Obama General Discussion II

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Status
Not open for further replies.
By Alan Fram
Associated Press Writer / August 19, 2010


WASHINGTON—Americans increasingly are convinced -- incorrectly -- that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a growing number are thoroughly confused about his religion.

Nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009, according to a poll released Thursday. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is down to just 34 percent.

The largest share of people, 43 percent, said they don't know his religion, an increase from the 34 percent who said that in early 2009.

The survey, conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, is based on interviews conducted before the controversy over whether Muslims should be permitted to construct a mosque near the World Trade Center site. Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center there, though he's also said he won't take a position on whether they should actually build it.

In a separate poll by Time magazine/ABT SRBI conducted Monday and Tuesday -- after Obama's comments about the mosque -- 24 percent said they think he is Muslim, 47 percent said they think he is Christian and 24 percent didn't know or didn't respond.

In addition, 61 percent opposed building the Muslim center near the Trade Center site and 26 percent said they favor it.

The Pew poll found that about three in 10 of Obama's fiercest political rivals, Republicans and conservatives, say he is a Muslim. That is up significantly from last year and far higher than the share of Democrats and liberals who say so. But even among his supporters, the number saying he is a Christian has fallen since 2009, with just 43 percent of blacks and 46 percent of Democrats saying he is Christian.

Among independents, 18 percent say Obama is Muslim -- up from 10 percent last year.

Pew analysts attribute the findings to attacks by his opponents and Obama's limited attendance at religious services, particularly in contrast with Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, whose worship was more public.

Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center's director, said the confusion partly reflects "the intensification of negative views about Obama among his critics." Alan Cooperman, the Pew Forum's associate director for research, said that with the public hearing little about Obama's religion, "maybe there's more possibility for other people to make suggestions that the president is this or he's really that or he's really a Muslim."

Obama is the Christian son of a Kenyan Muslim father and a Kansas mother. From age 6 to 10, Obama lived in predominantly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. His full name, Barack Hussein Obama, sounds Muslim to many.

White House officials did not provide on-the-record comments on the survey, but they prompted Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston to call The Associated Press.

Caldwell, who said he has known Obama for years, said the president is a Christian who prays every day. He said he was not sure where the public confusion about the president's religion came from, but he called false media reports about it "a 24-hour noise box committed to presenting the president in a false light."

Six in 10 of those saying Obama is a Muslim said they got the information from the media, with the largest portion -- 16 percent -- saying it was on television. Eleven percent said they learned it from Obama's behavior and words.

Despite the confusion about Obama's religion, there is noteworthy support for how he uses it to make decisions. Nearly half, or 48 percent, said he relies on his religion the right amount when making policy choices, 21 percent said he uses it too little and 11 percent too much.

At the same time, the poll provides broad indications that the public feels religion is playing a diminished role in politics today, with fewer people than in 2008 saying the Democratic and Republican parties are friendly toward religion.

With elections for control of Congress just over two months away, the poll contains optimistic news for Republicans. Half of white non-Hispanic Catholics, plus three in 10 unaffiliated with a religion and a third of Jews, support the GOP -- all up since 2008.

The survey also found:

--The Democratic Party is seen as friendly to religion by 26 percent, while 43 percent say the same about the GOP. That's a 9 percentage point drop for Republicans since 2008, and 12 points lower for Democrats.

--Fifty-two percent say churches should stay away from politics, a reversal of the slim majorities that supported churches' political involvement from 1996 to 2006.

The poll, overseen by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, involved landline and cell phone interviews with 3,003 randomly chosen adults. It was conducted July 21-Aug. 5 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

------

Online:

Pew Research Center: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
 
:rolleyes: :banghead: That's really depressing, that article about people's misconceptions. I'm confused, though-if people seem to think he is a Muslim, but still agree overall that he's used his faith the proper amount when making decisions, then...why is his religious preference an issue again? The majority seem to think he's not shoving it in anyone's faces, so why do we care?

I'd like to think the topic of soldiers leaving Iraq will matter in November, but after reading that article and seeing the inane scare tactic crap the Republicans are coming up with, I'm not so sure. We'd need the Democrats to trumpet that story and others, and I don't know how convincing they'll be.

*Sighs* It's such a mess.

Angela
 
well, people can think what they want, and Obama will continue to deliver on his campaign promises like drawing down military operations in Iraq, providing affordable health care to 40m americans, regulating Wall Street, saving the auto industry, passing a stimulus bill that saved the economy, and beginning to actually reduce military spending.
 
Why. Does. This. Matter? Why does this matter, why does this matter, why does this matter? I really wish someone could give me a justifiable answer.

"Ambush" is right, indeed, Knuckle. I would've just said, "No" and left it at that.

An Obama family visit to the 19th Street Baptist Church, a historic African-American congregation in Washington, turned into a circus atmosphere that dismayed the family, according to aides, particularly after learning that longtime church members were turned away from the service.
Click to expand...

Nice. Real nice. Good job, obnoxious people :up:.

Angela
 
Both sides play the same game. At least I have Comedy Central to get the real news.
 
2010-08-23-IowaRNCCommitteewomanPolitico.png




Last Friday, a Republican National Committee woman Kim Lehman, responding to an article about the polls in Politico, accused the publication of trying "to protect Obama" by denying his true religious heritage.

"BTW he personally told the muslims that he IS a muslim," wrote the Iowa RNC member. "Read his lips."

Reached on the phone Monday, Lehman stood by her initial tweet, arguing that it was during his speech that Obama let the real truth slip.

"I was watching television when he was over there talking to the Muslim world and he made it, in my opinion, clear he was partially Muslim," Lehman told the Huffington Post. "The way he was approaching that speech was, 'Hey I'm one of you. I'm with you.' He didn't have to say that... but he did."

Obama's speech in Cairo did include discussion about his father's Muslim faith. But the president also made it abundantly clear, both then and many times since, that he was a practicing Christian. Asked why she didn't believe the empirical and overwhelming evidence, Lehman replied:

"Again, going back to his speech... he would have said I'm a Christian and I'm from the Christian religion and we can work together. It didn't appear to me he said Christianity was part of his religion."

For the record, here is the relevant portion of Obama's speech

"Now part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I'm a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith."
 
deep said:
That is nonsense, not true at all!
Click to expand...

I think it is true that the more people hear something, over and over and over again (i.e. Obama's a muslim, Obama's a socialist, etc...) eventually it starts to get ingrained in their mind (if they want to believe it, that is.) Repeating something doesnt make it "true" but it can certainly make it more valid in the minds of certain people.
 
With the unemployment rate at 9.6% in August, it marks the 16th consecutive month that unemployment has been at or above 9.4%. The record is 19 months from back in 1982-1983.


Unemployment increased from July to August going from 9.5% in July to 9.6% in August. The average unemployment rate since Obama became President moves up from 9.42% to 9.43%, a new high.


Average Unemployment Rates For US Presidents Since World War II:

01. Lyndon Johnson: 4.19%
02. Harry Truman: 4.26%
03. Dwight Eisenhower: 4.89%
04. Richard Nixon: 5.00%
05. Bill Clinton: 5.20%
06. George W. Bush: 5.27%
07. John Kennedy: 5.98%
08. George H.W. Bush: 6.30%
09. Jimmy Carter: 6.54%
10. Ronald Reagan: 7.54%
11. Gerald Ford: 7.77%
12. Barack Obama: 9.43%


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Unemployment-rate-rises-as-apf-780694354.html?x=0
 
Thanks to him the era of big government is back.
Click to expand...

Um... big government has been here for quite some time.

That article makes so many leaps in logic and gigantic assumptions based on little but already existing bias, that I find it quite hard to take seriously. I mean, are you seriously arguing (with astonishingly little actual evidence) that Barack Obama is simply taking his father's views as his own on everything? Come. On.

That and how poorly it's written.
 
Last edited:
Just a little insight into the author:

D'Souza has often stated his belief that idealizing the rebellion against slavery is a source of disability among some African Americans. He speculates that slaves, to preserve a sense of dignity, in the circumstances of slavery, would by nature tend to be defiant. This defiance would become the central heroic reference for African-American slaves, restoring a degree of pride and dignity to all. But, he continues, the price of this would be the habitually ingrained attitude of defiance that is ultimately self-destructive. He extends his belief that these self-destructive habits still have a legacy today. D'Souza contends that the degree to which many slave descendants suffer from social and self-esteem issues is due to this concept.[citation needed]

D'Souza has attributed many modern social problems to what he calls the "cultural left". In his recent book The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, he wrote that:

The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11 ... the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the non-profit sector and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.[12]
Click to expand...
 
So what's driving his hostility to private enterprise?
Click to expand...

Hostility? Seriously?

Yet he wants to spend even more and is determined to foist the entire bill on Americans making $250,000 a year or more. The rich, Obama insists, aren't paying their "fair share." This by itself seems odd given that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all federal income taxes; the next 9% of income earners pay another 30%. So the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes; the bottom 40% pays close to nothing. This does indeed seem unfair--to the rich.
Click to expand...

Awwwwww, poor rich people, you all suffer so :sad:. Gimme a break.

I'm not an expert on the accurate numbers about how much rich people pay, but, um, didn't seem like they've been suffering all that much in recent years. The fact that they're rich kind of implies they've got a good ton of money on them. Yeah.

Obama's rationale, that "our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable," seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero.
Click to expand...

Actually, no, it's not irrelevant, it's quite relevant. Part of the uproar is over misunderstandings about Islam and the intent of the Muslims who wish to put a center there. Supposedly, if this author is a fan of the idea of "American exceptionalism", the reason we're so exceptional is because we would allow such different things to exist alongside each other in peace here, whereas other parts of the world may not.

Obama supports the Ground Zero mosque because to him 9/11 is the event that unleashed the American bogey and pushed us into Iraq and Afghanistan. He views some of the Muslims who are fighting against America abroad as resisters of U.S. imperialism.
Click to expand...

:huh:...uhhhhhh...the hell?

That was a really, really strange article. On so many levels.

Angela
 
Obama just spoke at the Pentagon to remember 9/11 and now shakes hands. Watching CNN.

I remember 9 years ago. I was at work, read news on the internet and called my ex-gf to turn the tv on.. she told me she just saw the tower going down.

With all the remembering of the terrible things that happened, it is only fair to remember 100,000 people died in the Iraq war, started by Bush. Afghanistan still is a hellhole, the recently leaked documents on wikileaks prove it.

Oil cripples the whole planet. War, corruption, spills, environmental holocaust.. and people still drive their cars. :huh:
 
hiphop said:
With all the remembering of the terrible things that happened, it is only fair to remember 100,000 people died in the Iraq war, started by Bush.
Click to expand...

Its only fair to remember that the Iraq war was started to remove SADDAM, a dictator responsible for the murder of over 1 million people. Removing Saddam was a necessity and has had a positive effect on security in the region, especially with respect to the persian gulf states. While Iraq has had a difficult time transitioning to a new order, it now has a bright future ahead of it filled with enormous opportunity, which would not have been possible at all if Saddam's regime were still in power.

Afghanistan still is a hellhole, the recently leaked documents on wikileaks prove it.
Click to expand...

Afghanistan has seen far worse times than this, but since the Americans were not on the ground then, those times don't matter, don't exist to certain people.
 
That's a good question. Lord knows we got about 10 different reasons from the Bush administration as to why we were going there.

Anywho, man...9 years. In some ways it doesn't seem that long, and in some ways it does. I was in school that day-we pretty much did nothing but watch/listen to coverage the whole time. I remember, though, for gym class we took a walk around the path near the school, and I looked up at the brilliantly blue, nearly cloudless sky and the sun and thought, "This doesn't compute. Shouldn't dark clouds be rolling in and the ground swallowing us up or something now?" I also remember some lady seeing us walk by and coming out on her porch and announcing the president had been sent to the base in Omaha. I was living in northwestern Iowa at the time. That, I think, is when the fear finally kicked in (the entire day I was mainly in shock), 'cause I didn't know what the hell that meant.

We do need to wean ourselves off oil desperately, yes. Maybe someday...

My condolances to everybody who has lost loved ones as a result of 9/11, be they victims of the day itself or among the people in the wars that followed. May all those who've died continue to rest in peace.

Angela
 
I tend to ignore trolls.

Anyway, for the sake of history, here´s a couple of statements:

"What’s the difference?"
George W. Bush, 2003-12-16 in an interview with Diane Sawyer, excusing his lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, by claiming that there was no difference between having weapons and wanting to have them.

"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
George W. Bush, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002-10-07, on evidence for Iraq’s non-existent nukes.

"The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."
George W. Bush, 2003-03-17

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They’re illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two. And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them."
George W. Bush, 2005-05-23, Interview of the President by TVP, Poland.

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003-01-29.

"In Afghanistan, we helped to liberate an oppressed people, and we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society and educate all their children, boys and girls."
George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003-01-29.

"The war goes on, and we are winning."
George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003-01-29.

"We've got the terrorists on the run. We're keeping them on the run. One by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice."
George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003-01-29.

"Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?"
George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003-01-29.

"And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaida. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own."
George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2003-01-29.

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW convention, 2002-08-26

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Paul Wolfowitz, Vanity Fair Interview, 2003-05-28

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly… all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."
Ari Fleischer, Press Briefing, 2003-03-21

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And … as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."
Tommy Franks, General, Press Conference, 2003-03-22

"I have no doubt we’re going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."
Ken Adelman, Defense Policy Board member, Washington Post, 2003-03-23

"We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of War, Washington Post, 2003-04-09

"The [Iraq] war could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of War, 2003-02-07

The secret Downing Street memo:
The secret Downing Street memo - Times Online



"These documents are additional compelling evidence that the intelligence community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary."
Carl Levin, Senator, 2005-04-16

"From the very first instance it was about Iraq. I was all about finding away to do it. That was the tone of it: the President saying “Go find me a way to do this.”
Paul O’Neill, treasury secretary, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind.

"I expected to go back to a round of meetings [on 2001-09-12], examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term. Instead, I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting al Qaeda. Then I realised with an almost sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were trying to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq. Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq. My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometimes in 2002."
Richard A. Clarke, White House Counter Terrorism Chief, "Against All Enemies Inside the White House’s War on Terror — What Really Happened"

Here´s the effects of the American lie:

* It cried wolf about nuclear war.
* It framed an innocent country.
* It conned the taxpayers of $300+ billion and funneled it to the likes of Halliburton.
* It attempted to steal the second largest oil reserves on the planet worth trillions.
* It sent over 1100 young Americans to their deaths, thinking they were saving America from a nuclear attack, when in reality they were participating in a robbery.
* It sent thousands of Iraqi children and an estimated 150,000 civilians to hideously painful deaths.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Headache in a Suitcase
3 Irishmen and a Dutchman Walk Into A Sphere - General Discussion Thread Part III
51 52 53
Replies
2K
Views
63K
Headache in a Suitcase
Headache in a Suitcase
O
Better late than never “they” say…
Replies
1
Views
276
Headache in a Suitcase
Headache in a Suitcase
Reggie Thee Dog
Are we NOT discussing the Dolby Atmos Mix of Achtung Baby?
Replies
13
Views
1K
count rushmore
count rushmore
Janet H
  • Sticky
Forum Update - We're back! Ask your questions here.
2
Replies
36
Views
2K
Popmartijn
Popmartijn
C
Hello Hello... Hola!
Replies
1
Views
647
prbiker15
prbiker15

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom