David Drake

Contrary to Obama's claims, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation [really not much of a donation, considering the vast wealth of the Kennedy's. - Drake] most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton acknowledged Saturday that the senator from Illinois had erred in credit the Kennedy family with a role in his father's arrival in the United States. He said the Kennedy involvement in the Kenya student program apparently "started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past"

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In his speech commemorating the 42nd anniversary of the Selma civil rights march, Sen. Obama linked his father's arrival in the United States with the turmoil of the civil rights movement. Although the airlift occurred before John F. Kennedy became president, Obama said that "folks in the White House" around President Kennedy were looking for ways to counter charges of hypocrisy and "win hearts and minds all across the world" at a time when America was "battling communism."

"So the Kennedys decided 'we're going to do an airlift,' " Obama continued. " 'We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.' This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves. . . . So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born."

A more accurate version of the story would begin not with the Kennedys but with a Kenyan nationalist leader named Tom Mboya, who traveled to the United States in 1959 and 1960 to persuade thousands of Americans to support his efforts to educate a new African elite. Mboya did not approach the Kennedys for financial support until Obama Sr. was already studying in Hawaii.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country -- for all its flaws -- then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church."

Joy Behar is so partisan as to spin an ethnic slur from Barack Obama’s pastor into a compliment. Discussing Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s "garlic nosed Italians" comments on the March 28 edition, Behar noted "he’s talking about the ancient Romans here," (apparently Reverend Wright did not know that Italy did not exist as a country until 1861) and claimed "the Roman nose has been celebrated in art and history...I don’t think it’s insulting." She also added that garlic in her diet helps with her "gorgeous complexion."

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

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We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, also came under fire this week when reports surfaced that he had written an article for Trumpet Magazine, run by his daughters, in which he said that “white supremacy is clearly in charge in America.” The article also quotes him referring to Italians’ “garlic noses,” and characterizing Jesus’ crucifixion as “a public lynching, Italian-style.”

"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans.

"From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ..." Wright wrote.

General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a former chief of staff in the United States Air Force who is a candidate for secretary of defense in a potential Obama administration, claimed that efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority failed because there is no US-written "playbook" to create peace.

An interviewer asked General McPeak "So where's the problem? State? White House?" McPeak pulled no punches. "(The problem rests in) New York City. Miami. We have a large vote here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it…nobody wants to take on that problem. It's just too tough politically. So that means we can't . . . you can't develop a Middle East strategy. It's impossible," he said.

A two-week FOX News investigation, however, has uncovered where Wright will be spending a good deal of his time in retirement, and it is a far cry from the impoverished Chicago streets where the preacher led his ministry for 36 years.

FOX News has uncovered documents that indicate Wright is about to move to a 10,340-square-foot, four-bedroom home in suburban Chicago, currently under construction in a gated community.

While it is not uncommon for an accomplished clergyman to live in luxury, Wright’s retirement residence is raising some questions.

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...documents obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds, Wright purchased two empty lots in Tinley Park, Ill., from Chicago restaurant chain owner Kenny Lewis for $345,000 in 2004.

Documents show Wright sold the property to his church, Trinity United, in December 2006, with the proceeds going to a living trust shared with his wife, Ramah.

The sale price for the land was just under $308,000, about $40,000 less than Wright’s original purchase two years earlier.

Public records of the sale show Trinity initially obtained a $10 million bank loan to purchase the property and build a new house on the land.

But further investigation with tax and real estate attorneys showed that the church had actually secured a $1.6 million mortgage for the home purchase, and attached a $10 million line of credit, for reasons unspecified in the paperwork.

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Because churches are classified as private businesses, Trinity isn’t required to reveal its intended use for the line of credit. Nor, because it’s a non-profit entity, is it required to provide that information to the IRS.

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Wright did not respond to repeated calls for comment, and Trinity United refused to discuss the specifics of the home it is building for him and the way the deal was financed.

The 2006 return also show a charitable deduction for a $13,000 donation to the Congressional Black Caucus. It is illegal to deduct political contributions as charitable contributions. The campaign said Mr. Obama had filed an amended return to eliminate that item as a deduction.

In a 34-page 1997 federal tax return, Vice President Al Gore and wife Tipper reported giving $353 to charity, an amount much lower than donations the family has made in previous tax cycles.

That figure is less than one-tenth the typical contribution amount for someone with the Gores' adjusted gross income of $197,729. That fact has caused some bewilderment in philanthropic circles because of the vice president's "good guy" image as an advocate for public service and social causes, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

[Chelsea Clinton] was ready with a quick reply today in Indianapolis when asked if her mother's credibility had been injured by the sexual relationship that the former president had with the former White House intern, Lewinsky, in the White House.

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"And I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said.

Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

At the time, the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq.

The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators "have no information whatsoever" any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

"Obviously, we didn't know it at the time," McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said Wednesday. "The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That's the only reason we went."

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent, according to tax returns for those years released today by his campaign.

Senator Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, sharply increased their charitable donations as Mr. Obama began to run for president and the family’s income increased from book sales, according to tax returns that the couple released on Tuesday.

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The Obamas’ returns are striking on a number of levels. They show that the couple made very few charitable contributions, sometimes less than 1 percent of taxable income, until Mr. Obama began his run for the White House.

In 2004, before Mr. Obama entered the Senate, he and his wife gave $2,500 to charity, 1.2 percent of the taxable income. The next year, the donations jumped, to $77,315, or nearly 5 percent of the taxable income.

“Their charitable giving only went up when it looked like he was campaigning for the presidential office,” said Paul L. Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and editor of the TaxProf Blog, which examines tax questions and has posted the returns.

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

I found numerous problems with Kerry's records on his website in my own reporting for the Chicago Sun-Times: a Silver Star with a V for valor listed that the Navy stated it had never awarded in the history of the US Navy, three separate medal citations with some heavy revisions in Kerry's favor signed by former Navy Secretary John Lehman who denied ever signing them, to name two.

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Kerry had written the Bay Hap after action report, by which he received his bronze star and the third purple heart that was his ticket out of Vietnam, the evidence showed that it was indeed probably written by Kerry himself.

Kerry told [historian Douglas] Brinkley personally that he was a "no-show" at a national meeting of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Kansas City which voted on a resolution to assassinate six US Senators supporting the Vietnam War in 1971.

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[Later, Kerry] pressured several of the witnesses who confirmed his presence at Kansas City to change their stories.

The ritual of dipping the American flag before the altar at the Naval Academy Chapel has come under fire, and one group plans to ask a federal court to put an end to the practice.

In the only known ritual of its kind in the Navy, the color guard at the Naval Academy Chapel dips the American flag and the academy flag when they are carried before the altar cross during the 11 a.m. Sunday Protestant service.

Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, who became academy superintendent in June, considered the ritual to be inappropriate and stopped it in October.

He reinstated it last month after some churchgoers complained.

Now, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group established to protect religious freedom in the military, plans to ask a federal court to ban the practice.

"Fowler had the chance to do something great and instead he did something of monumental cowardice," Mikey Weinstein, president of the New Mexico-based foundation, said yesterday.

Mr. Weinstein described himself as a conservative Republican attorney who thinks church and state should remain separate. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1977 and worked for H. Ross Perot and President Ronald Reagan, he said. His father graduated from the Naval Academy.

Mr. Weinstein said he received complaints about the Naval Academy ritual from "members of the Brigade of Midshipmen and the staff," who also complained of being pressured by religious fundamentalists at the academy.

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"There has been a tradition of parading and dipping the national ensign and Brigade (of Midshipmen) flag by midshipmen during the 11:00 Sunday Protestant services at the United States Naval Academy for about 40 years," Cmdr. Austin said in an e-mail.

The flag-dipping ritual is carried out "only when midshipmen are present during the school year," Cmdr. Austin said.

"The tradition is not a part of any other religious service at the academy, and to the best of our knowledge, the tradition doesn't exist anywhere else in the Navy," Cmdr. Austin said in the e-mail.

Hollywood star Richard Widmark has died at the age of 93 after a long illness, his wife has announced.

The prolific actor, who often portrayed killers and gunslingers, made a memorable big-screen debut in 1947 as a giggling psychopath in Kiss of Death.

He went on to star in such 50s classics as Night and the City, Pickup on South Street and the western Broken Lance.

The craggy-faced actor died at his home in Connecticut on Monday, according to his wife Susan Blanchard.

His last film role came in the 1991 thriller True Colors, although he made occasional appearances afterwards in TV documentaries.

"I now find the whole moviemaking process irritating," he said in 1987. "I don't have the patience anymore."

Born in Minnesota in 1914, Widmark began his career in radio and theatre before playing cackling killer Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death.

The film landed him an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe award for best newcomer - but he was not entirely enamoured with fame.

"That damned laugh of mine!" he said in 1961. "For two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile.

"I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny and the part I played made me laugh."

In New Hampshire last November, [Barack] Obama told a gathering of rural voters that his wife worries about urban handgun violence but realized while driving in Iowa that she might want a gun for protection if she lived in a rural area.

Michelle worries about violent urban crime, but doesn't feel the need to own a handgun in the city. Rather, she'd want one if she lived in a rural area. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, violent crimes are 50 percent more likely in urban areas than in suburban or rural communities. You're clearly much safer--all things being equal--out in the country than you are in Chicago.

"I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.

"I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice...people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there." (1)

"President George Bush had the courage and the vision...and we will always be grateful to President George Bush for that tremendous leadership and statesmanship." (2)

"President [George W.] Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt." (3)

This person also voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. This person voted for George H.W. Bush in 1988. (4)

This person also said that had they been a member of Congress, they would have cast their vote approving the War in Iraq. (5)

Maybe this this is a CONSPIRACY put into play by Obamaniacs themselves to make it look like it was done by his opponents. I wouldn't put anything past Obama operatives. What better way to cover one's conspiracy tracks than to include your own passport in the snooping breach?

The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday.

John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.

Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month.

The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

...if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, how will his promise of a new and less polarized type of politics fare against the Republican attacks that since the 1980s have portrayed Democrats as far out of step with the country's values?

Obama, in an interview, said that "a lot of these old labels don't apply anymore."

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"...I'm more likely to fall left of center than right of center," [said Obama].

Kwame Kilpatrick, 37, who says he will fight the charges, could face up to 15 years in jail if convicted.

He was charged after sexually explicit text messages surfaced that appeared to contradict his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide in 2002.

The aide, Christine Beatty, also faces charges of perjury and obstruction.

Mayor Kilpatrick is being investigated over claims he lied under oath last year when he said he had not engaged in a physical relationship Ms Beatty, his chief-of-staff.

Ms Beatty, 37, who had also denied under oath she had a romance with the mayor, announced her resignation in January.

Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced on Monday that he had authorised a 12-count criminal indictment.