The Real October Surprise: Swing and a Miss!

[Flagg]

Link

AP: Obama’s aunt living in U.S. illegally
Immigration judge denied Kenyan woman’s request for asylum in 2004

updated 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned.

Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in Obama's memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcement official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

Onyango's refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, non-criminal violation of U.S. immigration law, meaning such cases are handled outside the criminal court system. Estimates vary, but many experts believe there are more than 10 million such immigrants in the United States.

The AP could not reach Onyango immediately for comment. No one answered the telephone number listed in her name late Friday. It was unclear why her request for asylum was rejected in 2004.

Onyango is not a relative whom Obama has discussed in campaign appearances and, unlike Obama's father and grandmother, is not someone who has been part of the public discussion about his personal life.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Kelly Nantel, said the government does not comment on an individual's citizenship status or immigration case.

Directive may reflect political sensitivity
Onyango's case — coming to light just days before the presidential election — led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday's election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.

The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango's case coming to light so close to the election.

Kenya is in eastern Africa between Somalia and Tanzania. The country has been fractured in violence in recent years, including a period of two months of bloodshed after December 2007 that killed 1,500 people.

The disclosure about Onyango came just one day after Obama's presidential campaign confirmed to the Times of London that Onyango, who has lived quietly in public housing in South Boston for five years, was Obama's half aunt on his father's side.

It was not immediately clear how Onyango might have qualified for public housing with a standing deportation order.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Really? This is the best they could come up with?

[Patrick Degan]

Considering how the Ayers, Wright, Farrakhan and Khalidi guilt-by-association smears have all failed, you have to figure with time running out and the GOP campaign clearly out of gas, they're going to be a bit desperate at this point.

[Knife]

Whew, thirty more minutes and I don't have to read/hear October surprise for a couple more years.

[SirNitram]

You know, I was skeptical when I heard some people complain that the AP's political stuff was now going through a guy previously tied strongly to McCain.

These days, stuff like this makes me think he's just in a little cage, pushing down on the lever for his pellet of food.

[Flagg]

You know, I was skeptical when I heard some people complain that the AP's political stuff was now going through a guy previously tied strongly to McCain.

These days, stuff like this makes me think he's just in a little cage, pushing down on the lever for his pellet of food.

I've personally noticed that the AP has been skewing right over the past year and a half or so.

[The Vortex Empire]

Is that really the best they can come up with? How does that relate to Obama at all?

[Lord MJ]

Saw this story on Digg a couple days ago. The main uproar was about his Aunt living on public housing, and they were complaining about Obama living in wealth at the same time. The basic argument was "Obama wants to spread our wealth around but he doesn't spread his own wealth to his own family" or something to that effect.

The story was promptly dugg down.

[Surlethe]

You know, I was skeptical when I heard some people complain that the AP's political stuff was now going through a guy previously tied strongly to McCain.

These days, stuff like this makes me think he's just in a little cage, pushing down on the lever for his pellet of food.

I've personally noticed that the AP has been skewing right over the past year and a half or so.

Is there a way to provide evidence for this? I would be interested in a resource compiling AP stories to demonstrate a significant (statistically, at least) right-wing bias.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Last Year and a Half?

AP relies on Stringers and is essentially a union for journelists, however with Chicago Sun-Times, and Rupert Murdock gobbling up all of the small papers all over the country, guess who you have to play to in order to be published as an AP stringer.

[Flagg]

You know, I was skeptical when I heard some people complain that the AP's political stuff was now going through a guy previously tied strongly to McCain.

These days, stuff like this makes me think he's just in a little cage, pushing down on the lever for his pellet of food.

I've personally noticed that the AP has been skewing right over the past year and a half or so.

Is there a way to provide evidence for this? I would be interested in a resource compiling AP stories to demonstrate a significant (statistically, at least) right-wing bias.

I don't see a way to provide statistical evidence, it's just something I've noticed over the past year and a half or so. It may very well be my own personal bias.