Obama

[Soldier4Christ]

Obama concedes to compromise on drilling
Dem candidate reluctantly agrees to listen to GOP pressure

Obama Shifts to Say He May Back Offshore Drilling

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that’s what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

“If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”

Asked about Obama’s comment, McCain said, “We need oil drilling and we need it now offshore. He has consistently opposed it. He has opposed nuclear power. He has opposed reprocessing. He has opposed storage.” The GOP candidate said Obama doesn’t have a plan equal to the nation’s energy challenges.

In Congress, both parties have fought bitterly over energy policy for weeks, with Republicans pressing for more domestic oil drilling and Democrats railing about oil company profits. Despite hundreds of hours of House and Senate floor debate, lawmakers will leave Washington for their five-week summer hiatus this week with an empty tank.

“The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling,” Obama said in the Post interview. “And so we don’t want gridlock. We want to get something done.”

Later, Obama issued a written statement warmly welcoming a proposal sent to Senate leaders Friday by 10 senators — five from each party. Their proposal seeks to break the impasse over offshore oil development and is expected to be examined more closely in September after Congress returns from its summer recess.

The so-called Gang of 10 plan would lift drilling bans in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but retain an environmental buffer zone extending 50 miles off Florida’s beaches and in the South Atlantic off Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, but only if a state agrees to the oil and gas development along its coast. The states would share in revenues from oil and gas development.

Drilling bans along the Pacific coast and the Northeast would remain in place under this compromise.

The plan also includes energy initiatives Obama has endorsed. “It would repeal tax breaks for oil companies so that we can invest billions in fuel-efficient cars, help our automakers re-tool, and make a genuine commitment to renewable sources of energy like wind power, solar power, and the next generation of clean, affordable biofuels,” Obama noted.

“Like all compromises, it also includes steps that I haven’t always supported,” Obama conceded. “I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term, though I do welcome the establishment of a process that will allow us to make future drilling decisions based on science and fact.”

Nevertheless, Obama said the plan, put forward by mostly moderates and conservatives led by Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., “represents a good faith effort at a new bipartisan beginning.”

Earlier in the day, Obama pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to McCain’s call for more offshore drilling.

The pitch for putting some of the economic burden of $4-a-gallon gasoline on the oil industry served a dual purpose for Obama: It allowed him to talk up an economic issue, seen by many as a strength for Democrats and a weakness for Republicans, and at the same time respond to criticism from McCain that Obama’s opposition to offshore drilling leads to higher prices at the pump.

In linking McCain to the unpopular President Bush, Obama struck a theme from Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 campaign against President Jimmy Carter by asking a town-hall audience in St. Petersburg: “Do you think you are better off than you were four years ago or eight years ago? If you aren’t better off, can you afford another four years?”

Obama primed the crowd by noting new government figures showing 51,000 jobs lost last month and citing 460,000 jobs lost over the last seven months. He tied other bad economic news from the Bush administration to McCain and offered his energy program as one route to relief.

“This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months,” Obama said during a two-day campaign swing in Florida. “It will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills, or even to pay down your own debt.”

[HisDaughter]

I found some interesting tidbits while surfing the net: "Nearing Midnite"...

Antichrist’s Press in Training?
Members of the American press are charting new political coverage waters with their sycophantic reporting on Barack Hussein Obama’s tour of the Middle East and Europe. Even the mainstream news media’s own are finding problems with their institution’s obsequious treatment of the Democrat Party’s presumptive candidate for the presidency of the United States.

A pundit pointed out criticism by one mainstream journalist about the coverage of Obama’s out-of-country trip. The well-known news personality voiced her concern that Obama was getting away with less-than-honest comportment as a first-line presidential candidate while he barnstormed far away from domestic turf.

NBC's Andrea Mitchell was the one journalist with the courage to name what she was actually seeing happen: Obama faking even being interviewed by the press. "Let me say something about the message management. He didn't have reporters with him, he didn't have a press pool, he didn't do a press conference," either in Afghanistan or Iraq, noted Mitchell on the air. Instead Obama manufactured “what some would call 'fake interviews,' because they are not interviews from a journalist," Mitchell went on. Mitchell understands very well that this contrived image management is powerfully all to Obama's political advantage. He's shameless when it comes to managing his own image. "Politically it's as smart as can be," she conceded before noting the big obvious truth nobody else in the media was bothering to expose: "We've not seen a presidential candidate do this, in my recollection, ever before" ("Obama Faking It," by Maggie Gallagher, Real Clear Politics, July 23, 2008).

Slavish media attention to the nation’s first African American to have a possible chance, even probable likelihood, of being elected to the nation’s highest office was having some apparently unintended effects. Despite the intensive Hollywood-like publicity coverage at every turn to Obama’s posturing as if he were already president, the polls in America seemed to reflect a recognition, similar to Ms Mitchell’s, that the American media monolith was engaging in overkill –or maybe that would be over-exuberance for the candidate they obviously champion.

Even before the news was out that all three TV broadcast networks--ABC, CBS, and NBC--had sent their anchors along to cover Obama, leaving only a modicum of network coverage for McCain back in the states, the polling statistics were not looking good for the mainstream news conglomerate.

"[A] Rasmussen Reports survey found that plenty of…Americans agree: ‘49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help the Democrat with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago. Just 14% believe most reporters will try to help McCain win, little changed from 13% a month ago. Just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage’” (The New York Times, "The Opinionator, Has the Press Voted for Obama?" by Tobin Harshaw, July 21, 2008).

I haven’t found a similar poll since the news has been made well-known that the major television networks have assigned their news anchors, CBS's Katie Couric, ABC's Charles Gibson, and NBC's Brian Williams to do special interviews with Obama while he moves through what many are calling a “campaign extravaganza.” As of this writing, the grandiose treatment the Democrat candidate is receiving isn’t helping. At best, he has held even in the tracking polls, and the trend has been one moving slightly downward. Again, as of this writing, the race is statistically even, when the margin of error is included.

So, it seems the American press, at least, will have to come up with new, innovative techniques that the voting public hasn’t yet caught onto, if they are to influence elections in the future, to the extent they influenced them in the past–when the big 3 networks had a collective monopoly on coverage. Now, the news venues are so fractionalized by the cable and satellite additions for the viewing/listening/reading publics, that old techniques, no matter how powerfully presented, run the risk of turning off the voters, rather than turning them on.

The U.S. press–at least, the traditional, mainstream press--is proving inept in shaping the political landscape as they once did. But, they continue to act as if they believe they can still do it like in the good ol’ days. With their venturing into the Mid-East and Europe, acting for all the world like Obama’s personal publicity machine, the sense is that this is but the beginning of the process to thrust forward candidates of global, rather than of merely national, jurisdiction. European media already speak as one, for the most part. It is their American brethren they must wait upon to come into the global news propaganda siege machine. The American journalists are in training, so to speak.

One day, a man of supernaturally infused charm and abilities will step on the end-times stage of human history. God’s prophetic words say the following about this future global politician: “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn [were] eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things” (Dan. 7:. And again the prophetic word says: “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty [and] two months” (Rev. 13:5).

Antichrist, the supreme globalist-politician, will utilize a future propaganda siege machine, the likes of which this Armageddon-destined world has never seen.

[HisDaughter]

Pelosi Backs Obama on Repeal of Defense of Marriage Act
Friday, August 01, 2008

Democratic presidential canddiate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)
CNSNews

If Barack Obama is elected president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will support him in fulfilling his vow to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which currently protects states from having to recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other states as they ordinarily would be required to do by the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution.
 
“Yes,” Pelosi said Thursday at a press conference, when CNSNews.com asked if she would support Obama’s policy.
 
The DOMA defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman for purposes of all federal laws. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the DOMA protects states from having to recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other states.
 
Ordinarily, under the "Full Faith and Credit Clause" of the Constitution, states are required to recognize "the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)The “pride” section of the Obama campaign Web site reads: "Obama also believes we need to fully repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions.”

In July 1996, DOMA passed the Republican-controlled House by a margin of 342 to 67. Pelosi voted against the bill along with 64 other Democrats.

[Soldier4Christ]

Obama Has His Own Presidential Chair On His Plane

His chair has his name and campaign logo embroidered on the back top — with “President” as the last line underneath.

His plane is bigger than Air Force One (I wonder what that does for his carbon footprint?) and the space set aside just for him is larger than that set aside for the President on Air Force One. There are four chairs in the space that resemble Lazyboys.

A comment from one democrat talk radio host, Taylor Marsh, on this:

"Obama and his team need to come down to earth now. Or they’ll surely crash land later."

[HisDaughter]

Obama Has His Own Presidential Chair On His Plane

His chair has his name and campaign logo embroidered on the back top — with “President” as the last line underneath.

His plane is bigger than Air Force One (I wonder what that does for his carbon footprint?) and the space set aside just for him is larger than that set aside for the President on Air Force One. There are four chairs in the space that resemble Lazyboys.

A comment from one democrat talk radio host, Taylor Marsh, on this:

"Obama and his team need to come down to earth now. Or they’ll surely crash land later."

If his head gets any bigger, he won't need a plane.  He will just float like a hot-air balloon!

[HisDaughter]

By the way, everything he does reminds of back in the seventies when everyone was talking about karma and "just think positive" and it will happen.  Or "fake it till you make it".
He also reminds me of someone close to me that lies so often and so long that he actually believes it as truth!

[Soldier4Christ]

If his head gets any bigger, he won't need a plane.  He will just float like a hot-air balloon!

 

[Soldier4Christ]

Palestinians donate
$29,500 to Obama
Gazan brothers' illegal contributions
listed in government election filings

Palestinian brothers inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip are listed in government election filings as having donated $29,521.54 to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign.

The donations would violate election laws, including prohibitions on receiving donations from foreigners and guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election, Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, told WND in response to a query.

The contributions also raise numerous questions about the Obama campaign's lax online donation form, which apparently allows for the possibility of foreign contributions.

Last week, the Atlas Shrugs blog outlined a series of donations in 2007 made to Obama's campaign from two individuals, Monir Edwan and Hosam Edwan, totaling $29,521.54.

In an online form on Obama's campaign site, the Edwans listed their street as "Tal Esaltan," which they wrote was located in "Rafah, GA."

Rafah is not a city in Georgia. The Atlas blog immediately raised concerns that the money may have been donated from the Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

The Edwans' donations are listed in both FEC filings and other election filing sites, such as CampaignMoney and donordata.org.

Monir made 20 donations ranging from $717 to $2017.50 from October through November 2007. His donations totaled $24321.41. Hosam made seven donations ranging from $508.63 to $1725.96, totaling $5,200.13, all in October 2007.

 WND investigation tracked down the Edwans, who are brothers living in the Tal Esaltan neighborhood of Rafah, a large refugee camp in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The Edwans are a large clan that include top Hamas supporters.

Speaking to WND, the two brothers praised Obama and admitted giving the gotcha186 to his campaign. They said they are not U.S. citizens or green card holders but are citizens of "Palestine."

The Edwans denied they are affiliated with Hamas. Palestinian sources in Gaza confirmed the Edwans in question are secular, but could not say whether they supported Hamas.

Monir and Hasam Edwan denied their financial transactions online – listed as donations in U.S. government election filings – were actual donations to Obama's campaign. Instead they claimed they purchased about $30,000 in Obama T-shirts from the presidential candidate's online store – a contention that did not hold up during a WND interview, when they changed their story several times.

"My brother Hosam and I knew that Obama will be a big hit even before he became a candidate. We knew the guy would be a celebrity in Gaza so we decided to invest the amount of $29,000 to buy Obama T-shirts from his website and sell them in Gaza," Monir Edwan told WND, speaking by cell phone from Gaza.

"I know on the back of this story Obama rivals will present our business as a donation and they will try to use this story to let Obama fall, but I'm telling you, we bought T-shirts," Edwan maintained.

Edwan said any profit made from purportedly selling the Obama T-shirts was not returned to the Obama campaign.

"We have nothing to do with the Obama campaign. We just like Obama and believe he will be the best for the Palestinians and for the world."

At first Monir Edwan claimed he sold the T-shirts in Gaza for around $9 and that a profit was made.

"Some young men even bought the T-shirts for 60 shekel ($17.29), which is a lot to spend in Gaza on a T-shirt, but that is how much Gazans like Obama," Edwan claimed.

But it was pointed out to Edwan the T-shirts for sale on Obama's website are listed as $20.08 and that selling the merchandise for less would not yield a profit.

"Maybe we sold the shirts for a lot more. I can't remember now," said Edwan.

Asked why he would purchase T-shirts at such a high rate and pay the cost of shipping when he could pay a company to produce T-shirts for less, Edwan replied, "We wanted the shirts to come from the campaign."

But Edwan could not explain how he managed to get shipments of T-shirts into the Gaza Strip during the months he claimed to have purchased the merchandise, since Israel imposed a tight closure of the Gaza Strip starting in June 2007 that lasted until June 2008, when the Israeli government agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza.

"We don't want to cause any damage to Obama's campaign," was Edwan's reply.

Edwan said he wants Obama to be president.

"Not just the people in Gaza but people from all over the world are rooting for this great man," he told WND.

FEC spokesman Biersack told WND contributions from overseas are allowed if the donations are coming from U.S. citizens or green card carriers. But he said accepting money from foreigners would violate election provisions.

He said there are strict guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election.

"I am not familiar with the particulars of the case, so I am commenting in general. The FEC will have to examine all the circumstances before determining any wrongdoing," Biersack clarified.

Obama's campaign did not return WND phone calls or e-mail queries.

That the Edwans were able to contribute any money to Obama's campaign from Gaza opens questions into the methods used by the presidential candidate's website to accept online donations.

The website donation form asks each donor to affirm he or she is a U.S. citizen and is above the age of 16 but doesn't require donors to prove their citizenship status, such as providing a social security number. The form further requires the donor to affirm the contribution is not coming from a corporation, political action committee or lobby group.

[HisDaughter]

I'm shocked.    No I'm not. 

[Soldier4Christ]

Oops. I must have clicked on the wrong thread when I posted this one.

[Soldier4Christ]

There that fixed it and got the posts into the right thread.   

[MangoMan]

Hey Everyone,
I cannot and will not forget the comment made during the Democrats' primaries that the leftist liberals like Obama more than Hillary, because he was more liberal than she.  LOL, that was a shocker.

Want to also point out, the Democrats are already strategizing the future.  Congress has ground to a halt wasting time making apologies for American slavery and what not instead of real work.  They are not dumb, just holding back until OB wins and then the flood gates open with a democrat controlled Congress and Executive branch.  Then it looks like progress is being made, without OB even raising a finger.  I know it's politics, I'm sure the Republicans could be accused of such nonsense in the past.  It just sickens me.

I also read an article about Senator Obama's speech before a religious conference in St. Louis just recently.  They loved him, and he claimed he wouldn't be doing the Lord's work if he wasn't following the Lord's will.  He also urge "Christians" to practice what they hear on Sundays... not just be Sunday Christians.

Sorry, I don't dig fraudulent comments.  There are many Christian organizations and ministries that are dying to self everyday in service to the Lord Jesus Christ and not the American political machine!

Sincerely,
MangoMan

[MangoMan]

Hey Everyone,
Unfortunately, the St. Louis Post Dispatch removed it's article from the web with the Sunday Christians remark, but I noticed the speech is on the web in video form... you might want to listen.

Here's a web article about his visit there...

Senator Obama Speaks At St. Louis Convention 
 
Last Edited: Sunday, 06 Jul 2008, 9:31 AM CDT 
Created: Saturday, 05 Jul 2008, 11:33 AM CDT 
 
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Watch Sen. Obama's entire speech and Betsey Bruce's coverage here:
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Videos
 
 

Links
African Methodist Episcopal Church Website



ST. LOUIS  -- 


By: Betsey Bruce
Fox 2 News

 Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama called on Americans to celebrate our nation's birth by serving and sacrificing to help create a "kind and more just" world.  Speaking in St. Louis to a crowd of twelve thousand attending the African Methodist Episcopal church convention, the Illinois senator drew cheers and shouts of "yes we can!"

 "Just as this celebration cannot be an idle celebration; our faith cannot be an idle faith," he told the church goers Saturday afternoon. "We must live truth not only with good words, but with good deeds."  He told the crowd at America's Center of the Christian faith he found as a young community organizer working in Chicago.  Suggesting moral values belong in government policies and laws as well as homes and lives, Obama called for a new economic plan that would produce better paying jobs and an education agenda that invests in early childhood education and better pay for teachers.

 Chiding news reporters for suggesting he had suddenly accepted a Bush administration idea of faith based programs working with government, the candidate declared "coming to the church is not new to me, it is not part of a political stratagem."  He promised faith based initiatives would be at the moral center of an Obama administration.  But he also called on individuals to step forward.  "We cannot legislate compassion; we cannot legislate responsibility," he said going on to exhort parents to instill values in their children, to read to them and to teach them to respect others.

 "We've got to have every hand on deck to deal with this crisis that we face," he said.  Praising the A.M.E. church for its leadership roles in the civil rights movement, Obama described his success as "the culmination of so many others."  He concluded his speech asking the crowd, " keep me in your prayers AME. Go out and march with me. I won't fear anybody."

 A church elder from Oakland, CA, Booker Guyton said the convention would welcome hearing from Republican nominee Senator John McCain.  "We are a diverse society and we need both views."

 McCain has yet to respond to the church convention's invitation to speak.  The quadrennial convention continues through July 11.
 

[Soldier4Christ]

I find it extremely difficult to believe anything that this man has to say, especially when he starts talking of "kind and more just world". His actions and prior words do not support such a statement. Nor do those of his known associates.

[MangoMan]

"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men."
                        -- Samuel Adams