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One of Barack Obama's senior foreign policy advisers has said the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is the biggest threat facing the world. In an interview with the Financial Times, Anthony Lake, a former US national security adviser now working with Obama, said: "I believe that the most dangerous crisis we are going to face in the next three to 10 years is if the Iranians get on the edge of developing a nuclear weapon." Obama and his advisers, such as Lake, have stressed the Democratic candidate's readiness to sit down with Iranian leaders without conditions. In the interview, Lake...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who previously said the issue of gay marriage should be left up to each state, has announced his opposition to a California ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriages. In a letter to Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club read Sunday at the group's annual Pride Breakfast in San Francisco, the Illinois senator said he supports extending "fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law." "And that is why I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution...

WASHINGTON — Politically speaking, Susan Speakman is a different kind of evangelical. Mrs. Speakman, 59, a pastor and educator at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Bridgeville, Pa., an activist evangelical church southwest of Pittsburgh, backs Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race. Along with her 23-year-old son, Stephen, she supports Mr. Obama because of his stands on the Iraq war and matters of social justice. The two of them plan to spread the word in their community and beyond. “What caught my attention early on was his comment that we don’t want red states and blue states, but we want to...

FINDLAY, Ohio - On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 -- best vacation of his life -- and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room.

"I want you to think about this," Barack Obama said in Las Vegas last week. "The oil companies have already been given 68 million acres of federal land, both onshore and offshore, to drill. They're allowed to drill it, and yet they haven't touched it – 68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production." Wow, how come the oil companies didn't think of that? Perhaps because the notion is obviously false – at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works. Predictably, however, Mr. Obama's claim is also the mantra...

Return to the Article June 30, 2008Obama's Callous IndifferenceBy Peter Kirsanow Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen declares that Barack Obama is " 'likable enough' -- in fact, so much so that he is the most charismatic presidential candidate I have seen since Robert F.Kennedy." Well, even though I've  never spoken with Obama, I don't like him very much  (I did testify with him [and a few others] once about a bill he'd sponsored on voter intimidation, but at the time he didn't impress me as unlikable, just a little intellectually lazy) . This hasn't always been the case.  Until...

FINDLAY, Ohio - On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 -- best vacation of his life -- and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room. He believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Retired US General Wesley Clark on Sunday said Republican White House hopeful John McCain lacked executive experience to be president, in rare criticism of the Vietnam veteran's military service. Clark told CBS television that McCain was a hero for enduring years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam "but he hasn't held executive responsibility. "That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded -- that wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been there and ordered the bombs to fall." Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander, said McCain's combat experience as a fighter pilot did not make him...

It was, of course, inevitable. How could any politician rise so quickly on the legendarily corrupt Chicago political scene and be as pure as Obama's devoted followers were purporting him to be? The question in the minds of skeptics was, "Who sent you?" Well now we're beginning to find out and it ain't pretty. In a lengthy, and amazingly frank, Boston Globe article depicting the dismal results of Chicago's attempt to develop and manage low income housing through private developers, we see that the candidate of change is nothing more than another Chicago machine-generated pol with his feet firmly mired...

In defiance of traditional party labels, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, may ask the defence secretary of President George W Bush to stay on if he wins the White House. Obama’s top foreign policy and national security advisers are pressing the case for keeping Robert Gates at the Pentagon after he won widespread praise for his performance. The move would be in keeping with Obama’s desire to appoint a cabinet of all the talents. After appealing for unity with former rival Hillary Clinton and her supporters and big donors last week, Obama, 46, is turning his attention to wooing...

"For Odinga it was a PR triumph of the first order. The rock star’s glitter rubbed off on his putative cousin by the bucket. Nor did Obama limit his role to boosting Odinga’s image. The senator also criticized the incumbent Kenyan president. Mike Flannery, political editor for CBS2 in Nairobi, reported that Obama had accused the Kibaki government (Odinga’s opponent) of corruption “almost every day since he arrived.” The political temperature grew hotter than the Nairobi summer. Dr. Alfred Matua, a government spokesman, accused Odinga of “using Obama as his stooge, as his puppet.” Matua added, “Sen. Obama has to...

"At the University of Nairobi two hours later, the senator offered more pointed criticism, something he's done almost every day since arriving last week. After remaining largely silent, the government of President Mwai Kibaki is beginning to respond, suggesting that Obama may have fallen under the spell of opposition leader Raila Odinga. A potential presidential candidate himself, Odinga's been at Obama's elbow here fairly often and is a member of the Obama family's Luo tribe. "Sen. Obama has to look at critically about where he's receiving his advice from," said government spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua. "Just because somebody, somewhere wants...

According to Sen. Barack Obama, there is a relatively painless solution to the terrorism problem America faces today: going back to the anti-terrorism tactics of the Clinton years. "It is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told ABC News last week. "And you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo [Bay]. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks, for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were...

While Sen. Barack Obama struggles to keep the public in the dark about the nature of his pro-UN Global Poverty Act, a recent "Bay Area Interfaith Leaders' Luncheon" was held to lobby for Senate passage of the bill, whose cost has been estimated at $845 billion. An actual witch who spoke at a "Pagan Pride" festival in San Francisco was one of the listed participants. The witch, known as the "Elder Donald Frew" of the "Wiccan Community," was interviewed by the Reverend Don Lewis of "Witch School International" for a "reality" show called "Magick TV" and is shown talking about...

In Democratic primaries this year the overwhelming majority of Muslim Americans voted for a man who has, throughout the campaign, vigorously knocked down rumors that he is a Muslim. But support for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., during the primaries doesn't mean the Democrat has a free pass from the Muslim American community. Last week's incident at an Obama rally in Michigan put some added strain on Obama's support in the Muslim American community. A campaign volunteer reportedly barred two Muslim American women from appearing in camera-range behind Obama's podium after they refused the campaign representative's request to remove their headscarves....

1. Barack Obama’s foreign policy is dangerous, naïve, and betrays a profound misreading of history. For at least the past five years, Democrats and liberals have said our standing in the international community has suffered from a “cowboy” or “go-it-alone” foreign policy. While politicians with favorable views of our president have been elected in Germany, Italy, France, and elsewhere, Barack Obama is giving cause to make our allies even more nervous. This past Sunday’s Washington Post reported, “European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without...

In the news lately we've been bombarded with images of Michelle Obama while commentators compare her wardrobe to that of beloved first lady and fashion icon Jacqueline Kennedy. Yesterday Barack Obama appeared in a TV spot before Lifetime's hit show "Army Wives," remarking eloquently on the difficulties that spouses of servicemen and servicewomen face daily. This week on NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" viewers were subjected to political parody band Detroit Octane growling their version of "Barack Obama-sistible" while wearing T-shirts and trucker hats bearing his image. It's practically impossible to channel surf without seeing his face at least...

In an ABC interview on Monday, Sen. Barack Obama urged us to go back to the era of criminal-justice prosecution of terror suspects, citing the successful efforts to imprison those who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. It was key to his attack on the Bush adminstration, which he charged, has "been willing to skirt basic protections that are in our Constitution . . . It is my firm belief that we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. . . "In previous terrorist attacks -...

Obama offers change Kim Jong-Il can believe in North Korea prefers Democratic candidate Barack Obama over Republican John McCain, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan said. The communist country, which has survived a relatively hawkish Bush administration, considers McCain "a variant of Bush" and "nothing better than a scarecrow of neoconservatives," according to the Choson Sinbo, a newspaper run by ethnic Koreans in Japan. The organization of Koreans, called Chongryon, has served as Pyongyang's de facto embassy in Japan, which has no diplomatic ties with North Korea.

Will the Obama people stop at nothing? Don't they have any deciency? When I was watching Fox TV at 6:05 pm and BHO was having the meeting with the Governors, I noticed the seal in front of him. I told my husband, "That looks like the Presidential Seal". Sure enough the Fox reporters discussed it and showed how it looked the same, but with BHO's name on it. He thinks he is the President of the United States already. Someone has to put a stop to this seal that he uses. He has no respect for the President of the...

Justice: Does Barack Obama think Osama bin Laden has a right to an attorney and should be read his Miranda rights if captured? As shocking as this is, it's in the proud tradition of his party.In an interview with ABC News on Monday, Obama indicated that, like President Bill Clinton in 1993 after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, he too would treat the war on terror as a law enforcement matter. In defense of the recent Boumediene decision giving habeas corpus rights to enemy combatants, the Democrats' 2008 standard bearer said it was his "firm belief that...

Election '08: In just days, Obama has changed his mind on Iraq, reversed course on campaign finance, volte-faced on NAFTA and backtracked on Social Security. So what does the candidate of change really believe?On Thursday, Barack Obama declared he'd forego public finance for his presidential campaign, going back on a public pledge to Common Cause to do the opposite. Instead of admitting he'd be more likely to win with private finance, he blamed Republicans. "We face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system," he claimed. Never mind that the bridge-builder had assured rival John McCain's camp that he'd...

Following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Libyan Leader Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi marking the anniversary of the U.S. air raid on Libya. The address aired on Al-Jazeera TV on June 11, 2008: Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi: It has been proven that there is no democracy in [the U.S.]. Rather, it is a dictatorship no different than the dictatorships of Hitler, Napoleon, Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and the rest of the tyrants. In the days of crazy Reagan, the American president issued a presidential order to launch a war against Libya, for example, a presidential order to besiege Libya, a...

When Barack Obama told a Pennsylvania audience this past weekend that "We can't drill our way out of this," he was repeating the same line that Nancy Pelosi used days earlier and that Harry Reid used on Wednesday. The Big Three Democrats are thus all agreed that their party has given up on bringing down the cost of oil and thus the cost of gas at the pump. Because demand for oil isn't going to drop due to growth around the globe, the only way to bring the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump down is to...

By this point in the presidential campaign, the public knows that a charismatic Barack Obama wants sweeping "change." While the national media have often fallen hard for the Illinois senator's rhetoric -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews said he felt a "thrill going up my leg" during an Obama speech -- exactly what kind of change can Obama bring if he's elected in November? FOREIGN POLICY Take Obama's foreign-policy pronouncements, which promise a break with the unhappy past. Two doctrines are most prominent. One is to engage our enemies and be nicer to our allies. The other calls for leaving Iraq on...

Request comes after two Muslims kept from campaign photo op over hijab WASHINGTON, June 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today urged Sen. Barack Obama to invite two Muslim women, who were barred from sitting behind the podium at a Michigan rally, to an upcoming campaign event. Media reports indicate the women were kept from the podium area because campaign volunteers did not want the candidate associated with the women's Islamic scarves, or hijabs. Campaign officials later apologized to the women. SEE: Muslims Barred from Picture at Obama Event (Politico.com) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11168.html SEE ALSO: Obama Campaign Apologizes for...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today urged Sen. Barack Obama to invite two Muslim women, who were barred from sitting behind the podium at a Michigan rally, to an upcoming campaign event. Media reports indicate the women were kept from the podium area because campaign volunteers did not want the candidate associated with the women's Islamic scarves, or hijabs. Campaign officials later apologized to the women.SEE: Muslims Barred from Picture at Obama Event (Politico.com)SEE ALSO: Obama Campaign Apologizes for Excluding Women in Hijab (Detroit News) SEE ALSO: Head Scarves Led to Decision; Democrat's Campaign Apologizes (Detroit Free Press) "We...

Election '08: The word is that Barack Obama is a mainstream politician who sometimes attracts fringe leftists. The record tells a different story — that he has sought out radicals. What does that say of his agenda?It's natural to be skeptical of excessive claims about Obama's radical associations. After all, there are so many. But one bears attention — because it helped him get his start in politics. In 1996, he won an Illinois state senate seat on a "fusion" ticket of the Democratic Party and leftist group called the "New Party." The New Party, founded in 1992 with 7,000...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be allowed to appeal his case to U.S. civilian courts, a privilege opposed by John McCain. Responding to questions from The Examiner, Sen. John Kerry and former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said bin Laden would benefit from last week's Supreme Court decision giving terrorism suspects habeas corpus, the right to appeal their military detention to civilian courts. “If he were to be brought back,” Clarke said of bin Laden, “the Supreme Court ruling holds on the right of habeas corpus.”...

Two weeks before the seventh anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001--the worst attacks on American soil in the nation's history--the Democratic Party, barring a last-minute upset, will formally pick a Presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama II, whose Kenyan cousin covertly supports Al Qaeda. Raila Odinga, Kenya's current prime minister and opposition leader made a huge fortune during his stint as energy minister by dealing with incredibly rich, Islamist-funding Saudis and Libya's deranged dictator, the terrorist sponsor Muammar Khadaffy. More recently, Odinga promised his country's Al Qaeda-associated Islamists that he would impose Islamic law on all Kenyans,...

Barack Obama said Thursday at a fundraiser in Chicago that the GOP is trying to make him and his wife Michelle appear "scary" and "too black." "They’re going to try to make me into a scary guy. They’re even trying to make Michelle into a scary person. Right?" Obama said at an event in the Hyde Park area, according to CNN. Obama said Republicans were trying to start a drumbeat questioning Obama's patriotism and whether he is "too black." "I don’t know, before I wasn’t black enough," Obama said. The Illinois senator then suggested Republicans might say, "'now he might...

And so mercifully, and at long last, the most improbable part of memory's strangest electoral year ends, not with a self-pitying whimper, but with at least a semblance of dignity.-- snip --...American blacks' unchallenged status within the Democrat coalition as most cosseted and critical voter bloc meant there was no chance Party grey beards would overrule an even slight Obama lead in pledged delegates. Long ago they had decided it would be better to gamble with electoral defeat than to fracture and enfeeble their political coalition.

Jim Geraghty takes a look at longstanding blog buzz over Barack Obama’s birth certificate, which the campaign refused to release to the St. Petersburg Times in April: We tried to obtain a copy of Obama’s birth certificate, but his campaign would not release it and the state of Hawaii does not make such records public. Has anyone seen it? Why shouldn’t the record be in the public domain for presidential candidates? Geraghty walks through various rumors now circulating in the wake of the Obama campaign’s birth certificate blackout, including this one: Rumor Three: His mother did not want to name...

We now are down to two presidential candidates. One went to the Ivy League and Harvard Law School as a young man. The other spent years of his youth in a Vietnam Prisoner of War camp and suffered lifelong injuries. Guess which one whines more about his hardships? Barack Obama is many things — a senator, a gifted orator, and a charismatic figure. But he’s also a whiner.

Ever since Barack Obama chose former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson to vet potential vice presidential choices, critics have questioned Johnson’s ties to Countrywide Financial Corporation, a mortgage lender that gave Johnson millions in below-market loans. The Obama campaign issued a vehement statement Monday calling questions about Johnson’s loans “overblown and irrelevant.” Obama’s GOP opposition, however, is showing no tolerance for Johnson’s role in Obama’s campaign and is eagerly tying the scandal to Obama’s disgraced landlord friend, Tony Rezko. While Obama was kicking off a two-week battleground state economy tour in Raleigh, North Carolina on Monday, the Republican National Committee...

Now that Senator Barack Obama has become the Democrats' nominee for President of the United States, to the cheers of the media at home and abroad, he has written a letter to the Secretary of Defense, in a tone as if he is already President, addressing one of his subordinates. The letter ends: "I look forward to your swift response." With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a Secretary of Defense might have some other things to look after, before making a "swift response" to a political candidate. Because of the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among...

At the official Barack Obama campaign web site: a blog supporting convicted murderers Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier: Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Christopher Groden’s Blog

Well, it looks like the Catholic Church in Chicago has lost whatever balls it found when it temporarily suspended Pfoaming-at-the-mouth preacher of hate Michael Pfleger for his racially poisoned sermon a few weeks ago. Because he’s baaaack. Again. The Chicago Trib reports that Obama’s longtime friend and earmark recipient will return to St. Sabina on June 16 after being placed on leave to “reflect” on his politicking from the pulpit. Question: Which Pfleger will come back and reassume his leadership position in the Catholic Church? The Hillary-mimicking, Vanilla Ice-prancing, Jeremiah Wright-impersonating reverend who has attracted a cult of supporters over...

An Obama supporter belonging to a group called "Socialists for Obama" posted a long piece on "The Jewish Lobby" right on Obama's presidential campaign website. To say that what this "Socialist for Obama" writes is anti-Semitic, hateful, inaccurate, insulting, idiotic, paranoid tripe is a given. But when you realize this is on Obama's website, you really have to start wondering about not just the candidate, but people's whose job it is to vet the site and make sure excrement like this doesn't appear. The fact that it is still there could mean that Obama campaign workers agree with what's written....

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Mishal Al-Johar’s Blog: How Barack Obama Learned to Love Israel Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Socialists for Obama: An open letter to our next president Barack Obama Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Marxists/Socialists/Communists for Obama Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | ZIONISM IS THE MAIN CAUSE OF ANTISEMITISM Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | The People of Palestine...

CBNNews.com - The primary race is officially over but neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton are taking a break. Today the two spoke at a Washington conference sponsored by American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israel lobby. Both candidates affirmed a strong defense of Israel against terrorists and rogue nations. "We know that we cannot relent, we cannot yield. And as president I will never compromise when it comes to israel's security," Obama said. "We stand with Israel because Israel demonstrates that democracy can flourish in the most difficult conditions. Because it's very existence is a stinging rebuke to...

Obama's many conflicting positions on Iran.The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race, and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat. --Barack Obama, June 4, 2008 So begins the great transformation, whereby a dovish primary candidate mutates into a (moderately) hawkish nominee. It's a tall order in Obam a's...

Obama bundler Jodie Evans, who co-founded the anti-American group Code Pink, said Osama bin Laden had 'valid arguments' for the 9/11 attacks, gushed over Venezualan dictator Hugo Chavez and bragged about Code Pink's efforts to undermine the war in Iraq in a wide-ranging interview with radio host Paul A. Ibbetson.Evans co-hosted Sen. Barack Obama's first Hollywood fundraiser in February 2007 and is listed on the Obama website as having bundled up to $100,000 for Obama's presidential campaign.Evans also personally donated the maximum legal amount, $2300, to the Obama campaign--as has her unemployed student son.Just weeks before she co-hosted the Hollywood...

From his book and public statements Obama tells in his own words what his views on race relations really are.

Rashid Khalidi is a 'respected' Palestinian' terrorist: a member of the PLO since the days it was officially lebeled a terrorist organization, he is now a professor at Columbia University (where else?), holding the Edward Said chair in Arab Studies. Said was also a member of the PLO. As it turns out, Khalidi and his wife are also good friends of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama. The company he keeps says alot about Barack Hussein Obama. But it says nothing positive to Israel's supporters.

The Obama phenomenon is so wide-spread that there is a good possibility that someone you know – someone at your church, at your place of employment, a neighbor, perhaps even a family member – has bought into the myth that this man is the one who will save our nation from the “old politics” of cynicism and partisanship, and has the wisdom and leadership to heal our land. I could give you dozens of examples of Obama’s flip-flops and inconsistencies, but for this report I’ll limit most of my remarks to his contorted views on the most fundamental responsibility of...

As this week’s debate on climate change has unfolded, the American people and those watching us around the world had every reason to hope that we would act. Every credible scientist and expert believes action is necessary. This is critical and long overdue legislation that represents a good first step in addressing one of the most serious problems facing our generation. Like many of my Senate colleagues, I believe the legislation could have been made even better. Had there been a substantive Senate debate about some of the concerns with this bill, I believe the outcome could have generated broad...

Should Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez be engaged? Or isolated? Presidential candidates debated this question in Florida last week. Make that a presidential candidate debated this with himself in Florida last week. Sen. Barack Obama took both positions on successive days. Mr. Obama told Walter Pacheco of the Orlando Sentinel last Thursday he'd personally meet with Mr. Chavez: "One of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of (Marxist narco-terrorists) FARC in Colombia, and other issues he would want to talk about," Sen. Obama said...

JFK daughter brings Camelot magic to hunt for Obama’s running mate Tony Allen-Mills, New York FOR a candidate promising a break with the past, Barack Obama made a curious choice for a key position in his presidential campaign team last week. His decision to appoint Caroline Kennedy to a sensitive political role leading his search for a vice-presidential running mate has aroused both intrigue and derision in US political circles. The daughter of the late President John F Kennedy has no serious political experience, has been involved in only one previous presidential campaign - when her uncle, Ted Kennedy, ran...

Cutting through all the fog, there are two primary reasons behind Barack Obama's stunning victory over the Clinton machine: authenticity and the war in Iraq. As amply demonstrated, there is simply no comparison between Obama and Hillary Clinton as far as public speaking is concerned. He is eloquent and natural, talking directly to the folks. She is more stilted and rehearsed, talking at the listener. Sen. Clinton comes across as the typical politician, while Sen. Obama seems like a genuine human being. He also outflanked her on the Iraq war. In the beginning of the campaign, Obama bolted from the...