Who is Rashid Khalidi, the man that Barack Obama toasted and lavished praise
upon? Why is it important that Rashid Khalidi is so supportive of Mr.
Obama? What does he think an Obama presidency would give him and his
causes?
Here is an article by Philip Klein of American Spectator, that lays it out in
full detail. It is longer than what I usually post here, but so important for
you to know that I won't leave out a word.
Read it and think about what the Obama/Khalidi love-fest means to the USA and
to Israel as well:
The refusal by the Los Angeles Times to
release the videotape featuring Barack Obama's farewell toast to Rashid Khalidi
has thrust the Columbia University professor and activist into the center of the
presidential campaign, creating particular interest in his ties to Yasser
Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.
Liberals have defended Khalidi as a "respected
academic," and amid all of the political noise and accusations flying back and
forth between the two camps, it's easy to see how some voters would tune out
when conservatives refer to him as a former "PLO spokesman." But without
engaging in the semantic debate over what word should be applied to his complex
and long-standing relationship with the terrorist group, a TAS analysis
of contemporaneous news accounts dating back to the 1970s as well a look at
Khalidi's own writings leave no doubt that a close relationship existed.
While living in Lebanon from the early 1970s
through 1983 (where the PLO was based at the time), Khalidi was frequently cited
in the press as being close to the organization, and he even used the word "we"
while speaking on the group's behalf. He was described as a "director" of Wafa,
the PLO's official news agency, and he thanked Arafat for research assistance in
the preface of one of his books. In 1991, Khalidi was part of the Palestinian
delegation to the Madrid peace talks with Israel -- by his own account, he did
so at the request of the PLO.
Before delving into the details, it's worth
entertaining the legitimate question of why Khalidi's background and writings
should raise concerns about Obama himself.
The L.A. Timesstory from April
about their relationship answers this question quite clearly. Not only did Obama
know Khalidi, but the professor was his "friend and frequent dinner companion"
who Obama was close enough to that he attended the 2003 going away party thrown
when Khalidi was moving to New York.
In his toast, Obama went out of his way to thank
Khalidi (and his wife Mona) for "consistent reminders of my own blind spots and
own biases," and he added that the conversation they engaged in was necessary
around "this entire world." Given that America is on the cusp of electing Obama,
a man of little experience about whom very little is known, it is perfectly fair
to learn more about Khalidi, whose viewpoints Obama thought the whole world
needed to hear.
ON JUNE 11, 1979, the New York Times ran
an article explaining
that the PLO was worried that the Camp David peace accords between Israel and
Egypt would undermine Palestinians. The article quoted Khalidi opposing the deal
for that very reason, and identified him as somebody "close to Al Fatah," an arm
of the PLO.
It read:
One view shared by the Palestinian leadership
and the rank and file, down to armed youths who guard doorways and
intersections, is that the goal of an independent state will be foreclosed if
the Camp David accords succeed. "We are in a make-or-break-it period,"
asserted Rashid Khalidi, a professor of political science who is close to Al
Fatah. "If we don't turn the tide, if what (Egyptian President Anwar) Sadat is
doing is not decisively repudiated, if the idea that Sadat had brought peace
is allowed to stick without regard to Palestinian rights, then we are done in.
Israel doesn't need to sign with us. They already control the land."
Also noteworthy about the quote was Khalidi's use
of the term "we" in reference to the Palestinian leadership, which turns out to
be more of a habit than an isolated occurrence.
For instance, a January 6, 1981 Christian
Science Monitor article that refers to Khalidi as "a Palestinian with good
access to the PLO leadership," reads:
Dr. Khalidi also argued that the PLO's standing
among Arabs in the Israeli-occupied areas has grown significantly. "Quite
apart from the politics of it, we have built up tremendous links with the
Palestinians 'on the inside' in different ways. We can render them services,
often through our compatriots in the West, that King Hussein, for example,
could never match. We've never been stronger there, and the trend is
continuing," he said.
Ironically, the same article quotes him as saying
that hardliners within the PLO "perceive the new administration as basically
hostile -- possibly more hostile than the Carter administration." Yes, on Planet
Khalidi, even Jimmy Carter could be seen as being overtly hostile to the
Palestinians.
But the evidence for the connections between
Khalidi and the PLO are much more explicit than that. Thomas Friedman, in a June
8, 1982 New York Times piece about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon,
referred to Khalidi as "a director of the Palestinian press agency, Wafa." To be
clear, Wafa is controlled by the PLO --and you don't have to take my word for
it. Even Khalidi himself, on page 7 of his 1986 book Under Siege: P.L.O.
Decisionmaking During the 1982 War, describes it as "the P.L.O.'s news
agency."
That's not the most telling part of Under
Siege. In the book's preface, Khalidi reserves his first paragraph of
thanks for the research assistance provided by the PLO in general, and Arafat
specifically. "Permission to utilize the P.L.O. Archives for the first time was
generously given by the Chairman of the P.L.O. Executive Committee, Yasser
'Arafat," Khalidi wrote. "To him, and to the dedicated individuals working in
the Office of the Chairman, the P.L.O. Archives, and the Palestine News Agency
(WAFA), who extended every possible assistance to me on three trips to Tunis, I
owe deep thanks."
IN THE WAKE OF THE 1991 GULF WAR, then Secretary
of State James Baker launched peace talks featuring Israel and the Palestinians,
which were held in Madrid. The Israelis only agreed to the talks under the
condition that the PLO not be involved in the negotiations, which turned out to
be farcical, because the terrorist group operated from behind the scenes, giving
marching orders to the Palestinian delegation of which Khalidi was a part.
As Khalidi recounts in his 1997 book
Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National
Consciousness, while he was in Jerusalem during the summer of 1991, he
"agreed to the request of Faisal al-Husayni that, if the Palestinians became
involved in negotiations with Israel…I would serve as an adviser to the
Palestinian delegation."
That fall, he wrote, "on the eve of the sudden
convocation of the Madrid conference, I received a call from PLO officials in
Tunis asking me to confirm that I was indeed going to Madrid, since the names of
the delegation and its advisers had to be presented to Secretary Baker's
assistants that very night."
Khalidi goes on to explain that while he "did not
participate in the entirety of every round of discussions" he and his
Palestinian colleagues "worked extremely hard," and he not only acted as an
adviser during the October and November Madrid talks, but also in "each of the
ten Palestinian-Israeli bilateral negotiating sessions in Washington which
continued until June 1993."
(A digital scan of the relevant section of the
book is available here.)
Taken as a whole, the record shows that Khalidi --
whether or not he should officially be called a "spokesman" -- clearly was tight
with the PLO, having acted as an adviser at the group's request, and regularly
speaking on its behalf.
As a professor, Khalidi has established himself as
the heir to Edward Said, the leading anti-Israel intellectual of the 20th
century (with whom Obama famously broke bread at a 1998 Arab
community event in Chicago). He has said that American
Jewish supporters of Israel have been "brainwashed" and that they can't accept
the fact that Israel is "an apartheid system in creation." And when it
comes to peace talks, Khalidi said, "The United States is actually worse than
Israel on some issues."
So what, exactly, are the "blind spots" and
"biases" that Obama is so grateful to Khalidi for exposing in their frequent
dinners? And what part of their conversation does Obama hope spreads around
"this entire world"?
Somehow, I don't think Obama was referring to his
love for the Chicago White Sox.
There are a lot of reasons to be fearful of an Obama presidency. His
close relationships with william ayers (which he lied about) and jeremiah
wright (which he also lied about) are two big ones.
First we had Barack Obama assuring us that he was all for the middle class, so the only people who would be hit
with tax increases would be those earning over $250,000 a year.
With our economy on the ropes, upwards of a trillion
dollars in new spending proposals to fund and jobs flying out of the
USA because of overtaxation, Mr. Obama's idea was to fund his proposals by increasing
the taxes of people who create the jobs. Brilliant.
It was pretty apparent something had to give. And here's what
gave:
Last week Mr. Obama started talking about tax increases for people earning
over $200,000 a year.
Then Joe Biden talked about tax increases for people earning over $150,000 a
year.
Now we have Obama supporter and New Mexico's Governor, Bill Richardson,
lowering the boom...er, bar to $120,000 a year:
How can you believe a word any of these people say? HOW?
Elect Barack Obama and hold onto your wallet for dear life.
Gov. Ed Rendell Friday said the presidential race
between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain is "closer than the
polls indicate." Urging people to get out and vote in Tuesday's general
election, Rendell said Obama does not have a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania
and he told voters to take an umbrella and dress warmly to withstand the
weather.
"Stay in that line and make sure you vote," Rendell told
about 50 people at Wilkes University. "I've seen polls that have the race as
close as four points." Rendell also said
the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket has "enthused"
the campaign.
"She has drawn thousands of
people to every event she has appeared at," Rendell said.
Read the whole story in
Saturday's The Times Leader.
Interesting, isn't it? And this isn't the first time Rendell has said
this. Last week he was on one of the cable shows (I don't remember which,
sorry) warning that Mr. Obama does not have any lock at all on his state.
At that time I considered at least the possibility that this was all a clever
political bluff designed to get McCain and/or Palin to waste their time
in a lost state. But that doesn't compute if Obama is
campaigning there too, does it?
Then we add in the fact that Obama is campaigning in IOWA, which is also
supposed to be in the bag for him, and those polls which seem so dispiriting for
John McCain don't have much credibility at all.
Mr. Rendell may well have a point about the value of Sarah Palin to John
McCain's competitiveness. But I suspect that the so-called "Bradley
effect" is even more of a factor.
This refers to Black Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who ran for Governor of
California, was well ahead in the polls, and lost - presumably because a lot of
people who told pollsters they were voting for him did not do so on election
day.
I see two key components to the "Bradley effect":
-Some people would not vote for Bradley because he was
Black. They lied to pollsters rather than expose their racist
attitude;
-Others would vote for a Black candidate but preferred Bradley's
opponent. They lied to pollsters rather than risk being thought of
as a racist for rejecting Bradley.
Obviously, if the "Bradley effect" is at work in 2008, both components
would depress voting strength for Barack Obama as well.
Meanwhile, undaunted by any of this, many of the so-called experts on
national news shows keep putting up electoral counts that make it seem
borderline impossible that John McCain can win.
Maybe they ought to spend a few days with Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden as they
campaign in "safe" states like Pennsylvania and Iowa. It might give them
something to think about.
Here, without further commentary (because none is needed) is Noel Sheppard's
article about the piece by Victor David Hanson on how incredibly biased media
have been throughout this campaign:
NRO's Hanson: Obama-Loving Media
Have Committed Suicide
By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive) October
31, 2008 - 11:32 ET
The media's abysmal coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign has
been the equivalent of a mass press suicide that has signaled the end of
journalism.
So wrote National Review contributor and Hoover
Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson Friday in a scathing rebuke of
all those so-called impartial journalists who sacrificed their souls and
whatever was left of their integrity this year to assist Barack Obama win the
White House.
Here are some of Hanson's key points (emphasis
added):
There have always been media biases
and prejudices. Everyone knew that Walter Cronkite, from his gilded throne at
CBS news, helped to alter the course of the Vietnam War, when, in the post-Tet
depression, he prematurely declared the war unwinnible. Dan Rather’s career
imploded when he knowingly promulgated a forged document that impugned the
service record of George W. Bush. We’ve known for a long time — from various
polling, and records of political donations of journalists themselves, as well
as surveys of public perceptions — that the vast majority of journalists
identify themselves as Democratic, and liberal in particular.
Yet we
have never quite seen anything like the current media infatuation with Barack
Obama, and its collective desire not to raise key issues of concern to the
American people.
Hanson then elaborated on four key areas of
national interest the press conveniently ignored during this campaign cycle:
campaign financing; Joe Biden's history and gaffes; Obama's many nefarious
associations, and; Obama's socialist beliefs.
After each ignored area of interest was explained,
Hanson posed the following respectively:
Imagine the reaction of the New
York Times or the Washington Post had John McCain renounced his
promise to participate in public campaign financing, proceeded instead to
amass $600 million and outraise the publicly financed Barack Obama
four-to-one, and begun airing special 30-minute unanswered infomercials during
the last week of the campaign. [...]
Imagine the reaction of Newsweek
or Time had moose-hunting mom Sarah Palin claimed FDR went on
television to address the nation as President in 1929, or warned America that
our enemies abroad would test John McCain and that his response would result
in a radical loss of his popularity at home. [...]
Imagine the reaction of CNN or NBC had John
McCain’s pastor and spiritual advisor of 20 years been revealed as a white
supremacist who damned a multiracial United States, or had he been a close
acquaintance until 2005 of an unrepentant terrorist bomber of abortion
clinics, or had McCain himself sued to eliminate congressional opponents by
challenging the validity of African-American voters who signed petitions, or
had both his primary and general election senatorial rivals imploded once
their sealed divorce records were mysteriously leaked. [...]
Imagine the reaction of NPR and PBS
had John McCain advocated something like abolishing all capital gains taxes,
or repealing incomes taxes in favor of a national retail sales tax.
[...]
Imagine indeed.
Frankly, had the media done their job this year
rather than act as Obama's campaign stooges, McCain would likely have a
ten-point lead in the polls right now, or at the very least be facing off
against Hillary Clinton next Tuesday, as the junior senator from Illinois
wouldn't have gotten out of the primaries.
Hanson concluded:
The media has succeeded in shielding Barack
Obama from journalistic scrutiny. It thereby irrevocably destroyed its own
reputation and forfeited the trust that generations of others had so carefully
acquired. And it will never again be trusted to offer candid and nonpartisan
coverage of presidential candidates.
Worse still, the suicide of
both print and electronic journalism has ensured that, should Barack Obama be
elected president, the public will only then learn what they should have known
far earlier about their commander-in-chief — but in circumstances and from
sources they may well regret.
Only if President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and
Majority Leader Reid don't reenact the Fairness Doctrine, and eliminate all
opposing views.
Alas, the recent decision by the Obama campaign to
remove representatives of three newspapers from its plane doesn't give one confidence the truth about
the junior senator from Illinois will ever be revealed to the
masses.
I certainly hope that Norm Coleman retains his senate seat by
defeating al franken this coming Tuesday. My preference is not out of
any strongly positive feeling towards Mr. Coleman. It is out of a strongly
negative feeling towards franken.
Here is a column by Katherine Kersten of the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which lays out exactly who and what al franken is. I
hope that enough voters read it to seal his defeat:
Vulgar mockery of Christians: Is this what we
want in a U.S. senator?
I get it -- Al Franken is a serious senatorial
candidate despite his penchant for the pornographic. Franken's one-liners about
rape and oral sex and his leering fantasies about big-busted women were just for
yucks, right?
Last June, DFL bigwigs chose to forget about their
man's decades-long record of sexual crudity after he hooked the endorsement by
putting on a serious face and saying "sorry" at the party's
convention.
But Franken didn't apologize for another aspect of
his trash-talking shtick. He's aimed some of his most offensive material at
religious believers, particularly Christians.
Why hasn't this been aired in public? We in the
press are too busy searching through Sarah Palin's junior high yearbooks and
tracking down the filing dates of Joe the Plumber's tax returns.
Meanwhile, Franken gets a pass for making a joke
of the life and death of Jesus Christ.
Franken finds Christ's crucifixion to be a barrel
of laughs. For example, in his 1999 book, "Why Not Me?" he wrote about his
discovery -- as a fictional former president -- of "the complete skeleton of
Jesus Christ still nailed to the cross" during an archeological dig. At the
Franken Presidential Library gift shop, visitors can buy "small pieces of Jesus'
skeleton."
"We would like to display Jesus' skeleton at some
future point," Franken went on. "It's merely a matter of designing and building
an exhibition space ... . Until then he's very comfortable in a box down in our
basement near the geothermal power station."
Very funny. Anybody want to try a joke like that
about Mohammed?
Franken also wrote a Saturday Night Live monologue
for Jesus Christ that appeared in a magazine. After poking fun at Christians'
belief that Jesus was both God and man, he had Christ speculate on having the
hots for Mary Magdalene:
"If Mary Magdalene looked like Barbara Hershey, I
might have thought twice about this celibacy thing. I mean, the real Mary
Magdalene was about four foot two, 135 pounds. And with bad teeth
yet."
In Franken's world, God has a mouth as foul as
Franken's. In one book, he has God refer to books about liberal media bias as
"total bullshit." Later, he describes God as having his head "up his
ass."
But Franken saves his sharpest barbs for those
weirdos, Catholics.
In 2006, he and a guest on his Air America radio
show joked about Eucharistic communion wafers -- sacred to Catholics as the body
of Christ -- and compared them to chips and guacamole. In "Dog Confessional," a
proposed sketch for Saturday Night Live, Franken depicted "a series of dogs,
played by cast members, confessing to a priest," according to the Washington
Post. NBC refused to air it.
In another book, Franken described greeting a New
York audience with the words, "Isn't Cardinal O'Connor an asshole?"
Franken's campaign did not return a phone call
seeking comment.
If a 12-year-old kid spouted this stuff in a
schoolyard, he'd be hauled to the principal's office and told to grow up. But in
today's surreal political climate, a guy who lobs insults like these has a shot
at one the highest political offices in the land.
We're used to slanderers of Christianity getting
government arts grants. But Franken wants more. He's asking us to send him to
what's been called "the most exclusive club in the world" -- and to serve us
there until 2014.
Our nation's founders wanted the Senate -- as
Congress' upper house -- to balance with a sober, long-term perspective the much
more numerous House of Representatives, whose members serve only two-year terms
and are supposed to reflect the people's shifting sentiments. Senators serve
six-year terms, and were intended to be the nation's wisest councilors --
equipped to discern and protect the country's broad, enduring interests.
"The use of the Senate," explained James Madison
in 1787, "is to consist in proceeding with more coolness, with more system, and
with more wisdom, than the popular branch."
For this reason, the Constitution entrusts the
Senate with unique powers -- its members conduct impeachment trials, make
treaties, and give the president advice and consent on important appointments,
including Cabinet secretaries, ambassadors and federal judicial nominees with
lifetime tenure.
A Minnesota senator represents the whole state,
not a smaller, relatively homogeneous congressional district, as House members
do.
If Franken is elected, can he represent all the
people of Minnesota -- including Christians -- for whom he has repeatedly shown
disdain?
If you vote for a candidate knowing who and what that candidate is,
you deserve what you get.
If Minnesotans vote al franken in I do not want to hear one critical word
about him for the next 6 years. This pig isn't in a poke, it's right in
the middle of the sty where everyone can see it.
I don't know, maybe if I spent the last year being celebrated as a conquering
hero who could do no wrong I would become intolerant of media which
didn't share that view. I hope I wouldn't, but I've never had it
happen and therefore can't say for sure.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, has had it happen. And apparently we
can say for sure how he feels about it, as seen in this report from
Drudge:
PURGE: SKEPTICAL
REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE Fri Oct 31 2008 08:39:55 ET
NY
POST, DALLAS MORNING NEWS, WASHINGTON TIMES TOLD TO GET OUT... ALL 3 ENDORSED
MCCAIN
**Exclusive**
The Obama campaign has decided to heave
out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across
battleground states -- and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!
The NY POST, WASHINGTON
TIMES and DALLAS MORNING NEWS have all been told to move out by Sunday to make
room for network bigwigs -- and possibly for the inclusion of reporters from two
black magazines, ESSENCE and JET, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
Despite
pleas from top editors of the three newspapers that have covered the campaign
for months at extraordinary cost, the Obama campaign says their reporters -- and
possibly others -- will have to vacate their coveted seats so more power players
can document the final days of Sen. Barack Obama's historic campaign to become
the first black American president.
MORE
Some told the DRUDGE
REPORT that the reporters are being ousted to bring on documentary film-makers
to record the final days; others expect to see on board more sympathetic members
of the media, including the NY TIMES' Maureen Dowd, who once complained that she
was barred from McCain's Straight Talk Express airplane.
After a week of
quiet but desperate behind-the-scenes negotiations, the reporters of the three
papers heard last night that they were definitely off for the final swing. They
are already planning how to cover the final days by flying commercial or driving
from event to event.
Developing...
It strikes me that if Mr. McCain operated the same way, he'd have a nearly
empty plane......certainly with enough room for these three reporters. But
he doesn't, does he?
Think about this story in the context of how media will be treated if Mr.
Obama wins the presidency.
He already has shut them off by not having a press conference in over a
month. Oh, you didn't know that? Well he hasn't.
Remember when Sarah Palin didn't have press conferences? Remember how
the same media swooped down on her? What's she got to hide? Why is
she being protected from answering questions?
What goes around comes around. If Mr. Obama wins, I have a strong
expectation a lot of media currently drooling over his ascension to the oval
office will learn about that adage first-hand.
"I never thought this day would ever
happen. I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car, I won't have to
worry about paying my mortgage. Y'know, if I help him he's gonna help
me".
That quote comes from a woman - very overcome with emotion - after
hearing Barack Obama speak at a rally in Sunrise, Florida. You can
see and hear her towards the end of this two minute video report of
the event.
What a lucky lady! No more responsibilities for gas or mortgage
payments.
Or....do you think she's going to be disappointed if Mr. Obama takes
office? Do you think she's going to find out that this day ISN'T ever
happening?
Yes, Mr. Obama has the power to mesmerize. But that power is being used
to make utter fools of people. And this lady is one of countless
examples.
It's not too late for enough of them to come to their senses before election
day. We can only hope.
Sheehan was that lovely lady who skyrocketed to international fame
by sitting in a lawn chair near President Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas with a
tiny number of supporters with a protest sign. The lady who relentlessly
exploited the corpse of her own son -- who enlisted in the Army, was sent to
Iraq and then re-enlisted, thus demonstrating that he wanted no part
of his mother's politics. The lady who used her son's insurance money
to buy land near the Bush ranch, but didn't manage to put a tombstone at his
grave for a year.
Yeah, that Cindy Sheehan.
Well, she decided that the fawning adoration of media in this country could
be parlayed into a political career. So she decided to run for
congress this year.
But there was a problem. The seat she decided to run for is currently
occupied by Nancy Pelosi, who also had the fawning adoration of media in
this country - and a ton more power and influence than Ms. Sheehan ever
did.
Thus when hard-left icon Sheehan went up against even bigger
hard-left icon Pelosi, media quickly made their decision. They
decided to notice what they dilligently had avoided beforehand - what a
ridiculous nutcake Sheehan is.
I suspect that Sheehan, having basked in the glow of their love affair with
her, could not (and I'm sure still does not) understand what hit her. How
could she go from idol to joke in two seconds flat? I doubt that she ever
will.
But that wasn't the end of it.
This weekend Ms. Sheehan found out just what it means to butt heads with what
she used to be: the prevailing hard-left icon. www.breitbart.com has the story. The
bold print is mine:
Cindy Sheehan's Campaign Headquarters
Heavily Damaged in Late Night Attack
Oct 30 06:03 PM
US/Eastern
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire/ --
Just 5 days before the election, at 3a.m. on October 30th, all of the
front windows of the Cindy Sheehan for Congress campaign offices were shattered.
Although staffers had been in the office less than an hour earlier, no
one was in the building at the time of the incident. No one was hurt and there
were no witnesses. Cindy Sheehan is a candidate for Congress in California's 8th
Congressional District race against incumbent Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
"It seems to have been a calculated
intimidation tactic," said Tiffany Burns, the Cindy for Congress campaign
manager. "One of our computers was stolen, but no other property was
taken from our offices and no surrounding buildings were targeted. Clearly they
wanted to both frighten us and to gather information." Total damage to the
campaign office is currently estimated at more than $5,000.
The Cindy for Congress campaign recently
chronicled a series of unusual events, including other threats of
violence, in a statement issued on October 13th. In that statement,
Cindy Sheehan noted "[t]he past few weeks have been a little strange at Cindy
for Congress [...] the things that have been happening could just be
coincidences, or a run of bad luck, but the climate for the possibility of
campaign hanky-panky certainly exists."
Campaign staffers also note each incident,
including today's early morning incident, has followed closely on the heels of a
confrontation with Cindy Sheehan's opponent Nancy Pelosi. This morning's
incident occurred after an on-air confrontation between the two candidates on
KQED's public affairs program Forum with Michael Krasny on Wednesday morning.
"Each time we confront her, each
time we ask her for a debate, each time we gain ground in the polls, something
horrible happens," said Burns. "Once or twice might be a coincidence, but such a
consistent correlation is hard to ignore."
Welcome to the other side, Cindy. You are now being treated by a
segment of the hard left like...well, like President Bush. They got their
15 minutes out of you and now you are yesterday's garbage to them. Since
you're not useful or important, and since you're giving one of their own
trouble, all rules are suspended.
But don't worry/ After Ms. Pelosi wins and her victory party is over,
they'll just ignore you. I hope you appreciate what an upgrade that is
from how they feel about you right now.
I wonder if the people who did this studied william ayers and bernardine
dohrn for pointers on technique......
My pal Russ, who, ironically enough, I met through my co-author,
moveon.org member Barry Sinrod, just sent me an explanation of the Obama
tax plan.
I don't know if he wrote it or is just passing it along, but I think it's
both funny and illuminating. See if you agree:
Barack Obama discovers a leak under his
sink and calls Joe the Plumber to come and fix it.
Joe drives to Obama’s
house, which is in a very nice neighborhood where it’s clear that all the
residents make more than $250,000 per year.
Joe arrives and takes his tools into the house. He’s shown the room that
contains the leaky pipe under the sink. Joe figures it’s an easy job that will
take less than ten minutes. Obama is standing near the door and asks Joe how
much it will cost.
Joe immediately says, “$9,500.”
“$9,500?” Obama replies stunned. “But you said it’s an easy job!”
“Yeah, but what I do is charge a lot more to my clients who make more than
$250,000 per year so I can fix the plumbing of everybody who makes less than
that for free,” responds Joe.
Obama tells Joe there’s no way he’s paying that much, so Joe leaves.
A week later the leak gets so bad that the Obamas have had to put a bucket
under the sink, and it fills up every two hours, so they call Joe back.
Joe goes back to the Obamas, looks at the leaky pipe, and says “It’ll cost
you about $21,000.”
Obama immediately says “A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!”
Joe explains, “Well, a lot of rich people are learning how to fix their own
plumbing, so there are fewer of you paying for all the free plumbing we’re doing
for the people who make less than $250,000 — and I refuse to charge the lesser
income people for plumbing work.”
Obama tries to straighten out Joe. “But
don’t you get it? If all the rich people learn how to do their own plumbing and
you won’t charge the poor people, what will you do for money?”
Joe immediately replies, “Run for president,
apparently.”
In the past three days I have gotten e-mails from "Myra" and "Ray"
- both very common names. Just about everyone knows a "Myra" and a
"Ray".
Both e-mails start with:
"Your friend (NAME) sent you the following video
from CNNBC: "Obama's Loss Traced To Ken B."
When I got the first of these two identical e-mails, I clicked on the link
and watched a very professionally done video featuring a "newscaster"
accusing me of single-handedly causing Barack Obama to lose the election because
I didn't vote.
It also contains a pseudo-newspaper headline blaming me for Obama's
loss, a foul-mouthed woman cursing me for not voting and a goat herder
from an indeterminate country telling me John McCain is crazy.
Then the "newscaster" assures me that because Mr. Obama lost (therefore John
McCain was elected) we would be nuking Iran.
The final screen shot tells me this came from moveon.org. Thus
moveon.org is who lied about the e-mail coming from an acquaintance, so I
would open it and they could push their support of Obama and hatred of McCain on
me.
My job? I'm supposed to laugh delightedly at this, make a mental note
that I absolutely have to vote for Barack Obama and then send it along to
everyone I know so that they can laugh and vote for Obama too.
Well, guess what: I'm not laughing, I'm not voting for Barack Obama and
I'm sending it to you so that, if you didn't get the same e-mail, you can
understand the kind of crap moveon.org is pumping out during the last week of
this campaign.
Listening to Chris Moutthews and keith olbermann discuss Barack Obama is a bit like
listening to proud grandparents discuss their beloved grandson. He can do
no wrong.
And that would be fine if they were proud grandparents and Mr. Obama
were their grandson.
But they purport to be news journalists and Mr. Obama is running for the
presidency. So their nonstop two-man cheering section is a
little unseemly. Ok, maybe a lot unseemly.
Here, courtesy of Brent Baker at www.newsbusters.org, is how Mr.
Moutthews reacted to olbermann's set-up question about the Obama
informercial that aired simultaneously on just about every network last
night:
Matthews on Obamamercial:
'Fabulous...Just Right...Realism'
By Brent Baker (Bio | Archive) October
29, 2008 - 21:43 ET
Chris Matthews came aboard the shortened Countdown after MSNBC,
unlike FNC and CNN, aired the Obama campaign's half-hour infomercial on
Wednesday night, and oozed over how “it was romance. It was realism” and “most
important, the connection with the average person in the economic turmoil we
face right now I thought was fabulous.” Plus, the setting reminiscent of the
Oval Office demonstrated “he's comfortable and we should be comfortable and will
be with him in such a setting.” Bottom line for Matthews: “I thought everything
was just right.”
The initial reaction from Matthews when prompted
by Keith Olbermann:
I thought it was Hollywood. It was
romance. It was realism. The technical quality of it, the production values
were perfect, the way they timed going to live, the biographical material. But
most important, the connection with the average person in the economic turmoil
we face right now I thought was fabulous. Of course, there we see the setting,
which is very much like an Oval Office setting, showing that he's comfortable
and we should be comfortable and will be with him in such a setting. I thought
everything was just right.
I thought, the most important part of it, I
thought, was the biographical, showing him talking about his mom and talking
about him taking a chance in history and not wanting to miss it having seen
his mother die at a young age. It was very human and I think you'd have to be
a tough customer not to be touched by it.
The infomercial also ran at 8 PM EDT/7 PM CDT
(will run MDT/PDT) on CBS, NBC and Fox, as well as Univision, BET and TV
One.
How's that for an on-the-spot hagiography?
In the real world, Mr. Obama's informercial did not go over
anywhere near as well. Reliably pro-Obama sources like
CBS and the Associated
Press found it laden with untruthful promises and missing
explanations. Even on the Today show this morning, Obama lover Matt Lauer
characterized it as "sappy".
But to the man who gets "a tingle up my leg" when Obama speaks? It was
heaven on earth.
Then he wonders why people see him as biased. Even funnier, Moutthews,
olbermann and Maddow wonder why MSNBC is seen that way.
By now just about everyone knows what ACORN is. It is a hard-left
organization, one of whose main activities is registering voters in vastly
Democratic areas (they claim to be non-partisan, but they are obviously,
blatantly lying about that). Just about everyone also knows that where
ACORN goes, fraud is bound to follow.
But there are other ways to commit voter fraud as well. And here,
courtesy of the Sarasota, Florida Herald-Tribune, is one of them:
Published: Thursday, October
30, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 1:25 a.m.
Elections officials and party leaders are warning
voters to beware of people who have gone door-to-door in Sarasota and Manatee
counties, offering to help deliver ballots and taking votes on the
spot.
DOOR-TO-DOOR:
Offering help with ballots but
likely stealing identities
They might look helpful, and their shirts and
political flair might suggest they are on your side, but almost certainly they
do not have voters' best interests in mind.
Instead, they are likely stealing identities to
commit other crimes or trying to keep people from voting, officials
said.
A Sarasota County woman called the sheriff's
office to report two people were walking through her neighborhood, off Riverwood
Avenue north of Proctor Road, soliciting for Republican presidential candidate
Sen. John McCain.
But they were asking people to complete forms with
their names, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers and
signatures.
In the Greenbrook community of Lakewood Ranch, a
man reported that people in Republican garb were telling residents they could
help them, Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Bob Sweat said.
Sweat said voters should never give an absentee
ballot to anyone at the door. Instead, send it through the U.S. mail or
hand-deliver it to the elections supervisor's office.
The Republican Party of Sarasota County sent out a
warning Wednesday morning that said fake ballots are being presented and voters
are being told they can vote on the spot in their own doorway. These groups are
then telling voters to tear up and discard their absentee ballots.
In one instance, a voter was told her absentee
ballot would not be counted because it was fraudulent, the Republican Party
said.
Nice twist. Fake workers are going through a Republican area,
pretending to support the Republican, but in reality are obliterating Republican
votes by lying to the people they speak with.
Don't expect to see this on the national news tonight, folks. It's
only fraud against Republicans. No problem.
As I've noted before, there has been a major epidemic of people, presumably
Obama supporters, stealing McCain signs. One Obama supporter who owns a
pizza shop in Chicago actually put a bounty on them (bring in a McCain sign, get
pizza).
Well, here is a story of a 9 year old McCain sign-stealer getting some on-the-spot
justice for it:
CHAPEL HILL (AP) -
Shawn Turschak of Chapel Hill was tired of someone stealing McCain-Palin
campaign signs from his yard.
So the man with a
degree in electrical engineering hooked up a third sign to a power source for
an electric pet fence Monday. Turschak also put up a surveillance
camera.
The News &
Observer of Raleigh reports that Tuesday, a 9-year-old boy with an Obama-Biden
sign grabbed the McCain-Palin sign and got a jolt.
The boy's father,
Andrew Noble, then showed up at the Turschak's door, upset his son had been
shocked. Soon an Orange County sheriff's deputy also showed up at the
Turschak's home.
Noble says his son
just wanted to see how the sign was put together. Turschak says the boy
intended to swap out the signs.
Sheriff Lindy
Pendergrass said he doesn't plan to file charges.
I'll say this; it takes a special dose of chutzpah for this kid's
father to complain that he got shocked while in Shawn Turschak's yarde trying to
steal the sign he put up ---, oh, excuse me, the sign he was just looking
at to see how it was put together, while coincidentally holding an Obama-Biden
sign at the time.
You have to wonder if andrew noble, the boy's father, sent his 9 year old out
to do the dirty work for him. Or maybe you don't have to think much at all
to come to that conclusion.
I'm sorry the 9 year old was shocked. But at least he learned that
sometimes you pay for your actions. I doubt his father learned a
thing.
Estelle Reiner, the wife of Carl Reiner, mother of Rob Reiner and greatly talented singer, actress and artist in
her own right, died this past Saturday at the age of 94. The cause
of death was undisclosed.
Ironically, Ms. Reiner's lifetime of achievement will probably forever be overshadowed by the classic
show-stopping line she delivered in "When Harry Met Sally". Ms. Reiner played
a customer sitting in a deli (Katz's on Houston Street in lower Manhattan
if you're interested) while Meg Ryan loudly faked an orgasm to Billy
Crystal. Then, when the waiter came for her order she looked toward Ryan
and said "I'll have what she's having"
Ms. Reiner led
a full, beautiful, productive life.
May we all have what she had. And may she rest in
peace.
Usually when I refer to the Speaker of the House as Nancy Pelosi-Ricardo it
is because, absent the humor, she is doing something wacky enough to merit
comparison to Lucy Ricardo of the old "I Love Lucy" show.
But this time, she's both wacky and
funny.
Here, as reported by ABC-TV's San Francisco affiliate, is an actual
quote of Ms. Pelosi-Ricardo's made while speaking at Google's offices in
Mountain View, CA:
"Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a
judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win,
and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more
bipartisan," said Pelosi.
There you have it. Democrats who control both houses of congress have
been so bipartisan over the past two years, you see, that if voters give them a
larger majority (as will almost certainly happen) they'll be even more
bipartisan.
Hey, I have a great idea. Let's elect Democrats to EVERY house and
senate seat. Then they'll be so bipartisan you won't believe it.
Thanks Ms. Pelosi-Ricardo. I don't often laugh out loud when reading a
news story, but you got me to do it.
With a tip of my (admittedly nonexistent) hat to my cousin Audrey, I present
this little anecdote about redistribution:
Yesterday on my way to lunch
I passed one of the homeless guys in that area, with a sign
that read
"Vote Obama, I need the money."
My waiter had on a "Obama
08" tee shirt.
When the bill came, I decided not to tip
the waiter and explained to him while he had given me exceptional
service, that his tee shirt made me feel he obviously believes in Senator
Obama's plan to redistribute the wealth. I told him I was going to
redistribute his tip to someone that I deemed more in need--the homeless
guy outside. He stood there in disbelief and angrily stormed away.
I
went outside, gave the homeless guy $4 and told him to thank the waiter
inside, as I had decided he could use the money more. The homeless
guy looked at me in disbelief but seemed grateful.
As I got in my
truck, I realized this rather unscientific redistribution
experiment had left the homeless guy quite happy for the
money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the
money he did earn.
Well, I guess this redistribution of wealth is
going to take a while to catch on, with those doing the
work.
Now that you've stopped laughing, is that a pretty good explanation of
redistribution? I think it just might be.
Did Michelle Obama make comments to African
Press International that are not only racially charged, but also inadvertently suggest
her husband may not be a legal presidential candidate?
Sounds insane, doesn't it? But according to the API (www.africanpress.wordpress.com)
that is exactly what happened. Further, they claim to have a
tape of it. And unlike the LA Times, which refuses to release its tape of
Obama attending and enjoying an evening of Jew and Israel bashing, the
API is providing their tape to a major US news venue.
Here, straight from their web site, is what is supposed to be
a partial transcription of Michelle Obama's comments:
Accusing API of colluding with American internet
bloggers in an effort to bring down her husband, Mrs Obama said she decided to
call API because of what she termed, API’s help to spread rumours created by
American bloggers and other racist media outlets in their efforts to damage
a black man’s name, saying she hopes African Media was mature enough to be in
the front to give unwavering support to her husband, a man Africans should
identify themselves with.
When API told her that our online news media was
only relaying what the American Bloggers and other media outlets had discovered
through their investigations, Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with
the following: “African press International is supposed to support Africans and
African-American view,” and she went to state that, “it is strange that API has
chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being
adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband’s face and
yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will
stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists
are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by His step father. The
important thing here is where my husband’s heart is at the moment. I can tell
the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption
never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that
gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by
a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon to API.”
This is a very interesting turn of events. The
American man Dr Corsi was recently reported to have been arrested in Kenya
because there was fear that he might reveal information on Obama when he wanted
to hold a press conference in Nairobi.
The question now is why he was arrested and who
ordered his arrest. Was Obama’s hand in this in any way? We will never know the
truth but what is clear is that Dr Corsi was seen as a threat while in
Kenya.
When API asked Mrs Obama to comment on why Dr
Corsi was arrested by the Kenyan government and whether she thought Kenya’s
Prime Minister Mr Raila Odinga was involved in Dr Corsi’s arrest, she got
irritated and and simply told API not to dig that which will support evil people
who are out to stop her husband from getting the presidency.
When asked who she was referring to as the evil
people, she stated that she was not going to elaborate much on that but that
many conservative white people and even some African Americans were against her
husband, but that this group of blacks were simply doing so because of
envy.
On Farakhan and his ministry, Mrs Obama told API
that it was unfortunate that Mr Farakhan came out the way he did supporting her
husband openly before the elections was over. That was not wholehearted support
but one that was calculated to convince the American people that my husband will
support the growth of muslim faith if he became the president, adding “even if
my husband was able to prove that he is not a Muslim, he will not be believed by
those who have come out strongly to destroy his chances of being the next
President. Do real people expect someone to deny a religion when 80 percent of
his relatives are Muslims?; Mrs Obama asked.
Mrs Obama asked API to write a good story about
her husband and that will earn API an invitation to the innoguration ceremony
when, as she put it , her husband will be installed as the next President of the
United States of America next year.
First off, please note that the API release was almost
two weeks ago. Did you hear a thing about it from any major media? I know I
didn't. This is the same media that immediately reported every nutty rumor about Sarah Palin in two
seconds flat.
Now: Am I skeptical about the veracity of this story and what API says
is on the tape? You bet I am. I would have to hear it to believe
it.
Aside from the unpleasant racial inferences, if Ms. Obama is correct
and Barry Soetoro (as he was known then) was adopted by his
Indonesian stepfather, then brought to Indonesia to live for years
(which he acknowledges), it is possible that his new stepfather made him an Indonesian
citizen.
Indonesia DID NOT have dual citizenship with the United States at that
time. Thus, if this happened
, Mr,
Obama would no longer have been a US citizen even if he was born
in Hawaii and he would have had to reinstate his citizenship to be one
today.
Is he? Did he? And what would it do to Mr. Obama's legal
status as a presidential candidate?
It would seem pretty evident that he would be disqualified,
wouldn't it?
Maybe that is why he fights so hard to prevent us from seeing the documents
that would/would not prove he is legally qualified for the presidency.
But wait: this gets even more interesting.
Read the latest piece from API, which appeared on its web site just
today:
Six hours after the release of information by API
on the planned broadcast by Fox News Network of the Michelle Obama tape, in
accordance with an agreement that has been reached between API and Fox News
Network, API was contacted by Obama’s Campaign Manager.
Those who are close to the democratic presidential
candidate must be desperate to win the elections no matter what, otherwise
they would not have taken such bold step to contact API with an offer of a bribe
in order to stop the airing of the tape.
Obama’s campaign manager contacted API
by telephone and email offering 3 million US dollars followed with a
request to API to cancel the deal with Fox News Network.
Ten days ago API received the first
request to accept 2 million US dollars by Mr Ed Hale,
President of Plains Radio, Texas - USA, in an effort to suppress the
information from reaching the public before the coming US Presidential
elections.
API has now taken a decision to contact the
American Embassy in Oslo, Norway as soon as possible in order to report the
matter and hand over the evidence for investigative
purposes.
API’s Canadian lawyer is expected to fly to
Oslo shortly in order to assist in the legal matters that arise from the bribery
attempt.
API’s Chief editor is expected to travel to New
York, together with the Canadian lawyer, where he will appear live in one of the
shows that will air the Michelle Obama tape.
Holy excrement.
Either this is one of the cleverest political scams I have ever seen, or this
tape is real, it exists, and Obama's people are so scared out of their wits that
it will be aired by Fox News Channel that they are offering millions to bribe
API not to follow through on the deal they made.
What will the other networks, the ones that have
ignored API's claims for two weeks, say if it is true and Fox does air it? What can
they say if the tape has Ms. Obama's voice uttering these words? This is one story
that is impossible for them to bury.
So stay tuned. Whether or not the API story is true, its end-game is
going to be amazing.
UPDATE: I checked the Fox News Channel web site
and there is no mention whatsoever of an API tape. That puts the
likelihood that this is a crock of baloney at about 99%. I'll keep you
posted.
The following is an excerpt from a larger article written by Raymond Kraft,
writing for www.familysecuritymatters.org.
I am not familiar with the organization and don't agree with everything in his
article. But this part of it is well worth reading, because it does such a
good job of encapsulating the reasons we should be skeptical that Barack
Obama is a naturalized citizen, thus legally able to become President:
I have become 100% convinced, to a moral certainty, beyond
a reasonable doubt, that Barack Obama is not only not a "natural born
citizen" as required by the U.S. Constitution to be president, but that he was
not even born in the USA, not born in Hawaii, probably in Kenya, never
naturalized. If he is elected, he will be the UnConstitutional President
from the moment he takes the oath of office, the first president who is not a
citizen of the United States.
Why I am so sure?
I was not convinced by the lawsuits filed by Philip Berg,
Andy Martin, Jerome Corsi, and others seeking disclosure of Obama's birth
certificate. I was not convinced by the books and articles that now abound
contesting Obama's origins. I was convinced by the behavior of Barack Obama and
his lawyers, asking the governor of Hawaii to seal Obama's birth certificate so
it could not be seen, by anyone, and by the behavior of Barack Obama and his
lawyers, sealing his records at Columbia University and Harvard Law. Barack
Obama is hiding himself from America. And he wants to be POTUS, and
Commander-in-Chief.
In the litigation business, one quickly learns that if
somebody has a document that will be good for them, they can't wait to give it
to you. And if somebody has a document that will hurt them, they'll be tap
dancing faster than Richard Gere in Chicago to keep you from getting
it.
Obama is tap dancing.
If I were Obama's lawyers, and if there was a good,
authentic, birth certificate that proved Barack Obama's birth in Hawaii, I would
tell him to instruct the Hawaiian Department of Health to provide a certified
copy to every journalist who asked about it, to the Courts and plaintiffs in all
the lawsuits, and to make the original available for inspection by any expert
forensic document examiner any litigant or news agency engaged to examine the
birth certificate for authenticity. I would tell him to come clean, and end the
speculation. And I would tell him that the speculation could cost him the
election.
But that's not what Obama's lawyers are doing, they're
filling motions for summary judgment, not on the merits of the case, but on
"technicalities," at least in the Berg case, arguing that Citizens, voters, do
not have standing to enforce the United States Constitution, and at least one
judge, Richard Barclay Surrick, has agreed.
But what Obama and his lawyers and the Democrat National
Committee (DNC) are not doing is being open and honest with America. They're tap
dancing faster than Richard Gere in Chicago. So we are forced to this
conclusion as a matter of logical necessity:
1. If Barack Obama could produce a good
birth certificate that would verify his status as a "natural born citizen," he
would. Failing to do so can only hurt him. Failing to do so can cost him the
election.
2. He hasn't, and is doing all possible
not to.
3. Therefore, we can only conclude that
he can't, and that his birth certificate, if it exists at all, is either
altered, forged, or shows him born outside the U.S. We have to conclude that
producing his birth certificate, if he can, will prove he is not eligible to be
president, not a natural born citizen, or not a citizen at all. We can only
conclude that Obama and his laywers know that producing his birth records will
hurt him even more than not producing them.
Now, I could be wrong. Barack Obama can prove me wrong by
producing a good birth certificate. But he hasn't. Will he? Can
he?
Readers of this blog know I have been talking about the possibility
that Mr. Obama is not a legal candidate for months. They know that, like Kraft, I've
made the point that it is very easy to obtain the document that ends this issue (at
a cost of maybe 5 minutes on the phone to Hawaii and maybe
$10 for processing fees). But Mr. Obama and his operatives have instead spent a
fortune in time and money to prevent anyone from seeing it.
Why would they do that, if not because there is damaging information on
it?
Remember; if Obama wins and it comes out that he is not legally able to
be President EVERYTHING HE DOES AS PRESIDENT IS NULL AND VOID. Every
document he signs, every action he takes, is illegal.
Further, if it should come out afterwards and Obama, therefore, would
summarily not be President, does that make Joe Biden President? He ran on
the same ticket and no one elected him individually to that office. Does
the next in line, Nancy Pelosi become President? This would create utter,
complete chaos.
Think long and hard about why Obama and his campaign are moving heaven and
earth to prevent you from seeing the proof that he is a naturalized
citizen -- and please do so before you enter a voting booth.
I do not claim to know the truth here. But I do know that the most
obvious, straight-line reason for Obama behaving this way is that his birth
certificate will preclude him from being President.
This column, written by Michael Freund of the Jerusalem Post, should be required
reading for every voter who cares at all about Israel -- and,
more generally, about how an Obama administration is likely to address one of our
most loyal and important allies over the next four to eight years.
Here it is. The bold print is mine:
Fundamentally
Freund: Look who's rooting for Obama
Oct. 28, 2008 Michael Freund , THE JERUSALEM POST
What do Iran's ayatollahs, Hamas terrorists, Louis
Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi have in common?
They are all pulling for Barack Obama to win the US presidential election.
When Israel's disparate foes manage to
rally behind a single candidate, it should set off alarm bells for anyone who
cares about the Jewish state.
If you think this is just Republican
scaremongering, consider the following.
Last week, Ali Larijani, the hard-line speaker of
the Iranian parliament, told a press conference in Bahrain that "we are leaning
more in favor of Barack Obama because he is more flexible and rational" (Agence
France Presse, October 22).
And then there is the October 19 endorsement that
Obama received from Hamas spokesman Ahmed Yousef, who told WABC radio host John
Batchelor and World Net Daily's Aaron Klein that "we as Palestinians are
thinking that we might have better luck with a new administration, maybe, if
Obama wins the election... I do believe he will change the American foreign
policy in the way they are handling the Middle East."
There you have it. Two clear expressions
of preference for Obama from two of the leading anti-Israel and anti-Western
forces in the Middle East. Both the Iranian regime and the Hamas terrorist
organization view Obama in a positive light and hope he will be elected.
Their enthusiasm for the senator from Illinois is
shared by a number of other long-time enemies of the Jewish state on both sides
of the Atlantic.
On June 11, Libyan strongman Muammar
Gaddafi, in a speech broadcast on Al-Jazeera, spoke glowingly of the Democratic
nominee. According to a translation provided by MEMRI, Gaddafi said,
"His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa
applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success,
and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to
enable him to win the American presidency."
Back in the US, anti-Semitic firebrand
Louis Farrakhan earlier this year labeled Obama "the hope of the entire world"
and compared him to the founder of the Nation of Islam, the group Farrakhan
heads (Associated Press, February 25).
Normally, one would expect that such a motley
collection of rogues would be enough to send shivers down the spine of even the
most spineless of voters. In the end, who wants to be cheering for the same
outcome as Gaddafi and Farrakhan? Nonetheless, if two recent polls are to be
believed, Obama seems poised to capture a significant majority of the Jewish
vote.
A SURVEY released last week by Quinnipiac
University found that Jews in the battleground state of Florida are backing
Obama by a margin of 77 percent to 20%, while a Gallup survey revealed that
nationwide, Jews favor him over Sen. John McCain by 74% to 22%.
While that is less than the 80% that
Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman garnered in the 2000 election, it is similar
to the 75% that John Kerry captured four years ago.
One can only shake one's head in
bewilderment at such a predilection, particularly in light of Obama's flip-flop
on Jerusalem back in June, when he told the annual AIPAC policy conference that
he supports the city remaining Israel's united capital, only to back-track from
that position the following day.
If Obama can't stand firm on the campaign
trail on such a basic issue of fundamental importance to Israel and its
supporters, how can he be counted on to do so if given the keys to the White
House? Any pro-Israel Jews and Christians still sitting on the fence, wondering
how to cast their ballot on November 4, would therefore do well to bear in mind
the revealing comments made recently by Jesse Jackson.
Speaking at the World Policy Forum in
Evian, France two weeks ago, Jackson promised thatthe
"Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" will lose influence
once Obama is in charge, as he will stop "putting Israel's interests
first."
"Obama is about change," Jackson observed, "and
the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself.
It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it"
(New York Post, October 14).
The bottom line is that Obama makes
Teheran, Tripoli and Gaza convulse with excitement, and that alone should make
the rest of us shudder with fear.
If you are listening to a sporting event on the radio, crowd reaction
will tell you what is happening to the home team. If they suddenly
cheer, you don't need the announcer to tell you that something has happened in
their favor.
I wish some people, particularly among Jewish voters, would use that
same concept with Mr. Obama and Israel's enemies. When Israel's
enemies are cheering, you can bet they see something good happening for
their side.
On the other hand, if an almost 20 year association with the Jew hating,
Israel hating White supremacist jeremiah wright doesn't get through to them, why
should the cheers of the enemy be any more successful?
Well, at least they're honest about their journalistic dishonesty.
Here are excerpts from an article
I found at www.yahooo.com, which was
written by Jim Vandehei and John F. Harris of www.politico.com. It sums up a reality
I have been talking about for months. Please pay special attention to the
segment I've put in bold print:
Why McCain is getting hosed in the
press
Politico political editor Charles Mahtesian was
e-mailing the other day with a Republican lobbyist who signed off with a plea
that sounded more like a taunt: “Keep it balanced.”
A reader e-mailed us with the same sentiment in
different language. “Are you f***ing joking! Your bias has stooped to an
all-time low. Wait, it will probably get worse as election day nears.” Those
asterisks, by the way, are hers, not ours.
And get a load of this one, from someone in
Rochester, N.Y., who did not like our analysis of the final presidential debate. “You guys are
awfully tough on McCain. There may be some legitimacy to the claim of press
bias. Mom.”
We were all set to dismiss Harris’ mother as a
crank. Same for VandeHei’s: a conservative dismayed by what she sees as
kid-glove treatment of Barack
Obama. Then along came a study — funded by the prestigious Pew Research Center, no less —
suggesting at first blush, at least, that they may be on to
something.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s
researchers found that John
McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four
times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10
McCain stories were negative.
What’s more, Obama had more than twice as many
positive stories (36 percent) as McCain — and just half the percentage of
negative (29 percent).
You call that balanced?
OK, let’s just get this over with: Yes, in
the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press, and at
Politico.
And, yes, based on a combined 35 years in
the news business we’d take an educated guess — nothing so scientific as a Pew
study — that Obama will win the votes of probably 80 percent or more of
journalists covering the 2008 election. Most political journalists we know are
centrists — instinctually skeptical of ideological zealotry — but with at least
a mild liberal tilt to their thinking, particularly on social
issues.
So what?
...our
researcher Alex Burns pulled
out his highlighter pen and did his own study of Politico's October stories last
week: 110 stories advanced a narrative that was more favorable to Obama than
McCain. Sixty-nine did the opposite.
Our daily parlor game (which some readers, alas,
seem to take a bit more solemnly than we do) declaring “who won the day” has
awarded the day to Obama by a 2-to-1 margin. It’s doubtful even McCain would say
he’s had more good days than that.
Responsible editors would be foolish not to ask
themselves the bias question, especially in the closing days of an election.
But, having asked it, our sincere answer is that
of the factors driving coverage of this election — and making it less enjoyable
for McCain to read his daily clip file than for Obama — ideological favoritism
ranks virtually nil.
The main reason is that for most journalists,
professional obligations trump personal preferences. Most political reporters
(investigative journalists tend to have a different psychological makeup) are
temperamentally inclined to see multiple sides of a story, and being detached
from their own opinions comes relatively easy.
Reporters obsess about personalities and process,
about whose staff are jerks or whether they seem like decent folks, about who
has a great stump speech or is funnier in person than they come off in public,
about whether Michigan is in play or off the table. This is the flip side of the
fact of how much we care about the horse race — we don’t care that much
about our own opinions of which candidate would do more for world peace or tax
cuts.
If that causes skeptics to scoff, perhaps they
would find it more satisfying to hear that the reason ideological bias matters
so little is that other biases matter so much more.
McCain’s decision to limit media access and align
himself with the GOP
conservative base was an entirely routine, strategic move for a presidential
candidate. But much of the coverage has portrayed this as though it were an
unconscionable sellout.
Since then the media often presumes bad faith on
McCain’s part. The best evidence of this has been the intense focus on the
negative nature of his ads, when it is clear Obama has been similarly negative
in spots he airs on radio and in swing states.
It is not our impression that many reporters are
rooting for Obama personally. To the contrary, most colleagues on the trail
we’ve spoken with seem to find him a distant and undefined figure. But he has
benefited from the idea that negative attacks that in a normal campaign would be
commonplace in this year would carry an out-of-bounds racial subtext. That’s why
Obama’s long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was basically a nonissue in the
general election.
Journalists’ hair-trigger racial sensitivity may
have been misplaced, but it was not driven by an ideological tilt. .
In case there was anyone left who doubted the extreme media bias in this
election, that should clear it up nicely.
CONFIRMED: LA TIMES HAS VIDEO OF OBAMA LOVE-FEST WITH ANTI-SEMITES -- AYERS & DOHRN THERE TOO
Ken Berwitz
There is a tape
of Barack Obama wining and dining with the most viciously anti-Semitic,
anti-Israel forces imaginable.
On it, Mr. Obama sits by acceptingly as they bash Israel one after the other,
and accepts great praise from a Jew-hating, Israel-hating "professor" who
wholeheartedly endorses him for the US Senate.
And Mr. Obama warmly toasts the anti-Semitic Israel hating
professor, while gushing about how close they are.
This is not a fantasy. It is not a joke. This happened and there
is a video tape of it. How do I know? The LA Times has acknowledged
it has a copy.
It is almost impossible to believe a major newspaper would have this tape,
but intentionally not release it so that voters would be ignorant of what
it shows before making their decision on election day.
That's right, it is almost impossible. Not completely.
Because that is exactly what is happening. Read this
incredible, fully referenced piece from www.gatewaypundit.blogspot.com
and see for yourself:
Confirmed: MSM
Holds Video Of Barack Obama Attending Jew-Bash & Toasting a Former PLO
Operative... Refuse to Release the Video!
Introduction: The LA Times is holding a video
that shows Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians who are openly
hostile towards Israel. Barack Obama even gives a toast to a former PLO
operative at this celebration. If the American public saw this side of Barack
Obama he would never be elected president. But, the media refuses to release
this video.
LA Times writer Peter Wallsten wrote about
Barack Obama's close association with former Palestinian operative Rashid Khalidi back in
April. Wallsten discussed a dinner held back in 2003 in honor of Khalidi, a
critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights. Barack
Obama has denied his close association with Khalidi, too.
According to Wallsten the
evening not surprisingly turned into a classic Jew-bash:
"During the dinner a young Palestinian
American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its
treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If
Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see
a day of peace."
One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West
Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by
ideology."
Barack Obama also
praised the former PLO operative during the
event. And, Obama confessed that his family often
shared dinner with the Khalidis:
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama
said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own
biases... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come,
we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just
around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire
world."
...The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was
obtained by The Times.
Khalidi and the Obamas were great friends in Chicago and often shared
meals together. By the way, Khalidi was also
best friends with Bill Ayers. Terrorist Bill Ayers---
Barack Obama--- Jew-hater Rashid Khalidi
On
Wednesday I talked with Peter Wallsten from the Los Angeles
Times about the article on Obama and Khalidi:
Wallston was one of the few mainstream
media reporters to report on this radical Obama associate.
Wallston
said that the article was written after he watched video taken at the Khalidi
going away party. When I asked him about the video he said that as far as he
was concerned he was through with the story.
I asked him if he was
planning on releasing this video of Obama toasting the radical Khalidi at this
Jew-bash. He told me he was not releasing the video. He also would not comment
on his source for the video. Wallston also said he did not know if Khalidi's
good friend Bill Ayers was at the event or not.
So, there you have it. The LA Times has
video of Obama toasting a former PLO operative at a Jew-bash but will not
release the video. This is outrageous. Obviously, this video would do
great damage to Obama who struggles with Jewish voters due to his circle of close anti-Semitic friends. Maybe
this is the reason it is not being released?
More on
Khalidi--- Not only does Barack Obama's church of 20 years support Hamas and Hezbollah but Barack Obama also has a longtime close friendship and
financial association with suspected former PLO operative and Israel hater
Rashid Khalidi. Earlier this month Sean Hannity
dared to report on Barack and Michelle Obama's radical associate and friend,
Rashid Khalidi:
In
2000, Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO operative who justified
Palestinian terrorism as contributing to "political enlightenment," threw a fundraiser for his friend Barack Obama.
Although he is described as a former
PLO operative, via Free Republic, this is what Rashid Khalidi has to say about Palestinian terrorism
against Jews-- he said anti-Israel violence contributed to "political
enlightenment":
On Palestinian violence. Khalidi
glorifies anti-Israel violence as contributing to “political
enlightenment”[vii] and unsurprisingly admires those who carry it out. His
loyalty to Palestinian terrorist groups run so deep that he actually dedicated
his 1986 valentine to the PLO, Under Siege, to “those who gave their lives . .
. in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon.”[viii] The
book whitewashes PLO violence against Israelis and Lebanese, as well as the
Syrian occupation.
In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the
Arab American Action Network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big
farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book
filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These
included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada,
and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and
Bill Ayers. (There were also testimonials from then-state
Senator Barack Obama and the mayor of Chicago.)
It's hard to imagine that the LA Times would hold onto a
video of Sarah Palin praising an anti-Semitic radical and former PLO
operative... But, that is today's mainstream media.
Tom Maguire
has more on this radical friend of Barack and Michelle
Obama.
UPDATE: There's more-- Debbie Schlussel gave Wallsten information.
Would this affect the level of support Barack Obama currently enjoys among
Jewish voters? Supporters of Israel in general? People who are
concerned that Obama has significant ties to terrorists?
Yes, yes and yes.
So why is Mr. Wallsten steadfastly refusing to make the tape available?
Why isn't the LA Times insisting that he do so?
Why is the paper suppressing this absolutely devastating tape?
Why aren't other supposedly neutral media demanding its release?
Do they even care about what this tape shows? What it might mean for
Israel if Mr. Obama is elected?
How far are they willing to go to elect Barack Obama President?
Today's lead story in the New York Times is about senator Ted Stevens.
Its headline is SENATOR IS GUILTY OVER HIS FAILURES TO DISCLOSE GIFTS (yes,
unlike any other headline on the front page, this one is entirely in capital
letters).
Stevens, from Alaska (population 670,000), was convicted on 7 counts of
corruption involving a total of about $250,000.
But this is not the only major political corruption story today.
Kwame Kilpatrick, the former Mayor of Detroit (population 919,000) who
resigned in disgrace just last month, is starting his jail sentence today.
Kilpatrick is convicted of two felony counts of obstruction of justice. He
has to pay restitution of $1,000,000 (or as much of it as he can scrape up,
after spending tons of money on lavish personal excesses). It is estimated that
this case has cost Detroit $14,000,000.
You may have noticed that I didn't mention the New York Times headline for
the article telling readers about kwame kilpatrick going to jail today.
That is because there is none.
It isn't the lead story. It isn't the page 1 story. It isn't
buried somewhere else in the news section. There isn't any story at
all. If you read the New York Times you do not know that this is
happening.
Oh, did I mention that kilpatrick was a huge Barack Obama supporter? I
wonder if that has anything to do with the Times burying this story completely,
even as it gives the Alaska Senator lead story status.
Mainstream media have made it clear they have virtually no interest in
finding out where Barack Obama disbursed tens of millions, possibly over 100
million, dollars in educational grant money.
In the hope that you might feel a bit differently, here is a fact-filled
article from Fox News, which blows the lid off of this information -
information that the others are dilligently hiding from voters, at
least until the election results are in. The bold print is mine:
Obama's Education Groups Funded Controversial
Organizations in the '90s, Tax Returns Show
Barack Obama's boards gave tens of thousands to
ACORN and more than $1 million to racially charged organizations, a study of tax
returns shows.
By Maxim Lott
FOXNews.com
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund
of Chicago funded numerous controversial groups while Barack Obama served on
their boards between 1995 and 2002, an analysis of their tax returns
shows.
In 2001, when Obama was a part-time director of
The Woods Fund of Chicago, it gave $75,000 to ACORN, the voter
registration group now under investigation for voter fraud in 12
states.
The Woods Fund also gave $6,000 to the
Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama
attended. The reason for the donation to the church is unclear -- it is simply
listed as "for special purposes" in the group's IRS tax form.
It gave a further $60,000 to the Children
and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University, which was founded and run
by Bernardine Dohrn, the wife of domestic terrorist William Ayers and, with her
husband, a former member of the 1960s radical group the Weather
Underground.
Other controversial donations that year
included $50,000 to the Small Schools Network -- which was founded by
Ayers and run by Michael Klonsky, a friend of Ayers' and the former chairman of
the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), an offshoot of the 1960s
radical group Students for a Democratic Society -- and $40,000 to the
Arab American Action Network, which critics have accused of being
anti-Semitic.
The Woods Fund did not respond to
questions about the funding.
When Obama co-chaired the Chicago
Annenberg Challenge, which calls itself "a public-private partnership
improving education for 1.5 million urban and rural public school students," it
gave to some of the same groups -- partnering with ACORN to manage funding for
schools and giving over $1 million to the Small Schools
Network.
It also gave nearly $1 million to a group
called the South Shore African Village Collaborative, whose goals,
according to Annenberg's archived Web site, are "to develop more collegial
relationships between teachers and principals. Professional development topics
include school leadership, team building, parent and community involvement,
developing thematic units, instructional strategies, strategic planning, and
distance learning and teleconferencing."
But the group mentions other goals in its grant
application to the Annenberg Challenge:
"Our children need to understand the historical
context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy
us," one page of the application reads.
Stanley Kurtz, a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and
Public Policy Center, found the collaborative's original application when going
through Annenberg's archives.
Asked to comment, Yvonne
Williams-Kinnison, executive director of the collaborative's parent group, the
Coalition for Improved Education in South Shore said, "I don't want to put more
fuel on the fire. You can call us back after the election.... I don't
want to compromise the position."
Late Afrocentrist scholars Jacob Carruthers and
Asa Hilliard were both invited to give SSAVC teachers a training session, the
Chicago Annenberg Challenge noted in a report, adding that the "consciousness
raising session ... received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the
curriculum readiness survey session."
But Carruthers has been a controversial figure
because of inflammatory statements he made in writing.
"The submission to Western civilization and its
most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to
white supremacy," Carruthers wrote in his 1999 book, "Intellectual Warfare."
"Some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our
disrupted ancestral culture."
In the book, he compared the process of blacks
assimilating into American culture with rape.
"We may not be able to get our virginity back
after the rape, but we do not have to marry the rapist," Carruthers
said.
Hilliard has come under fire for advocating what
many consider an extreme Afrocentric curriculum.
He selected the articles for the "African-American
Baseline Essays" published in 1987 and first used in the Portland, Ore., school
district. The essays have been criticized
for claiming, among other things, that ancient Egyptians were the first to
discover manned flight and the theory of evolution.
An Obama spokesman called investigation of
these ties "pathetic."
"This is another pathetic attempt by FOX
News to distract voters from the economic challenges facing this nation by
patching together tenuous links to smear Barack Obama," Obama spokesman Ben
LaBolt told FOXNews.com.
"The Annenberg Challenge was a bipartisan
organization dedicated to improving the performance of students and teachers in
Chicago Public Schools that was funded by a Republican philanthropist who was
friends with President Reagan and launched by Republican Gov. Jim
Edgar."
But Kurtz says those founders of the Annenberg
Challenge would not have known the details about to whom their Chicago office --
one of 18 around the country -- was giving money.
"If you read Ayers' proposal to Annenberg, it
doesn't sound radical. But if you actually read Ayers' education writings, they
are very radical indeed," Kurtz said. "Ayers, like so many other savvy
professors, knows enough not to state his actual views frankly when applying for
money. But you can find the truth in his writings."
The controversial donations make up only a small
portion of the overall amount doled out by the Annenberg and Woods funds. The
Woods Fund gave over $3.5 million to 115 different groups in 2001, and the
Annenberg Chellenge dispensed nearly $11 million to 63 groups at its height in
1999.
Most of the groups are mainstream and well
respected, ranging from the Jazz Institute of Chicago to the Successful Schools
Project.
But Kurtz says that this should not obscure what
he describes as controversial donations.
"If John McCain had given to white
supremacist groups and people said, 'Hey, the majority of funding didn't go to
supremacist groups' -- that wouldn't even cut the ice," Kurtz
said.
"I feel certain [Obama] knew about these
radical groups," Kurtz said. "We know that he read the applications because he
made statements about the quality of proposals."
.
I especially love that one-size-fits-all attack on Fox for daring to expose
Barack Obama's actions.
When it comes to reporting BOTH sides, it seems to me that Fox is doing at
least a creditable job. Unless, of course, "fair and balanced" means
suppressing information that would be damaging to one of the candidates to
maximize his chances of winning the election. If that's what it means,
NBC, CBS and, to a slightly lesser degree, ABC are doing a far better job
than Fox.
One of my biggest problems with John McCain is his disturbing propensity for
making inexplicable decisions and then doggedly sticking to them. One
of the most damaging examples is that, months ago, he decided Barack Obama's
umbilical ties to jeremiah wright were off-limits for his campaign.
Why? I dare you to give me even one good reason.
jeremiah wright is a racist, separatist hater. Obama proactively
selected his church and stayed in it for almost 20 years without so much as a
peep of protest about anything he said or did. This included standing at
his religious pulpit and screaming that our country is the "US KKK of
America", screaming "God DAMN America", and screaming the
suggestion that we brought 9/11 on ourselves.-- all to a raucus, cheering
congregation.
Yet Obama called wright his spiritual mentor, named his first book after one
of wright's sermons and subjected his two young daughters to wright's racism and
hatred their entire lives --- until it was politically damaging to do so, that
is.
Well, if Mr. McCain can't find a reason to remind voters of Mr. Obama's
association with wright, others can. Here is an ad from The National
Republican Trust PAC (www.GOPtrust.com)
which has started airing in a number of battleground states. See what you
think of it (if you have trouble seeing the video, just click here
instead):
.
Asking again: Why hasn't McCain done this throughout his campaign?
If he had, instead of flashing that winning ear-to-ear grin, Mr. Obama
would have spent months trying to defend his indefensible relationship with
wright. What a difference that would have made.
The old saying is "better late than never" Unfortunately for Mr.
McCain, too late is no better than never. He better hope
that the people who understood the importance of wright as an issue far more
than he did are not too late.
What will happen in Barack Obama is elected and manages to implement his
economic proposals?
Jack Kemp and Peter Ferrara, writing for Investors Business Daily, can tell
you.
Of course you can skip it and take Barack Obama's word that
everyone earning less than $250,000 will get a tax cut and his nearly a
trillion dollars in new spending proposals will be funded entirely by rich
people. But if you believe that, you probably also believe that
if Tinkerbell just spreads a little fairy dust we can eliminate the
common cold, so its value will be lost on you anyway.
On the theory that you're not counting on Tinkerbell, here is their
analysis:
Investors Flee From 'Change' Obama Hypes
By JACK KEMP AND PETER
FERRARA | Posted Monday, October 27, 2008 4:30 PM PT
Are Barack Obama's proposed tax increases
adversely affecting our financial markets? We say yes, unambiguously. The
senator has done a masterful job distracting attention from his tax increases
with his $500-per-worker tax credit supposedly for 95% of Americans.
Obama has also set forth more than half a dozen
additional refundable income tax credits targeted to low- and moderate-income
workers for child care, education, housing, welfare, retirement, health care and
other social purposes.
These tax credits are devised to phase-out based
on income, which will ultimately increase marginal income tax rates for
middle-class workers. In other words, as you earn more, you suffer a penalty in
the phase-out of these credits, which has the exact effect of a marginal tax
rate increase. That harms, rather than improves, the economy.
With the bottom 40% of income earners not paying
any federal income taxes, such tax credits would not reduce any tax liability
for these workers. Instead, since they're refundable, they would involve new
checks from the federal government.
These are not tax cuts as Obama is promising. They
are new government spending programs buried in the tax code and estimated to
cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years.
Obama argues that while these workers do not pay
income taxes, they do pay payroll taxes. True, but his planned credits do not
involve cuts in payroll taxes. They are refundable income tax credits designed
to redistribute income and "spread the wealth."
Meantime, Obama has proposed effective tax
increases of 20% or more in the two top income-tax rates, phasing out the
personal exemptions and all itemized deductions for top earners, as well as
raising their tax rates.
He wants a 33% increase in the tax rates on
capital gains and dividends, an increase of 16% to 32% in the top payroll tax
rate, reinstatement of the death tax with a 45% top rate, and a new payroll tax
on employers estimated at 7% to help finance his health insurance plan. He's
also contending for higher tariffs under his protectionist policies.
Finally, he would increase corporate taxes by 25%,
though American businesses already face the second-highest marginal tax rates in
the industrialized world, thus directly harming manufacturing and job creation
while weakening demand for the dollar.
Obama argues disingenuously that his tax increases
would only affect higher-income workers and "corporate fat cats." But it is
precisely these top marginal tax rates that control incentives for savings,
investment, entrepreneurship, business expansion, jobs and economic growth.
While he wants to tax the rich, the burden will fall on the poor and the middle
class.
In their new book, "The End of Prosperity," Art
Laffer, Steve Moore and Peter Tanous argue that the threat of this tax tsunami
is already destabilizing our financial markets and causing capital flight from
America.
They write, "Hot capital is escaping over the
borders out of the United States and flowing into China, India, Europe, and even
Japan. . . Starting in late 2007, foreigners started pulling their money out of
the United States, and Americans started investing more abroad. Global investors
are losing confidence in the U.S."
The American economy was in shambles when Reagan
entered office in 1981. Inflation had soared by 25% over the prior two years,
unemployment was heading toward 10%, the prime interest rate hit 21%, poverty
was on a 33% upswing and real family income had decreased by almost 10% due to
the stagflation of the late 1970s.
Reagan cut the top income-tax rate from 70% to
50%, adopted an additional 25% across-the-board rate cut and sliced capital
gains taxes in half. The 1986 tax reform left us with just two tax rates of 15%
and 28%. Reagan slashed spending growth, lowered tariffs, reduced regulatory
burdens and promoted anti-inflation monetary policies.
The result, the authors explain, was actually a
25-year, noninflationary economic boom, with only two brief, mild recessions in
1990 and 2001. "We call this period, 1982-2007, the 25-year boom — the greatest
period of wealth creation in the history of the planet," they write. "Adjusting
for inflation, more wealth was created in America in the 25-year boom than in
the previous 200 years."
By 1989, the economy had grown by almost
one-third, the equivalent of adding the entire economy of West Germany to our
U.S. economy. In 1984 alone, real economic growth boomed by 6.8%, the highest in
50 years. Nearly 20 million new jobs were created in the 1980s, increasing U.S.
civilian employment by almost 20%. Unemployment fell to 5.3% by 1989.
Spectacularly, inflation was slashed to 3.2% by
1983. The prime rate fell to 6.25% by 1992, even though opponents had argued
that Reagan's tax cuts would increase interest rates. Family income reversed its
decline, poverty reversed its rise and tax revenues actually doubled.
This is the "Change We Need" today.
What you have just seen is a series of logical, reasonable conclusions based
on facts. It therefore has very little in common with Barack Obama's
economic smoke and mirrors.
Please take another good look at what Mr. Kemp and Mr. Ferrara have shown
us. Think about the implications. And then be sure to tell your
friends.
Republican senator Ted Stevens, one week away from an election that, he
hopes, will give him a 7th term in the U.S. Senate, has been convicted on seven
counts of corruption.
We can carp about the timing of this trial, but it won't change the fact that
he is guilty.
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) -- A Washington jury
on Monday found U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska guilty of all seven corruption
counts he was charged with over gifts he accepted from an oil industry
contractor but failed to report.
Jurors said Stevens, who is running for
a seventh term, deliberately failed to disclose on mandatory Senate financial
disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from the
oil company VECO and its chief executive officer, Bill Allen.
The jury of
eight women and four men deliberated for five hours Monday before returning the
guilty verdicts.
The verdicts stemmed from a four-year federal
investigation and a three-week trial that featured 24 government witnesses and
28 defense witnesses.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has
delayed sentencing for the longtime Alaska senator, who was indicted by federal
grand jury in July.
Despite his conviction, Stevens, 84, is not required
to drop out of his Senate race or resign his seat.
If he wins his
re-election race against Democratic Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, Stevens can
continue to hold his seat because there is no rule barring convicted felons from
serving in Congress. The Senate, however, could vote to expel Stevens on a
two-thirds vote.
Stevens is the first sitting U.S. senator convicted of a
felony since 1981, when Sen. Harrison Williams Jr, D-N.J., was convicted on
bribery and conspiracy charges.
Stevens is the longest serving Republican
senator in U.S. history. He was appointed to the Senate in 1968, won a special
election to the seat two years later, and has been re-elected since.
Amid
the federal investigation, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a fellow Republican, urged
Stevens to tell Alaskans why he was the target of a federal corruption
investigation.
Palin, who is now the Republican vice presidential
nominee, said at the time that among her concerns is the perception that Alaska
is a place where legislators may be bought.
Incredibly, Stevens not only is able to continue in the Senate, but possibly
(though improbably I would think) can win re-election next week.
If these convictions do not cause Alaskans to dump Stevens it's hard to
imagine what could. But if he should win, the honorable thing to do would
be to resign as soon as Governor Palin is legally allowed to replace him.
Then again, why would anyone think he'd do that? After all, consider
who are we expecting to be honorable.
BARACK OBAMA'S SOCIALISM: BLACKOUT ON THE NETWORK MORNING SHOWS
Ken Berwitz
How far in the Obama tank are the major networks?
Mark Finkelstein of www.newsbusters.org monitored the three
netowork morning shows to monitor their coverage of the interview
Barack Obama had on Chicago Public Radio, in which he specifically espoused
redistribution of wealth (i.e. socialism).
(In case you haven't heard the audio tape, just click below).
Here is Mark's report on how the NBC Today Show, CBS Early Show and ABC Good
Morning America handled it:
Broadcast Morning Shows Bury
Obama Redistributionist Radio Rap
By Mark Finkelstein (Bio | Archive) October
27, 2008 - 08:33 ET
Imagine that a week before a
presidential election, a radio interview surfaced in which the Republican
candidate had called for, say, the abolition of Social Security. Now imagine the
broadcast networks' reaction to that nugget: "We interrupt regularly-scheduled
programming for this Breaking News," followed by 24/7 coverage with talking
heads pondering the devastating impact on America's seniors, the overall
economy, the future of Western civilization, etc. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman
would be booked from now till election day, offering his pained
pronouncements.
But how do those same networks react when a radio
interview [YouTube after the jump] surfaces of Barack Obama in a call for the
redistribution of wealth, in which he laments the Supreme Court's insufficient
radicalism in pursuing redistribution and refers to the civil rights movement's
failure to develop a better strategy to bring about wealth redistribution as a
"tragedy?
Insert cricket-chirp soundtrack here.
When, awakening, I saw the
story up on Drudge, I made it a point to monitor the crucial first half-hour of
Today, Good Morning America, and the Early Show, to see how much coverage they
devoted to the radio interview. Results:
Today Show: zilch
Good Morning America: zip
The Early Show: nada
What makes you madder: the networks' burying of
the story, or the fact that their deep-sixing of it was so
predictable?
Note: While I was off watching the broadcast
networks, my NB colleage P. J. Gladnick, who was on this story early, and has also
detailed the Kossacks panicky reaction to
it, noted that Morning Joe, on cable-network MSNBC, did get into a discussion of
the issue during its second hour. We'll update later with details.
Update: Mika Suggests Obama Using
'Marxist Dialect'
If NBC, along with the other broadcast networks,
was too timid to broach the radio interview, over on MSNBC Morning Joe was not.
Mika Brzezinski went so far as to suggest to Obama surrogate Sen. Claire
McCaskill (D-Mo.) that Obama's redistributionist rap amounted to "Marxist
dialect." McCaskill claimed that all Obama was talking about was changes to the
tax code. Either she hadn't read the radio transcript or she was, let's say,
fibbing. In the interview, Obama advocated nothing less than a radical
reinterpretation of the Constitution.
PS: we wish Mika well
in her debate/discussion this evening at Fairfield University with Monica
Crowley. Contrary to a newspaper report
that she would "represent" Obama, a university official has contacted me to
state that while Mika "in general, she holds a liberal political view," she will
not be representing any candidate but will instead share her "wisdom, experience
and impartiality."
Note —Not Income Redistribution, Wealth
Redistribution: Be Very Afraid
My first edition of this item spoke of Obama's
support for redistribution of income. But then I saw a reader speak of
redistribution of "wealth." I went back and checked, and sure enough, that's
what Obama said in the radio interview. And now that I think of it, of course he
also told Joe the Plumber he wants to "spread the wealth" around.
As bad as income redistribution is, it pales in
comparison to wealth redistribution. Income is what people earn. Income
redistribution comes about through steeply progressive income taxes. Wealth is
what people accumulate over the course of a lifetime of earning. Wealth
redistribution implies nothing less than government confiscation of the nest
eggs people have labored all their lives to build up. Be very afraid.
And don't think it can't happen. After all, Barack
"Citizen of the World" Obama looks to Europe for inspiration. A number of
European countries have a "wealth tax" in which people are required to annually
pay a percentage of their net worth--on accumulated wealth that was of course
already taxed at the time it was earned. Extra credit to France for its
socialistic name for the levy: the "solidarity tax" on wealth. Vive la
revolution!
Excerpt from transcript of Obama's 2001
interview with Chicago public radio station WBEZ [via Power Line]:
If you look at the
victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy
in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously
dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be
able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d
be okay.
But the Supreme Court never ventured into the
issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of
political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as
people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical.It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the
founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and
the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution
is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it
says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the
federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that
hasn’t shifted.
One of the I think tragedies of the civil
rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court
focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and
community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together
the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed
change and in some ways we still suffer from that.
Is that clear enough for you? The Democratic candidate for President of
the United States is found, on an audio-taped radio interview to support
classic socialism. His voice, his words. And the three
network morning shows bury it. Every one of them.
Now that an internet firestorm has erupted over this and, I am told, Rush
Limbaugh led with it on his show, is it possible that the networks' evening news
shows will continue to bury this information to keep their viewers as ignorant
of it as possible until election day?
I hate when terms like "socialist" are tossed around
during a campaign. Usually they are just examples of overheated rhetoric, apropos of
nothing, which make the people using them sound ridiculous.
And, until now, that is how I have felt about the increasingly large chorus of Obama critics who characterized
him as a socialist - in no small part because he told "Joe the
plumber" that he would like to "spread the wealth around". I took Mr. Obama's
comment to mean that he wanted a larger number of people
to be able to acquire wealth - something I wholeheartedly
support.
But what if there were an audio tape of Barack
Obama being interviewed on Chicago public radio, during which he
specifically indicated he was a socialist?
What if, during that interview, Mr. Obama stated his desire to redistribute wealth (not "spread
the wealth around", but literally redistribute it), which means take from the
producers and hand over to the non-producers?
What do you call that, folks?
Here is the audio. Please, please listen for yourself and please read the
commentary provided by www,nakedemperornews.com, which appears to be the entity
that uncovered it.
(I assume you are now listening to the entire audio. I
certainly hope you are)
Ok. Now you've heard the interview.
Am I in any way exaggerating what Mr. Obama said? Is there any doubt
about his commitment to redistributing wealth?
Now explain this to me: If www.nakedemperornews.com, and
The Drudge Report, and numerous other internet sources can find this
devastatingly incriminating material, WHY ARE MEDIA SUPPRESSING IT?
They have to be suppressing it, don't they? Because if internet
web sites, with their limited resources, can uncover this
interview, then how is it possible to believe that major media, with its
dramatically greater resources, cannot?
The inescapable conclusion is that, for much of the mainstream media,
there is no journalism during this election, not even an attempt at it.
They are committed to electing Barack Obama, and if the effort requires
burying damaging material about him, then so be it.
It is a disgrace beyond belief - one that will irreparably damage them
long after this election is history.
The following was published in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer, which was
once a great newspaper. It did not appear in a Black supremacist web site
or Barack Obama's church magazine. It appeared in the Philadelphia
Inquirer:
White people
shouldn't be allowed to vote
It's for the good of the country and for those
who're bitter for a reason and armed because they're scared.
Jonathan
Valania
is editor in chief of the blog
Phawker.com
As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think
the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at
least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don't think we can be
trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.
I give you Exhibit A: The last eight
years.
In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us
attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people
reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again
with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It
is, I looked it up.)
Exhibit B is any given Sarah Palin
rally.
Exhibit C would be Ed Rendell and John Murtha, who
in separate moments of on-the-record candor they would come to regret, pointing
out that there are plenty of people in Pennsylvania who just cannot bring
themselves to pull the lever for a black man - no matter what they tell
pollsters.
These people are ruining things for the rest of us
white people who are ready to move on. Sure, they have their reasons, chimerical
though they may be: He's a Muslim. He's a terrorist. He's a Muslim terrorist.
He's going to fire all the white people and give their jobs to
blacks.
But those are just the little white lies
these people allow themselves to be told, a self-induced cognitive dissonance
that lets them avoid saying the unsayable: I cannot pull the lever for a
black man.
Hey, some people just aren't ready yet, even the
governor said so. Just like some people aren't ready yet for computers or
setting the clock on the VCR.
Or, to hear Murtha tell it, some people -
specifically some people in Western Pennsylvania - will never be ready. But the
fact is, if you did a statewide head count of racists, you'd find just as many
in eastern Pennsylvania as you would in the western part of the
state.
That's why this ban on white people voting I'm
proposing has got to be statewide. And I'm sorry to say, it's going to have to
include all white people, even those who would vote for Obama, because you can't
just let some white people vote. That would be unfair.
By this point, you either think I am joking or are
calling me an elitist. I assure you I am neither. OK, maybe a little of both.
But it wasn't always like this. I come from the Coal Belt, from that Alabamian
hinterland between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, as per James Carville's famous
formulation.
I am, in fact, just two generations out of the
coal mines that blackened the lungs of my grandfather, leaving him disabled,
despondent and, finally, dead at the ripe old age of 54.
So, understand that I am saying all this for the
good of the country and, in fact, for the good of those hard-working white
people that Hillary used to pander to.
I know those people, I come from them. They are
not some shameful abstract demographic to be brushed under the rug of euphemism
by Wolf Blitzer and his ilk.
I have broken kielbasa with those people. I went
to school with their children. I have gone to Sunday Mass with a deer-hunter
hangover with those people. They are bitter with good reason, and they are armed
because they are scared. They mean well, but they are easily spooked.
I fear for what is to become of them after the
campaigns leave town for the last time, and Scranton and Allentown and Carlisle
go back to being the long dark chicken dance of the national soul they were
before the media showed up.
Is it stupid, clumsy (albeit vicious) satire. Yes, self-evidently.
Is the writer a hall of fame quality jerk and a half? Yes,
self-evidently.
Now: does it belong in a major daily newspaper?
Let me answer my own question with another question: Suppose a column
was submitted to the Philadelphia Inquirer suggesting that Blacks should not
vote and citing people like convicted thief Mayor Sharpe James of Newark,
child rapist congressperson Mel Reynolds, congressperson William "$90,000 in the
freezer" Jefferson and a host of other similarly embarrassing Black
people. How likely do you think the Inquirer would be to ever print
it.
That answer is every bit as self-evident as the other two, isn't it?
Although it seems to escape the Philadelphia Inquirer's brain trust (such
as it is), there is a fundamental reality here. Racism is racism,
REGARDLESS of which race it is aimed at. Racism isn't any more acceptable when
used against Whites than it is when used against Blacks, even if the writer
tells us he is White.
A racist is a racist is a racist. A racist by any other name would
smell just as foul. Got it?
What we have here is a third rate writer who read "A Modest Proposal",
Jonathan Swift's satire on eating Irish children, and thinks he can write as
cleverly about denying a race of people the vote.
The problem is, he is still a third rate writer.
And a racist as well.
My congratulations to the Philadelphia Inquirer for proving that, no matter
how low a major daily can go, there is always a further sub-basement to shoot
for.
The following, according to www.HillaryClintonForum.net, comes
from The Philadelphia Inquirer. It was written by Helen McCaffrey, whose
credentials are shown below, along with the quote.
If you care at all about how women are treated, I urge you to read every
word:.
Philly
Inquirer
Quote:
Helen McCaffrey is the director of Women's
Watch Inc., a nonprofit women's advocacy group based in Cape
May.
I cannot predict who will win the presidential
campaign, but I already know who will lose big: all women.
I
realized this when I saw a 20-something male student who attends a class
in the community college where I teach, wearing a T-shirt that read,
"Sarah Palin is a C-." He wore it in public, in broad daylight, and
without shame or even consciousness of what he was doing.
I took
the time to advise him of the "error of his ways" and informed him of the
consequences if he wore it to my class.
This encounter shook me
right down to my socks.
Most of my adult life has been spent
working for civil rights for all Americans, as a lawyer defending
constitutional rights and now as a college teacher and director of a
nonprofit advocating for the rights of women.
Not since I told
myself I could lose weight on the pizza and cheesecake diet have I been so
self-deluded. This election cycle has been like stepping on the
scale.
It was the encounter with the young man that woke me up, but
there were signs all along the campaign trail. First, with the candidacy
of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who won 18 million popular votes from the people
of the United States and was ridiculed, marginalized, and put in her place
when she wasn't even offered the vice presidency slot.
But the
really big attack on women occurred when John McCain selected only the
second woman in history to be on a major-party ticket. He chose a governor
of a state critical to our energy crisis. She is a very popular governor
with an 80-percent approval rate. She was elected on her own merit without
previous political ties. She is her own political creation, not the wife,
daughter, sister or mistress of a politician.
I thought Americans
would be proud of her nomination, whether we agreed or disagreed with her
on the issues. Was I in for a shock. The sexism that I believed had been eradicated was
lurking, like some creature from the black lagoon, just below the surface.
Suddenly it erupted and in some unexpected places.
Instead of engaging Palin on the issues, critics
attacked attributes that are specifically female. It is Hillary's pantsuit
drama to the power of 10. Palin's hair, her voice, her motherhood, and her
personal hygiene were substituted for substance. That's when it was
nice.
The hatred escalated to performers advocating Palin be "gang
raped," to suggestions that her husband had had sex with their young
daughters, and reports that her Down syndrome child really was that of her
teenage daughter. One columnist even called for her to submit to DNA
testing to prove her virtue. Smells a little like Salem to me. I was
present at an Obama rally at which the mention of Palin's name drew shouts
of "stone her."
"Stone her"? How biblical.
All this is at a
time when women are regularly being raped as they try to cross the border
into the United States; bloody, broken women haunt the emergency rooms of
hospitals; and abuse and disrespect for women and girls is rising faster
than bank bailouts. That is the atmosphere in which people, including
women, choose to attempt to destroy a woman who is a legitimate political
leader.
Agreement on issues is not required, but Palin merits
respect.
It is dismaying that misogyny and sexism are so
excessively marbleized into our daily interactions that some of us cannot
even recognize their existence when confronted with it or when staring at
it directly in the mirror. It is my fervent hope that those who
purport to be intellectuals begin to engage in argument and not resort to
their baser selves or the easy exercise of personal and biology-based
attacks.
Mockery and vilification of women such as Palin should
become just as taboo as race-based slams. Until then, women are the real
losers.
The way it seems to work is, if you are a woman you
are owed equality and respect. But if you are a Republican conservative
woman you are owed neither.
IS THE LA TIMES WITHHOLDING DEVASTATING EVIDENCE AGAINST BARACK OBAMA?
Ken Berwitz
Does the LA Times have a video tape of Barack Obama attending a party
with the viciously anti-Semitic, anti-Israel radical Rashid Khalidi - along with william
ayers and bernardine dohrn, who he claims to barely know?
Does the video tape have Khalidi lavishing praise on an appreciative
Obama?
Here is the article from Charles Johnson of www.littlegreenfootballs.com,
complete with reference links. Read it and judge for yourself:
LA Times Hiding Incriminating Video of
Obama with Radical Palestinian? Update: Ayers and Dohrn Attended
Khalidi Party with Obama
Politics | Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 8:18:26 pm
PST
Gateway Pundit says he contacted the LA Times to
ask about a video showing Barack Obama at a party for radical Islamist Rashid
Khalidi, mentioned by the LA Times in this article: Allies of Palestinians see a
friend in Barack Obama.
At Khalidi’s going-away party in 2003, the
scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American
crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate
seat. “You will not have a better senator under any circumstances,” Khalidi
said.
The event was videotaped, and a copy of
the tape was obtained by The Times.
If true, this is media malfeasance of an almost
astounding degree. They have a video that could change the stakes in this
election and they’re hiding it. And they’ve been hiding it since last
April.
In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the Arab
American Action Network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big
farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book
filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These
included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada,
and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.
(There were also testimonials from then-state Senator Barack Obama and the
mayor of Chicago.)
If this tape exists and the LA Times is
withholding it, then it is acting not as a newspaper but, literally, as an
arm of the Barack Obama campaign.
Because if the LA Times is holding such a tape, as very well seems to be the case, then it is suppressing hard news for the purpose of
protecting Mr. Obama from a huge backlash among Jewish supporters, supporters of Israel regardless
of their religion and, generally, people who fear his association with
radicals and would find this to be a confirmation that the stories
about him are true.
If the LA Times has any integrity at all, there damn well better be either a
credible statement that it does not have the tape, or a page 1 story that the tape
does exist along with a recounting of what is on it.
Thirteen campaign workers for Barack Obama
yesterday yanked their voter registrations and ballots in Ohio after being
warned by a prosecutor that temporary residents can’t vote in the battleground
state.
A dozen staffers - including Obama Ohio
spokeswoman Olivia Alair and James Cadogan, who recently joined Team Obama -
signed a form letter asking the Franklin County elections board to pull their
names from the rolls.
The letter - a copy of which was obtained by
palestra.net, a Fox News affiliate - came a day after prosecutor Ron O’Brien
publicly urged out-of-state campaign workers for both Obama and John McCain to
“examine your conscience” before the elections board beings begins opening
absentee ballots today.
Earlier in the week, O’Brien spoke with lawyers
for both camps and urged them to make sure their staffs met
permanent-residency rules, or face possible felony
charges.
Let me draw again from www.newsbusters.org, to show you how free
speech is regarded at Cornell University. This revealing account was
written by Warner Todd Huston:
Media Ignores Cornell Staffer
& Dean Oppressing Student's Free Speech
By Warner Todd Huston (Bio | Archive) October
25, 2008 - 06:21 ET
Students that belong to a pro-life campus group
called Cornell Coalition for Life (CCFL) spent weeks and hundreds of dollars
organizing a pro-life display to be featured on the Cornell University
Engineering Campus in Ithaca, New York. This was no guerilla campaign, either,
because the CCFL applied for and received permission for its display. Yet,
scarcely an hour had passed before an associate dean for the university
summarily decided on her own to support the removal of the display by an
administrative assistant despite that the display was approved by the college.
This incident happened on October 22, yet the media has completely ignored this
troubling story.
The CCFL had erected its "Elena Campaign" signs in
the Engineering Quad to raise awareness among students of the earlier stages of
fetal development, stages when many falsely imagine that a fetus is just a "lump
of cells." As the CCFL says, its "Elena Campaign" is "a series of light-hearted
educational signs with pictures and text detailing the biological development of
an unborn child."
The CCFL reports that
regardless of approval, the dean and her assistant removed the
display.
Less than one hour after the Cornell
Coalition for Life (CCFL) set up their “Elena Campaign” signs in the Engineering
Quad, the signs were abruptly removed by Dawn Warren, an administrative
assistant, and taken to the Facilities Office of the College of Engineering. The
“Elena Campaign” is a series of light-hearted educational signs with pictures
and text detailing the biological development of an unborn child. Though CCFL
had gone through the proper administrative avenues to get approval for the
display, Warren removed the signs without permission because she did not
personally approve of the content.
After this administrative assistant illicitly
removed the signs, an assistant dean of the school helped her suppress the
student's rights further.
Together, Dawn Warren and Cathy Dove, Associate
Dean for Administration in the College of Engineering, attempted to prevent
members of CCFL from retrieving the signs. Only when the Cornell Police were
brought in did Warren and Dove relinquish the property. Even then, Dove tried
to intimidate the students and requested that the signs not be put up again,
referencing an “unwritten policy” among the College of Engineering to prevent
“opinionated displays.”
Fortunately, the campus police were able to
prevail upon the dean and her assistant to relinquish the signs for the approved
display to resume.
The illicitly removed signs sat in
the dean's area as the police attempted to resolve the
dispute.
On the website of the free speech campus watchdog
group FIRE, Adam Kissel has more on this story.
According to Kissel, the dean claimed that the CCFL folks were violating an
"unwritten" rule that such displays were not allowed.
The students tried to retrieve their signs from
Dawn Warren and Cathy Dove, Associate Dean for Administration in the College
of Engineering, but Dove reportedly said that the College of Engineering had
an "unwritten policy" that prevented "opinionated displays" on the quad. Dove
also reportedly said that Cornell was becoming increasingly concerned about
not having its green spaces "cluttered."
In a further effort to suppress free expression,
Dove also threatened that she would take up the "unwritten rule" with Cornell
administrators to try to get it made official.
This is yet one more example, ruefully noted, of
the oppressive tendency to quash free speech that is occurring on our university
and college campuses all across the country. Now, if this had been a
pro-abortion group that had its freedom of speech stamped upon by college
administrators, who can doubt that the media would have made the matter front
page news? Yet, since it was a pro-life group that was oppressed, we've heard
not a peep about this story in the media.
Sad, but not unexpected.
Cathy Dove, an associate dean, says there is an "unwritten policy" that
prevents "opinionated displays" on the Cornell quad? The Cornell
quad???
And isn't this the same display that was, ostensibly, approved by the
school??? The one the school apparently did nothing to overrule Ms. Dove
on when she forced it to be removed?
Ms. Dove either thinks that everyone who heard her explanation has an IQ
below 46, or assumes that the people she communes with and cares about won't be
concerned that it is a blatantly obvious lie, because they don't want free
speech there any more than she does.
I don't know about you, but my money is on door #2.
So there you have it. Free speech, Cornell-style. Defined as any
speech the people in charge agree with.
Wait a minute: Isn't that the same "free speech" they had in nazi
Germany and the USSR?
This is for the folks who are appalled at the idea of Sarah Palin becoming
our Vice President.
Ms. Palin has taken a tidal wave of attacks so vicious, and so often
demonstrably untrue, that most people would have broken weeks ago and lashed
out.
Well, here, courtesy of P. J. Gladnick, writing for www.newsbusters.org, is 36 year
senate veteran Joe Biden being asked a couple of tough questions on a local
station. See how he stacks up:
Joe Biden Angered by Tough
Questions
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive) October
25, 2008 - 05:15 ET
"Are you joking?"
"I don't know who's writing your
questions."
Those were two of the angry responses by Joe Biden
to a couple of tough questions posed by Barbara West on Orlando's WFTV. You can
get an idea of just how upset Biden was by reading the title of of this
account of the heated interview: "Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview
with Joe Biden." Here are the observations of what happened from the Orlando
Sentinel blog of Hal Boedeker the TV Guy:
WFTV-Channel 9's Barbara West conducted a
satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. A friend says it's
some of the best entertainment he's seen recently. What do you
think?
West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's
comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx
and asked how Obama isn't being a Marxist with the "spreading the wealth"
comment.
"Are you joking?" said Biden, who is Obama's
running mate. "No," West said.
West later asked Biden about his comments that
Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware
senator was saying America's days as the world's leading power were
over.
"I don't know who's writing your questions,"
Biden shot back.
Biden so disliked West's line of questioning
that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the
candidate's wife.
"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and
further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are
unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,"
wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama
campaign.
McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was "a
result of her husband's experience yesterday during the satellite interview
with Barbara West."
WFTV news director Bob Jordan said, "When
you get a shot to ask these candidates, you want to make the most of it. They
usually give you five minutes."
Jordan said political campaigns in general pick
and choose the stations they like. And stations often pose softball questions
during the satellite interviews.
"Mr. Biden didn't like the questions," Jordan
said. "We choose not to ask softball questions."
Jordan added, "I'm crying foul on this
one."
Hal Boedeker also cited how upset the Obama
campaign was with an interviewer who finally asked tough questions of a Democrat
candidate in another blog posting:
Why did Barack Obama's campaign cancel an
interview Jill Biden, wife of Sen. Joe Biden, was going to do
with WFTV-Channel 9?
The campaign cited "an unprofessional interview"
that WFTV's Barbara West conducted with Joe Biden on Thursday. WFTV
news director Bob Jordan has defended the interview as hard-hitting and
unlike many satellite interviews where softball questions are
posed.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Adrianne
Marsh, Florida spokeswoman for Obama's campaign, said the station, in
talking with Sen. Biden, was "both combative and woefully uninformed about
simple facts."
Marsh said West's insistence that Obama was an
organizer for ACORN was "100 percent false." "In a line of questioning that
would make Rush Limbaugh proud, West even went as far as to quote
Karl Marx, a Communist icon, in a disturbing attempt to associate
Barack Obama with socialism," Marsh wrote.
"There's nothing wrong with tough questions, but
reporters have the very important job of sharing the truth with the public --
not misleading the American people with false information," Marsh added.
"Senator Biden handled the interview well; however, the anchor was completely
unprofessional. Senator Biden's wife is not running for elected office, and
there are many other stations in the Orlando television market that would
gladly conduct a respectful and factual interview with her."
So now the Obama campaign is upset over tough
questions that are routinely asked of Republican candidates. To get an idea of
just how upset Joe Biden was over not being asked the usual softball questions
gently tossed to him by the mainstream media, check out the video of the
heated interview.
Joe Biden has been subjected to a tiny fraction of the opprobrium and
ridicule that Ms. Palin has. And this is how he reacts, this is how thin
his skin is.
Would you like someone with this short a fuse and this level
of intolerance for a few tough questions to be a heartbeat away from the
presidency?
You don't like Sarah Palin? Ok, fair enough. But if she is
elected she can learn and grow (as she has in Alaska).
Joe Biden has had 36 years to learn and grow. This
is where he has gotten to.
"State and local officials are
investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally
accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the
national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John
McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack
Obama.
The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland
is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by
Obama's tax proposals.
Public records requested by The
Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or
his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles
database three times shortly after the debate.
Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by
accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the
Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police
Department.
It has not been determined who checked on
Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration
information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and
government business.
Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain
campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. "It's
outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama's allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a
legitimate question," he said.
-A Manhattan woman has her McCain sign ripped from her hands and is beaten
with the stick that held it (this was no hoax)
-A central Florida McCain worker has his home shot up
-A Chicago pizza parlor owner encourages people to steal McCain signs by
offering free pizza if they bring them in
-etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
Now this assault on the privacy of a man whose only crime is to disagree very
publicly with Barack Obama.
AND WHERE ARE MAJOR MEDIA ON THIS?
Nowhere, that's where. Too busy electing Saint Barack.
Jennifer Hudson is the hugely talented singer and actor who came out of
nowhere to become a star on American Idol and then win an academy award for her
performance in "Dream Girls".
But yesterday her world came crashing down in an unspeakable way.
Ms. Hudson's mother and brother were brutally murdered in what is being
called a "domestic dispute". Evidently Ms. Hudson's mother had a
relationship with William Balfour, an unspeakably violent, deranged man, which
culminated in this horror. And, if that weren't enough, her 7 year old
nephew who was presumed in the house at that time is missing. God help him
if he was at the mercy of what this man is capable of.
Balfour has been caught and is in custody. So far there is no sign of
the child.
Reports are that Ms. Hudson is very close to her family. My heart goes out to her. But
I don't even begin to have the words to express how I feel, and
nothing anyone can say will make it better.
I hope she finds a way to get through this.
UPDATE: OCTOBER 27 The vehicle police have been
looking for has been found, and in it is the body of a young Black male about
the age of Jennifer Hudson's nephew. No positive ID yet, but there is
little doubt it is him.
Sometimes you read stories that just make you sick.
Here is one of them:
Mo. students face punishment for `Hit a Jew
Day'
Oct 24, 5:18 AM (ET)
By JIM SALTER
ST. LOUIS (AP) - At least four students from a
suburban St. Louis middle school face punishment for allegedly hitting Jewish
classmates during what they called "Hit a Jew Day."
The incident happened last week at Parkway West
Middle School in Chesterfield.
District officials said Thursday they believe that
fewer than 10 children of the district's 35 Jewish students were struck.
District spokesman Paul Tandy said that in most
cases, the students were hit on the back of their shoulders but one student was
slapped in the face.
It began with an unofficial "Spirit Week" among
sixth-graders that started harmlessly enough with a "Hug a Friend Day." Then
there was "High Five Day."
Soon, though, the days moved from friendly to
silly. Next there was "Hit a Tall Person Day" and, finally, "Hit a Jew Day."
District officials believe a handful of children
were directly involved. Those who actually struck classmates could face
suspension and required counseling, Tandy said. Others who weren't directly
involved but taunted Jewish students or egged on classmates could face lesser
penalties.
"There is a mix of sadness and outrage," Tandy
said. "The concern is a lot of kids knew about it and they didn't take action or
say anything."
Karen Aroesty, St. Louis regional director of the
Anti-Defamation League, said this was more than a case of bullying. Officials
from the group will meet Friday with district leaders to discuss the
matter.
I would like to think that while the hitting is extraordinarily dumb,
most of the children (maybe even the Jewish children) probably didn't see it as
having the gravity adults would place on it. They were picking a different
target each day and Jews were just one of those targets, like tall people.
But the taunting is another story. And am I supposed to feel
better that "fewer than 10" out of the 35 Jews in the school were hit? If
7 or 8 of them were hit would that make it ok?
It seems to me that the teaching staff - and very especially the parents -
from that school have their work cut out for them.
In case there is anyone left who still thinks media bias doesn't exist,
please read this article from Tim Graham of www.newsbusters.org, which compares
coverage of the Tim Mahoney sex scandal to the Mark Foley e-mail scandal of two
years ago. Then get back to me:
Tim Mahoney, Adulterer: More
Dignified Than Sarah Palin?
By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive) October
24, 2008 - 17:32 ET
A week ago, Rep. Tim Mahoney, the ethically
compromised liberal legislator who replaced Rep. Mark Foley, admitted to
adultery, but unlike Foley, is running for re-election anyway. It’s time for an
update on the lack of Mahoney coverage on the networks, and the news magazines.
CBS and NBC still have done zero. ABC, which broke the story on its Blotter blog
of Mahoney putting a mistress on his payroll and paying her $120,000,
has offered two little sentences on last Saturday’s Good Morning America.
Time has nothing so far. Newsweek only mentioned it in passing in its cutesy
"Dignity Index" feature...and declared that Sarah Palin was even less dignified.
ABC's sentences passed quickly from the lips
of news reader Ron Claiborne:
And a married Florida congressman now admits
that he had at least two affairs, but insists he broke no laws and he will not
resign. Democratic Representative Tim Mahoney replaced Republican Representative Mark Foley, who resigned
after a sex scandal.
Time and Newsweek blatantly enjoyed the Mark Foley
scandal two years ago, and Foley’s face "graced" the cover of Newsweek. But so
far, Time hasn’t mentioned Mahoney. Newsweek briefly addressed the matter
in their "Dignity Index" feature. The index is described as "A weekly mathematical survey of dubious
behavior that measures, on a scale of 1 to 100, just how low you can go."
But according to the moralists at Newsweek,
Mahoney’s adultery and payoffs are not as "low" as Sarah Palin's
Troopergate/Tasergate antics:
Florida Rep.Tim
Mahoney, who replaced Mark Foley (the Capitol Hill male-page guy),
gets his own sex scandal: cops to multiple affairs. Something in the water?
Score: 52
Responding to the Troopergate report,
Gov. Sarah Palin says she's "pleased to be cleared" of "any
kind of unethical activity." Nice try. The report said exactly the opposite.
Score: 67
Mahoney’s story has surfaced on CNN a little. It
emerged Thursday night on Election Center with Campbell Brown, where liberal
legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said this sex scandal is nutty, just like that
nutty family that wanted to keep Elian Gonzalez out of communist Cuba:
BROWN: What is it about this district,
Jeff?
TOOBIN: What is it about Florida? Florida is
bringing the crazy -- come on.
BROWN: Oh, come on. My mom lives in Florida.
They're not all crazy.
TOOBIN: Well, no, there was a period there where
it looked like Florida was really taking over as the nuttiness capital. You
had Elian Gonzalez. You had the recount in Florida, Mark Foley.
Foley wasn't just a massive story, it was
also the subject of major media polls. Newsweek assertively polled and found that 52 percent thought House Speaker Dennis Hastert tried to
cover it up. Newsweek isn't about to do a Pelosi poll over Mahoney -- not while
he still has a chance at getting re-elected.
Mahoney, you may recall, was the guy who won Foley's old district by running
on a platform featuring moral values.
Wouldn't you think there's just a teeny weeny story in here somewhere?
Well, if you do you are wrong. Mr, Mahoney has a D after his name, not an
R like Foley did.
Then they wonder why people call them biased...............
CNN apparently does, since it did a story (which I found on www.hotair.com) about a woman who claims she is
134 year old --- without any actual proof other than a "birth certificate" based
on what she told the person creating it.
Here is the video (if you have trouble seeing it, just click
here):
.
Maybe it's just my cynical side, but when we're told a woman is 134 years old
and her name is Kookoo Molookoo, I have to admit I get a bit suspicious.
How about you?
By Joe Dwinell / Herald Exclusive Friday, October 24, 2008 -
Updated 8m ago
Sen. John
F. Kerry defended his controversial joke suggesting the GOP’s John McCain wears
“Depends” adult diapers, saying today it’s the type of ribald humor you hear at
the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day roast or on late-night
TV.
Kerry, appearing before the Boston Herald
editorial board, bristled at the suggestion his jab was not
senatorial.
He even started to repeat another joke lobbed at
McCain on “Leno or Letterman,” but he stopped and asked that a video camera be
turned off.
The camera was not shut off, so Kerry told the
Herald today people can go “look it up” for themselves.
Kerry said the “Depends” line has long been
political fodder. When first posed the question, the Bay State’s junior senator
said: “Ah, actually, Bob Dole used to joke about it himself.
“It was used at St. Patrick’s Day. Did you guys
complain then?” he said. “It was lamenting the kinds of questions that get asked
in presidential races and why the media is fixated by certain things like boxers
or briefs.
“Barack Obama was asked, and I said ... ’It
depends.’ That’s the joke,” he told the Herald today. “As a double-entendre,
actually, it is pretty funny. It’s a decent joke. ... It’s not half as bad as
the stuff you hear on Leno or Letterman every night.
“The other night I heard someone asking why John
McCain was so (pause). This is not on the record thing (pause), because I don’t
want to make another joke. You can make the decision. Go look at the jokes they
use,” he added.
“That’s a legitimate (inaudible),” he
ended.
When it comes to denseness, this man makes asbestos green with
envy.
Michelle Malkin is reporting that the newest poll of john murtha's district
shows murtha behind by 14%. It was done by the Dane organization on
Wednesday, among 800 likely voters (a large sample for one
district).
There is no doubt that, if a sea change has occurred in murtha's district, it
is because of him calling his own constituents "racists", sort of
half-apologizing for it, but then calling them "rednecks" just days
later.
People tend to react badly when they are told what scum they are.
murtha's constituents are certainly no exception.
Look, I don't have any idea if this polling is accurate. And since I
have major problems with national polls, you would be right to assume I have
even bigger problems with local ones.
But if these data are anywhere near correct, not only is murtha in grave
danger of losing his congressional seat (to a standing ovation from anyone who
cares about integrity or supports our troops), but it seems obvious
that this would translate into one helluva lot more votes for John
McCain as well.
If McCain wins Pennsylvania, his chances of winning the election jump
dramatically. Wouldn't it be ironic if murtha's big, stupid mouth causes
it to happen?
The New York Times has been acting as defense lawyer and apologist for ACORN
throughout most of this poltical campaign.
But the paper was faced with a reality so clear, based on numbers so
large, that it had to be reported as a major news story.
How bad is the information about ACORN? I'll let the Times' Michael
Falcone and Michael Moss tell you, via this excerpt from their
article. The bold print is mine:
On Oct. 6, the community organizing group
Acorn and an affiliated charity called Project Vote announced with
jubilation that they had registered 1.3 million new voters. But it turns out the
claim was a wild exaggeration, and the real number of newly registered voters
nationwide is closer to 450,000, Project Vote’s executive director, Michael
Slater, said in an interview.
The remainder are registered voters who
were changing their address and roughly 400,000 that were rejected by election
officials for a variety of reasons, including duplicate registrations,
incomplete forms and fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying
to please their supervisors, Mr. Slater acknowledged.
In registration drives, it is common for a
percentage of newly registered voters to be disqualified for various reasons,
although experts say the percentage is higher when groups pay workers to gather
registrations. But the disclosure on Thursday that 30 percent of Acorn’s
registrations were faulty was described by Republicans as further proof of what
they said was Acorn’s effort to tilt the election unfairly.
“We were wondering how many were Donald Duck and
Mickey Mouse,” said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. “The group is really tainted, and any work they do is suspect.”
Republicans had been prepared for months to make
an issue of Acorn’s registration drive. A year ago, the party’s national
committee anticipated the surge of new registrations by putting a map of the
country on its Web site, labeled “You Can’t Make This Up! Vote Fraud.”
Democrats and officials with Acorn accuse
Republicans of trying to manufacture a controversy to deflect attention from
alleged voter suppression activities in several states. Election officials and
experts say there is little chance that significant numbers of supporters of
either party would actually try to vote through a fraudulent
registration.
Over the last few weeks, the Acorn
registration drive has become a flash point in the campaign when the flood of
new voter registrations prompted complaints from election officials about the
high number of improper submissions. State and local officials have begun
investigations into possible fraudulent activity in at least 10 states.
If interviews with two dozen voters in the swing
states of Florida and Ohio are any indication, Republicans’ efforts appear to
have resonated with some members of their own party as well as with some
independents and Democrats.
“I’d have to see how bad it is and what happens,”
said Dorrie Cohen, an 82-year-old Democrat in Boynton Beach, Fla. “If it’s very
organized fraud, I think that I would question the election. If it’s just a few
people trying something, I don’t think I would. However, there’s so much on the
newspapers and the TV about it, I imagine it will be organized.”
Mr. Slater and Acorn officials have defended their
voter registration work. They said that it remained technically difficult to
weed out duplications without better access to election records, and that their
internal auditing identified many of the fraudulent registrations, which they
flagged for election officials to review.
“Everybody knows that when 1.3 million
applications are submitted, not every single one of them gets on the rolls,”
said Brian Kettenring, a spokesman for Acorn. “That’s common
sense.”
God that last part is funny. Everyone knows that not every one of
1.3 million applications gets on the rolls. How about OVER TWO THIRDS of
them?
And those, folks, are the ones that have been caught. With this much BS
in the ACORN registrations that we do know about, why would I not be suspicious
about the remaining ones as well?
In the real world, this would seem to indisputably validate most of the
claims made by Republicans about what a dirty enterprise ACORN is. I
am both very happy and very surprised to say that the Times article has, for the
most part, done just that.
Maybe Mr. Mr. Falcone and Mr. Moss would like to make the acquaintance of
their fellow writers at the Times, the ones who somehow overlooked this massive
pile of BS from ACORN for all these months.
The sun rose in the east this morning. I still have five toes on each
foot. Michael Moore is still obese. McDonald's still sells a lot of
hamburgers. A Rolls-Royce still costs more than a Hyundai.
And the New York Times has endorsed Barack Obama.
Most of what was written in the endorsement is as predictable as the
endorsement itself. The Times hates Bush, hates McCain by proxy and loves
Obama. But one specific paragraph caught my eye:
Mr. McCain, whom we chose as the best Republican
nominee in the primaries, has spent the last coins of his reputation for
principle and sound judgment to placate the limitless demands and narrow
vision of the far-right wing. His righteous fury at being driven out of the
2000 primaries on a racist tide aimed at his adopted daughter has been
replaced by a zealous embrace of those same win-at-all-costs tactics and
tacticians.
This says in so many words that John McCain is zealously running a racist
campaign.
By doing what? The Times doesn't say. The endorsement immediately
moves on to attack Mr. McCain on economic policies, climate change and
immigration reform.
Since I (and, I would think, most others) don't have the slightest idea of
what racist campaign the Times is talking about, wouldn't it have been nice
for them to give us a few examples? Or is the Times so pompous, arrogant
and self-impressed that its editorial board thinks the mere fact that they
published this accusation inherently makes it true?
I've often talked about how far the New York Times has sunk. But I have
to say that if it is possible to sink even lower, the Times has managed to do it
today.
I am posting the following story because it is being reported by WTAE-TV
Pittsburgh and will be in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review tomorrow.
I want to wait one full day to see if the young lady's account holds
up. Because if it does - or if it turns out to be a hoax - it almost
certainly will have a material effect on the presidential election.
Woman Attacked, Letter Scratched Into
Her Face
Woman Robbed With Knife At
Bloomfield ATM
POSTED: 4:03 pm EDT October 23,
2008
UPDATED: 8:24 pm EDT October 23,
2008
PITTSBURGH -- A 20-year-old woman who was robbed at an ATM in
Bloomfield was also maimed by her attacker, apparently because of her
political views, Pittsburgh police said.
According to WTAE's news exchange partners at
the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Ashley Todd, of College Station, Texas, was
using an ATM at Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m. Wednesday
when a man approached her and put a knife to her throat.
Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said the robber
took $60 from Todd, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on
the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before
using the knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.
The Tribune-Review reported that Todd, who isn't
familiar with the area, drove to a friend's house and together the pair
located the Citizens Bank ATM at Liberty and Pearl where the attack happened
and called police.
Todd declined to comment to the Tribune-Review.
Friends said she is in Pittsburgh volunteering for the McCain-Palin campaign.
Richard said the woman refused medical treatment
after the assault, which happened outside the view of the bank's surveillance
cameras.
The robber is described as a dark-skinned black
man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, 200 pounds with a medium build, short black hair
and brown eyes. The man was wearing dark colored jeans, a black undershirt and
black shoes.
The Obama-Biden campaign released a statement,
commenting on the attack. The statement said, "Our thoughts and prayers are
with the young woman for her to make a speedy recovery, and we hope that the
person who perpetrated this crime is swiftly apprehended and brought to
justice."
The McCain-Palin campaign also released a
statement saying, "The McCain campaign is aware of the incident involving one
of its volunteers. Out of respect, the campaign won't be commenting. The
campaign also confirms that Senator McCain and Governor Palin have both spoken
to the woman."
If you would like to see a picture of the beaten woman's face and a video of
the story, click
here.
At present, I don't have a reason to doubt the veracity of this
young woman's account. Maybe I never will. But it has been
my experience that stories like this often change dramatically after the initial
reports (think Duke Lacrosse).
If it is true, I expect that it will affect a great many votes in (and out
of) Pennsylvania. Sadly, it will do so by adding an element of racial fear
that will damage Barack Obama's candidacy.
Let me say in strongest terms that I wish to God this were not so.
Barack Obama did not attack this young girl nor did any other person, Black or
otherwise, except the perpetrator. But that doesn't change the
reality of how something like this plays to the voting population.
If it is a hoax, I expect that it will also affect a great many
votes. It will shred John McCain's credibility to a lot of people and
probably lose him so many votes that whatever chance he had to win
Pennsylvania will disappear.
Let me say in strongest terms that I wish this were not so. If it
is a hoax, John McCain did not perpetrate it. Only the young lady
and anyone she might have been conspiring with. But that doesn't change the
reality of how something like this plays to the voting population.
As you can see, there is nothing good that can come out of this. And no
matter what the truth turns out to be, I expect it to be a huge issue in the
election - one that transcends speeches, ads and campaign promises.
I'll talk about it again tomorrow or Saturday, once we have a
more certain idea of what really happened.
UPDATE: It turns out that the young woman has
confessed it is a hoax. She made it up (I wonder how she got the facial
beating....maybe she'll favor us with an explanation at some point).
If John McCain is very lucky, the sudden, significant turnaround in murtha's
district will overcome the damage she may well have caused him.
Of course, there is also a possibility that she was never a McCain supporter
in the first place, and this is a different kind of set-up.
I can't wait for the next chapter.......and with less than two weeks to
election day, neither can Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain.
I hope this needs no explanation from me...because I'd be hard-pressed to
provide one:
Woman arrested for killing
virtual reality husband
TOKYO, Japan
(AP)
-- A 43-year-old Japanese woman
whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed
her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of
hacking, police said Thursday.
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer
and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log
onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in
mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity,
citing department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced,
without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as
telling investigators and admitting the allegations.
The woman had not plotted any
revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally
charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a
fine up to $5,000.
Players in "Maple Story" raise
and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves,
while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against
monsters and other obstacles.
The
woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when
their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man
complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was
dead.
The woman was arrested
Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home
in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the
official said.
Will a virtual judge put her avatar in a virtual jail for virtually the rest
of her life too?
I'd call that a virtual certainty. After all, the
victim was "hacked" to death, wasn't he?
Here, from Steve Gilbert of www.sweetness-light.com, is one of the
most incredible attacks on Sarah Palin that you will find (and that is one
bodacious competition):
Here is a all too typical lie from CNN’s
preposterously named “Truth Squad,” via YouTube:
Governor Palin’s statement in question is [at 35
seconds into the clip]:
I do have more executive experience than Barack
Obama does. You know he had served for his 300 days before he became a
Presidential candidate.
Hilariously, CNN goes on to quibble about how many
days Mr. Obama has actually served in the US Senate. And they claim it was more
than 300 days.
We asked the Secretary Of The Senate how many
days the Senate was in session between [the date Obama was sworn in as a
Senator and when he filed to run for the Presidency]. The answers: 304
days.
But Senators also work when the Senate is not in
session. If you count all of Obama’s time as a Senator before he announced his
candidacy for President — that adds up to 768
days.
And the “Truth Squad’s” verdict on this is:
MISLEADING.
Mrs. Palin does not give credit to Obama for the
work he did while the Senate was not in session…
This is would be hilarious if it were not (so)
typical.
Of course Mr. Obama’s number of days in the Senate
was not quite the point of Mrs. Palin’s oft-repeated observation that she has
more executiveexperience than he does.
Indeed, no matter how many days Mr. Obama has
served in the US Senate, Mrs. Palin’s statement is still undeniably true.
Since being one of a hundred Senators affords you
no executive experience whatsoever — no matter how many days you have
served.
In fact, Governor Palin has more executive
experience than Senator Byrd. (Not counting Byrd’s executive experience as a
Grand Kleagle in the Ku Klux Klan, of course.)
Alas, so much for CNN’s “Truth Squad.”
(But isn’t irony ironic?)
I once saw a movie from the 1950's or early 60's in which a teenaged girl
comes home just before 3AM and is confronted by her irate father. He is
demanding where she was "until 3 in the morning" and every time he says it she
triumphantly says "It was 2:45".
Moviegoers either laughed or were enraged. Being a kid, I laughed - though I suspect that
if my parents, raising my then-teenage sister, had seen
it they would have been enraged. In either case, the gag was that
she deflected the issue by raising an entirely irrelevant technicality.
I don't often remember this movie, but this CNN attack on Ms. Palin brought
it right back to me.
Here is an eye-opening report by Scott Johnson of www.powerlineblog.com, on how
Barack Obama is managing to take in all that money. I urge you to read it
and tell your friends:
We've previously noted the
gusher of illegal campaign contributions flowing into the Obama campaign from
contributors such as "Doodad Pro" and "Good Will." More recently, incidents have
been reported in which people have seen credit card charges surface suggesting
they donated to Barack Obama when they did not. Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen noted one such incident earlier this week:
Now comes the story of Mary T. Biskup, of
Manchester, Missouri. Biskup got a call recently from the Obama campaign,
which was trying to figure out why she donated $174,800 to the campaign --
well over the contribution limit of $2,300.
The answer she gave them was simple. "That's an
error."
Is the Obama campaign knowingly receiving illegal
contributions? Yesterday one of our readers reported the results of an
experiment he conducted:
I've read recent reports of the Obama campaign
receiving donations from dubious names and foreign locales and it got me
wondering: How is this possible?
I run a small Internet business and
when I process credit cards I'm required to make sure the name on the card
exactly matches the name of the customer making the purchase. Also, the
purchaser's address must match that of the cardholders. If these don't match,
then the payment isn't approved. Period. So how is it possible that the Obama
campaign could receive donations from fictional people and places? Well, I
decided to do a little experiment. I went to the Obama campaign website and
entered the following:
Name: John Galt Address: 1957 Ayn Rand
Lane City: Galts Gulch State: CO Zip: 99999
Then I checked the
box next to $15 and entered my actual credit card number and expiration date
(it didn't ask for the 3-didgit code on the back of the card) and it took me
to the next page and... "Your donation has been processed. Thank you for your
generous gift."
This simply should not, and could not, happen in any
business or any campaign that is honestly trying to vet it's donors. Also, I
don't see how this could possibly happen without the collusion of the credit
card companies. They simply wouldn't allow any business to process,
potentially, hundreds of millions in credit card transactions where the name
on the card doesn't match the purchasers name.
In short, with the
system set up as it is by the Obama camp, an individual could donate unlimited
amounts of money by simply making up fake names and addresses. And Obama is
doing his best to facilitate this fraud. This is truly
scandalous.
Our reader was not yet done. He tried the
experiment on the McCain site: "I tried the exact same thing at the McCain site
and it didn't allow the transaction." He then repeated the experiment at the
Obama site:
I went back to the Obama site and made three
additional donations using the names Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Bill
Ayers, all with different addresses. All the transactions went through using
the same credit card. I saved screenshots of the transactions.
Our reader reports, incidentally, that he was
using his MasterCard for the contributions. We submit this report in the spirit
of inquiry and would especially appreciate hearing from readers who can
illuminate how credit card procedures might (or might not) allow this to
happen.
UPDATE: Readers have replicated the experiment
reported in this post. We will have to revisit the issue tonight or tomorrow and
appreciate any information you can provide in the meantime.
CLARIFICATION: Many readers point out that the
Obama campaign would exercise some control over the security level required to
verify small dollar transactions and that no collusion with the card issuer or
bank is therefore required. Mark Steyn elaborates here. Mark
explains the question of security settings and then adds:
As the Powerline reader has noted, if "John
Galt" of "Ayn Rand Lane" attempts a contribution at the McCain campaign, it
gets rejected. Which is just as well. If the Republican candidate's website
were intentionally set up to facilitate fraudulent donations, it would be on
the front page of The New York Times. But, as it's King Barack the Spreader,
we can rest assured the crack investigative units will be too preoccupied with
Governor Palin's shoes over the next two weeks.
It is a point that needs making and that could be
made every day.
The stench emanating from Mr. Obama's campaign is so foul it is almost
unbearable. Yet mainstream media don't seem to smell it at all.
Barack Obama is eventually going to be heading to Hawaii so he can see his
ailing 86 year old grandmother (yes, this is the one he accused of making racist
remarks and acting like a "typical White person").
Since he will be in his alleged home state, I have an idea for something he
can do when granny is sleeping. Maybe the following piece will give you an
idea of what it is. Please pay special attention to the last paragraph,
which I have put in bold print:
Lawsuits Starting Across the
Nation Proceeding to Avert Potential Constitutional Crisis, Possible Civil
Unrest, and Confidence in Elections; Lawsuits are being filed in Eight States
Seeking to Require Barack Obama to Provide Certification of Birth in U.S. or Be
Removed as Presidential Candidate on State Ballots.
Seattle
WA. 10/22/2008 — Lawsuits in eight states as of this writing– Hawaii,
Washington, California, Florida, Georgia. Pennsylvania, New York and
Connecticut, are seeking judicial authority to force the certifying or
decertifying of Senator Barack Obama’s qualification to run as a candidate for
President as a natural born U.S. citizen. Previously, two lawsuits have failed
to force the certifying documents from Obama.
Philip
Berg’s months-long lawsuit in Federal Court in Philadelphia reached a dramatic
plateau yesterday as Mr. Obama and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
failed to respond to the court that Mr. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen
and therefore not qualified to run for office of President of the U.S. They
admitted to Obama’s non-qualification by their failure to respond to a 30-day
court ordered discovery in which Obama and the DNC were ordered to answer a
petition by Berg. Berg is a lifelong Democrat in the Pennsylvania Democratic
Party who has sought to ratchet up the legal pressure as Obama and the DNC has
continually delayed providing certifying documentation of Obama’s birth, which
he claims to have been in Hawaii.
A lawsuit in Honolulu in the First
District Court is seeking a court-order to open Obama’s secret birth records.
Obama has thus far neglected a Freedom of Information request for the records at
two hospitals in Hawaii. Lawsuits in Washington and Georgia are seeking state
Superior Courts to force the states’ Secretary of State, as the chief state
elections officer, to perform their state constitutional duties to require
original certifying birth records from Mr. Obama that would verify his birth in
Hawaii.
Article II,
Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution reads: “"No
Person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the
time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of
President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not
have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen years a
resident within the United States."
There are numerous allegations to Obama’s claim of natural birth
in the U.S. on the web and in the media, all raising suspicion and doubt as to
Obama’s actual place of birth and qualification to run for president. Some of
the assertions to which Obama “admitted” on Berg’s suit are: he was born in
Mombassa, Kenya in 1961 while his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was married to
Barack Obama Sr., a Kenyan; when his mother, divorced from Obama Sr, moved to
Indonesia and married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian, Obama was adopted by Soetoro
and became an Indonesian citizen; while in Indonesia, Obama had his name changed
to Barry Soetoro; Obama traveled to Pakistan in 1981 under an Indonesian
passport when Pakistan was a no travel zone for Americans; Obama had “admitted”
to receiving illegal contributions in his campaign for president. Additionally,
there is an allegation that Obama’s Kenyan grandmother claims that Obama was
born in Kenya; Muammar Gadhafi, leader of Libya, has publicly claimed that Obama
was born in Kenya and studied in Muslim schools in Indonesia. Obama has also
“admitted” to hold citizenship in another country (the U.S. Constitution forbids
dual citizenship).
Non-partisan and independent reviews and examinations of Obama’s
birth certificate as shown on his official website has evidence of tampering and
in any case does not list any of the points of information commonly found which
would make it traceable and verifiable such as hospital, doctor, size weight,
foot prints etc.
Interestingly, all these state lawsuits would be dropped if Mr.
Obama would simply provide the requested documents supporting his claim of being
born in Hawaii.
Is there a problem here?
I don't know and I'm not saying there is. But I do know that simply
requesting, getting and showing a legitimate Hawaiian birth certificate
should end the issue. And, instead, Mr. Obama has not done so and has
ignored every legal attempt to get him to.
I don't know what it costs to get a birth certificate in
Hawaii, but it's a pretty good bet that the dollar amount is less than the cost
of an army of lawyers fighting to prevent us from seeing it.
Common sense tells me that if Mr. Obama is fighting to suppress his birth
certificate instead of just getting it, showing it to us and settling the issue,
there is something he does not want us to know about.
And common sense also tells me that if there is a problem with Mr. Obama's
legal status to run for President, and we find out about it AFTER he is elected,
there will be impossibly disastrous consequences. Every action he will
have taken as president, every bill signed, every treaty agreed to, will become
null and void.
This is no joke. This affects our ability to function as a country.
According to Hawaiian law, the only person who can request and receive Barack
Obama's birth certificate is Mr. Obama himself. You and I cannot get it,
only he can.
So I ask Mr. Obama to take a few minutes to call the appropriate bureau
of records and get the birth certificate. Then show it to us so that
we can laugh at this lunatic accusation.
Or don't do so and give us reason to suspect it is not a lunatic
accusation at all.
VOTER INTIMIDATION THE NEW YORK TIMES DOESN'T COVER
Ken Berwitz
Today's lead editorial in the New York Times scathingly attacks Republicans
for "purging" voter rolls of people likely to vote Democratic. Their
examples are not very impressive (unless you agree with the editorial in which
case they're great) and the term "purge" is not accurate, as my wife (who
works in voter registration) told me this morning.
But, hey, this is the New York Times so they must be right. Right?
In any event, now that the Times has taken care of "purges", maybe it can put
up a story or two about voter intimidation by Obama supporters against
McCain/Palin.
Maybe it can mention the Manhattan woman whose McCain sign was pulled out of
her hand and was then beaten with the stick it was attached to.
Or the Michigan pizza parlor owner - a staunch Obama supporter
- who is giving away free pizza to people who bring in McCain signs.
This has caused numerous signs to be stolen from private property - as the
owner surely knew would happen.
Or possibly it might talk about the Florida McCain supporter whose home was
shot up, as reported by Channel 6 news in Orlando:
Republican HQ Manager's Home Shot Up
Over McCain Signs
'Democrats Far More
Aggressive in Seminole County,' Victim Says
POSTED: 11:26 pm EDT October
22, 2008
UPDATED: 8:44 am EDT October
23, 2008
LONGWOOD, Fla. -- The home of a Central Florida Republican
headquarters manager was shot up and damaged over his support of Sen. John
McCain, the man told police. Rog Coverely said several pellets
pierced his Longwood home. Coverely showed several spiderwebbed-holes in the
front windows of his home. The Republican manager said he is
convinced he was targeted because of new McCain signs he added around his
home.
"All I can tell you is this, I have a very good relationship with
my neighbors," Coverely said. "I mow my lawn. The only thing that has changed
is I have two McCain signs in my front yard." Coverely said he has taken about 300
calls concerning stolen or vandalized McCain signs in the area. "It says this campaign is getting
vicious," Coverely said. Coverely said it appears Democrats are
becoming more aggressive in the county. "I wouldn't say slipping but I would say
the Democrats have become far more aggressive in Seminole County because it is
such a heavy Republican area," Coverely said. Local 6 has learned that the attorney
general's office is getting involved in area investigation and has asked to
see police reports of sign vandalism and theft.
Last week, everyone who watches or reads about presidential politics had to
have been made aware that someone in a McCain crowd yelled "kill him" when
Barack Obama's name was mentioned.
The story turned out to be palpably false. The FBI conducted numerous
interviews, including people standing where the reporter was, and no one except
that reporter heard any such thing. But it is now indelibly imprinted
in our minds, isn't it?
By contrast, real incident after real incident, even
violent ones such as a beating and a shooting, are ignored by virtually all of
those same media. Certainly by the New York Times.
After all, they can't have stories like that muddying the waters. It
might hurt Saint Barack.
But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them
biased.
I didn't think I would be writing this. I assumed the people of john
murtha's western Pennsylvania district would re-elect him to an 18th term, if
for no other reason out of simple inertia. But that might not be
happening.
Here are excerpts from an article
in today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that gives me at least a bit of hope
the murtha era is at an end. Please pay special attention to the part I've
put in bold print:
Murtha's hold on House seat
slips
By
Mike Wereschagin and David M. Brown TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, October 23, 2008
Two veteran warriors battling to represent
the 12th Congressional District appear locked in the closest race in the
district in years.
Democratic Rep. John Murtha leads retired
Army Lt. Col. William Russell by a little more than 4 percentage points,
within the Susquehanna Poll's 4.9-point margin of error. The poll of 400
likely voters was conducted for the Tribune-Review on Tuesday, amid uproar
over Murtha's statement that some of his constituents are racist.
Murtha, 76, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, apologized for the
racism remark, saying he meant to say that skin color is a factor in the
battle for the presidency between Obama and Republican John McCain. Trying
to add context to his remarks, Murtha later said many in Western
Pennsylvania were "rednecks" several years ago.
Russell, 46, a Republican who served in the
Iraq war, jumped on the remarks. McCain, in a campaign stop Tuesday in
Moon, said he "could not disagree with those critics more," without
mentioning Murtha by name.
About 54 percent of voters among those
polled say it's time for someone else to represent them in Congress. About
35 percent say Murtha deserves to be re-elected.
Murtha's last few challengers didn't come
close to toppling him. He won by more than 20 percentage points in 2006
against Washington County Commissioner Diana Irey. He was unopposed in
2004.
This year, according to the poll, it's
different.
"This is clearly a winnable race for
Russell," Lee said.
Russell's campaign welcomed the poll
results.
"In the beginning, we were facing an
impossible task. A little later on, we were looking way up the mountain.
Now, it looks like the summit is in sight," said Steve Clark, Russell's
spokesman.
"We not only disagree with the poll, but we
find its results ridiculous," said Matthew Mazonkey, a spokesman for
Murtha's campaign. "Congressman Murtha has a clear record of working
tirelessly for Western Pennsylvania, and his efforts have created tens of
thousands of local jobs."
Obama leads McCain by about 5 percentage
points in Murtha's district, which stretches from Cambria County southwest
through Washington County, according to the poll. Even if Obama maintains
that lead, it's unlikely his coattails would be much help to Murtha, who
has to win on his own, Lee said.
"Russell
moved to Johnstown within the past year. He said he decided to run
after Murtha's 2006 statement that a Pentagon investigation into the
deaths of Iraqi civilians in Haditha would show that Marines "killed
innocent civilians in cold blood."
Russell repeatedly has criticized
Murtha for not apologizing for the remark after seven of the eight Marines
charged in the killings were cleared of wrongdoing.
Murtha has stood fast, saying his
blunt language brought critical improvement to how American troops engage
Iraqis. "We're no longer just breaking down doors," Murtha said.
Officials, including a two-star general,
conducting the investigation and the Naval Criminal Investigation Service
"came up with the same conclusion I did," Murtha said.
Murtha said he has empathy with U.S.
soldiers in Iraq, noting that three of his brothers served in the Marine
Corps and he was a Marine for 37 years.
"Listen, they've gone through hell. ... I
understand the pressure that's on them," Murtha said.
Russell has raised a lot of money for a
first-time candidate -- $2.5 million, compared to $2.1 million raised by
Murtha, according to Federal Election Commission reports through Sept. 30.
On Oct. 1, the Murtha campaign had $590,995, and Russell showed $333,413
in the bank.
Many residents in the district are upset
with Congress for passing a $700 billion economic recovery package in an
effort to stabilize the nation's financial market, Russell said. Murtha
supported the legislation.
"The bailout, the way it was produced, ended
up a bad bill," Russell said.
"The average person here who has been paying
their mortgage or have paid off their house, are being asked to foot the
bill for all these people -- whether it is the bank or the speculator or
the person who bought beyond their means -- and people are very unhappy
about that," Russell said.
Murtha said he voted for the bill because
top economic officials said something had to be done to keep the economy
from spiraling into deeper trouble.
Wow. murtha
calls the 8 marines cold blooded killers without any trial or any
evidence. And now, after 7 of the 8 are exonerated and the 8th is still
pending but likely to be exonerated as well, his reaction is not an apology
or an acknowledgement he was wrong, but an idiotic, hubris-filled comment that
he stopped OTHER people from acting the way the Haditha 8 did (or, more
accurately, as they didn't, since no one has been convicted of doing anything
wrong).
So William Russell is in the game, with a realistic
shot at unseating murtha. And all it took was murtha's scandalous
judgment about the Haditha marines, followed by calling his consituents racists,
followed by a semi-apology, followed by him then calling them rednecks.
Is THAT enough for voters to dump this human compost heap? We'll find
out on November 4th.
Since he was nominated, I've put up a lot of Joe Biden's mother lode
of gaffes. But Michelle Malkin has compiled a nice, tight list of some
of the major ones in her latest column (they don't pay her enough to write the
number of words it would take to show the rest).
I thought you might like to see her list, so here it is:
My syndicated column today
takes you through a tour of all the latest Joe Biden gaffes that aren’t getting
replayed endlessly on the nightly news and comedy shows. I said yesterday that
the McCain camp ought to toss the “erratic” label
right back in Joe Biden’s
face and defuse that rhetorical bomb. Right on cue, Team Obama has released a
new ad called…”
Erratic.”
Ball’s in your court, McCain.
Or will it be left to Sarah again to strike back?
***
The increasingly erratic, super-gaffetastic Joe Biden by Michelle
Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright
2008
If the prospect of Joe Biden
sitting a heartbeat away from the presidency doesn’t give you palpitations, you
are not paying attention.
Hysterical Sarah
Palin-bashers on the unhinged left and elitist right have dominated campaign
press coverage and pop culture. They’ve ridiculed her family, her appearance,
and her speech patterns. They’ve derided her character, her parenting skills,
her readiness, and her intellect.
Meanwhile, the increasingly
erratic, super-gaffetastic Joe Biden gets a pass. What does the guy have to do
to earn the relentless scrutiny and merciless mockery he deserves? Answer: Wear
high heels, shoot caribou, and change the “D” next to his name to an
“R.”
Team Obama is hammering John
McCain as “erratic” in the closing
days of the election campaign. There are now 615,000 Google hits and counting
using the search terms “erratic McCain.” Last week, the New York Times devoted
an entire article to the Obama-Biden line of attack, titled
“In
Friendly Region, Biden Cites McCain as Erratic.”
Who’s erratic? Throughout the
primary and general election cycles, Biden has lurched from attacking Obama as
not-ready-for-primetime (“
The
presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job
training,” September 2007) to
ready-to-lead (“ Barack Obama is ready. This is his time,” August 2008) and back again. This week, Biden warned
America that an Obama victory would invite a dangerous global showdown between
tyrants and the naďf Obama. “
Mark my words,” Biden said
Sunday at a Democratic fund-raiser. “It will not be six months [after the
inauguration] before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”
In a follow-up appearance, he told followers to brace for the worst and
“
gird your loins.”
Out of Biden’s mouth, this is
called candor. Out of anyone else’s mouth, it would be “fear-mongering,”
“negative campaigning,” and a “distraction.”
Tooting his own horn while
vandalizing his running mate’s, Biden bragged: “I’ve forgotten more about
foreign policy than most of my colleagues know.” Yeah. Colleagues like that guy
who had a
mere 143 days of Senate experience before launching his presidential bid and choosing you to
shore up his meager credibility, Joe.
In fact, Biden has spent the
entire campaign questioning his running mate’s judgment.
Last month, he mused out
loud: “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more than I am to be vice president of
the United States of America…She is easily qualified to be vice president of the
United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than
me.” Biden
assailed the campaign’s
position on clean coal, openly criticized the campaign’s idiotic ad attacking
John McCain for not using e-mail, and warned the pro-gun control Obama that “if
he tries to fool with my
Beretta, he’s got a
problem.”
Dan Quayle will have
“POTATOE” etched on his
gravestone. But how many times have late-night comedians and cable shows
replayed the video of senior statesman and six-term Sen. Biden’s own spelling
mishap last week while attacking John McCain’s economic plan?
“Look, John’s last-minute
economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class,
and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs.
J-O-B-S.”
No, Joe. “D’-O-H” is a
three-letter-word.
Nightly news shows still
haven’t tired of replaying Sarah Palin’s infamous interview with Katie Couric.
But how many times have they replayed Joe Biden’s botched interview with Couric
last month – in which he
cluelessly claimed: “When
the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t
just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what
happened.’”
Er, here’s what really
happened: Roosevelt wasn’t president when the market crashed in 1929. As for
appearing on TV, it was still in its infant stages and wasn’t available to the
general public until at least ten years later.
During the lone VP debate
earlier this month, the increasingly erratic, super-gaffetastic Joe Biden
demonstrated more
historical ignorance that Sarah Palin would never have been able to get away
with: “Vice President Cheney’s been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had
probably in American history,” Biden said. “He has the idea he doesn’t realize
that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the
United States, that’s the executive — he works in the executive branch. He
should understand that. Everyone should understand that.”
Article 1 of the Constitution
defines the role of the legislative branch, not the executive branch. You would
think someone who has served 36 years in government – the same someone who is
quick to remind others of his high IQ and longtime Senate Judiciary Committee
chairmanship – would know better.
Joe Biden’s erratic and
gaffe-tastic behavior is the least of America’s worries. He’s worse than a
blunderbuss. He’s an incurable narcissist with chronic diarrhea of the mouth.
He’s a
phony and a pretender who
fashions himself a foreign policy expert, constitutional scholar, and wordly
wise man. He’s a man who can’t control his impulses.
And he could be a heartbeat
away. Now, back to your regularly scheduled Palin-says-“You Betcha”
skit.
Are you worried about putting the
eminently unqualified Sarah Palin a heartbeat from the presidency?
Well you just read puddin'head Joe's wit and wisdom. Does he make you
more comfortable?
And that's before we get to the fact that Barack Obama, with no executive experience
of any kind, is not running for the Vice Presidency, but would be President from
day one.
Heck, it's enough to make you a McCain supporter. Think about
it........
As readers of this blog know (as opposed to a good many people who
exclusively rely on mainstream media for their 'news'), william ayers, the
domestic terrorist and human colostomy bag, was given $50 to $100 million
dollars by the Annenberg foundation to improve Chicago's schools. The
project was called The Annenberg Challenge.
And who did ayers put in charge of handing out this money? A
then-virtually unknown "street organizer" named Barack Obama, that's
who.
Let's stop here for a second: Knowing this, can anyone with an IQ above
37 possibly believe that ayers and Obama had just a nominal,
barely-know-each-other relationship? Of course not.
Now, moving along: Where was that money allocated? The answer is,
until now we haven't had any idea. Why? Because mainstream
media are far more interested in Sarah Palin's former brother-in-law than Barack
Obama's ties to an unrepentant terrorist.
Enter Stanley Kurtz
Stanley Kurtz is an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute and a
fellow at the Hoover institution. He received his Ph.D. in social
anthropology from Harvard University and later taught at Harvard, winning
several teaching awards for his work in a "Great Books" program. Kurtz was also
Dewey Prize Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Chicago.
As Groucho would say, "that ain't chopped liver".
But Mr. Kurtz has a bit of a problem. He is a political
conservative. Therefore he is to be reviled and ignored.
Unlike most media, Kurtz was highly interested in learning how
all that ayers/Obama Annenberg money was spent. So he asked the
holder of Annenberg Challenge records (and employer of william ayers), the
University of Chicago, to see them.
But a funny thing happened when he did. The U. of Chicago
suddenly clammed up and said "no". Why? "Oh, someone
objected". Who? No answer.
Only after heavy pressure did they finally release these records so
that Mr. Kurtz (and anyone else in the media) could review them.
Let's stop again: You are the editor of a major newspaper or a cable
news network. The Democratic presidential nominee was responsible for
disbursing $50 to $100 million dollars in educational grants. And the
entity holding the records of where that money was allocated attempted to
withhold them.. Would you not be interested in what was in those
records?
Assuming the the editor had that IQ above 37 we talked about
earlier (which should not be as hard to fathom as it is), the answer, of
course, is yes.
But Mr. Kurtz appears to have had little if any company as he sifted through
the Annenberg Challenge records.
Well, here, via today's editorial in the New York Post, is a hint of what he
is finding out:
OBAMA'S
EDUCATION IDIOCY
October 22, 2008 --
So, what wasBarack Obama up to when he
ran former Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers' "education reform"
foundation?
Not much good - at least according to the
guy in charge of Chicago's public schools while he was there.
"There was a total lack of accountability"
at Obama and Ayers' Chicago Annenberg Challenge, former city school
superintendent Paul Vallas has told The Post. Indeed, "If you went back
and asked, you'd be hard-pressed to find out how the money was spent."
Well, maybe.
As it turns out, the Obama-helmed CAC was
directing big bucks toward the propagation - in Chicago public schools -
of the whack-job racist ideology most famously preached by Obama's
former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
That's the bottom line of research on CAC
documents by Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
For example, the Obama-led foundation
funneled more than $200,000 to an outfit called the Coalition for
Improved Education in South Shore.
Its mission: training public-school
teachers in "Afrocentric" education, a pseudo-scientific movement that
(as a trainer brought in with CAC funds put it) rejects Western
civilization, and America in particular, as "white supremacist" and
seeks to "recover our disrupted ancestral culture."
Reading, writing and 'rithmetic this
isn't. All of which gives the lie to Obama's breezy assertion in last
week's debate that his CAC activities were somehow bipartisan or
mainstream.
It also certainly explains why
schools chosen for the foundation's largesse showed no gains in student
performance.
Sadly, this latest revelation also casts
new light on one of Obama's finest moments - his candid and hope-filled
primary-season address on race in America.
Back then, faced with Rev. Wright's
equally anti-American sermons, he made the plausible case that while his
devotion to his pastor was based on 20 years of community involvement,
he rejected Wright's extreme views.
But how can anyone now take that assertion
seriously, given that he spent years funding the teaching of
those ideas?
So what do we have here?
Even with the records, most of where that money was spent remains
hidden. But what has been uncovered suggests that some (who knows how
much) went to at least one scandalously racist enterprise.
NOW are mainstream media (other than the New York Post and Fox News)
interested? NOW do you think there will be an army of investigative
reporters from the print and broadcast media going through the material Mr.
Kurtz did and asking their own questions?
Sure there will. Two weeks after hell freezes over and the day after
osama bin laden comes out of hiding to do a segment on Dancing with the
Stars.
Bottom line: In honor of Barack Obama, objective journalism has
ceased to exist during this election cycle. I wonder if we'll ever see it
again.
Michael Barone, writing for the Wall Street Journal, has a terrific article
out regarding the accuracy - real or imagined - of political polls. This
should be required reading for anyone who lives and dies by them (which, sadly,
is a ton of people these days, and just about all of the media).
Can we trust the polls this year?
That's a question many people have been asking as we approach the end of this
long, long presidential campaign. As a recovering pollster and continuing poll
consumer, my answer is yes -- with qualifications.
Martin
Kozlowski
To start with, political polling is inherently
imperfect. Academic pollsters say that to get a really random sample, you should
go back to a designated respondent in a specific household time and again until
you get a response. But political pollsters who must report results overnight
have to take the respondents they can reach. So they weight the results of
respondents in different groups to get a sample that approximates the whole
population they're sampling.
Another problem is the increasing number of cell
phone-only households. Gallup and Pew have polled such households, and found
their candidate preferences aren't much different from those with landlines; and
some pollsters have included cell-phone numbers in their samples. A third
problem is that an increasing number of Americans refuse to be polled. We can't
know for sure if they're different in some pertinent respects from those who are
willing to answer questions.
Professional pollsters are seriously concerned
about these issues. But this year especially, many who ask if we can trust the
polls are usually concerned about something else: Can we trust the poll when one
of the presidential candidates is black?
It is commonly said that the polls in the 1982
California and the 1989 Virginia gubernatorial races overstated the margin for
the black Democrats who were running -- Tom Bradley and Douglas Wilder. The
theory to account for this is that some poll respondents in each case were
unwilling to say they were voting for the white Republican.
It's not clear that race was the issue. Recently
pollster Lance Tarrance and political consultant Sal Russo, who worked for
Bradley's opponent George Deukmejian, have written (Mr. Tarrance in
RealClearPolitics.com, and Mr. Russo on this page) that their polls got the
election right and that public pollsters failed to take into account a
successful Republican absentee voter drive. Blair Levin, a Democrat who worked
for Bradley, has argued in the same vein in the New York Times. In Virginia,
Douglas Wilder was running around 50% in the polls and his Republican opponent
Marshall Coleman was well behind; yet Mr. Wilder won with 50.1% of the
vote.
These may have been cases of the common phenomenon
of the better-known candidate getting about the same percentage from voters as
he did in polls, and the lesser-known candidate doing better with voters than he
had in the polls. Some significant percentage of voters will pull the lever for
the Republican (or the Democratic) candidate even if they didn't know his name
or much about him when they entered the voting booth. In any case, Harvard
researcher Daniel Hopkins, after examining dozens of races involving black
candidates, reported this year, at a meeting of the Society of Political
Methodology, that he'd found no examples of the "Bradley Effect" since
1996.
And what about Barack Obama? In most of the
presidential primaries, Sen. Obama received about the same percentage of the
votes as he had in the most recent polls. The one notable exception was in New
Hampshire, where Hillary Clinton's tearful moment seems to have changed many
votes in the last days.
Yet there was a curious anomaly: In most primaries
Mr. Obama tended to receive higher percentages in exit polls than he did from
the voters. What accounts for this discrepancy?
While there is no definitive answer, it's worth
noting that only about half of Americans approached to take the exit poll agree
to do so (compared to 90% in Mexico and Russia). Thus it seems likely that Obama
voters -- more enthusiastic about their candidate than Clinton voters by most
measures (like strength of support in poll questions) -- were more willing to
fill out the exit poll forms and drop them in the box.
What this suggests is that Mr. Obama will win
about the same percentage of votes as he gets in the last rounds of polling
before the election. That's not bad news for his campaign, as the polls stand
now. The realclearpolitics.com average of recent national polls, as I write,
shows Mr. Obama leading John McCain by 50% to 45%.
If Mr. Obama gets the votes of any perceptible
number of undecideds (or if any perceptible number of them don't vote) he'll win
a popular vote majority, something only one Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter,
has done in the last 40 years.
In state polls, Mr. Obama is currently getting 50%
or more in the realclearpolitics.com averages in states with 286 electoral
votes, including four carried by George W. Bush -- Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico
and Virginia. He leads, with less than 50%, in five more Bush '04 states with 78
electoral votes -- Florida, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. It's
certainly plausible, given the current state of opinion, that he would carry
several if not all of them.
Of course, the balance of opinion could change, as
it has several times in this campaign, and as it has in the past. Harry Truman
was trailing Thomas E. Dewey by 5% in the last Gallup poll in 1948, conducted
between Oct. 15 and 25 -- the same margin by which Mr. Obama seems to be leading
now. But on Nov. 2, 18 days after Gallup's first interviews and eight days after
its last, Truman ended up winning 50% to 45%. Gallup may well have gotten it
right when in the field; opinion could just have changed.
We have no way of knowing, since George Gallup was
just about the only public pollster back then, and he decided on the basis of
his experience in the three preceding presidential elections that there was no
point in testing opinion in the last week. Now we have a rich body of polling
data, of varying reliability, available.
And we will have the exit poll, the partial
results of which will be released to the media clients of the Edison/Mitofsky
consortium at 5 p.m. on Election Day. These clients should, I believe, use the
numbers cautiously for the following reasons.
First, the exit polls in the recent presidential
elections have tended to show the Democrats doing better than they actually did,
partly because of interviewer error. The late Warren Mitofsky, in his study of
the 2004 exit poll, found that the largest errors came in precincts where the
interviewers were female graduate students.
Second, the exit polls in almost all the primaries
this year showed Mr. Obama doing better than he actually did. The same
respondent bias -- the greater willingness of Obama voters to be polled -- which
apparently occurred on primary days could also occur in the exit poll on
Election Day, and in the phone polls of early and absentee voters that
Edison/Mitofsky will conduct to supplement it.
The exit poll gives us, and future political
scientists, a treasure trove of information about the voting behavior of
subgroups of the electorate, and also some useful insight into the reasons why
people voted as they did. And the current plethora of polls gives us a rich lode
of information on what voters are thinking at each stage of the campaign. But
political polls are imperfect instruments. Reading them right is less a science
than an art. We can trust the polls, with qualifications. We will have a chance
to verify as the election returns come in.
Mr. Barone, a senior writer at U.S. News
& World Report and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,
is co-author of "The Almanac of American Politics 2008" (National Journal
Group). From 1974 to 1981 he was a vice president of Peter D. Hart Research
Associates, a polling firm.
.
Mr. Barone has hit on a lot of issues that should make anyone think twice
before buying into political polling in general, and this election's
presidential polling in particular. Readers of this blog know that I have
a number of other issues regarding how polling is conducted, but I'll save that
reprise for another time.
Remember what you've just read the next time a breathless news anchor tells
you about the latest numbers and what they mean.
Fox News Channel extended its run in the top two
cable news channels to five weeks, placing 2nd last week in Total Viewers
during prime time (Live+SD) with an average of 3,296,000. CNN finished 5th
(2,219,000), MSNBC 7th (1,573,000) and Headline News 27th (727,000). MSNBC and
HLN were up week-to-week.
In total Day, FNC was 4th (1,481,000), CNN 9th
(1,012,000), MSNBC 12th (686,000) and CNBC 30th (376,000).
Bob Herbert was a pretty good sportswriter*** for the Daily News.
Now he is a godawful social/political columnist for the New York Times.
Here is Mr. Herbert's latest offering. Let's see
how many things we can find wrong with
it. (In the interests of making it as easy to follow as possible, I will go paragraph by paragraph rather than in order
of importance. Mr. Herbert is in red, I'm in blue):
It never ends. The Republican Party never gets
tired of spraying its poison across the American political landscape.
-Mr. Herbert stereotypes the entire Republican party
as poisonous. I assume he would be offended if someone stereotyped every
Democrat, or for that matter every Black or every Jew or every...well, you get
the picture.
So there was a Republican congresswoman from
Minnesota, Michele Bachmann, telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC that the press
should start investigating members of the House and Senate to determine which
ones are “pro-America or anti-America.”
-Chris Matthews introduced the term "anti-American", not
Ms. Bachmann. And what she actually said was that media should scrutinize
ALL members of the house and senate, not just Democrats.
Can a rancid Congressional committee be far
behind? Leave it to a right-wing Republican to long for those sunny, bygone days
of political witch-hunting.
-Ms. Bachmann is a right wing Republican.
Congratulations to Mr. Herbert for this instance of accuracy. It is truly
an oasis in his column.
Ms. Bachmann’s demented desire (“I would love to
see an exposé like that”) is of a piece with the G.O.P.’s unrelenting effort to
demonize its opponents, to characterize them as beyond the pale, different from
ordinary patriotic Americans — and not just different, but dangerous, and even
evil.
-How can such scrutiny demonize only Republican
opponents, when Ms. Bachmann said everyone (i.e. both parties) should be
scrutinized? Is Mr. Herbert saying that anti-Americanism is exclusive to
Democrats?
But the party is not content to stop there. Even
better than demonizing opponents is the more powerful and direct act of taking
the vote away from their opponents’ supporters. The Republican Party has made
strenuous efforts in recent years to prevent Democrats from voting, and to
prevent their votes from being properly counted once they’ve been
cast.
-What efforts have Republicans made to prevent LEGAL
voters from voting? No explanation from Mr. Herbert.
Which brings me to the phony Acorn
scandal.
-With investigations now ongoing in 13 different states,
including states run by Democrats as well as Republicans, there is nothing phony
about the ACORN scandal.
John McCain, who placed his principles in a blind
trust once the presidential race heated up, warned the country during the
presidential debate last week that Acorn, which has been registering people to
vote by the hundreds of thousands, was “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one
of the greatest frauds in voter history.”
It turns out that a tiny percentage of these new
registrations are bogus, with some of them carrying ludicrous names like Mickey
Mouse. Republicans have tried to turn this into a mighty oak of a scandal, with
Mr. McCain thundering at the debate that it “may be destroying the fabric of
democracy.”
-Without the
findings of these investigations, Mr. Herbert has no idea
how much fraud is being perpetrated by ACORN.
Please. The Times put the matter in perspective
when it said in an editorial that Acorn needs to be more careful with some
aspects of its voter-registration process. It needs to do a better job selecting
canvassers, among other things.
“But,” the editorial added, “for all of the McCain
campaign’s manufactured fury about vote theft (and similar claims from the
Republican Party over the years) there is virtually no evidence — anywhere in
the country, going back many elections — of people showing up at the polls and
voting when they are not entitled to.”
-Nice of The Times to suggest that ACORN should be more careful
in the future. Has it occurred to The Times or Mr. Herbert that voter
fraud may be a result of the organization's careful
efforts?
Two important points need to be made here. First,
the reckless attempt by Senator McCain, Sarah Palin and others to fan this into
a major scandal has made Acorn the target of vandals and a wave of hate calls
and e-mail. Acorn staff members have been threatened and sickening, murderous
comments have been made about supporters of Barack Obama. (Senator Obama had
nothing to do with Acorn’s voter-registration drives.)
-Republicans have every right to bring up interstate
voting fraud. They are not responsible for some people becoming angry
enough to do stupid things because of it.
And with Mr. Obama making sure that over $800,000 was
sent into ACORN'S coffers, he had plenty to do with their voter-registration
drives.
Second, when it comes to voting, the real threat
to democracy is the nonstop campaign by the G.O.P. and its supporters to
disenfranchise American citizens who have every right to cast a ballot. We saw
this in 2000. We saw it in 2004. And we’re seeing it again now.
-Again Mr. Herbert rails against Republicans for
disenfranchising legal voters with no evidence of any kind, or even a
link to evidence of any kind.
In Montana, the Republican Party challenged the
registrations of thousands of legitimate voters based on change-of-address
information available from the Post Office. These specious challenges were made
— surprise, surprise — in Democratic districts. Answering the challenges would
have been a wholly unnecessary hardship for the voters, many of whom were
students or members of the armed forces.
-Of course Republicans challenged votes in
Democratic districts rather than Republican districts. It is a partisan
entity. Do Democrats ever challenge votes in Democratic rather than
Republican districts? Of course not. Plus, if we're still talking
ACORN, since the organization only attempts to register voters in
vastly Democratic districts, that is inherently where such challenges would take
place.
In the face of widespread public criticism (even
the Republican lieutenant governor weighed in), the party backed off.
That sort of thing is widespread. In one
politically crucial state after another — in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, you name
it — the G.O.P. has unleashed foot soldiers whose insidious mission is to make
the voting process as difficult as possible — or, better yet, impossible — for
citizens who are believed to favor Democrats.
-This is the third time that Mr. Herbert
rails against Republican efforts to make voting harder or impossible for
Democrats......without one iota of evidence to back it up.
For Senator McCain to flip reality on its head and
point to an overwhelmingly legitimate voter-registration effort as a “threat to
the fabric of democracy” is a breathtaking exercise in absurdity.
Miles Rapoport, a former Connecticut secretary of
state who is now president of Demos, a public policy group, remarked on the
irony of elected Republican officials deliberately attempting to thwart voting.
Some years ago, he said, he “and all the other secretaries of state” would
bemoan the lack of interest in voting, especially among the young and the
poor.
Now, he said, with the explosion of voter
registration and the heightened interest in the presidential campaign, you’d
think officials “would welcome that, and encourage it, and even celebrate it.”
Instead, he said, in so many cases, G.O.P. officials are “trying to pare down
the lists.” .
-The final two
paragraphs invoke the name Miles Rapoport. It would have been nice
if Mr. Herbert mentioned he is a Democrat and his organization, Demos, is a
social activist group. But Mr. Herbert declined to do
either.
Other than that, Mr. Herbert was right on target.
-------------------------------------------
*** I remember Mr. Herbert as a sportswriter. But I
find that, in googling his name, there are almost no references to his years
writing sports. Either I have an extremely faulty memory or his biography
has been scrubbed of the sports part.
I know I've blogged about this before. But a chatroom pal who uses the name
"free" put me on to the following article, and I think he is right in his
belief that it's worth posting. So here it is:
Would
the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? By Orson Scott Card
Editor's note: Orson Scott
Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes
on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.
An open letter to the local daily paper — almost
every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President's Men
and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the
truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn't come out of
nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision,
back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would
be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were
authorized to approve risky loans.
What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the
recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
The goal of this rule change was to help the poor
— which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it
help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into
a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along
with their credit rating.
They end up worse off than before.
This was completely foreseeable and in fact many
people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in
the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other
party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.
Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were
making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing
them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were
allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to
contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing
their budget.)
Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism
require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us
to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700
billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which
politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage
lending?
I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to
the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be
treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or
"Fannie-gate."
Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and
Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any
problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency
to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these
agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to
the minute they failed.
As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com
essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com]
): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the
Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of
the Treasury."
These are facts. This financial crisis was
completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it
was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ...
the Republican Party.
Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush
administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the
press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized
Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!
What? It's not the liar, but the victims
of the lie who are to blame?
Now let's follow the money ... right to the
presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions
from Fannie Mae.
And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae
who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his
incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for
advice on housing.
If that presidential candidate had been John
McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories
in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.
But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and
so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines
an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought
his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of
lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to
the Obama campaign.
You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking
from a Republican.
If you who produce our local daily paper actually
had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of
all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically
selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.
If you who produce our local daily paper had any
personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe
that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.
There are precedents. Even though President
Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to
9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so
you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way,
you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said
that there was a connection.)
If you had any principles, then surely right now,
when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a
crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack
Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as
hard to correct that false impression.
Your job, as journalists, is to tell the
truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy
or subscribe to your paper.
But right now, you are consenting to or actively
promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on
Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to
blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as
you have taught them to.
If you had any personal honor, each reporter and
editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election
chances of your favorite candidate.
Because that's what honorable people do.
Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable
consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust
is earned.
Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a
very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time —
and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.
Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of
Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried
daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery
for many months.
So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at
all? Do you even know what honesty means?
Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so
important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to
stand for?
You might want to remember the way the National
Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill
Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless
women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing;
they have no principles.
That's where you are right now.
It's not too late. You know that if the
situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you
would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.
If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow
hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who
had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with
its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending
practices.
Then you will print them, even though every one of
those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic
Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about
helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.
You will also tell the truth about John McCain:
that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis.
You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more
than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.
This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning
during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the
crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.
If you at our local daily newspaper continue to
let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans
caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.
If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats —
including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the
miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.
You're just the public relations machine of
the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real
journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper
in our city.
.
The reputations of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are entirely a concoction
of mainstream media. Because if mainstream media covered them the way they would cover
any two Republicans who performed this way, neither would have a reputation
anymore.
And this isn't the first time media have protected these two.
Chris Dodd's involvement in the enron scandal and Barney Frank's behavior with
his live-in boyfriend's male prostitution activity would have torpedoed
them if there were an R instead of a D after their names. You can bet the
house on it.
Come to think of it, with these two a lot of people DID bet the house on
it. And lost.
Here's a good, realistic, fact-filled explanation of the Obama tax plan and
what it really does, from William McGurn, writing for www.wsj.com.
I bet that if you read it you'll know a lot more about this issue than
mainstream media have been hand-feeding you:
Obama Talks Nonsense on Tax Cuts
Revenues will inevitably be
diverted from Social Security.
By WILLIAM MCGURN
Now we know: 95% of Americans will get a "tax cut"
under Barack Obama after all. Those on the receiving end of a check will include
the estimated 44% of Americans who will owe no federal income taxes under his
plan.
In most parts of America,
getting money back on taxes you haven't paid sounds a lot like welfare. Ah, say
the Obama people, you forget: Even those who pay no income taxes pay payroll
taxes for Social Security. Under the Obama plan, they say, these Americans would
get an income tax credit up to $500 based on what they are paying into Social
Security.
Just two little questions: If people are going to
get a tax refund based on what they pay into Social Security, then we're not
really talking about income tax relief, are we? And if what we're really talking
about is payroll tax relief, doesn't that mean billions of dollars in
lost revenue for a Social Security trust fund that is already badly
underfinanced?
Austan Goolsbee, the University of Chicago
economic professor who serves as one of Sen. Obama's top advisers, discussed
these issues during a recent appearance on Fox News. There he stated that the
answer to the first question is that these Americans are getting an income tax
rebate. And the answer to the second is that the money would not actually come
out of Social Security.
"You can't just cut the payroll tax because that's
what funds Social Security," Mr. Goolsbee told Fox's Shepard Smith. "So if you
tried to do that, you would undermine the Social Security Trust
Fund."
Now, if you have been following this so far, you
have learned that people who pay no income tax will get an income tax refund.
You have also learned that this check will represent relief for the payroll
taxes these people do pay. And you have been assured that this rebate check
won't actually come out of payroll taxes, lest we harm Social
Security.
You have to admire the audacity. With one touch of
the Obama magic, what otherwise would be described as taking money from Peter to
pay Paul is now transformed into Paul's tax relief. Where a tax cut for payroll
taxes paid will not in fact come from payroll taxes. And where all these plans
come together under the rhetorical umbrella of "Making Work Pay."
Not everyone is persuaded. Andrew Biggs is a
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Social Security
Administration official who has written a great deal about Mr. Obama's plans on
his blog (AndrewBiggs.blogspot.com). He notes
that to understand the unintended consequences, it helps to remember that while
people at the bottom pay a higher percentage of their income in payroll taxes,
they are accruing benefits in excess of what they pay in.
"It's interesting that Mr. Obama calls his plan
'Making Work Pay,'" says Mr. Biggs, "because the incentives are just the
opposite. By expanding benefits for people whose benefits exceed their taxes,
you're increasing their disincentive for work. And you're doing the same at the
top of the income scale, where you are raising their taxes so you can distribute
the revenue to others."
Even more interesting is what Mr. Obama's "tax
cuts" do to Social Security financing. As Mr. Biggs notes, had Mr. Obama
proposed to pay for payroll tax relief out of, well, payroll taxes, his plan
would never have a chance in Congress. Most members would look at a plan that
defunded a trust fund that seniors are counting on for their retirement as
political suicide.
And that leads us to the heart of this problem. If
the government is going to give tax cuts to 44% of American based on their
Social Security taxes -- without actually refunding to them the money they are
paying into Social Security -- Mr. Obama will have to get the funds elsewhere.
And this is where "general revenues" turns out to be a more agreeable way of
saying "Other People's Money."
When asked about his priorities during the second
presidential debate, Mr. Obama said that reform of programs like Social Security
would have to go on the back burner for two years or so. "We're not going to
solve Social Security and Medicare unless we understand the rest of our tax
policies," he said.
The senator is right. But you have to read the
fine print of his tax cuts to know why..
There's a healthy dose of reality for you. Enough of a dose so that you
can now judge Mr. Obama by what he is actually proposing rather than what he is
telling you he is proposing.
Don't expect to see much of it from the pro-Obama media,
though.
He was the Republican house member from Florida's 16th District until
he resigned in disgrace two years ago, after Democrats made sure we all
knew about his penchant for e-mailing and text-messaging young male pages.
Well, guess what: He is now supporting Barack Obama for
President. Here, I'll show you via this article from Variety Magazine's
blog site, www.wilshireandwashington.com:
There have been so many scandals since October,
2006, the month that I launched this blog, that I just about forgot who Mark
Foley was.
I got an excited phone call yesterday from two
friends, TV producer Richard Ayoub and talent manager Dolores Cantu, who were
having lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Sitting the next table over was Foley,
who resigned just before the midterms after the revelation that he sent
inappropriate e-mail messages to a congressional page.
Ayounb and Cantu didn't know immediately recognize
him until he told them he had once been in Congress. The jist of the
conversation then went like this, according to both:
Cantu: "You didn't have an affair, did you?"
Foley: "Well, I was..."
Realizing who was in their midst, Ayoub, who has a
penchant for devilish humor, offered a deadpanned admonishment, "You should not
flirt with congressional pages." Foley went on to say that nothing happened, he
didn't realize that the page was only 18, and that he perhaps was a bit tipsy
when he sent the e-mails.
What they both said was how great Foley looked,
and he was particularly excited about Colin Powell's endorsement that morning of
Obama. Foley said he also favors Obama.
And Foley also expressed some pleasure in watching
the latest developments from his old Florida district: His successor, Democrat
Tim Mahoney, is now in trouble for a series of extramarital
affairs.
Tell me, do you expect that Demcorats are going to attack and condemn Mr.
Foley now, as they did in 2006? I didn't think so.
By the way, I love that reference at the end to Tim Mahoney, whose wife stood
silently next to him when he did the now-standard "wife-at-your-side apology"
routine.....and then filed for divorce less than a week later. The one
poll I am aware of, taken after his admission, was done by a Republican firm, so
it is dubious even by normal polling standards. However, it shows Mahoney
behind by 26% - which would not surprise me at all.
Hey, I wonder if Tom Rooney, the guy who probably will replace Mahoney, is
e-mailing and/or boffing anyone too. I admit that I have no reason
to accuse him other than the fact that the last two guys' escapades, but until
they at least check what's in the 16th district's water supply I feel I
have to remain suspicious.....
UPDATE: Mr. Foley has denied voting for Obama. Here is his
statement:
"An online article posted today on Variety's
website innaccurately reported that I was supporting Barack Obama. The story
on Variety's website, based on a second or third-hand account of my private
conversation, is incorrect. I have already voted by absentee ballot in
Florida. Although I didn't vote for Senator Obama, I intend to keep my choice
private."
Here is today's New York Post editorial on Joe Biden's comment about how
Barack Obama will be tested shortly after becoming President. It doesn't
need any help from me, so I'll just put it out for you to read with no further
comment:
JOE BIDEN'S
FEARS
October 21, 2008 --
Joe Biden wonders whether Barack
Obama is qualified to be
commander-in-chief.
"Mark my words," Biden warned Sunday at a
Democratic fund-raiser. "It will not be six months [after the inauguration]
before the world tests Barack
Obama like they did John Kennedy."
Then he added, "Watch. We're going to have an
international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
Now, here's where it gets scary.
Obama's "gonna need your help to use your
influence within the community to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be
apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
He's going to need help?
Terrific.
What's particularly disturbing is Biden's Kennedy
analogy.
For those who don't recall, it was a scant five
months after JFK became president that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev took his
measure.
Kennedy had just bungled the 1961 Bay of Pigs
invasion in Cuba, then went off to a summit in Vienna - where Khruschev
determined that the rookie chief executive could be had.
Two months later, construction began on the Berlin
Wall, precipitating a crisis that nearly led to a US-Soviet shooting war in
Europe.
And 14 months after that came the Cuban
Missile Crisis - when nuclear Armageddon was only barely averted.
Is Biden saying that America's current enemies -
sorely aware of Obama's inexperience - plan to test a President Obama with
similar crises, to see what he's made of?
Sure seems like it.
But what if Obama is still on the wrong side of
the learning curve when this major international crisis hits?
More important: What if he makes the wrong
decision - as even Joe Biden suggests he might?
After all, Obama was wrong about the troop surge
in Iraq.
And he was wrong in his initial response to
Russia's invasion of Georgia - when he urged the victimized nation to
"show restraint."
And he was wrong when he said he would gladly sit
down unconditionally with people like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the
very people his own running-mate now says are planning to "test" him.
As John McCain said yesterday, "We don't want a
president who invites testing from the world . . . The next president won't have
time."
Little wonder, then, that Biden later admitted
that he "probably shouldn't have said all this."
But why not, Joe?
It's doubtless all true.
And it's much better to get it all out
now - rather than wait until it's too late to do anything about it.
We're talking big stupid mouth here. So, not surprisingly at all, we're
talking Joe Biden, who has one of the biggest, stupidest mouths in congress (and
that, folks, is no small accomplishment).
Here is the latest chapter of Mr. Biden's unending series of stupid
comments. On the internet (as opposed to mainstream media) there
are countless sites which feature it. I've selected Mark Finkelstein's
post from www.newsbusters.org because
it quotes, of all people, Dan Rather. Rather talks about how little
coverage the story is being given compared to what would have happened if Sarah
Palin said it:
Guess Who Sees MSM
Double-Standard on Biden's Latest Gaffe?
By Mark Finkelstein (Bio | Archive) October
21, 2008 - 07:58 ET
Guess who said the following this morning about
Joe Biden's latest gaffe—his statement
that America would be faced with a major international crisis within the first
six months of an Obama administration as foreign forces seek to test the young
new president: "certainly if Sarah Palin had said this, it would be above the
fold in most newspapers today."
1. Brent Bozell 2. Rush Limbaugh 3. McCain
adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer 4. Dan Rather
If you guessed 1, 2 or 3, you'd be a rational
NewsBusters reader . . . but wrong. Yes, the answer is 4, Dan
Rather. In true man-bites-MSM mode, Rather made the remark on today's
Morning Joe.
The show led with a discussion of
Biden's vainglorious gaffe.
WILLIE GEIST: Let's listen to Joe Biden in his
own words, and then we can discuss it.
Cut to audio clip of Biden in Seattle, Washington
yesterday.
JOE BIDEN: The whole world is waiting, folks.
The whole world is waiting. I know almost every one of those major
leaders by their first name, not because I'm important, because they were
young parliamentarians when I was coming up and we've been hanging around a
long time. I'll tell you what, mark my words, within the next, first
six months of this administration if we win, you're gonna face a major
international challenge, because they are going to want to test him just like
they did young John Kennedy. They're going to want to test him, and they
are going to find out this guy has got steel in his
spine.
After Joe Scarborough reported that the Obama
campaign is furious with Biden, Mika Brzezinski noted that there was only spotty
coverage of Biden's remarks in the morning's papers.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well you know it's
interesting, because I'm going through the papers. I figure there's got to be,
just as you analyzed, Joe, political ramifications to that comment, gaffe,
however you want to make it—two in a row, though—but I'm seeing spotty
media coverage. I feel like half the media covered this. I'm
just going through the papers and seeing if it plays highly, and I'm not
finding it in the [Washington] Post so far.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, let us just say it's
surprising, and I would just throw it back to you-all and tell you what the
McCain campaign is saying this morning, and what a lot of Republicans, they're
asking really a question: what if Sarah Palin had said electing John McCain
would create an international crisis because of his age. Would that be above
the fold on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post?
Would that be a lead story? We've got somebody who's an expert in the media
who I think, Mika, knows a lot better than we do, Dan Rather. Dan, talk
about the double standard. Are there times that you would cover this
story differently if Sarah Palin said it rather than Joe Biden? Not you, but
the media.
DAN RATHER: Well I think the point is well
taken, Joe, that certainly if Sarah Palin had said this it would be above
the fold in most newspapers today.
Rather expanded on his comment, and while he was
putting it in the mouths of "what happens on the internet," he clearly seemed to
be adopting it as his own opinion.
RATHER: But let me point out that what
happens on the internet may be as important or more important than what's
happening in the newspapers. And I'll be surprised, and you know,
Joe, I'm frequently surprised, but I'll be surprised if this doesn't have a
run on the internet, with among the points two that you raised. Number
one, if Sarah Palin had said this, the newspapers would have jumped all
over it and so would have the major television outlets. And number two,
they can't be happy inside the Obama campaign about this, and let me emphasize
I've not spoken with them this morning.
SCARBOROUGH [who clearly had been in touch with
the Obama campaign]: They are not.
You live long enough, you see everything.
Let me write words I never imagined I would: I'll let Dan Rather's statement
speak for me.
Note: I just heard from the McCain
campaign that Biden is off the campaign trail, with no scheduled events
today. Now why would that be?
Aside: If only Dan would have spiced
up his commentary with some of his classic down-home shtick, perhaps something
along the lines: "gosh knows if I were still at the Evening News desk, I'd
of buried this story deeper than a large-mouthed bass on a Ju-ly
afternoon."
When Dan Rather is complaining that media are suppressing a story to
benefit the Democratic ticket, you know it's bad. That's like ahmedinejad
complaining that the Arab world is too hard on Israel.
But there it is. And, finally at last, Rather is correct.
You have a 6 term senator who is running for the Vice Presidency (a job
with responsibilities that he has no idea of, as we found out in the
debate) either predicting international events out of thin air - or, worse
still, using our intelligence information to make his predictions. But look at how much of
our wonderful "neutral" mainstream media yawn, pretend it never happened, and go
back to ferreting out new angles to attack Sarah Palin for (legally) firing her
public safety commissioner.
These charlatans are destroying their own journalistic credibility - what
little of it is left - and don't seem to care. If they can elect
Saint Barack and acolyte Joe? Everything will be just
fine.
Oh, one other thing: Biden's comments are not in
today's New York Times. So the elevated, erudite elites who think
reading the Times gives them the news......don't have a clue this even
happened.
I congratulate john kerry. It isn't every day a man descends so
low that he is in keith olbermann territory.
Months ago, olbermann made a disgustingly offensive comment about John
McCain, suggesting that he wears Depends (an adult diaper used for
incontinence).
CAMBRIDGE - U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the 2004
Democratic presidential nominee, had some choice words for the political press
corps and, in particular, cable news Monday.
Kerry, addressing a business summit on energy
issues, kicked off his remarks with some light-hearted banter.
"These are the exciting last two week moments of
the presidential campaign," the Boston Democrat said. "So it's a very special
time. I can't wait for it to be over. I am so tired of the press' silly
questions that they ask along the way. And cable television which reduces
everything to stupidity - the lowest common denominator of conflict."
Kerry tried to relay to the audience what it is
like to face the press corps' inquiries.
"I don't know if any of you know what it's like. I
do, obviously," he said. "I've been asked all of those brilliant questions that
were repeated this year."
"Barack got asked the famous boxers or briefs
question," Kerry went on. "I was tempted to say commando."
The senator said Obama successfully parried that
question but that John McCain, the GOP nominee, had some problems.
"Then they asked McCain and McCain said,
‘Depends,'" Kerry said to lots of laughter from the
crowd.
Apparently, that is a laugh riot to john kerry and his Massachusetts
pals. But I wonder how funny it is to people at or near John McCain's
age, some of whom do need Depends? I wonder how hard they're
laughing.
And since kerry thinks its so funny to stereotype older people, I
wonder how he'd react if a Republican senator returned the favor for the candidate
kerry supports, and suggested that Barack Obama's favorite meal is necks,
collards and watermelon. Do you think he'd be laughing then?
Offensive stereotypes are not funny. They are not funny about Black
people and they are not funny about older people. john kerry may have
wowed 'em at this business summit, but to most people - I would hope - all
he did was resolidify his status as a terminal jerk.
Don't miss Byron York's
wonderful account of a McCain rally in Virginia, and his encounter with Tito
Munoz, the owner of a small construction business who is irate with the media's
treatment of Joe the Plumber:
Someone asked why Munoz had come to the
rally. "I support McCain, but I've come to face you guys because I'm disgusted
with you guys," he said. "Why the hell are you going after Joe the Plumber?
Joe the Plumber has an idea. He has a future. He wants to be something else.
Why is that wrong? Everything is possible in America. I made it. Joe the
Plumber could make it even better than me. . . . I was born in Colombia, but I
was made in the U.S.A."
Then there's Connie, an immigrant from
Antigua:
"I immigrated to the United States over
20 years ago," she told me. "It's my home. America has become my home. I came
here freely of my own free will because I loved it, and I loved what it had to
offer, and I don't want to see it ruined."
Tito and Connie teamed up on left-wing journalist
David Corn:
The scene turned into a mini-fracas
when David Corn, of Mother Jones, defended press coverage. Munoz was
having none of it. Why, he asked, would the press whack Joe the Plumber when
it didn't want to report on Obama's relationship with William Ayers, the
former Weather Underground bomber? "How come that's not in the news all the
time?" Munoz said. "How come Joe the Plumber is every second? I'm talking
about NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN." A black woman with a strong Caribbean
accent jumped in the fray. "Tell me," she said to Corn, "why is it you can go
and find out about Joe the Plumber's tax lien and when he divorced his wife
and you can't tell me when Barack Obama met with William Ayers? Why? Why could
you not tell us that? Joe the Plumber is me!"
"I am Joe the Plumber!" Munoz
chimed in. "You're attacking me."
Connie was probably smart not to give her last
name. You never know what's going to happen to those who dare to criticize The
One..
These are the people who came to the USA not for the goodies they could get
from it but for the opportunity it provided them to succeed.
They are not the takers, they are the producers. The people who can
make a great country even greater.
As we go through another year of "knowing" that manmade global warming is
about to fry us all, I thought you might be interested in seeing serious
evidence that, in sanitized form, we are being subjected to a hot,
steamy crock of excrement.
Here it is, courtesy of Lorne Gunter, writing for Canada's National Post:
Lorne Gunter:
Thirty years of
warmer temperatures go poof
In early September, I began noticing a string
of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming.
Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the
editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal
of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental
movement.
Still, the number of climate change
skeptics is growing rapidly. Because a funny thing is happening to global
temperatures -- they're going down, not up.
On the same day (Sept. 5) that areas
of southern Brazil were recording one of their latest winter snowfalls ever and
entering what turned out to be their coldest September in a century, Brazilian
meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in
his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal
Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in
South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.
Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that
periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his
continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no
sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a
50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a
brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion
that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global
climate.
Also in September, American Craig
Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change,
confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of
about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century
temperatures.
Prior to the past decade of climate
hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community.
Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores
and early written records of weather -- even harvest totals and censuses
--confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm,
particularly in Northern Europe.
But in order to prove the climate
scaremongers' claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and
unprecedented -- a result of human, not natural factors -- the MWP had to be
made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann's "hockey stick," in which
there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the
industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change
necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.
Dr. Loehle's work helps end this
deception.
Don Easterbrook, a geologist at
Western Washington University, says, "It's practically a slam dunk that we are
in for about 30 years of global cooling," as the sun enters a particularly
inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four
centuries shows an "almost exact correlation" between climate fluctuations and
solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost "no correlation at all with
CO2."
An analytical chemist who works in
spectroscopy and atmospheric sensing, Michael J. Myers of Hilton Head, S. C.,
declared, "Man-made global warming is junk science," explaining that worldwide
manmade CO2 emission each year "equals about 0.0168% of the atmosphere's CO2
concentration ... This results in a 0.00064% increase in the absorption of the
sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number."
Other international scientists have
called the manmade warming theory a "hoax," a "fraud" and simply "not
credible."
While not stooping to such
name-calling, weather-satellite scientists David Douglass of the University of
Rochester and John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville
nonetheless dealt the True Believers a devastating blow last month.
For nearly 30 years, Professor
Christy has been in charge of NASA's eight weather satellites that take more
than 300,000 temperature readings daily around the globe. In a paper co-written
with Dr. Douglass, he concludes that while manmade emissions may be having a
slight impact, "variations in global temperatures since 1978 ... cannot be
attributed to carbon dioxide."
Moreover, while the chart below was
not produced by Douglass and Christy, it was produced using their data and it
clearly shows that in the past four years -- the period corresponding to reduced
solar activity -- all of the rise in global temperatures since 1979 has
disappeared.
It may be that more global warming
doubters are surfacing because there just isn't any global warming.
Take heart, Al Gore. You've become hugely wealthy on the manmade global
warming scare already. Now, if it turns out to be the crock it may well
be, no problem -- you've already got yours.
Anybody want to buy a carbon offset? Soon to become a collector's
item....
But, based on 2 1/2 months of utter frustration in trying to get money of
mine back from them, I urge anyone reading this to think long and hard
before taking on a Chase credit card.
The short form of what happened is:
-I had a Chase Master Card which I cancelled almost a year ago. One of
the charges on that card was a $500 deposit to Royal Carribean Cruise lines for
a cruise my wife and I intended to take with another couple.
-Circumstances changed and we are going on the cruise next year. So we
requested our deposit back from Royal Carribean. On May 29th they
returned $500 to the Chase Master card account.
-Since the card had been cancelled, Chase either could send the $500
back to Royal Carribean who then would have forwarded it directly to our travel
agent, or they could have sent it on to us.
-Chase did neither. It just kept the money.
As I mentioned, this is short form. The long form involves dozens
of calls, the detailed letter Chase demanded, the dozens and dozens of
people I have spoken to in call after call, every one of whom has either
been unable to help me or who has told me things that turned out not to be true,
etc. etc. etc.
My bottom line to you is that Chase is a very bad company. Based
on this unbelievable expereience, I conclude that it has an internal
structure intentionally geared to keeping customers' money, and making
it so hard for them to get it back that they are likely to stop trying and just
give up.
I warn you that what happened to me can happen to you, and therefore urge you
to think twice, and then twice again, before getting a Chase credit
card.
Feeling Solomonic today? Ok, then you tell me what to do about
this. It comes to us from USA Today:
Police:
89-year-old won't give kids' ball back
BLUE ASH, Ohio (AP) — Police
in Ohio say an 89-year-old woman is facing a charge of petty theft because
neighborhood children accuse her of refusing to give back their
football.
Edna Jester was arrested last
week in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash.
Police say one child's father
complained that Jester kept the youngsters' ball after it landed in her yard.
Police Capt. James Schaffer says there has been an ongoing dispute in the
neighborhood over kids' balls landing in the woman's yard.
Jester said Monday she has
received many calls and didn't have time to discuss the matter any
more.
Jester is to appear in court
next month. The maximum penalty for a petty theft conviction in Ohio is six
months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.
Where do you go with this one?
Kids play ball and their balls sometimes go into other people's yards.
Homeowners have a right to privacy and have a right not to have objects -
children's balls or otherwise - constantly flying into their yards.
Is it really necessary to put an 89 year old woman through the court system
for the "crime" of wanting her own privacy?
I can't help thinking there is some other way to resolve this problem.
I hope they find it.
Charles Johnson of www.littlegreenfootballs.com
gives us an insightful glimpse into how some Ohio Obama supporters feel about
their candidate, and about McCain having supporters of his own.
The Rasmussen daily tracking poll now has Barack Obama ahead by 4% (50% -
46%). A couple of days ago it was 6%.
The Battleground Poll (jointly conducted by Republican Ed Goekas and Democrat
Celinda Lake) also has Barack Obama ahead by 4% (49%-45%). But four days
ago it had Mr. Obama ahead by 13% (53%-40%). That's a 9% move in a half a
week.
I don't know if either of these polls is correct. But I do know that
they, along with a couple of others I've mentioned in recent days, are showing a
closing of the gap between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama.
Anyone who thinks this election is over had better think
harder.
It purports to have been written by David Letterman (though neither of us
believes that it was). And several of its references suggest that
what we have here is an updated version of material which was written some time
ago.
But regardless of its origin, the essay contains enough worthwhile
content that I felt you should have the opportunity to read and
think about it.
Here is the essay:
' As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor
have I ever been, but this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and
it seems to hit the mark 'The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came
across some Poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the
source, right?
The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are
unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country
is unhappy with the performance of the President. In essence 2/3 of the
citizenry just ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am,
I started thinking, 'What are we so unhappy about?''
A.. Is it
that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week?
B.. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the
summer and heating in the winter?
C.. Could it
be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?
D.. Maybe it
is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in
moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?
E.. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks
from the Pacific Ocean to the
Atlantic Ocean without having to present
identification papers as we move through each state?
F.. Or
possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that
can provide temporary shelter?
G.. I guess
having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is
just not good enough either.
H. Or could
it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services
to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.
I.. Perhaps
you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.
J.. You may
be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained
firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish
the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.
K.. Or if,
while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler
intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to
defend you and your family against attack or
loss .
L.. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias
raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own
cell phones and computers.
M.. How
about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are
the envy of everyone in the world?
Maybe that
is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.
Fact is, we
are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No
wonder the world loves the
U.S. , yet has a great disdain for its
citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who
do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the
country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.
I know, I
know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us
out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same
president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that
cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who
has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled
ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks? The commander in chief of an
all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me?
Did you hear
how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so
much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around for yourself and see
all the good things and be glad? Think about it......are you upset at the
President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the
'Media' told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.
Make no mistake about it.
The troops
in
Iraq and
Afghanistan have volunteered to
serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no
draft in this country. They didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and
end up with either a ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge
or, worst case scenario, a ''dishonorable' ' discharge after a few days in the
brig.
So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of
Americans?
Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds
it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with
blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The
media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what
sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in
one way or another Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson
to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have
done it this way......Insane!
Turn off the
TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird
cage. Then start being grateful for all
we have as country. There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the
most blessed people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at
least be thankful and appreciative.
Al-Jazeera, the home media base for osama bin laden and his pals, has made
very clear who it is supporting in this year's presidential election. It
has done so for a while now, but this latest example is egregious enough to
single out.
Here are the particulars, excerpted from an article in the Canada Free
Press:
Al-Jazeera for Obama
ByCliff
KincaidMonday, October 20, 2008
Colin Powell’s predicted and
expected endorsement of Barack Obama was transformed into big news by the
pro-Obama media. But Arab propaganda channel Al-Jazeera’s intervention in the
U.S. presidential contest is also extremely significant. Al-Jazeera, a
mouthpiece for enemies of the United States, aired a Moammar Gadhafi speech
praising Obama and followed with a story depicting supporters of Sarah Palin as
white racist Christians. The channel is subsidized by the oil-rich Sunni Muslim
plutocracy/dictatorship in Qatar
The Al-Jazeera “reporter” who did
the hit piece on Palin was Casey Kaufmann, who surfaces in Federal Election
Commission (FEC) records as a $500 contributor to the Obama-for-president
campaign and is based in Doha, Qatar.
The first plank in Al-Jazeera’s
“code of ethics” includes a statement about “giving no priority to commercial or
political considerations over professional ones,” which would seem to preclude
political activities and contributions.
Kaufmann apparently didn’t get a
copy of the ethics code when he was hired by the terrorist propaganda channel
and made his $500 contribution to Obama. The contribution was recorded by the
FEC back in February, before he made his way to Ohio to a Palin rally in search
of ways to smear the GOP vice-presidential nominee. It’s no wonder that former
ABC newsman Dave Marash, once considered the “American face” of the
English-language version of the channel, quit in disgust in March. He cited
anti-American bias and other factors.
Al-Jazeera is the mouthpiece for
al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and inspires foreign Muslim fighters to go
to places like Iraq and Afghanistan to kill Americans. Accuracy in Media
produced a documentary about the
channel, warning U.S. cable and satellite providers to beware of its incendiary
programming. Our video showed clips of terrorists saying they went to Iraq to
kill Americans because of what they saw on Al-Jazeera.
Among other things, we noted that
Al-Jazeera’s first managing director was an agent of the Saddam Hussein regime
and that one of its Afghanistan reporters, Tayseer Alouni, went to prison in
Spain on terrorism charges. Al-Jazeera paid Alouni’s salary, legal fees and
“related expenses” during his trial and continues to defend him.
Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall
Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, has called Al-Jazeera “today’s greatest
recruiter for terrorism.” Pearl was murdered by al Qaeda.
In July of this year, Pearl notes,
Al-Jazeera threw a birthday party for Samir Kuntar, a released terrorist who had
smashed the head of a four-year-old girl with his rifle butt in 1979 after
killing her father before her eyes. Kuntar had been released by Israel in
exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, who were kidnapped by Hezbollah
in 2006.
Kuntar’s birthday party was
“initiated and choreographed by Al-Jazeera’s bureau in Beirut and aired
on
Al-Jazeera TV July 19,” Pearl noted.
“Brother Samir,” the interviewer
says, “we would like to celebrate your birthday with you. You deserve even more
than this. I think that 11,000 prisoners―if they can see this program now―are
celebrating your birthday with you. Happy birthday, brother Samir.”
One of the regular personalities
on Al-Jazeera is Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has inflamed Sunni-Shia tensions in the
Muslim world, in addition to encouraging suicide bombings against Americans. He
has been banned from entering the U.S.
Now the terrorist channel has
turned its sights on the American presidential election, intervening in an
effort to make those in the U.S. opposed to Obama appear to the outside world as
white Christian racists. The YouTube video of Kaufmann’s report has been viewed
by more than one million people.
In another interesting video that
has surfaced on Al-Jazeera, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi is shown giving a speech in
which he describes Obama as someone with an “African and Islamic identity”
running for president of the U.S. with Arab and Muslim backing.
WorldNetDaily was the first national website to highlight these comments, which
were monitored by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
“All the people in the Arab and
Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man [Obama]… [and] may have even been
involved in legitimate contribution campaigns” to his campaign, said Gadhafi.
The Libyan dictator described Obama as “a black citizen of Kenyan African
origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia.”
The Gadhafi address aired on
Al-Jazeera TV on June 11, 2008.
Al-Jazeera has the right to
produce such trash and distribute it around the world. But the Kaufmann “report”
will serve as another reason why major U.S. cable and satellite providers should
have second thoughts about putting this propaganda on the air on a regular
basis.
Why would a sickening venue like
Al-Jazeera be working at electing Barack Obama President of the United
States?
I certainly do not think it is because Mr. Obama is a
supporter of al-qaeda, or khaddafi, or sami kuntar. But I do think it is
because Al-Jazeera feels he will be less of a hardliner against them. I
suspect they believe he does not have the strength or the desire to act
against them the way a McCain/Palin administration would.
Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency today. Here is
the story, via an excerpt from the msnbc.com article.
Powell endorses Obama for
president
Republican ex-secretary of state
calls Democrat ‘transformational figure’
WASHINGTON - Former Secretary
of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.,
for president on Sunday, criticizing his own Republican Party for what he called
its narrow focus on irrelevant personal attacks over a serious approach to
challenges he called unprecedented.
Powell, who for many years was
considered the most likely candidate to become the first African-American
president, said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was not
supporting Obama because of his race. He said he had watched both Obama and his
Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for many
months and thought “either one of them would be a good president.”
But he said McCain’s choices
in the last few weeks — especially his selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska
as his vice presidential running mate — had raised questions in his mind about
McCain’s judgment.
“I don’t
believe [Palin] is ready to be president of the United States,” Powell said
flatly. By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, “is ready
to be president on day one.”
Powell also said he was
“troubled” by Republican personal attacks on Obama, especially false intimations
that Obama was Muslim and Republicans’ recent focus on Obama’s alleged
connections to William Ayers, the founder of the radical ’60 Weather
Underground.
Stressing that Obama was a
lifelong Christian, Powell denounced Republican tactics that he said were
insulting not only to to Obama but also to Muslims.
“The really right answer is
what if he is?” Powell said, praising the contributions of millions of Muslim
citizens to American society.
“I look at these kind of
approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me,” Powell said. “Over the last
seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party has become narrower and
narrower.”
I can't say this comes as a surprise to me. It has been obvious for
years that Mr. Powell is deeply unhappy with the Republican party, presumably in
large part because he felt misused by President Bush during the lead-up to our
invasion of Iraq.
If he wanted to get back at Bush through damaging John McCain, his timing
certainly was on the money. If there is any impact to the Powell
endorsement, this is when it would benefit Barack Obama most.
Whether or not there is impact is questionable. Mr. Powell may be able
to bring in some number of people who are concerned about Barack Obama's ability
to lead the military. But I doubt that this will account for much, unless
Mr. Powell himself is going to be Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense in
an Obama administration (and that very well could be. Watch for an
announcement between now and the election).
As for his reasons, I'm fascinated that Colin Powell
thinks Mr. Obama is a lifelong Christian. He isn't. Months ago I posted
an Associated Press piece
which showed that young Mr. Obama (using his Muslim
stepfather's last name of Soetoro) was registered for school in Indonesia as a
Muslim. That hardly suggests he was Christian at the time.
Whether Barack Obama was brought up Muslim at an age when he had no say in
the matter is not material to me. But Colin Powell indicating he didn't
know this when endorsing him is, because it suggests he is ignorant of who
he is endorsing.
And if Mr. Powell (or MSNBC) calls Barack Obama's connections to william
ayers "alleged", that is more than ignorance, that is an absolute lie.
Even people who argue about the extent of their ties don't pretend there
is any doubt that the ties exist.
In any event, there is Mr. Powell's endorsement. Time will tell whether
it has any effect on this election.
Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the immensely successful Four Tops and
hysterically funny voice of "Audrey II" in The Little Shop of Horrors, died
Friday at the age of 72. His wife of 48 years (how's that for a
beacon of stability in show business) was at his side.
Appropriately, Mr. Stubbs's life ended where it began - in Detroit, his
hometown, and the home of Motown Records, the label which catapulted him to
international stardom.
Levi Stubbs had suffered a series of physical setbacks which prevented him
from performing for the last 8 years of his life. That was too bad for
him, and too bad for the rest of us given the quality of music he provided.
This little piece comes to us from Dick Morris and (his wife) Eileen
McGann:
McCain Closing Gap
Saturday, October 18, 2008
5:31 PM
By: Dick
Morris & Eileen McGann
While we don’t know the impact of the last
debate, the polling indicates that McCain has been able to close the gap
with Obama markedly in the past week.
Realclearpolitics.com lists six polls with a
field date ending on 10-13. Their average gave Obama a margin of 8.3
percent. There are seven subsequent surveys with a field date ending on
10-16 and their average is an Obama lead of 5.1.
The seven polls whose field date ended on
the 16th only include one night of post debate polling (usually of a three
night sample). As the next few days of polling comes in, the situation
should clarify itself.
But we can say that Obama has lost more than
a third of his lead in the last week.
If the financial markets stop hogging the
headlines and McCain exploits the tax and spending issue he developed
(with the considerable aid of Joe the Plumber) it is very possible that he
could close the race further, perhaps bringing it to a tie in the next ten
days.
Most readers of this blog know I have little regard
for the actual percentages in political polls, but I do have interest in their movement
from wave to wave (i.e. the same poll each new time it is done).
But as the media look at some of the national polls and self-fulfillingly
anoint Barack Obama President - over two weeks before the election takes place -
I would like to call your attention to a couple they seem to be overlooking.
-One of them is Gallup. Its three day rolling average of likely voters
has Mr. Obama ahead by just 4% (50%-46%) and its "traditional poll"
has him ahead by just 2% (49% - 47%.).
-Then there is the Zogby three day rolling
average. Here is the last week of findings. Take a look for yourself and see how they
are moving:.
Week Two Three-Day
Tracking Poll
10-18
10-17
10-16
10-15
10-14
10-13
Obama
47.8%
48.3%
48.7%
49.0%
48.2%
49.0%
McCain
45.1%
44.4%
43.7%
43.5%
44.4%
42.8%
Others/Not sure
7.1%
7.3%
7.6%
7.5%
7.4%
8.2%
As you can see, Mr. Obama's lead has gone
from 6.2% to 2.7%
Does this mean Mr. McCain is likely to win the election? No. It
doesn't mean anything other than that a couple of major polls do not show any
thing approaching a slam dunk for Mr. Obama.
That's worth keeping in mind as the Obama people and their many sycophants in
the media seem to be starting a victory lap.
It stands to reason that Barack Obama will do whatever he can to protect
ACORN, the national "get out the fraudulent vote" organization which has been so
helpful to him.
Now I admit that under normal circumstances it would be highly dangerous for
a candidate to demand that the appropriate authorities should lay off a
supersedingly dirty organization that is working day and night to elect that
candidate. The media would be all over it.
But this is 2008, the candidate is Saint Barack, and the media are not all
over it. When it comes to scrutinizing Mr. Obama's campaign you can just
leave out the last word. They are all over.
Obama camp requests special prosecutor for
fraud investigation
October 17, 2008
From CNN Associate Producer Martina
Stewart
Sen. Obama’s campaign requested Friday that an
independent special prosecutor handle any federal investigations into voter
irregularities during the upcoming election.
(CNN) – The Obama campaign announced Friday that
it is asking Attorney General Michael Mukasey to turn over any investigations
of voter fraud or voter suppression to Special Prosecutor Nora Dannehy, the
same special prosecutor recently appointed to investigate the U.S. attorney
firing scandal.
It’s the latest salvo in an escalating war over
allegations of possible voter irregularities during the upcoming presidential
election.
“What they’re actually about is the
unprecedented effort to essentially sap the American people of confidence in
the voting process,” Bob Bauer, the Obama campaign’s general counsel, said
Friday on a conference call.
You can download the Obama campaign’s letter to
Mukasey (a pdf file) here.
Here is the McCain campaign’s response, from their
website:
Statement On Obama Campaign’s Letter To Justice
Department On Voter Fraud
October 17, 2008
ARLINGTON, VA — Today, McCain-Palin 2008
Spokesman Ben Porritt issued the following statement in response to the Obama
campaign’s letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey:
“After a week of shifting stories and clumsy
corrections regarding Barack Obama’s connections to ACORN, the Obama campaign
resorted to their now-customary heavy handed tactic of attempting to
criminalize political discourse. Today’s outrageous letter to Attorney General
Mukasey and Special Prosecutor Dannehy at the Justice Department asking for a
special prosecutor to investigate Senator McCain and Governor Palin’s public
statements about ACORN’s record of fraudulent voter registrations (including
in this week’s Presidential debate) is absurd. It is a typical time-worn
Washington attempt to criminalize political differences. For someone who
promises ‘change,’ it is certainly only more of the same.
“The letter’s request that the Department of
Justice investigate ‘recent partisan Republican activities throughout the
country’ is almost a parody of the Obama campaign’s attempt to intimidate
their political opponents. In case Sen. Obama’s lawyer did not notice, we are
in the midst of a political campaign, not a coronation, and the alleged
criminal activity he calls ‘recent partisan Republican activities’ are what
the rest of us call campaign speeches and debates. All of this is
unfortunately reminiscent of the Obama campaign’s recent creation of a ‘truth
squad’ of Missouri prosecutors and sheriffs to ‘target’ people who criticize
Sen. Obama. Rest assured that, despite these threats, the McCain-Palin
campaign will continue to address the serious issue of voter registration
fraud by ACORN and other partisan groups, and compliance by states with the
Help America Vote Act’s requirement of matching new voter registrations with
state data bases to prevent voter fraud.”
If the Obama people win, 2004 may turn out to have
been the last election we will ever have that even approximated an honest
polling of the citizenry.
God help us all.
And we were worried about hanging chads? We should be so lucky this
time around.
I saw this excerpt from Charles Krauthammer's latest (and, as always, superb)
column in www.littlegreenfootballs.com, and
felt I should pass it along.
As you can see, it says a lot more than just three paragraph's worth:
Let me get this straight. A couple
of agitated yahoos in a rally of thousands yell something offensive and
incendiary, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not just guilty by association - with
total strangers, mind you - but worse: guilty according to the New York Times of
"race-baiting and xenophobia."
But should you bring up Barack
Obama's real associations - 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, working on two foundations
and distributing money with William Ayers, citing the raving Michael Pfleger
as one who helps him keep his moral compass (Chicago Sun-Times, April 2004)
and the long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist
ACORN - you have crossed the line into illegitimate guilt by association. Moreover,
it is tinged with racism.
The fact that, when John McCain actually heard
one of those nasty things said about Obama, he incurred the boos of his own
crowd by insisting that Obama is "a decent person . . . that you do not have
to be scared [of] as president" makes no difference. It surely did not stop
John Lewis from comparing McCain to George Wallace.
Thank you, Mr. Krauthammer, for so perfectly encapsulating the lion's share
of media coverage during this election.
But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them
biased.
For those who thought the New York Times couldn't
sink any lower, check out today's hit piece on Cindy McCain. The real target, of course, is her husband, and the
Times takes every opportunity to dredge up their favorite anti-McCain talking
points, while painting an unflattering personal picture of the candidate.
Still, what is shocking about the piece is the
tone it takes toward Cindy McCain. I don't think I've ever seen a Presidential
candidate's spouse treated so negatively or so unfairly. It's a safe bet that
the National Enquirer wouldn't have run this article; only the Times is this
committed to putting politics above news judgment or basic fairness.
The lead reporter on the story, Jodi Kantor, went
trolling for trash among schoolmates of the McCains' 16-year-old daughter,
Bridget. Here is the email Kantor sent via Facebook to another kid at Bridget's
school:
I saw on facebook that you went to
Xavier, and if you don't mind, I'd love to ask you some advice about a story.
I'm a reporter at the New York Times, writing a profile of Cindy McCain, and
we are trying to get a sense of what she is like as a mother. So I'm reaching
out to fellow parents at her kids' schools. My understanding is that some of
her older kids went to Brophy/Xavier, but I'm trying to figure out what school
her 16 year old daughter Bridget attends-- and a few people said it was PCDS.
Do you know if that's right? Again, we're not really reporting on the kids,
just seeking some fellow parents who can talk about what Mrs. McCain is like.
Also, if you know anyone else who I should talk
to-- basically anyone who has encountered Mrs. McCain and might be able to
share impressions-- that would be great.
Thanks so much for any help you can give
me.
Jodi Kantor Political correspondent New
York Times kantor@nytimes.com
Kantor's fishing came up empty; she couldn't find
a single parent willing or able to contribute dirt on John or Cindy McCain. A
single sentence sums up the fruit of Kantor's "research" among Xavier kids and
their parents:
Some of Mr. McCain's Washington friends
say they have barely met Mrs. McCain, while fellow mothers at their children's
schools say they have little sense of her husband.
Now there's a shock! I'm sure if you interviewed
the mothers of kids who have gone to school with my son or daughters, most of
them would say they have "little sense" of me. But the Times apparently didn't
want its Facebook trolling to go completely to waste.
It's a typically disgusting production from a news
organization that long ago forfeited any claim to credibility or
respect
A point of order here: Bridget McCain is an adopted
child of the McCains'. She is from Bangladesh and she is very dark-skinned -- at least as dark-skinned as Barack Obama
and moreso than a great many other African Americans.
For John McCain's part, he has not used his daughter's skin color in any
way throughout this campaign, even though there is an obvious political gain in
doing so. In other words, he is acting the way a loving, protective parent would act -
which venues like the Times would never give him one second of credit for.
That said, what do you think Jodi Kantor was looking for? Given
the Times' nonstop effort to elect Barack Obama President, do you think it just
might have had something to do with Bridget McCain's skin color? That's
about the only angle the Times hasn't exploited against McCain yet, so it's a
pretty good bet.
Once upon a time, the New York Times was a newspaper. Now that is just
a fairy tale. Without a happily ever after ending.
Here is an excerpt from Ann Coulter's latest column, complete with her biting
sarcasm. It is well worth reading if you are paying attention to the
presidential polling data this month:
Political correctness has taught people to lie to
pollsters rather than be forced to explain why they're not voting for the
African-American.
This is how two typical voters might answer a
pollster's question: "Whom do you support for president?"
Average Obama
voter: "Obama." (Name of average Obama voter: "Mickey Mouse.")
Average
McCain voter: "I'm voting for McCain, but I swear it's just about the issues.
It's not because Obama's black. If Barack Obama were a little more moderate --
hey, I'd vote for Colin Powell. But my convictions force me to vote for the
candidate who just happens to be white. Say, do you know where I can get Patti
LaBelle tickets?"
In addition to the social pressure to constantly prove
you're not a racist, apparently there is massive social pressure to prove you're
not a Republican. No one is lying about voting for McCain just to sound cool.
Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington
Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the
polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were
wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by
about 6 to 10 points.
In 1976, Jimmy Carter narrowly beat Gerald Ford
50.1 percent to 48 percent. And yet, on Sept. 1, Carter led Ford by 15 points.
Just weeks before the election, on Oct. 16, 1976, Carter led Ford in the Gallup
Poll by 6 percentage points -- down from his 33-point Gallup Poll lead in
August.
Reading newspaper coverage of presidential elections in 1980 and
1984, I found myself paralyzed by the fear that Reagan was going to lose.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan beat Carter by nearly 10 points, 51 percent to 41
percent. In a Gallup Poll released days before the election on Oct. 27, it was
Carter who led Reagan 45 percent to 42 percent.
In 1984, Reagan walloped
Walter Mondale 58.8 percent to 40 percent, -- the largest electoral landslide in
U.S. history. But on Oct. 15, The New York Daily News published a poll showing
Mondale with only a 4-point deficit to Reagan, 45 percent to 41 percent. A
Harris Poll about the same time showed Reagan with only a 9-point lead. The Oct.
19 New York Times/CBS News Poll had Mr. Reagan ahead of Mondale by 13 points.
All these polls underestimated Reagan's actual margin of victory by 6 to 15
points.
In 1988, George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by a whopping
53.4 percent to 45.6 percent. A New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 5 had Bush
leading the Greek homunculus by a statistically insignificant 2 points -- 45
percent to 43 percent. (For the kids out there: Before it became a clearinghouse
for anti-Bush conspiracy theories, CBS News was considered a credible
journalistic entity.)
A week later -- or one tank ride later, depending
on who's telling the story -- on Oct. 13, Bush was leading Dukakis in The New
York Times Poll by a mere 5 points.
Admittedly, a 3- to 6-point error is
not as crazily wrong as the 6- to 15-point error in 1984. But it's striking that
even small "margin of error" mistakes never seem to benefit Republicans.
In 1992, Bill Clinton beat the first President Bush 43 percent to 37.7
percent. (Ross Perot got 18.9 percent of Bush's voters that year.) On Oct. 18, a
Newsweek Poll had Clinton winning 46 percent to 31 percent, and a CBS News Poll
showed Clinton winning 47 percent to 35 percent.
So in 1992, the polls
had Clinton 12 to 15 points ahead, but he won by only 5.3 points.
In
1996, Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole 49 percent to 40 percent. And yet on Oct. 22,
1996, The New York Times/CBS News Poll showed Clinton leading by a massive 22
points, 55 percent to 33 percent.
In 2000, which I seem to recall as
being fairly close, the October polls accurately described the election as a
virtual tie, with either Bush or Al Gore 1 or 2 points ahead in various polls.
But in one of the latest polls to give either candidate a clear advantage, The
New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 3, 2000, showed Gore winning by 45 percent
to 39 percent.
In the last presidential election the polls were
surprisingly accurate -- not including the massively inaccurate Election Day
exit poll. In the end, Bush beat John Kerry 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent in
2004. Most of the October polls showed the candidates in a dead-heat, with Bush
1 to 3 points ahead. So either pollsters got a whole lot better starting in
2004, or Democrats stole more votes in that election than we even
realized.
Does this mean Barack Obama's performance in the polls is more impressive
than his actual vote totals will be? I don't know.
But it certainly gives you reason to suspect that might be the case, doesn't
it?
There are less than three weeks to the election (otherwise known as the real
thing). We'll see......
Well well well. We've finally found something that john murtha would
apologize for.
You may recall that murtha is a 17 term Democratic congressperson from
western Pennsylvania, whose three most important accomplishments are:
-being an unindicted co-conspirator in ABSCAM;
-generating massive amounts of defense spending contracts for his
brother and his pals;
-and being the "man" who called the 8 marines accused of murder in
Haditha, Iraq "cold blooded killers" -- without benefit of a trial or
presentation of any evidence.
FYI, 7 of the 8 have been exonerated and the 8th is likely to be. Yet
murtha has never apologized for calling these soldiers murderers before he knew
what he was talking about.
But now we have finally found something murtha will apologize for. Here are
the particulars via an excerpt from
an Associated Press article:
Murtha: Western Pa. 'racist' but Obama should
win
By KIMBERLY HEFLING - 2 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Rep. John Murtha
said Wednesday his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could
reduce Barack Obama's victory margin in the state by 4 percentage
points.
The 17-term Democratic congressman told the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story posted Wednesday on its Web site: "There is
no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area."
Why did murtha apologize for this statement and not for
the Haditha statement? That's not hard to figure out:
-It is one thing to attack soldiers during an unpopular war when it looks
like they might be guilty, and to do it a half year before election day
when you have plenty of time to blow smoke about it;
-But it is another thing to call your constituents racist in the last weeks
of an election campaign. That could cost you lots of
votes.
There's your answer. murtha opened that stupid, big mouth of his when
he stood to lose something for it. Thus his reason for apologizing is
self-interest. Not contrition, not because it was an unfair stereotype,
not anything like that.
Ironically, murtha is running against Bill Russell, a career miltary veteran
who served in Iraq. It isn't easy to beat a 17 term incumbent, not even
one as disgusting as john murtha. But I am rooting hard for Mr. Russell to
do so next month. I hope you are too.
Sometimes a network goes so far afield of objectivity or even the slightest
pretense of it that you can't believe your eyes.
Here is a classic example from ABC news, and brought to our attention by
Terry Trippany of www.newsbusters.org:
ABC News Used Obama Contributor
as 'Expert' in Defense of ACORN
By Terry Trippany (Bio | Archive) October
17, 2008 - 19:46 ET
Justin Rood of ABC news came out with a tortured
defense of ACORN today with the help of
"experts" that claim there is no connection between invalid voter registrations
and voter fraud. In order for Rood to make this claim he relies on the testimony
of two "experts", namely Civil Rights attorney David Becker and
Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Barnard College in New York.
We can hardly call these experts objective yet
they are the people that ABC News is relying on to gloss over the multi-state
voter fraud activities of a group that is intricately tied to Barack Obama.
An example of just how dishonest Rood is in his
report is his characterization of Mr. Becker.
But McCain's voter fraud worries –
about Acorn or anyone else – are unsupported by the facts, said experts on
election fraud, who recall similar concerns being raised in several previous
elections, despite a near-total absence of cases.
"There's no evidence that any of these invalid
registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director
of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Becker should know: he was a lawyer for
the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights
section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud
effort.
This is called validation by omission, as if
working in the Bush justice department implies that you are a Republican
supporter. Omitted are the facts that Becker is a Berkeley graduate that also
worked in the justice department for the Clinton administration. After leaving
the justice department he spent nearly two years as the director of People For
the American Way, a Tides Foundation project that monitors the activities of
right wing groups, and has partnered with left leaning advocacy groups such as
NARAL, NOW, the ACLU, the NAACP and the AFL-CIO just to name a few.
Becker also wrote a 2005 article in the Washington
Post called Reviving Jim
Crow?. This article took for President
Jimmy Carter's side of the argument claiming that a Georgia law requiring voter
ID was a form of discrimination; an argument that was rejected by the Supreme
Court of the United States.
I have no doubt that Becker is an expert lawyer
but I'd be a little skeptical to consider him objective about ACORN by any
stretch of the imagination.
As for the use of Lorainne Minnite, what can I
say?
"We're chasing these ghosts of voter
fraud, like chickens without a head," said Lorraine Minnite, a political
science professor at Barnard College in New York who has researched voter
fraud and fraud claims for most of the past decade. "I think it's completely
overblown, I think it's meant to be a distraction."
"This stuff does not threaten the outcome of
the election," said Minnite. "How many illegal ballots have been cast by
people who are fraudulently registered to vote? By my count, it's zero. I just
don't know of any, I've been looking for years for this stuff."
Glad she can count. Too bad she can't be
transparent and disclose her support of Barack Obama up front. It is both
indefensible and unprofessional to use an Obama campaign contributor without
attribution as an expert in a news article to dispute John McCain.
Finally Rood resorts to a blurb on Fact Check.org
as final proof that there is no evidence linking ACORN's massive dump of invalid
registrations to an attempt to commit voter fraud.
Even the non-partisan truth-in-politics Web site
FactCheck.org called foul on McCain's alleged possible conspiracy, noting that
a Republican prosecutor handling a key Acorn registration fraud case has said
there's no evidence indicating the group was involved in vote fraud.
This displays a sort of fifth grade logic, taking
one case from the past and presenting it as some sort of all encompassing proof.
But then I am probably dissing fifth graders here because even they know that a
single example doesn't form a rule.
Even though the FactCheck.org site is completely
anemic in terms of evidence supporting or negating proof of voter fraud with
respect to ACORN we can note that the site does lists the following that is
conveniently omitted in the ABC report:
It's true that the voter registration wing of
the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has run into trouble in several states. ACORN employees have been investigated and in some
cases indicted for voter registration fraud. Most recently, more than 2,000
registrations in Lake County, Ind., have turned out to be falsified.
[...]
Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Obama
wasn't entirely forthcoming about his relationship with ACORN:
Obama: The only involvement I've
had with ACORN is, I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department
in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get
registered at DMVs.
He did, but that wasn't his only involvement. He also worked closely with
ACORN's Chicago office when he ran a Project Vote registration drive after law
school, and Obama did some leadership training for Chicago ACORN. The
Woods Fund, where Obama served as
a board member, gave grants to ACORN's Chicago branch; both organizations are
concerned with disadvantaged populations in that city. And during the
primaries of this election, Obama's campaign paid upwards of $800,000 to the
ACORN-affiliated Campaign Services Inc. for get-out-the-vote efforts (not
voter registration). Those services were initially misrepresented on the campaign's Federal Election Commission
reports, an error that some find suspicious and others say is par for the
course.
Misrepresented!
For a more honest assessment of ACORN and I
suggest Stanley
Kurtz and Jim Hoft. ABC news clearly can't be counted on to objectively
report their activities.
The mainstream media are wholeheartedly engaged in attempting to elect Barack
Obama President. And in order to do so they have scrapped their neutrality
and their integrity.
There is a difference between journalism and propaganda. A very big
one. But you'd never know it in this election.
On this
morning's installment of DNC/NBC's Today Show, Mr. Biden claimed that he
doesn't know any "Joe the Plumbers" making $250,000 in his neighborhood:
"I don't have any "Joe the Plumbers" in my neighborhood that make $250,000 a year and are worried"
Given
Mr. Biden's ritzy neighborhood, that is quite understandable.
Mr. Biden's 6,800-square-foot colonial-style house sits on four lakefront acres that he bought in March 1996 for $350,000.
An Everyman on the Trail, With Perks at Home
By MIKE
MCINTIRE and SERGE F. KOVALESKI Published: October 1, 2008
For the millions of voters getting to know him, Senator Joseph R.
Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, portrays himself
at times as an average guy who takes the train to work, frets about money and
basically has led a middle-class life.
Mr.
Biden's 6,800-square-foot colonial-style house sits on four
lakefront acres that he bought in March 1996 for $350,000.
"Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine," Mr. Biden said when Senator Barack Obama introduced him as his running mate. "You sit there at night after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills."
Mr. Biden certainly can trace his roots to the working-class neighborhoods of Scranton, Pa., and Claymont, Del., where he was raised. But these days, his kitchen table can be found in a 6,800-square-foot custom-built colonial-style house on four lakefront acres, a property worth close to $3 million.
Although he is among the least wealthy members of the millionaires club that is the United States Senate "he and his wife, Jill, a college professor, earn about $250,000 a year." Mr. Biden maintains a lifestyle that is more comfortable than the impression he may have given on the campaign trail. A review of his finances found that when it comes to some of his largest expenses, like the purchase and upkeep of his home and his use of Amtrak trains to get around, he has benefited from resources and relationships not available to average Americans".
And, of course, Mr. Biden is completely misrepresenting what Joe "the plumber" Wurzelbacher actually said.
Mr. Wurzelbacher wants to put a down payment on a plumbing business that costs $250,000. He never claimed to be making that much in income.
But what's a little lie among blue-collar Joe's?
If if were Joe Biden (R-Del) do you think he'd ever get away with this?
The media's abysmal coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign has
been the equivalent of a mass press suicide that has signaled the end of
journalism.
Chris Matthews came aboard the shortened Countdown after MSNBC,
unlike FNC and CNN, aired the Obama campaign's half-hour infomercial on
Wednesday night, and oozed over how “it was romance. It was realism” and “most
important, the connection with the average person in the economic turmoil we
face right now I thought was fabulous.” Plus, the setting reminiscent of the
Oval Office demonstrated “he's comfortable and we should be comfortable and will
be with him in such a setting.” Bottom line for Matthews: “I thought everything
was just right.”
![[Commentary]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AI413_barone_D_20081021172443.jpg)
Martin
Kozlowski
In early September, I began noticing a string
of news stories about scientists rejecting the orthodoxy on global warming.
Actually, it was more like a string of guest columns and long letters to the
editor since it is hard for skeptical scientists to get published in the cabal
of climate journals now controlled by the Great Sanhedrin of the environmental
movement.
