Who's covering the tab on this world wind tour that Sen. Obama is on. Originally I thought this was a Senate related field trip. I think it's great th see and hear that Sen. Obama voice carries well across the lawn of the wonderful landmark in Berlin.

I realize that the substance of his speech was more melodic to my ears than the rantings among the Schmidt's Sausage Haus, but it was the notation that he was not the norm when it came to a person from our shore stood before them to speak, I felt is was another way to dig into our sides the thorn that reminds us that he is African American. then the go from his families history and segway into the story of the airlift of Berlins, to offer us some picture that would lead us to believe he has felt there pain... sorry I am headed back in line at the Schmidt's haus, for seconds , (btw- right down the way is a great antiques district),
- - because I am sure that the desert that Sen. Obama is offering is a bit tart, to offer me some form relation between him and Germany, oh wait he already did that a few months back, it was an uncle right, and where was that??.

So I guess of late I am offering words of caution. Just because is a leather bound first edition does not make it a good read. I am not a pessimist, just living in the real world here in Fla, where my 30.00 USD left me with only 7.444 gals.

So May ask who is paying the tab on this trip. (along with the secret service duty, the convention setups etc.

The KRAUTS KNOW that the FLYING CAVEMEN UBL MASTERMIND of 9/11 is a MYTH!!! Why?

They read the Spiegel who published the facts about OPERATION BOJINKA & GLADIO. They're not nearly as BONEHEADED has Mz South Carolina and such!!!

Operation Gladio is used as an informal name for all stay-behind organisations.

Operating in all of NATO and even in some neutral countries or in Spain before its 1982 adhesion to NATO, Gladio was first coordinated by the Clandestine Committee of the Western Union (CCWU), founded in 1948. After the creation of NATO in 1949, the CCWU was integrated into the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC), founded in 1951 and overseen by the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), transferred to Belgium after France’s official withdrawal from NATO in 1966 — which was not followed by the dissolution of the French stay-behind paramilitary movements.

The role of the CIA in sponsoring Gladio and the extent of its activities during the Cold War era, and its relationship to attacks perpetrated in Italy during the years of lead and other similar clandestine operations clearly included 'internal subversion'. It was to play 'a determining role... not only on the general policy level of warfare, but also in the politics of emergency'. In the 1970s, with communist electoral support growing and other leftists looking menacing, the establishment turned to the 'Strategy of Tension'.

"Next to the CPC, a second secret army command center, labeled Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC), was set up in 1957 on the orders of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR). This military structure provided for significant US leverage over the secret stay-behind networks in Western Europe as the SACEUR, throughout NATO's history, has traditionally been a US General who reports to the Pentagon in Washington and is based in NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium. The ACC's duties included elaborating on the directives of the network, developing its clandestine capability, and organizing bases in Britain and the United States. In wartime, it was to plan stay-behind operations in conjunction with SHAPE. According to former CIA director William Colby, it was 'a major program'."

"Coordinated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), {the secret armies} were run by the European military secret services in close cooperation with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British foreign secret service Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also MI6). Trained together with US Green Berets and British Special Air Service (SAS), these clandestine NATO soldiers, armed with underground arms-caches, prepared against a potential Soviet invasion and occupation of Western Europe, as well as the coming to power of communist parties. The clandestine international network covered the European NATO membership, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey, as well as the neutral European countries of Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland.
'The existence of these clandestine NATO armies remained a closely guarded secret throughout the Cold War until 1990, when the first branch of the international network was discovered in Italy. It was code-named Gladio, the Latin word for a short double-edged sword [gladius]. While the press said the NATO secret armies were 'the best-kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II', the Italian government, amidst sharp public criticism, promised to close down the secret army.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/294202/Daniele-Ganser-NATOs-Secret-Armies-Oper...

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/secret_warfare_and_natos_stay_behind_armi...

http://www.amazon.com/NATOs-Secret-Army-Operation-Contemporary/dp/071468...

Also see:
http://airamerica.com/node/81456/461420#comment-461420

When I hear the chimes - I keep expecting to hear Paul McCartney sing "Let em in".

[in response to - -The tab
The first part of the trip was a Senate trip. Iraq and Afghanistan definitely, though I'm not sure]

So who's paying the bean counters to separate who pays the First part, removed from the second part, but related to the third part, but seems to be like the first part???

I'd go to dinner with 3 brains from wsj/DowJones, and it takes forever, I hope none of the accountants have "recount" duties on the vitae.

The options

A) Tax Payers in the respective states the Senators are from

B) All Tax payers because we are citizens of the World or I mean the United States

C) all the above.

Isn't there guideline published and will the tax payer be able to see a report like the sec requires of a stock or mutual fund do.

And is there an oversight group to oversee that non of our tax dollars go to pay for Sen. Obama's campaign?

"I know that I don't look like the Americans who've previously spoken in this great city"..." get real Sen. Obama's" I think BHO has a large family, I waiting for him to connect himself to the Mayflower, and I am not referring to the mayflower restaurant in Provinctown, MA...

When I was a postdoc at Ohio State, I did indeed eat at the famed Schmidt's Sausage Haus in Columbus. Lederhosen aside, it was "eh." NYC's Loreley is better: www.loreleynyc.com/indexFlash.html

Back to Columbus... my all-time favorite German Village locales were the Book Loft (32 rooms of books!) and Cup o' Joe (just next door to the Book Loft). Ah, good times!

www.bookloft.com/
and
cityguide.aol.com/columbus/restaurants/cup-o-joe/v-105240844

We're still waiting for the podcast from yesterday and the podcast for today as well.

Very, very sad....

I WANT MY PODCASTS!

Going into Rachel withdrawal over here.

rachel you are the best hope for shedding a little light on all things Obama. So many on the TV machine relate to only the surface of what he has to say, because he says so much, and the implications go so deep, that it takes sharp minds, or at least hearing his words twice (ex. today's speech) to recognize how amazingly sharp and complete his mind is.
Pundits don't seem to be made for capturing real complexity, because each incident is shaped down to fit their existing conclusions. The impact of Sunni Awakening and our policy of paying Sunni insurgents is a level of complexity, and shading of gray that is hard to capture on RWH because everybody just wants to stuff "The Surge" down our throats. We are witnessing amazing history, and most of us don't even know it.

I love ya Rachel, but jeez,

"Don't ask, don't tell" should absolutely be repealed, but don't lay the blame at Clinton's feet. Remember it was a compromise. Clinton had originally tried to allow people to serve openly in the military, regardless of sexual orientation. It just wasn't going to happen in 1993. Back then, I was in my early 20s, in Panama, serving in the Army. I had started my first gay relationship a year earlier and I was paranoid that I would get busted, stripped of VA benefits, lose the Army College Fund, and get a dishonorable discharge. Before don't ask, don't tell, gay service members were popular targets for CID, who apparently had nothing better to do. So, I don't see don't ask don't tell as a "evil Clintonian legacy" it gave me a measure of relief. Clinton tried to repeal the ban and failed, but at least he allowed me to serve out the last two years of my enlistment without the ongoing fear of being caught up in a witch hunt.

Something sinister is afoot at AAR again. Every time Air America makes a change in programming, or someone leaves, subtle changes take place that seem only slightly irritating at the time. To those of us who have lived through this scenario many times, these are clues to an inevitable dropping of a bomb...

I fear there is a similar situation with our loss of the Air America podcast of TRMS. I have noticed that they have pulled The Rachel Maddow Show from iTunes. You can no longer subscribe to TRMS podcasts from there. And the most disturbing aspect of this is, even though there have been NUMEROUS pleas for information on the blogs for the past 2 days, there has been a silent, cricket response from the company. What gives, and why won't they answer our questions?

Are they trying to wean us off of Rachel before telling us that she will no longer be at Air America? Consider that the same silence was heard from AAR just prior to the loss of Marc, Jeannine, Marty, Lizz (sniff...), Mike, Sam, and Randi.

Come on, AAR. Come clean and stop playing us for chumps. We're paying you, remember?

Wayne Hussein J.

20 plus year association with his mentor rev. wright,, he must admit that association was a political move ,to insure that he would be perceived black enough,to get black folks to support him ,,or he has to beg for forgiveness from the american people ,not give a speech about prejudices,and move on like all is forgotten , he has a snowballs chance in hell to become leader of the world if he does not justify that association.