Happy Birthday, Mr President? Palin takes on State Dept in Twitterburst
Sarah Palin has a beef — and a tweet or two — for the U.S. State Department.
Palin tweeted her outrage following a tongue-in-cheek tweet from State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley that wished Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a happy birthday.
Crowley, who regularly tweets as @PJCrowley to about 6,250 followers, marked the Iranian leader’s birthday on Thursday with a plea for the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, two American hikers who have been detained in Iran for more than a year and face trial on suspicion of espionage.
“Happy birthday President #Ahmadinejad. Celebrate by sending Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer home. What a gift that would be,” Crowley’s first message read.
“Your 54th year was full of lost opportunities. Hope in your 55th year you will open #Iran to a different relationship with the world.” he continued.
Palin, the former Alaska governor who has become a favorite of conservative Tea Party activists, was incensed and quickly communicated her outrage to the more than 285,000 followers who track her on Twitter as @SarahPalinUSA.
Ahmadinejad says bin Laden in Washington
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has the answer to the question that has plagued the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
He knows where Osama bin Laden is — in Washington.
In an interview with ABC’S “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad rejected reports that the al Qaeda leader was in Iran.
“I heard that Osama bin Laden is in the Washington, D.C.,” Ahmadinejad said through an interpreter in a contentious give-and-take with his interviewer, George Stephanopoulos.
“He’s there. Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together. Mr. Bin Laden never cooperated with Iran but he cooperated with Mr. Bush,” Ahmadinejad said.
“Rest assured that he’s in Washington. I think there’s a high chance he’s there.”
One thing is sure, no one would be able to recognise Mr Bin laden now since he must have undergone the cosmetic surgery to have a new visual appearance. Perhaps, it would be worthwhile to check with the cosmetic surgeons around the world to find out if any one admits to have given a new identity to Mr Bin Laden? The Iranian President has a point, knowing about the famous American Surgeons involved in cosmetic surgery and the large number of daily operations being performed in the country.
Rex Minor
Iran’s nuclear plant and the definition of covert
Western powers are blasting Iran today for building another nuclear plant.
President Barack Obama, flanked by the leaders of France and Britain, said to reporters in Pittsburgh for the G20 meeting that “Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years.”
Iran, which revealed the existence of the uranium enrichment plant to the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Monday, unsurprisingly had a whole different take on the idea of covert.
“If it was a covert plant, we would not have informed the (International Atomic Energy) Agency,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters at the United Nations.
A U.S. official responded: “The very cursory admission to the IAEA years after the commencement of construction of such a facility whose use is undeniable does not constitute living up to its obligations.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Time magazine “we have no secrecy, we work within the framework of the IAEA.”
So there’s the latest in the long-running dispute over Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The West is concerned that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, Tehran says it only wants nuclear power for civilian purposes.
i think this is a serious issue that could just be a distraction for North Kroea. Also i agree with Bill. no mater how may times we talk with or go to iran, they could just hide anything that they dont want us to see or learn about.
The First Draft: Missile defense, Iran and value voters
President Barack Obama’s decision to abandon a big, fixed-installation missile defense shield in Eastern Europe is drawing some angry reaction abroad.
Conservatives in Poland, where the Bush administration planned to base interceptor rockets, and the Czech Republic, where a radar installation was planned, accused Washington of buckling to Russian pressure.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates meets Friday afternoon with his Czech counterpart, Martin Bartak, as the administration works to explain its new thinking. It may be a hard sell.
“Betrayal! The USA has sold us to the Russians and stabbed us in the back,” said the Polish tabloid Fakt.
The Czech daily Lidowe Noviny took a similar line. “Obama gave in to the Kremlin,” it said.
Some military experts viewed the decision as a sign of weakness by Obama that Moscow hardliners would try to exploit further.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described it as “correct and brave,” and followed up Friday with a speech calling for Obama to agree to concessions on trade and technology transfer.
I wonder how the fact that Russia has lent money to allow Venezuela – a bitter foe of the US – will affect relations between Moscow and Washington DC. Here’s a run down of what took place: http://www.newsy.com/videos/red_venezuel a. Russia may be less of a direct threat, but doesn’t mean it won’t and can’t finance others as a proxy.
Elections in Iran, Illinois? Obama very busy not picking sides
If you ever wondered what Illinois and Iran might have in common, here’s one answer: President Obama is most definitely not picking sides in their elections. So insists the White House. “Our response … on this has been, from the very beginning, consistent,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a briefing Thursday when asked about the post-election turmoil in Iran. “The American people and this government are not going to pick the next leader of Iran,” he said. “That’s something that the Iranians have to do.” That doesn’t mean they won’t tsk-tsk loudly from the sidelines as the opportunity permits. The administration has voiced concern about how the election was conducted, but shied away from suggesting any fraud was involved in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defeat of challenger Mirhossein Mousavi. They say they don’t favor either candidate, but insist the challenger’s supporters have a right to continue their protests a week after the vote. “We have to ensure that we express our views, as I’ve said, about ensuring that people can demonstrate, have their causes and concerns heard,” the White House spokesman said. Obama’s also steering clear of the U.S. Senate race in Illinois, Gibbs said, even though he met last Friday with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Chicago papers say the Obama administration is pushing her to run for the president’s former U.S. Senate seat in 2010, but the White House begs to differ. “Let me be explicit,” Gibbs said. “The president is not going to pick a candidate in the Illinois Senate race.” And the meeting at the White House with Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser Valerie Jarret? Why, Madigan and Obama are just old friends and Obama has “enormous respect for what she accomplished,” Gibbs said. And oh, by the way … “I think she’d be a terrific candidate. But we’re not going to get involved in picking that candidate in Illinois.” For more Reuters political news, click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama speaks at a fundraiser Thursday night)
if you look at obama,s voting record in the senate ,what are we complaining about,he is “present”is he not?
Palin sees debate with Biden as ‘quite a task’
WASHINGTON – Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin sounds a bit wary about her upcoming debate with her really, really, really experienced Democratic rival. “Senator (Joe) Biden has a tremendous amount of experience,” she told Fox News. “I think he was first elected when I was like in the second grade.” If her running mate John McCain, 72, wasn’t hoping to be the oldest person to begin a first term as president, one might think Palin was suggesting Biden, 65, was old. “He’s been in there a long, long, long time,” Palin said. “So he’s got the experience. He probably has the sound bites. He has the rhetoric. He knows what’s expected of him. He is a great debater, also.” “So yes, it’s going to be quite a task in front of me,” she said. Palin also said she didn’t mean to insult Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in her nominating speech when she belittled his experience as a community organizer.
“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” she told the Republican convention. “I certainly didn’t mean to hurt his feelings,” Palin told Fox News. “Didn’t mean to offend any community organizers either.” She said she did it because Obama had taken a shot at small town mayors. The Alaska governor, little-known before being chosen as McCain’s running mate, said she respected former Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton but disagreed with her on the issues. Clinton has been campaigning on behalf of Obama since losing the Democratic nomination, but she has avoided direct confrontation with Palin. Clinton planned to speak at a demonstration against the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, near the United Nations which convenes its annual General Assembly next week but she canceled the appearance on Wednesday after learning Palin would also address the crowd. A Clinton adviser said the protest had not been billed as a partisan political event. Organizers of the demonstration subsequently announced Thursday they had decided not to let any American political personalities appear.
I am very Republican, but I have to declare a Repub loss. Palin just couldn’t handle Mr. Politician. I posted a blog declaring Biden the winner, but stating why the Repubs will still win!
http://averagepolitics.wordpress.com/200 8/10/02/biden-vs-palin-who-is-the-victor /
Andrew,
I see no issue, if someone wants to wish a person from the rival side for thier birthday, at the end of the day, we need our leaders to build bridges and build peace and try negotiation between nations.
Arvind Pereira
http://www.ArvindLeoPereira.co.nr