So with the New Health Care Reform passed through the House. Who is for or against it?? Why or why not?

I am not in favor. My opinion (whether it's right or wrong) is why should we pay for the people who are too lazy to get a job just so they can have health insurance? Now it's different if they are disabled and unable to work. But these people who won't get off their butts to get a job shouldn't get subsidized health care that we, tax payers, are paying for!

Edited November 8, 200916 yr by TN_girl21

I certainly understand the liberal logic behind it all, it's just that It is not Constitional for the Federal government to force people to purchase something they don't want.

Mandates to purchase health insurance are a REPUBLICAN idea. They were first proposed by republicans when Hillary Clinton was working on healthcare - it was their idea. And also under REPUBLICAN Romney with his healthcare in his state.

I wonder why no one brought up the issue of being unconstitutional then? Hmmmm.

Well it isn't unconstitutional if it is done to ensure the rights that other Americans have to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Relevant word being "life." Same with car insurance, as I said before that someone pooh-poohed. When we learn through human behavior, that people need to have rules to protect themselves and others, we have seen fit to enact legislation or pass local laws to do it.

Helmet laws are similar and nut balls everywhere, who ride motorcycles without helmets are still up in arms about that one. Live free or die, eh? Well if your motorcycle slams into my SUV, and gets blood all my ride, that just ain't right. Duh, Bubba.

Where did you get the idea that this land belonged to the indians? Merely living on a land does not confirm ownership. The indians had lived here for hundreds of years but were still living in crude homes; eating and warming themselves over an open fire; and letting their old people die alone without help. They had access to all the gold, silver, iron, water, trees, etc. that the white man had, yet it was the white man who built the greatest, most advanced society in the world. Their record is not a clean one, but nevertheless, saying that the land belonged to the indian and was taken by the white man is not true. The only land the indians owned was was the land they cleared, lived on and cultivated. To suggest that the indians owned the whole country cause they rode around on it on horseback is bull. Most, if not all, Indian tribes did not believe in a personal ownership of land. They did not consider a plot of ground theirs to be passed on to a son, but ground that was owned by the tribe for the good of all. This same attitude was held toward food. If a brave took a bison or deer in a hunt, it did not belong to him, but the tribe. The shallow thinker says, "That's magnanimous and unselfish." but it is also socialism and could be one reason why the indians were living substantially the same way when Columbus arrived as they had lived five hundred years earlier.

My goodness Patty. That is quite possibly those most ignorant one sided view of history I’ve ever heard. First let me clarify one thing from my perspective... I am not on the retributions bandwagon, what’s done is done – we can’t fix it now. I’m not advocating all non natives leave this land, nor do think we should be handing out 40 acres and a mule. I do however firmly believe we should recognize that the way we built this country was by destroying and forcefully removing the natives and on the backs of slave labor from Africa. Instead of trumpeting how wonderful our forefathers were, we should learn from the parts of history that are less heralded. Rather than paying retributions we should be striving for a more equal society for our non-white brothers and sisters.

My goodness Patty. That is quite possibly those most ignorant one sided view of history I’ve ever heard. First let me clarify one thing from my perspective... I am not on the retributions bandwagon, what’s done is done – we can’t fix it now. I’m not advocating all non natives leave this land, nor do think we should be handing out 40 acres and a mule. I do however firmly believe we should recognize that the way we built this country was by destroying and forcefully removing the natives and on the backs of slave labor from Africa. Instead of trumpeting how wonderful our forefathers were, we should learn from the parts of history that are less heralded. Rather than paying retributions we should be striving for a more equal society for our non-white brothers and sisters.

Well, I can see, ,that you will never get a job re-writing history for the Texas school books. :thumbup:

Additionally, the lifestyle of the Native American Indians worked very well for them. They had no need to "progress" to something else. They were healthy and self-sufficient. It was the white man who brought diseases, like typhus, measles, scarlet fever, etc.. to them.

Patty you call him a liar a lot. Can you please expand on this? Not just what you think are lies, but please list the lie he told and then list the truth and where you got the truth from.

Thanks.

Obama and the L-Word - Reason Magazine

Another lie Op-Ed Columnist - The Emotion of Health Care Reform - NYTimes.com

Obama Lies, Quotes Lincoln 2x saying "I am bound to be true" | CentristNet

Al Sharpton: 'The American Public Overwhelmingly Voted for Socialism When They Elected President Obama'

By Jeff Poor (Bio | Archive)

Mon, 03/22/2010

Some of the American people probably thought they were voting for hope and change when they voted for President Barack Obama on Nov. 4, 2008. But according to Rev. Al Sharpton, they were voting for socialism.

Sharpton, the founder of the National Action Network and talk radio host told Fox News on March 21, during their special coverage of the House of Representatives' passage of health care reform legislation, this victory for President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would begin "transforming" the country.

"I think that the president and Nancy Pelosi get credit," Sharpton said. "I think this began the transforming of the country the way the president had promised. This is what he ran on."

And if that transformation is socialism, then so be it, he explained. That is what the American public "overwhelmingly" voted for.

Obama Transparency A Transparency Of Lies

Posted on January 10th, 2010

Last year during the campaign, Barack Obama was all over the map about transparency. He was going to be the number one show on CSPAN. Everything that his administration and the Congress who bowed under him was going to be broadcast on the cable channel. He stated that his would be the most transparent administration in history.

Well he has kept one portion of that very hollow promise. Obama’s administration is the most transparent administration in history but it is a transparency of lies. One lie right after another beginning with the fact that rather than being transparent this is the most secretive administration and Congress in history. I’m not even sure that the secrecy of the Nixon administration compares with all that has been hidden behind closed doors since last January under Obama.

All of the negotiations for every piece of legislation that has come before this Congress at the behest of Obama has been done in secrecy with Rahm Emanuel, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and a chosen few Democrats who could help ram legislation through a lock step Democrat majority that follow what they are told like zombies. That is except for the few who only vote as a result of million dollar bribes.

Bills with a massive impact such as the trillion dollar stimulus package and the health care debacle were crafted in secret and kept from being read by both members of Congress and especially the American people in this, “transparent,” administration. Yet at every turn Pelosi, Reid and their dear leader Obama have whined before the cameras about their utter transparency thinking that they can dupe the American people into believing their lies.

Obama also promised a totally bipartisan approach to governing like never before in our history bringing with it a new, “tone,” in Washington. Yet at every turn Republicans have been blocked from any participation with all of their legislative initiatives ignored and not once have GOP members been allowed to be part of any negotiations for any legislation.

But before the cameras Democrats accuse the GOP of being obstructionists, blocking all of their legislation while both chambers of Congress have large enough majorities to pass anything they like without any GOP participation. The obstructionist claim is nothing more than a snow job to the American people to try and hide the inner bickering between Democrats as they craft their bribery schemes to buy votes from those who fall in line only after being paid for their prostitution services.

I will admit that there has been some actual transparency in the Obama administration. A transparency which has not only harmed America but threatens the security of the American people. In his move to change American policy about terrorism from an act of war to the pre - 9/11 mentality of being nothing more than a criminal act, Obama has been very transparent in revealing to the enemy our interrogation procedures and screening procedures for airline passengers.

Earlier this year in an obvious move to try and set up the Bush administration for prosecution by the Attorney Generals Office for anti-terrorism policy under the former President, Obama allowed the transparent release of detailed information of who and how intelligence information was gathered and used in combating terrorism. All to the advantage of the enemy as the entire world became privy to our procedures and other important intelligence gathering operations.

In response to the Christmas Day attack to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit the Obama administration in an attempt to cover their tail for the massive failure in preventing this terrorist attack released detailed procedures of how passengers are screened before boarding a plane including how the system and the equipment works making it completely transparent to our enemies so that they could see exactly how to beat our security.

Assisting our enemies in finding ways around our intelligence gathering and our security has been the ONLY transparent thing that has taken place since Obama took office last January. Transparency in governing which was one of the hall marks of his, “hope and change,” campaign for the Presidency has been nothing more than an long series of lies to the American people.

The very things that should be available to the people by our government are hidden and performed in secret while only a smitten of information is given by the inept Robert Gibbs in vague and laughable press conferences. And almost all of what Gibbs says is questionable at best aggravating even the very liberal Helen Thomas among others in the press corps.

Nothing that this inexperienced and under qualified pretender to the Presidency promised during the campaign has taken place. Even the ridiculous promises such as the closing of GITMO one year after he took office has happened though Obama is still pushing for this asinine move even after we have been attacked on the Homeland three times since he took office by the same type of people who are securely held in Cuba.

One of Obama’s favorite catch phrases is, “make no mistake,” which he uses in almost every speech as an attempt to sound resolute and strong. His administration has been a mistake from the very beginning and even the lefties who voted for him are seeing the light as they are abandoning the, “hope and change,” theme for one, that at least for them is more, “fear and despair,” as true leftist liberalism is being shown in all of its failure by the Obama administration and the Reid, Pelosi circus in Congress.

Eloquent speeches and perceived charm do not a President make. The glimmer of both have long worn off with Obama and the American people are getting more and more fed up with his dog an pony show with each passing day. Yet this Chicago thug and his Windy City mafia in The White House continue with their form of business as usual with the like minded assistance of Pelosi and Reid who can’t even stand before the cameras in pressers with our making complete fools of themselves.

Never has their been such a display of arrogance by any administration and this arrogance is being called transparency. It is Obama’s arrogance which makes him believe that all he need do is stand before a camera and say, “make no mistake,” and the awe and wonder of his over blown presence will inspire the American people and the world into believing his lies. Those days are long past but Mr. Arrogance has no clue that his no substance persuasion no longer works. The Flim Flam Man is no longer getting away with his scam.

The whole debacle he calls an administration and the circus that Reid and Pelosi call a Congress both of which would not know transparency if it was thrown directly in front of them, is so pathetic it would be laughable were it not for the fact that it is destroying our country and weakening our security to the point that we are once again as vulnerable as before 9/11.

This is the real danger of what these amateurs and children are doing to our country and the major problem in this is that in their arrogance it has become obvious that they could care less about the ramifications of their actions and their policy. The agenda and their ideology is all that matters and the demise of the Nation and the safety and security of the American people is of no consequence.

Ken Taylor

OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."

THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."

OBAMA: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."

THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.

STATEMENT: “These negotiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the decisions that are being made.” January 20, 2008, and seven other times.

EXPIRATION DATE: Throughout the summer, fall, and winter of 2009 and 2010; when John McCain asked about it during the health care summit February 26, Obama dismissed the issue by declaring, “the campaign is over, John.”

STATEMENT: “We've got a philosophical difference, which we've debated repeatedly, and that is that Senator Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it. And my belief is, the reason that people don't have it is not because they don't want it but because they can't afford it.” Barack Obama, speaking at a Democratic presidential debate, February 21, 2008.

EXPIRATION DATE: On March 23, 2010, Obama signed the individual mandate into law.

Patty you call him a liar a lot. Can you please expand on this? Not just what you think are lies, but please list the lie he told and then list the truth and where you got the truth from.

Thanks.

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Monday, March 29, 2010

BARACK OBAMA

A Long Post: The Complete List of Obama Statement Expiration Dates

By popular demand, a comprehensive list of expired Obama statements...

HEALTH CARE MANDATES

STATEMENT: “We've got a philosophical difference, which we've debated repeatedly, and that is that Senator Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it. And my belief is, the reason that people don't have it is not because they don't want it but because they can't afford it.” Barack Obama, speaking at a Democratic presidential debate, February 21, 2008.

EXPIRATION DATE: On March 23, 2010, Obama signed the individual mandate into law.

HEALTH CARE NEGOTIATIONS ON C-SPAN

STATEMENT: “These negotiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the decisions that are being made.” January 20, 2008, and seven other times.

EXPIRATION DATE: Throughout the summer, fall, and winter of 2009 and 2010; when John McCain asked about it during the health care summit February 26, Obama dismissed the issue by declaring, “the campaign is over, John.”

RAISING TAXES

STATEMENT: “No family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase.” (multiple times on the campaign trail)

EXPIRATION DATE: Broken multiple times, including the raised taxes on tobacco, a new tax on indoor tanning salons, but most prominently on February 11, 2010: “President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.”

RECESS APPOINTMENTS

STATEMENT: Then-Senator Obama declared that a recess appointment is “damaged goods” and has “less credibility” than a normal appointment. August 25, 2005.

EXPIRATION DATE: March 27, 2010: “If, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis.”

BORDER SECURITY

STATEMENT: “We need tougher border security, and a renewed focus on busting up gangs and traffickers crossing our border. . . . That begins at home, with comprehensive immigration reform. That means securing our border and passing tough employer enforcement laws.” then-candidate Obama, discussing the need for border security, speaking in Miami on May 23, 2008:

EXPIRATION DATE: March 17, 2010: The Obama administration halted new work on a "virtual fence" on the U.S.-Mexican border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday, diverting $50 million in planned economic stimulus funds for the project to other purposes.

GUANTANAMO BAY

STATEMENT: Executive Order stating, "The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order." January 22, 2009.

EXPIRATION DATE: November 19, 2009: "Guantánamo, we had a specific deadline that was missed."

MILITARY TRIBUNALS

STATEMENT: “Somebody like Khalid Sheik Mohammad is gonna get basically, a full military trial with all the bells and whistles.” September 27, 2006

EXPIRATION DATE: Ongoing. “President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials said Thursday, signaling a recognition that the administration had mishandled the process and triggered a political backlash. Obama initially had asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to choose the site of the trial in an effort to maintain an independent Justice Department. But the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York.”

RECOVERY.GOV

STATEMENT: “We will launch a sweeping effort to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government, and every American will be able to see how and where we spend taxpayer dollars by going to a new website called recovery.gov.” – President Obama, January 28, 2009

EXPIRATION DATE: “More than two months after some of the funds were released, [Recovery.gov] offers little detail on where the money is going… The government [spent] $84 million on a website that doesn't have a search function, when its purpose is to ‘root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending in our government.’” April 2, 2009

Eighteen from his first 100 days:

1. "As President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide."

2. "I will make sure that we renegotiate [NAFTA]."

3. Opposed a Colombian Free Trade Agreement because advocates ignore that "labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis."

4. "Now, what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut."

5. "If we see money being misspent, we're going to put a stop to it, and we will call it out and we will publicize it."

6. "Yesterday, Jim, the head of Caterpillar, said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off."

7. "I want to go line by line through every item in the Federal budget and eliminate programs that don't work, and make sure that those that do work work better and cheaper."

8. "[My plan] will not help speculators who took risky bets on a rising market and bought homes not to live in but to sell."

9. "Instead of allowing lobbyists to slip big corporate tax breaks into bills during the dead of night, we will make sure every single tax break and earmark is available to every American online."

10. "We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress's seniority, rather than the merit of the project."

11. "If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime."

12. "Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe the United States has to be frank with the Chinese about such failings and will press them to respect human rights."

13. "We must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights."

14. "Lobbyists won’t work in my White House!"

15. "The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result."

16. "I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills."

17. "Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days." Obama is 1-for-11 on this promise so far.

18. A special one on the 100th day, "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing I'd do."

And a list from of promises that expired during the campaign:

Monday, November 03, 2008

IRAQ

STATEMENT: “Based on the conversations we’ve had internally as well as external reports, we believe that you can get one to two brigades out a month. At that pace, the forces would be out in approximately 16 months from the time that we began. That would be the time frame that I would be setting up,” Obama to the New York Times, November 1, 2007

EXPIRATION DATE: March 7, 2008: Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power, to the BBC: “You can’t make a commitment in whatever month we’re in now, in March of 2008 about what circumstances are gonna be like in Jan. 2009. We can’t even tell what Bush is up to in terms of troop pauses and so forth. He will of course not rely upon some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or as a US senator.”

Also: July 3, 2008: "My 16-month timeline, if you examine everything I've said, was always premised on making sure our troops were safe," Obama told reporters as his campaign plane landed in North Dakota. "And my guiding approach continues to be that we've got to make sure that our troops are safe, and that Iraq is stable. And I'm going to continue to gather information to find out whether those conditions still hold."

STATEMENT: On June 14, Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice called the RNC’s argument that Obama needed to go to Iraq to get a firsthand look "complete garbage."

EXPIRATION DATE: On June 16, Obama announced he would go to Iraq and Afghanistan “so he can see first hand the progress of the wars he would inherit if he's elected president.”

DEBATES

STATEMENT: May 16, 2008: "If John McCain wants to meet me, anywhere, anytime to have a debate about our respective policies in Iraq, Iran, the Middle East or around the world that is a conversation I’m happy to have."

EXPIRATION DATE: June 13, 2008: Obama campaign manager David Plouffe: “Barack Obama offered to meet John McCain at five joint appearances between now and Election Day—the three traditional debates plus a joint town hall on the economy in July [on the Fourth of July] and an in-depth debate on foreign policy in August.”

IRAN

STATEMENT: “We can, then, more effectively deal with what I consider to be one of the greatest threats to the United States, to Israel, and world peace, and that is Iran,” Obama speaking to American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Chicago, March 5, 2007

EXPIRATION DATE: “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny...They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.” – May 20, 2008

STATEMENT: Question at the YouTube debate, as the video depicted leaders of the countries, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?....."

"I would," Obama answered. July 27, 2007

EXPIRATION DATE: May 10, 2008: Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate: “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”

JEREMIAH WRIGHT/TRINITY UNITED

STATEMENT: "I could no more disown Jeremiah Wright than I could disown my own grandmother."

—Barack Obama, March 18, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: on April 28, 2008, cut all ties to Wright, declaring, “based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought.”

STATEMENT: Obama said that his church, “Trinity United "embodies the black community in its entirety" and that his church was being caricatured on March 18, 2008.

EXPIRATION DATE: On May 31, 2008, Obama resigned his membership at Trinity United Church.

JIM JOHNSON

STATEMENT: Criticism of running mate vetter Jim Johnson loan from Countrywide was "a game" and that his vice-presidential vetting team “aren’t folks who are working for me.” June 10, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: June 11, 2008, when Obama accepted Johnson's resignation.

FISA

STATEMENT: Obama spokesman Bill Burton on October 24, 2007: “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

EXPIRATION DATE: June 20, 2008: “Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program.”

NUCLEAR ENERGY

STATEMENT: “I am not a nuclear energy proponent.” Barack Obama, December 30, 2007

EXPIRATION DATE: The above statement actually was the expiration date for his previous position, “I actually think we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix,” expressed on July 23, 2007; the above statement expired when he told Democratic governors he thought it is “worth investigating its further development” on June 20, 2008.

NAFTA

STATEMENT: Tim Russert:: Senator Obama . . . Simple question: Will you, as president, say to Canada and Mexico, "This has not worked for us; we are out"?

Obama: “I will make sure that we renegotiate, in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about. And I think actually Senator Clinton's answer on this one is right. I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced. And that is not what has been happening so far.” February 23, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: June 18, 2008, Fortune magazine: “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.

"I'm not a big believer in doing things unilaterally," Obama said. "I'm a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out how we can make this work for all people."

PUBLIC FINANCING

STATEMENT: “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.” Also, a Common Cause questionnaire dated November 27, 2007, asked “If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?”, Obama checked, “Yes.”

EXPIRATION DATE: June 19, 2008: Obama announced he would not participate in the presidential public financing system.

WORKING OUT A DEAL ON PUBLIC FINANCING

STATEMENT: “What I’ve said is, at the point where I'm the nominee, at the point where it's appropriate, I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that works for everybody.”Obama to Tim Russert, Febuary 27.

EXPIRATION DATE: When Obama announced his decision to break his public financing pledge June 19, no meeting between the Democratic nominee and McCain had occurred.

WELFARE REFORM

STATEMENT: “I probably would not have supported the federal legislation [to overhaul welfare], because I think it had some problems." Obama on the floor of the Illinois Senate, May 31, 1997

EXPIRATION DATE: April 11, 2008: Asked if he would have vetoed the 1996 law, Mr. Obama said, “I won’t second guess President Clinton for signing” it. Obama to the New York Times.

GAY MARRIAGE

STATEMENT: "Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as president. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage.” – campaign spokesman, May 5, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: June 29, 2008: “I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states… Finally, I want to congratulate all of you who have shown your love for each other by getting married these last few weeks.” — letter to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club

PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION

STATEMENT: "Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term." – Interview with Relevant magazine, July 1, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: July 5, 2008: “My only point is that in an area like partial-birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously. It can be defined through physical health, It can be defined by serious clinical mental-health diseases.” statement to reporters.

DIVISION OF JERUSALEM

STATEMENT: "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." — speech before AIPAC, June 4, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: June 6, 2008: "Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties" as part of "an agreement that they both can live with." – an Obama adviser clarifying his remarks to the Jerusalem Post.