The Digital Right

232 years comes down to this moment...

2008-11-04T08:11:00.000-06:00

For 232 years character and integrity have played an integral role in presidential politics. For 232 years, Americans have elected Presidents not based upon the proposition that asks what your country can do for you, but rather the proposition that you "ask what you can do for your country". In this election we have been told over and over again that we should ignore and not ask any questions concerning character and integrity. We have been told to ignore the most crucial priority for government to protect our sovereignty, while being told that the most important issue is what our government can do to solve our individual challenges; and for the first time in Presidential politics it appears that character and integrity no longer matter.

Senator Obama talks eloquently about the politics of distraction, yet every time from the primaries to today, when character or integrity has been elevated we have been distracted and subject changed. Today, I cannot stress enough the importance in this statement, 'The Presidency Has Everything To Do With Character and Integrity".

No one in this election has been able to effectively question the strength of Senator McCain's character. When the issue has been raised, the Obama campaign has to revert to misleading allegations stemming from the Keating 5 controversy that occurred well over 20 years ago. Their best attempt to question Senator McCain's integrity has been built upon an event in which both federal prosecutors and congress exonerated Senator McCain. Their best attempt to question his integrity has been built upon an event in which John McCain was the only one of the Keating 5 to stand-up and actually testify against Keating in a court room.

On the other side of the ticket, however, we have a candidate whom in his unusually short time in politics has been mired in controversy and aligned himself with some of the most questionable individuals in America. Time and time again when we Senator Obama's associations and friendships have been raised, we have been told to ignore them; that they don't matter; that they are a distraction. Yet, even if you believe this rhetoric and choose to view these friendships as mere coincidences, certainly there must be a point at which any reasonable person has to admit that some of these friendships existed. Certainly, there must be a point at which any rational individual has to admit that this is a disturbing pattern.

Whether it is Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Dohrn, Frank Marshall Davis, Khalidi, Klonsky, Odinga, his membership in the socialist based "New Party" or others, Obama's relationships may have been inconsequential with some, but certainly not all. Are we to believe that after 20 years it does not matter that Senator Obama sat in the pews of a church that openly empathized with terrorist organizations such as hamas, while preaching at times an anti-America, anti-Semitic and race baiting theology. Can we believe that Senator Obama who openly admitted to seeking out relationships with "Marxists" in his own memoirs was somehow just seeking enlightenment and does not prescribe to these worldly views. If so, then why is that Senator Obama never sought out relationships with the radical right, or even the right-leaning. I will admit that I don't believe that Senator Obama was best friends with all of these individuals, but no rational person can deny that individuals such as Frank Marshall and Rev. Wright played influenced the belief system of Obama.

What is disturbing to me and should disturb everyone isn't the fact that some of these relationships existed, but rather the fact that Senator Obama denies their existence, avoids the subject or downplays the scope of the relationship. If he lacks the basic character and integrity to honestly and openly admit to these relationships and why he chose to align himself with these types of individuals, then how can we entrust him with the most powerful political leadership role in the world.

Senator Obama talks eloquently about the need for service, the need to reach out to our neighbors, the patriotism behind choosing to pay higher taxes; Senator Obama talks eloquently about 'Spreading the wealth'; but in his own life he has displayed a lack of generosity that is phenomenal. Between 1995 and 2005 the Obama family literally generated millions of dollars in income. Yet despite making more more in a ten year period than most Americans will earn in a lifetime, they contributed nearly nothing to charity, and when I say nearly nothing, I mean nearly nothing. It wasn't until he set his sights on the Presidency that Senator Obama made a commitment to charity. Yet, despite earning over $2.5 million in 2006 and 2007, Senator Obama gave less than 3% to charity. Senator Obama has developed a career by speaking about the need to help those less fortunate, that Americanism is built upon generosity; yet Senator Obama apparently believes that only others should display the generosity he speaks so eloquently about.

More disturbing, however, is the hypocrisy of a man who will stand on a stage and tell Americans about the need to help the hand-picked Americans who are struggling in their individual lives and in need of help, while at the same time providing no assistance to those family members who are struggling. We learned over the summer of Senator Obama's brother in Kenya who earns less in one week than a minimum wage worker in America earns in one hour. Senator Obama, with his vast resources has to this date not reached out to assist his own brother. Just this week the Times located Senator Obama's aunt, an aunt he spoke fondly of in his memoirs. Unfortunately, this Aunt is living in a run down building in the slums of Boston. So again, despite his millions in income, this man who speaks so fondly of generosity has never reached out to help out his Aunt. Even more disturbing is the revelation that while not providing assistance to his own Aunt, he actually accepted $260 in campaign contributions from her. I have serious problems with an individual worth millions who will gladly accept money from a relative living in the slums while talking about the need for us to reach out and help others. Again, the presidency has everything to do with integrity and character.

Senator Obama campaigned on a platform during the primaries that he was a centrist, a moderate and a platform from which he proposed he could reach out move this country forward in a new era of post-partisanship. However, today Senator Obama speaks nothing of a post-partisan era; his campaign platform has shifted radically left and no objective and reasonable individual could ever truthfully believe that the Republican Party will ever cooperate with an Obama administration. If Senator Obama wins, the filibuster will become America's best friend and the lone check available to protect this nation against a radical lurch towards the left. Senator Obama has shifted his campaign platform to suit the current challenges of the electorate in order to capture votes, with no regard to even the most basic promises such as his opposition to FISA, opposition to offshore drilling or campaign financing. Although I disagree with a majority of Senator Obama's policies, at least I could have respected his integrity and strength of character if he were to actually state his true positions. How can any rational individual believe any promise that Senator Obama makes, when he has time and time demonstrated that winning an election is more important than the most basic of beliefs.

Character and integrity are defined by the actions you take, not the positions you hold. Senator Obama has demonstrated no integrity nor strength of character during this election. Obama has avoided any questions as to his past, distracted the American people from who he truly is and relied upon the naive belief that the Government can solve our individual challenges. For his part Senator McCain has faced staunch criticism, even from those within his own party; yet, Senator McCain has stood his ground and displayed a strength of character that is commendable even by his detractors. Senator Obama has avoided criticism and his campaign has sought to personally destroy anyone with the audacity to question his strength of character. The media has been willing accomplices in this destructive behavior, even remaining silent when the President of France refers to Obama's Foreign Policy as 'naive'.

The presidency is position which is entirely based upon character and integrity. Without these traits, then it is naive to believe that our president would ever make the hard or unpopular decisions that all President's must make. Without these traits then it is ridiculous to believe that the President would ever carry out true reform, carry out his campaign commitments or move this country forward.

The presidency is 100% about character and integrity and I suppose we will find out in a few hours if these are traits we no longer value and require from the President of the United States.

Obama Plan for Economic Despair

2008-11-03T14:06:00.000-06:00

With just one day until the election, the real world effects of Barack Obama's economic and energy plans have 'come home to roost'.

Consider this...

According to the Department of Labor, 80% of Small Business profits and employment are derived by small businesses that have profits in excess of $250,000. These small businesses will which represent the primary strength of our economy will face a double whammy under a potential Obama administration.

First, the tax rates of these small businesses will increase. The result will force these small employers will in turn suffer slower growth as more money flows to the government and away from the business itself. The small business employers will hire fewer employees and in an attempt to maintain profitability during times of slow growth will most likely rely upon a combination of layoffs and higher prices.

Second, Senator Obama wants to impose a second increased expense upon these small businesses. Obama has promised to increase the Federal Minimum Wage to over $9.50 per hour within the next three years. The problem with Obama's proposal is not an increase in the minimum wage, but rather the size of the increase and timing of the increase. The United States is entering a recession, during which unemployment is on the rise. The absolute worst thing that could be done at this time is to force an increase in the Federal Minimum Wage.

The minimum wage primarily affects small businesses and particularly the service sector. A rise in the minimum wage, during an economic downturn will only force small businesses that are struggling to maintain profitability to either dramatically raise prices, or most likely eliminate jobs.

Just consider if you owned a small business that employees 10 individuals at the minimum wage. Obama's wage increase would have the financial equivalent of you hiring an additional 4 employees. As a small business owner, are you now likely to go out and hire additional employees? No... During a recessionary period in which business revenue is shrinking, are you going to raise prices? No...Instead you are now likely to make cuts, and in most cases those cuts will come from your payroll expenses.

During recessionary periods our government should be looking to help protect job creation, not imposing additional taxes and expenses of employers. The minimum wage issue has had little discussion, but the ill-timing of his proposed increase only demonstrates the true destructive nature of Obama' economic policies.

Onto Energy...

Remember just one month ago...when Senator Biden stated that Obama was opposed to clean coal?? Obama immediately came forth and stated that Biden was wrong and that he supports the coal industry as a vital part of our nation's economy.

Yet, yesterday audio recordings of Senator Obama in an interview with the San Fransisco Chronicle surfaced in which he stated, "If somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

That interview took place in January of this year, just 10 short months ago. The interview supports Senator Biden's assessment and supports what Obama's opposition has claimed for months. Under the Obama Energy Plan, US coal production will fall as production expenses and taxes increase to a point that the business is no longer viable.

Moreover, Senator Obama continues to lambaste oil companies, calling for a Windfall Profits Tax to pay for his energy proposals. The problem however is that Obama's WPT is not based upon actual profits, it is based upon the gross cost of a barrel of oil. Under Obama's plan the government would impose a steep tax on any barrel of oil that is traded at a cost above $80 per barrel. Yet, today the cost of a barrel of oil is well below $80 per barrel. As a result, Obama's own energy proposals no longer have any funding. So what now?

Since Senator Obama is still discussing the tax, you can only assume one of two things must occur. One, an Obama administration would work to artificially inflate prices to a point well above $80 per barrel. The public would be forced to pay higher prices, domestic production would fall, but the government could collect their valuable taxes. Or... Obama will simply lower his target price, imposing the massive tax on on barrels trading for far below $80 per barrel. Again the result would be a mass exodus of domestic production and a destruction of oil company profits that would endanger the entire industry. Either way, the result will not be good for our economy.

With just one day left until this election, the American people need to wake up. Although Senator Obama's over-populous messages sound grand, the reality is that they are economically irresponsible, especially during periods of increased recessionary periods. Obama is appealing to nothing more than the self-centered nature of so many Americans who want to blame those who are more fortunate for their woes and believe that the government is somehow the solution to their economic woes. Americans need to stop putting themselves first and put this nation first. A strong economy is built upon policies that promote job creation, not punish the small businesses that create a majority of our nations jobs. A wealthy nation, which utilizes its own resources and works increase domestic production can do far more for improving the lives of it's citizens, developing new technologies and protecting the environment. Our nation has the highest standard of living of any nation in the world, yet Senator Obama wants to change "decades" (did you catch that) "DECADES" of economic policy to move towards a European Socialist Economy. Obama has promised everything to everybody and that is a recipe for disaster.

So with one day left, if you know anyone in these battleground states, call them. If you know anyone in a state that is not even a battleground state, call them, talk to them and let them know what the mainstream media is not telling them. If your a small business owner, let everyone know what the effects of an Obama administration will do to your business. Fight for your business, fight for your employees and end this madness and the potential election of this Manchurian candidate.

The Haves:The Have Nots

2008-11-03T08:13:00.000-06:00

It is unfortunate that only now in the final days of the campaign that Americans are finally beginning to question Senator Obama's Redistributive Tax Plans. For the past four months I have given Senator Obama a pass on a question that I have always wondered about and now it seems he has answered that question for me.

Senator Obama just a year ago stated that we needed to raise taxes on just the top 1% of taxpayers; those making over $300,000 per year. In the past four months that group has expanded to those individuals and small businesses making over $250,000 per year. Campaign statements and commercials have further expanded that group to those making over $200,000 per year and even Joe Biden brought up questions when he chose to inadvertently suggest a $150,000 per year figure.

Last week the Wall Street Journal exposed the reality of Obama's Tax Plans by analyzing his tax increases and determining that in reality his own proposals would cause increased taxes on individuals making $168,000 per year. Unfortunately, last night Senator Obama proved the Wall Street Journal wrong when he once again shifted his tax policies.

For months I have wondered how Senator Obama's tax increases would affect those families who filed joint returns. Would the tax increase actually amount to an increase on families earning $400,000 - 500,000 per year or would the inverse occur in which joint filers would see an increase in taxes at a joint income of $200,000 - $250,000 annually. Last night, Senator Obama put that question to rest when he announced to the nation that "families earning over $250,000 per year would see a tax increase".

"FAMILIES"! Not Individuals!

So now it appears that Senator Obama is not longer targeting the top 1% of taxpayers, but rather the top 10% of taxpayers. That 10% that makes over $125,000 per year; That 10% that currently pays an astounding 60% of all US Income Taxes according to IRS records.

Moreover, since Senator Obama himself has consistently flipped between the $200k and $250k figure, it is safe to assume that Obama's tax increase could easily hit individual taxpayers and SMALL BUSINESSES making just $100,000 annually. In addition, if you examine the full extent of his tax proposals as the Wall Street Journal has you can now begin to see that Obama's tax increases will likely hit those individuals and SMALL BUSINESSES earning over $84,000 per year.

We are no longer talking about the top 1%, or even the top 2% of earners. With a tax increase that will hit individuals earning $84,000 - $125,000 per year, the top 20% of taxpayers and small businesses would now see an increase in taxes. This expansion of Obama's tax increase base amounts to an increase in taxes on a group 20 times larger than his initial proposals. Now imagine if this is not the end.

Senator Obama seems to believe that he is Robin Hood, and portrays himself as a savior who will take from the rich and provide to the poor and those in-between. In reality, however, Senator Obama more closely resembles the Prince John, the great tax collector who will arbitrarily determine who is deserving of receiving a pittance of the tax dollars collected. It is now becoming apparent that Senator Obama's tax plans would increase the taxes on those individuals and small businesses that already account for over 70% of all tax revenue, only to disproportionately "Spread The Wealth", from the bottom-up, starting with the 40% of individuals who already pay NO TAXES.

This is not change we can believe in, this is change that will squander any increase in government revenues, irreparably damage small business and accelerate the already shrinking middle-class of our nation causing a massive disparity between the classes.

Senator Obama will tell you that his plans start from the bottom-up, increasing the incomes of the poor and creating a stronger middle class. Unfortunately, in practice, his oppressive tax proposals will achieve only 3 things:

1. The already wealthy, whose assets far exceed their living expenses will continue to see their wealth and power grow as these tax proposals only affect income. The rich will become richer.
2. Upward mobility from the middle class to the upper class will increasingly shrink as those who are building wealth see increasingly larger percentages of their earnings flow out the door. The result is stagnation in the upper class and a growing disparity between the upper and middle class. Small business owners pounded by an increasing tax burden will see profits shrink, therefore causing an increase in prices and less hiring. The rise in the cost of small business goods and services will reverberate through the economy, further eroding upward mobility and causing a rise in inflation.
3. Those earners in the lower class will become increasingly dependent upon government entitlements; entitlements that will prove futile as unemployment rises and inflation sets in.

Senator Obama's dream, is a dream of a nation in which there is no poor, only a middle class. In reality, we have seen this dream before; some nations have prescribed to this doctrine and their intent has created societies which have collapsed or which survive without a middle class; nations of truly the have and have nots.

History Lessons For A Forgetful Nation

2008-10-21T13:11:00.000-05:00

A lot of things bewilder me. Junior high kids carrying cell phones. Liberal actors in Hollywood naming their kids after fruit and then with straight faces telling reporters they raise their kids in Europe so they’ll be more refined. Iran is on the United Nations Human Rights Council?

But one of the toughest intellectual pills to swallow continues to be the American people’s insistence upon forgetting our own history. (Even recent history.)

How it is that any American over the age of 35 could have lived through any of the Cold War, seen the collapse of Communist Russia, witnessed the remarkable improvement in the quality of life for those previously living in USSR-controlled states, and could then turn around and vote for any enthusiastically pro-big government politician at any level of power in our own country is beyond me. It truly is mind-boggling. Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Charles Krauthammer would accuse such an American voter of being on a perpetual “vacation from history.”

Collectivist, state-controlled, bureaucratic quagmires of incompetence, the kind Moscow insisted for decades would eventually come to dominate every national capital around the globe, collapsed largely under the sheer weight of their own ineffectiveness. The pro-democratic, pro-capitalistic philosophy of the Western world, led most notably by the United States and Britain, rose to the challenge of staring down yet another brand of totalitarianism in Soviet Russia as they had done in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

The Cold War, a conflict primarily ideological and economic in nature, was for the hearts, minds and control of planet earth. The Communists told us these were the stakes, and the wise among us rightly believed them. In 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was elected our 40th president, the stark reality was a nuclear-armed Russian enemy that seemed to match us in size, scope, influence, and military might. By the end of 1991, the Berlin Wall had been toppled and our long-time, now one-time, Soviet adversary was being read his last rights.

The incredible fact that America actually won the Cold War, and just how unlikely that prospect previously had been to most journalists and professors during the 30 years leading up to the USSR’s defeat, is entirely lost on my generation. But people my age and younger at least have an excuse: we were like eight years old (or not yet born) when it all went down. To all of those over 35 who are voting for Obama in 2008, what is your excuse? How do you explain supporting a ticket that is proudly promising policies, tax rates, and welfare programs that would do Old Lenin’s heart proud?

In light of what history has to teach us about the West’s superiority in the realm of ideas and ideals, why are we so afraid to admit when something works? Has the Left’s jihad of political correctness and multiculturalism numbed our “objective reality” sensors? There is truth out there. There are better ways of doing things than others. Just ask the Kremlin. Free market democracy works, and works well. Bloated, nanny-state bureaucracy isn’t just inefficient, it is a terminal disease to any nation unfortunate (or foolish) enough to contract it.

In his 2006 magnum opus America Alone, distinguished author and columnist Mark Steyn describes what he believes were the two most important events of the last quarter of the 20th century: the collapse of Communism in the eastern bloc and the collapse of confidence in the West. For a few brief, fleeting moments in the early 1990’s the world marveled at the unexpected disintegration of Soviet Russia, and freedom-loving people everywhere rejoiced. But that was about it. People felt positive emotions for a while and then went back to their lives as if the previous four decades of hostility, conflict, ideological competition and proxy wars between the USSR and U.S. had never occurred. Less important still in the minds of most Americans and Western Europeans appeared to be an appreciation and understanding of how and why it was, as President Regan promised would happen during his first press conference, “We won; they lost.”

The key thing to understand here is that the Cold War was first and foremost a conflict of ideas, the largest and most important of its kind in human history. All one needs to do to corroborate this is to take a look back at all the battlefields that don’t house the memories of dead American and Russian soldiers. We can (hopefully) reel off names like Normandy, Gettysburg, and Bunker Hill to remember the physical, bloody spots where braves American soldiers paid the ultimate price for our freedom in formal military wars. The fact that we can’t do the same for the Cold War conflict with Russia speaks to its being predominantly ideological in nature. There are many correlating reasons for this, and certainly there are tragic examples like Vietnam of where real blood was shed in the name of impeding Communism, but all of it eventually brings us back to the fact that the Cold War was a war of ideas.

Three ideas in particular, Rights, Religion, and Reaganomics, were the most divisive between the two sides and offer, I believe, the most insight into why one side won and the other lost. (And to think Russia didn’t even get a “Participation” award!)

The first idea that separated “us” from “them” was the question of rights. Namely, where do citizen’s rights come from? The United States declared in 1776 that it was self-evident our Creator endowed all men with their rights, and the power to govern over other men was a temporary loan from the people. The Soviets believed their rights came from the “collectively” run entity loosely termed the “State.” The State was run entirely by intellectual and military elites who proved just how “for the worker” they were by living like kings and ruling like tyrants. Citizen’s rights came from the State and power resided solely in the hands of the State. In return for your unquestioning loyalty and value as a worker (in whichever job the State decided you were suited for), you were given “free stuff” like health care, public transportation, bread, and land. This was assuming, of course, there were enough things like doctors who were willing to work for the same pay no matter how good (or bad) they were at their jobs.

The discussion of rights ties directly into another important ideological distinction between communism and American free market democracy: religion. Karl Marx based his entire philosophy of government and economy on the fact that there was no God, and since religion was the “opiate” of the masses, it was a threat to progress and the State’s ability to plan and control society. Our Founders obviously disagreed. Some have dismissed the significance of the “God gap” that existed between the Cold War adversaries, but I cannot imagine how this didn’t factor in. Forget the theological implications of a country that says there is no higher power, and think of it purely on a “freedom of ideas” level. More than 90% of Americans claim to believe in a God of some sort. Imagine living in a state where not only was that number reversed, but it was made illegal to discuss the matter in private, let alone public.

The third important idea we differed on was Reaganomics. (This is also commonly known as capitalism.) Capitalism is essentially a recognition and admission of the unfathomable complexity found within any type of economic system. Millions of people working, selling, buying, trading, and investing cannot be coerced into effective interactions that benefit society. It just isn’t possible. It is a pipe dream that assumes Man is a creature that will put aside any and all selfish ambitions (including concern for his or her own family above other people’s families) to work hard for the “common good” so long as he has a roof over his head, food on his plate, and time for leisurely pursuits. Problems arise, as they did in the USSR, when people begin to realize that not only do those material things fail to satisfy the human soul, but that they eventually aren’t even available in economies where the motivation to excel and produce has been replaced with an indifference-producing, umbilical cord-like dependency on the State.

As Steyn describes it: “The State gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood – health care, child care, care of the elderly – to the point where it effectively severed its citizens from humanity’s primal instincts, not least the survival instinct. In the American context today, the federal ‘deficit’ isn’t the problem; it’s the government programs that cause the deficit. These programs would be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover them each month. They corrode the citizen’s sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree.”

Ronald Reagan often said, “Communism only works in heaven where they don’t need it, and hell where they already have it.” Capitalism is not only compatible with our nation’s concept of liberty and freedom; it is the logical, economic manifestation of it. And even if all the theoretical mumbo-jumbo supporting capitalism is too subtle for your liking, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. We outspent, out innovated, and outlasted the Russian Bear. Our economy doubled while theirs bottomed out. Their economy was cumbersome and unproductive; ours was agile robust. We ate bread (and Big Macs) to fill our stomachs; they drank cheap vodka to numb the pain.

We told the Soviets for decades that giant federal bureaucracies simply do not work, and they told us that capitalist pigs would eventually be strangled and left for dead by their cherished “Invisible Hand.”

Just think of how wrong they were about us, and just how right we were about them. They had the empty shelves at the grocery store. They were the merciless imperialists whose very existence was predicated on the annexation of poorer, resource-rich, 3rd world countries. They were the ones whose people had lost hope and faith in their national ideology. We won; they lost.

But we find ourselves today in what can only be described as a “mental recession.” Our parents and grandparents witnessed the triumph of American ideas and ideals over those of both the National Socialists Party in Germany and the Community Party in Russia, yet we’re so unconvinced of (or oblivious to) these facts of history that we elect (and re-elect) politicians who vote and govern as if we should be embarrassed we were right.

In this life, we defeat any chance of true and sustained progress and happiness when we make the “better” the enemy of the “best.” Because we aren’t perfect as a nation and society is no excuse for proposing policies or supporting candidates that tell us to hedge our bets on ideologies that we’ve already proven ourselves don’t work.

It’s not one election, or one president, or even one session of Congress that will stem the riptide of collectivism currently threatening to drag us out to sea. It is “we the people” standing together, unwilling to flinch in the face of candidates and movements that promise us the same deceptively alluring trade off of freedom for mirage-like comfort the Soviets were supremely confident would succeed. Communism is the logical conclusion of Socialism, which is the logical conclusion of Liberalism.

The Return Of Obama's Destruction-Based Politics

2008-09-17T08:41:00.002-05:00

The Return Of Obama's Chicago-Style Destruction-Based Politics
The sudden polling surge, representing as much as a 17 point bump, for John McCain has exposed the shady underbelly of the Obama Campaign. Senator Obama did not rise to power as a change candidate; he has never won an election in which his opponent has not suffered being personally destroyed and forced from the race; and it seems in the past two weeks that Obama is returning to his Chicago Political Machine roots.

Let me take you back to Senator Obama's first campaign, for the State Senate in Illinois. Obama was approached by then State Senator, Alice Palmer, a popular incumbent who had decided to run for Congress. Palmer approached Obama and encouraged him to run in her stead if she were to win. But Palmer didn't win her Federal Election bid and asked Obama to withdraw to allow her to retain her State Senate Position. According to Ricky Hendon, an Illinois State Senator, in an interview with CNN, "There's no way Barack could have beat Alice Palmer in that seat. It just wasn't going to happen. Alice was extremely popular." Obama, knowing that he could not win a battle against the Palmer turned to his friends and fellow attorneys for help. Obama and his attorneys noticed that the required petitions that Palmers campaign were sloppily completed. He challenged the petitions, won the challenge and Palmer was removed from the ballot. According to Hendon, "the people who she had depended on to do her petitions really did not do a good job." As Suzanne Malveaux would report, successfully challenging her signatures, Obama knocked Alice Palmer, a revered political figure, off the ballot, as well as all three other candidates. While Obama's campaign today promotes him as a different kind of politician, back then he was an avid student of Chicago-style politics." Four Politicians eliminated not by debate, not by the issues, but by political assassination.

Obama soon found out that the Illinois State Senate brought neither fame nor glory, and after an unsuccessful attempt at taking on a senior party member for his US House Seat, he turned back to his self-admitted mentor Emil Jones. Jones, upon hearing that Illinois Senator Peter Fitzgerald would not run for re-election, bragged to colleagues that he "was going to make himself a Senator" in Barack Obama. But Obama had a problem; he was unknown around the state and south of I-80 Illinois voted Republican. Jones, as President of the Senate used his political power to pressure fellow legislators to add Obama's name to hundreds of bills. According to Hendon, "He owes it all. He owes everything to President Jones." Malveaux would add during her Obama revealed special, "With help from on high, Obama got his name on hundreds of bills that he pushed through." Obama now had name recognition.

In his Senatorial run, Obama faced an extremely popular Democrat and Billionaire, Blair Hall, who led Obama nearly 2 to 1 in poll after poll. But something happened just prior to the primaries, SEALED Divorce Documents suddenly showed up at the footsteps of Chicago News Agencies. The divorce documents detailed allegations against Hall that he had physically abused his wife. Hall withdrew from the race and Obama, facing 7 other unknown and unfunded candidates walked away with the primary. Obama would now face off against a popular downstate Republican, Jack Ryan, in the November election.

Obama's ability to push Hall out of the race was bittersweet and the joy of his un-Democratic primary victory was short-lived. Obama would now find himself down by up to 18 points against his Republican rival. But once again, in the summer heat, reporters around Chicago would wake up to find previously SEALED Divorce Documents on the doorsteps. This time, the divorce documents of Ryan would uncover testimony that he and his ex-wife had frequently visited strip-clubs prior their divorce. Ryan, shocked and humiliated, would withdraw from the race. As of the announcement on July 15, 2004 that Obama would be the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention, he had no opponent for the November Election.

Obama would eventually face competition in November. The Republican Party, reeling from a corrupt governor and embarrassed could not find any viable candidate willing to run for office. By August they had written off the election until an out-of-state Republican, Alan Keyes, offered to move to Illinois and run. Keyes campaign was a joke, primarily because he didn't even live in Illinois at the time. As a result, Obama trounced Keyes.

The moral of the story is simple; Obama has never faced a real candidate; or at least one who he couldn't push off the ballot. The Republican Party inadvertently nominated the best potential candidate to take on Obama. Despite their best efforts, the Obama campaign is finding out how hard it is too take on a candidate whose dirty laundry, even the little bit that McCain has, is already on the table. They have found it impossible to push McCain out and the best attempt at scandal they have uncovered is the nearly 25 year old Keating Five. To be honest, prior to this election, I didn't even know what the Keating Five was; I was too young, and most people I have talked too who are old enough to remember, have no clue either. It's almost embarrassing that Obama, the product of the Chicago Political Machine, can only uncover a 25 year old scandal that involved more Democrats than it did Republicans. The Keating 5 was a scandal, in which McCain was overwhelmingly exonerated and considered to have provided the key testimony in the case.

Palin was a blessing because the boost that her nomination has given McCain has forced Obama to show his true colors. He is no longer the candidate that transcends the politics of division and distraction; he is no longer the candidate who rises above partisanship; he is no longer the candidate who decried Hillary Clinton as too polarizing a figure. Obama says that we need to focus on issues, but on the campaign trail he can't overcome the 5 2 year old "Bridge to Nowhere' debate. Obama says we should focus on issues all the while sending a team of 30 investigators to Anchorage to sift through every detail of Sarah Palin's life; desperately hoping to uncover some sort of scandal. Obama has returned to his true self, a Power-Hungry product of the Chicago Political Machine, who will seek victory at any expense and will seek to politically and personally destroy his competition.

He will tell the press that there is no room for personal attacks on any candidate, but will do nothing to silence his supporters spreading hate and false rumors on his own websites blog. He will attack John McCain for "distorting his record", while premeditatedly injecting "pig in lipstick" remarks into stump speeches just days after Palin's infamous Hockey Mom remark.

The attacks on Palin are not over, and as pressure mounts the attacks will become more vicious, more pointed and will target her and her family. These are the politics Obama knows; just ask Alice Palmer, Bill Hall or Jack Ryan. So I will say it again: Obama has returned to his true self, a Power-Hungry product of the Chicago Political Machine, who will seek victory at any expense and will seek to politically and personally destroy his competition.

Obama's Big "Neighborliness" Lie

2008-09-17T08:37:00.001-05:00

For nearly a year the press has reported Senator Obama's presidential fundraising as a grass-roots movement consisting of small donations. Yet, those who follow the money trail soon find out that less than 8% of Obama's donors are responsible for nearly 60% of his fundraising totals. Obama's 552 campaign bundlers made up of corporate attorneys and wall street executives are responsible for nearly 1/3 of his total fundraising, or around $130 million. Despite the facts, the MSM has done everything in their power to suppress the reality that Obama's fundraising is reliant upon big donors.

Senator Obama has a fundraising problem today as reality has set in that he might have made a mistake when he flipped on his pledge to take public financing. At the end of August, John McCain and the RNC had a nearly $20 million dollar advantage of cash on hand over that of Obama and the DNC. Obama's payroll is bloated, the largest paid campaign staff in political history that is sucking millions out of the coffers every month. By the end of the Republican Convention, McCain and the RNC had over $200 million of cash on hand with donations pouring in. The Obama campaign and the DNC is privately concerned that if the RNC would raise no more than their traditional $50 million per month in September and October, then the Obama campaign would have to raise over $100 million each month just to keep pace.

Following a week in which Senator Obama discussed his demand for a new 'neighborliness' in our tax code and regarding service, Obama hit the campaign trail over the past two days to attempt to blame Senator McCain and his 'rich lobbyist friends' for our countries financial woes. Obama painted McCain as out of touch and catering to the wealthiest of Americans. Yet, just hours after excoriating McCain, Obama turned to his friends to show some love and 'neighborliness' in helping his bid for the presidency.

Last night in Beverly Hills, Senator Obama hosted 300 guests at a Hollywood fundraiser, in which those 300 guests paid $28,500 each to attend the event. In layman's terms, that single event added $8.55 million dollars to Obama's coffers. In addition, more than 800 people attended the 'hotel' event last night, at a cost of $2,500 per person; adding an additional $1.25-$2 million dollars to Obama's campaign coffers. In the ultimate display of 'neighborliness', 800-1100 people donated a combined $10 million to the Obama campaign.

So while those in Iowa sit patiently by waiting for the passage of a Flood-Relief bill that was promised to them three months ago, and hundred-of-thousands sit in the dark and wait in 2-mile long lines for a ice and food, the Hollywood elite enjoyed a $28,500 per person evening of fun, food and entertainment with their favorite candidate.

Obama's Sub-prime Buddy List:Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and More

2008-09-17T08:34:00.001-05:00

As Senator Obama and his Democratic colleagues attempt to tie this weeks financial meltdown to John McCain, perhaps we need to re-examine the candidate who has benefited the most from the very Wall Street Executives who have brought us this financial crisis. Obama’s campaign has undergone little scrutiny on his long-standing ties to the financial and banking community. In Obama’s speeches across the country he has repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for allowing “evil” subprime mortgage lenders and investment banks to lead this county into our current mortgage meltdown. Obama’s rhetoric on the mortgage crisis has been pointed and blunt, as stated on his own campaign website, “Obama will crack down on fraudulent brokers and lenders…Obama has been closely monitoring the subprime mortgage situation for years, and introduced comprehensive legislation over a year ago to fight mortgage fraud and protect consumers against abusive lending practices”.

Throughout the campaign season Obama has attacked Wall Street’s financial sector and run a campaign based largely upon his “good judgment”. The problem with Obama’s rhetoric rests in the fact that tucked away in his database of 2.5 million donors is the approximately 180,000 power brokers that have funded nearly 60% of his campaign. Included in this list are the more than 594 campaign bundlers including 15 lobbyist bundlers who have accounted for over $140 million in contributions. Included in this list are just 36 bundlers accounting for over $18 million dollars, with two bundlers raising over $1 million, and one over $2 million. These amounts are impressive considering that just 552 individuals have accounted for nearly 1/3 of his total campaign contributions. Of course determining the occupation can be tricky considering the Obama campaign lists nearly 100 bundlers as having unknown occupations, nearly 100 who are listed as "self-employed", and dozens of "homemakers" and "retired" individuals.

Among Obama's campaign contributors are many Lehman Brothers Executives, such as CEO Richard Fuld ($2,300), President Joseph Gregory ($4,600) and dozens of other top Lehman Executives. On June 19th, Lehman shareholders filed suit against Fuld and Gregory for the company’s exposure in the subprime market. In addition to dozens of Lehman executives are Obama's bundlers from Lehman Borthers who have raised top dollar for the campaign. Direct contributions from Lehman Brothers have exceeded $395,000 for Senator Obama.

John Rhea - (over $500,000) Co-Head of Lehman Bros. Global Investment Banking
Mark Gilbert - (over $500,000) Lehman Brothers Senior Executive
Christine Forester - (over $500,000) Lehman Brothers Senior Executive
Theodore Janulis – Bundler (over $100,000) & Lehman Brothers Head of Global Mortgages
Nadja Fidelia – Bundler (over $50,000) & Managing Director of Lehman Brothers

In San Antonia this past February Obama stated in a campaign speech, “To give you a sense of what that kind of lobbying gets you… the CEO of the largest subprime lender was promised a hundred-million-dollar severance package at a time when more than 2 million Americans were facing foreclosure, including nearly 14,000 right here in San Antonio..." Obama was most likely referring to an Angelo R. Mozillo, one of three CEO’s that were scheduled to appear to testify in front of a senate committee concerning their compensation and firms roles in the ongoing mortgage crisis. Stanley O’Neal, who received more than $161 million when he was ousted as the Chairman of Merrill Lynch, was one of the three CEO’s coming under scrutiny. In 2003, O’Neil donated to Senator Obama’s Senatorial campaign, followed up by a maximum $4,600 campaign contribution by he and his wife, Nancy Garvey, to the Obama Campaign. Ironically, the O’Neals tried to originally contribute $6,900 to the campaign only to have $2,300 returned. For those attuned to the financial sector, Stanley O'Neil will forever be remembered as the man at the helm while Merrill Lynch exposed themselves to tens of billions in subprime exposure.

The real problem for Obama extends well beyond his campaign bundlers that include several prominent lobby–representing attorney’s and executives such as Frank Clark, the CEO of Commonwealth Edison. Executives across the financial and investment industry have accounted for millions in campaign contributions.

Contributing to Obama’s cause is the more controversial Brad Morrice, the former CEO and President of the imploded subprime lender, New Century Financial. Morrice and his wife contributed the maximum $4,600 to Obama’s campaign last August.

Among other subprime contributors to Obama’s campaign are Steve Boland, a managing director at Countrywide, who donated the maximum last June. Andrew Beer the president of Wachovia’s troubled subprime lender Evergreen Investment Partners also maxed out his contribution to the Obama campaign; and Joseph Azrack, the president of Citigroup Property Investments along with dozens of Citi Executives have heavily contributed.

In 2007 Eric Schwartz, the co-head of Goldman-Sachs Global Asset Management abruptly stepped down from is position, fueling rumors that his resignation was tied to a crumbling Global Alpha Hedge Fund. The Fund’s mounting losses led to a -39% performance last year as the fund assets shrunk by 60%. Shwartz, an Obama bundler and contributor, has helped to raise over $100,000 for the Senator’s Campaign.

In 2007 Robert Wolf, the CEO of UBS Americas, helped the Obama campaign raise more than $500,000. That amount was equaled by Louis Susman, the Chairman of a Citibank Subsidiary.

Additional High Profile Financial Executives Include:

John W. Roberts - (over $500,000) Ariel Capital Management
Richard Leweke – Vice Chairman of Washington Mutual Card Services
Seth Waugh – CEO of Deutsche Bank
Charles Lewis – Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch

Francisco Borges – Over $50,000 Chairman of Landmark Partners a private equity real estate firm.

Michael Froman – Over $200,000 Managing Director of Citigroup
David Heller – Over $200,000 Managing Director of Goldman Sachs
Bruce Heyman - Over $200,000 - Managing Director Goldman Sachs

J. Michael Schell – Over $200,000 Managing Director at Citigroup
Jim Torrey – Over $500,000 Founder of the Torrey Funds – Hedge Funds
Todd Williams – Over $50,000 Managing Director Goldman Sachs & The Real Estate Council
Louis Susman - Over $200,000 Citi Investment Banking

The listing of contributions flowing in from Financial Institutions through Senator Obama’s career is short of amazing. There are currently dozens upon dozens of Senior Vice Presidents, Managing Directors, and other top level executives from firms such as Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and other high profile Wall Street banks and funds mired in the mortgage meltdown.

Too many to list you can view all at White House For Sale

The ties between Obama and the industry are too expansive and raise the question, “Is Obama just another politician, saying what is politically expedient while sending an opposite message to his donors?”

The Center For Responsive Politics continues to call upon both campaigns to provide updated and full disclosure of the campaign bundlers; yet the Obama campaign in practicing its “change” politics, has failed to provide full disclosure of its donors.

What we do know is that the FEC requires full disclosure (Names, Employers, etc…) of individual contributions of more than $250. From aggregating information contained within FEC disclosures you can begin to form a picture of where the large contributions are coming from. According to The Center For Responsive Politics, of the 20 largest sources of campaign contributions to the Obama Campaign, 11 were Investment Banks or International Law firms directly tied to the financial industry.

During the primary cycle Obama attacked lobbyists and PAC’s going so far as to attempt to force the entire Democratic Party to refuse money from lobbyists and PAC’s in the general election. Obama has criticized PAC and Lobbyist money as having undue influence within Washington. But are any contributions from these organizations or individuals any less influential than the more the $350,000 (not including millions in bundled contributions) he has received (thru May 1st) from Sidley Austin LLP employees. Those who are familiar with Sidley Austin LLP understand that the firm is a large, international law firm with a large presence within the financial services and insurance industry. For instance, the firm was just recognized by Alpha Magazine as the top firm for Hedge Funds for the second year along with consistently ranking as a top corporate law firm. Obama has also accepted more than $340,000 from Skadden, Arp, et al... employees, a firm that was recently recognized as the “Best Corporate Law Firm In The United States” for the eighth consecutive year by Corporate Board Member. Skadden is another large Law firm specializing in practices related to investment banking and representing clients such as Merrill Lynch. In addition to the aforementioned law firms, Jones Day, Latham & Watkins, & Wilmerhale LLP are all large law firms and top 20 contributors to the Obama campaign. All three of these law firms also specialize in corporate law and ranking among the top ten “corporate law firms” by the Corporate Board Member.

Understand that I am not demonizing any of the companies or firms in this article, after all they are businesses and their employees have the right to contribute to campaigns. The issue is not with the companies whose executives have flocked to the open arms of the Obama campaign; rather the issue is the open arms of the Obama campaign. He has publicly demonized the investment banking and mortgage industry in front of crowds across the nation, yet has his campaign advisors accepting huge amounts of cash from the executives who run these companies and the attorney’s who represent them. The Obama campaign has demonized lobbyists, many of whom represent non-profit organizations and even State governments, all the while accepting millions in contributions from law firms who specialize in corporate representation. It’s lunacy.

Meanwhile back on Wall street the executives of Goldman Sachs have contributed more than $691,000 to the Obama campaign, not including any ancillary contributions collected by bundlers who are employed by Goldman Sachs. The Obama campaign will counter these numbers by citing that these are large companies that these are large companies and due to their 2.5 million donors you would expect large amounts of contributions from the employees of these companies. Yet, this argument is nothing more than manipulative political spin. As I stated earlier, the campaigns are only required to collect and report employment information for donors contributing more than $250 during the primary or general election cycles. These numbers disclosed by the campaign are how we are able to determine that less than 10% of his donors account for 60% of his campaign’s contributions. Thus, the aggregate totals for these companies represent the highly paid and executive level contributions made to the Obama campaign, not donations flowing from employee who contributed $10 or $20 dollars. Goldman Sachs employees are the largest aggregated contributors to the Obama campaign.

UBS and Citigroup, companies writing off billions of dollars in “subprime” related losses in the over the summer, are also among top ten contributors to the Obama campaign. Executives at these companies, such as Obama bundler and UBS Americas CEO Robert Wolf, have contributed over $850,000 to the Obama campaign.

Lehman Brothers executives have also flocked to the Obama camp, directly contributing over $395,000 to the Senator. Of course, the amount of direct contributions by these executives is overshadowed by the bundled contributions they have collected on his behalf. We know based upon disclosure from the Obama campaign that just 6 Lehman executives alone are responsible for more than $2,200,000 in bundled contributions. Unfortunately, the extent of bundled contributions are unknown since the Obama campaign has refused full disclosure (all we know is that certain bundlers raise over $500,000, the amount could have been far more).

These contributions were matched by Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase executives who rounded out the Obama campaigns top twenty with over $750,000 in combined contributions. In all the Obama campaign has accepted more than $25 million in contributions from the “disclosed” employees of financial services, insurance, and real estate firms, the largest sector to contribute to the Obama campaign. Additionally, Obama’s second largest source of campaign funds has come from the nearly $24 million he has accepted from attorneys, many of which work at large corporate law firms like those listed above. Oh...by the way, make sure you look for their names on the bundler lists, you will be amazed. These numbers are more than twice the amount contributed by these sectors to the McCain campaign; increasing even more when you factor in the large contributions made by spouses and direct family members of these executives.

Again, I’m not demonizing any of these contributors or companies that have made these contributions; Senator Obama has done more than enough of “demonizing” on the campaign trail. The executives at these companies have earned their positions and have the right to pursue whatever political path they choose. The issues rests within the candidate who has run on a platform that has criticized the influence of corporate money in Washington politics, demonized financial services firms and their executives, demanded a halt to the undue influence of lobbyist and PAC money in Washington (only a position he recently embraced), and claimed that he will end the political greed that exists in Washington. Yet while proclaiming that he is the candidate with “good judgment” and that his campaign is a “movement”, Obama has had his hands deep in the pockets of the financial institutions and their legal representation that have contributed to the “mortgage meltdown” we are entrenched in today. I highly doubt that any of these executives who overwhelmingly favor Obama, are attempting to donate to a candidate that would damage their positions.

Obama can attempt to proclaim that he is not swayed by these contributions, yet if that were true then he would also not be swayed by lobbyist and PAC contributions.

Every story that surfaces concerning Senator Obama reeks with the stench of the long-corrupt Chicago political machine. Obama is part of this machine; his rise to power was due to this machine, and like the Chicago power brokers he is nothing more than a say anything, do anything candidate who once elected will break all campaign promises, act only to increase his own political power and then expect the long-term memory loss that the public has to kick-in by election day.

Understanding Earmarks: Mayors/Governors vs Senators

2008-09-11T09:47:00.001-05:00

In recent days Senators Obama & Biden have gone on the attack against Vice Presidential Nominee, Sarah Palin for her accepting federal earmarks as a Mayor and Governor.

Did she?
Yes.

Should She Have?
You Bet

Why?
Because it was her job.

Sara Palin's job as a Mayor of Wasilla was to represent the citizens of her City, to reform local government, provide public services, and maintain budgetary health within that city. Her responsibility was to her town, not to the Federal Government; and as such she was 100% correct in lobbying for earmarks made available and accepting those earmarks. A mayor's duty is to his/her town and if the opportunity is presented to bring tax dollars back into that town, then they should accept them.

As a Governor, Sarah Palin's responsibility was to the citizens of her State. Once again, as a Governor, her job was to bring budgetary health to Alaska, provide essential public services, and reform State government. I am not aware of any governor that has ever laid claim to responsibility for the federal budget and as a governor, Palin was 100% correct in accepting any Federal Earmarks that flowed back into her State. Obama and his surrogates want to complain that she turned away the Bridge To Nowhere only to keep the earmarks for her State. Yet, if the governor of a state felt that those funds would better serve his/her constituents by providing essential services or other statewide investment then they would be acting on the behalf of their constituents.

In order to accept Senator Obama's attacks against Palin on earmarks, then you would have to believe that Governors and Mayors are somehow responsible for the Federal Budget. Last time I checked the United States Congressional Members we elect are responsible for the Federal Budget.

In order to accept Senator Obama's attacks against Palin on earmarks, then you would have believe that it is abnormal for Governors or Mayors to accept Federal funds or even lobby for them. If this were the case, then by Senator Obama's reasoning it is not proper for the City of Cedar Rapids to hire a lobbying firm to lobby congress to pass a Federal Flood Relief Bill that was promised to them in May. Of course, Senator Obama and his surrogates would never say that; because by the standards Obama is portraying, no Mayor or Governor would ever be able to run for the Presidency.

The bottom line is that whether you are a Governor or a Mayor of a town by the name of Wasilla, your duty as an elected official is to the community in which you live. If Governor Palin or Mayor Palin had taken taxpayer dollars paid by her constituents and wasted that money by attaching them to important bills, then Obama would have an argument. But Governor Palin and Mayor Palin acted on the behalf of her constituents and if the Federal Government was dishing out money on a silver platter, then her job as a Mayor or Governor was get as much as she could for her state. No Mayor or Governor has the ability to control wasteful FEDERAL government spending and if you show me a another Governor or Mayor that has turned down Federal Money then I'll show you the monkey the just flew out of my butt.

Now a Senator on the other hand shares responsibility for the health of the federal budget. Senators provide oversight to that budget and are responsible for appropriating funds. Senators do represent their individual constituencies but there responsibility is to our federal budgetary health. No President can spend a dime unless Congress appropriates the money and no earmark is ever released without Congressional appropriation. During his time in office, Senator Obama sent money back to local governments in Illinois, those earmarks are fine. But when federal earmarks start flowing back to private organizations where friends or family works, then there is a problem. Senator Obama spent nearly $1 Billion of taxpayer money on personal earmarks, without oversight as part of the Senatorial Good old boy system. Senator McCain during that time spent $0 and was the sole voice of opposition to earmark spending in the Senate. In fact, Senator McCain's pledge not to support Earmarked spending has cost him political capital. At time McCain voted against bills that he supported. Why? Because they were also loaded down with massive earmarks.

But back to the issue at hand. The government has a system by which spend money as quickly as it arrives in Washington. Senators looking for votes and campaign support hand out billions every year, with no oversight, and most often slid into a bill just hours before a vote. Senator Obama is part of that system and only last fall changed his position. Senators are in charge of earmarks and share full responsibility for them. When the federal government hands out money, do you turn it down?

When your tax rebate check arrived, did you turn it down? No, and you shouldn't have.

Palin brought fiscal responsibility back to her town and state. She did her job and when, like every other Mayor and Governor, when she saw Federal Money being handed out by Senators like Obama, she reached out her hand for her town and state.

Mayors and Governors will always accept whatever the Federal Government hands to them, it is their job. The are not 'Earmark Spenders' they are 'Earmark Receivers'. Senators, on the other hand, are 'Earmark Spenders', wasting billions of dollars every year on projects that are sometimes good, but most of the time rooted in political expediency. Governor Palin cut billions from her States' budget while in office. Senator Obama did nothing to cut Federal Spending and eliminate wasteful government spending; nothing that is except, doling out nearly $1 billion in earmarks.

Senator Obama is not the change agent on earmarks, he is part of the problem. To this day, Obama will not lay claim to his role in failing to bring fiscal responsibility back to the Federal Government and now he appears hell bent on blaming Mayors and Governors for the the Federal Governments lack of fiscal responsibility. For the past 2 years, while his own party been in control of the federal budget, he has been on the campaign trail while doing nothing to reign a President and his own party's leadership that have ballooned the federal deficit to record levels. If he were a leader, then why unlike Senator McCain, was he unwilling to take on Reid and Pelosi? Why did he oppose repeated calls by Senator McCain to pass legislation to ban earmarks? Why did he wait until just last fall to change his position?

Selective Service Lie

2008-09-09T11:26:00.003-05:00

Obama said on ABC’s This Week Sunday (September 7, 2008) “I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school.”

However, upon further research, Obama graduated in 1979 and “the registration requirement was suspended in April 1975. It was resumed again in 1980 by President Carter in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.” (Info from the official government selective service website below) Thus, Obama’s statement that he ‘had to sign up’ is not true.

Selective Service Background Information

Video of the Obama Lie

Obama's 90% Falacy

2008-09-09T11:02:00.002-05:00

There was a time in this country when the main stream media would do more than just repeat the talking points of political candidates. A time when they reported the facts, and checked to them for accuracy. Obviously that time has passed, and whether it is out of adoration for Senator Obama or just negligence the media has been a willing accomplice in spreading Obama campaign rhetoric.

In recent weeks, Senator Obama has increased his attacks upon John McCain, once again trying to define him as no longer being the 'maverick' that he was once perceived as. During his acceptance speech Obama pointed out the John McCain has voted with George Bush 90% of the time, a sentiment echoed in the remarks of Joe Biden a day earlier when he stated McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time. So which one is, 90%, 95%, or is does the argument have any actual weight.

First, on a lighter note, let me state that it is 100% impossible for John McCain to have voted with President Bush, after all the President has no voting powers in the Senate. But that's just a laughable technicality. In reality, however, the problem with the McCain/Bush voting argument and the attempts to paint McCain as some radical right winger is that there are organizations that track the votes of congressional members. According to the Washington Post's Votes Database Project, Obama and the DNC's claims are 100% false.

McCain, unlike his Democratic Rival, has continued to maintain one of the highest levels of independence demonstrated by any US Senator since 2000. For instance, during the 110th Session of Congress, McCain ranked 65th among his colleagues having voted along party line 88% of the time, a far cry from the 12th place rank of Obama. Yet, McCain's voting record during the current session of Congress is likely to hold closer to party lines due to the nearly 50 bills that contained an Troop Withdrawal Timeline. During the 109th session of congress, McCain ranked 94th out of 100 Senators, having voted along party lines 79.4% of the time. This ranking and percentage are nearly identical to his 93rd place rank during both the 107th and 108th Congressional Sessions.

McCain has not voted with his party or George Bush 90% or 95% of the time. Obama's statistics are not based upon any actual statistical data, but rather a soundbite taken years ago at a highly partisan rally in which McCain made a misstatement. But then again, that misstatement would be no different from the fact that even Obama and Biden can't seem to keep the rhetoric straight. McCain should take Obama to task on the partisan voting issue, after all, Barack Obama, the self-proclaimed moderate, has voted along party lines more often than even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have.

That's right, according to The Votes Database, During the 110th Congressional session running from Jan 2007 to now, Senator Obama ranked 12th among 100 Senators, having voted along party lines 96% of the time; an amazingly high percentage for someone who claims to be able to reach across the isle. The Obama campaign and pundits will argue that Obama's voting record during this session was driven by a need to shore up support among his base supporters. Yet, if that were true then we would expect his record during the 109th session of Congress to reflect a greater level of moderation. According to the Vote Database Project, During the 109th session Obama was ranked 5th in the Senate having voted along party lines 94.8% of the time. Ironically, during both sessions of congress, Obama voted along party lines more often the Senator Kennedy, Senator Reid, and Senator Kerry. For a candidate who talks about unity and his ability to work with the side, he certainly has not demonstrated it. After all, how can a candidate claim moderation when the current Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, has crossed party lines during the past two sessions of congress more often than Obama?

Summary - Candidates voting with their party.

Rank & % of time voted with party
2007-2008
Obama - 12th - 96.0%
McCain - 65th - 88.0%

2005-2006
Obama - 5th - 94.8%
McCain- 94th - 79.4%

2003-2004
Obama - NOT IN CONGRESS
McCain - 93rd - 84.5%

2001-2002
Obama - NOT IN CONGRESS
McCain - 93rd - 76.2%

These numbers are interesting, because I still don't see the 90% or 95% represented anywhere. But then again, I suppose that I could go through the voting record and find a three month period somewhere when McCain did vote along the same position as Bush and the party 95% of the time. But, by those standards, I could also take the 1 week period last year, when Obama supported the President's Immigration position and state that Obama voted with the president 100% of the time.

Obama is no centrist or moderate, he is a panderer willing to say anything based upon what group he is talking too, so long as it forwards his position. His voting record does not demonstrate any reasonable level of non-partisanship and has proven that he is beholden only to party leaders. His base of support has not come from moderate Democrats, it has come from the far-left power brokers intent upon control of the government.

John McCain's voting record has proven consistent with that of a candidate who unwilling to sacrifice his principles and beliefs in order to appease party leadership. He has upheld his ability to work with both sides of the isle. Democratic leadership can attempt to demonize McCain as a mini-me Bush, but the record will never support that claim.

Barack's lousy Senate voting record

2008-09-03T08:07:00.002-05:00

Senate voting record (230 not voting records)

Here is a link to Project Vote Smart on how Barack Obama voted on the

Housing Foreclosure Assistance Programs

Vote Smart

Democrats blame George Bush for the current housing mortgage crisis? When George Bush and Alan Greenspan lowered the prime rate in 2002, my parents jumped on 5 percent mortgages. In fact they refinanced their entire rental real estate portfolio from 30 year 8.5 percent loans to 15 year 6 percent loans. Their monthly payment stayed the same. Then they structured the payment schedule to a Bi-pay system. They paid on them every two weeks. Now six complete years later, they are seeing extreme principal reduction.

How is that there were people that chose to refinance back to a 30 year loan, pay off their credit cards, only to run them up again, and then to refinance once more? Thousands of people refinanced on 5 year arms only to lose the homes they had lived in for 20 years. Why didn't they pay off their homes when George Bush lowered the prime lending rate and interest rates went from 9 or 10 percent to 5 percent?I am trying to understand how Barack Obama can blame George Bush for lowering the prime so interest rates went from 9 or 10 to 5 percent?

Was George Bush making their mortgage payments and defaulted? Was George Bush the sole mortgage loan officer for all the people who acquired stupid loan programs and lived beyond their means? I have yet to understand the relationship between George Bush lowering the prime and then being blamed for the mortgage crisis?

Anyways, here is Barack Obama's voting record in the Senate on the housing mortgage crisis and stimulus packages! The information is taken off of Project Vote Smart! Barry Obama talks a big game on housing issues but never shows for practice. He talks the talk and thats about it.

Housing Voting Record

Obama: he's a close friend with Ayers...

2008-09-03T07:57:00.001-05:00

While the likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and other news organizations have their reporters digging for dirt on Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice for vice president, their savior-in-waiting Barack Obama is getting a free ride at the expense of truth.

It's no secret that the denizens of America's newsrooms want Obama sitting in the Oval Office, but Americans are being purposely duped by the Democrat National Committee's volunteer publicists, formerly known as the mainstream news media.

If it weren't for talk radio and the blogosphere, even what is known about Obama and his friend, former Weather Underground domestic terrorist and leader William Ayers, would only be a paragraph or two in the backpages of most newspapers, or a sentence or two on most TV and radio news programs.

On Friday night, one of America's top talk show hosts -- who happens to be an attorney and worked in the Reagan Justice Department as chief of staff -- recited a list of terrorist acts that would elicit envy from Osama bin Laden. Mark Levin had his listeners glued to their radios or PCs as he read the resume of a man who should be serving life in prison instead of enjoying a tenured professorship at a major university and entertaining a possible US President in his home.

Because of so-called "prosecutorial misconduct" Ayers escaped what could have been a life-sentence.

As I write this "resume of a terrorist," I find it difficult to understand how a man who is running for president of the United States would even know someone as anti-American and destructive as William Ayers. Plus, Ayers, his wife and their comrades at the Weather Underground are cop-killers. And Obama doesn't just know him personally -- he's a close friend with Ayers.

Here is the "resume" of an American terrorist:

7 October 1969 - Bombing of Haymarket Police Statue in Chicago, apparently as a 'kickoff' for the 'Days of Rage' riots in the city October 8-11, 1969. The Weathermen later claimed credit for the bombing in their book, 'Prairie Fire.'

8-11 October 1969 - The 'Days of Rage' riots occur in Chicago in which 287 Weatherman members from throughout the country were arrested and a large amount of property damage was done.

6 December 1969 - Bombing of several Chicago Police cars parked in a precinct parking lot at 3600 North Halsted Street, Chicago. The WUO stated in their book 'Prairie Fire' that they had did the explosion.

27-31 December 1969 - Weathermen hold a 'War Council' meeting in Flint, MI, where they finalize their plans to submerge into an underground status from which they plan to commit strategic acts of sabotage against the government. Thereafter they are called the 'Weather Underground Organization' (WUO).

13 February 1970 - Bombing of several police vehicles of the Berkeley, California, Police Department .

16 February 1970 - Bombing of Golden Gate Park branch of the San Francisco Police Department, killing one officer and injuring a number of other policemen.

6 March 1970 - Bombing in the 13th Police District of the Detroit, Michigan. 34 sticks of dynamite are discovered. During February and early March, 1970, members of the WUO, led by Bill Ayers, are reported to be in Detroit, during that period, for the purpose of bombing a police facility.

6 March 1970 - 'bomb factory' located in New York's Greenwich Village accidentally explodes. WUO members die . The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The bomb was packed with nails TO INFILICT MAXIMUM CASUALTIES UPON DETONATION.

30 March 1970 - Chicago Police discover a WUO 'bomb factory' on Chicago's north side. A subsequent discovery of a WUO 'weapons cache' in a south side Chicago apartment several days later ends WUO activity in the city.

10 May 1970 - Bombing of The National Guard Association building in Washington, D.C..

21 May 1970 - The WUO under Bernardine Dohrn's (Ayers' current wife) name releases its 'Declaration of a State of War' communique.

6 June 1970 - The WUO sends a letter claiming credit for bombing of the San Francisco Hall of Justice; however, no explosion actually took place. Months later, workmen in this building located an unexploded device which had apparently been dormant for some time.

9 June 1970 - Bombing of The New York City Police Headquarters.

27 July 1970 - Bombing of The Presidio army base in San Francisco. [NYT, 7/27/70]

12 September 1970 - The WUO helps Dr. Timothy Leary, break out and escape from the California Men's Colony prison.

8 October 1970 - Bombing of Marin County courthouse. [NYT, 8/10/70]

10 October 1970 - Bombing of Queens traffic-court building . [NYT, 10/10/70, p. 12]

14 October 1970 - Bombing of The Harvard Center for International Affairs [NYT, 10/14/70, p. 30]

1 March 1971 - Bombing of The United States Capitol . ' [NYT, 3/2/71]

April, 1971 - abandoned WUO 'bomb factory' discovered in San Francisco, California.

29 August, 1971 - Bombing of the Office of California Prisons . [LAT, 8/29/71]

17 September 1971 - Bombing of The New York Department of Corrections in Albany, NY [NYT, 9/18/71]

15 October 1971 - Bombing of William Bundy's office in the MIT research center. [NYT, 10/16/71]

19 May 1972 - Bombing of The Pentagon . [NYT, 5/19/72]

18 May 1973 - Bombing of the 103rd Police Precinct in New York

28 September 1973 - Bombing of ITT headquarters in New York and Rome, Italy . [NYT, 9/28/73]

6 March 1974 - Bombing of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare offices in San Francisco

31 May 1974 - Bombing of The Office of the California Attorney General.

17 June 1974 - Bombing of Gulf Oil's Pittsburgh headquarters .

11 September 1974 - Bombing of Anaconda Corporation (part of the Rockefeller Corporation).

29 January 1975 - Bombing of the State Department in (AP. 'State Department Rattled by Blast,' The Daily Times-News, January 29 1975, p.1)

16 June 1975 - Bombing of Banco de Ponce (a Puerto Rican bank) in New York .

September, 1975 - Bombing of the Kennecott Corporation .

October 20, 1981 - Brinks robbery in which several members of the Weather Underground stole over $1 million from a Brinks armored car near Nyack, New York. The robbers murdered 2 police officers and 1 Brinks guard. Several others were wounded.

1981 'Guilty as hell,Free as a bird. America is a great country," Ayers said when interviewed by David Horowitz.

September 11, 2001 'I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.' Ayers is quoted in a New York Times article.

Message to the News Media: Instead of trying to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin, why don't you cover indepth stories such as the Obama-Ayers relationship just for starters. If you need more leads for stories regarding Senator Obama and other unsavory characters, contact me at this publication.

Another Obama Lie....

2008-07-24T09:35:00.003-05:00

This just goes on and on with zero accountability:

Obama:

"you don’t have to just look at my words, you can look at my deeds. Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon."

Minor problem: Obama doesn't even serve on the Senate Banking Committee or any of the sub-committees. He just made it up... as usual, and nobody calls him on it. This is truly amazing. Obama is not only entitled to his own opinions, he's entitled to his own facts.

So for the facts the members o the Committe and Sub Committees can be found
here and
here

Obama's change....on "The Surge"?

2008-07-21T09:40:00.001-05:00

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

The Arizona senator, who advocated the surge for years before the Bush administration employed it, says the resulting reduction in violence is proof it worked with progress on 15 of 18 political benchmarks and Obama's plan to withdraw troops by now would have resulted in surrender.

When President Bush ordered the surge in January 2007, Obama said: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he acknowledged progress, but maintained his position that political progress was lacking.

Tuesday, while Obama gave a speech on foreign policy, the New York Daily News was the first to notice the removal of parts of Obama's campaign site listing the Iraq troop surge as part of "The Problem." An Obama spokeswoman said it was just part of an "update" to "reflect changes in current events," as our colleague Frank James notes in the Swamp. The update includes a new section on the rise of Al Qaeda violence in Afghanistan.

But some might see the updating as part of Obama's skip to the political center now that he's secured the Democratic nomination. "Today," McCain said Tuesday, "we know Sen. Obama was wrong" to oppose the troop surge.

An old quote of Obama's criticizing the "rash war," which helped him with the left wing of his party and helped differentiate his stand from that of Sen. Hillary Clinton, a primary opponent who voted for the use of force in Iraq, has been replaced on his site by one saying that ending the Iraq war will make America safer. That's more of a general election message.

And hat tip to the folks over at the Wake Up America blog for their continuing trenchant analyses of the summer campaigns in general and, specifically, for highlighting the video below that contrasts Obama's pre-surge position with a more recent interview of David Axelrod, his chief campaign strategist, denying Obama's statements. A reminder of how carefully voters must listen during these last four campaign months.

Obama's Military Knowledge

2008-07-10T08:28:00.003-05:00

Before the long weekend began, Barack Obama made a semi-flip-flop regarding the situation in Iraq, even allowing that the surge had achieved some stability and that the next president would be foolish to fritter away those gains. Predictably, this acknowledgement of the obvious triggered howls of outrage on the left. Obama firmly stuck to his new position for almost two full hours before assembling the press once more to reaffirm his long-expressed intention to abandon Iraq. “I am absolutely committed to ending the war,” the longtime community organizer declared. “I will call my Joint Chiefs of Staff in and give them a new assignment and that is to end the war.”

While everyone has focused on the first part of the statement – Obama’s “absolute commitment” to defeat – I want to devote a little attention to the second part, the mechanism whereby Obama will make that defeat a reality. In Obama’s telling, he will call in his Joint Chiefs of Staff and reset their priorities.

I know Obama is a student of military matters and intellectually voracious, so it is thus rather stunning that he would betray such ignorance regarding the way the military actually functions. In truth, the Joint Chiefs are not part of the chain of command. Indeed, they are specifically by statute not part of the chain of command but instead serve solely in an advisory capacity to the president.

Surely Obama knows this. Obviously he wouldn’t be seeking the role of Commander-in-Chief without knowing how the job is done. So what follows will be familiar to him, but may be enlightening to the media types who to date have overlooked yet another Obama misstatement.

In 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols act passed congress, and it reorganized the way the military functions. Its prime goal regarding the Joint Chiefs was to cut down on inter-service rivalries. To give you the hyper-condensed Reader’s Digest version of things (which will still obviously put you several leagues ahead of presumptive-nominee Obama), the intent was that a guy like Norman Schwarzkopf could have command of a theatre without having to repeatedly go hat in hand to the different services. The Joint Chiefs would have a representative from each of the services that could advise the president of their individual service’s insights, but they were specifically cut out of the command loop so that the Schwarzkopf-type could run things efficiently.

So what is to become of our poor President Obama, barking out orders to his Joint Chiefs only to learn that they don’t carry out orders but just give advice? Will he claim he is powerless to end the war? Or will he eventually figure out that he has to get Odierno or Gates or Petraeus on the phone to make his wishes known?

And what are we to think of our Candidate Obama? I’ll admit the Goldwater-Nichols act isn’t exactly a household name like Miley Cyrus or Amy Winehouse, but the guy is running for president for the specific purpose of making war time changes. As he’s been running for office for 18 months now, shouldn’t he have found some time to explore the way the president interacts with the military rather than repeat canned (not to mention erroneous) assumptions he’s probably held since his community organizing days?

Does "Yellow Cake" justify the War...?

2008-07-09T08:31:00.004-05:00

Of course, this development would have been shouted from the mountain-tops of the main stream media; But because it contradicts the "Saddam had no WMD program" party line, it's mostly ignored and made public on a busy travel weekend:

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

Maybe Saddam just thought "yellowcake" meant baklava.

On a side Note why did they Lie
For too many years now, left wing morons with support and encouragement from the biased media, have made the following idiotic contribution to the debate about the war on terror, and specifically the Iraq theater:

"Bush lied, Americans died!"

Perhaps he did, but on the other hand-- it turns out that 550 metric tons of uranium yellow cake, the stuff of which "dirty bombs" can be made, have been found in Iraq.

Although there is no "reliable source" to quote on this shocker, we do have a report from the Associated Press which, despite being a wing of the DNC, nevertheless reported the following:

"The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium - reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

"The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellow cake" - the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment - was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions."

So, if one is willing to take a risk by believing an AP story, one might conclude that there was indeed yellow cake in Iraq.

One might extrapolate even further and conclude that Bush did not, in fact, lie after all.

Quite apart from the fact that such a lie would make no logical sense, many prominent Democrats have made strong public statements in the past proclaiming their belief that Saddam did indeed have WMD.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is among those who expressed such a belief.

In addition to the new "Queen of Mean," the following leftist luminaries weighed in against Saddam before deciding that George W. Bush was the greater evil:

Ted Kennedy, John Rockefeller, Al Gore, Carl Levin, Patty Murray, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Liberman, Barbara Boxer, Robert Byrd, Wesley Clark, Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle, John Edwards, Dick Gephart, Sandy Berger, Madeline Albright, Tom Larkin, Harry Ford, and Diane Feinstein.

The exact quotes of these political luminaries follow.

Did they all lie?

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." -- From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998

"This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer- range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." -- From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, & Tom Lantos among others

"Whereas Iraq has consistently breached its cease-fire agreement between Iraq and the United States, entered into on March 3, 1991, by failing to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program, and refusing to permit monitoring and verification by United Nations inspections; Whereas Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological capabilities, and has made positive progress toward developing nuclear weapons capabilities" -- From a joint resolution submitted by Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter on July 18, 2002

"Saddam's goal ... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." -- Madeline Albright, 1998

"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983" -- National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998

"Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement." -- Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability." -- Robert Byrd, October 2002

"There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we." -- Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002

"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." -- Bill Clinton in 1998

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

"Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people." -- Tom Daschle in 1998

"Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal." -- John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002

"The debate over Iraq is not about politics. It is about national security. It should be clear that our national security requires Congress to send a clear message to Iraq and the world: America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." -- John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002

"I share the administration's goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction." -- Dick Gephardt in September of 2002

"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." -- Bob Graham, December 2002

"Saddam Hussein is not the only deranged dictator who is willing to deprive his people in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction." -- Jim Jeffords, October 8, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." -- Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." -- Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002

"I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force - if necessary - to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- John F. Kerry, Oct 2002

"The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation." -- John Kerry, October 9, 2002

"(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." -- John Kerry, Jan 23, 2003

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." -- Carl Levin, Sept 19, 2002

"Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States." -- Joe Lieberman, August, 2002

"Over the years, Iraq has worked to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. During 1991 - 1994, despite Iraq's denials, U.N. inspectors discovered and dismantled a large network of nuclear facilities that Iraq was using to develop nuclear weapons. Various reports indicate that Iraq is still actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability. There is no reason to think otherwise. Beyond nuclear weapons, Iraq has actively pursued biological and chemical weapons.U.N. inspectors have said that Iraq's claims about biological weapons is neither credible nor verifiable. In 1986, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and later, against its own Kurdish population. While weapons inspections have been successful in the past, there have been no inspections since the end of 1998. There can be no doubt that Iraq has continued to pursue its goal of obtaining weapons of mass destruction." -- Patty Murray, October 9, 2002

"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." -- Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998

"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." -- Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources -- something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." -- John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002

"Saddam's existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America, now. Saddam has used chemical weapons before, both against Iraq's enemies and against his own people. He is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East." -- John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002

"Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration's policy towards Iraq, I don't think there can be any question about Saddam's conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts." -- Henry Waxman, Oct 10, 2002

Why did all of those Democrats lie?

Obama's Qualifications in his own words

2008-07-09T08:22:00.002-05:00

There's nothing like playing the tape back:

The Messiah's people keep saying that McCain said this, and McCain said that... well McCain never said anything like this!

JIMMY CARTER: Obama is not qualified to President of the United States:

"Such great insight" from a former President and Nobel Peace prize winner...cough...

Che and Obama together ...again

2008-07-09T08:15:00.001-05:00

USA Today
ran a story recently titled "Ohio judge: State must change lethal injection law". But USA Today seemed to have completely missed the larger story appearing right behind the judge during his interview:

OK, first we have the delicate little matter of a judge who is supposed to be non-partial and above politics hanging highly political posters in his tax-payer funded office. Then there is the tiny matter of the kind of politics the judge seems to admire. A genocidal, communist terrorist revolutionary right next to...you guessed it...the Messiah himself.

USA Today apparently found this display by a judge completely natural, not even slightly noteworthy, and didn't mention it in the article.

Obama the Law Breaker?

2008-07-09T08:00:00.002-05:00

In Addition to being tacky and presumptuous, like measuring the drapes and announcing that he is going to build a basketball court in the White House. There is this little thing called
The LAW :

18 USC Sec. 713 ...
(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

(b) Whoever, except as authorized under regulations promulgated by the President and published in the Federal Register, knowingly manufactures, reproduces, sells, or purchases for resale, either separately or appended to any article manufactured or sold, any likeness of the seals of the President or Vice President, or any substantial part thereof, except for manufacture or sale of the article for the official use of the Government of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Prison for six months? Hmmmm...

The Messiah sitting behind the Great Seal of Obama:

Obama's Plans of Promise?

2008-07-03T09:56:00.003-05:00

NAME-BRAND journalists have let Barack Obama make any claim he chooses about Iraq, Afghanistan or coping with terrorism without pinning him down for details.

Yet many of his comments and positions seem stunningly naive about national security. Given that this man may become our next president, shouldn't he explain how he'd do the many impressive things he's promised?

This week, Obama claimed, again, that he'd promptly capture Osama bin Laden. OK, tell me how: Specifically, which concrete measures would he take that haven't been taken? How would he force our intelligence agencies to locate bin Laden? And he can't just respond, "That's classified."

He also claimed that fighting terrorism is a law-enforcement problem, not a military one (should we send the NYPD to Mosul and Kandahar?), and that the answer to terrorism is the approach taken after the 1993 World Trade Center attack, featuring conventional trials and prison terms.

That flaccid post-'93 response only encouraged terrorists - who are unfazed by the prospect of a US prison, where the quality of life's better than it was at home. The Clinton administration's hesitancy and softness gave us the subsequent attacks on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, on our embassies in East Africa, on the USS Cole and, ultimately, the events of 9/11.

The senator needs to tell us why it would be different now.

Obama has also said he'd send our troops into Pakistan, although he'll withdraw rapidly from Iraq. His unwillingness to discuss the consequences of a hasty retreat from Baghdad is one thing - but invading Pakistan would be an order of magnitude worse.

A substantial number of Iraq's 26 million citizens did welcome us. In Pakistan, with its 170 million Muslims and some of the most rugged terrain on earth, anti-Americanism prevails. Any US military incursion would be greeted with outrage and demands for a military response.

Nor does Obama appear to grasp that armies need fuel, ammunition, food, spare parts and other supplies. Nearly everything for our troops in landlocked Afghanistan, from bottled water to medical supplies, now comes via Pakistani ports, roads and railroads. If those long, difficult routes were cut, how would President Obama supply our troops? And no, it can't all be done by air.

Oh, Pakistan has nukes, too.

Also this week, Obama's advisers stated that, if apprehended, Osama bin Laden should be tried in a conventional US courtroom. My fellow Americans, do you believe that?
\
Do you believe that this arch-terrorist, publicly proud of his responsibility for 9/11, should be given all the rights of a US citizen and a public platform to engage in propaganda?

What the full-rights-for-terrorists advocates fail to comprehend is that our judicial processes - so dear to us - are viewed by terrorists as a means to advance their cause, to embarrass us, to reveal our intelligence methods and to perpetuate their martyr myth.

Harsh as it may sound, a dead terrorist is dead, but an imprisoned terrorist is a cause (and not just for his fellow radicals). Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is forgotten, but our Guantanamo prisoners are pop stars.

Obama appears out of his depth on all this, but the gushingly friendly media have given him a pass on every groundless claim or gaffe. It's time for journalists to start asking him tough questions - to press him when he doesn't give serious answers. Isn't that their job?

Those who knew Obama in his university days claim that he couldn't be persuaded to study history. It shows. And his lifelong lack of interest in the military is self-evident.

The response that "he has knowledgeable advisers" isn't enough. Obama's military and counterterror "experts" compose a unique collection of the dismissed, the discredited and the dysfunctional. Most appear to be out to settle personal grudges rather than to advance our nation's security.

Let's hope that just one high-profile journalist pushes Obama on the following questions:

* How would you find Osama bin Laden? What, specifically, would you do differently?

* What would be the rules for capturing or killing Osama?

* How would you manage the consequences of the military incursion into Pakistan you've threatened? Are you willing to go to war with Pakistan?

* What would be the specific results of a swift troop withdrawal from Iraq?

* Why would a judicial approach to defeating terrorists work this time when it failed to protect us in the past?

* Do you truly believe that self-admitted terrorists, when captured, deserve the full legal privileges of US citizens?

If this highly talented candidate has glaring gaps in his understanding of the world, voters deserve to know. If his campaign promises have no substance, we deserve to know that, too.

I support John McCain for president, but I live by the values that guide me: I will support my commander in chief as chosen by the American people, no matter who he (or, one day, she) may be. But until the people make their choice, both candidates should be held to the same tough standards of truth in advertising.

Sen. Obama, tell us how.

Dear Senator...

2008-05-21T14:30:00.001-05:00

Dear Senator Obama,

It is often politically inconvenient when someone tells the truth about you before millions of people. When President Bush spoke before the Israeli Knesset last week to commemorate the anniversary of the formation of the State of Israel, he said something you found politically inconvenient. "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

You rightly perceived President Bush's statement as an attack on you. But that doesn't make the attack illegitimate. You blustered, "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack ∑ George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

For you to criticize President Bush's "extraordinary politicization of foreign policy" is in itself extraordinarily audacious. You have stated that you would sit down for talks with Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela without preconditions. You have made a career out of politicizing foreign policy, with a particular bent toward appeasement. Last Monday, for example, you stated in a speech in Montana, "Demanding that a country meets your conditions before you meet with them, that's not a strategy, it's naive, wishful thinking. I'm not afraid we'll lose some propaganda fight with a dictator. It's time to win those battles, because we've watched George Bush lose them year after year after year."

You, Senator, are concerned about winning propaganda victories. You should be concerned about real victories. Propaganda victories mean nothing in the long run -- you please your constituency, you boost your approval ratings and your enemy remains intact. And when your enemy remains intact, he grows stronger. And when your enemy grows stronger, people die.

Back in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain won a propaganda fight with Hitler. He arrived back home in England from the Munich Conferences -- where he had just handed over Sudetenland to the Nazis -- to wild applause. Just six months later, Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia while the world did nothing.

You may think, Senator Obama, that talks do not signify appeasement. You may point out that you aren't handing over the Sudetenland to Iran or Syria or North Korea ˆ you're simply trying to find common ground.

Let me put this simply, Senator: There is no common ground with those who adamantly cling to evil. Finding a midpoint between the twisted agendas of rogue states and the righteous mission of the United States is capitulation. Ronald Reagan could negotiate with the Soviet Union because he never compromised his basic stance that the Soviet Union was an evil empire that had to dismantle its global objectives. And the Soviet Union compromised because it recognized that the United States would force it into collapse.

You, sir, are no Ronald Reagan. You are not even a Neville Chamberlain --- at least Chamberlain had the excuse that Britain was at a military disadvantage. You are a true believer in your own messianic myth. You are the fellow who thinks, "If only (SET ITAL) I (END ITAL) could talk with him, we could straighten things out." If diplomacy should be the iron fist in the velvet glove, your diplomacy is the cotton-candy ego in the velvet glove.

Senator, I know you believe in the power of your words to convince. And why shouldn't you? You've hoodwinked millions of Americans into backing your presidential campaign. But if you become president, there's something you must recognize: There are some people who cannot be convinced minus the threat of force.

We should know.

Sincerely,
The victims of the Holocaust
The victims of Soviet oppression
The victims of Pol Pot
The victims of Ho Chi Minh
The victims of Saddam Hussein
The victims of Yasser Arafat and his successors
The victims of Kim Jung Il
And the Millions to come

All this Obama "Talk"

2008-04-15T15:09:00.003-05:00

An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation of how drastically his carefully crafted image this election year contrasts with what he has actually been saying and doing for many years.

Senator Obama's election year image is that of a man who can bring the country together, overcoming differences of party or race, as well as solving our international problems by talking with Iran and other countries with which we are at odds, and performing other miscellaneous miracles as needed.

There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the United States Senate. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation — nor any other significant legislation, for that matter.

Senator Obama is all talk — glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk, but still just talk.

Some of his recent talk in San Francisco has stirred up controversy because it revealed yet another blatant contradiction between Barack Obama's public image and his reality.

Speaking privately to supporters in heavily left-liberal San Francisco, Obama let down his hair and described working class people in Pennsylvania as so "bitter" that they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them."

Like so much that Obama has said and done over the years, this is standard stuff on the far left, where guns and religion are regarded as signs of psychological dysfunction — and where opinions different from those of the left are ascribed to emotions ("bitter" in this case), rather than to arguments that need to be answered.

Like so many others on the left, Obama rejects "stereotypes" when they are stereotypes he doesn't like but blithely throws around his own stereotypes about "a typical white person" or "bitter" gun-toting, religious and racist working class people.

In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a "clarification," when people react adversely to what was plainly said.

Obama and his supporters were still busy "clarifying" Jeremiah Wright's very plain statements when it suddenly became necessary to "clarify" Senator Obama's own statements in San Francisco.

People who have been cheering whistle-blowers for years have suddenly denounced the person who blew the whistle on what Obama said in private that is so contradictory to what he has been saying in public.

However inconsistent Obama's words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years.

He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.

Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.

Karl Marx said, "The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing." In other words, they mattered only in so far as they were willing to carry out the Marxist agenda.

Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw included the working class among the "detestable" people who "have no right to live." He added: "I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, and that there is no need on earth why they should be replaced by people like themselves."

Similar statements on the left go back as far as Rousseau in the 18th century and come forward into our own times.

It is understandable that young people are so strongly attracted to Obama. Youth is another name for inexperience — and experience is what is most needed when dealing with skillful and charismatic demagogues.

Those of us old enough to have seen the type again and again over the years can no longer find them exciting. Instead, they are as tedious as they are dangerous.

The Obama Utopian States of America

2008-04-14T08:53:00.000-05:00

We know the critique of present American foreign policy under George W. Bush — unilateralist and preemptive — and to some extent we know Sen. Obama’s promised corrective — multilateral and reflective. So let’s take a serious look at what exactly is wrong with the former, and how things would substantially improve under the latter.

Let’s start with India. Indians poll pro-American by wide margins — due no doubt to America’s unnecessary coddling of the world’s largest democracy. If Sen. Obama acts on his complaints about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to India and institutes his anti-NAFTA preferences in U.S. trade relations, India may finally receive the tough love it has been needing. After all, didn’t President Bush give away the nuclear game with India? Perhaps a President Obama will back out of existing agreements in order to ensure that India does not receive advanced nuclear technology. (In recompense, they’ll have little reason to complain, relatively speaking: Sen. Obama has suggested the U.S. should preemptively invade our ally Pakistan in order to hunt down Osama bin Laden.)

And China — what are we doing wrong there? Its increasing appetite for world resources means it cares not a whit what happens in the Sudan, as long as it gets its oil. Some Chinese products, as Sen. Obama rightly reminds us, are shoddy and sometimes dangerous — no doubt a result of our indiscriminate free-trade policy. The way China treats Tibetans and Uyghur Muslims violates canons of human decency. Will a President Obama protect American jobs, champion human rights, and ensure fair and safe trade by redefining our relationship with China — which holds a trillion dollars in U.S. government bonds?

Anti-Americanism runs rampant in Europe. Under an Obama administration, should we expect friendlier governments than Sarkozy’s France or Merkel’s Germany? Perhaps Obama might cancel that provocative missile-defense system in Eastern Europe designed to stop an Iranian nuclear guided missile — a welcome end to the saber-rattling of George W. Bush’s cowboy diplomacy.

Or will Sen. Obama try to save American jobs by nullifying contracts with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. to provide refueling tankers to the U.S. Air Force? We can be sure that he will embrace the emissions-reduction targets set in the Kyoto accords — in that way, he will encourage Europeans to do the same, since their repeated failures in meeting their promised reductions must surely be laid at Mr. Bush’s feet: the EU has been waiting for America to show the way. Perhaps Sen. Obama could regain EU goodwill by pressuring Europeans to drop agricultural subsidies — and eliminate our own — and so give former third-world farmers a break. That would be liberal change I could believe in.

Then there is Russia. Surely Obama will do something about Putin, who seemed too cozy with Bush while he hijacked Russian democracy and used his oil to bully Europe. Perhaps Obama can craft an ingenious speech that will persuade the Kremlin’s ex-KGB kleptocrats to act more civilly in the world, especially concerning their trafficking with the likes of Iran and Syria?

Speaking of the Middle East, how will Obama restore American prestige there and ameliorate the damage done in the Bush years? Perhaps he could send Nancy Pelosi back to Syria to engage Mr. Assad? Or ask the Democratic Congress to condemn Turkey for the Armenian genocide?

ill Obama’s fast-track pullout of Iraq — and his willingness to sit down, without preconditions, with the mullahs of Iran — assure stability in the region, and win the confidence of our Arab allies? Sens. Obama and Clinton have both written epitaphs for the surge: Why, then, continue a failed policy? Once Americans are out of Iraq by mid-2009, Iraqis themselves — as Afghans, Cambodians, Somalis, Rwandans, and Yugoslavs have done before them — can work out their differences on their own. And since we were always the gratuitous targets that created terrorists ex nihilo, no doubt Dr. Zawahiri and President Ahmadinejad will move on to other Great Satans, once they see that those provocative American GIs have turned tail and fled their neighborhoods.

Since it is self-evident that the absence of another 9/11-like attack here at home was a fluke — and had nothing to do either with Guantanmo, the Patriot Act, wiretaps, the destruction of al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, or the annihilation of Wahhabi terrorists in Iraq — President Obama will be free to shut down all such legally dubious homeland-security measures. All that will reassure Americans and Europeans that those efforts were both unnecessary and antithetical to our values. There never was, and won’t be, any danger of another 9/11.

Since NAFTA was a sell-out of American workers, President Obama can, as he seems to promise, withdraw from the association and restore tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, while ending our xenophobic paranoia about “secure borders” — especially silly ideas like fences and walls. There would be no need to extend NAFTA-like accords to Colombia, and we should also reexamine sweetheart deals with Middle-Eastern countries like Jordan.

The world between 1992-2000 is the model we are to emulate, it seems. The world was much safer then — before George W. Bush’s indiscriminate wars — and it can be so again. In those golden days, the U.S. rightly contextualized “random” terrorist acts — making the proper distinctions between war and “police matters.” Yes, it’s true that thousands of American soldiers died in those peaceful days — about 7,500 between 1993-2000 — but they did so in noncombatant-related operations. Back then, our experts appreciated the hard lines and firewalls that separated Hezbollah from Iran, Sunni terrorists from Shiite killers, and were always careful not to overreact and turn mere responses into needless wars. In extremis, we can employ tried-and-true tools like no-fly zones, oil-for-food embargoes, U.N. sanctions, and the occasional cruise missile — avoiding the mess of President Karzai’s Afghanistan or President Maliki’s Iraq, and the peripheral blowback involving a jittery Libya, Syria, and Pakistan’s Dr. A. Q. Khan.

Presently the United States does the world’s heavy lifting under a Texan who says “nucular.” But soon it may well be charmed and mesmerized by a smooth-talking icon who raises trade barriers, leaves the Middle East to the Middle East, gets tough on China and India, relaxes relations with Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela, while redefining existing ones with Pakistan — and says to Europe, “We’re right behind you!” Let’s hope it will be as pleasant to see the results as it has been to listen to the utopian rhetoric.

The Consequences of Ideas

2008-03-24T14:43:00.002-05:00

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” -Winston Churchill

An accepted definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. I’d like to amend the working definition of “deranged” to include the description “the insanity one exhibits in voting for one or the other Democratic presidential candidates who espouse neo-socialist ideas in 2008.” Their ideas have been tried and their ideas have failed – both in our own nation’s history and in the historical experience of nations around the world (see: Berlin Wall’s demise, the Soviet Union’s collapse, and everything Jimmy Carter said or did while in office).

So why do so many American voters keep making the same mistake of voting for distinctly collectivist, socialistic policies espoused by grossly inadequate contenders for the highest office in the land? How is it that a nation as blessed and prosperous and free as this can continue to chase after categorically refuted systems of government and economy? How does liberalism remain a legitimate intellectual political option after leaving such an objectionable track record in the United States, to say nothing of the world at-large?

Since the American Revolution we’ve had no problem recognizing a monarchy as undesirable form of government. We’ve moved past bartering as the way to conduct modern business. We no longer use leeches to cure the common cold. So why is the socialist’s ideology still so prevalent in modern American political discourse?

The simple answer is that this nation is still unwilling (due to personal predilections or intellectual laziness) and unable (due to biases or intellectual dishonesty) to seriously investigate the real consequences of Leftist positions and decisions in foreign, domestic, and monetary policy.

You’ve likely heard it said that the best trick the devil ever played was to convince people he didn’t exist. Well, the best trick socialism ever played was to convince the average voter that its own past failures and sins don’t exist. Rather, with enough “hope” and “change” you can do the same things that failed in the past, only now they will succeed in the future. (The little Marxist that could.)

I have no problem with the media, with liberals, with Democrats, scrutinizing both the ideas and their results from Conservatives, Republicans and Evangelical Christians. We all know that ideas have real and potentially serious consequences that aren’t always apparent without thoughtful inquiry and contemplation.

Let’s consider a few examples:

Idea: The Founding Fathers chose to value liberty over equality.
Consequence: Equality of opportunity, not outcome, becomes our national ethos. Subsequently many investors, entrepreneurs, and hard-working stiffs die wretchedly poor (but equally free) because they took a voluntary chance on free-market capitalism. Yet, the vast majority prosper and rise to a point of prosperity the world could never had dreamed because they were free to both succeed and fail in the free market economy.

Idea: Liberty, freedom, and economic stability in the Middle East will enable peace-seeking Muslims the opportunity to rise above their current totalitarian existence (and will also put pressure on Iran and Syria to relinquish their hateful, terrorist-sponsoring ways).
Consequence: 4,000 American soldiers have given their life so that 50 million citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan could have the chance to change the destiny of their homelands and the entire region.

Again, I have no beef with American Left incessantly critiquing the ideas of the Right as long as they do so with fairness and truth (fat chance). What I do find galling is the Left’s unwillingness to seriously acknowledge their ideological ancestry (Marxism begets Socialism begets Liberalism). Nor will they concede the blatant and devastating consequences of their ideas. Regardless of how strong the ivory soap Pontius Pilate couldn’t wash his hands of the consequences of his own decisions – neither can modern Liberalism.

Idea: The War in Vietnam is no longer worth fighting so there must be an immediate troop withdrawal and de-funding of the war. This will force the South Vietnamese to stand on their own.
Consequence: Three million innocent people (our allies) in Southeast Asia are slaughtered in the era immediately following our fast exit from the region.

Idea: Government welfare and entitlements for even the able-bodied poor are the moral necessities of a Great Society.
Consequence: Generational poverty and government dependence destroys millions of families and any hope for a better future. By 1996, Bill Clinton, with the support of more than 95% of Americans, signs Welfare Reform into law, signifying, in part, the monumental failure of liberal social planning.

We all are accountable for the ideas we hold and the consequences they bring to ourselves and others. Accountability, I admit, is an unpopular concept in these contemporary times. However, if we refuse to honestly appraise the profits or losses of our intellectual investments we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past. Nor will we have the ability to embrace those ideas that have served us well and could make life easier in the future.

Ideas matter. Do we have the will and wisdom to examine where they lead so that we might throw out the rubbish while saving the rubies?

Collectivism...is just worng

2008-03-20T23:29:00.002-05:00

“We’re gonna have to take from some to give to others.”

-Hillary Clinton, November 2007

“If you work hard in America, you shouldn’t be poor.”

-Barack Obama, February 2008

Whether you have recognized it yet or not, the deceptively alluring forces of collectivism (socialism/Marxism) are gathering at the gates of our beloved “City on a Hill” (America). A strange and alarming way of thinking that is altogether foreign to our historical experience as a nation has surfaced in the 2008 Presidential campaign – most notably from the two Left-leaning candidates of the Democratic Party who are both vying for the White House.

Only because far too many of us have been subtly indoctrinated from grade school with collectivist ideas and maxims can Senators Obama and Clinton go unchallenged using such blatantly Marxist rhetoric. Both are promising economic security and equality to all Americans in return for a fundamental restructuring of the American capitalist economy and government into a neo-socialist state. That perhaps some of you find this potential threat I am describing to be overstated does not justify, or explain away, the words and promises of the Democratic candidates themselves.

As both a vigilant American and a prudent student of history, I find it offensive that Hillary and Barack should so enthusiastically and shamelessly dismiss our proud 232 years of American capitalist traditions and heritage. We have for two and a half centuries prospered as no other nation has because we championed capitalism over collectivism, the individual over the State, and most important of all, liberty over equality. These values lie at the very heart, at the very core of the great American experiment in self-governance.

Both our representative democracy and our free-market capitalism are based squarely on the principle that liberty, freedom, and autonomy (and the protection of all three) are inherently more valuable than strict equality, economic security, and regulated outcomes (particularly of the “central planning” type being unproductively served up in Europe today, and now advocated by our current batch of Democratic presidential hopefuls).

The French, in their somewhat bungled attempt at a revolution in the late 18^th century, recklessly embraced the idea that “equality trumps liberty”; or at least that the latter should be subservient to the former. This subtle decision – to work at making everyone equal rather than making everyone free – is the precise error in judgment that brought economic, cultural, and political failure to France over the last two centuries (as with any other Socialistic nation on earth).

The deeper wisdom of the American Founding Fathers’ was to opt for liberty rather than equality and this has been a fundamental secret of our success for over two hundred years. They rightly believed that liberty does not originate from some intellectual or philosophical fountainhead; no, liberty is a gift from God and God alone. Thus, we have believed no government or political party or system of economics has the right to deprive the American people of what God freely bestowed on all of us – liberty, not even in the name of some arbitrary brand of “equality” that sounds good because the person espousing it has a nice smile and looks handsome in a suit (“pant-“ or otherwise).

It’s bad enough that Clinton and Obama are so wrong in their understanding of our nation’s political and economic history. But for them to then wrap their naïve, simplistic, pie-in-the-sky, un-American, and Constitutionally-challenged statements under the cover of quasi-Christian and ostensibly religious language, in hopes of catering to the simple-minded and weak-willed among us, is, as far as I’m concerned, unconscionable.

For example last fall in South Carolina, Senator Obama stood in the pulpit of a church audience on a Sunday morning, supposedly “the Lord’s Day,” and implored the congregation to “Make me an instrument of God…and usher in a new Kingdom on earth.” Under slightly different circumstances, someone making those same statements in public would be referred to a licensed psychiatrist or therapist for help in exploring such clearly self-proclaimed messianic assertions.

So what will this new “instrument of God” do to usher in the Kingdom? Translation: I’ll give you free health care, allow you to abscond from your mortgage debts, and “usher in” a Nanny-state that will put those heartless Pharisees on the Right (Republicans) to shame once and for all.

Hillary Clinton, not to be further out-shadowed by the dashing, saintly, junior Senator from Illinois, has on countless occasions mis-quoted Scripture verses (that surprisingly sound a lot like a Manifesto I once re(a)d), appeared in numerous Sunday morning church pulpits to stump for votes, and has shrilly vowed that anywhere Obama has been light on collectivism, she will be a sickle to his hammer.

As an aside, it’s fascinating that any discussion that involves the convergence of politics, economics, and religion is one that violates the separation of church and state if it involves a Conservative’s take on the matter. However, as long as we aren’t talking about George W. Bush and his “faith,” even the agnostic and secular members of the Left are comfortable with a candidate who beckons supporters to make him an “instrument of God.”

Despite their religious language and appeal what Obama and Clinton fail to appreciate is that socialism (on a national level) is a both a heresy and proven failure when held up to the illuminating light of human experience, Scripture’s (the Bible’s) testimony, and the Western Church’s history and tradition.

Let’s start with church history and tradition. The Reformation, the single most important religious event in the last 1000 years for those in the Protestant tradition, exalted personal freedom and liberty and condemned the centralization of power. Such ideas were embodied in the life and writings of John Calvin and Martin Luther. Both men fundamentally disagreed with the consolidation of authority (spiritually speaking) in the hands of a few clergymen, regardless of the character or integrity of the church leaders. At the core of their argument against the Church’s chokehold on forgiveness-of-sins and personal piety were the concepts of sin and the depravity of all Mankind. Man is too inherently corrupted, they argued, to be trusted with extraneous power or sway. They argued instead for investing power and authority in the individual or what they called the “Priesthood of all Believers.”

In his treatise, On Christian Liberty, Luther expounds that freedom was found in faith in Christ, but such freedom carried with it a great responsibility to serve God and one’s neighbor tirelessly. John Calvin, in his classic work The Institutes, reminds the follower of Christ that the focus of moral governments (and the moral, religious citizens of them) should be on liberty and equity (justice), not guaranteed or compulsory equality.

Adam Smith of Wealth of Nations fame, the father of the modern free-market capitalism and a devout Christian himself, insisted that the only way his system could work was if the people participating in it were overwhelmingly moral and religious and willing to individually look after the “least” (orphaned, widowed, handicapped, etc.) among them. Thomas Jefferson, the father of American democracy, said that our system of government was made for a God-fearing and religious people, and was “wholly inadequate in the hands of any other.” Voluntary participation, pursuit of self-interest, and a firm belief in a higher power (under Whose standard of morality we are all held accountable) were the cornerstones of both men’s prolifically successful ideas.

The biblical record also rejects the consolidation of power by the few in order to control the many. Going back as far as the misguided attempt to build the Tower of Babel, or to the short-sighted plea by the Israelites for a king (instead of in Yahweh), even to Christ’s admonition to distinguish between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, the Bible clearly denounces collectivism and the centralization of power.

The egalitarian life-style of the early New Testament church in the book of Acts is often cited as the model for American Christians to pattern our government and society after. However, this outlook fails to appreciate both the context of that time and the underlying theme of the passages cited. These early believers shared among each other and helped the poor and needy around them entirely on their own, rather than under the direction of a government or bureaucracy. Early Christians did not turn to Rome or Pilate for help and direction in caring for the poor, the sick, or the elderly. Rather they acted freely and independently as house churches reaching out to the needy in their own local communities.

The need for all Americans, let alone God-fearing ones, to extend help to the less fortunate is not in question. The debate is over which is best equipped to do so: the State or the individual (including faith-based believers and organizations).

What is clear from Scripture is that while God loves everyone equally, He did not grant everyone equal resources or gifts. Consider the Parable of the Talents Jesus told. He begins by explaining that God gives one person a gift of ten talents (a considerable sum of money), while to another five talents (still quite a sizable largesse) while to another He bestows just one talent. The Parable then scandalously explains that God eventually calls each person to account for their faithfulness in investing the talents they were given, rather than their success or ability to redistribute the talents so everyone ends up with the same amount. This is no doubt a real theological conundrum for Hillary and Barack. Indeed, the Parable is an unfortunate setback for those who preach a biblical case for collectivism.

For even the non-religious among us, human experience alone tells us pursuing absolute equality in life just is not a realistic goal. Some of us are born short and some of us are created tall. Some of us become professional basketball players while others develop into wildly talented concert pianists. Some of us are fortunate enough to be born into wealthy, loving homes while others among us are born wretchedly poor and grow up unspeakably abused. Some of us work very hard our whole lives and barely make ends meet, while others stumble upon an invention that allows them to sip drinks with tiny umbrellas in them for the rest of their days.

Ultimately life judges us not so much by the hand we’ve been dealt but how we decided to play it. In fact, some research indicates that an impoverished or difficult beginning can actually serve as the platform for developing extraordinary character and achievement. A popular book entitled Cradles of Eminence released in the mid-twentieth century documented numerous cases of individuals overcoming extraordinarily difficult home environments of such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln. While the furnace of suffering unfortunately consumes some, it at the same time it forges the mettle of others.

The history of Western civilization, the biblical record and common sense all confirm that providing citizens of a nation genuine liberty and opportunity rather than contrived security and equality offers the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people.

Collectivism, socialism, and Marxism have been repeatedly tried and have perpetually failed at reaching the goal of “equality.” It's not that their ends are unworthy; it's that their means are totalitarian. Again, the Left isn't evil per se, just wrong.

America has enjoyed a different experience for the last 230 years than much of the rest of the world. Personal responsibility, economic freedom, and a faith in God that engenders true liberty have allowed us to become the most prosperous, generous and caring people on the planet. We have enjoyed something far better than equality, we have enjoyed true freedom.

Remember that outcome this November when you’re tempted to change course in return for the promise of “change” or “hope” from “an instrument of God.”