Barack Bought His Bicycle

Barack Obama bought his new bicycle.

TaxProf Blog with returns, graphic summary and comment, in part:

What is surprising, given the recent controversy over Obama's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, is how little the Obamas apparently gave to charity -- well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years.

Well, I guess it's a bit better than Al Gore, who only gave $300 as I recall when he made $200,000 during his presidential run. Tribune:

For example, in 2002, the year before Obama launched his campaign for U.S. Senate, the Obamas reported income of $259,394 and $1,050 in deductions for gifts to charity, below the national average.

In 2006, the couple's largest charitable gift — $22,500 — was to Trinity United Church of Christ, the home of Obama's controversial longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

The NY Times notes and quotes:

The Obamas’ returns are striking on a number of levels. They show that the couple made very few charitable contributions, sometimes less than 1 percent of taxable income, until Mr. Obama began his run for the White House.

And tracks Michelle's U of C hospital salary increase when he became Senator, as well as her brief stint on Wal-Mart supplier TreeHouse Food's board.

Another personally cheap on charity liberal who is only generous with other people's money (taxpayers), even as he derides them with class-envy talk.

UPDATE: WSJ with several salient points, including this:

Sen. Obama's windfall from his book sales allowed him to purchase his $1.65 million Chicago home in 2005, but he was only able to complete the deal when Mr. Rezko stepped in to purchase an adjoining vacant lot on the property. The move has come under scrutiny because Mr. Rezko now is on trial for an influence-peddling scheme. Sen. Obama hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

A reasonable conclusion based on the facts at hand.

Obama Pastor in Hot Water

More unwelcome scrutiny for the Obama campaign. Page one WSJ: "Obama Pastors' Sermons May Violate Tax Laws":

On Christmas morning, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. compared presidential candidate Barack Obama's impoverished childhood to Jesus Christ's. "Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people," he then trumpeted. "Hillary [Clinton] can never know that."

Mr. Wright wasn't at a convention or a campaign stop. He was standing at the pulpit before the mostly African-American congregation of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, where Sen. Obama has worshiped for more than 20 years.

On Christmas morning. How appropriate on one of the holiest days in the church calendar to laud God's favorite son...according to the Rev. Wright it's Barack Obama. It's an open secret that the longtime practice of Democrats' openly campaigning in churches has been sustained by a double standard in enforcing campaign laws. As it becomes more blatant that may be coming to an end. Wright's church is now being investigated, as is a church that backed Mike Huckabee. More:

Under the law that governs tax-exempt organizations, churches are allowed to support causes or ballot initiatives such as laws to ban same-sex marriage. They also can hold a candidates' night for all office-seekers in a race. But according to guidance provided on the IRS's Web site, churches are "absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office." [snip]

A review by The Wall Street Journal of 13 sermons at Trinity seen live or through church-recorded DVDs since late December found nine instances of ministers at Trinity appearing to promote Sen. Obama's candidacy.

Though the Rev. Wright has recently retired, his friendship with Barack Obama continues to be an issue.

UPDATE: The New Republic's Noam Scheiber "Out of the Tank: The Press Turns its Guns on Obama". Scheiber describes local Chicago reporters like Carol Marin and Mike Flannery, who normally don't travel with Obama but were there in San Antonio, as the "lunch-pail set" vs. the liberal white collar elites who are "more analytical". Lynn Sweet is described as an unofficial mascot of the lunch-pails.

It's not hard to see how these highfalutin ambitions might grate on blue-collar nerves. Some working stiffs note that Obama, when left to his own devices, seems to prefer the work of the elites. One observes that Obama is constantly working through a stack of newspapers, with The New York Times often on top (though Obama did recently comment to reporters that USA Today has gotten to be a "respectable paper"). These reporters say that Obama is unusually solicitous of Times columnist Maureen Dowd when she materializes on the campaign trail. They recall how he recently sidled up to her on the plane and remarked on her snazzy pair of boots.

Snarky Democrat MSM infighting. This piece will not endear Mr. Scheiber to Chicago reporters, who have been doing a much better job of vetting Barack Obama, much as they too are affected by his glow. Marin has him on tape from a year ago--many of those questions are still unanswered. And we have new tape. They'll be replayed.

Previous posts: Assessing Barack Obama, Barack's Apple Pie America, Victim or Corrupt Power Broker, Parade of Horribles, The Sanjaya Effect, Barack is Not Ready at 3 a.m., FARC Terrorists Heart Obama, Dem Shoes in the Closet, Michelle Profile

The Trouble with Ayers

Linda Lenz does lame damage control for the Obama campaign on the Obama Ayers Annenberg Challenge papers in the Sun Times. She attempts to whitewash Bill Ayers by citing his current position and writings as a UIC education professor, then drags down some distinguished Chicagoans who were also associated with the CAC. Nowhere does she mention Ayers' radical past, nor Obama's deliberate and long association with him, professional and political. Sen. Sweetness and Light, Hope and Change has a lot to explain.

Blogger and law professor Steve Diamond, who has closely followed these papers, along with Stanley Kurtz, takes Lenz (and the Sun Times, for failing to detail her relationships) to task. In part:

Ms. Lenz is associated with the Alliance for Excellent Education on whose board sits Obama education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond. And on Ms. Lenz' board of directors at the Community Renewal Society is Warren Chapman, one of the founders of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and a former staff member of the Joyce Foundation on whose board served Barack Obama.

While Ms. Lenz brushes over the self-proclaimed "radical" nature of school reform in Chicago she also ignores the fact that a central goal of the Annenberg Challenge led by Ayers and Obama was to bolster flagging Local School Councils, a new power center in the schools set up in the wake of a teachers strike to watchdog teachers and principals.

And although in a recent talk she gave she lauds the research conducted by the Consortium on Chicago School Research of the University of Chicago, she ignores their studied conclusion that the Annenberg Challenge was a failure. $160,000,000 down the drain and no improvement in student outcomes.

This was a criminal misuse of resources, putting political correctness and building a political base first-- and a crying shame for those students left behind. Barack Obama has a lot to explain.

HT Bill Baar, also for this from The Real Barack Obama:

Lenz’s objectivity is zilch, as the Obama/Ayers connections continue:

• Chicago Catalyst’s largest funder is The Joyce Foundation¹, upon whose board Obama served for eight years, beginning in 1994, during which time, in 1995, “Anne Hallett of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, William Ayers of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Warren Chapman of the Joyce Foundation” proposed the CAC (Also see Diamond’s Annenberg-Gate).
• Mike Klonsky, who runs Progressives for Obama, is a former member of Lenz’s Catalyst Chicago editorial board, as is John Ayers, Bill Ayers’ brother.
• Thomas G. Ayers, Bill Ayers’ father, was a contributor to the Community Renewal Society, as are: Bettylu Saltzman, whom we learned recently, has been an Obama supporter since at least his run for the Illinois legislature; Obama bundler John Rogers (and Exelon director), through his Ariel Mutual Fund; Sidley Austin, the law firm which employed both Barack and Michelle Obama and Bill Ayers’ wife, Bernadine Dohrn; and Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s church until recently tossed under the Obama bus.

Recall Klonsky is a Maoist, considered by the PRC as practically an official, and when it came out Obama had to repudiate him. Recall also that Ayers and Obama gave Klonsky an Annenberg grant. To cap it off, there's a video of Lenz at National Louis University, which educates many of our children's teachers on the North Shore, with Ayers advocating for reparations to close the education gap (!):

More Fallout for Barack

The Rev. Wright is getting more play. Newsbusters, ( in full from CBS2 Chicago--doesn't it seem he puts on a bit more of a Southern accent?) LGF with clip of video of Obama praising Wright. And Juan Williams questioning Obama's credibility on Wright this morning on FoxNews Sunday also resonating. HotAir. Williams questions Obama's character and judgment.

UPDATE: Kansas City Star:

Two of Barack Obama's most important endorsements from America's Heartland are from Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

But how will the controversy that now surrounds Obama and his long-time pastor, Jeremiah Wright Jr., affect those endorsements?

At the very least, both Midwesterners will face pressure from Missourians and Kansans to back off their earlier enthusiastic support of Obama.

Both Sebelius and McCaskill will be watching very closely in the days ahead as Democrats in their states react to Wright's offensive words.

At some point, Sebelius and McCaskill will have to decide how strongly they will campaign for Obama in the light of those remarks.

Cleveland Leader: Barack's Pastor Becomes Liability to Campaign.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

We can get a close-up and personal look later this month at the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., an eloquent and sometimes controversial preacher and author who is pastor to Sen. Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

Wright, who built Trinity United Church of Christ from a small group to a 6,000-member congregation, the largest in his denomination, will be in Fort Worth to speak at Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School. He will accept the Black Leadership Award offered by the divinity school during its "State of the Black Church" conference March 28-29.

LA Times Blog:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright may have stepped down as pastor at Barack Obama's church in Chicago, but his sermons are still echoing through the presidential campaign -- some rather vile ones, as captured in a video that recently made its way to YouTube.

UPDATE: Al Gore's campaign manager Donna Brazile defends Obama on ABC this morning by saying that Wright is moderate as far as black pastors go. Obama's church accuses the media of character assassination. The Politico:

Politicians know a troublesome story has “broken through” the Eastern media echo chamber when Jay Leno is laughing at them.

In the case of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., retiring pastor and outgoing spiritual adviser to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), it took less than 48 hours.

The fracas started Thursday morning, when ABC’s “Good Morning America” ran a Brian Ross expose on Wright that included old video of him saying: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God bless America’? No, no, no. Not God bless America. God [expletive] America.”

On Friday night, there was Leno on NBC’s “Tonight Show” joshing: “McCain was running so fast from President Bush, he ran into Barack Obama, who was running from his minister.”

The story had burst onto the radar screen of average Americans with as much velocity as any other story during the 2008 campaign.

Obama scrubs Wright from his testimonials on his campaign site.

Related post: MAD Dems

New Yorker Trashes Obamas

UPDATE: Getting some Leftie nutroots traffic. Apparently they are a little sensitive on the subject.***The New Yorker outdoes itself on the sophisticated satire--which is total trash. I'll let you view the controversial cover at The Politico. Huffpo reaction here.

And the New Yorker tries to blame it all on us righties. This kind of gross stereotypic thinking seems to be a pattern on the left. I do kinda like Michelle's combat boots though. The actual article, though starts out this way, interviewing Chicago alderman Toni Preckwinkle, a key early Obama mentor and political ally:

In retrospect, I think he saw the positions he held as stepping stones to other things and therefore approached his public life differently than other people might have.”

On issue after issue, Preckwinkle presented Obama as someone who thrived in the world of Chicago politics. She suggested that Obama joined Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for political reasons. “It’s a church that would provide you with lots of social connections and prominent parishioners,” she said. “It’s a good place for a politician to be a member.” Preckwinkle was unsparing on the subject of the Chicago real-estate developer Antoin (Tony) Rezko, a friend of Obama’s and one of his top fund-raisers, who was recently convicted of fraud, bribery, and money laundering: “Who you take money from is a reflection of your knowledge at the time and your principles.” As we talked, it became increasingly clear that loyalty was the issue that drove Preckwinkle’s current view of her onetime protégé. “I don’t think you should forget who your friends are,” she said. [snip]

I asked her if what she considered slights or betrayals were simply the necessary accommodations and maneuvering of a politician making a lightning transition from Hyde Park legislator to Presidential nominee. “Can you get where he is and maintain your personal integrity?” she said. “Is that the question?” She stared at me and grimaced. “I’m going to pass on that.”

Not exactly a ringing testimonial from the old neighborhood.

More: I think this image is more apropos. CityJournal, Obama as shaman in the age of Oprah.

UPDATE: Another excerpt from the New Yorker article:

E. J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post, wrote about this transition in a 1999 column after Daley was reëlected. Dionne wrote about a young Barack Obama, who artfully explained how the new pinstripe patronage worked: a politician rewards the law firms, developers, and brokerage houses with contracts, and in return they pay for the new ad campaigns necessary for reëlection. “They do well, and you get a $5 million to $10 million war chest,” Obama told Dionne. It was a classic Obamaism: superficially critical of some unseemly aspect of the political process without necessarily forswearing the practice itself. Obama was learning that one of the greatest skills a politician can possess is candor about the dirty work it takes to get and stay elected.

At the time, Obama was growing closer to Tony Rezko, who eventually turned pinstripe patronage into an extremely lucrative way of life. Rezko’s rise in Illinois was intertwined with Obama’s.

Obama's Farrakhan Test

Latest: Obama flushed out, condemns Farrakhan.
UPDATE to UPDATE: RCP Blog on When Race Matters, and the double standard (Chicago Sun Times cover and Jesse's column today.) Steve Huntley is a voice of reason.
UPDATE: Video of Trumpeter Award Gala:Heavy hitting for Hillary from WaPo's Richard Cohen, "Obama's Farrakhan Test":

Barack Obama is a member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama's spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright's daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said "truly epitomized greatness." That man is Louis Farrakhan . Maybe for Wright and some others, Farrakhan "epitomized greatness." For most Americans, though, Farrakhan epitomizes racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism.

Finally this nasty Nation of Islam connection is making the MSM. Cohen goes on to discuss Farrakhan's offenses and his bringing the issue up with the Obama campaign:

Instead, as Obama's top campaign aide, David Axelrod, points out, Obama often has said that he and his minister sometimes disagree. Farrakhan, Axelrod told me, is one of those instances.

Fine. But where I differ with Axelrod and, I assume, Obama is that praise for an anti-Semitic demagogue is not a minor difference or an intrachurch issue. The Obama camp takes the view that its candidate, now that he has been told about the award, is under no obligation to speak out on the Farrakhan matter. It was not Obama's church that made the award but a magazine. This is a distinction without much of a difference. And given who the parishioner is, the obligation to speak out is all the greater. He could be the next American president. Where is his sense of outrage?

Well, yes. The only thing is though, Obama doesn't ever really get outraged about anything. It's not part of his cool, post-political persona. He doesn't get outraged about anti-Semitism in this case, or back in Illinois that aborted babies who miraculously survived were abandoned to die, or even about the scenario of nuclear attack on a major American city. Recall also that Obama had nothing to say on the Illinois Hate Crime Commission's fostering hatred, another Farrakhan incident.

He is curiously untouched. Kind of like Dukakis when asked in a debate (an unfair question but revealing) to imagine the rape of his wife.

Barack Obama is lofty and detached. That is part of his appeal, and that may be his downfall. HT HotAir.

Previous post: Formula for Trouble

Unrepentant Domestic Terrorist, Mainstream Funding

No, we're not talking Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers this time, but some bomber from Indiana. Robert Stacy McCain and his family are in hiding now after this post: 

Federal tax forms filed by convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin’s tax-exempt non-profit Justice Through Music Project (JTMP) show that the 501(c)3 group collected $1.8 million in gifts, grants and other contributions during its first six years of operation. An analysis using database research indicates that more than $300,000 of that sum came in the form of grants from tax-exempt foundations, including the George Soros-connected Tides Foundation, the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, the Barbara Streisand Foundation, and the Heinz Family Foundation, connected to Democrat Sen. John Kerry’s wife.
Convicted of multiple federal felonies in connection with a string of 1978 bombings in Indiana, Kimberlin’s activities recently have come under renewed scrutiny due to his attempt to press criminal charges against attorney Aaron Walker, a blogger who says Kimberlin tried to “frame” him as part of a campaign of harassment and intimidation against conservative New Media activists. [snip]

2005

Farview Foundation ………………………….…… $9,000

2006

Tides Foundation …………………………………. $60,000
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift …..…. $45,000
HKH Foundation ……………………………..……. $20,000
Heinz Family Foundation ………….……..…. $20,000
Olive Branch Foundation …………….……… $15,000
Farview Foundation …………………………… $10,000
Barbra Streisand Foundation …………………$5,000

2007

Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift …..…. $19,000

2008

Threshold Foundation ………………..…..… $20,000
Tides Foundation ………………………….….. $10,000
Nathan Cummings Foundation ………..… $10,000
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift …..…. $20,000
Fred Gellert Family Foundation ……………. $5,000
Silicon Valley Community Foundation ..… $5,000
Barbra Streisand Foundation ……………….. $5,000

2009

Schwab Charitable Fund ………………………. $10,000
Silicon Valley Community Foundation .… $10,000
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift …..…. $6,000

TOTAL (2005-2009) .……………………………$304,000

After the political theater we have endured in Chicago this weekend--oh yeah, (this all makes him look like) he's really a moderate, our Pow Wow President laughs and jokes about free speech and economic stimulus-- I damn well wanna know who is funding and encouraging the Occupy thugs, who was going to pony up the money to bribe the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Byron York, Washington Examiner:

But there is one subject concerning Wright that merits scrutiny. In a nearly three-hour recorded interview with Ed Klein, author of the new book "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House," Wright said that back in 2008, when he was at the center of a raging controversy over his sermons, a close friend of Obama's offered him money to shut up until after the November election.

In the interview, Wright said Dr. Eric Whitaker, a top official at the University of Chicago Hospitals, sent a note to Wright through an intermediary at Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ. "[Eric] sent it to one of the members, who sent it to me," Wright told Klein. "He sent it to one of the guys close to me, saying, 'Can you make this offer to Rev?'"

Wright said he has kept notes from his experience and keeps all his documents, including the note from Whitaker, in a cardboard box. According to Klein, the amount Whitaker offered Wright was $150,000.

And let me join others in asking the question again:

Why the Heck is Fidelity Investments
Giving Funds to a Convicted Felon?

And Charles Schwab?!

Modern Thuggery.

Related. James Pethokoukis: Obama’s dangerous words about profits and free enterprise 
Rendell’s Rebuke: Obama Attacks Are “Disappointing”
Freed domestic terrorist arrested with $800k in cash

And this:

But here’s the problem: The president never defines what he means by “fair.” And this is for a simple reason: his definition is simply not recognizable to most Americans.

There are two main ways to define fairness: fairness in terms of opportunity, and fairness in terms of outcomes. The first means leveling the playing field, and the second means spreading the wealth around. The first means lifting people up on the basis of merit, and the second means bringing successful people down. 

Threatening hard work and merit. Threatening America

  ---Thanks for the link, post of the day at Teri O'Brien, the Conservative Warrior Princess and BlogTalkRadio show host.

Related posts:  Barack Obama, Man of Mystery, The Bolshie Chicago Mob in the White House: Shakedown

Oprah & Obama's Brothers

His brother George:

Sen. Barack Obama has a problem. And it lives in a hut.

His name is George Hussein Onyango Obama, and he is the 26-year-old half brother of Mr. Obama, the multimillionaire autobiographer who neglected to write that his paternal sibling lives on less than a dollar a month in the outer slums of Nairobi, Kenya.

His brother Jeremiah:

It would also be fair game now to point out that preaching "social justice" pays better than being a United States senator. The Trinity United Church of Christ is building a mansion for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that includes an elevator, a butler's pantry, a bar, a rubberized exercise room - and the 10,000-square-foot estate backs up to the Odyssey Country Club.

And the Obamas are apparently cheap charitable givers. Liberals only give to the least of their brothers with other people's money. Well, but then there's Oprah, in a class by herself--can she help?

On Night 3, the billionaire television hostess can synthesize her two best show archetypes: the heart-wrenching family reunion and "Oprah's Favorite Things," the giveaway of material goods.

It would make good TV. And why not bring up the Rev. Wright? What could be a more perfect (re-) union?

FObama, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Human Spam

Barack Obama's god damn America minister of nearly 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is ranting again (the letter emerging as a byproduct of a federal inmate's legal appeal and an effort to release frozen funds supposedly entrusted to the inmate by Saddam's son Uday, otherwise known as the UN oil for food scandal--what?!!!):

"I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!" he wrote. "Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!"

The White House didn't respond to requests for comment Monday about Wright's remarks. Several phone messages left by the AP for Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ, where he is listed as a pastor emeritus, were not returned. Wright's spokeswoman, his daughter Jeri Wright, did not immediately comment on the substance of the letter.

The substance of the letter. What an interesting description.

If we seek out the Rev. Jeremiah Wright will we find him camping out under a bus?

No, no, no. He'll probably be sitting tight in his crony-capitalist financed house, just like our President Barack Obama, only Obama moved on from the House that Rezko built.

Don't these guys strike you as spam of the worst sort? And that includes our president.

Related oldie: ObamAuchi Oil for Food

New Obama Book

You could call it the audacity of Obama, to think he could get elected without a look at his past, from someone other than himself. A new book coming out in August, which will explore...

Obama’s relationship with members of the Windy City’s vaunted politician machine, including Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Freddoso also will probe Obama’s ties to more radical Chicago figures including the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, and William Ayers, the Hyde Park resident and former Weatherman.

Moving to the national stage, the book will argue that Obama’s political views are far to the left of the mainstream.

Hot Summer in the Second City beach reading.

UPDATE: Yuval Levin, The Corner, concludes Obama has dishonestly padded his resume in his first general election campaign ad, with this kicker:

Even under the most generous reading imaginable could any of that count as passing legislation that extended health care for wounded troops? The Chicago Tribune noted the problem on its blog last week but defended Obama by pointing out that John McCain didn’t vote for the bill either. That would be an interesting piece of information if John McCain had cited this bill as among his chief legislative accomplishments.

But then Barack has nothing else to cite.

Related posts: Sensible Energy, Obama's Hometown Hot Seat, No Respect, Obama Machiavelli

Rev. Wright Sex Scandal

Well, I don't see it in the Chicago papers yet. The NY Post breaks the story.

O PASTOR IN SEX SCANDAL

REV. WRIGHT DONE ME WRONG: CHURCH LADY

Hmm:

Payne's husband, Fred Payne, 64, said he learned of the affair in late February, when he discovered e-mails between his wife and Wright.

"There must have been about 80 of them, back and forth," he said. "Wright said things like he was going to leave his wife for Elizabeth."

Wright has been married to his second wife, Ramah, for more than 20 years.

The preacher reportedly wooed Ramah away from her first husband in the 1980s, when the couple came to marriage counseling at Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Quite the spiritual mentor, Barack. For twenty years you listened to this guy. And the wronged husband makes his own bullets, and is a racist. Lovely.

P.S. Maybe Barack can find the Rev. Wright a restful exile in "New Pennsylvania".

Multiculturally Offensive

Here we go. CNS:

The Order Sons of Italy in America has called on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor emeritus at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and long-time spiritual adviser to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), to apologize for remarks he made in an article published in the church's November/December 2007 Trumpet Newsmagazine, as first reported by Cybercast News Service.

"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy for the late scholar Asa Hilliard. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."

Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ..."

Barack Obama and his friends--equally offensive to everyone. Multiculturally offensive.