Obama a Man with Global Proportion Deception’s

Obama expected to make strategic changes in US foreign policy

8 November 2008

Tehran-Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said on Saturday that the US president-elect Barack Obama is expected to make strategic changes in the US foreign policy.

Addressing a local seminar, he said that Obama is expected to send correct signals to the regional nations.

Obama can understand that change does not mean a change of color or superficial developments, but it has to do with strategic policies.

Referring to Obama's recent remarks on Iran's peaceful nuclear program, he said it represents pursuit of the same erroneous policy of the past.

If Washington wants to change the situation in the region, it should send correct and appropriate signals to the regional states, the Iranian Majlis speaker said.

Obama became the first US African-American president to ever conquer the White House as his Republican rival John McCain conceded the presidential race to him after he triumphed 349 electoral votes to McCain.

Obama, 47, is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas.

His inauguration, as the 44th US president, will be held on January 20, 2009.

Nero Bush Passing the Key of Office

Bush: "So it its a little burnt, bent, broken and the angry mob's keep chasing me with torches, just remember your next."

Obama and McCain Circle the Country

In the News: Monday marks the day before Election Day as Barack Obama and John McCain and their respective supporters circle the country searching for votes.

I will change the world

2 November 2008

New York-Barack Obama has promised to "change the world" if he is elected US President.

With just two days to go he and his opponent John McCain are touring key states in an effort to woo undecided voters.

Senator Obama is still almost seven points ahead in the Real Clear Politics poll of polls, but the gap has narrowed slightly.

At a rally in Henderson, Nevada, he warned his supporters against complacency.

"At this defining moment in history, you can give the country the change we need," he said.

At the same time Senator McCain was rallying his followers in Newport Beach, Virginia.

In a usually safe Republican state, which is threatening to go to the Democrats, he asked for help on the home stretch.

He said: "Let me state the obvious again, we need to win Virginia on the 4th of November and with your help we're going to win and bring real change to Washington.

My friends I need your help in the next three days. Volunteer, knock on doors - with your help we can and will win.

Commentary:

This bit of news while it is horrible and the picture is also a bit humorous, but nevertheless, of the two men being Obama and McCain being qualified for the office of US President; the answer is no, they are both more qualified for a jail cell at Leavenworth.

Towards either of them making the US better, actually one can more see from how both handled the election, as well as Hillary Clinton, that it would be four to eight years of worse then what the US has now and the global community has already seen from this particular country.

As to actually anyone running at this time for this particular office of government qualified, sorry to say, I do not think I have met one.

Let’s take a shorter look at the big picture, Obama has been charged with numerous felonies (high) crime’s not withstanding, terrorism. McCain, it is most assured has been charged with numerous and similar crimes and is being investigated for tax evasion from my understanding, at this time and not forgetting Clinton, it is assured she doesn’t have a clean under slip nor lives within the ideal’s that should actually be offensive to any moral person on the planet.

Bottom line, it would be same story, just new face or worse; if this is possible and most assured, a yes; especially from personal experience, which I do not think this the time or place to elaborate.

Prominent Jewish Congressman Rahm Emanuel Floated as Obama Chief of Staff

The Associated Press reports that Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel has been approached about being Barack Obama's chief of staff.

1 November 2008

US-As Barack Obama continues to absorb accusations that he is not committed to maintaining America's staunch support for Israel, knowledgeable Democrats have leaked word that he is considering a well-known, pro-Israeli Jewish congressman to be his chief of staff if elected.

The Associated Press reported Thursday night that Obama's campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel* about the job.

Such an appointment could be seen as a salve to Jewish voters, some of whom have grown skeptical of Obama despite his repeated statements that he is committed to Israel's security.

Emanuel belongs to an orthodox Jewish congregation in Chicago and worked as a volunteer in Israel during the first Gulf War. His father was a pediatrician who grew up in Israel and worked for the Israeli underground before independence.

Obama and his campaign won't comment on the implications of forging an Emanuel-led White House staff -- but they're not completely dismissing the report that he's being considered for the job, either.

Asked if Emanuel would be his chief of staff Thursday night in Missouri, Obama responded: I'm trying to win an election."

Is that a no? a reporter asked.

"Plouffe is my chief of staff," Obama answered, referring to his campaign manager, David Plouffe.

"There's no news because there's no job to offer. We're focused on one thing and that's the election, not anonymous D.C. parlor games," spokesman Nick Shapiro told FOXNews.com in an e-mail.

Emanuel, a veteran of President Clinton's White House, has swiftly ascended through the Democratic ranks since his election to Congress. He was chairman of the Democratic campaign committee two years ago, when the party won a majority for the first time in more than a decade, and he cemented his reputation as a prodigious fundraiser and strong-willed political strategist.

He also served as a senior adviser and fundraiser for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley before joining the Clinton White House. His Chicago ties could also explain why Obama may be considering him.

But the apparent trial balloon comes as John McCain's campaign continues to hammer the Obama for his statements on Iran, whose president is openly hostile toward Israel.

The McCain campaign recently recycled an ad that ridicules Obama for saying Iran "doesn't pose a serious threat."

The narrator says: "Terrorism, destroying Israel, those aren't serious threats? Obama -- dangerously unprepared to be president."

McCain's camp is also going after Obama for a tape in the Los Angeles Times' possession that supposedly shows Obama giving a toast to Rashid Khalidi, a fierce critic of Israel.

And Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, who is now campaigning for McCain, twice agreed on Tuesday with a claim from a man at a rally that "a vote for Barack Obama is a vote for the death to Israel."

There was also a pro-Israel rally held Friday in Boca Raton, Fla., under the title: The Case Against Obama: Fatal for Israel -- Lethal for the Jews."

Obama states on his Web site that he strongly supports the U.S.-Israel relationship, as well as Israel's right to defend itself and providing foreign assistance to the country.

Meanwhile, McCain's campaign seized on the Emanuel leak as a sign of overconfidence Friday, with just four days to go until Election Day.

"He's measuring the drapes ... and this week he settled on a chief of staff," McCain said at an Ohio rally.

"I think the reality is that Senator Obama ought to let the American people have a vote before he starts setting up his White House," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.

Both Obama and McCain have authorized their staffs to begin transition operations in recent weeks -- although only one of them will be in a position to make use of the results.

*Rahm Emanuel, is a right wing Zionist; who it is understood has no real regard for Judaism or Palestine in actuality.

Update:
Emanuel accepts job as White House chief of staff

Obama and McCain Run for the White House

White House not a job!
But a winner’s trophy of who told the best lies to win, Obama or McCain?

Palin blasts Obama for ties to Palestinian professor

29 October 2008

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio – Sarah Palin thrust Barack Obama’s relationship with a Palestinian academic into the national spotlight on Wednesday at a rally in Ohio — a tactic reminiscent of her repeated attempts to tie Obama to former radical William Ayers.

Palin kicked off her rally in Bowling Green by stressing, as she always does, that “it is not negative campaigning to call someone out on their record.” In recent weeks Palin has used that line to open up an attack on Obama’s tax plans. On Wednesday, she tried something different.

“It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama going back several years,” Palin said. “This is important because his associate, Rashid Khalidi, he, in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama, he's a former spokesperson for the Paliestinian Liberation Organization.”

Khalidi — whose name Palin mispronounced — is currently a leading scholar of Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia University, and was a contemporary of Obama’s while on faculty at the University of Chicago.

Khalidi has been a stern critic of United States foreign policy towards Israel and has accused the country of “occupying” Palestinian territories, but he has denied acting as a spokesman for the PLO.

The Los Angeles Times reported in April that Obama praised Khalidi at a 2003 going-away party for the professor when he left Chicago. The McCain campaign has pressured the Times to publicly release a videotape of the event, but the newspaper has refused, citing the request of a source.

Palin said the public has a right to know what Obama said at the event.

“And the twist here is that there's a videotape of a party for this person, back in 2003, a celebration of him, and Barack was there, and we know some very derogatory things were said there about Israel and America's support for that great nation,” Palin said.

“And among other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism instead of the victim. What we don't know, what we don't know is how Barack Obama responded to these slurs on a country that he now professes to support, and the reason is the newspaper that has the tape, the Los Angeles Times, refuses to release it.”

Palin accused the Times of being Obama’s “pet newspaper” and said the paper would win a Pulitzer Prize for “excelling in cow-towing.”

The Republican vice presidential nominee was joined at her Ohio rally by Joe Wurzelbacher, known to the world as Joe the plumber. It was the first time the celebrated small business owner has appeared with Palin on the stump.

Palin described Wurzelbacher as “a fellow Alaskan” because he once lived near Fairbanks.

Commentary:
Rashid Khalid who is not Palestinian, but Canaanite and is associated with the PLO which now is known as global terrorist Interpol fugitive Mahmoud Abbas Terrorist Organization or Fatah. Khalid it was reported is associated also with terrorism and in the global community is considered armed and extremely dangerous.

As to my understanding, Khalid is also associated with Barack Obama.

Furthermore, Khalid has been known to have extreme anti-Semitism views of not just the Jewish Palestinians, but also Muslim Palestinians, which is understood by many also in the global community.

As Sarah Palin’s terms and rhetoric about Israel which is apart of the State of Palestine now, it was found to be a bit offensive and show’s she really doesn’t keep up with the political spectrum or at least read a fifty cent newspaper; lately.

But as for her bringing out Obama’s and Khalid’s association she is right on the money, just may not seem to have had all the information.

Obama and McCain Believe in Warmongering with Bait?

Both McCain and Obama call for rebuilding U.S. ground forces

Barack Obama and John McCain

26 October 2008
By NANCY A. YOUSSEF

WASHINGTON-Barack Obama and John McCain each promise that as president they would continue to transform the U.S. military into a bigger, more agile force that can tackle insurgencies and help allies thwart terrorism.

However, the candidates differ on what role the military should play in global affairs.

"The Department of Defense has been the pre-emptive force of the last eight years," said Col. Michael Meese, a professor and the head of the department of social sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Whether Defense continues in that role - or the State Department, with the U.S. Agency for International Development, picks it up - is a question for the next administration, Meese said.

While there may be big differences in how the presidential candidates would use the military, they generally agree on what kind of force the U.S. needs.

"Temperamentally, Senators Obama and McCain are very different on defense. But when you read the details of their defense positions, they are remarkably similar," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a conservative public policy organization. "They both want to bolster intelligence, focus on counter-terrorism, reduce big-ticket weapons systems and crack down on defense contracts."

Both men call for rebuilding U.S. ground forces, whose troops and equipment have been exhausted by seven years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The next president will find a military that's still struggling to balance training for counter-insurgency and maintaining its ability to fight conventional wars.

McCain would like to increase the size of U.S. ground forces - the Army and Marines - by 150,000 troops to roughly 900,000.

Obama supports a Pentagon plan to expand the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000 in the next decade.

Obama and McCain also have said that they're concerned about the shortage of non-commissioned officers in the Army because so many mid-career senior enlisted men and women are leaving the military, exhausted by multiple tours in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Both candidates want to add more military civil-affairs units, which are battalion-size units of roughly 600 troops designed to work with local governments in the wake of conflicts. Such units could help the U.S. rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, but neither candidate offers specifics on how large a military civil-affairs force should be.

Obama says the National Guard needs better equipment and health care and has called for it to have a greater role.

McCain has made veterans issues a priority, promising to get veterans better health care. He also has supported increasing the monthly veterans' education benefit to $1,500 from $1,200.

They both support missile defense, although Obama has called for more testing of the systems, while McCain has said he wants to deploy them as quickly as possible.

Both candidates have called for more transparency in how the Pentagon doles out defense contracts. McCain, who led the fight against a huge Air Force tanker contract, has promised to review defense contracts and opposes emergency bills to supplement the defense budget.

Obama has said he would trim supplemental bills for defense spending and that overall defense spending would remain steady.

"Whether we get Obama or McCain, we will get a bigger military. They will have different attitudes on how it is used," Thompson said.

McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, has suggested that the military can be the face of U.S. engagement around the world.

He's called for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq until victory is assured. His campaign has said the surge was such a success in Iraq that the U.S. military should apply the "surge principles" in Afghanistan, suggesting that he'd send more troops there. He's also called for more training of allies that are combating terrorism within their borders.

McCain also has said that the U.S. can't allow Iran to develop its nuclear arsenal, suggesting that he'd use force if necessary to prevent that.

"There is only one thing worse than a military solution," McCain said in July 2007. "And that ... is a nuclear-armed Iran."

Obama also has said that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable, but he's put more emphasis on trying to reach a negotiated settlement with Tehran. In fact, Obama has made it clear that he thinks robust U.S. diplomacy could substitute, at least in part, for the Bush administration's reliance on the military to carry out America's will in the world.

The Democratic presidential nominee has vowed to end the war in Iraq and to bring U.S. combat forces home over 16 months. He'd shift some U.S. forces from Iraq into Afghanistan, which he calls the real front line in the war on terror, and it's where the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were planned.

Obama also has pushed for the U.S. military to enter Pakistan, unilaterally if necessary, to go after Osama bin Laden. McCain has criticized Obama's stand, saying he's announcing his plan to the enemy and inviting Pakistani resistance rather than cooperation, but McCain's also called Pakistan "a failed state."

"Both have an appreciation for the limits of military power. But they must decide: Does the United States want to be involved in nation building?" said Jake Kipp, the deputy director of the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

For all their plans, the next president cannot fully predict how he'd use the military.

"There are things that cannot be controlled by the new president. A lot of times, he will be responding to events," Kipp said. "As they say in the military: The enemy has a vote."

Commentary:

The only comment's I am going to make is this article is laced with the old US President George W Bush lies, which propagated the global war of unrest within the Bush administration that has destroyed countless of lives from the US to global, genocide, slavery, occupation, poverty, to a big chunk of helping to collapse the US's economy, naming just a few examples and apparently; Obama and McCain plan on following in Bush’s sweat, odor, stained shoes.

Their only difference is to entice people to murder and die with bait inducements.

Pennsylvania GOP disavows email likening Obama vote to rise of Hitler

26 October 2008

US-Pennsylvania Republicans are disavowing an e-mail sent to Jewish voters that likens a vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to events that led up to the Holocaust.

"Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008," the e-mail reads. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008.

It warns "Fellow Jewish Voters of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors" and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama.

State Republican officials disavowed the e-mail and said the strategist who helped draft it had been fired.

"The Republican Party of Pennsylvania did not authorize that e-mail," Michael Barley, communications director for the state party, told The Associated Press on Saturday evening.

Barley said a correction would be sent out to everyone who received it.

The e-mail was sent Thursday morning to 75,000 Jewish voters.

The McCain campaign also repudiated the e-mail. Spokesman Peter Feldman said Saturday night that McCain rejects politics that degrade our civics.

Political consultant Bryan Rudnick was identified as the person responsible for it. Rudnick, reached Saturday night, confirmed that he no longer works for the party, which employed him a few weeks ago as a consultant to do outreach to Jewish voters.

"I had authorization from party officials to send the e-mail," Rudnick said, but he declined to say who had signed off on it. "I'm not looking to drag anyone else through the mud, so I'm not naming names right now," he said.

The e-mail also accuses Obama of teaching members of the community group ACORN to commit voter registration fraud during his years as a community activist.

Democratic Sen. Robert Casey said the e-mail was part of "a smear campaign that was among the worst he had seen in his state."

The email appears to refer to the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. (Click here for the full report)

According to The New York Times, the email was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Republican Party's "Victory 2008" committee, and "was signed by several prominent McCain supporters in the state: Mitchell L. Morgan, a top fund-raiser; Hon. Sandra Schwartz Newman, a member of Mr. McCain's national task-force monitoring Election Day voting, and I. Michael Coslov, a steel industry executive."

The report goes on to say that the leaders of the state party have "repudiated" the email, which also refers to William Ayers and the ACORN organization. The report also quotes the party leaders as saying that the strategist who helped write the email has been fired.

Meanwhile, The Forward reports that Obama's campaign "is refusing to participate in debates with representatives of a Republican Jewish group that is behind an advertising blitz attacking the Democratic nominee."

The report states that the campaign has "instructed its representatives not to participate in forums with representatives of the Republican Jewish Coalition. So far, Obama campaign representatives in California and Pennsylvania have canceled their appearances at previously scheduled debates in front of Jewish audiences."

The Forward says that former California congressman Mel Levine, now an advisor to Obama on the Middle East, earlier this month dropped out of a debate with the RJC head in California, Larry Greenfield, which was set to be held a Jewish community center in Los Angeles.

In Pennsylvania, state representative Josh Shapiro reportedly also canceled his appearance at a debate scheduled for this coming Sunday at a synagogue in Dresher against Scott Feigelstein, the RJC regional director.

According to the report, the Obama campaign "has been making efforts to replace its campaign representatives with supporters who can address the Jewish community but are not officially tied to the campaign."

Note:

As to the link concerning the full report, apparently someone is up to some sort of game, because sometimes the link works and then another may see a lovely white blank page; this just further questions, the significance for the Jewish voter or for any voter for that matter.

Furthermore, the US campaign with Barack Obama and John McCain has been throttled with questionable practices, to what some may term outright felony (High) crimes.

Palin testifies to investigator in ethics dispute

23 October 2008
By MATT APUZZO and JIM SALTER

ST. LOUIS – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin testified for two hours Friday in an abuse-of-power investigation that has been a distraction to her Republican vice presidential campaign. Palin's leadership was questioned this month in a stinging but largely toothless legislative report that found she violated state ethics laws by letting a family dispute influence her decision-making.

Palin is hoping the Alaska Personnel Board, which is running a parallel investigation, will clear her of wrongdoing. It's unclear, however, whether any conclusion will be reached before Election Day.

"She felt this was an opportunity to get an unbiased, independent review of the facts," McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said.

The board is investigating the firing of her public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan. Monegan claims he was dismissed because he refused to fire Palin's former brother-in-law, a state trooper involved in a messy divorce from Palin's sister. The controversy, known as "Troopergate," took on national significance after John McCain selected Palin as his running mate.

The legislative inquiry found that Monegan's firing was proper but the pressure to fire the trooper, Mike Wooten, was not. Griffin says Palin stands by her decision to fire Monegan and her concerns about Wooten.

Palin and her husband, Todd, say Wooten was unstable and had made threats against their family. Wooten had also used an electric stun gun on his stepson.

Further Reading:

Palin has checkered history on ethics issues

US: What are the candidates hiding?

23 October 2008
by Kenneth P. Vogel

In the past week, Cindy McCain released two pages of her 2007 tax return, and Joe Biden let reporters review — but not copy — 49 pages of his medical records.

But those steps did not satisfy critics, reporters and opposition researchers, who pressed for McCain’s tax schedules and the previous years’ returns for her and her husband, Republican presidential candidate John McCain. And they demanded the results of follow-up exams given to Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, after his 1988 aneurysms.

And those aren’t the only hotly sought but unreleased records that could shed light on the candidates — and the families of those candidates — who are seeking to run the country. With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, each presidential campaigns is accusing the other of withholding key documents that could answer outstanding questions about the personal and professional lives of the people at the top of the tickets, resulting in something of a transparency race subplot.

So, without further ado, here are 10 of the top missing documents from campaign 2008, in no particular order:

• Obama’s legal clients

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has boasted of his time working as a civil rights lawyer in Chicago. But the boutique law firm that employed him for parts of 11 years — now known as Miner, Barnhill & Galland — also handled matters that don’t fit under the civil rights umbrella, including contracts, real estate deals, incorporations and civil defense.

Obama, by some accounts, spent as much as 30 percent of his 3,700 billable hours on the last category.

Neither his campaign nor the firm will release a list of the cases on which he worked.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt asserted that “Sens. Obama and Biden have taken voluntary transparency steps as legislators and candidates that have allowed their constituents, the media and their political opponents to fully examine both men.”

LaBolt pointed to lists of hundreds of the firm’s clients that Obama attached to the mandatory personal financial disclosure statements he filed for each of his eight years in the Illinois state Senate.

Included on the firm’s client list was Rezmar, a development company co-owned by Obama’s disgraced former fundraiser, Tony Rezko, as well as developer William Moorehead. Moorehead was convicted of stealing more than $1 million from public housing projects he managed and developments he co-owned with Obama’s former boss, Allison S. Davis. Some of the thefts occurred while Moorehead was a client of the firm.

Obama billed between five and seven hours to Rezmar-linked projects, including incorporating nonprofits connected to the company, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Obama’s campaign declined to answer when Politico asked if he did any work for Moorehead.

• Palin’s e-mails

The electronic correspondence of Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is in high demand, not the least because she used a private e-mail account to conduct state business in what some critics claim was an effort to circumvent the state’s public record laws.

Her husband, Todd, often was copied on e-mails about state business, and a state investigation found that she allowed her husband to use state resources to try to settle a family dispute, further fueling demands that she release her electronic mail.

E-mails from her state account are subject to the state’s public records laws — and a court ruling this month seemed to indicate e-mails from private accounts also could be subject to the laws. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be easy, or inexpensive, to get.

The state of Alaska is seeking to extend a deadline for producing the e-mails until Nov. 17 — nearly two weeks after the election — asserting that it is a laborious process to identify all of the relevant emails and have lawyers determine which parts can be released.

And since the state is refusing to wave its fees — including 10 cents for each printed page of e-mails, plus $960.31 for searching each state employee’s account — the cost to each person requesting the documents could run into the thousands of dollars.

• Biden’s earmark requests

The McCain campaign has worked to make earmarks a major issue in the race, with McCain and Palin blasting Biden and Obama as free-spending earmarkers.

The two have pounced on Obama’s earmark requests, which he voluntarily released going back to his first year in the Senate and which totaled $931 million.

Palin has had to explain her own earmark requests, which totaled $750 million during her two years as governor of Alaska.

And, though McCain has boasted of never requesting “a single earmark,” he nonetheless has taken heat for seeking cash for home-state projects, albeit through more transparent legislative avenues.

That leaves Biden, a Delaware senator, as the only candidate in the quartet for whom there is no public record of earmark requests prior to fiscal year 2009.

Biden voluntarily released his earmark wish list for that year, and it comprises 116 projects with a total price tag of $342 million, including $34 million for the University of Delaware, which since 2002 has paid at least $1.5 million to a lobbying firm in which Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, is a partner. The Obama campaign has said that Hunter Biden, who stopped his lobbying work last month, never lobbied his father.

• John and Cindy McCain’s taxes

After John McCain couldn’t immediately recall in an interview how many houses he and Cindy owned, the couple’s finances become an issue in the race, with Obama hammering McCain for being out of touch with regular folks’ economic concerns.

But beyond property records (which showed that Cindy McCain owns eight homes) and mandatory disclosure statements filed by John McCain (which showed that he owns relatively little, while Cindy and her children hold assets worth at least $24 million), McCain has been comparatively unforthcoming about his wealth.

McCain, who maintains separate finances from his wife, released his full tax returns for 2006 and 2007, while Cindy McCain, heiress to a beer distributorship fortune worth as much as $100 million, only released the first two pages of her returns for those years.

Biden and Palin also have released only two years worth of their tax returns, but their finances are substantially less robust than the McCain’s. In the years since it’s become de rigueur for presidential candidates to release their tax returns, only Ronald Reagan in 1980 disclosed less tax information than McCain.

Obama, by contrast, has released his returns dating back to 2000.

• Obama’s state Senate records and schedules

Obama’s Senate files became an issue after he pressed Hillary Rodham Clinton during their nomination battle to release the schedules from her eight years as first lady.

When her campaign demanded Obama release his state Senate files, he told reporters he did not “maintain a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records.” The records “could have been thrown out. I haven't been in the state Senate now for quite some time," he said.

His campaign later said that "files pertinent to ongoing casework” were passed to his successor, but Obama didn’t save correspondence with the general public, state associations or lobbyists, or memos on legislation and correspondence with Illinois state agencies. Some of the records that have surfaced have done little to dampen the demand for a more complete accounting.

For instance, Obama signed a pair of 1998 letters on his state Senate stationery urging state and Chicago officials to provide taxpayer support for a housing project headed by Davis, Obama’s former law firm boss, and Rezko, who has since been convicted on federal corruption charges.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the pair reaped $855,000 in development fees from the $14.6 million project, which was entirely funded by city, state and federal tax dollars and was four blocks beyond the border of Obama's Senate district.

• Palin’s college transcripts

Palin attended five schools in three states before graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987 with an undergraduate degree in journalism.

A high school friend who attended three of those schools with Palin told the Los Angeles Times that the future governor got straight A's, but a Palin spokeswoman declined to comment when asked by Politico if Palin would release her transcripts. The Times also reported that none of the 12 former Palin professors the newspaper interviewed remembered her.

• Obama’s Columbia thesis

Likewise, there’s not a whole lot of information available about Obama’s time at Columbia University in New York, which he attended for three years after attending Occidental College in Los Angeles for one year, and from which he graduated in 1983.

His campaign would not release his transcripts, and it says it does not have a copy of his thesis, which dealt with Soviet nuclear disarmament and which has drawn intense interest.

• All four candidates’ medical records

Biden, who had two brain surgeries in 1988 to repair separate aneurysms, is not the only candidate to be less-than-completely open when it comes to medical files.

McCain — who is 72 years old, has battled skin cancer and was tortured during five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam — put his personal physician on a conference call with reporters to attest to his good health and granted selected journalists three hours to leaf through nearly 1,200 pages of records covering eight years. But the reporters were not allowed to photocopy or remove the documents, and they were prohibited from using cell phones or e-mail for expert assistance during the review.

McCain’s steps didn’t satisfy critics, including a group of nearly 3,000 doctors who demanded a "full, public release" of the candidate’s records.

By comparison, Obama, who continues struggling to quit smoking and has a family history of cancer, has released only a one-page letter from his doctor proclaiming him in "excellent health," as well as "lean and muscular with no excess body fat."

"Palin has yet to release her records, but seemed to express a willingness to do so in a Wednesday interview with NBC’s Brian Williams."

• Obama’s small donors

Obama boasted that half of the record-breaking $605 million his campaign raised through the end of September came from small donors.

But this summer, when a coalition of eight good-government groups asked both presidential candidates to voluntarily release information on small contributors, only McCain complied, posting a list of all his donors on his website. (Federal election rules only require campaigns to report the names, addresses and occupations of donors when they have given more than $200.)

Obama’s small donors recently created headaches for his campaign, with news reports highlighting letters from the Federal Election Commission directing Obama to return contributions from people who exceeded the $4,600 individual limit by giving donations in under-$200 installments. Some were from previously undisclosed and apparently fictitious donors.

Obama said he returned the excess contributions; the FEC also asked McCain to return donations that exceeded the $4,600 individual limit.

• McCain flight records

McCain’s presidential campaign used a legal loophole to hopscotch the country in a jet owned by a Cindy McCain-controlled company, King Aviation, for cut-rate fares, according to The New York Times.

The paper reported that during a key five-month stretch when McCain was struggling to raise cash and gain traction in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination, the jet, a Cessna Citation Excel, was used almost exclusively for campaign purposes. The campaign reimbursed the company substantially less than it would have cost to charter a similar jet, the report said.

McCain’s campaign continued paying King for use of the plane through the end of last month. FEC records show McCain’s payments to the company total $477,000 since the summer of 2007.

But the campaign declined to release records detailing how much it paid for specific flights, which could permit calculations about whether the campaign was paying full charter rates.

From the beginning of 2007 through May 2008, King earned $303,000 for Cindy McCain and her dependent children, according to McCain’s presidential disclosure form.

US: All About Being For The Global Wars

Makes No real difference who get's in the White House!

Bushonomics: Bush Media Propaganda is Pulling a Dead Fish

21 October 2008
by HRM Deborah

Same old US President George W. Bush, his media propaganda telling the same tired lies and cover-up’s that has gotten to a point that the majority of American’s no longer listen’s; they more listen to the tears and hunger in many American children’s eye's, thanks to Bush’s economy initiatives.

Now Bush is talking a second economic stimulus package which it is a remembrance of the first one being more of a ho-hum because of the economic strife American’s where facing at that time, the lateness for many American‘s in receiving said checks or some never got one to begin with; was reported.

Did the first economic stimulus package help American’s, to say in one simple word, "NO."

As to the second economic stimulus helping an already sever economic collapsing country, with at least 9 trillion dollars in debt already and counting; the answer is within the trillion's of dollar question.

The sign’s are everywhere as American’s continue to tightened those ever worn belts and over worked American's so tired of just trying to make end’s meet and in too many case's not making it or wonder where they may sleep tonight because they have lost there job or lost there home due to Bushonomics mortgage foreclosure.

Nevertheless, Bush’s continuous falsified media propaganda, has actually got like the little man pulling the big dead fish and inch at a time with the feeling he has gotten nowhere; because he actually look‘s around him and his world and Bush‘s lie‘s in the media world, are two different world‘s.

Maybe Bush is playing make believe like a child, instead of wishing people to see the real world, that the average person actually lives in?

Update:

As for those Americans interested in presidential candidate's spending, I saw two separate headline's, that presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has $47 million dollars to spend for October and presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama entered October with $ 133.6 million on hand to spend.

Just thought people would like to know.

Candidates' Social Security plans lack details

Graphic shows Social Security cost of living adjustments for all retired workers from 1999-2009.

18 October 2008
By DAVID ESPO

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama wants to raise taxes on high-income workers to ease Social Security's looming cash crunch. John McCain favors voluntary private accounts for younger workers, saying they can't count on the same government benefits as today's retirees.

Beyond those generalities — and a shared opposition to an increase in the retirement age — the two presidential rivals are long on commitment and short on specifics when it comes to the government's huge retirement income program.

Obama is "committed to ensuring Social Security is solvent and viable for the American people, now and in the future," says his official Web site.

McCain reassured the audience at a recent debate that the program's financial challenges are less severe than those confronting Medicare, the giant health care program for older Americans.

"We know what the problems are, my friends, and we know what the fixes are. We've got to sit down together across the table. It's been done before," he said in support of his push for a bipartisan commission.

Three years after the collapse of President Bush's plan to overhaul the program, Social Security has played only a modest role in a fall campaign dominated by the economy and punctuated by a decline in the retirement savings of millions.

And with both men shying away from specifics, the exchanges are more rhetorical than substantive.

Obama aired a television ad saying McCain campaigned in favor of Bush's failed 2005 proposal, which it characterized as "cutting benefits in half, risking Social Security on the stock market."

In fact, the allegation about cutting benefits was from a study of Bush's plan showing that under one scenario, the benefits of higher-income retirees could be cut in half from what is promised — beginning in 2080 — meaning that most of those affected have not yet been born.

Nor has McCain proposed investing the government's payroll tax receipts in the stock market. But he has previously proposed giving workers the option of diverting some of their Social Security taxes into such private investments.

"I do not and will not privatize Social Security," McCain says. "It's not true when I'm accused of that."

Polling over the years has shown the word "privatization" evokes hostility among voters.

McCain's denials are hard to square with his previous comments. "Without privatization, I don't see how you can possibly over time make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits," he said in November 2004. He also supported Bush's 2005 plan, which envisioned smaller than-promised benefits for future retirees and the option for workers to privately invest a portion of their payroll taxes to provide a supplement to the government benefits.

No matter the politics, there is no dispute that the venerable retirement security program will need a fix. Currently, 34 million retirees and their dependents receive monthly benefit checks, as do 6 million survivors of deceased workers and 9 million disabled workers and their dependents.

Government experts project the Social Security trust funds will begin paying out more than they collect in payroll taxes in 2017, and be exhausted in 2041. At that point, benefits would fall to 78 percent of promised levels.

Over the next 75 years, the program's most recent annual report projected the trust funds "would require additional revenue equivalent to $4.3 trillion in today's dollars to pay all scheduled benefits."

"We face enormous challenges to shore up the system," wrote Michael J. Astrue, commissioner of Social Security.

So far, Obama's only specific suggested remedy is a payroll tax increase for those making more than $250,000. The proposal envisions an increase "in the range of 2 to 4 percent," divided between worker and employer. Neither Obama nor his aides have provided additional details.

Under the current tax, workers pay 6.2 percent on their wages up to $102,000 per year, an income level that rises annually with inflation. Employers pay the same amount.

McCain calls regularly for creation of a new commission to study Social Security, with all options on the table.

At the same time, under pressure from conservatives, he stresses opposition to higher taxes. "There is no imaginable circumstance where John McCain would raise payroll taxes," spokesman Tucker Bounds said this summer.

McCain says he favors giving younger workers an option of diverting a portion of their payroll taxes "and maybe put it in an account with their name on it."

He has yet to say what, if any, sort of reduction that would lead to in government benefits promised for the future, although he alluded to it earlier this month during a debate with Obama.

"We are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that we are going — that present-day retirees have today," he said without elaboration.

Three years ago, Bush proposed guaranteeing the benefits already promised to those 55 and older. For younger workers, his plan would have meant smaller benefits than they have been promised, with an option to set up voluntary private accounts to try to make up the difference.

Democrats united against the plan, and Republicans turned skittish. It failed without ever coming on a vote in either house of Congress.

Who Should People Vote for in the US November Election?

None of the Above!

McCain Mud Slinging attacks on Obama

US Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain debating in New York, last Wednesday.

17 October 2008

As to the Sen. John McCain insisting Barack Obama is associated with Islam is false, for on several occasion Obama has geared extremely towards being Islamophobic and as well being Anti-Semantic; as far as it has been known that Obama has always been Christian.

As to Obama’s association with terrorism the answer is yes, but not towards the person that Sen. John McCain claims; but with the terrorist organization of global terrorist Interpol fugitive Mahmoud Abbas.

As to Sen. John McCain mud slinging anyone, he doesn’t have clean clothes either.

Furthermore, as to who’s plan’s is more religious friendly, so far neither; even McCain has shown to be both Islamophobic and Anti-Semantic, as is reminded of his last visit to Palestine.

Officials: FBI investigates ACORN for voter fraud

An investigator carries a box of evidence seized from the ACORN office in Las Vegas, Tuesday, 7 October 2008. A Nevada secretary of state's office spokesman said Tuesday that investigators are looking for evidence of voter fraud at the office.

15 October 2008
By LARA JAKES JORDAN

The FBI is investigating whether the community activist group ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election.

A senior law enforcement official confirmed the investigation to The Associated Press. A second senior law enforcement official says the FBI was looking at results of inquiries in several states, including a raid on ACORN's office in Las Vegas, for any evidence of a coordinated national effort.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.

Two spokesmen for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, on Thursday said the FBI has not contacted the group.

"ACORN has not been notified that we are the target of an investigation by any authorities — nor should we be," spokesman Kevin Whelan said in a statement. "ACORN members have done a good and patriotic thing by helping bring more than a million of their fellow citizens into our democratic process."

Republican accusations about the group were raised during Wednesday's presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain.

ACORN says it has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and working-class voters. More than 13,000 ACORN workers in 21 states recruited low-income voters, who tend to be Democrats.

But some ACORN employees have been accused of submitting false voter registration forms — including some signed `Mickey Mouse' or other fictitious characters.

Those voter registration cards have become the focus of fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least a half-dozen other states. Election officials in Ohio and North Carolina also recently questioned the group's voter forms.

ACORN has said the "vast majority" of its workers are conscientious, but some might have turned in duplicate applications or provided fake information to pad their pay. Workers caught submitting false information have been fired, ACORN officials say.

ACORN says laws in a number of states require it to submit all registration cards it collects even dubious ones, so its workers segregate applications with missing, suspicious or false information and flag them so state election officials can quickly check them further.

Brian Kettenring, an ACORN spokesman, said its employees flagged questionable registration forms for election officials in 11 states, none of which is investigating the group. He also said he did not believe a `Mickey Mouse' voter registration card in Orlando, Fla., was submitted by an ACORN worker.

House Republicans have been pushing for the Justice Department to investigate ACORN, calling on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to make sure ballots by ineligible or fraudulent voters are not counted on Nov. 4.

The issue also became campaign trail fodder for McCain, who on Wednesday night demanded to know the full extent of Obama's ties with ACORN. McCain said the group could be on the verge of "destroying the fabric of democracy."

Obama denied any significant ties to ACORN and mocked McCain for bringing it up. The Democrat and two other lawyers represented ACORN in 1995 in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois to make voter registration easier, and hired a firm with ties to the group for a massive get-out-the-vote effort during this year's primary.

Earlier this week, Obama said that ACORN was not advising his campaign on voter registration, and the group's registration problems should not be used by the Republicans as an excuse to keep voters from turning out on Election Day.

Palin has checkered history on ethics issues

Charlie Barrett, of Washington, wears a Pinocchio nose in protest of the vice presidential Republican nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, near a campaign fundraiser where Palin was scheduled to speak in McLean, Va., on 13 October 2008.

14 October 2008
By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and JUSTIN PRITCHARD

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose reformer image took a hit in a report concluding she abused her powers to settle a family score, has skirted state ethics rules before for personal benefit and used her office to help friends and supporters, according to an Associated Press review of records.

Palin's first try at statewide office, after six years as mayor of Wasilla, was an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2002. To raise money, she improperly used her City Hall office and equipment, city records show. A year later she would make headlines by blasting a fellow Republican for, among other things, improperly using his government position to boost his campaign.

Then, in 2006, Palin won the governor's race with a vow to reform state ethics. But in less than two years, she has repeatedly taken actions that violated her own stated standards for ethical behavior — if not state law. In the process, the Republican vice presidential nominee has become much like the old-school politicians she attacked during her rise to power.

Some examples:

_She pummeled opponents for giving oil companies and other businesses too much control of state government. Yet she appointed the founder of an engineering firm that received $6.8 million in state business as head of the transportation department.

_She has accepted dozens of gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars since taking office, including two free trips last year that she failed to report on disclosure forms, despite criticizing state legislators for the gifts they take.

_She is under another investigation, accused of misusing her office to campaign against a voter referendum calling for tighter mining regulations. Her husband, Todd, has accepted free trips from a mining company to look at their proposed new site.

_Another ethics complaint, unresolved, accuses her staff of finding a state job for a friend and campaign contributor.

Last week, an investigation by the Alaska legislature found that Palin, running mate to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, abused her powers when she and her husband improperly pressured the state public safety commissioner to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. The brother-in-law was never fired, but Palin fired the commissioner in July.

"It's all about the power, and it frightens me," said state Rep. Beth Kerttula, a Juneau Democrat who like many in the minority party have supported Palin on some issues, including energy policy. "She doesn't seem to know where the boundaries are."

Even critics concede that Palin deserves credit for working with legislators to toughen state ethics laws and for providing more information to taxpayers about state spending. She advocated restrictions on lobbyists' giving, increased disclosure requirements for public officials and posted state spending details on the Internet.

Palin also risked her own political future by exposing unethical behavior by other public officials, even those in her own party.

But they say she often claims the ethical high ground when she hasn't been above questionable behavior herself.

"She's very good at reading the public's discontent and pandering to it," said Larry Persily, who worked in the governor's Washington, D.C., office until resigning earlier this year.

Palin faced questions during her 2006 gubernatorial race about her use of the Wasilla mayor's office four years earlier to run for lieutenant governor. Palin used city staff and office equipment — including a fax machine, computers for e-mail and a City Hall phone number — to run her campaign, according to city records.

She apologized for those transgressions in 2006, but only this month acknowledged to the AP that the city initially paid for a campaign flight in that 2002 race and that weeks later she reimbursed the city.

"According to people who worked with her at the time, the travel agency inadvertently billed the city rather than her personally," McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said in a written statement. "To ensure that it was corrected immediately, she reimbursed Wasilla and the campaign later reimbursed her. It's an example of Gov. Palin's commitment to the highest standards of ethics."

Palin brushed the issue aside when she ran for governor, arguing it was nothing more than an opponent's smear campaign.

She has cast herself as Alaska's ethics watchdog. In her most dramatic move, she revealed in 2003 that the state's Republican Party leader was campaigning from his state job. She then challenged incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski two years ago on a platform of government reform.

After her victory, though, Palin reverted to political tradition, rewarding even marginally qualified friends and campaign backers with high-level positions.

A friend from her Wasilla High School class was named to manage the state's agriculture office after a career in real estate. A family friend and campaign worker became head of the state agency that distributes dividend checks to Alaskans from oil revenue. Her real estate agent's husband received an appointment to the state real estate board.

Palin's biggest political splash was from attacking the big oil companies that she said ran the state. She challenged their political power, and promised voters that her administration would avoid cozy relationships with business.

But one of her first cabinet appointments didn't live up to that pledge.

Leo von Scheben, a co-founder of Anchorage-based USKH Inc. engineering firm, took over the state's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, and his firm's state business increased, records show. USKH received $6.8 million in state transportation contracts last year, up 13 percent from $6 million the year before.

Von Scheben stopped taking a salary and all benefits from the company when he stepped into the state job. But he didn't sever all financial ties. Von Scheben receives annual stock payments that he arranged before he left the company in 2007 that will continue for 10 years, according to his financial disclosure forms.

Von Scheben said he has recused himself on projects pursued by the firm and that others in the agency select companies to receive state business. He said he believes his appointment may have cost his former company state business, although he doesn't regret taking the job.

"If the state can't draw on some private sector people, they're missing out," he said.

Palin claims passage of broad ethics reforms as an accomplishment following state corruption scandals. But Palin didn't report as gifts two free trips she received in 2007 as legislators were debating the new ethics law.

"This is simply a rare oversight, nothing more," campaign spokesman Griffin said when asked about the omissions by the AP.

Palin has, in fact, reported most of her gifts on her annual financial disclosure forms, something her predecessor never did, according to Alaska Public Offices Commission records.

The unreported paid trips:

_The $2,988 cost of Palin's April 2007 flight and hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., for a four-day conference was paid by the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute of North Carolina, a nonprofit education policy group. Palin received the same free trip as dozens of other governors invited over the years to attend the annual summit, institute spokesman April White said.

_A May 2007 overnight visit with her three daughters and her parents attending a family reception at Mt. Chilkoot Lodge in Skagway, Alaska, was paid for by friend and former deputy campaign treasurer Kathy Hosford, one of the lodge's owners.

"We weren't open and it was just on a friendship basis," Hosford said.

The Palins used two suites valued at $150 each, said Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman in the governor's office.

The same day Palin visited Skagway, executives of the Anchorage-based VECO Inc. pleaded guilty to offering bribes to five legislators. Palin, mingling with old family friends and town residents, spoke briefly with local reporters during her visit, calling the corruption developments "atrocious" and promising change.

"There are problems in state government," Palin told The Skagway News, "and on our watch it is our responsibility to show people that we are going to clean things up."

Persily, who said he left Palin's administration because he didn't enjoy working in Washington, said Palin is skillful in "attacking the 'good ol' boys.' The good ol' boys that Palin is talking about are those that can't help her politically."

Democratic state Rep. Mike Doogan said Palin, even as she bends or breaks the rules herself, acts as if she invented ethics in Alaska.

"It's insulting to those of us who have always done the right thing," he said.

Further Reading:

Sarah Louise Heath Palin Background Report Profile 1964-1997 with Public Records and 2006 Addendum

The Diminished Imagine of the U.S. in Latin America and the Global Condition

Demonstrators write "Out Yankees" on a wall outside the U.S. Palmerola military base in Honduras during a protest against American military presence in Latin America last Monday.

12 October 2008

In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

"The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can't?" said Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa. "If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We're a country of open doors."

The United States has collapsed its power in Latin America by most measures, including trade, military cooperation and the sheer size of its embassies. Yet U.S. clout in what it once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps the lowest point in decades. As Washington has also loss its footing in the Middle East, Latin America swung away from Washington also.

The United States' financial crisis is not helping. Latin American countries forced by Washington to swallow painful austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s are aghast at the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

"We did our homework — and they didn't, they who've been telling us for three decades what to do," the man who presides over Latin America's largest economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil, complained bitterly.

Latin America's more than 550 million people now "have every reason to view the U.S. as a banana republic," says analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "U.S. lectures to Latin Americans about excess greed and lack of accountability have long rung hollow, but today they sound even more ridiculous."

From 2002 through 2007, the U.S. image eroded in all six Latin American countries polled by the Pew organization, especially in Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia. (The others were Brazil, Peru and Mexico.) People surveyed in 18 Latin American countries rated President Bush among the least popular leaders in 2007, along with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and just ahead of basement-bound Fidel Castro of Cuba, according to the Latinobarometro group of Chile.

In three years of presidential elections ending last year, Latin Americans chose mostly leftist leaders, and only Colombia and El Salvador elected unalloyed pro-U.S. chief executives. In May, the prestigious U.S. Council on Foreign Relations declared the era of U.S. hegemony in the Americas over. And in September, Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled their U.S. ambassadors, accusing them of meddling.

U.S. Economic and Faltering Funding
Along with the loss in political standing has come a decline in economic power. U.S. direct investment in Latin America slid from 30 percent to 20 percent of the total from 1998 to 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin American and the Caribbean.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in. China's trade with Latin America jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year. In May, a state-owned Chinese company agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion. Which all these trade funds are going to war funding.

Other countries are also biting into U.S. military sales in the region. Boeing Co. is vying with finalists from France and Sweden for the sale of 36 jet fighters to Brazil. Venezuela's Chavez has committed to buying more than $4 billion in Russian arms, from Sukhoi jet fighters to Kalashnikov assault rifles. In April, Brazil and Russia agreed to jointly design top-line jet fighters and satellite-launch vehicles, and Brazil is getting technology from France to build a submarine.

"Similar deals could have been made with the United States had it been willing to share its technology," said Geraldo Cavagnari, of the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo.

Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered to help Chavez develop nuclear power. Even Colombia, the staunchest U.S. ally in South America, isn't limiting its options. After expressing alarm about the Russian warships a week ago, its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, promptly headed for Russia himself to discuss "better relations in defense." Chavez says he expects to hold joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises as early as November.

Bolivia also is looking to deepen ties with Russia and Iran.

Although the Islamic republic's ambassador has yet to arrive in South America's poorest country, its top diplomat there announced Friday that Iran will open two low-cost public health clinics.

And while Bolivia's only announced Russian hardware purchase is five helicopters for civil defense, Moscow's ambassador told the AP — after Bolivia booted the U.S. ambassador — that Russia has every right to help Latin American nations arm themselves.

"We know of many historical cases of U.S. intervention in Latin American countries," said the diplomat, Leonid Golubev.

Diminished U.S. profile
Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the hemisphere, wouldn't comment directly on whether the U.S. has lost influence in Latin America. But he added that there is no doubt that the U.S. still holds most of the military power in the Caribbean, and said it has no interest in reviving "Cold War rhetoric." Shannon also noted that overall U.S. aid to the region will reach $2.2 billion for 2009, to total more than $14 billion during Bush's presidency. It has also been found that US influence in the Caribbean has also became something of a yesteryear.

However, critics point out that roughly half that aid is for the military or counter narcotics, and that Washington’s finances annually to the Jews in Palestine has collapsed; due to there
physical freedom from slavery by U.S. influence and the independence of Palestine, on 14 March 2008. Even U.S. giving has been dwarfed by Chavez's checkbook diplomacy, which easily eclipses U.S. aid between outright gifts and discounted oil.

His largesse has lured several longtime U.S. friends. Honduras' president, Manuel Zelaya, said last month that after pleading with Washington and the World Bank, he accepted $300 million a year from Chavez for agricultural investment to help fight rising food prices.

Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias, says Venezuela offers Latin America about four or five times as much money as the United States. Costa Rica has become the 19th member of Petrocaribe, through which Chavez sells Caribbean and Central American nations cut-rate oil at very low interest.

The diminished profile of the U.S. in Latin America comes after a history of influence dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor" policy of the 1930s, which emphasized cooperation and trade over military intervention. There have been major bailouts, such as Washington's $20 billion rescue of Mexico in the 1994 peso devaluation crisis. As former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich noted, "We are the assistance bureau of first choice for the region."

History of covert intervention
But the U.S. has an ugly legacy of covert intervention there, including in Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Chile's center-left president, Michele Bachelet, was jailed and tortured by a U.S.-backed military dictatorship in the 1970s. She recently recalled telling Washington's ambassador to Chile an old joke: "Some say the only reason there's never been a coup in the United States is because there's no U.S. Embassy in the United States."

The United States has also long served as chief educator to Latin America's elite. Correa is among its presidents with a U.S. graduate degree — though that didn't stop him from accusing the CIA of infiltrating his military, or refusing to renew a lease for U.S. counter drug missions to fly out of Ecuador.

With the U.S. facing its own financial crisis, it's unlikely to be able to leverage economic influence in Latin America anytime soon. Sen. Barack Obama's senior adviser on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, acknowledges that his candidate is essentially proposing a symbolic shift in style — albeit adding a special White House envoy for the Americas.

"Barack doesn't see the United States as the savior of the Americas, but as a constructive partner," Restrepo told the AP.

Reich, an adviser to Sen. John McCain who served three Republican presidents in the region, put it even more bluntly.

"No matter who is elected in November, there is not going to be any money for Latin America," he said. "Latin Americans expecting financial resources, any kind of help from the United States, they are barking up the wrong tree."

Sarah Louise Heath Palin Background Report Profile 1964-1997 with Public Records and 2006 Addendum

I just happened to came across this background report thinking it would be interesting to share, on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and who is also the current vice president running mate with Sen. John McCain.

With Palin and McCain all over the map along with Barack Obama on the issue’s, along with out right lies and mud slinging; it makes for somewhat interesting reading, among other things.

Palin is differently not the one to call a good asset with the current US economic crisis, from her track record from what I have read; which is she would make the US economic snowball fly faster down the hill to and avalanche of woe.

Also, it is a wonder from different article’s I have read, if she would return to the Salem Witch trials of 1692, where no one was safe; kind of like US President George W. Bush Anti-terrorism frenzy to cover-up his crimes, which honest people are being harmed on a daily bases.

Palin apparently also has a history of being rather ‘whiney’ and has troubles telling the truth, on numerous occasions. As well as has a history of questionable immoral behaviors, for example, past scrapes with the law and some drug use.

As to health care, Palin’s answer was, “No-Answer’s."

I am still trying to figure out in 2003, how anyone could have an office furniture and equipment increase of 117%; but Palin did?

In a nut shell, if McCain and Palin where in office, it would be another four or eight years of sorrow and bailing the boat; hadn’t the American’s and the global community had enough with US President George W. Bush in the White House?

It is rather interesting that I just uploading this document for people to review and a short time later, the document mysteriously is deleted? What was someone trying to hide? Something of this nature, more questions Palin’s or McCain’s creditability.

Sarah Louise Heath Palin Background Report Profile 1964-1997 with Public Records and 2006 Addendum - Upload a Document to Scribd

Further Reading:
Sensitive Palin ethics report kept secret, for now

Sworn to secrecy, Alaska lawmakers have begun reviewing a lengthy and politically sensitive investigative report focusing on whether Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her authority as governor.