Waterboarding helped

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/03/panetta_open_question_if_waterboarding_helped_find_bin_laden.html

Panetta: "Open Question" If Waterboarding Helped Find Bin Laden


BRIAN WILLIAMS: I'd like to ask you about the sourcing on the intel that ultimately led to this successful attack. Can you confirm that it was as a result of waterboarding that we learned what we needed to learn to go after bin Laden?


LEON PANETTA: You know Brian, in the intelligence business you work from a lot of sources of information, and that was true here. We had a multiple source -- a multiple series of sources -- that provided information with regards to this situation. Clearly, some of it came from detainees and the interrogation of detainees. But we also had information from other sources as well. So, it's a little difficult to say it was due just to one source of information that we got.

WILLIAMS: Turned around the other way, are you denying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission?

PANETTA: No, I think some of the detainees clearly were, you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I'm also saying that, you know, the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.

WILLIAMS: So, finer point, one final time, enhanced interrogation techniques -- which has always been kind of a handy euphemism in these post-9/11 years -- that includes waterboarding?

PANETTA: That's correct.

Bush Hater

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/04/lib_talker_when_will_navy_seals_take_out_george_bush.html

Lib Talker: When Will Navy SEALs Take Out George W. Bush?

Wicked With of the West on Oil Prices

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/pelosi-blamed-oil-men-white-house-gas-pr
Pelosi Blamed ‘Oil Men in the White House’ for Gas Prices in ’08, Now Who’s To Blame?


Thursday, April 28, 2011        By Eric Scheiner
(CNSNews.com) - Back in 2008 then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew where she wanted to place the blame for high gas prices. “The price of oil is at the doorstep -- 4 dollars plus per gallon for oil, is attributed to two oil men in the White House,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview on July 17th, 2008.
Now that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are out of the White House, Pelosi has been silent on the issue. She has made no public comments on gas prices over the past few months. President Barack Obama however, has been fielding questions on the issue as he begins his bid for re-election.

The Religion of Tolerance

As everyone knows, one the five pillars of Islamic faith is tolerance.  Apparently, women's rights and liberation is not under the consideration of tolerance.  By western standards everyone should be allowed to do about anything without being judged.  Yet, we tolerate a religion that does not respect or tolerate liberation or women's rights.  See are afraid to say anything about that.


http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3548816/Muslim-actress-causes-storm-after-posing-naked-for-Playboy-mag.html

A MUSLIM actress has caused a storm by posing naked for Playboy.
Sila Sahin has been branded a "whore" and a "western slut" after appearing topless on the cover of the German edition of the men's magazine.


But Islamic internet sites are being monitored by the BND - the German intelligence agency - after threats were posted about her "shaming Muslim womanhood" and "prostituting herself for money".
One poster on the Jihad Watch website wrote: "She needs to be very careful..." Another simply said: "She must pay."
A kebab shop owner, asked on German TV what he would do if Sila were his daughter, replied: "I would kill her. I really mean that. That doesn't fit with my culture."

The Islamic Community of Germany has called for a boycott of Sila.

Racist Calling a Racist Election

Ever listen to Tavis?  Truly biased and some would call a racist.  Well, it takes one to know one Tavis.



http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/04/26/tavis_smiley_2012_will_be_the_most_racist_election_ever.html
Tavis Smiley: 2012 Will Be "The Most Racist" Election Ever


"I said over a year ago that this was going to be, this presidential race, Lawrence, was going to be the ugliest, the nastiest, the most divisive, and the most racist in the history of this Republic," PBS host Tavis Smiley said on MSNBC.

Obama breaks promise with jobless blacks

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-04-26-Obamas-broken-promise-to-help-blacks.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Column: Obama breaks promise with jobless blacks

By DeWayne Wickham

This is not an easy column for me to write. It's never easy to tell someone you like that he's a disappointment. I like Barack Obama. I liked him the first time we met back in 2006 when I took a small group of journalism students to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with the then-freshly minted U.S. senator.
I liked Obama even more when an aide to his presidential campaign invited me to a July 2007 speech he gave laying out his commitment to improve life for people in urban America — which for most politicians is a euphemism for black America.


"Today's economy has made it easier to fall into poverty. … Every American is vulnerable to the insecurities and anxieties of this new economy. And that's why the single most important focus of my economic agenda as president will be to pursue policies that create jobs and make work pay," Obama said that day to his mostly black audience.
At that time, the nation's overall unemployment rate was 4.7%. Whites had a jobless rate of 4.2% while the black unemployment rate stood at 8.1%. Today, the black rate is 15.5%, nearly double that of white job-seekers.
I don't blame Obama for the economic conditions that are responsible for so many blacks being out of work. The seeds of this problem were planted long before he moved into the Oval Office. But I do fault him for not doing more to fix this problem.
The poor in urban America, he said in that 2007 speech, "suffer most from a politics that has been tipped in favor of those with the most money, and influence, and power." And then he asked rhetorically, "How can a country like this allow it?" To which he answered, "We can't."
But so far, under his leadership, he has allowed it.
Finding work for the jobless is the best anti-poverty program this nation can mount. But while the Obama administration spends $608 million during the first 17 days of its involvement in Libya's civil war — it can muster neither the money nor the will to combat black unemployment.
The president's failure to fight this problem as vigorously as he wages war abroad gets a pass from black leaders, many of whom complain to me privately but remain silent in public. They're reluctant to challenge Obama the way Martin Luther King Jr. did Lyndon Johnson in 1967.
America "would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor" so long as it was involved in the Vietnam war, King said in a speech in which he called for an end to that bloody conflict.
Last month, as the Obama administration applauded the creation of 216,000 new jobs and a slight dip in the overall unemployment rate, the gap between whites and blacks without work widened as the black unemployment rate inched up.
In December 2009, when the black unemployment rate was just 5.5 percentage points higher than the national rate, Obama told USA TODAY that he didn't think he needed to do anything special to close this gap. Now that it is nearly 7 percentage points higher, black leaders should demand that the president devote as much attention on this problem as he has on ending the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and in pushing for immigration reform.
They should demand an end to the wasteful spending on wars that can't be won and insist that the resulting peace dividend be used to finance that revitalized urban policy — the one Obama not so long ago promised would be the focus of his economic agenda

No Easter Address?

What? No Easter Greeting?


by Keith Koffler on April 25, 2011, 11:11 am      http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/04/25/easter-greeting/

Just when I thought the current team running the White House might have used up all its allotted mistakes comes word that President Obama failed to issue either an Easter or a Good Friday greeting to the nation.
Now, let’s forget for a moment that these greetings, which presidents issue on many holidays and commemorations of events, are largely perfunctory and symbolic gestures that nobody cares about.

Until there’s a problem with them.

Fox News first caught the blunder and put it into context that makes the omission insulting to Christians. The mistake is odd enough to call into question just what Obama’s priorities are.

By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.

The White House . . . did release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day. Likewise, the president’s weekend address mentioned neither Good Friday or Easter.

Obama, Fox notes, did head out to church yesterday and held an Easter prayer breakfast at the White House last week.

Obama is on a roll for religious holiday greeting screw ups. Fox News writes:

In 2010, Obama was criticized for releasing an all-inclusive Easter greeting. He reached out to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and people of no faith at all in a statement about a holiday that is uniquely Christian.

And as I noted last week, the president released a Passover greeting this month that compared the ancient Jewish exodus from Egypt to the Arab political awakening this year, which would be a beautiful thing if most Arabs didn’t seek Israel’s destruction.

The president is, of course, hosting the Easter Egg Roll at the White House today. But Easter isn’t really about rolling eggs on a manicured lawn, now is it?

UPDATE: Asked during this afternoon’s briefing about the issue, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney suggested Obama’s “high profile” visit to a church Sunday should suffice.

“I’m not sure if we put out a statement or not, but he obviously personally celebrated Easter with his family,” Carney said, adding ”the president took his family out to church in a very high-profile way.”

Carney added that Obama is a “devoted Christian.”

No Mistakes. Really?

After criticizing Bush, Obama has make no mistakes he will admit to?  Really?


Obama: Mistakes? Can't think of any.

Byron York 04/20/11 11:34 PM

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/04/obama-mistakes-cant-think-any


Seven years ago, in April 2004, President George W. Bush held a formal news conference in which he was asked, "What would your biggest mistake be…and what lessons have you learned from it?" Bush's hemming and hawing answer -- in several minutes of flailing about, he never managed to come up with a single mistake to cite -- was widely criticized in the days that followed.



On Wednesday, President Obama held a town hall at the headquarters of Facebook in Palo Alto, California, during which he was asked, "If you had to do anything differently during your first four years, what would it be?" Obama, it turns out, is no better at analyzing his own missteps than Bush.

Obama Lied About Signing Statements.

Lordy, Lord how I hate hypocrats. That is what is so disappointing about this president. It was about "Change," it is now about lying. How can this man bold face lie to us? He clearly said, "NO" when asked about this on the campaign trail. Obama is no difference than other presidents and that is what is disappointing. There is no "Hope" or "Change." Obama is about about "Lies."

Jay Carney: Obama Was Never Opposed To Signing Statements http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/04/18/jay_carney_obama_was_never_opposed_to_signing_statements.html

Obama 2008: Bush Used Signing Statements To "Accumulate More Power" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/04/18/obama_2008_bush_used_signing_statements_to_accumulate_more_power.html

Jay Carney says President Obama was never against signing statements, just when President Bush "abused" them. Watch what then-Senator Obama said in 2008 while running for president and decide for yourself. "His concern was with what he saw as an abuse of the signing statement by the previous administration. So that the positions he took in signing statements on the budget bill entirely consistent with that position, you need to retain the right to, as president, to be able to issue those signing statements, but obviously they should not be abused," White House press secretary Jay Carney told the press on Monday.

Obama Lied; People died

I thought he was supposed to get us out of this war. 60% of U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan Have Occurred Since Obama Was Inaugurated in 2009 Monday, April 04, 2011 By Edwin Mora http://cnsnews.com/news/article/60-us-military-deaths-afghanistan-have-o At least 858 U.S. soldiers have died in the Afghanistan war since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. That equals 60.13 percent of the 1,427 American soldier fatalities so far in the ongoing 10-year war in that country.

Another Failed Campaing Pledge

Unfortunately, we are let down again. While on the campaign trail, we trusted the words, the hope, the change Obama promised. Well, no its "liar, liar, pants on fire." He lied again. While he hated on Bush for his "War on Terror," now that he is charge, he finds he is no better than Bush. In fact, he is worse. At least Bush was not dishonest on this issue and wasn't a hippiecrat. Another disappointment from Obama. Obama U-turn: US to try 9/11 accused at Guantanamo http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/9134304/obama-uturn-us-to-try-911-accused-at-guantanamo/ WASHINGTON (AFP) - In a major about-face by the Obama administration, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators are to be tried by a military tribunal at Guantanamo rather than a civilian court in New York, a US official said Monday. Attorney General Eric Holder will officially announce the U-turn later on Monday, a US official told AFP on condition of anonymity, saying: "KSM will be tried at Guantanamo." Proceedings for co-accused Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Walid bin Attash, Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi will also be at the US naval base in southeastern Cuba rather than US federal courts, the official added. President Barack Obama has vowed to close Guantanamo, having held it up as a symbol of all that was wrong with the so-called "war on terror" waged by his predecessor George W. Bush. The high-profile trials of Sheikh Mohammed and the four other alleged Al-Qaeda figures -- a date has not yet been set -- provide the latest evidence that the detention center will stay open for some time. In one of his first acts as president in 2009, Obama halted trials at Guantanamo Bay and announced he planned to close the detention camp within a year. But he has been thwarted in his ambition by legal challenges in prosecuting suspects deemed to be at war with the United States and strong opposition from both friends and foes in Congress. Obama's position softened last month when he lifted a two-year freeze on new military trials for Guantanamo terror suspects, paving the way for Monday's decision.

Kill Team - Another Double Standard

Why can't we get this right Democrats. We whined and whined about impeach Bush, etc. Now it is our turn and do we cry for Obama's impeachment over the Kill Team photos? Not a word. That is hypocrisy at its finest. How can we be taken seriously when we refuse to own up? Shame on us, the democratic party. Rumsfeld on 'kill team' photos: 'Much worse' than Abu Ghraib http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/mar/29/video-rumsfeld-kill-team-photos-worse-abu-ghraib/ Rolling Stone published horrific photos reportedly taken by members of the U.S. Military who allegedly were part of what is being called the "Kill Team." These individuals have been described by the Army, according to Rolling Stone, as a "rogue unit" operating completely on its own, "without the knowledge of its superiors.” Rolling Stone's Mark Boal reports: Indeed, it would have been hard not to know about the murders, given that the soldiers of 3rd Platoon took scores of photographs chronicling their kills and their time in Afghanistan. The photos, obtained by Rolling Stone, portray a front-line culture among U.S. troops in which killing Afghan civilians is less a reason for concern than a cause for celebration. "Most people within the unit disliked the Afghan people, whether it was the Afghan National Police, the Afghan National Army or locals," one soldier explained to investigators. "Everyone would say they're savages." One photo shows a hand missing a finger. Another depicts a severed head being maneuvered with a stick, and still more show bloody body parts, blown-apart legs, mutilated torsos. Several show dead Afghans, lying on the ground or on Stryker vehicles, with no weapons in view. In an interview with the Washington Times on Tuesday, Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense for President George W. Bush, gave his thoughts on the recent Afghanistan "kill team" photos and described the alleged incident as "much worse" than the photos taken of U.S. soldiers posing with detainees and putting the prisoners in humiliating positions at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. TWT: What are your thoughts on the latest kill team photos out of Afghanistan? DONALD RUMSFELD: If they're the ones that I'm thinking of it's where some... there are some allegations that some soldiers killed some people. You know, I feel such a responsibility as an American that when people are in our custody, we treat them properly. It is always heartbreaking when we see that there are allegations and photographs or suggestions that people have mismanaged that process. And of course the courts will decide in this case. But it is interesting, in the case of Abhu Ghraib, that it was such an important press event and nobody was killed. And in this case, it looks like there are allegations that some people were actually killed. TWT: How does this stack up against the Abu Ghraib photos, for example? RUMSFELD: The situation, of course, is much worse if someone dies, but it's a sad thing. It's unfortunate. The overwhelming majority of men and women in uniform are professional. They handle themselves well. They treat people properly in our custody. And no question but that they are punished in the event that the courts and the military commissions under the uniform code of military justice decide that they've done something wrong. They get punished. Following the release of the Abu Ghraib photos between 2004 and 2006, eleven soldiers were all convicted on a number of charges in a court martial, dishonorably discharged and sent to prison. However, numerous left wing web sites like Move On and Antiwar.com, media outlets, and politicians on various levels, like both Democratic California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, called for not only President Bush to fire Mr. Rumsfeld but also called for Congress to impeach Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over Abu Ghraib. Even Senator John McCain, Arizona Republican, spoke out against Secretary Rumsfeld in 2004 (h/t Media Research Center) Mr. Rumsfeld finally resigned from his post as Defense Secretary in 2006 after President Bush refused to accept his resignation two times before. While President Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a hold over from the Bush administration, was never a big favorite among liberals since the beginning of Mr. Obama's term, nevertheless. Compared to the calls for a Bush impeachment and a Rumsfeld firing over Abu Ghraib, few (if any) major media or politicians are currently calling for Secretary Gates' resignation or firing and an impeachment of President Obama over the alleged crimes of the Afghanistan "Kill Team." In fact, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, known for calling on Congress to impeach President Bush, recently pulled away from his call on Congress to impeach President Obama over U.S. airstrikes over Libya, Capitol Hill Blue reported on Tuesday.Secretary Rumsfeld steered clear of making any suggestions about whether or not his successor, Robert Gates, should resign. TWT: You spend a lot of time in your book talking about the Abu Ghraib photos and you offered your resignation to President Bush and he didn't accept it. I believe the quote in the book was: "Don, sometimes heads have to roll over this." Do you think that Sec. Gates should resign immediately over this? RUMSFELD: I'm not going to give anyone else any advice over this. I don't know the facts well I know. I know what I felt and I wrote about it in my book, my memoir:Known and Unknown. Finally, Mr. Rumsfeld gave the Washington Times insight on what he thinks the biggest threat to the United States is presently. TWT:What do you think the biggest threat to the country is? RUMSFELD: I think the biggest problem we face is our intelligence. The weapons are so lethal today, that simply intelligence has to be able to teach us and help us understand the kinds of surprises that could ever occur. It's a big world. It's a complicated world. There are people out there determined to kill innocent men women and children...particularly Americans. The need to improve our intelligence gathering capability is the single most critical thing.

Obama's Abu Ghraib - No one is Talking About It

Oh my How Words Come Back to Haunt Us. It is a sad day when everything Obama says is hypocritical. Can we no longer trust anyone? How can he say one thing and do the other? We are losing all faith in the Democratic Party. "Yes we can" has turned into "I speak with forked tong."


Obama’s Abu Ghraib: The Stuff Hits the Fan
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/03/21/breaking-obamas-abu-ghraib-the-stuff-hits-the-fan/

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in 2003, the mainstream media and liberal blogosphere couldn’t find enough column inches to express adequately their shock and revulsion. The New York Times alone published 56 stories on the hideous revelation that members of the U.S. Army Reserve had tortured prisoners of war and posed for “trophy pictures”—inexcusable acts that the Times placed squarely at the feet of then-president George W. Bush.
Nor could left-leaning sources conceal their delight when President-elect Barack Obama boldly proclaimed:
[U]nder my administration the United States does not torture. We will abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will uphold our highest ideals.
What a difference a president makes. Until you flash forward to today’s bombshell, dropped by the British newspaper The Guardian, noting that members of a self-styled U.S. Army “kill team” posed for photos not with tortured prisoners but with corpses. Of civilians. Whom they had killed.

Peace Peace Revoked

Take Obama's Peace Prize
http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=592071&vId=

Bolivian President Evo Morales has called for US President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize to be revoked following his decision to attack Libya.

'Two years ago we heard that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, but is he defending peace in the world now, or isn't he instead fomenting violence?' Morales told reporters, days after Obama ordered the bombing of Libya military targets as part of an UN-approved effort to protect civilians.

'How is it possible to give the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who has launched an invasion, a bombing? It's a violation, an assault, an aggression,' said Morales, one of Latin America's most left-leaning leaders and a vocal critic of the United States.

'Obama is the leader of group of thugs who led an assault and an invasion - and that has nothing to do with defending human rights,' he declared.

Obama receive the prize in December 2009, less than a year after taking office.

In his acceptance speech in Oslo, Obama referred to himself as 'the commander-in-chief of a nation in the midst of two wars' and said armed conflict was at times necessary.

Obama gave his $US1.4 million ($A1.4 million) Nobel Peace Prize award money to 10 charities, including groups working on Haiti relief and supporting military families.

Worst President Ever?

BARACK OBAMA: THE WEAKEST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY?
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/235196/Barack-Obama-The-Weakest-President-in-history-
Friday March 18,2011 By Anna Pukas

INEFFECTUAL, invisible, unable to honour pledges and now blamed for letting Gaddafi off the hook. Why Obama’s gone from ‘Yes we can’ to ‘Er, maybe we shouldn’t’...


Let us cast our minds back to those remarkable days in November 2008 when the son of a Kenyan goatherd was elected to the White House. It was a bright new dawn – even brighter than the coming of the Kennedys and their new Camelot. JFK may be considered as being from an ethnic and religious minority – Irish and Catholic – but he was still very rich and very white. Barack Obama, by contrast, was a true breakthrough president. The world would change because obviously America had changed.

Obama’s campaign slogan was mesmerisingly simple and brimming with self-belief: “Yes we can.” His presidency, however, is turning out to be more about “no we won’t.” Even more worryingly, it seems to be very much about: “Maybe we can… do what, exactly?“ The world feels like a dangerous place when leaders are seen to lack certitude but the only thing President Obama seems decisive about is his indecision. What should the US do about Libya? What should the US do about the Middle East in general? What about the country’s crippling debts? What is the US going to do about Afghanistan, about Iran?

What is President Obama doing about anything? The most alarming answer – your guess is as good as mine – is also, frankly, the most accurate one. What the President is not doing is being clear, resolute and pro-active, which is surely a big part of his job description. This is what he has to say about the popular uprising in Libya: “Gaddafi must go.” At least, that was his position on March 3.