2008 Presidential Election

[Bandit]

Malik holds a photo of Obama and him in Muslim dress, reportedly when the two first met in 1985

Malik Obama confirms his half-brother Barack grew up a Muslim [updated]
By Israel Insider staff

Apparently the Obamas of Kenya have been reading those scurrilous emails to which Barack likes to refer, because they have no doubt -- contrary to the claims of the Obama campaign, that the presidential candidate was raised a Moslem. They take that as a given.

his own brother? oh,only half so it does not matter... so now he will have to throw his brother under the bus like his preacher. they will stop at nothing to reach global power.

it is not the fact of his religion, it is the fact that he is a big liar about these things & when approached he just shoves it under the rug like we dont know it is there.

I mean hey, if all i have to do is say I joined the christian religion to increase my odds of being president, then why not. it will certainly not work in reverse in another country where islam rules.

he was asked point blank at least 6 times in 2 years if he would run in 2008 & he said NO every time. Makes sense to me

[BankruptPinoy]

What will the US look like in 4 years?
Rupert Cornwell
June 15 2008 at 11:37AM


Fast-forward to 2012 to see how the US and the world fares under America's 44th commander-in-chief. Rupert Cornwell, one of the most experienced and eloquent observers of US politics, gazes into the future and delivers his verdict on each man's first term.

President Barack Obama

Up to a point he has been a success. As he formally kicks off his 2012 re-election campaign, Barack Obama is easily the most famous man in the world, still an icon of cool, still conveying the promise of better yet to come, even if the feeling persists that he has not fully delivered.

He has pulled most United States troops out of Iraq, and not only resisted Israeli pressure to attack Iran but - in the first far-reaching talks between the two countries in more than 30 years - struck an accommodation with the moderate President Ali Larijani in Tehran that has increased stability in Iraq and across the Middle East.

More important, led by the first black president in its history, America has recovered some (though not all) of the reputation and goodwill squandered by George Bush. The country is a serious participant in global talks on climate change. It has placed a new priority on diplomacy. Yet neither, as his Republican critics charged during his first campaign in 2008, has Obama been a pushover for America's foes.

The cynical fear-mongering of the Bush era has gone. Obama has waged a smarter "war on terror", focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has carried out his 2007 threat to strike al-Qaeda and Taliban bases inside Pakistan without waiting for permission from an ambivalent government in Islamabad.

But even Obama has not been able to reverse the iron truth of history - that, sooner or later, relative economic decline translates into lesser military diplomatic clout as well.

China's ascent has continued. India and other emerging countries suck ever more jobs from the US, despite further tumbles in the dollar. Worst has been the recession at home, a long but unavoidable detoxification from the financial excesses of the noughties that largely tied Obama's hands during his first two years in office - usually a president's most productive.

All the above, of course, is merely a best guess, and never has a guess about a future President Obama had less to guide it. Were he to win, he would come to power amid colossal expectations, founded on the flimsiest of evidence. At 47, he would enter the Oval Office six years older than John F Kennedy in 1961. But he has spent barely three years in the US Senate. Kennedy was a senator for eight years and a congressman before that.

For clues, therefore, look to his background. It's not just that he served as a community organiser on Chicago's rough South Side, nor even that he's black. What truly distinguishes Obama is that part of him is not American at all. What other candidate for the presidency has had a foreigner for a father, spent part of his childhood in (whisper it not) a Muslim country, Indonesia, and then moved to Hawaii - as far as you can get from the US without actually leaving it?

This doesn't mean he knows more about the world than John McCain, a man steeped in national security issues for decades. It does, however, mean that, more than McCain (not to mention Bush), he will be able to understand what other countries think about America, and thus be more sensitive to their concerns. An Obama presidency will not sacrifice US national interests, but it may have a different perception of where those interests lie.

Diplomacy will be given greater weight. The state department will regain foreign policy influence lost to the Pentagon under Bush. Expect the US to work more closely with the United Nations and other international institutions on issues, such as nuclear proliferation, poverty and climate change.

Right now, of course, candidate Obama is trying to win an election. Thus he again wears the lapel flagpin to prove his "patriotism". He is lambasting Iran, and paying homage to Israel.

On domestic issues, Obama is as liberal as McCain is conservative. But, with the likely backing of solid Democratic majorities in both Senate and House, he will have a much better shot at implementing his policies than a President McCain. America moved right in the 1970s and 1980s, but is moving left now.

A President Obama would drop the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and increase capital gains tax. He supports abortion rights (opposed by McCain) and gay civil unions. In direct contrast to McCain, he would appoint liberal Supreme Court justices. He would also launch a new drive to secure universal health coverage. If that is to happen, the role of federal government is bound to grow. But that is true for the whole sweep of domestic policy, from education and energy policy to financial regulation. Obama is riding a wave of demand, not for less government, but for government that works.

The challenges for Obama:

Inexperience: Perhaps his greatest weakness, and John McCain will be exploiting this. If Americans elect Obama, they will be taking a punt on a man with next to no background in national security and precious little in running anything other than a legislator's private office. This makes his choice of vice-president and national security team very important. Look for wise and fairly hawkish figures who know their way around Washington.

Race: The great unknown. Obama has proved he can win white as well as black votes. But no one knows how many Americans object to the idea of voting for a black man, as many who do would never admit it to a pollster. If race is still a negative factor, then Obama will lose. Expect Republican strategists to play the race card - with Internet whispering campaigns and other such ploys.

Hillary: Not the woman herself, but the 18 million-plus Clinton voters in the primaries. Obama must unite the party if he is to win. Hillary thus will have a big part in the healing process. But ultimately only he can win back those female and poorer whites who see Obama as elitist and went for his opponent in the primaries.

President John McCain

In 2012 John McCain, the oldest man ever elected to the White House, is seeking re-election. The Middle East is in even deeper turmoil than when he defeated Barack Obama in November 2008. America was drawing down its forces in Iraq, but that process came to a jarring halt in 2010, as cold war with Iran turned hot, driving oil prices through the roof.

On the other hand, the 44th president has unequivocally signed up to fight global warming and has reached a deal with Russia to all but eliminate nuclear weapons. Around the world the US, if no longer seen as a beacon of hope and justice, is less unloved than in the dark age of George Bush.

At home, however, the gulf between the two Americas, liberal and conservative, is almost as wide as when Bush left office in January 2009. The Supreme Court has moved right, with McCain's appointment of two new conservative justices, as he promised in the campaign. As he pledged, he has cut taxes, but he has also slashed spending, hitting poor Americans hardest, just as energy costs surge further.

This, of course, is only a scenario. It is to be treated all the more warily in a multi-polar world, in which US economic and diplomatic clout is proportionately less, and the writ of Washington does not run as far as it did a decade ago - let alone in the '80s and early '90s, when Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior were at the helm, the Soviet empire collapsed, and Saddam Hussein was ejected from Kuwait by the broadest alliance of nations in modern history.

A President John McCain is especially hard to predict, given the disparity between the popular image of the man and the reality. As perceived by the public, he is the quintessential maverick, the tell-it-like-it-is straight talker, ready to defy his party on matters of principle. That is why people believe him when he claims not to be a slavish follower of Bush.

In fact, on many issues, the distance is more apparent than real.

McCain is a conservative, and his vision is of a conservative America. It borrows from Reagan, but also from Bush - a "compassionate conservative" for the purposes of his 2000 election campaign, but who governed from the right more than any Republican since Hoover.

In some ways McCain is a throwback to a purer, vanished conservatism, one unembellished by neo-con fantasies. This conservatism balances budgets, frowns on deficits, and - barring events such as 9/11 or Hussein's invasion of a helpless but strategically vital oil-rich neighbour - believes the US should mind its own business.

It is also conservatism in the most basic, literal sense. If elected, McCain would probably be the first "green" President of America. He recognises the threat to the environment.

Almost certainly he would sign up for specific global targets on greenhouse gas emissions, promote renewable energy and impose stringent, long-overdue fuel-economy standards on Detroit.

But in other respects he might prove to be the Bush retread Democrats claim he will be. As a senator, McCain staked out a position on Capitol Hill as an opponent of torture and the violation of detainees' basic human rights. In practice, he has gone along with compromises allowing Bush to continue to do as he pleases.

Conceivably, on the "Nixon goes to China" model, he might extricate the US from Iraq. On the other hand, McCain is, if anything, more hawkish than Bush on Iran, with an even stronger trait of impulsiveness. His commitment to Israel is as absolute as Bush's, precluding serious pressure on the Jewish state to end settlements. He promises to reach a major disarmament deal with the Russians. But in the next breath he threatens to throw Moscow out of the G8.

On domestic policy, McCain toes the Republican line. He is a fierce opponent of abortion. He admits knowing little about economics, but he favours prolonging the Bush tax cuts, even for the very wealthy. Most important, he wants more conservative judges on the bench, a step that would seal his legacy for decades.

McCain likes to compare himself to Barry Goldwater, whose Senate seat he took over in 1986. Goldwater is also a patron saint of modern American conservatism.

The challenges for McCain:

Age: At 72, he would be the oldest man ever to become President (Ronald Reagan was 68 when he took office). McCain is in robust health, though apparently at risk of melanoma skin cancer. But his age is a concern. Obama aides have already implied he has "lost his bearings" on certain key issues.

Bush: McCain's toughest problem will be to distance himself from a toxic president of his own party, of whom 70 percent of Americans disapprove. The Obama campaign is already arguing that a McCain win means a third Bush term.

The Party: He's liked by independents, but conservatives, the bedrock of the Republican Party, are deeply suspicious. He's tried to make peace with the religious right, but to little avail.

"I cannot, and will not, vote for John McCain, as a matter of conscience," James Dobson, leader of the Focus on the Family organisation, said in February.

Many will follow that lead.

This article was originally published on page 15 of Sunday Independent on June 15, 2008

[BankruptPinoy]

Malik holds a photo of Obama and him in Muslim dress, reportedly when the two first met in 1985

Malik Obama confirms his half-brother Barack grew up a Muslim [updated]
By Israel Insider staff

Apparently the Obamas of Kenya have been reading those scurrilous emails to which Barack likes to refer, because they have no doubt -- contrary to the claims of the Obama campaign, that the presidential candidate was raised a Moslem. They take that as a given.

As the Jerusalem Post reports, "Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background. In an interview with Army Radio he expressed a special salutation from the Obamas of Kenya."

The Obama brothers' father, a senior economist for the Kenyan government who studied at Harvard University, died in car crash in 1982. He left six sons and a daughter. All of his children - except Malik -- live in Britain or the United States. Malik and Barack met in 1985 in the US.

"He was best man at my wedding and I was best man at his," said Malik in a 2004 interview with an AP reporter. Their paternal grandfather, Onyango Hussein Obama, was one of the first Muslim converts in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Malik said."

In a remarkable denial issued last November that still stands on the official campaign website, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a statement explaining that "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian."

Apparently Malik Obama, himself a Muslim, had not read the press release.

Melanie Phillips is the most recent commentator to draw attention to the massive body of evidence that leaves no doubt that Barak Hussein Obama was born a Muslim (Islam is patrilineal) and raised a Muslim (so registered in school, acknowledging attending Islamic classes, reported accompanying his step-father to the mosque, and able to recite the Koran in the original Arabic).

Reuven Koret, Aaron Klein and Daniel Pipes have previously pointed to the attempts by Obama and his campaign to conceal the candidate's Muslim background. The well documented evidence draws upon the on-the-ground interviews by researchers in Indonesia and Kenya, published quotations of Obama's childhood friends and his school records, as well as the candidate's own autobiography.

It is not clear whether Barack Obama will now disown his half-brother Malik for acknowledging that shared family background. In any case, some one should notify "Fight the Smear" tout de suite. Perhaps they can get him with the program.

[WhatMoney]

I am voting republican.
click here to see why:

http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/index.php

Hey me too. That's a classic. Must send it to all my Repub buddies.

[Bandit]

I am voting republican.
click here to see why:

http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/index.php

[JRScott]

My father fought in Vietnam, my grandfather fought in WWII but he has passed on, I'm not sure what he'd make of the world today, I'm not sure he'd like what we've become and our politicians have become.

I think the greatest failing now is the lack of Congressional Term limits and the fact we accept men elected to office can spend the last 2 years of their term just running for another office instead of doing anything. Though more common with Senators we had several Representatives running this past primary as well and if you spend your whole 2 year term as a Representative running for President what did the people of your district get from you?

Another problem is the 17th Amendment which changed how Senators were elected. Personally I think we'd be better served by repealing the 17th Amendment and restoring Senator election to the Legislatures of the States rather than popular vote. This would reduce grandstanding opportunities and enhance concentration on getting something done.

[PaKettle]

Even if the R or D win the white house which is entirely possible, if you replace enough of Congress with other parties it would nullify them Pa.

Yep Bandit, McCain and Obama in 2007 missed or voted present for more than 60% of the bills before them. It is really sad that these are the two main choices Americans look up to. Men who if they did our jobs and didn't do their job that often wouldn't have it are leading our nation. That's why we desperately need to break the R and D stranglehold on our nation. We also need to pass a constitutional amendment that does not allow sitting members of Congress to run for President, it is a conflict of interest that keeps them from doing their jobs.

JR I agree with you here, 100%. I am definitely willing to vote for 3rd party Congress people. And I think that is where we need to start! And like you say, here, some changes in the laws...

Like my Dad says "They're all a buncha crooks!" He says it with much bitterness because he was defending our country on the front lines in Europe during WWII and WAS a real flag waver until some years ago. Now he's a different kind of patriot who would like to see revolution in this country to overthrow "all the crooks"! ;)

[PaKettle]

you have to be very careful when you watch what these senators really vote for. just for example with obama..he voted six different times then changed his votes after the results came in claiming he pushed the wrong button. He also voted "HERE" & not yes or no at least 130 times...that is pretty wishy washy. & their main jopb as senator is simply to cast votes. I mean if they can push the wrong button that many times as a valid reason(excuse) & yet be as intelligent as they really are, then they are not kidding me & I am el stupido.

he also voted for keeping the soldiers in iraq in 2006 & for keeping the war going at that time & was not able to vote prior to the war. Obama also voted yes for every single request for Bush to use finances to keep the war going, yet is against the war but points fingers at others who have doing the same thing.

I am not just in reference to obama here either he was just an example...Clinton, Bush, McCain...ALL of them pull the same crap all over the place. It just takes a little while to find how they operate & how quickly they will throw you out the window if it means they wont have the greedy power.
Though Oba & Cli say they are against the war, if being for the war would get them more votes then they will be for it, and that is more or less how these people think.

I am sorry, but these leaders wanting to be president DO NOT give a hoot for you (the people). I think there was a time when presidents really cared for the best of the people as a country in general but it is not like that now. Perhaps due to the global powers that they are in reach for?
Our government is something totally different these days.

You have to stick close to your politicians closer to home like city, county, districts, a little but of state, the ones you can actually request to meet and even have luch at their home. These are the ones who still care for the people.

That's good to know, about Obama's voting. And I agree with everything you say here. But it's still a matter of "the lesser of evils", so I'll still vote for Obama.

By the way, in past elections I have followed your philosophy and voted for 3rd party candidates for President in the Primary - two or 3 times as I recall. And I've voted for many Libertarians and Socialists and Greens etc for congress and local positions. I just felt the last two elections were too important to "throw away my vote", so I voted for the lesser evil - the Dems. I think my true politics are very much aligned with you and JR, I just have a different philosopy about voting in major Presidential elections where - in my opinion - our very future as a nation is at stake, and very much "at risk".

[JRScott]

i thought he ran as a libertarian on the republican ticket?

this is the sad part about it is you can only hope, at best, that the ones you still like will still be there when time comes to vote them in. I bet he dropped out just because he felt it was stupid to be there at this point due to his party ticket, but I really wish he would have stayed to the end regardless.

No he refuses to resign from the Republican party. Why I'm not sure, perhaps he feels he needs its resources to get elected, he is much closer to the Constitution and Libertarian points of views than the Republican though.

[JRScott]

Seriously...this is an urban legend that has HUGE legs......

From the Anchorage Daily News:
"China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period," said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.

Even so, the Chinese-drilling-in-Cuba legend has gained momentum and has been swept up in Republican arguments to open more U.S. territory to domestic production.

Unfortunately, as of last Wednesday, VP Cheney was speaking to the US Department of Congress and continued to speak of this Urban Legend as if it were fact.

I have learned to check out everything that comes out of this administration before retelling one of the "Bush Truths". I am sooo sick of this hogwash from these guys. If my kids lied as much as these guys do they would be eating bars of soap like candy!

I am not a Bush Trooper, if you read this thread you'd know that.

The truth is regardless of whether China is currently doing it or not currently, they did have a survey ship explore the possibility in the last decade, Russia has done the same with the arctic ocean. In theory they could put a platform in international waters and then horizontally drill to our waters and take the oil there.

We have the power to be free of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and most of our world obligations if we'd only develop our own resources. God gave those resources to us, and we by ignoring them are causing our own downfall.

While the Globe is warming, it is not something we can affect. Mankind's pollution accounts for about 2% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Even if every nation on earth stopped today, the globe would still warm and your not going to get them all to stop. It is part of the natural ebb of the Earth. We have allowed environmentalist to cripple us and make us beholden to those that would kill us.

Our temperature today is much lower than the long term average temperature of the Earth, in fact in the last few million years the Earth has cooled similar to what it did 450 million years ago. It is very possible we have bottomed out and will see increasing temperatures for the next 100 million years as the Earth did back then reaching its second hottest period around 350 million years ago and the hottest period around 250 million years ago with another trough of cold weather between. We don't have the technology to stop it, and are not likely to have it in the near future. If that is what is happening and we are kinda overdue for a warming period then it is unlikely we can stop it, the only thing we currently know of that can sufficiently cool the Earth to avoid such warming periods is the eruption of a Supervolcano like Yellowstone. The last Supervolcano, Lake Toba, erupted around 70000 years ago, it destroyed over 60% of the pre modern human population. If one of them erupted today it would mean billions of deaths in some of the most horrible ways imaginable as the earth would be gripped in a volcanic winter for up to a decade. Thus efforts to stop Global Warming are human vanity for the most part, we just are not capable of stopping it.

It makes no sense not to develop these resources. We have the technology to do so, it can make us free. We have really a choice, be slaves to those that hate us, or be free. And ultimately that is the choice.

[Bandit]

Sadly Ron Paul refused to run on the Constitution party or Libertarian Party tickets they both prior to their conventions had asked him. However he had no real chance at this point, McCain already had more than enough delegates and if you passed away before the convention then it would probably pass to Romney or Huckabee not Paul.

i thought he ran as a libertarian on the republican ticket?

this is the sad part about it is you can only hope, at best, that the ones you still like will still be there when time comes to vote them in. I bet he dropped out just because he felt it was stupid to be there at this point due to his party ticket, but I really wish he would have stayed to the end regardless.

[Bandit]

I have learned to check out everything that comes out of this administration before retelling one of the "Bush Truths". I am sooo sick of this hogwash from these guys. If my kids lied as much as these guys do they would be eating bars of soap like candy!

Then we would have a bar soap & liquid soap shortage & soap would skyrocket because all the soap would be in Cheneys & Bushes mouth! so far they have been the best liars to ever get up there.

good idea eh?

I have a strong feeling that this next set voted in may be just as good of liars, if the trend continues to fool the majority. The hard thing is when the public does not actually vote them in & the corrupt system does.

[Bandit]

i think that what the people saw was true but they did not actually see drilling, they saw the ships & drills & prospects & that there is a good chance that china or someone will be drilling off of florida very soon, though bush signed the old 77 treaty back for 2 years & i think that was in 2006. I am sure Mr mobyDICK is thinking about his retirement off the coast of florida.

bush & cheney & all these other oil guys do not give a hoot if oil goes to 300 or 400 bucks a barrel as that just makes more oil for them to hoard & a bigger paycheck when it gets spent as oil in their homeland gets depleted. so lets go make a war instead of investing on a better future for everyone!!!

why do you think they wont open up alaska? sure it may not help much on the price at the pump but it would help in future reserves for electric & things like that. I mean we have what? maybe at best 60 years of rescources in the USA? I am not speaking of global but what the uSA keeps sitting on.

[Bandit]

VP Cheney was speaking

did someone say OIL???

was he speaking with his teeth all gritted together with spit angering out all over between his teeth?

he has been there in the shadows since the original bush papa.

so how much money do you all think he has made in his 8 new years as VP, not including the old years.

[MomIcantFindmy]

On Wednesday the Republicans proposed allowing drilling from 50 miles to 200 miles off our coast (China is already drilling closer than this to Florida in international waters). It was killed in Committee by a party line vote of 9 Dems vs 6 Reps.

Seriously...this is an urban legend that has HUGE legs......

From the Anchorage Daily News:
"China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period," said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.

Even so, the Chinese-drilling-in-Cuba legend has gained momentum and has been swept up in Republican arguments to open more U.S. territory to domestic production.

Unfortunately, as of last Wednesday, VP Cheney was speaking to the US Department of Congress and continued to speak of this Urban Legend as if it were fact.

I have learned to check out everything that comes out of this administration before retelling one of the "Bush Truths". I am sooo sick of this hogwash from these guys. If my kids lied as much as these guys do they would be eating bars of soap like candy!