2012 US Presidential Election: One last laugh before the real bitterness begins

http://youtu.be/ZlJG5mpsyvI

U.S. Presidential Election 2012: Conspiracies Unlimited

U.S. President Barack Obama probably will be the subject of character assassination long after he's met his maker.

This is one of the enduring classics - calling into question his American-born status - still doing the rounds during the run up to this year's presidential election.

Doctored ID

Genuine ID

http://www.snopes.com/

Obama wants the world to know that yes he can croon

About the only thing Obama gives away for free as he gears up for the U.S. presidential election……………………..

http://youtu.be/T-hDt2E8MoE

Snapshot from http://www.barackobama.com/

As April turned to May

A look at trans-Atlantic priorities according to the NY Daily News

Nice job if you can get it

Pic from Obama and Biden 2010 tax returns

Being an author as well as the most powerful political leader in the world works for Barack Obama, whose combined 2010 tax return with his wife shows a gross income from all sources of US $1.98 million with a $1.34 million taxable component and a refund claim for over $12,000.
Michelle adds her mite by availing herself of the Henry G. Freeman Jr. Pin Money Fund to the tune of $9,966. Presumably because hubby has a heart attack over the price of some of those glitzy gowns.

Favourite word picture of 2009 and other quirks

Favourite word picture of 2009:
"just got booted out of the conference center..."
{The limp lettuce leaf in any Oz political salad, Senator Steve Fielding, tweeting at COP15}

Least favourite second incarnation on the Internetz:
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) died years ago. This think tank had fun slogans like "American leadership is both good for America and good for the world", "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity" and "a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military preeminence.
Unfortunately Kristol and Co are now up and running again at Foreign Policy Initiative which started up in 2009. The new website tells us that "The United States remains the world's indispensable nation -- indispensable to international peace, security, and stability, and indispensable to safe-guarding and advancing the ideals and principles we hold dear."

Most predictable election result:
"Preference data for the Bradfield by-election has now been published by the Australian Electoral Commission, making it possible to assess the success or otherwise of the Christian Democratic Party's tactic in nominating nine candidates for the by-election.Standing nine candidates has been costly for the CDP, as none of its candidates reached the 4% required for return of deposit or to attract public funding. In total the nine candidates received 2,524 votes or 3.58% of the vote, but 1,054 votes or 1.49% were recorded by James Whitehall who had the Number 1 position on the ballot paper and so received the donkey vote." {Antony Green's Election Blog 25th December 2009}

A quote to remember:
"As Boris said over on Stoat, "If there's something stupid to believe, there is someone on the internet who believes it." {From Rabett Run 21st December 2009}

The growing litigation pile belonga Monsanto:
"A mountain of lawsuits against Monsanto and related companies have been removed to federal court.This summer and fall, 161 lawsuits were filed in Putnam Circuit Court alleging Monsanto and related companies are responsible for causing cancer." {The West Virginia Record 23rd December 2009}

Worst OZ commercial decision of 2009:
iSnack 2.0 - nuff said!

Something for the 'Obama is the Anti-Christ' assorted nuts:
"The first family arrived on the island of Oahu and President Obama and his wife Michelle started Christmas Day with a gym workout at 6.40am, returning more than an hour later. The first couple did not exchange gifts, aides said, and did not attend church." {The Sydney Morning Herald 27th December 2009}

A little festive season hysteria:
"Police from Blacktown Local Area Command want to dispel rumours circulating on a social networking website that a man, Dennis Ferguson, is living in Doonside in Sydney’s west.The claims have been investigated by police, in consultation with the Department of Housing, and the information posted on the website is incorrect. This is a case of mistaken identity and the resident of a street in Doonside is not Dennis Ferguson as has been reported on the social networking site. Police are urging those people transmitting false information to cease immediately." {NSW Police media release 22nd December 2009}

Most disturbing statistic of the year:
"NSW Council for Civil Liberties secretary Stephen Blanks said a pattern of police shootings had emerged in the past year. Four people have been killed by NSW Police this year." {The Sydney Morning Herald 27th December 2009}
This propensity to ape a fictional vision of police machismo by using deadly force appears to have been growing steadily in recent years.
Between 1990 and 2007 87 people were shot and killed by police in Australia and the most dangerous time of day to have an aggressive confrontation with police seems to be between 4pm and 8pm.

Most likeable blog:
Still Life With Cat - Clarencegirl once told me that this was a quietly insightful, gently humorous, venom-free zone and I wholeheartedly agree!

That unwanted prediction for 2010:
"ELECTRICITY, gas, water and public transport costs will all increase in 2010, while the average grocery shop will make a bigger dent in the family budget." {The Sydney Morning Herald 27th December 2009}

Most laughable Oz politician of this any year:
Just take your pick! Abbott, Abetz, Tuckey, Minchin, Pyne, Joyce, Fielding, Keneally,............

The Arsehat of all Arsehats in 2009:
Andrew Bolt - for services to Oz's racist underbelly, the anti-science lobby and general contrariety. {See almost any post on his Herald-Sun blog}

Pic from Crikey

Obama's baby brother is a movie star named Marx?

Much of this Monday 14 December article from the Chinese media mentioning Obama's younger brother, Jiang joined the new film "Let the bullets fly," more and more powerful lineup, may be lost in awkward translation but the picture tells the story.
American conspiracy wingnuts must be ecstatic over the half-brother's first name, "Marx"!

Michelle O - stop being such a princess and get a life!

On the 26th November 2009 ABC News online ran with this piece:
"Executives at internet search giant Google have apologised over an offensive picture of US first lady Michelle Obama that appeared high on its list of search results.
The picture was a photograph of Ms Obama that had been manipulated to give her the facial features of a monkey."
Now manipulated images of famous persons have been around for ages and North Coast Voices linked to the site Celebrity Apes in July last year when John McCain and Barack Obama were morphed during the US presidential election campaign.
I asked Clarencegirl and she tells me that from memory movie or pop stars such as Katie Holmes, Justin Timberlake, Madonna and Mariah Carey as well as politicians and nationally prominent personalities such as Rush Limbaugh were being given the ape treatment on this website.
The list also included Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton.
Memory is all anyone can rely on now as the site has been pulled completely by Google.
It seems that Michelle O. has turned into such a princess that she only wants the most flattering images out there in cyberspace and Team Obama is willing to cry wolf to gain her ends.
However censorship has not been as successful as they hoped and Google Images popped up with the Celebrity Ape first lady pic contained in a September 2008 post on FlyLifeStyle.............

Sometimes Internet censorship is so mind boggling dumb.

Obama still being pursued through US court over his birth certificate and right to hold office

The hostility towards US President Barack Obama continues in the far right section of the blogosphere, in some mainstream media reporting and through action in the courts. American lawyers must having a field day.

Elizabeth Ann Pascal is defending her president in a case currently before a US district court, Kerchner et al v Obama et al.

The plaintiffs in this case assert in part that Barack Hussien Obama II was not solely born a US citizen and cannot hold office as President of the United States of America.

Here is Elizabeth's July 2009 motion to dismiss and the plaintiff's August 2009 response. The matter apparently remains on the court docket at the time of writing this post.

This civil action was not the only one of its kind and, at least one other appears to be still extant as Barnett el al v Obama et al, which has a scheduling conference on 5 October 2009.

The strangest of all these cases (although one brought when Obama was still a senator and based on race not citizenship) has to have been the sealed and dismissed The Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations of Missouri et al v. Obama et al which originated with this filed statement of claim.

Obamaconspiracy has a complete rundown here on how these court actions are playing out.

Anti-Obama hysterics in Red, White & Blue Land

Google Trends actually has recordable data using the terms; obama is evil, obama is a socialist, obama wants to kill, obama wants to increase tax.
These terms began to get traction in late 2008 after Barack Obama's inauguration.
Google Trends also has enough data for President Obama's death and possible assassin to get a mention.
Can the U.S. anti-Obama hysteria get anymore frantic?

The League of American Voters gets down and dirty over Obama health care reform

If Republicans in America are to be believed - a reformed US health care system (that would not be even a pale imitation of the type of Medicare public hospital cover that Australians enjoy) would mean complete societal breakdown.

The League of American Voters is telling the world:

We are told they are working behind the scenes to change long-standing Senate rules so that they can pass their health plan with just 50 votes! This is again a desperate measure and an attempt to subvert our democratic and constitutional system.
I can assure you the League of American Voters is working day and night to stop Obama's plan.

This week the US far-right online organ NewsMax is sending out emails which states in part:

League of American Voters
Dear Friend:

I have some very shocking news.

ABC television has banned our TV ad from airing on its network.

Frankly, I was stunned when I heard the news from our media buyer yesterday.

Right now, our TV ad exposing Obamacare is running in 12 states.

You can see this powerful ad by Going Here Now.

With our success — thanks to your incredible support — we were planning to go national, so we sent the ad to the major networks.

This TV ad simply tells the truth about Obamacare.

It was crafted by Dick Morris, the Fox News contributor and famous campaign strategist.

This powerful ad features a respected medical doctor — a neurosurgeon, in fact — who warns that Obamacare will decimate healthcare for seniors and others in need of life-saving medical procedures.

As Dr. Cuffe explains in the ad, if Obama gets his way and adds 50 million new patients to the government system, it inevitably will lead to rationing of healthcare procedures and vital medicines for the elderly.

Dr. Cuffe says universal healthcare has led to this same situation in Canada and England......

We know why ABC is so afraid of the League's TV ad. It knows the message resonates with the American people.

This is the same network that aired an infomercial for the Obama plan directly from the White House.

Clearly, ABC knows seniors will not be hoodwinked by Obama when they learn the truth.

Despite ABC's brazen act of censorship, we need to continue to run this ad on other stations across the nation and on major networks.

The appearance of a very photogenic Dr. Cuffe in this ad seems to have increased the wave of paranoia sweeping across the USA if that were possible.

In a Free Republic forum thread which has since been pulled, Obama is accused of almost any vile deed that can be brought to mind:

Obamacare to use FAKE "Doctors" in DNC Plan to Exterminate the Elderly
and Deny Them All Independent Access to Real Doctors and Real Treatment.

and

DNC Death Panel: "You voted wrong. Your healthcare, and you, are terminated!!"
and
Obama agreed to pitch us older people over the cliff with his agreeing to hurt Medicare in return for getting his way
and
Obamacare, The Final Solution"

Update:

Yesterday FactCheck posted Twenty-six lies about H.R. 3200 in an effort to stem the flood of misinformation be spread by a viral e-mail based on one Twitter user's off the cuff assessment of the Obama health care reform proposals.

But wait, there's more.....

The National Republican Committee has been caught out trying to suggest that healthcare may be denied on the basis of political affiliation, with this survey question: "It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person's political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?"

Obama and Newsmax online polling

There is a rather badly constructed Newsmax poll out there in cyberspace at the moment which is yielding these results concerning U.S. President Barack Obama:

Full 'Obama is the anti-christ' survey results here.

Why we need a fact checker during President Obama's speeches

Politicians make so many speeches that it is hard not to make a verbal slip or two, like substituting the word privacy for piracy.
However Barack Obama goes beyond the usual tongue-twist and now it's wise to double-check his supposed facts.
It seems that the US President really needs his aides to be a little more vigilant whenever that unknown someone pens the first draft of his speeches.
Sometimes these silly mistakes ruin what could almost be inspirational moments.

FactCheck highlights these bloopers:

1.
* He said "we import more oil today than ever before." That's untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today.
* He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help "responsible" buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too.
* He said the high cost of health care "causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds." That's at least double the true figure.
* He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it.
* He claimed that his stimulus plan "prevented the layoffs" of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it's far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.

2.
* President Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" in terms of population. That strains the facts mightily. The U.S. Muslim population probably doesn't even rank in the top 50.

3.
* President Obama said, that "[m]ore than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States?" Government statistics don't actually support that claim.

4.
* President Barack Obama made one factual error in his first speech in office when he said, immediately after being sworn in: Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. It is true that Obama is counted as the 44th president, but he's only the 43rd person to take the oath. Grover Cleveland is counted

While Voter Fact Check cites:

1.
* Did Obama incorrectly say his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz?

Yes. Obama's great-uncle helped liberate Ohrdruf, which was a subcamp of Buchenwald, not Auschwitz....

One American perspective on Obama's response to Korean nuclear gamesmanship

U.S. comedian Andy Borowitz takes a look at Obama's response to recent events in Korea:

One day after North Korea launched a successful test of a nuclear weapon, President Obama said that the United States was prepared to respond to the threat with "the strongest possible adjectives."

In remarks to reporters at the White House, Mr. Obama said that North Korea should fear the "full force and might of the United States' arsenal of adjectives" and called the missile test "reckless, reprehensible, objectionable, senseless, egregious and condemnable."

Standing at the President's side, Vice President Joseph Biden weighed in with some tough adjectives of his own, branding North Korean President Kim Jong-Il "totally wack and illin'."

Later in the day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the North Korean nuclear test "supercilious and jejune," leading some in diplomatic circles to worry that the U.S. might be running out of appropriate adjectives with which to craft its response.

But President Obama attempted to calm those fears, saying that the United States was prepared to "scour the thesaurus" to come up with additional adjectives and was "prepared to use adverbs" if necessary.

"Let's be clear: we are not taking adverbs off the table," Mr. Obama said. "If the need arises, we will use them forcefully, aggressively, swiftly, overwhelmingly and commandingly."

More from Andy Borowitz here.

Obama changes his tune once again

It seems that Barack Obama has discovered the delights of former Australian prime minister John Howard's approach to core and non-core promises.

The latest to surface is in relation to the Freedom of Choice Act. It appears that once you're president then any pretence that you really believe in a woman's right to chose, in relation to pregnancy termination, flies out the window.

Here is FactCheck on the subject:

Is Obama shying away from the Freedom of Choice Act?
When CNN correspondent Ed Henry asked the president about his current thinking on FOCA at last night's White House press conference, Obama used very different language than he did during the campaign.
In 2008, as we noted in our Ask FactCheck item on FOCA, Obama told a Planned Parenthood audience: "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Now that's the first thing I'd do."
Last night, Obama specifically altered that statement. "Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority," he said. "I believe that women should have the right to choose, but I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on," such as reducing unwanted pregnancies.

Hawai'i Free Press still in hot water over Lehman Brothers-Obama-Rezko-Auchi

Last Monday Wikileaks posted an article from Hawai'i Free Press which had lawyers firing off letters left right and centre and updates show that this battle which commenced in 2008 goes on into 2009.

For a bit of amusment this Sunday, Hawai'i free Press has published some of the legal letters it sent and received here.

Five views of Obama's first 100 days

The Wall Street Journal:

Just as the times of Barack Obama defy the easy descriptions and old labels, so too does the man himself.
Indeed, if the first 100 days of President Obama's term have proved anything, it is that he is a hard man to classify. He has confounded, at one time or another, people at just about every spot across the political spectrum. He likes big and activist government, but he isn't a classic liberal. He is more of a social engineer than a guardian of the old welfare state.
He's phenomenally popular among Democrats, but has found the most support for some of his foreign-policy moves among Republicans. He's pulling combat troops out of Iraq, but more slowly than he once promised -- and at the same time has laid plans to add more troops in Afghanistan than the Bush administration envisioned.
Asked whether there is yet a discernible Obama doctrine in foreign affairs, a longtime national security operative pauses and responds: "If there is a doctrine, it would have to be engagement." Which is more a tactic than a doctrine.
He sometimes sounds like a protectionist, but so far has acted mostly like a free-trader. He talks a lot about fiscal discipline, yet is overseeing the nation's first trillion-dollar deficits. He's made history as America's first African-American president, yet probably talks less about race than did the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

From Fact Check:

After 100 days in office, we find President Obama is sticking to the facts – mostly.

Nevertheless, we find that the president has occasionally made claims that put him and his policies in a better light than the facts warrant. He has claimed that private economists agreed with the forecast in his budget, when they were really more pessimistic. He's used Bush-like budget-speak trying to sound frugal while raising spending to previously unimagined levels. And he has exaggerated the problems his proposals aim to cure by misstating facts about school drop-out rates and oil imports.

At the same time, there's been no shortage of dubious claims made about the president by his political opponents. Republicans have falsely claimed that Obama planned to spend billions on a levitating train and that his stimulus bill would require doctors to follow government orders on what medical treatments can and can't be prescribed, among other nonsense.

And those whoppers are mild compared with some of the positively deranged claims flying about the Internet. No, the national service bill Obama signed won't prevent anybody from going to church, for example. And no, he's not trying to send Social Security checks to illegal immigrants.

Market Watch from Dow Jones:

President Barack Obama reaches the 100 days milestone "more popular than his policies," says MarketWatch reporter Robert Schroeder. And it's a mixed milestone, with some major accomplishments, but a lot of uncertainty about the next 100 days and beyond. "He can point to several things such as the stimulus, children's health insurance, the plans to withdraw from Iraq," says Schroeder. "But there are still lots of people out there in the country, including many who voted for him, who are still unemployed, anxious."

From the Centre for Public Integrity:

From his first day in office, President Obama has spoken about transparency in government. He has added the word accountability to many of the initiatives of his administration. There is indeed a better sense of openness in government that we can all applaud. The Center is happy to have faster responses to our Freedom of Information Requests. However, even as we mark the President's first 100 days in office, the Center for Public Integrity is only too well aware of the many ways that government still misses opportunities for even greater transparency and accountability in the public interest. Our mission and our work remain the same, to make institutional power more transparent and accountable through our original investigative journalism.

The best example of what this means is our recent investigative work: digging into the Climate Lobby funneling money to the Congress and the so-called "Clean Coal" campaign; uncovering the home appraisal bubble pushed by lenders; and revealing the steep drop in Pentagon fraud and corruption cases while the number of federal contracts to private industry soared.

The Sydney Morning Herald:

As the economy has worsened in the first three months of this year and credit markets remain sclerotic, complaints are growing from Wall Street to Washington that Obama is doing too much, spreading himself too thin.
Almost in the same breath, though, there has been criticism that he has ducked hard decisions, such as postponing a commission on the social security system in the face of Democrat opposition, or not pushing ahead with a ban on assault weapons after another spate of mass shootings.
The New York Times wrote this week: "His early willingness to deal or fold has left commentators, and some loyal Democrats, wondering: where's the fight?"
"The thing we still don't know about him is what he is willing to fight for," Leonard Burman, an economist at the Urban Institute, and a Treasury department official in the Clinton administration, was quoted as saying. "It's hard to think of a place where he's taken a really hard position."

And who said it wouldn't go to his head.......

Barack Obama is President of the United States of America - arguably the most powerful political position going, backed as it is by America's military might.

However, there is a global financial crisis and America is suffering. In March 2009 the official U.S. unemployment rate reached a 25 year high and over 13 million people (reputedly the highest absolute number on record) are wondering where their next pay check will come from.

The U.S. federal government is not as popular as the Obama Administration had hoped when it came to power after the 2007 presidential election. Tea parties to demonstrate against the taxpayer-funded financial bailout of Wall Street are the order of the day.

So is President Obama taking note of the mood of the nation and exercising a little fiscal restraint at the White House?

Not if this media snippet in the Mail Online is anything to go by:

When you're the president of the United States, only the best pizza will do - even if that means flying a chef 860 miles.

Chris Sommers, 33, jetted into Washington from St Louis, Missouri, on Thursday with a suitcase of dough, cheese and pans to prepare food for the Obamas and their staff.

He had apparently been handpicked after the President had tasted his pizzas on the campaign trail last autumn.

It's almost MadiGrass time. Come on down, Barack!

One of the oldest annual peaceful protests in Australia takes place on the NSW North Coast every year.
Yep, it's almost MadiGrass time again at Nimbin.
Time for all those old counter-culture warriors to dust off their good duds and march 'n' party for an end to Aussie prohibition of Teh Weed.

This year's poster fair cracked me up.

It's a good bet that U.S. President Barack Obama never thought he would feature at this rally.

First bumper stickers, t-shirts and coffee mugs - now Obama is a worm!

During the 2008 presidential election campaign the Obama for America team branded almost everything that moved with logos and slogans promoting Barack Obama.

During the transition period for President-elect Obama his face began appearing on even more merchandise.

Now as President Obama his face appears on PC monitors if these have been infected with an Obama Worm.

The worm spreads via USB drive, using the Windows autorun feature to install itself automatically on any drive it connects with. Unlike most of today's profit-driven malware, the Obama worm doesn't steal your credit card number or turn your PC into a remote-controlled zombie system. In fact, it isn't designed to do anything besides float a small picture of Obama at the bottom right corner of your desktop all day every Monday.

Unfortunately, it is so badly written that the worm gradually renders any PC it is run on completely useless, according to Rob Koliha, Walling Data's director of innovation. "It will basically prevent execution of any kind of files."

Because antivirus programs don't detect it yet, it's also hard to know when you've been infected, except on Monday.