Conservative Thought

New Year, New President, New Expectations?

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:22:00 +0000

Well, it's a new year complete with a new president and full of fresh expectations. What expectations? Some good and some bad.

It seems that Obama is a mixed bag trying to throw bones in all directions so that he engenders good will towards him. He meets with the left. He meets with the right. He appoints those to office that he once stood in stark contrast to, all at the same time still purporting to bring change.

Bottom line is, unlike Reagan or Lincoln, he doesn't hold a firm set of values that drive him. This may turn out to be a blessing. The programs and things he sets in motion will be difficult to stop, but it would indicate he is susceptible to public pressure. Seeing the number of appointments that are in legal and political trouble indicates he make hasty decisions without fully knowing the facts or ramifications (he comfortable dealing with corrupt politicians.)

There are many other facets that make Obama both a reason for optimism in 2012 and a reason to fear. The most stunning from 2008 has to do with the gullibility of the public. They believe what the news media feeds them and checks their brain at the door. What is obvious to conservatives (values, principles) seems to evade the vast majority of the public. This means the election is more emotional than logical.

How do we proceed for the next 4 years?

1. Pray for our new president that he reaches out to God for guidance and help. We want him to succeed in building our nation and not compromise it.

2. Communicate better our message of hope, a better life and what is the path to get there.

3. Build a perception of the Republican Party as optimistic, upbeat and fun... yet with a serious grasp on the issues. Work on being perceived as the party that knows their stuff, has a solid plan, is looking out for me (and my family) and more importantly has an active relationship with me.

4. Work on our elected representatives to engender their concurrence with and support of the party platform (it's a great platform.) I don't know if the report card on platform is the end-all, but it is a good start to identify those who actually are principled Republicans instead of simple bureaucrats.

5. Have regular communication with our state and national elected officials to get updates and give them a sense of where we stand on issues... in advance of a final bill.

6. Strategize quarterly to measure success, retool and implement.

I know some (if not most) of these ideas are already being implemented in some fashion, but I wanted to voice my support of a clear direction and plan for conservative Republicans to be successful in 2012.

Have a wonderful 2009 and be blessed. This is still the greatest nation that God has blessed on this earth!

Lee

Obama Lays Plans to Kill Expectations After Election Victory

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 02:28:00 +0000

Obama Lays Plans to Kill Expectations After Election Victory - FOXNews.com Elections

I Value Honesty and Integity

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:45:00 +0000

If you would like to suggest that honesty and integrity is something to strive and be admired for, you have to question whether Barak Obama has any.

He could have done something about the illegal contributions once it was brought to light. Instead he chose to ignore it and take the money.

See the contributions below that are still able to be made. I should note that, in order to be able to make these kind of contributions, his team had to DISABLE security measures for their credit card transactions – which means this was done with intent, not by accident.

I want my President to have integrity, honesty and the audacity to stop corruption where it exists… even if it is him or his people.

Lee

---------------------------------------------------

Obama Shrugged: The Website

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/10/021911.php

October 29, 2008 Posted by Scott at 7:04 AM

We continue to receive reports of dubious (i.e., illegal) donations to the Obama campaign. Yesterday Mark Steyn reported the contribution of "Adolfe Hitler" of 1 Reichstag Building. Herr "Hitler" received a grateful acknowledgment of his contribution:

Dear Adolfe,

Thanks for joining this movement. It will take all of us working together to bring change to this country, and we wanted to make sure you know about all the opportunities to get involved in your community and online.

Check out the resources below -- learn how you can connect with fellow supporters, organize in your neighborhood, build our national grassroots organization, and stay informed with the very latest campaign news.

This morning we received word from reader Kurtis F. of his contribution under the name Crazy Eight:

Crazy Eight from Swindler Lane just made a $25 dollar donation to Obama for America. It went right through to my credit card after a two day delay.

No security code. No address check. No name verification. Nothing. Unbelievable.

At PBTS, John Ronning reports "How foreign liberals (and jihadis for the matter) can contribute illegally to the Obama campaign." They can do it the same way Crazy Eight and so many others have done.

You'd think someone who does this kind of work for the MSM might see a story here, but it hasn't happened yet. Indeed, as I noted in "Obama Shrugged," MSM reporters Michael Luo (New York Times) and Matthew Mosk (Washington Post) have only served to obscure the Obama's campaign's facilitation of illegal falsely sourced, foreign and excessively large donations in their pieces touching on this subject. Maybe they'll return to story and clear things up some time after the election, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Now reader Mike Angilleta Myself has teamed up with a few internet/e-commerce peers to launch a new site which is dedicated to covering the Obama online credit card donation scandal. As Mike notes in a message, the Obama campaign has intentionally turned off basic fraud screening (credit card address verification) on its site, thereby allowing donors to violate campaign finance law. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Mike writes that he and his team want to keep the public informed on this important issue that the mainstream media are ignoring and want to encourage readers to sign a petition asking the Obama campaign to disclose all its donor records, as the McCain campaign has done. Tipping his hat to my post earlier this week, Mike has aptly named his site Obama Shrugged.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/10/021911.php

The Infomercial analysis from Associated Press

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:36:00 +0000

My Way News - Obama's prime-time ad skips over budget realities

This week's need if Barak's misdeeds are to be brought to light.

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:25:00 +0000

The Corner on National Review Online

You've Got to See This - soooo true about people on their cellphones - funny

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:03:00 +0000

YouTube - Cell Phone Talkin' Zombies

This is absolutely great! Joe Biden on the defense. Way to go :-)

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 11:36:00 +0000

Power Line - A New Experience

Contribution Fraud in the Obama Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:19:00 +0000

Power Line - What did Della Ware?

More on Ability to Submit Illegal Contributions

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:17:00 +0000

The Corner on National Review Online

How Illegal Donations to Obama Can Occur

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:27:00 +0000

Please read this. It has been purported that Obama has been receiving unlawful contributions - here's one gaping hole and how it is done. If Obama is truly serious about change - why not start by fixing this? The obvious answer is that he's not really about values or virtues change for the better - it's all about power and winning.

Power Line - Who is John Galt?

Definitely something to ponder ... for those who care to take the time.

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:42:00 +0000

Please ponder this, if you were fortunate enough to realize the dream. You now have enough money to retire and let someone else handle your money and estate. Who would you pick to manage those affairs?

Would you blindly pick someone who has had very little experience? Even if that person could say all the right things to your face? No, not likely. You'd carefully select someone who themselves has demonstrated they can be trusted to protect your interests and wealth.

Would you pick someone associated with thugs, crooks and swindlers? Probably not. Even if they were only thugs from the neighborhood or work, you certainly beg questioning good judgment, plus you could losing your money and resources on their interests - which may not coincide with yours.

I could go on, but I believe you get the point. There is so much factual, provable evidence in similar regard related to Mr. Obama that I have to ask... why are you wanting to put him in charge?

He has no substantive experience to lead this great nation (in a time of crisis we need someone who has been there and already knows what to do);
His ideology has failed when it has been applied; He is associated with crooks and terrorists (this doesn't mean he is one, but it does means he lacks good judgment - you know, I really would like someone to lead our nation who possesses good judgment... call me picky.)
Even though he is a smooth talker, his story on key issues (most relating to values, taxes and foreign policy) has changed so many times, it certainly looks as though he has never really thought through these issues - or even may be changing the stance based on who he's talking to (like everyone is stupid.)

Are we doomed if he gets in office? No. But, the damage done can be huge - especially when you realize that the foreign policies of capitulation he espouses yielded 911 (let me know if you need timelines) and the Supreme Court Justices he will pick will have a pro-abortion stance. Let me ask... when did you become you? Were you you as a teen? Yep. Were you you as a toddler? Yep. Were you you when first born? Yep. Were you you moments before when you were in the womb? How about 3 or 6 months prior to popping out of the womb? You know, it was you all along. You were the person from conception and had you been aborted, you would not be here today.

Anyway, enough pause for pondering on my ramblings. Check out the associations of Obama below.

Thanks.

Lee

--------------------------------------
Something New Here
Radical? Check. Tied to ACORN? Check. Redistributionist? Check.

By Stanley Kurtz

During his first campaign for the Illinois
state senate in 1995-96, Barack Obama was a member of, and was endorsed
by, the far-left New Party. Obama’s New Party ties give the lie to his
claim to be a post-partisan, post-ideological pragmatist. Particularly
in Chicago, the New Party functioned as the electoral arm of the
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). So
despite repeated attempts to distance himself from ACORN, Obama’s New
Party ties raise disturbing questions about his links to those proudly
militant leftists. The media’s near-total silence on this critical
element of Obama’s past is deeply irresponsible

Socialist? Something New Here by Stanley Kurtz on National Review Online

Hawaii ending universal child health care

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:41:00 +0000

By MARK NIESSE, Associated Press Writer Mark Niesse, Associated Press Writer

–
Fri Oct 17, 3:29 am ET

HONOLULU – Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.

Gov. Linda Lingle's administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options
for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families
were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for
the subsidized plan.

"People who were
already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they
could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for
Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."

State
officials said Thursday they will stop giving health coverage to the
2,000 children enrolled by Nov. 1, but private partner Hawaii Medical Service Association will pay to extend their coverage through the end of the year without government support.

"We're
very disappointed in the state's decision, and it came as a complete
surprise to us," said Jennifer Diesman, a spokeswoman for HMSA, the
state's largest health care provider.
"We believe the program is working, and given Hawaii's economic
uncertainty, we don't think now is the time to cut all funding for this
kind of program."

Hawaii lawmakers
approved the health plan in 2007 as a way to ensure every child can get
basic medical help. The Keiki (child) Care program aimed to cover every
child from birth to 18 years old who didn't already have health
insurance — mostly immigrants and members of lower-income families.

Obama's Abortion Extremism

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:34:00 +0000

by Robert George

Oct 14, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's views on life issues
ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not
merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme
pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.

Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion
candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He
is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate.
Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in
either house of the United States Congress.

Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-life
Catholics and Evangelicals - who aggressively promote Obama's candidacy
and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of
view.

What is going on here?

I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama's
self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak.
It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly
believe what they are saying. But before proving my claims about
Obama's abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama
as ''pro-abortion'' rather than ''pro-choice.''

According to the standard argument for the distinction between these labels, nobody is
pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without abortions. After
all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to have an
abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find themselves
with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when having a baby
would present significant problems for them. So even if abortion is not
medically required, it should be permitted, made as widely available as
possible and, when necessary, paid for with taxpayers' money.

The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus
if we shift to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of
Americans: slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding
would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed
abolition. Such people - Thomas Jefferson was one - reasoned that,
given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of
society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic
consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of
plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be
dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest
and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson)
showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves
themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They
certainly didn't think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still,
they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option
and be given constitutional protection.

Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as
''pro-choice''? Of course we would not. It wouldn't matter to us that
they were ''personally opposed'' to slavery, or that they wished that
slavery were ''unnecessary,'' or that they wouldn't dream of forcing
anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a
placard that said ''Against slavery? Don't own one.'' We would observe
that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and
public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning
slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that
there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being
''pro-abortion'' and being ''pro-choice.'' Who would qualify for the
latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his
running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely
private choice that public authority should refrain from getting
involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that
the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively
unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden has sometimes opposed
using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free
to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to
create a meaningful category called ''pro-choice,'' then Biden might be
a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he
respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.

The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he
supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which
protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are
not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of
rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding
federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ''forces about
half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended
pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.''
In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have
been exterminated in utero
were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the
situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not
happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them)
would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama
even more than they do his running mate.

But this barely scratches the surface of Obama's extremism. He
has promised that ''the first thing I'd do as President is sign the
Freedom of Choice Act'' (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation
would create a federally guaranteed ''fundamental right'' to abortion
through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin
Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed
Act, ''a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for
undefined 'health' reasons.'' In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually
every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including
parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal
funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for
pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections
against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else
lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has
proclaimed with approval that FOCA would ''sweep away hundreds of
anti-abortion laws [and] policies.''

It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many ''pro-choice''
legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served
in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision
that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred
to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ''punishment''
that she should not endure. He has stated that women's equality
requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip
federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide
alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly
nothing ''pro-choice'' about that.

But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of
pro-life members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support
for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for
Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women
facing crisis pregnancies. In fact, Obama has opposed key
provisions of the Act, including providing coverage of unborn children
in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed
consent for women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age
of their child. This legislation would not make a single abortion
illegal. It simply seeks to make it easier for pregnant women to make
the choice not to abort their babies. Here is a concrete test of
whether Obama is ''pro-choice'' rather than pro-abortion. He flunked.
Even Senator Edward Kennedy voted to include coverage of unborn
children in S-CHIP. But Barack Obama stood resolutely with the most
stalwart abortion advocates in opposing it.

It gets worse yet. In an act of breathtaking injustice which
the Obama campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof
of what he had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed
legislation to protect children who are born alive,
either as a result of an abortionist's unsuccessful effort to kill them
in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to
viability. This legislation would not have banned any abortions.
Indeed, it included a specific provision ensuring that it did not
affect abortion laws. (This is one of the points Obama and his campaign
lied about until they were caught.) The federal version of the bill
passed unanimously in the United States Senate, winning the support of
such ardent advocates of legal abortion as John Kerry and Barbara
Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked to defeat it. For him, a
child marked for abortion gets no protection-even ordinary medical or
comfort care-even if she is born alive and entirely separated from her
mother. So Obama has favored protecting what is literally a form of
infanticide.

You may be thinking, it can't get worse than that. But it does.

For several years, Americans have been debating the use for biomedical research of embryos produced by in vitro
fertilization (originally for reproductive purposes) but now left in a
frozen condition in cryopreservation units. President Bush has
restricted the use of federal funds for stem-cell research of the type
that makes use of these embryos and destroys them in the process. I
support the President's restriction, but some legislators with
excellent pro-life records, including John McCain, argue that the use
of federal money should be permitted where the embryos are going to be
discarded or die anyway as the result of the parents' decision. Senator
Obama, too, wants to lift the restriction.

But Obama would not stop there. He has co-sponsored a
bill-strongly opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale
industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research
in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored
would effectively require the
killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by
cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to save an embryo
by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being implanted in her
womb so that he or she could be brought to term. This ''clone and
kill'' bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that has
heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated
abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors
misleadingly call this an anti-cloning bill. But it is
nothing of the kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the
embryonic children produced by cloning to survive.

Can it get still worse? Yes.

Decent people of every persuasion hold out the increasingly
realistic hope of resolving the moral issue surrounding embryonic
stem-cell research by developing methods to produce the exact
equivalent of embryonic stem cells without using (or producing)
embryos. But when a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to
put a modest amount of federal money into research to develop these
methods, Barack Obama was one of the few senators who opposed it. From
any rational vantage point, this is unconscionable. Why would someone
not wish to find a method of producing the pluripotent cells scientists
want that all Americans could enthusiastically endorse? Why create and
kill human embryos when there are alternatives that do not require the
taking of nascent human lives? It is as if Obama is opposed to
stem-cell research unless it involves killing human embryos.

This ultimate manifestation of Obama's extremism brings us back to the
puzzle of his pro-life Catholic and Evangelical apologists.

They typically do not deny the facts I have reported. They could not;
each one is a matter of public record. But despite Obama's injustices
against the most vulnerable human beings, and despite the extraordinary
support he receives from the industry that profits from killing the
unborn (which should be a good indicator of where he stands), some
Obama supporters insist that he is the better candidate from the
pro-life point of view.

They say that his economic and social policies would so
diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually
go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination
of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies,
they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops!
''pro-choice''-candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes
the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion
abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience
protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive
research. They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the
Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and
embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of
the unborn.

This is delusional.

We know that the federal and state pro-life laws and policies
that Obama has promised to sweep away (and that John McCain would
protect) save thousands of lives every year. Studies conducted by
Professor Michael New and other social scientists have removed any
doubt. Often enough, the abortion lobby itself confirms the truth of
what these scholars have determined. Tom McClusky has observed that
Planned Parenthood's own statistics show that in each of the seven
states that have FOCA-type legislation on the books, ''abortion rates
have increased while the national rate has decreased.'' In Maryland,
where a bill similar to the one favored by Obama was enacted in 1991,
he notes that ''abortion rates have increased by 8 percent while the overall national abortion rate decreased by
9 percent.'' No one is really surprised. After all, the message clearly
conveyed by policies such as those Obama favors is that abortion is a
legitimate solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies - so clearly
legitimate that taxpayers should be forced to pay for it.

But for a moment let's suppose, against all the evidence, that Obama's proposals would reduce
the number of abortions, even while subsidizing the killing with
taxpayer dollars. Even so, many more unborn human beings would likely
be killed under Obama than under McCain. A Congress controlled by
strong Democratic majorities under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would
enact the bill authorizing the mass industrial production of human
embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed. As president,
Obama would sign it. The number of tiny humans created and killed under
this legislation (assuming that an efficient human cloning technique is
soon perfected) could dwarf the number of lives saved as a result of
the reduced demand for abortion-even if we take a delusionally
optimistic view of what that number would be.

Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues
about which reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans
of every faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism,
how to restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the
tax burden and reduce poverty, etc.

But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for
destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral
principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and
judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief
that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that
others must respect. Across the spectrum of pro-life concerns for the
unborn, he would deny these small and vulnerable members of the human
family the basic protection of the laws. Over the next four to eight
years, as many as five or even six U.S. Supreme Court justices could
retire. Obama enthusiastically supports Roe v. Wade and would appoint judges who would protect that
morally and constitutionally disastrous decision and even expand its
scope. Indeed, in an interview in Glamour magazine, he made it clear that he would apply a litmus test for Supreme Court nominations: jurists who do not support Roe will not be considered for appointment by Obama. John McCain, by contrast, opposes Roe and
would appoint judges likely to overturn it. This would not make
abortion illegal, but it would return the issue to the forums of
democratic deliberation, where pro-life Americans could engage in a
fair debate to persuade fellow citizens that killing the unborn is no
way to address the problems of pregnant women in need.

What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama's America is one in which being human just isn't enough
to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may
legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly
practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who
survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a
stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which
some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others
superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama's America, public
policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of
the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment
made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator
Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights,
replied: ''that question is above my pay grade.'' It was a profoundly
disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator's pay grade, Obama
presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken
answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until
infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions,
not even then.

In the end, the efforts of Obama's apologists to depict their
man as the true pro-life candidate that Catholics and Evangelicals may
and even should vote for, doesn't even amount to a nice try. Voting for
the most extreme pro-abortion political candidate in American history
is not the way to save unborn babies.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and
Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and
Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President's
Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States
Commission on Civil Rights. He sits on the editorial board of
Public Discourse.

Copyright 2008 The Witherspoon Institute. All rights reserved.

The Witherspoon Institute

Obama's 95% Illusion: It depends on what the meaning of 'tax cut' is.

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Obama's 95% Illusion - WSJ.com

The
link above is a great explanation on one of Obama's most potent
messages for tax relief. People buy into the notion without knowing
the facts.

Case in point, I was at the John Kline / Steve
Sarvi debate yesterday and heard Steve Sarvi quote the same tax cut -
95% (even though between 30 and 40% don't pay any taxes.) It's an
inaccurate representation and shows either a lack of understanding on
his part, or worse.

One other notable item from yesterday's
debate (in which Rep. Kline did quite well), was that Mr. Sarvi
believes that terrorism is a byproduct of lack of opportunity. In
essence, he seems to believe that if there is opportunity for making a
living in areas such as Afghanistan, there will be no terrorism (they
sold opium for a lot of money and the Taliban proliferated - go
figure.)

It's a very simplistic view of the world that does
not take into account the role of the Islamic fundamental religious
teaching for domination and value of the life a non-Muslim (among other
items.) To be sure, fundamental Islam would be less attractive to many
people if there were better economic opportunities for them, but it is
not the economic opportunities (or the lack thereof) that compels them
to kill. We should remind Mr. Sarvi that some of the 911 bombers were
Saudi (with money) and that Bin Laden himself comes from a wealthy
Saudi family. If it were about economics, the best thing they could do
(in fact a solution) would be to use their money (huge windfalls from
oil prices) for the economic good of their own - build in opportunities
that would defeat a terroristic bent. Obviously, this is not the
case.

My bottom line is that economic opportunity is one tool
in the battle against terrorism but it is not the reason for terrorism
- neither is it the cure.

Having said all that, please read the WSJ article linked at the top of this blog.

Those are my thoughts for your consideration.

Lee

Obama's Kenya Ghosts

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:37:00 +0000

Washington Times - HYMAN: Obama's Kenya ghosts

The above link is important. One could certainly question how deeply Obama was directly involved with Odinga, however, none can dispute his lack of good judgment and the full appearance of involvement with the subversion of other governments when its suits his political interests - those political interests and leanings seem to be apparent in this story.

This should give anyone Obama supporter pause for thought - if the things he appears to support overseas is the same as here... and why wouldn't they be?

Lee

ACORN: THE FRAUD CONTINUES

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Power Line: ACORN: The Fraud Continues

The Roots of the Financial Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:34:00 +0000

Power Line: The Roots of the Financial Crisis

In the New York Post,
Stanley Kurtz looks for the origins of the current financial crisis and
finds them in the activities of ACORN, and Barack Obama, dating back to
the mid-1990s:

FOR years, ACORN had combined manipulation of the CRA with
intimidation-protest tactics to force banks to lower credit standards.
Its crusade, with help from Democrats in Congress, to push these
high-risk "subprime" loans on banks is at the root of today's economic
meltdown. ...
As ACORN ran its campaigns against local banks, it quickly hit a
roadblock. Banks would tell ACORN they could afford to reduce their
credit standards by only a little - since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
the federal mortgage giants, refused to buy up those risky loans for
sale on the "secondary market."

That is, the CRA wasn't enough. Unless Fannie and Freddie were
willing to relax their credit standards as well, local banks would
never make home loans to customers with bad credit histories or with
too little money for a downpayment.

So ACORN's Democratic friends in Congress moved to force Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac to dispense with normal credit standards. Throughout
the early '90s, they imposed ever-increasing subprime-lending quotas on
Fannie and Freddie.

But then the Republicans won control of Congress - and Rep. Roukema
scheduled her hearing. ACORN went into action to protect its golden
goose. ...

ACORN's intimidation tactics, and its alliance with Democrats in
Congress, triumphed. Despite their 1994 takeover of Congress,
Republicans' attempts to pare back the CRA were stymied.

Instead, Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Reps.
Kennedy and Waters allied with the Clinton administration to broaden
the acceptability of risky subprime loans throughout the financial
system, thus precipitating our current crisis. ...

WHEN the ACORN-Democrat alliance finally succeeded in blocking
Republicans from restoring fiscal sanity in 1995, the way was open to
virtually unlimited lending quotas - and to a whole new way of thinking
about credit standards.

Urged on by ACORN, congressional Democrats and the Clinton
administration helped push tolerance for high-risk loans through every
sector of the banking system - far beyond the sort of banks originally
subject to the CRA.

So it was the efforts of ACORN and its Democratic allies that first
spread the subprime virus from the CRA to Fannie and Freddie and thence
to the entire financial system.

Soon, Democratic politicians and regulators actually began to take
pride in lowered credit standards as a sign of "fairness" - and the
contagion spread.

And when financial institutions across the board saw that they could
make money by trading what would once have been considered junk loans,
the profit motive kicked in. But the bad seed that started it all was
ACORN.

HOW does Barack Obama fit into all of this? Obama has been a key
ally of Chicago ACORN going back to his days as a community organizer.

Read it all. One of the common themes of modern American history is
that liberals will create a problem by ill-advised government action,
then benefit from it politically by proposing ever more intrusive
government action to solve it. That appears to be happening again in
connection with today's credit crisis.

'Obama Is My Jesus'

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:04:00 +0000

Smith College Editor: 'Obama Is My Jesus' | NewsBusters.org

First Graders Taken To San Francisco City Hall For Gay Wedding

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:48:00 +0000

Protect Marriage - Yes on 8 » News

Economists Statement on Barack Obama's Risky Economic Proposals

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:15:00 +0000

100 Economists Warn That With Current Weak Financial Conditions Barack
Obama's Proposals Run A High Risk Of Throwing The US Into A Deep
Recession

ARLINGTON,
VA -- Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released the following statement signed
by 100 distinguished and experienced economists at major American
universities and research organizations, including five Nobel Prize
winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott,
and Vernon Smith. The economists explain why Barack Obama's proposals,
including "misguided tax hikes," would "decrease the number of jobs in
America." The prospects of such tax rate increases under Barack Obama
are already harming the economy. The economists conclude that "Barack
Obama's economic proposals are wrong for the American economy." The
proposals "defy both economic reason and economic experience."

The full economists' statement on Barack Obama's economic proposals and a complete list of economists who support it follows:

Barack
Obama argues that his proposals to raise tax rates and halt
international trade agreements would benefit the American economy. They
would do nothing of the sort. Economic analysis and historical
experience show that they would do the opposite. They would reduce
economic growth and decrease the number of jobs in America. Moreover, with
the credit crunch, the housing slump, and high energy prices weakening
the U.S. economy, his proposals run a high risk of throwing the economy
into a deep recession. It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and
protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early
1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

We
are very concerned with Barack Obama's opposition to trade agreements
such as the pending one with Colombia, the new one with Central
America, or the established one with Canada and Mexico. Exports from
the United States to other countries create jobs for Americans. Imports
make goods available to Americans at lower prices and are a particular
benefit to families and individuals with low incomes. International
trade is also a powerful source of strength in a weak economy. In the
second quarter of this year, for example, increased international trade
did far more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the federal
government's "stimulus" package.

Ironically,
rather than supporting international trade, Barack Obama is now
proposing yet another so-called stimulus package, which would do very
little to grow the economy. And his proposal to finance the package
with higher taxes on oil would raise oil prices directly and by
reducing exploration and production.

We
are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor
income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases
would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of
Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would
discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce
employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide
expensive health insurance.

After
hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has
apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax
increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that
postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the
economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is
already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire
workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer
than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or
2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.

In
sum, Barack Obama's economic proposals are wrong for the American
economy. They defy both economic reason and economic experience.

Robert Barro, Harvard University

Gary Becker, University of Chicago

Sanjai Bhagat, University of Colorado

Michael Block, University of Arizona

Brock Blomberg, Claremont-McKenna University

Michael Bordo, Rutgers University

Michael Boskin, Stanford University

Ike Brannon, McCain-Palin 2008

James Buchanan, George Mason University

Todd Buchholtz, Two Oceans Fund

Charles Calomiris, Columbia University

Jim Carter, Vienna VA

Barry Chiswick, University of Illinois at Chicago

John Cogan, Hoover Institution

Kathleen Cooper, Southern Methodist University

Ted Covey, McLean VA

Dan Crippen, former CBO Director

Mario Crucini, Vanderbilt

Steve Davis, University of Chicago

Christopher DeMuth, American Enterprise Institute

William Dewald, Ohio State University

Frank Diebold, University of Pennsylvania

Isaac Ehrlich, State University of New York at Buffalo

Paul Evans, Ohio State University

Dan Feenberg, NBER

Martin Feldstein, Harvard University

Eric Fisher, California Polytechnic State University

Kristin Forbes, MIT

Timothy Fuerst, Bowling Green State University

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Hudson Institute

Paul Gregory, University of Houston

Earl Grinols, Baylor University

Rik Hafer, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Gary Hansen, UCLA

Eric Hanushek, Hoover Institutions

Kevin Hassett, American Enterprise Institute

Arlene Holen, Technology Policy Institute

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain-Palin 2008

Glenn Hubbard, Columbia University

Owen Irvine, Michigan State University

Mike Jensen, Harvard University

Steven Kaplan, University of Chicago

Robert King, Boston University

Meir Kohn, Dartmouth

Marvin Kosters, American Enterprise Institute

Anne Krueger, Johns Hopkins University

Phil Levy, American Enterprise Institute

Larry Lindsey, The Lindsey Group

Paul W. MacAvoy. Yale University

John Makin, American Enterprise Institute

Burton Malkiel, Princeton University

Bennett McCallum, Carnegie-Mellon University

Paul McCracken, University of Michigan

Will Melick, Kenyon College

Allan Meltzer, Carnegie-Mellon University

Enrique Mendoza, University of Maryland

Jim Miller, George Mason University

Michael Moore, George Washington University

Robert Mundell, Columbia University

Tim Muris, George Mason University

Kevin Murphy, University of Chicago

Richard Muth, Emory University

Charles Nelson, University of Washington

Bill Niskanen, Cato Institute

June O'Neill, Baruch College, CUNY

Lydia Ortega, San Jose State University

Steve Parente, University of Minnesota

William Poole, University of Delaware

Michael Porter, Harvard University

Barry Poulson, University of Colorado, Boulder

Edward Prescott, Arizona State University

Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University

Richard Roll, UCLA

Harvey Rosen, Princeton University

Robert Rossana, Wayne State University

Mark Rush, University of Florida

Tom Saving, Texas A&M University

Anna Schwartz, NBER

George Shultz, Stanford University

Chester Spatt, Carnegie-Mellon University

David Spencer, Brigham Young University

Beryl Sprinkle, Former Chair Council of Economic Advisers

Houston Stokes, University of Illinois in Chicago

Robert Tamura, Clemson University

Jack Tatum, Indiana State University

John Taylor, Stanford University

Richard Vedder, Ohio University

William B. Walstad, University of Nebraska

Murray Weidenbaum, Washington University in St. Louis

Arnold Zellner, University of Chicago

Getting started with ScribeFire - ScribeFire: Fire up your blogging

Obama Hired ACORN For GOTV

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:26:00 +0000

by Amanda Carpenter

http://am1280thepatriot.townhall.com/columnists/AmandaCarpenter/2008/10/09/obama_hired_acorn_for_gotv

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is the first national
candidate ever to hire ACORN, a controversial non-profit accused of
voter fraud across the country, for get out the vote activities.

Obama’s campaign paid $800,000 to a subsidiary of the
liberally-leaning non-profit Association of Community Organizers for
Reform called Citizens Services Incorporated campaign to increase voter
turnout.

This information, however, was not properly disclosed to the
Federal Election Commission. The Obama campaign said it hired CSI to do
“polling, advance work and staging events” according to reports
submitted to the FEC during the Democratic primary.

The FEC said the Obama campaign needed to disclose ACORN was
engaging in get out the vote activities last August. At the time the
Obama campaign called the mistake a “clerical error.”

To date, ACORN has been accused of voter fraud in 15 states this election cycle.

Obama has close ties to the organization. Before becoming a
member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama represented ACORN in a
lawsuit to help push for “Motor Voter” laws to make it easier for
low-income persons to vote.

Later, as director of the Woods Fund and Chairman of the Board
of Chicago Annenberg Challenge Obama helped steer funds to ACORN
through various grants.

Obama sought ACORN’s endorsement in the Democratic primary
telling ACORN members, “Even before I was an elected official, when I
ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack
dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

“Project Vote” is the name ACORN’s voter registration drives
are called. Obama worked for Project Vote for a period of roughly seven
months in 1992.

ACORN endorsed Obama for president in February 2008.

Obama is Hiding a Radical Past!

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:07:00 +0000

By Matthew Weaver on October 7, 2008 at 11:11 PM in Barack Obama, Current Affairs

(bumped by SusanUnPC at 11:11 p.m. ET)

Edited and updated at 8:50 p.m. ET.

Did you know that Barack Obama was affiliated with a leading national socialist party? Barack Obama didn’t include in his 2008 resume that he entered politics in the mid-1990s endorsed by Chicago’s leading socialists. This just keeps getting better and better. Barack Obama was an active participant in the 1990s, and a direct political beneficiary, of the Chicago New Party and, importantly, the Chicago DSA, a group of socialists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.

Barack Obama attended and participated in meetings of the Chicago New Party and the Chicago DSA, the local affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Barack Obama sought the endorsement of the Chicago DSA which required rigorous scrutiny by the party’s Political Committee as well as Mr. Obama’s signature on a contract promising “a visible and active relationship with the NP.”
Barack Obama actively used the endorsement from the Chicago DSA.
Barack Obama won his DSA-endorsed and -backed campaign to secure his seat in the Illinois State Senate.
Barack Obama continued his involvement with the Chicago DSA — including directly asking the group to join “his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration” — and received their endorsements in subsequent campaigns.

Obama’s participation in and endorsement from the Chicago New Party and Chicago DSA, the local affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (which is the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International) is quite clear:

According to the write-up on the July 1995 meeting of Chicago DSA and New Party membership, Barack Obama was one of about 50 people attending out of their then-300 member local group. Other documents below will demonstrate Barack Obama attended and participated in subsequent meetings.
The New Party rigorously evaluated its candidate endorsements and claimed “a winning ratio of 77 of 110 elections.” This was no passive endorsement.

Candidates must be approved via a NP political committee. Once approved, candidates must sign a contract with the NP. The contract mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with the NP.—New Ground

Candidate Barack Obama participated as a panelist at the DSA-sponsored Town Meeting on February 25, 1996, entitled “Employment and Survival in Urban America”. As reported in New Ground,

Barack Obama observed that Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in the 1960s wasn’t simply about civil rights but demanded jobs as well. Now the issue is again coming to the front, but he wished the issue was on the Democratic agenda not just on Buchanan’s.

One of the themes that has emerged in Barack Obama’s campaign is “what does it take to create productive communities”, not just consumptive communities. It is an issue that joins some of the best instincts of the conservatives with the better instincts of the left. He felt the state government has three constructive roles to play.

The first is “human capital development”. By this he meant public education, welfare reform, and a “workforce preparation strategy”. Public education requires equality in funding. It’s not that money is the only solution to public education’s problems but it’s a start toward a solution. The current proposals for welfare reform are intended to eliminate welfare but it’s also true that the status quo is not tenable. A true welfare system would provide for medical care, child care and job training. While Barack Obama did not use this term, it sounded very much like the “social wage” approach used by many social democratic labor parties. By “workforce preparation strategy”, Barack Obama simply meant a coordinated, purposeful program of job training instead of the ad hoc, fragmented approach used by the State of Illinois today.

The state government can also play a role in redistribution, the allocation of wages and jobs. As Barack Obama noted, when someone gets paid $10 million to eliminate 4,000 jobs, the voters in his district know this is an issue of power not economics. The government can use as tools labor law reform, public works and contracts.

Obama subsequently secured his endorsement from the Chicago DSA
The local Democratic Socialists of America affiliate issued their Chicago DSA Endorsements in the March 19th Primary Election:

Barack Obama is running to gain the Democratic ballot line for Illinois Senate 13th District. The 13th District is Alice Palmer’s old district, encompassing parts of Hyde Park and South Shore.

Mr. Obama graduated from Columbia University and promptly went into community organizing for the Developing Communities Project in Roseland and Altgeld Gardens on the far south side of Chicago. He went on to Harvard University, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated with a law degree. In 1992, he was Director of Illinois Project Vote, a voter registration campaign that made Carol Moseley Braun’s election to the U.S. Senate much easier than it would have been. At present, he practices law in Judson Miner’s law firm and is President of the board of the Annenberg Challenge Grant which is distributing some $50 million in grants to public school reform efforts.

What best characterizes Barack Obama is a quote from an article in Illinois Issues, a retrospective look at his experience as a community organizer while he was completing his degree at Harvard:

“… community organizations and organizers are hampered by their own dogmas about the style and substance of organizing. Most practice … a ‘consumer advocacy’ approach, with a focus on wrestling services and resources from outside powers that be. Few are thinking of harnessing the internal productive capacities, both in terms of money and people, that already exist in communities.” (Illinois issues, September, 1988)

Luckily, Mr. Obama does not have any opposition in the primary. His opponents have all dropped out or were ruled off the ballot.

Barack Obama Continued Attending Membership Meetings of the Chicago DSA New Party
Obama attended membership meeting on April 11, 1996 where he expressed his gratitude for their support. The report shared that “Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration.”
Obama won his election with the help of the Chicago DSA’s New Party.
Chicago DSA notes in 1998 that Barack Obama eulogized Saul Mendelson, co-founder of the Debs Dinner.
In the fall of 1998, Chicago DSA’s New Ground’s editor offered nomination of Barack Obama for reelection.
When Barack Obama challenged Bobby Rush for the 1st Congressional District in 2000, the Chicago DSA opted to recommend both:

For Congressman of the 1st Congressional District, the Executive Committee was faced with two very good candidates. As we are not making endorsements but merely recommendations, we felt no conflict in recommending both Bobby Rush and Barack Obama.

Bobby Rush was the incumbent Congressman. He was also a candidate for Mayor of Chicago in the last municipal elections, endorsed by Chicago DSA. While he hasn’t always been the ideal Congressman from a left perspective (being a cosponsor of the “NAFTA for Africa” bill, for example), he’s generally been quite good. To volunteer, call 773 264 7874. Contributions may be made to Citizens for Rush, 514 E. 95th St., Chicago, IL 60619.

Barak Obama is serving only his second term in the Illinois State Senate so he might be fairly charged with ambition, but the same might have be said of Bobby Rush when he ran against Congressman Charles Hayes. Obama also has put in time at the grass roots, working for five years as a community organizer in Harlem and in Chicago. When Obama participated in a 1996 UofC YDS Townhall Meeting on Economic Insecurity, much of what he had to say was well within the mainstream of European social democracy.

Conclusion
Barack Obama has a long-term and sustained relationship with the Chicago DSA, an affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America, and with the Chicago New Party. He participated in multiple membership meetings and in DSA-sponsored events, repeatedly sought their endorsement. This does not answer all questions about Barack Obama’s past relationships with multiple socialist groups. What the media need to find out is this: Has Barack Obama broken his ties with them> If so, when and why?

Is Obama Intelligent Enough to Be President?

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:06:00 +0000

Is Obama Intelligent Enough to Be President?
Dr. Clifton Chadwick

One of Barack Obama’s major selling points is that he is intelligent. This is what has been said.

* Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review.
* Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
* He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Neither Palin (Bachelor in Journalism) nor John McCain (graduate from the U.S Naval Academy, near bottom of class) can top such educational merits. He is thoughtful and, as his own VP candidate says, articulate.

Sounds good.

Intelligence is a term to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. It includes breadth of storage capacity and speed of response. Good solutions to problems, a wide range of general and specific knowledge and quick reactions are typical signs of high intelligence. Let us concentrate on reasoning, thinking abstractly, problem solving, and quick thinking and good use of language

Quick thinking and use of language
First, when Rick Warren of Saddleback Church asked Obama if life begins at conception, Obama's non-response ran was as follows:

"From a theological perspective or scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

Many have pointed out that the response was glib, flippant and inadequate. Presidents should not consider moral issues above their pay grade. This was not a positive example of quick thinking.

Second, many people gave Obama the benefit of doubt on the Bacongate thing. Several said that Obama couldn't possibly be so dumb and mean enough to call Palin a pig. But if he is so intelligent why did he not see that putting a pig and lipstick in the same sentence was going to be so interpreted? Personally I think it might have been a slip, but when the audience reacted as it did, he should have known he was in trouble and later should have explained himself better. Not explaining suggests that he knew what he was doing. He did not make the intelligent move.

Third, the latest of these gaffes came just a few days ago. Asked about his advert saying McCain could not send an email, he was told
“It paints him as an old man. You say he can’t use a computer, he’s never sent an e-mail. What does that all mean?” Cuomo asked.
“What it means is that we’ve got a 21st century economy. And John McCain does not have a vision for how to move that forward,” Obama replied.

Obama rejected suggestions that his campaign ad was a low blow.
“If we’re going to ask questions about, you know, who has been promulgating negative ads that are completely unrelated to the issues at hand, I think I win that contest pretty handily,” Obama said.

Yes, he does seem to be winning negativity quite handily.

Fourth, several commentators have said the Barack is good as long as he is reading from a teleprompter, but looks bad when he speaks extemporaneously. For example,

"Democrats know something, and desperation is setting in. They have a novice campaigner who wanders off message." (Jim Wooten , September 12, 2008, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"Barack Obama is a lot like Sean Penn or George Clooney. If you give him a script, he can deliver it pretty well. But if he tries to talk without a script that has been written for him by others, he quickly reveals that he is poorly-informed if not downright ignorant. Today he delivered another classic, by claiming that if only we would all properly inflate our tires, we could save as much gasoline as "all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."(powerlineblog)

"Barack Obama without a teleprompter is an accident waiting to happen. Sometimes he reveals his ignorance of history, sometimes he stumbles incoherently, and sometimes he blurts out what he really believes. That's what happened today when Obama tried to talk about Georgia, a topic that has embarrassed him more than once already, beginning when, in the first hours after the invasion, he parroted the Russian line. "

About his verbal swiftness, Democratic lobbyist Lawrence F. Obrien, III said: "People like to say he is a black Jack Kennedy. Fine, up to a point. Kennedy was smart, elegant, very well spoken, slim, handsome -- but, he also was Irish. Sharp, quick and abundant sense of humor, able to make contact with people."

Extemporaneous speaking is a hallmark of intelligence. I hope you see what I mean about quick verbal facility, repartee, the kind of thing Kennedy and Johnson both had, but Obama does not have.

Reasoning and thinking abstractly
There are so many examples of problems here that I have just had to choose some of the more egregious and flagrant ones.

First, remarkably, Barack Obama has decided to take on John McCain on the subject of earmarks. This is somewhat like Al Capone taking on Eliot Ness on the subject of bootlegging. The McCain campaign released this response:

While Senator McCain has never requested a single earmark, Senator Obama has requested nearly a billion dollars worth during his short time in office. Though Senator Biden has been in the Senate for 36 years, he has only disclosed his earmarks for one year.

Senator Obama increased his earmark requests during each of his first three years in office. Governor Palin has cut requests for earmarks for Alaska by $150 million since entering office, and she has cut those requests every single year. She has also vetoed a half billion dollars in wasteful spending at the state level.

One might ask, what makes Obama think he can get away with this nonsense, when the facts are the precise opposite of his claims? But you know the answer to that question.

Second, for a guy with a reputation for being smooth, Barack Obama stumbled badly when he was pressed, only mildly, by a reporter in a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania recently:

It is striking how naive Obama sounds when he talks about foreign policy. He proposes keeping a "strike force" either in Iraq or somewhere nearby--presumably closer than Okinawa--to "deal with potential problems that might take place in the region." But that isn't a policy, it's a fantasy.

Third, Barack Obama gave a speech on patriotism recently in Missouri. As always when Obama waxes "eloquent," the media swooned. And, as always, the speech raised interesting questions if you actually read it. The implicit premise of the speech was that Obama's patriotism is being widely questioned. As far as I've seen, that isn't true. What has happened is that Obama's judgment and political ideology have been questioned because he has chosen to associate himself closely with people who manifestly are not patriotic, like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

In one speech Obama said that America "is the greatest country on Earth." I'm happy to assume he means it, although whether Obama ever means what he says is an open question. But how, then, did Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright become Obama's spiritual guardian for twenty years? And how do we reconcile Obama's "greatest country on earth" rhetoric with the cynical comment by his political sponsor Bill Ayers on Ayers' own acquittal: "Guilty as sin, free as a bird. What a great country!" Obama failed to acknowledge, let alone answer, the questions that are raised by these associations.

Next blunder: plagarism! Just like his companion, Joe Biden!!

Campaigning in Terre Haute, Ind. on Saturday, Barack Obama, mocking claims by John McCain and Sarah Palin that they will challenge their Republican Party if elected, got off a pretty good line. "Maybe what they're saying is, 'Watch out George Bush,'" Obama said with sarcasm. "Except for economic policies, and tax policies, and energy policies, and health care policies, and education policies, and Karl Rove-style politics -- except for all that, we're really going to bring change to Washington! We’re really going to shake things up!"

It wasn't Obama's line, though. It came from Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles, whose cartoon Friday featured these words along with a drawing of McCain and Sarah Palin in front of the White House: "Watch out, Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments and Rove-style politics, we're coming in there to shake things up!" (See the cartoon here.)

Asked about the borrowing, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Obama used Toles's lines unwittingly, after being alerted to them by a friend who didn't mention the source.

Problem solving

Proposed policies and programs can give an idea of a candidate’s ability to think abstractly and solve problems. Some of Obama’s proposals are pretty bad.

For example, he wants to renegotiate the NAFTA! “I will make sure that we renegotiate. … I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.” —Democratic primary debate in Cleveland, Feb. 26, 2008 (If you want to know why these Ideas are bad)

He opposes the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. “And I’ll also oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” —Speech to Philadelphia AFL-CIO, April 2, 2008

In both of these cases he is wrong and he is pandering to the trade unions, instead of thinking about reasonable policies. Old-fashioned politics as usual.

Someone said that Barack Obama is a foreign policy realist with a strong, confident understanding of the world and America’s role in it. His philosophy is in the mold of T.R. Obama will speak softly and, always, because we are America, carry a big stick. Best of all, he will not continue the hysterical, fear-inspired, foreign policy failures of the Bush-McCain-Lieberman axis. But He has Talked Openly About Bombing Pakistan. Is that speaking softly? Does that show high quality abstract thinking?

“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” —Speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Washington, D.C., Aug. 1, 2007

As Dr. Phil would say, “What were you thinking?” In this case he was not thinking, he was rhetoricking. As none other than Joe Biden pointed out last August, “It’s not something you talk about. … The last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we are about to violate their sovereignty.”

Asked if he’d be “willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea,” Obama replied: “I would.” —Democratic primary debate, Charleston, S.C., July 23, 2007. Then, in the debate with McCain he got hammered for that remark, tried to use Kissiner as an example, and Kissinger said he was wrong!

“I’ll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills.” —Speech in Raleigh, N.C., June 9, 2008

Another attempt at pandering! Really NOT intelligent!
Oil companies are not the problem: supply and demand is.

Dubious double-dealing on Iraq

The well known Iranian commentator, Amir Taheri, says that Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders to postpone troop withdrawals until after the November Presidential elections

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."
"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate. While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a "realistic withdrawal date." They declined.

McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann commented on this story:

"At this point, it is not yet clear what official American negotiations Senator Obama tried to undermine with Iraqi leaders, but the possibility of such actions is unprecedented. It should be concerning to all that he reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the US administration in power. If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Senator Obama's judgment and it demands an explanation."

Puffing Up His Past and Future
After Republicans made fun of Obama's touting his experience as a "community organizer," MSNBC noted that Obama complained, "They haven't talked about the fact that I taught constitutional law."

There would seem to be an especially conspicuous absence of witnesses to the years after graduated from Columbia and before he moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer. Well, it turns out that one of his co-workers, Dan Armstrong, has in fact written about Mr. Obama during those days. And while he is an admitted fan of Obama’s, he claims that he has inflated his resume considerably. Others who worked with Obama at Business International have subsequently chimed in.

We know, too, that, according to Obama, we can look back on June 3, 2008–the date he wrested the Democratic nomination away from Hillary Clinton–as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

In Conclusion
Extemporaneous speaking is a hallmark of intelligence. He does not have it. He rambles, and gets lost if he does not have his teleprompter. His reasoning and ability to think abstractly have definitely been put in doubt. He is not very good at problem solving. He has been accused of double dealing over Iraq. He plagiarizes and puffs up both his past and the future. He lies quite often and is not smart enough to cover up his stories. Enough said?
Clifton Chadwick posted: September 30, 2008 10:37 am

Housing Crisis Explanation

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Don't understand the financial catastrophe? Help has arrived. This article a week ago from Culture11 - posted by by admin@libertywire.com.

Lee

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5 Easy Pieces

Don't understand the financial catastrophe? Help has arrived.

By Conor Friedersdorf, September 22, 2008

Why is our financial system on the brink of collapse? Believe it or not, I can tell you the whole story in a single page -- as long as I'm allowed help from the easiest to understand stuff on the Internet.

Visit these 5 links and you'll once again understand the world.

#1) Background knowledge: "The Giant Pool of Money"

This is the best piece of financial journalism ever, and it doesn't even require you to read anything! Hear from a homeowner who admits to borrowing irresponsibly, a guy who got filthy rich selling loans he knew were bad, and the many threads that connect them. NPR's report covers 90 percent of what you need to know about what caused the housing crisis.

Explained: What exactly is a housing bubble? How did America get into one? Who gave out all those bad home loans? Who took them? Why didn't anyone seem to know better?

#2) Giant Companies You've Never Heard Of Fail

Some very smart people from the University of Chicago explain why it matters.

Explained: What is Fannie Mae? Who are the Lehman Brothers? What is AIG? Why did they fail? Why should you care?

#3) What's a "Credit Crunch"?

With banks and other large corporations failing, and those still solvent worrying about how much money they've actually got, it's going to be increasingly hard to borrow money:

A credit crunch happens when banks begin clinging to their money rather than lending it out. The result of this is that fewer people are able to get loans, credit cards and mortgages so things that we would buy if we had those credit facilities – such as houses, cars, holidays and so on – are no longer an option.

All that via this obscure British Web site that's probably not worth visiting.

The concern is that if consumers can't borrow, they won't spend as much. And the people who make and sell stuff won't make as much money, so they'll lay people off.

#4) The Road to Serfdom... or Salvation

Okay, now we know why we're in trouble. So how do we get out of it? Jim Manzi explains where we're trying to get--and the catastrophes that could result if we fail.

Explained: Wait, I don't have a bad mortgage or much stock -- why should I care if the government bails out failing banks? What are the risks of Congressional action? What could happen if they don't do anything? What's the best case scenario? What's the worst case?

#5) The Plan to Save Us

This brief Q&A explains the Wall Street bailout plan that Congress is considering. Extra credit: a slightly more complicated explanation of why it should terrify you.

Explained: Why would the government buy bad mortgages? Why is $700 billion the amount they're willing to spend? Is this plan unfair to some people? Does it give the Secretary of the Treasury insane amounts of power?

(Additional reading: if you've now become a finance junkie, start reading blogs by Megan McArdle, Tyler Cowen, and Paul Krugman, and the people to whom they link.)

Iran: A Christian jailed for converting from Islam

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Valle) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:13:00 +0000

Team,

Below is a reminder of the intolerance and hate we are dealing with. Why would anyone in their right mind think that such an intolerant regime based on Islamic fundamentalism that would hate and kill for turning from Islam is better or on any kind of moral standing to critique the USA which has done more good throughout the world to ease pain and encourage human rights.

BTW. The record of building up people and respecting life is indisputable and provable - the opposite is not.

Lee

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Iran: A Christian jailed for converting from Islam

from The Corner by Mike Potemra

Wednesday, 03 September 2008

NCRI – On August 22, Ramtin Soudmand, a Christian man whose father was executed 20 years ago by the mullahs' regime for converting to Christianity was arrested by the local office of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in the holy city of Mashhad.

"He was summoned to the local office of MOIS in Mashhad," a family member said.

Soudmand lived in Tehran since his father's execution, however he was to report to Mashhad.

"Ramtin decided not to pay any attention to the call and had said that he would wait until MOIS office in Tehran sent him a new summon," his mother said.

Considering Mrs. Dibaj and her husband's problems in the past with the MOIS in Mashhad, Soudmand changed his mind and reported to the dreaded MOIS in that city where he was last seen.

Rev. Mehdi Dibaj was brutally murdered by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Dibaj was abducted on June 24, 1994. His body was found in a west Tehran park on July 5, 1994.

On September 26, 2006, the MOIS agents arrested Mrs. Fereshteh Dibaj, 28 and her husband, Reza Montazami, 35 in the holy city of Mashhad. Later the couple were transferred to an unknown location for a few days. While in custody, their house was searched by the MOIS and some of their belongings such as computers, CDs, documents and Christian books, were sized.

On July 26, the mullahs' agents of the notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) attacked a house-church in the small township of Malak in the suburbs of the central city of Isfahan.

In the raid, eight men, 6 women and two children were arrested. The victims were transferred to an unknown location. Among the detainees, there was an elderly couple in their 60s. The suppressive forces beat up these two senior citizens causing them serious injuries. They were transferred to Shariati Hospital in Isfahan where they were hospitalized in ICU.

The MOIS agents thoroughly searched the house for forbidden Christian books and literatures.

In a similar raid on a house-church in October of last year, the MOIS agents arrested a Christian couple in Karaj 40 kilometers west of the capital.

The mullahs' regime is furious over Muslims converting to any other faith especially Christianity. It has even introduced a controversial bill to its Majlis (parliament) calling for death penalty for individuals converting from Islam to any other faith.