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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (33029)	7/3/2008 8:49:32 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224756

The World's 2nd Oldest Profession... By Greg McNeilly Jul 3rd 2008 2:39PM Filed Under:eBarack Obama, 2008 President What do you call it when elected officials - local, state or federal - get special perks, privileges and deals in exchange for their services, err votes? Democratic corruption has become so frequent, its often pushed off the front page. (Try reading the Detroit News or Free Press and you'll see what I mean.) It's commonplace. It's routine. It's everywhere. It's passe. But it is newsworthy when its party's standard bearer is exposed for getting special treatment and deals. Let's look at the issue of Barack Obama's housing arrangement. This self-declared "man of the people," Harvard educated and all, this champion of the people, snoozes in a six-bedroom, five and half bathrooms (including steam shower and marble powder room (presumably for Michelle)) four fireplace, four-car garage Chicago mansion. Of course, the Obamas make about $500,000 a year. One of the neat things about their salary is the connection. Barack Obama injected an "earmark" (pork barrel spending) into the federal budget for his wife Michelle's workplace. Unconnected, presumably, shortly thereafter she got a pay raise. Nifty. Can you do that for your spouse? Now before people bemoan that raising these issues is mean spirited or bad in some overly sensitive mocked-up moral tone, I suggest such whiners refute them, not label them. So back to the Obama homestead. The palatial palace was purchased in 2005 for $300,000 under its asking price ($1.95 million). This fact has already been infamous because the day they closed this deal, the recently convicted Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko bought the adjoining parcel for $650,000. Obama noted, on the record, that Rezko bought it at an above market price. This lot has been idle, preventing development next to the Obama home, essentially giving them an extra large yard. The Boston Globe reports that Rezko used subsides Obama supported in the U.S. Senate to redevelop hundreds of apartments in and near Obama's neighborhood. After pocketing the tax-dollars, Rezko then let the properties lapse into inhabitable states. Do you have friends like this who throw you fundraisers? But I'm sure Obamacons will tell you this is all circumstantial or a misunderstanding. Like the definition of "is." And of course, to simply note these facts and occurrences and insist upon answers to still unanswered questions is against the prevailing orthodoxy. The Washington Post uncovered a special deal Obama got on this glitzy home in addition to the adjacent lot issue. Calling it a "super super jumbo" $1.32 million mortgage from the Illinois Northern Trust. Obama secured a special rate below the average consumer rate. The paper estimates the $300 savings per month special deal - is a "savings" of $110,000 - over the lifetime of the loan. Makes you wonder, whose wallet is Barack Obama in? How many working class families get such special treatment? Did anyone Obama "performed community organizing for" get such sweetheart deals? Or is profiteering off of the public trust purely a private matter? Oh...and of course, $71,000 has been funneled from Northern Trust employees to the Obama for President campaign. Obama's campaign, to date, has received more corporate CEO dollars than any campaign in U.S. history. This includes, as Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) often noted, substantial cash from big oil executives. So when, in this election cycle, did the new politics simply become the old politics? The culture of corruption has an abundant supply of hope - based upon Obama's record - that its gravy train of special interests fueled by looting the taxpayers will not end with an Obama Presidency. news.aol.com

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (33029)	7/3/2008 9:40:00 PM
From: MJ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224756

Speaking of historical facts. This is where Obama appears vulnerable. During the Democrat Primay Obama was constantly coming up short on the basic history of various states and regions of the USA including the civil rights movement and WWII. Obama often appears like an outsider in America----- his books highlight that------his father was not of America but Kenyan. His mother ventured to Hawaii, that became the 50th state in 1959-----1961 Obama born in August----Obama, Sr. exits-----Soleto enters------all go to Indonesia. His mother sends him back to Hawaii to live with her parents. Obama had no consistency in his immediate family from any of these parents. The consistency he had were his white grandparents, which he felt uncomfortable with because of their being white. When one looks at Obama's formative years----he lived in beautiful Hawaii and Indonesia. It wasn't until his college years that he ventured to the mainland of the United States. Once on the mainland of USA, it was three Universities and Chicago South Side. The one thing the primary did was to give him a rather expensive tour of the America he didn't know--- paid for by contributors and taxpayers. jmho mj

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (33029)	7/3/2008 10:39:32 PM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224756

SLAVERY AND RADICAL MUSLIMS warriorsfortruth.com Abuk Bak an escaped slave and mother recently confronted the Sudanese ambassador to the U.S. demanding reparations and an apology for Khartoum's egregious record of human rights abuses that continue today. Ms. Bak and her family now live in Boston, Massachusetts. The American Anti-Slavery Group speaks out on behalf of slaves. Indeed, our leading spokespeople are themselves survivors of slavery: Francis Boks book Escape from Slavery is a gripping autobiography America Abolish Slavery Group > IAbolish.com Gang-rape by Arab Muslim slave raiders are an integral element of Sudanese slavery. The UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) reported that "fundamentalist Islam and Arab fanaticism" play a crucial role in the enslavement of Black Africans in North Africa, especially in Sudan and Mauritania. The case of Sudan is particularly disturbing because of the central role played by an Arab-Muslim supremacist state in reviving the country's ancient slave trade in the context of a declared jihad. The publication of this report coincided with a fact-finding visit by CSI's Slavery Research Unit to the Afro-Arab borderlands of Sudan. Our research team, which has just returned from the field, interviewed 97 female slaves above the age of 12 who were recently liberated from bondage. The preliminary statistical findings of racial abuse are as follows: Form of Abuse Percentage Forced Labor without Pay 96.9% Forced Conversion to Islam 25.8% Frequent Beatings 96.9% Racial Insults (i.e., Arabic terms for "slave", "nigger" etc.) 97.9% Rape 79.3% Gang-rape 77.0% Female Genital Mutilation 40.2% Our Slavery Research Unit has documented the liberation of 2,014 Black slaves through Sudan's CSI-sponsored 'Underground Railroad' since the middle of July. Altogether 56,440 slaves have been freed by CSI and returned to their home areas since 1995. Despite this achievement, a minimum of 200,000 Black women and children currently remain enslaved in northern Sudan, according to the Black African civil authorities in the six counties of northern Bahr El Ghazal - the region most severely affected by the slave raiding. Slavery is clearly defined in international law as a "crime against humanity". So too is sexual violence against women and girls in the context of armed combat. The statistics show that such sexual crimes, especially gang-rape by Arab Muslim slave raiders and masters, are an integral element of Sudanese slavery. As highlighted by the UNRISD report, contemporary slavery in Sudan (and elsewhere in North Africa) is deeply rooted in Arab and Muslim supremacism. The historic transatlantic slave trade has been abolished. Yet the Arab slave trade - a potent form of contemporary racism - continues to blight Black Africa. Moreover, the Arab League has tried to intimidate you and other human rights defenders by declaring that it is an act against all Arabs and Muslims even to state that slavery exists in Sudan today. (Middle East Quarterly, December 1999, p. 15.) The Word Conference is preoccupied with the Middle East, as well as demands for reparations from the United States and Europe for their role in the former transatlantic slave trade. Hope is now fading that the Conference will do justice to contemporary Black African victims of slavery. As a matter of urgency, we therefore appeal to you to help get the Conference on-track by condemning the current enslavement of Black Africans in the Afro-Arab borderlands of North Africa, and by tabling again the proposal you made in your report to the UNCHR last year for the disarmament of the Sudanese government militias that raid for slaves. Read more and Donate America Abolish Slavery Group > IAbolish.com Sudan News and Web Blog Free World Now Back to Warriors For Truth Main Page