Barry As President: Reducing The Sentence For Murderers Of America's Soldiers

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — A military jury on Sunday gave teen terrorist Omar Khadr a 40-year prison sentence for killing an American commando in Afghanistan, but the sentence was merely symbolic — the United States already had agreed to limit Khadr's prison time to eight years, and Canada last week said it would allow Khadr to serve the bulk of his sentence there.

Canada had been cagey in public about its agreement to the deal, under which Khadr pleaded guilty to war crimes. But the military judge at Khadr's trial on Sunday released an exchange of diplomatic notes between the U.S. and Canadian governments that included Canada's assertion that it "is inclined to favourably consider Mr. Khadr's application to be transferred to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence'' or whichever portion Canada's National Parole Board decides is required.

The note was signed by the Canadian Embassy on Oct. 23, with no name attached.

That agreement will allow Khadr to be released from prison by age 32, if not earlier under Canadian parole provisions.

Khadr, 24, looked straight ahead when the jury foreman announced the 40-year sentence. The widow of his victim, Tabitha Speer, 40, cheered "yes," and then wept.

"He will forever be a murderer my eyes,'' Speer said.

The 40-year sentence, even though it will never be enforced, provided a sense of finality, she said -- along with assurances that Khadr would never be allowed to enter the United States or ride on an airplane.

The seven-officer jury was unaware that Khadr's sentence had already been set before they began deliberating Saturday.

Jurors were told only that Guantánamo's youngest captive had pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including hurling the grenade that mortally wounded Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, during a July 2002 assault on an al Qaeda compound. Khadr was 15.

The prosecution sought a 25-year sentence. Defense lawyers recommended repatriation.

In a rebuke, the jury said he should be imprisoned until age 64.

The Toronto-born Khadr also admitted that, in the days ahead of his capture, he planted mines intended to maim or kill U.S. and allied forces. He was captured near dead, treated by U.S. forces and sent to Guantánamo soon after his 16th birthday.

The Pentagon's Chief War Crimes Prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said he made the eight-year plea deal with Khadr to secure the certainty of a conviction for the victims of the so-called "child-soldier.''

He cited Khadr's youth at the time of the crime, calling him a "minor.''

"I hope he will be rehabilitated in the future,'' said Murphy.

Khadr's military judge, Army Col. Patrick Parrish, made the plea agreement public moments after the jury was led from the hilltop tribunal chamber on Sunday at about 5 p.m.

The jury deliberated for five hours Saturday, broke for the night, and resumed Sunday afternoon after church services at Guantánamo. While they deliberated, a guard raised and then lowered a flag belonging to an unidentified family member of one of Khadr's victims, a traditional military souvenir from a historic place or time.

Khadr, raised in a militant Muslim family between a suburb of Toronto and Afghanistan, is Guantánamo's last Western-born detainee among the 174 held here. Critics had said he should have been afforded the protections of "child soldier'' and given rehabilitation rather than spend a third of his life at Guantánamo.

Former Army Sgt. Layne Morris, who lost an eye in the firefight that captured Khadr, said he was concerned that an eight-year sentence put the Canadian "on frankly the fast-track to freedom'' and "the prime of his life.' '

Khadr's Canadian attorney, Dennis Edney, lambasted the military commissions process, which has so far yielded five convictions, three through plea bargain.

"We may choose to believe that through his plea Omar finally came clean and accepted his involvement in a firefight when he was 15 years of age,'' he said, "or that this was one final coerced confession from a victimized young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time because his father placed him there.''

As a convicted war criminal, Khadr was to be moved Sunday night to a single cell in a maximum security lockup where the prison camp staff segregates its convicts.

He had spent the last two years in Guantánamo's most relaxed camp, sleeping at night in a bunkhouse with four other captives and by day praying and dining with at least a dozen at a time.

The Pentagon's Chief Defense Counsel, Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, said Khadr's coming harsh conditions are "outweighed by the fact that he knows he's going home.''

"There's closure here today,'' the Marine said, adding that Khadr's 40-year jury sentence "was hard for our team to swallow.''

All the jurors refused through a Pentagon spokeswoman to speak to the 19 members of the news media on the base for more than a week to report the story.

Amnesty International Canada's secretary general called the sentence the latest ``fiasco'' in the Khadr case.

"It comes as no surprise that the sentencing phase and this stunningly punitive jury decision has so starkly highlighted the injustices of this process,'' said Alex Neve, who had been a war court observer. (source)

Barry As President: To The Homeless: "Let Them Eat Cake"

A man gets on his knees next to a car carrying U.S. President Barack Obama as he pulls away from Valois restaurant in Chicago, October 31, 2010.

Christians Massacred In Iraq: The Anti-Christian Legacy Obama Leaves Behind

BAGHDAD – Iraq's dwindling Christian community was grieving and afraid on Monday after militants seized a Baghdad church during evening Mass, held the congregation hostage and triggered a raid by Iraqi security forces. The bloodbath left at least 58 people killed and 78 wounded — nearly everyone inside.

The attack, claimed by an al-Qaida-linked organization, was the deadliest ever recorded against Iraq's Christians, whose numbers have plummeted since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion as the community has fled to other countries.

Outside Our Lady of Deliverance church, Raed Hadi leaned against the car carrying his cousin's coffin, waiting for the police to let him bury him on church grounds.

"It was a massacre in there and now they are cleaning it up," he said Monday morning. "We Christians don't have enough protection. ... What shall I do now? Leave and ask for asylum?"

"Now they make a show," said Jamal Jaju, who watched as Iraqi forces set up a chain link fence around the church and pushed back observers. "What can I say? I lost at least 20 friends in there."

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the assault as "ferocious" and called for renewed international efforts to broker peace in the region.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also condemned the siege, saying it was an attempt to drive more Christians out of the country.

Islamic militants have systematically attacked Christians in Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. Catholics made up 2.89 percent of Iraq's population in 1980; by 2008 they were merely 0.89 percent.

Sunday's bloodbath began at dusk, when a car bomb went off in the area and then militants wearing suicide vests and armed with grenades attacked the Iraqi stock exchange.

The car bombing and the attack on the stock exchange, in which only two guards were injured, may have been an attempt by the militants to divert attention from their real target — the nearby church in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood.

That attack soon followed. The gunmen went inside the church and took about 120 Christians hostage.

At least 58 people were killed, including 12 policemen as well as five bystanders thought to have been killed by the car bombing and blasts outside the church before the attackers stormed inside. Forty-one Christians inside the church also died, including two priests.

It was unclear whether most hostages died before or during the rescue.

An Iraqi official who was on the scene as the hostage drama unfolded said he talked on a cell phone with one of the hostages during the siege. He said the hostage described how insurgents began shooting wildly when they went into the church and said he could see about 40 wounded people lying around him on the floor.

The Iraqi official said he then spoke on the phone to one of the militants. During the four-minute conversation, the militant demanded that Iraqi authorities release its al-Qaida prisoners and stressed that all female prisoners should be released immediately. The official said he judged by the militant's accent and speech that he was not Iraqi.

When Iraqi special forces joined police and other officials already on the scene, they heard gunshots and decided to enter the church "to prevent the further loss of innocent lives," said Lt. Col. Terry L. Conder, a spokesman for U.S. special forces.

When the Iraqis stormed the building, the militants were shooting at the hostages, the Iraqi official said.

According to two security officials, most of the deaths took place in the basement where a gunman killed about 30 hostages when Iraqi forces began to storm the building. One official said the gunman set off an explosives vest he was wearing, but the other said the gunman threw two grenades at his hostages.

The security officials and the other Iraqi official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

Video footage from an American drone showed a black plume of smoke pouring out of the church followed by flashes before security forces charged inside. U.S. forces often supply air support to Iraqi forces conducting operations on the ground, feeding them video footage from their aircraft.

Conder said Iraqi forces rescued 70 hostages, and Baghdad military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said they arrested five suspects, some of whom were not Iraqi.

Others, however, questioned whether the raid was wise.

Younadem Kana, a Christian member of the Iraqi parliament, condemned the operation as "hasty" and "not professional."

"We have no clear picture yet whether the worshippers were killed by the security forces' bullets or by terrorists, but what we know is that most of them were killed when the security forces started to storm the church," Kana said.

About 4 1/4 hours passed between the car bombing and the end of the siege shortly after 10 p.m., said an American military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

A cryptically worded statement posted late Sunday on a militant website allegedly by the Islamic State of Iraq appeared to claim responsibility for the attack.

The group, which is linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, said it would "exterminate Iraqi Christians" if Muslim women in Egypt were not freed.

It specifically mentioned two women that extremists maintain have converted to Islam and are being held against their will in Egypt.

The two are wives of priests. Some believe they converted to Islam to leave their husbands since divorce is banned by Egypt's Coptic Church. One woman disappeared in 2004 and the other this past July.

Egypt's Christians had originally maintained they were kidnapped and staged rallies for their release. In both cases, police subsequently recovered the two women, who denied they had converted. They were then spirited away to distant monasteries.

Iraqi authorities on Monday took extra measures to protect Christian neighborhoods and churches in Mosul, Kirkuk and Baghdad. Additional police cars and checkpoints were seen near many churches, and authorities were conducting extensive searches on cars and pedestrians heading to churches.

"This is more than a tragedy," said Iraq's Human Rights minister, Wijdan Mikheil, who is a Christian. (source)

Democrat Racism: Throw The Black Man Overboard To Sink The Hispanic Man

Former President Bill Clinton tried to persuade Florida Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of his U.S. Senate race and support Gov. Charlie Crist's independent candidacy in hopes of thwarting a victory by Republican Marco Rubio.

People familiar with the matter said the former president and other top national Democrats worry a win by the charismatic Mr. Rubio, a 39-year-old Cuban-American, would make him a political phenomenon capable of boosting the GOP's chances with Hispanic voters. These people said the conversation occurred during Mr. Clinton's Florida visit on Oct. 19. Mr. Meek wavered for several days—suggesting to some that he could leave the race—but decided against it.

"They had a conversation about the fact that the prospects of him winning had passed him by and that the only way the Republican would be defeated is to jump on board with Crist," said a Florida Democrat familiar with the discussion.

The conversation was reported Thursday evening by Politico.

Meek campaign spokesman Adam Sharon said he didn't know if Mr. Clinton asked Mr. Meek to drop out of the race. "They talked, they've been talking about this race all the time," Mr. Sharon said.

But in a written statement, Meek campaign manager Abe Dyk said Mr. Meek "was never dropping out of this race, is never dropping out of this race, and will never drop out of this race."

Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna confirmed the conversation took place.

Three people familiar with the discussion said Mr. Meek came very close to dropping out. The talk with Mr. Clinton occurred after days of shuttle diplomacy by Clinton counselor Doug Band, who acted as an intermediary between the Crist and Meek camps. The people familiar with the matter said the White House, which has publicly backed Mr. Meek, was aware of the discussion but was not involved. A White House official did not respond to requests for comment late Thursday.

The news of Mr. Clinton's intervention comes as the race appears to be a two-way affair between Messrs. Rubio and Crist, with Mr. Meek dropping far behind. A Quinnipiac poll this week showed Mr. Meek backed by 15% of respondents, while 42% supported Mr. Rubio and 35% backed Mr. Crist.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused Mr. Clinton of wronging black voters in his attempts to coax Mr. Meek out of the race. Mr. Meek, a Miami congressman, is African-American. The intervention would send a "chilling signal to all voters, but especially African Americans," said Mr. Steele, who is black.

Mr. McKenna declined to comment on Mr. Steele's statement. The former president and Mr. Meek are close friends.

Mr. Crist has been trying to build a coalition of Democrats and independent voters, and some Democratic strategists have argued that Mr. Meek's base could put Mr. Crist over the top.

Other Democrats argue Mr. Meek should remain in the race because he may turn out a higher black vote—which would help Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, locked in a tight battle with GOP businessman Rick Scott.

Crist campaign spokesman Danny Kanner called the report "accurate." He said Mr. Crist was focused on "uniting common-sense Democrats, independents, and Republicans behind his campaign because he is the one candidate who can defeat" Mr. Rubio." (source)

NAACP Leader Calls Tea Party Racist But Can't Defend The Claim

How The Left Is Guilty Of Exactly What They Accuse Of Us

Typical of Hollywood elites, Rob Reiner sees things like principles and ethics as constructs to be packaged, manipulated, and focus group tested for mass consumption.

Everything is for sell, you see.

No one can have a genuine love and care for America because Rob doesn't see any reason to love America. He can act like he does, but he's not in love with America. Watch how he defines a multi-million membership of Americans who are in love with their country and want to do something to preserve it:

Now watch as we see the titular head of the Democrat Party actually sell fear and hate:

WikiLeaks: At Least 109,000 Killed During Iraq War

The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks today released a trove of classified reports that it said documented at least 109,000 deaths in the Iraq war, more than the United States previously has acknowledged, as well as what it described as cases of torture and other abuses by Iraqi and coalition forces.

"The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces)," WikiLeaks said in a statement regarding the documents' release. "The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60 percent) of these are civilian deaths. That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six-year period."

The new documents covered 2004 through 2009, WikiLeaks said, with the exception of May 2004 and March 2009.

A review of the documents by Iraq Body Count, an advocacy group that long has monitored civilian casualties in the war, found 15,000 previously unknown civilian deaths, according to WikiLeaks -- a detail first reported in The Guardian newspaper, one of a handful of international news organizations that got an advance look at the documents.

The U.S. military long has maintained that it does not keep an official death tally, but earlier this month following a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon said some 77,000 Iraqis had been killed from 2004 to mid-2008 -- a shorter period than that covered by WikiLeaks.

Besides the different time periods, the New York Times, which also saw the WikiLeaks documents early, noted that "some deaths are reported more than once, and some reports have inconsistent casualty figures."

Al Jazeera, which also got an advance look at the documents, reported a total of 285,000 war casualties on its Arabic-language website, a number that included both dead and wounded. It also reported that the documents said 681 Iraqi civilians were killed at U.S. checkpoints, 180,000 Iraqis were arrested during the war and 15,000 Iraqis were buried without being identified.

The massive leak of 391,832 documents at 5 p.m. ET today, which WikiLeaks billed as "the largest classified military leak in history," followed WikiLeaks' similar but smaller release on the war in Afghanistan.

The new release was anticipated by the Pentagon, which has warned that publicizing the information could endanger U.S. troops. (source)

Barry As President: Always The Uniter, Obama Declares All Americans Who Disagree With Him On Amnesty As "Enemies"

'I WENT TO VOTE AND HARRY REID'S NAME WAS ALREADY CHECKED'

LAS VEGAS -- Some voters in Boulder City complained on Monday that their ballot had been cast before they went to the polls, raising questions about Clark County's electronic voting machines.

Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.

Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen.

"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.

"Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot," Lomax said. "Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in."

At any time, voters can go back on the screen and review their selections. They are also allowed to make changes and encouraged to double-check their ballot on screen and on paper before it is cast.

Lomax said voters need to have faith in the system.

"This election, I think, more than ever," he said. "The two sides are very fractured and each side is suspicious and we're caught in the middle." (source)

Barry As President: Always The Racial Healer, Obama Says That Republicans Are Allowed To Ride, But They Gotta "Sit In The Back"

WOONSOCKET, R.I. – President Barack Obama attacked Republicans with gusto Monday as he plunged into a final week of midterm election campaigning, but his party's prognosis remained darkened by the feeble economy and his itinerary was designed largely to minimize losses.

Nor was his greeting totally friendly in Rhode Island where Obama has pointedly declined to endorse his party's candidate for governor.

Obama can "take his endorsement and shove it," declared Democrat Frank Caprio, battling Republican-turned-independent Lincoln Chafee in a gubernatorial race rated tight in the polls. Chafee endorsed Obama during the 2008 campaign for the White House.

In a little more than five hours in the state, Obama was booked for a factory tour and for a pair of fundraisers that party officials said would bring in $500,000.

He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

Democrats relied on more than the president's time to boost their chances in the final days of the campaign. There was the matter of federal funds, too, in the form of hundreds of millions in grants announced during the day to provide high speed rail service in California, between Chicago and Iowa, and elsewhere. Administration officials left it to Democratic lawmakers to make the announcements, and they did, stressing the job-creating potential of the expansions.

Eight days before the election, the principal uncertainty concerned the size and scope of anticipated Democratic losses in the House, the Senate, governor's races and state legislatures.

An Associated Press-GfK Poll showed that perhaps one-third of all voters have yet to firmly settle on their choices. But that wasn't encouraging for the Democrats, either. Some 45 percent of them prefer the Republican candidate for the House, and 38 percent like the Democrat.

The president arrived as official figures showed more than 6.5 million ballots already have been cast in the 25 states where early voting is permitted or where absentees have been counted, underscoring the importance of get-out-the-vote programs that now begin long before Election Day.

Democrats have invested heavily in such efforts and are counting on them to help tip close races their way in states like Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faces tea party-backed challenger Sharron Angle. Republicans are counting on campaign enthusiasm — polls agree their voters are more eager to cast ballots than Democrats — as well as their own get-out-the-vote efforts.

Even Democrats concede Republicans are poised for significant gains in Congress, and GOP officials are particularly optimistic about their chances for taking control of the House.

Based on opinion polls and the private assessments of strategists in both parties, it appears Republicans have effectively secured about two dozen of the 40 seats they need to win control of the House.

That leaves dozens of seats where races are competitive in the House and a half-dozen or so in the Senate. Republicans also look for statehouse gains.

Obama's choice of Rhode Island for his one-day trip was partially to raise money for Democratic House candidates elsewhere in the country. Officials said the $500,000 would be split between Providence Mayor David Cicilline, who is running for the House, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The state has two House seats, one held by Democratic Rep. James Langevin, an incumbent in no apparent difficulty; the other being vacated by Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy. There, Cicilline is running against Republican John Loughlin in a heavily Democratic state.

The state's unemployment is measured at 11.5 percent, the fourth highest in the country. In his first stop, the president visited a company that makes buckles and straps for outdoor and travel gear, saying he and the Democrats in Congress have cut small business taxes 16 times in 20 months. Republicans "talk a good game" when it comes to tax cuts, he said, but in fact they opposed several bills he labored to get passed.

"It's not enough to just play politics," he said. "You can't focus on the next election. You've got to focus on the next generation."

Caprio called Obama's rebuff "Washington insider politics at its worst." Rhode Island's congressional delegation expressed disapproval about Caprio's remarks, but the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association said the president's decision was disappointing.

"Frank Caprio has spent his career fighting for the values of the Democratic Party. He deserves the full support of our party and its leaders," said executive director Nathan Daschle.

If anything, the White House made it clearer that Caprio will not get Obama's endorsement. "Out of respect for his friend Lincoln Chafee, the president decided not to get involved in this race," said White House spokesman Bill Burton. It was the first time the White House had cited Chafee as the reason for Obama's non-endorsement of a Democrat.

White House aides also arranged for Obama to tour a factory as part of a campaign-long effort to showcase efforts by his administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress to assist small businesses. In a conference call to reporters on Sunday night, they said American Cord & Webbing had been able to hire back all of the employees laid off last year and was planning on hiring more. They said the company won approval from the Small Business Administration last month for a loan to make possible an expansion of the facility.

Coast to coast, the multimillion-dollar ad war continued unabated.

The Republican Senate campaign committee announced it would put $3 million into a final-week fleet of ads designed to help Carly Fiorina defeat Sen. Barbara Boxer in a California race that is close in the polls.

Democrats hastened to Reid's side in Nevada. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., became the latest lawmaker to send out an urgent e-mail fundraising appeal for the top Democrat.

It said the same wealthy Texans who attacked his Vietnam War record during the 2004 presidential campaign were now aiming at Reid. "These guys will say anything and spend anything to get what they want," Kerry wrote.

Obama was returning to the White House for a few days before resuming campaigning at week's end. His itinerary then will include Bridgeport, Conn., where party officials are hoping he can mobilize African-Americans whose votes are needed in races for the Senate and governor, as well as a re-election bid by Democratic Rep. Jim Himes.

Obama also will campaign in Pennsylvania, where polls show Rep. Joe Sestak in a close race with Republican Pat Toomey — for a Senate seat that Democrats currently hold. Similarly, there are numerous Democratic-held House seats in the state that Obama is working to hold.

Later stops are in Ohio, where Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland is struggling to win a new term against Republican challenger John Kasich, and the president's home state of Illinois, where polls show both a Senate seat and the governor's office are in danger of falling to the Republicans. (source)