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Obama stretched out his schedule for withdrawing troops from Iraq. During the debate, Obama said we could "reduce" the number of combat troops in 16 months: Obama: "Now, what I've said is we should end this war responsibly. We should do it in phases. But in 16 months we should be able to reduce our combat troops, put – provide some relief to military families and our troops and bolster our efforts in Afghanistan so that we can capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda." But in Oct. 2007, Obama supported removing all combat troops from Iraq within...

Please post the lies and gaffes that Obama made.    I know he made one --   Saying "the eight years the Bush administration has concentrated on Iraq." (I'm paraphrasing)   What a farce he is.     Please add the versions of Obama gaffes and detected lies that you heard.................

FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005 (Bill pdf ) The United States SenateMay 25, 2006Statement by John McCainSen. John McCain [R-AZ]: Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae's regulator reported that the company's quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were "illusions deliberately and systematically created" by the company's senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case...

When the federal government announced two months ago that it would prop up mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, CRP looked at how much money members of Congress had collected since 1989 from the companies. On Sunday the government completely took over the two government-sponsored enterprises, and we've returned to our data to bring you the updates, this time providing a list of all 354 lawmakers who have gotten money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (in July we posted the top 25). These totals are based on data released electronically from the FEC on Sept. 2 and include...

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July. "He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview. Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in...

...when Obama was running around Indonesia in diapers, McCain was mastering this slightly technical piece of machinery...

(Regarding) the phony inquiry being staged by Alaska Democrats concerning Governor Palin’s sacking of recalcitrant underling Walt Monegan. For anyone doubting that this whole ”investigation” is a partisan scam cooked up by a bunch of good-old-boy political hacks, here’s a smoking gun from the Obama-Biden campaign web site:

In her game-changing convention speech, Sarah Palin took a swipe at Obama for having been nothing more in his life than a ‘community organiser’. This prompted the Obama campaign to issue a pained defence of community organisation as a way of promoting social change ‘from the bottom up’. The impression is that community organising is a worthy if woolly and ultimately ineffectual grassroots activity. This is to miss something of the greatest importance: that in the world of Barack Obama, community organisers are a key strategy in a different game altogether; and the name of that game is revolutionary Marxism....

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President?... Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens?... Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial?... Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy…. What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen.... Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?... [T]he indispensable credential...

CAC DOCUMENTS LINK BARACK OBAMA TO 1960'S TERRORIST AYERS UPDATE: Newly Released Documents Highlight Obama’s Relationship With Ayers Fox News hat tip Carolyn Obama’s association with Ayers, who now teaches at the university, has become an issue in the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign. The Weather Underground took credit for several nonfatal bombings on targets that included the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, and critics accuse Obama of rubbing elbows with an unabashed 1960s radical. Obama has said that, although he knew Ayers as a professor involved in community outreach efforts in Chicago, he doesn’t share Ayers’ extreme views. The massive...

The Chicago bully tactics aren’t going to work. While Obama sics his lawyers and Kossack minions on TV stations that dare to air an independent ad about his close relationship with Weather Underground terrorist-turned-academic Bill Ayers, the truth is seeping out. Thanks to the efforts of NRO’s Stanley Kurtz, blogger Steve Diamond, and intense pressure from Internet readers and talk radio listeners, the University of Illinois - Chicago was forced to release a trove of papers that a former official attempted to shield from public view. There are some 140 boxes and 1,000 files to sift through — and MSM...

Greta says there's new information on the relationship between Obama and William Ayers. Is this something new? She called it breaking news?

Covering a sensitive and explosive subject that has been off-limits for the major U.S. media, the London Daily Telegraph is now claiming that Communist Frank Marshall Davis was a strong influence over a young Barack Obama for nine years of his life, rather than just four, and was a sex pervert and pothead. The Telegraph article alleges that Davis was a bisexual engaged in “sordid” sexual activities and had repeated sexual encounters with a 13-year-old girl. ----SNIP---- Based on these sources, AIM had confirmed that Obama’s white grandfather, Stanley Dunham, picked Davis because Obama’s black father had abandoned the family...

Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Orlando, Barack Obama declared, "I will let no one question my love of this country." Obama has felt the sting of recent attacks from conservative critics, and prominent Democrats have been pressuring him to hit back harder at John McCain. Universal praise of John McCain's performance in their first joint appearance at Saddleback Church also has the Obama campaign on the defensive. But we believe the recent polls are tightening not because of Obama's failure to get tough. The race is tightening because Obama's worldview is coming into focus. A worldview colors...

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama's only claim to administrative leadership (as covered today by Thomas Lifson), was evaluated by the esteemed Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an independent outside body with expertise on educational reform. A larger study has a section focused on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama's project. It does not take much for grantees who receive funds from the Obama-Ayers led Anneberg Chicago effort to sign its praises. When an outside group audits the performance and reveals scores of millions of dollars were all but wasted, I think that should have some bearing on our evaluation of Obama...

Warren had asked Obama to provide an example of where he had gone against party loyalty and his own best interest. Obama cited a speech he had given as a state senator from a liberal district in Chicago. At the time, he had no responsibility to cast a vote that would affect the outcome, nor (as he indicated later to Russert) sufficient information to do so. His "Meet the Press" interview shows that, in the midst of his run for the Senate in 2004, as he prepared to take the national stage, Obama put party loyalty (and his own best...

In the least credible and most vicious corner of the internet, liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos are accusing John McCain of plagiarizing from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The story Solzhenitsyn told was of a prisoner who drew a cross in the dirt in a Soviet Gulag. McCain's story is of a guard who drew a cross in the dirt in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. The only similarity between the two stories is a cross in the dirt, but it is hardly an unlikely coincidence that there were practicing Christians in both Russia and Vietnam, or that in the prisons...

Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama’s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During...

Jerome Corsi's expose The Obama Nation jumped to the #1 slot in most book sales charts yeterday during it's first day of release destroying competition in non-fiction and political book sales. Scrupulously sourced with more than 600 footnotes, The Obama Nation is the result of that research. By tracing... ...Meanwhile rumours circulated online of readers visiting local bookstores such as Barnes & Noble only to find that the book was no where to be found. In certain stores, Obama supportive employees are apparently... Meanwhile purchases of Nancy Pelosi's newest release continued to plummet as she maintains her low, low, low...

Edwards' mistress raised in Ocala By Fred Hiers Star-Banner Published: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 6:30 a.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 4:49 p.m. OCALA - Before she was former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' mistress, before she was Rielle Hunter, before she was the face splashed on national television networks, she was the teenage equestrienne Lisa Druck of Ocala. Chuck Olsen/The Associated Press At work: In this video still, Rielle Hunter films John Edwards after a rally in New Hampshire in 2006.In a story already spawning countless tabloid headlines, here's another - Hunter was familiar with controversy...

While Obama was spending three hours watching “The Dark Knight” five time zones away, and going to a fund-raiser featuring “Aloha attire” and Hawaiian pupus, Hillary was busy planning her convention. You can almost hear her mind whirring: She’s amazed at how easy it was to snatch Denver away from the Obama saps. Like taking candy from a baby, except Beanpole Guy doesn’t eat candy. In just a couple of weeks, Bill and Hill were able to drag No Drama Obama into a swamp of Clinton drama. Now they’ve made Barry’s convention all about them — their dissatisfaction and revisionism...

Excerpt - ~ snip ~ "Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise" is coming out Sept. 9 as a paperback with an announced first printing of 300,000 copies and a list price of $13.95. Looking ahead to the digital market, the e-book, also $13.95, will go on sale the day before. ~ snip ~

ABC Radio news just announced Sen. John Edwards will admit to the affair with Rielle Hunter in an interview with the network, but insists the child is not his. We return you to your regularly-scheduled FReeping.

David Shuster, arbiter of journalistic standards? The MSM didn't bother to pursue the Edwards story, yet Shuster, he of "pimped out" fame, has had the chutzpah to look down his nose not once but twice on the National Enqirer during an interview this afternoon with Barry Levine, its Executive Editor. Levine laid out a number of open issues, including paternity and the source of funding for Rielle Hunter's living arrangements. BARRY LEVINE: I think this story is far from over in that regard. DAVID SHUSTER: And finally I mean, I mean, as a newsman, and I sort of, take that...

It Ain’t Over ‘Till The Fat Lady Sings - - And She Just Hired New Songwriters The Washington – New York news phones lines were buzzing last night and again this morning. The news is considered so volatile two national news producers were telephoned after 11:30 last night for their input. The story? Hillary Clinton is removing her support (such as it was) from Barack Obama and plans for a knock-down floor fight for the nomination at the Democrat Convention in Denver. The reason for this is simple, she thinks she can win the nomination, and only she can win...

As the presidential candidates enter the three-month sprint to November, Barack Obama must be wondering: If that did not do it, what will? The antecedent of the pronoun "that" is his Berlin speech. The antecedent of the pronoun "it" is assuage anxieties about his understanding of the need to supplement soft power (diplomacy) with hard power (military force). He spoke in Berlin at the bullet-scarred base — it was in the crossfire 63 years ago as Russian troops neared Hitler's bunker about a mile away — of an 1873 monument to German militarism. To be precise, the monument celebrates the...

BAGHDAD - The monthly U.S. toll in Iraq fell to its lowest point since the war began, with 11 American deaths as July drew to a close Thursday after the departure of the last surge brigade. Iraqis also are dying at dramatically lower numbers with the war in its sixth year.

Bill O'Reilly Nails Robert WexlerTue Jul 22, 2008 at 09:11:12 PM Bill O'Reilly did a good number on "local" Congressman Robert Wexler tonight. And I think Wexler is in a bit of trouble. You see, the longtime Democratic rep says he lives in Delray Beach and he's required to maintain a residence in his district. But he really lives in Potomac MD. The house in Delray that he calls his "offical residence" is owned by Lawrence and Roslyn Cohen, the parents of Wexler's wife, Laurie. And it's in a restricted over-55 community, which makes it impossible for Wexler and and...

After meeting with top U.S. military commanders and members of the Iraqi government, Sen. Barack Obama today said his opposition to the surge and support for a firm timetable for the withdrawal of troops hasn't changed. ~snip~ Obama and Petraeus have also staked out opposing positions on whether there should be a timetable for withdrawing American forces. Obama said that in his meeting with Petraeus, the general discussed his "deep concerns" about "a timetable that doesn't take into account what they anticipate might be a change in conditions." "My job is to think about the national security interests as a...

MADRID — A Spanish court absolved four men and upheld the acquittal of a fifth on Thursday in the convoluted legal proceedings relating to the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in the deadliest attack by Islamic militants on European soil. The rulings followed appeals of some of 21 convictions by a lower court after a five-month trial that ended in October. Seven other people were acquitted at that time. Most dramatically, the court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of one of the bombing’s accused masterminds, Rabei Osman, an Egyptian, who was found guilty in 2006 in...

From the Maha - Guess who's been involved intimately with Fannie Mae? Does the name Jamie Gorelick ring a bell? This woman is everywhere, and Jamie Gorelick got a 26 million payout when she left the place. Jamie Gorelick got 26 million to leave, one of Clinton's guys, Franklin Raines, Franklin Raines, he was kicked out after corrupting the place. He left shortly before he was taking it in the shorts, but he got out of there with no penalty whatsoever. What is it with these Clinton people? This is why we don't get any tell-all books on the Clinton...

In this morning's New York Times, Barack Obama published an op-ed on Iraq that presumably previews his "major speech" on the subject tomorrow. Even by Obama's standards, the piece is breathtakingly dishonest. Obama admits that he opposed the surge, and the attendant change in strategy and tactics, that have brought us close to victory. But he somehow manages to twist his being wrong about the surge--the major foreign policy issue that has arisen during his time in Congress--into vindication: But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown,...

Sooner or later, voters are going to recognize the exquisite sensitivity of the Obama campaign to ridicule as weakness. By choosing to cry foul  over the New Yorker cover depicting the Obamas as the opposition supposedly sees him, the campaign reveals the precariousness of the substance-free image-building effort to date. The irrepressible Doug Ross  dug up a New Yorker cover mocking Bush and Cheney as the gay cowboys from Brokeback Mountain, sarcastically noting the missing firestorm of protest.   Are Americans really going to want to vote for someone who holds himself to be above criticism and mockery?    

Now that Barack Obama seems so keen on hearing what our commanders on the ground in Iraq think, he had better get ready to hear some bad news. His plan to withdraw all U.S. Troops within 16 months of taking office simply cannot be done logistically, say commanders on the ground. Unless, Obama just wants to leave all the equipment behind! Here is an excellent report from ABC and Good Morning America . . . (see video)

REV. JESSE JACKSON APOLOGIZES TO SEN. BARACK OBAMA FOR 'CRUDE AND HURTFUL COMMENTS' CAUGHT BY OPEN MIC... DEVELOPING...

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category. Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008. The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13%...

No, ignore that photograph, and its possible implications, and look further down the piece at this fellow (pictured at right; click to enlarge). Look closely at his medals. As any American veteran can tell you, it's as easy to spot the fact that those aren't American medals as it is to tell the difference between, say, an M4 and an AK-47. In particular, take a look at the top right medal in the gentleman's array. Then, take a look at the image below at left. See a resemblance? The medal is the "Order of the Patriotic War" -- "an Order...

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of fraudulent Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears. The evidence of forgery and manipulation of images of official documents, triggered by Israel Insider's revelation of the collection of Hawaii birth certificate images on the Photobucket site and the detective work of independent investigative journalists and imaging professionals in the three weeks since the publication of the images, implicate the Daily Kos,...

  In the beginning, there was the 2nd Kos image Posted by Polarik on Thursday, July 03, 2008 4:22:48 PM Which came first? Kos's first image or Kos's second image? Simple, it was the second image that appeared first, and then the first image appeared second. WTF, you might ask? Well, here is the Genesis of the faked images in order of their appearance: 1. Kos's first posted image (1024 x 1000 pixels, 300 DPI) is a direct reduction of their second image.The seal is visible. 2. Kos's second posted image (2427 x 2369pixels, 300DPI) was the starting point for...

Democratic presidential presumptive Sen. Barack Obama (IL) met with his terrorist supporting fundraiser, Jodie Evans, at a $5 million Hollywood fundraiser held last week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion on Tuesday, June 24.In what can only be described as a big middle finger to the veterans and military families who have urged Obama to renounce Evans, Obama met with Evans and was photographed with her at the fundraiser.Evans is co-founder of the leftist anti-American group Code Pink. She and Code Pink have endorsed the terrorists in Iraq and have sent over $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid to "the other...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Senator Barack Obama is issuing a call here today for more Americans to become involved in public service, imploring citizens of all ages to rally to the nation’s need at home and abroad. “I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am president of the United States,” Mr. Obama will say in an address here on a college campus. “This will not be a call issued in one speech or one program – this will be a central cause of my presidency.”

Scalia's selective historyBy Jack RakoveAppeals to the evidence of history figured prominently in last week's Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, striking down a sweeping ban on handguns and affirming that the 2nd Amendment protects a fundamentally individual right "to keep and bear arms." Yet read the two main opinions by Justices Antonin Scalia (for the conservative majority) and John Paul Stevens (in dissent), and you will see that different ways of defining and reading what counts as historical evidence expose a fault line between them.One would have to be terribly naive to think that how these...

Fellow Blog Talk Radio compadre David Zublick over at Heading Right says, “Maybe Not“. I noted back here that when Kos produced - not a birth certificate - but a certificate of live birth there were several discrepancies noted that pointed to the fact - aside from the convenience - that the document was most likely forged. Since Obama has failed to produce a birth certificate, in-spite of several calls to do so, is telling indeed. I was born in 1958 in the State of Florida and I can get a birth certificate for ten bucks. I doubt Hawaii was...

The Fourth of July is a patriotic holiday but patriotism has long been viewed with suspicion or disdain by many of the intelligentsia. As far back as 1793, prominent British writer William Godwin called patriotism "high-sounding nonsense." Internationalism has long been a competitor with patriotism, especially among the intelligentsia. H.G. Wells advocated replacing the idea of duty to one's country with "the idea of cosmopolitan duty." Perhaps nowhere was patriotism so downplayed or deplored than among intellectuals in the Western democracies in the two decades after the horrors of the First World War, fought under various nations' banners of patriotism....

Click to view images froma patrol in Northeast Baghdad. Photos by Bill Murray. BAGHDAD, IRAQ: It’s near noon on a Friday in Northeast Baghdad and the neighborhoods the U.S. military calls Muhallahs 535 and 734 are quiet. It’s the weekend, and many adults are at the local mosques for worship, leaving the streets filled with dozens of adolescent boys, yelling, kicking and raising minor havoc on bicycles, soccer balls and the unlucky stray dog. As U.S. Army Specialist Luis Garza and 2nd Lieutenant Jonathon Logan patrol the neighborhoods, they remember these streets during a less docile time. Both men...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Stock Exchange chief Richard Grasso won a knockout victory on Tuesday in his four-year fight to keep every last penny of his $187.5 million pay package, as an appeals court threw out the state's remaining claims against him. The ruling, Grasso's second court victory in the past week, prompted New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to throw in the towel. The New York Supreme Court's appellate division, in a 3-1 vote, dismissed two legal claims against Grasso brought by former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2004. The ruling follows a decision last week...

Failed 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) lashed out today at the most decorated living American serviceman, Col. Bud Day, who was awarded the Medal Honor for his heroism as a POW during the Vietnam War.Kerry attacked Day for his role in the McCain Truth Squad (a new effort by presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain to defend his military service from criticism) because of Day's participation in the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth (SBVT) 2004 campaign which criticized Kerry's service in Vietnam as a junior naval officer and his actions protesting the war when he returned...

I’m not sure what to do with this. Obviously what he said raised someone’s eyebrow at ABC, but they don’t give us enough of a quote to know exactly what he’s saying. While Barack Obama was urging supporters not to devalue the military service of rival John McCain on Monday, a top Democratic voice on foreign policy argued at the political arm of a liberal think tank that the former POW’s isolation during the Vietnam war has hobbled the Arizona senator’s capacity as a war-time leader.The comments were made by Rand Beers, Sen. John Kerry’s, D-Mass., top national security adviser...

WASHINGTON: With Senator Barack Obama planning to visit the Middle East and Europe in an apparent effort to burnish his foreign policy credentials, the credentials of his likely presidential rival, Senator John McCain, came under sharp attack Sunday from a man considered a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate. The retired general Wesley Clark said McCain had not "held executive responsibility" and had not commanded troops in wartime. McCain's experience in Vietnam, where he was a prisoner of war for five years, has seemed at times almost to grant him invulnerability to criticism of his security background. But on Sunday he...

A bill introduced in Congress this week would "compel" oil and natural gas companies to produce from federal lands they are leasing. If only it were that easy to find and produce oil. Imagine, an act of Congress that could do what geology could not. These lawmakers ask why oil and gas companies want more access to federal lands to drill if they aren't using all of the 68 million acres they already have? Anyone with even the most basic understanding of how oil and natural gas are produced – and this should include many members of Congress – knows...