robaus

Better brush up on your Spanish, FM. You may get called up as a reservist! Rick's about to invade Mexico! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15140560 I exaggerate, I know... makes a great attention grabber though! hehe But, it would certainly make more sense than invading Iraq looking for non existent WMD. It would make even more sense to decriminalize illicit drug use in USA, register addicts, and offer treatment as an illness rather than a crime... would totally bankrupt the drug cartels in Mexico and USA and reduce crime in US cities by about 60%. The war on drugs was lost long ago.

More trouble ahead for USA if Perry elected.... Last night he criticized Obama's Middle East policy... "The Obama policy of moral equivalency, which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a dangerous insult." [Which one is he talking about?] Mr Perry accused President Obama of a policy of "appeasement" in the Middle East. The Texas governor said his religious faith was a reason for his support of Israel. "Both as an American and as a Christian, I am going to stand with Israel," Mr Perry told reporters. It's a worry when a Presidentilal hopeful takes guidance for America's foreign policy, safety, and self interest by consulting a popular work of fiction and hearing voices from imaginary supernatural friends.

Thanks for your response CS. The American people deserve better.. at least to hear the truth about the 911 terrorists' motives. Even your veteran journalist Dan Rather self censors omitting the word "Israel" when supposedly quoting verbatim ... disturbing stuff. He could've got a job alongside Winston Smith at the Ministry of Truth in "1984" .. except Smith ultimately had more guts. Judge for yourself hearing the actual testimony at the 911 commission, how they swept the truth under the carpet. It's all on the net these days.. no need to listen to your lying politicians and media spin doctors. Bin Liner stated his feelings about Israel prior to 911 in an interview with ABC journalist John Miller in 1998 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html "Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. ... We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets, and this is what the fatwah says ... . The fatwah is general (comprehensive) and it includes all those who participate in, or help the Jewish occupiers in killing Muslims. " - Osama bin Laden May 1998 "For over half a century, Muslims in Palestine have been slaughtered and assaulted and robbed of their honor and of their property. Their houses have been blasted, their crops destroyed. And the strange thing is that any act on their part to avenge themselves or to lift the injustice befalling them causes great agitation in the United Nations which hastens to call for an emergency meeting only to convict the victim and to censure the wronged and the tyrannized whose children have been killed and whose crops have been destroyed and whose farms have been pulverized " - Osama bin Laden May 1998 The USA has got it wrong many times in the past and many times got it right too... otherwise I'd be writing in German or Japanese now. Maybe it's time for the USA to reassess its Middle East policy for the good of the USA and its own citizens, not on behalf of jingoistic zealots 5,000 miles away.

Correction The [corrupt,repressive] Saudi [royal family] wanted us there as well [to prop them up]. The ordinary Saudis don't get a say in it. That's a remarkable piece of retrospective mind reading re Bin Liner's motives, CS. Despite the fact that Bin Liner said America's support for Israel was one of the reasons for his terrorist attack. Crikey even Fox Noise reported it! Amidst all the analysis of the tragic obscenity of 9/11 no-one dares mention the elephant in the room ...Israel. No-one wants to upset the tail that wags the USA eh? .. from the UK Independent... "The motivation for the attacks was "ducked" even by the official 9/11 report, say the authors. The commissioners had disagreed on this "issue" – cliché code word for "problem" – and its two most senior officials, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, were later to explain: "This was sensitive ground ...Commissioners who argued that al-Qa'ida was motivated by a religious ideology – and not by opposition to American policies – rejected mentioning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... In their view, listing US support for Israel as a root cause of al-Qa'ida's opposition to the United States indicated that the United States should reassess that policy." And there you have it. So what happened? The commissioners, Summers and Swan state, "settled on vague language that circumvented the issue of motive". There's a hint in the official report – but only in a footnote which, of course, few read. In other words, we still haven't told the truth about the crime which – we are supposed to believe – "changed the world for ever". Mind you, after watching Obama on his knees before Netanyahu last May, I'm really not surprised. When the Israeli Prime Minister gets even the US Congress to grovel to him, the American people are not going to be told the answer to the most important and "sensitive" question of 9/11: why?" And in a few days time America will again stand alone on the world stage when it vetoes the right of the Palestinian people to self determination and a state of their own, confirming its support for Israel which has continued a brutal occupation, land grab, and apartheid system for the last 60 years. The USA should insist that Israel either annexes the whole of Palestine and makes Palestinians equal citizens, or give them their own state based on the 67 borders with a few land swaps. You could have the Middle East waving US flags rather than burning them. Meanwhile your wonderful friend Israel.. ..continues to spy on you as recently as last week stealing NASA secrets, a repeat of the Pollard affair of 1998. ..killed US service personnel in the USS Liberty attack ..has several of its PMs were wanted for war crimes ..were the root cause of 9/11 .. has led you into two wars Iraq and Afghanistan, but not sent a single soldier to fight alongside you. .. would like you to start a war with Iran too. ..caused the GFC with your massive war expenses. .. vets your politicians and academics to make sure they toe the Israeli line As General McAuliffe would say..... "Nuts!"

That's not how I recall events unfolding on Fox Noise or on this forum, with certain rednecks criticising Obama at the time.. ..at first for not acting while protesters were slaughtered ..then reluctant praise for him joining France and Britain in the bombing, but... it was probably all Hilary's idea anyway.. and why are the French leading us. ..then the isolationists "Why has Obama got us into another war?" even though he had said no ground troops.''unlike Bushit's reckless futile war .. then one of Fox Noise's so called experts suggested he was fighting the wrong tyrant, why not start a war with Syria and Iran as well? We all know what would have happened if Obama had delayed his life saving decision. Congress would have shilly-shallied for weeks (just as they did over the debt ceiling issue simply to score a few political points) while innocents were massacred. "While Speaker of House John Boehner said that the U.S. has a “moral obligation†to help those standing up to Qaddafi, he also expressed concern that the administration has not outlined a clear mission in Libya. “Because of the conflicting messages from the administration and our coalition partners, there is a lack of clarity over the objectives of this mission, what our national security interests are, and how it fits into our overarching policy for the Middle East. The American people deserve answers to these questions,†Boehner wrote, adding that “it is regrettable that no opportunity was afforded to consult with congressional leaders.â€

I believe that's debatable otherwise Obama would have been impeached. So the poltroon or simply obstructionist Congress would have abandoned the Libyan people on a technicality? Good job he's the man to make important decisions. But for Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron thousands more innocent civilians would have been raped, tortured and murdered when Gaddafi's forces were at the gates of Benghazi, and the dictator and his henchmen would still be in power today stronger than ever. Whereas Bushit, Cheney and Rumsfeld spent months concocting phoney excuses to invade Iraq in a completely useless war costing thousands of American, Allied and Iraqi lives, and the plunging the US economy into an abyss. BTW HH owes me a certain bridge off the west coast of USA. He said with such certainty that Obama's decision would lead to American ground troops being involved. But Obama has demonstrated how military campaigns should be properly conducted. When you have dismantled the bridge, HH, please could you re-erect it between my balcony window and Walking Street.

Sorry, I was a bit pissed last night when I wrote that. I meant to finish off with.. Perhaps the Angel Moroni would suddenly reappear and leave Mitt a set of instructions on golden tablets as to how to win the election.. worked last time with Joseph Smith when he founded the Moron cult. ... helped him with his erections!

Perhaps the Angel Moroni would suddenly reappear and leave Mitt a set of instructions on golden tablets as to how to win the election.. worked last time with Joseph Smith when he founded the Moron cult. How could Americans vote for such a nutter who believes such crap?

The US government has wasted $30bn (£18bn) in contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade, according to a bi-partisan spending commission. The commission on wartime contracting blamed an over-reliance on contractors, poor planning and fraud for the waste. It had evidence of lax accountability and inadequate competition, it said http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14712172 But I'm sure Dick Cheney's Halliburton did well out of it. The poor bugger needs every last $billion he can scrape together with his poor book sales.

Let's hope that Dominionists Bachman or Perry don't get elected then! Your Founding Fathers had great foresight separating State from religion.

Interesting item from the BBC about US primaries... a few things I didn't know. Mind you as Donald Rumsfeld once said..."because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know." ...from the Beeb.. "The primaries, coming round every four years, are so familiar that it is easy to lose sight of the fact they are unique, alien - an experiment in ultra-democracy that somehow has stuck. A process so extraordinary that it would be laughed out of court if you suggested it today. The voters choosing their party's candidate need not be party members. They do not need to pay any fees, or attend any meetings. They simply register as Republicans, or Democrats. Some states go even further. You simply turn up and vote. Just think. In the United Kingdom (however much lip service is paid to the principle of one member one vote) the power to choose a party leader still has not really been prised out of the hands of the party elite - the men in dark suits, the MPs or the unions. This is designed to stop "ordinary party members" making a naive, shallow, choice, by plumping for their heart throb, however extreme and unelectable he or she might be. As for the very idea of allowing mere voters who just happen to prefer one party over another to choose - unthinkable. And when a British party chooses a leader it is well before an election and it is over in a flash. The rolling, rollicking American campaign lasts for more than a year, a travelling circus, moving from prayer breakfast to BBQ, from town to town, debate to debate, before a series of votes spread out over months as one state votes, then another, in a cascade of cliff-hangers. Journalists gorge on the red meat of this dramatic narrative, gnawing on the bare bones of the result, chewing over their implications. The candidates' flaws and foibles, abilities and indiscretions are put under a blazing spotlight. Who will sweat and crack? Political puzzle Some tough questions are already out there. Rick Perry (L) and Michele Bachmann ® are facing some tough questions Opponents are asking how close Michele Bachmann is to a very right-wing Christian philosophy called Dominionism, one proponent of which even argues for the death penalty for homosexuals and adulterers. Why has she, in the past, recommended a book in which the author appears to endorse the argument that slavery could not be abolished until the slaves became Christians? What about the controversy over Texas Governor Rick Perry's backing for the death penalty in a case where the evidence of guilt was so scant, critics say, that one Perry supporter is supposed to have told a focus group "it takes real guts to execute an innocent man". It is perhaps a puzzle that this system, so wide open to allow anyone, or at least anyone with the money to enter has not produced a more glittering field. Even those who know no other system are a little worried. I ask every senior Republican I come across the obvious question: "Who do you want as your presidential candidate?" Just about all of them reply "none of the above". Some are beginning to say so in public. While even that old cartoon favourite of mine had a clear starting line, this wacky race can be joined at just about any time. Many hope that the mists will part and a new champion, perhaps looking a little less like a cartoon caricature, will ride in, scattering and smashing the others out of the way. It may not be the most sensible way to choose a potential leader of the free world, but as theatre it is hard to beat." ..whole article link

Don't worry... Rick Perry is praying for y'all. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9988244/god-help-america-obama-rival-prays/ God help America, Obama rival prays Veronica Zaragovia, AAP August 7, 2011, 10:32 am Texas Governor Rick Perry, expected to launch a 2012 White House bid soon, rallied the faithful for a day of Christian prayer and fasting on Saturday asking God to fix America's woes. "Father our hearts break for America," Perry prayed before a rapturous crowd of around 30,000 people gathered at a Houston stadium and thousands more watching via an online livestream. "We see discord at home, fear in the marketplace, anger in the halls of government and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, protects us, blesses us. For that we cry out for your forgiveness." The gathering is expected to burnish Perry's credentials among religious conservatives who shape Republican presidential primaries. But the blend of politics and piety could alienate swing voters thought to decide general US elections. Perry insisted that the event was apolitical, even as he asked God to impart "wisdom" on the president of the United States -- without mentioning Barack Obama's name -- and prayed that God would "inspire" the nation's leaders, pastors, generals, and parents in "difficult times." God's "agenda is not a political agenda. His agenda is a Salvation agenda," the Republican governor said, adding that "God is wise enough to not be affiliated with any political party." As streams of people filled the first, second and third levels of the stadium for the seven-hour event dubbed "The Response," they often stood with their hands waving fervently in the air, cried, sang, read passages from the Bible and swayed to the music. Shouts of "Hallelujah" could be heard throughout. Public shows of religious faith are nothing new to US politics -- George W. Bush said during the 2000 campaign that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ -- but at least one of the groups backing the event could raise eyebrows. The American Family Association, listed as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center that tracks US extremists, rails against "the homosexual agenda" and accuses Obama of having "shown far more interest in promoting Islam than his own self-proclaimed Christian faith." But Barry Brummett, who studies the appeal of Evangelical religious discourse at the University of Texas at Austin, says Perry's public shows of faith are "not beyond what you might see a 'mainstream' political leader do anywhere." The November 2012 election is expected to turn on Obama's handling of the economy, and Perry could be expected to trumpet the robust job growth of the "Texas Miracle" he has overseen since taking office in 2000. But critics of Perry point out that his state has high rates of poverty, and he would likely face fire over telling an anti-tax "Tea Party" rally in April 2009 that Texas might be better off seceding from United States.

Just reading American Bill Bryson’s latest book “At Homeâ€. I love everything he’s ever written, my favourite travel writer. It seems some things never change… P46.. where Bryson is describing the various stands at the UK Great Exhibition of 1851 held in Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace “The United States section almost didn’t get filled at all. Congress, in a mood of parsimony, refused to extend funds, so the money had to be raised privately. Unfortunately, when the American products arrived in London, it was discovered that the organizers had only paid enough to get the goods to the docks and not onwards to Hyde Park. Nor evidently had any money been set aside to erect the displays and man them for five months. Fortunately, the American philanthropist George Peabody, living in London stepped in and provided $15,000 in emergency funding, rescuing the American delegation form its self generated crisis. All of this reinforced the more or less, universal conviction that Americans were little more than amiable backwoodsmen not yet ready for unsupervised outings on the world stage. So it came as something of a surprise when the displays were erected to discover that the American section was an outpost of wizardry and wonder. Nearly all the American machines did things that the world earnestly wished machines to do – stamp out nails, cut stone, mould candles – but with a neatness, dispatch, and tireless reliability that left other nations blinking. Elias Howe’s sewing machine dazzled the ladies and held out the impossible promise that one of the great drudge pastimes of domestic life could actually be made exciting and fun. Cyrus McCormick displayed a reaper that could do the work of forty men. – a claim so improbably bold that almost no-one believed it until the reaper was taken out to a farm in the Home Counties and shown to do all that it promised it could. Most exciting of all was Samuel Colt’s repeat-action revolver which was not only marvellously lethal but made from interchangeable parts, a method of manufacture so distinctive that it became known as ‘the American system’ â€.

And who got the USA into this fine mess in the first place? ... Republican Bushit! .. and just to hamstring the war effort against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan..Why not... ..... start a costly (in both lives and money) and totally futile war on a second front in Iraq looking for non existent WMD. .... why not while you're at it, cause the GFC too by turning a complete blind eye despite warnings to the derivatives and mortgage markets ... and why not prevent any terrorist in Guantanamo Bay from ever facing justice in a US court by rendering all evidence inadmissable because Bushit and Rumsfeld approved the use of torture doahhh! Obama is one of the finest presidents you've ever had considering the dingo's breakfast he inherited from the Republicans. He's actively promoting peace in the Middle East while the Reps seem to be warming up for another war. I heard Glenn Beck on Fox Noise the other day.. the man's a fucking lunatic.. he's organising an anti Arab rally in Israel in August.. how to win over a third of the world's population eh.. nice one Glenn! I truly hope Palin runs.. she owes it to her devoted world wide audience .. the comedy value alone will be priceless... Trump was just the warmup act! But if she's elected we're sure to tackle such pressing issues as gay marriage, abortion,morning prayers in schools, gays in the military.. blah blah blah, while China gazumps you economically. I have never once heard anyone on Fox Noise say how they would have rescued the US economy or extract the allies from Afghanistan with honour. I remember at the time Palin and other Republicans were saying let GM go bust and throw the workers on the dole heap. GM has just paid back its debt to the US govt with interest 6 years? ahead of schedule and has now turned a profit and saved 1000s of jobs. Never underestimate the intelligence of the electorate but the world must surely tremble if one of those Republican fuckwits gets in.

Here's a ripper article about the state of play in US politics. Donals Trump's lunacy reveals core truth about Republicans "Since the election of Barack Obama, the Republican Party has proved that one of its central intellectual arguments was right all along. It has long claimed that evolution is a myth believed in only by whiny liberals – and it turns out it was on to something. Every six months, the party venerates a new hero, and each time it is somebody further back on the evolutionary scale. Sarah Palin told cheering rallies that her message to the world was: "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way!" – but that wasn't enough. So the party found Michele Bachmann, who said darkly it was an "interesting coincidence" that swine flu only breaks out under Democratic presidents, claims the message of The Lion King is "I'm better at what I do because I'm gay", and argues "there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." That wasn't enough. I half-expected the next contender to be a lung-fish draped in the Stars and Stripes. But it wasn't anything so sophisticated. Enter stage (far) right Donald Trump, the bewigged billionaire who has filled America with phallic symbols and plastered his name across more surfaces than the average Central Asian dictator. CNN's polling suggests he is the most popular candidate among Republican voters. It's not hard to see why. Trump is every trend in Republican politics over the past 35 years taken to its logical conclusion. He is the Republican id, finally entirely unleashed from all restraint and all reality. The first trend is towards naked imperialism. On Libya, he says: "I would go in and take the oil... I would take the oil and stop this baby stuff." On Iraq, he says: "We stay there, and we take the oil... In the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation's yours." It is a view that the world is essentially America's property, inconveniently inhabited by foreigners squatting over oil-fields. Trump says America needs to "stop what's going on in the world. The world is just destroying our country. These other countries are sapping our strength." The US must have full spectrum dominance. In this respect, he is simply an honest George W Bush. The second trend is towards dog-whistle prejudice – pitched just high enough for frightened white Republicans to hear it. Trump made it a central issue to suggest that Obama wasn't born in America (and therefore was occupying the White House illegally), even though this conspiracy theory had long since been proven to be as credible as the people who claim Paul McCartney was killed in 1969 and replaced with an imposter. Trump said nobody "ever comes forward" to say they knew Obama as a child in Hawaii. When lots of people pointed out they knew Obama as a child, Trump ridiculed the idea that they could remember that far back. Then he said he'd "heard" the birth certificate said Obama was Muslim. When it was released saying no such thing, Trump said: "I'm very proud of myself." The Republican primary voters heard the message right: the black guy is foreign. He's not one of us. Trump answered these charges by saying: "I've always had a great relationship with the blacks." The third trend is towards raw worship of wealth as an end in itself – and exempting them from all social responsibility. Trump is wealthy because his father left him a large business, and since then companies with his name on them have crashed into bankruptcy four times. In 1990, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston studied the Trump accounts and claimed that while Trump claimed to be worth $1.4bn, he actually owed $600m more than he owned and you and I were worth more than him. His current wealth is not known, but he claims he is worth more than $2.7bn. Johnston says that in fact most of Trump's apparent fortune comes from "stiffing his creditors" and from government subsidies and favours for his projects – which followed large donations to the campaigns of both parties, sometimes in the very same contest. Trump denies these charges and presents himself as an entrepreneur "of genius". Yet for the Republican Party, the accumulation of money is proof in itself of virtue, however it was acquired. The richest 1 per cent pay for the party's campaigns, and the party in turn serves their interests entirely. The most glaring example is that they have simply exempted many of the rich from taxes. Johnston studied four of Trump's recent tax returns, and found he legally paid no taxes in two of them. In America today, a janitor can pay more income tax than Donald Trump – and the Republicans regard that not as a source of shame, but of pride. How are these tax exemptions for the super-rich paid for? Here's one example. The Republican budget that just passed through the Senate slashed funding to help premature babies to survive. The rich riot while the poor shrivel. Trump offers the ultimate symbol of this: he won't even shake hands with any ordinary Americans out on the stump, because "you catch all sorts of things" from them. Yes: the Republican front-runner is a billionaire who literally won't touch the poor or middle class. The fourth trend is to insist that any fact inconvenient to your world view simply doesn't exist, or can be overcome by pure willpower. Soon, the US will have to extend its debt ceiling – the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow – or it will default on its debt. Virtually every economist in the world says this would cause another global economic crash. Trump snaps back: "What do economists know? Most of them aren't very smart." Confront the Republicans with any long-term social or economic problem, and they have one response: it would go away if only we insisted on our assumptions more aggressively. This denial of reality runs deep. So Trump says "it's so easy" to deal with rising oil prices. He says he would call in Opec, the cartel of oil-producing nations, as if they were contestants on his show The Apprentice, and declare: "I'm going to look them in the eye and say, 'Fellows, you've had your fun. Your fun is over.' " It's the same, he says, with China. He will order them to stop manipulating their currency. When he was informed that the Chinese had some leverage over the US, he snapped: "They have some of our debt. Big deal. It's a very small number relative to the world, ok?" This is what the Republican core vote wants to be told. The writer Matthew Yglesias calls it "the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics". It's named after the Marvel comics superhero the Green Lantern, who can only use his superpowers when he "overcomes fear" and shows confidence – and then he can do anything. This is Trump's view. The whiny world simply needs to be bullied into submission by a more assertive America – or the world can be fired and he'll find a better one. Trump probably won't become the Republican nominee, but not because most Republicans reject his premisses. No: it will be because he states these arguments too crudely for mass public consumption. He takes the whispered dogmas of the Reagan, Bush and Tea Party years and shrieks them through a megaphone. The nominee will share similar ideas, but express them more subtly. In case you think these ideas are marginal to the party, remember - it has united behind the budget plan of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan. It's simple: it halves taxes on the richest 1 percent and ends all taxes on corporate income, dividends, and inheritance. It pays for it by slashing spending on food stamps, healthcare for the poor and the elderly, and basic services. It aims to return the US to the spending levels of the 1920s – and while Ryan frames it as a response to the deficit, it would actually increase it according to the independent Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Ryan says "the reason I got involved in public service" was because he read the writings of Ayn Rand, which describe the poor as "parasites" who must "perish", and are best summarized by the title of one of her books: 'The Virtue of Selfishness.' The tragedy is that Obama needs serious opposition – but not from this direction. In reality, he is funded by similar destructive corporate interests, and has only been a few notches closer to sanity than these people. But faced with such overt lunacy, he seems like he is serving the bottom 99 per cent of Americans much more than he really is. The Republican Party today isn't even dominated by market fundamentalism. This is a crude Nietzscheanism, dedicated to exalting the rich as an overclass and dismissing the rest. So who should be the Republican nominee? I hear the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were considering running – but they are facing primary challenges from the Tea Party for being way too mild-mannered."

LP, >>explain how the repubs had condi rice and colin powell in high office long before the dems had their token black man to make them look saintly?....imo both would have made good presidents and wouldn't have had their nationality questioned, they're americans born a bred. .. as far as I'm concerned race, colour, religion should not even enter into the debate about suitability for high office. Your use of the words "token black" and "they're americans born a bred" implies that colour and ethnicity obviously matters to you HH, >>As for the posters on this board, I don’t think you’ll find that any have made “racist†remarks. ... oh yes, they have.. many times... we've had many a stoush over it too. Take some of LP's remarks above for starters. >>Actually, it‘s all quite moot: there is nothing “racist†about the sign. ... crikey any grade 9 media student could deconstruct the racism. You tell me why the HUSSEIN, Obama's middle name, is highlighted. We never hear of Louise Palin and Sidney McCain, do we?.. In case the reader is dopey enough not to get the message "Jihad 08" is added, implying Obama is an Islamic terrorist. If you're still in doubt about the Tea Party's racist credentials have a look at these signs and racist slogans from their September 2010 rally. Here's the youtube of the rally.. Impeach the Muslim Marxist. Obama's Plan White Slavery "What’s the difference between the zoo and the White House? The zoo has an African [lion] and the White House has a lyin’ African!†“Cap Congress and trade Obama back to Kenya!†"Stand idle while some Kenyan tries to destroy America? Homey don't play dat!!!" "Impeach Osama Obama AKA Hussein" "Obama Bin-Lyin". I personally don't give a hoot about US politics. Well, actually I do because the GFC caused directly by Bushit and his cronies affected the value of my property downunder and in Thailand, although he was a godsend in helping me to short the Aussie stock market... thanks. I personally think Obama is doing an excellent job. That's irrelevant. It’s the racist attacks I object to. All this stemmed from my comment about Trump and the birthers' preoccupation with Obama's birth certificate, which I still am sure was racially motivated. Their whole conspiracy theory was ludicrous.

>>there was no Tea Party in 2008 which would have been responsible for its production. ... I stand corrected on that point. Slack use of words on my part. >> the placard is an obvious photoshopped product .... how do you reach that conclusion? I distinctly recall the smear campaign on the election trail. In fact I really admired McCain for standing up to that bigoted woman at a rally in Minnesota. "On Friday 10/10, McCain saw firsthand how his hate-and-smear-filled campaign is affecting the minds of his supporters. Putting out Hate-Fires left and right at a rally in Minnesota, he tries to calm the crowd, and urge them to respect Obama as he does... and they booed him for it. McCain actually had to describe to a woman in his crowd that, despite her beliefs, Obama is NOT, in fact, an "Arab," and "someone to be feared," but rather a respectable human being that would make a fine president, not to be feared. McCain actually had to DEFEND Obama because his crowd was getting unruly and vicious." McCain pacifies hate on campaign trail Looks like the Republicans and the cracked Tea Pots still haven't learnt a lesson from their negative campaign. Surely US voters aren't so stupid. They want to hear how Reps would tackle the important issues, and stop focusing on this snide racist motivated shite. Crikey bringing up racism in Oz 40 years ago is a bit of a red herring. Two wrongs don't make a right. Yes, indeed, Australia has an absolutely disgraceful history of racism. Not only were Asians not allowed in under the White Australia policy, but native Australians were not even given the vote until 1967, Aboriginal soldiers who had fought in two World Wars needed permission to travel between towns, and it was actually illegal to educate Aboriginal children in West Australian state schools until mid 60s. No wonder they are a lost generation now. It was thanks in part to the civil rights campaign in the US that Australia changed. Racism was wrong then in Oz and USA, as it is wrong now! One day I hope it will be condemned to the trash can of history.

>>I wonder when Australia is going to get a mixed-race chief executive like the evil racist United States ... we already have ...Julia Gillard.. she's Welsh! :-)... even so, she's growing on me... much prefer her to the mad monk (Aussies only) ... and the Head of State is English ... Mrs Windsor... a lovely sheila, not at all stuck up! Room enough for all of us, mate, in multi cultural Oz! hehe

Yes, you're still being disingenuous... I notice no comment on the bone through the nose African witchdoctor image. Much better to cherry pick images to mask blatant Tea party racism. Care to comment on this Tea Party placard... Just read an excellent article on the subject in the Independent. Talk about Rope a Dope. Its a good job the top of the Republican ticket is never on the other side of the desk in his reality TV show...he'd never make an apprentice investigative journalist! The day America took leave of its senses By Rupert Cornwell in Washington Has there ever been a more absurdly surreal moment, even in US politics, that unchallengeable theatre of the absurd and the surreal? One moment, we were watching a property magnate, with one eye on the presidency, the other on his reality TV show ratings, and puffed up like a bullfrog, rejoicing on an airport tarmac in New Hampshire that America's President of two years had finally made public his birth certificate. The next, America's TV networks interrupted their schedules to cut to the White House, where that self-same President appeared to confirm the momentous fact: not that Barack Obama had indeed been born, but that the happy event indeed took place, as no sane person has ever doubted, on the unimpeachably American soil of Hawaii, one August evening in 1961. Of late, however, America has seemed to be taking leave of its senses. A quarter of the population, polls showed, and close on half of Republicans, still refused to believe that unassailable fact. Yesterday, in a bid to finally close the discussion, the White House released Mr Obama's original "long form" birth certificate, rather than the computer-generated duplicate with which the world thus far has had to make do. It is signed by his mother, the doctor who delivered him and the local registrar. For the benefit of those who have been living – either literally or metaphorically – on a different planet for the last few years, the document bears witness that Barack Hussein Obama was born to Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Senior at 7.24pm on August 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynaecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii's capital city. The "birther" controversy – in other words, the contention that the 44th president had, in fact, entered this world in Kenya or Indonesia and that the Hawaii business was a conspiracy – has moved to the lunatic centre of American political debate. And no one has done more to propel it there than Donald Trump. Forced to react to that change, the President yesterday expressed the hope that the matter would now be laid to rest. He had watched "puzzled and bemused", he said, at how the issue had persisted, in defiance of all good sense. But the final straw, at least in Mr Obama's telling, had come a couple of weeks ago when he delivered a major speech on deficit reduction, as argument raged over how to tackle the national debt that threatens to squeeze the life out of the world's largest economy. And what, he asked, was making headlines the next day? The "birther" question, of course. "Normally I wouldn't comment on something like this," the President declared. But crucially serious problems confronted the country, and: "We don't have time for this kind of silliness." Nothing would be done "if we just make stuff up, pretend facts are not facts and get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers". The release of the document, which has briefly seemed as pivotal to the existence of the republic as the US Constitution would, Mr Obama hoped, lay the dispute to rest, except for a tiny minority who would never be convinced. "We live," he concluded, "in a serious time". But do we really? Up in New Hampshire (just by coincidence, of course, the scene of the country's first presidential primary 11 months hence), the carnival barker par excellence claimed Mr Obama's announcement as a colossal victory for himself. "I am really proud. I am really honoured. I feel I've accomplished something really really important that no one else was able to do," Mr Trump proclaimed, with the modesty that marks him. "I am really happy this has taken place. We have some issues that are unbelievably important." Whether, however, this triumph will see "the Donald" addressing momentous matters like the deficit remains to be seen. Why so long, he wondered: why hadn't Mr Obama produced the certificate back in 2007 and 2008, when Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was asking for it? And even now, he mused, puffing his chest: "We have to look at it. Is it real? Is it proper?" And if the rigorous Mr Trump is at last satisfied that Mr Obama was not born outside America – and thus disqualified from being President – other possible deceptions loom. "I've heard he wasn't a very good student at Occidental [College in Los Angeles, attended by the President between 1979 and 1981] but he ended up getting into Columbia [university in New York City] and Harvard. How did he do so, if he wasn't a very good student?" All this may be entertainment. But even if Mr Trump's goal is not the White House, but a new season on NBC for Celebrity Apprentice, in American politics right now he is rather more than a sideshow. CNN was quick to squash a Trump claim yesterday that a poll by the cable network showed him running level with Mr Obama in a hypothetical general election match-up. No such poll had ever been taken, a CNN anchor declared. Others have been however, by various news organisations, which put the property tycoon and relentless self-promoter near the top of the Republican field. Everyone's heard of Donald, even though he promises a decision on whether to enter the race only at the end of next month. The likes of Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and Rand Paul would kill for such celebrity right now. Some, though, ask whether Mr Obama might have done better by keeping the "birther" issue alive a little longer. Its very existence suggested that Republicans were indeed a party of extremists, they note, driving away the independents and centrists needed to win in November 2012. None other than Karl Rove, who plotted George W Bush's two White House victories, has said that Mr Trump's obsession with the "birther" issue "means he's off there in the nutty right". At moments like yesterday, however, you could believe that everyone's gone nutty.

more good hearted non racist humour from the Tea Party

I don't buy your disingenuousness. Try googling Obama racist images Tea Party... you'll get about a million hits! Here's a sample from the esteemed Orange County Republican Party Committee....with the caption, “Now you know why — No birth certificate!â€

>>Obie finally comes clean. ...What has Obama to "come clean" about? It's just the old debating fallacy.. create a false assertion then put the onus on the accused to disprove something that was false in the first place. BTW, Have you stopped beating your wife yet, Flasher? It's the cracked tea pots who have egg on their spouts. Have they pursued the birth certificates of McCain and Palin with the same over exuberant enthusiam? .... I wonder why not? Wouldn't be anything to do with the colour of their skin I suppose. Trump claims he wants to make the USA a proud nation once more. He and the birthers are making it a laughing stock.

An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Latvian, a Turk, an Aussie, an Egyptian, a Chinese man, a Mexican, a Spaniard, a Greek, a Russian, an Estonian, a German, an Italian, a Kiwi, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Swede, a Finn, a Romanian, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Czech and a Swiss went into a pub. The landlord says "Sorry, I can't let you in without a Thai" ..it's an old one, but sure it's the way I tell em!

>>btw - Where have you been Robaus? Missed your provocations! ... been travelling around the land of the long white cloud for a couple of months. Back to Oz next week via Brisbane, if floods subsided. Back to Disneyworld late Feb hopefully.

I think we are on the same page, BT When early Christians falsely libeled Jews that they had blood on their hands it was complete bullshit and an excuse for a pogrom. Palin is trying to jump on the bandwagon (for the Jewish sympathy vote?) saying that she is being falsely libeled too.. the faith of the assassination victim is irrelevant for Palin's purpose.. a spot of irony maybe that she hadn't quite thought through. The difference is that IMO she is partly responsible for the bloodshed in Arizona. Why the fuck use gun analogies such as "cross hairs" and "Don't retreat, reload" if "2nd amendment remedies" is not what is going through her mind.... besides huge amounts of empty space. And the ridiculous name for her group... The Tea Party. Its not a revolutionary war against a tyrannical George III and his government. Obama is the democratically elected president of the USA. You actually won the 18th Century war! Someone tell her she doesn't have to fight the redcoats any more; just use the ballot box, and see which policies the majority fancy. Sarah could have used sporting, economic, or even sexual metaphors... "Let's put some Viagra into this nation. Let's all grope for the G Spot.. Who'll help me find my clitoris?" :hubba: If Sarah can get carried away with imaginative rhetoric, so can I. :-)