While Thomas Sowell has written many books, two that I would recommend to any reader are A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of PoliticalStruggles (1987) and The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis forSocial Policy (1995).
The videos below discuss the book–A Conflict of Visions:
Letters to a Captive Nation – #2 – Thomas Sowell
Letters to a Captive Nation – #3 – Thomas Sowell
Letters to a Captive Nation – #4 – Thomas Sowell
Letters to a Captive Nation
A Conflict of Visions are exemplified by the 2008 elections for President of the United States:
“…Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930), is an American economist, social commentator, and author of dozens of books. He often writes from an economically laissez-faire perspective. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. …”
“…Sowell’s intent not to be swayed by voices of dissent among other African American leaders may be illustrated by one of his favorite quotations, as listed on his own home page and attributed to David Ricardo: “I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind.” …”
But Jesus was saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.
~Luke 23:34
Mr. Obama aka Law #45
Law 45 Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.
Obama Kingmaker (Axelrod’s Obama)
Mind Control Cults
While Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals are the tactics used by many in the far left including both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, another book that apparently Obama has read and practices is The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green.
The 30 minute Obama cult recruiting video was quite revealing.
Barack Obama 30 minute INFOMERCIAL Part 1 Oct. 29
Barack Obama 30 minute INFOMERCIAL Part 2 Oct. 29
Barack Obama 30 minute INFOMERCIAL Part 3 Oct. 29
Barack Obama 30 minute INFOMERCIAL Part 4 Oct. 29
Obama needs to reread The 48 Laws of Power, in particular:
Law 34 Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one
The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated; In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.
The American people are not inclined to like or vote for a king.
Obama appeared very arrogant and vain.
Obama “thinks his shit does not stink” was the common reaction among the American people calling in to talk radio about his 30 minute video.
The video seemed to focus on four of the laws:
Law 3 Conceal your Intentions
Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.
Law 6 Court Attention at all Cost
Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the bland and timid masses.
Law 27 Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.
Law 32 Play to People’s Fantasies
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
“…In watching Barack Obama’s rise, it is hard to not see a pattern of his victories closely connected with the 48 Laws of Power and the 33 Strategies of War. At times Obama appears to have been playing a magnificent game of political chess from the start of his bid for the Oval Office. I sat down with Robert Greene to discuss Senator Obama’s tactical and strategic movements in his campaign. While everyone seems to have their site locked into the DNC convention, Robert Greene advises that we all prepare ourselves for a protracted political battle.
AB: Lets start with Law 24: The Perfect Courtier. You say that individual “thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court. ”
RG: I never thought about it before, but it does make perfect sense. If you wanted to psychoanalyze it a little bit. With his background, in being bi-racial and having to navigate in different worlds…If you look at his Kenyan father, then you look at the White side in Kansas and Hawaii- he’s been towing a line between the two worlds. And if you read his book, he’s asking “Where do I fit”? It’s a really interesting story, I like his books. He’s always had to learn how to be the courtier. He’s always had to be diplomatic. How not to offend this person or that. These two sides had very different sensibilities, while he’s trying too figure out who he is. So, I think its in his nature. Its not a fake thing. Some people learn to be the courtier later in life. Its a nice quality, but some people can feel like its a little bit manipulative. But I think its very deep in his identity, from his multiracial background. I’m not sure, I can only speculate. http://globalgrind.com/source/blog.myspace.com/131249/48-laws-of-obama-an-interview-with-robert-greene
Nick Paumgarten, Annals of Power, “Fresh Prince,” The New Yorker, November 6, 2006, p. 56
“ANNALS OF POWER about Robert Greene and his book “The 48 Laws of Power,” which is popular among the hip-hop crowd… The first law of power, as set forth by Green, is “Never Outshine the Master.” The first law has achieved special resonance in the hip-hop community, which has adopted Greene’s book as a hallowed text, and Greene himself as a kind of sage. The rapper Busta Rhymes describes how Greene’s book helped handle a production executive on the film “Halloween: Resurrection.”… Greene is 47 years old and lives in Los Angeles. He began writing “The 48 Laws” after having held, by his count, eighty jobs. The book has sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S.… Describes a meeting between Greene and the rapper 50 Cent, who wants to collaborate with Greene on a street version of “The 48 Laws.”… Greene was a good student and something of a loner. He went to Berkeley and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin to study Ancient Greek. …” http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/06/061106fa_fact_paumgarten
The 48 Laws of Power
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
The 48 Laws of Power
“The 48 Laws of Power is a 1998 book by Robert Greene. The book shares thematic elements with Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince[1] and has been compared to Sun-Tzu’s classic treatise The Art of War. …”
The Laws
Law 1 Never Outshine the Master
Law 2 Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
Law 3 Conceal your Intentions
Law 4 Always Say Less than Necessary
Law 5 So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life
Law 6 Court Attention at all Cost
Law 7 Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Law 8 Make other People come to you – use Bait if Necessary
Law 9 Win through your Actions, Never through Argument
Law 10 Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
Law 11 Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
Law 12 Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim
Law 13 When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
Law 14 Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
Law 15 Crush your Enemy Totally
Law 16 Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
Law 17 Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability
Law 18 Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous
Law 19 Know Who You’re Dealing with – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person
Law 20 Do Not Commit to Anyone
Law 21 Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber than your Mark
Law 22 Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power
Law 23 Concentrate Your Forces
Law 24 Play the Perfect Courtier
Law 25 Re-Create Yourself
Law 26 Keep Your Hands Clean
Law 27 Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
Law 28 Enter Action with Boldness
Law 29 Plan All the Way to the End
Law 30 Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
Law 31 Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal
Law 32 Play to People’s Fantasies
Law 33 Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
Law 34 Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one
Law 35 Master the Art of Timing
Law 36 Disdain Things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best Revenge
Law 37 Create Compelling Spectacles
Law 38 Think as you like but Behave like others
Law 39 Stir up Waters to Catch Fish
Law 40 Despise the Free Lunch
Law 41 Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes
Law 42 Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter
Law 43 Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
Law 44 Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect
Law 45 Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
Law 46 Never appear too Perfect
Law 47 Do not go Past the Mark you Aimed for; In Victory, Learn when to Stop
Senator Obama is long overdue for a Superman Moment when the the fighter for “truth, justice and the American way”, puts him on ice next Tuesday:
Greatest Superman Moment Ever
1950s “Superman” TV Show – Original Kellogg’s Opening!!
Shania Twain – From this moment on Video
Ronald Reagan TV Ad: “Its morning in america again”
Background Articles and Videos
The 48 Laws of Power
Murray Waldren meets Robert Greene
“…So what gives? Is this book a power tool or a power trip? Is Greene a new kind of power broker into power sharing, or is the exercise more a power drive to create a power base? The unequivocal answer to both is probably “all of the above”.
Reviewers have certainly been confused, split between opting for the jocular and going for the jugular. The book’s chatty “amorality” offended many on the moral right after its American release late last year. “But generally it has been surprisingly well received,” says Greene. “Too much so, really – I’d have preferred more controversy, I enjoy debating the disenchanted.” Among the latter count Newsweek’s Jerry Adler, who sniped that Greene has “produced one of the best arguments since the New Testament for humility and obscurity”. Or Business Week, which intoned that “the (book’s) moral advice adds up to a grim portrait of a ruthless, duplicitous universe”. Or Kirkus Review, which thundered that it was an “anti-Book of Virtues (whose) laws boil down to being “selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible.”
Some have seized on apparent contradictions as proof of an I Ching-like each-way bet: how does “Court attention at all cost” align with “Behave like others”, or “Be frugal with flattery” tally with “You can never be too obsequious”? Greene is perfectly sanguine. “All the great writers on power and strategy, from Sun Tzu to Machiavelli, have emphasised the need for constant adaptability and the changing of tactics. At some junctures in your rise to the top you need to court attention, at others you must do all you can to blend in. There’s no contradiction because the laws are not a formula. In fact Law 48, Assume Formlessness, advocates complete fluidity. Only those who are na�ve or inept at power are frightened of contradicting themselves.”
As many critics have responded with “this will change your life” enthusiasm. In Britain, where it was published in January, PM Tony Blair has been cited as a disciple. As for the Kirkus attack, Greene used the Internet to accuse its reviewer of playing “one of the oldest power tricks in the book – attacking it for what it isn’t.” Power, like life, defies easy answers, he wrote. “(My) book is about the essence of power, not a discourse on the need for virtue, or the lack of ethics in our world. Those who … deny that power games permeate our world are often the most adept players, critics most definitely included.” And those who find the book too strong, he added, “prefer to believe that people generally have good and noble intentions. Any hint the world is otherwise makes them nervous and jumpy. They would rather censor the realist and Machiavellians among us, for the truth is far too dangerous.” …”
Nick Paumgarten, Annals of Power, “Fresh Prince,” The New Yorker, November 6, 2006, p. 56
“ANNALS OF POWER about Robert Greene and his book “The 48 Laws of Power,” which is popular among the hip-hop crowd… The first law of power, as set forth by Green, is “Never Outshine the Master.” The first law has achieved special resonance in the hip-hop community, which has adopted Greene’s book as a hallowed text, and Greene himself as a kind of sage. The rapper Busta Rhymes describes how Greene’s book helped handle a production executive on the film “Halloween: Resurrection.”… Greene is 47 years old and lives in Los Angeles. He began writing “The 48 Laws” after having held, by his count, eighty jobs. The book has sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S.… Describes a meeting between Greene and the rapper 50 Cent, who wants to collaborate with Greene on a street version of “The 48 Laws.”… Greene was a good student and something of a loner. He went to Berkeley and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin to study Ancient Greek. …” http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/06/061106fa_fact_paumgarten
The masses greeting the candidate on the trail are a sign of great unease
By FOUAD AJAMI
“…On the face of it, there is nothing overwhelmingly stirring about Sen. Obama. There is a cerebral quality to him, and an air of detachment. He has eloquence, but within bounds. After nearly two years on the trail, the audience can pretty much anticipate and recite his lines. The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest — African-Americans and affluent white liberals — has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking — Canetti’s feeling of equality within the crowd. The day after, the crowd will of course discover its own fissures. The affluent will have to pay for the programs promised the poor. The redistribution agenda that runs through Mr. Obama’s vision is anathema to the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the hedge-fund managers now smitten with him. Their ethos is one of competition and the justice of the rewards that come with risk and effort. All this is shelved, as the devotees sustain the candidacy of a man whose public career has been a steady advocacy of reining in the market and organizing those who believe in entitlement and redistribution.
A creature of universities and churches and nonprofit institutions, the Illinois senator, with the blessing and acquiescence of his upscale supporters, has glided past these hard distinctions. On the face of it, it must be surmised that his affluent devotees are ready to foot the bill for the new order, or are convinced that after victory the old ways will endure, and that Mr. Obama will govern from the center. Ambiguity has been a powerful weapon of this gifted candidate: He has been different things to different people, and he was under no obligation to tell this coalition of a thousand discontents, and a thousand visions, the details of his political programs: redistribution for the poor, postracial absolution and “modernity” for the upper end of the scale.
It was no accident that the white working class was the last segment of the population to sign up for the Obama journey. Their hesitancy was not about race. They were men and women of practicality; they distrusted oratory, they could see through the falseness of the solidarity offered by this campaign. They did not have much, but believed in the legitimacy of what little they had acquired. They valued work and its rewards. They knew and heard of staggering wealth made by the Masters of the Universe, but held onto their faith in the outcomes that economic life decreed. The economic hurricane that struck America some weeks ago shook them to the core. They now seek protection, the shelter of the state, and the promise of social repair. The bonuses of the wizards who ran the great corporate entities had not bothered them. It was the spectacle of the work of the wizards melting before our eyes that unsettled them. …”
“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.”
~ Barack Obama, Dreams of My Father
Obama: I Chose My Friends Carefully… Including Marxists
Obama, Khalidi, and Ayers – Terrorist Friends Update
LA Times covers up a video of Obama praising a Palistinian activist
The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama’s Khalidi Jew Bashing Video
Obama & The Black Liberation Theology Of The Church He Attended / Video / Reverend Wright / James Cone
Barack Obama Pastor Jeremiah Wright
Obama Spriritual Advisor: God Da*mn America!
Barack Obama’s careful choice of friends gives one pause.
Do you want a President of the United States of American that seeks out the likes of Bill Ayers, Bernadette Dorn, Raila Odinga, and now Rashid Khalidi?
What did these radical socialist see in Barack Obama?
They saw a fellow radical socialist and Marxist, just like themselves.
They saw a man they would support in his run for public office.
They saw a man that would implement their utopian socialist goals.
If big media investigated and reported Obama’s friends and alliances, Senator Obama would never have been nominated by the Democratic Party as their candidate for the office of President.
Big media will regret their decision to hide the truth about Obama from the American people.
The American people will stop reading, watching and listening to the work of those journalists who betrayed their trust.
In time, many of these journalists will be unemployed as newspapers, magazines and news programs are cancelled as their audience walks out on them.
When in time the mask of moderation and glibeness is riped off and Barack Obama is revealed to be a black racist, socialist and Marxist, the American people will shun him and those who perpetuated this fraud in the pump and dump drive-by mainstream media.
Rashid Khalidi Referred to Arafat’s PLO As ‘We’ Wednesday, October 29, 2008 By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor
“…Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University professor whose friendship with Sen. Barack Obama is raising questions, says he was never a spokesman for the PLO, but his strong PLO leanings were evident at a time when Yasser Arafat’s group was mounting terror attacks in Israel and causing mayhem in Lebanon.
And while Khalidi may not have been speaking on behalf of the PLO, during interviews he occasionally used the word “we” when speaking of the organization.
In one 1981 interview, Khalidi referred to the exiled PLO’s growing standing among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, saying “we have built up tremendous links with the Palestinians ‘on the inside’ in different ways. We can render them services … we’ve never been stronger there, and the trend is continuing.” …”
The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama’s Khalidi Bash Tape Obama, Ayers, and PLO supporters toast Edward Said’s successor, but the press doesn’t think it’s quite as newsworthy as Sarah Palin’s wardrobe.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
“…So now, let’s leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?
At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University’s Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Sayyid, another notorious terror apologist.
The party featured encomiums by many of Khalidi’s allies, colleagues, and friends, including Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, and Bill Ayers, the terrorist turned education professor. It was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), which had been founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona, formerly a top English translator for Arafat’s press agency.
Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?
Gateway Pundit reports that the Times has the videotape but is suppressing it.
Back in April, the Times published a gentle story about the fete. Reporter Peter Wallsten avoided, for example, any mention of the inconvenient fact that the revelers included Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife and fellow Weatherman terrorist. These self-professed revolutionary Leftists are friendly with both Obama and Khalidi — indeed, researcher Stanley Kurtz has noted that Ayers and Khalidi were “best friends.” (And — small world! — it turns out that the Obamas are extremely close to the Khalidis, who have reportedly babysat the Obama children.)
“Rashid Khalidi (born 1950), an American historian of the Middle East, is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Khalidi was born in New York to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother.[1] He received a B.A. from Yale University, where he was a member of Wolf’s Head Society, in 1970,[2] and a D. Phil. from Oxford University in 1974[3] and spent many years as a professor and director of both the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago before joining the Columbia faculty. He has also taught at Georgetown University, Lebanese University, and the American University of Beirut. Khalidi is married to Mona Khalidi,[4] former President of the Arab American Action Network.[5] …”“…Khalidi has been accused of having ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, based on his work for Wafa in the late 1980s, and later serving as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid Conference of 1991.[17][18]As an example, the New York Times referred to him in 1978 as “an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O.”[19] Khalidi denied the allegation that he served as a PLO spokesman.[20] Khalidi explained that he often spoke to journalists in Beirut, and was usually cited, without attribution, as a well-informed Palestinian source. He also said that he was unaware of any misidentification as a PLO spokesman.[17] The claim received renewed attention in 2008 when it was raised due to a reported friendship between Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Khalidi’s family when Khalidi taught at the University of Chicago. Articles by Aaron Klein and John Bachelor, writers respectively for World Net Daily and Human Events, were referenced by rival political campaigns and reprinted in wider-circulation media.[18][21][22][20]
Obama and Pro-Palestinian supporter Rashid Khalidi (Video Update)
“…“But,” Klein wrote, “Obama’s relationship with Khalidi goes beyond conversation. Khalidi’s ties to Obama were first exposed by WND in February in a much-cited article.”
According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003 while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004. Sources at the University told WND that Khalidi and Obama lived in nearby faculty residential zones and that the two families dined together a number of times. The sources said the Obama’s even babysat the Khalidi children. Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama’s failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi, who spoke to WND in February.
Klein continues: “Just last week, WND noted, [Obama] termed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a ‘constant sore’ in an interview just five days after Khalidi wrote an opinion piece in The Nation magazine titled Palestine: Liberation Deferred in which the Palestinian activist opened by calling the ‘Palestinian question’ a ‘running sore’ [and suggests] Israel carried out ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians; writes Western powers backed Israel’s establishment due to guilt of the Holocaust; laments the Palestinian Authority’s stated acceptance of a Palestinian state ‘only’ in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem; and argues Israel should be dissolved and instead a binational cantonal system should be set up in which Jews and Arabs reside.”
“…Several southern California readers send word that there will be a protest at the L.A. Times building today at 10am Pacific/1pm Eastern over the suppressed Obama/Khalidi tape.
“The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Arabic: منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية; Munazzamat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyyah(help·info) or Munazzamat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyyah) is a political and paramilitary organization regarded by the Arab League since October 1974 as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”[1] Founded by a meeting of 422 Palestinian national figures in Jerusalem in May 1964 following an earlier decision of the Arab League, its goal was the liberation of Palestine through armed struggle.[2] The original PLO Charter (written in 1968) stated that “Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit” and sought to “prohibit… the existence and activity” of Zionism.[3] These are often taken to mean the destruction of Israel. It also called for a right of return and self-determination for Palestinians. Palestinian statehood was not mentioned, although 6 years later (in 1974) the PLO called for an independent state in the territory of Mandate Palestine.[4] In 1988, the PLO officially adopted a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side contingent on specific terms such as making East Jerusalem capital of the Palestinian state and giving Palestinians right of return.[5] , In 1993, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat recognized the State of Israel in an official letter to its prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. In response to Arafat’s letter, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Arafat was the Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee from 1969 until his death in 2004. He was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen). The PLO was considered “the richest of all terrorist organizations” with $8-$10 billion in assets and an annual income of $1.5-$2 billion from “donations, extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc.”, according to a 1993 National Criminal Intelligence Service report. The Daily Telegraph reported in 1999 that the PLO had $50 billion in secret investments around the world.[6]
“…At one point in the discussion, Khalidi criticized think tanks “that don’t want true dialogue with people whose views differ from their own, but who want to force their opinions on American citizens and the world.” He mentioned, by way of example, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which he labelled “the fiercest of the enemies of the Arabs and the Muslims.” The moderator, Hafiz al-Mirazi, played devil’s advocate. Hadn’t the Institute often hosted Arabs and others holding diverse views? It had provided a podium for Nabil Amr, Palestinian information minister, as well as Egyptian presidential adviser Osama al-Baz. Just recently, Washington Institute mainstay David Makovsky had written a joint op-ed with an Egyptian writer from Al-Ahram (the reference was to Dr. Hala Mustafa, a visiting fellow), on democracy promotion in the Arab world. At this point, Khalidi boiled over:
By God, I say that the participation of the sons or daughters of the Arabs in the plans and affairs of this institute is a huge error, this Israeli institute in Washington, an institute founded by AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, and that hosts tens of Israelis every year. The presence of an Arab or two each year can’t disguise the nature of this institute as the most important center of Zionist interests in Washington for at least a decade. I very much regret the participation of Arab officials and non-officials and academics in the activities of this institute, because in fact if you look at the output of this institute, it’s directed against the Palestinians, against the Arabs, and against the Muslims in general. Its products describe the Palestinians as terrorists, and in fact its basic function is to spread lies and falsehoods about the Arab world, of course under an academic, scholarly veneer. Basically, this is the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States.
This is the intimidating language of Arab boycott, aimed against an institution with entirely American credentials. The Washington Institute is directed by Ambassador Dennis Ross, who was the chief Middle East peace negotiator in the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He has always been a model of balance (unlike Khalidi, whose forays into politics have always been to advise Yasir Arafat). The Washington Institute is run by Americans, and accepts funds only from American sources. (Contrast with the donors of Khalidi’s chair, whose precise identities Columbia still refuses to reveal.) …”
“…No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
~John Donne, From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
Joe Biden Gaffe (With Subtitles) Mark My Words… Barack Obama
Obama’s Youtube Arrogance Just Became A Nightmare
Obama’s Iraq Withdrawal Plan is Impossible
Obama on Iraq- I don’t care if we are winning – Retreat!
Obama on Iraq; Pull Out, Stay, Pull Out, Stay Longer?
Obama and the Military Budget
Joe Biden Gaffe: Mark My Words… Major International Crisis
RUSSIAN NUCLEAR BOMBER JETS LANDS IN VENEZUELA SOUTH AMERICA
After thinking about it somemore, I have concluded Senator Biden was telling Obama supporters that Senator Obama plans to withdraw all US troops from Iraq within the first six months, not sixteen months, of his administration, should Senator Obama be elected President.
Barack Obama, should he be elected, will learn the hard way that weakness invites attack from terrorists.
He will be tested and he will be broken.
Obama the Appeaser, Obama will not be getting my vote or help.
God save America.
Looks like Israel will be attacking Iran alone to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability.
Only you can prevent socialism in America.
Background Articles and Videos
Obama Clarifies Biden’s ‘Rhetorical Flourishes’
Jonathan Weisman reports from Richmond, Va., on the presidential race
“…Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes,” Obama said, after meeting here with more than 15 Democratic foreign policy and military experts. “His core point was that the next administration is going to be tested, regardless of who it is.”
Republicans seized on Biden’s comments, suggesting the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee believed adversaries would take advantage of an untested president if Obama prevails Nov. 4.
“Mark my words: It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,” Biden said Sunday. “The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.” He added: “Watch, we’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.” Democrats also note that Biden has likewise praised Obama for having “steel in his spine.”
“…Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – more than 7 years after the war began.
Under the Obama-Biden plan, a residual force will remain in Iraq and in the region to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. They will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but will continue efforts to train and support the Iraqi security forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.
In private conversations on troop presence, candidate pitched delay
Barbara Slavin
“…At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn’t be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval.
Mr. Obama’s conversations with the Iraqi leaders, confirmed to The Washington Times by his campaign aides, began just two weeks after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June and stirred controversy over the appropriateness of a White House candidate’s contacts with foreign governments while the sitting president is conducting a war. …”
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
~Benjamin Franklin
I am a classical liberal or libertarian.
Neither Senator McCain nor Senator Obama reflect my political philosophy or viewpoint and were not my first, second, or even tenth choice for who I would like to see on the ballot in November.
I have for many months studied and analyzed the positions of several candidates running for the office of President of the United States of America and posted my thoughts on this blog.
I have concluded that Senator McCain is a moderate Republican that leans slightly to the conservative right.
I will be voting for Senator McCain despite many reservations and concerns.
I have also concluded that Senator Obama is a radical socialist and most likely a Marxist.
I would never vote for any socialist for the simple reason they always end up killing people and/or ruining the economy (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Castro, Pol Pot, etc.).
If you are still undecided as to who to vote for in November and have only a minute to make up your mind, view the following video and Please Pass It On , Thank you.
Killer of American Dreams: Barack Obama Radical Socialist
If you are a radical socialist, progressive, liberal, pro abortion, communist, fascist, national socialist, welfare recipient, elitist or nonbeliever in God vote for Senator Obama.
If you are a conservative, libertarian, moderate, pro life, business owner, employer, employee, democratic or believer in God vote for Senator McCain.
If you are still undecided, then read and watch the articles and videos below:
Background Articles and Videos
Radical Socialism
GLENN BECK PICKS APART BARACK OBAMA’S 2001 RADIO INTERVIEW OF ‘REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH’ / PART 1
GLENN BECK PICKS APART BARACK OBAMA’S 2001 RADIO INTERVIEW OF ‘REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH’ / PART 2
Barack Obama: Global Poverty Act = World tax = Socialism
SENATOR BARACK ‘GOVERNMENT’ OBAMA STANDS BY “SPREAD THE WEALTH” STATEMENT / RUSH LIMBAUGH
Words of Wisdom from Rush on the Final Days of the Campaign
Obama and Wright: He Never Complained Once
Babies
Barack Obama – Infanticide or Partial Birth Abortion
Obama & Live Birth Abortion / Induced Labor Abortions / Infanticide Pro-Life Anti-Abortion Video
Barack Obama Answers Issues On Abortion
Obama – I don’t want my daughters “punished with a baby”
Punished with a Baby? (Barack Obama’s View of Child Bearing)
Barack Obama Votes Against Babies Born Alive!
Barack Obama – Infanticide or Partial Birth Abortion
Barack Obama Addresses Planned Parenthood
Barack Obama Promises to Sign Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)
Punished with a Baby? (Barack Obama’s View of Child Bearing)
Barack Obama, Planned Parenthood, and FOCA
Obama’s Health Care Proposals May Lead toMany More Abortion Deaths — Part One of Three
“…Abortion funding has always been a central goal of pro-abortionists since Roe v. Wade, Johnson explained. Pro-lifers have thwarted their efforts since 1976, when the Hyde Amendment banned federal funding of abortions. However, the 2008 presidential election may mark a crucial turning point.The differences between the prospective candidates could not be clearer. Sen. John McCain has always voted in support of the Hyde Amendment and other laws that prohibit taxpayer funding for abortion. On the other side, “Barack Obama as a state senator voted in favor of tax-funded abortion and he’s called publicly for the repeal of the federal Hyde Amendment,” Johnson said. “He has co-sponsored the so-called ‘Freedom of Choice Act’ [FOCA], which is a proposed federal law that would invalidate virtually all federal and state limitations on abortion and which would explicitly prohibit any level of government from discriminating against abortion in the provision of any type of services.”Furthermore, Obama’s health care platform hinges on universal health care, which would require all Americans to be covered by private insurance or government-provided coverage. However, under Obama’s plan, even private insurance plans would have to follow federal government mandates.Obama made it clear in a July 2007 speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that abortion (euphemistically known as “reproductive care”) is, to him, a major part of health care. Johnson quoted him as saying, “in my mind, reproductive health care is essential care, basic care so it is at the center, the heart of the plan that I propose.”
Obama continued by explaining that while people could choose to keep their private health care plans, “insurers are going to have to abide by the same rules in terms of providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care … that’s going to be absolutely vital.” This means that any health plan or law that attempts to restrict abortion in any form would be nullified, Johnson explained. …”
“…Obama has not made abortion rights the shouted refrain of his campaign, as other Democrats have done. He seems to realize that pro-choice enthusiasm is inconsistent with a reputation for post-partisanship.
But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called “too close to infanticide.” Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” because of a crisis pregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life. …”
“…For decades, most Democrats and many Republicans have hoped the political debate on abortion would simply go away. But it is the issue that does not die. Recent polls have shown that young people are more likely than their elders to support abortion restrictions. Few Americans oppose abortion under every circumstance, but a majority oppose most of the abortions that actually take place — generally supporting the procedure only in the case of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Perhaps this is a revolt against a culture of disposability. Perhaps it reflects the continuing revolution of ultrasound technology — what might be called the “Juno” effect. In the delightful movie by that name, the protagonist, a pregnant teen seeking an abortion, is confronted by a classmate who informs her that the unborn child already has fingernails — which causes second thoughts. A worthless part of its mother’s body — a clump of protoplasmic rubbish — doesn’t have fingernails. …”
Obama back when it seemed he understood that education vouchers are inevitable II
Obama back when it seemed he understood that education vouchers are inevitable I
Stupid In America
Introduction to School Choice
The Case for School Vouchers
Milton Friedman: Education (Part One)
Milton Friedman: Education (Part Two)
Milton Friedman: Education (Part Three)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Four)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Five)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Six)
Obama’s Little Red Schoolhouse
Obama Questioned On Vouchers
Many minority parents are at odds with the Democratic nominee on the issue of school choice.
by Kelly Petty
Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008
“…In February, Obama seemed open to the idea of private-school vouchers. In an editorial board meeting with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, he was asked about his opposition to Wisconsin’s voucher program. If he saw more proof that vouchers are successful, Obama said, he would “not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn…. You do what works for the kids.”
But at the American Federation of Teachers convention this year, Obama repeated his attack against spending government money to help low-income students attend private schools. He criticized John McCain’s school-choice reform as “using public money for private-school vouchers,” and he called instead for overhauling public schools.
The blogosphere has been buzzing over Obama’s perspective on vouchers. Pro-voucher blogs praise the Democratic nominee for showing some willingness to consider vouchers as a viable alternative. Some critics, meanwhile, say that Obama flip-flopped in the Milwaukee interview, and some argue that the interview did not indicate a shift toward vouchers.
Roland Martin, a black talk-radio host and a contributor to CNN, is an Obama supporter who has slammed the candidate and other Democrats for their stance. “Obama’s opposition is right along the lines of the National Education Association, and the teachers union is a reliable and powerful Democratic ally,” Martin wrote. “But this is one time where he should have opposed [teachers unions] and made it clear that vouchers can force school districts, administrators, and teachers to shape up or see their students ship out.”
The statistics on minority students show that too many are indeed quitting the education system on their own. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2006 nearly 11 percent of African-American students between the ages of 16 and 24 dropped out of school — almost double the rate for white students. The dropout rate among Hispanics was 22 percent. …”
Border Security and Illegal Immigration – Newt Gingrich
Obama – Yes I Can Make Us Defenseless, Just Like Dec 7, 1941
Barack Obama: Immigration
Barack Obama: Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants?
Obama Wants Social Security for Illegals
Obama – Yes I Can Make Us Defenseless, Just Like Dec 7, 1941
Obama and the Military Budget
Obama’s gun ban rhetoric
For it before being against it, now no longer for it
John R. Lott Jr.
“…A candidate questionnaire shows that Mr. Obama supported a ban on handguns in 1996. In 1998, he backed a ban on the sale of all semiautomatic guns (a ban that would encompass the vast majority of guns sold in the U.S.) In 2004, he advocated banning gun sales within five miles of a school or park (essentially a ban on all guns sold in almost all the states). Possibly, even more importantly, he served on the board of the Joyce Foundation, probably the largest private funder of anti-gun and pro-ban groups and research in the country.
The Obama campaign “flatly denied” the 1996 statement supporting a ban on handguns, blaming it instead on a staffer from his state senate race who they said had incorrectly filled out the candidate questionnaire. But the Politico obtained a copy of the statement and found Mr. Obama’s own handwritten notes on it indicating that he had personally checked and corrected answers.
His newfound support for gun ownership raises serious questions; not only where he stands on the gun issue, but also how trustworthy he is. With new legal cases being filed against Chicago’s gun ban over the last couple of weeks, will some reporter finally ask Mr. Obama why he has not only never spoken out against Chicago’s ban, he actively supported it? The release of the new Democratic National Platform’s discussion of “what [gun control] works in Chicago” implies Mr. Obama still supports Chicago’s gun ban. The platform also wants to take away so-called “assault weapons.” Also unclear is what his position means for who he would nominate to the Supreme Court. Mr. Obama’s recent comments to Rick Warren, pastor of the evangelical Saddleback Church, showed he opposed nominating those members of the Supreme Court who voted that the Second Amendment is an individual right. …”
Obama in 2001: How to bring about “redistributive change;” Update: Biden decries “mean,” “ugly” questions
By Michelle Malkin
“…The blogosphere is buzzing about this video posted on YouTube Sunday night. It’s Barack Obama musing about how best to redistribute wealth in America in a Chicago Public Radio interview in 2001.
Not whether, but how: Through the courts or through legislation?
A caller asks The One to explain how he would do “reparative economic work.” Obama gives the legislative route two thumbs up as his preferred method of “breaking free of the constraints” placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution and then burbles about cobbling together the “actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”
Bombshell Audio of Obama from 2001 Wealth Redistribution
Obama the Socialist wants to spread YOUR money around
Senator Obama’s Social Security Tax Plan
“Joe the Plumber” News Conference on MSNBC 10-16-08
Response to Obama, 4: What’s wrong with Obama’s Leftist View
Response to Obama, 7: Liberals and the fall of Detroit
After the Constitutional Convention had finished its work in 1787, a woman asked Ben Franklin what kind of government had been decided upon. He replied:
US acknowledges raid on Syrian border town – Oct 27 08
Syria Condemns U.S. Attack As Politically Motivated
The US attack on a building on Syria raises the question as to what was the target of the assault–terrorists or a site for making biological weapons?
The closing down “rat lines” for terrorist entering Iraq from Syria may have been the target.
However, Syria has a history of developing biological weapons of mass destruction.
Looks like the deck is being cleared for further actions.
The world wide war warning countdown continues.
Syria has condemned as “serious aggression” a US helicopter raid from Iraq that has killed eight civilians.
“…A US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the raid was targeting “elements of the Syrian military in league with al Qaeda and other fighters”.
While US forces have had considerable success in shutting down the “rat lines” in Iraq, the Syrian part of the network has been out of reach, he added.
The US and Iraqi governments blame Syria for not doing enough to stop anti US rebels, including al Qaeda fighters, from infiltrating over the border.
The Syrian government has condemned the attack and summoned the US and Iraqi envoys in Damascus.
The official SANA news agency quoted a Syrian official as saying: “Syria condemns and denounces this act of aggression and US forces will bear the responsibility for any consequences. …”
“…The foreign fighters network sends militants from North Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East to Syria, where elements of the Syrian military are in league with al-Qaida and loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, the U.S. military official said.
He said that while American forces have had considerable success, with Iraqi help, in shutting down the “rat lines” in Iraq, and with foreign government help in North Africa, the Syrian node has been out of reach.
“The one piece of the puzzle we have not been showing success on is the nexus in Syria,” the official said.
The White House in August approved similar special forces raids from Afghanistan across the border of Pakistan to target al-Qaida and Taliban operatives. At least one has been carried out.
The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq has been cut to an estimated 20 a month, a senior U.S. military intelligence official told the Associated Press in July. That’s a 50 percent decline from six months ago, and just a fifth of the estimated 100 foreign fighters who were infiltrating Iraq a year ago, according to the official.
Ninety percent of the foreign fighters enter through Syria, according to U.S. intelligence. Foreigners are some of the most deadly fighters in Iraq, trained in bomb-making and with small-arms expertise and more likely to be willing suicide bombers than Iraqis. …”
Eight die in US attack inside Syria: official media
“…American helicopter-borne troops launched an assault on Sunday on a building in a Syrian border village with Iraq, killing eight civilians, official Syrian media reported.
The government has summoned the official US and Iraqi representatives to protest, state television and the official SANA news agency said.
“Four American helicopters violated Syrian airspace around 16:45 local time (1345 GMT) on Sunday. They penetrated eight kilometres (five miles) into Syria,” the official media said.
“American soldiers” who had emerged from helicopters “attacked a civilian building under construction and fired at workmen inside, causing eight deaths,” the reports said.
“The helicopters then left Syrian territory towards Iraqi territory,” SANA said.
The news agency said one person was also wounded in the attack on the village of Al-Sukkiraya, around 550 kilometres (340 miles) northeast of the capital in the Abu Kamal area.
Report: U.S. Troops Attack Syrian Town on Iraqi Border
“…U.S. military helicopters attacked an area along Syria’s border with Iraq Sunday, killing eight people, the Syrian government said, condemning what it called “serious aggression.”
A government statement carried by the official Syrian Arab News Agency said the attack occurred at the Sukkariyeh Farm near the town of Abu Kamal, five miles inside the Syrian border. Four helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction, firing on the workers inside shortly before sundown, the statement said.
The U.S. military in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An American commander indicated last week that the Syrian border area still presented a security problem more than five years into the Iraq war. …”
“…Four American helicopters violated Syrian airspace around 16:45 local time (1345 GMT) on Sunday,” Sana news agency said.
It said that “American soldiers” who had emerged from helicopters “attacked a civilian building under construction and opened fire on workers inside – including the wife of the building guard – leading to [the deaths] of eight civilians”.
The dead included a man and his four children and a married couple.
“The helicopters then left Syrian territory towards Iraqi territory,” Sana said.
It named the village as Sukkiraya, 8km (5 miles) from the Iraqi border.
A US military spokesman couldn’t confirm or deny the reports. He said: “It’s a developing situation.”
The area is near the Iraqi border city of Qaim, which had been a major crossing point for fighters, weapons and money travelling into Iraq to fuel the Sunni insurgency.
Washington has accused Damascus of turning a blind eye to the problem.”
BIOLOGICAL WAR-FEAR
Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran
Damascus reportedly hiding WMD among commercial pharmaceuticals
By Jerome R. Corsi
“…”The Syrians have made some recent acquisitions in regard to their smallpox program from the DPRK,” she explained. “Right before the recent Lebanon war, the Syrians had a crash program in cryptosporidium.”
“Because cryptosporidium is impervious to chlorine,” Bellamy-Decker continued, “you could infect the water supply by the bucket full of cryptosporidium, if you know where to get it. The resulting illness would put down a lot of civilians and military who might oppose you going into their country.”
“The Syrians have a modus operandi of covert operations and deniability,” she stressed, “so biological weapons are absolutely perfect for them.”
“…Bellamy-Decker is presenting a paper at this week’s Intelligence Summit in St. Petersburg, Fla. It is expected to focus on the sophisticated state of development of the Syrian bioweapons program.
“The Syrians have developed a rather remarkable bioweapons capability that has gone under the radar of U.S. intelligence,” she said. “U.S. intelligence continues to insist that the Syrian capability is not highly developed. The Syrian program mirrors how the Russians have developed their program, as well as Iraq under Saddam Hussein, North Korea, and Iran. The emphasis in the Syrian program is on latent potential and outbreak capability.”
Bellamy-Decker explained we should not expect to find stockpiles of biological weapons.
“Stockpiles are just not how biological weapons are done,” she said. “With biological weapons, it is not the quantity, but the quality that counts. If you can produce a virulent, communicable strain, then you have a great biological weapon and it doesn’t matter how much of it you have, it depends on what the weapon looks like.”
Syria broadcasting terror attacks against US forces in Iraq
Terrorists Attack U.S. Embassy In Damascus, Syria
John Bolton on Israeli strike on Syrian nuclear facility
Israel Bombs Syria
Israel Thwarted Syria’s Plan To Attack
CNN: SYRIA NUCLEAR STUNNER!
CIA video showing suspected Syrian nuclear reactor
Saddam’s WMDs were moved to Syria
Saddam’s WMDs : the truth
Saddam’s WMDs Part 2 : the truth
WMD in former Soviet Republic
Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical Warfare
Iraqi defector talks about biological weapons (1997)
Terrorism: Biological Weapons preview
The Truth about Robert Malley and Barack Obama
Heritage In Focus: Speaker Pelosi’s Trip to Syria
G. Beck: Nancy Pelosi Sleeps With Syria, Hates U.S. Troops
Gingrich: I’m deeply worried
CIA World Fact Book Syria
“…Following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, France administered Syria until its independence in 1946. The country lacked political stability, however, and experienced a series of military coups during its first decades. Syria united with Egypt in February 1958 to form the United Arab Republic. In September 1961, the two entities separated, and the Syrian Arab Republic was reestablished. In November 1970, Hafiz al-ASAD, a member of the Socialist Ba’th Party and the minority Alawite sect, seized power in a bloodless coup and brought political stability to the country. In the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel. During the 1990s, Syria and Israel held occasional peace talks over its return. Following the death of President al-ASAD, his son, Bashar al-ASAD, was approved as president by popular referendum in July 2000. Syrian troops – stationed in Lebanon since 1976 in an ostensible peacekeeping role – were withdrawn in April 2005. During the July-August 2006 conflict between Israel and Hizballah, Syria placed its military forces on alert but did not intervene directly on behalf of its ally Hizballah. …”
“Syria (Arabic: سوريّة Sūrriya or Sūrya), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية ), is an Arab country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north. The modern state of Syria was formerly a French mandate and attained independence in 1946, but can trace its roots to the Eblan civilization in the third millennium BC. Its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire.
Syria gained independence in April 1946. Officially a Republic, Syria has been under Emergency Law since 1963 and governed by the Baath Party; the head of state since 1970 has been a member of the Assad family. Syria’s current president is Bashar al-Assad, son of Hafez al-Assad, who held office from 1970 until his death in 2000.[2][3] With the appointment of Bashar al-Assad in 2000 interest in political reform surged, leading to the so called “Damascus Spring” (July 2000-February 2001). Assad appointed pro-reform candidates to formal and less formal positions, but the 2001 arrest and long-term detention of the two reformist parliamentarians signals slow political reform.[3]
‘Former’ Obama Advisor Meets with Syrians
Ed Lasky
“…Now another figure that has been written about at American Thinker is in the news again: Robert Malley, former (and future?) adviser to Barack Obama and a man who serves as a key foreign policy expert at the ICG.
He recently met with Syrian leader Basher Assad and explained the role the ICG would have in briefing the new US Administration (and I doubt he meant McCain) about Syria’s important role in the region.
Of course, maybe he was just boasting about his and the ICG’s role. Perhaps not. The ICG has deep ties with the bad guys over in the region. If people involved in the ICG come on board in an Obama White House, people concerned about the future of our embattled ally should turn their radar on.
From a highly-regarded foreign policy expert::
Malley has been quarterbacking for the Syrians since 2006 at least. The notion that they refer to him commonly as a lobbyist for the regime in the Syrian outlets is because he negotiated with the Syrians to have an office for the ICG based in Damascus (the only think tank with such an office). He has been paying the dues. First by producing the report on restarting Syrian-Israeli talks in 2006 and with a series of events and articles — including by Peter Harling, who is heading the Damascus office. He also moved on the French end to get them to dump the US policy on Syria (so much for Bush’s “unilateralism”). He was running around DC trying to talk to Bush administration officials to open up to Syria. In essence, he was/is a lobbyist for the Syrians.
He then orchestrated a series of meetings for Obama people with the Syrians, and worked to get the Syrian delegation to come to DC through Thomas Dine. He also authored a position paper on Syria that was signed by all the usual suspects, including those involved in getting the Syrian delegation here.
Those Democrat and Republican members of Congress that are seriously considering bringing back the Fairness Doctrine are playing with dynamite.
Over 100 million Americans are listening to talk radio everyday.
Mess with talk radio and you will have a ten million men and women march on Congress.
Unfortunatley, many members of Congress are that arrogant and stupid to try.
Just another example of socialism–“spread the wealth around”.
Go ahead, Make my day!
Sudden Impact – “Go Ahead. Make My Day”
Background Articles and Videos
Boehner on so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine’ – 6/28/07
Fairness Doctrine” — Feinstein Outlawing Talk Radio
Debate over the Fairness Doctrine on Fox News Sunday
Kucinich Discusses Fairness Doctrine on Lou Dobbs
Accuracy in Media – Group Condemns Congressional Hypocrisy
Dem Sen On Fairness Doctrine
2008 UP & COMING ” POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE ( FAIRNESS DOCTRINE ) ” / PART 13
Rep. Pence: Fairness Doctrine and “Freedom Works”
Fairness Doctrine
“The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the FCC’s view) honest, equitable, and balanced. The United States Supreme Court has upheld the Commission’s general right to enforce such a policy where channels are limited, but the courts have generally not considered that the FCC is obliged to do so.[1] The FCC has since withdrawn the Fairness Doctrine, prompting some to urge its reintroduction through either Commission policy or Congressional legislation.[2] …”
“…If the fairness standard is reinstituted, the result will not be easier access for controversial views. It will instead be self-censorship, as stations seek to avoid requirements that they broadcast specific opposing views. With the wide diversity of views available today in the expanding broadcast system, there is a simple solution for any family seeking an alternative viewpoint or for any lawmaker irritated by a pugnacious talk-show host. Turn the dial.”
The history and possible revival of the Fairness Doctrine
by Nat Hentoff
“…The term “Fairness Doctrine” exemplifies what George Orwell called “Newspeak”: it uses language to mask the deleterious effects of its purported meaning. The Fairness Doctrine itself was in effect from 1949 until 1987. It required that radio broadcasts devote a reasonable amount of time to the discussion of controversial issues of public importance, and that the broadcaster do that fairly by offering reasonable opportunity for opposing viewpoints to be heard. If the Federal Communications Commission found a radio station in repeated violation of this Doctrine, it could take away the station’s license — a business form of capital punishment. …”
“…Before the Fairness Doctrine was ended, at least for the time being, in 1987 — Congressman Hinchey could yet prevail if the Democrats retake Congress — Richard Salant, head of CBS News while the Doctrine was flourishing, said to me:
Suppose the English government had told Tom Paine that he could go ahead and publish all he liked — but only if at the back of his pamphlets he also printed the Royal Governor’s views. That command, far from the implementation of free speech, would have been just the opposite. It’s a restriction of speech if, in order to be allowed to express your own views, [the government demands] you also have to present those of someone arguing on the other side.
James Madison did not have the bifurcation of free speech in mind when he submitted his draft of the First Amendment.”
Group Led By Clinton’s John Podesta Outlines Assault of Conservative Radio
“…With that in mind, the left-leaning Center for American Progress published a report Thursday detailing how conservatives dominate the talk radio dial, and exactly what needs to be done legislatively for liberals to wrest control over this medium (emphasis added throughout):
Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.
Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.
Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.
Imagine that.
For those unfamiliar with the Center, its President and CEO is none other than John Podesta, the former Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton. And:
The Executive Vice President for Management is Sarah Rosen, who was also a member of the Clinton administration.
Senior Vice President for Development Debbie Goldberg worked for the Clinton campaign.
Senior Vice President and Director David Halperin was a speech writer for President Clinton.
Vice President of Communications Jennifer Palmieri was Clinton’s White House Deputy Press Secretary.
Senior Vice President for External Affairs Winnie Stachelberg worked at the Office of Management and Budget under Clinton.
Vice President of Finance and Operations Brad Kiley worked for the Clinton administration.
“The Center for American Progress is an American liberal political policy research and advocacy organization. Its website describes it as “…a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all.”[1]
Its President and Chief Executive Officer is John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then U.S. President Bill Clinton. Located in Washington, D.C., the Center for American Progress has a campus outreach group, Campus Progress, and a sister advocacy organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. …”
Fairness Doctrine Watch: Sen. Stabenow makes new pro-gagging noise
By Michelle Malkin
“…You know grass-roots conservatives on talk radio and in New Media are getting under the Democrats’ skin when they publicly renew their Fairness Doctrine agenda again.See.
Shame, Cubed Three separate reasons to be appalled, each more disgusting than the last.
By Bill Whittle
“The Drudge Report this morning led off with a link to audio of Barack Obama on WBEZ, A Chicago Public Radio station. And this time, candidate Obama was not eight years old when the bomb went off.
Speaking at a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama say things that should profoundly shock any American – or at least those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man’s beliefs and affiliations.
“You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the Civil Rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of re-distribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
“And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution – at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.
“And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.”
A caller then helpfully asks:
“The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”
Obama replies:
“You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.
So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”
Obama Redistribution of Wealth 2001 Radio Interview with Milton Friedman Answer
Weird Obama Admits to Socialist Values in Old Clip
“…Here is a video of Barack Obama praising New Party socialist and proud member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Danny Davis. Barack calls Davis One of the best Congressmen in the country because he shares our values:
New Party Program
Our program is based on our commitment to democracy, responsibility and fairness. The issues that have been the focus of our local activity so far are campaign finance and other electoral reform, education, public safety, environmentally sustainable economic development, and living wages. As we grow, we are developing a more comprehensive program through a series of discussions and debates. We have also adopted a set of principles to guide our program work.
Here are our preliminary program goals. We welcome your comments and suggestions. …”
“…You have to pinch yourself – a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it’s considered impolite to say so.”
12. Evans, Jodie ….Code Pink…known to visit with Chavez, Ahjamanihead (sp) (you can find lots more about Jodie HERE!)
13. Funnye, Rabbi Capers …Michelle Obama’s cousin
14. Hamid, Wahid …College roommate #2 from Pakistan
15. Jones, Emil ….“Illinois State Senate President, Serves Under An Ethical Cloud. He Has Several Family Members On The State Payroll And Uses His Clout To Aid Their Business Interests.”
16. arret, Valerie …..MO’s boss, then BO’s Campaign team
17. Johnson, James….former Fannie Mae CEO…left due to “improprieties” helped select Obama VP
18. Katz, Marilyn ….former active SDS Member, member Obama’s Credential’s committee
19. Khalidi, Rashid ….former spokesman for PLO, now professor Arab Studies, Columbia; founded AAAN
20. Kilpatrick, Kwame…. jailed Detroit Mayor, Obama praised him….in May 2007
21. Malley, Robert …..former member Obama campaign Staff w/ties to Hamas
22. Mansour, Al, aka Warden, Donald ……Muslim financier of Obama’s Harvard education
23. Neier, Aryeh…. founder of SDS, now President of George Soros, Open Society Institute
24. Odinga, Raila …..Kenyan radical muslim Cousin of Barack’s, whom Obama supported IN Kenya
25. Pfleiger Father
26. Pritzker, Penny… Finance Chairperson of Obama’s presidential campaign – helped develop the complicated investment bundling of subprime securities at the heart of the meltdown. Board Chair of failed Superior Bank.
27. Radthe, Wade ….founder of ACORN, leader of SEIU chapter (Service Employees Int’l Union)
28. Raines, Franklin ….former head of FANNIE MAE….former? Campaign “housing” advisor?
29. Rezko Chicago Politics…. – convicted felon
30. Socialist Party of USA….. ENDORSED Obama
31. Wright, Reverend ….Pastor for 20 years – leader in the BLACK LIBERATION Theology movement …”
If the FBI or Secret Service did a background check on Barack Obama and his friends, he would never get a security clearance or job in the Federal government or in the defense industy.
Killer of American Dreams: Barack Obama Radical Socialist
the Mainstream media thinks you’re Stupid…
Background Articles and Videos
Who “sent” Obama?
“…So it is reasonable to ask, who “sent” Barack Obama? In other words, how can his meteoric rise to political prominence be explained? And, of course, in an answer to that question might lie a better understanding of his essential world view. When I started looking at this question a few weeks ago I quickly grew more concerned about the kinds of people that seem to have been very important in Obama’s ascendancy in Chicago area politics. It is the connection of some of these people to authoritarian politics that has me particularly concerned. And a key concern of this blog has been the rise of authoritarian tendencies in the global labor movement.
The people linked to Senator Obama grew to political maturity in the extreme wings of the late 60s student and antiwar movements. They adopted some of the worst forms of sectarian and authoritarian politics. They helped undermine the emergence of a healthy relationship between students and others in American society who were becoming interested in alternative views of social, political and economic organization. In fact, at the time, some far more constructive activists had a hard time comprehending groups like the Weather Underground. Their tactics were so damaging that some on the left thought that government or right wing elements helped create them. There is some evidence, in fact, that that was true (for example, the Cointelpro effort of the federal government.)
Today, however, many of these individuals continue to hold political views that hardened in that period. Many of them have joined up with other wings of the late 60s and 70s movements, in particular the pro-China maoists elements of that era and are now playing a role in the labor movement and elsewhere. And yet this question of Obama’s links to people from this milieu has not been thoroughly explored by any of the many thousands of journalists, bloggers and political operatives looking so closely at Obama. …”
Newspapers Show Obama Lied — He Did Belong To Socialist Party!
“…Evidence has emerged that Sen. Barack Obama belonged to a socialist political party that sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.
Several blogs, including Powerline, previously documented that while running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the socialist-oriented New Party, with some blogs claiming Obama was a member of the controversial party.
The New Party, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA, was an electoral alliance that worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party’s aim was to help elect politicians to office who espouse its policies.
Among New Party members was linguist and radical leftist activist Noam Chomsky.
Obama’s campaign has responded to the allegations, denying the presidential candidate was ever a member of the New Party, this before the damning evidence was disclosed.
But the New Zeal blog dug up print copies of the New Party News, the party’s official newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, list him as a New Party member and include quotes from him. …”
“…The party’s Spring 1996 newspaper boasted: “New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary). The paper quoted Obama saying “these victories prove that small ‘d’ democracy can work.” …”
“The New Party was a third political party in the United States that tried to re-introduce the practice of electoral fusion as a political strategy for labor unions and community organizing groups. In electoral fusion, the same candidate receives nomination from more than one political party and occupies more than one ballot line. Fusion was once common in the United States but is now commonly practiced only in New York State, although it is allowed by law in seven other states. The party was active from 1992 to 1998. There had been an earlier New Party in 1968 that ran Eugene McCarthy for President.
The New Party was founded in the early 1990s by Daniel Cantor, a former staffer for Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, and by sociology and law professor Joel Rogers as an effort to break with the largely unsuccessful history of left-leaning third parties in the United States.
The party could best be described as social democratic in orientation, although party statements almost invariably used the terms “small-d democratic” or “progressive” instead. Its founders chose the name “New Party” in an effort to strike a fresh tone, free of associations with dogmas and ideological debates.
After a false start in New York, the New Party built modestly successful chapters in several states. Some of these chapters — such as those in Chicago and Little Rock — had their main bases of support in the low-income community organizing group ACORN, along with some support from various labor unions (especially ACORN-allied locals of the Service Employees International Union). Other chapters — such as those in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Missoula, Montana, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Dane County, Wisconsin, received institutional support from a variety of other labor unions and community organizations. These chapters built local political organizations that ran or endorsed candidates, primarily in local non-partisan races but with occasional forays into Democratic Party primaries or (more rarely) traditional third party-style independent candidacies as well. The party’s chapters endorsed hundreds of political candidates. [1][2] Some New Party chapters introduced the idea of a contract for candidates to sign, to encourage accountability to the promises they had made the party in exchange for an endorsement, an idea that met with some resistance.[3][4][5] Party chapters were also active between elections, pressuring elected officials to pass legislation on issues such as living wages and affordable housing.
Left-wing critics of the New Party, such as supporters of the Green Party, argued that the New Party was merely a pressure group on the fringes of the Democratic Party, rather than a genuinely new political party.[citation needed] New Party leaders argued that classic third-party strategies were doomed to failure, but that the Democratic Party was too entrenched and undemocratic to be a useful institution for “small-d democrats” either, even if they could succeed in taking it over, and so a new kind of organization was needed.[citation needed] …”
“Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a social democratic organization in the United States and the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, a federation of social democratic, democratic socialist and labor parties and organizations.
DSA was formed in 1982 by a merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM). DSOC was the largest group to emerge from the splintering of the Socialist Party of America in 1973; two other Socialist Party factions went on to form Social Democrats USA and the Socialist Party USA. NAM was a coalition of writers and intellectuals with roots in both the New Left movements of the 1960s and the more traditional parties of the Old Left.
At its founding, DSA consisted of almost 5,000 ex-DSOC members and 1,000 ex-NAM members. By 1983 DSA reached 7,000 members, which it would not surpass until the early 1990s. Michael Harrington and socialist-feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich were elected as the organization’s co-chairs.[1] …”
“The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is the single largest partisan caucus in the United States House of Representatives, and works together to advance progressive issues and causes.
The CPC was founded in 1991 by the independent Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who remains a member as Senator. It represents about a third of the House Democratic Caucus (with 71 members). Of the twenty standing committees of the House, eleven are chaired by members of the CPC.
Ideology
According to their website, the CPC advocates “universal access to affordable, high quality healthcare,” fair trade agreements, living wage laws, the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in strike actions and collective bargaining, the abolition of significant portions of the USA PATRIOT Act, the legalization of gay marriage, strict campaign finance reform laws, a complete pullout from the war in Iraq, a crackdown on free trade and corporate welfare, an increase in income tax on the wealthy, tax cuts for the poor, and an increase in social welfare spending by the federal government.
Supporting organizations
An array of national progressive organizations will work to support the efforts of the caucus, including the Institute for Policy Studies, The Nation magazine, MoveOn.org, National Priorities Project, Jobs with Justice, Peace Action, Americans for Democratic Action, and Progressive Democrats of America. Also co-sponsoring the kickoff event were the NAACP, ACLU, Progressive Majority, League of United Latin American Citizens, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, National Council of La Raza, Hip Hop Caucus, Human Rights Campaign, Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, and the National Hip Hop Political Convention. In 2000, the Democratic Socialists of America expressed solidarity with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, since they both shared “operative social democratic politics.”[1] …”
“Bernard “Bernie” Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is the junior United States Senator from Vermont, elected on November 7, 2006. Before becoming Senator, Sanders represented Vermont’s at-large district in the United States House of Representatives for 16 years.
Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, but because he does not belong to a formal political party he appears as an independent on the ballot. Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments. He was the only independent member of the House during much of his service there and is one of two independent Senators in the 110th Congress, along with Joe Lieberman. Sanders is the first self-described democratic socialist to be elected to the U.S. Senate.[1] Sanders left the House in order to run in the 2006 election for the Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Jim Jeffords and won the election with 65% of the vote.[2] …”
“…Zombie, the Internet investigative reporter/photojournalist whose work I’ve spotlighted here often, is busy doing the Ayers’ research the MSM won’t do.
Over the weekend, Zombie uploaded Barack Obama’s cheery book review of his neighbor’s tome on the juvenile court system.
Now, Zombie has unearthed Ayers’ Weather Underground manifesto, “Prairie Fire.”
Print it out, read it, pass it around.
A takeaway passage from Zombie’s essay:
Ayers and his co-authors freely brag about their bombings and other violent and illegal acts, and even provide a detailed list, most likely typed up by Ayers himself, of the crimes they had committed up to that point. Ayers’ list, scanned directly from Prairie Fire, is shown below. He may have escaped conviction due to a legal technicality (the prosecutors failed to get a warrant during some of their surveillance of the Weather Underground), but this in no way means that Ayers was factually innocent of the crimes. As has been widely reported, after the case against him was dropped, Ayers described himself as “guilty as hell, free as a bird.”
“…Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Mr. Obama that were “false.” I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-’02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Mr. Obama’s ties to Mr. Ayers.
These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the “fairness doctrine” on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s required equal time for different points of view. The motive was plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can’t abide having citizens hear contrary views.
To their credit, some liberal old-timers – like House Appropriations Chairman David Obey – voted against the “fairness doctrine,” in line with their longstanding support of free speech. But you can expect the “fairness doctrine” to get another vote if Barack Obama wins and Democrats increase their congressional majorities. …”
“…Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Mr. Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech they don’t like and seem utterly oblivious to claims this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.”
Another Communist in Obama’s Orb Meet Michael Klonsky, Obama’s “social justice” education expert.By Andrew C. McCarthy
“…The mainstream press steadfastly refuses to delve into Barack Obama’s radicalism, his Leftist revolutionary collaboration with self-identified communists from Frank Marshall Davis to Bill Ayers. The McCain campaign, moreover, has contributed mightily to the whitewash by ineptly seizing on the issue’s least important aspect: Obama’s abject dishonesty about the depth of his relationships with committed Leftists — e.g., the portrayal of Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.”
(Petrified of being smeared as a racist, McCain has never mentioned Davis, whom Obama identifies only as “Frank” in his memoir. And, of course, utterance of Jeremiah Wright’s name is verboten in McCain circles, notwithstanding that his Trinity Church, where Obama was a 20-year member, is a font of Marxist Black Liberation Theology and thus critical to our understanding of Obama’s invocations of “change” and “spreading the wealth.”)
“…Campaign workers for Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama are under fire for displaying a flag featuring communist hero Che Guevara. But Obama has his own controversial socialist connections. He is, in fact, an associate of a Chicago-based Marxist group with access to millions of labor union dollars and connections to expert political consultants, including a convicted swindler.
Obama’s socialist backing goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois state senate seat. Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul Mendelson, one of the “champions” of “Chicago’s democratic left” and a long-time socialist activist. Obama’s stint as a “community organizer” in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally ignored.
Blogger Steve Bartin, who has been following Obama’s career and involvement with the Chicago socialists, has uncovered a fascinating video showing Obama campaigning for openly socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Interestingly, Sanders, who won his seat in 2006, called Obama “one of the great leaders of the United States Senate,” even though Obama had only been in the body for about two years. In 2007, the National Journal said that Obama had established himself as “the most liberal Senator.” More liberal than Sanders? That is quite a feat. Does this make Obama a socialist, too?
DSA describes itself as the largest socialist organization in the United States and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. The Socialist International (SI) has what is called “consultative status” with the United Nations. In other words, it works hand-in-glove with the world body. …”
“…How many times must history repeat itself before we learn that socialism and communism cannot work. Liberals love to mock the trickledown theory, but they simply cannot refute the axiom that people produce less when they aren’t allowed to keep as much of what they produce. When do-gooder social planners try to control how much we keep, they guarantee that everyone gets less in the end because they shrink the GDP pie.
We know from the writings of William Bradford that the Pilgrims learned this lesson the hard way when they tried a communal system of sharing, thinking it “would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.” Instead, “This community … was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.” Men refused to “work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense; … this was thought injustice.”
Socialism and communism have failed everywhere they’ve been tried in the world, yet die-hard socialists, such as William Ayers, still smarter than God, insist on cramming them down our throats in the name of “fairness.” Unreconstructed radicals always say that true socialism hasn’t been given a real chance.
Well, if Obama is elected, we may get that chance.”
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 2
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 3
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 4
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 5
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 6
Barack’s Trinity Church (Part 1 of 2)
Barack’s Trinity Church (Part 2 of 2)
Barack Obama’s Hidden Agenda, More Taxes, Socialism….
Glenn Beck – The Obama Socialist Agenda
Bachmann on Hardball
On the Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget for FY 2009
Obama The Racialist Socialist
* WARNING UNCENSORED – Laura Ingraham and Daryl Patterson agree on William Ayres and Barack Hussein Obama Bill O’Reilly Factor No Spin Zone. Obama must finally be thoroughly vetted by the American people! AMERICA, DO NOT ELECT A SOCIALIST MARXIST!
Palin Warns of Communist Nightmare State
Obama Campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden
Two of Governor Palin’s replies to questions by Brian Williams illustrate why movement conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, Democrats and independents– are Palin proud and will be turning out to vote in November for the McCain/Palin ticket:
WILLIAMS: Gov. Palin, what is an elite? Who is a member of the elite?
PALIN: Oh, I guess just people who think that theyre better than anyone else and John McCain and I are so committed to serving every American. Hard working, middle class Americans . . . so anyone who thinks that they are, I guess, better than anyone else. Thats, thats my definition of elitism.
WILLIAMS: You recently talked about the liberal feminist agenda in America vis a vis the attacks on Gov. Palin. Gov. are you a feminist?
PALIN: Im not going to label myself anything Brian and I think thats what annoys a lot of Americans, especially in a political campaign is to start trying to label different parts of America . . . I believe in womens rights, I do believe in equal rights . . . its time for women to be provided that opportunity to finally shatter that highest and hardest glass ceiling that is still in place in Americas political system, but were going to shatter that because I think that more and more American women are recognizing, Right on! Weve go someone in whom we can believe in also! Someone who is committed to putting our country first, someone who recognizes the life/family balance thats so necessary as we try to progress our families and the businesses that we own . . . so Im not going to label myself feminist or not, but I do believe that American women can recognize in me an advocate and a friend wholl be in their White House for them.
The American elites are having a nervous breakdown.
The Palin Platoons are growing by leaps and bounds.
How sweet it is!
Sarah Palin Speaks in Clearwater, Fl.
Sarah Palin continued to criticize Barack Obama
Ronald Reagan, John McCain, & Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin in jeans, rocking out to “Redneck Woman”
By Michelle Malkin
“I’ll take Sarah over the Arugula Snob and Smirky any day: …”
“…When it comes to politics, it’s often smart to bet against the elites — on the left and right. Bet against them about Sarah Palin.
Palin is the latest in a long line politicians who have been discounted by those comfortably ensconced in positions of power and privilege. Since, at least, the early 1800s, the chattering classes, especially, have managed to bet against men who went on to notable, if not historic, presidencies. They disparaged Andrew Jackson and ridiculed Abe Lincoln. In recent times, elites turned noses up at Truman and Eisenhower. And, of course, they disdained Ronald Reagan as a second rate actor and corporate huckster.
Palin isn’t seeking the presidency — not this go-round. Yet the very same elites who are uneasy about a rookie being a heartbeat away from the presidency aren’t quite as fussed about a rookie United States senator winning the presidency.
The surprising and unfortunate thing is that some prominent conservative establishmentarians have joined with the usual suspects on the left to question Palin’s fitness. David Brooks, David Frum, Charles Krauthammer, George Will and Peggy Noonan, most conspicuously, have taken turns criticizing McCain’s choice of Palin.
In apples-to-oranges comparisons, they’ve commented that the callow Barack Obama is better ready to be president than Sarah Palin is to be vice president. Or at least implied it: …”
“…Sarah Palin is typically who Americans want to elect to high office – or any office. They want someone who’s right on the issues, good at the business of politics and governance, but who is fundamentally simpatico.
Once again, history teaches. Andrew Jackson was an up-from-the-bootstraps frontiersman in a nation ever pushing west. He was a fighter, who not only won the Battle of New Orleans, but as a politician, fought the vested interests that he and voters believed were ruining the country.
Lincoln — who doesn’t know how he was run into the ground as an unschooled backwoodsman? He was ridiculed for his informality and colloquialisms. Initially, his own cabinet thought they were his betters.
Truman had a high school education and spent most his life in rural, small-town Missouri. His business ventures failed. There was no polish or elegance to the man, and he had a temper, which he exercised famously when a newspaper critic lambasted his daughter Margret’s recital.
The unassuming Eisenhower was renowned for his generalship, but as president, he was forever branded an inarticulate middlebrow.
Ronald Reagan was the “amiable dunce.” He chopped brush at this ranch and enjoyed a dinner of macaroni and cheese.
But what each of these men had was the allegiance of the American people. The elites couldn’t figure it out then, and they’re missing the mark again about Sarah Palin. If history is any guide, the smart money goes on Palin….”
“…Isn’t it a delight to hear nervous Elites deride Sarah Palin, fully
aware the more they blat, the deeper the hole they dig? Ain’t it
fitting? Indeed, it is. For decades, haven’t oddball Elites called
bedrock Americans every name in the book? Yes, they have. Didn’t our
serf media, on behalf of elite lairds, tar every gun owner as a raving
homicidal maniac in search of a target? Why yes, it did. Never
underestimate the transient abilities of preemptive liars. For twenty
five years gun bans have been defeated and gun-freedom initiatives
begun by former President Reagan have prevailed. Result? Crime down as
more firearms rest in the hands of citizens. At least thirty states
recognize Florida’s 1987 ‘Jack Hagler Self-Defense Act’, the law which
solidified citizens’ rights to carry. Remember the media hysteria?
Every fender-bender would become a bloodbath, quacked the tele-
poodles. And didn’t history prove elite gun-grabbers and their media
to be dead wrong? Why yes, it did.
Now comes Sarah Palin. She enjoys glowing approval of eighty per cent
of fellow Alaskans. And she hunts. Yikes! Does that imply she – egad!
– owns a gun? Yes, it does. Better lock down ‘our children’ – quick!
In light of thirty years of gun-hating media tales, doesn’t this make
Governor Palin a menace to the free world? Why yes, according to the
whining Elite media, it does indeed. For the rest of us, it’s good
news. …”
“…Might Governor Palin rekindle anew Liberty’s fire amongst Americans?
Isn’t it clear, even as the media drowns itself in a sea of anti-Palin
invective and quacks of ‘change’, that it has yet to comprehend and
likely may never, the sea change wrought by Senator Cain’s not merely
brilliant but inspired, choice?”
How Palin Governed Behind all the criticism and controversy, what really happened.By Byron York
“…It was a big, and extraordinarily complex, task. There was no consensus on how it should be done. But Palin, by all accounts, assembled a first-rate group of people to come up with what eventually became a proposal to grant a license to the company TransCanada to build the pipeline. “I give her credit for hiring good people,” says Beth Kerttula, the Democratic minority leader in the Alaska house of representatives who worked with Palin on oil and gas issues and has lately emerged as one of Palin’s leading critics. “She had a strong team.”
There were times during the negotiations when it appeared Palin’s proposal would fall through, perhaps not even getting to a vote in the legislature. Associates say she was determined to prevent that. “She went literally from office to office asking that, regardless of how people intended to vote, that they permit a vote to take place,” Balash recalls. “If she hadn’t made those visits, it in all likelihood would never have come to a vote.”
And when she made those visits, she scored points with legislators of both parties. “On the issues where I worked with her, she listened, and in the long run, she even overrode her own team on things that House Democrats thought were important,” Kerttula recalls. Last summer, Palin’s strategy led to victory, when Alaska’s house and senate approved the TransCanada proposal.
Noting that Palin had also, in 2007, won a fight to raise taxes on the energy companies, the Anchorage Daily News reported that the pipeline deal “sealed the popular Republican governor’s second major victory in two years against not only her opponents in the Legislature but also major oil companies Palin sometimes has poked publicly.” Her approval rating soared. …”
This creed was written by Walter Williams (1864-1935), the man who founded the world’s first school of journalism at the University of Missouri and perhaps contributed more toward the promotion of professional journalism than any other person of his time.
I believe in the profession of Journalism.
I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of lesser service than the public service is a betrayal of this trust.
I believe that clear thinking, clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism.
I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true. I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible.
I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one’s own pocket book is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another’s instructions or another’s dividends.
I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public ser vice.
I believe that the journalism which succeeds the best-and best deserves success-fears God and honors man; is stoutly independent; unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power; constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of the privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance, and as far as law, an honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship, is a journalism of humanity, of and for today’s world.
Many in the big media are blindly supporting Obama by deliberately not asking questions that should have been asked a long time ago and with their answers included in their publications and television shows.
These journalists should read the above code of ethics especially the part that says:
I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of lesser service than the public service is a betrayal of this trust.
Shame on big media, they are an utter disgrace to their profession for what they did to Joe the Plumber.
They lived up to their name, the pump and dump drive-by mainstream media.
They were in dump mode once Joe the plumber by asking a question that Senator Obama answered that revealed he was a socialist who wanted to “…spread the wealth around.”
For asking questions of Senator Obama in Joe’s own neighborhood and because the phrase, “spread the wealth around” was repeated in the McCain/Obama debates, big media went after Joe the plumber by trying to find anything and everything that might be considered embrassing to discredit him.
Instead of investigating the background of Senator Obama, the Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States, and the radical socialists and communists he sought out and allied himself with both in college and later in Chicago, they went after the plumber.
Thanks to Andrew C. McCarthy, Steve Diamond, Howard Kurtz and Sean Hannity the story is coming out.
The American people are noticing and reacting accordingly.
Joe the Plumber interview on Huckabee – Part 1
Part 2 Joe Wurzelbacher and Huckabee,Plumber,obama,Odinga,Corsi
The American people are waking up to what Barack Obama really is– a radical socialist.
LOL or COL
the Mainstream media thinks you’re Stupid…
First Socialism. Now Communism…
Is Barack Obama a U.S. citizen…
Background Articles and Videos
Amazing Ayers Audio & Barack Obama
Why Won’t Obama Talk About Columbia? The years he won’t discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
“BarackObama does not want to talk about Columbia. Not even to his good friends at the New York Times, who’ve so reliably helped him bleach away his past — a past neck-deep in the hard Left radicalism he has gussied up but never abandoned.
Why? I suspect it is because Columbia would shred his thin post-partisan camouflage.
You might think the Times would be more curious. After all, the Democrats’ presidential nominee has already lied to the Gray Lady about the origins of his relationship with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Back in May, in a cheery profile of Obama’s early Chicago days, the Times claimed (emphasis is mine):
Mr. Obama also fit in at Hyde Park’s fringes, among university faculty members like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, unrepentant members of the radical Weather Underground that bombed the United States Capitol and the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Mr. Obama was introduced to the couple in 1995 at a meet-and-greet they held for him at their home, aides said.
Now look, anyone who gave five seconds of thought to that passage smelled a rat. Ayers and Dohrn are passionate radical activists who lived as fugitives for a decade. There’s no way they held a political coming-out party for someone who was unknown to them. Obviously, they already knew him well enough by then to feel very comfortable. They might have been sympathetic to a relative stranger, but sponsoring such a gathering in one’s living room is a strong endorsement. ..”
“…In short, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama moved in the same circles, were driven by the same cause, and admired the same radicals all the way from Morningside Heights to Hyde Park. They ended up publicly admiring each other, promoting each other’s work, sitting on the same boards, and funding the same Leftist agitators.
You could conclude, as I do, that it all goes back to a formative time in his life that Obama refuses to discuss. Or you could buy the fairy tale that Bill Ayers first encountered an unknown, inexperienced, third-year associate from a small Chicago law-firm over coffee in 1995 and suddenly decided Barack Obama was the perfect fit to oversee the $150 million pot of gold Ayers hoped would underwrite his revolution.”
“…Obama and Ayers shared all kinds of views. That is why they worked so well together at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), funding the likes of Mike Klonsky, a fellow SDS and Maoist associate of Ayers who, as Steve Diamond relates, used to host a “social justice” blog on Obama’s campaign website. With Obama heading the board of directors that approved expenditures and Ayers, the mastermind running its operational arm, hundreds of thousands of CAC dollars poured into the “Small Schools Workshop” — a project begun by Ayers and run by Klonsky to spur the revolution from the ground up.
Precisely because they shared the same views, Obama and Ayers also worked comfortably together on the board of the Woods Fund. There, they doled out thousands of dollars to Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church to promote its Marxist “black liberation theology.” Moreover, they underwrote the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founded by Rashid Khalidi, a top apologist for Yasser Arafat. As National Review’s David Pryce-Jones notes, Khalidi once directed WAFA, the terrorist PLO’s news agency. Then, like Ayers, he repackaged himself as an academic who rails at American policy. The AAAN, which supports driver’s licenses and public welfare benefits for illegal aliens, holds that the establishment of Israel was an illegitimate “catastrophe.”http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjY4YzdhMDBkZGQ3ZmU2MTUzYjdkMzc5ZjUzYmViZWM=
Who “sent” Obama?
Special Global Labor Repost. Originally Posted April 22, 2008. Updated October 13, 2008 with additional information on Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
Steve Diamond
“…Thus, we have one possible answer to the question: Who “sent” Obama? It was the Ayers family, including Tom, John, Bill and Bernardine Dohrn.
It is highly unlikely that a 30-something second year lawyer would have been plucked from relative obscurity out of a left wing law firm to head up something as visible and important in Chicago as the Annenberg Challenge by Bill Ayers if Ayers had not already known Obama very well. One possibility is that Obama proved himself to the Ayers’s in the battle for local school control when he was at the DCP in the 80s.
One guess as to why Obama does not play up his educational experience more thoroughly now – it certainly could be of use to him one would think in beefing up his “I have the experience to be President” argument – is that it would lead to a renewed discussion of the Ayers connection, which is clearly toxic for Obama. …”
Barack Obama’s Lost Years The senator’s tenure as a state legislator reveals him to be an old-fashioned, big government, race-conscious liberal.
by Stanley Kurtz
“…Obama moved to Chicago in order to place himself in what he understood to be the de facto “capital” of black America. For well over 100 years, the Chicago Defender has been the voice of that capital, and therefore a paper of national significance for African Americans. Early on in his political career, Obama complained of being slighted by major media, like the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Yet extensive and continuous coverage in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald presents a remarkable resource for understanding who Obama is. Reportage in these two papers is particularly significant because Obama’s early political career-the time between his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate in 1995 and his race for U.S. Senate in 2004-can fairly be called the “lost years,” the period Obama seems least eager to talk about, in contrast to his formative years in Hawaii, California, and New York or his days as a community organizer, both of which are recounted in his memoir, Dreams from My Father. The pages of the Hyde Park Herald and the Chicago Defender thus offer entrée into Obama’s heretofore hidden world.
What they portray is a Barack Obama sharply at variance with the image of the post-racial, post-ideological, bipartisan, culture-war-shunning politician familiar from current media coverage and purveyed by the Obama campaign. As details of Obama’s early political career emerge into the light, his associations with such radical figures as Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend James Meeks, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn look less like peculiar instances of personal misjudgment and more like intentional political partnerships. At his core, in other words, the politician chronicled here is profoundly race-conscious, exceedingly liberal, free-spending even in the face of looming state budget deficits, and partisan. Elected president, this man would presumably shift the country sharply to the left on all the key issues of the day-culture-war issues included. It’s no wonder Obama has passed over his Springfield years in relative silence. …”
“…Important though it is to Obama, the crime issue runs a distant second to his deepest passion: social welfare legislation. “Big government liberal,” “redistributionist”-call him what you like, Obama’s fondest hope is to lead America into another war on poverty. Everything in his state-legislative career points in this direction, and Obama calls for a renewal of expensive national anti-poverty programs in his book The Audacity of Hope. True, Obama’s promotion of government partnerships with private-sector housing contractors (like Antoin “Tony” Rezko) was supposed to open up novel, post-Great Society solutions to the problem of poverty. Yet, as a devastating Boston Globe report on Obama’s Illinois housing policy recently showed, the results of Obama’s new war on poverty are just as counterproductive as those of the old war on poverty. Neighborhoods supposedly renovated now lie deserted by the private developers who took Obama’s government handouts and ran-quickly building or renovating housing units, but failing to maintain them. …”
Now, they are shamelessly attacking National Review investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz — one of conservatism’s most thoughtful and penetrating writers on academic and educational affairs. Kurtz has been at the forefront probing Obama’s relationships with left-wing ideologues. It was his public information request and public call for help that led to the University of Illinois – Chicago finally releasing tons of files that shed light on the Obama/Ayers working relationship. The Obama camp is condemning Kurtz in harsher terms than it ever condemned the terrorist Ayers. Kurtz has been attacked now as a “right-wing hatchet man” and “slimy character assassin.”
As I reported yesterday, Kurtz spent two hours on legendary radio talk show host Milt Rosenberg’s Chicago program on WGN last night detailing his initial findings. The Obama campaign went ballistic — and in typical Chicago mafia-style, smeared Kurtz and tried to shut down the show.
Milt Rosenberg’s producer, Zack Christenson, wrote early this morning: …”
Plumber to Obama: “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more. Isn’t it?”
Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Crap Sandwiches: It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. …”
A Who’s Who of 1968 radicals supports the candidate.
“…Obama has already taken political hits for his connection to Weathermen Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. In the sixties, Ayers advocated that young people kill their parents, and Dohrn praised the Charles Manson murders. Alongside their Weather Underground cohorts, the pair declared war on the United States and participated in a bombing campaign that hit the Capitol, the Pentagon, and numerous law enforcement agencies. The couple eventually reinvented themselves—first as academics, then as players in Chicago-area Democratic politics. Obama praised Ayers’s book in the Chicago Tribune, sat with him on a foundation’s board, and benefited from a fundraiser held at the couple’s home. Ayers spoke at events organized by Michelle Obama; Barack Obama spoke at events organized by Ayers.
With the public revelation of this unseemly relationship—between unrepentant terrorists and the man who now seeks to oversee America’s war on terror—and the impact it’s already had on voter attitudes, one would think that other sixties extremists might be more reserved in proclaiming their support for Obama, knowing the damage such associations can do to his candidacy. As for Obama, he’ll need to do some distancing of his own. He protested that he was only eight when Ayers, Dohrn, Rudd, and company embarked on their bombing campaign, and that’s reasonable enough. But he’ll need to go further.
Fortunately for him, the Left has a long history of cold-shouldering predecessors to perpetuate its ideology, cleanse it from past failures, and make it appear fresh. The New Left dissociated itself from the Old Left’s Russophilic dogmatism through the Port Huron Statement and other declarations of independence. Even the phrase “New Left” was adopted to divorce the Left from its history.
SDS’s history offers a template for eliminating the embarrassing past. Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and others founded the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS) during the Progressive era, but by World War I the word “socialist” had fallen from favor. So, with the Left seeing labor unions as the agent of societal change, the ISS became the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). Then, by the end of the 1950s, theorists Herbert Marcuse, C. Wright Mills, and Norman O. Brown scoffed at the idea of blue-collar workers—often violently hostile to the Left’s aims—as transformative agents, and the LID’s student arm, the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), rechristened itself Students for a Democratic Society. Just as SDS killed SLID as the fifties became the sixties, Weatherman killed SDS as the sixties became the seventies: SDS’s spirit of “participatory democracy” could not peacefully coexist with the vanguardism of Weatherman. And now, completing the circle, the SDS alumni of “progressives” for Obama resurrect a term that would have been more familiar to their distant forebears in the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. On the Left, everything old is eventually new again.
In 1968, the Left served as unwitting allies of Republicans, costing the Democrats the White House by rioting at their convention and withholding votes from Hubert Humphrey. In 2008, it is their vocal support that may cost Barack Obama the presidency. Obama can take a page from the early days of the New Left, which—initially, at least—refused to allow discredited radicals to discredit it. Either Obama publicly divorces himself from radical supporters whose association does more for them than it does for him, or he faces the prospect of Bill Ayers as his Willie Horton. …”
Obama & DNC Admit All Allegations of Federal Court Lawsuit – Obama’s “Not” Qualified to be President
Obama Should Immediately Withdraw his Candidacy for President
For Immediate Release: – 10/21/08 – Complete contact details and pdfs of this press release and motions filed by plaintiff Berg today are at the end of this article
(Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania – 10/21/08) – Philip J. Berg, Esquire, the Attorney who filed suit against Barack H. Obama challenging Senator Obama’s lack of “qualifications” to serve as President of the United States, announced today that Obama and tbe DNC “ADMITTED”, by way of failure to timely respond to Requests for Admissions, all of the numerous specific requests in the Federal lawsuit. Obama is “NOT QUALIFIED” to be President and therefore Obama must immediately withdraw his candidacy for President and the DNC shall substitute a qualified candidate. The case is Berg v. Obama, No. 08-cv-04083.
Berg stated that he filed Requests for Admissions on September 15, 2008 with a response by way of answer or objection had to be served within thirty [30] days. No response to the Requests for Admissions was served by way of response or objection. Thus, all of the Admissions directed to Obama and the DNC are deemed “ADMITTED.” Therefore, Obama must immediately withdraw his candidacy for President.
OBAMA – Admitted:
1. I was born in Kenya.
2. I am a Kenya “natural born” citizen.
3. My foreign birth was registered in the State of Hawaii.
4. My father, Barrack Hussein Obama, Sr. admitted Paternity of me.
5. My mother gave birth to me in Mombosa, Kenya. 6. My mother’s maiden name is Stanley Ann Dunham a/k/a Ann Dunham.
7. The COLB [Certification of Live Birth] posted on the website “Fightthesmears.com” is a forgery.
8. I was adopted by a Foreign Citizen.
9. I was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, M.A. a citizen of Indonesia.
Shame, Cubed Three separate reasons to be appalled, each more disgusting than the last.By Bill Whittle“The Drudge Report this morning led off with a link to audio of Barack Obama on WBEZ, A Chicago Public Radio station. And this time, candidate Obama was not eight years old when the bomb went off.
Speaking at a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama say things that should profoundly shock any American – or at least those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man’s beliefs and affiliations.
“You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the Civil Rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of re-distribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
“And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution – at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.
“And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.”
A caller then helpfully asks:
“The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”
Obama replies:
“You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.
So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”
“The Schutzstaffel(help·info) (German for “Protective Squadron”), abbreviated SS– or (Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to an elite force that served as the Führer’s “Praetorian Guard,” the Nazi Party’s “Shield Squadron” and a force with as much political influence as the regular German armed forces. Built upon the Nazi racial ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler’s command, was primarily responsible for the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Initially smaller than the Ernst Röhm’s Sturmabteilung (Storm Battalion abbreviated SA), the SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Hitler, as opposed to the SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Hitler’s hegemony over the party. Under Himmler, the SS selected members according to the “Aryan” ideology. Developing elite police and military units such as the Waffen SS, Himmler used the SS to develop an order of men claimed to be superior in racial purity and abilities than other Germans and national groups, the model for the Nazi vision of a master race. During the World War, SS units operated alongside the Army and in the final stages of the war, exercised dominance over the Army to eliminate perceived threats to Hitler’s power while implementing his strategies despite the increasingly failing war effort. …”
“The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security), commonly known as the Stasi [ˈʃtazi] (abbreviation German: Staatssicherheit, literally State Security), was the official secret police of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. It was widely regarded as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies in the world. The MfS motto was “Schild und Schwert der Partei” (Shield and Sword of the Party), showing its connections to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the equivalent to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Another term used in earlier years to refer to the MfS was Staatssicherheitsdienst (State Security Service or SSD). …”
The Lives Of Others (eng-subs) – 1 – Exposing Moral
The Lives Of Others (eng-subs) – 2 – Exposing Moral
Khalidi, who regards Israel as a “racist” “apartheid” state, supports Palestinian terror strikes against Israeli military targets. It’s little surprise that he should be such a favorite of Ayers, the terrorist for whom “racism” and “apartheid” trip off the tongue as easily as “pass the salt.”
And it’s no surprise that the like-minded Obama would be a fan. Khalidi, after all, has mastered the Arafat art of posing as a moderate before credulous Westerners while (as Martin Kramer documents) scalding America’s “Zionist lobby” when addressing Arabic audiences. The Obama who decries “bitter” Americans “cling[ing] to guns or religion” when he’s in San Francisco but morphs into a God-fearing Second Amendment enthusiast when he’s in Pennsylvania — like the Obama who pummels NAFTA before labor union supporters but has advisers quietly assure the Canadians not to worry about such campaign cant — surely appreciates the craft. …”
Joe Biden Gaffe (With Subtitles) Mark My Words… Barack Obama
Even Joe Biden does not believe in Barack Obama!
Sarah Palin on CNN: “Joe Biden Got a Pass”
The Biden Stunner
‘Generated Crisis’?
Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates of both political parties periodically receive background intelligence briefings by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to get them up to speed as to what is happening around the world and where a future “crisis” may be developing.
Apparently such a briefing was on Senator Joe Biden’s mind when he spoke to a group of supporters.
Number one on the “generated crisis” hit lists is a war between Israel and Iran that could also include the United States and Russia.
Iran is rapdily approaching the completion of a nuclear weapon systems capability.
Israel must act soon to destroy this nuclear threat.
What did Senator Biden imply by his surprising disclosure?
If Senator Obama were elected President, is Senator Biden trying to signal that Obama would not support Israel if it came to a war between Israel and Iran over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
If that was the case, then this would give Israel even more reason to launch an attack sooner rather than latter.
Maybe even before the US elections, although I think they will wait to late November.
Senator Biden knows he should have kept his big mouth shut.
Looks like the Senator is trying to cover his assets or he is in CYA mode.
Just another reason to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket.
The United States does not need a repeat of 1930s appeasement, another Bay of Pigs disaster or a thirteen day missle crisis.
The United States needs victory in Iraq and a nuclear weapon free Iran.
Senator McCain has the experience, vision and the will and Senator Obama is inexperienced, clueless, and an appeaser.
Senators Biden and Obama rival former President Clinton when he comes to telling out and out lies.
I simply do not believe anything either one of them says.
Fox:Charles Krauthammer:I think Biden is a Republican plant
Iran Mess with McCain–No Way!
Iran Mess with Obama–Yes We Can!
Rice: Iran Using Stalling Tactics
Morning Joe: Iran Testing Long Range Missiles 7/9/08
The Catastrophic Potential Of Nuclear Iran
Obama-Biden and the Issue of Iran – Iran VNC – Iran Visual News Corps – IranVNC.com
Biden to Supporters: “Gird Your Loins”, For the Next President “It’s Like Cleaning Augean Stables”
“…”Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.
“Gird your loins,” Biden told the crowd. “We’re gonna win with your help, God willing, we’re gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It’s like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy.” …”
The McCain campaign was out of the box quickly last night, releasing a damning list of 14 lies told by Joe Biden during the debate.
We highlighted below the biggest lie he uttered – that Obama would meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. Now come 13 more Pinnochios that are breathtaking in their shamelessness:
Here are all 14 lies as compiled by the McCain campaign:
1.TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.
2.AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.
3.OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”
4.TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.
5.OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.
6.ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.
7.HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people’s health insurance coverage — they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false
8.OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska — she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it’s not a windfall profits tax.
9.AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.
10.REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation — he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie. …”
“There have been many lies by Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign that he has tried to mask by shifting his recollections over time. These include the extent of his relationship with Bill Ayers, what he heard Reverend Wright say during his near 20 year membership in Trinity Church, and his relationship with the vote fraud enterprise, otherwise known as ACORN. Barack Obama has made history and then “remade” it — and he has done so numerous times.
But two lies in particular have been especially consequential: Obama’s pledge not to run for President in 2008, and his commitment to participate in federal financing for his general election campaign, with its consequent spending limits. The news this past Sunday that Obama raised $150 million for his campaign in September shows the significance of the second lie. …”
Glenn Beck on Joe Biden: Hey, Obama—Not All Experience Is Equal
LOL or COL
Biden Outs Barack Obama…
First Socialism. Now Communism…
Is Barack Obama a U.S. citizen…
Background Articles and Videos
Kristol: What Biden Implied
“…John McCain took note Monday of Joe Biden’s remarks the day before at a Seattle fundraiser (where Biden apparently didn’t realize at first there were media present). But there’s more McCain could say.
Here’s McCain, in Belton, Missouri:
Just last night, Senator Biden guaranteed that if Senator Obama is elected, we will have an international crisis to test America’s new President. We don’t want a President who invites testing from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis and Americans are already fighting in two wars.
What is more troubling is that Senator Biden told their campaign donors that when that crisis hits, they would have to stand with them because it wouldn’t be apparent Senator Obama would have the right response.
Forget apparent. Senator Obama won’t have the right response, and we know that because we’ve seen the wrong response from him over and over during this campaign. He opposed the surge strategy that is bringing us victory in Iraq and will bring us victory in Afghanistan. He said he would sit down unconditionally with the world’s worst dictators. When Russia invaded Georgia, Sen. Obama said the invaded country should show restraint.
McCain is right that the last part of Biden’s statement is the most troubling–that when Obama is tested, it won’t be apparent that his response is correct. But what does Biden mean by this? What kind of response by Obama is Biden forecasting? …”
By CARL CAMPANILE in Belton, Mo., and GEOFF EARLE in Orlando, Fla.
“…Mark my words,” Biden told donors at a Seattle fund-raiser Sunday night.
“It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.
“Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.
“And he’s going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it’s not going to be apparent initially; it’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.” …”
“…The next president won’t have time to get used to the office. We face many challenges here at home and many enemies abroad in this dangerous world,” McCain said. “We don’t want a president who invites ‘testing’ from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis and Americans are already fighting two wars.”
McCain said it was even “more troubling” that Biden suggested supporters stick by Obama if the actions he takes are wrong or unpopular.
“Senator Obama won’t have the right response, and we know that because we’ve seen the wrong response from him over and over during this campaign,” he said. …”
“…Biden knows that (1) several of our, let’s call them potential scenario initiators, talk among themselves: for example, Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad. And, that (2) each has displayed the ability to leverage surrogate potential scenario initiators to further their aggression: Putin – Georgia’s South Ossetian separatists; Chavez – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); and Ahmadinejad – Hamas & Hezbollah.
If you were they, wouldn’t you coordinate several near simultaneous crises to wreak maximum disorder on a fledgling Obama administration?
Here how that could play out: We wake up one month and FARC has taken over the American Embassy in Caracas. Putin has troops massed on the Russian border with the Ukraine, or perhaps one or more of the Baltic States, threatening invasion for some trumped-up reason. Hamas and Hezbollah have launched heavy missile attacks against Israel. Unidentified persons have blown up the American Embassy in Cairo. And, for good measure, North Korean commandos have ambushed and killed a small patrol of U.S. soldiers along the DMZ, on the South Korean side.
That’s five potential scenario initiations in quick succession, and doesn’t include the wild card of terrorist attacks in the U.S. (NYPostcolumnist and former Army Colonel Ralph Peters offers a longer list of potential flash points here.)
“…Washington, D.C., 12 April 2004 – President Bush on Saturday, 10 April 2004, became the first sitting president ever to release publicly even a portion of his Daily Brief from the CIA. The page-and-a-half section of the President’s Daily Brief from 6 August 2001, headlined “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” had generated the most contentious questioning in last week’s testimony by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice before the commission investigating the September 11th attacks. Dr. Rice continued to insist that the Brief did not amount to a real warning, while several commissioners seemed to think otherwise. …”
“…We’ve begun to engage with the campaigns,” Fingar told an intelligence conference in Florida. “Sen. Obama received a briefing on Tuesday.” Intelligence officials would not discuss what topics were covered in Obama’s briefing.
The briefing was given in Chicago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell — who normally briefs President George W. Bush six days a week — and other senior officials, an official familiar with the process said.
McCain was to formally accept the Republican Party nomination for the November 4 election on Thursday evening.
Obama’s briefing was probably tailored to his requests, the official said. Fingar said briefings would be “substantive,” but it would be inappropriate for a candidate to seek a copy of Bush’s. The eventual president-elect will receive similar briefings, he told reporters later. …”
“…Because of his 30-year association with people who hate the United States, including communist Frank Marshall Davis., anti-American preacher Jeremiah Wright, and communist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, it is highly doubtful that Obama could get a security clearance in the U.S. government he wants to lead.
But rather than raise this issue, the major media want to investigate Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and her husband’s driving record.
The federal government provides a “Questionnaire for National Security Positions” to people eligible for a security clearance. There are several requests for information that Obama might find difficult to answer. They include “Other names used” by applicant, “Citizenship of your relatives and associates,” “Your foreign activities,” and “Your use of illegal drugs and drug activity.”
But Obama doesn’t have to fill out any such form. He is above it all.
According to CNN, President Bush authorized the briefing for Obama. “President Bush has followed the practice of previous presidents in deciding that intelligence briefings will be made available to the presidential and vice presidential candidates of both major parties,” CNN reported.
This may be a traditional practice but what is its legal and rational basis? And why are the “major” candidates only given access to this information? …”
“…The Bay of Pigs Invasion (aka Playa Girón), was an unsuccessful attempt by a U.S.-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade south-west Cuba and overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion — planned and funded by the United States government beginning in 1960 — was launched in April 1961, several months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban military defeated the invading force in a matter of days and the event accelerated a rapid deterioration in Cuban-American relations, which was further worsened by the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year.[citation needed]
The invasion is named after the Bay of Pigs, inaccurately translated from the Spanish Bahía de Cochinos, the landing having taken place at the beach named Playa Girón. …”
“The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba during the Cold War. In Russia, it is termed the “Caribbean Crisis,” (Russian: Карибский кризис, Karibskiy krizis) while in Cuba it is called the “October Crisis.” The crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is often regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war.
In Havana, there was fear of military intervention by the United States in Cuba.[1] In April 1961, the threat of invasion became real when a force of CIA-trained Cuban exiles opposed to Castro landed at the Bay of Pigs. The invasion was quickly terminated by Cuba’s military forces. Castro was convinced the United States would invade Cuba.[2] Shortly after routing the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Castro declared Cuba a socialist republic, established formal ties with the Soviet Union, and began to modernize Cuba’s military.
The United States feared any country’s adoption of communism or socialism, but for a Latin American country to openly ally with the USSR was regarded as unacceptable, given the Russo-American enmity dating from the end of the Second World War in 1945.
In late 1961, Kennedy engaged Operation Mongoose, a series of covert operations against Castro’s government which were to prove unsuccessful.[3]. More overtly, in February 1962, the United States launched an economic embargo against Cuba.[4]
The United States also considered direct military attack. Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay presented to Kennedy a pre-invasion bombing plan in September, while spy flights and minor military harassment from the United States Guantanamo Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the U.S. government.
By September 1962, Cuban observers fearing an imminent invasion would have seen increasing signs of American preparations for a possible confrontation, including a joint Congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force in Cuba if American interests were threatened,[5] and the announcement of an American military exercise in the Caribbean planned for the following month (Operation Ortsac).
The climax period of the crisis began on October 8, 1962. Later on October 14th, United States reconnaissance photographs taken by an American U-2 spy plane revealed missile bases being built in Cuba. The crisis ended two weeks later on October 28, 1962, when President of the United States John F. Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with the Soviets to dismantle the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a no invasion agreement and a secret removal of the Jupiter and Thor missiles in Turkey.
Kennedy, in his first public speech on the crisis, given on October 22 1962, gave the key warning,
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.[6]
This speech included other key policy statements, beginning with:
To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation and port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.
He ordered intensified surveillance, and cited cooperation from the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS). Kennedy “directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned of continuing the threat will be recognized.” He called for emergency meetings of the OAS and United Nations Security Council to deal with the matter.[6] …”
“One man’s opportunism is another man’s statesmanship”
~Milton Friedman
The personal attacks against me during the primary finally became so heavy that the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated what he called the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It’s a rule I followed during that campaign and have ever since.
~Ronald Reagan
General Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama! pt.1
General Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama! pt.2
h4>General Colin Powell Endorses Barack Obama! pt.3
I would have voted for General Powell had he decided to run and obtained the nomination in 1996.
While not totally surprised by General Powell’s endorsement of Senator Obama, his reasoning is highly suspect. Frankly it does not make sense.
Senator Obama is a radical socialist that has associated with a black racist minister for over twenty years, two terrorist bombers for over twelve years, convicted felons, and the very far left of the Democratic Party and several leftist socialist parties.
Top 20 Obama Pastor Comments You Never Saw
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 2
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 3
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 4
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 5
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 6
Either General Powell has not done his homework or he has conveniently chosen to ignore it.
Senator Obama could not pass a routine FBI or Secret Service background check.
Red flags would be flying!
Obama is an economic illiterate, ask Thomas Sowell for his opionion. He is no fan of either Senator McCain or Senator Obama.
Senator McCain is a moderate Republican that leans towards to right some of the time.
The problem the Republican Party has is it moved to the left over the last four years and nearly destroyed the party in the process.
Senator McCain did not fire you General Powell, President George W. Bush did when he asked for your letter of resignation.
Instead Senator McCain wanted your opponent Defense Secretary Rumsfeld fired.
Senator McCain was right and President George W. Bush was very slow in changing strategy and leadership of the war in Iraq.
While I understand identity politics, I think people who vote this way will be very disappointed.
Several Republican Presidents gave General Powell career opportunities that very few military officers are ever given.
For General Powell at this late date to decide to support a Senator that is unqualified and of questionable character smells of opportunism, ingratitude and poor judgement.
General Powell was fooled, he will regret his endorsement.
President McCain will remember this betrayal by General Powell of his former party.
Weapons of mass destruction did exist and still exist in Iraq and Syria.
Democrats on Iraq + WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction)
Al Gore: No Doubt Saddam’s Weapons Are Grave Threat
If Bush Lied, Did Bill Clinton Lie on Iraq WMD?
Gore criticizes Bush for ignoring Iraq’s ties to terrorism
Newt Gingrich on Powell endorsement
Our own “Phoney War” – Newt Gingrich
Rush Limbaugh, Race And The Colin Powell Endorsement
Colin Powell
“Colin Luther Powell (born April 5, 1937[1]) is a retired General in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State (2001–2005), serving under President George W. Bush. As a General in the United States Army, Powell also served as National Security Advisor (1987–1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), holding the latter position during the Gulf War. He was the first and, so far, the only Jamaican American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff or in the Cabinet. …”
“Republican In Name Only, or RINO, is a neologism created by Los Angeles conservative activist Celeste Greig. It is considered a disparaging term for a member of the Republican Party of the United States (the GOP) whose political views or actions are perceived as insufficiently conservative or otherwise outside the party mainstream. …”
The Colin Powell endorsement: Triumph of hope over reality
By Michelle Malkin
“…Powell’s embrace of Barack Obama is a triumph of hope over reality. He told Tom Brokaw that Obama’s “steadiness” and “not jumping in and changing every day” convinced him that The One was ready to lead.
Hello?
Guess Powell relied on Obama’s website after he purged his surge criticism from it.
Powell then goes on to pooh-pooh Obama’s longtime “limited relationship” with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers as an “issue that is not central” to the campaign — just as evidence of the closeness of these two very chummy “neighbors” mounts.
Judgment, schmudgment, eh, Secretary Powell?
Finally, we arrive at the real reason Powell is endorsing Obama: The party, he complains, has become too “narrow” for his tastes. Pro-abortion Powell can’t stand the thought of two more Republican Supreme Court appointments. He thinks Sarah Palin is too conservative. He shares the Obama view of our base as racist and non-inclusive — but has nothing to say about the rabid pack of America-damning preachers who helped make Obama the “transformational” figure Powell has placed his faith in. …”
Thomas Sowell: Obama has voters convinced his ‘change’ is needed
“…Perhaps a defining moment in showing Obama’s priorities was his declaring, in answer to a question from Charles Gibson, that he was for raising the capital gains tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.
The question may be the economic issue, but the political issue is whether socking it to “the rich” in the name of “fairness” gains more votes.
Since about half the people in the United States own stocks — either directly or because their pension funds buy stocks — socking it to people who earn capital gains is by no means socking it just to “the rich.”
If you are a nurse or mechanic who will be depending on your pension to take care of you when you retire — as Social Security is unlikely to do — you may not think of yourself as one of the privileged.
Obama is for higher minimum wage rates. Does anyone care what actually happens in countries with higher minimum wage rates? Of course not. Studies show that higher minimum wage rates usually mean higher unemployment rates among lower skilled and less experienced workers.
“Pat Brown brought Senator Edward Kennedy to California to help him campaign, and he began a speaking trip around the state declaring, “Reagan has never held any political office before and here he is seeking the top spot in the government of California.” He abandoned that theme after my next speech, when I said, “I understand there’s a senator from Massachusetts who’s come to California and he’s concerned that I’ve never held office prior to seeking this job. Well, you know, come to think of it, the senator from Massachusetts never held any job before he became a senator.”
I was doing some research for an upcoming post and ran across these videos by the late economist and Noble Prize in Economics recipient, Milton Friedman.
The govenment monopoly of public schools has costs the American people greatly.
The schools need competition and parents need school vouchers to enable them to chose the school that would be best for their children.
If any monopoly needs to be broken up, this is number one on my list.
Milton Friedman On Education (Part One)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Two)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Three)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Four)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Five)
Milton Friedman On Education (Part Six)
Background Articles and Videos
“Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual. He is best known among scholars for his theoretical and empirical research, especially consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.[1] A global public followed his restatement of a libertarian political philosophy that insisted on minimizing the role of government in favor of the private sector. As a leader of the Chicago School of economics, based at the University of Chicago, he had a widespread influence in shaping the research agenda of the entire profession. Friedman’s many monographs, books, scholarly articles, papers, magazine columns, television programs, videos and lectures cover a broad range of topics in microeconomics, macroeconomics, economic history, and public policy issues. The Economist hailed him as “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century…possibly of all of it”.[2] …”
Positive Developments in Expanding School Choice in 2007
2008 Index of Economic Freedom
The 2008 Index of Economic Freedom covers 162 countries across 10 specific freedoms such as trade freedom, business freedom, investment freedom, and property rights. View scores and rankings for any country, along with detailed data and background analysis.
“Life is like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re gonna get.”
Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks)
Gives new meaning to the phrase–“spread the wealth around.”
AXE “Chocolate Man”
Axe chocolate Party
Obama October surprise
“He has no more backbone than a chocolate éclair. “
~President Theodore Roosevelt, of President William McKinley
Background Articles and Videos
Spread the wealth, swallow the crap sandwiches
By Michelle Malkin
“… know you all are dying to weigh in.
Plumber to Obama: “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more. Isn’t it?”
Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Crap Sandwiches: It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“…Well, he wasn’t 8 when he met Antoin “Tony” Rezko. Rezko, a convicted felon, is behind bars and may be singing like a canary to federal prosecutors. What he’s telling them isn’t precisely known because it’s all secret. But Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich might have reason to worry; so might Obama. It just depends on what it takes for Rezko to get a deal with the feds. And, of course, it depends on what’s to tell. Perhaps Rezko’s fundraising and real estate dealings with Obama were all on the up and up. Not likely, but maybe.
And maybe the October Surprise will involve Obama’s on-line fundraising where the numbers of fake names and over-the-limits donations are skyrocketing. The Republican National Committee has asked the FEC to investigate evidence of illegal foreign influence, but time is running short.
Maybe, if there is a surprise, it will be the result of some major media investigation of Obama’s relationship with the bloody Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga. WBBM-TV in Chicago ran a report that had Obama criticizing Kenyan President Kibaki during a 2006 Senate fact-finding trip to Kenya. It would be interesting to know more about Obama’s ties to Odinga, who has a power-sharing agreement with Kibaki and who named his son “Fidel” after you-know-who. But no major newspaper or network is checking into the story so far as we know.
Maybe the October Surprise will be that John McCain takes the advice of his own supporters and forcefully goes after Sen. Obama on his record, his policies and his alliances. Now THAT would be a surprise. …”
“…Fast forward back to this election cycle. The G.O.P. knew that winning the White House after George W. Bush’s disastrous reign would be an uphill climb, especially with another Clinton coming down the pike. In the little-known state senator from Illinois, they found reason to hope. Barack Obama had already compiled a lot of dirt under his finger nails from 17 years of Chicago machine politics. His principle benefactor, Tony Rezko, was a Syrian slumlord under investigation by the federal government for fraud and influence peddling. Undoubtedly, these were the kind of people who could carry on the Bush-Cheney legacy..
By using Obama as their trojan horse to sieze the apparatus of the Democratic Party, the neocons saw their odds for November improve dramatically. It didn’t matter that Obama was little more than a smug, petulant, unaccomplished hack. He was African American, which meant that neither his Democratic nor Republican opponents could criticize him without getting slammed by liberals in the mainstream media. And once Obama was nominated, the Bush camp, if it wanted to. could make its case to the electorate along these lines: “Jeez, would you look at this guy’s proximity group. He’s got convicts, foreign agents and tainted campaign contributions coming out of the woodwork. And if he can’t even obtain an F.B.I. clearance as a border patrol agent, do you really think we should be handing him the nuclear launch codes?” So far, however, no one has effectively made that case.
Here’s a closer look at Obama’s potential downfalls: …”
Barack Obama, as a candidate, has no reasonable expectation of privacy — especially with regard to fulfilling a (Constitutional) requirement as a candidate.
“…The Constitution of the United States of America requires that a person must be a natural
born citizen in order to serve as President.
Verification of this qualification may be required by ANY citizen and/or sworn public servant and must be provided post haste.
This is the highest law in the land. Lawyers, Judges, Politicians and law enforcement
officers are ALL sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Failure to uphold the tenants of the Constitution (the law) is a cause of action against those who fail
to perform their duty — either as malfeasance or dereliction of duty.
May the Lord aid the Judge in this Berg case so that Obama is promptly removed from contention.”
“…Lest the Obama campaign start whining about this issue being an unfair “distraction,” John McCain underwent intense scrutiny of his citizenship status because of his birth in the Panama Canal zone, leading the Senate to declare him a natural-born citizen in April. …”
Sofia karlsson-Mörka vatten Stockholm studio4 radiohuset111007
Sofia Karlsson – Mörka Vatten
Sofia Karlsson – Stanna kvar
Sofia Karlsson – Till havs
Sofia Karlsson – Alla hjärtans dag
Sofia Karlsson – Jag väntar
Sofia Karlsson – Du liv… (TV4, Jan. 2010)
Sofia Karlsson spelar Flickan och kråkan på visfestivalen
Sofia Karlsson – Luciasång
Sofia Karlsson – Visa Från Kåkbrinken LIVE
Jul i Folkton – Gläns över sjö och strand (Cassels, 2009)
Sofia Karlsson – Vinter I Gamla Stan Live Sånger För Livet 2008
Sofia Karlsson, Du Liv, HD- kvalitet Pildammsteatern Malmö 09
Sofia Karlsson Två tungor
Sofia Karlsson – Omkring Tiggarn Från Luossa
Sofia Karlsson – Spelar för livet (Live)
Sofia Karlsson & Tina Ahlin – Ännu doftar kärlek (Valborg 2011)
Sofia Karlsson – Luciasång
Sofia Karlsson***Dina Händer (Göteborg)
Sofia Karlsson spelar Flickan och kråkan på visfestivalen
Sofia Karlsson – Jag väntar
Sofia Karlsson: “Imma på fönstret”
Sofia Karlsson & Augustifamiljen – Gammal Fäbod Psalm
Sofia Karlsson – Julvisa i Finnmarken (Gammelvala, 2006)
Sofia Karlsson – Hemlängtan
Sofia Karlsson – Mörka Vatten
Sofia Karlsson – Stanna kvar
Sofia Karlsson, Arty McGlynn and Nollaig Casey in Tobo, Sweden
Background Articles and Videos
Sofia Karlsson sjunger “Tre vita duvor”
Sofia Karlsson, Arty McGlynn and Nollaig Casey in Tobo, Sweden
Sofia Karlsson
“…In the grey and pale Swedish winter season the onslaught of the annual domestic Eurovision Song Contest totally dominates the media and air waves. Meanwhile Sofia Karlsson and her band, on their second consecutive year, continue their seemingly everlasting tour. This time around Gothenburg, in the Southwestern part of Sweden. In churches, libraries, cinemas, restaurants and theatres Karlsson sings her songs to sold out houses every night. A renaissance for a genre, the Swedish visa*, today often dismissed as belonging rather in a museum than on stage? Whatever the reason, the longing for a strong melody, a good story and a fine story teller is beyond doubt. And few deliver like Sofia Karlsson in this sense. With a diction almost uncannily perfect and an unusual attention to the value of the words she has an ability to infuse new life into even the most worn out and often performed material. The unprecedented success of her platinum selling album Svarta ballader (Black ballads) from 2005 with her pioneering interpretations of Swedish poet Dan Andersson is a proof of this as good as any. …”
“…Sofia Karlsson – Vocalist from Stockholm. Musical influences: First grandma playing chorals on the pump organ, grandad playing the single row accordion and mother who always sang in the car, later Fred Åkerström, Dolly Parton, Tracy Chapman, Dansar Edward, Kirsten Bråten-Berg and Lena Willemark.
Educated at the Folk music dept. of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Between 1998-2002 full time member in Swedish folk music act Groupa. Released her debut solo album Folk songs (Amigo, AMCD 748), in 2002. Her hugely successful second solo album Black Ballads – Sofia Karlsson sings Dan Andersson (Amigo, AMCD 756) was released in 2005.
*VISA – The words chanson, lied, visa all mean the same thing in their respective language, i.e. song, and yet each of them has a meaning that distinguishes them from songs in general.
In Scandinavia, the word “visa” usually refers to a text of literary quality joined by stanzas and matched with a melody repeated with the stanzas. The typical visa is of “small size”. In recent years, yet another criterion has come along, namely that it should be “interpretable”. …”
“Sofia Karlsson grew up in Enskede, Stockholm. She attended the Folk music dept. of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Between 1998 and 2002 she was a full time member in Swedish folk music act Groupa. In 2002 she released her debut solo album “Folk songs”.
In 2005 she made her public breakthrough with her second album “Svarta ballader” (Black ballads). The album contains her interpretations of the Swedish poet Dan Andersson. The album was in the charts for more than a year and has to date sold 60.000 copies and was rewarded with a Swedish as well as a Danish Grammy.
After touring Sweden for two years she released her third album “Visor från vinden” (Songs from the loft) with its collection of classical Swedish songs written by famous Swedish musicians as Fred Åkerström, Peps Persson, Lars Forsell and Evert Taube. …”
The Art Of Polling; Should We Trust Polls?; Race For The White House
Insane Presidential Poll Numbers For Obama and McCain – October
Opinion Polls: Getting the results you want
Arianna Huffington – The Problem with Polling
Yes Prime Minister Clip – Who Reads the Papers
Congratulations President McCain!
The pump and dump drive-by mainstream media who are in the tank for Obama have been very busy polling.
If you believe their polls, Obama is winning the popular vote by 10% to 15% and will be the next President.
There are many, many ways to cheat and get the result you want:
the sample size of the poll.
who is polled–adults, registered voters, or likely voters.
when the poll is taken–overnight, during the week, or on the weekend.
the weighting of responders–Democrats, Republicans and independents.
the wording of the question.
the order of the questions.
the response rate.
The only poll that counts is the actual election.
Unfortunatley, even here Obama and his allies in ACORN, its affiliates, and clones are also trying to steal the election with voter registration fraud and voter fraud.
The deep secret about big media, people and politicians is that they are all ignorant about the issues and policies.
Big media is polling ignorant people about issues and policies that both are deeply ignorant of for politicians that are ignorant of the American people’s concerns.
The blind leading the blind.
The American people are deeply concerned about illegal immigration and want it stopped and the illegal aliens sent home.
The pump and dump drive-by mainstream media, along with the Presidential candidates of both parties totally ignore the issue.
No questions about this issue has been asked during the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates.
Polls hide truth says Gallup veteran
AAPOR: Frank Newport
AAPOR 2008: Robert Groves
National Political Polls — Who gives a S*#%
Yes, Prime Minister – You lied – The Tangled Web
LOL or COL
Drinking With Bob
The Voice of The American People
Barack Obama is a DISASTER!!!!
Barack Obama is a freaking Socialist…
We’ve been lied to AGAIN…
Background Articles and Videos
USA Today / Gallup Poll Rigged For McCain
Political Polls: Barak Obama John McCain
Constructing Public Opinion
AAPOR: Frank Newport
October 09, 2008
Polls: Obama or McCain Is Winning
By Steven M. Warshawsky
“…Before concluding, let’s look at a typical poll of the races in two important “battleground” states. This poll was done by CNN/Time on October 7 (also taken from RCP). According to this poll, Obama is leading McCain in Ohio, 50% to 47%, and in Wisconsin, 51% to 46%. The headline for the poll: “New Obama gains in battleground states.” Yet the margin of error for the poll was +/- 3.5 points. This means that, based on the results of the CNN/Time poll itself, McCain could be leading in Ohio by a margin of 50.5% to 46.5% and in Wisconsin by a margin of 49.5% to 47.5%.
Of course, in the past several weeks there have been polls showing McCain leading the race nationally and in the battleground states. Are the results of such polls simply to be disregarded? On what grounds? Why should the polls that show Obama in the lead be given more weight than the polls that show McCain in the lead? Such reporting reflects the bias of the mainstream media, not the “truth” about how the American people are going to vote this November. Moreover, the idea – implicit in the daily fluctuations of the polls – that large numbers of American voters are regularly switching back and forth between McCain and Obama makes no sense. Who knows any real people who are going through such mental and political gymnastics?
In short, the polls do not show that Obama is “winning” the race, anymore than they show that McCain is “winning” the race. What they show is that the contest is very close, and will not be decided until election day — when the American people actually go to the polls and cast their votes.
For the reasons I’ve stated before, I predict that more votes will be cast for McCain than for Obama.
“…All of this would be meaningless if it were not for the fact that the media and even the public puts much stock in polls. The media uses it to make elections into horse-races and to support its positions on social issues. Because of this, polling can have the tendency to change the color, tone, length and intensity of a debate. Polls create an environment during elections that cause candidates to drop out of races even before they can educate the public on their views. This is because a candidate who does not poll well in the early running will be ignored by the media and will find donations shrink and finally disappear. A kind of “Catch-22” for an unknown player. He cannot get his message out without money, and he cannot get money unless he can get his message out.
Mark Twain has often been quoted, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” After reading Mr. Robinson’s book you will come to realize that polling often falls into one of these three categories. Yet, he does make clear that polling is a tool, even a weapon, and like tools and weapons it can be used or it can be abused.
Polling can be used by industry to help shape products. It can be used by sociologists and scientists to advance medicine and psychology. It can be used for entertainment and trivia. It can also be used in politics to help gauge the effectiveness of public campaigns.
Ultimately, an educated public is the best way to fix the problems with polling. Not only will it make our understanding of polling data and its significance more profound, but perhaps the data itself will be made more accurate.
Matthew Robinson’s book clearly explains the complexity of polling and its effects on politics. His analysis succinctly illustrates that polling is not so much a democratizing influence as it is a disturbing one. “Mobocracy” provides a great opportunity to learn about the art, science and necromancy of polling.”
Mobocracy: How the Media’s Obsession with Polling Twists the News, Alters Elections and Undermines Democracy
“…Mobocracy: How the Media’s Obsession with Polling Twists the News, Alters Elections and Undermines Democracy, by Matthew Robinson. Prima Publishing, 366 pages, $24.95
MASS-MEDIA POLLING IS JUSTIFIABLY SKEWered in this spirited work by Matthew Robinson, managing editor of the conservative weekly Human Events and an adjunct fellow of the Claremont Institute. He begins with the abuses of polling and ends with a stout defense of the American Constitution and the statesmanship and political journalism that helped launch and legitimize it. …”
Voters and students be aware that ACORN and its affiliates is not the only “get out the vote” for Obama organization trying to register new voters.
A new one on the scene is Progressive Future.
Looks like getting out paychecks for their part-time employees is a challenge for Progressive Future.
Your check is in the mail!
Well if you believe Yes we can, hope and change, you should have no trouble believing your check is in the mail.
Obama has mislead, lied, cheated, and now stealing the vote of American people through his campaign support of ACORN, its affiliates and organizations that are just begining to surface.
Where is the FBI and the Justice Department?
This is a criminial organization and its leaders and employees that engage in crimes should be arrested.
Not after the election, now.
BARACK OBAMA, ACORN, & VOTER FRAUD……STEALING THE ELECTION IN BATTLEGROUND STATES FOR OBAMA!!
The Lowdown on ACORN
OBAMA CAUGHT SAYING ACORN AND FRIENDS WILL SHAPE HIS PRESIDENTIAL AGENDA
BARACK OBAMA ENDORSOR ‘ACORN’ IS REGISTERING ” DEAD PEOPLE ” TO VOTE IN BATTLEGROUND STATE OF INDIANA!!
This is a “Progressive Future”? Obama Organizers Homeless in Denver?
“I realize that Colorado is considered a battleground state, but there seems to be some kind of movement by a group called “Progressive Future” to get people to move to Denver to go door-to-door and get out the vote. I probably would not mind in general, at their attempts, but most of these postings are requesting free or reduced rent “to show our support for the campaign. The hours that these volunteers are also saying that they would work in their advertisements also seem a bit, well, cultish. In some ways, it reminds me of those horror stories about kids recruited to sell magazines and forced to live in vans as they travel from state-to-state. The group that seems behind this movement is called “Progressive Future”. Is this the kind of grass roots campaign that Obama endorses?
Company promises to pay Roanoke employees who helped register voters
“…According to its website, the company known as both Progressive Future and Work for Progress promises to deliver change. Now it’s also promising to deliver paychecks.
“We mailed them their checks on Monday,” Brad Martin, a company representative, said.
Tuesday, Phelps said she still had not received her check, nor had she heard from the company.
“Checks are something I depend on. I’m a college student. Finding jobs especially now isn’t easy,” Phelps said.
Since Monday, we have talked to two more employees who are also waiting for their money. An investigator at the Roanoke City Police Department says he has heard of at least 20 people who are waiting for their paychecks. …”
Progressive Future promotes progressive values through grassroots action. We are a nonprofit organization advocating for core progressive principles such as community, fairness, security and liberty. We are organizing around critical issues such as economic fairness and security, health care, global security and educational reform. We make the case for sensible policy solutions and hold politicians’ feet to the fire by activating citizens in their communities and helping progressive Americans make their voices heard. …”
Sleeper Cell: ACORN, Obama, and the Housing Crisis
“…It’s become apparent that ACORN is serving as Obama’s red-shirted shock troops for voter “outreach,” a euphemism for the mass voter registration fraud witnessed up to this point in the election. ACORN will do for voting integrity what they did for mortgage lending.
According to Obama’s “Fight the Smears” Web Site, he was never an organizer for ACORN:
Regardless of what the Web site says, Obama’s ties to ACORN go much further than simply writing the group large checks from CAC in his role as Bill Ayers’ toady. Although “Fight the Smears” says that Obama was not an organizer for ACORN, he was an attorney for an ACORN’s voter registration project. …”
Voter Fraud Watch: Could ACORN Scandal in Washington Have Been Avoided With Photo ID?
“…The Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that allows states to require voters to produce photo I.D.s is drawing criticism from voter registration groups, including one that was busted for election fraud in 2006.
ACORN is trying to register one million new voters this year and brands the decision, “One more strike against the basic right to vote … that further disenfranchises people of color and low income Americans.”
But if photo I.D. requirements had been the law in Washington state, the voter fraud scandal involving ACORN in 2006 would never have happened. According to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, the incident “was the worst case of election fraud in our state’s history. It was an outrage.”
Two years ago ACORN submitted just over 1,800 new voter registration forms, but there was a problem. The names were made up — all but six of the 1,800 submissions were fakes. Reed said he was appalled.
“There is nothing more fundamental to a democratic republic and to a citizen of the United States than participating in selecting your public officials. For people to undermine that and try to perpetuate fraud on the system is an outrage,” he said.
The ACORN workers told state investigators that they went to the Seattle public library, sat at a table and filled out the voter registration forms. They made up names, addresses, and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book. One worker said it was a lot of hard work making up all those names and another said he would sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out the forms. …”
Like I said last week: When it rains, it pours. We’re drowning in a flash flood of ACORN voter fraud horror stories. Barack Obama and his followers remain in denial. How many thousands of bogus applications do they need to see before they put down their race card and acknowledge this massive illegal racket?
The St. Petersburg Times reports that ACORN tried to register Mickey Mouse.
Community organizers, phony voters, and your tax dollars.
“…Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who got his start as a Chicago “community organizer” at Acorn’s side. In 1992 he led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn. This past November, he lauded Acorn’s leaders for being “smack dab in the middle” of that effort. Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls.
During his tenure on the board of Chicago’s Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn. More recently, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to an Acorn affiliate. The campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for “staging, sound, lighting.” It later admitted the cash was to get out the vote.
The Obama campaign is now distancing itself from Acorn, claiming Mr. Obama never organized with it and has nothing to do with illegal voter registration. Yet it’s disingenuous to channel cash into an operation with a history of fraud and then claim you’re shocked to discover reports of fraud. As with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, Mr. Obama was happy to associate with Acorn when it suited his purposes. But now that he’s on the brink of the Presidency, he wants to disavow his ties.
The Justice Department needs to treat these fraud reports as something larger than a few local violators. The question is whether Acorn is systematically subverting U.S. election law — on the taxpayer’s dime.”
“These socialists writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, and other variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school laws.”
“The State is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”
~Frédéric Bastiat
New Data: Top 1% Pay Greater Dollar Amount in Income Taxes to Federal Government than Bottom 90%
“…Washington, DC, October 4, 2007 – New data released by the IRS today offers interesting insights into the distributional spread of the federal income tax burden, new analysis by the Tax Foundation shows.
Summary of Federal Individual Income Tax Data, 2005 (updated October 2007)
Once you get Obama and Biden away from their script and teleprompter, they reveal what they are all about:
Obama the Socialist wants to spread YOUR money around
Joe Biden: Wealthy Paying Higher Taxes Patriotic Thing To Do
Obama – Taxes, Capital Gains
Obama Tax Plan
Tax Cutter
O’ Hail the Messiah Lord Obama
OBAMA ANTHEM LYRICS
messiah Obama,
All hail the
Obama The path to the new socialist motherland
Our savior, our savior Obama,
Obama The leader more famous than Lindsay Lohan
Bow down and praise the one Give him your money and your guns
Give us a country That makes your wife proud
Lord Barry heal the bitter ones White and Clinging to faith and to guns
Hope for the change of the hope of the change!
Obama Flag
Obama Salute
Hail Messiah Obama
Obama, Obama, Obama
The proposed tax increases of Senator Barack Obama would put the economy into a severe recession and result in high unemployment rates as small businesses cut jobs to pay higher income and social security taxes.
Barack Obama does not know how to create wealth nor how to create jobs. All he knows how to do is increase your taxes and reduce your income.
This enables Barack Obama to payoff his deadbeat friends and supporters with government handouts and funding.
When it comes to economics, creating wealth, jobs, prosperity, and running a business, Barack Obama is an economic illiterate.
Obama would wreck the US economy.
If you value your business and your job, whatever you do, do not vote for Barack Obama.
Only you can prevent socialism in America.
SBA on Small Business Job Creation
“The SBA recently updated their small business statistics recently. The update again highligths the importance of small business employment to the US economy. Small businesses (less than 500 employees) employ 50.9% of nations private non-farm workforce in 2004. Net new job creation is even more slanted towards small business. From 2003 to 2004 companies with less than 20 employees created roughly 1.6 million net new jobs. Companies with 20 to 499 employees created around 275,000 net new jobs. Meanwhile, employment at companies with more than 500 employees shrank by 214,000. The SBA is also reporting that over the last 20 years small businesses have created roughly 3 out of 4 net new private non-farm US jobs. …”
Listen closely to Obama’s words and you will hear the Socialist agenda of his friends. His words of CHANGE are taken straight from the manifesto of the Weather Underground. His speeches and the speeches of Michelle Obama are identical to the ranting of William Ayers and Rev. Wright – and George Soros. …”
“We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice. “
“We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish. “
~Friedrich August von Hayek
Background Articles and Videos
Obama’s Tax Plan: Welcome to 1929
by Peter Ferrara
“…Barack Obama doesn’t just promise a tax increase; he suggests raising almost every federal tax.
Obama proposes to sharply increase the marginal tax rates for almost every federal tax, just the opposite of President Reagan’s hugely successful supply-side economics that created the historic economic boom of the 1980s. It is the increase in these marginal tax rates that greatly harms the economy, because the incentives are turned against savings, investment, entrepreneurship, business expansion, job creation, work, and economic growth. — Obama proposes to increase the top individual income tax rate by 13% and the second individual income tax rate by 10%.
— Obama proposes to increase the capital gains tax rate by 33%.
— Obama proposes to increase the tax rate on dividends by 33%. — Obama proposes to raise the top payroll tax rate by between 16%-32%. — Obama proposes a new payroll tax on employers to help pay for national health insurance. — Obama proposes to reinstate the death tax, which is being phased out under current law, with a new top marginal tax rate of 45%. — Obama proposes tax increases for corporations as well, such as the windfall profits tax on oil companies. — Obama’s protectionist trade policies even suggest higher tariff taxes. The Tax Policy Center estimates that Obama’s tax plan would raise taxes by $627 billion over 10 years. Herbert Hoover Obama With the credit crisis threatening our economy, there couldn’t be a worse time for these comprehensive marginal tax rate increases. Obama falsely says these tax increases would affect only higher income workers. The problem is that these higher marginal tax rates affect the incentives for savings, investment, entrepreneurship, business expansion, job creation, work, and economic growth and consequently add up to a devastating overall economic effect. …”
“…A terrorist bomber, what may be the largest vote-fraud operation in history, and a political party calling for a socialist revolution in the United States. Obama has certainly been a busy little bee — though not too busy, it seems, to cover his tracks in all three cases. As well he might — anybody with such a history has a few questions to answer. And Obama knows this full well, considering the effort he’s put into ducking those exact questions since his campaign began.
But those questions must be asked and answered before November 4th. Which, needless to say, is a job for Superwoman. Sarah Palin’s relentless hammering brought the Ayers story back to the surface. She must now tie the three strands together: Ayers, ACORN, the New Party, and pound at it until it can no longer be ignored. (Of course, this will be an extremely upsetting experience for Kathleen Parker and David Brooks, but that can’t be helped.)
If the three can be bundled, and the resulting package adequately presented to the American people, Barack Obama is through. American voters have made it clear time and again that they have no use for the political extremes of either left or right. Obama plainly suffers, at best, from a weakness for crackpot left-wing politics, and at worst from a yearning to create a revolutionary situation in American society. The first reveals an immature personality, one easily led and given to romantic concepts of how the world works. The second is evidence of serious maliciousness.
Plumber to Obama: “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more. Isn’t it?” Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” Crap Sandwiches: It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. …”
“I received several e-mails today from readers complaining about Barack Obama’s backdrop in Toledo today. Apparently, some talk show hosts have also gone ballistic over what they think is an “Obama flag:
Employment dynamics: small and large firms over the business cycle: the use of the dynamic-sizing approach to measuring employment growth by size of firm provides information useful in the debate on small firm versus large firm job creation
Monthly Labor Review, March, 2007 by Jessica Helfand, Akbar Sadeghi, David Talan
IN SUM, THE FOLLOWING FINDINGS result from analysis of BLS firm size class data:
* Small firms, those with 1 to 499 employees, create about 64 percent of new jobs.
* The share of growth of small firms is larger than their base share of employment. This growth, however, causes small firms to become large, increasing the employment share of large firms over time.
* Firms of different size classes behave differently throughout the phases of the business cycle. The contribution of large firms to the net job gains during the current economic recovery appears to have come from a fall in the level of gross job losses, rather than increased job creation, The share of gross job gains for this group has not yet reached its pre-recession levels.
* The bulk of net job losses in the 1991 recession occurred in small firms, while large firms have generated the majority of job losses during the economic slowdown of 2001.
Will Israel attack Iran or will Iran attack Israel ?
Gingrich wants Israel to set a deadline for Iran attack
Israeli Air Force F-15I
Several sources have suggested that Israel within the next 100 days will be attacking critical elements of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
After waiting many years for a diplomatic solution, time is running out.
The distinct impression is that Iran’s government is just stalling for time.
Iran could have a nuclear weapon sometime within the next year or sooner.
The first target would be Israel, then the USA or Europe.
The only open question is will Israel go it alone or will the attack be a joint Israel and United States attack.
An Israeli attack would be focused on the critical elements that must destroyed to prevent the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
A joint attack would be broader in scope taking out various command and control communication networks as well as radar and anti-aircraft weapon systems.
The attack most likely will be after the elections in the US, but before a new President takes office.
Both F-15 fighters produced in St. Louis and F-16 fighters produced in Fort Worth together with tanker aircraft for refueling will be used.
F-15 Eagle Tribute
F-15I Israel 60th Independence Day Show
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon – The MIG 29 Killer
Israeli Air Force – Ruling the Sky
Israeli KC-135 Stratotanker refueling F-16
Israel’s need for more advanced tanker aircraft with increased fuel capacity and range suggest that the United States might be involved to the extent of providing tanker support with additional KC-135 aircraft.
The most likely time frame is mid-November through mid-January.
Background Articles and Videos
Will Israel Bomb Iran? :: [Part 1 of 4]
Will Israel Bomb Iran? :: [Part 2 of 4]
Will Israel Bomb Iran? :: [Part 3 of 4]
Will Israel Bomb Iran? :: [Part 4 of 4]
America – US IS FOUNDING NUCLEAR PROGRAMS IN IRAN !!!
IDF preparing options for Iran strike
By YAAKOV KATZ
“…The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.
“It is always better to coordinate,” one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. “But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination.”
Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused. …”
Israel prepares for Iranian strike without US cooperation
“…According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel has begun planning for a strike on Iran’s presumed nuclear-research sites without cooperation from the US. Sources tell the JP that they’d prefer to partner with the Americans, but that they have to plan for the contingency of refusal:
The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said Israel is preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.
“It is always better to coordinate,” one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. “But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination.”
Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.
According to the Post, Israel has twice asked for a green light and the codes, and the Bush administration has refused. The US has installed missile-defense systems and deployed our own people to man them. The Post notes that our intentions serve both Israel and ourselves, as it allows the US to watch Israel for any signs of military action. …”
“Israel isn’t famous for welcoming public scrutiny of its most sensitive military plans. But we doubt Jerusalem officials were dismayed to see news of their recent air force exercises splashed over the front pages of the Western press.
Those exercises – reportedly involving about 100 fighters, tactical bombers, refueling planes and rescue helicopters – were conducted about 900 miles west of Israel’s shores in the Mediterranean. Iran’s nuclear facilities at Bushehr, Isfahan and Natanz all fall roughly within the same radius, albeit in the opposite direction. The point was not lost on Tehran, which promptly warned of “strong blows” in the event of a pre-emptive Israeli attack.
The more important question is whether the meaning of Israel’s exercise registered in Western capitals. It’s been six years since Iran’s secret nuclear programs were publicly exposed, and Israel has more or less bided its time as the Bush Administration and Europe have pursued diplomacy to induce Tehran to cease enriching uranium.
It hasn’t worked. Iran has rejected repeated offers of technical and economic assistance, most recently this month. Despite four years of pleading, the Administration has failed to win anything but weak U.N. sanctions. Russia plans to sell advanced antiaircraft missiles to Iran and finish work on a nuclear reactor at Bushehr, though spent fuel from that reactor could eventually be diverted and reprocessed into weapons-usable plutonium. Chinese companies still invest in Iran, while the U.N.’s chief nuclear inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, has repeatedly downplayed Iran’s nuclear threat. …”
“…Despite that American intelligence finding, neither Israel nor many other governments believe that Iran has given up its interest in nuclear weapons. Yes, the UN has passed resolutions and imposed some mild sanctions, but Iran has spent two years disregarding them, continuing to spin its centrifuges and to call for the destruction of Israel. It may well be true that Mr Bush is disinclined to bomb Iran now that he is a lame duck, but the possible advent of a President Obama might just make Israel more inclined to do so itself. As the hawkish John Bolton, a former Bush administration official, said this week, Israel may think the best time to attack would be during America’s presidential transition—too late to be accused of influencing the election and before needing a new president’s green light. …”
“…While the rest of the world dithers, Israel prepares to act. And only the most willfully self deluded can blame them.
Who is it that has promised to “wipe Israel off the map?” Who is it who constantly threatens Israel with the most bellicose, the most outrageous rhetoric – not seen since the heydey of Adolf Hitler and his promise to wipe Czechoslovakia from existence?
There are many in the west who hear these threats and chalk them up to pure bombast or worse, deny that Iran is even making these threats, that we misunderstand what President Ahmadinejad and the rest of the Iranian leadership is saying – “mistranslation” is a common excuse.
But no one ever asks the question “Can Israel take that chance?” Their preparations would seem to indicate that they don’t believe they can.Military experts will point out that Israel cannot carry out such a mission successfully, that it would be madness for them to try. We have seen the IDF make miracles before so I would caution those who would rule out such an attack completely. But the point isn’t can it be done but rather does Israel feel it is necessary? If the Jewish state feels they have no other choice, I believe they will strike – regardless of the odds and world opinion.
President George W. Bush insisted on August 31, 2006 that “there must be consequences” for Iran’s defiance of demands that it stop enriching uranium. He said “the world now faces a grave threat from the radical regime in Iran. The Iranian regime arms, funds, and advises Hezbollah.”[67] The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency issued a report saying Iran has not suspended its uranium enrichment activities, a United Nations official said. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency opens the way for U.N. Security Council sanctions against Tehran. Facing a Security Council deadline to stop its uranium enrichment activities, Iran has left little doubt it will defy the West and continue its nuclear program.[66]
A congressional report released on August 23, 2006 made many allegations that have been strongly disputed by the IAEA calling it “erroneous” and “misleading”.””[68]
John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on August 31, 2006 that he expected action to impose sanctions to begin immediately after the deadline passes, with meetings of high-level officials in the coming days, followed by negotiations on the language of the sanctions resolution. Bolton said that when the deadline passes “a little flag will go up.” “In terms of what happens afterward, at that point, if they have not suspended all uranium enrichment activities, they will not be in compliance with the resolution,” he said. “And at that point, the steps that the foreign ministers have agreed upon previously … we would begin to talk about how to implement those steps.” The five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, previously offered Iran a package of incentives aimed at getting the country to restart negotiations, but Iran refused to halt its nuclear activities first. Incentives included offers to improve Iran’s access to the international economy through participation in groups such as the World Trade Organization and to modernize its telecommunications industry. The incentives also mentioned the possibility of lifting restrictions on U.S. and European manufacturers wanting to export civil aircraft to Iran. And a proposed long-term agreement accompanying the incentives offered a “fresh start in negotiations.”[66]
The United States has repeatedly refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in an attack on Iran. The US Nuclear Posture Review made public in 2002 specifically envisioned the use of nuclear weapons on a first strike basis, even against non-nuclear armed states.[69] Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has reported that, according to military officials, the Bush administration has been planning the use of nuclear weapons against “underground Iranian nuclear facilities”. [70] When specifically questioned about the potential use of nuclear weapons against Iran, President Bush claimed that “All options were on the table”. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, “the president of the United States directly threatened Iran with a preemptive nuclear strike. It is hard to read his reply in any other way.”[71] Nevertheless, the Iranian authorities consistently insist that they are not seeking nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the United States, and instead emphasize the creation of a nuclear-arms free zone in the Middle East.[72] The policy of using nuclear weapons on a first-strike basis against non-nuclear opponents is a violation of the US Negative Security Assurance pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear members of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) such as Iran. Threats of the use of nuclear weapons against another country constitute a violation of Security Council Resolution 984 of 11 April 1995 and the International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. …”
(33°43′24.43″N51°43′37.55″E / 33.7234528, 51.7270972) Natanz is a hardened Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) covering 100,000 square meters that is built 8 meters underground and protected by a concrete wall 2.5 meters thick, itself protected by another concrete wall. In 2004, the roof was hardened with reinforced concrete and covered with 22 meters of earth. The complex consists of two 25,000 square meter halls and a number of administrative buildings. This once secret site was one of the two exposed by Alireza Jafarzadeh in 2002. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei visited the site on 21 February 2003 and reported that 160 centrifuges were complete and ready for operation, with 1000 more under construction at the site.[11] Under the terms of Iran’s safeguards agreement, Iran was under no obligation to report the existence of the site while it was still under construction. …”
“…The trouble is, this logic looks different from Tel Aviv. Given their history, a lot of Israelis will run almost any risk to prevent a state that calls repeatedly for their own state’s destruction from acquiring the wherewithal to bring that end about. Till now, the world has talked a lot and applied some modest sanctions to stop Iran’s dash to enrich uranium. It is time to apply much tougher ones, in the hope that it is not already too late.”
Cabinet minister says Israel will “attack Iran” over nuke program
By see-dubya
“…I’ve got to imagine this will resonate well in Israel. Right now they must realize that given his latest Kerryesque three-sixty half gainer triple-lindy flipflop about Israel and Palestine, Obama will be at best a fair-weather ally if he is elected, and probably (given his growing portfolio of endorsements from anti-Israel thugs like George Galloway) not even that.
This would be a much trickier attempt than the Iraq or Syria missions, of course. In 1981 the bombing run on Saddam’s Osirak reactor was an amazing feat of logisitics and planning, stretching the range and capabilities of Israel’s new F-16s. Iran’s even farther, and its nuclear program is spread around the country so much that it would be a matter of weeks instead of days to really cripple its nuclear capacity.
“The Israeli Air Force (IAF; Hebrew: זרוע האויר והחלל, Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal, “Air and Space Arm”, commonly known as חיל האוויר Hel HaAvir, “Air Corps”) is the air force of the Israel Defense Forces. The current Commander in Chief is Major General Ido Nehoshtan. The Israeli Air Force has approximately 1000 aircraft and is regarded as one of the greatest air forces in the world due to their gaining air supremacy in the Middle-East. …”
“…In the new millennium, the IAF bought the F-15I Ra’am (Thunder) and the F-16I Sufa (Storm), two of the most advanced variants of the F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, manufactured specially for Israel according to the IAF requirements. The IAF has purchased 102 Sufa F-16I warplanes, the first planes arrived in April, 2004 (the IAF is the largest operator of F-16’s after the US Air Force). The IAF also purchased the advanced Israeli air-to-air missile Rafael Python 5, with full-sphere capability, and considered among the best in its field, as well as a special version of the Apache Longbow, designated AH-64DI or Saraph. In 2005 the Israeli Air Force received special Gulfstream V jets (known as “Nachshon”), modified with the newest and most advanced intelligence systems in the world, all made by Israel Military Industries. …”
“The United States has rejected an Israeli request for advanced refueling aircraft that could be used for any mission to strike Iran nuclear sites.
Israeli officials said the Bush administration refused a request by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to purchase the KC-767 tanker transport aircraft. They said the administration did not want to be seen as helping Israel attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“There is a virtual halt on the sale of all U.S. systems that could enhance Israel’s offensive capability,” an official said.
In August, Barak visited the United States and met Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other leading administration officials in talks that focused on Iran. During his visit, officials said, Barak raised the prospect of a U.S. sale of the twin engine KC-767 to replace Israel’s aging air refueling fleet. …”
“…On July 30, the Defense Department notified Congress of an Israeli request for nine C-130J-30 air transports from Lockheed Martin in an estimated $1.9 billion deal. Congress was expected to approve the sale of the tactical air transport.
Israel plans to house its air transport fleet at a base in the Negev desert. For nearly 50 years, the fleet was kept at Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. …”
The Iranian Regime can’t live without its oil money
by Daniel Doron
“…Iran seeks a nuclear capability for more reasons than fulfilling its dream of destroying Israel (they know Israel can retaliate, so even if they fervently wanted to destroy it, they might just continue to arm Arab terrorist proxies and have them bear the consequences, as they have done with Hezbollah). Iran needs an atomic weapon to one day take control of the flow and the price of oil, a strategic goal it has pursued since the days of the shah. Once it is in possession of an atomic weapon, it could control the Straits of Hormuz with impunity and dictate a constant, if gradual rise in the price of oil. No one will risk an atomic confrontation, let alone the threat of the Saudi oil fields being incinerated, to prevent a gradual rise in the price of oil.
The Iranians could then secure all the income they need to preserve–and even spread–their revolution. See what Arab petrodollars have done to the immune system of Europe, how they incapacitated it and made it impotent in dealing with growing Islamic radicalism in its midst. An Iranian-induced transfer of wealth caused by a steep rise in the price of oil will dwarf the already dramatic impact that Arab petrodollars have had on European politics and culture.
Pushing the hated West into economic decline will make it so weak politically and militarily that it will be in no position to resist when the time is ripe for the Iranian takeover of Saudi Arabia, its oil fields, and no less importantly in Tehran’s eyes, Islam’s holiest places. Shiite control of these Holy Places and of the Muslim jihad will finally bring the hated Sunnis, and especially the most hated Wahhabis, under Shiite domination, and fulfill another dream and strategic goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Shiite jihad will triumph “peacefully.” …” http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/233fmswq.asp?pg=2
The Catastrophic Potential Of Nuclear Iran
Massive U.S. Naval Armada heads for Iran!
President Bush threatens World War III
Bolton suggests Israel will attack Iran
Israel Rehearses Iran Attack
Nuclear Weapons Yesterday and Tomorrow
Iran: Nuclear Program Will Continue
WWIII is Now Authorized: Attack on Iran Imminent!
Pentagon Officials Believe Israel Will Attack Iran
Glenn Beck interviews Benjamin Netanyahu
IAF in CBS 60 Minutes
If you care for your future you must watch this film
“The best mirror is an old friend.”
~George Herbert
Barack Obama & Raila Odinga
Obama and Odinga Campaign in Kenya
PROOF OBAMA BACKED KENYA DICTATOR RAILA ODINGA
Obama And Odinga Exposed
Obama Supporting Islamic Terror Regime in Kenya
Jerome Corsi – Obama & Odinga of Kenya
The Obama and Odinga Connection
First, Barack Obama lies and misleads the American people about his relationship with friend and fellow radical socialist, Bill Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist bomber.
Second, Barack Obama lies and misleads the American people about his continuing relationship to ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
ACORN has been in the news lately because of its involvement in both widespread voter registration fraud in a many states and its history of advocating and extorting banks to make mortage loans to unqualified borrowers that over time lead to the current financial crisis on Wall Street.
Now, Barack Obama is silent about his relative and fellow radical socialist, Raila Odinga, a Kenyan unrependent terrorist that incited tribal violence in Kenya resulting in the deaths of over 1500 Kenyans primarily Christians.
Kenya is predominantly a Christian nation with over 78% of the population being either Protestant or Catholic and about 10% Moslem.
There seems to be an Obama pattern and practice here of associating with radical socialist and terrorists.
Barack Obama is a socialist that associates with a network of socialists both in the United States and abroad.
Senator Obama exercises poor judgement when it comes to selecting his friends.
When the truth of the relationship and the ideas and activities of his radical socialists friends becomes known, Senator Obama routinely “throws them under the bus” by denouncing them and disassociating himself from them.
How convenient.
The American people regard radical socialist terrorists like Ayers and Odinga as beyond the pale.
I agree with Charles Krauthammer who wrote recently:
“Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.
But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.
McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama’s associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.”
I urge you to read Krauthammer’s entire editorial opinion.
Barack Obama freely chose to associate himself with Ayers, Wright, Pfleger, and Odinga and only renounced them when the revelation of his friends activities and views became widely known.
Why did Barack Obama associate with these people?
There are two possibilites.
Both of which make him unqualified to be President of the United States of America.
One, Barack Obama has poor judgement as to the character and integrity of the people he associates with such as Ayers, Wright, Rezko, and Odinga, just to name a few.
Second, Barack shares their radical socialist views, means and ends.
I am convinced the second possibility is the truth and where Barack Obama heart lies.
Obama knows that he must mask his association with radical socialists and his socialist views to get elected in the United States.
This is not guilt by association, it is guilt by revelation.
Thomas Sowell is correct to point out that for Barack Obama the associations with Ayers, Wright, Pflegger, Rezko, ACORN and Odinga that supported his political career and Obama in turn supported their agenda were alliances with common socialist goals or ends.:
“…Obama could have allied himself with all sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign platforms this election year can change that. …”
The pump and dump drive-by mainstream media, black Americans, liberals, progressives, communists and socialists are supporting him by a margin of 9 to 1.
This is blind identity politics; they are not interested in seeing or hearing the truth about Obama.
A case of mass invincible ignorance–do not confuse me with the facts, I have already made up my mind.
This will result in Barack Obama getting about 35% of the vote and maybe another 1% by organized voter fraud using such organizations as ACORN and its affiliates.
Only if the mask remains in place will Obama get another 15% of the vote needed to win in November.
The time to rip off the mask of Barack Obama and reveal what he is past due.
Barack Obama is bad for America; he is bold, arrogant, and dangerous (BAD).
Governor Palin was absolutely right when she said of Senator Obama:
“This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”
Sarah Palin Tells The Truth About Obama’s Terrorist Friends (Barack Obama Palling Around With Terrorist Friend, Bill Ayers)
Only you can prevent socialism in America.
“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?”
Matthew 7:16
Background Articles and Videos
Obama’s Kenya ghosts
Mark Hyman
Sunday, October 12, 2008
“…By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.
The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama’s father. …”
“…Mr. Obama’s judgment is seriously called into question when he backs an official with troubling ties to Muslim extremists and whose supporters practice ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was Islamic extremists in Kenya who bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, killing more than 200 and injuring thousands. None of this has dissuaded Mr. Obama from maintaining disturbing loyalties. “
Kenya: Opposition Officials Helped Plan Rift Valley Violence
Police Should Protect Displaced Persons Camps
“…Human Rights Watch investigations indicate that, after Kenya’s disputed elections, opposition party officials and local elders planned and organized ethnic-based violence in the Rift Valley, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks, targeting mostly Kikuyu and Kisii people in and around the town of Eldoret, could continue unless the government and opposition act to stop the violence, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch called on the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leadership to take immediate steps to stop its supporters from committing further attacks. At the same time, Human Rights Watch said the Kenyan police should urgently deploy extra officers to the region to protect displaced people and resident Kikuyu communities.
“Opposition leaders are right to challenge Kenya’s rigged presidential poll, but they can’t use it as an excuse for targeting ethnic groups,” said Georgette Gagnon, acting Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “We have evidence that ODM politicians and local leaders actively fomented some post-election violence, and the authorities should investigate and make sure it stops now.”
Research by Human Rights Watch in and around the town of Eldoret, which has borne the brunt of the Rift Valley violence, indicates that attacks by several ethnic communities against others, especially local Kikuyu populations, were planned soon after the elections. In some cases, local elders and opposition politicians appear to have incited and organized the violence. Since December 27, 2007, clashes between members of the Kalenjin and Luya communities and their Kikuyu and Kisii neighbors in the Rift Valley have left more than 400 people dead and have displaced thousands more.
Human Rights Watch interviewed members of several pro-ODM Kalenjin communities who described the ways in which local leaders and ODM party agents actively fomented violence against Kikuyu communities. A Kalenjin preacher in a village in Eldoret North constituency told Human Rights Watch that on the morning of December 29, 2007, a local ODM party mobilizer “called a meeting and said that war had broken in Eldoret town, so the elders organized the youth into groups of not less than 15, and they went to loot [Kikuyu] homes and burn them down.”
“…The country has an area of 225,000 square miles and a population of 35.5 million; approximately 80 percent live in rural areas. Approximately 80 percent of the country practices Christianity; Protestants represent 58 percent of the Christian majority, Roman Catholics represent 42 percent. Ten percent of the population practice Islam, less than 1 percent practice Hinduism, Sikhism, and Baha’i, and the remainder follow various traditional indigenous religions. There are very few atheists. Some Muslim groups claim to represent up to 30 percent of the population; this figure is not supported by demographic data.
Certain groups tend to dominate particular regions. For example, North Eastern Province, where the population is chiefly ethnic Somali, is home to 15 percent of the Muslim population. Sixty percent of the Muslim population lives in Coast Province, comprising 50 percent of the total population there. Western areas of Coast Province are mostly Christian. The north-central part of the country is home to 10 percent of the Muslims, making it the majority religious group there. Apart from the ethnic Somali population in Nairobi, the rest of the country is largely Christian.
Many foreign missionary groups operate in the country. The Government generally permits missionary groups to assist the poor and to operate schools and hospitals. Missionaries openly promote their religious beliefs and encounter little interference from the Government.
Why did Obama support muslim terrorist Raila Odinga & Sharia law in Kenya?
“When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila, his cousin, and spoke in praise of him at rallies in Nairobi: Obama’s bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila’s ‘stooge.’
Raila Odinga, then the current presidential frontrunner, had promised to implement strict Islamic Sharia law if he received the Muslim vote and was elected president. Odinga had signed a secret memorandum of understanding with Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Leaders Forum, in which Odinga had allegedly stated his intention, if elected, to: ‘within six months, rewrite the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Sharia as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions’. I hope Obama’s female voters are ready to be stoned to death if they visit Kenya and even look sideways at a man. …”
“…Kenyans believe in Barack Obama so much that I’m willing to bet that if he were to run against our President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga — the two men at the center of Kenya’s disputed December 27 election that has led to widespread tribal violence — he would win in a landslide.
The absolute support that Kenyans offer Obama comes from the fact that his father was Kenyan, which, according to our tradition, makes him our own. In most of our tribal cultures, a child belongs to the father. This overshadows the fact that his mother was a white American. Likewise, the fact that Obama doesn’t hold Kenyan citizenship, or speak any Kenyan language, is insignificant. Kenyans, especially those from his father’s home province of Nyanza, love him so much that they have already renamed a primary school and a high school in his honor. In Kenyan bars, you can order “Obama beer,” a brew that used to be named “Senator” long before he became one. …”
“…But given Odinga’s controversial background and the continued ethnic violence in Kenya, his attempts to invoke Obama’s name may undermine Obama’s campaign in the U.S.
Odinga is the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first vice-president, a socialist who sent his son to Communist East Germany for college. The younger Odinga named one of his sons Fidel Castro and has also admitted to being one of the masterminds of a 1982 attempted coup against Daniel arap Moi, Kenya’s second president. In American Op-Ed pages and in the blogosphere, many of Obama’s political foes are already capitalizing on his supposed ties to Odinga.
When Obama took time off his campaign in New Hampshire to make a five-minute phone call to Odinga, urging him to talk with President Kibaki in order to avoid more bloodshed, New York Sun columnist Daniel Johnson wrote, “If [Obama] has been putting tribal or family considerations above America’s national interest by supporting Mr. Odinga’s anti-Western candidacy, it raises serious questions about his judgment.”
By using the words “tribal considerations” Johnson assumes that Obama identifies with his father’s tribe, the Luo, the main group clashing with the majority Kikuyus. But Obama has never claimed to be a Kenyan, let alone a Luo. He has said repeatedly that his loyalty is to the people of Illinois, who he represents, and to his fellow Americans. …”
Who Are the Kikuyu?And why do Kenya’s other tribes resent them so much?
By Michela Wrong
“…There’s a reason for this. Central Province is the home of President Mwai Kibaki—his Othaya constituency lies just south of Nyeri. While his Kikuyu kinsmen have been burned alive and lynched across the rest of Kenya, punished for his suspected rigging of the December elections, only a madman would dare lift a hand to a Kikuyu on his home turf.
But that doesn’t allay a crawling sense of unease. The relationship between the Kikuyu and the rest of Kenya has been warped, residents sense, possibly beyond repair. Nyeri’s inhabitants are haunted by a more immediate fear. Most of the 300,000 people displaced in the violence are Kikuyus. Even as nervous Luos cluster for protection in local police stations, hundreds of Kikuyus are returning, demanding housing, work, and school places. “At the moment people are telling those displaced to stick where they are, because there is great land scarcity here,” says Muthui Mwai, a Nyeri journalist. “No one wants them back.”
Land scarcity is the leitmotif of the Kikuyu, the historic source of their anguish and the motivating force behind their success story. Accounting for around 22 percent of Kenya’s population of 38 million, the Kikuyu’s mark on the East African nation has been far greater than the figures imply, thanks to that driving hunger.
Under Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, another kinsman, they streamed out of Central Province, settling in the Rift Valley and on the coast. Today, they dominate the economy. Kikuyus drive most of Kenya’s matatus and its taxis, run its newspapers, and constitute much of its civil service, their entrepreneurial reach extending from the glitziest of hotels to the remotest roadside duka (kiosk). They also, joke Kikuyus, account for the biggest share of the country’s criminals and prison inmates.
They hail themselves as “the Jews of Kenya,” envied and hated in equal measure for that entrepreneurial zeal. But there’s a difference: Europe’s Jews never combined economic influence with political power. The Kikuyu have done just that, providing two of Kenya’s three presidents. And their current predicament can be traced to that double-fisted grip on the nation-state and the resentment it stirs among their compatriots. …”
Election ’08: Barack Obama’s economic blueprint sounds like one his communist father tried to foist on Kenya 40 years ago, with massive taxes and succor shrouded as “investments.”
“…Writing in a 1965 scholarly paper, Obama’s late father slammed the administration of then-President Jomo Kenyatta for moving the Third World country away from socialism toward capitalism. He chafed at the idea of relying on private investors — who earn “dividends” on their venture capital — to develop the country’s fledgling economy.
“What is more important is to find means by which we can redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all,” said the senior Obama, a Harvard-educated economist. “This is the government’s obligation.” The “means” he had in mind were confiscatory taxes on a scale that redefines the term “progressive taxation.”
“Theoretically,” he wrote, “there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.”
Therefore, he added, “I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development.”
As Obama’s father saw it, taxes couldn’t be high enough, so long as the collective benefited. “Certainly there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay,” he said. “It is a fallacy to say that there is this limit, and it is a fallacy to rely mainly on individual free enterprise to get the savings.”
His son is also pushing massive taxes and “investments” in social programs — at the expense of free enterprise. Sen. Obama wants to raise the top marginal income-tax rate to at least 39%, while increasing Social Security taxes on those with higher incomes by completely removing the payroll cap. That means many entrepreneurs would be paying 12.4% (6.2% on employer and 6.2% on employee) on Social Security payroll taxes alone, plus the 2.9% on Medicare taxes, for a total federal tax rate of 54%.
In addition, Obama wants to jack up the capital-gains tax rate and reinstate the death tax. …”
“…However, Obama writes sympathetically of a comrade of his father, Oginga Odinga, who stepped down as vice president and tried to start his own party. He too was angry that President Kenyatta was letting private investors buy up businesses and land “that should be redistributed to the people,” Obama said.
By 1967, two years after Obama Sr. penned his paper, Odinga had been placed under house arrest for holding a rally that turned into a riot.
Like Obama’s father, Odinga was a member of the Luo tribe of Kenya. His son, Raila Odinga, ran for president in 2006. That year, Obama traveled to Kenya and appeared with Odinga at rallies where he criticized the pro-U.S. government Odinga wanted to oust.
When he lost the election the next year, despite Obama’s tacit endorsement, angry Odinga supporters crying fraud sparked riots that resulted in some 1,500 deaths. Amid his ancestral country’s civil unrest, Obama took time out from the campaign trail to phone Odinga to voice his support.
After weeks of violence, Odinga was granted a power-sharing deal. He’s now acting prime minister.
He’s also a something of a communist like his father. An East German-trained engineer, he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro. Paralleling him, Sen. Obama wants to open dialogue with Cuba and once proposed lifting the trade embargo.
The two sons have much in common. However, the son who would lead the U.S. learned from his father’s mistakes and keeps his “mouth shut.” Obama learned that revealing his real beliefs can jeopardize his quest for the power needed to put his “redistribution” plans into action.”
“Raila Amollo Odinga (born January 7, 1945) is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya with president Mwai Kibaki in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads, Public Works and Housing from 2003 to 2005. He was the main opposition candidate in the disputed 2007 presidential election. Following a post-electoral crisis that resulted in the deaths of 1,500 people and the displacement of 600,000 more, Odinga took office as Prime Minister, at the head of a national unity government, in April 2008.
Odinga is the son of the first Vice President of Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga; his brother, Oburu Odinga, is also currently an MP. Raila is commonly known by his first name due to coincidence: he was an MP at the same time as his father between 1992 and 1994, and is currently in the House with Oburu. Raila was a presidential contender in the 1997 elections, coming third after President Daniel arap Moi of KANU and Mwai Kibaki now the current president of Kenya but then a member of the Democratic Party. Odinga campaigned to run for president in the December 2007 elections on an Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) ticket. …”
“…According his website, Raila lists himself as a social democrat,[20] thus distancing himself from his late father, who was openly socialist. His party, the LDP, is affiliated to the Liberal International.
Raila Odinga gets noticeable support from all over the country, especially among third largest ethnic base in Kenya, the Luo. He is seen as an effective mobilizer of grassroots support.
Further to this, there have been recent calls from the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Martha Karua, for Raila to answer allegations regarding impropriety in the purchase and subsequent sale of land on the Kisumu Molasses Plant.[21]
“…Raila Odinga is of the Anglican faith[24] and is married to Ida Odinga (born Ida Anyango Oyoo). They live in Nairobi (but has a second home in Bondo District) with their four children—two sons and two daughters. His oldest son, Fidel, is named after Fidel Castro[25] and their youngest child, Winnie, is named after Winnie Mandela.[25]
In a January 2008 interview, Odinga suggested that he was the first cousin of American Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama through Senator Obama’s father.[26] However, Barack Obama’s paternal uncle Said Obama has denied any direct relation to Odinga, stating “Odinga’s mother came from this area, so it is normal for us to talk about cousins. But he is not a blood relative.”[27] Obama’s father belonged to the same Luo tribe as Odinga. [26]
TREASON: OBAMA’S TACIT SUPPORT FOR ODINGA’S VIOLENT OVERTHROW OF DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED LEADER IN KENYA
By Pamela Geller on Atlas Shrugs
“…Jerome Corsi is back from Kenya and he confirms everything I have been reporting about Obama and Odinga since January 2008. Obama supported a vicious killer to overthrow the duly elected President of Kenya. The Odinga strategy exploited “anti-Kikuyu sentiments,” clearly a racial strategy aimed at inflaming long-standing tribal animosity to gain electoral advantage for Odinga”.
Why would Obama support the exploitation of ethnic violence and murder? To further his own career? To position himself to “save the day”? Isn’t this the same malevolent, anti-American, me-me-me subterfuge that Obama tried in Iraq? His private attempt to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence was sabotage, treason even. His objective was to keep our boys in Iraq until he became President so that he could position himself to take credit “for bringing our boys and girls home” when he he was vehemently against the surge and advocated surrender and defeat in Iraq.This Mansourian candidate depends and wishes for, advocates for American failure.
This is the currency in which he trades – bad for America is good for Obama. …”
“…When Raila Odinga lost the presidential election last week (12/27) to Mwai Kibaki, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of people were burned to death in a church set on fire.
Throughout Kenya, hundreds of people have been politically murdered in the last few days.
Kenya’s 37 million people are divided up into over three dozen tribes and sub-tribes, but the two dominant ones are Kikuyu and Luo. Kenyan politics since independence in 1963 has essentially been a duke-out between them.
The father of Kenyan independence and president until 1978 was Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu. His main political opponent was Oginga Odinga, known as “OO,” a Luo and Raila’s father.
While Kenyatta was pro-West and sided with America in the Cold War, OO was a Communist who was aided and supported by the Soviet Union.That’s why Raila went to school in East Germany (born in 1945, he graduated from Magdeburg University in 1970), and named his first-born son after Fidel Castro. …”
“The Politics of Kenya take place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Kenya is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Recent constitutional amendments have enabled sharing of executive powers between the President and a Prime Minister. Executive power is exercised by the government, with powers shared between the President and a Prime Minister, who coordinates and supervises the cabinet. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
“…Mwai KIBAKI, running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), defeated KANU candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform. KIBAKI’s NARC coalition splintered in 2005 over the constitutional review process. Government defectors joined with KANU to form a new opposition coalition, the Orange Democratic Movement, which defeated the government’s draft constitution in a popular referendum in November 2005. KIBAKI’s reelection in December 2007 brought charges of vote rigging from ODM candidate Raila ODINGA and unleashed two months of violence in which as many as 1,500 people died. UN-sponsored talks in late February produced a powersharing accord bringing ODINGA into the government in the restored position of prime minister.
“…Such paranoia is not limited to the fever swamps of the Internet. Earlier this week, the Associated Press disseminated an “analysis” accusing Palin of injecting a “racial tinge” into the campaign because she criticized Obama for his longtime relationship with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Palin’s comments were completely unobjectionable: “This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”
I saw a vice presidential candidate drawing stark philosophical differences between two tickets. The AP saw Freddy Krueger with lipstick and a noose.
“Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as ‘not like us’ is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American,” the AP piece frothed.
Obama is half-black. Ayers is white. One of the Weather Underground’s victims was black police officer Waverly Brown of Nyack, New York. Where do I buy a pair of the super X-ray glasses that can detect the racism in Palin’s remarks about the Obama-Ayers alliance?
“…Associations are very different from alliances. Allies are not just people who happen to be where you are or who happen to be doing the same things you do. You choose allies deliberately for a reason. The kind of allies you choose says something about you.Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, William Ayers, and Antoin Rezko are not just people who happened to be at the same place at the same time as Barack Obama. They are people with whom he chose to ally himself for years, and with some of whom some serious money changed hands.
Some gave political support, and some gave financial support, to Obama’s election campaigns, and Obama in turn contributed either his own money or the taxpayers’ money to some of them. That is a familiar political alliance — but an alliance is not just an “association” from being at the same place at the same time.
Obama could have allied himself with all sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign platforms this election year can change that.
Unfortunately, all that most people know about Barack Obama is his own rhetoric and that of his critics. Moreover, some of his more irresponsible critics have made wild accusations — that he is not an American citizen or that he is a Muslim, for example.
All that such false charges do is discredit Obama’s critics in general. Fortunately, there is a documented, factual account of what Barack Obama has actually been doing over the years, as distinguished from what he has been saying during this election campaign, in a new best-selling book.
That book is titled The Case Against Barack Obama by David Freddoso. He starts off in the introduction by repudiating those critics of Obama who “have been content merely to slander him — to claim falsely that he refuses to salute the U.S. flag or was sworn into office on a Koran, or that he was born in a foreign country.” …”
This is third and last time I will recommmend that Senator John McCain announce some of his cabinet members prior to being elected President of the United States of America.
This would unite the Republican Party and motivate the movement conservative and libertarian base to turnout and vote in November.
Former Mayor of New York City Rudi Giuliani should be named as McCain’s candidate for Attorney General.
“Rudolph William Louis “Rudy” Giuliani (pronounced /ˈruːdi ˌdʒuːliːˈɑːni/;[1] born May 28, 1944) is an American lawyer, businessman and politician from the state of New York who was Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
Rudy Giuliani
“A Democrat and Independent in the 1970s, and a Republican from the 1980s to the present, Giuliani served in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, eventually becoming U.S. Attorney. He prosecuted a number of high-profile cases, including ones against organized crime and Wall Street financiers.
Giuliani served two terms as Mayor of New York City, and was credited with initiating improvements in the city’s quality of life and with a reduction in crime. He ran for the United States Senate in 2000 but withdrew due to being diagnosed with prostate cancer and to revelations about his personal life. Giuliani gained international attention during and after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.[2] In 2001, Time magazine named him “Person of the Year”[3] and he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 2002.[4] …”
“Duncan Lee Hunter (born May 31, 1948) is an American politician. He has been a Republican member of the House of Representatives from California’s 52nd congressional district since 1981. The district is located in northern and eastern San Diego County and includes El Cajon, La Mesa and a portion of eastern San Diego. It was previously named the 42nd District from 1981 to 1983 and the 45th from 1983 to 1993.
Hunter was the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee during the 109th Congress. Hunter sought the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States for 2008,[1] but his campaign failed to attract significant voters or delegates in early primary and caucus states,[2] and he dropped out after unpromising results in the Nevada Republican caucuses.[3]
Hunter was born in Riverside, California to Lola L. Young and Robert Olin Hunter.[4] He graduated from Rubidoux High School in Riverside in 1966.[5] He attended the University of Montana from 1966 to 1967,[6] and then briefly the University of California, Santa Barbara,[6] before being commissioned[citation needed] into the United States Army in 1969.[7]
He served in South Vietnam from 1970 to 1971 during the Vietnam War[8] in the Army Rangers’ 75th Ranger Regiment, attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade.[9] He participated in 24 helicopter assaults[7] as well as in small-number, night-time reconnaissance patrols.[10] He held the rank of First Lieutenant,[8] and was awarded the Bronze Star,[7] Air Medal,[8] and service ribbons such as the Vietnam Service Medal.[8] He has said, “I didn’t do anything special in the U.S. Army, but I served with very special soldiers I will never forget.”[8] …”
Former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachetts should be named as McCain’s candidate for Treasury Secretary.
Mitt Romney
“Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and former Governor of Massachusetts. Romney is also a former candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election.
Romney was CEO of Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, and co-founder of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm. After his business career and serving as CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Romney was elected as the 70th Governor of Massachusetts in 2002. Romney served one term and did not seek re-election in 2006; his term expired January 4, 2007.[1]
After graduation, Romney remained in Massachusetts and went to work for the Boston Consulting Group, where he had interned during the summer of 1974.[10] From 1978 to 1984, Romney was a vice president of Bain & Company, Inc., another management consulting firm based in Boston. In 1984, Romney left Bain & Company to co-found a spin-off private equity investment firm, Bain Capital.[11] During the 14 years he headed the company, Bain Capital’s average annual internal rate of return on realized investments was 113 percent,[12] making money primarily through leveraged buyouts.[13] He invested in or bought many well-known companies such as Staples, Brookstone, Domino’s, Sealy Corporation and Sports Authority.[14]
In 1990, Romney was asked to return to Bain & Company, which was facing financial collapse. As CEO, Romney managed an effort to restructure the firm’s employee stock-ownership plan, real-estate deals and bank loans, while increasing fiscal transparency. Within a year, he had led Bain & Company through a highly successful turnaround and returned the firm to profitability without layoffs or partner defections.[12]
Romney left Bain Capital in 1998 to head the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee.[15] He and his wife have a net worth of between 250 and 500 million USD.[16][17] , not including Romney’s blind trust in the name of their children, which is valued at about $100 million.[18]…”
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
“…As McCain names those primarily responsible for the Mae-Mac fiasco, he should also begin identifying who his key advisors will be.
Adults know that the presidency isn’t a person, it’s a bureaucracy. Any effective presidency is dependent on competent key people. So, who will be the key members of a McCain administration’s bureaucracy?
Start with the key person of the moment? Have him name his choice for Secretary of the Treasury.
McCain said he’d fire Cox. Fine. Draw and quarter Cox. We couldn’t care less out here! Who does McCain propose to put in the key fiscal positions? Tell us now, and tell us soon. How about Mitt Romney. He understands the markets and bailouted the Olympics once.
Then, four days later, he names his designated Secretary of Defense. Say, someone like former Secretary of the Navy and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman.
Then, a week after that, he names his choice for Secretary of State. Joe Lieberman would represent something of a semi-bipartisan approach.
McCain must take the initiative. Keep it. And not give it up.
By giving voters a pantheon of personalities to consider, he’d force Obama to reveal who his key people will be. For example, if Susan Rice is to replace Condi Rice, let’s have a look at her. (Folks may not like what they see.) Obama’s key people will either be retreads from liberal Democrats, or nearly unknowns. In any case, flush Obama out. Right now he’s hiding.
We’re in the late rounds and your guy’s behind on points. You’re running out of time.”
John McCAIN & Sarah PALIN enter the Town Hall Meeting in Waukesha WI 10/9/08
John McCAIN Sarah PALIN “Angry Man” Waukesha, WI 10/9/08
A McCain cabinet could bear shades of Teddy Roosevelt
“…McCain, the four-term Republican senator from Arizona and presumptive GOP presidential nominee, is promising an administration that reflects “conservative principles, values and vision.” He also says his administration would have a powerful environmental bent, in the Roosevelt tradition. …”
“…For his part, McCain last week said he’d be looking for Cabinet members who “just share my conservative philosophy and views: less government, less regulation, lower taxes.” But he also volunteered that conservationism would be a priority, saying he would hope “to preserve the great natural treasures of the West and our state and do whatever we can to protect our environment.”
“I return to kind of the Teddy Roosevelt outlook toward things,” McCain said.
“McCain has long identified Roosevelt, president from 1901 to 1909, as a political idol. Roosevelt made national parks and nature preserves a priority, and McCain has drawn fire from conservative Republicans for opposing oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and for sponsoring legislation to address climate change.
McCain would tap business titans
McCain has dropped other hints about his Cabinet along the campaign trail.
Over the past year, he often has talked about approaching U.S. business leaders to serve their country by taking on federal-government responsibilities. He specifically has mentioned Fred Smith of FedEx, John Chambers of Cisco Systems, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and billionaire investor Warren Buffett as possible Cabinet members.
Bureaucracies such as the hapless Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose limitations were exposed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, could use a dose of private-sector ingenuity and know-how, McCain has said.
“I would go out to the smartest and best people in America, no matter what their party affiliation,” McCain said last year at a town-hall meeting in Gilford, N.H. “There are some very successful people in this country who have done a great deal and become very rich while doing it. And I’m going to those people — the John Chambers and the Steve Ballmers and the Warren Buffetts and all those people — and say, ‘Look … you’ve done very well in this country. Now give back something to your country.’ ” …”
A Lufkin woman received a surprise visit from the Secret Service last week because of a “death threat” comment she reportedly made about Sen. Barack Obama to a campaign volunteer asking for her support of the presidential candidate.
Two federal agents arrived at Jessica Hughes’ home Thursday to ask her if she said, “I will never support Obama and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor.”
Hughes said her words were deliberately twisted by a volunteer who was apparently unhappy Hughes was rude during a phone conversation the two had. The Lufkin mother, a Republican, said she received a call on her cell phone Wednesday from a woman with the Obama Volunteers of Texarkana. …”
O’Reilly Factor: Laura Ingraham On the Fairness Doctrine
Liberal Fascists Against Free Speech on Talk Radio
LOL
Rush Limbaugh and Free Speech
Sarah Palin is change…
Democratic Party leaders ordered the pulling of the very funny SNL bailout skit after their financial backers complained that the truth really hurts.
SNL complied on orders from the network bosses.
I feel their pain.
I did not get to watch it.
This is just a taste of what is in store should the Democratic Party control the Senate, House and Presidency.
Free speech under radical socialism means do not reveal the truth even in a skit.
The Democratic Party and some Republicans would also like to destroy talk radio.
The recent bailout bill resulted in Congress being bombarded by telephone calls and e-mails opposing the bill by 99 to 1.
This also happened with the comprehensive immigration bill.
Once the American people became aware of what the American elites of both parties were trying to pull they made the call and sent the e-mail.
Should the American elites mess with talk radio and try to destroy it, millions of Americans will march on Washington–it will not be pretty.
What the American elites will not admit is that talk radio each day has an audence of over 100 million listeners.
Most talk show listeners have several favorite talk radio shows that they enjoy listening to both driving to work and when working listening to online over the web.
The bailout bill should have been defeated.
The American people are watching to see who really is bailout.
The American people are also watching the latest FCC end run by the left to use diversity and localism to stop talk radio.
Nice try but we are on to your tactics.
The American elites are playing with fire and they will get burned.
The forbidden skit: Full transcript and screenshots of SNL’s Soros/Sandler bailout satire
By Michelle Malkin
‘NBC is furiously erasing its tracks. Any attempts to upload the forbidden SNL bailout skit skewering George Soros and his left-wing subprime schemer friends Herbert and Marion Sandler will likely be squashed. So, I transcribed the whole comedy sketch for you and provided screenshots for the 7-minute video that has disappeared from NBC and Hulu. (Pat Dollard’s blog has posted the full clip on its server. Thanks to Ms. Underestimated for the .wmv file.)
The hits on the Sandlers ( “People who should be shot”) and Soros ( “Owner, Democratic Party”) occur near the end of the skit. …”
The missing SNL bailout skit — and the Soros connection
By Michelle Malkin
“…Over the weekend, I watched a hilarious, dead-on, and surprisingly honest skit on Saturday Night Live about the craptastic bailout and its Democrat roots. The skit called out Fannie/Freddie and featured Nancy Pelosi dragging out various sob-story “victims” — who turned out to be a parade of deadbeats and schemers. I was going to post the video for you tonight, but I can’t.
The video has been pulled. Vanished into thin air. (Go here for full transcript and screenshots.)
Where did it go and why?
I have a theory.
One of the rapacious couples featured in the skit was Herbert and Marion Sandler (portrayed by Darrell Hammond and Casey Wilson). Unlike the other composite figures, the Sandlers are a real-life couple.
Also lampooned: Left-wing billionaire George Soros.
As Todd Thurman at Heritage notes, the Sandlers are left-wing moguls who built “a mortgage company whose major product was subprime mortgages and they sold it to Wachovia for $24.2 billion in 2006. And what do the Sandlers do when they are not peddling subprime garbage? They are busy writing checks to leftist groups like the Center for American Progress, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Yes that ACORN.”
The Sandlers are seething over the skit. And George Soros must be livid as well. Anyone else smell a legal threat behind the disappearance of the vid?
Why Rush Wins It’s not terribly complicated.By Byron York
“…What motivates him came through in our discussion of his years on the air before the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. When he told of being ordered by station management not to discuss controversial topics — pretty much standard procedure at the time — it was clear how frustrating he found the situation. But his frustration seemed to come not so much from being forbidden to discuss politics on the air as from being forbidden from discussing anything interesting on the air.
“The real practical effect of the Fairness Doctrine was to shut down all controversial programming, because management would not deal with complaints,” Limbaugh told me. “So when you did listen to talk shows on the radio, they were dull and boring and horrible.”
“…The bottom line isn’t really about politics. It’s about radio. If Limbaugh were a liberal, we’d probably be talking about why liberals dominate talk radio. So you can talk about ownership and diversity all you want. But the bottom line is that Limbaugh simply knows radio, and what works on radio, better than anyone else in the world. That’s why he wins.”
Stanley Kurtz’s Fairness Doctrine Preview [Guy Benson]
“…Stanley Kurtz’s appearance on the Milt Rosenberg radio program in Chicago last night provided an unsettling look into the authoritarian tactics being employed by the Obama campaign to stifle and intimidate its critics.
I happened to be in the WGN studios for the entire affair because my friend, Zack Christenson, produces the show in question. He was aware of my previousreporting on the Obama-Ayers connection and kindly invited me to sit in on the two-hour interview.(For full disclosure, I work for two other radio stations in Chicago, WIND, and WYLL).
As I arrived at the downtown Chicago studios a few hours before show time, the phones began ringing off the hook with irate callers demanding Kurtz be axed from the program.It didn’t take long to discover that the Obama campaign—which had declined invitations to join the show for its duration to offer rebuttals to Kurtz’s points—had sent an “Obama Action Wire” e-mail to its supporters, encouraging them to deluge the station with complaints.
Why?Because, naturally, Kurtz is a “right-wing hatchet man,” a “smear merchant” and a “slimy character assassin” who is perpetrating one of the “most cynical and offensive smears ever launched against Barack.”
Evidently, much of Obama nation is composed of obedient and persistent sheep.They jammed all five studio lines for nearly the entire show while firing off dozens of angry emails.Many vowed to kick their grievances up the food chain to station management.After 90 minutes of alleged smear peddling, Milt Rosenberg (a well-respected host whose long-form interview show has aired in Chicago for decades) opened the phone lines, and blind ignorance soon began to crackle across the AM airwaves.The overwhelming message was clear: The interview must be put to an end immediately, and the station management should prevent similar discussions from taking place. …”
“…Team Obama is fast becoming the campaign that cried “smear.”They labeled the National Right to Life committee “liars” for providing evidence of some unpleasant facts about their candidate’s record on a series of infanticide votes.This tendency to lash out and engage in baseless name-calling not only smacks of desperation; it also may foreshadow an Obama presidency’s strategy in handling unfavorable media reports and sources. …”
If anyone still believes reinstating the Fairness Doctrine isn’t a top priority for the American Left, last night’s example offered a stark and alarming wake-up call.Still not convinced?For goodness sake, read Jonah’s book.
“…Let’s stipulate that the report is accurate about the fact that conservatives dominate talk radio. Who among us is shocked by this very old news? What I find simply amazing is that liberals see nothing wrong with using the state to police media content when they don’t like the content.
Does anyone really believe liberals would even entertain this renewed passion for the fairness doctrine if talk radio were overwhelmingly liberal? It just strikes me as so transparently opportunistic and unprincipled. If a conservative were to argue that the state should get involved in making Hollywood, or the biggest newspapers, or the broadcast news networks, or leading museums, publishing houses, or universities less liberal, liberals would justifiably scream bloody murder about censorship and propaganda.
Yes, yes, I know that they are public airwaves, blah blah blah. But every industry relies on some public accommodation of some kind. Museums and universities get major subsidies, tax breaks etc, newspapers are given all sorts of special considerations, from access to government workings and legal leeway in the courts. Indeed, many leading journalists argue for the de facto licensing of elite journalists by making them immune from prosecution under whistleblower and other laws against leaking. And the biggest newspapers are also deeply involved in radio and tv broadcasting. And let’s not even discuss public broadcasting.
“…For those not familiar with the Fairness Doctrine, it was a Federal Communications Commission policy that required radio and TV stations to, in effect, provide equal time on matters of public importance. A station which did not do so ran the risk of losing its broadcast license, something which Rupert Murdoch once famously compared to having a license to print money.
The Fairness Doctrine was originally intended to encourage a public dialogue on controversial issues by ensuring that both sides of a topic were aired. As a former radio and TV journalist, I can assure you that the opposite was true. Station owners were afraid that their licenses would be yanked if there was the slightest possibility that they could be accused of violating the doctrine; it was far safer to simply avoid controversial matters.
That, and its questionable constitutionality, caused the Reagan-era F.C.C. to repeal the Fairness Doctrine. Within months, Rush Limbaugh’s program was nationally syndicated, and radio programming has never been the same. Many industry observers credit Rush with single-handedly saving the AM band, one reason he has achieved cult-like status among broadcasters.
Liberals often seemed perplexed by the success of conservatives in talk radio and the abject failure of liberal talk radio (see Air America, Jim Hightower, Ed Schultz, etc.), another example of how their belief in government regulation blinds them to the way the free market operates. It’s the law of supply and demand. Liberals have long had multiple media outlets to turn to: government-supported PBS and NPR, the broadcast networks, the newsweeklies, the Times and the Post, and the rest of the legacy media. …”
“…The “Hush Rush” crowd’s dream has been to revive the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” which once required any radio station airing a conservative program to provide equal time for the liberal view. The doctrine’s advocates have tried using the democratic process, but to no avail whatsoever: In 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected the latest effort 309 to 115.
Yet regulations proposed on January 28 by the Federal Communications Commission would effectively reinstate the Fairness Doctrine via something called “localism.” This is legislation by stealth — most of the Fairness Doctrine’s opponents might not know about it until it’s too late. All opportunity for public comment on FCC’s proposal ceases on June 11, 2008.
Which isn’t to say it was impossible to see this coming. The Left has long sought new ways of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, and their latest gambit features a sizable dose of political correctness.
In 2007, the Center for American Progress issued a report, “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” that cleverly recasts the Fairness Doctrine as “localism” by stating that “any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism.”
The center’s report also urged quotas by race and sex for radio-station ownership, because a survey of all “10,506 licensed commercial radio stations reveals that stations owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.” …”
“…Radio-station managers know that their job security is endangered by anything that might conceivably cause trouble for the station owners who employ them. Also, those purporting to represent minority interests often take political correctness to new levels. Think of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose touchiness is already legendary — what would such a group do if legally guaranteed influence over radio programming? CAIR has equally touchy affiliates in 19 states.
Should the FCC prevail, radio stations will return to the sort of programming that predominated during the days of the Fairness Doctrine, only filtered by 2008-style political correctness. Instead of full debate on controversial issues such as amnesty for illegal aliens, AM radio will become a herd of independent minds, a vast “Air America” from sea to shining sea in which never a conservative word is heard.
The FCC’s regulations are so far along that the Bush administration’s proposed rule-making moratorium will not stop them.
Congress could pass a resolution of disapproval. Or, President Bush might ask the FCC to find other things to occupy its time. …”
Flash: SNL rewriting bailout skit, “didn’t meet their standards“
By Michelle Malkin
“…Peter Viles at L.A. Land reports that Saturday Night Live is rewriting its forbidden Soros/Sandler-bashing
bailout skit because it “didn’t meet their standards.”
Devastating Video, Obama talks about job Ayers gave him
Amazing Ayers Audio & Barack Obama
Barack Obama’s Friends
Greg Gutfeld Slams Bill Ayers For Defending Underground Bombings The Five 5 6 13
Kurtz With Bill Bennett To Discuss Obama Ties To Bill Ayers
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn interviewed on Democracy Now! (1 of 5)
Larry Elder’s explosive interview with Bill Ayers
Kurtz Reports On Obama’s Ties To Radical Bill Ayers
stanley kurtz
Obama Links To Terrorist Ayers Explored In New Docs
Obama Ayers
Barack Obama: Bill Ayers Book The “Prairie Fire”!
OBAMA CAUGHT SAYING ACORN AND FRIENDS WILL SHAPE HIS PRESIDENTIAL AGENDA
Obama’s Influences – Frank Marshall Davis
obama:Frank m. Davis, Ludacris,pelosi,congress,berlin speech
The Obama Nation” | Dr. Jerome Corsi | Hannity & Colmes, Part 1
“The Obama Nation” | Dr Jerome Corsi | Hannity’s America- Part 2
Barack Obama Saul Alinsky Louis Farrakhan Tony Rezko Bill Ayers Bernardine Dohrn Reverend Jeremiah Wright SDS Weather Underground Malcolm X David Axelrod
SARAH Palin asks BARACK Obama: “WHY are YOU friends with a TERRORIST?” – Associated Press
ObamaNation: History Repeats Itself…
The Obama Deception HQ Full length version
John M. Murtagh
Fire in the Night
The Weathermen tried to kill my family.
“…Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family’s life, there was never any doubt who was behind it. Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse. The same cell had bombed my house, writes Ron Jacobs in The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. And in late November that year, a letter to the Associated Press signed by Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife, promised more bombings.
As the association between Obama and Ayers came to light, it would have helped the senator a little if his friend had at least shown some remorse. But listen to Ayers interviewed in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, of all days: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” Translation: “We meant to kill that judge and his family, not just damage the porch.” When asked by the Times if he would do it all again, Ayers responded: “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”
Though never a supporter of Obama, I admired him for a time for his ability to engage our imaginations, and especially for his ability to inspire the young once again to embrace the political system. Yet his myopia in the last few months has cast a new light on his “politics of change.” Nobody should hold the junior senator from Illinois responsible for his friends’ and supporters’ violent terrorist acts. But it is fair to hold him responsible for a startling lack of judgment in his choice of mentors, associates, and friends, and for showing a callous disregard for the lives they damaged and the hatred they have demonstrated for this country. It is fair, too, to ask what those choices say about Obama’s own beliefs, his philosophy, and the direction he would take our nation.
At the conclusion of his 2001 Times interview, Ayers said of his upbringing and subsequent radicalization: “I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.”
Barack Obama actually does have some executive experience, unfortunatley Obama just does not want to talk or write about it.
Why not talk or write about it in detail?
What is Barack Obama hiding?
Obama was recruited by a friend in 1995, Bill Ayers, to be Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
Who is Bill Ayers?
Ayers is far left radical socialist and terrorist bomber who bombed the Pentagon and Capitol building in the 1970s and is currently a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Where did Barack Obama and Bill Ayers first meet? (see Who “sent” Obama? below by Steve Diamond).
Was it in Chicago or was it earlier in New York City when Obama was attending Columbia University as well as radical socialist meetings there?
Bill Ayers recruited Obama for the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a position Obama held from 1995 to 2000. Bill Ayers also launched Obama’s political career in Chicago by hosting a fund raiser in Ayers home.
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge provided over a $110 million to various organizations with the aim of improving school performance. The money apparently had no impact on improving school performance:
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: Successes, Failures, and Lessons for the Future. Final Technical Report of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project.
“This study examined whether the Chicago Annenberg Challenge promoted improvement in schools it supported and in student achievement and other outcomes; factors that might explain improvement or lack thereof among Annenberg schools; and what could be learned from the Challenge’s experiences. It highlighted the period between 1996-1997 through 2000-2001. Results suggest that among the schools it supported, the Challenge had little impact on school improvement and student outcomes, with no statistically significant differences between Annenberg and non-Annenberg schools in rates of achievement gain, classroom behavior, student self-efficacy, and social competence. The study also examined trends in school improvement among a small group of “Breakthrough Schools,” which received special financial and professional support from the Challenge between 1990-2001, a time during which the Challenge began withdrawing funds from the other Annenberg schools. Overall, Breakthrough schools began to develop in ways that distinguished them from other Annenberg schools and sustained or strengthened aspects of teacher professional community, school leadership, and relational trust while other Annenberg schools did not. Factors distinguishing strong and weak schools included cultivation of strong, distributive leadership and use of an array of complementary, reinforcing strategies. Appendixes contain research methodology and results. (Contains 59 figures, 27 tables, and 131 endnotes.) (SM)
When questioned about his relationship with Bill Ayers, Senator Obama says that Bill Ayers lived in the same neighborhood, Ayers children went to the same school as his children, Ayers was an English professor and they both served on a board.
The impression given is the relationship was one of a casual acquintance. This is both misleading and a lie. Ayers “children” are adults and Ayers was instrumental in Obama obtaining the position of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. They both worked together for a period of six years on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and later on the Woods Fund of Chicago.
Ayers is a professor of education and not English, again an attempt by Obama to mislead, given Ayers radical socialist writing on education.
Barack Obama – Democrat Debate – Bill Ayers – Pennsylvania
Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers was not causal or flimsy–it was of long duration and deep-and both were adults at the time.
Most Americans would not knowingly associate with a radical terrorist bomber.
Most would resign or refuse to serve on any board of an organization that had on its board an unrepentant terrorist bomber.
Yet Senator Obama worked with Bill Ayers for over six years.
This indicates at a minimum poor judgement and more likely it also indicates that Obama and Ayers shared common views on the aims of socialism.
Barack Hussein Obama’s Senior Adviser Robert Gibbs Spins Like a Whirling Dervish on the Ayers Connection
Do you want a President of the United States that associates with radical socialists and terrorist bombers?
Do you want a President who could not pass a routine FBI and Secret Service background check required of those who handle secret government documents and meet with the President of the United States?
Can you trust Barack Obama?
I certainly do not.
Character and integrity matter when you are electing a President of the United States of America.
Would you elect a President that is hiding and lying about his radical socialist, terrorist bomber, marxist minister and criminial connections?
Watch the videos below on Barack Obama & Friends: History of Radicalism.
Only you can prevent socialism in America.
Obama: Radical in Liberal Clothing
By Peter Kirsanow
“…Whenever a proposition polls in the 60% range, it’s considered to be in landslide territory. That doesn’t necessarily mean that someone supporting the minority viewpoint is a nut or an extremist, but at some point it may fairly be said that a person on the short end of several of these propositions is out of the mainstream. Here are just some of the issues in which Obama’s on the fringe of American opinion:*
Obama opposes offshore drilling for oil. Voters support drilling by 67% to 18%. (Rasmussen, June 2008).
Obama supports giving driver licenses to illegal immigrants. Americans oppose this 76% to 23%. (CNN/ Opinion Research, Oct. 2007)
Obama supports affirmative action in public employment, contracting and university admissions. Americans oppose giving an advantage in these areas on the basis of race by a margin of 82% to 14%. (Newsweek, July 2007)
Obama says that he will cut funding for research and development of missile defense systems. 89% of Americans support development of or research for missile defense — 8% don’t. (Program on International Policy Alternatives, March 2004) It’s worth noting that Obama’s closer to a pre-9/11 view of missile defense. An August 2001 Bloomberg News poll showed only 49% favored missile defense at that time whereas 41% opposed it.
Obama voted against a ban on partial birth abortions. Americans support a ban by a margin of 66% to 28%. (CNN/Opinion Research, May 2007)
Despite his equivocal statements regarding the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. gun ban, Obama has never met a gun ban he didn’t like. Although many Americans support certain types of restrictions on guns, they oppose broad bans by a margin of 68% to 30%. In fact, 58% insist no new gun laws should be passed.(Gallup, Oct. 2007)
Obama opposed the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act while in the Illinois state legislature. The measure is designed to prevent abortion providers from withholding medical care and sustenance from infants born after surviving an abortion attempt. There’s no national polling data on this state issue, but when the Senate voted on a analogous piece of legislation — the Born Alive Infant Protection Act — the measure passed unanimously.
Obama voted against a bill that would make English the official language for conducting business with the U.S. government. Americans support making English the official language 85% to 11%, including 79% of Democrats. (Rasmussen, July 2006)
While in the Illinois state legislature, Obama voted against parental notification requirements for abortions for minors. Americans support parental notification laws by a margin of 79% to 17%. Even 64% of those identifying themselves as pro-choice support such laws. (Fox News/Opinion Dynamics, April 2005)
Obama maintains that the Supreme Court’s recent decisions prohibiting the use of race in determining public school assignments are wrong. In contrast, 71% of American agree with the decisions and only 24% disagree. (Quinnipiac, July 2007)
Of course, Obama’s positions on other issues are more mainstream, but over the course of the primary season he made a number of statements that will play poorly in the general election: Obama plans to raise taxes significantly — not just income taxes — but payroll and capital gains taxes as well; he will re-invade Iraq if things fall apart when he withdraws the troops; he promises unconditional talks with leaders of countries that are state sponsors of terror; Obama vows to slow the development of future weapons systems, without any indication that this would be contingent upon other nations slowing the development of their systems as well; he will appoint federal judges in the mold of Justice Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and; he supports giving foreign terrorists habeas rights. …”
09/02/08 RNC Fred Thompson Speech: IYC America’s Next President
Background Articles and Videos
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 2
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 3
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 4
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 5
Barack Obama & Friends Sean Hannity Special Part 6
Obama’s Three Strikes
By J.R. Dunn
“…A terrorist bomber, what may be the largest vote-fraud operation in history, and a political party calling for a socialist revolution in the United States. Obama has certainly been a busy little bee — though not too busy, it seems, to cover his tracks in all three cases. As well he might — anybody with such a history has a few questions to answer. And Obama knows this full well, considering the effort he’s put into ducking those exact questions since his campaign began.
But those questions must be asked and answered before November 4th. Which, needless to say, is a job for Superwoman. Sarah Palin’s relentless hammering brought the Ayers story back to the surface. She must now tie the three strands together: Ayers, ACORN, the New Party, and pound at it until it can no longer be ignored. (Of course, this will be an extremely upsetting experience for Kathleen Parker and David Brooks, but that can’t be helped.)
If the three can be bundled, and the resulting package adequately presented to the American people, Barack Obama is through. American voters have made it clear time and again that they have no use for the political extremes of either left or right. Obama plainly suffers, at best, from a weakness for crackpot left-wing politics, and at worst from a yearning to create a revolutionary situation in American society. The first reveals an immature personality, one easily led and given to romantic concepts of how the world works. The second is evidence of serious maliciousness.
BREAKING NEWS: When Did Barack Obama Stop Believing in Socialism?
“…Our own intrepid Matthew is going to break a huge story within an hour (at least that is the plan as I type). He has discovered documents that clearly demonstrate Barack Obama received the endorsement of a socialist group that required candidates to seeking their endorsement to sign a contract that mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with that socialist party.
This VIDEO below explains why Barack’s campaign cannot give a straight answer about when he decided that Bill Ayers had been a terrorist: …”
Barack Obama and the Democratic Socialists of America
“…The USA’s largest Marxist organisation, Democratic Socialists of America has consistently supported Barack Obama-particularly through its influential Chicago branch.
But as Ronald Reagan famously said of the Ku Klux Klan “just because they support me, that doesn’t mean I support them.”
While Obama has mixed with DSA members for many years, socially and politically, he has only occasionally been publicly identified with DSA sponsored events.
Obama makes an apparent, if obscure reference to DSA in his 1995 autobiography “Dreams From My Father“.
Discussing his time studying political science at New York’s Columbia University, in the early 80s, Obama reveals that he“went to socialist conferences at Cooper Union and African cultural fairs in Brooklyne.”
“Cooper Union” is the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a privately funded college in Downtown Manhattan.
For many years, from the early ’80s until 2004, Cooper Union was the usual venue of the annual Socialist Scholars Conference-almost certainly what Obama was referring to.
SSC was for many years the largest socialist gathering in the USA, attracting up to 2,000 participants. …”
“…Just before Christmas, US congresswoman Barbara Lee, became the first California Democrat to endorse Barack Obama. I
I have posted before that Obama has been supported by three of the US’s main Marxist organisations-the Commununist Party USA, the Democratic Socialists of America and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.
As Barbara Lee has been closely associated with all three, her ringing endorsement of Obama comes as no surprise.
Barbara Lee inherited her Congressional seat on the retirement of her former boss Congressman Ron Dellums.
Dellums, now mayor of Oakland California (and a Hillary Clinton supporter) has been a long time associate of the Communist Party USA.
Both Dellums and Lee were encouraged to enter politics by longtime Berkeley Councilwoman and CPUSA supporter, Maudelle Shirek.
Lee and Dellums are regarded as two of the most socialist Congressmen in recent history.
Dellums was until recently vice-chair of Democratic Socialists of America. …”
“…In a recent interview on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” Obama upgraded Ayers’ status from “a guy who lives in my neighborhood” to “somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know.”
Actually, Obama knew him quite well, having worked together on a school “reform” project called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
In the 1990s, Ayers was instrumental in starting the Annenberg Challenge, securing a $50 million grant to reform the Chicago Public Schools, part of a national initiative funded by the late Ambassador Walter Annenberg.
Obama was given the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office. He ran the fiscal arm that distributed grants to schools and raised matching funds.
Ayers participated in a second entity known as the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, the operational arm that worked with grant recipients.
During Obama’s tenure as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’ own education projects received substantial funding.
One of Ayers’ descriptions for a course called “Improving Learning Environments” says a prospective K-12 teacher needs to “be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation.”
John McCain needs to repeatedly point out the stealth socialism of Ayers’ education agenda and Obama’s complicity in it. Otherwise, we may one day see Ayers as Obama’s secretary of education.”
Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
By James Simpson
“…Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama’s connections to his radical mentors — Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama’s radical connections since the beginning.
Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama’s life comprise a who’s who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.
But even this doesn’t fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s. …”
“…First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called “crisis strategy” or “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one. …”
The campaign speaks to “Radicalism.”By Stanley Kurtz“…The fact that Ayers and other tenured radicals hold power at our universities is in no way negated by the presence of Republican appointees on university boards of trustees. Ayers’s radicalism is undeniable. He remains unapologetic for his bombings of the 1960s. Even now, he refuses to rule out violence as a resort. His education writings are deeply politicized and filled with exhortations to “resist” America’s racist and oppressive social system. In 2006 — along with his wife and fellow former-terrorist, Bernardine Dohrn, and Jeff Jones — Ayers released, Sing A Battle Song, a collection of intensely radical writings from the Weather Underground. Ayers makes it clear in that book that, while he is embarrassed by some of the Weather Underground’s rhetoric, he still adheres to the same ideas. Beyond its strictly historical interest, Ayers and his co-editors make a point of hoping that their old writings would be “of use to new generations of militant activists and organizers.” By directing CAC funds to groups like ACORN and the Developing Communities Project of the Gamaliel Foundation, Ayers was supporting just such militant activists and organizers. …”
“…The Chicago Annenberg Challenge stands as Barack Obama’s most important executive experience to date. By its own account, CAC was a largely a failure. And a series of critical evaluations point to reasons for that failure, including a poor strategy, to which the foundation over-committed in 1995, and over-reliance on community organizers with insufficient education expertise. The failure of CAC thus raises entirely legitimate questions, both about Obama’s competence, his alliances with radical community organizers, and about Ayers’s continuing influence over CAC and its board, headed by Obama. Above all, by continuing to fund Ayers’s personal projects, and those of his political-educational allies, Obama was lending moral and material support to Ayers’s profoundly radical efforts. Ayers’s terrorist history aside, that makes the Ayers-Obama relationship a perfectly legitimate issue in this campaign. …”
“… So it is reasonable to ask, who “sent” Barack Obama? In other words, how can his meteoric rise to political prominence be explained? And, of course, in an answer to that question might lie a better understanding of his essential world view. When I started looking at this question a few weeks ago I quickly grew more concerned about the kinds of people that seem to have been very important in Obama’s ascendancy in Chicago area politics. It is the connection of some of these people to authoritarian politics that has me particularly concerned. And a key concern of this blog has been the rise of authoritarian tendencies in the global labor movement.
The people linked to Senator Obama grew to political maturity in the extreme wings of the late 60s student and antiwar movements. They adopted some of the worst forms of sectarian and authoritarian politics. They helped undermine the emergence of a healthy relationship between students and others in American society who were becoming interested in alternative views of social, political and economic organization. In fact, at the time, some far more constructive activists had a hard time comprehending groups like the Weather Underground. Their tactics were so damaging that some on the left thought that government or right wing elements helped create them. There is some evidence, in fact, that that was true (for example, the Cointelpro effort of the federal government.)
Today, however, many of these individuals continue to hold political views that hardened in that period. Many of them have joined up with other wings of the late 60s and 70s movements, in particular the pro-China maoists elements of that era and are now playing a role in the labor movement and elsewhere. And yet this question of Obama’s links to people from this milieu has not been thoroughly explored by any of the many thousands of journalists, bloggers and political operatives looking so closely at Obama. …”
“…Ayers, of course, had long held what the left once knew, broadly, as “maoist” politics – a view of the world that was opposed to Russian style bureaucratic communism from above, instead advocates of this approach supported sending revolutionary cadre to “swim among the masses like fish in the sea” or attempting to establish guerilla foco as romantically theorized by Regis Debray and carried out with disastrous results by Che Guevara. …”
“…Thus, we have one possible answer to the question: Who “sent” Obama? It was the Ayers family, including Tom, John, Bill and Bernardine Dohrn.
It is highly unlikely that a 30-something second year lawyer would have been plucked from relative obscurity out of a left wing law firm to head up something as visible and important in Chicago as the Annenberg Challenge by Bill Ayers if Ayers had not already known Obama very well. One possibility is that Obama proved himself to the Ayers’s in the battle for local school control when he was at the DCP in the 80s.
One guess as to why Obama does not play up his educational experience more thoroughly now – it certainly could be of use to him one would think in beefing up his “I have the experience to be President” argument – is that it would lead to a renewed discussion of the Ayers connection, which is clearly toxic for Obama. And it turns out the impact of the Annenberg Challenge on actual students in Chicago schools is considered mixed at best, although Bill Ayers deemed it a success on political grounds. Indeed the 1995 and 1999 legislative attempts to recentralize power over the schools in the hands of the mayor did not quite succeed in wresting control completely away from the LSC’s, instead it helped, in the words of Alexander Russo, “keep the flame alive for decentralized, community-based school reform – even as the system was moving in a very different direction.”
This likely explains why Obama tried a kind of head fake when asked about Ayers by George Stephanopoulos in the TV debate with Clinton prior to the Pennsylvania primary. Obama said Ayers was a “professor of english.” Yet, Obama chaired the Annenberg Challenge for three years and served on its board for another three years, working closely with Ayers on grants to Chicago schools. And he did not know that Ayers was a professor of education? That strains credulity. …”
That “Guy Who Lives in My Neighborhood”: Behind the Ayers-Obama Relationship
By Steve Diamond
“…It so happens that on a crucial political issue – education policy – I think there is a potential problem with the views of Bill Ayers and others in the Obama camp and potentially with the views of the candidate himself. Thus, I think it is important to pay careful attention to those views. …”
“…The Challenge allowed Barack Obama and Bill Ayers to work together, no doubt closely, in the heat of political battle to help disburse more than $100 million to allies, particularly in the LSCs, in the Chicago School system. Under the circumstances, it seems more than a bit disingenuous of Senator Obama to dismiss Bill Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.” …”
“…William Charles “Bill” Ayers (born 1944) is an American elementary education theorist, and former leading 1960s militant. He is most well known for his radical activism in the 1960s and 1970s, his current work in education reform, curriculum and instruction. In 1969 he cofounded the violent radical left organization Weatherman, which was active during the 1960s and 1970s. He is now a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, holding the honor of Distinguished Professor. …”
“…Ayers’ ideology
In an interview published in 1995, Ayers characterized his political beliefs at that time and in the 1960s and 1970s: “I am a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist … [Laughs] Maybe I’m the last communist who is willing to admit it. [Laughs] We have always been small ‘c’ communists in the sense that we were never in the [Communist] party and never Stalinists. The ethics of Communism still appeal to me. I don’t like Lenin as much as the early Marx. I also like Henry David Thoreau, Mother Jones and Jane Addams […]”[25]
In 1970 Ayers was called “a national leader”[26] of the Weatherman organization and “one of the chief theoreticians of the Weathermen”.[27] The Weathermen were initially part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) within the SDS, splitting from the RYM’s Maoists by claiming there was no time to build a vanguard party and that revolutionary war against the United States government and the capitalist system should begin immediately. Their founding document called for the establishment of a “white fighting force” to be allied with the “Black Liberation Movement” and other “anti-colonial” movements[28] to achieve “the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.”[29] In June 1974, the Weather Underground released a 151-page volume titled Prairie Fire, which stated: “We are a guerrilla organization […] We are communist women and men underground in the United States […]”[30] …”
“Thomas G. Ayers – (1915-June 8, 2007) was a powerful corporate executive and head of Commonwealth Edison from 1973 to 1980. He is most notable for his alliance with Mayor Richard J. Daley and his role in brokering a deal between the mayor and Rev. Martin Luther King. Another project was his open housing campaign. He became better known nationally through the crimes of his radical son William C. Ayers and for managing his rehabilitation after release from prison. He has been described as the kingmaker of Chicago and Illinois politics.
Ayers also served as Chairman of the Chicago Symphony, was a Trustee of Northwestern University, as well as serving on the boards of G.D. Searle, Chicago Pacific Corp., Zenith Corp., Northwest Industries, First National Bank of Chicago and Tribune Co. He headed Chicago United, a business sector non-profit. …”
“The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) (also referred to as the Annenberg Challenge to Chicago) was a public-private partnership founded in 1995 to improve school performance by what it called “on the ground” investments in the form of professional development and technical assistance. Sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation, the CAC received a charter grant of $49.2 million in 1995.[1] The CAC was formally dissolved in January, 2002. It handed over its remaining assets to its successor, the Chicago Public Education Fund, on whose board sit Susan Crown and Penny Pritzker. The CAC donated its records to the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago to be made available for public research.
The CAC’s successful grant application was written in 1993 by William Ayers, professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.[2][3] After extensive community-based discussions also involving Anne Hallett of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, and Warren Chapman of the Joyce Foundation.
At its founding, the Annenberg Challenge was made up of three constituent parts:
The Chicago School Reform Collaborative, co-chaired by William C. Ayers;
a Board of Directors initially recruited by the Collaborative, which was chaired from 1995 to 2000 by Barack Obama[4], at the time a practicing attorney.
The Chicago Schools Research Consortium, a research arm of the Challenge.
The Collaborative was the operative on the ground body of the Challenge. It was made up of representatives of various constituencies in the Chicago school reform movement. That reform movement had begun in 1987 in the wake of an unpopular strike by Chicago teachers. Bill Ayers was active in that reform effort through a group called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. ABCs was an alliance of various activists and reform groups that included the Developing Communities Project which Barack Obama headed up at the time as well as Chicago United, a business sector group, that was headed up by Thomas Ayers, father of Bill Ayers.
A key accomplishment of the reform movement was the passage in 1988 of a new state law that established local school councils in every school in Chicago as a competing center of power relative to the teachers union and the Chicago school administration.
The Collaborative’s responsibility was to help identify potential grant recipients, prepare requests for proposals and develop other means for the Challenge to intervene in supporting the local school council-led reform process in Chicago. In 1995 the mayor of Chicago succeeded in the first of several efforts to undermine the power of these councils. But the Challenge fought back by funneling millions of dollars into the councils and associated reform groups, including $175,000 to the Small Schools Workshop. The Workshop had been established in the early 1990s by William Ayers who hired Mike Klonsky, a Chicago cab driver who had earned a Ph.D. in education from the University of South Florida, and former activist with Ayers in Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS. Klonsky had achieved limited notoriety in 1977 when he traveled to Beijing to seek the endorsement of Communist China for a political party he had helped establish in the United States, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist).
At times the attempt by the Challenge was controversial. An effort to funnel $2 million to the Local Schools Councils was criticized by one Challenge board member, Arnold Weber, a business sector representative and former President of Northwestern University, who saw the Councils as a potential “political threat” to school principals. Of course, the councils were formed precisely to provide parent and political activists with the power to influence schools.
The Board would engage in fundraising and approval of grants. The Board also hired a Executive Director, Ken Rolling, from Woods Fund of Chicago.
The Research Consortium was responsible for assessing the impact of the expenditure of the Challenge’s grant money. Ironically, they concluded that the $110 million spent in Chicago over six years had little or no impact on outcomes for students.
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge received a grant of $49.2 million from the national Annenberg Challenge based at Brown University. The grant was to be matched 2:1 by private donors. By 1999 the Chicago Challenge succeeded in raising an additional $60 million.
Other CAC board members were prominent Chicagoans from both the private and non profit sectors. …”
“…The Woods Fund of Chicago is an outgrowth of the Woods Charitable Fund (WCF), which was established in 1941 by Frank Woods and his wife, Nelle Cochrane Woods. Frank Woods was an attorney and a nationally prominent telephone company executive. He and his wife incorporated WCF with their three sons, two of whom remained in Lincoln, and one of whom (Frank Woods, Jr.) worked in Chicago after finishing college and eventually became the head of the Sahara Coal Company.
Frank Woods headed WCF in the 1950s, during which time he gave money to groups advocating equal rights for minorities. He was also instrumental in developing the Council on Foundations. His grandson Thomas C. Woods, Jr. was President of WCF from 1968 until 1990, at which point Lucia Woods Lindley (Frank Woods, Jr.’s daughter) took over that position. In the early 1990s, George Kelm became WCF President and, with the assistance of Staff Director Jean Rudd, moved the Fund politically to the left. Kelm and Rudd then created a separate entity, which they named the Woods Fund of Chicago; Kelm, who was active in the Council on Foundations, became the Woods Fund’s first President.
This new Fund focused on welfare reform, affordable housing, the quality of public schools, race and class disparities in the juvenile justice system, and tax policy as a tool in reducing poverty. The Fund supported the concept of an expanding welfare state allocating ever-increasing amounts of money to the public school system, and the redistribution of wealth via taxes. …”
“…A notable Woods board member is William Ayers, who in the 1960s was a member of the terrorist group Weatherman, and was a wanted fugitive for over a decade as a result of the group’s bombing campaign; today Ayers is a Professor of Education at the University of Illinois. In 2002 the Woods Fund made a grant to Northwestern University Law School’s Children and Family Justice Center, where Ayers’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn, was employed. Barack Obama was one of Ayers’ fellow Woods Fund board members at that time. …”
“Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.
The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama’s first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers’s home. …”
“…One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama’s “recruitment” to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval.
The CAC’s agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers’s educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland’s ghetto.
In works like “City Kids, City Teachers” and “Teaching the Personal and the Political,” Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? “I’m a radical, Leftist, small ‘c’ communist,” Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk’s, “Sixties Radicals,” at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC. …”
Obama’s Spectacular Failure as an Executive: Documented
“…Background: Barack Obama was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation designed to increase learning and personal achievement skills in chosen school programs. Weatherman terrorist, William Ayers, is thought to have had a major role in choosing the untried Obama for the COB position. Ayers was an ex-officio board member. Obama and Ayers presided over a very powerful political duo: the CAC headed by Obama and The Collaborative, co-chaired by Ayers. The Annenberg Foundation donated approximately $50 million and another $50-$60 million came from matching funds. Obama-Ayers spent all the funding before the Challenge was shut-down or morphed into another Foundation, without Obama. Here’s the documented failed results of about $110 million …”
Obama/Ayers/Annenberg Update: The NY Times finally mentions the A-word
“…The Times avoids discussing just exactly what might have brought Ayers and Obama together in the Challenge, which I believe was, in part, their shared history together in school reform going back to 1987-1988 when Ayers was an activist in the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools and Obama’s Developing Communities Project was a member of that Alliance. …”
“…Now we are beginning to understand why Ayers wanted Obama on that board: he would be a reliable political ally in what was becoming a new battleground in the ongoing Chicago “school wars” as they were called at the time.
In fact, as soon as the ink was dry on the $49.2 million check from Walter Annenberg, Obama and Ayers and Rolling were comrades in arms against Mayor Daley, whom CAC Executive Director Rolling explained later tried repeatedly to wrest away the Annenberg grant from the hands of those running the CAC.
(By the way, how about that Ken Rolling – he was at the Woods Fund that helped finance Obama’s position at the DCP in the mid-80s and later funneled the DCP money in the 87-88 school wars, then was recruited by Ayers and Obama to join them running the CAC and most recently has been in the lead trying to prevent public access to CAC records held at the University of Illinois. None of this is yet on the record, though, at the Times. …”
Whither the Teachers’ Unions? The Obama/Ayers Link
“…Given the long and close ties between Ayers and Obama and the professional ties among education debt repayment advocates Ayers, Darling-Hammond and Ladson-Billings, it is reasonable to ask if this kind of race-based approach to educational problems is going to be part of the Obama presidency.
Obama was not as you contend an elected official when he first worked on school reform with Ayers in the late 80s, nor was he even yet a candidate when he became Chairman of the board of the Annenberg Challenge in 1995. He was a relative unknown and quite a junior person at that point, just two years out of law school when Ayers submitted the grant proposal, with only a voter registration drive to his credit since leaving Harvard.
Thus, I think it is a fair question to ask why Obama would have been chosen to head up such a prestigious effort as the $110 million Annenberg Challenge. I think Ayers backed him because he knew he could rely on Obama to support Ayers’ agenda of propping up the troubling and troubled local schools councils. …”
Andy Martin catalogues some unanswered questions about Barack Obama and William Ayers
Did Barack Obama meet William Ayers at Columbia University?
“…Obama has also refused to release his Columbia University transcripts. What secrets lurk there? Likewise for Occidental College where he attended for two years. What is he trying to hide? I arrived in the Columbia area to study theology at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine shortly after Obama had left, so I know the neighborhood well. I have gone back to retrace were he might have been. No luck. No footprints, either.
What has Obama’s past behavior over the past four years taught me? When Obama is hiding something he is hiding something.
Is it just a coincidence that Obama and Ayers were on the Columbia campus together? Did they meet and make their initial contact at that time? Had Obama been turned on to Ayers by Frank Marshall Davis? Was there a Khalid Al-Mansour and William Ayers connection during this early period. Questions, questions. But no answers from Mr. Obama.
Did Ayers point Obama in the direction of Chicago as a place to hone Obama’s “organizing” skills? …”
“…THE AYERS/OBAMA TIMELINE: (Version 2.0; a work in progress; dates are approximate)
1981-1983 [William Ayers and Barack Obama meet at Columbia?]
1987 William Ayers links up with Barack Obama in Chicago
1988 Ayers solicits Khalid Al-Mansour to raise money for Obama’s Harvard law School education
1989 Tom Ayers and William Ayers get Obama a summer job at Sidley & Austin (where he meets Michelle Obama); Ayers’ wife Bernadine Dohrn also worked at Sidley at about the same time as Barack and Michelle.
1993 Ayers places Obama on Woods Foundation
1995 Ayers makes Obama Chairman of Annenberg Challenge
1995 Ayers hosts a coffee klatch for Obama’s political debut (Obama falsely claims this is when he met Ayers)
2007-2008 The structure of Obama’s presidential campaign increasingly comes to resemble an Ayers-designed national “community organizer matrix” straight out of Maoist theory. This is not merely a presidential “campaign.” Obama’s organization is the first installment of an ongoing movement being paid for with tax-exempt contributions to his campaign, approaching half a billion dollars.
2008 Obama In response to ABC News, Obama tells a national TV audience he was “six years old” when Ayers bombed federal buildings, and they are only casual neighborhood acquaintances. A lie. …”
This was written by Glenn Chappell and the TalkStraight.org Staff contributing
“…On February 16, 1970, Bill Ayers was directly involved in the detonation of a bomb that killed one San Francisco police officer and critically wounded another. According to an FBI informant within the Weather Underground organization, Ayers knew the precise location and contents of the fatal bomb, which was constructed of staples and lead bullets as shrapnel. According to the secret agent, Ayers’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn, actually constructed and detonated the bomb. The agent testified that Ayers’ was either present at the bombing or had at least helped in the planning of the attack, due to his extensive knowledge and familiarity with the specifics of the plot. [5] In fact, David Freddoso argued this year that Ayers only escaped prosecution as a result of FBI management of the case. [6]
Ayers did not end his Weather Underground career with his involvement in this horrific murder. As a member of the organization’s Central Committee, Ayers helped oversee a bombing in New York City at the home of a state Supreme Court Justice. This bombing was launched in response to the judge’s presiding over the trial of several Black Panther members accused of planning multiple bombings of New York City public landmarks. At the site of the bomb, Weathermen painted an ominous phrase on the judge’s home: “FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS.” Ayers also helped in planning several other bombings in New York, including an attack on a military recruiting facility and two police cars. [7] …”
“…In summary, Bill Ayers’ life has been a narrative of violent, radical, extremist, socialist activism.
Ayers and Obama
After learning of Bill Ayers’ radical history, one might question Ayers’ relevance to the 2008 presidential campaign.
The answer is frightening.
Ayers has deep-seated and longstanding ties to the political and career aspirations of Barack Obama. While the mainstream media have refused to cover this major influence upon Obama’s politics, the facts are undeniable. Hugh Hewitt, a long time journalist and blogger, summed up this unsettling connection of Obama’s quite succintly:
”It is incredible that MSM has not covered or investigated this story or the related stories of Obama’s deep and long associations with Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright. Never has so little been written about so large a series of stories about a modern presidential candidate.” [14]
No one knows exactly when or how Obama met Ayers. However, records show that Ayers had a prominent role in Obama’s political career from the beginning. He was most likely introduced to Ayers and Dohrn during the early days of his 1995 campaign for Illinois state Senate. Alice Palmer, the incumbent senator, had announced that she would not be seeking re-election to her seat, and endorsed Obama as her successor. It was shortly thereafter that Obama’s carefully concealed relationship with Ayers began.
In late 1995, Palmer introduced Obama to her most liberal supporters during a fundraiser at the home of Ayers and Dohrn. It is clear from eyewitness testimony that the former Weathermen were already enthusiastic about this new face in the Chicago political scene. Maria Warren, a fellow Chicago liberal, was among those attending this meeting and summed it up in 2005:
“When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the living room of those two legends-in-their-own-minds, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. They were launching him — introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread.”[11] …”
Another Weatherman terrorist a player in Obama campaign
Communists, socialists, anarchists also part of political organization
“…One of the main founders of the Weathermen terrorist organization is a signatory to an independent organization acting to ensure the election of Sen. Barack Obama, WND has learned.
The group in question, Progressives for Obama, also includes among its ranks many former members of the 1960s radical organization Students for a Democratic Society, from which the Weathermen splintered, as well as current and former members of other radical organizations, such as the Communist Party USA and the Black Radical Congress.
In its creed, first published in March in the Nation magazine, the Progressives for Obama founders state their organization descended from the “proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country.” …”
“…Among the signatories and endorsers to Progressives for Obama is Mark Rudd, one of the main founders of the Weathermen terrorist organization. Rudd worked closely for years with Weathermen terrorist William Ayers, whose association with Obama has generated controversy for the presidential candidate.
Rudd originally was a top member of the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, leading the famed 1968 Columbia University strikes in which hundreds of students seized several university buildings. He also served as spokesman for the strikes, attracting international media attention.
In 1968, Rudd traveled with the SDS to Cuba, defying U.S. travel bans, where he says he was heavily influenced by the legacy of Che Guevara and by Cuban-style revolution. When he returned to the U.S., Rudd advocated for Columbia’s chapter of the SDS to carry out militant, aggressive action, but he was turned down. …”
“…Obama waited five years to apply to Harvard. As WorldNetDaily reports, from 1985 to 1988, he worked for a subsidiary of the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, founded on the principles of Saul “The Red” Alinsky. He worked as a consultant and trainer. On the board of Gamaliel sat Northwestern University professor John L. McKnight, a student of Alinsky’s radical tactics. While at Gamaliel, McKnight became Obama’s mentor in community organizing.
As we have noted, when Obama worked for Gamaliel, he was paid by the Woods Foundation, which supported the radical group. Obama would later serve on the Woods Foundation board with terrorist and socialism advocate William Ayers. McKnight schooled young Obama in the gospel according to Alinsky. He apparently saw much promise in the budding politician, a way to advance Alinsky’s radical socialist agenda into the highest levels in government.
Obama had been ready to be radicalized. A revealing profile in 1995 in the Chicago Reader, a far-left free weekly, tells of how the young Obama had fully rejected “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation.” According to the profile, Obama said he was “tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up — at the speaker’s rostrum and from the pulpit — and then allowed to dissipate because there’s no agenda, no concrete program for change.” …”
Barack Hussein Obama-A Product of Radical Socialist Idealism?
“…William Ayers and wife Bernardine Dohrn, both neo-communists, and once again America haters. This lawless duo were members of the Weather Underground, or, Weathermen, group that had a real beef with the US. After a visit to Cuba in 1969, to meet with Representatives of North Vietnam and Cuba, Dohrn was a changed person, for the worse that is. She and Ayers went on with other characters to build and detonate bombs.
These two were having a grand old time blowing up stuff, including people, until three of their own blew themselves up while making a bomb. Obama claims once again that he and Ayers were just neighbors and that,
He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense…”
Well then, Obama is saying that he exchanges ideas with Ayers. What kind of ideas? This defense does not stand up to scrutiny in my opinion. …”
“…My syndicated column today spotlights the whistleblower report on ACORN, which I’ve been blogging about (here) and which deserves more attention in the media and in Washington–especially in light of the radical activist group’s embrace of Barack Obama. The Consumer Rights League e-mailed to let me know that three GOP congressmen (Hensarling, Feeney, and Royce) have called on Barney Frank (D-Housing Boondoggle) to investigate ACORN’s taxpayer abuses. Snowball’s chance, I know, but conservatives ought to be turning up the heat and using every ounce of energy they have to, well, act like conservatives and push to de-fund the Left.
For excellent background on Obama and ACORN, see Stanley Kurtz’s NR piece here, plus City Journal pieces here and here. Also here and here. …”
“…Maki did his homework, which is more than most of our own media have done, and he obtained Davis’s books. It is absolutely clear, Maki stated, that Davis was a communist.
In his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, Obama cites “Frank” as someone who gave him advice on various matters, including race, American values, and college, and read poems to him during his high-school years in Hawaii. One of Davis’s poems was a tribute to the Soviet Red Army. Another mocked the work of Christian missionaries.
New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon was the first to alert people to the fact that “Frank” was identified as Frank Marshall Davis, a controversial black writer and poet, by Gerald Horne, a writer for a CPUSA publication. Davis’s influence over Obama could help explain why the candidate associated with communists, socialists and anti-American figures through college and his political life in Chicago.
Maki says his intention is to use Davis’s writings “to advance the unity of working people to be a voice to be reckoned with by the Obama Administration, which to me, at this point, looks like will be an overwhelming landslide victory over the Republicans.” …”
“…Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Which brings us back to square one: When will the media ask Obama about the Obama/Davis relationship? And why did he conceal the complete identity of “Frank” in his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father?
I think we are beginning to understand the reasons for this cover-up. Not only would the identification of “Frank” as Frank Marshall Davis expose communist influence on a young Obama, it might also expose those who collaborated with him and tried to whitewash his communist activities.
Davis, it should be noted, was just one member of a communist network which also included secret CPUSA members Paul Robeson and labor leader Harry Bridges, who was so deep in CPUSA activities that Moscow accepted and designated him as a member of the CPUSA Central Committee. Davis was friends with both of them.
If the son of Frank Marshall Davis is really out there, it would be advisable for him to come completely clean and set the record straight. Better yet, as Maki says in one of the exchanges, “I would suggest that you take up your concerns with Barack Obama, who first brought Frank Marshall Davis to our attention.” …”
Obama’s Radical Friends: Communists, Marxists, Corrupt Politicians, Racist Mentors and More
“…Frank Marshall Davis – black poet and writer (he wrote for the Honolulu Record, a Communist newspaper), and a known member of the Soviet-controlled Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
“Sneaked” into local NAACP meetings to “propagandize” the organization’s members about America’s “racial problems,” with “the avowed intent and purpose of converting it into a front for the Stalinist line.”
Obama’s mentor and advisor, as admitted to in his book “Dreams From My Father”. …”
“…Bill Ayers – leader of the homegrown terrorist group Weatherman, a Communist-driven splinter faction of Students for a Democratic Society; unrepentent domestic terrorist.
In the mid-1990s, Ayers and Dohrn hosted meetings at their Chicago home to introduce Barack Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. Ayers also contributed money to Obama’s 1996 Senate campaign.
In his 2001 screed, Fugitive Days, Ayers boasts that he “participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972.” All told, Ayers and Weatherman were responsible for some 30 bombings aimed at destroying the defense and security infrastructures of the United States. “I don’t regret setting bombs, said Ayers in 2001, “I feel we didn’t do enough.” In Fugitive Days, Ayers reflects on whether or not he might use bombs against the U.S. in the future. “I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility,” he writes.
“…Bernardine Dohrn – Bernardine Dohrn and her husband Bill Ayers were leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society’s “Weatherman” faction, which in 1969 went underground to become America’s first terrorist cult.
At a 1969 “War Council” in Flint, Michigan, Dohrn gave her most memorable and notorious speech to her followers. Holding her fingers in what became the Weatherman “fork salute,” she said of the bloody murders recently committed by the Manson Family in which the pregnant actress Sharon Tate and several other inhabitants of a Benedict Canyon mansion had been brutally stabbed to death: “Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!”
In the mid-1990s Dohrn and her husband, Bill Ayers, hosted meetings at their Chicago home to introduce Barack Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. …”
“…Rev. Jeremiah Wright – was the pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) from March 1972 until February 2008. For the last twenty of those years, he was the pastor and spiritual mentor of TUCC’s most famous congregant, Barack Obama. Obama and his wife selected Rev. Wright to perform their 1992 wedding ceremony and, later, to baptize their two daughters. Obama sought Wright’s counsel before formally declaring his candidacy for U.S. President in 2007. On December 4, 2007, Wright was named as a member of the Obama campaign’s African American Religious Leadership Committee. Other notable members of the Committee included Rev. Joseph E. Lowery and Rev. Otis Moss III. Wright would step down from this Committee in March 2008, after videotapes of his controversial sermons had repeatedly ignited fierce public debate and criticism.
Wright embraces the tenets of black liberation theology, which seeks to foment Marxist revolutionary fervor founded on racial rather than class solidarity. Wright is also a strong supporter of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. …”
“…Rev. Michael Pfleger – Michael Louis Pfleger is a Roman Catholic priest who has been the pastor of Saint Sabina Catholic Church in Chicago since 1981. Pfleger is white, and his congregation is composed mostly of African Americans. Pfleger views America as a nation infested with “classism and racism,” and he identifies white racism as “the number one sin in this country.”
On May 25, 2008, Pfleger gave a sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ, then the church of Presidential candidate Barack Obama, where he mocked Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama’s opponent for the Democratic Party nomination. Pfleger said, “I really believe that she just always thought, ‘This is mine. I’m Bill’s wife. I’m white, and this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate.’ Then out of nowhere came, ‘Hey, I’m Barack Obama,’ and she said, ‘Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I’m white! I’m entitled! There’s a black man stealing my show!’” He then pretended to wipe tears from his face, a reference to Senator Clinton’s emotional speech before the New Hampshire primary, and added, “She wasn’t the only one crying. There was a whole lot of white people crying.”
“…Rashid Khalidi – Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He once served as Director of the Palestinian press agency, Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija. In the 1980s he so strongly identified with the aims of the Palestine Liberation Organization, designated a terrorist organization by the State Department during Khalidi’s affiliation with the Yasser Arafat-run political entity, that he repeatedly referred to himself as “we” when expounding on the PLO’s agenda.
Khalidi hosted a fundraiser for Obama’s first (unsuccessful) Congressional campaign in 2000. Obama attended a farewell party in Khalidi’s honor when the latter was leaving the University of Chicago (to embark on his new position at Columbia) in 2003. In Chicago in 1995, Mr. Khalidi and his wife Mona founded the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a group associated with confrontational statements of support for Palestinians and antagonism toward Israel. In 2001 and again in 2002, the Woods Fund of Chicago, with directors [Bill] Ayers and Obama, made grants of $40,000 and $35,000 to the AAAN.
“…George Soros – One of the most powerful men on earth, New York hedge fund manager George Soros has amassed a personal fortune estimated at about $7.2 billion. His management company controls billions more in investor assets. Since 1979, Soros’ foundation network — whose flagship is the Open Society Institute (OSI) — has dispensed more than $5 billion to a multitude of organizations whose objectives are consistent with those of Soros. OSI alone donates scores of millions of dollars annually to these various groups, whose major agendas can be summarized as follows:
– promoting the view that America is institutionally an oppressive nation
– promoting the election of leftist political candidates throughout the United States
– opposing virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by U.S. government, particularly the Patriot Act
– depicting American military actions as unjust, unwarranted, and immoral
– promoting open borders, mass immigration, and a watering down of current immigration laws
– promoting a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs funded by ever-escalating taxes
– promoting social welfare benefits and amnesty for illegal aliens
– defending suspected anti-American terrorists and their abetters
– financing the recruitment and training of future activist leaders of the political Left
– advocating America’s unilateral disarmament and/or a steep reduction in its military spending
– opposing the death penalty in all circumstances
– promoting socialized medicine in the United States
– promoting the tenets of radical environmentalism, whose ultimate goal, as writer Michael Berliner has explained, is “not clean air and clean water, [but] rather … the demolition of technological/industrial civilization”
– bringing American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations
– promoting racial and ethnic preferences in academia and the business world alike …”
“… broad multiclass, multiracial movement is converging around Obama’s “Hope, change and unity” campaign because they see in it the thrilling opportunity to end 30 years of ultra-right rule and move our nation forward with a broadly progressive agenda.
This diverse movement combines a variety of political currents and aims in a working coalition that is crucial to social progress at this point. At the core are America’s working families, of all hues and ethnicities, whose determination to move forward does not depend on, and will not be diverted by, the daily twists and turns of this watershed presidential campaign. They are taking the long view. …”
“…If Obama’s candidacy represented nothing more than the spark for this profound initiative to unite the working class and defeat the pernicious influence of racism, it would be a transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term.
The struggle to defeat the ultra-right and turn our country on a positive path will not end with Obama’s election. But that step will shift the ground for successful struggles going forward.
One thing is clear. None of the people’s struggles — from peace to universal health care to an economy that puts Main Street before Wall Street — will advance if McCain wins in November.
FP: How does Soros use his influence over the Party?
POE: The Shadow Party is always changing. New groups form and old ones dissolve. For instance, America Coming Together — which raised $135 million for Democrat get-out-the-vote drives in 2004 – has been mothballed, at least for now. The most active Shadow Party groups today are probably the Center for American Progress, America Votes, Democracy Alliance, the New Democrat Network, the New Politics Institute, ACORN and, of course, MoveOn.org.
FP:How does Soros use his influence over the Party?
POE:He uses it to push the Party leftward. He is systematically purging the Party of moderates and packing it with radicals. For instance, the Shadow Party ousted Senator Joseph Lieberman in favor of Ned Lamont, because Lieberman refused to support a “cut-and-run” policy in Iraq.
FP:Isn’t that just politics as usual, though – wealthy fat cats funding their favorite candidates?
POE: Funding ordinary candidates, be they Democrats or Republicans, would be politics as usual. Funding radical candidates who seek America’s destruction is not. Money is a tool. It can be used for good or evil. The Shadow Party is using it for evil.
FP: Does the Shadow Party really seek to destroy ?
POE: Judge for yourself. In his new book The Age of Fallibility, Soros writes, “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States” He announced in 2003 that it is necessary to “puncture the bubble of American supremacy.” Soros is working systematically to achieve that goal. …”
Barack Obama sought the New Party’s endorsement knowing it was a radical left organization
“…The Chicago Democratic Socialists of America were quite pleased in 1996 with the New Party’s success including the election of “Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, [who] encouraged [New Party members] to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration”. (h/t to Rick Moran)
In These Times reported on February 17, 1997, that “the [New] [P]arty, with 80 members in the [17th] ward, many of whom are also active in the Service Employees International Union and the advocacy group ACORN, has begun to build a parallel precinct organization.”
“…The end of the story is simple. Obama won the New Party’s nomination and, through fusion with his Democratic votes, he became the Democratic nominee. Using ACORN’s get out the vote efforts and relying on his gerrymandered Democrat district, Obama moved on to the State Senate. While there, he paid back the New Party and the far left. He opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, he opposed legislation that would have prohibited the sale of pornography across the street from elementary schools and churches, and he supported allowing criminals to sue their victims if their victims injured the criminals in self-defense.
Fast forward twelve years and Obama is running as fast as he can away from the New Party brand. But beyond a shadow of a doubt, Barack Obama knew what he was getting into and remains an ideal New Party candidate. The New Party was, and as it still exists is, an amalgamation of the left and far left designed to attract far left candidates and move the Democratic Party back to the left. Barack Obama is an example of the New Party’s success. …”
“Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization, was an American radical left organization founded in 1969 by leaders and members who split from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The group organized a riot in Chicago in 1969 and bombed buildings in the 1970s.
They took their name from the lyric “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” from the Bob Dylan song Subterranean Homesick Blues. They also used this lyric as the title of a position paper they distributed at an SDS convention in Chicago on June 18, 1969, as part of a special edition of New Left Notes. The Weathermen were initially part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) within the SDS, splitting from the RYM’s Maoists by claiming there was no time to build a vanguard party and that revolutionary war against the United States government and the capitalist system should begin immediately. Their founding document called for the establishment of a “white fighting force” to be allied with the “Black Liberation Movement” and other “anti-colonial” movements[2] to achieve “the destruction of US imperialism and achieve a classless world: world communism.”[3]
The group’s first public demonstration was the “Days of Rage,” an October 8, 1969 riot in Chicago that was coordinated with the trial of the Chicago Eight.[4] In 1970 the group issued a “Declaration of a State of War” against the United States government, under the name “Weather Underground Organization” (WUO), and members adopted fake identities and pursued covert activities. They carried out a campaign consisting of bombings, jailbreaks, and riots. Their attacks were mostly bombings of government buildings, along with several banks, police department headquarters and precincts, state and federal courthouses, and state prison administrative offices.[5][6] …”
“…Today
Widely-known members of the Weather Underground include Kathy Boudin, Mark Rudd, Terry Robbins, Ted Gold, Naomi Jaffe, Cathy Wilkerson, Jeff Jones, David Gilbert, Susan Stern, Bob Tomashevsky, Sam Karp, Russell Neufeld, Joe Kelly, Laura Whitehorn and the still-married couple Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. Most former Weathermen have successfully re-integrated into mainstream society, without necessarily repudiating their original intent.
Bill Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was quoted in an interview to say “I don’t regret setting bombs”[58] but has since claimed he was misquoted.[59] Brian Flanagan has expressed regret for his actions during the Weatherman years, and compared the group’s activities to terrorism. Flanagan said: “When you feel that you have right on your side, you can do some pretty horrific things.”[60] Mark Rudd, now a teacher of mathematics at Central New Mexico Community College, has said he has “mixed feelings” and feelings of “guilt and shame”.
These are things I am not proud of, and I find it hard to speak publicly about them and to tease out what was right from what was wrong. I think that part of the Weatherman phenomenon that was right was our understanding of what the position of the United States is in the world. It was this knowledge that we just couldn’t handle; it was too big. We didn’t know what to do. In a way I still don’t know what to do with this knowledge. I don’t know what needs to be done now, and it’s still eating away at me just as it did 30 years ago.
—Mark Rudd[9]
A non-violent faction of the Weather Underground continues today as the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. Their official site reads:
We oppose oppression in all its forms including racism, sexism, homophobia, classism and imperialism. We demand liberation and justice for all peoples. We recognize that we live in a capitalist system that favors a select few and oppresses the majority. This system cannot be reformed or voted out of office because reforms and elections do not challenge the fundamental causes of injustice.[61]
Weatherman documentaries
The WU insisted that Emile de Antonio shoot the documentary Underground in 1976. However, a much more extensive, widespread, and critically-acclaimed documentary emerged in 2002 with the Oscar-nominated The Weather Underground by filmmakers Bill Siegel and Sam Green. A little seen film called Ice had several WU members in a somewhat fictionalized revolutionary setting. …”
SHOCK DISCOVERY! – Gamaliel Foundation Community Organizers pray to President-Elect Barack Obama
Obama Answers Questions from Street Agitators Pt1
Obama Answers Questions from Street Agitators Pt2
Obama Answers Questions from Street Agitators Pt3
“…Synopsis
Collective action through organized social movements has long expanded American citizens’ rights and liberties. Recently, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has helped win living wage initiatives in more than 130 cities across the country. Likewise, congregation-based groups have established countless health, education, and other social programs at city and state levels. Despite modest budgets, these organizations—different in their approach, but at the same time working for social change—have won billions of dollars in redistributive programs.
Looking closely at this phenomenon, Heidi J. Swarts explores activist groups’ cultural, organizational, and political strategies. Focusing on ACORN chapters and church federations in St. Louis, Missouri, and San Jose, California, Swarts demonstrates that congregation-based organizing has developed an innovative cultural strategy, combining democratic deliberation and leadership development to produce a “culture of commitment” among its cross-class, multiracial membership. By contrast, ACORN’s more homogeneous low-income class base has a national structure that allows it to coordinate campaigns quickly, and its seasoned staff excels in tactical innovations. By making these often-invisible grassroots organizers evident, Swarts sheds light on factors that constrain or enable other social movements in the United States.
Heidi J. Swarts is assistant professor of political science at Rutgers University. …”
Doing Justice is an introductory theology of congregation-based community organizing rooted in the day-to-day struggles and hopes of urban ministry and in the author’s 14 years of personal experience in community organizing ministries.
Drawing from the organizing principles of Saul Alinsky, Jacobsen weaves the theological and biblical warrants for community organizing into concrete strategies for achieving justice in the public arena. Designed to be used by congregations and church leaders, as well as by ministerial students, Doing Justice opens new vistas for community action in support of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the disenfranchised of our society.
Author Biography:
Dennis A. Jacobsen is pastor of an ELCA congregation and the director of the Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus, a network of over 1,000 clergy that develops national and regional training events to ground the work of congregation-based community organizing in theology and scripture. …”
“..Gamaliel Foundation provides training and consultation and develops national strategy for its affiliated congregation-based community organizations. As of 2008, Gamaliel has 60 affiliates in 21 U.S. states, the United Kingdom, and five provinces of South Africa, and claims to represent over a million people.
History
The Gamaliel Foundation was founded in Chicago in 1968 to assist the Contract Buyers League, which worked to assist African-American home buyers in the city’s West Side. Gamaliel was reoriented to focus on community organizing when Gregory Galluzzo was hired as executive director in 1986.[1] Seeing its basic function as training and developing leaders in low-income communities, Gamaliel’s goal is “to assist local community leaders to create, maintain and expand independent, grassroots, and powerful faith-based community organizations”[2] that have the power to influence political and economic decisions that impact cities and regions. The name “Gamaliel” refers to the Biblical wise man who was a teacher to St. Paul (see Acts 5:38-39; and Acts 22:3), whom Saul Alinsky considered to be the first great congregation-based organizer.
Gamaliel Foundation works in the community organizing tradition of Alinsky, who began his work in Chicago with the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council in 1939. Following Alinsky’s death in 1972, his Industrial Areas Foundation, under executive director Edward T. Chambers, moved toward a congregation-based organizing model, emphasizing training and leadership development. Gamaliel has developed along a similar path under the direction of Galluzzo, a former Roman Catholic priest who got his introduction to community organizing in the early 1970s in Chicago, where he worked with the Pilsen Neighborhood Community Council, mentored by such organizers as Tom Gaudette and John Baumann (the founder of PICO National Network).
Governance
Gamaliel’s board of directors has 15 members, and is the ultimate governing authority for the organization, setting policy and overseeing management. The board and staff are advised by the National Clergy Caucus, the African American Leadership Commission, and the International Leadership Assembly. Gamaliel operates with a small staff (approximately 20 in 2008), supplemented by interns and consultants. For example, during the period Barack Obama worked as a community organizer with the Developing Communities Project on the far South Side of Chicago (1985-1988), he was also a consultant and trainer for the Gamaliel Foundation.[3] Gamaliel has five regional directors covering the Eastern, Mideastern, Midwestern, Southern, and Western United States. Affiliated organizations are incorporated separately, raise their own funds, and employ their own organizers. Ana Garcia Ashley became the executive director of Gamaliel in January 2011.
Current program
Gamaliel has refocused its efforts from neighborhood organizations to coalitions that can influence wider metropolitan areas and regions.[4] Gamaliel has begun to formulate strategies for impacting national policy on such issues as comprehensive immigration reform, health care for all, jobs and full employment, affordable housing, and equal access public transportation systems. To date, the major focus of Gamaliel has been such metropolitan areas as Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Northwest Indiana, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Kansas City, Missouri. Gamaliel’s long-range plan is to build a metropolitan organization in every major population area in the United States over the next ten years, including raising the necessary money and recruiting the 200 professional organizers essential to reach this goal.[5] …”
The Gamaliel Foundation, the CHURCH OF OBAMA The Savior
“…It was the Gamaliel Foundation, not ACORN, where the President got his Alinsky/ Community organizing training.
“Obama in fact worked for a subsidiary of the radical Gamaliel Foundation, a Chicago-based Alinsky group, and he was paid by the radical Woods Fund, which supports Gamaliel. Gamaliel’s Web site and history page make plain that it evolved from the Alinsky School of organizing. Its training methods acknowledge an “agitational” style of organizing.
He [Obama] is quick to say that the community organizing he did in Chicago was “the best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School.” But he never tells us who educated him, not even in the two memoirs he’s written. He also fails to disclose who hired him. Obama claimed in the recent national service forum at Columbia University that he worked for “churches” while organizing on the South Side of Chicago. (source)”
The Woods fund should sound familiar; Obama eventually became the head of the Woods foundation, where he ran the group along with domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers. But first he had to learn the ways of community organizing from The Gamaliel Foundation.I would suggest that it was the Gamaliel Foundation that made President Obama what he is today. The Gamaliel Foundation brought the Alinsky community organizing method and Barack Obama to Chicago, taught him all he needs to organize a movement, and sent the future President to Harvard law.When you read through this overview of the group and its key players, look at the parallels between the group’s past and present, with the president’s past and present. This is a group that believes in collectivism, social justice, “shared affluence, and blaming dissent on racism, and frighteningly they see using religion as a political movement, which explains the tape of people praying to Obama:
The stated mission of the Gamaliel Foundation (GF) is “to be a powerful network of grassroots, interfaith, interracial, multi-issue organizations working together to create a more just and more democratic society.” Predicated on the notion that America is a land rife with injustice, GF agitates for social change by supporting the efforts of a network of organizations (the Gamaliel Network) whose goal is to allow for individuals to “effectively participate” in the political, environmental, social and economic arenas. GF offers, for its network affiliates, programs to teach techniques and methodologies for bringing about social change; ongoing consultations; and organizer recruitment campaigns. …”
What Did Wade Rathke Know About Egypt that the CIA Didn’t and What Will Obama Do Now?
Author: Michael J. Gaynor
“…That’s the Wade Rathke who founded ACORN in 1970, served as its Chief Organizer until 2008, still heads ACORN International and still publishes Social Policy (with Francis Fox Piven of Cloward-Piven strategy notoriety still on the editorial advisory board).
In addition to Rathke, the Board of Directors of the Organizers’ Forum includes Drummond Pike of the Tides Foundation and an SEIU representative. Originally, the SEIU representative was former SEIU head and most frequent Obama White House visitor Andy Stern. See http://www.organizersforum.org/index.php?id=462.
What were what Rathke described last October as “exciting changes and developments that are currently taking place in Egypt” and what (if anything) did the CIA know about them?
Why did Rathke state without qualification that the “elections coming soon” would “determine leadership transitions”? Why was he sure that Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president for three decades, would not be re-elected?
Why did Rathke list the challenges to the Mubarak “regime” in this order: Muslim Brotherhood, succession, democracy?
Why was it decided to hold the Organizers’ Forum’s twentieth “Dialogue” in Egypt? Was it really to “see the Pyramids”? …”
“…Mary Gonzales of the Gamaliel Foundation.
Gonzales was an original member of the board of directors of the Organizers’ Forum and still is!
It took the Far Left decades to put Obama in the White House, and they did it cleverly.
“…stealth socialists were capable of conning enough voters to put Obama in the White House with 60 members of the Senate Democrat caucus and a substantial Democrat majority in the House of Representatives.
“The people who ran ACORN back in 2004 are hardly surprised, as an article titled ‘Election Thoughts” in the combined Winter 2003-Spring 2004 issue of Social Policy demonstrates. Wade Rathke, ACORN founder and chief organizer for 38 years, is the publisher of Social Policy. Mike Miller is the editor of Social Policy and the author of the article.
“The article prophesied the Age of Obama. It closed by quoting an length from Obama’s keynote address at the 2004 Democrat National convention and the revelation that ‘most of the people [Miller] kn[e]w said, “There’s the first black president of the United States.” …”
Work at the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis… Don’t be afraid of putting on colour… Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.
~Camille Pissarro
La Cote du Jallais, Pontoise
Le Jardin des Mathurins, Pontoise
Don’t be afraid in nature: one must be bold, at the risk of having been deceived and making mistakes.
~Camille Pissarro
I have posted three videos on the art works of Camille Pissarro with YouTube on the Channel: A PRONK STUDIO VIDEO:
It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.
~Camille Pissarro
Le Verger Coite Saint Denis a Pontoise
Le Marche a la Volaille Pointoise, 1882
Painting, art in general, enchants me. It is my life. What else matters? When you put all your soul into a work, all that is noble in you, you cannot fail to find a kindred soul who understands you, and you do not need a host of such spirits. Is not that all an artist should wish for?
“We begin our public affections in our families… we pass on to our neighbourhoods”. …
“To love the little platoon we belong to in society is the first principle of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.”
~Edmund Burke
Ronald Reagan – A Time for Choosing (October 27, 1964)
Governor Palin won the debate.
Time for Senator McCain to let Governor Palin loose on the conservative and libertarian base by being interviewed daily on talk radio and speaking at rally events in every major city in the United States!
Over 90% of the pump and dump drive by mainstream media support Obama.
Forget about the pump and dump drive by mainstream media , they are not your friends.
Punish them by ignoring them. This will drive the pump and dump drive by mainstream media nuts.
A talk radio & rally surge strategy combined with short ads on TV will win the election.
‘No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
~Edmund Burke
Roy Orbison – Running Scared
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Roy Orbison – Dream Baby
Background Articles and Videos
THE VEEP DEBATE: SHE’S BACK!
Rich Lowry
“EVERY Republican in America rejoiced last night: “At long last the Couric captivity is over! Sarah Palin is free!”
Palin had suffered through a series of nightly interview bits with CBS anchor Katie Couric that seemed to last a month, with the Alaska governor shedding credibility by the minute. But last night, they instantly became a distant memory.
Palin held her own against Joe Biden, and flashed the poise and charm that made her such a star at the Republican convention.
Hers might have been the most unusual debate performance since Ross Perot’s running-mate James Stockdale showed up at the 1992 VP contest. From the moment she opened by saying the best measure of the economy is what parents are saying on the sidelines of soccer games, it was clear how utterly different she is in American politics – a candidate of, by and from the middle class.
She talked about regular middle-class people with the credibility of having lived that life every day, even for a time lacking health insurance. Or, as she put it at the end, she and John McCain will “fight for the middle-class, average family – like mine.” …”
“…First, I would like to see all the Sarah doubters and detractors in the Beltway/Manhattan corridor eat their words.
Eat them.
Sarah Palin is the real deal. Five weeks on the campaign trail, thrust onto the national stage, she rocked tonight’s debate.
She was warm, fresh, funny, confident, energetic, personable, relentless, and on message. She roasted Obama’s flip-flops on the surge and tea-with-dictators declarations, dinged Biden’s bash-Bush rhetoric, challenged the blame-America defeatism of the Left, and exuded the sunny optimism that energized the base in the first place.
McCain has not done many things right. But Sarah Palin proved tonight that the VP risk he took was worth it.
Her performance also underscored the underhandedness of the hatchet job editors at ABC News and CBS News, which failed to capture her solid competence on the whole array of foreign and domestic policy issues on the debate table tonight. (I didn’t care for all the “greed” rhetoric, but I understand they are trying to appeal to independents and Dems. They’re trying to win the election.) …”
“…Gov. Sarah Palin, once again, confounded her critics with a strong performance. She did it at the Republican convention, and she did it again last night in her debate with Sen. Joe Biden. She performed with poise and charm. She effectively made the case that Senator Obama would be naïve in foreign policy and harmful to economic growth, and that Senator McCain would be a common-sense reformer. She handled questions about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran well. She connected domestic-policy arguments to the lives of average voters. Anyone who hoped — or feared — that she would fall flat on her face was proven wrong. …”
Luntz focus group: Palin in a blowout; Update: CBS, CNN polls say Biden won?
“Lest anyone think Luntz cooks these things, his presidential debate FG was basically a wash tilting slightly towards Obama and his FG for C-SPAN shortly after Palin was picked was decidedly chilly towards her.
The electoral math is sufficiently unforgiving that I can’t quite believe this is a gamechanger, but clearly she did as well as anyone could have hoped. Clutch. …”
59% Agree With Ronald Reagan—Government Is The Problem
“In his first inaugural address, President Ronald Reagan delivered a line succinctly capturing the sentiment that elected him: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
A generation later, that attitude still resonates with a solid majority of Americans. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 59% of voters agree with Reagan, and just 28% disagree.
Support is found across a wide range of political and demographic groups. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of men agree with Reagan, as do 52% of women. A majority of voters in all age and income groups agree.
The only demographic group to disagree with Reagan’s statement are those who identify themselves as politically liberal. Just 35% of liberals agree that government is the problem, but 46% disagree. Moderates embrace the Reagan view by a 61% to 25% margin, and conservatives are even more enthusiastic. …”
Ron Paul talks @ Sovereign Wealth Funds Hearing 9/10/8
Sovereign wealth funds explained – Newsnight video
Lee Kuan Yew on Singapore sovereign wealth fund
Sovereign Wealth Funds On The Rise
Sovereign wealth funds – what China will do next?
Sovereign Wealth Funds — Navarro’s China Effect
17th Annual Conference:Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment 7/10
17th AnnualConference:Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment 10/10
Paul Volcker on Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Economy
China’s threat to American economic stability: CNN
America’s Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony
“…a parliament or government which becomes a charitable institution thereby becomes exposed to irresistable blackmail. And it soon ceases to be the ‘deserts’ but becomes exclusively the ‘political necessity’ which determines which groups are to be favoured at general expense.”
~Friedrick A. Hayek, The Political Order of a Free People, page 150.
“…once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.”
~Friedrick A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, page 116.
“It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good.”
~Friedrick A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, page 262.
Why all the rush in passing the bailout bill?
Why were alternative courses of action ruled out?
Why does the Federal government need to purchase the assets of financial institutions instead providing liquidity in the form of loans or investment to these financial institutions?
Is this an October surprise to influence the US elections?
Why are President Bush, Senators McCain and Obama resorting to dire fear mongering and very similar phrases and stories to try to convince and scare the American people to supporting the quick passage of the United States Government bailout of financial institutions, the so-called Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008?
George W. B ush statement on failure of wall street bail out
McCain statement of failure of bailout bill
Obama Still Begging Taxpayers To Support Wall Street Bailout Bill
The fear campaign is not working.
Credit is not frozen.
The American people are calling their banks, credit unions, and car dealers–loans are being made.
Business as usual.
Just like it was business as usual in Congress.
The American elites are lying to the American people and the American people know it.
Some suspect that the Chinese Communists may have made it known to the US that China will not continued to hold US Treasury securities unless the US Federal government purchases from Chinese financial institutions those US mortgage-backed and related securities that are currently depressed in prices-so-called troubled assets.
In other words the US Treasury needs to bail out Chinese financial institutions that have purchased securities from US financial institutions, such as investment banks.
Why?
How much mortgage backed securities do Chinese financial institutions hold in their investment portfolios?
How much have these Chinese financial institutions lost on holding this type of securities?
A lot of questions, but not many answers from the American elites.
Just hurry up and pass the bailout bill or else the US economy goes into a severe recession if not depression?
The American elites are not leveling with the American people.
Charlie Rose – Economist Milton Friedman
What is going on?
First read the following from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 that the Senate passed:
Sec. 112. Coordination with foreign authorities and central banks.
The Secretary shall coordinate, as appropriate, with foreign financial authorities and central banks to work toward the establishment of similar programs by such authorities and central banks. To the extent that such foreign financial authorities or banks hold troubled assets as a result of extending financing to financial institutions that have failed or defaulted on such financing, such troubled assets qualify for purchase under section 101.
The Secretary shall coordinate, as appropriate, with foreign financial authorities and central banks to work toward the establishment of similar programs by such authorities and central banks. To the extent that such foreign financial authorities or banks hold troubled assets as a result of extending financing to financial institutions that have failed or defaulted on such financing, such troubled assets qualify for purchase under section 101.
The Secretary shall coordinate, as appropriate, with foreign financial authorities and central banks to work toward the establishment of similar programs by such authorities and central banks. To the extent that such foreign financial authorities or banks hold troubled assets as a result of extending financing to financial institutions that have failed or defaulted on such financing, such troubled assets qualify for purchase under section 101.
Note that the definition of what is a “troubled asset” under section 101 is quite broad:
TROUBLED ASSETS
—The term ‘‘troubled assets’’ means—
(A) residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before March 14, 2008, the purchase of which the Secretary determines promotes financial market stability; and
(B) any other financial instrument that the Secretary, after consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, determines the purchase of which is necessary to promote financial market stability, but only upon transmittal of such determination, in writing, to the appropriate committees of Congress.
Looks like the United States will be buying billions of dollars of troubled assets from foreign banks, including China.
The failure of Congress and specifically the Democratic Party to allow appropriate regulation and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will result in the bailout of China who bought upwards of $400 billion of mortgaged backed securities or agencies.
Now what is the source of all those campaign contributions to certain Presidential candidates coming from abroad in 2008?
Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
“…And then there are the overseas donations — at least, the ones that we know about.
The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as “UK,” the United Kingdom.
More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680.
But others came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France.
Until recently, the Obama Web site allowed a contributor to select the country where he resided from the entire membership of the United Nations, including such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Unlike McCain’s or Sen. Hillary Clinton’s online donation pages, the Obama site did not ask for proof of citizenship until just recently. Clinton’s presidential campaign required U.S. citizens living abroad to actually fax a copy of their passport before a donation would be accepted.
With such lax vetting of foreign contributions, the Obama campaign may have indirectly contributed to questionable fundraising by foreigners. …”
Also consider that in the 1996 Presidential election significant campaign contributions were given to President Clinton from Chinese sources:
1996 United States campaign finance controversy
“The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by the People’s Republic of China to influence domestic American politics during the 1996 federal elections.
The issue first received public attention in early 1997, with news that a Justice Department investigation had uncovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in violation of U.S. laws regarding foreign political contributions.[1] While the Chinese government denied all accusations, twenty-two people were eventually convicted for fraud or for funneling Asian funds into the United States elections. …”
“…According to the United States Senate report Investigation of Illegal or Improper Activities in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns, prior to 1995 China’s approach to promoting its interests in the United States was focused almost exclusively on diplomacy, including summits and meetings with high-level White House officials. In these meetings, Chinese officials often negotiated with the United States government by using the appeal of their huge commercial market.[2]
Around 1995, according to the Senate report, Chinese officials developed a new approach to promote their interests with the United States government and to improve China’s image with the American people. The proposals, dubbed the “China Plan”, were prompted by the United States Congress’s successful lobbying of the president to grant a visa to Taiwan President Lee Teng-Hui. United States Secretary of State Warren Christopher had previously assured his Chinese counterpart Qian Qichen that granting a visa would be “inconsistent with [the United States’] unofficial relationship [with Taiwan]”[3] and the Clinton Administration’s acquiescence to the Congressional resolutions led China to conclude that the influence of Congress over foreign policy was more significant than it had previously determined. When formulating the so-called plan, Chinese officials acknowledged that, compared to other countries, it had little knowledge of, or influence over, policy decisions made in Congress, which had a sizeable pro-Taiwan faction under the influence of a more established “China Lobby” run by the Kuomintang.[2]
The plan, according the Senate report, instructed Chinese officials in the U.S. to improve their knowledge about members of Congress and increase contacts with its members, the public, and the media. The plan also suggested ways to lobby United States officials.[2]
Over the years, China has repeatedly denied these lobbying efforts involved financial contributions of any kind:
[S]ome people and media in the United States speculated… about so-called participation by Chinese individuals in political donations during the U.S. elections. It is sheer fabrication and is intended to slander China. [China] has never, nor will we ever, use money to influence American politics — China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, May 1998.[4] …”
Why all the rush now to bail out foreign countries whose financial institutions bought “troubled assets”?
Who is pulling the trigger on the financial crisis?
Why was the trigger pulled now?
Defeat the cram down bailout bill.
Only you can prevent socialism in America.
“We are only beginning to understand on how subtle a communication system the functioning of an advanced industrial society is based–a communications system which we call the market and which turns out to be a more efficient mechanism for digesting dispersed information than any that man has deliberately designed.”
~Friedrick A. Hayek, ‘The Pretense of Knowledge’, New Studies, page 34.
“The effective limitation of power is the most important problem of social order.”
~Friedrick A. Hayek, The Political Order of a Free People, page 128.
What is going on?
~Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On / What’s Happening Brother
Background Articles and Videos
Sovereign wealth funds explained – Newsnight video
Corporate Advisory Insight: Sovereign Wealth Funds
Davos Annual Meeting 2008 – Sovereign Wealth Funds
LOL
Bird & Fortune: George Parr, Conservative MP
Sovereign wealth fund
“A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is a state-owned investment fund composed of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property, precious metals or other financial instruments. Sovereign wealth funds have gained world-wide exposure by investing in several Wall Street financial firms including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch. These firms needed a cash infusion due to losses resulting from the subprime mortgage crisis.
Some sovereign wealth funds are held solely by central banks, who accumulate the funds in the course of their fiscal management of a nation’s banking system; this type of fund is usually of major economic and fiscal importance. Other sovereign wealth funds are simply the state savings which are invested by various entities for the purposes of investment return, and which may not have significant role in fiscal management.
The accumulated funds may have their origin in, or may represent foreign currency deposits, gold, SDRs and IMF reserve positions held by central banks and monetary authorities, along with other national assets such as pension investments, oil funds, or other industrial and financial holdings. These are assets of the sovereign nations which are typically held in domestic and different reserve currencies such as the dollar, euro and yen. Such investment management entities may be set up as official investment companies, state pension funds, or sovereign oil funds, among others.
There have been attempts to distinguish funds held by sovereign entities from foreign exchange reserves held by central banks. The former can be characterized as maximizing long term return, with the latter serving short term currency stabilization and liquidity management. Many central banks in recent years possess reserves massively in excess of needs for liquidity or foreign exchange management. Moreover it is widely believed most have diversified hugely into assets other than short term, highly liquid monetary ones, though almost no data is available to back up this assertion. Some central banks have even begun buying equities, or derivatives of differing ilk (even if fairly safe ones, like Overnight Interest rate swaps).[citation needed] …”
Sovereign Wealth Funds Threat to United States Economy
“…However, there is mounting concern–fed by the lack of transparency–that these government-owned investment funds could be used to advance a political as well as economic agenda. If sovereign investors manage assets to promote more than a healthy return on investment, asset prices in countries receiving sovereign capital may not reflect market fundamentals, and resources will not be allocated efficiently– exacting a real cost on the economies involved.[4]
Moreover, some fear that rather than use these funds as a means to hold a diversified asset portfolio and earn a solid return on investment, countries might instead use these funds to destabilize financial markets, protect industries and companies, or even expropriate technology.
With little public information available on most sovereign investors’ financial objectives, countries– including the U.S.–are increasingly uncertain about the real benefits of receiving investment from these funds and worry that they instead represent a growing threat to their economic and national security. France and Germany have already declared their intention to block state-owned funds from investing in their economies.[5]
However, it is important to remember that such funds have been in operation for some time and that there is little evidence indicating that nations use their sovereign wealth funds to intentionally cause harm to the countries and firms in which they invest. Furthermore, open and competitive markets are quick to punish any investor, sovereign or otherwise, that would mismanage their holdings. Few governments–even those with highly questionable free-market credentials–intentionally allocate scarce resources to gain control of an asset for the sole purpose of destroying the value of that asset and reducing their own wealth. …”
“The China Investment Corporation (CIC) is responsible for managing part of the People’s Republic of China’s foreign exchange reserves with $200 billion United States dollars of assets under management, which makes it the fourth largest Sovereign Wealth Fund.[1][2] This sovereign wealth fund officially began operations on Saturday, September 29, 2007. It bought a US $3 billion stake of Blackstone Group in June[3] and a 9.9% stake of Morgan Stanley worth US$ 5 billion on December 19, 2007.[4][5][6]
The People’s Republic of China has US $1.7 trillion in currency reserves. The China Investment Corporation was established with the intent of utilizing these reserves for the benefit of the state, modeled according to Singapore’s Temasek Holdings. The state-owned Central Huijin Investment Corporation was merged into the new company as a wholly-owned subsidiary company.[5]
“…The Corporation aims to invest in around fifty large-sized enterprises across the world. Special treasury bonds were issued to create the capital that the CIC needed. 1,550.35 billion yuan ($207.91 billion) was issued in this bond sale. The bond process was completed in December 2007.[7] According to Lou Jiwei, the CIC needs to make a profit of 300 million Yuan every day just to pay the interest on the bonds and operation costs. The CIC paid its first interest on the bonds in February 2008 where it paid 12.9 billion yuan.[8] …”
“…In the 1990 decade, and early 2000 decade, hedge funds flexed their muscles, demonstrated their power, and earned both respect and animosity. Hedge funds have been blamed for several effects, like pushing up crude oil prices via speculation, even aiding and abetting the mortgage finance bubble. They grew in size to 9000 funds controlling $1.6 trillion in total. They stand first in line for carnage, having taken huge losses in the mortgage bond and Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) bond debacle. Most have suffered losses, while the great minority of smarter ones have profited on the opposite side of trades. In the process, hedge funds generally have lost a great deal of collective power, in a tarnished image. Meanwhile, the SWF funds have taken over as the prominent funds in the news, making their presence felt. In their arena, being entities connected and funded by major governments, they are huge in size. The SWF funds are the sharks operating in the ocean of liquidity, much fewer in number than the thousands of hedge fund minnows. Many hedge funds are over $1 billion in size though.
ONE COULD CONCLUDE THAT FOREIGN INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEGUN TO SHUN US$-BASED BONDS. CENTRAL BANKS ARE INCREASINGLY TURNING TO SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS AS PROFITABLE INVESTMENT VEHICLES. SWF FUNDS ENABLE A CHANGE IN COURSE, ONE WHICH THREATENS US BANKERS TO THE EXTREME. UK BONDS ARE IN THE SAME SEWER PIPE AS THE US BONDS. AFTER SWF FUNDS BUY UP BIG SLICES OF US BANKS, THEY CAN PURCHASE GOLD FREELY AND PULL THE DOG CHOKER ON US BANKERS IF NEED BE, RESTRAINING THEM. …”
What to do about big, foreign funds that are buying up the West?
“…The biggest sovereign wealth funds “are owned by West Asian oil-producing countries, other oil producers such as Norway, and big Asian exporters such as China and Singapore….[O]il-rich West Asian nations and Russia as also large exporters such as China have been deploying part of their huge foreign-exchange reserves in sovereign [wealth] funds as investment vehicles that have grown significantly in size.” However, with all that cash moving around the global marketplace, some “rich nations, including Germany and the U.S., have…expressed uneasiness [since their governments believe that] these funds may be investing in their economies for political purposes.” Such governments are shocked – shocked! – by the notion that money might ever be used to influence the tone or direction of their policies. …”
“…We are starting to get wind of who the winners and losers are in the government seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is not a pretty picture. Holders of mortgage-backed debt of the two companies, so called agency debt, and holder of subordinated debt are the big winners. Why? Government cash investments will be paid behind the payments to the mortgage-backed and even subordinated debt. Any threat of a default and the government will make the payments on the debt. Who holds this stuff. The largest holders of agency debt are 1) foreign countries through state owned banks and through sovereign wealth funds and 2) a worldwide network of private banks and 3) United States pension funds. The largest foreign holdings of agency debt are China ($400 billion) and Japan (($230 billion). We are bailing out China and Japan, the world’s investment banks, and our pension funds. Who is hurt?? Shareholders. The government gets paid back before any preferred shareholders and common shareholders get any dividends. Some shareholders are also holders of agency debt and do not mind; their gains on the debt side will swamp their loses on the stock side. Some American investment banks and many pension funds are in this category. But there are some banks that hold predominately preferred stock, most of them are regional banks or commercial banks, and they are big losers. Shares are held in the public markets and usually in diversified portfolios.
Shareholders should lose (they are the residual claimants and they elect the board) but so should the debt-holders, particularly the subordinated debt holders (they took a risk of buying an instrument very similar to preferred stock). Many debt holders have written down the value of their debt and now, suddenly, it is worth 100 cents on the dollar. Why bailout foreign governments and why now — both companies had reserves — thin ones — and could have run on their own for another year or so?
The answer is political, regrettably. Treasury did not want a blowup with China and Japan before the election and it wanted to create another method of subsidizing the economy (through Frannie and Freddie) that would take effect before the election. China threatened to sell not only agency debt but Treasuries and it would roil our debt markets; tight debt markets hurt GDP. This threat is one we need to stand up to (emergency tariffs on Chinese goods are WTO legal). …”
Chinese Government is Top Foreign Holder of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Bonds
$376 Billion in Chinese Agency Bond Holdings Subject to Taxpayer Bailout Proposals According to FreedomWorks Analysts
“…The top five foreign holders of Freddie and Fannie long-term debt are China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. In total foreign investors hold over $1.3 trillion in these agency bonds, according to the U.S. Treasury’s most recent “Report on Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities.”
FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe commented, “The prospectus for every GSE bond clearly states that it is not backed by the United States government. That’s why investors holding agency bonds already receive a significant risk premium over Treasuries.”
“A bailout at this stage would be the worst possible outcome for American taxpayers and mortgage holders, who have been paying a risk premium to these foreign investors. It would change the rules of the game retroactively and would directly subsidize the risks taken by sophisticated foreign investors.”
“A bailout of GSE bondholders would be perhaps the greatest taxpayer rip-off in American history. It is bad economics and you can be sure it is terrible politics.”
“…Sovereign wealth funds – government-controlled investment funds – are one of the hottest topics at the World Economic Forum in Davos. But are they really dangerous?
Richard Fuld says the funds could soon control up to $20 trillion
Picture this: You are finance minister and several very large banks in your country are in trouble. An investment fund steps into the breach and provides the much-needed cash – say $10bn (£5bn) or thereabouts. It helps to avoid a financial meltdown.
So far so good. But what if this fund is controlled by a foreign government with unclear intentions? What if such a fund also wants to buy your nation’s most important ports?
And what if the fund takes a large stake in a business that is a rival to its country’s national champion?
Across the Western world, politicians are grumbling, and economists and business leaders are pricking their ears. …”
“…The only thing that seems to be moving faster than the financial crisis is the policy debate. The latest development is a statement that summarizes what I think of as the emerging consensus from academic economists; it expresses concern about various aspects of both the Paulson plan in particular, and the policy process in general. …”
US Economy: Even Hank Paulson’s bail-out plan cannot detox global banking
“…Around the world, investors were dumping assets they regarded as risky. World stocks were down sharply, while gold and U.S. Treasuries surged in the rush to safety.
The world’s central banks, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, announced a $330 billion expansion of currency swap arrangements, which allows them to increase the amount of money they can provide in their home markets, effectively throwing more money at the crisis.
Earlier, the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg moved to partly nationalize Belgian-Dutch group Fortis NV with an injection of more than $16 billion, and German lender Hypo Real Estate Holding AG secured a credit line from the German government and banks of up to 35 billion euros.
British mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley Plc was brought under the government’s wing, shares of French bank Dexia tumbled on a report that it might need emergency capital, and bank rescue deals also emerged in Iceland, Russia and Denmark.
“The contagion is spreading to mainland Europe and everyone’s asking, ‘Who’s next?'” said Mark Sartori, head of European sales trading at Fox-Pitt, Kelton in London.
The Wachovia deal is the latest in a series of events that has transformed the American financial landscape and wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars of shareholder wealth.
The changes include the government takeover of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the failure of giant savings and loan Washington Mutual, and Bank of America Corp’s purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. …”
I am still urging all conservatives and libertarians in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to defeat the Bailout Bill now known as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
Any Senator or Representative that votes for this should be defeated in November.
The bill is just business as usual.
Instead of focusing on the immediate financial crisis, the American elites in Washington have added a long list of provisions that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the financial crisis.
Our so called “leaders ” in Washington are simply not leveling with the American people, shame on them.
Instead of focusing on what the American people will accept, they simply ignore their constituents–the arrogance of incumbency.
If they have time to lard up the bailout bill with earmarks, then we have the time to place the blame on those who really caused the problem–the defenders and protectors of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Congress.
Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis
Explosive Video, Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the “Family” and “Conscience” of Fannie Mae
Obama and Democrats are Responsible: Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac
Advice
Rein
Empty Words
Time for the FBI to arrest those at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that committed fraud and offer some of them deals if they know of any members of Congress that accepted bribes in exchange for their support.
Vote the bastards out of office in Novmember.
The American elites of both political parties shafted the American people once again.
Shame on them!
Any Republican or Democrat that voted for this bill will not be getting my vote.
Time for a revolt and a third party.
The Great American Sell-out (More on the BIG BAILOUT plan)
No Bailout for Jobs hit hard by trade deficit (Lou Dobbs)
Lou Dobbs – Lobbyist Using Scare Tactics to push bailout!
Lou Dobbs – Big Bailout Boondoggle
LOL
Subprime crisis explanation by The Long Johns
.
Let Wall Street Burn…
Government BAILOUT….
Background Articles and Videos
Senate bailout bill keeps growing
“…To calm voters fearful of bank failures, the $100,000 cap on federal insurance for deposits would also be raised to $250,000—a concession backed by both parties but also aimed at community banks who can be helpful in building small town support for the larger bill.
With each permutation, the bill has steadily grown in size. Treasury’s initial plan was about three pages long. The House version, which failed, stretched to 110. The Senate substitute now runs over 450 pages. And tucked away in the tax provisions is a landmark health care provision demanding that insurance companies provide coverage for mental health treatment—such as hospitalization—on parity with physical illnesses.
Really a bill onto itself, the mental health parity measure has been a bipartisan priority for top lawmakers in both chambers but has stalled because of disagreements again over how to pay for its estimated $3.8 billion five-year cost. In the current climate, that seems to be no longer a stumbling block, and if the Treasury plan becomes law, it will also. …”
McCain will support earmark-stuffed Senate Crap Sandwich; Obama: Me, too!
By Michelle Malkin
“…McCain has made his battle against earmarks the hallmark of his campaign. He couldn’t stop talking about them for the first half of the last week’s first presidential debate.The Senate bill is stuffed with earmarks to grease its passage. I repeat:
– Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
– Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
– 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)
Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill.
– Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308)
– American Samoa (Sec. 309)
– Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
– Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
– Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312)
“…This week, Congress will vote on the largest federal bailout in history—$700 billion in spending authority to purchase the troubled assets of Wall Street’s major investment houses. As a free market economist I unequivocally oppose this legislation because it violates the basic working tenets of free market capitalism and individual responsibility. Equally important to me, it likely violates our Constitution and stands in direct contradiction to the founding principles of our great nation.
Granting the Treasury broad authority to buy troubled assets from private entities poses a significant threat to taxpayers and fundamentally alters the relationship between the private economy and the federal government. Despite the sweeping breadth of the proposed bailout, there is virtually nothing in the bill that addresses the underlying problems that created the housing bubble and the oversized and over-leveraged financial services sector that grew with it. Taxpayers have become Wall Street’s newest financier, with little more than a promise—and a report to Congress on “regulatory modernization”—that Congress will not let this happen again. …”
“…Despite the publicly-voiced concerns of many of us – both in and out of government – about Fannie and Freddie, the GSEs’ defenders in Congress turned a blind eye to the inherent weaknesses in the system. The financial system held together as long as housing prices continued to increase. As the housing market weakened, it became evident that the value of mortgages underlying the new financial instruments was too low to meet the necessary financial obligations. As the true market value became evident, the market for these mortgage backed securities (originated by Fannie and Freddie) dried up as investors triggered a flight to safety. Considering the fact that many of these firms were leveraged by as much as 30-to-1, the retrenchment was severe.The large government intervention that Congress is proposing would create changes whose effects will linger long into the future. The Treasury plan would fundamentally alter the workings of the market, rewarding poorly run investment firms at the disadvantage of prudent ones, and transferring the burden of risk to the taxpayer. At the same time, the $700 billion proposal does not offer fundamental reforms required to avoid a repeat of the current problem. Congress has been reluctant to reform the government sponsored enterprises that lie at the heart of today’s troubled markets, and there is little to suggest their resolve to pass the necessary reforms will increase in the wake of a bailout.
In addition to the moral hazard inherent in the proposal, the plan makes it difficult to move resources to more highly valued uses. Successful firms that may have been in a position to acquire troubled firms would no longer have a market advantage allowing them to do so; instead, entities that were struggling would now be shored up and competing on equal footing with their more efficient competitors. The financial services sector is over-leveraged and too large. Winding this down will, indeed, impose painful costs. Congress is seeking to explicitly transfer these costs to taxpayers, who will underwrite a new government plan devised to correct the old government plans. Taxpayers are being called upon to make a significant sacrifice, with little evidence to suggest that the troubled markets will be settled. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the latest intervention will delay the required adjustments in the financial services sector. The $700 billion intervention is just the largest, latest in a series of failed bailouts with no guarantee that the desired outcome will even be achieved. …”
“…OpenCongress Summary:The bailout would allow the government to use up to $700 billion in taxpayer money – $350 billion initially, and the rest with Congress’s approval – to buy troubled assets from struggling financial institutions. It would also establish a program whereby the government would offer insurance to companies for their assets rather than buying them. Additionally, the bill establishes “appropriate standards” for the compensation of executives at companies that sell assets to the government, creates a congressional oversight panel and requires the government take equity stakes in bailed out companies. …”
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”
~ 2 Corinthians 9:6
Forget about Treasury Secretary Paulson’s bailout bill that Congress voted down on Monday.
The Treasury does not need to purchase from financial institutions assets whose current value is temporarily depressed due to the decline in real estate prices. There are alternative courses of action to get liquidity or capital to financial institutions whose capital structure is impaired. Either loan money or invest funds in the financial institutions for up to five years. Let the financial institutions keep and sell the assets themselves when real estate prices recover. Then have the financial institutions repay the loan or buy back the preferred stock. There is no need for the Federal Government to purchase these assets. I know it, the American people know, and so does the Treasury Secretary and the President.
What will the American people support to rescue the economy?
1. Increase the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) from $100,000 to $250,000.
2. Increase the Securities Investor Protection Corporation insured ceiling from $500,000 to $1,000,000 per customer and increase the maximum of $100,000 for cash claims to $250,000.
3. Decrease the capital gains tax from 15% to 0%.
4. Repeal the mark to market accounting rules.
5. Allow financial institutions facing severe liquidity problems to borrow funds from the Federal Reserve for up to five years at an interest rate equal to prime plus three percent to encourage early repayment of the loan.
The greed, arrogance and stupidity (GAS) of the American elites in Washington and Wall Street needs to stop.
The American people no longer trust the American elites of both political parties and have lost confidence in their ability to either tell the truth or understand what urgently needs to be done.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation created by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. It provides deposit insurance which guarantees the safety of checking and savings deposits in member banks, currently up to $100,000 per depositor per bank. The vast number of bank failures in the Great Depression spurred the United States Congress to create an institution to guarantee deposits held by commercial banks, inspired by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its Depositors Insurance Fund (DIF).
The FDIC insures accounts at different banks separately. For example, a person with accounts at two separate banks (not merely branches of the same bank) can keep $100,000 in each account and be insured for the total of $200,000. Also, accounts in different ownerships (such as beneficial ownership, trusts, and joint accounts) are considered separately for the $100,000 insurance limit. The Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Act of 2005 raised the amount of insurance for an Individual Retirement Account to $250,000. …”
“…Insurance requirements
To receive this benefit, member banks must follow certain liquidity and reserve requirements. Banks are classified in five groups according to their risk-based capital ratio:
Well capitalized: 10% or higher
Adequately capitalized: 8% or higher
Undercapitalized: less than 8%
Significantly undercapitalized: less than 6%
Critically undercapitalized: less than 2%
When a bank becomes undercapitalized the FDIC issues a warning to the bank. When the number drops below 6% the FDIC can change management and force the bank to take other corrective action. When the bank becomes critically undercapitalized the FDIC declares the bank insolvent and can take over management of the bank. …”
“The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) is a federally mandated non-profitcorporation in the United States that protects securitiesinvestors from harm if a broker/dealer defaults. Investors are not insured for any potential loss while invested in the market.
SIPC serves two primary roles in the event that a broker-dealer fails. First, SIPC acts to organize the distribution of customer cash and securities to investors. Second, to the extent a customer’s cash and/or securities are unavailable, SIPC provides insurance coverage up to $500,000 of the customer’s net equity balance including up to $100,000 in cash. …”
“…A capital gains tax (abbreviated: CGT) is a tax charged on capital gains, the profit realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset that was purchased at a lower price. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals and property. Not all countries implement a capital gains tax and most have different rates of taxation for individuals and corporations.
For equities, an example of a popular and liquid asset, each national or state legislation, have a large array of fiscal obligations that must be respected regarding capital gains. Taxes are charged by the state over the transactions, dividends and capital gains on the stock market. However, these fiscal obligations may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction because, among other reasons, it could be assumed that taxation is already incorporated into the stock price through the different taxes companies pay to the state, or that tax free stock market operations are useful to boost economic growth.
“In the United States, individuals and corporations pay income tax on the net total of all their capital gains just as they do on other sorts of income. Capital gains are generally taxed at a preferential rate in comparison to ordinary income. This is intended to provide incentives for investors to make capital investments and to fund entrepreneurial activity. The amount an investor is taxed depends on both his or her tax bracket, and the amount of time the investment was held before being sold. Short-term capital gains are taxed at the investor’s ordinary income tax rate, and are defined as investments held for a year or less before being sold. Long-term capital gains, which apply to assets held for more than one year, are taxed at a lower rate than short-term gains. In 2003, this rate was reduced to 15%, and to 5% for individuals in the lowest two income tax brackets. These reduced tax rates were passed with a sunset provision and are effective through 2011; if they are not extended before that time, they will expire and revert to the rates in effect before 2003, which were generally 20%.
The reduced 15% tax rate on eligible dividends and capital gains, previously scheduled to expire in 2008, was extended through 2010 as a result of the Tax Reconciliation Act signed into law by President George W. Bush on May 17, 2006. As a result:
In 2008, 2009, and 2010, the tax rate on eligible dividends and long term capital gains is 0% for those in the 10% and 15% income tax brackets.
After 2010, dividends will be taxed at the taxpayer’s ordinary income tax rate, regardless of his or her tax bracket.
After 2010, the long-term capital gains tax rate will be 20% (10% for taxpayers in the 15% tax bracket).
After 2010, the qualified five-year 18% capital gains rate (8% for taxpayers in the 15% tax bracket) will be reinstated.
Technically, a “cost basis” is used, rather than the simple purchase price, to determine the taxable amount of the gain. The cost basis is the original purchase price, adjusted for various things including additional improvements or investments, taxes paid on dividends, certain fees, and depreciation.
The United States is unlike other countries in that its citizens are subject to U.S. tax on their worldwide income no matter where in the world they reside. U.S. citizens therefore find it difficult to take advantage of personal tax havens. Although there are some offshore bank accounts that advertise as tax havens, U.S. law requires reporting of income from those accounts and failure to do so constitutes tax evasion. …”
“In accounting and finance, mark to market is the act of assigning a value to a position held in a financial instrument based on the current market price for the instrument or similar instruments. For example, the final value of a futures contract that expires in 9 months will not be known until it expires. If it is marked to market, for accounting purposes it is assigned the value that it would fetch in the open market currently. …”
“Simple example
Example: If an investor owns 100 shares of a stock purchased for $40 per share, and that stock now trades at $60, the “mark-to-market” value of the shares is equal to (100 shares × $60), or $6,000, whereas the book value might (depending on the accounting principles used) only equal $4,000.
Similarly, if the stock falls to $30, the mark-to-market value is $3,000 and the investor has lost $1,000 of the original investment. If the stock was purchased on margin, this might trigger a margin call and the investor would have to come up with an amount sufficient to meet the margin requirements for his account.”
“…Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
Section 132 of the proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, titled “Authority to Suspend Mark-to-Market Accounting” restates the Securities and Exchange Commission’s authority to suspend the application of FAS 157 if the SEC determines that it is in the public interest and protects investors.
Section 133 of the proposed Act, titled “Study on Mark-to-Market Accounting,” requires the SEC, in consultation with the Federal Reserve Board and the Department of the Treasury, to conduct a study on mark-to-market accounting standards as provided in FAS 157, including its effects on balance sheets, impact on the quality of financial information, and other matters, and to report to Congress within 90 days on its findings.[4] …”
“U.S. securities regulators on Tuesday gave the financial industry a reprieve from marking hard-to-value assets down to fire sale prices, throwing a lifeline to an industry beset by strained credit markets and the latest round of bank failures.
The U.S. stock market added to gains on the news, in hopes that regulators’ new interpretation of fair value, or mark-to-market, accounting rules, will slow or reverse the heavy flow of mortgage-related losses on banks’ balance sheets.
In the new guidance, first reported by Reuters, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reminded financial services firms that they don’t need to use fire sale prices when evaluating their hard to price assets.
“This is a significant first step and adds stability, confidence, and liquidity within the capital markets,” said Steve Bartlett, president and chief executive of The Financial Services Roundtable. “By clarifying how to treat assets in an uncertain market, the SEC is continuing to provide transparency to investors and helping institutions to provide credit in periods of market stress.” …”
Subprime Crisis: The Role of Off Balance Sheet Entities
Subprime: The Role of Off Balance Sheet Entitities Part 2
Subprime: Is Mark to Market Accounting Marking Things Worse
Newt Gingrich Bailout Proposal – Part 1
Newt Gingrich Bailout Proposal – Part 2
Heritage’s JD Foster Explains the Credit Crisis
Three Things to Know About Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
1) Federal action is needed to restore confidence.
2) The companies are creations of big-government policies.
3) Breaking up the companies is long-term fix.
Wall Streets Day of Reckoning: Turmoil in the Global Market
Wall Street’s Day of Reckoning: The Fannie & Freddie Bailout
Richard Herring on What’s Next for Investment Banks
Franklin Allen on Lessons from the Subprime Crisis
(Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to an elite force that served as the Führer’s “Praetorian Guard,” the Nazi Party’s “Shield Squadron” and a force with as much political influence as the regular German armed forces. Built upon the Nazi racial ideology, the SS, under Heinrich Himmler’s command, was primarily responsible for the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Pronk Palisades 
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