US is leaving a 'legacy of waste' in Iraq

Reporting from Khan Bani Saad, Iraq — The shell of a prison that will never be used rises from the desert on the edge of this dusty town north of Baghdad, a hulking monument to the wasted promise of America's massive, $53-billion reconstruction effort in Iraq.

Construction began in May 2004 at a time when U.S. money was pouring into the country. It quickly ran into huge cost overruns. Violence erupted in the area, and a manager was shot dead in his office. The Iraqi government said it didn't want or need the prison. In 2007 the project was abandoned, but only after $40 million of U.S. taxpayer money had been spent.

Read More

'America is better than Glenn Beck' (Opinion)

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was already dead when I was born, and yet I idolized him the way most children idolized athletes and pop stars. I had the poster and the T-shirt, I knew the speeches and the places he’d marched.

He was smart and brave, steadfast and unmovable. He was a man consumed by conviction and possessed by the magnificent radiance of the earnestly humble. He was an eloquent speaker and a beautiful writer. He cared more about justice and equality than fame or fortune. He was a beacon of light in a world beset by darkness. Read the rest here.

Read More

Rev. Graham says Obama was 'born a muslim'

In the wake of a new poll suggesting one in five Americans incorrectly believe that Obama belongs to the Islamic faith, a highly respected and influential Christian leader has said publicly that he believes Obama was 'born a muslim'.

I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name," he told CNN in an interview which aired on Thursday.

"Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said," he continued, going on to say "the Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs."

The President, himself, had published in his bestselling memoir that his father was an atheist by the time he was born. He eventually divorced his mother. Obama had little contact with his father during childhood.

The misinformation surrounding Obama's faith and nationality continues, despite active press action by the White House and other officials to correct the issues surrounding the controversy. A recent poll found that 18% of those surveyed incorrectly said that Obama's faith was Islam - up 11% from March 2009.

Read More

POLL: 54% say they will not watch American Idol following judge panel shuffle

In the latest in a series of polls conducted by gossip websites and magazines alike, People Magazine ran a poll that shows 53% of respondents would not watch American Idol when it returns with fresh faces on the judging panel.

Of the 15,000 people who did respond to the poll - which is unscientific and being conducted on the website of the magazine - just over 8,000 said that they would not watch the show now that Ellen DeGeneres, Kara Dioguardi and Simon Cowell have left or been fired with Jennifer Lopez taking a spot on the panel. [People]

Read More