Day: June 19, 2008

Muslims Not Welcome At Obama Event

They were attracted to his message of diversity and unity, but two Muslim women who went to Barack Obama’s rally at Joe Louis Arena on Monday went home feeling left out.

They were barred from prime seats behind the stage because of their traditional Muslim head scarves, after campaign volunteers had invited their non-Muslim friends to the seats.

The campaign apologized to the women Tuesday and in a statement issued Wednesday, blamed the incident on the volunteers.

Still, it illustrates how the pressures of image-making in a presidential campaign combined with sensitivities over unfounded rumors that Obama is secretly a Muslim can create a sudden storm — awkwardly in metro Detroit, home to the nation’s most influential community of Arab Americans.

This story is just plain sad.  Image is more important thatn anything.  I thought that we Americans were voting for a person to lead the entire country.  But then, I have been mistaken in the past.

OMG! Peace Is Breaking Out–Part 2

Israel on Wednesday publicly pushed to open peace negotiations with Lebanon, seeking to add another initiative to an already burgeoning diplomatic roster that includes talks with some of the Jewish state’s foremost adversaries.

While Lebanon immediately indicated it has no desire for a deal with Israel, the overture came just a day after Israel agreed to a truce with the armed Islamist group Hamas that took effect early Thursday in and around the Gaza Strip. Israel is also negotiating a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement it fought to a standstill in 2006, and last month announced the resumption of long-stalled peace talks with Syria.

The sudden diplomatic activity represents a turnabout from just this spring, when Israel was leading the charge for the world to isolate — rather than engage — armed groups and Middle Eastern governments considered hostile to the West. In its policies and pronouncements, Israel favored sanctions over dialogue and threats of force over cease-fires.

Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, if they happen, would probably be intimately linked to the talks between Israel and Syria, which are being mediated by Turkey.

There is widespread skepticism in Israel that the negotiations will amount to much, although there is a possibility that Olmert will meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a conference in France next month, a move that would be likely to further weaken U.S. efforts to isolate Syria.

Many Israeli commentators believe Olmert is launching the diplomatic initiatives only to deflect attention from a corruption probe that threatens to bring down his government. But some note that there could be benefits, even if the motives are complex.

Maybe if the two sides spend more time talking with each other, then maybe, just maybe, they will not have enough time to kill each other.  Just a thought.

Gitmo And Detainees

A recent decision by the US Supreme Court stated that terrorists suspects may appeal their detention.   And boy did this open a flood gate of gum bumping!

Most of the people are saying that these people are not citizens and have no rights.  Or that they are terrorist suspects and have no rights.  Ok, my problem is the word suspect.  These people have not been convicted of a crime and should have all the rights of anyone in a US court.  To me these situations at Gitmo are a violation of the Bill of Rights, amendments 7,8 & 9.

Then there is the length of their detention and the reports of torture.  Those are separate issues that will be covered later.  I do not understand the uproar over this decision.  Several years ago an American citizen was tried and convicted of a crime in Singapore and was sentenced to punishment by caning.  There was an uproar  from Americans of cruel and unusual punishment .  My point is that we as a country should offer anyone being held for a crime to the same moral and legal standards.

Obama’s Foreign Policy Team

Barack Obama met Wednesday with a new national-security advisory group that includes many of former President Clinton’s top advisers, saying that if he’s elected president he’ll return the nation “to a pragmatic tradition of American foreign policy, which has been so ably advanced by the people in this room.”

With former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher and former Defense Secretary William Perry signing on to a panel already heavy with former Clinton administration officials, Obama continued to consolidate the support of Clinton loyalists after his defeat of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Their willingness to advise Obama in his general election campaign gives him a team with decades of collective expertise and one that advised the last Democratic president during a decade of peace and prosperity.

Now with these advisers in place an argument against change can be made.  In the other hand, there is plenty of experience there.  If he, Obama, wants to win the election he cannot have it both ways.

Dems Give In On War Funding

The agreement on the war funding bill, announced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also paves the way for a quick infusion of emergency flood relief for the Midwest, an extension of unemployment payments for the jobless and a big boost in GI Bill college for veterans.

The agreement would require that the Senate would agree to drop most of the more than $10 billion it added last month for programs such as heating subsidies for the poor, wildfire fighting, road and bridge repair and help for the Gulf Coast.

The House is slated to pass the measure Thursday, but the Senate won’t turn to it until next week, Manley said.

The agreement drops restrictions on Bush’s ability to conduct the war and gives him almost all of the funding he sought well over a year ago for Iraq and Afghanistan. But he also backed away from veto threats he issued earlier over Democrats’ insistence on using the Iraq funding bill to carry a generous boost in the GI Bill and a 13-week extension of unemployment payments for people whose benefits have run out.

Democrats dropped a provision to extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks in states with particularly high unemployment rates.

Looks like the Dems are more concerned with having a success before they face the people back home, than doing what is right.

Drilling For The Sake Of Drilling

With gasoline prices topping $4 a gallon, President Bush is asking Congress to lift its long-standing ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, saying the United States needs to produce more of the energy it uses.

Motorists want something to be done about the record price of oil, much of which is produced in other countries. “Families across the country are looking to Washington for a response,” Bush said.

Drilling for oil and gas off nearly the entire American coastline has been banned for the past quarter-century. Previous efforts to lift the ban have been met with strong opposition. Lawmakers last debated oil drilling in the U.S. coastal areas in 2005 and 2006, when gasoline averaged $1.84 a gallon.

This is hysteria speaking, everyone wants relief, but where will the relief be? They, most likely oil companies and their puppets, say it will reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Maybe so, but not our dependency on oil and there is where the problem is, not where it comes from.

Ask who will benefit the most from this drilling, you or the oil companies? Why would drilling in the US bring the cost of oil down? Do you really think that the oil companies are gonna give up massive profits so that the consumer can have cheaper gas? You really want to wean yourself off foreign oil, then the person needs to do that, the government is only concerned with the bottom line of the corporations, not the good of the people.

Democrats also claim that land already leased is “sitting idle,” and should be used before any new exploration begins. As put by Maurice Hinchey, a senior member of the House Resources Committee, Big Oil is “trying to take control of as much land now during the oil-friendly Bush Administration years, but are holding off on drilling until the price of oil soars to $200 or $300 a barrel so they can make even greater profits.”

This is a lame attempt to silence the public outcry. Americans will settle down and adjust to the higher prices. If they truly wanted something done then they would have demanded it back in the late 70’s.