehanna, a U.S. citizen, as he was boarding a plane to "start a new job overseas," the Boston Globe reported.
Mehanna's family and lawyer claim he is innocent of the charges, but the FBI recorded Mehanna's phone call in which he admitted to lying to the FBI. Mehanna's lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., dismissed Mehanna's activities as small-time. "If this is the FBI's idea of a terrorist, they are using a net that is designed to catch minnows instead of sharks," he told the Globe.
Thanks to Newsbusters for this. Obama had on the new change.gov website that he would require community service of all middle school, high school and college students. SEE HERE
Well it looks like Rahm Emanuel agrees.
TRANSCRIPT:
SMITH: I meant to ask you about the universal service piece of the plan. Can you tell me about it? Like, how is this going to work? Are people going to live in barracks?
EMANUEL: Universal Civil Defense Training…I think he had it at 18, but we were saying somewhere between the ages of 18 and 25, you will do three months of training. You can do it in your(inaudible). Some point in college you can do just that. There can be nothing wrong with all Americans having a joint similar experience of civil ...what we call civil defense training or civil service...some sense of service to country in preparation, which will give people a sense of what it means to be an American. We propose three months. At the end of the day someone says it should be four more. I’m not going to sit here and hold it up.
SMITH: I mean it's a lot more than the U.S. government asks of anybody right now.
EMANUEL: Guess what? We have a lot more challenges, so we are going to need a lot to do it.
SMITH: I mean I don't mean to get hung up on the aesthetics of it, but like uniforms...is it like Europe...people go absent
EMANUEL: If you're worried about going to have to do 50 jumping jacks, the answer is "yes."
SMITH: Are you kinda shifting the "country-esque" Army bases in the Summers? I mean... I wonder how it's going work. This is people's experiences. It's so abstract. Do you go nine to five in some course in a Red Cross building?
EMANUEL: The whole idea there is it will be worked on you can do it through your State-National guard could be the vehicle for that. The goal here (inaudible) to work on piece of legislation for ya' and all that, but that's one venue of doing it.
I bet most of the media chooses to ignore this.
UPDATE:The Real Barack Obama asks a good question. Is Obama’s plan for America really Rahm’s “The Plan”? Anything sound familiar?
Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, has decided to run for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee and is in talks with Newt Gingrich to win the former House speaker's endorsement, FOX News learned Tuesday.
Steele declined to comment, but a source close to the situation said Steele would announce his candidacy as early as Thursday.
The source also contradicted a report in Tuesday's Washington Times that Steele and Gingrich were competing for the RNC post.
"There is no fight," the source said. "This tension between Michael Steele and Newt Gingrich is totally fabricated and, in fact, Gingrich and Steele are working together to create a new strategy for the direction of the GOP."
In a statement issued by the former House speaker, Gingrich said he was not interested in seeking the post of Republican Party chairman.
"A number of people have asked me to consider running for Republican National Committee chair. They have been very flattering, and I am very honored by their support," he said.
"However, my job as an American first is to develop a tri-partisan approach to developing solutions for the challenges we face. I use the word tri-partisan to designate the concept of attracting Democrats, Republicans, and independents to solutions that unify most Americans."
Meanwhile, Steele is said to be hoping that his entry into the race will scare off other hopefuls, including current RNC chairman Mike Duncan.
Others vying for the post include Chip Saltsman, who chaired Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign.
As for the recent election of U.S. President Barack Obama to the White House, Nasrallah called on people not to "exaggerate their hopes, so that no one might be later disappointed.' He called on people to "wait and see."
"Our Arab and African world might sympathize with Obama due to his past and color. However, no one must over exaggerate their hopes to be later disappointed." He explained.
"America is governed by interests and strategies. It would be illogical to bet on a tyrant to change. You must rather work to be strong." Nasrallah said.
Even though there is evidence that he accepted foreign funds. SEE HERE
The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul.
Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend.
Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.
McCain, on the other hand, accepted the $84 million in taxpayer money, which not only barred him from raising or spending more – allowing Obama to fund many times more ads and ground operations – but also will keep his lawyers busy for a couple years explaining how every penny was spent.
Minnesota is becoming to 2008 politics what Florida was in 2000 or Washington State in 2004 -- a real mess. The outcome will determine whether Democrats get 58 members of the U.S. Senate, giving them an effective filibuster-proof vote on many issues.
When voters woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday night, it was down to 336. By Friday, it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 -- a total change over 4 days of 504 votes.
Amazingly, this all has occurred even though there hasn’t even yet been a recount. Just local election officials correcting claimed typos in how the numbers were reported. Counties will certify their results today, and their final results will be sent to the secretary of state by Friday. The actual recount won’t even start until November 19.
Correcting these typos was claimed to add 435 votes to Franken and take 69 votes from Coleman. Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate. The Senate gains for Franken were 2.5 times the gain for Obama in the presidential race count, 2.9 times the total gain that Democrats got across all Minnesota congressional races, and 5 times the net loss that Democrats suffered for all state House races.
Virtually all of Franken’s new votes came from just three out of 4130 precincts, and almost half the gain (246 votes) occurred in one precinct -- Two Harbors, a small town north of Duluth along Lake Superior -- a heavily Democratic precinct where Obama received 64 percent of the vote. None of the other races had any changes in their vote totals in that precinct.
To put this change in perspective, that single precinct’s corrections accounted for a significantly larger net swing in votes between the parties than occurred for all the precincts in the entire state for the presidential, congressional, or state house races.
BUSH ANGER: OBAMA AIDES LEAK CHAT DETAILS Tue Nov 11 2008 09:28:10 ET
Just hours after President Bush and President-elect Obama met in the Oval Office of the White House, details of their confidential conversation began leaking out to the press, igniting anger from the president, sources claim.
"Senator Obama would be wise to keep close counsel," a top Bush source warned.
"BUSH AND OBAMA AT ODDS OVER AID FOR AUTO INDUSTRY," splashed the NEW YORK TIMES in an exclusive Monday evening, quoting "people familiar with the discussion."
The two met at the White House in private, without staff.
"Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Obama and congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia," claimed the TIMES.
MORE
The ASSOCIATED PRESS quickly followed with details of the conversation, citing "aides who described the discussion on grounds of anonymity, citing the private nature of the meeting."
Bush advisers view the leaks as an effort to undermine the president's remaining days in office.
"Senator Obama may not be familiar with a long-standing tradition of presidents holding their private conversations, private," a senior adviser explained to the DRUDGE REPORT.
Even as the company was pleading the federal government for another $40 billion dollars in loans, AIG sent top executives to a secret gathering at a luxury resort in Phoenix last week.
Reporters for abc15.com (KNXV) caught the AIG executives on hidden cameras poolside and leaving the spa at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort, despite apparent efforts by the company to disguise its involvement.
"AIG made significant efforts to disguise the conference, making sure there were no AIG logos or signs anywhere on the property," KNXV reported.
A hotel employee told KNXV reporter Josh Bernstein, "We can't even say the word [AIG]."
A company spokesperson, Nick Ashooh, confirmed AIG instructed the hotel to make sure there were no AIG signs or mention of the company by staff.
"We're trying to avoid confrontation, keep our profile low," said Ashooh. "Some of our employees have been harassed."
Things are really going to be a mess under Obama. Does he really think the same Iran that chants "Death to America" is going to help us in Afghanistan? What a joke.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama plans to try a more regional approach to the war in Afghanistan including possible talks with Iran, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing national security advisers to Obama.
The president-elect also intends to move ahead with a planned deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan and refocus on the hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the newspaper reported.
However, the Obama team is far from working out how to bring bin Laden back to the forefront of the U.S. counter-terrorism agenda, The Washington Post reported.
[...]
Iran, on Afghanistan's western border, has been kept at arm's length by the Bush administration, but should be considered in formulating a new Afghanistan strategy, a senior U.S. military official was cited as saying.
"As we look to the future, it would be helpful to have an interlocutor" to explore shared objectives, the official told the newspaper. The Iranians "don't want Sunni extremists in charge of Afghanistan any more than we do," the official said.
Hamas political adviser Ahmad Yousef claimed on Tuesday morning that prior to the US general elections, a secret meeting was held between officials from the group and President-elect Barack Obama's advisers in the Gaza Strip.
"We are maintaining contact with them", said Yousef who disclosed no further information as to the nature of the meeting.
In an interview with the London-based Al Hayat newspaper, Yousef reportedly said that contact between Hamas and Obama's advisers was first established over the Internet.
The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the report.
"We first made contact on the Internet and then met with some of them here in the Gaza Strip. They advised us not to reveal this information lest it influence the elections or become manipulated by [Republican candidate John] McCain's campaign".
Yousef added that he personally had friendly relations with a few of Obama's advisers whom he had met when he lived in the US.
"Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh will draft a congratulatory letter to Obama for his victory in the elections," added Yousef.
The office of the president-elect could not be reached for comment on the report due to the time difference between Israel and the US.
WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.
"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."
Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."
Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy."
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force.
Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.
"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."
Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks.
On Sunday, November 9, 2008 Michigan liberals sat peacefully through announcements, worship and prayer for the sick, our nation and our President-elect before staging a coordinated, disgusting and repulsive attack on worshipers and the broader concept of the church itself at Lansing's Mount Hope Church.
The lefties were a part of a liberal organization known as Bash Back Lansing and their collection of radical blogs, including one of the state's most widely read "mainstream" progressive blogs (and none which will receive a link on this website) called on "queers and trannies" from across the state and the region to converge on Lansing for what they refer to as an "action."
...over 30 of them showed up in force yesterday. Wearing secret-service style ear pieces and microphones they received the "go" from their ringleader and off they went.
...Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony. "Jesus was gay," they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss.
Their other props? I'll let them tell you in their own words... from another of their liberal blogs:
"(A) video camera, a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric...yeh."
WASHINGTON – President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.
During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.
Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.
A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.
The move would be a sharp deviation from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. Obama's Republican challenger, John McCain, had also pledged to close Guantanamo. But McCain opposed criminal trials, saying the Bush administration's tribunals should continue on U.S. soil.
The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But it is almost certain to face opposition from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. and from Democrats who oppose creating a new court system with fewer rights for detainees.
What great news. Obama sends Rober Malley to Syria for talks. Malley is as anti-Israel as they come. SEE HERE
WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Presidential-elect Barack Obama has promised to improve U.S. relations with Egypt and Syria. Aides said Obama had sent senior foreign policy adviser Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria over the last few weeks to outline the Democratic candidate's policy on the Middle East. The aides said Malley, who served in the administration of President Bill Clinton, relayed a pledge from Obama that the United States would seek to enhance relations with Cairo as well as reconcile with Damascus. "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests," an aide said.
Plans are being made to promote a national holiday for Barack Obama, who will become the nation’s 44th president when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.
“Yes We Can” planning rallies will be at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the downtown McDonald’s restaurant, 1100 Kansas Ave., until Jan. 13. The goals are to secure a national holiday in Obama’s honor, to organize celebrations around his inauguration and to celebrate the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12 1809.
At 7:30 a.m. on Inauguration Day, Obama Cake will be served at the downtown McDonald’s, and a celebration is scheduled for 8 p.m. to midnight Jan. 20 at the Ramada Hotel and Convention Center, 420 S.E. 6th.
Wow! I wonder what the president elect thinks about this?
LONDON (Reuters) - The international financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say in a keynote foreign policy speech on Monday.
In his annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Brown -- who has spearheaded calls for the reform of international financial institutions -- will say Britain, the United States and Europe are key to forging a new world order.
"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order," an excerpt from the speech says.
Brown and other leaders meet in Washington next weekend to discuss longer term solutions for dealing with economic issues following a series of coordinated moves on interest rates and to recapitalize banks in the wake of the financial crisis.
"Uniquely in this global age, it is now in our power to come together so that 2008 is remembered not just for the failure of a financial crash that engulfed the world but for the resilience and optimism with which we faced the storm, endured it and prevailed," Brown will say in his speech on Monday evening.
"...And if we learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, we can together seize this moment of change in our world to create a truly global society."
According to a summary of the speech released by his office, Brown will set out five great challenges the world faces.
These are: terrorism and extremism and the need to reassert faith in democracy; the global economy; climate change; conflict and mechanisms for rebuilding states after conflict; and meeting goals on tackling poverty and disease.
Brown will also identify five stages for tackling the economy, starting with recapitalizing banks so they can resume lending to families and businesses, and better international co-ordination of fiscal and monetary policy.
He also wants immediate action to stop the spread of the financial crisis to middle-income countries, with a new facility for the International Monetary Fund, and agreement on a global trade deal, as well as reform of the global financial system.
"My message is that we must be: internationalist not protectionist; interventionist not neutral; progressive not reactive; and forward looking not frozen by events. We can seize the moment and in doing so build a truly global society."
