The senior us official also says the White House received 3 sets of photos yesterday. The photos included:
1. Photos of OBLs body at a hangar after he was brought back to Afghanistan. This is the most recognizable with a clear picture of his face. The picture is gruesome because he has a massive open head wound across both eyes. It’s very bloody and gory.
2. Photos from the burial at sea on the USS Carl Vinson. Photos of OBL before the shroud was put on and then wrapped in the shroud.
3. There are photos of the raid itself that include photos of the two dead brothers, one of OBLs dead son (adult adolescent, maybe approx 18 yrs old) and some of the inside scene of the compound.
It was reported this morning that Obama had made the decision to release “at least one photo”.
Then Press Sec, Jay Carney said in his daily press briefing that the photograph of a dead Osama bin Laden is “gruesome” and that “it could be inflammatory” if released.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the White House is mulling whether to make the photo public, but he said officials are concerned about the “sensitivity” of doing so.
LEON PANETTA: The government obviously has been talking about how best to do this, but I don’t think there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public.
A special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District is taking place on May 24 in a district that currently scores R+6 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Because of the late entry of Jack Davis on the “Tea Party” ticket, the Republican and Democrat candidates are polling neck and neck.
In the special election for the 26th Congressional District seat, Republican Jane Corwin currently has a small lead, with the support of 36 percent of voters. Democrat Kathy Hochul is supported by 31 percent, and independent Jack Davis, running on the Tea Party line, has the support of 23 percent of voters, according to a Siena (College) Research Institute poll of likely 26th CD voters released today.
Jack Davis didn’t win any Tea Party nomination. Local Tea Parties loathe him. But under New York law, any third party candidate can create their own ballot line if they collect the necessary signatures. After hiring a “petition signature-gathering firm”, Davis declared himself the “Tea Party” candidate.
He’s run for Congress three times before, all as a Democrat. He endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, and took $5,000 from Obama’s PAC. He also took $7,000 from Charlie Rangel and his PAC. He supports late-term abortions, taxpayer funding of abortions, and the Assault Weapons Ban.
In 2008, running on the Independent ticket, Davis, (a millionaire) caused a major flap by bribing the wives of the two men who were to decide who got the Independence Party’s nomination for Congress in the 26th District. Davis called them “consultants,” and denied any impropriety.
Here’s an ad from the 2008 election:
The guy’s a fraud and has no business running on a Tea Party ticket.
Obama is looking more than a little crass for taking full credit for Bin Laden’s downfall, as do his minions who have been crowing all over the net and airwaves that 2012 is a “sure thing”. According to The Politico, they are just seizing the opportunity to portray Obama as a decisive leader:
… one Democratic communications hand sent advice to a slew of other Democratic operatives in the wake of the announcement hammering on the need to make sure Obama comes out on top.
“In your day jobs, do not let Republicans turn this into continuing the Bush legacy. This has to be about Obama’s decisive leadership,” the guidance said. “He is the one who oversaw bringing bin Laden to justice, much like how Bush failed to do so at Tora Bora and then claimed Osama wasn’t a priority.”
This Washington Post pollthat shows 51% of the American people think that President Bush deserves some credit, may be a game changer, though.
You know what happened when the birth certificate issue started polling badly for Obama, mmmkay? An abrupt about-face after two and a half years of obstinate resistance.
In the very near future, President Obama may give a speech in which the former president is “graciously” given some credit for the intelligence work that led to Osama Bin Laden’s demise. Perhaps he’ll use his “victory lap” appearance at Ground Zero on Thursday, to acknowledge Bush’s role.
…the emphasis, with 2012 just around the calendrical corner, was on the boss’ valor. “There was nothing that confirmed that bin Laden was at that compound,” Brennan related as if such uncertainty is uncommon in war.
“And, therefore,” Brennan continued, “when President Obama was faced with the opportunity to act upon this, the president had to evaluate the strength of that information and then made what I believe was one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory.”
According to early reports of the incident, detailed here in The Ticket, 24 SEALs rappelled down ropes from hovering Chinooks in post-midnight darkness Monday Pakistan time with Osama security forces shooting at them. Brennan didn’t have much time to go into all that today, the goal is to elevate the ex-state senator to at least a one-star commander-in-chief.
Here’s something else that didn’t get much recognition in all the street celebrations or all-hail-Obama briefings:
The trail to Monday morning’s assault on Osama’s Pakistan compound began during someone else’s presidency. That previous president authorized enhanced interrogation techniques which convinced folks like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to give up, among many other things, the name of their top-secret courier, now deceased. His travels ultimately led the CIA back to Osama’s six-year-old suburban home.
Yes, it’s true that some pre-January 2009 antiwar activists have remained morally and logically consistent in their opposition to America’s military presence in the Mideast; but, thank God, it appears now they were only a tiny, insignificant minority. Recent events have happily made clear that the antiwar movement of 2001-8 was overwhelmingly dominated by a vast silent hypocritical majority of craven political opportunists awaiting a Democratic administration to gleefully celebrate the covert execution of a man whom, until 28 months ago, they would have described as a “tragic civilian casualty.”
Who is to credit for this rebirth in American national unity? First and foremost, we must cite the leadership of President Obama. Like many Americans – and the Nobel Peace Prize committee – I naively feared he was actually serious when he initially proposed shutting down Guantanamo, trying detainees in American civilian courts, and prior consultation with the international community. Little did I know that this untested young Commander-in-Chief would muster the courage to read his weekly Gallup numbers and, in one daring unilateral extra-judicial targeted hit job, toss aside every single idiotic foreign policy principle of his election campaign. Perhaps most satisfyingly, it was a mission made possible thanks to information extracted by methods he previously banned as “illegal torture.”
But this triumphant new era in situationally-unified American bloodlust does not belong to the President alone; we must also cite Congress’s born-again waterboarders like Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and their newfound enthusiasm for what (at least until 9pm Sunday) they would have once considered illegal military murder squads. Neither can we forget the watchdogs of America’s press, who have shown unprecedented ethical flexibility in shedding their long-held Gandhi moralism and embracing their inner Rambo.
Jake Tapperhas the scoop on the possible photo release:
A top source tells ABC News that President Obama and White House officials are discussing the possibility of releasing a photograph of Osama bin Laden’s corpse today.
The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces.
Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden’s wives was killed in the raid and that bin Laden was using her as a human shield before she was shot by U.S. forces.
WikiLeaks may have triggered the killing of Osama Bin Laden, it was suggested last night.
For although the CIA has thought since September that he was in hiding in Abbottabad, special forces stormed his fortress only days after the website published new secret documents.
These made reference to named ‘couriers’ carrying Bin Laden’s message to his followers, and also to Abbottabad as a possible Al Qaeda bolthole.
America has already revealed that it was led to Bin Laden by tracking a man identified as his key courier.
When that courier was found in Abbottabad, the CIA began surveillance that led to the raid.
As a result, last night it was suggested the operation had to be launched before Bin Laden knew the game was up.
Hmmmm….
What were they waiting for?
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MORE:
Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller notes the incredible transformation of Team Sixfrom Dick Cheney’s “secret, illegal, assassination squad” to Obama’s”super awesome clean-up crew”, AKA Naval Special Warfare Development Group, AKA DevGru.
Cheney is bad and Obama is good, right? So… how will our moral, ethical, and intellectual superiors avoid giving The Evil Dick Cheney any credit for this? What rhetorical gymnastics will they perform to praise the brave men they once slandered as the instruments of Satan? How can they celebrate this victory for their beloved Obama without reversing themselves on the methods he used to achieve it?
Aw, they’ll find a way. If all else fails, they can just pretend they never said any of that stuff.
If Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Seymour Hersh, and Stephen Colbert had gotten their way over the last ten years, Osama bin Laden would still be alive. The intelligence leading to his location would not have been fully developed. The commando team that took him down would not have existed.
Did these liberals hold their views entirely out of political expediency, slamming and indicting Bush and Cheney for programs and policies they would have quietly tolerated from Gore or Kerry? What difference does it make? They were dead wrong, and it doesn’t matter why. They’ll be dead wrong again under the next Republican president.
Local CBS2 news anchor just made the following statement while pimping their 8:00 KCAL9 coverage of OBL: “new reaction on the murder of the terrorist mastermind.” Murder? Apparently, the killing during legal combat operations of a person who 1) declared war on the US and 2) masterminded a series of attacks, generally targeting civilians, is murder.
A charitable person would assume that, while it was a horrible misuse of the language, it was probably merely a slip of the tongue. However, when I went to their website to write a complaint I found that someone else had already complained about one of their stories describing his death as murder. That complaint (post and link here) was posted 20 hours before the occurence I witnessed. While it appears the earlier complaint refers to a guest describing OBL’s death as murder, the occurrence that angered me was a direct statement by Sharon Tay who is described on their website as an anchor.
Now it’s being reported that according to the Wikileaks cables, the terrorist who gave up the courier’s name was caught in Iraq in 2004.The UK Telegraphreports:
“Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti was a senior al-Qaeda facilitator and subordinate of [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed]. Al-Kuwaiti worked in the al-Qaeda media house operated by [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] in Kandahar and served as a courier.”
The file suggests that the courier’s identity was provided to the US by another key source, the al-Qaida facilitator Hassan Ghul, who was captured in Iraq in 2004 and interrogated by the CIA. Ghul was never sent to Guantanamo but was believed to have been taken to a prison in Pakistan.
Barack Obama kept military commanders hanging by declaring he would ‘sleep on it’ before taking 16 hours to give the go-ahead to raid Bin Laden’s compound.
Hit squads of specialist Navy Seals – who were not even told who they were preparing to capture – had practised the mission at two reconstructions of the terror chiefs sprawling compound.
But the president stunned officials when he told a national security meeting that he wanted more time to think – and disappeared out of the room.
‘I’m not going to tell you what my decision is now – I’m going to go back and think about it some more,’ said Obama, according to the New York Times. He then added ‘I’m going to make a decision soon.’
The head of the CIA and other senior intelligence officers who were keen to proceed were left tense as they waited for the president’s decision.
Charles Krauthammer weighs in on the “should they release the photo” question, and heartily approves of the decision to dump Bin Laden in the sea.
The man can turn a phrase, can’t he?
I totally agree with his assessment that releasing the photo would put to bed the growing meme that Osama wasn’t really killed. If you don’t believe that’s already becoming problem, just check out some of the comments in this thread. There are quite a few doubting Thomas’s out there.
And after watching Obama string birthers along for 2 1/2 years, (when he could have ended the controversy at any time), I’m not sure he wouldn’t use this controversy as a political weapon to embarrass the Republican party, too. Everything is political fair game to an Alinskyite President.
Last night, after seeing this (too good to check) photo in many different places on the web, I posted it in an update to my Osama Bin Laden Deadpost, noting that I had no idea if it was legit, but it was something I had been seeing. Then almost immediately, I felt foolish, and applying the internet 3 second rule, I took it down, because I was about 100% sure it was fake.
An image circulating on the Internet and displayed on some television news programs abroad purports to show Osama bin Laden’s bloody corpse. No U.S. or Pakistani officials have confirmed its authenticity, and two U.S. officials have warned NBC News that the image is a hoax.
Based on an initial look into the image file, we agree, and think it’s a fake. At first glance, the pixelation around the “wound” area and the odd lack of transition between different colored cloth and flesh indicate that the image has been manipulated.
Furthermore, the facial expression and beard are very reminiscent of a 1998 image of bin Laden, the first picture shown below. Next to it, we show the original resolution of the “corpse” image as we’ve seen it (197 by 263 pixels), “flopped” 180 degrees on the horizontal axis to conform to the original 1998 image’s beard orientation. The third image is a blended image of the two, with the “corpse” image at 100 percent opacity below the original image at 43 percent opacity. The way the images “lock” in place at the mouth, beard and nose indicate to us that the image circulating on the Web and some foreign television outlets is nothing but a clumsy fake:
Anyhoo, I’ve gotten 5000+ Google searches for that pic, (how embarrassing) since I took it down. There is definitely a hunger out there for the death photo.
MSNBC further reports:
A senior U.S. official says that they are still deciding whether to release a still photo of dead bin Laden.
“It is really, really graphic,” the official said, adding that U.S. officials are trying to decide whether it is just too graphic to put out.
9/11 was really, really graphic, too, if I remember right.
The argument for releasing them: to ensure that the public knows and can appreciate that he’s dead. There is of course skepticism throughout the world that the US government claim that it killed bin Laden is true.
The argument against releasing the pictures: they’re gruesome. He has a massive head wound above his left eye where he took bullet, with brains and blood visible.
ABC News reporter, Nick Schifrin toured the compound, and got this exclusive footage:
The location was a fortified compound in the affluent Pakistani suburbs of Abbottabad, about two hours outside of Islamabad. The target was Osama bin Laden.
Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while monitoring an al-Qaida courier. The CIA had been hunting that courier for years, *ever since detainees told interrogators that the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might very well be living with the al-Qaida leader.
Nestled in an affluent neighborhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?
The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind those walls. Each time, they concluded it was almost certainly bin Laden.
For nearly a decade, American military and intelligence forces had chased the specter of Bin Laden through Pakistan and Afghanistan, once coming agonizingly close and losing him in a pitched battle at Tora Bora, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. As Obama administration officials described it, the real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.
Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.
It would have been a nice gesture if Obama had given the Bush some credit for the Bush era GWOT policies that had led to this outcome, in his speech, last night.
UPDATE:
The MN Star Tribune is reporting that it was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, himself, that gave up the name of the courier:
Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.
Still waiting for Obama going to give some credit the Bush administration.
Today, Keep America Safe released the following statement on the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden:
“Today marks a major victory for the people of the United States and the forces of freedom and justice all over the world. We are grateful for the bravery of the Americans who raided the compound near Islamabad and killed Osama bin Laden. We are also grateful to the men and women of America’s intelligence services who, through their interrogation of high-value detainees, developed the information that apparently led us to bin Laden. The war goes on and al Qaeda continues to plot and plan against us. We must remain vigilant and we must continue to provide our men and women in uniform and our intelligence professionals all the tools they need to fight and win this war. Today, especially, we remember the brave Americans who have given their lives in the service of our nation and the nearly 3,000 men, women and children who lost their lives on 9/11. Justice has been done.”
In ordering the raid on Osama bin Laden’s hiding spot, President Obama evinced a military-minded approach to the War on Terror, former attorney general Alberto Gonzales tells National Review Online. “He did not send the F.B.I. into Pakistan to retrieve Osama bin Laden as if he were a common criminal,” Gonzales observes. “He sent our military because this is a war. And Osama bin Laden is a military target; he’s a military leader.”
Reports are circulating that the U.S. procured the name of bin Laden’s courier from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the infamous resident of Guantanamo Bay. “I’m not going to speak to the suggestion that information came from detainees or interrogations,” Gonzales says. “I would just say generally it’s important in this conflict to get information any way you can that’s constitutional. I’m gratified to see many of the same policies adopted by the Bush administration have been continued by the Obama administration, including the legal framework that this is not a [criminal-system issue].”
One aspect of President Obama’s speech last night — part of the “If it’s on my watch I did it, if it’s on Bush’s watch we did it” theme — is particularly grating. Obama said:
Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in [the war against al Qaeda]. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support.
I pass over for now the fact that “we” disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense by tactics like interrogation and stepped up surveillance that Obama has disparaged. Obama brags that “we” removed the Taliban. But “we” did that a decade ago. In recent months, the Obama policy has actually been to negotiate with the Taliban — i.e., to encourage Karzai to negotiate with the Taliban — with an eye toward integrating the Taliban in Afghanistan’s final political settlement.
So apparently Obama and the left like to campaign hard on naivete in order to make partisan attacks on a Republican President, but they will gladly take the information they themselves opposed procuring and then claim credit for the fruit of that information.
President Obama announced late Sunday that Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, was killed in a firefight during an operation he ordered Sunday inside Pakistan, ending a 10-year manhunt for the world’s most wanted terrorist. American officials were in possession of his body, he said.
“On nights like this one, ‘’ the president said, “we can say that justice has been done.’’
The fate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al Qaeda number two in command, was unclear.
The death of Mr. Bin Laden is a defining moment in the American-led war on terrorism. What remains to be seen is whether the death of the leader of Al Qaeda galvanizes his followers by turning him into a martyr, or whether it serves as a turning of the page in the war in Afghanistan and gives further impetus to the Obama administration to bring American troops home.
President Obama said that on Sunday, a small team of U.S. operatives launched a “targeted assault’’ on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad where months of intelligence work had established that Mr. Bin Laden was living. Mr. Bin Laden was killed after a firefight, and the troops took custody of his body.
The killing ended a 10-year manhunt in which Mr. Bin Laden repeatedly eluded his pursuers, deeply frustrating the Bush administration and counterterrorism officials.
The US apparently has bin Laden’s body.
MORE:
Fans attending the Mets-Phillies game chanted, USA! USA! as news of bin Laden’s death spread:
NBC’s David Gregory tweets that the U.S. is “ensuring bin Laden’s body is handled in accordance with Islamic tradition.”
Fox News: It appears compound built about five years ago, specifically designed to protect bin Laden — suggests the terror leader felt VERY comfortable living in that region of Pakistan.
One of the special-ops helicopters reportedly suffered mechanical difficulties and crash landed onsite. It was destroyed by U.S. forces.
Bin Laden was killed along with two al Qaeda couriers and one of Bin Laden’s adult sons. A woman who was used as a human shield by one of the couriers was also reportedly killed. Several other women were wounded and are reportedly receiving treatment.
Hours after hearing President Barack Obama tell the world Sunday night that terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden is dead, billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump is demanding the White House produce the body of the Al-Qaeda terror mastermind.
“I directed Leon Pannetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority”
“I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden”
“I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden”
“I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Usama bin Laden and bring him to justice”
“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad Pakistan”
“I have made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam; bin Laden was not a Muslim leader”
Laura Ingraham’s been hammering the same point on the radio, this morning, also noting his graceless refusal to give his predecessor any credit for his work in the war on terror overseas contingency operations, instead using the occasion to take a little swipe at Bush.
Sanctimonious lefties love to blast conservatives for their “vitriolic discourse”, yet often fail spectacularly to maintain basic civility in their own discourse. The New Tone Awardis reserved for liberal notables who wallow in this hypocrisy. You’ll notice some repeat offenders, and familiar odious themes in today’s poll – Palin-bashing, Christian-bashing, and the good old race card is coming back strong.
I’m a bit late with this – I had an out of town trip, and a First Communion, this weekend. Normally the vote starts on Friday, and runs through the weekend. This weekend, it’s starting late Sunday, and running through Monday.
“Even Traister, an unabashed liberal and feminist who writes for the left-leaning online magazine Salon, is evidence of the way thoughtful writers treat Palin as a special-needs case…If there was ever a candidate who brought out the worst in people, who encouraged hollow rejoinders but made honest analysis almost impossible, it is she”.
Maher denounced Tea Party followers as “sad, unfortunate people” because they are “corporate America’s useful idiots” who don’t allow “facts” to “get in that tin foil helmet.”
Then he employed his usual “tea-baggers” phrase, but CBS silenced the “baggers” so viewers heard dead air when Maher spoke that foul term:
I don’t have any respect, no, I don’t have any respect for the tea-(baggers) [word silenced] and I do call them the tea-(baggers) [word silenced again] — even though they hate it. I will stop calling them Tea-(baggers) [word silenced for a third time] when they stop calling it Obamacare, that’s my deal.
Tavis Smiley on Tuesday said the upcoming presidential race is “going to be the ugliest, the nastiest, the most divisive, and the most racist in the history of this republic.”
One more sign the Age of Civility is over: an MSNBC host urging Dems to be more “vicious” toward Republicans. Oh, and to engage in more “name-calling.”Apparently writing off any career ambitions of succeeding to the Miss Manners slot, Cenk Uygur issued his recommendations last night in the course of disagreeing with a Dem congressman who was insufficiently coarse for Cenk’s taste.
First, bringing up Transcriptism, Clarence Page chuckled that “He [Trump] must have his presidents mixed up,” meaning it must be Bush who needed special help to get into Yale (and Harvard Business).
They both had themselves a laugh at that. How dumb Bush is! They’ve been saying that for ten years, of course.
Then, next segment, still marveling that only a racist could question a president’s academic ability, he said, quote, “They would never say this about a white president!!!”
Um? Didn’t you? Like five minutes ago?
Didn’t you? For ten years straight?
And then, in case you completely forgot about the last ten years, I repeat: Didn’t you just five minutes ago?
I’ll let NewsBusters tell you what happened, but let’s just say it includes Joy Behar calling Sarah Palin “illiterate” while comparing her to “jock itch,“ and also a panel member piling on by making the curious charge that Palin is ”anti-semetic:”
On Wednesday’s edition of the Rosie O’Donnell show, Rosie went after Sarah Palin as an ignoramus as she lamented that Obama had to go through hoops to produce a birth certificate: “[Obama] has just released his actual birth certificate…He asked [Hawaii] to break their law and release it to shut all these idiots up.”
But when you start attacking other people as ignorant, it’s probably a bad idea to start mangling words and getting things wrong: “Sarah Palin has ushered in a whole new level of ignorance as a consumerable quantity.” Consumerable? If Palin said “consumerable,” how many reporters and comedians would rejoice? (See “refudiate.”)
Rosie then said “When she was running, it was almost like a joke that she would say the things that she did, like ‘I can see Russia from my house.’” It wasn’t “almost” a joke. It was actually a joke by Tina Fey — and not something Palin actually said.
Pledge as little as possible, so the rednecks who always demand spending cuts are satisfied.
***
eurotomm
Seriously, the Koch brothers who own Georgia Pacific and many other entities, are against federal and state social spending. They created the “tea party movement” with their massive fortunes. Now they should put their money where their mouths are. Each of these brothers own 21.5 billion dollars each. Consider this: each billion is 1000 million, so each of them are hoarding 21,500 million dollars for a grand total of 43,000 million dollars. I’d like to invite these American oligarchs to loosen some money from their purse strings and lead by example. give as much money as possible so that federal and state funds will not be necessary to help the people in the red states (their natural base). Thoughts?
Once upon a time, Cat Stevens – now Yusuf Islam, wrote brilliant and beautiful music. Like Morning is Broken, which is sung in churches all across the world:
According to Songfacts, the tune for Morning is broken was actually borrowed from an old Scottish children’s hymn:
Stevens got the lyrics from a hymn book he found at a bookstore while looking for song ideas. It was a children’s hymn by Eleanor Farjeon, who also wrote a lot of children’s poetry. Stevens explained on The Chris Isaak Hour: “I accidentally fell upon the song when I was going through a slightly dry period and I needed another song or two for Teaser And The Firecat. I came across this hymn book, found this one song, and thought, This is good. I put the chords to it and then it started becoming associated with me.”
Children in England would have heard Farjeon’s hymn in primary school. Scottish children sang the old Gaelic hymn, “Child in a manger, Infant of Mary” to this tune. This hymn predated “Morning” and was written in Gaelic by Mary MacDonald before being translated into English. For Scottish children it was a Christmas hymn. (thanks, marjorie – san jose, CA)
