From Ann Coulter:

THE REIGN OF LAME FALLS MAINLY ON MCCAIN

November 5, 2008

Last night was truly a historic occasion: For only the second time in her adult life, Michelle Obama was proud of her country!

The big loser of this election is Colin Powell, whose last-minute endorsement of Obama put the Illinois senator over the top. Powell was probably at home last night, yelling at his TV, “Are you KIDDING me? That endorsement was sarcastic!”

The winner, of course, is Obama, who must be excited because now he can start hanging out in public with Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright again. John McCain is a winner because he can resume buying more houses.

And we’re all winners because we will never again have to hear McCain say, “my friends.”

After Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election, Hillary Clinton immediately announced that, henceforth, she would be known as “Hillary Rodham Clinton.” So maybe Obama can now become B. Hussein Obama, his rightful name.

This was such an enormous Democratic year that even John Murtha won his congressional seat in Pennsylvania after calling his constituents racists. It turns out they’re not racists — they’re retards. Question: What exactly would one have to say to alienate Pennsylvanians? That Joe Paterno should retire?

Apparently Florida voters didn’t mind Obama’s palling around with Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, either. There must be a whole bunch of retired Pennsylvania Jews down there.

Have you ever noticed that whenever Democrats lose presidential elections, they always blame it on the personal qualities of their candidate? Kerry was a dork, Gore was a stiff, Dukakis was a bloodless android, Mondale was a sad sack.

This blame-the-messenger thesis allows Democrats to conclude that their message was fine — nothing should be changed! The American people are clamoring for higher taxes, big government, a defeatist foreign policy, gay marriage, the whole magilla. It was just this particular candidate’s personality.

Republicans lost this presidential election, and I don’t blame the messenger; I blame the message. How could Republicans go after B. Hussein Obama (as he is now known) on planning to bankrupt the coal companies when McCain supports the exact same cap and trade policies and earnestly believes in global warming?

How could we go after Obama for his illegal alien aunt and for supporting driver’s licenses for illegal aliens when McCain fanatically pushed amnesty along with his good friend Teddy Kennedy?

How could we go after Obama for Jeremiah Wright when McCain denounced any Republicans who did so?

How could we go after Obama for planning to hike taxes on the “rich,” when McCain was the only Republican to vote against both of Bush’s tax cuts on the grounds that they were tax cuts for the rich?

And why should Republican activists slave away working for McCain when he has personally, viciously attacked: John O’Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans, National Right to Life director Doug Johnson, evangelical pastors Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and John Hagee, various conservative talk radio hosts, the Tennessee Republican Party and on and on and on?

As liberal Democrat E.J. Dionne Jr. exuded about McCain in The Washington Post during the Republican primaries, “John McCain is feared by Democrats and liked by independents.” Dionne proclaimed that McCain “may be the one Republican who can rescue his party from the undertow of the Bush years.”

Similarly, after unelectable, ultraconservative Reagan won two landslide victories, James Reston of The New York Times gave the same advice to Vice President George H.W. Bush: Stop being conservative! Bush was “a good man,” Reston said in 1988, “and might run a strong campaign if liberated from Mr. Reagan’s coattails.”

Roll that phrase around a bit — “liberated from Mr. Reagan’s coattails.” This is why it takes so long to read the Times — you have to keep reading the same paragraph over again to see if you missed a word.

Bush, of course, rode Reagan’s ultraconservative coattails to victory, then snipped those coattails by raising taxes and was soundly defeated four years later.

I keep trying to get Democrats to take my advice (stop being so crazy), but they never listen to me. Why do Republicans take the advice of their enemies?

How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that “moderate,” “independent,” “maverick” Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?

Indeed, the only good thing about McCain is that he gave us a genuine conservative, Sarah Palin. He’s like one of those insects that lives just long enough to reproduce so that the species can survive. That’s why a lot of us are referring to Sarah as “The One” these days.

Like Sarah Connor in “The Terminator,” Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That’s why the Democrats are trying to kill her. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is involved somehow, too. Good Lord, I’m tired.

After showing nearly superhuman restraint throughout this campaign, which was lost the night McCain won the California primary, I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities.

We’ll start with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Then we shall march through the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina — states that must never, ever be allowed to hold early Republican primaries again.

For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.

Starting tomorrow, if not sooner.

Amen!

From Monty Python’s “‘Life Of Brian,” via YouTube:

About 25 seconds in: “There’s no messiah in here. There’s a mess, all right, but no messiah. No go away!”

She’s right, you know.

You really have to commend our watchdog media.

You just know that there were and are tremendous celebrations at the news of Mr. Obama’s victories by our nation’s enemies all over the world.

His supporters in Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Chavez and Castro’s followers — are all surely out in the streets.

But so far, this is as much as the Associated Press is willing to reveal:

Wed Nov 5, 8:28 AM ET

An unidentified woman holds up the Iranian daily newspaper Rozan with a photo of US President elect Barack Obama, as a cleric and others walk pass in Tehran, Iran on Wednesday Nov. 5, 2008. Iranians Wednesday welcomed the landslide victory of Democrat Barack Obama as America’s first black president, saying he partly owes his triumph over Republican Sen. John McCain to the deeply unpopular war-mongering policies of President George W. Bush.

Wed Nov 5, 8:23 AM ET

An unidentified Iranian man decorates on his shirt with a badge of US President elect Barack Obama, in Tehran, Iran on Wedensday Nov. 5, 2008. Iranians Wednesday welcomed the landslide victory of Democrat Barack Obama as America’s first black president, saying he partly owes his triumph over Republican Sen. John McCain to the deeply unpopular war-mongering policies of President George W. Bush.

And we will have at least eight more years of the media protecting their protege this way.

Please post your drunken thoughts as tonight’s election results come in.

Also, feel free to relate your own personal experiences at the polls.

Assuming the Black Panthers, ACORN and the media did not manage to suppress you.

Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) opines via YouTube (for now):

And here he is promising us a new New Deal:

Sound familiar?

From Fox News and The Hill:

Schumer on Fox: Fairness Doctrine ‘fair and balanced’

By Bob Cusack
Posted: 11/04/08

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an interview on Fox News, saying, “I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”

Schumer’s comments echo other Democrats’ views on reviving the Fairness Doctrine, which would require radio stations to balance conservative hosts with liberal ones.

Asked if he is a supporter of telling radio stations what content they should have, Schumer used the fair and balanced line, claiming that critics of the Fairness Doctrine are being inconsistent.

“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.” …

Is this really the future we want?

From those champions of fair elections at the New York Times:

Networks May Call Race Before Voting Is Complete

By Jacques Steinberg

At least one broadcast network and one Web site said Monday that they could foresee signaling to viewers early Tuesday evening which candidate appeared to have won the presidency, despite the unreliability of some early exit polls in the last presidential election.

A senior vice president of CBS News, Paul Friedman, said the prospects for Barack Obama or John McCain meeting the minimum threshold of electoral votes could be clear as soon as 8 p.m. — before polls in even New York and Rhode Island close, let alone those in Texas and California. At such a moment, determined from a combination of polling data and samples of actual votes, the network could share its preliminary projection with viewers, Mr. Friedman said.

“We could know Virginia at 7,” he said. “We could know Indiana before 8. We could know Florida at 8. We could know Pennsylvania at 8. We could know the whole story of the election with those results. We can’t be in this position of hiding our heads in the sand when the story is obvious.”

Similarly, the editor of the Web site Slate, David Plotz, said in an e-mail message that “if Obama is winning heavily,” he could see calling the race “sometime between 8 and 9.”

“Our readers are not stupid, and we shouldn’t engage in a weird Kabuki drama that pretends McCain could win California and thus the presidency,” Mr. Plotz wrote. “We will call it when a sensible person — not a TV news anchor who has to engage in a silly pretense about West Coast voters — would call it.”

All the networks (and other news organizations with their own Web sites) were engaging in similar debates on Monday about striking the following balance: not relying too much on early exit poll data — which had suggested, at least early on Election Day in 2004, that Senator John Kerry might be on track to defeat President Bush — while not being so cautious as to be beaten to the punch by a competitor who announces an emerging result first.

When asked how Katie Couric, who is leading CBS’s coverage, might present the network’s projection to viewers, Mr. Friedman said he could imagine her saying, for example, “Given what we know about the results, or the projected results in various states, it’s beginning to look like it will be very difficult for John McCain to put together enough votes to win this election.” …

The most shocking thing about all of this is that the New York Times would even report it.

Let alone pretend to be offended by it.

Of course they did bury it back in their “politics” section.

From YouTube (for the moment):

Here is a still, for when Google removes the clip:

Does this seem familiar? It should.

As we have previously noted, Mr. Obama made a similar gesture toward Mrs. Clinton in Raleigh, NC back on April 17, 2008, after a primary debate:

What a fine gentleman he is.

He will make us all proud as our President no doubt.

But not to vote.

From the Chicago Tribune:

With the Field Museum in the background, preparations for Tuesday’s Barack Obama Election Night rally continue Thursday at the south end of Grant Park in Chicago.

Your guide to the Obama Grant Park rally

By James Janega

November 3, 2008

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama returns home Tuesday for an Election Night rally in Grant Park that has sparked huge civic interest and many questions about how the event will work.

Q. Does the city want huge numbers of people coming downtown on Election Night or not?

A. On Friday, Police Supt. Jody Weis said that “we can’t have mischief.” Officials aren’t discouraging people from coming downtown, but they are encouraging them to look for places in their neighborhoods to watch on TV. On Saturday, Mayor Richard Daley was rolling out the welcome mat again. “Only the private event is ticket. You can be in the park and around it. The mayor’s not going to tell anybody not to come to this celebration,” Daley said. “It’s a historic event. If they want to be there, they should.”

Q. When will people arrive at Grant Park on Tuesday?

A. It’s anyone’s guess. The gates at the rally site don’t open until 8:30 p.m., but crowds are likely to form many hours before that. A Loop business group urged offices to send workers home at 3 p.m. to avoid the growing crowds.

Q. How many people will show up?

A. Daley estimated 1 million, a number he said was a guess. The campaign’s permit said there would be 65,000 ticketed guests and 7,500 “participants” at the official fenced area. But interest is high and the weather is expected to be excellent, so expect quite a throng outside the official rally site.

Q. Where will people congregate outside the official area?

A. Presumably, in the rest of Grant Park. But the city has not officially designated areas for the overflow crowd and has not ruled out turning people away if the park seems too crowded.

Q. What time will Obama give his victory or concession speech?

A. Probably not before the polls close in California at 10 p.m. Chicago time. Perhaps hours later.

Q. What happens if the election outcome is in doubt late into the night?

A. The permit application said “amplified sound” was planned until 1 a.m. Officials were mum on whether they would allow the crowd to wait past that hour. At this point, Metra is scheduled to end service at 1 a.m., and the CTA will run “until everyone has gotten home.”

Q. What will security be like downtown?

A. Heavy. The Chicago Police Department has canceled days off for all officers, and Chicago firefighters have been asked to have their personal equipment with them at home. Even the U.S. Coast Guard will patrol in Burnham Harbor and on Lake Michigan.

Q. When will people who applied for tickets find out whether they got them? And when will those tickets arrive by e-mail?

A. The campaign has said they will arrive by e-mail on Monday. Recipients were told Sunday to expect delivery of their tickets–each one valid for the recipient and one guest–by e-mail between 6 and 7 p.m. Monday.

Q. Will there be extra public transportation?

A. The Chicago Transit Authority will use longer trains, additional bus service and expanded hours to accommodate the thousands expected to attend the Obama campaign’s Election Day rally in Grant Park on Tuesday. Four train lines (Brown, Pink, Green and Orange) and eight bus routes (#3, #4, #6, #12, #14, #126, #146, #147) will continue operating in the Loop until 2 a.m., the agency said. Rush hour service will start early to handle those who leave work early. Due to planned street closures downtown, the agency is warning commuters to leave themselves extra time Tuesday. Bicycles will not be allowed on trains from 4 p.m. Tuesday to 4 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Q. If I have a ticket, do I need a photo ID?

A. Yes. Your guest should bring one too, even though the directions from the obama campaign aren’t clear on the matter yet.

Q. Do I need a photo ID if I don’t have a ticket and am not a guest heading for the ticketed portion of the rally?

A. The city hasn’t required anyone outside the ticketed area to have a photo ID, and so far has said restrictions on bags, folding chairs and other items are “recommended,” but not required.

Q. Can rally attendees bring a sign or banner?

A. Not in the fenced area. Also banned inside the main area are bags, chairs and strollers.

Q. Will there be concession stands?

A. Pizza and hot dogs will be sold in the secure area. Alcohol will not. The organizers’ permit application said vendors would sell hot chocolate—a beverage chosen when no one could anticipate the 64-degree forecast at the rally’s start.

Q. What’s the weather report for Election night?

A. Here’s the latest on what you can expect from WGN-TV’s Tom Skilling.

Q. What happens if he loses?

A. If it’s clear he has lost, he’ll give his concession speech at the rally.

Q. Since I’m not a fan of Obama, I would like to know who is paying for all of this.

A. The Obama campaign has said it will foot the bill, except for Secret Service expenses.

Q. Will there be enough portable toilets on-site to accommodate the expected crowd? If so, is Obama’s campaign paying for them?

A. The event organizers’ permit application said there would be more than 265 portable toilets at the rally. The city has not said how many more it will provide in the rest of Grant Park. Obama’s campaign has pledged to pay for rally expenses.

Q. I use a scooter to get around due to a disability. Will my scooter be allowed into the ticketed part of the rally?

A. Access for the disabled to such events is guaranteed by law.

Q. Will there be accommodations for the handicapped at the rally–seating, restrooms, etc?

A. Note answers to previous two questions. Further specifics may be announced today.

From the Chicago Daily Herald:

Froehlich zinged by GOP Rejection Thursday at the Capitol

Thu, 05/15/2008

An Illinois House committee rejected the idea of requiring Illinois voters show an official ID in order to cast a ballot. The proposal was modeled after the Indiana law recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

State Rep. Tim Schmitz, a Batavia Republican, supported the ID requirement, noting people have to show ID to get into the Capitol, fly and do numerous daily activities. He also said there’s an easy alternative, vote absentee.

Critics of the idea said there are fraud possibilities with absentee voting too.

Meanwhile, do you need a photo ID — or indeed any kind of identification to vote in Illinois?

Of course not.

From the Chicago Daily Herald:

Froehlich zinged by GOP Rejection Thursday at the Capitol

Thu, 05/15/2008

An Illinois House committee rejected the idea of requiring Illinois voters show an official ID in order to cast a ballot. The proposal was modeled after the Indiana law recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

State Rep. Tim Schmitz, a Batavia Republican, supported the ID requirement, noting people have to show ID to get into the Capitol, fly and do numerous daily activities. He also said there’s an easy alternative, vote absentee.

Critics of the idea said there are fraud possibilities with absentee voting too.

Isn’t irony ironic?

From the Communist Party USA’s People’s Weekly World (formerly The Daily Worker):

(Click on images to enlarge)

OPINION: The coming landslide

Author: Marc Brodine

People’s Weekly World Newspaper, 10/31/08

Barack Obama has correctly reminded his supporters and staff not to get cocky, to remember the lessons of his New Hampshire primary loss. Nothing can be taken for granted, especially in the era of Republican voter suppression efforts, scurrilous robo-calls, and escalating ultra-right racism and desperation.

Nonetheless, if we do the campaigning, there are good reasons to expect that our work could result in a landslide.

It is likely, most experts and pundits say, that the polls will tighten, making it look like the election is getting closer. However there are a number of factors which, taken together, can lead to a much bigger landslide than the polls predict…

Except for the financial crisis which has decisively affected polls nationwide, no one of these factors by itself is large enough to change the election results significantly in more than a few states. But taken together, they show the real potential of a once-in-a-generation landslide…

True enough, there are countervailing forces as well. The blatant appeals to racism, the coded appeals to ultra-nationalism and militarism, the increased desperation of the ultra-right, the scare tactics they are using and which they will intensify between now and November 4th, the voter suppression campaign and dirty tricks like the vicious robo-calls which have already started, to mention a few. These dangers lead to the final and most important factor:

The Ground Game: Partly due to the Obama campaign financial advantage, partly due to the organizing philosophy of the Obama campaign, partly due to a huge volunteer gap (here is where the enthusiasm gap matters most), partly due to the grassroots nature of the Obama campaign from the start, and partly due to the Obama campaign using the long primary fight to build statewide organization in almost all states, and partly due to the organizational advantage of union GOTV efforts, Obama has a massive advantage in the ground game. Better organized than in previous presidential campaigns, with much better technological tools, with way more offices and staff in most states than the McCain campaign, the Obama campaign has rewritten the rules for staffing, GOTV, computerized organization, new voter registration, and providing ways for volunteers to join, donate, and take action.

Even though Obama is not a left-wing candidate, such a landslide would forever change the political life of our country, would open the doors to millions of workers joining unions, and would help enact aspects of Obama’s program (health care, ending the Iraq War, cutting taxes for the vast majority, raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, improving and expanding social programs) which will benefit the lives of hundreds of millions.

So donate, display yard signs, wear buttons, call friends and family, doorknock, hold house parties, sign-wave on Election Day, volunteer in other ways, and vote. You will make history, and change our future for the better.

It is of course no surprise that the Communist Party would see Mr. Obama as a historic victory for their party.

Along with the Democratic Socialist Party Of American and the most prominent Communist dictators, many foreign and domestic terrorists, the CPUSA have long since endorsed his candidacy.

And why not? As we have previously note, Mr. Obama’s platform and that of the CPUSA’s are practically identical.

And they certainly are correct here.

A victory for Mr. Obama will certainly change this country forever.

As we first noted when Mr. Joseph Robinette Biden famously opined on the subject, back during the primaries Mr. Obama was singing a very different tune about coal:

Obama: “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.”

Coal worker: “Barack originates from Chicago. But he came to southern Illinois and he seen the devastation and the loss of the jobs in the coal industry. Washington, DC is not listening to us. Barack understands.”

Graphic: “The Obama Record: $200 million for clean coal.”

Announcer: “In Illinois and in the USA Barack Obama helped lead the fight for clean coal. To protect our environment and to save good paying American jobs.”

Coal worker: “He’s figured it out. It takes trust in each other to get the job done.”

“Trust.”

Yes, that is what it’s all about with Mr. Obama.

Speaking of Mr. Obama’s relatives in public housing.

This article from the UK tabloid, The Sun got very little notice back in July:

[Sun caption:] Happy families … back row from left: Unknown, Barack Obama, half-brother Malik, unknown, half-brother Abo, Bernard. Front: Half-sister Auma, stepmum Kezia, stepgran Sarah, unknown

Obama’s brother is in Bracknell

By OLIVER HARVEY

Chief Feature Writer

Published: 26 Jul 2008

HE may be living in a Bracknell council house, but soon he could be dining with his brother at the White House.

The Sun was the first newspaper to track down and speak to Bernard Obama, 37.

And he said of Democrat candidate Barack: “I’m very proud of my big brother.

“It’s quite a funny feeling that he might be the next President of the USA.”

Muslim Bernard — an avid Manchester United fan and Sun reader — is staying with his bingo-loving mum Kezia, 67, who has lived in the Berkshire new town for six years.

He was glued to the TV news in the modest suburban bungalow last night as Barack, 46, was due to arrive in Britain.

Bernard leads a quiet life, running a car parts firm in Nairobi, Kenya.

But he is a regular visitor to the UK to visit Elvis fan Kezia.

She married Barack Obama Snr in Kenya in 1957 when she was a teenager.

He later left for the US and went on to meet Ann Dunham, who gave birth to his now widely acclaimed son…

Barack Jnr was 21 and Bernard 12. He said: “Our father passed away when I was young and I didn’t get the chance to get to know him very well…

Bernard smiled when he spoke of his famous half-brother. He said:

I was around 17 when I first met Barack.

He was visiting Kenya and it was obvious from the way he spoke and his charisma that he was going to be a success.

He is charming, very good company and very charismatic.

I’ve met him since with his wife Michelle in Kenya. She’s very nice, a very strong and intelligent person. I don’t think we will see him on this visit to Britain. It’s official business and he’ll be very busy.

Bernard is remaining with Kezia for the next month as she recuperates from illness…

Converted

Bernard converted to Islam 18 years ago. The dad of one said: “I’m a Muslim, I don’t deny it. My father was raised a Muslim.

“But it’s not an issue. I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about.” …

In his biography, Dreams From My Father, Barack told of meeting Bernard in Kenya.

He wrote: “That sweetness, the lack of guile, made him seem much younger than his 17 years.

“As we stepped into the street, Bernard draped his arm over my shoulder. ‘It’s good to have a big brother around,’ he said, before waving goodbye and vanishing into the crowd.” …

Bernard agreed, saying: “Barack is going to win the election, definitely, and I want to be in the US for his inauguration.

“He will be a breath of fresh air for the world.”

It’s not clear from the article whether Bernard Obama or Kezia Obama are living in the United Kingdom legally.

(Which they may very well be, given that Kenya was/is a Commonwealth Country.)

But why should anyone care about such petty details?

From those champions of the freedom of information at the Washington Post:

Disclosure About Obama’s Aunt May Have Violated Privacy Policy

By Spencer S. Hsu and Judy Rakowsky
Sunday, November 2, 2008; A07

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating whether its privacy policy was violated after a news organization reported that an aunt of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama is an illegal immigrant from Kenya, officials said yesterday.

The woman, Zeituni Onyango, 56, lives in a public housing complex in Boston and is the half sister of Obama’s late father, who spent most of his life in Kenya before dying in a car accident in 1982.

The Associated Press reported late Friday that Onyango was denied asylum by an immigration judge and that she was instructed to leave the United States in 2004. The AP cited two unnamed sources, identifying one as a federal law enforcement official.

Federal privacy law restricts U.S. immigration agencies from disclosing information about citizens and permanent residents, and DHS policy similarly limits disclosures about the status of legal and illegal immigrants. Asylum-seekers are granted greater protection, because of the sensitive nature of their claims and the risks of retaliation.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the matter has been referred to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility and its parent department’s inspector general.

“They are looking into whether there was a violation of policy in publicly disclosing individual case information,” ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. “We can’t comment on individual cases.”

After Obama’s campaign announced yesterday morning that it will refund a small number of contributions made by Onyango, two government officials confirmed that Onyango had sought asylum, citing violence in her native Kenya. One federal law enforcement official confirmed that a federal administrative judge ruled in 2004 she was not legally entitled to be in the United States and that a final order was entered for her deportation.

While such denials can be appealed, cases are generally decided within a year or two, according to federal statistics. Of about 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the United States, about 550,000 are “fugitive aliens” staying in violation of deportation orders.

Reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show Onyango gave Obama’s campaign a total of $265, including several contributions of $5 and $25. The latest recorded contribution, of $5, was on Sept. 19. Only U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, known as green cardholders, can legally contribute to federal presidential campaigns…

A campaign source said Obama provided Onyango no assistance in obtaining a tourist visa or housing, or in her immigration case.

In an interview with the Times of London, which first reported Onyango’s presence in Boston and her campaign contributions, Onyango said she had traveled to and from the United States since 1975. Commercial databases indicate she received a Social Security card in 2001, indicating she was legally present and authorized to work at that time.

Onyango was not at her state-subsidized West Broadway residence yesterday in South Boston, and no one answered her telephone.

William McGonigle, deputy director of the Boston Housing Authority, said Onyango applied for public housing in 2002 and was approved in 2003 as an eligible noncitizen. She was paid a small stipend for volunteering as a resident health advocate starting in December 2007, he said.

McGonigle said that housing officials were not notified of her deportation order and that they followed all federal rules and laws in providing her stipend. He said housing officials were not aware that Onyango was related to Obama until the Times of London phoned last week.

What chutzpah, even for the despicable Washington Post.

“Privacy policy”?

How many national security secrets of vital importance has The Post betrayed for a headline? Or, worse, to help our nation’s enemies?

How many private citizens like Joe The Plumber have had their privacy destroyed by our watchdog media — simply to protect the DNC/media’s agenda?

Just as we had suspected.

From a sympathetic Associated Press:

The public housing complex in South Boston where Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango reportedly lives is seen Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008. The Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned.

AP: Obama aunt from Kenya living in US illegally

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and ELLIOT SPAGAT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama’s aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned.

Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as “Aunti Zeituni” in Obama’s memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango’s case.

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcment official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

Onyango’s refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, non-criminal violation of U.S. immigration law, meaning such cases are handled outside the criminal court system. Estimates vary, but many experts believe there are more than 10 million such immigrants in the United States.

The AP could not reach Onyango immediately for comment. No one answered the telephone number listed in her name late Friday. It was unclear why her request for asylum was rejected in 2004.

Onyango is not a relative whom Obama has discussed in campaign appearances and, unlike Obama’s father and grandmother, is not someone who has been part of the public discussion about his personal life.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Kelly Nantel, said the government does not comment on an individual’s citizenship status or immigration case.

Onyango’s case — coming to light just days before the presidential election — led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday’s election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.

The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango’s case coming to light so close to the election…

The disclosure about Onyango came just one day after Obama’s presidential campaign confirmed to the Times of London that Onyango, who has lived quietly in public housing in South Boston for five years, was Obama’s half aunt on his father’s side.

It was not immediately clear how Onyango might have qualified for public housing with a standing deportation order.

What did Obama know and when did he know it?

Oh, wait, the Associated Press isn’t interest in such mundane matters. They have bigger fish to fry:

[T]he AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in [the release of this information]…

Yes, that is certainly the most important thing here.

Also note that the AP didn’t mention that Obama’s aunt is perforce also receiving public assistance illegally.

And speaking of the AP, as the article does, wasn’t it considerate of them to wait for early Saturday morning to release this information?

It’s almost as if they don’t want anyone to know.

From Kenya’s Daily Nation:

Senator Barack Obama’s grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama (seated right) during a past interview with the press at her Nyang’oma Kogelo village in Siaya. The press has been barred from the home until Nov 5 to give her a break from constant media engagements.

Obama’s Kenya family halts media interviews

By ERIC OLOOPosted Wednesday, October 29 2008

The Kenya family of US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has halted all media engagements until after the US presidential election on November 4 .

The move has been taken to give Obama’s paternal grandmother, Mama Sarah Onyango Obama a break, according to a family member Mr Said Obama.

In the recent past, a battery of local and international journalists have been visiting the home on a daily basis to seek interviews from the 85-year old granny.

But Mr Said Obama said the family would open up to the media on November 5, a day after the elections.

And on Wednesday, Siaya District police chief Mr Johnston Ipara said security officers would restrict entry to the home to ensure the family privacy is guaranteed

“People who visit the family’s home in K’Ogelo will be restrained from conducting interviews to the family members,” he said.

Mr Ipara added the move was taken to ensure that people, especially the media, do not pre-empt the outcome of the US elections by using comments from the family members.

“We do not want Mama Sarah Obama to be disturbed at the moment she needs time to monitor the elections as they unfold,” said Ipara.

He said all visitors to the home would be thoroughly screened by the police before being allowed in.

Obamamania

Meanwhile, Obamamania continued to grip Kisumu town and its environs as hawkers cashed in on the craze to sell branded T-shirts, caps and badges.

Dancehalls have also recorded a high number of songs recorded in vernacular languages in praise of the US presidential candidate whose father was Kenyan.

We question the timing of this announcement.

And isn’t it odd how “Grandma Obama” won’t be too old or frail to take questions — after the election?