UT poll says 23% of Texans think Obama is a Muslim

[memebag]

Your white? Let the record show that I never once accused you of being white.

What legacy? As a state legislator?

A year ago I never even heard of Obama and I would bet you 90% of Americans hadn't either. So after being in the limelight for the past 6-12 months we know everything about him? I'm sure if he had a illegitimate son the media would have dug it up by now but there is MANY questions about his past and his politics that has not been answered.

Please answer my questions.

[DJ V Lawrence]

What if Americans stopped worrying about Obama/McCain/Biden/Palin's possible past "associations" with Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Keating Five, etc. , and started worrying about their CURRENT associations with George W. Bush, the Clinton, Ted Stevens, Fannie/Freddie Mac, etc.?

And why not worry about Obama's association with Joe Biden, and McCain's association with Sarah Palin more than anyone else? THOSE are the two possible VPs.

[Fringe]

Please answer my questions.

I did. Answer mine. How, after less than one year of exposure and less then 3 years in the government do we know EVERYTHING about Obamaa and what makes him qualified to be president? That's all I ever asked for. Your answer was "how dare I even question Obama's experience/history and that he was in the Illinois legislator, which does NOT impress me.

[Mark F. Barnes]

Well, this is all pretty meaningless, but it's worth pointing out that the things in the original posts are aspects of the McCain/Palin ticket that have either been given a pass, or passed off as a good thing. The point is to wonder if that would be true if those were aspects of the Obama ticket. Most of the things mentioned by you guys are points that Obama has already been raked over the coals about. So if McCain were raked over the coals about the same things, that would be equal treatment. So it's not a good comparison.

In other words, you've missed the point.

Raked over the coals? By that context, you wouldn't know raked over the coals if they threw you in the Kingsford Plant while it was on fire.

Obama has never been raked over the coals by ANYONE. Close as he ever came to it was O'Reilly and Bill was on his best behavior and led an excellent interview. The fact you think he has been raked over the coals is laughable.

[N Judah]

What if John and Cindy attended the Church of the Aryan Nation in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and set there while the pastor screamed out about White Power, and Damn the Niggas and Kikes. God Bless a White America?

Funny you should mention that. No one has really brought up the fact that Sarah Palin attended College of North Idaho (which her father graduated from), right there on the shores of Lake Coeur D'Alene. If John McCain has the "war hero" lineage/pedigree, Sarah Palin, in my eyes, certainly has the white supremacist lineage/pedigree in this election.

[Mark F. Barnes]

What if Americans stopped worrying about Obama/McCain/Biden/Palin's possible past "associations" with Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Keating Five, etc. , and started worrying about their CURRENT associations with George W. Bush, the Clinton, Ted Stevens, Fannie/Freddie Mac, etc.?

And why not worry about Obama's association with Joe Biden, and McCain's association with Sarah Palin more than anyone else? THOSE are the two possible VPs.

DJ reread my long post above, that memebag pooh pooh'd for being off topic, I did just as you asked. Everything I questioned was in the present.

Funny you should mention that. No one has really brought up the fact that Sarah Palin attended College of North Idaho (which her father graduated from), right there on the shores of Lake Coeur D'Alene. If John McCain has the "war hero" lineage/pedigree, Sarah Palin, in my eyes, certainly has the white supremacist lineage/pedigree in this election.

She was there for two semesters not twenty years, she also attended six other colleges, in a wild attempt to finish her bachelor's degree.

[sarahiki]

Raked over the coals? By that context, you wouldn't know raked over the coals if they threw you in the Kingsford Plant while it was on fire.

Obama has never been raked over the coals by ANYONE. Close as he ever came to it was O'Reilly and Bill was on his best behavior and led an excellent interview. The fact you think he has been raked over the coals is laughable.

Fine Mark, insert your own language if you don't like my choice of words. The point is that these are negatives that he has been criticized for. So, so what if the same were true of McCain - Palin. You are STILL missing the point.

[RedScare]

I'm not asking you to vote for ANYONE. Trust me, I'm not a big fan of McCain. I just don't understand how "you people" can get all upset when I question if Obama is qualified to be the president of our country. And WHAT makes him more qualified than McCain.

[N Judah]

She was there for two semesters not twenty years, she also attended six other colleges, in a wild attempt to finish her bachelor's degree.

Yes...true. And she finished up at UIdaho. But most people won't even go near College of North Idaho, much less spend two semesters there. Those guys make Bill Ayers and the Weathermen look like bourgeois Connecticut housewives.

[musicman]

Raked over the coals? By that context, you wouldn't know raked over the coals if they threw you in the Kingsford Plant while it was on fire.

LOL

Obama has never been raked over the coals by ANYONE. Close as he ever came to it was O'Reilly and Bill was on his best behavior and led an excellent interview. The fact you think he has been raked over the coals is laughable.

Very true. I must say that your earlier post regarding Rev Wright, Bill Ayers and Rashid Khalidi was one of the best posts on HAIF in a long while.

[memebag]

I did.

Please answer again, then. Your post must have been deleted.

[RedScare]

Very true. I must say that your earlier post regarding Rev Wright, Bill Ayers and Rashid Khalidi was one of the best posts on HAIF in a long while.

It would have been better if it had included an explanation why McCain's nearly half million dollar contribution to Khalidi's organization doesn't disqualify McCain as a friend of Israel, but no matter. All of this minutiae about the disqualifications of either candidate is just so much hogwash. IF some of these associations by one candidate were such a disqualifier, then, to the unbiased voter, the associations by the other candidate would ALSO be a disqualifier. But, I notice that they are not. Each candidate has crossed paths, attended functions, palled around with, donated money to, various persons and groups that could cause one to raise an eyebrow. Yet, Lunatic, Mark, and TJ only raise a right eyebrow, while meme, myself and some others only raise a left eyebrow.

The fact is, most voters made their decision, and only then started looking for arguments against the other. When all is said and done, I have seen precious few posters who have chosen a candidate whose political party is different from who they would have chosen prior to the primaries. Frankly, those who lean Republican freak out over Ayres, Wright, blah, blah, blah. Those who lean Democratic think McCain has dementia, knows nothing of the economy and votes with Bush, blah, blah, blah. It is all so lame. It would be more intellectually honest if people would give real reasons, such as, "I always vote Republican, so even though McCain is an idiot, I cannot bring myself to vote for a Democrat", or, I think Bush and the Republicans have ruined the country, so I am voting Obama, no matter who he hangs around with". But, that won't happen, so we are forced to endure endless posts about tenuous ties to people who do not matter, posted by people who wouldn't vote for the candidate if Jesus himself were his running mate.

So, here's my deal. It is roughly 120 hours from the close of the polls. I am not going to comment on this crap any longer. I don't care that Obama is a Muslim terrorist who parachuted from the plane before it hit the tower. I don't care that McCain will die in office, putting the biggest moron in the history of politics in the president's chair. I do not care that anonymous HAIF poster's think that I am an idiot, or that I voted for a Marxist, or that musicman doesn't think my post is the best one ever, or that Black people vote for Obama because he is Black, or that White people will not vote for a Black man, or that James Dobson says we are going to hell, or that Sean Hannity says I should be ashamed, or that Arriana Huffington and Rachel Maddow and Keith Oldberman thinks Palin supporters are mouth breathers. I don't even care that the headline on the skinheads mentioned Obama instead of the Black schoolkids. I really don't.

I only know that I put a lot of thought into my vote, and I do not care what "you people" think...or post. See y'all on Tuesday.

[Fringe]

Please answer again, then. Your post must have been deleted.

Still there but your obviously going to ignore it just like my question.

[memebag]

Still there but your obviously going to ignore it just like my question.

I'll gladly answer your question when you answer mine. Here they are again:

Why did you start throwing the "liberal" label around and make generalizations about "white liberals"?

Why did you try to change the subject when confronted with the fact that Obama has a legacy?

Why can't Obama's history be tracked as easily as McCain's?

[Fringe]

Sigh. Like talking to a wall.

[editor]

OK, you two -- take it to PM.

And everyone else take a deep breath and settle down.

[Mark F. Barnes]

Fine Mark, insert your own language if you don't like my choice of words. The point is that these are negatives that he has been criticized for. So, so what if the same were true of McCain - Palin. You are STILL missing the point.

I will refer to also, as I did DJ to my long post above. Personally don't care about anything but the fact he has repeatedly lied. Now people have question my accusation that he lied, referring to half truths, and hear-say. So here is what I am basing my reasoning on.

I left out a few other things because the were really not as important to me, but since it seems to be a hair splitting contest now, I will continue. He told everybody in the Democratic Primary debates, he had been a "professor of Constitutional law" when in fact he has never been a professor of Constitutional law. In the next debate, you was careful to say that he "taught a Constitutional Law class" and never mentioned being a "Professor of Constitutional law." As you know you can teach and not be a Professor, however "Professor" sound more important. Maybe it was a slip up, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But in the same debate, he also said he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea without 'preparations' at lower levels, he specifically named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by name. Now there has been hairs split as to who really is the leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Ali Khamenei. Well whatever one wants to think, Obama first said he would meet without preconditions, then turned around in the McCain debate and denied that's what he said, then in the next debate it was not what he meant. So what is a person suppose to believe.

People claim all his great results as a community organizer, make him ready to run the country, well if it's results you want to examine, look a little more closely at some of that organizing he was doing. Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002. Now this organization was started by Thomas, John and Bill Ayers, That's the father and two brothers, but Bill Ayers was just some guy in the neighborhood. The CAC spent some $50 million to reform Chicago public schools, with nothing to show for it. According to a 2003 audit by the Illinois Board of Education, there were no statistically significant differences in rates of achievement gain, between schools in the CAC program and schools that weren't in the CAC program. So what in the hell are they doing with all this money, from government grants and public funding? His role as board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is the most important "executive experience" Obama has held to date. So where is the positive in this organizer to lead the nation. Oh yeah and why are all the records of this tenure being held, with no access to the public, in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago? The UIC will let you view every other archive in the library, pay for them to make copies, except those concerning CAC. Check it out for yourself, the phone number is 312-996-2726, (I'll save you some searching) ask for "The Special Collections Archives." And ask for the audits archives and see where it gets you. Folder 945 is not available for viewing. This is suppose to be public information, yet you cannot get to see it. They tell you that the access to the collection is closed for maintenance until further notice. Why all the cloaking? Would these files illuminate the working relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers? Who knows. I mention all of this because the question was raised about what do we really know about this guy. And several have chimed in about the amount of his transparency, when in fact he's not. There are a lot of dead in streets in the map of his life. No paper trail, that you can access.

Okay, on to these casual acquaintances. No Barrack is no fool, and I would dare to say, far from naive. He's a very calculated, and organized person. He makes very few wasted moves, I am willing to bet he is a superior chess player, possibly master class. From his book I know he is a master at backgammon, another forward thinking game. Now that I reference his book, of which I have read, let's look at a passage that talks about him chosing his friends carefully.

"Dreams from My Father," Pages 100 last paragraph, carrying over to page 101. "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed necolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated. But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerated. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.

Now he says in his own words how he carefully picked his friends, to fit in or whatever, he carefully picked his friends. Even at that young an age in college, he was wary of who he ran with, so he doesn't appear in any certain or uncertain way, and now as he's running for President, we're suppose to believe that all these casual acquaintances are just random? Give me a break. He lied about everyone of those random acquaintances, period. Barrack has no random acquaintances.

Lets look more into that passage, he talks about discussing necolonialism [sic] which I think he meant neocolonialism, which can be a little scary if it's applied the wrong way. It is ruling power that employ financial, and trade policies to dominate less powerful opposition. This is a key component in Marxism and Communism. Now is this just dorm talk while burning a doobie, maybe so, but it's something to wonder about. Now Franz Fanon is another interesting character, Obama's seemed fascination with him all through his book. Perhaps it was just the similarity in background, (mixed race family background), but you tie that to neocolonialism and you get a real rainbow stew cooking.

Now Red has just thrown his fit, and that's cool, because all of this is exhausting, and he has to argue for a living, so he needs a break, brother I wish you well. But I put a lot of thought into my vote also, and people insist on calling names, and spewing crap with no basis to is. So that I won't be referred to as a thoughtless cracker, I did some homework. Even though my vote has already been cast, I still feel fine talking about it.

So since Red brought it up, let's explore that some, instead of spewing it, without any support and context, and run off.

Here is Red's source, the good ole Huffington Hoax,

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/IRIForm9901998.pdf

It's a tax return for the IRI, and if you look on page 14, you will see a grant for the CPRS (Center for Palestinian Research and Studies), which is a research group mainly responsible for polling and research on the West Bank. The are contracted to monitor peace talks within the populace of the West Bank, and distribute propaganda. In the 1990s, IRI gave grants to the CPRS for polling in the West Bank/Gaza. The polls measured support for the peace process, for various Palestinian political groups, and for efforts to enhance governance in the West Bank/Gaza. At that time no other organization could credibly conduct polling in the West Bank/Gaza. And I fully understand that Rashid Khalidi was one of the many founders of CPRS, and I understand that he was for a short amount of time a board member. IRI did not in the 1990s conduct background checks of grantees

[DJ V Lawrence]

How, after less than one year of exposure and less then 3 years in the government do we know EVERYTHING about Obamaa and what makes him qualified to be president? That's all I ever asked for.

Well, we will never know "everything" about Obama, Palin, McCain, or Biden. With the exception of Palin, the other three have been known by mainstream America at the minimum since 2004. McCain/Biden have been in Washington for well over 20 years, and anyone who paid attention during the 2004 Kerry/Bush election has heard of Obama.

The second part (what makes Obama qualified to be President) is a very reasonable question. The answer is the fact that he's capable of getting the electoral votes needed to become President. If he's not capable of getting the votes of the American people, then he wouldn't be qualified. The moment he won the Democratic spot (along with McCain for the Republican nod) was the moment both became "qualified".

So now we know that both Obama and McCain are qualified to be President, the real questions now are who's got the better policies, who's going to be able to execute them, who's going to pick the stronger cabinet, who will handle the situation in Iraq better, etc.

[sifuwong]

Just one more thing that Texas is #1 at.

I was just about to say Texas=uninformed, but you beat me to it.

[N Judah]

Fanon's not really anything to worry about. He's taught to even the most pre-professional of strivers nowadays...but hey if a van's sliding door ever opens and Obama pops out, spraying a sidewalk cafe with machine gun bullets, shouting "I'm Ali La Pointe, bi+tch!" then apparently your worries were well-founded...but otherwise...no...

Inre: 4,100 troops -- who, believe it or not, do get *paid* -- making the same "sacrifice" that Halliburton makes -- I'm not sure what choice Obama will make but I am sure he knows who to consult with. Even if McCain gets elected what makes anyone think he will be going around making decisions unilaterally? I certainly hope that's not the case.

[west20th]

Wait wait Sarahiki

What if Cindy McCain wrote her college thesis on segregation of the white race from the lesser races in the world?

What if John and Cindy attended the Church of the Aryan Nation in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and set there while the pastor screamed out about White Power, and Damn the Niggas and Kikes. God Bless a White America?

What if John McCain and his wife hung around with Theodore Kaczynski. Attended meeting at Berkley with him, and attended a party over at his house?

What if John McCain went to a going away party for August Kreis III? Or as far as that goes Rashid Khalidi?

What if John McCain had decades of his life that was unaccoutable for, no paper trail what so ever? Just bits in pieces mentioned here and there, mostly in his own memoirs.

What if what if what if?

If you are going to try and reverse this thing, don't leave out stuff.

Best thing is just to stick to the way it is, it's bad enough trying to keep all the bulls_ _ _ straight as it is.

Edit: Never mind. What I origionally posted was already covered.

[Mark F. Barnes]

Just to set the record straight McCain's ties to Khalidi may be stronger than Obama's

from:http://firedoglake.com/2008/10/29/woops-mccain-funded-rashid-khalidi/

McCain Funded Work Of Palestinian His Campaign Hopes To Tie To Obama

During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.

A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, "West Bank: CPRS" on page 14 of this PDF.)

The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes.".

Hey read Post #77 again the record has already been straight.

[west20th]

Hey read Post #77 again the record has already been straight.

Read my edit in post 81

[KinkaidAlum]

I was just about to say Texas=uninformed, but you beat me to it.

I don't think these 23% are uninformed at all.

They were just given the wrong information...repeatedly. Bad information does not equal no information. It's a shame that news outlets are allowed to get off on a free pass when they deliberately spread false information.

That said, these 23 percenters are also the same folks who think Bush is doing a swell job.

[memebag]

They were just given the wrong information...repeatedly. Bad information does not equal no information. It's a shame that news outlets are allowed to get off on a free pass when they deliberately spread false information.

What news outlets are saying Obama is a Muslim? I know the prime suspect would be Fox News, but I've never seen them say that.

[lockmat]

It is important to note that "if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world".

So says President Barack Obama.

As ABC's Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller astutely outline here, the Obama administration is embracing the new president's inner Muslim, as it were. Deputy national security adviser stated that Obama had "experienced Islam on three continents...growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father -- obviously Muslim Americans [are] a key part of Illinois and Chicago".

Debbie Schlussel cites a reputable survey by Pew that puts the number of Muslims in the US at 1.8 million. This would make it the 48th biggest Muslim country, after the above list plus France, Libya, Jordan, Israel, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Germany, Kuwait, Oman, Eritrea, Lebanon and Serbia and Montenegro - and just above Britain, which would be the 50th.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/...es_in_the_world

patty cake, patty cake...

[VicMan]

As for where, statistically, most Muslims live: Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world; India and Pakistan have sizeable Muslims as well. Saudi Arabia, one of the countries on the Arabian peninsula, has 1% of the Muslims in the world.

Sarahiki, since most of the Muslims you know are in the Middle East, is this due to your job or some other kind of connection?

99% of the Muslims I know live in villages and cities in the Middle East. So that's exactly what I'm talking about. I guess I know some Muslims in this country, too, but not too many.