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I am completely stunned that the Obama campaign would now admit that Senator Obama did nothing to influence today's vote on the bailout bill. Obama got as far away as he could and is now trying to blame John McCain for the bills failure?! ...Obama sought to stay above the fray and maintain a steady demeanor that advisers maintain has set him apart throughout the financial turmoil. In other words he voted "Present" again as ususal. You just can't make this stuff up folks.

<p>Welcome to Obama-mania, Brazil-style. Few countries have embraced the idea of the US's first black president as enthusiastically as Brazil, a country with one of the largest Afro-descendant populations on Earth yet where black faces remain a minority in politics. Obama T-shirts are everywhere while chat shows and newspaper columns are filled with talk of the 47-year-old Illinois senator.</p>

Barack Obama is running for mayor in Belford Roxo, a little town close to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is also trying to become a mayor and a city council member in at least five other towns around Brazil, in the Brazilian October municipal elections. Not that Barack Obama though. Thanks to the Brazilian electoral legislation, which allows candidates to choose whatever name they want to appear on the ballot, Brazilian politicians are using the high name recognition and popularity of US senator Barack Obama to advance their own political career. The Rio Obama calls himself Obama of Belford Roxo....

Jack Wheeler is a brilliant man who was the author of Reagan's strategy to break the back of the Soviet Union with the star wars race and expose their inner weakness. For years he wrote a weekly intelligence update that was extremely interesting and well structured and informed. He consults(ed) with several mega corporations on global trends and the future, etc. I think he is in semi-retirement now. He is a true patriot with a no-nonsense approach to everything. He is also a somewhat well known mountain climber and adventurer. Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama,...

I very rarely start threads and never have started a “VANITY” thread before but I just couldn’t resist. So please forgive me this once. My lament is simply: Why do people like Bill O Reilly and Shawn Hannity and many supposed Conservatives boast about how THEY would like a shot at interviewing the Liberal royalty like Hillary, Obama et. al. – and then given the chance, treat them with kid gloves and allow them to spin the conversation away from specific, pointed answers? OReilly’s interview with Hillary was a joke and this latest with Obama is an absolute embarrassment. From...

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Barack Obama took his first direct swipe at Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on Saturday, criticizing her for supporting congressional earmarks before opposing them. “I know the governor of Alaska has been, you know, saying she is change,” Obama said at a town hall meeting here. “And that is great. She is a skillful politician. But when you [have] been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person. “That is not change, come on,” Obama continued. “I mean, words mean something. You can’t just make stuff...

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November. Biden's comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin. But his statements represent the Democrats' strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years. "If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued," Biden said during a campaign event...

Barack Obama's big speech on tomorrow night will be delivered from an elaborate columned platform resembling a miniature Greek temple, it has been revealed. The stage is similar to structures used for rock concerts and has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos' American football team plays. Up to 80,000 supporters will see Mr Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of the White House, to accept the party's nomination for president. He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from...

DENVER - Hillary Clinton is set to address the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night, but the real action started a little bit earlier. Clinton aides brought out on stage several different pantsuits, each of them a different color, to see how the color of each reacted to the lighting and backdrop at the convention site. Presumably this was to help Clinton of New York decide which color of her trademark garment would be best to wear for her big performance. (ABC News reported that Glamour magazine has a spread on Clinton this month with photos of her wearing “a...

Biden's political games have made him Tehran's favorite senator. As Gen. David Petraeus struggled to unite Iraqis across the ethnic and sectarian divide, Iran's Press TV seized on Biden's plan for partitioning Iraq and featured his statements with the headline "US plans to disintegrate Iraq." Biden's attack-dog statements about U.S. policy failures emboldened Iranian hard-liners to defy diplomacy. In the Dec. 7, 2007, official sermon, Ayatollah Mohammad Kashani speaking on behalf of Iran's supreme leader, declared, "This Senator [Biden] correctly says Israel could not suppress Hizbullah in Lebanon, so how can the U.S. stand face-to-face with a nation of 70...

This week, the least qualified man to receive a major party nomination for the presidency of the United States in modern times will be anointed by his party. He could well win the general election. Republicans have held the presidency for the last eight years. On five occasions since the FDR-Truman administration, voters have had a chance to change parties after a two-term presidency. Four of those times (1960, 1968, 1976, 2000), they have done so. The fifth occasion was 1988, when Republicans held the White House after Reagan's two terms. But Reagan's approval rating was then close to 60...

After Barockstar’s near fatal empty suit performance at Saddleback Saturday, the Obama spin machine is in damage control overdrive. I wonder if they‘ve had time to realize that they have been triangulated by the Clinton war room and set up to take a fall at the DNC convention? That old Clinton war room stench is in the air again...It seems the empty suit and his empty headed staff is not quite up to speed on Clintonian strategeries.

While doing a segment on John Edwards, Sean said, "How can the American people trust you as President when you lie to and cheat on your wife?" Alan said, "yeah, that's a good question"... And then went into the whole John McCain affair.

It is one thing for people to spin that someone is an empty suit and another thing all together to discover he is in fact an empty suit. The 130 present votes I'm sure will be dismissed by those with their Obama blinders on, but how do you dismiss the other two. I've never heard of a person being offered tenure the second they were hired who had never published a single paper while teaching for 12 years. Am I going to believe that a thesis is the end all be all of anything related to Barack Obama? Not at...

The US presidential candidate’s European tour stopped in London yesterday and left our man feeling a little underwhelmed IN the heat of the summer morning, a throng waited. The prophet of hope was on his way and the believers were eager for his blessing. Hope, dreams, freedom, a world made new. Those are Barack Obama’s watchwords, and yesterday in Downing Street all manner of camera teams, scribblers, acolytes and stargazers had assembled for an audience with His Expectancy. For Obama the road had been long, not just from his father’s goat herd roots in Kenya to US presidential candidate but...

For those of you who don't keep up with the conservative blogosphere, one of the memes they've been trying to push for the past couple of weeks is this: Barack Obama may give a good prepared speech, but his dirty little secret is that he's actually an empty suit who's totally at sea without a teleprompter. Today, for example, Andy McCarthy, offers up this snippet from an Obama press conference in Jerusalem: Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way...

SAN ANTONIO/LOS ANGELES, July 21, 2008 - Citadel Broadcasting Corporation's ABC Radio Networks, Clear Channel Radio's Premiere Radio Networks and Sean Hannity today announced an unprecedented syndication arrangement for The Sean Hannity Show. Effective Dec. 28, 2008, ABC Radio Networks will continue syndicating the program on Citadel-owned stations while Premiere Radio will syndicate the program on Clear Channel-owned stations as well as radio stations not owned by either company. Advertising sales for the program will be led by Premiere Radio, which will begin selling inventory for 2009 forward, effective immediately. Going forward, Premiere Radio and ABC Radio will strategically join...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 8:56 AM By: Ronald Kessler A close look at Barack Obama's career reveals it has been even more mediocre than generally recognized. Before being elected to the Illinois state Senate, Obama worked as a community organizer and a lawyer in Chicago. In his memoir, Obama says being a community organizer taught him how to motivate the powerless and work the government to help them. His chief example is an effort to remove asbestos from Altgeld Gardens, an all-black public housing project on Chicago’s South Side. But those who were involved in the effort say Obama played...

July 10-24, 2008 issue of Rolling Stone....

"On the death penalty, Mr. Obama wrote in his memoir, “The Audacity of Hope,” (Crown, 2007), that the penalty “does little to deter crime.” But he added that society has the right to express outrage at heinous crimes. During his 2004 Senate campaign, he publicly supported the death penalty, even as he called the justice system flawed and urged a moratorium on executions." "Mr. Obama is an introspective candidate, and perhaps the best analyst of his own political style. “I serve as a blank screen,” he wrote in “The Audacity of Hope,” “on which people of vastly different political stripes...

Well, I tried to listen to him; I mean not just to hear him, but really, really listen to him. The "him," of course, is the current darling of the media, the very junior Senator from Illinois and presumptive Democratic Party nominee for the US presidency. I strongly urge all to try the same experiment I tried; listen to him, try to absorb what he says on major issues, and then try to remember it twenty or thirty minutes later. You can't. Obama has mastered the art of the Chinese Food Speech: tastes good while you ingest it; twenty minutes...

It’s been a rough two weeks for Barack Obama, but his poll numbers remain strong and unchanged. Is he a Teflon candidate? Consider what’s happened since he clinched the Democratic nomination and Hillary “suspended” her campaign: Obama flip-flopped on his pledge to spurn private contributions and finance his campaign publicly, as long as his opponent did likewise. McCain said he’s willing and Obama flipped and said he’s not. The Democratic candidate was caught flat footed by the sudden spike in oil prices and even defended their high level, lamenting only that we had not been given a period of time...

Sean Hannity just said he is leaving the Republican Party and Enrolling in the Conservative Party because of his disapproval of John McCain and the GOP

Barack Obama made an impassioned appeal to voters last night to end Hillary Clinton's dreams of another comeback in the race for the White House. The Illinois senator told Democrat voters heading to the polls today in Indiana and North Carolina: "I need help." With less than a month to go before the state-by-state vote ends, the Obama camp is desperate to finish off Mrs Clinton's campaign to become the Democrat's presidential nominee. Barack Obama is desperate to beat Hillary Clinton, so much so that he is counting on support from celebrities including Tom Hanks. Mr Obama, 46, also broke...

"I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother." BARACK OBAMA, PHILADELPHIA, MARCH 18 Guess it's time to disown Granny, if Obama's famous Philadelphia "race" speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country." College seniors and first-graders, suggested the excitable Chris Matthews. Apparently there's been a curriculum change. On Tuesday, the good senator begged to extend...

Back in Iowa, Barack Obama promised to be something new-—an unconventional leader who would confront unpleasant truths, embrace novel policies and unify the country. If he had knocked Hillary Clinton out in New Hampshire and entered general-election mode early, this enormously thoughtful man would have become that. But he did not knock her out, and the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal. He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama suggested Thursday that he doesn't see any point in having another debate with Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton. Clinton has agreed to a debate next week, but Obama has not accepted the invitation. At an appearance in Raleigh, North Carolina, Obama said he has a lot of campaigning to do in a limited amount of time. Obama said he had agreed to an earlier debate, but Clinton declined that one. "I'll be honest with you, we've now had 21," he said. "It's not as if we don't know how to do these things. I...

It was one of those typical questions from a reporter gaggle on Capitol Hill: Does Harry Reid think the protracted nomination fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will harm the party? Reid didn't miss a beat. "It makes me bitter," he deadpanned. Reid has such a dry humor that you actually have to pause and look at him to make sure he's not being serious when he's attempting comedy. But his usual grimace in front of reporters quickly turned to a grin as he capitalized on the now infamous "bitter" comment made by Obama at a San Francisco area...

Obama's lawyer days were effective but briefBy Dan Morain, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer April 6, 2008 **SNIP** Miner, Davis and other partners and clients have been a regular source of campaign money for Obama, giving him $100,000 over the years. Miner said he organized fundraisers for Obama's first state Senate run, his 2000 congressional campaign and his 2004 U.S. Senate race. Davis, who could not be reached for comment, has been a partner with other Chicago developers who also are clients of the firm and are Obama backers. One Davis partner was Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a major Obama patron...

Hillary Clinton should hang in there and run a good race. And she has vowed to do so. Clinton has been under unprecedented pressure to bow out of the divisive Democratic primary and to clear the field for her opponent -- Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Among those who want her to throw in the towel are, of course, Obama’s supporters. But many other Democrats are trying to push her out of the contest on the ground that a contentious race can hurt the party and could help their Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Clinton also has been...

Sen. Bob Casey announced his surprise endorsement of his colleague Sen. Barack Obama today as the Democratic presidential contender embarked on a bus tour of Pennsylvania with a rally at Soldiers & Sailors Military Museum and Memorial in Pittsburgh. Mr. Casey introduced Mr. Obama at the rally, calling him "uniquely qualified" to lead the country. The decision by Mr. Casey, the top vote-getter in Pennsylvania history, was unexpected. He had said repeatedly that he planned to remain neutral in the presidential contest at least until after the end of the state's April 22 primary. Mr. Casey had said it was...

I really, really hope this one isn't photoshopped, (as was the one with Bush looking backward thru binoculars).

Barack Obama's words are often attractive but oddly concealing. His speeches are all balm and mood. It's all very well to seek, as Mr. Obama claims, to transcend old categories, to reject the "old politics." But then what? This graceful rhetorician leaves you wondering: Who is he really? What does he want for himself and for his country? In search of answers that go deeper than the Congressional Record, I read his first book, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." Once you get past the happy surprise of finding a politician who can actually write, the...

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/02/27/obamas-empty-change-message/ Watch it through - especially where Chris Matthews (of all people) asks direct questions ...

http://media.wrko.podzinger.com/archive/Reese_Hopkins/2008-02-21_Barack_Obama_Rap.mp3

What can we deduce about the state of mind of those who rally, sometimes with remarkable fervor, behind a man they know nothing about? Abdication of reason. In the Emory Wheel, the student newspaper of Emory College, Josh Prywes reported, “Pollster Frank Luntz asked college students at a recent focus group to name the candidate they were going to vote for. All of them said Obama, but when Luntz followed up by asking them to name a single accomplishment of the senator, they couldn’t name one. Nobody could name a single accomplishment that Senator Obama has achieved” (emphasis mine throughout)....

This exchange will race through the conservative blogosphere, and probably on the pro-Hillary sites as well. Last night, Chris Matthews interviewed Texas state senator and Barack Obama supporter Kirk Watson as Obama sailed to a crushing victory in Wisconsin. Matthews asked Watson to name any significant legislative accomplishment by Obama, and the campaign surrogate got stumped: MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "You are a big Barack supporter, right, Senator?" State Sen. Watson: "I am. Yes, I am." Matthews: "Well, name some of his legislative accomplishments. No, Senator, I want you to name some of Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments tonight if you can."...

Also running even with Clinton among core Democrats PRINCETON, NJ -- The momentum in the Democratic nomination race has clearly swung toward Barack Obama. Not only has he won all of the post-Super Tuesday contests, but he has steadily gained in Gallup Poll Daily tracking to the point where he has overtaken Clinton as the national leader for the first time, holding a statistically significant lead in each of the last three tracking poll results. (snip) Obama's standing has improved among most Democratic subgroups over the past several days. But one of the more substantial shifts has been the changing...

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination. This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides. What? Isn’t that impossible? A pledged delegate is pledged to a particular candidate and cannot switch, right? Wrong. Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first...

Only a link is permitted.Obama Says Community Colleges Key to Economy

I am having trouble fully appreciating the phenomenon that is Senator Obama. Certainly, Obama’s overpowering charisma has an amazing effect on any listener, such as spontaneous tears or quasi-erotic tingling in one’s leg. (The latter phenomenon is dubbed the "Matthews syndrome” after a man whose capacity for rational thought has been completely destroyed by the syndrome’s effects.) For me, however, any such tingling is immediately recognized and countered by my brain, which forces the nascent Obasm to a premature and unsatisfying conclusion. Usually, my brain counters the Obasm by asking difficult and disturbing questions. For example, I will begin trembling...

Plouffe: She can't catch us As we wrote last night, Obama has begun to make his own inevitablity case, and David Plouffe made it explicit on a conference call this morning, telling reporters that it's now "next to impossible" for Clinton to surpass what he says is a 136-person lead among pledged delegates. "The only way she could do it is by winning most of the rest of the contests by 25 to 30 points," he said. "Even the most creative math really does not get her, ever, back to even in terms of pledged delegates." "This is not about...

In human relationships, there is the flirtation stage, followed by what my grandparents called "courting" and, if that works out, marriage. For those who are co-habiting, that was once the order of things, before disorderly social conduct took over. In presidential politics, the analogy also works. We have passed the flirtation stage with Barack Obama and now it is time for a serious background check before too many of us follow our hearts instead of our heads and enter into a bad "marriage." That MoveOn.org and Sen. Edward Kennedy have endorsed Obama ought to be enough for any conservative -...

Frank Luntz was just on live on Hannity and Colmes with a focus group of 22 Democrats. Sean asked Frank to ask the room to name one thing Barack Obama has done in his career and what he has accomplished. Nobody could name one thing. Very telling moment...because more than half the room says they are voting for him.

Republicans, who have spent years preparing to face Hillary Rodham Clinton, are now switching gears to also aim at Barack Obama — a tougher target. Political analysts say the Illinois senator's race, short record and charisma create obstacles for any Republican running against him for the presidency. "A Barack versus GOP fight is incredibly more difficult and will come down to our candidate's ability to excite the independent majority — something much easier to do when you are not from the party of George Bush," said Republican elections strategist Brett Sciotto. Mrs. Clinton, while tough to beat, at least would...

Reconsidering Huck Membership issues. By Mark Hemingway MEMORANDUM DATE: December 20, 2007 TO: Mike Huckabee FROM: The Conservative Movement RE: Membership Renewal Application Mike: It’s your old buddies in the conservative movement here. We know the Iowa caucuses are only two weeks away but we’ve got to talk. We know you’ve endured the slings and arrows of some establishment folks and to a certain extent the piling on hasn’t been terribly fair. Many of your critics — George Will comes to mind — seem far more comfortable with the idea of Rudy Giuliani as president despite the fact that he’s...

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

JERUSALEM - Police raided more than 20 government buildings and private offices Sunday, searching for evidence in a series of criminal investigations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The probes — all related to actions that took place before Olmert became prime minister — have threatened to weaken the Israeli leader at a time of growing momentum in peace efforts with the Palestinians. Among the places raided were the Industry and Trade Ministry, the Postal Authority and Jerusalem's City Hall, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld. "Police investigators are searching a number of government and private offices in connection with three ongoing...

Sean Hannity Raising Money For Schwarzenegger Conservative Fox News commentator Sean Hannity will be the "special guest" Oct. 26 at a fund-raiser for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Don't tell Democrats who have embraced Schwarzenegger this year after he raised the minimum wage, signed legislation curbing global warming, and actively courted the Democratic Legislature. The event at the Sheraton Grand in Sacramento costs $1,000 per person, but "platinum" sponsors can pay $100,000. Platinum sponsors listed on the invitation (at left and below) are Chevron executive Jack Coffey; developer Gerry Kamilos and his wife, Karen; and McDonald's franchise owner C.C. Yin and his...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset at the opening of its Winter Session on Monday that the current Palestinian leadership wants to move forward toward peace with Israel and that he would not use excuses to stall peace talks. Laying out his agenda for the coming year, Olmert said he planned to make every effort to pursue peace with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "The current Palestinian leadership is not a terrorist leadership. President Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad are committed to all the agreements signed with Israel, and I believe that they want to move ahead...