The end of August brought an end to combat operations in Iraq, said President Obama. So why is it, then, that American soldiers took part in a three-hour gun battle in Iraq today?

Under what definition of combat does the firing of guns by soldiers, with the intent to kill an enemy that is also firing guns, not count as combat?

The war is over. The war goes on.

In the month of August 2008, the following were our five best-selling bumper stickers:

1. Librarians Against Palin bumper sticker
2. People With One House Against McCain bumper sticker
3. Republicans for Barack Obama bumper sticker
4. I Like Obama, But is America Ready for a President with Brains? bumper sticker
5. Hope, Not Fear: Obama 2008 bumper sticker

At the time, attention was riveted on the presidential contest between John McCain, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama and… that other guy, some Joe fella. But a year later, in the month of August 2009, attention had largely returned to policy topics; the following were our five best-selling bumper stickers:

1. I Support Healthcare Reform bumper sticker
2. O: The President bumper sticker
3. America for Health Care Reform bumper sticker
4. Vote No on 1 gay marriage bumper sticker
5. GOP Health Care Plan? Don’t Get Sick! bumper sticker

Fast forward to the month just passed, August 2010. In the list of our five top-selling bumper stickers this month, I see evidence of a turn away from policy thinking and a return to campaign thinking:

1. Barack Obama campaign bumper sticker
2. Just Say No to the Party of No anti-Republican bumper sticker
3. I Love America Too Much to Vote Republican bumper sticker
4. Thank Me, I Voted for Obama bumper sticker
5. Republicans Cut Veterans Benefits bumper sticker

Notably, there aren’t any specifically pro-Democrat bumper stickers in this latest set; sentiment is more anti-Republican. Also of notice is that none of the congressional campaign bumper stickers we offer make the top five either. Attention is already leaping local midterm 2010 elections to the national presidential re-election bid of Barack Obama in 2012.

“Basing policy on emotion and hysteria and feelings is stupid and dishonest,” says Republican congressional candidate Earl Sholley, but Sholley himself has demonstrated that he is himself quite eager to exploit emotional panic in order to promote dishonest policies. In order to gain support for his congressional campaign, Sholley has been whipping up right wing Christian anger against those Americans who do not share their religious beliefs.

Yesterday, F.G. Fitzer noted the claim by Massachusetts 3rd district congressional candidate Michael Stopa that Barack Obama is an atheist. Right next door in the 4th congressional district, congressional candidate Sholley has joined in the conspiracy theory, declaring of Obama, “I believe in his heart of hearts he is a true Marxist, and Marxists are atheists.”

Of course, the U.S. Constitution declares such matters to be irrelevant: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Sholley and Stopa seem all too happy to impose such a test, however, and seek to establish their own Christian status in the minds of voters by questioning Barack Obama’s Christianity. Sholley openly expresses his disdain for the Constitution’s system of democratically-established liberty. “The just laws of man derive from the natural laws of God. Our rights come from God. They do not come from the Government,” he says.

With their tactic of self-promotion through religious division, these politicians are inciting public anger against non-Christians, suggesting that it’s dangerous for non-Christians to be allowed equal participation in U.S. government. It’s not just atheists that are on the receiving end of this attack, of course. This summer has seen a surge in attacks, both verbal and physical, against American Muslims. Many are calling for Muslims to be exempted from the constitutional freedom of religion.

Earl Sholley has hopped on the anti-Muslim bandwagon. He writes of the Cordoba House Muslim community center in New York City, “This mosque, if built, will represent a symbolic victory for Islam over the West. We need to be realistic. Islam and Sharia Law are incompatible with America and our democratic institutions. They’re incompatible with our constitutional and republican form of government as well. This is another battle that we are engaged in, and a battle that the American people must win.”

Sholley’s campaign of scapegoating against Muslims and atheists is a reminder that when the freedom of religion of one cultural minority is threatened, the religious freedom of all minorities is made vulnerable. Atheists and Muslims have quite different beliefs about religion, but politically, they’re in the same boat.

Michael Stopa, who is campaigning to replace James McGovern as the U.S. Representative for the 3rd congressional district in Massachusetts, refuses to throw in his lot with those Republicans who claim that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Instead, Stopa asserts that President Obama is an atheist. “I actually don’t think Barack Obama is a Muslim. I think he is a nonbeliever,” Stopa told a reporter. What evidence did Stopa have for Obama’s atheism? Obama and his family have been attending Christian worship services for years, after all.

Stopa admitted that he didn’t have any evidence for Obama’s atheism. He just believed in it, because of clues such as Obama’s stands on political issues. Stopa explained, “I have no specific evidence, but I think he’s sympathetic to anybody who is opposed to America and American values.”

Being sympathetic to people who are opposed to “American values” is a sign that someone is an atheist? Does that make Osama Bin Laden an atheist, Mr. Stopa?

I have no specific evidence, but I believe that Mike Stopa has been sniffing glue.

Postscript: For just a second, let’s indulge in Stopa’s fantasy in which Barack Obama, who has expanded George W. Bush’s office of faith-based initiatives, is an atheist. So what if Obama was an atheist? The Constitution of the United States of America makes it clear that Obama’s religious identity is supposed to have nothing at all to do with his standing as President. It’s in Article VI, as plain as day: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Why is Michael Stopa ignorant of the Constitution? It’s the foundational document of “American values”, after all, and if Stopa is sympathetic to those who oppose Article VI’s ban on religious tests for public office, why that would make him…

Environmentalists who voted for Barack Obama are shaking their heads in regret as they find out about a White House effort to block climate action through the courts.

The Obama Administration abandoned efforts to push climate legislation through Congress a long while ago, and promised EPA regulation of greenhouse gases has failed to materialize. So, with the legislative and executive branches of government failing to take action to deal with the increasing crisis of global warming, the nation is left with the judicial branch as a means for action.

This week, President Obama moved to block judicial action on climate change. The Obama Administration is acting in opposition to a lawsuit by state governments against big polluting energy companies that would require those companies to reduce emissions of gases that are increasing the planet’s temperature. Obama’s lawyers are arguing that state governments shouldn’t be allowed to file suit to force climate action, because damages from climate change are complicated, and because the Obama Administration will get around to dealing with the problem… eventually.

Will this be Obama’s re-election campaign slogan in 2012: Change we’ll get around to, sooner or later?

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that I just can’t get my head around. It reads, God and Obama have one thing in common: No birth certificate.

One thing that perplexes me about this bumper sticker is that Barack Obama does have a birth certificate. That’s been shown, over and over again. So, it seems, the fundamental premise of this bumper sticker is simply wrong.

But then, let’s suppose that Barack Obama did not have a birth certificate, as the bumper sticker asserts. Why bring God into the equation?

Is this an anti-God bumper sticker, or a pro-God bumper sticker? Is the maker of this bumper sticker asserting that God ought to be President? Is the maker of this bumper sticker claiming that God was born in Kenya and is a Muslim?

They’re offering this bumper sticker in packs of 50. Who could find 50 people that would be willing to put this sticker on their cars?

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another act in the ongoing production of the Editing Quotes Out of Context Theatre.

A new alleged quotation of President Barack Obama is making the rounds at right-wing websites and in Republican e-mail circles, a quotation being used to “prove” Barack Obama is a Muslim:

“I have lived in a Muslim-majority country… I know, because I am one of them.” Barack Hussein Obama

O! Mi! Gawd! B. Hussein O’ Bomb-a just declared that he is “one of them.” They. Them. One of the Muslims!

… or did he?

Fact check time. Here’s the real quote, from a speech made in April 2009 to the Parliament of Turkey:

The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country — I know, because I am one of them.

What silliness. President Obama stated the obvious and the true: the “them” refers to Americans who “have Muslims in their families” and Americans who “have lived in a Muslim-majority country.” No one disputes Barack Obama has Muslims in his family — his Indonesian stepfather was Muslim. No one disputes that Barack Obama has lived in a Muslim-majority country: as a child, he spent some years living in Indonesia.

But did Barack Obama declare himself to Muslim in this quote? Obviously not.

It’s happy times, sunshine and cleanliness in the Gulf of Mexico, where almost all the crude oil that gushed out for three months straight from the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling disaster site has disappeared, right? That’s what the Obama Administration would have us believe, but it’s not what a scientific analysis of the oil spill aftermath suggests.

A group of 5 scientists from the University of Georgia took a look at the data that Obama used to declare the Gulf of Mexico to be suddenly safe, with only 25 percent of the petroleum remaining, and rapidly disappearing. They concluded that actually, 70 to 79 percent of the petroleum remains in Gulf waters, and will persist for a long time. Supporting this claim is another survey, this one conducted by scientists at the University of South Florida, who found large amounts of oil accumulating in underwater canyons and killing off the seafloor ecosystems there.

Michael Shear of the Washington Post explains how the decision by a court to further delay same-sex marriage for Californians is a boon for the Obama administration:

In this difficult summer for President Obama, not a lot has gone right, politically. But this week, for once, the White House caught a break and can breathe a sigh of relief.

Even as controversy swirled about the president’s comments on the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, another potential election-season headache was all but erased.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided Monday to delay same-sex marriages in California until at least December… it was a relief for the White House, meaning that a potentially divisive issue would not play out during the fall midterm elections.

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin, who is close with top White House officials, said Obama has “suffered through a season of distractions. He didn’t need one more distraction…. He simply doesn’t need any more hurdles in the lane.”

Todd Harris, a Republican consultant who has extensive experience in California politics, said the ruling by the court represented “the classic dodging of a bullet” for Obama.

In other news, the racial resegregation of the military into Black-only units and White-only units has prompted audible sighs of relief in the corridors of the West Wing:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel refused to comment publicly today on news regarding the restructuring of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines into race-segregated units. However, sources close to the President indicated good spirits among staffers who had worried that divisive controversies over social issues might distract voters during the upcoming congressional election season.

Some issues remain unresolved. “We’re still trying to figure out where to put the Hispanics,” explained Undersecretary of Defense Leith Billingwattle. “They’re kind of brown, aren’t they?”

But even as controversy swirled about the president’s “no religious test should be required for public office” comment, at least on the racial and military fronts a potential political headache has gone away.

Democratic pollster Carol Ikenagha explained that Obama has “suffered through a season of distractions. He didn’t need one more distraction…. He simply doesn’t need any more hurdles in the lane.”

Some other positive indicators for the Democrats heading toward November:

* Abortion has been made illegal by the latest 5-4 ruling of the Supreme Court, largely knocking issues of reproductive liberty off the list of election-year subjects;

* The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind the right of Americans to gather in public groups of five or more has negated any perceived advantage of the Republican Party on national security issues;

* After the reduction of the U.S. minimum wage to $2 an hour, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce eased its historical practice of overwhelmingly funding Republicans.

“We see victory at hand,” exulted a young campaign intern coming out of a late-night strategy session of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The course is clear and we’re ready to run.”

This week, the Obama White House essentially told liberals to go to hell, with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying that any liberal who has concerns with Barack Obama’s embrace of George W. Bush’s rotten policies must be high on drugs. Mr. Gibbs ought to know that, with Barack Obama’s betrayal of his liberal supporters, we’re anything but high.

Gibbs also suggested that Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the standard bearer for liberals, derisively commenting that liberals wouldn’t be happy unless Kucinich was President. Actually, as we liberals here at Irregular Times pointed out during the 2008 election, Dennis Kucinich was not a great choice to speak for liberals. The association of Kucinich with New Age con artist Breatharians and UFO visions makes him too flaky to be Commander In Chief.

Kucinich has taken himself out of the running to challenge Obama from the Left in 2012 anyway. This morning, Kucinich gave a plain “no” when he was asked if he would run for President against Obama in 2012. Kucinich stated,

“I think that Mr. Gibbs and the White House need to realize that liberals support the President, but they’re still, the criticism is a measure of the hopes that have not been realized, and I don’t think that they ought to take it in the manner that Mr. Gibbs, and apparently the rest of the White House, does take the criticism…”

“You can’t take away from the President his accomplishments, and I certainly don’t, but there is this factor at the beginning of your news show you demonstrated. The economy is in a deep trough. We’re looking at a double dip recession. We have 9.5 percent of Americans out of work – over 15 million Americans. You have the trade deficit, which is the largest it’s been in the last two years. We have to do something about the joblessness. It’s the key issue, and until the Administration effectively addresses that, then those of us who call ourselves liberals are going to continue to insist, look, we should be talking about a full employment economy. We should be getting America back to work. We shouldn’t be capitulating to the Fed or to Wall Street with this false notion that a certain amount of unemployment is necessary for the proper functioning of the American economy. We have to get America back to work. That is the key and central issue of all this, and in addition, if I might add, don’t forget about getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq, because that also, inevitably, has a big drag on the economy.”

“The kind of tremendous hope that America felt in January of 2009 with the election of Barack Obama, an election that I supported actively, that they’re still out there, that people still want to believe that government has this transformational power, and it does, but we need the leadership that can make it happen. You know, Franklin Roosevelt recognized in 1933 that America needed, not just a New Deal, but that we had put America back to work, rebuild the economy, rebuild America. We still have the capacity to do that now. That’s why I say that the criticism is mainly about hopes that have not yet been realized, and the intention to make sure that they get realized while we have a President that we do want to support.”

I don’t agree with Kucinich’s claim that liberals support Barack Obama any more. I’m looking around at the liberals that I know, and I just don’t see that sort of support. I don’t see my liberal friends displaying wearing Obama tshirt and campaign buttons. The liberals I know are disappointed and disgusted with Barack Obama. They’re feeling embarrassed.

I don’t think that Robert Gibbs and the rest of the Obama Administration care about that. It’s my guess that they designed the Gibbs remark on purpose to prove to Americans that Obama isn’t liberal. They want us liberals to say that we don’t approve of Barack Obama, because Obama wants to take the Democratic Party more to the Right.

What should we liberals do about that? Should we just accept Obama as the best we can hope for in a hyper-reactionary nation? Should we find someone to challenge Obama on our behalf?

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it’s crazy.” — White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, August 10 2010

Barack Obama was required by law, upon assuming the presidency, to appoint a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. This board is supposed to have subpoena power to compel testimony and evidence, and it is supposed to make frequent reports to the Congress and the public

It is now 569 days since Barack Obama was inaugurated president and he hasn’t even nominated a single person to this board. The board does not exist.

This is a violation of federal law. It’s an abrogation of constitutional oversight.

Does it make me a drug-addled crazy man to point this out?

Ask Robert Gibbs.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has complained this week that the Obama Administration is angry about liberals who don’t like Barack Obama’s broken promises to them. Gibbs said that liberals like those of us here at Irregular Times, who note the many commonalities between Obama’s policies and the policies of George W. Bush, “ought to be drug tested”.

Drug tested?!? Am I hallucinating the following Obama policies?

- record-breaking military budgets
- refusal to even consider single payer health care
- embrace of Bush’s unitary executive totalitarian theory
- opposition to same-sex marriage
- expansion of Bush’s surveillance state
- expanded offshore drilling
- abandoning endangered species
- war, war, war
- still Code Orange after all these years – with new body scans added in!
- covering up torture
- following Bush’s kangaroo courts
- expanding the faith-based initiatives religious kickback program with no reforms
- keeping Guantanamo open
- pushing clean coal
- blocking investigation of Bush crimes
- subsidies to Big Oil
- refusal to obey the Freedom of Information Act
- supporting right wing Blue Dogs against progressives
- abandonment of climate legislation

Is it hard for the Obama White House to hear that liberals are sick and tired of being kicked around by the Democratic President? Cry me a river, Robert Gibbs.

Go on, Mr. Gibbs. Test me for drugs. I’m clean.

There is good news today for Americans who care about the liberty that’s guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States of America. The U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia has ruled that government spies do not have the right to place GPS tracking devices on Americans’ cars without a search warrant.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Obama Administration had asserted that prolonged, secret GPS tracking of Americans was not unreasonable. The Court of Appeals disagreed.

The specific case had to do with the placement by the FBI of a GPS tracking bug on a car while it was on private property. The GPS bug then sent signals indicating the location of the car, every ten seconds, for a whole month. The FBI did not seek to obtain a search warrant authorizing the tracking. The opinion provided by the Court of Appeals stated,

“It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even to follow someone during a single journey as he goes to the market or returns home from work. It is another thing entirely for that stranger to pick up the scent again the next day and the day after that, week in and week out, dogging his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores that make up that person’s hitherto private routine.”

In its arguments defending the warrantless GPS spying by the FBI, Obama Administration lawyers asserted that it’s perfectly all right for the government to track every movement of an American with GPS devices, without any proof of cause to believe that the person targeted is involved in criminal activity – just so long as the GPS spying is targeted against individuals, and not against groups of people. Is that practice in accord with the hope and change American voters were promised by Barack Obama back in 2008?

Sometimes Democrats get upset with liberals who criticize Barack Obama’s warrantless wiretapping programs. As president, Obama has maintained George W. Bush’s regime of warrantless wiretapping against people neither accused nor suspected of crime. More than that, President Obama is currently striving to expand the warrantless surveillance regime with new powers to study even our web browsing habits with none of the prior judicial approval required by the 4th Amendment to that ratty piece of paper called the Constitution.

Democrats sometimes get upset when we mention these matters, telling us we ought to have expected this from Barack Obama. But no, no, we oughtn’t to have expected this. In an official position paper during the 2008 presidential race, the Obama campaign made its promise explicit:

Eliminate Warrantless Wiretaps. Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administration’s initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional intelligence committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law.

Barack Obama has not “eliminated warrantless wiretaps.”
Barack Obama has not updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to do anything, much less provide “greater oversight and accountability.”
Barack Obama has not even appointed the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board he is legally required to staff. Its job: providing “greater oversight and accountability” by collecting information on Obama administration surveillance activity and reporting to Congress on whether such activity has been constitutional. Under Barack Obama, this board is merely hypothetical, and there is no oversight.

Candidate Obama made us a promise. President Obama has broken it. It matters.