Barack Obama 2013

[jagman]

Whiskey Mystic
I know your a very intelligent person and although we disagree in certain areas I have respect
for you because of how you present yourself. I never interjected race one time in my opening
thread. I wish peoiple would wake up and stop regurgirtating Republican talking points and
Democratic talking points. I just find that old, stale and boring.

[ghostrider]

squeaky clean senators ??? ehummmmmmmmmmm you don't become president unless you follow the plan of destroy freedom , and crush the middle class , and give bailouts to banks ... no matter which of the two parties you belong to ... these same senators , exempt themselves from obamacare , while the working class gets the shaft over and over and over again ... I am afraid of our president , he has a drone kill list and uses it ... No trial , No judge , just boom ... If you step back and take a look , Obama and Bush have the same agenda... Both gave bailouts to banks , Both signed laws on holidays that take our freedoms , Both killed the economy , Both use predator drones , Both claim foreign countries have WMD's and use them on their own people , Both want war in the middle east , the public just didn't bite on Syria like they did on Iraq ...Both keep troops in Afganistan , Both stand in front of cameras and talk out of both sides of their mouths, saying one thing and we find out something different happens ...they are the same, don't fall for their trap of divide and conquer ... group hug

[ThePythonicCow]

Lifebringer - the concerns that many of us have with Obama are not about race, either way.

jagman - the decaf might be a good idea . The most effective way to respond is usually more calmly.

When we "take the bait" by overreacting to an (admittedly annoying) distraction from the important points, we contribute to furthering the distraction.

Lifebringer - I agree with jagman above when he implied that you were regurgirtating Democratic talking points. Please don't waste our time with such rubbish.

[pyrangello]

Whiskey, I work with a bunch of roughhouse guys here doing some pretty dirty jobs, Not once have I ever heard a racial overtone or slang used in regards to our president, this has nothing to do with racial except for those who continuously desire to elevate that theme. Elevate the theme, empower the division, keep the people divided and we never solve any issues, not for me. We do need to learn from history. I was absolutely appalled at Oprahs latest greatest racial divide as well. Ah the people making the news these days , very, very few. As far as integrity goes in government here's a moment in time to ponder and what stark contrasts this man was and is today to leaders in our past, present, and future. As I value your opinion , please value mine, enjoy the day.

https://youtube.com/embed/OvN1jTkzXbY?rel=0

[rgray222]

Posted by Lifebringer (here)
People really ought to be more appreciative of all the prayers and love we had when in 2004, we found out Bush lied our troops to their deaths and a prayer from Iraq, America, EU, went out to the high heavens in prayers for forgiveness for our ignorance and NOT vetting everything, and from then on, we've not slept on anything. Walking and chewing gum and blowing bubbles at the same time.

The crux of the problem as I see it is that Barack Obama was not vetted at all. This normally is the job of the media and they did not fail in their vetting responsibility they simply did not perform them. I don't think Hillary lost the primaries because she lied, I think the media was so enthralled with the possibility of a black man becoming President, they very quickly dispatched Hillary under the bus. Saying that we turned "Barack Hussein Obama" over and over and over is just not a true statement. Granted 5 years down the road we know a bit more about Obama but not very much.

Here are a few examples
The media is still giving Obama free passes everyday, take for example the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He campaigned on the premise that he would stop the wars early. The wars are still raging and 73% of all the causalities in Afghanistan have happen since Obama has been in office. The wars are stopping on the original Bush calendar, not on a moved up Obama calendar. It amazes me that people are not outraged by this fact but once again the media does not report this information.

Take for example the IRS scandal, Obama says that he was "outraged by the behavior of the IRS". People wanted and needed to hear that, no American regardless of their politics wants an out of control IRS. Since Obama made that statement there has been no follow up by the president or the media. It pretty much business as usual.

Take for example the Benghazi scandal, Obama starts out blaming a video for the attack on the Consulate which was completely dishonest and there is little question that Obama knew this fact. When he finally came around to admitting it was a terrorist attack he claimed that those responsible would be held accountable. Americans wanted and needed to hear that but there has been not follow up by the president or the media.

Take for example the healthcare debacle. If Obama said: even if you like your doctor, you may not be able to keep your doctor. If he said: even if you like your healthcare plan you may not be able to keep your healthcare plan. If he said your premiums would be going up...............he probably would not have been reelected. As a matter of fact the last numbers indicate that that he would have definitely lost the election. This info was known by many in the media and they did not cover it up they simply did not report it. This was the ultimate free pass by the media, giving a man a second term based on false information.

I could go with a litany of similar events and scandals but the point is that this president and the media are still not giving the people information. They give us the headline only (knowing that Americans only need a headline and not substance) and not providing any substance or follow up. This is a sad commentary on most people today. Give them the headline they want to hear and don't worry about the substance.

This free pass has never been given to other presidents (at least not to this extent), this free get out of jail card has been given to Obama and Obama only. It covers a catalogue of sins. This president wasted no time donning the Teflon vest the media had given him, he puts it on at every opportunity.

My point is that Obama was clearly never vetted. Obama is still getting more than preferential treatment from the press. This special handling for this president goes beyond the pale, to an extent it is almost embarrassingly obvious.

In many ways this is a shame, Obama had an opportunity to be a great president but he squandered this wonderful opportunity presented to him by the mainstream media and the American People on a silver platter.

[GoodETxSG]

Call me silly, but Special Forces do not normally Telegraph their Operational Plans... especially ones of this scale. I could be wrong.

[Zanshin]

Is it possible that the oathkeepers within the military are completely hamstrung by it's central edict of following the chain of command?
Are we perhaps waiting for these oathkeepers to achieve the impossible? It would appear that no one in the military is above dismissal for failing
to follow orders. So the only option left for these people would be a coup d'etat - unless the people step into their power and authorize the actions necessary.

What would happen if, instead of protesting (argument/dishonorable in contract law), people united in a written expression of their will (renegotiated the contract) and issued the orders necessary for the oathkeepers to do their sworn duty.
If the government and it's military are created of,by and for the people (note: not persons or citizens), then what is required for the people
to reclaim their power and hold their creations to account?

[happytobe]

Two articles about other Obama Lies -- when will it catch up with him and U.S.?

Seymour Hersh Alleges Obama Administration Lied on Syria Gas Attack
by Adrian Lee, thewire, 12/08/13

http://news.yahoo.com/seymour-hersh-...204437397.html

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has dropped yet another bombshell allegation: President Obama wasn't honest with the American people when he blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a sarin-gas attack in that killed hundreds of civilians.

In early September, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had proof that the nerve-gas attack was made on Assad's orders. "We know the Assad regime was responsible," President Obama told the nation in an address days after this revelation, which he said pushed him over the "red line" in considering military intervention.

But in a long story published Sunday for the London Review of Books, Hersh — best known for his exposés on the cover-ups of the My Lai Massacre and of Abu Ghraib – said the administration "cherry-picked intelligence," citing conversations with intelligence and military officials.

A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening. The distortion, he said, reminded him of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, when the Johnson administration reversed the sequence of National Security Agency intercepts to justify one of the early bombings of North Vietnam. The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along?”’

Here's what Hersh alleges:

The administration buried intelligence on the fundamentalist group/rebel group al-Nusra. It was seen, Hersh says, as an alarming threat by May, with the U.S. being aware of al-Nusra member able to make and use sarin, and yet the group – associated with the rebel opposition in Syria – was never considered a suspect in the sarin attacks. Hersh refers to a top-secret June cable sent to the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency that said al-Nusra could acquire and use sarin. But the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Defense Intelligence Agency could not find the document in question, even when given its specific codes.

Full Article from thewire:
http://www.thewire.com/national/2013...attack/355899/


2nd article...

Pulitzer winner Seymour Hersh: Bin Laden raid ‘one big lie’
By Cheryl K. Chumley, The Washington Times, 09/30/13

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...d-one-big-lie/

Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, said all the details surrounding the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound that resulted in the terrorist leader’s death are completely false.

That whole story of U.S. success is “one big lie,” he said in The Guardian.

“Not one word of it is true,” he said, referring to the narrative put forth by the Obama administration about the bin Laden mission and about the al Qaeda leader’s 2011 death.

Mr. Hersh didn’t specify or elaborate, but he is writing a book about national security issues, The New York Post reported. And one chapter is focused on the U.S. Navy SEALs’ storming of the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Mr. Hersh even said that the report put out by the Pakistani government about life in the compound was a lie.

“The Pakistanis put out a report, don’t get me going on it,” he said in the New York Post report. “Let’s put it this way — it was done with considerable American input. It’s a [expletive] report.”

[spiritguide]

This was reported on yahoo as written from Wired. Is the MSM softening?

Article lead in...

Seymour Hersh Alleges Obama Administration Lied on Syria Gas Attack

by Adrian Lee, Wired

AP Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has dropped yet another bombshell allegation: President Obama wasn't honest with the American people when he blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a sarin-gas attack in that killed hundreds of civilians.
In early September, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had proof that the nerve-gas attack was made on Assad's orders. "We know the Assad regime was responsible," President Obama told the nation in an address days after this revelation, which he said pushed him over the "red line" in considering military intervention.
But in a long story published Sunday for the London Review of Books, Hersh — best known for his exposés on the cover-ups of the My Lai Massacre and of Abu Ghraib – said the administration "cherry-picked intelligence," citing conversations with intelligence and military officials.
A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening. The distortion, he said, reminded him of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, when the Johnson administration reversed the sequence of National Security Agency intercepts to justify one of the early bombings of North Vietnam. The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along?”’
Here's what Hersh alleges:
The administration buried intelligence on the fundamentalist group/rebel group al-Nusra. It was seen, Hersh says, as an alarming threat by May, with the U.S. being aware of al-Nusra member able to make and use sarin, and yet the group – associated with the rebel opposition in Syria – was never considered a suspect in the sarin attacks. Hersh refers to a top-secret June cable sent to the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency that said al-Nusra could acquire and use sarin. But the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Defense Intelligence Agency could not find the document in question, even when given its specific codes.
Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, told a press conference: ‘It’s very important to note that only the [Assad] regime possesses sarin, and we have no evidence that the opposition possesses sarin.’
It is not known whether the highly classified reporting on al-Nusra was made available to Power’s office, but her comment was a reflection of the attitude that swept through the administration.

Link to rest of article...

http://www.thewire.com/national/2013...attack/355899/

This item was published on VT website while it was happening way back when.

Peace!

[Frederick Jackson]

Wow, Bush and Iraq all over again. So it would appear to be true that the goal of the Administration was to get us into a war, perhaps so that it might lead to a larger conflagration in Middle East and possibly a world war as suggested by those "conspiracy theorists" looking at the NWO agenda and the machinations of the hidden government and the military industrial establishment.

[WhiteFeather]

The elite group along with its economic hitmen needed to run a fuel line through Syria. They used that false flag to get the project started. Btw John Kerry is a good look alike for Herman Munster.

[Kryztian]

Thanks. Seymour Hersh has not only earned his Pulitzers, he deserves the Nobel Peace Price (if the prize isn't diminished by some of the creeps who have received it) for his continued work in exposing the war mongers of the world, perhaps the biggest evil doers on the planet. With his exposes on My Lai and Abu Graibh, he has demonstrated that war is nothing but an evil enterprise carried out by the profit gouging fear mongering military industrial complex that go about removing the moral backbone of most U.S. Presidents.

And here is the link to Hersh's original article in the London Review of Books:

Whose sarin? by Seymour M. Hersh

http://www.lrb.co.uk/2013/12/08/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin

[sdv]

I have been watching the Mandela memorial all day.

Obama shook the hand of Raul Castro (that's the dude from Cuba!) and greeted him with a smile and a few words.

http://mg.co.za/article/2013-12-10-o...ndela-memorial

Obama made a brilliant speech.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/mandela-me...5#.Uqc-3PQW2So

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vi...peech.cnn.html

Here's an excerpt and my comments about it ...

We, too, must act on behalf of justice. We, too, must act on behalf of peace. There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. And there are too many of us who stand on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.

[B]Obama seems to be speaking to himself when talking about dissent! Obama speaks brilliantly, but what he says and does just do not match. Is he a two-faced liar or does he speak the truth in speeches but is relatively powerless as a president, as some commentators say?

Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Christian religious leaders shared a stage to pray for and give thanks for Madiba (this is normal in South Africa, but perhaps not in other countries), and a variety of political leaders (many who are not friendly with each other) sat together (Israel decided not to attend ... probably could not face sitting with leaders from Iran and Palestine!)

It rained (in South Africa that is a sign of good luck), it was a very long day, full of many speeches (from UN, AU, BRICS and various SA VIPs and political and religious leaders, and USA was given a great honour by asking Obama to speak), the crowd was rowdy and booed the president (of SA) three times in front of the whole world (Madiba was a freedom fighter so I thought that was a fitting tribute!), there was a praise singer and the hymns made me cry, and perhaps the world would be bewildered, but singing and dancing is what South Africans do, when we celebrate, when we mourn, when we protest.

PS Castro also gave a very good speech ... will see if I can find a transcript of that. (I was inspired by the Cuban revolution as a student and am still inspired by the courage and strength and achievements of Cubans, even though they have struggled and have made many mistakes.)

PPS Many supporters of South Africans from Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and many other countries, seem to have been bypassed in this memorial, but South Africans remember them and the voices of the struggle for freedom, equality and opportunity of all may be under siege in those countries, as in South Africa, but, today, I have hope that we will find each other again and work together to prevail.

[transiten]

I did watch it too and feel i can't trust any of the speeches of the living, only the ones of Mandela. Would be great to have a medium contact him to give his perspective of what happened today I really wanted to believe Obama did really mean what he said but i just coudn't.

Sweden was the first country to officially acknowlede ANC during the Social democrat Olof Palme who started to raise money already when he was young by giving blood.
The economical support was bigger than all the other countries together.

A beautiful example of the humbleness of Mandela was when he visited Sweden right after he was liberated and was intrviewed by a young woman who started support groups for ANC. She asked him who his hero was and he answered that it's very difficult to single out one special since there are so many..."You are my hero" he then told her smiling and she replied "You are mine " She was interviewed today and said she was amazed he did choose an interview from such a small youth organization.

[sdv]

Spouth Africa is in turmoil ... our president was booed three times during the memorial to Nelson Mandela (and then the ANC handlers handled the situation to mask the displayed discontent).

No, it did not diminish us or Mandela, because Mandela was also a freedom fighter and I experienced this behaviour of the crowd as a tribute to Mandela ... that his spirit gives us hope that we can get back to walking that path of freedom ... the path where it is not too difficult to provide working toilets and libraries and decent teachers for all schools, the path where it is not too difficult to empower the poor instead of using them as political ammunition, the path where we can teach South Africans that racism is unscientific and stupid, the path where we can embrace NGOs that help those who cannot help themselves, the path where we embrace critical and creative thinking and enjoy robust debates without throwing poo, the path where hollow VIPs do not spend millions on cars and catering and backroom deals and upgrades to personal property and the corrupt enrichment through inflated tenders (when the heck are we going to get government control of budgets and quality control for projects instead of paying through the nose for whatever is quoted and then delivered in corrupt tenders ... any private company that works on this model is soon bankrupt!).

The behaviour of crowds elsewhere (where is the free food, on top of the free transport, and why the heck isn't this a public holiday so I can be here for free) is a symptom of how dangerously disempowered many South Africans have become. The vibrant and effective community groups and NGOs of Mandela's time have become poo-throwing and fighting-through-courts costly and often ineffectual mobs.

In his death and the memory of his life, Nelson Mandela is calling for us to remember that he was a freedom fighter and that he fought for that freedom with wisdom, courage and love, but also organisation and strategy and the forging of relationships and co-operation. Today, I felt hope that South Africans can do this and we can find our way back to that long walk to freedom.

I hope that across the world the message and power of Mandela and the liberation of South Africa will manifest in the people becoming freedom fighters with the wisdom and strength and love of Mandela, but also with the superb understanding of politics and organisation and co-operation, and humility of acknowledging and accepting human frailty in making mistakes, that existed in South Africa when he was president.

[Olam]

Having seen all the pictures relating to Obama shaking Castro's hand and know generally how Obama behaves himself with most other politicians having seen him in action, I don't think it was very sincere. Obama has a way of looking at the people with very little genuine eye contact. He was more gracious and had more eye contact with Castro's wife. ts just him having a hard time hiding the fact that he could not care less. Well at least, I see it myself, I have to say I am a self defined body language "expert".
Take it as you will, but my gut feeling is just him doing what had to be politically done.
You can bet that Castro knows full well all of this and he himself just played his part in this bigger than both of them expected moment.
Obama would not shake my hand as I would not either, but if it did happen, he certainly would not fool me...
:-)

[GreenGuy]

http://rt.com/news/obama-selfie-mandela-service-017/

No words necessary.

[mosquito]

What a nauseating hypocrite.

Of course his speech will be siezed upon by the media and used as a means of entrenching Obama fever in an already over-brainwashed population, and sending the message that Obama is the peacemaker.

[Tesseract]

They were happy when Gaddafi and Chavez died, wouldn't expect anything different for Mandela, and next, Castro.

[Tesseract]

I can't bear to listen to the words of those who blatantly contradicted his ideology in life, but who gather so close to him in death. Obama, rotten piece of filth, was instrumental in killing Gaddafi who helped the ANC at the same time as Reagan supported Apartheid SA.