Headlines

Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Obama Has Links to ANOTHER '60s Radical
2. Noam Chomsky: Iran ‘Entitled’ to Uranium Enrichment
3. Obama’s Tax Hike Would Impact Blue States
4. Russians in U.S. Back McCain
5. Dolphins’ Huizenga Wary of Obama Tax Plan
6. Poll: Israelis Prefer McCain Over Obama
7. We Heard: Bean Counters, Michelle Obama





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1. Obama Has Links to ANOTHER '60s Radical

Barack Obama has consistently sought to distance himself from former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. But it’s a different story with another student radical from the 1960s — Marilyn Katz — who is actually on Obama’s fundraising team.

Katz, a public relations executive in Chicago, serves on Obama’s national finance committee. She is listed as a fundraising “bundler” on his Web site, has hosted fundraisers for the candidate, and attended the Democratic Convention as part of the Illinois delegation.

But during the violent protests of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Katz was the security chief for the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which spawned Ayers and the Weather Underground.

During those protests, Katz advocated throwing studded nails in front of police cars, the Chicago Tribune reported.

In 1969, an undercover policeman named William Frapolly testified at the “Chicago Seven” trials, and prosecutors asked him to describe his collaboration with organizers of the protest the previous year.

He testified that one night in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, Katz briefed a group of protesters on the use of “guerilla nails.”

“She had two types,” he told the court.

“One was a cluster of nails that were sharpened at both ends, and they were fastened in the center. It looked like they were welded or soldered. She said these were good for throwing or putting underneath tires.

“She showed another set that was the same type of nails sharpened at both ends, but they were put through a Styrofoam cylinder.”

A prosecutor asked, “To whom was she showing these objects?”

Frapolly answered, “Everyone in the group.”

Katz was a principal organizer of the October 2002 anti-war demonstration in Chicago where Obama first expressed his opposition to the looming Iraq war.

In 2005, she co-authored the book “Stopping War, Seeking Justice” along with longtime Marxist and Obama supporter Carl Davidson.

Now she is co-chair of Chicagoans Against War & Injustice, and her public relations firm is working on contracts with the city of Chicago worth millions of dollars. She lists as her clients the city’s housing authority, law department, and departments of housing, human services, streets and sanitation, and public health, among others.

As for her relationship with Ayers, who admitted helping to bomb the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon in the 1970s, the Tribune reported that she has said, “Bill and I were in different parts of SDS. We disagreed on tactics.”

Guy Benson wrote on Townhall.com about Obama’s Katz connection: “There are so many objectionable figures in Obama’s social milieu, new revelations about yet another garden variety radical may elicit shrugs at this point . . .

“Perhaps it follows that someone who preferred lobbing guerilla nails at police over planting pipe bombs in federal buildings would be integrated into Obama’s official campaign apparatus without so much as a second look.”
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2. Noam Chomsky: Iran ‘Entitled’ to Uranium Enrichment

Radical leftist Noam Chomsky has attacked America’s stance on Iran and says the Islamic Republic has the right to enrich uranium.

The MIT professor and author told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that public opinion in the U.S. “overwhelmingly holds that Iran should have the right to develop nuclear energy.”

He added that “nobody thinks they have the right to develop nuclear weapons,” but Iran is “of course entitled to uranium enrichment.”

He also lashed out at Western media for asserting that Iran is “defying the world” over its nuclear program.

“That’s a funny definition of the ‘world,’” he said in his IRNA interview. “The Non-Aligned Movement, for example, which is the majority of countries, endorses Iran’s right to enrich uranium.”

He went further in his attack on U.S. policy, claiming that America’s hostile stance toward Iran results from Iran’s refusal “to subordinate itself to U.S. will. Iran is an independent actor. It is defiant of the U.S. and that’s not tolerated.

“In fact, that’s official policy going back to World War II in which the U.S. would try to create a world order in which it is dominant.”

Chomsky’s remarks to the IRNA are far from the first time he has verbally assaulted the nation of his birth.

As Newsmax magazine reported earlier, the author of “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance” has compared America to Nazi Germany, called capitalism a worse form of tyranny than communism, and referred to the Pentagon as “the most hideous institution on earth."

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3. Obama’s Tax Hike Would Impact Blue States

Democrat Barack Obama’s plan to raise tax rates for families earning more than $250,000 would have the greatest impact on high-income states that are likely to vote Democratic in this year’s presidential election.

The Internal Revenue Service provides figures on the number of married couples with adjusted gross incomes over $200,000.

In 2006, 6.5 percent of all married couples reported an AGI above $200,000, “squarely in line with Obama’s claim that only 5 percent of families would pay more,” Forbes magazine observed.

The jurisdiction with the highest percentage of married couples that would be impacted by Obama’s tax plan is Washington, D.C., where 23 percent of couples report an AGI above $200,000. Washington is certain to go for Obama on Election Day.

In Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts, more than 10 percent of couples earn over $200,000. Those three states voted Democratic in 2000 and 2004 and are solidly in Obama’s camp this year, according to electoral maps drawn up by the Realclearpolitics Web site and political analyst Dick Morris.

Rounding out the top 10 jurisdictions with the highest percentage of couples earning in excess of $200,000 are Maryland (9.7 percent), New York (8.7 percent), California (8.4 percent), Virginia (8.4 percent), Illinois (7.4 percent) and Colorado (7.1 percent).

Only two of those states, Virginia and Colorado, are not solidly in Obama’s camp, and both of them are “leaning Obama,” according to Realclearpolitics and Morris.

On the other hand, four of the five states with the lowest percentage of couples earning over $200,000 voted for George Bush in 2000 and 2004 “and are likely to give John McCain their electoral votes,” Forbes predicts.

They are West Virginia (2.4 percent), Arkansas (3.4), Kentucky (3.4), and North Dakota (3.5) — although Realclearpolitics has West Virginia only “leaning McCain” and rates North Dakota as a tossup.

Iowa, where 3.5 percent of couples earn more than $200,000, went for Bush in 2004 but is solidly for Obama this year.

Half of the 3.5 million couples reporting an AGI over $200,000 live in California.


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4. Russians in U.S. Back McCain

The overwhelming majority of Russian immigrants in the U.S. say they will cast their ballots for Republican John McCain in the Nov. 4 presidential election, according to the Moscow Bureau of Human Rights (MBHR).

MBHR reported on a poll among Russian immigrants in New York, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts between Aug. 30 and Oct. 10, which was conducted in cooperation with the American Jewish Congress, Interfax Information Services reported.

Of the 79 percent of respondents who said they are certain to go to the polls, over half, 63 percent, said they will vote for McCain; 11 percent will choose Barack Obama; and 25 percent remain undecided.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported in 2006 that about 3.1 million people in the U.S. cite their ancestry as Russian.

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5. Dolphins’ Huizenga Wary of Obama Tax Plan

H. Wayne Huizenga, co-owner of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, said Barack Obama’s plan to raise the capital gains tax could hasten his move to sell most of his remaining share of the team.

“He wants to double the capital gains tax, or almost double it,” Huizenga said.

“If you [sell] this year or you do it next year, the difference is humongous because of the taxes.”

Huizenga sold 50 percent of the team and Dolphin Stadium to businessman Stephen Ross earlier this year for $550 million, and wants to sell another 45 percent to Ross. The transfer has already been approved by NFL owners, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

“It’s been 19 years and after 19 years, it’s kind of time” to sell, Huizenga said. “I don’t want to be one of those owners who gets real old and hangs in there. We know some of those stories already.”

Huizenga turns 71 in December.

Bobby Gravitz, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, disputed Huizenga’s statement, saying Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax maximum from
15 percent to 20 percent — a 33-percent increase rather than double.

Gravitz noted that the 20 percent rate would be “a third lower than the rate that President Reagan set in 1986.”
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6. Poll: Israelis Prefer McCain Over Obama

If Israelis could vote in the U.S. presidential election, they would choose Republican nominee John McCain over his Democratic rival Barack Obama by a substantial margin, a poll reveals.

In the survey of 500 Israeli adults commissioned by the Rabin Center for
Israel Studies, McCain was chosen by 46 percent of respondents, compared
to 34 percent for Obama.

“Most Israelis remain convinced that McCain’s approach to regional threats to both Israel and American interests is far more realistic than Obama’s,” Israel Today reported.

The poll also found that Israelis are comfortable with McCain’s position that the U.S. should step back from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

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7. We Heard . . .

THAT the bean counters will be tallying up the score the morning after Election Day — the bean counters at Sweet Sue’s restaurant in Tyler, Texas, that is.

Patrons are each given one bean per visit, and they can express their presidential choice by dropping the bean in either the Barack Obama jar or the John McCain jar.

The beans won’t be counted until Wednesday morning, local station KLTV reported.

Of course, the results won’t mean a hill of beans in the presidential race. But managers at Sweet Sue’s say the bean poll, a long-held tradition at the restaurant, has always been very close to national poll results.

THAT the new coach of Oregon State University’s basketball team, Craig Robinson, has a sister named Michelle who is married to a man named Barack Obama.

Yes, that Barack Obama.

“It’s really hard to get my arms around the fact that my sister could be first lady, that my brother-in-law could be president,” Robinson said.

But Democrats can’t expect the school’s winning ways to rub off on Obama in the general election. Oregon State went 0-18 in conference play last year, and according to USA Today “is a solid news media pick to finish last again this season.”