Guest guest Posted April 5, 2011 Report Share Posted April 5, 2011 Wednesday, April 06, 2011 President Obama's Top 5 Broken Campaign Promises STEPHEN C. WEBSTER - The Raw Story I voted for Obama; I campaigned for Obama, but the truth is I feel bamboozled. God knows he is better than the alternative on the right -- try thinking about Mike Huckabee or Bachmann as President. But what I see happening on the Democratic side is not what I signed up for, what I worked for. President Barack Obama came to office on a tide of voters eager to see a change in more than just the White House's occupant. Two years into his presidency -- and one day after he launched his 2012 reelection campaign -- and even some of his most ardent supporters are having trouble coming to terms with the answer to Palin's 2010 question: "How's that hopey, changey stuff working out?"Polls show that less than half the country believes President Obama deserves reelection, with disaffected liberals now a fast growing demographic.Even though Obama clearly leads all of the likely Republican front-runners at this point, the deep dissatisfaction brewing within his core constituency could make the president, and his whole party, uniquely vulnerable in next year's elections.Below are five of the biggest campaign pledges Obama failed to keep -- for which he'll likely have to answer before election day 2012.-----1. Health care for allIf you're an American making less than $30,000 a year, chances are you still have trouble seeing a doctor, despite the passage of President Obama's health care reform plan. In 2007, then-Senator Obama said he wanted to make sure no American is without access to vital medical attention and proposed using revenues from the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts to fund it. When the campaign laid out their specific plans in 2008, they included a "public option" that would be paid for by the public at large and made available to anyone who could not obtain coverage through their employer or other public program.Ultimately, the debate in Washington became so heated and rife with disinformation that the administration and its allies in Congress agreed to forgo the public option, using it as a bargaining chip to ensure other proposals, like ending the "pre-existing condition" exclusion in private insurance policies, were passed in the final bill. They also gave in to Republican demands and extended the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, promising to take on the issue again in 2012. In spite of the modest legislative victory of actually getting health reform passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that even after all the elements take effect in 2014, over 22 million Americans will still lack access to basic health services.2. Close GuantanamoAs a symbol of everything that liberals thought to be wrong with the Bush-era, closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba should have been an easy target for the new and popular president and his Democratic super-majority in Congress -- and, in fact, then-candidate Obama promised to do just that. But as he soon found out, strategic and political calculations have made it almost impossible to shuck.Today, Obama has turned away from his promise to close the facility and embraced the controversial terror war symbol, ordering the resumption of military tribunals and even moving the accused 9/11 plotters' trial from a civilian court in New York City to the secret military court at Guantanamo.3. Defend labor rights"Understand this," Obama said during a campaign rally in 2007. "If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America." (Watch.)Despite efforts by state-level Republicans in Wisconsin, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, Maine, Florida and Indiana to curtail collective bargaining rights, the President has yet to appear at a single protest or picket line.4. Reform the Patriot ActContrary to popular belief, Obama has never actually argued for a repeal of the Bush administration's sweeping, post-9/11 security initiatives, which were passed with a mandatory "sunset" clause to overrule the concerns of civil libertarians at the time. Instead, Obama has consistently said he favors enhanced judicial oversight and a pullback from some warrantless searches -- like the provisions that allow the FBI to access library records without a warrant.But every time the emergency laws have been due to expire, President Obama has pushed to extend them without any reforms. Most recently, the administration sought an extension of the Patriot Act that was even longer than the one Republicans wanted. They gave it to him and continued the sweeping spy powers through 2013, ensuring that the next extension doesn't become an election year issue.5. End the warsEven as a candidate, Obama maintained that Afghanistan should be "the focus" of Bush's terror war, and he pledged to make it so. But the president was also swept into power on a wave of anti-war fervor behind his calls to end the occupation of Iraq. Iraq has calmed down quite a bit as U.S. troops steadily stream out of the country, but Afghanistan is more violent than ever amid Obama's own "surge."Even though the president promised his Afghan occupation would conclude in July 2011, military officials have admitted that sometime in 2014 is more likely. Elsewhere, American forces are dropping more bombs on more countries today than at any point during the Bush administration, with continued occupation forces in two massive countries even as they stage aerial bombardments of Pakistan, Libya and Yemen. Post Comment » The Religious Right's Anti-Union Crusade JOSH HARKINSON, Staff Reporter - Mother The Founders would be appalled at the linkage of right wing politics and Christian fundamentalism. Historians will study for generations how the sheeple became convinced, largely through manipulation and disinformation provided by their religious institutions, to vote and work against their own self-interest. Wisconsin's ongoing labor battle has officially become a holy war. The Family Research Council, the evangelical advocacy organization founded by Dobson, has been dipping into its war chest to defend Republican Governor 's efforts to curtail collective bargaining for public-sector unions. FRC president Tony Perkins interviewed backers of 's anti-union bill on his weekly radio program and has tweeted his support for the bill, directly linking social conservatism with an anti-union, pro-business agenda: "Pro-family voters should celebrate WI victory b/c public & private sector union bosses have marched lock-step w/liberal social agenda."The FRC's new political action committee, the Faith, Family, Freedom Fund, is airing ads on 34 Wisconsin radio stations in an effort to influence the April 5 judicial election that could ultimately decide the fate of the law. The ads target Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who's running against a conservative incumbent, Prosser, for a seat on the state Supreme Court. If elected, Kloppenburg would alter the balance on the court in favor of Democrats, giving them the ability to invalidate the recently enacted ban on public-employee collective bargaining. "Liberals see her as their best hope to advance their political agenda and strike down laws passed by a legislature and governor elected by the people," say the ads. "A vote for Prosser is a vote to keep politics out of the Supreme Court."The FRC's anti-labor campaign in Wisconsin is part of its larger agenda to meld fiscal conservatism with its family-values message. Its recent priorities have included fighting health care reform, new taxes on the wealthy, and President Obama's budget proposals. In recent weeks, Perkins has used his radio show to hash through small-government talking points with House Majority Leader Rep. Cantor (R-Va.), Tea Party caucus head Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who told him, "The bigger government gets, the smaller God gets." After exploring the value of union busting with Republican state Representative Robin Vos of Wisconsin last month, Perkins expressed "our thanks to you, as conservatives across the country."Perkins typically doesn't discuss the Biblical justifications for his ideas. (FRC did not return calls from Mother .) However, some of the speakers at the "FRC University" online lecture series provide a clearer idea of the Biblical justifications for opposing limits on corporations and the wealthy. One recent speaker was Jay s, who edits a magazine published by the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank that the FRC describes as its "sister organization." His book, Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, is a free-market treatise aimed at the faithful. In his talk he maintains that the sanctity of private property is the preeminent Christian value: "You might call it an idea being made in the image of God." "You get these funny quotes about people saying, well, 'Jesus was the first socialist,'" s explained. "If you read the Bible, this idea of private property is everywhere presupposed. There is not a 'Thou shalt believe in private property' sort of verse anywhere, but it's so fundamental that it's presupposed in two of the Ten Commandments. 'Thou shalt not steal' assumes that people have property that is legitimate and that should not be taken."Another recent FRC lecturer offered a related interpretation of the Bible's calls for social justice. "Christ does not necessarily condemn the rich per se," said Mark Caleb , the director of the Center for Political Studies at Cedarville University. But, he added, the good book does at times condemn the poor: "The Old Testament, especially in the Book of Proverbs, ascribes poverty to oppression, but also to other things like laziness, the love of sleep, the love of pleasure, the love of food, the love of wine. And so even Proverbs says, you know, sometimes you may be poor because of your behavior.""Government-imposed social justice is unjust," concluded, adding that Christians who support that notion are heretical and un-American. "For the Christian left, America is part of the problem. The American system of capitalism is part of the problem. They seek a fundamental reconstruction."This strain of private-property-centric Christianity has deep roots within America's fundamentalist movement. For an excellent rundown of that history, check out Montgomery's recent article in Religion Dispatches, "Jesus Hates Taxes." Among other things, Montgomery highlights an early Christian Coalition manual that interprets a New Testament passage in support of slavery to conclude that "Christians have a responsibility to submit to the authority of their employers, since they are designated as part of God's plan for the exercise of authority on the earth by man."Of course, exegetical disputes with liberal Christians aren't the only reasons why FRC opposes labor unions. Not only do unions' economic principles put them at odds with evangelicals, so do their social values. A recent press release from Dobson's Focus On The Family, which was once conjoined with the FRC, complains that most political donations from labor unions go to Democrats and liberal social causes. "Over the past several election cycles, unions and their members contributed millions to fight against core American values-especially on issues of life, religious freedom and marriage." Still, explains a spokeswoman, "There are many good, hard-working Americans who are union members, but they would do well to consider whether union support of same-sex marriage and the taxpayer funding of abortion in government health care represents their interests." Post Comment » Most Americans say US Nuclear Plants Safe - Poll Reuters ly this amazes me, but SR publishes data, and this is data. WASHINGTON -- Fifty-eight percent of Americans think U.S. nuclear power plants are safe, while the public remains split over the need for more plants following Japan's nuclear crisis, a Gallup poll showed on Monday.The March 25-27 survey of 1,027 U.S. adults found public confidence in nuclear safety relatively unchanged since 2009, when a Gallup poll said 56 percent of Americans believed U.S. plants were safe.In the new poll, 58 percent said U.S. nuclear power plants are safe, 36 percent said not safe and 6 percent had no opinion.The survey showed a slight uptick in concern that the dangers of nuclear power are too great to justify construction of more nuclear plants in the United States.Forty-eight percent of respondents said the dangers are too great, compared with 46 percent who believe more U.S. nuclear plants are necessary.A Gallup poll conducted in early 2001 found 49 percent in favor of nuclear expansion and 46 percent against it.President Barack Obama on March 17 requested a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear power facilities, maintaining his support for nuclear energy while seeking to apply lessons from the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant stricken by an earthquake and tsunami. [iD:nN23289101]Nuclear energy supplies about 20 percent of U.S. electricity. Post Comment » Is This the First Ever Portrait of Jesus? The Incredible Story of 70 Ancient Books Hidden in a Cave NICK PRYER - Mail (U.K.) The image is eerily familiar: a bearded young man with flowing curly hair. After lying for nearly 2,000 years hidden in a cave in the Holy Land, the fine detail is difficult to determine. But in a certain light it is not difficult to interpret the marks around the figure's brow as a crown of thorns.The extraordinary picture of one of the recently discovered hoard of up to 70 lead codices – booklets – found in a cave in the hills overlooking the Sea of Galilee is one reason Bible historians are clamouring to get their hands on the ancient artefacts.If genuine, this could be the first-ever portrait of Jesus Christ, possibly even created in the lifetime of those who knew him.The tiny booklet, a little smaller than a modern credit card, is sealed on all sides and has a three-dimensional representation of a human head on both the front and the back. One appears to have a beard and the other is without. Even the maker's fingerprint can be seen in the lead impression. Beneath both figures is a line of as-yet undeciphered text in an ancient Hebrew script.Astonishingly, one of the booklets appears to bear the words `Saviour of Israel' – one of the few phrases so far translated.The owner of the cache is Bedouin trucker Hassan Saida who lives in the Arab village of Umm al-Ghanim, Shibli. He has refused to sell the booklets but two samples were sent to England and Switzerland for testing.A Mail on Sunday investigation has revealed that the artefacts were originally found in a cave in the village of Saham in Jordan, close to where Israel, Jordan and Syria's Golan Heights converge – and within three miles of the Israeli spa and hot springs of Hamat Gader, a religious site for thousands of years.According to sources in Saham, they were discovered five years ago after a flash flood scoured away the dusty mountain soil to reveal what looked like a large capstone. When this was levered aside, a cave was discovered with a large number of small niches set into the walls. Each of these niches contained a booklet. There were also other objects, including some metal plates and rolled lead scrolls.The area is renowned as an age-old refuge for ancient Jews fleeing the bloody aftermath of a series of revolts against the Roman empire in the First and early Second Century AD.The cave is less than 100 miles from Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and around 60 miles from Masada, scene of the last stand and mass suicide of an extremist Zealot sect in the face of a Roman Army siege in 72AD – two years after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.It is also close to caves that have been used as sanctuaries by refugees from the Bar Kokhba revolt, the third and final Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire in 132AD.The era is of critical importance to Biblical scholars because it encompasses the political, social and religious upheavals that led to the split between Judaism and Christianity.It ended with the triumph of Christianity over its rivals as the dominant new religion first for dissident Jews and then for Gentiles.In this context, it is important that while the Dead Sea Scrolls are rolled pieces of parchment or papyrus containing the earliest-known versions of books of the Hebrew Bible and other texts – the traditional Jewish format for written work – these lead discoveries are in book, or codex, form which has long been associated with the rise of Christianity.The codices seen by The Mail on Sunday range in size from smaller than 3in x 2in to around 10in x 8in. They each contain an average of eight or nine pages and appear to be cast, rather than inscribed, with images on both sides and bound with lead-ring bindings. Many of them were severely corroded when they were first discovered, although it has been possible to open them with care.The codex showing what may be the face of Christ is not thought to have been opened yet. Some codices show signs of having been buried – although this could simply be the detritus resulting from lying in a cave for hundreds of years.Unlike the Dead Sea Scrolls, the lead codices appear to consist of stylised pictures, rather than text, with a relatively small amount of script that appears to be in a Phoenician language, although the exact dialect is yet to be identified. At the time these codices were created, the Holy Land was populated by different sects, including Essenes, Samaritans, Pharisees, Sadducees, Dositheans and Nazoreans.There was no common script and considerable intermingling of language and writing systems between groups. Which means it could take years of detailed scholarship to accurately interpret the codices.Many of the books are sealed on all sides with metal rings, suggesting they were not intended to be opened. This could be because they contained holy words which should never be read. For example, the early Jews fiercely protected the sacred name of God, which was only ever uttered by The High Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem at Yom Kippur.The original pronunciation has been lost, but has been transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH – known as the Tetragrammaton – and is usually translated either as Yahweh or Jehovah. A sealed book containing sacred information was mentioned in the biblical Book of Revelations.One plate has been interpreted as a schematic map of Christian Jerusalem showing the Roman crosses outside the city walls. At the top can be seen a ladder-type shape. This is thought to be a balustrade mentioned in a biblical description of the Temple in Jerusalem. Below that are three groups of brickwork, to represent the walls of the city.A fruiting palm tree suggests the House of and there are three or four shapes that appear to be horizontal lines intersected by short vertical lines from below. These are the T-shaped crosses believed to have been used in biblical times (the familiar crucifix shape is said to date from the 4th Century). The star shapes in a long line represent the House of – and then the pattern is repeated.This interpretation of the books as proto-Christian artefacts is supported by Margaret Barker, former president of the Society for Old Testament Study and one of Britain's leading experts on early Christianity. The fact that a figure is portrayed would appear to rule out these codices being connected to mainstream Judaism of the time, where portrayal of lifelike figures was strictly forbidden because it was considered idolatry.If genuine, it seems clear that these books were, in fact, created by an early Messianic Jewish sect, perhaps closely allied to the early Christian church and that these images represent Christ himself. However another theory, put forward by Feather – an authority on The Dead Sea Scrolls and author of The Mystery Of The Copper Scroll Of Qumran – is that these books are connected to the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-136AD, the third major rebellion by the Jews of Judea Province and the last of the Jewish-Roman Wars.The revolt established an independent state of Israel over parts of Judea for two years before the Roman army finally crushed it, with the result that all Jews, including the early Christians, were barred from Jerusalem.The followers of Simon Bar Kokhba, the commander of the revolt, acclaimed him as a Messiah, a heroic figure who could restore Israel. Although Jewish Christians hailed Jesus as the Messiah and did not support Bar Kokhba, they were barred from Jerusalem along with the rest of the Jews. The war and its aftermath helped differentiate Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism.The spiritual leader of the revolt was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who laid the foundations for a mystical form of Judaism known today as Kabbalah, which is followed by Madonna, Britney Spears and others. Yochai hid in a cave for 13 years and wrote a secret commentary on the Bible, the Zohar, which evolved into the teaching of Kabbalah. Feather is convinced that some of the text onthe codices carry the name of Rabbi Bar Yochai.Feather says that all known codices prior to around 400AD were made of parchment and that cast lead is unknown. They were clearly designed to exist for ever and never to be opened. The use of metal as a writing material at this time is well documented – however the text was always inscribed, not cast.The books are currently in the possession of Hassan Saida, in Umm al-Ghanim, Shibli, which is at the foot of Mount Tabor, 18 miles west of the Sea of Galilee.Saida owns and operates a haulage business consisting of at least nine large flatbed lorries. He is regarded in his village as a wealthy man. His grandfather settled there more than 50 years ago and his mother and four brothers still live there.Saida, who is in his mid-30s and married with five or six children, claims he inherited the booklets from his grandfather.However, The Mail on Sunday has learned of claims that they first came to light five years ago when his Bedouin business partner met a villager in Jordan who said he had some ancient artefacts to sell.The business partner was apparently shown two very small metal books. He brought them back over the border to Israel and Saida became entranced by them, coming to believe they had magical properties and that it was his fate to collect as many as he could.The arid, mountainous area where they were found is both militarily sensitive and agriculturally poor. The local people have for generations supplemented their income by hoarding and selling archeological artefacts found in caves.More of the booklets were clandestinely smuggled across the border by drivers working for Saida – the smaller ones were typically worn openly as charms hanging from chains around the drivers' necks, the larger concealed behind car and lorry dashboards.In order to finance the purchase of booklets from the Jordanians who had initially discovered them, Saida allegedly went into partnership with a number of other people – including his lawyer from Haifa, Israel.Saida's motives are complex. He constantly studies the booklets, but does not take particularly good care of them, opening some and coating them in olive oil in order to `preserve' them.Masterpiece: Later versions of Christ, including Leonardo Da Vinci's interpretation in his fresco The Last Supper, give Jesus similar characteristicsMasterpiece: Later versions of Christ, including Leonardo Da Vinci's interpretation in his fresco The Last Supper, give Jesus similar characteristicsThe artefacts have been seen by multi-millionaire collectors of antiquities in both Israel and Europe – and Saida has been offered tens of millions of pounds for just a few of them, but has declined to sell any.When he first obtained the booklets, he had no idea what they were or even if they were genuine.He contacted Sotheby's in London in 2007 in an attempt to find an expert opinion, but the famous auction house declined to handle them because their provenance was not known.Soon afterwards, the British author and journalist Nick Fielding was approached by a Palestinian woman who was concerned that the booklets would be sold on the black market. Fielding was asked to approach the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and other places.Fielding travelled to Israel and obtained a letter from the Israeli Antiquities Authority saying it had no objection to their being taken abroad for analysis. It appears the IAA believed the booklets were forgeries on the basis that nothing like them had been discovered before.None of the museums wanted to get involved, again because of concerns over provenance. Fielding was then asked to approach experts to find out what they were and if they were genuine. Feather, who is a metallurgist as well as an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, recommended submitting the samples for metal analysis at Oxford University.The work was carried out by Dr Northover, head of the Materials Science-based Archaeology Group and a world expert on the analysis of ancient metal materials.The samples were then sent to the Swiss National Materials Laboratory at Dubendorf, Switzerland. The results show they were consistent with ancient (Roman) period lead production and that the metal was smelted from ore that originated in the Mediterranean. Dr Northover also said that corrosion on the books was unlikely to be modern.Meanwhile, the politics surrounding the provenance of the books is intensifying. Most professional scholars are cautious pending further research and point to the ongoing forgery trial in Israel over the ancient limestone ossuary purporting to have housed the bones of , brother of Jesus.The Israeli archeological establishment has sought to defuse problems of provenance by casting doubt on the authenticity of the codices, but Jordan says it will `exert all efforts at every level' to get the relics repatriated.The debate over whether these booklets are genuine and, if so, whether they represent the first known artefacts of the early Christian church or the first stirrings of mystical Kabbalah will undoubtedly rage for years to come.The director of Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, has few doubts. He believes they may indeed have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.`They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls,' he says. `The initial information is very encouraging and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery – maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology.'If he is right, then we really may be gazing at the face of Jesus Christ. Post Comment » The SchwartzReport is a daily publication provided free of charge by schwartzreport.netPortions Copyright 2001 - 2011 by Nemoseen Media Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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