BS: Obama is a socialist

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 07:26 PM

God, Justin, it must be dark in there.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: GUEST,Justin U
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 07:23 PM

Sarah Palin has accused and criticised Barack Obama of associating with terrorists.

Barack Obama was quick to make a counter remark, criticising Sarah Palin for associating with Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 06:38 PM

When you combine attacks on "the intellectual elite" with the rhetoric of "self-interest, greed, irresponsibility, and corruption undermine the hard work of the American people" you are getting perilously close to the mindset that propelled far-right movements to power in Europe before World War II, or which was exploited more recently by people like Le Pen or the late Joerg Haider.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 05:08 PM

The whole socialism button is a bit of a paper tiger.

"All Democratic presidential campaigns, whether desperate or confident, in good times or bad, turn populist at the end. Barack Obama's is a little different. "Quiet populism," a phrase I first saw used by Ben Smith of Politico, seems at first to be the best concise description of the Democratic nominee's recent language on the economy, with its strong commitment to rebuilding opportunity but a cool, calm, optimistic tone of national purpose.

And yet, how "quiet" can "populism" ever be? Isn't populism as we know it characterized by the forceful oppositions of, say, Al Gore's "people vs. the powerful" in the closing weeks of the 2000 campaign, or by John Edwards' "Two Americas"? Alternatively, there's a right-wing populism that sets up a dichotomy between ordinary Americans and educated "elites," currently embodied by Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. In his great 1995 book, The Populist Persuasion, Michael Kazin offers "the most basic and telling definition of populism: a language whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not bounded narrowly by class, view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic, and seek to mobilize the former against the latter."

This is a better description of the McCain-Palin campaign, which recently supplemented its right-populist attack on cosmopolitan elites, as featured at the GOP convention, with a sudden promise to "put an end to reckless greed" and an argument that, "We have seen self-interest, greed, irresponsibility, and corruption undermine the hard work of the American people." ..."

---

What Obama is is a compassionate populist, not a socialist.

The difference will not be detected by those wearing blinders, but it is an important, fundamental distinction--the difference between banditry and compassion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 03:48 PM

I think "socialist" in this context just means "I don't like him", the same way that "Liberal" does.

I know in other contexts it means people who believe it's necessary to take banks into public ownership, but that definition wouldn't apply these days...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 01:54 PM

"Care to define what you mean by that and in what way he's more of a socialist than, say, FDR or JFK?"

I have posted reasons to believe he is a socialist above. I was not around to vote for FDR and I did not vote for JFK.

Now please explain how, when and where America's oil supply was cut off.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 01:36 PM

THere actually was an article in the popular press at that time about an African America who bleached his skin and "passed" as white, and his observations and experiences. I remember the furor it caused, although I have no recollection of where it was published.

So, Sawz, now you have jumped over to deciding the reason is that "he's a socialist"?? Care to define what you mean by that and in what way he's more of a socialist than, say, FDR or JFK?



A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 01:35 PM

So I guess the person smearing Obama in this thread and others (the one posting the stuff about Percy Sutton) will be writing in Ron Paul's name on election day, because all of the candidates who are running are socialists to one extent or another, and even Ron Paul has flirted with a little socialism from time to time.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 01:19 PM

Typo:
"On one should vote or not vote for someone based on gender or race or accuse someone else of racism because of whom they vote for."

Correction:
One should not vote for or against someone based on gender or race or accuse someone else of being a racist or a sexist because of whom they vote for.

To accuse someone else of being a racist or a sexist because of whom they vote for is in itself racist or sexist.

Personally I would like to see this race issue ended forever. But I am not going to vote for someone I believe to be a socialist regardless of race or sex.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 01:05 PM

But in one corner I found a collection of Life magazines neatly displayed in clear plastic binders. I thumbed through the glossy advertisements -- Goodyear Tires and Dodge Fever, Zenith TV ("Why not the best?") and Campbell's Soup ("Mm-mmm good!"), men in white turtlenecks pouring Seagram's over ice as women in red miniskirts looked on admiringly -- and felt vaguely reassured. When I came upon a news photograph, I tried to guess the subject of the story before reading the caption.

Eventually I came across a photograph of an older man in dark glasses and a raincoat walking down an empty road. I couldn't guess what this picture was about; there seemed nothing unusual about the subject. On the next page was another photograph, this one a close-up of the same man's hands. They had a strange, unnatural pallor, as if blood had been drawn from the flesh. Turning back to the first picture, I now saw that the man's crinkly hair, his heavy lips and broad, fleshy nose, all had this same uneven, ghostly hue.

He must be terribly sick, I thought. A radiation victim, maybe, or an albino -- I had seen one of those on the street a few days before, and my mother had explained about such things. Except when I read the words that went with the picture, that wasn't it at all. The man had received a chemical treatment, the article explained, to lighten his complexion. He had paid for it with his own money. He expressed some regret about trying to pass himself off as a white man, was sorry about how badly things had turned out. But the results were irreversible. There were thousands of people like him, black men and women back in America who'd undergone the same treatment in response to advertisements that promised happiness as a white person.

Sounds pretty vivid and factual to me. Remember the Water Mellon Man movie?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 12:58 PM

Carol, to be completely fair (which is hard at times), one could also say that double standards, when applied to people with different socio-political philosophies aren't racist, but rather stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 12:35 PM

I accuse people of racism, not because of whom they vote for, but because of their double standards. Double standards, when they are applied to people of another race, are racist.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 12:31 PM

Le2ts get real here... I could say that John McCain had ties to North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War and technically I would be 100% true is making that claim...

This argument about Ayers is beyond silly... And the only reason that anyone is talking about here on this thread is because thwe socialism charge just ain't working... But as the rest of McCain's Acme Campaign Company ideas he, like Wylie Coyote will keep trying to get it to stick...

Problem is that the McCain folks ain't got much stick'um left in their tank and seems that they are down to a plumber who ain't a real plumber to try to salvage their campaign...

Fact is stranger than fiction...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 12:30 PM

Sen. Obama has refused to instruct Harvard Law School to release any information about his time there as a student, or about his student loans.

"the fact that both Barack and Michelle say that their education was paid for with student loans. So I guess I'm willing to believe them before I am willing to believe Percy Sutton on this one."

A report in The Chicago Sun claimed that Obama borrowed $42,753 to pay for Harvard Law School, and "tens of thousands" more to pay for undergraduate studies at Columbia.The same report said that Michelle Obama borrowed $40,762 to pay for her years at Harvard Law School.But a Newsmax review of Senator Obama's financial disclosures found no trace of any outstanding college loans, going back to 2000.As a United States Senate candidate, Barack Obama was required to file a financial disclosure form in 2004 detailing his assets, income, consulting contracts, and liabilities.
   Obama listed "zero" under liabilities in 2004 and in all subsequent U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms.Under the Senate ethics rules, he is required to disclose any loan, including credit card debt, of $10,000 or more. The only exception to the reporting requirement is mortgage debt on a principal residence.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Alice
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 12:23 PM

faulty memory?

Sheesh Saw, you have reached another benchmark in ridiculous postings.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 12:19 PM

"he gets the name of the publication wrong..." Twice

How can someone like that be fit for public office? NOT. This man's faulty memory of his background shapes his policies.

He (or someone) writes a book containing non-actual information and sells it for a profit. Maybe he can take the Amos defense of colorful writing.

I have said the we should never mention race. All it does is stir up hostility. It pokes a stick in someone's eye every time you mention if someone is black or white.

On one should vote or not vote for someone based on gender or race or accuse someone else of racism because of whom they vote for.

That in itself is racism.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 11:55 AM

Well, there's also the fact that both Barack and Michelle say that their education was paid for with student loans. So I guess I'm willing to believe them before I am willing to believe Percy Sutton on this one.

I see an enormous double standard being used by the person who is trying to make Obama out to be a terrorist sympathizer (or worse). This person isn't making the other people with ties to Bill Ayers, including quite a few Republicans, out to be terrorist sympathizers. This person has completely ignored all of the other people who in their daily lives have ties just as close and some even closer to Bill Ayers, including some who support John McCain and have contributed to his campaign, and is focusing exclusively on the extremely small association that Obama has had with Ayers. Perhaps this person can explain why ONLY Obama is a terrorist sympathizer because of having this association while all of the others with the same association and in some cases, even closer association, are not also terrorist sympathizers.

My own opinion is that this person (and many others apparently) is so deeply entrenched in their vicious brand of racism that the idea of having a Black president causes them to feel terrorized, and that's why they are putting this label of terrorist on Obama.

This is unfortunate. But it's time for these people to grow up.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 11:41 AM

My God, that is a pretty shocking accusation.

A seven year old boy reads an article in a magazine, and when he grows up and writes a book and recalls this, he gets the name of the publication wrong...

How can someone like that be fit for public office?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 11:36 AM

MCCain has endorsed ACORNS good works in the past. The wholle ACORN flap is flimflammery for political gain by a desperate campaign.

As for Sawz' fountain of miasmic nabobbery, I think it is beyond salvage.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 11:31 AM

Obama in Dreams of my Father:

Obama says he visited the American embassy in IndonesiaIn in 1970. While waiting, he chances upon "a collection of Life magazines neatly displayed in clear plastic binders."

In one magazine, he reads a story about a black man with an "uneven, ghostly hue," who has been rendered grotesque by a chemical treatment.

"There were thousands of people like him," Obama learned, "black men and women back in America who'd undergone the same treatment in response to advertisements that promised happiness as a white person."

Obama's attention to detail is a ruse. Life never ran such an article. When challenged, Obama claimed it was Ebony. Ebony ran no such article either.

Dreams is an apt title for the book.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 11:27 AM

Please point to the incorrect information from Newsmax.

The Enquirer is a bunch of Elvis is alive crap but they nailed Edwards.

Again CC chooses to believe a radical and political fixit man over the family of Percy Sutton.

If CC is correct, everybody assocaited with Obama is a liar. Ergo everything said about Obama is a lie.

And again, Do the Math. Where did the money come from?

Well well well, looks like the Obamaniacs are too busy with character attacks to deal with the actual facts presented.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 07:37 AM

That was a stupid joke, young Justin.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Oct 08 - 04:54 AM

Droll, yes it was meant as satire, will a bit of the dry, at ourselves...depending if we can laugh at ourselves in the inside! It was not written with ill will, in the least!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 10:29 PM

Very droll McGrath, but perhaps too dry for many here.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 08:27 PM

From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 07:37 PM

But then some people are more interested in their opinions, or just mouthing off, rather than exchanging useful information

Yes indeed.


This is Joe's reply to a post I posted, McGrath. I suggest you take him up on his generous offer!!!

Well, I thought it was pretty funny, but I can see how others might find it offensive. I'm not going to contradict the decision of the volunteer editor who deleted the message - but I think it was one of those "borderline" things that could be decided either way. I had to read it twice before I decided what to think of it. I'll be glad to send it to anybody who sends me a personal message.
[e-mail]-

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 07:54 PM

From what I've seen of Newsmax (and I've checked into its background),it makes Fox News Service look like "the liberal press."

If that's where Sawzaw gets his information, then. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 07:37 PM

But then some people are more interested in their opinions, or just mouthing off, rather than exchanging useful information

Yes indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 07:30 PM

Jeez!..From all the posts, it sounds like you can NOT distinguish between fact and fiction...typical for politicos! You're all driving each other crazy..well, not too far to drive,......just a short putt!

But then some people are more interested in their opinions, or just mouthing off, rather than exchanging useful information...maybe even the truth. ....Shut up GfS!..We have absolutely NO USE for TRUTH!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Alice
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 02:14 PM

Some crazy parent out there has probably named their kid Donald Duck, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 02:09 PM

I just now saw the post that complains about people taking this thread off track. I don't understand. This thread was started as a part of the smear campaign against Barack Obama by the same person who has taken the thread off track. Two questions - why would anyone want to keep it on the subject of the original smear (if the one making the smear has moved on to another smear), and why would anyone not want to address the newer smears that the thread originator is now tossing around in the thread?

This makes no sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 02:02 PM

I assume there must be some people who are actually called Mickey Mouse. How do they manage when they try to vote in the USA?

Famous names do crop up in other places. I've known two Michael Jackson, both of them, as it happens, children's entertainers. Not a good name to have if you are a children's entertainer.

Then there was a young English reporter in the Chicago streets outside the 1968 Democratic Convention ("the World is Watching"), who got grabbed up by a cop and asked for his name. He said "Winston Churchill" and was promptly done over, as a hippy-loving Limey. In fact it was his name and he was Churchill's grandson.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 01:14 PM

Not only distract voters, but also prevent them from voting.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Alice
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:56 PM

All the organizations that collect voter registrations ARE REQUIRED to turn in every application, whether someone wrote Mickey Mouse on it or whether it is a serious and truthful application. Acorn separated the applications into the obviously not legitimate aps, the questionable aps, and the legitimate aps. They turned them in to election offices with those separations. That's normal procedure. This has become a big issue only because the Republicans have to distract voters from the real campaign issue of the economy.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:51 PM

I'm with Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:44 PM

That's pretty funny. Percy Sutton was involved during that time in the Black liberation movement as well. He was Malcolm X's attorney. If we're going to say that we can't trust someone like al-Mansour because of his association with the Black Panther movement, we can't really position Sutton as some kind of paragon of honesty.

And al-Mansour said that he and Sutton are good friends. So that means that Sutton pals around with Black Panther mentors. So why should we believe him any more than we believe al-Mansour? I mean, shit. People are saying we can't trust Obama because he served on the board of a charity with Bill Ayers. Sutton was Malcolm X's attorney

My own opinion is that neither of these men's past associations makes them any more or less trustworthy than the other. But I think al-Mansour is in a better position to remember what he did and didn't do than a very old man who is ill, and may not be remembering things very well.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:34 PM

Hmmmmmmmm??? If ACORN is so evil then why has John McCain not only been supportive of it but spoken at at least one ACORN gathering???

Me thinks that some folks supposed facts just don't add up to much...

But John McCain's relationship with ACORN has nothing to do with this thread so maybe those here who have so much interest in talking about anything but the subject would like to start their own thread???

(They won't do that, Bobert, because their only goal is be as distractive as they can so they won't have to talk about the subject...)

Well, then maybe the moderators could just move their posts to a new thread which I'de be perfectly willing to start entitled "Thread Distractions"???

(Now there's an idea, Boberdz... It'd prolly hit a couple hundred in no time at all...)

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:29 PM

Democratic Socialism is practiced in Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Canada although Harper is trying to destroy that.

It's the view of the Founding Fathers of the Constitution. It's why Lincoln went to war with the South to preserve the Government.

Ronald Reagan was out to destroy the US Government by denigrating it and deregulating
all of it's offices. Since then, the Deregulation has brought us to the brink of economic
Depression No. 2.

Scary Palin's attempt at jingoism and stirring up hatred has increased the need for
Democratic Socialism in the US to protect the exploited working people and those
making less than 250,000 grand a year.

Joe the Plumber is a fraud perpetrated by the McCainiacs to dismember our democracy by favoring the rich in this country. He is not a plumber, he does not make over 250,000 grand a year and his name really isn't Joe.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:20 PM

Robin Hood Funds ACORN


A major donor ACORN and its affiliates is the Robin Hood Foundation.

The foundation has given ACORN $821,000 consisting of a $456,000 grant in 2003 and a $365,000 grant in 2004.

The Soros Fund Charitable Foundation gave the Robin Hood Foundation a $9,859,453 community development grant in 2000.

The Robin Hood board includes Tom Brokaw of NBC News, Marian Wright Edelman, Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:17 PM

"Khalid al-Mansour said it never happened. And he ought to know."

Black Panther mentors always know everything and tell the truth don't they?

In the 1960s, when he founded the African American Association in the San Francisco Bay area, he was known as Donald Warden.

According to the Social Activism Project at the University of California at Berkley, Warden, a.k.a. Khalid al-Mansour, was the mentor of Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and his cohort, Bobby Seale.


CC chooses to believe a radical and political fixit man over the family of Percy Sutton.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:14 PM

"You can't make this stuff up" (From: Sawzaw - PM Date: 19 Oct 08 - 10:27 AM)

Yes you certainly can. It's an example of a kind of Internet Folklore. Sort of quasi-political Urban Legends.

And nothing to do with this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:12 PM

What the class warfare people neglect to tell us, of course, is that they have been busy "redistributing" the wealth for years. Only they've been moving it from the bottom to the top instead of the other way around.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 12:10 PM

I also find it highly amusing that people are trying to scare voters by creating a fiction of Obama being tight with the Saudis in light of the extremely close relationship that the Bush family has had with the Saudis for years...

http://dohiyimir.typepad.com/bush-abdulah.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 11:52 AM

Not to rai8n on this very insignificant sidebar which really has nothing to do with the elction but did anyone hear McCain speaking in Virginia yesterday???

Seems that "class warfare" is the latest campaign centerpiece with Joe the NonPlumber and now McCain is saying that, as if it is evil, that Obama wants to "redistribute" income... Not so funny thing is that he is telling this to folks who who don't hear "We're going to ask the upper 5% to pay more" but the ***codified*** "We're going to take *your* money and give it to Welfare Cadillac women..."

Oh, the ol' Dixiecrats would love this version of John McCain...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 11:26 AM

Sutton may not be retracting anything, but Khalid al-Mansour said it never happened. And he ought to know.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 11:23 AM

Canada Free Press:

During the early years of radical left-wing community organizing efforts, William Ayers and his father Thomas came into cooperative contact with the Black Panther's and Black Panther behind the scenes mentor Donald Warden, known today as Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, the name he took when he adopted the radical Wahabbi Muslim faith through friends in the Saudi Royal family.

In a March 2008 TV interview, former Malcom X lawyer and Harlem burough president Percy Sutton named Khalid al-Mansour as the manchurian puppetmaster behind Barack Hussein Obama. He told of how al-Mansour was raising money for the education of Barack Obama, and asked Sutton to write a letter of recommendation to Harvard University on Obama's behalf.

Politico blogger and Obama supporter Ben Smith immediately sought, received and printed a " family retraction" of Sutton's TV statements on the Politico blog. Newspapers across the country ready to run with the story of a manchurian candidate groomed by Saudi Royal family deal maker al-Mansour stopped dead in their tracks, biting on the Sutton retraction effectively manufactured by Smith in a rush to defend his candidate, Barack Obama.

However, the alleged Sutton retraction, issued by former Hillary Clinton Harlem campaign chief Kevin Wardally, turned out to be fake. When questioned about the retraction by Newsmax investigative journalist Ken Timmerman, official Sutton family representatives answered, "that neither Mr. Sutton or his family had ever heard of Kevin Wardally."

"Who is this person?" asked Sutton's assistant, Karen Malone. When told that he portrayed himself as a "spokesman" for the family, Malone told Newsmax, "Well, he's not."

Wardally refused to retract his false retraction, stating to Newsmax that, "he had been retained by a nephew of the elder Sutton, who is in our office almost every week."

Timmerman reports, "Wardally works for Bill Lynch Associations, a Harlem political consulting firm. The nephew, Chuck Sutton, no longer works with the elder Sutton at Inner City Broadcasting, but for a high-tech start-up called Synematics."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 11:21 AM

UPDATE: I spoke to Mansour Thursday evening, who said he'd avoided directly contradicting the story out of respect for Sutton, "a dear friend, his health is not good."

But pressed, he denied all the details of Sutton's story.

"The scenario as it related to me did not happen," he said.

"I'm sure he's written a letter [to someone else] and he got it confused somehow," he said of Sutton, adding that he'd never asked Sutton to write a letter to any university supporting anyone's admission.

Mansour said he admires Obama, but first heard of him when a relative sent him a copy of Obama's 2004 convention speech.

"I've never met him," he said.'

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 11:15 AM

"And yet, apparently someone (Percy Sutton)[personal opinion], did make it up.."

ApparentlyWardally is making things up.

Newsmax contacted the Sutton family and they categorically denied Wardally's claims to Smith and the Politico.com. So there was no retraction of Sutton's original interview, during which he revealed that Khalid Al-Mansour was "raising money" for Obama and had asked Sutton to write a letter of recommendation for Obama to help him get accepted at Harvard Law School.
   Sutton's personal assistant told Newsmax that neither Mr. Sutton or his family had ever heard of Kevin Wardally.

Do the math. Where did the money come from?

"I don’t think voters care about someone who Barack Obama barely knows and who did these things when Barack Obama was 8 years old," said Kevin Wardally, a strategist at Bill Lynch Associates.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 11:00 AM

More about Obama / Al Mansour:

   Newsmax contacted the Dean of Students, the Director of Student Financial Services, the Registrar, and the Bursar of Harvard Law School. None would provide any specific information on Barack Obama's time at Harvard, except for his dates of attendance (1988-1991) or his year of graduation, 1991. A spokesman for the law school, Michael Armini, said it was Harvard policy not to divulge information on alumni without their approval. "There are lots of reporters nosing around the library," he acknowledged. So far, none had turned up any new information.Law professors Lawrence Tribe and Charles Ogletree have both said publicly that they were "impressed" by Obama when he was a student.Sources close to the Sutton family told Newsmax that Percy Sutton wrote a letter of recommendation for Obama to Ogletree at Khalid Al-Mansour's request, but Ogletree declined to answer Newsmax questions about this. Harvard Law School spokesman Michael Armini said that Harvard was "very generous" with financial aid, but only on the basis on need.
   The Obama campaign told Newsmax that Obama self-financed his three years at Harvard Law School with loans, and did not receive any scholarship from Harvard Law School. LaBolt denied that Obama received any financial assistance from Harvard or from outside parties. "No - he paid his way through by taking out loans," he said in an email to Newsmax. At the time, Harvard cost around $25,000 a year, or $75,000 for the three years that Obama attended. And as president of the Harvard Law Review, he received no stipend from the school, Harvard spokesman Mike Armini said."That is considered a volunteer position," Armini said. "There is no salary or grant associated with it."So if the figures cited by the Obama campaign for the Senator's student loans are accurate, that means that Obama came up with more than $32,000 over three years from sources other than loans to pay for tuition, room and board.
   Where did he find the money? Did it come from friends of Khalid Al Mansour? And why would a radical Muslim activist with ties to the Saudi royal family be raising money for Barack Obama? That's the question the Obama campaign still won't answer. Michelle Obama speaking at a campaign event in Haverford, Pa, in April of this year, Michelle Obama claimed that her husband had "just paid off his loan debt" for his Harvard Law School education. In an appearance in Zanesville, Ohio, in February she bemoaned the fact that many American families were strapped with student loan payments for years after graduation."The only reason we're not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books," she said. The first of those best-sellers netted the couple $1.2 million in royalties in 2005.
   In response to Newsmax questions about the Obama's college loans, a campaign spokesman cited a report in The Chicago Sun claiming that Obama borrowed $42,753 to pay for Harvard Law School, and "tens of thousands" more to pay for undergraduate studies at Columbia.The same report said that Michelle Obama borrowed $40,762 to pay for her years at Harvard Law School.But a Newsmax review of Senator Obama's financial disclosures found no trace of any outstanding college loans, going back to 2000.As a United States Senate candidate, Barack Obama was required to file a financial disclosure form in 2004 detailing his assets, income, consulting contracts, and liabilities.
   Obama listed "zero" under liabilities in 2004 and in all subsequent U.S. Senate financial disclosure forms.Under the Senate ethics rules, he is required to disclose any loan, including credit card debt, of $10,000 or more. The only exception to the reporting requirement is mortgage debt on a principal residence.The Senate reports also directly contradict Michelle Obama's claim that the couple had "only just" paid off their student loans after receiving book royalties paid out in 2005 and 2006 â€" well after her husband had been ensconced in the Senate.Apparently, Michelle Obama misspoke, according to the version provided by the Obama campaign. Campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt now tells Newsmax that the loans Sen. Obama took out to pay for Harvard Law School "were repaid in full while he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate [in 2004], and under the rules, the modest outstanding balance he repaid was not reportable as a liability on his personal financial disclosure reports."The Senator repaid the loans on "the expectation of a significant increase in family income" as a result of the paperback edition of his 1995 book, Dreams of My Father, LaBolt said.Obama acknowledges that sales of the hard cover edition of the book were "underwhelming."
   But in the spring of 2004,when Obama won the Democrat U.S. Senate primary in Illinois, Rachel Klayman, an editor at Crown Publishers in New York, read an article about Obama and became interested in his memoir, only to discover that Crown now owned the rights. She asked Obama to write a new forward, and Crown then decided to re-issue Dreams as a paperback in July 2004, just as Obama made his historic speech to the Democrat National Convention.The paperback eventually sold over one million copies, which under the standard industry royalty for trade paperbacks of 7.5%, earned him $1.2 million. However, Obama didn't report income from the book until 2005, so it's unclear how he was able to repay his student loans in 2004.    Responding to attacks from the Hillary Clinton campaign during the primaries, Obama released seven years of tax returns on March 25 of this year. The returns, dating back to 2000, indicate that the couple paid no interest on their student loans. The interest from such loans would have been deductible on their joint income tax returns.
   For 2000 through 2004, taxpayers declared student loan interest as a deduction on line 24 of federal form 1040. After 2004, the deduction can be taken on Line 33.But the Obamas never declared a dime of interest in student loans on their return, most likely because they simply earned too much money to be able to take the deduction under the IRS rules. Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt had no answer as to why the Obamas' failed to declare the loans, stating the obvious that "because interest on the loans was not deducted, it would not appear on the Obamas' personal return."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: CarolC
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 10:52 AM

And yet, apparently someone (Percy Sutton), did make it up...


'Barack Obama's campaign is flatly denying a story told by former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton, who cast an ex-Black Panther turned Muslim businessman and lecturer as a key Obama mentor but whose story seems off in at least one key detail.

Sutton's story, told in what NY1 said was a March 25 interview, has been lighting up the conservative blogs for the last week.

Sutton, now in his late 80s and mostly off the public stage, told NY1's Dominic Carter that he was asked to write a letter of recommendation to Harvard Law School on Obama's behalf by a man named Khalid al-Mansour of Texas, "the principle adviser to one of the world's richest men" who was also "raising money for [Obama]."

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told Politico that "Obama did not know and does not know Khalid al-Mansour."

LaBolt said Obama doesn't have a relationship with Sutton and that "to our knowledge, no such letter was written." Obama was in Chicago, not New York, when he applied to Harvard.

The person to whom Sutton was apparently referring, al-Mansour, is a former Black Panther and an adviser to Saudi royalty who has produced, as Amanda Carpenter noted, some YouTube clips that would light up cable television if he's actually been close to Obama. He's also been quoted backing the Palestinian side in the Middle East conflict, though he has not been quoted supporting violence there. NewsMax's Kenneth Timmerman reported yesterday that he spoke to al-Mansour, who wouldn't comment on Sutton's story.

"Any statement that I made would only further this activity which is not in the interest of Barack," al-Mansour is quoted as saying.

Sutton's story is particularly difficult to follow at one point: that al-Mansour was "raising money" for Obama. Obama attended Harvard with the help of student loans, as the Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet reported in detail at one point, writing that he had $42,753 in debt.

I left messages for al-Mansour and for Sutton, but haven't heard back. Sutton, an eminence in Harlem politics, has not been well lately, people who know him said; I also left a message for his son.

Sutton supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary and was quoted saying of Obama at the time, "We don't know the other person in this election — we've never met him."

UPDATE: I spoke to Mansour Thursday evening, who said he'd avoided directly contradicting the story out of respect for Sutton, "a dear friend, his health is not good."

But pressed, he denied all the details of Sutton's story.

"The scenario as it related to me did not happen," he said.

"I'm sure he's written a letter [to someone else] and he got it confused somehow," he said of Sutton, adding that he'd never asked Sutton to write a letter to any university supporting anyone's admission.

Mansour said he admires Obama, but first heard of him when a relative sent him a copy of Obama's 2004 convention speech.

"I've never met him," he said.'

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Obama_camp_denies_Sutton_story.html


It's really not that hard to look this stuff up before making a fool out of oneself by posting garbage.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama is a socialist
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 08 - 10:44 AM

"Voters may differ in how they see Ayers, or how they see Obama's interactions with him. We're making no judgment calls on those matters. What we object to are the McCain-Palin campaign's attempts to sway voters – in ads and on the stump – with false and misleading statements about the relationship, which was never very close." Factcheck link from artbrooks upthrread.