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Rezko Reality
McCain misfires as he attacks Obama's home purchase.

Summary
On the defensive over the extent of multiple McCain homes, the GOP candidate strikes back. But his TV spot gives an oversimplified and misleading account of how Obama bought his own $1.6 million house in Chicago.

The ad says Chicago power broker Tony Rezko got “political favors” including “$14 million from taxpayers.” But there's no evidence of any connection to the Obama home purchase. The $14 million was to build apartments for low-income seniors. Obama wrote a letter supporting the “worthy” project, but both men say Rezko didn't ask for the letter.

It says Rezko “purchased part of the property [Obama] couldn't afford.” Rezko's wife did buy an adjoining tract but later sold the land at a profit. Obama paid market price for his home.

McCain launched the attack after Obama ran one capitalizing on McCain's inability to recall for an interviewer how many homes the McCains own. Obama's ad says it's seven. The best tally we've seen puts the figure at eight, counting all the apartments and homes owned by McCain's wife, Cindy, and various family trusts, for themselves and their children.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/154782

On the flip, perhaps Barack needs to be a tad more vocal on these issues, given his MIA on the Georgian invasion, etc…

Moments later, Harris struck Stevens in the head with a nearly full bottle of rum, prosecutors said. Stevens fell down some stairs to a cement floor and suffered a severe facial cut. Stevens has a permanent scar, the judge said Friday in noting the severity of the attack.

DaBrat should've plead not guilty and went to trial…now she's going to the lockup where she'll have her choice of prospects. She probably wanted to go to the pokey anyway. I know she's will miss her phine *** girlfriend. Will the girlfriend wait till DaBrat gets out…or will she move on…drama.

First off, Schuenmann has acceped lots of money of behalf of Georgia (who has a very strategic oil pipeline running through it), and Schueneman has been succesful in getting John McCain to sponsor legislation on Georgia's behalf.

2. President Bush asked NATO this past April to help fast-track Georgia's acceptance into NATO. It did not happen. The problem is that both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have had de facto autonomy since they fought a civil war with Georgia. Russia has peacekeepers in the regions to help enforce a “cease-fire” between the groups. Of course with that de facto autonomy, Georgia is not “unified” with South Ossetia and Abkahzia, within its “border.”

3. Georgia began bombarding Tshinvali, the capital of South Ossetia on JULY 3, 2008, killing a few people, but nothing wide-scale at the time.

4. On July 15, 2008 U.S. troops and Georgian troops began military exercises near Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Of course Russia became suspicious of this activity in lignt of Georgia's attacks on South Ossetia weeks before.

5. The exercises wrapped up right around the time of GEORGIA'S INVASION OF SOUTH OSSETIA on August 8, 2008. Many hundred people were killed including 12 Russian peacekeepers.——Russian then responded, and pushed Georgian troops out of South Ossetia, back into Georgia.

Many media outlets know this but they contined to use the headline “RUSSIA INVADES GEORGIA” when in actuality, Russia was responding to Georgia's military aggression against South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers. Now, Russia was very powerful in their response, but it is scary that this conflict keeps being framed as a Russian “flex of power” when Georgia initiated this conflict.

Now, with America's support of missile systems being set up in Poland , it will only strain Russia-U.S. relations. And whether we admit it or not, the U.S. will need Russia to deal with Iran and others. Our military power can only go so far and we are already stretched thin with Iraq and Afghanistan.

Case in point: the “surge”

McCain, who on the CBS interview, mistakend the timing of the Awakening, has continously harped that the troop increase and dip in violence equals “success” and that he was absolutely “correct” about the surge.

Just yesterday, the New York Times had a article titled : “IRAQ TAKES AIM AT U.S.-TIED SUNNI GROUPS' LEADERS”
Basically, hostilites are growing between the Shiite-dominated government and the members of the Sunni-led Awakening members who were instrumental in quelling the violence. Many of the members of the Awakening joined the American payroll (yes, we paid them to turn against Al-qaeda and other insurgent groups) and helped drive down violence, even before all US “surge” troops arrived in Iraq. Now, those same Awakening members “want to use their influence on the ground into political power.” However, the Shiite-government does not want to extend that power. The Iraqi government is driving out many of the leaders of the Sunni citizen patrol, arresting some of them.

In the article, Sheik Jalaldeen al Sagheer, a leading Shiite member of the Iraqi Parliament said “The state(Iraq) cannot accept the awakening. Their days are numbered.

Now, the arrest of Sunni Awakening members and the growing rift can possibly initiate another rise in Sunni insurgency and drive many of them back to attacks and supporting al_Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. has helped create an civil war in Iraq and no amount of U.S. forces can eliminate the political rifts that exist in Iraq after we executed regime change and changed the political landscape of their sovereign nation. That is why I believe Senator Obama has been reluctant to proclaim a “true” success of U.S. troop surge. The troop surge helped bring down violence but it does not fundamentally solve the cause of the violence. That can only be reconciled by the Iraqi people—no matter how long our troops stay there. That is the message Obama needs to drive to the American people.