Summary: The November 30, 2009 national edition of the Washington Times features a full-page ad by the anti-Obama website ProtectOurLiberty.org, claiming that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States. The ad copy claims that under a 60-year-old British law, President Obama is a citizen of Britain and “is currently also a British protected person and/or a British citizen to this day.” ProtectOurLiberty.org is run by Charles F. Kerchner, Jr., a plaintiff in a birther lawsuit filed against President Obama in New Jersey. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 4, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that New York University journalism professor Charles Seife had written a New York Times op-ed column proposing an interesting resolution to the tight U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota between incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken: cast a lot to determine the winner by chance.

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Summary: Adapting to rising seas and higher temperatures is expected to be a big topic at the U.N. climate-change talks in Copenhagen, along with the projected cost — hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it going to countries that cannot afford to do it themselves. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 3, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Bush administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled a willingness to forge ahead with two key priorities for the incoming Obama administration: accelerating the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center. He also reported that President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team would include two veteran cold warriors — former NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser and Robert M. Gates as defense secretary — and a political rival — Hillary Clinton as secretary of state — whose records are all more hawkish than the new president’s.

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Summary: President Barack Obama is holding an uncertain hand in his high-stakes gamble in the fight against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Weak partners in both countries, doubts about the speed of building up Afghan security forces, and allies reluctant to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the battle all raise questions about the strategy. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 2, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that President George W. Bush said the biggest regret of his presidency was flawed intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, telling ABC World News in an interview airing December 1, 2008 that he was unprepared for war when he took office.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 1, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that a series of bombs had struck U.S. and Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, including four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi general; that Ivan Watson (an American reporter for National Public Radio) and three Iraqi colleagues escaped injury when a bomb attached to their car exploded as it was parked along a street in west Baghdad; and that South Korea had started withdrawing its troops from Iraq ahead of the Dec. 31, 2008 expiration of the U.N. mandate that authorized military operations in Iraq.

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Summary: President Barack Obama’s address to the nation outlining his strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., December 1, 2009.

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Summary: Pointing to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, Michael White of the British newspaper The Guardian says what troubles him about the U.S. today is that “public reaction to the Obama presidency is irrational, emotional, and ignorant.” Excerpts with sidebars, links, graphics, and video added. … Eric Roper reports in the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Hot Dish Politics blog (Nov. 28, 2009) that MSNBC’s Ed Schultz devoted more than a quarter of his Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 show to Rep. Michele Bachmann. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 30, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that the fallout from a three-day terrorist rampage that killed nearly 200 people in Mumbai threatened to unravel India’s improving ties with Pakistan and prompted the resignation of India’s security minister.

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Summary: Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision in December 2001 not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that affixes a measure of blame for the state of the Afghanistan war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Gen. Tommy Franks. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 29, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that a rocket attack on a U.N. compound in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone killed two foreigners and wounded 15, while a suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers at a mosque run by followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killing at least 12 people, a day after Iraqi lawmakers approved a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration setting a timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

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Summary: Many soldiers and policy makers believe the conflict in Afghanistan may be harder and more intractable than the war in Iraq. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 28, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had said in an Internet video that the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and that taxpayers were paying the price; and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has emerged as a nationalist strongman after reaching a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

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Summary: The Bush administration was “hell bent” on the 2003 military invasion of Iraq and actively undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the war, Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, testified before an inquiry into the Iraq war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 27, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that a suicide car bomber targeting an American convoy exploded about 200 yards outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, killing at least four Afghan bystanders, while in Iraq, the country’s parliament approved a security pact with the United States that allowed American troops to stay in the country for three more years.

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Summary: In his 2009 Thanksgiving message, President Barack Obama calls the nation’s attention to the men and women in uniform who are away from home sacrificing time with family. He also talks about health care reform, the Recovery Act, and job creation. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 26, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq had lost more than half of its Christian population of some 1 million in an exodus that began after the 1991 Gulf War and escalated dramatically after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

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