Friday Blog Round Up: Last Post Edition

Good bye and best of luck to you,Alex. We’ll leave the light on for you. Take care. Godspeed!

Obama ‘Lying’ About Muslim Past, Expert Says
By: David A. Patten

Sen. Barack Obama “is lying” when he insists that he has never prayed in a mosque and was never a Muslim, a prominent Middle East expert and journalist says.

Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum think tank, says he fully accepts that Obama is a Christian now. But there is strong evidence that Obama received a Muslim upbringing during his years in Indonesia, Pipes said.

“It’s fine with me that he was a Muslim and a convert to Christianity,” Pipes told Newsmax. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal “is a convert from Hinduism. I have no problem with his conversion. What I have a problem with is that he’s lying” when he says he was never a Muslim.

Newsmax asked whether Pipes is alleging outright that Obama has lied about having a Muslim upbringing.

Pipes’ response: “The evidence suggests to me that he is lying, yes.”

Pipes told Newsmax, “It would start with the fact that his father was a Muslim — granted, not a practicing Muslim, but in the Muslim world, if your father is a Muslim, you’re a Muslim. His father named him Hussein, which is a name only given to Muslim babies. He went with his stepfather to a mosque. They celebrated certain Muslim holidays at the mosque together. He had knowledge of the Koran. He had knowledge of Muslim prayers. You put all this together, he was a Muslim.”

Pipes contends that a Nov. 12 post on Obama’s Web site headlined, “Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim,” stated: “Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.”

Today, that post bears the same headline, but does not include an assertion that Obama “never prayed in a mosque” and “has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim.”

The page now bears a quote Obama made during the Jan. 15 debate on MSNBC: “In the Internet age, there are going to be lies that are spread all over the place. I have been victimized by these lies. Fortunately, the American people are, I think, smarter than folks give them credit for.”

The current post, which includes links intended to debunk any Muslim connection, is headlined “Obama Has Never Been A Muslim, And Is a Committed Christian”.

Several media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, have reported on Obama’s schooling in Indonesia, where he lived from 1967 to 1971, which included Muslim religious studies.

It is known, for example, that Obama’s designation as a Muslim while attending a Catholic school may have simply reflected the fact that his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim.

Still, Obama was grouped with Muslim students at the school and engaged in weekly religious studies, including studying the Koran and learning Muslim prayers.

In 1970, Obama’s family moved and he was enrolled in a public school where children such as Obama who were identified as Muslim spent two hours a week studying Islam.

A March 2007 Chicago Tribune article by Kim Barker, which stated several accounts had “distorted the reality” of Obama’s years in Indonesia, reported that he did irregularly attend Muslim prayer services at the local mosque.

Obama’s third-grade teacher at the Catholic school, Fermina Katarina Sinaga, told Barker that Obama accompanied his stepfather to pray at the mosque, doing so “rarely.”

Pipes said Barker’s story bolsters his position that Obama was raised as a Muslim while he lived in Indonesia. His accounts of Obama’s upbringing have received a “very severe reaction from the left” and threats from some Muslims, he said.

“The Islamists murmur and threaten,” Pipes said, declining to specify the threats he has received.

Pipes sees a whopping double standard in how the mainstream media has reported on Obama’s past.

“It’s been quite fascinating to watch the careful picking over of Sarah Palin’s record, down to her library policies as mayor of Wasilla, and her possible false pregnancies, and so forth, an analysis that involved excruciating details in her case.”

He contrasts that to the “the general pass” the media has given Obama, whether over his career in the Illinois Senate, the Annenberg library papers, or his upbringing in Jakarta. Pipes said his reports have “simply been dismissed as untrue without any facts to counter it.”

The McCain campaign “has been very cautious about looking into Barack Obama at all,” said Pipes, adding that the GOP has demonstrated a general reluctance to raise questions about Obama’s past.

Pipes has posted four articles on his Web site, “DanielPipes.org”, defending his view that Obama was a Muslim. The articles include the assertion that “for some years (Obama) had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian stepfather.”
cont

As a measure of the interest in Obama’s background, Pipes’ articles have attracted close to half a million hits. One point of contention they raise: When someone is born of a Muslim father, do Muslims automatically consider him a Muslim?

A group of more than 50 scholars recently posted a statement on tabsir.net, a Web site dedicated to fostering an understanding of Islam, that seeks to refute that assertion. The statement maintains that distortions about Obama’s past are “part of an Islamophobic hate campaign that fuels prejudice against Americans who practice their Islamic faith and Muslims worldwide.”

Their statement says, “The vast majority of Muslims accept the Qur’anic message that there is no compulsion in Islam. Since Senator Obama was not raised as a Muslim, he cannot be held accountable for the religious status of his father.”

That assertion sounds logical to Western ears, but Pipes’ rejects it flatly.

“There is no doubt: It is a fact in Islam that the religion passes on through the father,” he told Newsmax. “And yet it’s denied as a falsehood by people who know better. They know better. It’s Islam 101.”

Supporting Pipes on that point is Shireen K. Burki, an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington. Burki, who spent her childhood studying Islam at a school in Islamabad, Pakistan, has first-hand experience as the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother.

“According to Islamic jurisprudence,” she wrote in a May article in the Christian Science Monitor, “children of a Muslim father — even an apparently nonpracticing one, such as Obama’s father, and irrespective of the mother’s faith — are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period.”

Given that Obama’s profession of Christianity is essentially uncontested, one might wonder whether it really matters whether Obama once was Muslim.

To many of the world’s approximately 1.4 billion Muslims, it apparently would matter a great deal. Experts on Islam generally agree that someone who is born a Muslim (in effect, someone who had a Muslim father), who later renounces Islam, is considered an apostate.

Burki writes, “Should Obama become U.S. commander in chief, there is a strong likelihood that al-Qaida’s media arm, As-Sahab, will exploit his background to argue that an apostate is leading the global war on terror (read: attacks against fellow Muslims). This perception would be leveraged to galvanize sympathizers into action.”

She suggests the apostate tag would be a powerful propaganda weapon that al-Qaida could wield to marginalize America’s Middle East allies, causing “enormous difficulties” in the war against terror.

Soon to follow-

Liberal hot air and B/S by- ddrb

Larry
No one reads your long cut and pastes.
You are better to put a short paragraph together yourself.
Sorry but that is the truth.

“Well, my faithful blog readers, after two years of working on Wal-Mart issues and more than a year as the main editor of this blog, our Friday Blog Round-Up today will be my last post.”

As that old ‘Queen’ song says, “Another one bites the dust”!!

From the Associated Press:

The Illinois senator also sought to ease lingering Internet-fed concerns about his religion, in particular whether he was a closet Muslim.

“I am a devout Christian. I have been a member of the same church for 20 years. I pray to Jesus every night,” he declared at an earlier appearance in the rural southern Ohio town of Nelsonville. He said he wanted to halt “confusion that has been deliberately perpetrated.”

Obama Defends His Christian Religion
Mar 2 01:37 PM US/Eastern

NELSONVILLE, Ohio (AP) - campaign_minute Democrat Barack Obama says he’s tired of questions about his religion. The Democratic presidential candidate told a town hall meeting Sunday in Nelsonville, Ohio, in the state’s rural southeast, that he is a devout Christian who prays to Jesus every night. He told audience members they would feel right at home at his church in Chicago.

Obama said misinformation—including long-standing suggestions that he is a Muslim—is being spread by his opponents.

A voter questioned the Illinois senator about his religion as he and rival Hillary Rodham Clinton crossed paths heading into Tuesday’s primaries in Ohio and Texas.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V5ED1O0&show_article=1

SMEARED O HAS ‘CROSS’ WORDS
DECLARES AT RALLY: ‘I PRAY TO JESUS’ (NOT ALLAH)
By GEOFF EARLE, Post Correspondent

March 3, 2008

TOLEDO, Ohio - Barack Obama yesterday lashed out at political enemies who are spreading false rumors that he’s a closet Muslim as he proclaimed, “I pray to Jesus every night.”

“I am a devout Christian,” he told voters in this key state.

“I pray to Jesus every night and try to go to church as much as I can.”

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03032008/news/nationalnews/smeared_o_has_cross_words_100255.htm

‘I Am a Big Believer in Not Just Words, But Deeds and Works’
By Lisa Miller and Richard Wolffe | NEWSWEEK
Published Jul 12, 2008

You used to travel with your Bible. Do you still do that?
Barack Obama: Sometimes, because my briefcase gets so packed, I forget to pack it, but I often have my Bible with me. It’s something that I read in the evenings and it takes me out of the immediacy of my day and gives me a point of reflection.

What do you think about the Kingdom of God? Is it attainable on Earth by humans?
Barack Obama: I am a big believer in not just words, but deeds and works. I don’t believe that the Kingdom of God is achievable on Earth without God’s intervention, and without God’s return through Jesus Christ, but I do believe in improvement.

What is the role of doubt in faith?
Barack Obama: I wrote about this in “Audacity of Hope,” that even after I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have doubts. I had doubts when my mother died. I have doubts every time I pick up the newspaper.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/145967

What I find interesting about this is that Barack Obama is a born again Christian, and you Larry...can’t stand that.

Revelation 20:15-
“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

‘whosoever’… means it does not matter if you are Jewish, Jamaican or Japanese.

Larry, there is an old Polish proverb that says, ‘If more Americans would urinate on Bush’s front lawn, then our sons would sleep better.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

McCain’s Terror Connection: G. Gordon Liddy
Published October 5, 2008
Here’s what the mainstream media won’t tell you when they’re busying parroting the Republican line on how what William Ayers did when Barack Obama was 8 actually having any relevance.

As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in “if necessary”; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a “gangland figure” to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap “leftist guerillas” at the 1972 Republican National Convention — a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain’s campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy’s radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled “John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07″ includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an “old friend.” During the segment, McCain praised Liddy’s “adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great,” said he was “proud” of Liddy, and said that “it’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program.”

Liddy called for the murder of federal agents, served time in jail, plotted murder - and after that, John McCain applauded him and took his money.

There’s also that matter of Todd Palin being a member of AIP separatist,secessionist party.~~~~~~~~~~Oliver Willis~~~~NOTE: The Weatherman and Watergate occurred in the same era. Rent “All The Presidents Men” and refresh yourselves on the domestic terrorism that was planned and perpetrated from within the highest halls of power .

I thought this was SUPPOSED to be an anti Wal-Mart site! Do the elections have ANYTHING TO DO WITH WAL-MART or am I missing something here?

Jane: Didn’t WalMart insert itself into the Presidential elections with the electioneering of its employees against the Democratic contender, AND the push by GOP and WalMart of the ubiquitous “WalMart"Mom campaign? Momtourage?

And of course the news flash of Sarah Palin stopping into a Walmart store and it gets national press.

Sarah Palin is bimbolicious!! But then again, so is George W. Bush.

Obama’s Secret Campaign Cash: Has $63 Million Flowed from Foreign Sources?

Sunday, October 19, 2008 6:28 PM

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman

As Barack Obama reaped a stunning $150 million in campaign donations in September, bringing his total to more than $600 million, new questions have arisen about the source of his amazing funding.

By Obama’s own admission, more than half of his contributions have come from small donors giving $200 or less. But unlike John McCain’s campaign, Obama won’t release the names of these donors.

A Newsmax canvass of disclosed Obama campaign donors shows worrisome anomalies, including outright violations of federal election laws.

For example, Obama has numerous donors who have contributed well over the $4,600 federal election limit.

Many of these donors have never been contacted by the Obama campaign to refund the excess amounts to them.

And more than 37,000 Obama donations appear to be conversions of foreign currency.

According to a Newsmax analysis of the Obama campaign data before the latest figures were released, potential foreign currency donations could range anywhere from $12.8 million to a stunning $63 million in all. With the addition of $150 million raised in September, this amount could be much more.

When asked by Newsmax about excess contributions, Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said that contributions already identified as excess had been returned and that those the campaign was just learning about—either through news accounts or from the Federal Election Commission—“will be returned.”

“Every campaign faces the challenge of screening and reviewing its contributions,” LaBolt said. “And we have been aggressive about taking every available step to make sure our contributions are appropriate, updating our systems when necessary.”

But many of the donors Newsmax canvassed said they had “never” been contacted by the Obama campaign or seen any refunds, even though their contributions went over the limit months ago.

In all, Newsmax found more than 2,000 donors who had contributed in excess of the $4,600 limit for individuals per election cycle.

Such donations, if not returned within 60 days, are a clear violation of federal campaign finance laws.

Lisa Handley, a stay-at-home mom from Portland, Ore., recalled giving $4,600 to the Obama campaign by credit card, contributions she made because “I love Obama,” she said.

According to FEC records, however, she gave an additional $2,300 to the campaign, putting her over the limit.

The Obama campaign reported that it had “redesignated” the excess money, which could mean that it had contributed it to a separate party committee or a joint fundraising committee, which have higher limits.

But if that happened, it’s news to Handley. “No one ever contacted me to return any of the money or told me they were redesignating some of the money,” she said.

Ronald J. Sharpe Jr., a retired teacher from Rockledge, Fla., appears in the Obama campaign reports as having given a whopping $13,800.

The campaign reported that it returned $4,600 to him, making his net contribution of $9,200 still way over the legal limit.

But there’s one problem with the Obama data: Sharpe doesn’t remember giving that much money to the Obama campaign in the first place, nor does he recall anyone from the campaign ever contacting him to return money.

“At the end, I was making monthly payments,” he told Newsmax. The Obama campaign records do not show any such payments.

Many donors refused to answer questions about the political campaign contributions appearing in their name when they learned that the caller was from a news organization.

John Atkinson, an insurance agent in Burr Ridge, Ill., refused to discuss his contributions, which totaled $8,724.26, before numerous refunds.

Atkinson and others gave in odd amounts: $188.67, $1,542.06, $876.09, $388.67, $282.20, $195.66, $118.15, and one rounded contribution of $2,300.

Sandra Daneshinia, a self-employed caregiver from Los Angeles, made 36 separate contributions, totaling $7,051.12, according to FEC records. Thirteen of them were eventually refunded.

In a bizarre coincidence, those 13 refunded contributions—for varying amounts such as $223.88 and $201.44—added up exactly to $2,300, the amount an individual may give per federal election.

cont

In all, an astonishing 37,265 unique donors to the Obama campaign whose contributions were not rounded up to dollar amounts. That amounts to more than 10 percent of the total number of unique donors whose names have been disclosed by the Obama campaign to the public.

Of those, 44,410 contributions came in unrounded amounts of less than $100. FEC regulations only require that campaigns disclose the names of donors who have given a total of $200 or more, so that means that all these contributors were repeat donors.

Another 15,269 contributions gave in unrounded amounts between $101 and $999, while 704 of the unrounded contributions were in amounts of more than $1,000.

Campaign finance experts find the frequent appearance of unrounded contributions suspicious, since contributors almost invariably give in whole dollar amounts.

“Of course this is odd. They are obviously converting from local currency to U.S. dollars,” said Ken Boehm, the chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center.

“The overwhelming number of large dollar contributors—and even small donors—are in even dollar amounts,” he told Newsmax. “Anyone who doubts that can go to FEC.gov and look through the campaign contribution data bases. You will not find many uneven numbers.”

Boehm said he had rarely seen unrounded contributions in his 30 years as a lawyer doing campaign finance work.

Richard E. Hug, a veteran Republican fundraiser in Maryland who who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, and spearheaded the successful 2002 gubernatorial race for Bob Ehrlich that brought in a record $10 million, told Newsmax that unrounded contributions were extremely unusual.

“I’ve never seen this in all my years of raising money for political candidates,” he said. “The first thing it suggests is foreign currency transactions—contributions from foreign donors, which is clearly illegal.”

Top Republican fundraiser Steve Gordon, who has raised $65 million for GOP candidates over the past 30 years, told Newsmax that such contributions in uneven amounts would be “pretty unusual.”

“You might have a rounding process if there was some kind of joint event, but since all appears to be on the Internet, it’s pretty unusual. At the very least, it would need to be explored.”

LaBolt attributed the uneven amounts to the online “Obama store,” which sells T-shirts and other campaign items.

“Contributions made to the Obama store often produce totals that are not exact dollar amounts,” he said.

But the campaign has never produced any accounting for proceeds from its online store, which virtually shut down several weeks ago after Newsmax and news organizations revealed that Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and other foreigners had made large purchases there.

The Republican National Committee has filed a complaint against the Obama campaign for “accepting prohibited contributions from foreign nationals and excessive contributions from individuals,”

“Their responses to FEC inquiries have often been inadequate and late,” RNC general counsel Sean Cairncross told Newsmax.

The Obama camp claims to have 2.5 million donors in all. But until now, they have kept secret the names of the overwhelming majority of these money-givers. According to a Newsmax analysis, the Obama campaign finance records contain just 370,448 unique names.

Even accounting for common names such as Robert Taylor or Michael Brown, which can signify multiple donors, Obama’s publicly known donor base is less than 20 percent of the total number of donors the campaign claims to have attracted. But the identity of the other 2 million donors is being kept secret.

As of the end of August, those secret donors have given an incredible $222.7 million to Obama, according to the FEC—money whose origin remains unknown to anyone other than Obama’s finance team, who won’t take calls from the press.

While no exact figures are available, if the same percentage of potential foreign contributions found in the itemized contribution data is applied to the total $426.9 million the Obama camp says it has taken in from individuals, this could mean that Obama is financing his presidential campaign with anywhere from $13 million to a whopping $63 million from overseas credit cards or foreign currency purchases.

The sum of all unrounded contributions in the itemized FEC filings for the Obama campaigns comes to $6,437,066.07. That is the actual amount of money that appears to have been charged to foreign credit cards that the Obama campaign has disclosed.

If the same ratio applies to the unitemized contributions, which are again as large, then the Obama campaign may have taken as much as $13 million from foreign donors.

However, the donors who made those unrounded contributions gave a total of $31,484,584.27, meaning that as much as $63 million may have come from questionable sources.

McCain coverup: ticking timebomb Harry Sargeant III
by catchlightnin
Fri Sep 12, 2008
Despite the McCain campaign’s best efforts to cover-up for its shady fundraising bundler Harry Sargeant III, the spotlight is shining on him again.  Harry Sargeant—Finance Chairman for the Florida Republican Party, finance co-chair of the Florida McCain Campaign, chief moneyman for Gov. Charlie Crist and head of an Iraq war oil transport firm with $1 billion in U.S. Defense Department contracts—is still the focus of intense scrutiny.

The Miami Herald’s Scott Hiaasen and Dan Christensen today report in a Political Currents story “Behind the scenes GOP fundraiser finds himself in the spotlight” that Mr. Sargeant “a political and business heavyweight who does his heaviest lifting behind the scenes” is attempting to avoid further inquiry into his massive fundraising efforts for McCain.  The campaign itself has been looking into Mr. Sargeant’s long list of “bundled” contributors, but has thusfar refused to make its findings known.~~~~~~~~~daily kos

McCain Bundler’s Donors Raise Eyebrows
by Paul Kiel , ProPublica - August 6, 2008

McCain’s campaign has received more than $50,000 in contributions through bundler Harry Sargeant III. Seldom is a news story so full of question marks as today’s Washington Post piece on Harry Sargeant III. Sargeant, who runs a major defense contractor, has delivered more than $50,000 in contributions to McCain’s campaign. So far, so what. That, too, is not remarkable. Hotshot bundlers often deliver for multiple candidates.

But when you examine who the donors are, the question marks start popping up.

Some of the intrigue comes from Sargeant himself. His company, International Oil Trading Co. (IOTC), has contracts worth more than $1 billion with the Defense Department to supply fuel to the U.S. military in Iraq. The company, which had not done any government work before it first won that contract in 2004, signed a two-year extension worth $913 million in 2007. But there have been difficulties. The contract requires that the fuel be brought through Jordan to Iraq—meaning only the company with a “letter of authorization” from the Jordanian government could have stood a chance. As MSNBC reported, IOTC managed that feat by striking a deal with the king of Jordan’s brother-in-law. Even though other companies bid on the contract, and IOTC was not the lowest bidder, IOTC was the only one with authorization and so won the contract. (The brother-in-law is suing IOTC, claiming he was cut out of the spoils. He wants $13 million for his trouble.)

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has opened (PDF) an investigation into the contracts, in particular examining whether IOTC overcharged for the fuel. Sargeant says that the contract is “in the best interest of the military and the U.S. taxpayers.”

“I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I’ve got a lot of friends,” Sargeant told the Post. “I ask MY FRIENDS to SUPPORT candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually COME THROUGH for me.”

When the Post queried Sargeant’s “friends”—the ones whose contributions he BUNDLED—the paper found them NOT very willing to talk. Some, the paper notes, were NOT EVEN REGISTERED TO VOTE. Nor did any of them express enthusiasm for the candidate to whom they’d donated. None of them, in fact, was willing to say much to a reporter. Perhaps most bizarre of all, none had any obvious link to Sargeant or his business. Sargeant is based in Florida. The donors are in California. One manages a Rite Aid, another a hookah lounge, another is a Taco Bell supervisor. Their responses were universally evasive, for instance:

Ibrahim Marabeh, who is listed in public records as a Rite Aid manager, at first denied that he wrote any political checks. He then said he was asked by “a local person. But I would like not to talk about it anymore.”
At the Twilight Hookah Lounge, owned by Nadia and Shawn Abdalla, patrons smoke tobacco flavored with honey.

The Abdallas, who are not registered to vote, said in an interview that they recalled writing a check to an organization in Miami, because a person with that organization was a friend of their mother’s. They said they could not remember his name.

As if the story needed additional intrigue, Sargeant tells the Post that he had some help in locating donors from the former top counterterrorism official in the CIA, who consults for his firm. The Post opts not to name the official.~~~~~~~~

McCain fundraiser Harry Sargeant III accused of war profiteering
By Carol Eisenberg October 17, 2008
A Florida billionaire and top fund-raiser for John McCain has been accused of “a reprehensible form of war profiteering” by the chairman of a Congressional investigative committee.

Rep. Henry Waxman, head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, contends a company co-owned by Harry Sargeant III OVERCHRAGED the Pentagon over $180 million to deliver fuel to U.S. military bases in Iraq.

In an Oct. 16 letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the California Democrat demanded an investigation of Sargeant’s International Oil Trading Company, or IOTC. He said the company received successive Pentagon contracts to deliver fuel to Iraq, worth $1.4 billion since 2004, although it had NEVER submitted the lowest bid.

“IF the IOTC contracts had been awarded to the lowest bidders, the taxpayers COULD have saved over $180 million,” Waxman wrote, citing internal Defense Department documents, company information and email exchanges.

“Of the $210 million in profits received by the company, at least one third—$70 million—appears to have benefited a single individual: Mr. Sargeant.”

Mark H. Tuohey III, a lawyer for Sargeant, asserted that Waxman’s charges were unsupported by the facts.
Sargeant is a powerful player in both Florida and national politics, with business interests ranging from asphalt to fuel oil.

As finance co-chairman of McCain’s presidential campaign in Florida, he threw a March fund-raiser for the Arizona senator at his waterfront mansion in Delray Beach. The former Marine pilot also shares his corporate jet with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a college fraternity brother, and is finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

Sargeant’s contracts to deliver oil to military bases in Iraq had ALREADY been in the spotlight this summer after a former partner filed a lawsuit against him in a Florida circuit court.

The partner, Mohammad al-Saleh, is a brother-in-law of King Abdallah II of Jordan. In the court papers, al-Saleh asserted that he obtained SPECIAL governmental authorizations for the company to transport fuel to Iraq through Jordan, and was then forced out by Sargeant and a third partner, Mustafa Abu Naba’a, who is also Jordanian.

Sargeant and Abu Naba’a have denied those allegations.

But Waxman asserts in his letter that the company’s monopoly appeared to have been BASED on their support by Jordan’s royal family.

In one case, he asserts, Sargeant’s company submitted the HIGHEST of six bids, but received the contract anyway because it was the ONLY one to have authorization to transport the fuel through Jordan. Although the Pentagon required the authorization as a condition of the contract, Waxman cites a report by the Library of Congress that Jordanian law does NOT require it.

He also cites documents that quote Pentagon contracting officers complaining that the company’s prices were unreasonably high~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

McCain Transition Chief Lobbied For Saddam Hussein
By Nicole Belle Tuesday Oct 14, 2008

William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein’s government.

During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.

Timmons’ activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, WHEN Washington considered Iraq to be a ROGUE ENEMY state and a SPONSOR of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of the deceased Iraqi leader stand in STARK CONTRAST to the views his CURRENT employer held at the time.

John McCain strongly supported the 1991 military action against Iraq, and as recently as Sunday described Saddam Hussein as a one-time menace to the region who had “stated categorically that he would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he would use them wherever he could.”

Timmons declined to comment for this story~~~~~~~~~~~Crooks and Liars

Obama Lie No. 1 — I will tax just the rich.

There is no such thing as a tax on just the rich. Taxes on wealthy people affect everyone.

Remember, Obama defines anyone making over $90,000 a year as “rich.”

Joe the plumber discovered that Obama thinks Joe’s rich too. Under Obama, he won’t be able to hire new employees and grow his business.

Joe’s not alone. Obama says he’ll strip away the FICA cap at $90,000 for every worker. That means every dollar you earn over that amount, you’ll pay 7 percent!

Obama Lie No. 2 — I want to give a tax cut
to the middle class.

Baloney!

Obama says he will let the Bush tax cuts expire. That’s an automatic 5 percent (maximum) tax increase on almost all taxpayers.

Plus middle class folks pay capital gains taxes. Obama has said he wants to almost double them from a low of 15 percent to almost 30 percent.

He wants to hike the dividend tax, and he also has promised taxes on gas and energy.

Obama also wants to dramatically increase the estate tax, which had almost disappeared. There goes your idea of sharing your wealth with your kids in the future.

Obama Lie No. 3 — I want to make America
more secure.

Another outright lie.

In an age when crazies like Iran’s Ahmadinejad are building ballistic missiles and promise to “destroy” the United States and Israel, Obama has promised to gut the missile defense program created by President Reagan.

“I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems,” Obama said.

He has promised to cut “tens of billions” of dollars from the Defense Department. In an effort to make us more “secure,” Obama plans to disarm us.

In the age of 9/11 can we afford such a radical Leftist in the White House?

No, we can’t.

Obama is not just a danger to our economy, with his plans to raise taxes and spend $800 billion in new programs.

He is a radical out to reshape America beyond recognition.

He is so radical he even backed driver’s licenses for illegal aliens — even though such a move would help future terrorists move freely in the United States.

Even Hillary Clinton opposed his radical plan.

But Obama not only touted such a plan running for president, he pushed for giving illegals driver’s licenses as a state senator in Illinois.

He is also the most pro-abortion candidate in the history of the country. In 2001, as a state legislator in Illinois, he opposed a bill to protect live-born children — children actually born alive! He was the only Illinois senator to speak out against the bill.

He opposes gun rights. He has long history of trying to deny ordinary citizens access to guns.

He originally backed Washington D.C.’s total ban on private handguns — a ban that was overturned. The NRA rated him an “F” on gun positions and says he is one of the most dangerous anti-gun politicians in the nation.

Never forget that Obama is a Harvard-educated elitist. To him, we Americans are simply “bitter” and he has mocked us saying “[they] cling to their guns and their religion.”

Lobbyists’ Clients
Wed, 08/13/2008
Washington, D.C. – Campaign Money Watch, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group, announced today the result of a NEW analysis of the FEES Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) lobbyist bundlers, advisors and staff members have collected from domestic clients over the past decade.

The total? A staggering $930,949,819. (That’s almost a BILLION $$$$$!)

“The McCain campaign relies on BIG money lobbyists, and they’ll rely on him,” said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch. “In the ‘you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours’ world of Washington, $931 million gets the special interests the best government money can buy. But just think of the PAYDAY these lobbyists might expect in a McCain Administration.”

Campaign Money Watch’s analysis of data provided by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (http://www.opensecrets.org) also found that employees and Political Action Committees of these lobbyists’ clients have donated $11,750,051 to McCain’s campaigns, a fact that raises its own set of problems, Donnelly said.

“HOW can John McCain say he’ll REDUCE the influence of special interests in Washington, when he’s so FULLY DEPENDENT on lobbyists and their clients to finance his campaign?” Donnelly asked. “All candidates need to raise money, but is THIS exemplary of a candidate who claims he’ll tackle the special interests?”

To highlight the connections between John McCain and his lobbyists, Campaign Money Watch launched a new Web site last Tuesday called McCainsLobbyists.com. The site shows focuses on 40 of the most prolific – some would argue profligate – lobbyists around McCain. It shows how much money their clients have given to McCain, as well as how much money those lobbyists have earned off those clients.

Campaign Money Watch is a project of the nonpartisan Public Campaign Action Fund. The organization works to hold politicians who are against comprehensive campaign finance reform accountable for where they get their political donations.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

McCain Money News Roundup for Oct. 21, 2008

Bloomberg’s Jonathan D. Salant ~ takes note of the fact that big money still plays a big role in presidential politics, noting that 47 bundlers have raised, combined, at least $23.5 million for the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, McCain’s 538 bundlers have raised at least $77.8 million for him. These bundlers are often from industries the candidates routinely criticize on the trail, such as lobbying and financial services.

Finally, in more (hopefully) lighthearted news, Russia’s UN ambassador got a few laughs from his colleagues this week by showing off a fundraising letter he received from McCain’s campaign (campaigns aren’t allowed to accept money from foreign nationals).~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Campaign Money Watch

‘Smears’ About Obama Largely True

Monday, October 20, 2008

By: Lowell Ponte

The Obama campaign says its candidate is a victim of “smears” — and has even created a Web site to fight such attacks.

But a Newsmax investigation finds many of the so-called smears are largely based in truth — and the Obama campaign uses half-truths, clever language, and ad hominem attacks to spin the facts.

Obama’s www.FightTheSmears.com focuses mainly on anti-Obama messages being repeated on the Internet and talk radio, the only media where Obama’s ideological allies are not dominant.

These “smears” and the Obama rebuttals are often framed in lawyerly language that leaves much wiggle room in the candidate’s answers.

FightTheSmears.com also makes no attempt at objectivity, describing Obama’s critics as “pushing misleading research and distorted claims” because they are “ideologues” busy “spreading a ‘pack of lies’ about Barack.”

In a section of the site titled, “Who’s Behind the Smears?” visitors can see a chart naming seven groups and six individuals with lines that suggest multiple, sinister connections between them.

The people and groups named are real and are members of Washington’s small but conservative sphere of power and influence. The Obama conspiracy chart links all of these conservative individuals and groups back to the critics who dogged the “Clinton 1992 Campaign.”

This may come as something as a surprise to Hillary Clinton, as many of the “smears” against Obama first surfaced during her heated primary contest with him.

Newsmax reviewed 10 random claims and related rebuttals posted on Obama’s ever-changing FightTheSmears.com to gauge their veracity. Here’s what we found:

Claim No. 1: Obama’s campaign is funded by the rich, big corporations and foreigners.

“Barack Obama was the only major presidential candidate this year to completely reject contributions from The Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have dominated our politics for years,” the Obama site says of the persistent online criticisms of its fundraising.

“Instead, this campaign has been owned by the more than 3.1 million everyday Americans who have donated in small amounts.”

Not so, according to campaign finance records. Nearly half of the $600 million raised by Obama to date has come from wealthy donors and special interests. Obama’s allies months ago dropped their ad linking Republican rival “Exxon John” McCain to Big Oil after it came to light that Obama had taken far more money from Exxon-Mobil than McCain.

“The Obama campaign has complied fully with federal election law,” claims the Obama site, “including donor eligibility and contribution disclosure requirements.”

However, one giant loophole the politicians wrote into the law allows contributions in amounts of $200 or less with no donor identification. Obama claims that $300 million in campaign funds was given by these small donors, and he won’t release their names and addresses.

McCain has released his whole donor database, including those who have contributed less than $200.

Critics argue that the other half of Obama’s campaign haul — the part not raised from big corporate donors and special interests — came in a small flood of anonymous donations that might be foreign or corrupt, or both.

continued from above-

Claim No. 2: Obama has had a close, ongoing relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

The Obama site acknowledges that its candidate and Ayers ”served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990s,” but maintains most stories about the links between Obama and Ayers are phony or exaggerated.

It does not mention that Obama and Ayers worked together on the board distributing millions of dollars with the aim of radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren.

Nor does the site acknowledge that Obama kicked off his first political campaign in the living room of Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader. (Obama is currently saying it was not the first event. There is no dispute that one of Obama’s first political events in his first run for public office was held in Ayers’ home.)

There is also no dispute the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon the Capitol, the home of a New York Supreme Court justice, and a police station, among other targets. FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the group, has recounted Ayers teaching him how to make bombs and saying, “In the revolution, some innocent people need to die.”

“Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques . . .” says the Obama Web site.

Actually, McCain and Obama critics are questioning why Obama would continue to associate with a man who, as recently as 2001, said he did not do enough and wished he had bombed more.

Conservatives also note that if Ayers had bombed abortion clinics, the liberal media would brand him a pariah forever. What does it tell us about the liberal media’s and Obama’s judgment and values that they see nothing wrong with embracing unrepentant terrorist Ayers today?

Claim No. 3: Obama takes advice from executives of troubled mortgage backer Fannie Mae.

“John McCain started smearing Obama about non-existent ties to Fannie Mae in some of his deceptive attack ads,” says FightTheSmears.com. The site downplays connections between Obama and two former heads of the giant mortgage-backing institution — James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines — whose corruption played a key role in the current financial crisis.

But an editorial in the Aug. 27, 2008, Washington Post described Johnson and Raines, as “members of Mr. Obama’s political circle.”

Raines advised the Obama campaign on housing matters. Obama chose Johnson to select his vice presidential running mate. But because neither are advising Obama today, this Web site’s present-tense claim that he “doesn’t [not didn’t] take advice from Fannie Mae execs” is technically, if deceptively, true.

Johnson also reportedly helped raise as much as $500,000 for Obama’s campaign.

And despite Obama’s lack of seniority in the U.S. Senate, he pocketed more than $105,000 in political contributions, the third-highest amount given to any lawmaker, directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama’s Web site leaves all this unmentioned.

Claim No. 4: Obama has close ties with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group suspected of massive voter registration fraud.

Obama’s site says the candidate was never an ACORN employee and that ACORN “was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive [Obama] ran in 1992.”

In defending Obama, the site resorts to smearing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell — calling him a “discredited Republican voter-suppression guru” — for daring to fight the vote fraud so often associated with operatives of ACORN, among the largest radical groups in the United States.

As Newsmax has documented in ["Clever Obama Tries To Bury ACORN Past,"] Obama’s Web site is attempting to deceive when it says Obama was never “hired” to work as a trainer for ACORN’s leaders. In fact, he did the work for free from at least 1993 until 2003.

ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg acknowledges in the Oct. 11, 2008, New York Times that Obama trained ACORN leaders. And Obama worked as a lawyer for ACORN.

As to heading up Project Vote in Illinois, Obama said during a speech to ACORN leaders last November, “[When] I ran the Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack-dab in the middle of it.”

Veteran journalist Karen Tumulty described Project Vote in the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of Time magazine as “a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now” after interviewing its national director.

The co-founder of ACORN, former Students for a Democratic Society official Wade Rathke, described Project Vote as one of ACORN’s “family of organizations.”

Cont

Over the years, ACORN and its front groups, like the one Obama ran in Illinois, have registered more than 4 million voters. When authorities in Virginia checked ACORN registrations, it found that 83 percent were fraudulent or had problems. This, in theory, could mean ACORN may have created the opportunity for stealing more than 3.3 million votes in this November’s election, a margin far wider than that by which Obama is likely to win.

Claim No. 5: Obama has shown only wavering support for individual gun-ownership rights.

“During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States Senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen,” says Obama’s Web site, “while doing everything he could to protect children — including his own two daughters — from illegal gun violence.”

But the National Rifle Association, it continues, “is distributing a dishonest and cowardly flyer that makes confrontational accusations and runs away from verifying them.”

Actually, the NRA does a meticulous job of laying out documentation, as Newsmax reported in September ["NRA to Fight Obama Over Gun Rights Flip-Flops,"] to show that Obama has supported handgun confiscation; the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.; a virtual ban on high-powered rifle ammunition; and many other draconian restrictions on Second Amendment rights.

If elected, wrote the NRA, Obama “would be the most anti-gun president in American history.”

Claim No. 6: A fervent supporter of abortion rights, Obama supports late-term and partial-birth abortions.

The Obama Web site dismisses such criticism as the work of “radical anti-abortion ideologues running ads against Barack.”

But as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted repeatedly against legislation to protect infants who, during a late-term abortion, were “born alive.” Such protection, he has argued, already exists in Illinois; it does, but is subject to the abortionist’s decision whether such an infant has a good likelihood of survival.

Nurses have reported instances in which surviving aborted babies were left by abortionists to die without water, food, or warmth.

Obama’s Web site notes that even the Republican author of one of these bills, former state Sen. Rick Winkel, has written that “none of those who voted against [his bill] favored infanticide.”

True, but Obama’s site does not quote the rest of Winkel’s statement: “[T]heir zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.”

Obama has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record according to NARAL Pro-Choice America; his rating from the National Right to Life Committee is zero.

How extreme is Obama on this issue? In the U.S. Senate, he has voted against bills that would prohibit minors from crossing state lines for abortion without parental notification.

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama has said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

Claim No. 7: Obama showed little interest or support for American combat troops during his overseas visits.

Doubts about Obama’s true support for the military cropped up during a campaign trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Europe.

A widely circulated e-mail, penned by Army Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter, described Obama’s visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan: “As the Soldiers lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off . . . He again shunned the opportunity to talk to soldiers to thank them for their service . . . I swear we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from [Obama].”

Porter later recanted, sending a follow-up e-mail that said, in part: “After checking my sources, information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong.” He did not specify which information was wrong, leading Obama skeptics to suspect that this officer has been disciplined by his superiors.

Heading home, Obama touched down in Germany, where he “was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl.” But as The Washington Post reported, Obama “canceled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate” and could not have his visits with hospitalized soldiers videotaped by the media.

Prominent liberal mainstream media reporters such as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend Obama, saying that the press had never planned to cover his visits to military sickbeds. But Obama canceled both visits and used his free time instead to shoot hoops, with the media recording his best shots

continued from above-

Claim No. 8: Barack Obama is a Muslim.

FightTheSmears.com states bluntly that Obama is a Christian, not a follower of Islam.

In fact, Barack Hussein Obama’s Kenyan father was raised Muslim, though he reportedly was not religious.

His mother divorced and remarried another man, a Muslim from Indonesia. As a youngster in Indonesia, Barack Obama attended two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim. He received religious instruction in both schools as a Muslim, including studying the Quran. According to a childhood friend, Obama occasionally attended services at a local mosque.

Obama’s Muslim upbringing has been detailed in a 2007 Los Angeles Times report (reprinted in The Baltimore Sun) headlined “Islam an Unknown Factor in Obama Bid.” Middle East expert Daniel Pipes has studied the question of Obama’s Muslim faith and says he is “lying” when he says he was never a Muslim.

It’s important to note that Obama’s Web site does not say he was never a Muslim. But in the past, Obama’s site and FightTheSmears.com did make the claim Obama was never a Muslim. Since that claim is obviously false, it is no longer used.

Obama says he became a Christian in his late 20s. He now describes himself as Christian. Until recently, he spent two decades as a member of a Chicago United Church of Christ congregation that embraces Black Liberation theology. Somewhat like the Roman Catholic liberation theology of Latin America, the Chicago UCC church preaches elements of neo-Marxist class warfare. It combines these radical socialist elements with black racialism.

Claim No. 9: As president, Obama would raise taxes dramatically for most Americans.

Millions of Americans recognize that Obama is likely to raise taxes. But like a good conjurer, who tricks you into watching his right hand while doing things with his left, the Obama Web site assures readers with a red herring.

The Illinois senator will not tax your water, as claimed in some fringe e-mails, FightTheSmears.com maintains.

What Obama will do, however, is tax businesses and capital gains more heavily, even though America already has the world’s second-highest business taxes.

“Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases” said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax businesses! So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline . . . or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small business, don’t worry. It’s not going to affect you.”

During his campaign, Obama has promised to raise various taxes that will fall on most economic classes, including the dividend tax, the FICA tax cap, the capital gains tax, the estate tax, and new taxes on gasoline.

He also called for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will automatically raise taxes on most Americans. By letting the Bush cuts expire, Obama would produce a $2 trillion tax increase that some economists predict will rumble through the already weakened economy like an earthquake.

Claim No. 10: Obama was born outside the United States and is ineligible for the presidency.

The Obama Web site dismisses the claim that the candidate was born anywhere but in the United States as “completely false” and “groundless.”

As proof, the Obama’s campaign has produced a “certificate of live birth” from Hawaii indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961. Critics, however say the document could have easily been forged and is not a substitute for a certified birth certificate.

No reporter has been allowed to see the original certificate of live birth or its certificate number, which is blacked out on copies of it on the Obama site.

Skeptics note that Obama’s “Father’s Race” is identified on this document as “African,” a geographic and modern politically correct term rather than a 1961 racial designation. The standard term used on American birth certificates until the U.S. Census changed it in 1980 would have been “Negro.”

Former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, Philip J. Berg, a Democrat with mixed credibility (he has supported conspiracy theories involving 9/11), has filed a lawsuit to force Obama to produce a certified copy of his birth certificate. According to Berg, Obama’s paternal grandmother has said she was present at his birth in Kenya, after which his mother promptly returned with her baby to the United States.

If that is true, Obama could be constitutionally ineligible to be president

Fight the smears-or cover the lies!
isnt fight the smears Ken Vs favorite sight? Says something about his credibility doesnt it! Not surprising .

Less than 2 weeks to go, Larry. How’s it going?

Crapflooding is the practice of disrupting online media such as discussion website or usernet newsgroups with nonsensical, inane, and/or repetitive postings in order to make it difficult for other users to read other postings.

Ken V,

So, are you saying that BOTH Larry and ddrb are “Crapflooding” this site?

So, are you saying...(?)

If you read it, it’s not crapflooding. So I guess it’s a personal decision, RDS. You decide what you consider crapflooding just as the other readers of this comment section will.

My stuff may be crap but at least I don’t flood you with it.

“Derivatives and hedge funds are like casino gambling,” said South Korean Finance Minister Kang Man-soo. “A lot of Koreans are asking, how can the United States be so weak?”

Ken V,

“My stuff may be crap but at least I don’t flood you with it.”

Glad to see that you finally admit that your stuff is “Crap”!!

But, I was talking about the number of LONG ‘cut and pastes’ that ddrb and Larry were posting!!  BTW: ddrb beats Larry, 3 to 1!!

...you finally admit...

I finally admit it’s your choice, RDS. You decide whether you read Ken V or not.

BTW, I was touched to read your post telling everyone that I remind you of your father. Perhaps I should change my nic to Methusala?

Wal-Mart is the exemplar of a form of corporate colonialism, which is to say, organizations from one place going into distant places and strip-mining them culturally and economically. ~ James Howard Kunstler

Nice good blog!