The federal Bureau of Prisons twice rejected inmate Ali Omar Abu Ali’s request to read Barack Obama’s books Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. Officials said the books contain material “potentially detrimental to national security.” But after media reported the agency’s stand, officials changed their minds and said they will allow Abu Ali to have the books. (msnbc . . .)

Books Both Available on Google

• “Dreams from my Father“
• “The Audacity of Hope“

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has issued a five-step plan for repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” that begins with an executive order suspending gay discharges.  According to the Palm Center, 77 members of congress (more than enough) are asking President Obama to suspend the ‘gay ban’.

According to the report, “President Obama should issue an order prohibiting the Secretary of Defense… from establishing, implementing, or applying any personnel or administrative policies, or taking a personnel or administrative action, in whole or part on the basis of sexual orientation.” The report says that this would “include banning further dismissals on the basis of DADT.” The legal basis for issuing such an order derives from the president’s “stop-loss” authority.

The plan is contained in a new CAP report called “Ending ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’: Practical Steps to Repeal the Ban on Openly Gay Men and Women in the U.S. Military,” and was written by Lawrence J. Korb, Sean E. Duggan, and Laura Conley.

He is Following in President’s Footsteps

Many have said that President Obama already should have already issued an executive order on gay troops. This is the great failure of Clinton.  Clinton was already to utilize an executive order to end the ‘gay ban’, but wanted to play nice.  The compromise, “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell”. Which any gay person in military can tell you, is worthless.  An executive decision would have stopped all the firing of liguistics needed in the middle east. An executive decision would have made our military stronger instead of relying on Blackwater/Cheney contractors. An executive dicision would have stopped many shattered lives.

Aaron Belkin, Palm Center director, “The White House acts as if an executive order and legislative repeal are mutually exclusive options,” he said. “The whole point of the executive order is that it untangles the political stalemate and paves the way for legislative repeal.”

Look to the Past

President Obama just need to look at the President Clinton dicision to not end the ban in our volunteer based military.  Clinton’s attempts to pander and play nice, didn’t change a thing.  But lets go back to the 50′s and 60′s. Barry Morris Goldwater Republican was a five-term United States Senator from Arizonaand the Republican Party’s nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as “Mr. Conservative.”

“You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.”
~ Barry Goldwater

If Obama wants to be the kind of President he promised then he must end DOMA, Military ‘Gay Ban’, higher education affordable, provide health care for every US Citizen and bring all troops home.

He was not elected to play nice with others . . . it was about becoming more than inside the beltway. It is time to stop leading a failing Empire;  the United States needs that smart President Obama of “Hope” “Change” that got him elected.  It is time for Obama to be Obama.

As part of the Presidentâ’s Summer of Service initiative, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a call to action for every adult to mentor a child outdoors this summer. Secretary Salazar spoke at the Big Meadows Campground with volunteers who removed invasive species in Virginiaâ’s Shenandoah National Park.

keep Americaâ’s children healthy, creative, and engaged

â’National Wildlife Federation applauds President Obama and the Interior Departmentâ’s United We Serve outdoor youth mentoring program. As the disconnect between children and nature grows, we need more parents and mentors to encourage young people to play outdoors. Both unstructured playtime and outdoor youth mentoring programs will keep Americaâ’s children healthy, creative, and engaged well beyond the summer months,â’ said Kevin Coyle, Vice President for Education and Training at National Wildlife Federation.

NWFâ’s Be Out Thereâ„¢ campaign is designed to get families across the United States to open the door and get outside. A daily dose of the outdoors improves childrenâ’s physical, mental and emotional well being. The benefits of outdoor play are real: healthier kids with a life-long appreciation of wildlife and nature.

“Children today spend half as much time outdoors as their parents and this has significant implications for our children’s health, the economy and the future of American conservation,” said Secretary Salazar today at an event highlighting summer service programs in Shenandoah National Park. “This summer, as part of President Obama’s new United We Serve campaign, I encourage all Americans to serve by mentoring a child in the great outdoors and introducing them to our nation’s treasured landscapes.â’

NWF offers free resources to help mentors and youth enjoy the benefits of our treasured landscapes through camping, fishing, cycling, hiking and other outdoor activities. Visit www.nwf.org/naturefind for information about family-friendly and affordable outdoor activities and events.

United We Serve kicks off today and runs through September 11, which will be marked for the first time as a national day of service and remembrance. The initiative focuses on four key areas: education, health, energy and the environment; and community renewal. United We Serve is led by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that improves lives and strengthens communities though volunteering and service.

Serve.gov was created to allow visitors to type in their zip code to find local volunteer opportunities, recruit volunteers by posting their organizationâ’s projects, or get ideas for creating their own projects with friends, families, and neighbors.

Just around the corner is the ultimate opportunity to experience our public lands with friends and family. Thousands of individuals and communities have registered for this weekendâ’s 5th Annual Great American Backyard Campout. On June 27, schools, faith and youth groups, and civic organizations will take a break to camp out across the country and experience the sights and sounds of natureâ”right outside their back door.

“President Obama recently took a bold step in easing travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans,” said Barney Harford, president and CEO of Orbitz Worldwide. “The OpenCuba.org campaign calls on the President and Congress to take action to end the travel ban to Cuba, giving all Americans the freedom to visit what once was a premier tourist destination for U.S. citizens.”

“Our mission at Orbitz is to help travelers experience the world,” continued Harford. “67% of Americans would also support a policy that would allow U.S. travel agents such as Orbitz to book vacation travel to Cuba.”

The OpenCuba.org gives travelers the opportunity to get directly involved in a grassroots effort to convince American legislators and regulators to end the ban on travel to Cuba. As a focus of the campaign, travelers will be asked to sign a petition calling for an end to the travel ban. Orbitz executives will formally present the petition to U.S. officials in Washington, DC, later this year.

Every person who signs the petition will receive a $100 coupon redeemable on Orbitz against a vacation to Cuba valid if and when the U.S. Government removes the ban on travel to Cuba, and as soon as Orbitz is able to offer such travel on its website.

Poll Information

According to the Orbitz-Ipsos Poll:

• 67% of Americans say that they would support a policy that would allow all Americans to travel to Cuba.
• 32% of Americans would strongly support such a policy that would allow all Americans to travel to Cuba.
• Only 23% say that they would oppose lifting these restrictions for Americans traveling to Cuba (only 13% would strongly oppose it).
• 72% agree that expanding travel and tourism from the U.S. to Cuba would have a positive impact on the day-to-day lives of the Cuban people.
• Just 20% feel that allowing Americans to travel to Cuba would not positively impact Cubans in this way.

Other key points include:

• 67% of Americans would support a policy that would allow travel agents to book vacation travel to Cuba, mirroring the level of support for lifting the travel ban.
• Similarly, 63% of Americans agree that it should be legal for online travel sites, such as Orbitz.com, to book travel to Cuba.
• 64% of Americans say that Orbitz.com should play an active role to persuade elected officials to give all Americans the freedom to travel to Cuba.

Methodology

The Orbitz-Ipsos poll was conducted from April 23-27th, 2009. A nationally representative sample of 1,000 randomly-selected adults aged 18 and over residing in the U.S. was interviewed by telephone via Ipsos’ U.S. Telephone Express omnibus. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire population of adults in the U.S. been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample’s regional and age/gender composition reflects that of the actual U.S. population according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

During the Cold War UN peacekeeping goals have been primarily limited to maintaining ceasefires and stabilizing situations on the ground, so that efforts could be made at the political level to resolve the conflict by peaceful means. Those missions consisted of military observers and lightly armed troops with monitoring, reporting and confidence-building roles in support of ceasefires and limited peace agreements.

The end of the Cold War theUN peacekeeping mission also changed, prompting the Organization to shift and expand its field operations from â’traditionalâ’ missions involving strictly military tasks, to complex â’multidimensionalâ’ enterprises designed to ensure the implementation of comprehensive peace agreements and assist in laying the foundations for sustainable peace.

Modern peacekeepers undertake a wide variety of complex tasks, from helping to build sustainable institutions of governance, to human rights monitoring, to security sector reform, to the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants. We all know that Iraq is complex.  It deserves proper leadership.

Although the military remain the backbone of most peacekeeping operations, the many faces of peacekeeping now include administrators and economists, police officers and legal experts, de-miners and electoral observers, human rights monitors and specialists in civil affairs and governance, humanitarian workers and experts in communications and public information. Isn’t that what Iraq needs?

It is time for the US let the UN take over operations in Iraq and the Middle East.  It is time for Obama to take advantage of what is in our own backyard, I mean heck it is sitting in NY.  That is a 40 min plane ride.  Go and beg for the UN intervention.  It is time for Obama to beg at the mercy of the UN Council.