Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 315
October 16, 2012
Candidates go for the jugular
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. – In a showdown that analysts predict could tip the scale in the race for the White House, Obama and Romney hammered one another on topics such as unemployment, taxes, gas prices, health care, immigration policy, guns and the recent attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
CNN’s Candy Crowley moderated the second presidential debate, which took the form of a town-hall meeting here at Hofstra University on New York’s Long Island. “Uncommitted voters” in the audience asked questions of the candidates.
Addressing America’s unemployment crisis
For the first question, a college student asked whether the candidates could ensure that he could get a job after graduating.
Romney promised to keep the federal Pell Grant program and federal loan program “growing.” He also emphasized the need for job growth and cited Massachusetts’ program to employ top students.
“I want you to be able to get a job,” he said. “With half of college kids graduating this year without a job, that’s unacceptable. I know what it takes to make sure you have the kind of opportunity you deserve. I know what it takes to create jobs.”
Obama promised to build manufacturing jobs, invest in education, develop solar, wind and biofuel energy and rebuild roads and schools.
He accused Romney of wanting to force auto companies into bankruptcy and trying to help those with higher incomes pay fewer taxes than middle-class families. He claimed Romney’s tax cuts would cost $20 billion, plus $7 trillion for the U.S. military and another $1 trillion to keep Bush’s tax cuts.
Obama charged, “We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics beyond Big Bird and cutting Planned Parenthood.”
Soaring gas prices and limited energy production
A second questioner asked whether the candidates believe it’s the government’s responsibility to reduce gas prices. Once again, Obama emphasized “green energy” solutions to reduce demand for fuel.
“Romney’s plan is to allow the oil and natural gas companies to write his oil policy,” Obama charged.
But Romney countered that Obama recently cut oil and gas production in half.
Romney said he supports developing energy resources such as oil, gas, coal and renewable energy. He focused on the need for increased jobs and energy independence by green-lighting more oil drilling and an oil pipeline from Canada. Obama responded by saying America’s oil importation is down by 20 percent.
“How much did you cut licenses and permits on federal lands and federal waters?” Romney asked Obama.
Even after repeating his question, Romney received no answer.
Obama said his administration took away leases and reissued them “so we could make a profit.”
But Romney countered that Obama’s energy policies are failing.
“If you are paying more at the pump, the policy is not working,” he argued. “If the president’s energy policies are working, you will see the price of energy come down.”
However, Obama claimed that the price of gas was $1.86 at the time he took office because the economy was tanking.
“When I took office, oil was down because the economy was on the point of collapse,” Obama blasted. “Romney will put economy back into same mess. We’ve built enough pipeline to wrap around the earth once.”
Tax breaks and deductions for middle class
The third question focused on tax breaks and deductions, such as the mortgage and charitable deductions and education and child tax credits. Romney said he wants to reduce the tax burden on middle-income taxpayers and limit deductions for the top 5 percent of taxpayers. He promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class because “over the last four years, they’ve been buried.”
Obama replied, “I want to give middle class families and those striving to get into the middle class some relief.” He said his administration cut taxes for middle class families over the last four years, arguing, “I want to continue those tax cuts for middle class families and small businesses.”
He added, “We’ve also got to make sure that the wealthy do a little bit more.”
Obama suggested returning to Bill Clinton-era tax rates for Americans who make more than $250,000 a year, claiming it would be “good for the economy and for job creation.”
Romney replied that only reducing tax rates would allow small businesses to “keep more money and hire more people.”
Health care and President George W. Bush
Other questions touched on gender wage disparities in the workplace and health care.
Obama touted Obamacare’s requirement for employers to provide coverage of abortion-inducing drugs and said such policies were about “women’s issues, family issues, economic issues.” He said, “I’ve got two daughters, and I want to make sure that they have the same opportunities as anybody’s sons have.”
Asked whether he is different from President George W. Bush, Romney answered that he has a robust energy policy, plans to “crack down on China,” push for a balance budget and champion small business.
“Our party has been focused on big business for too long,” Romney said. “Everything I’ll do is designed to help small businesses grow. … My priority is jobs.”
Obama argued, “The centerpiece of his economic plan is tax cuts.” He accused Romney of investing in Chinese companies, trying to “turn Medicare into a voucher” program, pushing to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood and being more “extreme” with regard to social policy than former President Bush.
Obama also attacked Romney’s promise to repeal Obamacare, claiming it was the same plan implemented in Massachusetts.
Romney emphasized that there are 23 million Americans without work under Obama’s leadership.
He itemized a list of Obama’s broken promises on immigration, deficit reduction, unemployment, economic growth, Obamacare, Medicare and Social Security reform and tax and regulatory policies.
Romney said, “The only reason unemployment seems a little lower today is because so many people have dropped out of the workforce.”
Immigration policy: Legal versus illegal
A Hispanic woman asked Romney about his plans for illegal immigrants.
“We welcome legal immigrants into this country,” Romney said. “I also think we should give visas, green cards, to people who graduate with skills we need.” He said he would not grant “amnesty” to those who come to America illegally or give them driver’s licenses. However, he said children of illegal immigrants should be given a “pathway” to citizenship, such as military service.
Obama said America is a “nation of immigrants … but we’re also a nation of laws.” He said America needs to fix “the broken immigration system” and make it easier for immigrants to come into the nation. Obama also said the flow of illegal immigrants into America is the lowest in 40 years, adding that children of illegal immigrants should be given a pathway to citizenship. He blasted Romney for encouraging “self-deportation” and “making life so miserable on folks who don’t leave.”
Romney promised, “We’re not going to round up 12 million illegal, undocumented people.” He said if illegal immigrants can’t find the job they want, they will leave the country.
Obama interrupted, and Crowley demanded Romney “make it short.”
The exchange devolved into a shouting match for a short period of time.
Obama and Romney both promised to pass “comprehensive immigration reform.”
Benghazi attack on U.S. consulate
Regarding the Benghazi attack in which four Americans were killed, Obama said, “Nobody’s more concerned about their safety and security than I am.” After the attack, Obama said he gave orders to beef up embassy security, investigate the murders and find those responsible. He accused Romney of “turning national security into a political issue.”
Romney argued that many days passed before Americans were told this was “a terrorist attack” rather than a demonstration. He said, on the day following the murders, Obama flew around the country to appear at political fundraisers.
“This calls into question the president’s whole policy in the Middle East,” he said, adding that Iran is closer to developing a nuclear bomb.
He also blasted Obama for his “apology tour” after taking office.
Prior to the debate, strategists had predicted there would be questions about the Obama administration’s handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Just 24 hours before the second debate, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided Obama some political cover by accepting blame for failures leading up to the murder of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi.
“I take responsibility,” Clinton said, adding, “I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha.”
During the debate, Obama said, “Secretary Clinton has done an extraordinary job, but she works for me. I’m the president. I’m responsible. … The suggestion that anyone on my team … would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own is offensive. That’s not what we do.”
Crowley interjected, “He did call it an act of terror.”
Gun control and ‘Operation Fast & Furious’
On the issue of gun control, Obama was asked what he will do “to limit the availability of assault weapons.” Obama said the U.S. must enforce laws and keep guns out of the “hands of criminals.”
“Weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don’t belong on our streets,” he said, adding that he would like to get an “assault-weapons ban reintroduced” and “catch violent impulses before they occur.”
Romney said he is not in favor of new legislation limiting gun ownership, but he does believe America should address its “culture of violence” by reinforcing traditional family roles and education.
He raised the issue of “Operation Fast & Furious,” calling it “one of the great tragedies” under this administration.
“I’d like to understand who it was that did this,” Romney said, pressing Obama.
Crowley interjected, redirecting the debate away from “Fast & Furious.”
Toward the end of the debate, Obama said he believes “everybody should have a fair shot” and attacked Romney for his statement that 47 percent of Americans are dependent upon government.
Meanwhile, Fox News featured a Frank Luntz focus group of undecided voters watching the debate from Nevada. They overwhelmingly declared Romney to be the winner.
Obama ‘more aggressive’ than 1st debate
While the Obama campaign had promised the president would be more “aggressive” this time around, the president was warned not to “overcorrect” after his weak performance during the first debate, which drew a sizable TV audience of 67 million, according to Nielsen, the largest since 1992.
Meanwhile, a national Gallup poll released just before the second presidential debate indicated Romney is leading Obama by at least four points at 50-46 percent.
As WND reported, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners the national media were already preparing to declare Obama the winner before the debate had taken place.
“If Obama shows up tonight and successfully breathes, he’s going to be declared the winner,” Limbaugh said prior to the event.
Also, Breitbart.com predicted that “as long as Obama doesn’t fall off stage,” the media would declare an “Obama comeback” and call him the winner.
According to an ABC News poll following the first debate, 71 percent of likely voters said Romney won the initial match. Romney, who had raised the bar for GOP debate performance in the first event, sought to match his earlier triumph in the second debate.
Obama’s lackluster performance is said to have erased his slight lead in recent months and drawn the fury of many of his high-profile supporters and left-leaning commentators.
Immediately after the first event, Ed Schultz declared, “I don’t think he explained himself very well on the economy. I think he was off his game. I was absolutely stunned tonight.”
Chris Matthews asked, “Where was Obama tonight?”
The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan, an Obama supporter, panicked: “He choked. He lost. He may even have lost the election tonight.”
Bill Maher joked, “Obama made a lot of great points tonight. Unfortunately, most of them were for Romney.”
Obama’s supporters immediately began pressuring him to do better in the second debate after he appeared to be disengaged.
Analysts had predicted the format of the town hall debate in New York would present a challenge to the candidates, making it more difficult to attack one’s political opponent due to the audience-driven question format.
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October 12, 2012
Obama 'Allah ring' stirs debate
As debate continues over the claim that President Obama’s wedding ring is inscribed with the Muslim declaration of faith, more analysis is coming from the Middle East.
Staffers in Jordan with William J. Murray’s Religious Freedom Coalition also believe the ring, which Obama wore on his wedding-ring finger for at least a decade before he married Michelle Robinson, pays homage to Allah.
“I sent the photographs to my office in Amman,” Murray wrote WND in an email. “This is the response: Yes, it is the Shahada, and the second part of the profession of faith is probably inscribed inside the ring.”
The Amman staffers said they have seen other rings like it.
Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph,D., as well as a native-Arabic speaker employed by WND who has provided translations of critical Arabic statements, believe the ring is Islamic. A Duke professor interviewed by Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com news service also confirmed their conclusion.
Filmmaker Joel Gilbert has issued a detailed analysis he prepared with the assistance of Yousef Shehadeh, a native Arabic speaker from Nazareth who studied Arabic for 13 years in the Holy Land and now works as a graphic artist in Los Angeles.
Gilbert, who has studied Arabic himself, told WND he sent close-up photographs of the ring to Shehadeh “cold,” without offering any opinion, and asked him to evaluate them.
Shehadeh replied to Gilbert that the script on Obama’s ring is Arabic, and it is the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith.
The WND story was picked up today by the Saudi-owned paper Al-Arabiya.
The Huffington Post photographs
Some bloggers who are skeptical that the Obama ring is Islamic have questioned the authenticity of photos used in the analysis in the original WND story Wednesday.
A “computer software and graphics expert” cited by the blog ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com contends computer-imaging software was used to deepen shadows to make details in the lighted areas “look more like an Arabic letter rather than a squiggly design.”
Gilbert, who was first to conclude that the ring bears the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada, explained that the only adjustment he made to images from a 2010 Huffington Post feature was to reduce the contrast about 50 percent. His aim was to enable the detail in the ring to be seen without being overwhelmed by the background light.
The Huffington Post photographs were published in a March 18, 2010, article by Anya Strzemien, “Obama’s ‘Intricate’ Indonesian Wedding Band: A CLOSE-UP.”
Exhibit 1: Obama wedding ring photo No. 1, Huffington Post, March 18, 2010
Exhibit 2: Obama wedding ring photo No. 2, Huffington Post, March 18, 2010
A comparison of Exhibits 1 and 2 with the original Huffington Post article shows the photos, as presented in Gilbert’s analysis, were not altered, Gilbert contends.
ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com’s unnamed “computer software and graphics expert” concludes, however, “This is a major hoax in my opinion.”
The source pointed to a graphic analysis prepared by Gilbert that was posted on the website for his documentary film on Obama, “Dreams from My Real Father.”
Exhibit 3: Joel Gilbert graphic of Obama ring
But Gilbert insists he “made no alteration whatsoever” to the pattern on the ring.
The ring image in the lower left corner of his graphic, marked “Original,” he said, is the image found in the Huffington Post article, “with no computer manipulation done on the image of the ring itself.”
To demonstrate how the Arabic script letters fit over the unaltered Huffington Post photograph, Gilbert produced Exhibit 4.
Exhibit 4: Graphic by Joel Gilbert of Huffington Post photo, with overlay of Arabic script
He argues that while the original Huffington Post photograph loses some resolution on being enlarged, the details of the engraving remain clear, as does the fit between the letters engraved on the ring and Gilbert’s overlaid Arabic script.
October 10, 2012
Obama family busted in Shariah scheme
Barack Obama with “Mama Sarah,” his step-grandmother
Since his inauguration, President Obama’s family in Kenya has been on a mission to use the Obama name to transform Kenya from the nation’s current Christian majority to an Islamic majority that will spread Islamic law, or Shariah, through the country.
Arab researchers Walid and Theodore Shoebat have documented the claims in a special report that translates an explosive television interview never before seen in the West.
In the interview, Musa Ismail Obama, President Obama’s first cousin in Kenya, told the Arabic-language satellite TV network Al-Jazeera that the Saudi Arabian royal family has developed a strong relationship with the Obama family in their home village of Kogelo in Alego, Siaya District, West Kenya.
Musa took pains to explain the need to proselytize Islam in Kenya, which is in line with the desire of wealthy Saudis to transform Kenya into a majority Muslim country.
Walid Shoebat pointed out that an article in the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Arab acknowledged the importance of the Obama name to the efforts of the Kenya family to expand the position of Islam in the country. Shoebat noted the article describes President Obama as a Muslim, referring to “President Obama’s Islamic faith.”
See the interview in three parts:
“After President Obama was inaugurated, the Muslim side of the Obama family in Kenya boomed, and it went from rags to riches overnight,” the Shoebats write in their report. “They became one of the most influential families in western Kenya and even extended their fundraising empire to Saudi Arabia.”
Musa, in the TV interview, said the Saudi royal family invited him and Sarah Obama to be their personal guests to the Hajj, the obligatory Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. They were given with red-carpet treatment at the Saudi royal court, complete with a special security escort.
President Obama bows to Saudi King Abdullah at a G-20 summit in 2009
In partnership with the Saudi royal family, the Obama family in Kenya has devised a plan to follow President Obama’s call for education in the United States with a project to expand education in Kenya, with the special twist of expanding Islam in the African nation and establishing Islamic law.
To achieve the aim, Sarah Obama started the Sarah Obama Benevolent Fund Institute, otherwise known as the Mama Sarah Obama Children Foundation.
The foundation raises 90 percent of its funds from donors in the United States and Europe, solicited as humanitarian aid for orphans and underprivileged children, including children affected by HIV/AIDS.
The Shoebats note, however, that in the “shocking interview,” Musa Ismail Obama disclosed “all the troublesome detail that typically gets hidden in an English translation.”
The bulk of the Sarah Fund, as it turns out, goes not to widows and orphans but to provide scholarships to study Shariah at the most influential Wahhabist centers in Saudi Arabia.”
“It’s all a jihadi Kenyan scam,” commented Walid Shoebat. “And it’s not as though President Obama is unaware of his Kenyan family workings, since Musa on Al-Jazeera disclosed that President Obama’s favorite uncle, Sayid Hussein Obama, was selected by Obama and by the family in Kenya to act as the main conduit in relaying the family’s activities to the White House.”
Sayid accompanied Sarah to Washington, D.C., in January 2009, to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Grandmother Sarah Obama travels to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration
“Musa, Sayid’s sidekick, has become the public promoter of Mama Sarah’s non-profit and the family’s key advertiser to the social efforts in Kenya,” Walid explained. “Musa carefully selects specific Arab media on which to appear, seeking venues where he can ask wealthy Islamic audiences for financial assistance.”
As a precondition of granting interviews, Musa insists that no questions will be asked regarding any details of family communications with President Obama and that discussions of political views will be off limits.
“Musa tells just enough to connect the dots to the wealthy Arab audience of Al-Jazeera,” Walid Shoebat continued. “He relays the message to raise all necessary funds, since his mission is to transform Kenya to an Islamic majority by using the Obama household name and his grandmother’s non-profit organization.”
Shoebat emphasized that the Sarah Obama Benevolent Fund has little to do with secular education or the care for widows and orphans, and Musa apparently has never mentioned anything in any Arabic media in regard to helping the HIV-infected.
Most of the funds go toward Saudi Arabia’s “most virulent Wahhabi Shariah centers,” Shoebat explained, including the Islamic University in Medina, Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca and the University of Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh.
A credible source, he said, the Gulf Issues Centre For Strategic Studies, a moderate Muslim think-tank that counters Wahhabism, describes the schools as “Salafi schools that imbibe radical ideas” and are “the spring of Wahhabism.”
Shoebat noted President Obama’s Uncle Sayid Hussein Obama is involved with the al-Qaida-affiliated Muslim World League, citing Saudi media.
Shoebat’s translation reads:
“His Excellency Dr. Abdullah bin Abdul Mohsin Al-Turki, Secretary General of the Muslim World League, and a member of the Council of Senior Scholars in Saudi Arabia in Makkah received on Monday Mr. Saeed Hussein Obama, Kenyan businessman, and uncle of President Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, who paid a visit to the Muslim World League, accompanied by a number of Kenyan graduates from Saudi universities.”
Shoebat explained that several Muslim World League employees have worked with al-Qaida. He said Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida gained material support and sponsorship, along with protective cover, from Muslim World League offices around the world.
In the Al-Jazeera interview, Musa explained how the Obamas even send recruits to Umm Al Qura University in Mecca.
“I studied Arabic and Shariah at the Islamic university in Medina in Saudi Arabia,” Musa told Al-Jazeera, while relating how he visited Umm Al Qura University with his uncle Sayid.
“We also in the month of Muharram visited the dean of Umm Al Qura University, me and my uncle Sayid. The nature of the visit was to facilitate scholarships to send students from Kenya to Umm Al Qura.”
The Shoebats explained Umm Al Qura University is “a paragon in Wahhabist education.” The university takes pride, they said, “in being the first to print the works of Muhammad Abdul Wahhab, the founder of the most virulent brand of Islam.”
Walid provided WND with four photographs taken at Umm Al Qura University showing Sayid Obama and Musa Ismail Obama visiting various university officials.
Sayid Obama on right standing with Musa Ismail Obama at Umm Al Qura University
On right, director of Umm Al-Qura University, Bakri bin Ma’touk A’sas; on couch Musa Ismail Obama (left) and Sayid Obama (right)
Sayid Obama, on left, with Barki bin Ma’touk A’sas
Barki bin Ma’touk A’sas (right to left), Sayid Obama, Musa Ismail Obama
Photographs of meetings of Sayid Obama and Musa Ismail Obama can even be seen at the official website of Umm Al Qura University, which proudly states:
“His Highness the Director of Umm Al-Qura University, Dr. Bakri bin Ma’touk A’sas received at his office in university city at Babidah Mr. Sayid Obama the uncle of His Excellency the President of the United States of America Barack Obama and Mr. Musa Ismail Obama the cousin of U.S. President.”
The Obamas fundraising empire is so successful the excess students have had to be diverted from Saudi Arabia to nearby Doha in Qatar.
“When [the students] submit an application to Sarah Obama Benevolent Fund, they expect to get what they want, but we are flooded,” Musa explained in the Al Jazeera interview.
Learning of the flood of students sent to the Wahhabi universities in Saudi Arabia, the Al-Jazeera interviewer asked, “So you are opening an avenue in other universities?”
Musa said the excess students were sent to nearby Doha, after Musa visited and made the necessary arrangements.
Following up, the Al-Jazeera interviewer asked Musa, “Do all these scholarships involve studying Arabic and Shariah?”
Musa explained, “Some of those do not involve Shariah, like medicine or engineering.”
Al-Jazeera then asked what the majority of students were sent to Qatar to study.
“The majority of course is Shariah schools,” Musa explained, “because my connections in the institutions [in Qatar] is with Shariah schools”
October 9, 2012
Obama's ring: 'There is no god but Allah'
Barack Obama's gold band
NEW YORK – As a student at Harvard Law School, then-bachelor Barack Obama’s practice of wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger puzzled his colleagues.
Now, newly published photographs of Obama from the 1980s show that the ring Obama wore on his wedding-ring finger as an unmarried student is the same ring Michelle Robinson put on his finger at the couple’s wedding ceremony in 1992.
Moreover, according to Arabic-language and Islamic experts, the ring Obama has been wearing for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada: “There is no God except Allah.”
Inscription on Obama's ring
The Shahada is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam, expressing the two fundamental beliefs that make a person a Muslim: There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s prophet.
Sincere recitation of the Shahada is the sole requirement for becoming a Muslim, as it expresses a person’s rejection of all other gods
Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., examined photographs of Obama’s ring at WND’s request and concluded that the first half of the Shahada is inscribed on it.
“There can be no doubt that someone wearing the inscription ‘There is no god except Allah’ has a very close connection to Islamic beliefs, the Islamic religion and Islamic society to which this statement is so strongly attached,” Gabriel told WND.
“Dreams from My Real Father” producer Joel Gilbert, an Arabic speaker and an expert on the Middle East, was the first to conclude that Obama’s ring, reportedly from Indonesia, bore an Islamic inscription.
Photographs published last week by the New Yorker from Obama’s time at Occidental College, taken by fellows students, indicate that the ring Obama wore three decades ago is the one he is wearing in the White House.
Barack Obama
As WND reported in July, previously published photos have shown Obama wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger continuously from 1981 at Occidental, through graduation at Columbia in 1983, in a visit to Africa in 1988 and during his time at Harvard from 1988 to 1991. But none, until now, have displayed the ring with enough detail to identify it as the one he currently is wearing.
WND reported a satirical edition of the Harvard Law Review published by students in 1990 contains a mock Dewers Scotch profile advertisement poking fun at Obama. Among a list of Obama’s “Latest Accomplishments” is: “Deflecting Persistent Questioning About Ring On Left Hand.”
The comment suggests the ring was a subject of student curiosity at the time and that Obama was not forthcoming with an explanation.
He still has not explained why he wore the band on his wedding-ring finger before he married Michelle.
Declaration
Gabriel, born to Muslim parents in Upper Egypt, grew up immersed in Islamic culture. He memorized the Quran at age of 12 and graduated in 1990 with a Masters degree from the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the preeminent Sunni Muslim institution of learning.
He explained that on Obama’s ring, the declaration “There is no god except Allah” (La Ilaha Illallah) is inscribed in two sections, one above the other.
On the upper section, “There is no god” is written in Arabic letters, from right to left: Lam, Alif, Alif, Lam, Ha.
On the lower section is “except god,” written in Arabic letters from right to left: Alif, Lam, Alif, Alif, Lam, Lam, Ha.
In the lower section, the word “Allah” is written partially on top of the word “except,” noted Gabriel, the author of “Islam and Terrorism” and “Journey Inside the Mind of an Islamic Terrorist.”
It is common in Islamic art and Arabic calligraphy, especially when expressing Quranic messages on jewelry, to artfully place letters on top of each other to fit them into the allotted space.
The exhibit below shows how the Arabic inscription fits over the two parts of the Obama ring.
“There is no God except Allah” overlaid on Obama ring
‘First-rate accent’
In an interview during the 2008 presidential campaign, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof questioned Obama about his Islamic education in Indonesia, where he lived from 1967 to 1971.
After acknowledging that he once got in trouble for making faces during Quran study classes in his elementary school, Obama recited for Kristoff the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, the Adhan.
The prayer incorporates the Shahada, the expression of Islamic faith, with each line repeated twice:
Allah is supreme! Allah is supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet
Kristof noted Obama recited the prayer in Arabic “with a first-rate accent.”
“In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset,’” Kristoff wrote.
Gabriel told WND that a person wearing a ring with “There is no God except Allah” demonstrates the significance of Islam in his life.
“Christians never use the statement,” he pointed out. “By wearing the Shahada on jewelry, a person communicates that Allah is in control of all circumstances. Allah controls you; Allah is the one and only one.”
Obama, who attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for two decades, has repeatedly insisted he is a Christian.
Obama's hand in a White House photo
‘Blessed statement in Islam’
Gabriel emphasized the importance of the Shahada in the profession of faith in Islam.
“Muslims recite the Shahada when they wake up in the morning and before they go to sleep at night,” he said. “It is repeated five times every day in the call to prayer in every mosque. A single honest recitation of the Shahada in Arabic is all that is required for a person to convert to Islam.”
Gabriel believes it would be impossible for Obama not to be aware of what is written on the ring, calling it a “blessed statement in Islam.”
“By wearing this religious statement on one’s hand, it connects the person to Islam,” he said. “It is worn in hopes that Allah’s protections would be with the person, in hopes of gaining favor with Allah.”
He affirmed that Muslim men do wear gold rings, despite prohibitions in Islamic law.
“Though Islamic law prohibits the wearing of gold jewelry by men, it is a widely accepted custom, even in strictly Muslim countries,” he said. “The wearing of gold rings is even more acceptable when it contains a religious message, such as ‘There is no god except Allah.’”
He noted there is also widespread acceptance of men wearing gold jewelry in non-Arab Islamic societies such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Pakistan, where Muslims generally understand that Muslims are subject to strong influences of local non-Arab cultures.
“Therefore, even though technically prohibited, a Muslim man wearing a gold ring is not looked down upon, especially if the jewelry reflects a love of Islam and a connection to Islamic society,” he said. “An even greater level of acceptance is for businessmen who deal with infidels, because such a person would be regarded as a person of influence.”
Obama signing legislation (White House photo)
‘I have known Islam on three continents’
Filmmaker Joel Gilbert, an expert on Islamic history, noted Obama wore the ring during his high-profile speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009, in the first months of his presidency.
“Now we have a new context for what Obama meant when he told the Islamic audience in Cairo that he has ‘known Islam on three continents,” Gilbert said. “He also told the Cairo audience that he considered it part of his responsibility as president of the United States ‘to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.’ All religious Muslims are by definition required to defend Islam.”
Gilbert’s most recent documentary films on the Middle East are “Farewell Israel: Bush, Iran and The Revolt of Islam” and “Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad’s Coming War and Obama’s Politics of Defeat”
Obama in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009
Obama in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009, close-up
The Occidental ring
The photographs published last week by New Yorker magazine indicate Obama was wearing the ring at Occidental College.
One photo shows Obama sitting alongside Occidental roommate Hasan Chandoo in 1981, apparently waiting for a meal to be served.
Barack Obama and roommate Hasan Chandoo at Occidental College in 1981
Obama’s extended left hand clearly shows the ring, as seen below.
The second of the recently released photos shows Obama reaching for a book from an Occidental College library shelf.
Barack Obama in Occidental College library in 1981
A close-up of the library photo can be seen below.
Detail of Barack Obama ring in Occidental College library in 1981
In the above photo, the ring’s design can be seen, including a series of parallel bars that distinguish its outer circumference.
The Obama wedding ring
The ring was mentioned in a New York Times article in 2009 recounting the Obamas’ wedding.
In the story, Jodi Kantor described its “intricate gold design,” noting it came from Barack Obama’s boyhood home of Indonesia and was not traditional, like Michelle’s.
Kantor wrote:
Just before the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. pronounced Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson man and wife on the evening of Oct. 3, 1992, he held their wedding rings – signifying their new, enduring bonds – before the guests at Trinity United Church of Christ. Michelle’s was traditional, but Barack’s was an intricate gold design from Indonesia, where he had lived as a boy.
There was no mention in the article that Obama already had been wearing the ring for more than a decade.
The photos of the ring from the 1980s can be compared with more recent photos, such as the ones published by the Huffington Post in 2010 in an article by Anya Strzemien, “Obama’s ‘Intricate’ Indonesian Wedding Band: A CLOSE-UP,” seen here.
Obama wedding ring, Huffington Post, March 18, 2010
Obama wedding ring, Huffington Post, March 18, 2010
Note: Jerome Corsi is available to discuss this story with media.
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October 8, 2012
Another fraud charge against global banking giant
Already under federal investigation for global fraud after a series of WND reports, banking giant HSBC is engaged in a systematic scheme to defraud citizens of India who live abroad out of billion of dollars in investment accounts, according to an Indian source who has provided evidence to WND.
The evidence offered by “Mr. Kumar,” a customer of HSBC Bank PLC both in the United Kingdom and in India, includes documentation from his investment account, his correspondence with HSBC officials, documents misused by the bank and various legal opinions detailing the manner in which the fraud was committed.
Kumar, a British citizen and a solicitor who lives in London, has requested WND withhold his name due to concerns of possible reprisal from the bank that would damage his professional standing and personal reputation.
Kumar claims HSBC has defrauded him of millions of Indian rupees he invested in a wealth management-mutual fund account the bank offers in India to Indians living abroad.
In a phone conversation from London, Kumar explained to WND that in 2005, he opened with HSBC an account to invest broadly in the Indian stock market through a mutual fund that would be sourced and managed by HSBC in India.
“HSBC sources money from non-resident Indians to invest in the Indian stock market,” Kumar explained.
In 2005, he said, he received a solicitation from HSBC to invest in the Indian government’s “India Shining” marketing campaign and was promised superior returns compared to what a retail investor could get in the West.
HSBC promised to facilitate seamless transfers of funds from Kumar’s HSBC account in London to the HSBC account in India.
“It made sense to me, so I stopped investing in my retirement account in London and I began investing in India with HSBC,” Kumar said.
Indian laws do not permit non-Indians to invest in the lucrative Indian market, so banks like HSBC target non-resident Indians to invest their surplus into the Indian stock and property markets to benefit from the boom in equities and property values over the last decade.
Kumar charged that HSBC committed a sophisticated investment fraud that resulted in the over 10 million Indian rupees – $189,500 – he invested since 2005 being worth only 1.6 million Indian rupees today, despite steady gains made in the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index, the BSE SENSEX.
The value of the BSE SENSEX has virtually doubled from its closing peak of 9397.93 in 2005 to its current market value, closing at 18823.91 on Oct. 1.
Meanwhile, HSBC has apologized for a “shameful” systems breakdown from 2004 to 2010 and is prepared to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines in a scandal that was exposed in a series of investigative WND reports that began in February. John Cruz, a former HSBC vice president and relationship manager in New York, turned over 1,000 pages of evidence to WND he pulled from a bank computer system before he was fired. He was terminated in 2010, after two years at HSBC, for “poor performance.” But he contends he was let go because senior management didn’t want to him to pursue his personal investigation.
Cruz previously told WND he met with special agents with the IRS criminal division in April and handed over a computer disc with copies of his internal documents. The agents, according to Cruz, were overwhelmed with the volume and detail of the information, calling it “mind-boggling.”
As WND reported, law enforcement authorities sat on Cruz’s allegations until the story was exposed by WND.
A Senate report released last month presents evidence HSBC abetted massive money laundering by Iran, terrorist organizations, drug cartels and organized criminals throughout the world. The report said HSBC transferred $19 billion for Iran and $7 billion in physical cash for Mexico.
WND also reported evidence that Eric Holder’s Justice Department has not investigated money-laundering charges in deference to bank clients of his Washington-based law firm, where Holder was a partner prior to joining the Obama administration.
Not alone
Kumar has met personally with other well-known non-resident Indians in London who, he says, have fallen prey to the same practices by HSBC. He estimates that several thousand non-resident Indians have been affected by the alleged scam.
His problems began in October 2005 when Orijit signed a power of attorney, giving HSBC Ltd. in India complete discretionary authority to make decisions managing mutual funds on his behalf, without having first having to seek and obtain his permission.
At that time, various HSBC bank officials assured Kumar that the investments were safe and HSBC would responsibly follow investment rules in the U.K. and India. The officials argued the bank is registered with numerous regulators in both countries and is heavily audited on a regular basis.
But Kumar explained that the fraud started at the beginning of the relationship with HSBC, when the bank got him to sign what amounts to a blind letter of instruction.
“I do feel foolish as a solicitor admitting to it,” he said, “but at the time, when the relationship commenced, HSBC in India insisted this was the only way the investment account could work.”
Kumar explained HSBC got him to sign the letter by arguing the only way the retirement investment account in India could work was if HSBC in India could act on his behalf without first having to consult with him. The bank reasoned that “the Asian markets change very rapidly.”
“HSBC said the bank needed a blind letter of instruction because London is 9,000 kilometers away from HSBC in India, separated by five and a half hours time difference, and the Indian stock market moves up and down very fast,” Kumar explained.
The bank further explained, according to Kumar: “By the time the Indian stock market starts sinking, we get in touch with you, you get in the office and get back to us with a completed letter of instruction specific to the situation, the markets in Asia may be closed and your investment wiped out.”
HSBC investment officials also explained the mechanism of signing a blind letter of instruction is typically used by the bank in similar investment structures set up for many other non-resident Indians investing in the Indian equity and properties markets.
HSBC repeatedly reassured Kumar his account was protected, because signing the blind letter of authorization would not absolve HSBC investment officers in India from having to adhere to Indian rules and regulations regarding investments in the Indian market.
“The one sensible thing I did was to preserve all communications with the bank, so I now have a complete record of everything HSBC said to me and all communications, whether by email, fax or by postal service,” he said.
“I intend to hold HSBC responsible for the losses they incurred in my account,” he said. “HSBC as portfolio manager is liable for losses and damages acting as investment portfolio manager under the strict rules and regulations determined by SEBI, the Securities and Exchange Board of India.”
Circumventing law
Kumar’s main argument is that in using the blind letters of instruction when acting as a portfolio manager in his investment account, HSBC traded his account for the financial advantage of the bank by churning his portfolio. In this process, the bank makes money on the entry and exit load, resulting in the loss to him of millions of rupees, in direct violation of HSBC’s legal responsibilities as a portfolio manager defined by SEBI rules and regulations in India.
After taking substantial losses in his investment account, Kumar became concerned HSBC might have circumvented investment rules and regulations in India.
When he asked HSBC to produce the certificate of portfolio management – a document Indian investment law requires all banks to have when managing funds for customers in the Indian market, including both residents and non-residents – he realized to his horror that HSBC did not have any such certificate. The realization caused him to fear HSBC had circumvented the entire regulatory regime governing portfolio managers in India.
After a forensic and legal examination of the HSBC blank letters of instruction, Kumar’s lawyers believe he has a strong legal argument that HSBC acted fraudulently.
“We have been provided with emails indicating that HSBC Ltd. acted contrary to express instructions given by our client, [Mr. Kumar], and substitute its own judgment on investment decisions HSBC made in our client’s account,” wrote attorney Pingal Khan of PXV Law Partners in New Delhi in a legal opinion dated July 6.
The opinion authored by PXV Law Partners was delivered to Douglas Flint, the group chairman of HSBC bank so HSBC in London could realize the extent of the practices.
The letter further stated, “The SEBI in the past initiated criminal prosecution against persons for repeated violation of the Portfolio Management regulations.”
Kumar’s lawyers in the U.K. provided written records to the board members and global chairman of HSBC PLC in London.
What was the bank’s response?
“So far, I’m unfortunately not surprised to say the bank has denied all wrong doing,” Kumar told WND.
Kumar said he has documented a series of meetings with HSBC officials in London in which they apologized for the losses and assured him they would make whole his investment account in India.
“So far, that has not happened,” Kumar said. “HSBC has not reimbursed me anything for my investment account losses in India.”
Kumar also suggested HSBC should face regulatory consequences both in the U.K. and in India.
“HSBC officials over a period of time have systematically asked customers for blind letters of instruction,” Kumar insisted. “The HSBC board should be reminded of the dictum ‘Res ipsa loquitor,’ i.e., the evidence speaks for itself.
“The bank can deny such wrong doings,” he said, “but what does HSBC intend to do about the evidence against it now has been shared with WND? Does HSBC plan to continue to deny all such wrong doings till such time regulators actually haul up the bank?”
Kumar called on HSBC to take responsible action in his case.
“HSBC’s CEO, Stuart Gulliver, has on numerous instances claimed that the bank will follow a path of ‘courageous integrity.’” Kumar said. “It is now time such values were actually implemented.”
Obama didn't join Wright's church to follow Jesus
This is the third of a series of articles WND has developed from months of confidential in-person interviews with members of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago who have known Barack and Michelle Obama on a personal basis over many years. In the first story, members of the church claimed Barack Obama benefited from Wright’s “Down Low Club,” part of a documented underground subculture in which black men who engage in homosexual activity marry to maintain respectability in public. In the second story, sources said civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, along with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, arranged Michelle Robinson’s marriage to Barack Obama. Because of the personal risk the sources perceived they were taking to speak candidly about the president and his family, their identities have been masked.
Barack Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago purely for political reasons, according to long-term member of the congregation who knew the Obamas.
“Obama may say he’s a Christian, but he’s not,” said the member, identified for this story as “Rose.” “Joining Trinity for Obama was a political decision, not a religious one.”
Rose pointed out that when Obama came to Chicago after graduating from Columbia University, he was an outsider, albeit with important contacts in Chicago’s African-American power structure.
She noted Obama’s mentor in Hawaii was Frank Marshall Davis, the Communist Party USA member and activist who made his reputation in Chicago.
Davis and Vernon Jarrett, the father-in-law of senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, were close friends in Chicago and colleagues at the Chicago Defender and the Chicago Star, two communist-run newspapers during the 1940s.
In early 1948, Davis and Vernon Jarrett served together on the publicity committee of the Citizen’s Committee to Aid Packing-House Workers, a communist-organized labor union that represented workers in the meatpacking industry.
“Think about it,” Rose said, “Obama’s Kenyan father abandoned him. In Hawaii, Obama fills that in with Frank Marshall Davis. In Chicago, it’s Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
She pointed out that Davis admitted to being bisexual, and there are rumors in the South Side Chicago community that Wright is bisexual.
In the early 1980s, Wright married Ramah Reed, a woman whose husband, Delmer Reed, went public with the charge Ramah divorced him and married Wright shortly after the couple came to the pastor for marriage counseling. Ramah and Jeremiah Wright have five children and three grandchildren.
Rose explained that to rise in Chicago politics, Obama needed an association with a church that would accept him as a homosexual, and he needed a mentor who could introduce him to the power players in Chicago’s hotbed of African-American politics.
As WND reported, rumors that Wright was running a “matchmaking service” for homosexual men at Trinity known as the Down Low Club, which included Obama, were investigated by opposition researchers for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The New York Times reported in 2003 on the growing underground subculture in the black community, comprised largely of men who secretly engage in homosexual activity while living “straight” lives in public.
“Ironically,” Rose continued, “for many young black guys in Chicago being down low is the only way out, provided you have someone like Rev. Wright to protect you.”
She also noted Obama and Wright shared common political sympathies.
“Remember, Obama was raised Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia,” she said. “That’s the thing about Rev. Wright and Trinity. Wright is close to Louis Farrakhan and Farrakhan is Black Muslim. Regardless what Obama may say for political reasons, his sympathies are Muslim. And he’s angry inside – angry at whites – which is why Rev. Wright’s brand of black liberation theology appealed to him.”
In 1995, Obama joined Wright on a trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in Farrakhan’s Million Man March.
The community organizer
Jerry Kellman, the Chicago-trained professional organizer who recruited Obama to Chicago to work in the Developing Communities Project, was known for using the technique of radical 1960s thinker and activist Saul Alinsky of extensively interviewing pastors and active church members to identify salient community issues, concerned residents and respected community leaders.”
By the 1980s, Alinsky gravitated toward using community churches as focal points for his organizational efforts, knowing local churches had strong community ties, could provide the community organization with experienced, respected leaders and offered a wide range of material resources that included office space, access to meeting rooms and office machinery.
Explaining his success in organizing the Back of the Yards slum area in Chicago, Alinsky said “the first thing I always do, is to move into the community as an observer, to talk with people and listen and learn their grievances and their attitudes.”
Then, he continued, the area was 95 percent Roman Catholic, and he recognized that “if I could win the support of the church, we’d be off and running.”
From his first conversation with Kellman, Obama was made to understand he could not ignore the African-American church if he were to succeed as a community organizer.
“Most of our work is with churches,” Kellman told Obama in their first meeting, as recounted on page 141 of “Dreams from My Father.”
“If poor and working-class people want to build real power, they have to have some sort of institutional base,” Kellman said.
But, even here, Kellman displayed Alinsky-like pragmatism.
“Churches won’t work with you, though, just out of the goodness of their hearts,” Kellman continued in that first meeting, which Obama described as his job interview. “They’ll talk a good game – a sermon on Sunday, maybe, or a special offering for the homeless. But if push comes to shove, they won’t really move unless you can show them how it will help them pay their heating bill.”
Throughout his work in the Developing Communities Project, Obama did not join a church. It was not until near the end of his time in Chicago that he joined Trinity, when he realized he needed more professional training to advance in Chicago politics and he decided to see if he could get into Harvard Law School.
Obama returned to networking to advance his career.
WND has reported a Chicago network that included Vernon Jarrett and Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al-Monsour, the former Black Panther and lawyer then known as Donald Warden, helped to get Obama accepted at Harvard Law School.
In his work on behalf of Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and OPEC, al-Monsour reportedly sought to create a fund that would provide $20 million for 10 years to aid 10,000 minority students each year, including blacks, Arabs, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans.
As WND reported in 2009, Sutton, then an octogenarian, in a 2008 appearance on the New York-produced “Inside City Hall” television show explained that al-Monsour made a telephone call to Sutton to bring to his attention Barack Obama.
Sutton said al-Mansour told him about Obama, saying in a letter: “There’s a young man that has applied to Harvard. I know that you have a few friends left there because you used to go up there to speak. Would you please write a letter in support of him?”
On air, Sutton further confirmed he wrote the letter, telling his friends at Harvard, “I thought there was going to be a genius that was going to be available, and I certainly hoped they would treat him kindly.”
A choice, not an epiphany
In his 2007 biography of Obama, “Obama: From Promise to Power,” Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell claimed that Obama first noticed the church because Wright had placed a “Free Africa” sign out front to protest apartheid in South Africa.
Mendell wrote that in Jeremiah Wright, Obama found a counselor and monitor who could help Obama grapple with “the complex vagaries of Chicago’s black political scene,” as Obama “sought to understand the power of Christianity in the lives of black Americans.”
Introducing Wright in “Dreams from My Father,” Obama says on page 282 that the minister had dabbled with liquor, Islam and black nationalism in the 1960s.
In the sermon from which Obama adapted the title of his second book, “Audacity to Hope,” Wright himself admits he was a Black Muslim for a time.
“I was influenced by Martin King, yes, but there was this other guy named Malcolm, and I tried one brief time being a Muslim: ‘As salaam alaikum’ [‘Peace be with you’],” Wright said in the sermon, “Anything but Christian.”
In “The Audacity of Hope,” on page 207, Obama reveals that a tipping point in his decision to join Trinity was his understanding that “faith doesn’t mean you don’t have doubts, or that you relinquish your hold on this world.”
He decided to be baptized at Trinity, according to “Audacity,” only after he realized “that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world I knew and loved.”
In clear and direct terms, Obama said his decision to become a Christian “came about as a choice and not an epiphany.”
Even though Michelle and Barack Obama were married at Trinity and their two children were baptized there, none of the Obama family were seriously religious members of the congregation, the members who spoke to WND said.
Edward Klein in his 2012 book “The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House” quoted, on page 43, Rev. Wright telling him in an interview that church “is not their thing.”
“And even after Barack and Michelle came to the church, their kids weren’t raised in the church like you raise other kids in Sunday school. No. Church is not their thing. Michelle was not the kind of black woman whose momma made her go to church, made her go to Sunday school, made her go to B.Y.P.U. [Baptist Young People’s Union]. She wasn’t raised in that kind of environment. So the church was not an integral part of their spiritual lives after they were married.”
Wright proceeded to tell Klein that Trinity was an integral part of Barack Obama’s politics, because he “needed that black base.”
October 7, 2012
Swing-state stunner: 'Dreams' mailed to 2.7 million
Filmmaker Joel Gilbert has mailed 2.7 million copies of his full-length documentary “Dreams from My Real Father” to households in key swing states, with 1.5 million going to Florida, 700,000 to Colorado and 500,000 to Iowa.
The mass distribution follows a mailing last month in which Gilbert sent 1.38 million DVDs of “Dreams from My Real Father” to households in swing state Ohio along with 100,000 to New Hampshire and 80,000 to Nevada.
Joel Gilbert’s “Dreams from My Real Father” is available at WND’s Superstore
Gilbert told WND the direct mail program aims to bypass the establishment media blackout on his film.
“It’s shocking that in the land of the First Amendment, in the ‘information age’ no less, a state of censorship exists on so many levels in the American media today,” Gilbert said.
Gilbert said that as long as the major media “refuse to cover my film, we are going to continue this publicity campaign by shipping DVDs state-by-state, million-by-million, until the media covers the findings in ‘Dreams from My Real Father.’”
Gilbert argues in the documentary that Frank Marshall Davis, the radical poet and journalist who was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, was the real, biological and ideological father of Barack Obama, not Barack Obama, the Kenyan, who came from Africa in 1959 to attend the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.
“Barack Obama built his political career on personal appeal – the son of a Kenyan goat herder who stood above politics,” he explained.
“However, ‘Dreams from My Real Father’ demonstrates that Obama has a deeply disturbing family background, which he intentionally obscured, to hide a Marxist political foundation. Dreams from My Real father is the story Barack Obama should have told, revealing his true agenda for ‘fundamentally transforming America.’”
The logic behind the direct mail campaign
Gilbert stressed to WND that his DVD has been at the top of the charts since first released, including the No. 1 spot on Amazon.com’s documentary list for weeks.
Establishment media also are reluctant to cover his findings, he said, because it would expose them for not having done their job of investigating Obama’s background
DVD copies of 'Dreams from My Real Father'
“Barack Obama must now come clean,” Gilbert insisted. “Instead of misrepresenting himself as he did in 2008, Obama should say, ‘My father was a Communist Party propagandist and suspected Soviet agent who indoctrinated me into Marxist ideology in my formative years. Please vote for me so I can destroy the American middle class and create a one-party political system.’”
Gilbert emphasized the extensive research backing the claims made in his film.
“I have been to Hawaii twice researching Obama’s inspiring family story of a Kenyan goat herder father. That is twice as many times as all of the mainstream media combined! Who could have imagined that news organizations with hundreds of reporters, and multi-million dollar budgets, wouldn’t investigate a presidential candidate’s background in 2008 and would ignore doing so again in 2012?”
His research extended to examine Chicago and the roots of the Frank Marshall Davis ideology.
“Davis joined the Communist party in Chicago, only 15 years after the Bolshevik Revolution,” Gilbert said. “You can hear the classic Marxism in Obama’s campaign, the ‘top 1 percent oppressing the 99 percent,’ and ‘you didn’t build your business, it was done on the backs of the proletariat,’ and so on. Marxism is a failed ideology that has no basis in fact in the American reality where the middle class has prospered and the issue of poverty is taken seriously.”
Gilbert told WND he believes the publicity resulting from the mailing of 2.7 million DVDs to Florida, Colorado and Iowa, following his September mailing of 1.38 million to Ohio, New Hampshire and Nevada will help “Dreams from My Real Father” remain relevant for years, whether or not Obama is reelected.
“The president of the United States promoted a false family background to hide a Marxist political foundation he received from his real father, a Communist Party USA propagandist,” he said. “I think this should be a major news story of the young century, an example of investigative journalism by a grassroots film production company versus a corrupt and lazy mainstream media. The mainstream media would not do their jobs, so I did it for them.”
Plan: Mail millions of DVDs
Gilbert said getting the American public to understand the official Obama nativity story is a fabrication will not be an easy task.
“Obama’s election was not a sudden political phenomenon,” he explained. “It was the culmination of an American socialist movement that Frank Marshall Davis nurtured in Chicago and Hawaii, and has been quietly infiltrating the U.S. economy, universities and media for decades.”
Gilbert told WND plans are in the works to send millions more DVDs of “Dreams from My Real Father” across the nation.
Worker prepares to mail out 'Dreams from My Real Father'
He said he wants to distribute the film “state by state, million by million, until the mainstream media covers it.”
Gilbert said he was planning next on a million DVDs being mailed to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.
“We can manufacture and ship 1 million DVDs per day out of Southern California,” he explained. “In the meantime, the 2.7 million DVD mailing to Florida, Colorado and Iowa households, and following up on the 1.38 million mailing to Ohio, New Hampshire and Nevada should force the mainstream media to pay attention. This will help expand the market for the film into television, video on demand and even internationally.”
“Dreams from My Real Father” mass produced
Gilbert described the mass production effort in a video.
“The media simply can’t ignore these million DVD mailings forever,” Gilbert said. “I encourage everyone who gets a DVD in the mail to watch it, share it with friends and contact the news media to discuss the information in the film.”
Gilbert told WND he hopes his million DVD mailings will stimulate “Dreams of My Real Father” sales, a television deal and possibly even a nationwide theatrical release.
“I got the idea for the free DVD mailer publicity program when I received an email from a Bern Nilson in Denver, Colo.,” Gilbert explained. “He wrote, ‘We are on the verge of losing the Constitution. Freedom and liberty are in jeopardy. As a Vietnam War veteran, I ask, what did I fight for? Please, can you get this information out to millions? It is our only hope!’”
In a now viral video, Gilbert announced the decision to mail millions of DVDs on July 19 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Gilbert has created a “Breaking News” page on the “Dreams from My Real Father” website about his plan to mail 3 million DVDs to households in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Joel Gilbert’s DVD “Dreams from My Real Father” is available in the WND Superstore.
October 4, 2012
Jesse Jackson, Wright 'arranged' Obama marriage
This is the second of a series of articles WND has developed from months of confidential in-person interviews with members of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago who have known Barack and Michelle Obama on a personal basis over many years. In the first story, members of the church claimed Barack Obama benefited from Wright’s “Down Low Club,” part of a documented underground subculture in which black men who engage in homosexual activity marry to maintain respectability in public. Because of the personal risk the sources perceived they were taking to speak candidly about the president and his family, their identities have been masked.
As a young single woman, Michelle Robinson was a fixture in the home of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who along with Rev. Jeremiah Wright “arranged” her marriage to Barack Obama, according to sources in Chicago who know the couple.
“If you want to understand Michelle Obama, you’ve got to go back to Jesse Jackson,” a woman called “Robyn” for this article told WND.
Robyn, who spent several years working for Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, explained to a WND investigator in Chicago that Michelle Obama “just about grew up in Jesse Jackson’s home.”
“Jesse should have charged her rent and board for the amount of time she spent in his home instead of her own,” she said.
Jackson’s daughter, Santita, is still one of Michelle’s best friends. Santita and Jesse Jr. call her “sis,” short for “sister.”
Santita Jackson said in an interview just before Obama took office in 2008 that she has known Michelle Obama since they car-pooled together as high school classmates. Santita was maid of honor at Michelle and Barack Obama’s wedding, and she is the godmother to the Obama’s older daughter, Malia.
Robyn also pointed out Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democratic Party member of the U.S. House from Illinois, served as the national co-chairman of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
“It all relates back to Trinity and to the Jesse Jackson orbit of blacks here in Chicago who gave Obama legitimacy and helped him establish his identity as a black man,” Robyn explained.
“The political left wanted to push a black to the presidency, and the key operatives in the Democratic Party decided long ago it wouldn’t be Jesse Jackson (Sr.). Then Jesse wanted it to be his son, but Jesse Jr. has serious drug and mental problems that the world knows about now. These were also known about in the past, and Jesse Jr. was never going to be the black president. So, the political left then chose Obama.”
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times in August, Sandi Jackson admitted her husband, Jesse Jr., was “completely debilitated by depression,” which has forced him to put his Washington home for sale to pay his medical bills, including his treatment at the Mayo Clinic. He has been absent from Congress since mid-June, putting his House seat at risk in the November election.
They met where?
Obama’s retelling of an event most spouses remember precisely for the rest of their lives has caused confusion. Exactly when and how did he first meet Michelle Robinson?
Before a speech at the New Economic School graduation in Moscow on July 7, 2009, Obama stated he first met Michelle in school.
“I don’t know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I’m sure you’re all going to have wonderful careers,” he said, according to Newsweek.
The problem is that Michelle Obama earned her degree from Harvard Law School in 1988, and Obama did not arrive at Harvard Law School until that fall, graduating three years later in 1991.
The commonly accepted story is that they first met in Chicago in 1989, when Barack took a summer job as an intern at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin, and Michelle, who was employed as a lawyer at the firm, was assigned to be his mentor.
WND has reported Allen Hulton, the U.S. postal carrier who delivered mail to the parents of Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers in a Chicago suburb, met Obama in the summer of 1989, while Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin.
In 1991, during their engagement to be married, top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, then serving as the deputy chief of staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley, hired Michelle to a job in the mayor’s office.
“Michelle hated working for the city even more than she hated working at Sidley Austin,” Robyn told WND.
“At the law firm, she lasted so short of a time because they expected her to do work,” Robyn said. “At the City of Chicago, where she worked under Mayor Daley, Michelle had one of those ‘Jesse hires’ positions. These are patronage jobs where the recipients did nothing.”
Robyn claimed that while working for Daley, Michelle just collected a check, doing very little work.
“She sat at a desk and read the newspaper all day,” Robyn said. “Sometimes she read romance novel paperbacks. No one could say anything to her because she was a ‘Jesse hire.’ This meant if anyone did complain about her not working that Jesse Jackson would get mad at Daley over that, and there would be trouble.”
Robyn said Michelle was “essentially treated like she was Jesse’s daughter, and Michelle’s connections in Chicago were a key to Obama’s rise to power.”
Connections
Political connections played throughout Michelle’s young life in Chicago.
Her father, Fraser C. Robinson III, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his 20s and eventually walked with the use of crutches, was a volunteer Democratic precinct captain in addition to his job in the boiler room at Chicago’s water purification plant.
As Democratic precinct captain, Robinson had power and influence, given his access to “street money” the Daley machine freely handed out at that time in Chicago’s South Side to make sure black voters turned out to vote for Democratic Party machine candidates.
The Chicago sources told WND the selection of Michelle Robinson for Obama was made by Jesse Jackson, and Jeremiah Wright agreed it would be a good combination.
“It all relates back to Trinity United and to the Jesse Jackson orbit of blacks here in Chicago who gave Obama legitimacy and helped him establish his identity as a black man ‘from Chicago,’” Robyn explained.
“Michelle came from a political family; she was intelligent even if she didn’t really like to work. Wright knew Obama was gay, but he needed the cover of a wife if he were to succeed in politics.”
A current member of Trinity church who has known the Obamas for 20 years, “Carolyn,” confirmed Trinity “helped a lot of blacks get successful and connected.”
“That’s what Wright did for Obama,” she claimed. “He connected Obama in the community, and he helped Obama hide his homosexuality.”
According to Robyn, Jackson explained to Michelle that she would live a life of luxury once Obama was president, and that she never again would have to worry about money.
“Michelle was nasty, and most straight guys would never be able to put up with her moods and temperament,” Robyn maintained. “But Obama really didn’t care. Michelle had the credentials and she looked the part. Obama wasn’t interested in her for sex.”
A source WND will identify as Hazel, a long-term member of the Trinity congregation, insisted Obama remained sexually involved with men after his marriage to Michelle.
“I remember being at this function at Reverend Wright’s house, one of the many parties Wright had, in 1996,” Hazel recalled.
“I went to the room where all the coats were on the bed, because I wanted to leave. I was surprised to find the light in the room was off and the coats were on the floor,” she said. “Then I realized there were two men hugging and kissing in there. One of those men was Obama. This was long before anybody knew Obama, before he became famous like he is today.”
Hazel has been telling this story in Chicago since 1996.
Cushy job
When Jarrett left Mayor Daley’s office to head Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development, she took Michelle with her.
Jarrett later became the chairwoman of the Chicago Medical Center, and Michelle again got “a cushy job at the Chicago Medical Center with a salary of $317,000,” as reported by Edward Klein on page 117 of his 2012 book “The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House.”
New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor wrote in 2008 that Jarrett would have to be at the top of a list of people who helped Barack and Michelle Obama.
“Nearly two decades ago, Ms. Jarrett swept the young lawyers under her wing, introduced them to a wealthier and better-connected Chicago than their own, and eventually secured contacts and money essential to Mr. Obama’s long-shot Senate victory,” Kantor wrote.
Klein, in an interview with Fox News, described Jarrett as the “de facto” president of the United States, “the best friend of the first lady and soul mate of the president.”
Americans' distrust of Obama birth story rises
“The birthers aren’t going anywhere!”
So concludes MIT political science professor Adam J. Berinsky, who published Monday results from a YouGov survey of 1,000 Americans who were asked whether they believed Barack Obama was born in the United States.
According to the scientific poll, 73 percent of self-identified Republicans and 40 percent overall are either don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S. or are not sure.
For both Republicans and Americans overall, belief that Obama is foreign-born was at a high point in September, just 37 days before the Nov. 6 presidential election.
As seen in Table 1 for the full sample and in Table 2 for Republicans only, Berinsky’s conclusions were clear: The percentage of people who think Obama was not born in the United States has held steady throughout the year and perhaps even increased slightly.
“Birtherism is especially pronounced among Republicans,” Berinsky wrote. “Indeed, the level of birtherism among Republicans is the highest it has been this year.”
Table 1: Adam Berinsky birther study: full sample
Table 2: Adam Berinsky birther study: Republicans only
Writing in February, Berinsky noted Obama, since assuming the presidency, had been plagued by rumors that he is not a natural-born citizen and, as a result, is not eligible to serve as president under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.
“These rumors have shown a surprising resilience over the last four years,” Berinsky wrote. “In fact, polls conducted by numerous media organizations repeatedly demonstrated that a significant portion of the American public claimed that Obama was not born in the United States, while many others are not sure if he was.”
Berinsky noted the doubts about where Obama was born have persisted even after the White House released a computer PDF copy of Obama’s long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011.
“Time and again, the Obama team tried to dispel the “birther” rumor,” he observed.
“During the 2008 presidential contest, Obama released a computer copy of his birth certificate on a campaign website, but it did not quell the controversy. In 2009, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, verified that Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born citizen. But still the rumors would not die.”
In July, Berinsky reported 20 percent of independent voters believe Obama is not a native born citizen, allowing him to conclude that birtherism “is not strictly a condition of the Republican Party.”
Sen. Coburn ducks on birth certificate promise
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., appears to dodging a campaign promise he made to look into evidence President Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.
In a letter to a constituent dated Oct. 2, Coburn said his staff had reached out to the office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix after making a promise to tea-party activist Miki Booth at an Aug. 7 town hall appearance in Claremore, Okla. At the campaign event, Booth was seen on video confronting the senator about a letter she had written to him.
“My staff has reached out to Sheriff Arpaio’s office,” Coburn wrote in the constituent letter. “However, I have yet to be presented any credible evidence to demonstrate President Obama was not born in Hawaii.”
From there, Coburn cited Obama being placed on state ballots for president as proof Obama’s birth certificate is genuine.
“Furthermore, all 50 states saw fit to put Mr. Obama on their ballots in 2008 and again in 2012,” Coburn wrote. “This includes Arizona, which was recently provided verification of President Obama’s birth by Hawaii. I remain open to hearing and reviewing any supporting evidence.”
However, Mike Zullo, lead investigator for Sheriff Arpaio’s law enforcement investigation into Obama’s eligibility, insists Coburn has yet to see the evidence his team has uncovered indicating the document the White House posted as Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.
“I was initially contacted by Ken Ashton, an aide to Sen. Coburn in Sen. Coburn’s Washington office, on Sept. 4,” Zullo explained to WND. “I provided Ashton at his request, an overview of the sheriff’s investigation, focusing on the document fraud.”
Coburn’s office has not replied to WND’s request for comment.
Zullo told WND he emphasized to Ashton the sheriff was not investigating the president but the long-form birth certificate released by the White House April 27, 2011, to determine if that document was legitimate.
“I told Ashton that it would be appropriate for Sen. Coburn to contact Sheriff Arpaio directly to fulfill the commitment Coburn had made to his constituents,” Zullo said. “I explained Sheriff Arpaio was prepared and looking forward to answering any questions Coburn might have.”
Zullo documented his discussion with Ashton in an internal memo sent to Arpaio’s office Sept. 4. Zullo told Arpaio that he expected Coburn would contact the sheriff to request access to the evidence after Ashton and Coburn had an opportunity to study the overview.
Two weeks later, Zullo received a second phone call from Ashton in which Ashton seemed intent to emphasize the fact that he had called Arpaio’s office Sept. 4 in his capacity as an investigative aide to Coburn.
“I told Ashton that Coburn should speak directly to Sheriff Arpaio, because the sheriff had to make the decision to release evidence from the investigation,” Zullo recalled.
“I specifically pointed out to Ashton he would not be able to use his phone call to me as a substitute for Sen. Coburn talking directly to Sheriff Arpaio.”
Zullo told WND he felt Ashton’s second phone call was disingenuous, almost as if Ashton wanted Zullo to agree to a cover story.
“At the conclusion of the phone call, I felt Coburn’s office was attempting to use Ashton’s phone call as evidence that Coburn contacted the sheriff’s office,” Zullo said, “when the truth is Coburn never contacted Sheriff Arpaio, and Coburn never requested any evidence be provided to him for his inspection.”
Zullo said the episode was typical of the repeated frustrations the sheriff has experienced trying to get Congress to look at the birth certificate evidence.
“Ashton was trying to create the illusion that somehow the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had not provided Sen. Coburn with any credible evidentiary information, even though Ashton never requested to see the evidence,” Zullo said.
“Even if Ashton had requested to see the evidence, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office would not blindly send out the evidence without first requiring Sen. Coburn to talk with the sheriff so the sheriff could make a determination whether or not it was appropriate to release the evidence to the senator’s office.”
Zullo’s final conclusion was that Coburn’s office was just engaging in politicking, and Ashton only wanted to create “the illusion the evidence had been examined.”
“The truth appears to be that Sen. Coburn has no serious interest in conducting an honest evaluation of whether or not Obama’s birth certificate is genuine, or the computer-generated forgery we have concluded the document is,” Zullo said.
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