Apparently if you’re born to a Muslim father, a Jewish mother or an Athiest, you can’t change your faith, that’s the message delivered by Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham.
Franklin told CNN that President Obama:
Was “born a Muslim,” because Barack Obama’s father was a Muslim, “and the seed is passed through the father,”
Graham goes on to state:
“Of course, the president says he is a Christian, and we just have to accept it as that.” (more…)
Ben Quayle has a new campaign ad, and he starts with a very blunt statement. “Barack Obama is the worst president in history.”
Salon reports that Ben Quayle, the son of Dan Quayle, is running for John Shadegg’s open Arizona congressional seat, and that he is the right candidate for the job because he was “raised right.”
Quayle warns that his generation will “inherit a weak country” if we do not act now, and says that “drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in D.C.” have ruined America.
So what does Ben Quayle plan to do about all of this? Well, if given the chance, Quayle will go to congress and “kick the hell out of Washington.”
Here is Ben Quayle’s new campaign video.
Army Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin has been charged with disobeying orders and dereliction of duty after he allegedly refused to deploy to Afghanistan over his doubts about the authenticity of President Obama’s birth certificate. Lakin is scheduled for a court hearing Friday in Virginia to face the charges. The Army physician says he’ll plead not guilty because he believes the president has not proven he was born on U.S. soil, CNN reports.
Contrary to Larkin’s belief, the state of Hawaii says it has validated President Obama’s birth certificate, which has been made public (see photo of the certificate above). The certificate says the president was born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The birth certificate is further backed up by at least two published Hawaii newspaper announcements after Obama’s birth.
Hawaii’s Republican governor, Linda Lingle, has told news media that the state has confirmed President Obama was born at Honolulu’s Kapi’olani Hospital. Lingle has said that the president’s birth on U.S. soil in Hawaii is a fact. According to the Constitution, that makes him a natural-born citizen who was always eligible to be elected commander in chief.
Larkin’s views seem to put him outside the U.S. military mainstream and into the “birthers” camp of skeptics, political ideologues and conspiracy theorists. Larkin could be throwing away his decorated 18-year Army career by refusing orders to deploy overseas while his fellow soldiers ship off to the combat zone in Afghanistan.
In addition, Larkin’s refusal to obey orders, particularly as a higher ranking officer, has serious implications involving respect of military personnel for civilian control over the Department of Defense; refusing orders to deploy can fuel instability in the ranks, insubordination, affect morale, particularly of lower ranking troops, and create other problems with the chain of command which could have unforeseen outcomes and effects on the war and the nation that are greater than Larkin’s or other groups’ belief systems. For example, former Afghan war commander Stanley McChrystal badmouthed civilian authorities and was fired from his command after his comments were published in Rolling Stone magazine.
Loss of the House of Representatives to the Republicans is a distinct possibility, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. With every seat in the House of Representatives up for grabs, the national mood could well work to the Republican’s advantage. The New York Times reports as follows.
“President Barack Obama’s chief spokesman says it’s possible that Democrats could lose their majority in the House this fall.
“He says there’s no doubt that enough seats are in play for Republicans to take control. Gibbs says the outcome of the fall vote will depend on whether Democrats wage strong campaigns.”
The BP oil spill, a faltering economy and ongoing war in Afghanistan are factors that are increasingly working to the detriment of the Obama administration, as they would to any incumbent President of either party.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Votefromabroad.org reports that Democrats and Republican are each defending 18 seats in the Senate. More Republicans are retiring than Democrats, providing a counterbalance to anti incumbent sentiment.
There are 41 Republicans in the Senate and 57 Democrats. The 2 independent members of the Senate caucus with the Democrats. It would take a major political tsunami for the Republicans to take back the Senate. There are many voters who will exempt their state’s elected representatives from anger at the party to which they belong due to local “pork” and “pothole” considerations. Former US Senator Al D’Amato was proud to be called “Senator Pothole” a moniker that earned him enough Democratic support to earn him 3 terms in the US Senate.
Winning a midterm election could be a curse in disguise to the Republicans in 2012. An incumbent President facing a hostile Congress can always blame his failures on uncooperative leadership. This could easily cause a swing back to the Democrats in 2012.
A critical factor for voters to consider in voting for their Senators is that Senatorial elections are the closest that American voters ever get to choosing who sits on the Supreme Court. President Obama has nominated 2 members to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Most Senate observers believe that Elena Kagan is a shoo in for a seat on the Supreme Court. If any Obama Supreme court appointees swing an unpopular Supreme court decision, this could be used by Republican challengers to swing Senate races.
The 2010 elections will be a de facto referendum on national approval of the Obama administration. What will happen to Obama’s vision for America? Will it continue or will it be modified? Will he adapt to changing times as Clinton did so famously with welfare reform? Checks and balances are built into the American political system. Both political parties are keenly aware of that. How this will play out in the midterm elections will be seen in less than 4 months. What will happen to us in the meantime and what we make happen are the factors that will swing this potentially historic midterm election.
Lady Gaga has officially surpassed the President of the United States in fan outreach on Facebook, with the offbeat princess of pop coming in at 9,940,462 Facebook fans. Obama has fallen firmly behind with 9,444,942.
But the trend also spans social media platforms and continues on Twitter, where Gaga’s accumulated 4,762,938 followers and Obama, despite actually tweeting at least one message on the account himself, has only 4,422,923.
Fame Count, which tracks social networking statistics, says Gaga is set to be the first living person to ever reach 10 million Facebook fans. This would not only place her well ahead of President Obama, but ahead of young pop sensation Justin Bieber and the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson.
Gaga acknowledged the outpouring of online support with a video thanking her fans for “sticking by me through the fame and the fame monster”. She also added, “Become my friend on Facebook. I’ll never forget you.” [via Sify]
A politician is supposed to be able to tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the trip. A politician is supposed to keep smiling when a baby spits up in his face. It’s this little touch of finesse that yet again eluded our vice President, Joe Biden when he staged a photo op in a custard shop with a store manager who told him to pay for his freebie by lowering taxes. Most people would consider that a predictable comment, but not Joe Biden. He suggested that the store manager “Say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time.”
That’s what I like about Joe Biden. He keeps me listening. Whether it’s his “big ****ing deal comment or his drunken campaign speech, or his boast of Delaware being a slave state, Vice President Biden leaves us all with the serene sense of assurance that we are never more than a few days away from his next big ***ed gaffe. Some people keep you on the edge of your seat with charisma and sparkling wit. Biden keeps us waiting for his next big slip. In his own way, he has upstaged President Obama. From sea to shining sea, Americans in all 57 states look to our Vice President, who has found the best substitute for charisma that you could ever want. Thanks Joe.
President Obama is scheduled to speak to deliver a televised national address at 8 p.m. (ET) Tuesday regarding the latest in the BP oil spill disaster. Obama is also scheduled to visit Alabama, Mississippi and Florida prior to the address, CNN reports.
Obama will discuss the amount of oil that’s flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the strategy to contain the leak, reorganization of the Minerals Management Service in the Department of the Interior, and BP’s claims process.
The president will give his Tuesday night address the day before he’s scheduled to meet with officials from BP. Obama wants BP to set up an escrow account to pay claims, according to CNN.
For more on the latest estimates of the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf and the deployment of oil pressure sensors, click here.
They weren’t Tea Party activists. They were supporters of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats who felt that their community activist constituency had been used and discarded. Pelosi is seen on video, patiently calling for calm like a substitute teacher on Valium. Some of the angrier hecklers reportedly started throwing things at Pelosi. These are for the time being core supporters of Barack Obama. They are not right wing activists who can be demonized. If they decide that the Democrats and the Republicans are Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer, then that could spell big trouble for the Democrats in November.
Meanwhile, President Obama has essentially put BP in charge of the cleanup of the biggest (and getting bigger) oil spill in US history. If Bush did that, he would be roundly condemned for caving into big business. When Obama talks about “whose ass to kick” he sounds like a nun reading an action novel. His boasting in an interview. When he boasts of having been down to Louisiana “a month ago” Since the explosion that initiated the massive oil leak took place almost 7 weeks ago, Obama makes himself look sluggish in his response. He comes across as a man who can not distinguish appearance from substance.
There is nothing wrong with a social safety net to help America’s poor and its struggling citizens. But a healthy private sector is the engine of compassion. It is an engine that must be fine tuned and not overly burdened.
Obama and Pelosi are losing the moderate majority who believed in the soaring rhetoric of the campaign. They are also losing the radicals and the activists who felt that they were voting for a revolution.
With health care, the public is best served by helping private enterprise deliver it to the majority of citizens. With the Louisiana oil spill, the government should be firmly in charge. Right now, the Obama administration has done the exact opposite, gearing up to increase federal involvement in health care and letting BP run the disaster cleanup. In plain English, the Obama administration has everything bass ackwards. Making a cameo appearance for a few hours at the scene of a disaster is a triumph of appearance over substance. Enough already. Get serious
Ready to live in a small piece of history? Barack Obama’s New York City apartment went up for rent this week and for the mere cost of $1900 a month you can live in the dwelling.
A Predator drone crew working thousands of miles away from the battlefield at Creech Air Force near Las Vegas, Nevada, is partly to blame for the deaths of up to 23 civilians traveling in a convoy in Oruzgan province Afghanistan Feb. 21, according to a new U.S. military report which followed an investigation ordered by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in the Afghan war.
“Information that the convoy was anything other than an attacking force was ignored or downplayed (by the Predator crew),”
the report said. The investigation also showed the drone crew’s reporting was “inaccurate and unprofessional.”
The Predator crew reportedly tracked the civilian convoy for three-and-a-half hours, but failed to provide the ground commander with evidence or analysis that the vehicles were hostile and “deprived the ground commander of vital information,” according to The Los Angeles Times.
The investigation also faulted command posts in Afghanistan tasked with analyzing information provided by drone crews. The posts failed to provide correct insights, analysis or options to the ground commander, who ordered a helicopter airstrike which killed the civilians. Twelve more civilians were also reportedly wounded.
McChrystal is ordering a review of counterinsurgency training, The Los Angeles Times reports. Four high-ranking officers, including brigade and battalion commanders, are being reprimanded. Letters of admonishment are being handed to two lower-ranking officers.
How effective are letters of reprimand and admonishment actually going to be in preventing or minimizing future civilian deaths in Afghanistan? How many enemies of the United States were created in that one instant in which those 23 civilians were killed? Think about it. These newly created enemies are enemies we may well have until the end of human history. The drone crew and these officers may have failed, but we must also ask how much they’re being scapegoated, or set up under an illusion of punishment, because of a much, much larger problem and issue with everything going on in the world right now? For the nature of the Afghan war itself?
Should the U.S. be using drone aircraft the way it is using them? Should the U.S. be using drones at all? What is the meaning and what will the end be of our incredible technological advancement of drone warfare? What will the future be? Are we heading toward a great technological ladder to heaven that is nothing but a nightmare of robotic drones patrolling the Earth, murdering whoever they want, a “1984″-like boot on the face of humanity? Who, or what country, can be trusted with this power? Whose hands will it ultimately fall into? Imagine some of the dictators of the 20th century with their hands on this kind of technology.
The United Nations is reporting that NATO forces and the U.S.-backed Afghan military killed or wounded at least 596 civilians in 2009. Airstrikes accounted for 61 percent of those casualties. It’s difficult to say how much responsibility drones or their crews have for these civilian deaths. Taliban fighters and insurgents killed at least 1,630 civilians, according to the UN.
Nine years into the escalating war in Afghanistan, more and more civilians are being killed in the crossfire. Every civilian killed and wounded decreases any chance of “victory” or “winning” the war. Since the Gulf War, the U.S. has had an illusion of a kind of high-tech “clean” warfare that minimizes civilian deaths, but the reality of war is a very messy, brutal, lightning fast, ever-changing battlefield in which soldiers and officers make mistakes, misinterpret information. Civilians will be killed by both sides in any war. But now with the high-tech drones, crews who are thousands of miles away from the battlefield, who may have never set foot in the Middle East or ever been even close to combat, using aerial video feeds and digital pictures to interpret life and death information and analysis. These crews may have never seen in person or touched an Afghan person. Can these people sitting in air conditioned offices who may not have any direct experience in the Middle East or on the battlefield truly interpret the information they are seeing? Can they really tell who is an insurgent and who is a civilian?
Secret use of drones by the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) to kill insurgents (and likely sometimes civilians) in Pakistan is coming under increasing international scrutiny. UN official Philip Alston is planning to deliver a report June 3 on this issue to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to The New York Times. Alston argues the C.I.A. should not be using drones.
“With the Defense Department you’ve got maybe not perfect but quite abundant accountability as demonstrated by what happens when a bombing goes wrong in Afghanistan. The whole process that follows is very open. Whereas if the C.I.A. is doing it, by definition they are not going to answer questions, not provide any information, and not do any follow-up that we know about,”
Alston told The New York Times.
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