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year
event
1995
In his memoir,
Obama writes of one of the watershed moments of his racial awareness --
time and again in remarkable detail. It is a story about a Life magazine article that influenced him.
The report was about a
black man who tried to bleach his skin white. When Obama was told
no such article could be found in Life, he says "it might have been
Ebony.
He is 9 years old, living in Indonesia, where he and his mother moved
with her new husband, Lolo Soetoro, a few years earlier. One day
while visiting his mother, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in
Jakarta, Obama passed time by looking through several issues of Life
magazine. He came across an article that he later
would
describe as feeling like an "ambush attack."
The article included photos of a black man who had destroyed his skin
with powerful chemical lighteners that promised to make him white.
Instead, the chemicals had peeled off much of his skin, leaving him sad
and scarred, Obama recalled.
"I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar
moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams."
Yet
no such photo exists, according to historians at the magazine.
No such photos, no such article. When asked about the discrepancy,
Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it
might have been ... who knows what it was?" (At the request of the
Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles,
none of which matched what Obama recalled.)
In fact, it is surprising, based on interviews with more than two dozen
people who knew Obama during his nearly four years in Indonesia, that it
would take a photograph in a magazine to make him conscious of the fact
that some people might treat him differently in part because of the
color of his skin.
“I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare
coverage. That’s what I’d like to see.”
In January, 2008, Obama claimed in a nationally televised debate:
"I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer."
2004
In Obama's famous DNC
Convention speech, Obama says, "My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father -- my grandfather -- was a cook, a domestic servant to the British."
Kezia, Obama Sr.'s first wife tells a story that puts Obama's account to
lie.
Kezia said:
In 1955 Obama Sr. was 18 and working in an office in Nairobi, when he took Kezia from
her family at the age of 16. Her father was furious.
"He did not like Obama. My father and brothers came to
Nairobi to bring me back. They said I had to go back to school.
"When I wouldn't, they said they would never speak to me again.
"Barack was also worried about what his father would think because I was
so young, but he gave us his approval. Obama's father (often described
as poor) sent my mother and father
14 cows for my dowry.
Just how can a cook, a domestic servant to the British, provide a dowry
of 14 cattle for Senior's first wife? Also, Obama's father
had been working in a Nairobi office since the age 16, not herding
goats.
As an aside, can you imagine if a Republican
was running for president and it came out that his father had bought his
first wife for 14 cows???!!!Just wow!!
2004
Responding to questions about his intent to serve out the six year
senate term, Obama says, in
this video,
(link removed),
that he will not run for the presidency in four years.
Notice: The video has disappeared. Using WayBackMachine, I found
two links -- both played empty videos -- a lot of stuff is being
scrubbed from the web.
Here is what he said in the video:
"I think I've been very clear. Ah-ah-mumble-mumble, there's
a presidential election in four years. I'm not running for
president in four years."
Here is a backup story -- during a meeting with reporters at his Illinois
campaign headquarters after his election to the U.S. Senate,
he ridiculed as "a silly question"
whether he would run for president or vice president before his term
ends in 2011. "I’ve never worked in Washington," he said. "I can
unequivocally say I will not be running for national office in four
years, and my entire focus is making sure that I’m the best possible
senator on behalf of the people of Illinois."
2004
On July 28th, the day after his speech at the Democratic convention
catapulted him into the national spotlight, Barack Obama
told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an
"absolute obligation" to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a
success.
"The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," he said at a lunch
sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, according to an audiotape of
the session. "It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who
have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise
that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing
from a national security perspective."
In late winter, 2008, on the campaign trail, Obama says he wants to
bring the troops home yesterday -- you decide -- was he lying then or is
he lying now?
2006
On the January 22nd edition of "Meet the Press," Tim Russert and
Obama had the
following exchange:
Russert: "When we talked back in November of '04 after your election, I
said, 'There's been enormous speculation about your political future.
Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from
Illinois?'"
Obama: "I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if
you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start
looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not
changed."
Russert: "So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?"
Obama: "I will not."
2007
As another example, consider Obama's
stirring tale for the Selma audience
about how he had been conceived by his parents, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann
Dunham, because they had been inspired by the fervor following the
"Bloody Sunday" voting rights demonstration that was commemorated March
4. "There was something stirring across the country because of
what happened in Selma, Alabama," he said, "because some folks are
willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack
Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on
Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to
Selma, Alabama"
Obama was born in 1961, and the Selma march occurred four years later,
in 1965. The New York Times reported that when the senator was
asked about the discrepancy later that day, he clarified: "I meant the
whole civil rights movement."
2007
Obama went on to tell his audience that the Kennedys -- Jack and
Bobby -- decided to do an airlift. They would bring some young
Africans over so that they could be educated and learn all about
America. His grandfather heard that call and sent his son, Barack
Obama, Sr., to America.
The problem with that
scenario is that, having been born in August 1961, the future
senator was not conceived until sometime in November 1960. So, if
his African grandfather heard words that "sent a shout across oceans,"
inspiring him to send his goat-herder son to America, it was not
Democrat Jack Kennedy he heard, or his brother Bobby, it was Republican
President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Actually, Senior was
awarded
an American sponsored scholarship in economics to the University of
Hawaii
at Manoa. He was selected by a former Kenyan cabinet minister, the late Tom Mboya, who was earmarked as
the successor to Jomo Kenyatta,
Kenya's first prime minister.
The presumption was that Senior would return to Africa
and use his "Western-honed skills in a new Kenya."
2007
On January 24, the Obama campaign released a statement, saying, "To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a
Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed
Christian who attends the United
Church of Christ in Chicago.
On March 14th, in a
statement to The Times, the Obama campaign offered this statement to
correct their previous statement, that appears to be a bold-faced lie:
"Obama has never been a practicing Muslim. The statement added
that as a child, Obama had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic
center."
And, the original statement began, "To be clear ..."
So, in three months, Barrack's campaign has gone from describing the U.S.
presidential hopeful as never having been a Muslim and never having been
raised as a Muslim to now never having been a practicing Muslim.
What's with the semantics? Statements from Obama's campaign appear
to have evolved, to say the least.
2007
On March 25th, the Chicago Tribune reports that an extensive search found no basis for an episode Obama
recounts about a picture he ran across
in Life magazine of a "black man who had tried to peel off his skin" in
a failed effort to use chemicals to lighten it. Obama writes that
"seeing that article was violent for me, an ambush attack."
The Tribune
continued: "Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the
magazine. No such photos, no such article. When asked about the
discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an
Ebony or it might have been ... who knows what it was?"
At the request
of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past
articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled."
2007
On March 27th, Obama, tells the crowd at fundraiser , "I was a
constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I
actually respect the Constitution."
For the record, Obama is a "Senior Lecturer (on leave of absence)" at
the University of Chicago Law School. He has taught Constitutional
Law III: Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process, Current Issues in
Racism & the Law, and Voting Rights & the Democratic Process.
2007
On May 8th, Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech
Tuesday, drastically
overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.
"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten
thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed," the Democratic
presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a
sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.
The death toll was 12.
2007
On May 10th, Obama
botched his facts in a speech criticizing the U.S. auto industry for
"investing in bigger and faster cars while foreign competitors invested
in more fuel-efficient technology."
Obama stated that "while our fuel standards haven't moved from 27.5
miles per gallon in two decades, both China and Japan have surpassed us,
with Japanese cars now getting an average of 45 miles to the gallon."
But Toyota, which should know, has responded, "No carmaker gets 45 mpg; ours is closer to
30 mpg."
Well, we're glad to see Obama's shifting the blame from the consumer to
the automakers. That must explain why the Illinois Senator and
Presidential candidate owns a HEMI-powered
V8 Chrysler 300C.
Obviously it's Chrysler's fault Obama
bought a big 5.7-liter engine from them -- he just didn't have a choice.
2007
During his 12 years in politics, Sen. Barack
Obama
has received
nearly three times more campaign cash from indicted businessman, Tony Rezko and his associates, than he has publicly
acknowledged, the Chicago Sun-Times has found.
Seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his "best estimate" was
that Rezko raised "between $50,000 and $60,000" during Obama's political
career.
However,
Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle.
Additionally, Obama
also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended
fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Obama and Rezko.
2007
Responding to criticism of his disrespect of the flag of the United
States during the National Anthem, Obama defended himself by saying
"My grandfather taught me how to say the Pledge of Allegiance when I was
2."
He didn't even remember what he was doing on
September 17th, when Obama, Hillary and Bill Richardson attended the
Steak Fry of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in Indianola, IA.
How can he possibly remember what happened when he was two
years old?
2007
On
October 6th, Obama accused his fellow American citizens of the
indiscriminate murder of Iraqi civilians, saying, "And these private (Blackwater
USA) contractors, they go out and they're spraying bullets and hitting
civilians and that makes it more dangerous for our troops."
Obama lies with the same ease as the Clintons and proves that he will
say anything to win the nomination and election.
2007
Last fall during a nationally televised presidential debate,
Obama hesitantly raised his hand and joined with most of his Democratic
rivals to declare that he opposed decriminalizing marijuana. (first
video).
But as a candidate for the U.S. Senate four years ago, Mr. Obama told
Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal
penalties for marijuana use or possession, according to a videotape of a
little noticed debate that was obtained by The Washington Times.
"I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws," Mr.
Obama told an audience during a debate at Northwestern University in
2004. "But I'm not somebody who believes in legalization of marijuana."
(second
video).
Asked about the two different answers, Mr. Obama's presidential campaign
said he in fact has "always" supported decriminalizing marijuana as
he answered in 2004, meaning the candidate mistakenly raised his hand
during the presidential debate last fall.
2007
On the 1st of December,
Obama said,
"I'm not running because I'm trying to fulfill some long-held plan."
Oh, really?
Iis Darmawan, 63, Obama's teacher in 1970, remembers him as an
exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local
language and had sharp math skills. "He wrote an essay titled, 'I
Want To Become President,'" the teacher said.
In 1971,
Obama's sister
Maya, has also
said, "There was always a joke between my mom and Barack that he
would be the first black president."
In 1991,
David B. Wilkins , the Kirkland and Ellis professor of law,
said he advised
Obama to become a Supreme Court Clerk. "Obama recognized the honor in
pursuing that post," Wilkins said, but quickly added that he wasn’t interested.
“He said that he wanted to write a book about his life and his father, go back
to Chicago, get back into the community, and run for office there. He knew
exactly what he wanted and went about getting it done,” Wilkins said.
In 1992, Obama's brother-in-law, Craig Robinson pulled him aside and
asked about his plans. "He said, 'I think I’d like to teach at
some point in time, and maybe run for public office,'" recalls Robinson,
who assumed Senator Obama meant he’d like to run for city alderman.
"He said no -- at some point he’d like to run for the U.S. Senate.
And then he said, 'Possibly even run for President at some point.'
And I was like, 'Okay, but don’t say that to my Aunt Gracie.' I
was protecting him from saying something that might embarrass him."
In 1993, Obama began teaching at the
University of Chicago Law School, where he declined to pursue
a tenure-track post, hoping to save time for politics.
The one thread, that remains consistent, throughout Obama's life, is his
teacher's, mentor's and friend's recollection of Obama's single-minded pursuit of
high political office.
2007
On
December 22nd, in a small-town café in
Pleasantville, Omaha, Obama was asked a
question that typically only circulates on the Internet.
As he sat down to have a slice of pie with a small group of potential
voters and an elderly woman asked him about being Muslim.
"I've always been a Christian," the Illinois Democrat responded. "I
have never practiced [Islam]."
Note: The newspaper editors had to add the word, "Islam."
In his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," Obama mentions studying
the Quran. He was enrolled in two Jakarta schools as a
Muslim. His teacher Tine Hahiyary said that she remembered that he
had studied "mengaji" (recitation of the Quran)." Classmate Rony
Amiris described Obama as being a very devout Muslim, saying, "Barry was
previously quite religious in Islam." Another classmate, Emirsyah Satar,
now the CEO of Garuda Indonesia, was
quoted as
saying, "He (Obama) was often in the prayer room wearing a 'sarong.'"
(See Obama's Education.)
Yet, on his official campaign website, Obama has posted
this statement, "Barack has never been a Muslim or practiced any
other faith besides Christianity."
Obama's grandfather was a Muslim. Obama's father was a Muslim.
Obama's stepfather was a Muslim. His African relatives are
Muslims. What was he for the 27 years before his alleged
conversion if he wasn't a Muslim?
If Obama has always been a Christian, why was he enrolled in two
Jakarta schools as a Muslim, and why did he study the Quran?
And note his Clintonesque defense, "I have never practiced."
This is Obama's biggest problem -- his dissimulation.
Saying, "I've always been a Christian," is a bold-faced lie.
2008
On
January 22nd, the Hillary Clinton Campaign releases a video that
proves that Obama lied about his position on "single-payer healthcare."
The video compares statements Obama made during the January 21st
Democratic debate with those he made to an AFL-CIO conference in June
2003 while campaigning for the Senate. Contradicting what
Obama said at the debate, the old footage shows the senator saying, "I
happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage.
That’s what I’d like to see."
At the debate, Obama stated: “I never said that we should try to go
ahead and get single-payer (healthcare)."
Single-payer healthcare is an euphemism for socialized medicine.
2008
February -- As Sen. McCain has
pointed out, Obama promised to use public funding in the general
election if the Republican candidate would do so also. Well,
McCain has agreed to it, but now Obama wants to back out of the deal.
After all, when he made the promise, he didn't have a chance of raising
more than the public's $85 million stipend. But now that he can
raise $300 million, well, what's a little untruth between the waited-for
one and his people? Yes, he can.
2008
On February 29th, the Obama campaign
told Canadian Television (CTV) that no message was passed to the
Canadian government suggesting that Obama does not mean what he says
about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.
However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV
on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama’s
senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, and the Canadian Consulate
General in Chicago.
Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have
taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the
Canadian government on the NAFTA issue. On Thursday night, CTV spoke
with Goolsbee, but he refused to say whether he had such a conversation
with the Canadian government office in Chicago. He also said he has been
told to direct any questions to the campaign headquarters.
CTV didn’t stop there. They announced that their sources, at the highest
levels of the Canadian government," reconfirmed the story to CTV
and one of their primary sources provided a timeline of the discussion
to CTV.
2008
On March 2nd, Obama told
another whopper
while criticizing Hillary Clinton.
Obama said that Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a fellow Democrat from neighboring
West Virginia, had read the intelligence estimate as a member of the
Senate Intelligence Committee and after a brief pause said the
then-chairman had voted against the war resolution.
However, Rockefeller was not the chair at the time and voted in favor of
the war authorization. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida was the
intelligence committee chair in 2002 and voted against the resolution.
Obama did not mention Graham’s name in the passage.
His exact words are, "She didn’t read the National Intelligence
Estimates. Jay Rockefeller read it. But she didn’t read it.
I don’t know what all that experience got her because I have enough
experience to know that if you have a National Intelligence Estimate and
the chairman of the national, um, Senate Intelligence Committee says you
should read this, this is why I’m voting against the war, that you
should probably read it. I don’t know how much experience you need
for that."
2008
March 7th -- Obama's courage: Contrary to a recent hyperbolic campaign
ad, it wasn’t "courageous"
to give his 2002 anti-war speech, primarily because he delivered it at
an anti-Iraq war rally.
At the last debate, America’s former
co-president claimed that it was easy to give that speech, and it wasn’t
a gamble for him because he wasn’t in the US Senate and therefore wasn’t
in a position of responsibility. Obama’s impassioned reply was, "I
was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes
campaign."
Wrong. In reality, Obama did not announce his
intentions to run for the US Senate until January 2003.
2008
March 7th -- Obama say he doesn't
take money from DC lobbyists and special interest PACS. This is
the type of double-talk "politics of the past" rhetoric Obama rails
against.
While his claim is technically true, what he does do is
take money from state lobbyists and other big money contributors who
have substantial lobbyist machines in DC, like law firms and
corporations.
In April 2007, the LA Times quoted the Campaign
Finance Institute’s Stephen Weissman as pointing out that the
distinction Obama makes on lobbyist money is meaningless: "He gets an
asterisk that says he is trying to be different. … But overall,
the same wealthy interests are funding his campaign as are funding other
candidates, whether or not they are lobbyists."
The Capital Eye
reported that "[a]ccording to the Center for Responsive Politics,
14 of Obama’s top 20 contributors employed lobbyists this year, spending
a total of $16.2 million to influence the federal government in the
first six months of 2007."
Obama’s no stranger to being influenced by
those campaign donations, either.
2008
March 14th --
In one of the biggest lies he ever told -- Obama says he "vehemently
condemns" the words of his pastor and mentor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright,
an official member of Obama's campaign, as a
member of Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee.
What an absolute pile of crap!
Obama says he's never witnessed or heard these statement before.
Double click arrow on tool bar to view. (01:30)
Another load of crap!
Obama has! Later, in a cover-his-ass speech, Obama even admits
he heard "the REv's" despicable words.
Obama and his wife Michelle have been listening to this man for 20 years.
Obama is a bold-faced liar to now claim he
had no idea the "the Rev" was such an anti-American, racist,
hate-monger!
Why hasn't Obama denounced "the Rev" at any time in the past 20 years?
The answer, of course, is because Obama wasn't running for national
office before -- that's one reason.
Another?
Obama and Wright are of the same mind -- now and then!
2008
March 14th -- OK, OK! Maybe he didn't hear those words. But
what about Reverend White's words that appear in Obama's
very own book, "Dreams of My Father."
"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a
day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white
folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere,
apathy in another hemisphere… That’s the world! On which
hope sits!"
Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of
policy makers in the White House and in the State House. That was 13 years ago, in 1995.
2008
March 14th -- Barack may not have heard Wright's rants, but did he read
them?
In the Trinity United Church of Christ
Bulletin,
January 21, 2007, on pages 9 and 10, "The Pastor's Page," are these
words:
"We have lost over 3,000 boys and girls in an illegal and unjust war,
and the media is on a feeding frenzy about Barack Obama’s church.
Where is the outrage about the 3,000 dead American military personnel
and the 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians who are dead for no reason
other than greed and ego? What’s goin’ on?"
"I use his words today on the third Sunday of a New Year to keep before
you the painful truth of who we are and where it is we are in this
racist United States of America! What’s goin’ on?"
"The reality, however, is that the entire war in Iraq and the larger
“war on terror” have been based on lies, half-truths and distortions to
serve the agenda of the United States imperialism. Where is the
public outcry? Where is the outrage? What’s goin’ on?"
He may never have heard Wright actually say the U. S. was racist or some
aspiring empire. But he never read it in his bulletin? Ever?
2008
On Friday, the 14th, presidential candidate Barack Obama repudiated
what he called "inflammatory and appalling remarks" made by his Chicago
pastor.
Obama said he had not been present during the sermons in question.
Obama
told MSNBC, "Had I heard them in church I would have expressed that
concern directly to Rev. Wright."
Please note, he says that he would have expressed concern, not
repudiate, the words
Yet, in
this video, "the Rev"
places Obama in the congregation, by saying, "There is a man here,
who can take this country in a new direction" and he points at him.
In the next clip, during Wright's 2007 Christmas services,
Wright rails, "Barack knows what it means to be a black man living
in a country and a process that is controlled by rich white men, Hillary
can never know that, Hillary ain't ever been called a nigger!"
While Wright rails, "Bill did us like he did Monica Lewinsky," Wright's
successor, Otis Moss III, jumps into the picture frame, attempting to
high-five "the Rev."
Barack was
in Chicago for Christmas 2007 and Wright is addressing him from the
pulpit. Will Barack say me didn't attend Christmas services?
When Obama said, "Had I heard them in church ..." Obama lied.
He listened to Wright's sermons for 20 years.
These two men, Obama and Wright, are two peas in the same pod.
And before I get feedback from the loony libs, remember, it was
Obama, himself, that wrote these words in "'Dreams of My Father," -- "I
found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity
against my mother’s race."
And, please notice the congregation in that video. They are going
nuts during Wright's preaching. All of them believe this "evil
white man" crap and eat it up.
The whole bunch of them are the worst kinds of hateful racists -- and
remember, Wright's congregation is composed of successful, educated
African-Americans.
Obama now says Rezko played a bigger fundraising role.
Indicted Chicago businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko was a more significant
fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama's earlier political
campaigns than Obama has previously admitted. Rezko raised as much
as $250,000 for the first three offices Obama sought, the senator told
the Tribune on Friday.
Obama also said for the first time that his private real estate
transactions with Rezko involved repeated lapses of judgment. The
mistake, Obama said, was not simply that Rezko was under grand jury
investigation at the time of their 2005 and 2006 dealings. "The
mistake was he had been a contributor and somebody involved in
politics," he said.
And this from a guy who is running for office based upon his judgment.
2008
March 15th -- Will Obama deny he was
in attendance at the controversial Chicago church when the pastor
referred to "white arrogance" and "the United States of White America"
on July 22, 2007, accompanied by his Secret Service detail.
Wright laced into America's establishment, blaming the "white arrogance"
of America's Caucasian majority for the woes of the world, especially
the oppression suffered by blacks. To underscore the point he
refers to the country as the "United States of White America."
Many in the congregation, including Obama,
nodded in apparent agreement as these statements were made.
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