Put ACLU On Watch
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Homeland Security: Forced to defend its growing terrorist watch list, the FBI let slip a chilling fact that should silence ACLU grumblers: America is teeming with 20,000 terrorists.
After 9/11, federal authorities estimated that as many as 5,000 terrorists were living in the U.S. The new figure is jarring not only because it's four times as large but because it's based on real persons, not estimates.
It's not something headquarters wanted to publicize. Officials had downplayed the threat so as not to spook the public. The spin had been that Britain has the homegrown problem, not us.
But that was before the ACLU launched a campaign with the Democrat Congress to demonize the watch list as a Gestapo-like tool. The FBI had no choice but to knock down their myths.
The ACLU charged that an "out-of-control" FBI is adding mostly innocent people to the list, ballooning it to "over 1 million names." "I doubt this thing would even be effective at catching a real terrorist," ACLU spokesman Barry Steinhardt harrumphed.
In fact, the list has saved countless lives, according to the head of the FBI's terrorism screening center — an assertion backed up by a recent independent review by the GAO.
And the watch list monitors only 400,000 people, not a million, says the FBI official, Leonard Boyle. The rest are aliases due to the myriad spellings and variations of Arabic surnames.
In a rare public appearance on C-Span, Boyle added that the overwhelming share of individuals on the terrorist list are foreigners, while "5% to 6%" of individuals are U.S. citizens or legal residents.
That still pencils out to at least 20,000 people living in this country right now — at large and on the streets — who have "some relationship with terrorist activity," as Boyle described it.
They pose a big enough threat for airlines to legally bounce them off planes, and for every law enforcement authority from border agents to local police to detain them for questioning.
At 20,000 strong, these suspected homegrown terrorists number a full army division. And they don't include the more than 440 active terrorists the Justice Department already has put behind bars since 9/11. Britain, by comparison, is watching just 8,000.
But never mind all that. The ACLU and its allies on the Hill want to scrap the terrorist watch list and take law enforcement's eye off these potentially dangerous suspects.
In a perfect world, the ACLU might qualify as a terrorist facilitator deserving of its own spot on the list.
July 26, 2008
Bombers In Cuba, Bases In Venezuela
Bombers In Cuba, Bases In Venezuela
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Geopolitics: As Barack Obama luxuriated in the adoration of Europeans, a less charming leader was also making his way across the Continent, seeking arms and military bases to direct toward the United States.
What happened under the radar last week ought to have gotten more attention, because it's the beginning of a problem that will carry well into the next administration.
While Obama was drawing applause in Germany, Venezuela's hostile and anti-American president, Hugo Chavez, was conducting a stealthy parallel trip across Europe spending billions of petrodollars on weapons of war he doesn't need.
In Russia, he vowed to buy $1 billion worth of diesel submarines, mobile missile systems and tanks. He also told Russian leaders he'd spend $30 billion for arms in coming years. He even offered Russia a military base on Venezuelan soil, according to Russian media.
Meanwhile, Chavez's closest ally, the Republic of Cuba, offered refueling stations for Russia's bombers, raising an echo of the 1962 missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of war. There was also talk of Russia re-opening the Lourdes electronic surveillance post to train on the U.S.
"Cuba is a unique place to gather intelligence on the U.S.," a Russian official told a news conference in Moscow. To make sure no one misunderstood, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro wrote a rare missive from his sickbed to declare he owed the U.S. no explanation for this breach of the '62 treaty to keep Russian arms out of Cuba — a veiled threat if there ever was one.
These developments could destabilize the region, involve Latin America in other global disputes and draw the U.S. into a conflict. No matter that Chavez and Castro later denied everything; this was a trial balloon to gauge any weakness they can exploit.
If they find what they're looking for — and they will if the U.S. has a weak, naive or inexperienced president after November — then America faces a reconstituted Cold War south of the border.
Unlike the last one, however, we'll face a Venezuela armed to the teeth, possibly with a Russian base on its own soil and Russian bomber bases and spy stations just 90 miles off the Florida coast. Add a possible Iranian base in Nicaragua, and this is more ominous than anything we faced when we last locked horns with the communists.
These bases will also intimidate the best ally America has ever had in Latin America — Colombia. Chavez has already threatened to use advanced Russian Sukhoi fighters over Bogota when Venezuela and Colombia stood on the brink of war last March.
The symmetry of new bases is disturbing. Russia is eager to retaliate against the U.S. for Europe's missile shield, and Chavez wants to counter a coming U.S. base in Colombia.
This may happen because Ecuador is expelling the U.S. from its anti-drug base in Manta. A Russian base in Venezuela would serve both purposes.
Colombia will be just the ally we need in this situation. Unfortunately, it's also the ally Barack Obama and other congressional Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have weakened through their bid to quash its U.S. free-trade pact.
The Bush administration has repeatedly stated that the pact has national security significance. Colombia is strategically situated on two ocean coasts, and its victory over terror can be consolidated with prosperity, something a permanent trade deal would bring.
But it's not just Bush who grasps Colombia's importance. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil recently moved to draw Colombia into his nation's orbit by vowing to enhance trade ties.
This would be good for both countries, he argued, "so we aren't left dependent on a single partner." This was a not-so-subtle knock on American trustworthiness as long as Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are calling the shots.
Unlike Germany, for example, Colombia is a friend that hasn't hesitated to help the U.S. It most recently put its own troops in harm's way to rescue three American men held hostage by vicious jungle terrorists.
As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted last week on RealClearPolitics.com, a nation that might have cut side deals with terrorists to get its own men out first at the expense of ours refused to do so.
That's an ally we'll need as Chavez and Castro remain up to no good and Russia begins to meddle again in our hemisphere.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Geopolitics: As Barack Obama luxuriated in the adoration of Europeans, a less charming leader was also making his way across the Continent, seeking arms and military bases to direct toward the United States.
What happened under the radar last week ought to have gotten more attention, because it's the beginning of a problem that will carry well into the next administration.
While Obama was drawing applause in Germany, Venezuela's hostile and anti-American president, Hugo Chavez, was conducting a stealthy parallel trip across Europe spending billions of petrodollars on weapons of war he doesn't need.
In Russia, he vowed to buy $1 billion worth of diesel submarines, mobile missile systems and tanks. He also told Russian leaders he'd spend $30 billion for arms in coming years. He even offered Russia a military base on Venezuelan soil, according to Russian media.
Meanwhile, Chavez's closest ally, the Republic of Cuba, offered refueling stations for Russia's bombers, raising an echo of the 1962 missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of war. There was also talk of Russia re-opening the Lourdes electronic surveillance post to train on the U.S.
"Cuba is a unique place to gather intelligence on the U.S.," a Russian official told a news conference in Moscow. To make sure no one misunderstood, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro wrote a rare missive from his sickbed to declare he owed the U.S. no explanation for this breach of the '62 treaty to keep Russian arms out of Cuba — a veiled threat if there ever was one.
These developments could destabilize the region, involve Latin America in other global disputes and draw the U.S. into a conflict. No matter that Chavez and Castro later denied everything; this was a trial balloon to gauge any weakness they can exploit.
If they find what they're looking for — and they will if the U.S. has a weak, naive or inexperienced president after November — then America faces a reconstituted Cold War south of the border.
Unlike the last one, however, we'll face a Venezuela armed to the teeth, possibly with a Russian base on its own soil and Russian bomber bases and spy stations just 90 miles off the Florida coast. Add a possible Iranian base in Nicaragua, and this is more ominous than anything we faced when we last locked horns with the communists.
These bases will also intimidate the best ally America has ever had in Latin America — Colombia. Chavez has already threatened to use advanced Russian Sukhoi fighters over Bogota when Venezuela and Colombia stood on the brink of war last March.
The symmetry of new bases is disturbing. Russia is eager to retaliate against the U.S. for Europe's missile shield, and Chavez wants to counter a coming U.S. base in Colombia.
This may happen because Ecuador is expelling the U.S. from its anti-drug base in Manta. A Russian base in Venezuela would serve both purposes.
Colombia will be just the ally we need in this situation. Unfortunately, it's also the ally Barack Obama and other congressional Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have weakened through their bid to quash its U.S. free-trade pact.
The Bush administration has repeatedly stated that the pact has national security significance. Colombia is strategically situated on two ocean coasts, and its victory over terror can be consolidated with prosperity, something a permanent trade deal would bring.
But it's not just Bush who grasps Colombia's importance. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil recently moved to draw Colombia into his nation's orbit by vowing to enhance trade ties.
This would be good for both countries, he argued, "so we aren't left dependent on a single partner." This was a not-so-subtle knock on American trustworthiness as long as Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are calling the shots.
Unlike Germany, for example, Colombia is a friend that hasn't hesitated to help the U.S. It most recently put its own troops in harm's way to rescue three American men held hostage by vicious jungle terrorists.
As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted last week on RealClearPolitics.com, a nation that might have cut side deals with terrorists to get its own men out first at the expense of ours refused to do so.
That's an ally we'll need as Chavez and Castro remain up to no good and Russia begins to meddle again in our hemisphere.
Call Congress Back To Vote On Drilling
Call Congress Back To Vote On Drilling
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: When it comes to giving relief at the pump by drilling for more oil, this is truly a "do-nothing" Democratic Congress. President Bush should give 'em hell like Harry Truman did.
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution states that the president "may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses" of Congress. On more than two dozen occasions in our history, presidents have done just that, forcing the Senate and House of Representatives to meet on extraordinary matters of defense or economic peril.
Sixty years ago this month, President Truman called such a special session to shame into action what he labeled a "do nothing" Republican Congress. He dubbed it the Turnip Day Session, because of the day on which it began. According to folklore in Truman's native Missouri, "On the 25th of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry."
Congress refused to do Truman's bidding in the session, but the bold move saved the president's political skin. He defied the odds that November and was re-elected — largely because the public came to view the 80th Congress as in the grip of a cowardly paralysis.
Today's Democratic-controlled 110th Congress is just as paralyzed, but the stakes are far higher. Our irrational dependence on oil from foreign nations is squeezing American consumers and businesses with sky-high fuel prices. And it makes us vulnerable to blackmail by hostile, oil-rich regimes.
Americans use nearly 21 million barrels of oil a day. The U.S. Geological Survey has just identified 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Arctic — nearly 30 billion barrels of it in Alaska. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow a floor vote on drilling because the idea it would make a difference is "frivolous," she said last week.
Suffering consumers disagree. This month, an IBD/TIPP Poll of 920 adults found that by more than 3-to-1 Americans believe gas prices to be a bigger problem than global warming. A broad-based 64% of respondents favor offshore drilling, and 65% want oil shale development in the Western states.
A Rasmussen survey in June found 67% of voters in favor of drilling off the coasts of California, Florida and other states, and 64% believing gas prices would drop as a result. A Zogby poll last month found that 74% want offshore drilling in U.S. waters.
This is a potential political gusher, if only Republicans would fully tap into it. Bush has the opportunity to do so before this hot, cash-guzzling summer ends. Like Truman, he can use his constitutional authority to call this negligent Congress back once it embarks on its long August recess to campaign for re-election.
In so doing, he can demand that instead of nonsolutions like its failed attempt to release more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve [SPR], Congress carry out the will of the vast majority of Americans by passing laws that authorize drilling.
In one fell swoop, a presidential recall of Congress would strengthen national security, boost our economy and maybe even turn things around for Republicans and avoid the losses being predicted for them this election year.
If giving 'em hell worked for Harry, you bet it can work for Dubya.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: When it comes to giving relief at the pump by drilling for more oil, this is truly a "do-nothing" Democratic Congress. President Bush should give 'em hell like Harry Truman did.
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution states that the president "may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses" of Congress. On more than two dozen occasions in our history, presidents have done just that, forcing the Senate and House of Representatives to meet on extraordinary matters of defense or economic peril.
Sixty years ago this month, President Truman called such a special session to shame into action what he labeled a "do nothing" Republican Congress. He dubbed it the Turnip Day Session, because of the day on which it began. According to folklore in Truman's native Missouri, "On the 25th of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry."
Congress refused to do Truman's bidding in the session, but the bold move saved the president's political skin. He defied the odds that November and was re-elected — largely because the public came to view the 80th Congress as in the grip of a cowardly paralysis.
Today's Democratic-controlled 110th Congress is just as paralyzed, but the stakes are far higher. Our irrational dependence on oil from foreign nations is squeezing American consumers and businesses with sky-high fuel prices. And it makes us vulnerable to blackmail by hostile, oil-rich regimes.
Americans use nearly 21 million barrels of oil a day. The U.S. Geological Survey has just identified 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Arctic — nearly 30 billion barrels of it in Alaska. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to allow a floor vote on drilling because the idea it would make a difference is "frivolous," she said last week.
Suffering consumers disagree. This month, an IBD/TIPP Poll of 920 adults found that by more than 3-to-1 Americans believe gas prices to be a bigger problem than global warming. A broad-based 64% of respondents favor offshore drilling, and 65% want oil shale development in the Western states.
A Rasmussen survey in June found 67% of voters in favor of drilling off the coasts of California, Florida and other states, and 64% believing gas prices would drop as a result. A Zogby poll last month found that 74% want offshore drilling in U.S. waters.
This is a potential political gusher, if only Republicans would fully tap into it. Bush has the opportunity to do so before this hot, cash-guzzling summer ends. Like Truman, he can use his constitutional authority to call this negligent Congress back once it embarks on its long August recess to campaign for re-election.
In so doing, he can demand that instead of nonsolutions like its failed attempt to release more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve [SPR], Congress carry out the will of the vast majority of Americans by passing laws that authorize drilling.
In one fell swoop, a presidential recall of Congress would strengthen national security, boost our economy and maybe even turn things around for Republicans and avoid the losses being predicted for them this election year.
If giving 'em hell worked for Harry, you bet it can work for Dubya.
July 25, 2008
Sharansky: ‘Big Concern’ About Obama
Sharansky: ‘Big Concern’ About Obama; Warns Iran of ‘Inevitable’ Attack
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 6:23 PM
By: Christopher Ruddy
Editor’s Note: Newsmax Editor Christopher Ruddy is visiting Israel this week and met with Natan Sharansky. The former Soviet dissident spent more than a decade in the communist Gulag. He emigrated to Israel after his release in 1986, became a Knesset member and served in four successive Israeli governments, including time as deputy prime minister. In 2006, he resigned from Israel’s Knesset, but he remains active in the country’s political discourse. He has just authored his latest book “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.”
Jerusalem — An Israeli businessman I met described Natan Sharansky as having an “inner strength.” Indeed he has. We might say in America he is a man of a quiet charisma.
It’s Wednesday, the day after a crazed man went on a rampage using a bulldozer in a suicidal attempt to kill and maim innocent Israelis. In the end, 16 civilians were injured before the terrorist was shot dead.
All of this took place not far from Sharansky’s Jerusalem office at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, where he serves as its chairman. Sharansky appears calm and safe, even unshakable. But he sees real threats to the state of Israel.
“There must be a serious punishment,” Sharansky says of the suicidal terrorists. First, the Israeli government should demolish the homes of suicidal terrorists, a tactic he describes as a “deterrence” that is “one of the most effective ways of social pressure” to thwart future acts.
Sharansky quickly qualifies this remedy as a “micro-therapy.”
The attacks of radical Islamics do not come in a vacuum, Sharansky posits.
He says the backers of the fundamentalist ideology that foments terror, Wahabism from Saudi Arabia, as well as the military sponsors of Hezbollah and Hamas (he names the Iranians and Syrians), need to pay a price for their support.
“I think one of the biggest failures, of shortsightedness, of all American administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, is their attitude toward Saudi Arabia,” he says.
Sharansky’s comments carry great weight here and for policy-makers in the West. Though he resigned from the Knesset as a stalwart Likud backer in 2006, he has remained active in the political debate.
The real problem for his country, he says, slowly sipping a cup of tea as he sits behind his desk, is that the Arab world sees Israel as vulnerable.
“Our adversaries have a growing feeling that we are weak and they are strong. This has to be changed,” he says. To do so, he would punish, including with military retribution, states and networks that back terrorists.
Obama and Iran
As we talk, Barack Obama is here visiting Israel. Sharansky is dubious of the candidate.
“He is definitely a big concern for me,” he says.
Sharansky thinks Obama has “a little record or almost no record, while the one who he is competing with is McCain, and we know for sure his principles.”
Sharansky continues the train of thought: “It is very alarming for me the way Senator Obama voted, the way he spoke about his desire to negotiate with Ahmadinejad, and the way some of his advisers think.
“I was at AIPAC. He made a very strong speech, speaking about a Jewish state, defensible borders, a united Jerusalem, then the next day he started correcting himself.”
Still, Sharansky feels having Obama as president is not as dangerous as having a weak Israeli government.
The threats, as the bulldozer incident showed, are constant, but none is more serious than the one Israel now faces from Iran.
“With any government of Israel, it becomes inevitable, if this [Iranian] regime becomes nuclear, that we will have to act because for us that is a question for the survival of our Jewish civilization,” he explains.
“If Iran will not change, Israel will have to act. I think it will be very tragic if Israel has to act alone.”
He is not sure that if Israel does attack Iran alone, it will solve the problem.
“The only chance it would be 100 percent successful is if the free world, and first of all the United States of America, will be supportive of Israel.”
Indeed, there is a consensus among Israeli elites — left and right — that a nuclear Iran is a direct threat to the existence of the Jewish state. The question now is whether Israel acts alone or in conjunction with the U.S. and other Western states.
The Larger Issue: Identity
The survival of the West depends on democracy, Sharansky argues. His best-selling book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror,” made his case and figured into President Bush’s second inaugural address.
Taking his lead from Sharansky, Bush declared in the speech, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
Bush also said during a February 2005 trip to Europe that Sharansky’s book “confirmed what I believe.”
But Sharansky believes democracy does not mean unlimited freedom overnight, especially for states that have no history of democratic institutions.
Instead, he argues for the gradual development of democratic institutions.
“First you must have the beginnings of a free society, have institutions that guarantee individuals some basic freedoms,” Sharansky says. “Elections are the end result of democracy, not necessarily the beginning of the process.”
And existing democracies, in Europe and the United States, not to mention Israel, face significant challenges. Sharansky tackles this subject in his newest book “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.”
The thesis of his book is that democratic society, if it has any hope for long-term survival, must offer an identity for its citizens.
Looking out at the world, he says “our enemies look so dangerous because they have a strong will.” This means they have beliefs they are ready to die for.
“The free world, if it does not have values for which people are ready to die, will be powerless, its people decadent. It will be doomed to failure.”
Identity, he says, gives people these values. It is not the enemy, as many in the West believe.
“Europe is suffering the most from a loss of identity. Faith and patriotism have weakened as it embraces a super-identity — all in an effort to avoid war.”
Europe has become John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” a world, Sharansky paraphrases, “where there is no hell and no paradise, no borders, no nations, in a world where there is nothing to die for.
“Less than two generations [after Lennon’s song], Europe is helpless and powerless against a small group of Islamic terrorists.
“It is the tragedy of Europe,” Sharansky declares, but he says of America, “in general, its society is still healthy.”
With such powerful ideas about the future of his nation and the West, is Sharansky ready for a political comeback?
He says yes, if there is a government that stands for something, has found its identity, he would consider it.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 6:23 PM
By: Christopher Ruddy
Editor’s Note: Newsmax Editor Christopher Ruddy is visiting Israel this week and met with Natan Sharansky. The former Soviet dissident spent more than a decade in the communist Gulag. He emigrated to Israel after his release in 1986, became a Knesset member and served in four successive Israeli governments, including time as deputy prime minister. In 2006, he resigned from Israel’s Knesset, but he remains active in the country’s political discourse. He has just authored his latest book “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.”
Jerusalem — An Israeli businessman I met described Natan Sharansky as having an “inner strength.” Indeed he has. We might say in America he is a man of a quiet charisma.
It’s Wednesday, the day after a crazed man went on a rampage using a bulldozer in a suicidal attempt to kill and maim innocent Israelis. In the end, 16 civilians were injured before the terrorist was shot dead.
All of this took place not far from Sharansky’s Jerusalem office at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, where he serves as its chairman. Sharansky appears calm and safe, even unshakable. But he sees real threats to the state of Israel.
“There must be a serious punishment,” Sharansky says of the suicidal terrorists. First, the Israeli government should demolish the homes of suicidal terrorists, a tactic he describes as a “deterrence” that is “one of the most effective ways of social pressure” to thwart future acts.
Sharansky quickly qualifies this remedy as a “micro-therapy.”
The attacks of radical Islamics do not come in a vacuum, Sharansky posits.
He says the backers of the fundamentalist ideology that foments terror, Wahabism from Saudi Arabia, as well as the military sponsors of Hezbollah and Hamas (he names the Iranians and Syrians), need to pay a price for their support.
“I think one of the biggest failures, of shortsightedness, of all American administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, is their attitude toward Saudi Arabia,” he says.
Sharansky’s comments carry great weight here and for policy-makers in the West. Though he resigned from the Knesset as a stalwart Likud backer in 2006, he has remained active in the political debate.
The real problem for his country, he says, slowly sipping a cup of tea as he sits behind his desk, is that the Arab world sees Israel as vulnerable.
“Our adversaries have a growing feeling that we are weak and they are strong. This has to be changed,” he says. To do so, he would punish, including with military retribution, states and networks that back terrorists.
Obama and Iran
As we talk, Barack Obama is here visiting Israel. Sharansky is dubious of the candidate.
“He is definitely a big concern for me,” he says.
Sharansky thinks Obama has “a little record or almost no record, while the one who he is competing with is McCain, and we know for sure his principles.”
Sharansky continues the train of thought: “It is very alarming for me the way Senator Obama voted, the way he spoke about his desire to negotiate with Ahmadinejad, and the way some of his advisers think.
“I was at AIPAC. He made a very strong speech, speaking about a Jewish state, defensible borders, a united Jerusalem, then the next day he started correcting himself.”
Still, Sharansky feels having Obama as president is not as dangerous as having a weak Israeli government.
The threats, as the bulldozer incident showed, are constant, but none is more serious than the one Israel now faces from Iran.
“With any government of Israel, it becomes inevitable, if this [Iranian] regime becomes nuclear, that we will have to act because for us that is a question for the survival of our Jewish civilization,” he explains.
“If Iran will not change, Israel will have to act. I think it will be very tragic if Israel has to act alone.”
He is not sure that if Israel does attack Iran alone, it will solve the problem.
“The only chance it would be 100 percent successful is if the free world, and first of all the United States of America, will be supportive of Israel.”
Indeed, there is a consensus among Israeli elites — left and right — that a nuclear Iran is a direct threat to the existence of the Jewish state. The question now is whether Israel acts alone or in conjunction with the U.S. and other Western states.
The Larger Issue: Identity
The survival of the West depends on democracy, Sharansky argues. His best-selling book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror,” made his case and figured into President Bush’s second inaugural address.
Taking his lead from Sharansky, Bush declared in the speech, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
Bush also said during a February 2005 trip to Europe that Sharansky’s book “confirmed what I believe.”
But Sharansky believes democracy does not mean unlimited freedom overnight, especially for states that have no history of democratic institutions.
Instead, he argues for the gradual development of democratic institutions.
“First you must have the beginnings of a free society, have institutions that guarantee individuals some basic freedoms,” Sharansky says. “Elections are the end result of democracy, not necessarily the beginning of the process.”
And existing democracies, in Europe and the United States, not to mention Israel, face significant challenges. Sharansky tackles this subject in his newest book “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.”
The thesis of his book is that democratic society, if it has any hope for long-term survival, must offer an identity for its citizens.
Looking out at the world, he says “our enemies look so dangerous because they have a strong will.” This means they have beliefs they are ready to die for.
“The free world, if it does not have values for which people are ready to die, will be powerless, its people decadent. It will be doomed to failure.”
Identity, he says, gives people these values. It is not the enemy, as many in the West believe.
“Europe is suffering the most from a loss of identity. Faith and patriotism have weakened as it embraces a super-identity — all in an effort to avoid war.”
Europe has become John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” a world, Sharansky paraphrases, “where there is no hell and no paradise, no borders, no nations, in a world where there is nothing to die for.
“Less than two generations [after Lennon’s song], Europe is helpless and powerless against a small group of Islamic terrorists.
“It is the tragedy of Europe,” Sharansky declares, but he says of America, “in general, its society is still healthy.”
With such powerful ideas about the future of his nation and the West, is Sharansky ready for a political comeback?
He says yes, if there is a government that stands for something, has found its identity, he would consider it.
Strip Sanctuary Cities of Federal Funds
Bush Should Strip Sanctuary Cities of Federal Funds
Friday, July 25, 2008 9:25 AM
By: Michael Reagan Three good men are dead thanks largely to San Francisco’s outrageous sanctuary-city policy, which forbids city authorities from notifying federal immigration authorities when they arrest illegal aliens for crimes they commit, and it’s time for President Bush to crack down on all the cities in the United States that follow this absurd policy.
On June 22, Anthony Bologna and his sons Michael and Matthew were shot to death by Edwin Ramos, 21, after a brief traffic incident when Anthony Bologna allegedly briefly blocked Ramos' car from making a left turn, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ramos, an alleged member of the vicious the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13, should never have been around to kill the three men, and wouldn’t have been — were not for the city’s sanctuary-city policy. Ramos, an illegal immigrant, was found guilty of committing two felonies when he was 17 — involving a gang-related assault of a Municipal Railway passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman, yet was never surrendered by the city’s juvenile justice authorities to federal officials for possible deportation as required by federal law.
Ramos was taken to juvenile hall on charges of assault and participating in a street gang, and was later convicted in juvenile court and put in a shelter. Under federal law, he should have been referred to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) but the Juvenile Probation Department's policy for dealing with offenders stipulated that "probation officers shall not discriminate in any fashion against minors based on their immigration status."
On April 2, 2004, Ramos was released to the custody of his mother, despite the fact that he had already been flagged by federal authorities as an illegal immigrant. He was still considered a ward of the court and was on probation. Just four days later, records show, he committed another crime at 19th and Mission Streets, two blocks from the site of the attack on the Muni passenger. He was released after city prosecutors declined to charge him in connection with an arrest in March on suspicion of weapons and gang violations.
There is a dispute revolving around the question of whether ICE was ever notified of the Ramos arrest, but the fact remains that for the last 10 years the city’s juvenile justice authorities have followed a policy of not turning over illegal-immigrant felons to the federal government, basing the practice on San Francisco's sanctuary-city status and state law barring local officials from surrendering them for deportation.
After a storm of protest following the slayings of the Bologna family men, San Francisco’s ultra-liberal Mayor Gavin Newsom belatedly rescinded that policy earlier this month following a report in the Chronicle that the city had flown a number of youths out of the country on its own, in possible violation of federal law, and then housed some in unlocked group homes from which they quickly escaped. His action came too late to save the lives of the Bologna men.
Those are the facts in this shocking case. They illustrate the lethal effects this idiotic and dangerous sanctuary-city policy can have on the safety of innocent Americans.
Sanctuary-city policies defy guidelines from the 9/11 Commission Report, which called on state and local authorities to help federal agencies crack down on illegal immigration. “There is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies [for the enforcement of immigration law],” the report stated. “They need more training and work with federal agencies so that they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects.”
Instead, a host of cities across the United States classify themselves as havens for illegal aliens, despite the fact that such policies result in creating safe havens for illegal aliens who are criminals and potential terrorists. They allow criminal aliens to avoid deportation because they prevent local police from reporting them to ICE.
President Bush should issue an executive order denying any federal funds to those cities which either officially or unofficially provide sanctuaries enabling illegal aliens who commit crimes to escape deportation. They need to learn there is a price to be paid for exposing their citizens to criminal activities by aliens here illegally.
© 2008 Mike Reagan
Friday, July 25, 2008 9:25 AM
By: Michael Reagan Three good men are dead thanks largely to San Francisco’s outrageous sanctuary-city policy, which forbids city authorities from notifying federal immigration authorities when they arrest illegal aliens for crimes they commit, and it’s time for President Bush to crack down on all the cities in the United States that follow this absurd policy.
On June 22, Anthony Bologna and his sons Michael and Matthew were shot to death by Edwin Ramos, 21, after a brief traffic incident when Anthony Bologna allegedly briefly blocked Ramos' car from making a left turn, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ramos, an alleged member of the vicious the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13, should never have been around to kill the three men, and wouldn’t have been — were not for the city’s sanctuary-city policy. Ramos, an illegal immigrant, was found guilty of committing two felonies when he was 17 — involving a gang-related assault of a Municipal Railway passenger and the attempted robbery of a pregnant woman, yet was never surrendered by the city’s juvenile justice authorities to federal officials for possible deportation as required by federal law.
Ramos was taken to juvenile hall on charges of assault and participating in a street gang, and was later convicted in juvenile court and put in a shelter. Under federal law, he should have been referred to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) but the Juvenile Probation Department's policy for dealing with offenders stipulated that "probation officers shall not discriminate in any fashion against minors based on their immigration status."
On April 2, 2004, Ramos was released to the custody of his mother, despite the fact that he had already been flagged by federal authorities as an illegal immigrant. He was still considered a ward of the court and was on probation. Just four days later, records show, he committed another crime at 19th and Mission Streets, two blocks from the site of the attack on the Muni passenger. He was released after city prosecutors declined to charge him in connection with an arrest in March on suspicion of weapons and gang violations.
There is a dispute revolving around the question of whether ICE was ever notified of the Ramos arrest, but the fact remains that for the last 10 years the city’s juvenile justice authorities have followed a policy of not turning over illegal-immigrant felons to the federal government, basing the practice on San Francisco's sanctuary-city status and state law barring local officials from surrendering them for deportation.
After a storm of protest following the slayings of the Bologna family men, San Francisco’s ultra-liberal Mayor Gavin Newsom belatedly rescinded that policy earlier this month following a report in the Chronicle that the city had flown a number of youths out of the country on its own, in possible violation of federal law, and then housed some in unlocked group homes from which they quickly escaped. His action came too late to save the lives of the Bologna men.
Those are the facts in this shocking case. They illustrate the lethal effects this idiotic and dangerous sanctuary-city policy can have on the safety of innocent Americans.
Sanctuary-city policies defy guidelines from the 9/11 Commission Report, which called on state and local authorities to help federal agencies crack down on illegal immigration. “There is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies [for the enforcement of immigration law],” the report stated. “They need more training and work with federal agencies so that they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects.”
Instead, a host of cities across the United States classify themselves as havens for illegal aliens, despite the fact that such policies result in creating safe havens for illegal aliens who are criminals and potential terrorists. They allow criminal aliens to avoid deportation because they prevent local police from reporting them to ICE.
President Bush should issue an executive order denying any federal funds to those cities which either officially or unofficially provide sanctuaries enabling illegal aliens who commit crimes to escape deportation. They need to learn there is a price to be paid for exposing their citizens to criminal activities by aliens here illegally.
© 2008 Mike Reagan
Questions Unanswered On Guns...
AS I HAVE STATED BEFORE THIS MAN IS A DANGER TO THIS COUNTRY. HE WILL IF GIVEN THE SLIGHTEST OPPORTUNITY SELL US OUT BY INITIATING BY SOME MEANS A GUN CONFISCATION. WE MUST STAY AWAKE AND ON THE ALERT AGAINST HIM AND DON'T FORGET HILLARY IS STILL AROUND TOO.
Obama's Shifting Positions Leave Questions Unanswered On Guns...
By JOHN R. LOTT JR. | Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Sen. Barack Obama claims there has been only a "shift in emphasis," not "wild shifts," in his political positions. Many already know the list: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NAFTA, public financing of campaigns, abortion, gay marriage, Social Security taxes, the death penalty and negotiating with rogue nations.
Possibly one of the more remarkable changes has been his position on guns.
But despite Obama's recent concession on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that there has been a "shift in emphasis" on various issues, on guns he held firm: "You mentioned the gun position. I've been talking about the Second Amendment being an individual right for the last year and a half. So there wasn't a shift there."
Unfortunately, the interviewer, Gwen Ifill, didn't challenge his claim.
The day the Supreme Court struck Washington, D.C.'s gun ban, Obama claimed the court's decision merely confirmed his own view. He told Fox News he had "said consistently that I believe that the Second Amendment is an individual right, and that was the essential decision that the Supreme Court came down on."
So has Obama consistently supported individuals' rights to own guns and opposed the D.C. handgun ban?
Last November, Obama's campaign told the Chicago Tribune that "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional." After Obama's statement supporting the Supreme Court striking down the ban, the campaign quickly disowned the Chicago Tribune quote as a staffer's "inartful attempt" to characterize his position.
Unfortunately, however, Obama personally voiced support for the D.C. ban at other times. In February, he did this himself, not something that he could blame on a staffer.
ABC's local Washington, D.C., anchor Leon Harris asked Obama: "One other issue that's of great importance here in the district as well is gun control. You said in Idaho recently . . . 'I have no intention of taking away folks' guns,' but you support the D.C. handgun ban." Obama's simple response: "Right." When Harris said "And you've said that it's constitutional," Obama is clearly seen on tape nodding his head yes.
But this is not new. Obama has a long history of supporting city gun bans. As the Associated Press described his 2004 vote on a gun control bill:
"He also opposed letting people use a self-defense argument if charged with violating local handgun bans by using weapons in their homes. The bill was a reaction to a Chicago-area man who, after shooting an intruder, was charged with a handgun violation."
Obama's statement on "NewsHour" added a new qualifier that he has been making the individual right position "for the last year and a half." Previous statements have simply said that he has had "consistently" held that position on guns. But all the changes are causing confusion among Obama's own advisers.
One adviser, Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig, said last week on Hugh Hewitt's national radio show that "Barack Obama is not a lefty. . . . I think that he has always been an individual rights person on the Second Amendment."
No matter Obama's current position, no major party presidential nominee has probably ever had as strong and consistent an anti-gun record. Here is a politician who supported a ban on handguns in 1996, backed a ban on the sale of all semiautomatic guns in 1998 (a ban that would encompass the vast majority of guns sold in the U.S.), advocated in 2004 banning gun sales within five miles of a school or park (essentially a ban on virtually all gun stores), as well as served on the board of the Joyce Foundation, probably the largest private funder of anti-gun and pro-ban research in the country.
Difficult questions still remain. With new legal cases being filed against Chicago's gun ban over the last couple of weeks, somebody in the media is going to eventually have to ask Obama why he has not only never spoken out against Chicago's ban, he actively supported it.
Or, what do his positions mean for Supreme Court nominees? How will Obama reconcile his new position with the fact that all the members of the Supreme Court whom he reveres and whom his appointees would be like voted that the Second Amendment is not an individual right? These justices went even further and argued that even if the Amendment guaranteed such a right, D.C.'s ban does not infringe people's rights to own guns.
Obama obviously thinks the gun issue is important. Why else is it one issue on which he won't admit shifting emphasis? But would anyone believe a promise by him that his judicial nominees wouldn't vote to reverse the court's close 5-to-4 decision on the Second Amendment?
Lott is a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland and the author of "Freedomnomics."
Obama's Shifting Positions Leave Questions Unanswered On Guns...
By JOHN R. LOTT JR. | Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Sen. Barack Obama claims there has been only a "shift in emphasis," not "wild shifts," in his political positions. Many already know the list: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NAFTA, public financing of campaigns, abortion, gay marriage, Social Security taxes, the death penalty and negotiating with rogue nations.
Possibly one of the more remarkable changes has been his position on guns.
But despite Obama's recent concession on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that there has been a "shift in emphasis" on various issues, on guns he held firm: "You mentioned the gun position. I've been talking about the Second Amendment being an individual right for the last year and a half. So there wasn't a shift there."
Unfortunately, the interviewer, Gwen Ifill, didn't challenge his claim.
The day the Supreme Court struck Washington, D.C.'s gun ban, Obama claimed the court's decision merely confirmed his own view. He told Fox News he had "said consistently that I believe that the Second Amendment is an individual right, and that was the essential decision that the Supreme Court came down on."
So has Obama consistently supported individuals' rights to own guns and opposed the D.C. handgun ban?
Last November, Obama's campaign told the Chicago Tribune that "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional." After Obama's statement supporting the Supreme Court striking down the ban, the campaign quickly disowned the Chicago Tribune quote as a staffer's "inartful attempt" to characterize his position.
Unfortunately, however, Obama personally voiced support for the D.C. ban at other times. In February, he did this himself, not something that he could blame on a staffer.
ABC's local Washington, D.C., anchor Leon Harris asked Obama: "One other issue that's of great importance here in the district as well is gun control. You said in Idaho recently . . . 'I have no intention of taking away folks' guns,' but you support the D.C. handgun ban." Obama's simple response: "Right." When Harris said "And you've said that it's constitutional," Obama is clearly seen on tape nodding his head yes.
But this is not new. Obama has a long history of supporting city gun bans. As the Associated Press described his 2004 vote on a gun control bill:
"He also opposed letting people use a self-defense argument if charged with violating local handgun bans by using weapons in their homes. The bill was a reaction to a Chicago-area man who, after shooting an intruder, was charged with a handgun violation."
Obama's statement on "NewsHour" added a new qualifier that he has been making the individual right position "for the last year and a half." Previous statements have simply said that he has had "consistently" held that position on guns. But all the changes are causing confusion among Obama's own advisers.
One adviser, Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig, said last week on Hugh Hewitt's national radio show that "Barack Obama is not a lefty. . . . I think that he has always been an individual rights person on the Second Amendment."
No matter Obama's current position, no major party presidential nominee has probably ever had as strong and consistent an anti-gun record. Here is a politician who supported a ban on handguns in 1996, backed a ban on the sale of all semiautomatic guns in 1998 (a ban that would encompass the vast majority of guns sold in the U.S.), advocated in 2004 banning gun sales within five miles of a school or park (essentially a ban on virtually all gun stores), as well as served on the board of the Joyce Foundation, probably the largest private funder of anti-gun and pro-ban research in the country.
Difficult questions still remain. With new legal cases being filed against Chicago's gun ban over the last couple of weeks, somebody in the media is going to eventually have to ask Obama why he has not only never spoken out against Chicago's ban, he actively supported it.
Or, what do his positions mean for Supreme Court nominees? How will Obama reconcile his new position with the fact that all the members of the Supreme Court whom he reveres and whom his appointees would be like voted that the Second Amendment is not an individual right? These justices went even further and argued that even if the Amendment guaranteed such a right, D.C.'s ban does not infringe people's rights to own guns.
Obama obviously thinks the gun issue is important. Why else is it one issue on which he won't admit shifting emphasis? But would anyone believe a promise by him that his judicial nominees wouldn't vote to reverse the court's close 5-to-4 decision on the Second Amendment?
Lott is a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland and the author of "Freedomnomics."
Neither A Kennedy Nor A Reagan
THIS EMPTY SUIT WITH ADMITTEDLY A FINE DELIVERY IN SPEECH, IS A REAL DANGER TO THIS COUNTRY. THERE WILL BE A COLLAPSE OF BORDER CONTROL, TAXES WILL GO UP, AND HATE FOR THIS COUNTRY WILL INSUE BUT IN THE END THE COUNTRY WILL COME TO ITS SENSES AND HEAVE THIS JERK OUT OF OFFICE.
Neither A Kennedy Nor A Reagan
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Campaign '08: Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both visited Berlin to champion freedom against its 20th century enemies. Barack Obama just showed Berliners no understanding of the 21st century's threats to liberty.
At nearly 3,000 words, the most hyped speech in the long history of American political campaigns, delivered by Sen. Obama before Berlin's Victory Column on Thursday evening, was longer than both John F. Kennedy's and Ronald Reagan's Berlin speeches. Yet in content and import it was almost meaningless by comparison.
"I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen," Obama claimed to the massive crowds. Yet if that were true, why was his every word in English? Both JFK and Reagan found a few moments to speak to Berliners in their language.
"Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen," the young Democrat memorably declared in June of 1963. And in June of 1987, the Great Communicator reminded his German audience that "there were a few things the Soviets didn't count on — Berliner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze" — the Berliners' strong-heartedness, sense of humor and their sharp-witted tongue.
More importantly, unlike Obama, neither JFK nor Reagan went to Berlin to call on the world to join hands in some giant peace chain. Kennedy's brief speech was incendiary in its anti-communism (even if his policies were less so, most obviously his toleration of the wall's construction in 1961).
"There are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists — let them come to Berlin," he declared.
Standing before the Brandenburg Gate," Reagan asserted that "every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar." And he told a Europe distrustful of America's commitment to destroy communism that "we must remember a crucial fact: East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other."
Less than 2 1/2 years after Reagan stood there and demanded that Mikhail Gorbachev "tear down this wall!" that scar of totalitarianism did indeed fall, pulled and ripped down by ordinary East and West Berliners after almost three decades of suffering a divided city.
But there was nothing concrete about Obama in Berlin. The walls he spoke of were cliched, figurative ones — "walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic . . . walls between the countries with the most and those with the least . . . the walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew . . . ."
Obama did provide a bit of bluster against the free world's far-from-figurative enemies of today, saying "we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it." But the Cold War analogy he gave was deceptive:
"If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union," Obama contended, "we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York."
The proposed anti-terror "partnership" of which he speaks has a lot less in common with the generals at NATO than with the feckless diplomats of the United Nations — an institution that, curiously, went unmentioned in the speech that Obama was supposedly giving to the world — not just to U.S. voters skeptical of the U.N. and diplomacy as a weapon against terrorism.
Both Reagan and Kennedy came to Berlin to condemn Russia's Communist empire, and their words shaped the history that followed, eventually liberating East Germany.
Yet without mentioning either president, Obama besmirched their memories before throngs of Berliners with a platitude suggesting U.S.-Soviet moral equivalence. "The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love," he said — as if "we" (presumably freedom-loving people) were not on America's side.
No wonder Obama reportedly cancelled a planned Friday visit to our Ramstein and Landstuhl military bases in southwest Germany. His were words to elicit cheers from Europeans who resent America, not from GIs who fight for her.
Neither A Kennedy Nor A Reagan
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Campaign '08: Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both visited Berlin to champion freedom against its 20th century enemies. Barack Obama just showed Berliners no understanding of the 21st century's threats to liberty.
At nearly 3,000 words, the most hyped speech in the long history of American political campaigns, delivered by Sen. Obama before Berlin's Victory Column on Thursday evening, was longer than both John F. Kennedy's and Ronald Reagan's Berlin speeches. Yet in content and import it was almost meaningless by comparison.
"I speak to you not as a candidate for president, but as a citizen," Obama claimed to the massive crowds. Yet if that were true, why was his every word in English? Both JFK and Reagan found a few moments to speak to Berliners in their language.
"Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen," the young Democrat memorably declared in June of 1963. And in June of 1987, the Great Communicator reminded his German audience that "there were a few things the Soviets didn't count on — Berliner Herz, Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze" — the Berliners' strong-heartedness, sense of humor and their sharp-witted tongue.
More importantly, unlike Obama, neither JFK nor Reagan went to Berlin to call on the world to join hands in some giant peace chain. Kennedy's brief speech was incendiary in its anti-communism (even if his policies were less so, most obviously his toleration of the wall's construction in 1961).
"There are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists — let them come to Berlin," he declared.
Standing before the Brandenburg Gate," Reagan asserted that "every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar." And he told a Europe distrustful of America's commitment to destroy communism that "we must remember a crucial fact: East and West do not mistrust each other because we are armed; we are armed because we mistrust each other."
Less than 2 1/2 years after Reagan stood there and demanded that Mikhail Gorbachev "tear down this wall!" that scar of totalitarianism did indeed fall, pulled and ripped down by ordinary East and West Berliners after almost three decades of suffering a divided city.
But there was nothing concrete about Obama in Berlin. The walls he spoke of were cliched, figurative ones — "walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic . . . walls between the countries with the most and those with the least . . . the walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew . . . ."
Obama did provide a bit of bluster against the free world's far-from-figurative enemies of today, saying "we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it." But the Cold War analogy he gave was deceptive:
"If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union," Obama contended, "we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York."
The proposed anti-terror "partnership" of which he speaks has a lot less in common with the generals at NATO than with the feckless diplomats of the United Nations — an institution that, curiously, went unmentioned in the speech that Obama was supposedly giving to the world — not just to U.S. voters skeptical of the U.N. and diplomacy as a weapon against terrorism.
Both Reagan and Kennedy came to Berlin to condemn Russia's Communist empire, and their words shaped the history that followed, eventually liberating East Germany.
Yet without mentioning either president, Obama besmirched their memories before throngs of Berliners with a platitude suggesting U.S.-Soviet moral equivalence. "The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love," he said — as if "we" (presumably freedom-loving people) were not on America's side.
No wonder Obama reportedly cancelled a planned Friday visit to our Ramstein and Landstuhl military bases in southwest Germany. His were words to elicit cheers from Europeans who resent America, not from GIs who fight for her.
Barack's Obama-isms
Barack's Obama-isms
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Media: The gaffes Barack Obama has committed would have crushed the typical Republican politician. But the reporters who can't get over Dan Quayle's misspelling of "potato" have little to say about their man's slip-ups.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if Obama is really fouling up or simply puffed up when he tries to live up to his media-fed image as a leader ready for prime time.
Consider his claim during a news conference Wednesday in Israel that "just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran."
His committee? Obama isn't even a member of the Banking Committee, let alone its chairman. So was it a self-promoting lie or a misstep? Only he knows.
In other cases, however, it's clear the junior senator from Illinois has erred. It was Obama — and not a too-old-to-serve John McCain or a too-dopey-to-take-serious George W. Bush — who once said he'd visited 57 states, not including Alaska and Hawaii, and still had "one left to go."
It was also Obama who said Tuesday from Amman, Jordan: "You know, it's always a bad practice to say 'always' or 'never' " — a statement only Yogi Berra could fathom but which those aboard O-Force One seemed to regard as incontestably profound.
While the media have ensured that Obama's communication skills are now widely viewed to be impeccable, it's obvious that when the man doesn't have a teleprompter in front of him, he tends to mangle both facts and language.
How else to explain his "Face The Nation" comment that the leaders he would meet in the Middle East and Europe are the ones "who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years"?
Had a Republican candidate said that, he'd have been suspected of some dark plan to shred the Constitution and institute martial law.
A few days later, Obama goofed again, asserting that "Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." Sure, he meant America is a good friend of Israel. And sure, he knows the difference. But he's also sure the media will cover his howlers even as they ridicule Republicans when they are just as "inartful."
Maybe the media kept quiet because they know Obama's no better when it comes to geography. Surely they noticed how he confused Sioux Falls, S.D., with Sioux City, Iowa, claimed that Arkansas is closer to Kentucky than to Illinois, and called Iran — with population bigger than France's and a land mass four times that of Germany — "a tiny country."
Even worse, he claimed Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us," then somehow recalled the next day that he has indeed "made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."
Could it be that Obama is even worse with figures? It was in the spring of 2007, long before he could blame campaign fatigue for causing him to stumble, when he reckoned that tornadoes had killed 10,000 people in Kansas even though the real number was 12.
Obama's tendency to lapse into some rainbow world has apparently infected his staff. In discussing Obama's Berlin speech, a senior adviser first promised "it's not going to be a political speech." But then he added: "When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally."
The staffer had to be reminded: Obama isn't president — yet.
Or does that kind of thinking — that his coronation is a mere formality — start at the top? Earlier this month, it was Obama himself who reminisced about a time "when I was a United States senator."
Space won't allow a full list of Obama's blunders to date. But somehow we get the feeling we haven't heard the last of them.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 24, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Media: The gaffes Barack Obama has committed would have crushed the typical Republican politician. But the reporters who can't get over Dan Quayle's misspelling of "potato" have little to say about their man's slip-ups.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if Obama is really fouling up or simply puffed up when he tries to live up to his media-fed image as a leader ready for prime time.
Consider his claim during a news conference Wednesday in Israel that "just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran."
His committee? Obama isn't even a member of the Banking Committee, let alone its chairman. So was it a self-promoting lie or a misstep? Only he knows.
In other cases, however, it's clear the junior senator from Illinois has erred. It was Obama — and not a too-old-to-serve John McCain or a too-dopey-to-take-serious George W. Bush — who once said he'd visited 57 states, not including Alaska and Hawaii, and still had "one left to go."
It was also Obama who said Tuesday from Amman, Jordan: "You know, it's always a bad practice to say 'always' or 'never' " — a statement only Yogi Berra could fathom but which those aboard O-Force One seemed to regard as incontestably profound.
While the media have ensured that Obama's communication skills are now widely viewed to be impeccable, it's obvious that when the man doesn't have a teleprompter in front of him, he tends to mangle both facts and language.
How else to explain his "Face The Nation" comment that the leaders he would meet in the Middle East and Europe are the ones "who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years"?
Had a Republican candidate said that, he'd have been suspected of some dark plan to shred the Constitution and institute martial law.
A few days later, Obama goofed again, asserting that "Israel is a strong friend of Israel's." Sure, he meant America is a good friend of Israel. And sure, he knows the difference. But he's also sure the media will cover his howlers even as they ridicule Republicans when they are just as "inartful."
Maybe the media kept quiet because they know Obama's no better when it comes to geography. Surely they noticed how he confused Sioux Falls, S.D., with Sioux City, Iowa, claimed that Arkansas is closer to Kentucky than to Illinois, and called Iran — with population bigger than France's and a land mass four times that of Germany — "a tiny country."
Even worse, he claimed Iran doesn't "pose a serious threat to us," then somehow recalled the next day that he has indeed "made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."
Could it be that Obama is even worse with figures? It was in the spring of 2007, long before he could blame campaign fatigue for causing him to stumble, when he reckoned that tornadoes had killed 10,000 people in Kansas even though the real number was 12.
Obama's tendency to lapse into some rainbow world has apparently infected his staff. In discussing Obama's Berlin speech, a senior adviser first promised "it's not going to be a political speech." But then he added: "When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally."
The staffer had to be reminded: Obama isn't president — yet.
Or does that kind of thinking — that his coronation is a mere formality — start at the top? Earlier this month, it was Obama himself who reminisced about a time "when I was a United States senator."
Space won't allow a full list of Obama's blunders to date. But somehow we get the feeling we haven't heard the last of them.
Letter by a Florida teacher
Just another example of what roughly 1/3 of every single one of our paychecks goes to...
What is wrong with this country - They are giving it away!
Letter by a Florida teacher................ A teacher speaks
Just another example of what roughly 1/3 of every single one of our paychecks goes to...
What is wrong with this country - They are giving it away!
Letter by a Florida teacher................ A teacher speaks
This is a subject close to my heart. Do you know that we have adult students at the school where I teach who are not US citizens and who get the PELL grant, which is a federal grant (no pay back required) plus other federal grants to go to school?
One student from the Dominican Republic told me that she didn't want me to find a job for her after she finished my program, because she was getting housing from our housing department and she was getting a PELL grant which paid for her total tuition and books, plus money leftover.
She was looking into WAIT which gives students a CREDIT CARD for gas to come to school, and into CARIBE which is a special program (check it out - I did) for immigrants and it pays for child care and all sorts of needs while they go to school or training. The one student I just mentioned told me she was not going to be a US Citizen because she plans to return to the Dominican Republic someday and that she 'loves HER country.'
I asked her if she felt guilty taking what the US is giving her and then not even bothering to become a citizen and she told me that it doesn't bother her , because that is what the money is there for!
I asked the CARIBE administration about their program and if you ARE a US Citizen, you don't qualify for their program. And all the while, I am working a full day, my son-in-law works more than 60 hours a week, and everyone in my family works and pays for our education.
Something is wrong here. I am sorry but after hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Spanish - enough is enough. Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German or any other language because of immigration. It was written by Francis Scott Key and should be sung word for word the way it was written The news broadcasts even gave the translation -- not even close. Sorry if this offends anyone but this is MY COUNTRY.
IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY SPEAK UP -- please pass this along . I am not against immigration -- just come through like everyone else.
Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes, live by the rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past -- and GOD BLESS AMERICA!
PART OF THE PROBLEM, Think about this: If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is Time for America to Speak up If you agree -- pass this along, if you don't agree --- delete it!
This is a subject close to my heart. Do you know that we have adult students at the school where I teach who are not US citizens and who get the PELL grant, which is a federal grant (no pay back required) plus other federal grants to go to school?
One student from the Dominican Republic told me that she didn't want me to find a job for her after she finished my program, because she was getting housing from our housing department and she was getting a PELL grant which paid for her total tuition and books, plus money leftover.
She was looking into WAIT which gives students a CREDIT CARD for gas to come to school, and into CARIBE which is a special program (check it out - I did) for immigrants and it pays for child care and all sorts of needs while they go to school or training. The one student I just mentioned told me she was not going to be a US Citizen because she plans to return to the Dominican Republic someday and that she 'loves HER country.'
I asked her if she felt guilty taking what the US is giving her and then not even bothering to become a citizen and she told me that it doesn't bother her , because that is what the money is there for!
I asked the CARIBE administration about their program and if you ARE a US Citizen, you don't qualify for their program. And all the while, I am working a full day, my son-in-law works more than 60 hours a week, and everyone in my family works and pays for our education.
Something is wrong here. I am sorry but after hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Spanish - enough is enough. Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German or any other language because of immigration. It was written by Francis Scott Key and should be sung word for word the way it was written The news broadcasts even gave the translation -- not even close. Sorry if this offends anyone but this is MY COUNTRY.
IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY SPEAK UP -- please pass this along . I am not against immigration -- just come through like everyone else.
Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes, live by the rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past -- and GOD BLESS AMERICA!
PART OF THE PROBLEM, Think about this: If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is Time for America to Speak up If you agree -- pass this along, if you don't agree --- delete it!
What is wrong with this country - They are giving it away!
Letter by a Florida teacher................ A teacher speaks
Just another example of what roughly 1/3 of every single one of our paychecks goes to...
What is wrong with this country - They are giving it away!
Letter by a Florida teacher................ A teacher speaks
This is a subject close to my heart. Do you know that we have adult students at the school where I teach who are not US citizens and who get the PELL grant, which is a federal grant (no pay back required) plus other federal grants to go to school?
One student from the Dominican Republic told me that she didn't want me to find a job for her after she finished my program, because she was getting housing from our housing department and she was getting a PELL grant which paid for her total tuition and books, plus money leftover.
She was looking into WAIT which gives students a CREDIT CARD for gas to come to school, and into CARIBE which is a special program (check it out - I did) for immigrants and it pays for child care and all sorts of needs while they go to school or training. The one student I just mentioned told me she was not going to be a US Citizen because she plans to return to the Dominican Republic someday and that she 'loves HER country.'
I asked her if she felt guilty taking what the US is giving her and then not even bothering to become a citizen and she told me that it doesn't bother her , because that is what the money is there for!
I asked the CARIBE administration about their program and if you ARE a US Citizen, you don't qualify for their program. And all the while, I am working a full day, my son-in-law works more than 60 hours a week, and everyone in my family works and pays for our education.
Something is wrong here. I am sorry but after hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Spanish - enough is enough. Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German or any other language because of immigration. It was written by Francis Scott Key and should be sung word for word the way it was written The news broadcasts even gave the translation -- not even close. Sorry if this offends anyone but this is MY COUNTRY.
IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY SPEAK UP -- please pass this along . I am not against immigration -- just come through like everyone else.
Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes, live by the rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past -- and GOD BLESS AMERICA!
PART OF THE PROBLEM, Think about this: If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is Time for America to Speak up If you agree -- pass this along, if you don't agree --- delete it!
This is a subject close to my heart. Do you know that we have adult students at the school where I teach who are not US citizens and who get the PELL grant, which is a federal grant (no pay back required) plus other federal grants to go to school?
One student from the Dominican Republic told me that she didn't want me to find a job for her after she finished my program, because she was getting housing from our housing department and she was getting a PELL grant which paid for her total tuition and books, plus money leftover.
She was looking into WAIT which gives students a CREDIT CARD for gas to come to school, and into CARIBE which is a special program (check it out - I did) for immigrants and it pays for child care and all sorts of needs while they go to school or training. The one student I just mentioned told me she was not going to be a US Citizen because she plans to return to the Dominican Republic someday and that she 'loves HER country.'
I asked her if she felt guilty taking what the US is giving her and then not even bothering to become a citizen and she told me that it doesn't bother her , because that is what the money is there for!
I asked the CARIBE administration about their program and if you ARE a US Citizen, you don't qualify for their program. And all the while, I am working a full day, my son-in-law works more than 60 hours a week, and everyone in my family works and pays for our education.
Something is wrong here. I am sorry but after hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Spanish - enough is enough. Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German or any other language because of immigration. It was written by Francis Scott Key and should be sung word for word the way it was written The news broadcasts even gave the translation -- not even close. Sorry if this offends anyone but this is MY COUNTRY.
IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY SPEAK UP -- please pass this along . I am not against immigration -- just come through like everyone else.
Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes, live by the rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past -- and GOD BLESS AMERICA!
PART OF THE PROBLEM, Think about this: If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is Time for America to Speak up If you agree -- pass this along, if you don't agree --- delete it!
July 24, 2008
Hillary Donors Not Backing Obama
Hillary Donors Not Backing Obama
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 12:53 PM
Sen. Barack Obama works the crowd in Sderot, Israel, Wed. The candidate is charming the continent, but can he win the minds and hearts of Hillary fans?
Of the 311 fundraisers who bundled more than $100,000 in donations for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, only eight are on the list of contributors to Barack Obama’s campaign in June.
Their total for the month: just $19,250.
“The fact that fewer than 3 percent of Clinton’s donors have donated any money directly to Obama in his first month as presumptive nominee is likely to raise the eyebrows of some leaders in the Democratic Party who are hoping to see signs of unity,” the Huffington Post observed.
The Washington Post reported that a total of 2,200 individual Clinton donors — as distinct from the big-money fundraisers tracked by The Huffington Post — became first-time donors to Obama’s campaign in June. They contributed $1.8 million, or just 4 percent, of the $52 million the campaign raised last month.
Obama donors are evidently returning the “favor.” They gave just $105,000 in June to help Clinton repay her $25 million campaign debt, according to the Los Angeles Times.
For the Obama campaign, the easiest way to drum up support from Clinton’s contributors is to put her on the ticket, Hillary fundraiser Susie Tompkins Buell told The Huffington Post: “The magic solution in general is the vice presidency. It heals all the wounds immediately.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserve
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 12:53 PM
Sen. Barack Obama works the crowd in Sderot, Israel, Wed. The candidate is charming the continent, but can he win the minds and hearts of Hillary fans?
Of the 311 fundraisers who bundled more than $100,000 in donations for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, only eight are on the list of contributors to Barack Obama’s campaign in June.
Their total for the month: just $19,250.
“The fact that fewer than 3 percent of Clinton’s donors have donated any money directly to Obama in his first month as presumptive nominee is likely to raise the eyebrows of some leaders in the Democratic Party who are hoping to see signs of unity,” the Huffington Post observed.
The Washington Post reported that a total of 2,200 individual Clinton donors — as distinct from the big-money fundraisers tracked by The Huffington Post — became first-time donors to Obama’s campaign in June. They contributed $1.8 million, or just 4 percent, of the $52 million the campaign raised last month.
Obama donors are evidently returning the “favor.” They gave just $105,000 in June to help Clinton repay her $25 million campaign debt, according to the Los Angeles Times.
For the Obama campaign, the easiest way to drum up support from Clinton’s contributors is to put her on the ticket, Hillary fundraiser Susie Tompkins Buell told The Huffington Post: “The magic solution in general is the vice presidency. It heals all the wounds immediately.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserve
Gods Deciding Obama Is Man For Oval Office
Gods Deciding Obama Is Man For Oval Office
By DAVID S. BRODER | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:30 PM PT
It made no sense when Barack Obama left the country on his nine-day overseas tour for some of my fellow columnists to describe it as a high-risk venture.
Foreign leaders, who can read the polls as well as anyone, would go out of their way not to embarrass a man who may, six months from now, be president of the United States.
Obama prepares thoroughly for the big occasions. He is almost always well-briefed, and he was traveling in sharp company — with Sens. Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel — so you knew he would be thoroughly ready for these meetings. The chance of a major screw-up was minimal.
And, as millions of Americans who watched the primary campaign learned, Obama is invariably articulate and well-spoken. There would be no verbal gaffes.
So where was the risk? It existed mainly in the minds of some journalists and, perhaps, in the musings of Obama staffers who wanted to hype the journey.
Acknowledging all that, it is still the case that Obama has pulled it off in great style and thereby enhanced his credentials for the Oval Office.
What he could not have guaranteed was the role that luck played in the surrounding events and the cast of supporting players. When, on the first day of the trip, he stepped onto the basketball court at the air base in Kuwait and sent his first three-point shot cleanly through the basket, you knew the gods had decided to favor him.
He could not have known in advance that on the very day he left Chicago, President Bush would suddenly reverse six years of policy and send a high-ranking State Department official off to a meeting with Iranian and European nuclear negotiators.
He could not have guessed that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, eager to promise his constituents that the American occupation would not be endless, would persuade Bush to declare agreement to "a time horizon" for U.S. troops leaving.
And he could not have assumed that an al-Maliki spokesman, briefing reporters on the meeting with Obama, would volunteer the comment that "the end of 2010 is the appropriate time for the withdrawal" of U.S. troops.
Suddenly, long-standing Obama policies — direct talks with Iran and a 16-month timetable for withdrawal — seemed to be ratified by events.
So it was a confident and contented Obama who faced reporters in Jordan on Tuesday in his first news conference of the trip. He handled the expected question about his meeting with Gen. David Petraeus by saying he perfectly understood the U.S. commander's opposition to any timetable that would limit his options, but that as commander in chief, he, Obama, would weigh Iraq's needs against those in Afghanistan — and also the domestic economy.
It was a skillful answer, not rejecting Petraeus' views but asserting Obama's own larger responsibility.
On the other hand, his saying there was no way to know what would have happened in Iraq if the U.S. had followed his advice to start the withdrawal of troops two years ago and oppose the "surge" seemed disingenuous. Obama still has trouble admitting when he is wrong.
But his troubles are minimal compared with those of John McCain, who looks like the odd-man-out in the ongoing foreign policy debate.
Having given steadfast support to the policies of both al-Maliki and George Bush, he has a legitimate complaint: They owed him more consideration in the way they announced the shifts they were suddenly going to make. As it is, McCain appears isolated from trends in both Baghdad and Washington.
McCain's frustration at the turn of events is something he cannot conceal. The domestic economy was always going to be a problem for him — even before gasoline hit $4 a gallon. But he had a credible position to argue on national security issues, and a record that was consistent and in some respects prescient.
But now the ground has shifted — and his opponent was right where he needed to be to capture the advantage. July has been a cruel month for McCain.
© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group
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By DAVID S. BRODER | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:30 PM PT
It made no sense when Barack Obama left the country on his nine-day overseas tour for some of my fellow columnists to describe it as a high-risk venture.
Foreign leaders, who can read the polls as well as anyone, would go out of their way not to embarrass a man who may, six months from now, be president of the United States.
Obama prepares thoroughly for the big occasions. He is almost always well-briefed, and he was traveling in sharp company — with Sens. Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel — so you knew he would be thoroughly ready for these meetings. The chance of a major screw-up was minimal.
And, as millions of Americans who watched the primary campaign learned, Obama is invariably articulate and well-spoken. There would be no verbal gaffes.
So where was the risk? It existed mainly in the minds of some journalists and, perhaps, in the musings of Obama staffers who wanted to hype the journey.
Acknowledging all that, it is still the case that Obama has pulled it off in great style and thereby enhanced his credentials for the Oval Office.
What he could not have guaranteed was the role that luck played in the surrounding events and the cast of supporting players. When, on the first day of the trip, he stepped onto the basketball court at the air base in Kuwait and sent his first three-point shot cleanly through the basket, you knew the gods had decided to favor him.
He could not have known in advance that on the very day he left Chicago, President Bush would suddenly reverse six years of policy and send a high-ranking State Department official off to a meeting with Iranian and European nuclear negotiators.
He could not have guessed that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, eager to promise his constituents that the American occupation would not be endless, would persuade Bush to declare agreement to "a time horizon" for U.S. troops leaving.
And he could not have assumed that an al-Maliki spokesman, briefing reporters on the meeting with Obama, would volunteer the comment that "the end of 2010 is the appropriate time for the withdrawal" of U.S. troops.
Suddenly, long-standing Obama policies — direct talks with Iran and a 16-month timetable for withdrawal — seemed to be ratified by events.
So it was a confident and contented Obama who faced reporters in Jordan on Tuesday in his first news conference of the trip. He handled the expected question about his meeting with Gen. David Petraeus by saying he perfectly understood the U.S. commander's opposition to any timetable that would limit his options, but that as commander in chief, he, Obama, would weigh Iraq's needs against those in Afghanistan — and also the domestic economy.
It was a skillful answer, not rejecting Petraeus' views but asserting Obama's own larger responsibility.
On the other hand, his saying there was no way to know what would have happened in Iraq if the U.S. had followed his advice to start the withdrawal of troops two years ago and oppose the "surge" seemed disingenuous. Obama still has trouble admitting when he is wrong.
But his troubles are minimal compared with those of John McCain, who looks like the odd-man-out in the ongoing foreign policy debate.
Having given steadfast support to the policies of both al-Maliki and George Bush, he has a legitimate complaint: They owed him more consideration in the way they announced the shifts they were suddenly going to make. As it is, McCain appears isolated from trends in both Baghdad and Washington.
McCain's frustration at the turn of events is something he cannot conceal. The domestic economy was always going to be a problem for him — even before gasoline hit $4 a gallon. But he had a credible position to argue on national security issues, and a record that was consistent and in some respects prescient.
But now the ground has shifted — and his opponent was right where he needed to be to capture the advantage. July has been a cruel month for McCain.
© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group
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Mosh Pit Of Anti-Americanism Awaits Barack Obama
Europe's Mosh Pit Of Anti-Americanism Awaits Barack Obama With Open Arms
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election 2008: Barack Obama's big Berlin rally is being sold to U.S. voters as reason to vote for him. Yes, Germans do love Obama, but a look at what they think of the rest of us raises questions about the cheering.
A May-June Gallup poll released July 23 shows that 62% of Germans want Obama elected president over just 27% who would prefer John McCain. It's a German landslide.
No surprise. Citizens of the country Obama chose for a big showy overseas campaign rally hold some of the most virulent sentiment against President Bush ever recorded.
Five years after the Iraq War's start, a June 2008 Pew Global Attitudes survey found 85% of Germans still have little or no faith that Bush will do the right thing, and 72% think the U.S. effort in Iraq — no thanks to Germany — will fail.
Opinions about leaders are one thing. But Germany's negative attitudes extend well beyond Bush to a significant loathing of America, mostly based on its global influence and its success.
Obama may demand on the campaign trail that no one dare question his patriotism, but for Germans, disliking the U.S. is nothing to hide. Yet this is the place Obama's team thought would be best to hold a rally to boost his campaign.
Pew's 2008 survey found that 34% of Germans don't like Americans at all or in part, and 61% regard the U.S. as headed for something like history's ash heap, to be supplanted by China.
That is relevant to why Germans are cheering for Obama. He has consistently expounded a worldview that espouses the moral equivalency of nations, rather than importance of U.S. leadership. He's a big fan of letting the U.N. make America's foreign policy decisions, consistent with shrinking U.S. influence in the world.
He has also expressed embarrassment at the U.S. compared with Europe, for example, in its mastery of languages — as if the lingual fragmentation of Europe's tiny nations vs. the continental span of the U.S. were comparable conditions for learning languages.
Not a word, of course, about America's military, financial or technical superiority over Europe. Just lots of European-style mantras about American differences being somehow proof of inferiority.
An America Firster he's not. Heck, it was a battle just to get him, a candidate for the highest office in the land, to pin an American flag to his lapel. No wonder they cheer Obama in Germany.
But if his talk syncs with German attitudes, it might not be entirely in American interests. Last year Pew asked even more pointed questions of Obama's cheering German fans.
In its 2007 survey, Pew found that 65% of Germans dislike American ideas about democracy; 64% dislike American ways of doing business; 83% have a negative view about the spread of American ideas. If Germans think that and Obama's their man, what does that say about what Obama's selling?
Obama did not pick Germany as his venue for a rally Thursday because he wanted to change German perceptions about America. He picked it because the pro-Obama mania was already in place and the polls were sympathetic.
Oh, he insists it's no campaign rally, but just a . . . speech at the Victory Column, as if every visiting senator does that. That claim's belied by the slick, hip fliers printed up for Obama's rally to draw in Germans who loathe America. The mainstream media can be counted on to hide the Che Guevara T-shirts and the hammer and sickle banners that will undoubtedly be in Berlin as Obama presents his famous "hope" and "change" rhetoric.
Why will they cheer? Because they see a less influential America coming with an Obama presidency. They see bigger government, fewer personal freedoms and a lower standard of living — in short, Americans a lot more European. For them, Obama's rise means, at long last, an end to those dreaded SUVs.
The jealousy is palpable.
Among Germans, 88% believe the U.S. influences events in their country despite a simultaneous belief that the U.S. is a spent power; 47% think that influence is a bad thing; only 12% call it good. And 80% believe America has a negative impact on Germany's economy — an idea so plainly wrong as to be laughable.
Blaming America first may be nice for Germany's anti-Americans. But trying to influence U.S. voters with a campaign rally of people who loathe much of what America stands for strikes us as poor judgment.
Maybe the truth about those who cheer Obama and his lollapalooza world tour ought to be better known to U.S. voters.
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election 2008: Barack Obama's big Berlin rally is being sold to U.S. voters as reason to vote for him. Yes, Germans do love Obama, but a look at what they think of the rest of us raises questions about the cheering.
A May-June Gallup poll released July 23 shows that 62% of Germans want Obama elected president over just 27% who would prefer John McCain. It's a German landslide.
No surprise. Citizens of the country Obama chose for a big showy overseas campaign rally hold some of the most virulent sentiment against President Bush ever recorded.
Five years after the Iraq War's start, a June 2008 Pew Global Attitudes survey found 85% of Germans still have little or no faith that Bush will do the right thing, and 72% think the U.S. effort in Iraq — no thanks to Germany — will fail.
Opinions about leaders are one thing. But Germany's negative attitudes extend well beyond Bush to a significant loathing of America, mostly based on its global influence and its success.
Obama may demand on the campaign trail that no one dare question his patriotism, but for Germans, disliking the U.S. is nothing to hide. Yet this is the place Obama's team thought would be best to hold a rally to boost his campaign.
Pew's 2008 survey found that 34% of Germans don't like Americans at all or in part, and 61% regard the U.S. as headed for something like history's ash heap, to be supplanted by China.
That is relevant to why Germans are cheering for Obama. He has consistently expounded a worldview that espouses the moral equivalency of nations, rather than importance of U.S. leadership. He's a big fan of letting the U.N. make America's foreign policy decisions, consistent with shrinking U.S. influence in the world.
He has also expressed embarrassment at the U.S. compared with Europe, for example, in its mastery of languages — as if the lingual fragmentation of Europe's tiny nations vs. the continental span of the U.S. were comparable conditions for learning languages.
Not a word, of course, about America's military, financial or technical superiority over Europe. Just lots of European-style mantras about American differences being somehow proof of inferiority.
An America Firster he's not. Heck, it was a battle just to get him, a candidate for the highest office in the land, to pin an American flag to his lapel. No wonder they cheer Obama in Germany.
But if his talk syncs with German attitudes, it might not be entirely in American interests. Last year Pew asked even more pointed questions of Obama's cheering German fans.
In its 2007 survey, Pew found that 65% of Germans dislike American ideas about democracy; 64% dislike American ways of doing business; 83% have a negative view about the spread of American ideas. If Germans think that and Obama's their man, what does that say about what Obama's selling?
Obama did not pick Germany as his venue for a rally Thursday because he wanted to change German perceptions about America. He picked it because the pro-Obama mania was already in place and the polls were sympathetic.
Oh, he insists it's no campaign rally, but just a . . . speech at the Victory Column, as if every visiting senator does that. That claim's belied by the slick, hip fliers printed up for Obama's rally to draw in Germans who loathe America. The mainstream media can be counted on to hide the Che Guevara T-shirts and the hammer and sickle banners that will undoubtedly be in Berlin as Obama presents his famous "hope" and "change" rhetoric.
Why will they cheer? Because they see a less influential America coming with an Obama presidency. They see bigger government, fewer personal freedoms and a lower standard of living — in short, Americans a lot more European. For them, Obama's rise means, at long last, an end to those dreaded SUVs.
The jealousy is palpable.
Among Germans, 88% believe the U.S. influences events in their country despite a simultaneous belief that the U.S. is a spent power; 47% think that influence is a bad thing; only 12% call it good. And 80% believe America has a negative impact on Germany's economy — an idea so plainly wrong as to be laughable.
Blaming America first may be nice for Germany's anti-Americans. But trying to influence U.S. voters with a campaign rally of people who loathe much of what America stands for strikes us as poor judgment.
Maybe the truth about those who cheer Obama and his lollapalooza world tour ought to be better known to U.S. voters.
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Obama's Surge Shuffle
Obama's Surge Shuffle
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Politics: Barack Obama's refusal to admit he was wrong on President Bush's successful change of strategy in Iraq is as laughable as it is disingenuous. It also calls into question his qualifications to be president.
Obama was clearly opposed to the surge as he courted the Democrats' anti-war base. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence," he said in 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
But when he was confronted this week by ABC News' Terry Moran with the success of the surge, asking if he would have supported it knowing what he knows now, Obama's answer was "no."
Along with his refusal to admit the mistake came something else: an endless stream of double talk obviously designed to distract from our military's successes in Iraq. Obama spoke of "a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops." He added that "it wasn't any doubt that you have an additional 20,000 troops, and where they are right there, it is going to have an impact."
So after insisting the surge "will do the reverse" of quelling "sectarian violence," Obama now claims what he really said was that it would "have an impact" — meaning a positive impact.
As craftily worded as this may be, it's simply a lie. Moreover, the "political factors" Obama refers to — the Anbar Awakening in which Sunni chiefs turned against al-Qaida — were, in fact, primarily engineered by the U.S. military's dealings with those chiefs.
Obama's claim that "the Sunnis might have made the same decisions at that time" is no less than an insult to the U.S. commanders who worked so hard to convince the Iraqis it was in their interests.
Obama also provided ABC with this serving of gobbledygook: "The political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamics continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that, in fact, those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work."
Imagine the media scrutiny if that kind of babble came from the mouth of George W. Bush instead of the 21st century's JFK.
No wonder the Obama campaign earlier this month removed the anti-surge statements from its Web site, and stopped listing the surge as part of "The Problem" in its section on Iraq.
Obama's "problem" turned out to be the solution, proving again how feeble his foreign policy judgment would be as commander-in-chief. His dishonesty about it disqualifies him all the more.
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Politics: Barack Obama's refusal to admit he was wrong on President Bush's successful change of strategy in Iraq is as laughable as it is disingenuous. It also calls into question his qualifications to be president.
Obama was clearly opposed to the surge as he courted the Democrats' anti-war base. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence," he said in 2007. "In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
But when he was confronted this week by ABC News' Terry Moran with the success of the surge, asking if he would have supported it knowing what he knows now, Obama's answer was "no."
Along with his refusal to admit the mistake came something else: an endless stream of double talk obviously designed to distract from our military's successes in Iraq. Obama spoke of "a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops." He added that "it wasn't any doubt that you have an additional 20,000 troops, and where they are right there, it is going to have an impact."
So after insisting the surge "will do the reverse" of quelling "sectarian violence," Obama now claims what he really said was that it would "have an impact" — meaning a positive impact.
As craftily worded as this may be, it's simply a lie. Moreover, the "political factors" Obama refers to — the Anbar Awakening in which Sunni chiefs turned against al-Qaida — were, in fact, primarily engineered by the U.S. military's dealings with those chiefs.
Obama's claim that "the Sunnis might have made the same decisions at that time" is no less than an insult to the U.S. commanders who worked so hard to convince the Iraqis it was in their interests.
Obama also provided ABC with this serving of gobbledygook: "The political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamics continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that, in fact, those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work."
Imagine the media scrutiny if that kind of babble came from the mouth of George W. Bush instead of the 21st century's JFK.
No wonder the Obama campaign earlier this month removed the anti-surge statements from its Web site, and stopped listing the surge as part of "The Problem" in its section on Iraq.
Obama's "problem" turned out to be the solution, proving again how feeble his foreign policy judgment would be as commander-in-chief. His dishonesty about it disqualifies him all the more.
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July 22, 2008
Social Security Change for 2008
SENT BY A READER/CONTRIBUTOR THANKS AGAIN
AFTER YOU READ THIS PLEASE SEND ME YOU OPINION ALSO SEND IT TO YOUR BOOBS IN WASHINGTON. I AM AT oad@alaska.net
Social Security Change for 2008
Please send this on to as many people as you can..
You've got to read this all the way through to the bottom.
I HEREWITH FIRMLY STATE THAT I WILL NOT VOTE FOR ANY POLITICIAN, REGARDLESS OF THE OTHER ISSUES, IF HE DOES NOT SPONSOR AND SUPPORT THE FOLLOWING LEGISLATION. THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE STANDING FOR ELECTION IN 2008.
LET US SHOW OUR LEADERS IN WASHINGTON "PEOPLE POWER" AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE WITH ME ON THIS BY FORWARDING TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!
KEEP IT GOING!!!!
2008 Election Issue!!
GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.
This must be an issue in "2008" Please! Keep it going.
----------------------------------
SOCIAL SECURITY:
(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. Theyfelt they should have aspecial plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..
For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275, 000.00 during the last years of their lives.
This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.
Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.
Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA..! ZILCH...
This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;
"OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK "!
From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into, every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer). We can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.
Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley's benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.
That change would be to:
Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us
Then sit back.....
And see how fast they would fix it.
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.
How many people CAN you send this to?
Better yet.....
How many people WILL you send this to ?
AFTER YOU READ THIS PLEASE SEND ME YOU OPINION ALSO SEND IT TO YOUR BOOBS IN WASHINGTON. I AM AT oad@alaska.net
Social Security Change for 2008
Please send this on to as many people as you can..
You've got to read this all the way through to the bottom.
I HEREWITH FIRMLY STATE THAT I WILL NOT VOTE FOR ANY POLITICIAN, REGARDLESS OF THE OTHER ISSUES, IF HE DOES NOT SPONSOR AND SUPPORT THE FOLLOWING LEGISLATION. THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE STANDING FOR ELECTION IN 2008.
LET US SHOW OUR LEADERS IN WASHINGTON "PEOPLE POWER" AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE WITH ME ON THIS BY FORWARDING TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!
KEEP IT GOING!!!!
2008 Election Issue!!
GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.
This must be an issue in "2008" Please! Keep it going.
----------------------------------
SOCIAL SECURITY:
(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. Theyfelt they should have aspecial plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..
For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275, 000.00 during the last years of their lives.
This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.
Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.
Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA..! ZILCH...
This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;
"OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK "!
From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into, every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer). We can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.
Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley's benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.
That change would be to:
Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us
Then sit back.....
And see how fast they would fix it.
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.
How many people CAN you send this to?
Better yet.....
How many people WILL you send this to ?
Letter to the Editor from a Cuban . . .
SENT TO US BY A READER
Letter to the Editor from a Cuban . . .
A most interesting and foreboding letter.
From Richmond Times-Dispatch, Monday, July 7, 2008 ~
Dear Editor, Times-Dispatch:
'Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate my independence day, and on July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40Th anniversary of my independence.
'On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba, and a few months later, I was in the United States to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but I digress.
'I've thought a lot about the anniversary this year. The election-year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950s, most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive.
'When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said, 'Praise the Lord.' And when the young leader said, 'I will be for change and I'll bring you change,' everyone yelled, 'Viva Fidel!'
'But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent, the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education, it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented, Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status. By the time the change was over, more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans. And now I'm back to the beginning of my story.
'Luckily, we would never fall in America for a young leader who promised change without asking, what change? How will you carry it out? What will it cost America?
'Would we?'
Manuel Alvarez, Jr.
Letter to the Editor from a Cuban . . .
A most interesting and foreboding letter.
From Richmond Times-Dispatch, Monday, July 7, 2008 ~
Dear Editor, Times-Dispatch:
'Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate my independence day, and on July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40Th anniversary of my independence.
'On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba, and a few months later, I was in the United States to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but I digress.
'I've thought a lot about the anniversary this year. The election-year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950s, most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive.
'When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said, 'Praise the Lord.' And when the young leader said, 'I will be for change and I'll bring you change,' everyone yelled, 'Viva Fidel!'
'But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent, the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education, it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented, Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status. By the time the change was over, more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans. And now I'm back to the beginning of my story.
'Luckily, we would never fall in America for a young leader who promised change without asking, what change? How will you carry it out? What will it cost America?
'Would we?'
Manuel Alvarez, Jr.
$300 Oil Unless U.S. Cuts Import Need
Pickens: $300 Oil Unless U.S. Cuts Import Need
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 1:54 PM
WASHINGTON -- Oil prices will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years if the United States fails to reduce its dependence on foreign imports, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.
The United States imports nearly 70 percent of its oil now and Pickens said the world's top petroleum-consuming nation would import 80 percent in a decade if it does not aggressively tap its own natural gas and renewable resources.
"If we continue to drift, oil will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years," Pickens said during testimony at a Senate hearing.
Pickens who heads the hedge fund BP Capital, is building a 4,000 megawatt, $10 billion wind farm in Northern Texas that should start generating power in 2011.
He has been touring the country with a plan to cut oil imports by switching the use of domestic natural gas from firing power plants to powering cars. He hopes the federal government and private investors will build a massive wind farm system in the middle of the country from Mexico to Canada to replace the natural gas that would be used for transport.
There are some 8 million vehicles in the world that run on natural gas, but only about 140,000 of them in the United States, said Pickens, adding that he owns a Honda car that runs on natural gas he taps from his home line.
House Democrats were to hold a closed door caucus meeting with Pickens on Tuesday evening to discuss his plan to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Pickens, a lifelong Republican, said he is not favoring either party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, but will vote for the candidate with the best energy plan.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 1:54 PM
WASHINGTON -- Oil prices will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years if the United States fails to reduce its dependence on foreign imports, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.
The United States imports nearly 70 percent of its oil now and Pickens said the world's top petroleum-consuming nation would import 80 percent in a decade if it does not aggressively tap its own natural gas and renewable resources.
"If we continue to drift, oil will hit $300 a barrel in 10 years," Pickens said during testimony at a Senate hearing.
Pickens who heads the hedge fund BP Capital, is building a 4,000 megawatt, $10 billion wind farm in Northern Texas that should start generating power in 2011.
He has been touring the country with a plan to cut oil imports by switching the use of domestic natural gas from firing power plants to powering cars. He hopes the federal government and private investors will build a massive wind farm system in the middle of the country from Mexico to Canada to replace the natural gas that would be used for transport.
There are some 8 million vehicles in the world that run on natural gas, but only about 140,000 of them in the United States, said Pickens, adding that he owns a Honda car that runs on natural gas he taps from his home line.
House Democrats were to hold a closed door caucus meeting with Pickens on Tuesday evening to discuss his plan to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Pickens, a lifelong Republican, said he is not favoring either party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, but will vote for the candidate with the best energy plan.
Pelosi's Price
Pelosi's Price
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Congress: Americans expect and need a Speaker of the House who offers common-sense leadership to direct bipartisan legislative action. Nancy Pelosi is not up to that task, and our nation is the loser.
It's bad enough that Rep. Pelosi refuses to embrace reality, evaluate facts and oversee meaningful debate. But the hissy fits she throws against President Bush and the Republican minority are worse yet. This is a sad situation.
Pelosi's reaction to Bush's lifting of the ban on offshore drilling is a perfect example. She called the action a giveaway of "more public resources to the very same oil companies that are sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands they've already leased."
The key phrase is "public" resources — not Democratic resources or Pelosi's resources — and polls clearly show Americans are behind coastal drilling. The speaker knows that.
Her demonizing of Big Oil doesn't make sense, either. The companies want to get oil out of the ground. Their exploratory technology is very effective, and they're drilling extensively. But not all lease properties have oil that's readily recoverable.
Pelosi says the president's action is a "gift of more profits for the oil companies." Does she prefer that foreign, and often hostile, nations make the profits? Well, they are. She knows that, too.
"The Bush plan is a hoax," Pelosi charges, ignoring the fact that we know large reserves are located off our shores, in Western oil-shale deposits and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Bush says let's get it as quickly as possible, drilling responsibly off our shores, in the West's oil shale formations and on 2,000 acres of the 19 million acres in ANWR. Prudhoe Bay, North America's largest oil field, has proved we can do so and not hurt the environment. It can be done, and America needs it. Pelosi also knows that.
Pelosi wonders that if congressional action is so important, "why didn't the Republicans pass it when they were in control?" She seems to doubt the need for any debate on drilling. This is scary.
The two parties have bumped heads on this issue since the Carter years. Surely the speaker remembers 1995, when she voted against a GOP bill to drill in ANWR. It passed both the House and Senate only to be vetoed by President Clinton. She knows that as well.
Last weekend, Pelosi responded to Bush's criticism of Congress by calling him "a total failure." It was a telling interview, with CNN's Wolf Blitzer pressing her on topics including offshore drilling. Each time she blamed everybody but Congress.
The real failure is Pelosi's refusal to address reality and lead. The nation knows that.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Congress: Americans expect and need a Speaker of the House who offers common-sense leadership to direct bipartisan legislative action. Nancy Pelosi is not up to that task, and our nation is the loser.
It's bad enough that Rep. Pelosi refuses to embrace reality, evaluate facts and oversee meaningful debate. But the hissy fits she throws against President Bush and the Republican minority are worse yet. This is a sad situation.
Pelosi's reaction to Bush's lifting of the ban on offshore drilling is a perfect example. She called the action a giveaway of "more public resources to the very same oil companies that are sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands they've already leased."
The key phrase is "public" resources — not Democratic resources or Pelosi's resources — and polls clearly show Americans are behind coastal drilling. The speaker knows that.
Her demonizing of Big Oil doesn't make sense, either. The companies want to get oil out of the ground. Their exploratory technology is very effective, and they're drilling extensively. But not all lease properties have oil that's readily recoverable.
Pelosi says the president's action is a "gift of more profits for the oil companies." Does she prefer that foreign, and often hostile, nations make the profits? Well, they are. She knows that, too.
"The Bush plan is a hoax," Pelosi charges, ignoring the fact that we know large reserves are located off our shores, in Western oil-shale deposits and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Bush says let's get it as quickly as possible, drilling responsibly off our shores, in the West's oil shale formations and on 2,000 acres of the 19 million acres in ANWR. Prudhoe Bay, North America's largest oil field, has proved we can do so and not hurt the environment. It can be done, and America needs it. Pelosi also knows that.
Pelosi wonders that if congressional action is so important, "why didn't the Republicans pass it when they were in control?" She seems to doubt the need for any debate on drilling. This is scary.
The two parties have bumped heads on this issue since the Carter years. Surely the speaker remembers 1995, when she voted against a GOP bill to drill in ANWR. It passed both the House and Senate only to be vetoed by President Clinton. She knows that as well.
Last weekend, Pelosi responded to Bush's criticism of Congress by calling him "a total failure." It was a telling interview, with CNN's Wolf Blitzer pressing her on topics including offshore drilling. Each time she blamed everybody but Congress.
The real failure is Pelosi's refusal to address reality and lead. The nation knows that.
Obama Flip-Flops on School Choice
CNSNews.com
Obama Flip-Flops on School Choice, Catholic Group Says
Monday, July 21, 2008
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - While Republicans are criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for alleged flip-flops on various issues, a Catholic organization last week criticized Obama for apparently changing his stance on school choice.
Speaking to a Wisconsin newspaper in February, Obama said he was skeptical about providing government vouchers for children to attend private schools. However, he seemed to indicate he would be open to the idea.
“If there was any argument for vouchers, it was, ‘Let’s see if the experiment works,’” Obama said. “And if it does, whatever my preconception, you do what's best for kids.”
The flexible approach was less apparent when Obama spoke to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) last week, where he pledged to oppose any voucher proposals. (See Previous Story)
That was a case of pandering to the union that opposes vouchers, said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, a Catholic civil rights group that supports school vouchers.
“It’s so easy to tell the media that keeping an open mind on school vouchers is the best way to go,” Donohue said in a statement last week. “But when cash counts – and the American Federation of Teachers has plenty of it – who cares about principle? Fact is, no amount of empirical evidence was ever going to change his mind.”
Obama told the AFT – shortly after the union endorsed his candidacy – that his Republican opponent’s “only proposal seems to be recycling tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.”
Obama told the teachers’ union that he supported public charter schools, but added, “What I do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers. We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools, not throwing our hands up and walking away from them.”
The previous week, presumptive GOP presidential candidate John McCain told the League of United Latin American Citizens convention that “the civil rights challenge of our time is education. We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition. … We need to empower parents with choice.”
McCain’s campaign Web site says, “If a school will not change, the students should be able to change schools. John McCain believes parents should be empowered with school choice to send their children to the school that can best educate them just as many members of Congress do with their own children.”
Obama has been facing Republican scrutiny for apparently changing his position on a number of issues since Sen. Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
Many Republicans and independent political analysts say Obama has flip-flopped on public financing, phone surveillance for national security reasons, gun rights, Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided capitol,” and a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, among other issues.
Democrats have in turn criticized McCain for apparently shifting his stance on immigration reform, domestic oil drilling and tax cuts.
The flip-flops, or policy shifts, seem to have affected Obama slightly more, according to a recent poll.
A slim majority of Americans does not think Obama always believes what he says, according to the CBS/New York Times Poll. The poll said that 51 percent believes Obama tells people what they want to hear, while just 43 percent believe Obama says what he believes. That’s down by 10 percent since May among those who think Obama believes what he says, according to the poll. (See Poll Results)
Those numbers are slightly better for McCain, though less than a majority, 46 percent, thinks he says what he believes, down from 51 percent in May. Still more people, 49 percent, think McCain says what people want to hear.
Obama’s campaign did not respond to several requests from Cybercast News Service for comment on this story.
School choice proposals have gained support in many minority communities, but Donohue said that apparently did not affect Obama’s view.
“Obama now joins a long list of African-American elites who wouldn’t dare send their kids to an urban public school, but who works hard at every turn to deny poor black parents the same options he and his wife are so lucky to have,” Donohue said. “We hope that Catholics, as well as African-Americans, get the message.”
Obama Flip-Flops on School Choice, Catholic Group Says
Monday, July 21, 2008
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - While Republicans are criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for alleged flip-flops on various issues, a Catholic organization last week criticized Obama for apparently changing his stance on school choice.
Speaking to a Wisconsin newspaper in February, Obama said he was skeptical about providing government vouchers for children to attend private schools. However, he seemed to indicate he would be open to the idea.
“If there was any argument for vouchers, it was, ‘Let’s see if the experiment works,’” Obama said. “And if it does, whatever my preconception, you do what's best for kids.”
The flexible approach was less apparent when Obama spoke to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) last week, where he pledged to oppose any voucher proposals. (See Previous Story)
That was a case of pandering to the union that opposes vouchers, said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, a Catholic civil rights group that supports school vouchers.
“It’s so easy to tell the media that keeping an open mind on school vouchers is the best way to go,” Donohue said in a statement last week. “But when cash counts – and the American Federation of Teachers has plenty of it – who cares about principle? Fact is, no amount of empirical evidence was ever going to change his mind.”
Obama told the AFT – shortly after the union endorsed his candidacy – that his Republican opponent’s “only proposal seems to be recycling tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.”
Obama told the teachers’ union that he supported public charter schools, but added, “What I do oppose is using public money for private school vouchers. We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools, not throwing our hands up and walking away from them.”
The previous week, presumptive GOP presidential candidate John McCain told the League of United Latin American Citizens convention that “the civil rights challenge of our time is education. We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition. … We need to empower parents with choice.”
McCain’s campaign Web site says, “If a school will not change, the students should be able to change schools. John McCain believes parents should be empowered with school choice to send their children to the school that can best educate them just as many members of Congress do with their own children.”
Obama has been facing Republican scrutiny for apparently changing his position on a number of issues since Sen. Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
Many Republicans and independent political analysts say Obama has flip-flopped on public financing, phone surveillance for national security reasons, gun rights, Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided capitol,” and a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, among other issues.
Democrats have in turn criticized McCain for apparently shifting his stance on immigration reform, domestic oil drilling and tax cuts.
The flip-flops, or policy shifts, seem to have affected Obama slightly more, according to a recent poll.
A slim majority of Americans does not think Obama always believes what he says, according to the CBS/New York Times Poll. The poll said that 51 percent believes Obama tells people what they want to hear, while just 43 percent believe Obama says what he believes. That’s down by 10 percent since May among those who think Obama believes what he says, according to the poll. (See Poll Results)
Those numbers are slightly better for McCain, though less than a majority, 46 percent, thinks he says what he believes, down from 51 percent in May. Still more people, 49 percent, think McCain says what people want to hear.
Obama’s campaign did not respond to several requests from Cybercast News Service for comment on this story.
School choice proposals have gained support in many minority communities, but Donohue said that apparently did not affect Obama’s view.
“Obama now joins a long list of African-American elites who wouldn’t dare send their kids to an urban public school, but who works hard at every turn to deny poor black parents the same options he and his wife are so lucky to have,” Donohue said. “We hope that Catholics, as well as African-Americans, get the message.”
Obama: Healthcare for Illegals
THIS IDIOT WILL GIVE THIS COUNTRY AWAY IF BY CHANCE HE IS ELECTED. FOLKS IT IS IN YOUR HANDS WITH YOUR VOTE TO DETERMINE THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. EXAMINE
QUESTION, QUESTION THE ANSWER TOO AND REMEMBER VOTE.
Obama: Healthcare for Illegals
Monday, July 21, 2008 9:06 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Democrats' single most important domestic proposal — universal health insurance — may blow up in Barack Obama's face when voters are exposed to the deadly details.
Obama has said, proudly and often, "I am going to give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage." But are they "Americans?"
That 47 million statistic includes illegal immigrants, who virtually all lack insurance. In fact, about one in four of those lacking insurance is here illegally. And they are, by far, the group most in need of health insurance.
About 15 million of the remaining uninsured are eligible for Medicaid but haven't signed up, mainly because they haven't gotten sick. When they do, they enroll in Medicaid and we pick up the full tab for their health care relatively cheaply. (About 80 percent of each Medicaid dollar goes to nursing-home care for the elderly, only about 20 percent for the medical needs of the poor.)
The rest of the uninsured pool? Virtually all the children are eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Some aren't enrolled because the parents haven't bothered, but most are eligible. That leaves about 20 million uninsured adults who are US citizens or legal immigrants. There are far better ways to handle their needs than to turn our entire health-care system upside down.
Care for illegals is the biggest unmet medical need in our nation, and Obama's program targets it squarely. But do we really want to give them federally paid coverage equal to what US senators get, as Obama proposes?
Covering illegals adds dramatically to the cost of any program - and would encourage more folks to enter America illicitly.
Obama's plan will likely have a horrific effect on some local health-care systems.
Illegals now get free emergency-room treatment for life-threatening conditions, as any other American who's entered an ER in an area with lots of illegals recently well knows. (Three-quarters of the illegal-immigrant population is concentrated in five states: California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois.)
But now they'd be eligible for the entire range of medical services, all free of charge. That would trigger severe rationing: bureaucrats deciding who gets to see an oncologist, who can have an MRI - and even who can have bypass surgery and who'd die for lack of it.
These decisions would be made not on the basis of legal status but on the brutal facts of triage: Treat the 37-year-old illegal with his whole life to live before you spend scarce resources on an overweight, diabetic, 80-year-old citizen with high blood pressure who smokes.
John McCain hasn't raised this issue, perhaps for fear of offending the Latino vote. But polling suggests the case against rationing of health care would be as persuasive to Hispanic-American citizens as it is to the rest of us. Nobody wants to die waiting in line - especially not behind someone who snuck in ahead of us.
McCain needs to hit the Obama plan for treating illegal immigrants to free, federally subsidized health insurance — and hit it hard.
© 2008 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
QUESTION, QUESTION THE ANSWER TOO AND REMEMBER VOTE.
Obama: Healthcare for Illegals
Monday, July 21, 2008 9:06 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Democrats' single most important domestic proposal — universal health insurance — may blow up in Barack Obama's face when voters are exposed to the deadly details.
Obama has said, proudly and often, "I am going to give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage." But are they "Americans?"
That 47 million statistic includes illegal immigrants, who virtually all lack insurance. In fact, about one in four of those lacking insurance is here illegally. And they are, by far, the group most in need of health insurance.
About 15 million of the remaining uninsured are eligible for Medicaid but haven't signed up, mainly because they haven't gotten sick. When they do, they enroll in Medicaid and we pick up the full tab for their health care relatively cheaply. (About 80 percent of each Medicaid dollar goes to nursing-home care for the elderly, only about 20 percent for the medical needs of the poor.)
The rest of the uninsured pool? Virtually all the children are eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Some aren't enrolled because the parents haven't bothered, but most are eligible. That leaves about 20 million uninsured adults who are US citizens or legal immigrants. There are far better ways to handle their needs than to turn our entire health-care system upside down.
Care for illegals is the biggest unmet medical need in our nation, and Obama's program targets it squarely. But do we really want to give them federally paid coverage equal to what US senators get, as Obama proposes?
Covering illegals adds dramatically to the cost of any program - and would encourage more folks to enter America illicitly.
Obama's plan will likely have a horrific effect on some local health-care systems.
Illegals now get free emergency-room treatment for life-threatening conditions, as any other American who's entered an ER in an area with lots of illegals recently well knows. (Three-quarters of the illegal-immigrant population is concentrated in five states: California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois.)
But now they'd be eligible for the entire range of medical services, all free of charge. That would trigger severe rationing: bureaucrats deciding who gets to see an oncologist, who can have an MRI - and even who can have bypass surgery and who'd die for lack of it.
These decisions would be made not on the basis of legal status but on the brutal facts of triage: Treat the 37-year-old illegal with his whole life to live before you spend scarce resources on an overweight, diabetic, 80-year-old citizen with high blood pressure who smokes.
John McCain hasn't raised this issue, perhaps for fear of offending the Latino vote. But polling suggests the case against rationing of health care would be as persuasive to Hispanic-American citizens as it is to the rest of us. Nobody wants to die waiting in line - especially not behind someone who snuck in ahead of us.
McCain needs to hit the Obama plan for treating illegal immigrants to free, federally subsidized health insurance — and hit it hard.
© 2008 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
July 21, 2008
Short of changing history?
We are just 28 signatures short of changing history?
There's a rebellion afoot in the U.S. House of Representatives. What kind of rebellion? A rebellion against . . .
. . . greed, indifference, and a House leadership uncaring of the plight of ordinary Americans. (It's about time there was a rebellion. New polling shows that only 18% of Americans are happy with Congress!)
You've heard of the SAVE Act by now, haven't you? It should be called the "Solve Illegal Immigration Act," because that's what it will do.
Our champion, Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), has written a masterful bill that would choke off illegal immigration at its ultimate source--jobs going to illegal aliens.
By requiring employers to verify the Social Security numbers presented by new employees with a simple government database, most illegal aliens can be found out and denied jobs.
Added to the great additional border protections in the bill, shutting off the job magnet will gradually send most illegals packing for their home countries. For them, it will be too hard to get in with less gain in staying.
Now Shuler's brilliant bill has a real chance of becoming law. Our friends in Congress have launched an end-run against Nancy Pelosi and her House leadership.
A "discharge petition" effort has been launched. If a majority of the House members sign the discharge petition, Pelosi will be forced by House rules to schedule a vote on the bill. Passage would then be virtually guaranteed, since the majority are already on record supporting it.
We are now only 28 signatures short of success in the petition. This is big news! Only about two dozen discharge petitions have ever succeeded, and we are close to achieving that.
Do you see now why Roy and Rosemary and the rest of the NumbersUSA team have pushed the SAVE Act discharge petition so forcefully?
Yet for us to keep sending millions of your faxes to Congress, to keep the nation's finest lobbyists pressing our case on Capitol Hill, to keep this web site humming, we have an urgent need for more financial support this summer.
I'm very aware that times are very hard in the economy now. Gas prices are high. Food has risen. Jobs are scarce. Houses are being repossessed right here in my Northern Virginia neighborhood.
Many of our NumbersUSA members are having to take their belts in a notch. As a result, giving is off this summer to NumbersUSA.
Even though times are tough, we cannot stumble this close to victory. Members who can still give really need to step up, and pick up the burden from those who don't have jobs or money. Only if we pitch in together now can we hope to win.
Remember, if you are ill, unemployed, or living on a small fixed income, please do not contribute. We only ask for help from those able to help.
JIM ROBB
Vice President, Operations
NumbersUSA
There's a rebellion afoot in the U.S. House of Representatives. What kind of rebellion? A rebellion against . . .
. . . greed, indifference, and a House leadership uncaring of the plight of ordinary Americans. (It's about time there was a rebellion. New polling shows that only 18% of Americans are happy with Congress!)
You've heard of the SAVE Act by now, haven't you? It should be called the "Solve Illegal Immigration Act," because that's what it will do.
Our champion, Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), has written a masterful bill that would choke off illegal immigration at its ultimate source--jobs going to illegal aliens.
By requiring employers to verify the Social Security numbers presented by new employees with a simple government database, most illegal aliens can be found out and denied jobs.
Added to the great additional border protections in the bill, shutting off the job magnet will gradually send most illegals packing for their home countries. For them, it will be too hard to get in with less gain in staying.
Now Shuler's brilliant bill has a real chance of becoming law. Our friends in Congress have launched an end-run against Nancy Pelosi and her House leadership.
A "discharge petition" effort has been launched. If a majority of the House members sign the discharge petition, Pelosi will be forced by House rules to schedule a vote on the bill. Passage would then be virtually guaranteed, since the majority are already on record supporting it.
We are now only 28 signatures short of success in the petition. This is big news! Only about two dozen discharge petitions have ever succeeded, and we are close to achieving that.
Do you see now why Roy and Rosemary and the rest of the NumbersUSA team have pushed the SAVE Act discharge petition so forcefully?
Yet for us to keep sending millions of your faxes to Congress, to keep the nation's finest lobbyists pressing our case on Capitol Hill, to keep this web site humming, we have an urgent need for more financial support this summer.
I'm very aware that times are very hard in the economy now. Gas prices are high. Food has risen. Jobs are scarce. Houses are being repossessed right here in my Northern Virginia neighborhood.
Many of our NumbersUSA members are having to take their belts in a notch. As a result, giving is off this summer to NumbersUSA.
Even though times are tough, we cannot stumble this close to victory. Members who can still give really need to step up, and pick up the burden from those who don't have jobs or money. Only if we pitch in together now can we hope to win.
Remember, if you are ill, unemployed, or living on a small fixed income, please do not contribute. We only ask for help from those able to help.
JIM ROBB
Vice President, Operations
NumbersUSA
July 20, 2008
LISTEN TO THE WORDS
Dear Friends,
As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack
Obama made the statement with pride. . ."we are no longer a Christian
nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . . As
with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never
thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a
presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and
died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this
man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come
from what our founding fathers intended it to be.
I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns,
written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With
God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can
show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian
nation!
Please pray for our nation!
FORWARDED FROM A READER/CONTRIBUTOR THANKS A.H.D.
As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack
Obama made the statement with pride. . ."we are no longer a Christian
nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . . As
with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never
thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a
presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and
died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this
man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come
from what our founding fathers intended it to be.
I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns,
written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With
God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can
show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian
nation!
Please pray for our nation!
FORWARDED FROM A READER/CONTRIBUTOR THANKS A.H.D.
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