Obama Stage Will Look Like Temple
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:40 AM
DENVER — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.
The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos' National Football League team plays.
Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington's Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party's nomination for president.
He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.
The show should provide a striking image for the millions of Americans watching on television as Obama delivers a speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination.
Politicians in past elections have typically spoken from the convention site itself, but the Obama campaign liked the idea of having their man speak to a larger, stadium-sized crowd not far from where the Democratic National Convention is being held, at the Denver pro basketball arena.
Obama was taking a page from the campaign book of John Kennedy in 1960 when the future president delivered his acceptance speech to 80,000 people in the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Once Obama speaks, confetti will rain down on him and fireworks will be fired off from locations around the stadium wall.
Democratic convention organizers said the theme for the evening is "Change We Can Believe In," which has been a consistent message of Obama's presidential campaign.
Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson will sing the national anthem that night.
August 28, 2008
Don Imus: Obama an 'Empty Suit and a Phony'
McCain's VP? Lieberman? Romney? Ridge? Vote Here Now
Don Imus: Obama an 'Empty Suit and a Phony'
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:18 PM
By: Phil Brennan Article Font Size
Nationally syndicated talk radio host Don Imus says he will back John McCain for president because Barack Obama is “an empty suit and a phony."
Imus, appearing on Monday's Fox News broadcast of "Your World with Neil Cavuto," said, "I have personal experience at that. When I made my remarks about the Rutgers basketball team, which was mean-spirited and directed at people who did not deserve to be made fun of — and was not funny — I apologized for that. I didn't offer any lame excuses, [but] he refused to place into context either my life … or any of the work that I had done in my life," Imus said.
"As I pointed out to Al Sharpton, I slept in the house here at the ranch with more black children who are not related to me than either one of them [the Obamas] ever have. And then when this psychopath Rev. Wright shoots his mouth off, and I wasn't serious, [but] he was serious making outrageous reprehensible remarks."
Imus continued, “The first thing Senator Obama asked all of us to do was to place this clown’s life in perspective and to consider the context. That's nonsense. I don't detest Senator Obama at all, I just think he’s disingenuous and a phony.”
Imus poked fun at the current Democratic National convention asking, “Why do the Democrats invite every loser — Dukakis and Gore and John Kerry and Clinton — hanging around to remind everybody that here is another guy who couldn't get it done. I don't get that. It just reminds us that it’s been one disastrous campaign after another.”
As for McCain, Imus said he thinks the Arizona senator “has the potential to be a president in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, and I love the guy.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Don Imus: Obama an 'Empty Suit and a Phony'
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:18 PM
By: Phil Brennan Article Font Size
Nationally syndicated talk radio host Don Imus says he will back John McCain for president because Barack Obama is “an empty suit and a phony."
Imus, appearing on Monday's Fox News broadcast of "Your World with Neil Cavuto," said, "I have personal experience at that. When I made my remarks about the Rutgers basketball team, which was mean-spirited and directed at people who did not deserve to be made fun of — and was not funny — I apologized for that. I didn't offer any lame excuses, [but] he refused to place into context either my life … or any of the work that I had done in my life," Imus said.
"As I pointed out to Al Sharpton, I slept in the house here at the ranch with more black children who are not related to me than either one of them [the Obamas] ever have. And then when this psychopath Rev. Wright shoots his mouth off, and I wasn't serious, [but] he was serious making outrageous reprehensible remarks."
Imus continued, “The first thing Senator Obama asked all of us to do was to place this clown’s life in perspective and to consider the context. That's nonsense. I don't detest Senator Obama at all, I just think he’s disingenuous and a phony.”
Imus poked fun at the current Democratic National convention asking, “Why do the Democrats invite every loser — Dukakis and Gore and John Kerry and Clinton — hanging around to remind everybody that here is another guy who couldn't get it done. I don't get that. It just reminds us that it’s been one disastrous campaign after another.”
As for McCain, Imus said he thinks the Arizona senator “has the potential to be a president in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, and I love the guy.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
August 27, 2008
Michelle Obama Shines
Michelle Obama Shines
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 2:22 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
‘I love this country”: Those are the magic words that Michelle Obama said at the Democratic National Convention last night.
They’re the words we’ve wanted to hear from her ever since we saw her say that she was proud of her country “for the first time in my adult life” now that her husband was winning primaries en route to the White House.
Did she buy into the American Dream? Was she part of our national aspiration — or part of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s twisted view of us? Those were the questions we wanted answered. Last night, she answered, loud and clear.
We’ve watched the scripted familial intimacies Hillary Clinton always shares from the podium and wondered if they had been focus grouped. We’ve watched Teresa Heinz Kerry’s vaulting ambition at the 2004 Democratic Convention and wondered if she was really human.
But this year we saw an eloquent, sincere woman speaking of her dreams and aspirations. She gave a speech that sounded real with anecdotes that seemed genuine.
Michelle Obama last night became a political plus, not a problem.
We worried that Barack was an elitist. But her speech made it clear that she wasn’t born as part of the elite and that he wasn’t either. Her genuine working-class stories transcended race and rang true with Americans.
By bringing her husband down to earth, Michelle reassured us. But when she began reeling off the stories, we couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t too much. OK, we found ourselves saying, You didn’t grow up as elitists. You can reach back for the stories and the memories. But what about now? What about the future? You started off poor, but have you gone Ivy League on us?
Listening to her, we couldn’t help feeling that we’ve heard it all before from Barack Obama himself. Couldn’t help wondering if there was more than just the rhetoric and the emotion, no matter how sincerely and obviously felt.
Michelle, essentially, gave Barack’s standard speech for him. Now it’s up to Barack to put meat on the skeleton and flesh out his agenda — to go beyond her words and emotions and give us programs, concrete ideas and commitments. The generalities have worked before but, to quote Sen. Obama, “not this time.”
© 2008 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 2:22 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
‘I love this country”: Those are the magic words that Michelle Obama said at the Democratic National Convention last night.
They’re the words we’ve wanted to hear from her ever since we saw her say that she was proud of her country “for the first time in my adult life” now that her husband was winning primaries en route to the White House.
Did she buy into the American Dream? Was she part of our national aspiration — or part of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s twisted view of us? Those were the questions we wanted answered. Last night, she answered, loud and clear.
We’ve watched the scripted familial intimacies Hillary Clinton always shares from the podium and wondered if they had been focus grouped. We’ve watched Teresa Heinz Kerry’s vaulting ambition at the 2004 Democratic Convention and wondered if she was really human.
But this year we saw an eloquent, sincere woman speaking of her dreams and aspirations. She gave a speech that sounded real with anecdotes that seemed genuine.
Michelle Obama last night became a political plus, not a problem.
We worried that Barack was an elitist. But her speech made it clear that she wasn’t born as part of the elite and that he wasn’t either. Her genuine working-class stories transcended race and rang true with Americans.
By bringing her husband down to earth, Michelle reassured us. But when she began reeling off the stories, we couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t too much. OK, we found ourselves saying, You didn’t grow up as elitists. You can reach back for the stories and the memories. But what about now? What about the future? You started off poor, but have you gone Ivy League on us?
Listening to her, we couldn’t help feeling that we’ve heard it all before from Barack Obama himself. Couldn’t help wondering if there was more than just the rhetoric and the emotion, no matter how sincerely and obviously felt.
Michelle, essentially, gave Barack’s standard speech for him. Now it’s up to Barack to put meat on the skeleton and flesh out his agenda — to go beyond her words and emotions and give us programs, concrete ideas and commitments. The generalities have worked before but, to quote Sen. Obama, “not this time.”
© 2008 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
August 26, 2008
Obama/Biden — Left And Lefter
Obama/Biden — Left And Lefter
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: The Democratic convention is about to nominate two of the three most liberal members of the U.S. Senate as its presidential ticket. In some ways, Barack Obama's running mate is further left than he is.
National Journal found that based on his voting record, Barack Obama was the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate for 2007. It ranked the six-term Delaware senator he chose as running mate to be the third most liberal senator.
Cutting and running in Iraq, for instance, as Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and most other congressional Democrats supported, was not politically-correct enough for the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; he wanted to carve Iraq into three separate entities.
Each part would likely have been easier for Islamist terrorists to destabilize than the fledgling parliamentary democracy in Baghdad today. Had Biden's advice been followed when he proposed it two years ago, the country would likely be inflamed in civil war today.
What's more, as American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin noted in the Washington Post Tuesday, "Iran's Press TV seized on Biden's plan for partitioning Iraq and featured his statements with the headline 'U.S. plans to disintegrate Iraq.' " Making the destruction of Bush's presidency a priority over national security makes Joe Biden "Tehran's favorite senator," as Rubin calls him.
Biden even refused to vote for a bipartisan amendment classifying Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. His official rationale for opposing it was: "I don't trust this administration."
Unfortunately, this oh-so-seasoned foreign policy expert has trusted the Islamofascist administration running Iran all too much.
"Biden's unyielding pursuit of 'engagement' with Iran for more than a decade has made it easier for Tehran to pursue its nuclear program," Rubin says. In other words, Biden's personal ties with Tehran's Islamist regime have helped Iran come closer to developing weapons of mass destruction.
Foreign policy is only one area where Biden's radicalism exceeds even Obama's. As Tax Analysts' Chuck O'Toole noted on Tuesday, "on taxes, Biden has followed a path more overtly populist than the one Obama has walked, pushing for a more progressive tax code that shifts the tax burden away from lower and middle-income families and onto high earners and businesses."
While Obama would pair the expiration of the Bush tax cuts with a corporate tax rate cut, for instance, O'Toole noted: "In recent years, Biden has voted against corporate tax cuts, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2006, and a motion to consider a permanent repeal of the estate tax."
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) graded both Obama and Biden "F" for their votes on economic issues. But while Obama voted favorably only 5% of the time, according to the NTU, Biden voted right even less — just 4% of the time.
Biden's tax-and-spend economic radicalism did not, however, prevent him from voting with Republican senators in 2005 to shield his state's large credit card industry, cardholders be damned. (To attract jobs, Delaware in the 1980s turned itself into a legal mecca for charge-card companies with laws allowing higher interest rates and providing much greater protection from hostile takeovers.)
Barack Obama in 2005 voted against the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act." So did Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John Kerry, D-Mass.
As recently as last month, Obama even attacked his GOP opponent Sen. John McCain for voting for it. "While I was opposing the credit-card industry's bankruptcy bill that made it harder for working families to climb out of debt, (McCain) was supporting it," Obama said, "and he even opposed helping families who were only in bankruptcy because of medical bills they couldn't pay."
But now Obama has a running mate who did vote for "the credit-card industry's bankruptcy bill" (as he pocketed more campaign cash from the credit card industry than almost anyone) — a law that President Bill Clinton in 2000 pocket-vetoed because, as Clinton said at the time, it was "tilting the playing field against those debtors who genuinely turn to bankruptcy for a fresh start."
It seems that the "regular Joe" Sen. Obama is running with is just as radical as he is, if not more so — except when he gets paid off by a big industry to stick it to working families.
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: The Democratic convention is about to nominate two of the three most liberal members of the U.S. Senate as its presidential ticket. In some ways, Barack Obama's running mate is further left than he is.
National Journal found that based on his voting record, Barack Obama was the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate for 2007. It ranked the six-term Delaware senator he chose as running mate to be the third most liberal senator.
Cutting and running in Iraq, for instance, as Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and most other congressional Democrats supported, was not politically-correct enough for the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; he wanted to carve Iraq into three separate entities.
Each part would likely have been easier for Islamist terrorists to destabilize than the fledgling parliamentary democracy in Baghdad today. Had Biden's advice been followed when he proposed it two years ago, the country would likely be inflamed in civil war today.
What's more, as American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin noted in the Washington Post Tuesday, "Iran's Press TV seized on Biden's plan for partitioning Iraq and featured his statements with the headline 'U.S. plans to disintegrate Iraq.' " Making the destruction of Bush's presidency a priority over national security makes Joe Biden "Tehran's favorite senator," as Rubin calls him.
Biden even refused to vote for a bipartisan amendment classifying Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. His official rationale for opposing it was: "I don't trust this administration."
Unfortunately, this oh-so-seasoned foreign policy expert has trusted the Islamofascist administration running Iran all too much.
"Biden's unyielding pursuit of 'engagement' with Iran for more than a decade has made it easier for Tehran to pursue its nuclear program," Rubin says. In other words, Biden's personal ties with Tehran's Islamist regime have helped Iran come closer to developing weapons of mass destruction.
Foreign policy is only one area where Biden's radicalism exceeds even Obama's. As Tax Analysts' Chuck O'Toole noted on Tuesday, "on taxes, Biden has followed a path more overtly populist than the one Obama has walked, pushing for a more progressive tax code that shifts the tax burden away from lower and middle-income families and onto high earners and businesses."
While Obama would pair the expiration of the Bush tax cuts with a corporate tax rate cut, for instance, O'Toole noted: "In recent years, Biden has voted against corporate tax cuts, the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2006, and a motion to consider a permanent repeal of the estate tax."
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) graded both Obama and Biden "F" for their votes on economic issues. But while Obama voted favorably only 5% of the time, according to the NTU, Biden voted right even less — just 4% of the time.
Biden's tax-and-spend economic radicalism did not, however, prevent him from voting with Republican senators in 2005 to shield his state's large credit card industry, cardholders be damned. (To attract jobs, Delaware in the 1980s turned itself into a legal mecca for charge-card companies with laws allowing higher interest rates and providing much greater protection from hostile takeovers.)
Barack Obama in 2005 voted against the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act." So did Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and John Kerry, D-Mass.
As recently as last month, Obama even attacked his GOP opponent Sen. John McCain for voting for it. "While I was opposing the credit-card industry's bankruptcy bill that made it harder for working families to climb out of debt, (McCain) was supporting it," Obama said, "and he even opposed helping families who were only in bankruptcy because of medical bills they couldn't pay."
But now Obama has a running mate who did vote for "the credit-card industry's bankruptcy bill" (as he pocketed more campaign cash from the credit card industry than almost anyone) — a law that President Bill Clinton in 2000 pocket-vetoed because, as Clinton said at the time, it was "tilting the playing field against those debtors who genuinely turn to bankruptcy for a fresh start."
It seems that the "regular Joe" Sen. Obama is running with is just as radical as he is, if not more so — except when he gets paid off by a big industry to stick it to working families.
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Obama OK'd ‘Live Born’ Abortion
Obama OK'd ‘Live Born’ Abortion
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:38 AM
By: Jim Meyers
Sen. Barack Obama’s pick of Sen. Joseph Biden, a pro-choice Catholic, will most certainly raise the abortion issue to a new level in the campaign.
Obama’s own record on abortion is steeped in controversy.
Barack Obama not only has a perfect record in opposing pro-life legislation, he even fought against a bill protecting the right to life of a baby born alive.
Author David Freddoso chronicles Obama’s radical pro-abortion record in his best-selling book “The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate.”
In March 2001, a bill was introduced in the Illinois Senate, where Obama was then serving, that stated in part: “A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.”
The bill came following an investigation of a Chicago-area hospital that left babies born alive to die without medical care.
“This bill was not an abortion law,” Freddoso writes. “It did not confer any right or legal status upon any baby not yet born. This bill had no legal conflicts with Roe v. Wade … Born and living survivors of abortion would be unambiguously considered ‘persons.’ Medically, scientifically, empirically, they were no different from the many premature babies who are born in American hospitals each year.”
Nevertheless, Sen. Obama spoke against the bill on the Senate floor.
He was the only senator to do so.
Arguing against the bill, Obama declared: “This is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to … a nine-month-old child that was delivered to term. That determination, then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place … This would be an anti-abortion statute.”
According to Freddoso, Obama’s stance disregarded language in the bill that clearly stated it applied only to babies that have already been born.
Obama voted “present” on the bill. It passed the Senate, but later died in a House committee.
In 2002, the legislation was reintroduced in three separate bills. Obama voted against the two bills that received a vote and, once again, spoke in opposition on the Senate floor.
Obama also has opposed restrictions on partial-birth abortion, a late-term abortion that kills a partially delivered living fetus and is considered by some to be tantamount to infanticide.
Freddoso writes: “Obama has also voted ‘present’ (again, effectively a ‘no’ vote) on requiring parental notification (not parental consent) when minor children obtain abortions…
“I could find no instance in his entire career in which he voted for any regulation or restriction on the practice of abortion.”
Freddoso also quotes conservative columnist Terence P. Jeffrey: “Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever.”
And if elected, he would likely become the most pro-abortion president ever. In July 2007, Obama spoke before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and said: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.”
Freddoso observes: “This bill would effectively cancel every state, federal, and local regulation of abortion, no matter how modest or reasonable. It would even, according to the National Organization of Women, abolish all state restrictions on government funding for abortions….
“In promising to sign this bill, Obama is promising to abolish state laws that protect doctors and nurses from losing their jobs if they refuse to participate in abortions. He is promising to abolish requirements for parental notification and informed consent for mothers who consider the procedure…
“Politicians’ promises are often empty, but this one deserves to be taken seriously.”
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:38 AM
By: Jim Meyers
Sen. Barack Obama’s pick of Sen. Joseph Biden, a pro-choice Catholic, will most certainly raise the abortion issue to a new level in the campaign.
Obama’s own record on abortion is steeped in controversy.
Barack Obama not only has a perfect record in opposing pro-life legislation, he even fought against a bill protecting the right to life of a baby born alive.
Author David Freddoso chronicles Obama’s radical pro-abortion record in his best-selling book “The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate.”
In March 2001, a bill was introduced in the Illinois Senate, where Obama was then serving, that stated in part: “A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law.”
The bill came following an investigation of a Chicago-area hospital that left babies born alive to die without medical care.
“This bill was not an abortion law,” Freddoso writes. “It did not confer any right or legal status upon any baby not yet born. This bill had no legal conflicts with Roe v. Wade … Born and living survivors of abortion would be unambiguously considered ‘persons.’ Medically, scientifically, empirically, they were no different from the many premature babies who are born in American hospitals each year.”
Nevertheless, Sen. Obama spoke against the bill on the Senate floor.
He was the only senator to do so.
Arguing against the bill, Obama declared: “This is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to … a nine-month-old child that was delivered to term. That determination, then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place … This would be an anti-abortion statute.”
According to Freddoso, Obama’s stance disregarded language in the bill that clearly stated it applied only to babies that have already been born.
Obama voted “present” on the bill. It passed the Senate, but later died in a House committee.
In 2002, the legislation was reintroduced in three separate bills. Obama voted against the two bills that received a vote and, once again, spoke in opposition on the Senate floor.
Obama also has opposed restrictions on partial-birth abortion, a late-term abortion that kills a partially delivered living fetus and is considered by some to be tantamount to infanticide.
Freddoso writes: “Obama has also voted ‘present’ (again, effectively a ‘no’ vote) on requiring parental notification (not parental consent) when minor children obtain abortions…
“I could find no instance in his entire career in which he voted for any regulation or restriction on the practice of abortion.”
Freddoso also quotes conservative columnist Terence P. Jeffrey: “Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate ever.”
And if elected, he would likely become the most pro-abortion president ever. In July 2007, Obama spoke before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and said: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.”
Freddoso observes: “This bill would effectively cancel every state, federal, and local regulation of abortion, no matter how modest or reasonable. It would even, according to the National Organization of Women, abolish all state restrictions on government funding for abortions….
“In promising to sign this bill, Obama is promising to abolish state laws that protect doctors and nurses from losing their jobs if they refuse to participate in abortions. He is promising to abolish requirements for parental notification and informed consent for mothers who consider the procedure…
“Politicians’ promises are often empty, but this one deserves to be taken seriously.”
Leading With The Left Another SOCIALIST
Leading With The Left
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Democrats: Barack Obama isn't the only leader at this week's convention whose ideas border on the socialistic. So do those of party chairman Howard Dean, as demonstrated during his stint as governor of Vermont.
In those 12 years (1991-2003), Dean and the Democratic legislature transformed a rural state with an austerity budget into a state that ranks No. 1 in taxes (with a top rate of 9.5%) and in the top five in per capita spending on welfare, health care and education while trailing the national average in job and personal income growth.
How was this pulled off? By ramping up entitlement programs in much the same way Democrats propose at the national level.
For example, Dean quickly expanded eligibility for Vermont's controversial public health care program called "Dr. Dynasaur." Enacted in 1989, it was intended to insure only pregnant women and children under age 6. But Dean insisted that health insurance ought to be "the right of every citizen in Vermont."
In 1993, the year Hillary Clinton was trying to get similar legislation enacted at the federal level, Dean submitted a comprehensive health care bill to the Vermont legislature. It was defeated the next year, two months before Hillarycare died in Congress.
But Dean was undaunted. He figured that if coverage were extended one group at a time, he could accomplish the same end. "You can't take on every special interest all at once," he explained. Today, Dr. Dynasaur is one of the largest items in Vermont's budget.
Dean's plunder continued with school funding, which the ACLU got the state's Supreme Court to declare unequal in 1997. The same thing occurred in other states, but Vermont's reaction was dramatic. With Dean's approval, the legislature quickly usurped authority to make decisions, pass budgets and levy real estate taxes for local schools. This led to a massive shift of tax dollars from wealthier districts to poorer ones. Real estate taxes in the "gold towns" with ski resorts are now four to six times higher than they were a decade ago.
Making matters worse was an amendment in 2003 that exempted full-time residents from most of these tax increases based on their incomes. Today, seven of 10 Vermont resident homeowners qualify for these significant reductions, putting an even greater tax burden on nonresident and nonvoting property owners.
In short, Dean and his legislature chose to fund their extravagant social programs by raising taxes on businesses and vacation-home owners who can't vote them out of office, don't have children in their schools and represent the state's largest industry (tourism).
Several phrases spring to mind, including "biting the hand that feeds you." Most apt, however, may be: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Democrats: Barack Obama isn't the only leader at this week's convention whose ideas border on the socialistic. So do those of party chairman Howard Dean, as demonstrated during his stint as governor of Vermont.
In those 12 years (1991-2003), Dean and the Democratic legislature transformed a rural state with an austerity budget into a state that ranks No. 1 in taxes (with a top rate of 9.5%) and in the top five in per capita spending on welfare, health care and education while trailing the national average in job and personal income growth.
How was this pulled off? By ramping up entitlement programs in much the same way Democrats propose at the national level.
For example, Dean quickly expanded eligibility for Vermont's controversial public health care program called "Dr. Dynasaur." Enacted in 1989, it was intended to insure only pregnant women and children under age 6. But Dean insisted that health insurance ought to be "the right of every citizen in Vermont."
In 1993, the year Hillary Clinton was trying to get similar legislation enacted at the federal level, Dean submitted a comprehensive health care bill to the Vermont legislature. It was defeated the next year, two months before Hillarycare died in Congress.
But Dean was undaunted. He figured that if coverage were extended one group at a time, he could accomplish the same end. "You can't take on every special interest all at once," he explained. Today, Dr. Dynasaur is one of the largest items in Vermont's budget.
Dean's plunder continued with school funding, which the ACLU got the state's Supreme Court to declare unequal in 1997. The same thing occurred in other states, but Vermont's reaction was dramatic. With Dean's approval, the legislature quickly usurped authority to make decisions, pass budgets and levy real estate taxes for local schools. This led to a massive shift of tax dollars from wealthier districts to poorer ones. Real estate taxes in the "gold towns" with ski resorts are now four to six times higher than they were a decade ago.
Making matters worse was an amendment in 2003 that exempted full-time residents from most of these tax increases based on their incomes. Today, seven of 10 Vermont resident homeowners qualify for these significant reductions, putting an even greater tax burden on nonresident and nonvoting property owners.
In short, Dean and his legislature chose to fund their extravagant social programs by raising taxes on businesses and vacation-home owners who can't vote them out of office, don't have children in their schools and represent the state's largest industry (tourism).
Several phrases spring to mind, including "biting the hand that feeds you." Most apt, however, may be: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
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Strange Bedfellows
Strange Bedfellows
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: Barack Obama picks a loose-lipped running mate who voted for the Iraq War and questioned his readiness. Obama says he wants a veep who'll challenge him. Instead, he got one who'll need to tutor him.
It will be quite possibly the most verbose ticket in political history now that Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., has accepted a vice presidential nomination he earlier said he wouldn't accept from Barack Obama, who Biden once described as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
Obama, the outsider candidate of change and hope has picked one of the few people who has been in Washington longer than John McCain. This is hardly the "change" Obama promised.
Biden, 65, was first elected to represent Delaware in 1972. Obama was 11. John McCain was dwelling in one of his many homes, the Hanoi Hilton.
Biden was picked to provide Obama foreign policy expertise and Biden, for one, thinks Obama needs it. He's said so.
Of Obama's pledge to invade Pakistan if necessary to fight terror, Biden said, "It's a very naive way of thinking how you're going to conduct foreign policy." He added: "Having talking points on foreign policy doesn't get you there."
Biden is not a man of few words and occasionally feels the need to borrow some. In 1987, Biden was a credible presidential candidate until the moment he lifted passages from a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.
But even when the words are his own, they can display the racial insensitivity of Obama's white grandmother.
In 2006, on the C-Span series "Road To The White House," Biden famously remarked: "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."
Yes, Obama has a "post-racial" running mate.
Biden's words have criticized Obama so much that one would think he was seeking John McCain's No. 2 slot. Indeed, on "The Daily Show" in 2005, Biden said: "I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off, be well off no matter who . . ."
Of Obama's qualifications, Biden said last year, "I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."
While preparing his own run, Biden said of Obama: "If the Democrats think we're going to be able to nominate someone who can win without that person being able to table unimpeachable credentials on national security and foreign policy, I think we're making a tragic mistake."
Biden's criticisms of Obama have been most heated on the war in Iraq. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was particularly critical of Obama's May 20, 2007, vote to defund the war.
"I am not going to fail to protect these kids as long as we have a single, solitary troop in Iraq," Biden said during a September 8, 2007, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press." "This isn't cutting off the war. This is cutting off support that will save the lives of American troops."
Obama has spoken proudly of always being against the war. Speaking to the Brookings Institution in 2005, Biden said: "We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a tragic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out — equally a mistake."
Barack Obama is not ready for prime time and electing him president may be the biggest mistake of all. But that's not us speaking — it's Obama's running mate, Joe Biden.
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: Barack Obama picks a loose-lipped running mate who voted for the Iraq War and questioned his readiness. Obama says he wants a veep who'll challenge him. Instead, he got one who'll need to tutor him.
It will be quite possibly the most verbose ticket in political history now that Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., has accepted a vice presidential nomination he earlier said he wouldn't accept from Barack Obama, who Biden once described as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."
Obama, the outsider candidate of change and hope has picked one of the few people who has been in Washington longer than John McCain. This is hardly the "change" Obama promised.
Biden, 65, was first elected to represent Delaware in 1972. Obama was 11. John McCain was dwelling in one of his many homes, the Hanoi Hilton.
Biden was picked to provide Obama foreign policy expertise and Biden, for one, thinks Obama needs it. He's said so.
Of Obama's pledge to invade Pakistan if necessary to fight terror, Biden said, "It's a very naive way of thinking how you're going to conduct foreign policy." He added: "Having talking points on foreign policy doesn't get you there."
Biden is not a man of few words and occasionally feels the need to borrow some. In 1987, Biden was a credible presidential candidate until the moment he lifted passages from a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.
But even when the words are his own, they can display the racial insensitivity of Obama's white grandmother.
In 2006, on the C-Span series "Road To The White House," Biden famously remarked: "You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."
Yes, Obama has a "post-racial" running mate.
Biden's words have criticized Obama so much that one would think he was seeking John McCain's No. 2 slot. Indeed, on "The Daily Show" in 2005, Biden said: "I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off, be well off no matter who . . ."
Of Obama's qualifications, Biden said last year, "I think he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."
While preparing his own run, Biden said of Obama: "If the Democrats think we're going to be able to nominate someone who can win without that person being able to table unimpeachable credentials on national security and foreign policy, I think we're making a tragic mistake."
Biden's criticisms of Obama have been most heated on the war in Iraq. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was particularly critical of Obama's May 20, 2007, vote to defund the war.
"I am not going to fail to protect these kids as long as we have a single, solitary troop in Iraq," Biden said during a September 8, 2007, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press." "This isn't cutting off the war. This is cutting off support that will save the lives of American troops."
Obama has spoken proudly of always being against the war. Speaking to the Brookings Institution in 2005, Biden said: "We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a tragic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out — equally a mistake."
Barack Obama is not ready for prime time and electing him president may be the biggest mistake of all. But that's not us speaking — it's Obama's running mate, Joe Biden.
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August 25, 2008
Obama's Hatchet Man
Obama's Hatchet Man
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Veepstakes: If Barack Obama really were a "uniter," he wouldn't name the "scrappy kid from Scranton" as his running mate/attack dog. Ultra-liberal Sen. Joseph Biden's frequent smile belies the scalps on his belt.
The image of Joe Biden that Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the dominant establishment media want Americans to accept may be that of a tempered, likable working-class Irish Catholic you'd love to have a beer with.
In fact, Biden is known for opposing — and at times destroying — the Republican presidents' nominees for top jobs. During George H.W. Bush's administration, for instance, he helped squash fellow Sen. John Tower's nomination to be secretary of defense in 1989.
Two years before that, he helped destroy the nomination of current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to be CIA director.
As for the current Bush administration, in 2005 as ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden spearheaded the smearing of Bush's nominee for ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton. Inviting witnesses who claimed Bolton had a nasty temper, Biden stopped his confirmation. The president ended up sending Bolton to the U.N. as a temporary recess appointment.
These aren't isolated instances: In 2001, Biden unsuccessfully tried to stop John Ashcroft from becoming attorney general, Gale Norton from becoming secretary of the interior and Theodore Olson from becoming solicitor general.
But Biden's biggest kills have been judicial nominees.
As National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez pointed out last week, in 1991 then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Biden sucker-punched Clarence Thomas in his confirmation hearings by lying in private meetings prior to his testimony.
"Instead of the softball questions he'd promised to ask, he threw a beanball straight at my head," Justice Thomas recalls in his memoir, "My Grandfather's Son." Biden took a quote from a speech Thomas gave out of context to give the impression that Thomas favored some kind of right-wing activism on the Supreme Court, rather than his philosophy of judicial restraint. "The point I'd been making was the opposite of the one that Senator Biden claimed I had made," Thomas noted. "Senator Biden's smooth, insincere promises that he would treat me fairly were nothing but talk."
Biden, of course, failed to keep Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court, even after turning the hearings into an X-rated circus by inviting Anita Hill to make groundless charges of sexual harassment.
But earlier, in 1987, it went Biden's way, when perhaps the greatest judge of our generation was sliced and diced on live TV by Biden and the other liberal Democrats of the Judiciary panel.
Teddy Kennedy's words may be the ones best remembered: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions" he falsely claimed, while "blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters." But it was chairman Biden who orchestrated the destruction of Ronald Reagan's nominee to the Supreme Court, adding a new word to our vocabulary — "borking."
As millions of Americans watched, Biden launched into a discussion of Bork's opposition to the high court's 1965 Griswold case, declaring a Connecticut contraception ban unconstitutional.
"It appears to me that you are saying that the government has as much right to control a married couple's decision about choosing to have a child or not, as that government has a right to control the public utility's right to pollute the air," Biden said, adding "that the economic gratification of a utility company is as worthy of as much protection as the sexual gratification of a married couple, because neither is mentioned in the Constitution."
As Bork testified, it was only "the way Justice (William O.) Douglas . . . derived this right" that he was opposed to. But it didn't matter; millions of TV viewers now thought Bork wanted the police spying on married couples in their bedrooms. Then it was on to Biden's next line of questioning — "do you think that there is a basic right, under the Constitution, not to be forcibly sterilized by the state?"
Joe Biden, 35 years a senator, knows how to slip the knife through your ribs while flashing the biggest smile in Washington. Barack Obama is hoping John McCain will be his next victim.
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By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Veepstakes: If Barack Obama really were a "uniter," he wouldn't name the "scrappy kid from Scranton" as his running mate/attack dog. Ultra-liberal Sen. Joseph Biden's frequent smile belies the scalps on his belt.
The image of Joe Biden that Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the dominant establishment media want Americans to accept may be that of a tempered, likable working-class Irish Catholic you'd love to have a beer with.
In fact, Biden is known for opposing — and at times destroying — the Republican presidents' nominees for top jobs. During George H.W. Bush's administration, for instance, he helped squash fellow Sen. John Tower's nomination to be secretary of defense in 1989.
Two years before that, he helped destroy the nomination of current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to be CIA director.
As for the current Bush administration, in 2005 as ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden spearheaded the smearing of Bush's nominee for ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton. Inviting witnesses who claimed Bolton had a nasty temper, Biden stopped his confirmation. The president ended up sending Bolton to the U.N. as a temporary recess appointment.
These aren't isolated instances: In 2001, Biden unsuccessfully tried to stop John Ashcroft from becoming attorney general, Gale Norton from becoming secretary of the interior and Theodore Olson from becoming solicitor general.
But Biden's biggest kills have been judicial nominees.
As National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez pointed out last week, in 1991 then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Biden sucker-punched Clarence Thomas in his confirmation hearings by lying in private meetings prior to his testimony.
"Instead of the softball questions he'd promised to ask, he threw a beanball straight at my head," Justice Thomas recalls in his memoir, "My Grandfather's Son." Biden took a quote from a speech Thomas gave out of context to give the impression that Thomas favored some kind of right-wing activism on the Supreme Court, rather than his philosophy of judicial restraint. "The point I'd been making was the opposite of the one that Senator Biden claimed I had made," Thomas noted. "Senator Biden's smooth, insincere promises that he would treat me fairly were nothing but talk."
Biden, of course, failed to keep Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court, even after turning the hearings into an X-rated circus by inviting Anita Hill to make groundless charges of sexual harassment.
But earlier, in 1987, it went Biden's way, when perhaps the greatest judge of our generation was sliced and diced on live TV by Biden and the other liberal Democrats of the Judiciary panel.
Teddy Kennedy's words may be the ones best remembered: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions" he falsely claimed, while "blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters." But it was chairman Biden who orchestrated the destruction of Ronald Reagan's nominee to the Supreme Court, adding a new word to our vocabulary — "borking."
As millions of Americans watched, Biden launched into a discussion of Bork's opposition to the high court's 1965 Griswold case, declaring a Connecticut contraception ban unconstitutional.
"It appears to me that you are saying that the government has as much right to control a married couple's decision about choosing to have a child or not, as that government has a right to control the public utility's right to pollute the air," Biden said, adding "that the economic gratification of a utility company is as worthy of as much protection as the sexual gratification of a married couple, because neither is mentioned in the Constitution."
As Bork testified, it was only "the way Justice (William O.) Douglas . . . derived this right" that he was opposed to. But it didn't matter; millions of TV viewers now thought Bork wanted the police spying on married couples in their bedrooms. Then it was on to Biden's next line of questioning — "do you think that there is a basic right, under the Constitution, not to be forcibly sterilized by the state?"
Joe Biden, 35 years a senator, knows how to slip the knife through your ribs while flashing the biggest smile in Washington. Barack Obama is hoping John McCain will be his next victim.
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Biden's Choice Shows Catholic Vote Matters
Biden's Choice Shows Catholic Vote Matters
Monday, August 25, 2008 12:19 PM
By: George J. Marlin
Sen. Barack Obama’s selection of Sen. Joseph Biden underscores the important of the Catholic vote this election year. And though Biden is pro-choice, Obama thinks he can pull enough wary Catholics over in key states like Pennsylvania to beat McCain come election day.
Already the primaries between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Obama offered the first skirmishes in the battle for Catholics, a voting bloc long neglected by their party.
Vying for their votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, Clinton downed whiskey shots while Obama tried his hand at bowling. Why did these wine-and-arugula Democrats morph into beer-and-burger candidates? Because Democrats finally realized that aging, practicing Catholics who live in key battleground Rust Belt states are the pivotal swing voters who elect presidents.
It was not always this way. For decades, Catholics were loyal to the Democratic Party and voted in record numbers for their presidential nominees. The parents and grandparents of today’s Catholic voters survived the Great Depression thanks to their parishes and local Democratic political clubhouses.
But in the post-World War II era, the Democratic Party emerged as the home for social engineers. Their cultural elitism and contempt for blue-collar Catholic workers and their values engendered a new generation of political progeny who approached these voters with an attitude of “noblesse oblige,” of moral self-righteousness, of arrogance.
As a result, in the late 1960s there was a shift in the Catholic vote. They turned to Republicans who were socially conservative, supportive of New Deal programs, and critical of the Great Society’s largesse. They became known as Nixon and Reagan Democrats, and since 1972 every White House winner has carried a majority of the Catholic vote.
Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign focused on the Catholic vote, particularly among Hispanics and Catholics living in areas hard hit by the recession. This selective strategy worked. Clinton, who won with a plurality of only 43 percent of the vote, beat President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot by carrying heavily Catholic states in the Northeast and Midwest.
About 3 million Catholic voters deserted Bush in 1992 — mostly nonpracticing “cafeteria” Catholics. The returns confirmed The Wall Street Journal’s analysis: “To be sure, the Catholic vote, which represents about a quarter of the November electorate, isn’t monolithic. The group is split by ethnic heritage, generations, education level, and between the huge blocs that speak English and Spanish.”
Throughout the remainder of the century this split widened, with Clinton in 1996 and Al Gore in 2000 carrying cafeteria Catholics by wide margins; practicing Catholics voted for Republicans.
In 2004, President George W. Bush’s camp was willing to concede the cafeteria Catholics, but not practicing or Hispanic Catholics. To appeal to these Catholics, Bush reversed pro-abortion executive orders, proposed faith-based initiatives, voucher experiments, and limits on stem-cell research. He also signed into law a ban on partial-birth abortion.
As a result, Bush carried an outright majority of Catholics over Sen. John Kerry, a baptized Catholic. This Catholic turnout for Bush contributed to the margin of victory in key battleground states and helped narrow Kerry’s margins in blue states, thus assuring a popular-vote majority for the president.
The most significant Bush gains were in Hispanic communities, which are 70 percent Catholic and a key GOP target for more than a decade. In 1996, 21 percent of Hispanics voted for Sen. Bob Dole; 34 percent voted for Bush in 2000; and in 2004, 41 percent cast their ballots to re-elect the president. Hispanics, who represented 10 percent of the 2004 electorate, cast 12 million of their votes for Bush — a 2.4 million increase over 2000’s totals.
Since their 2004 defeat, elements of the Democratic power structure, led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, have attempted to reach out to practicing Catholics. A 2004 memo titled "Reclaiming the White Catholic Vote," prepared by the leftist political tactics group Democracy Corps, conceded that pro-life sentiment is growing among Catholic voters and was “a factor in the recent losses and one of the blockages for Democrats, at least in the Midwest.”
With 55 percent of white Catholics polled admitting they were more inclined to support a pro-life Democratic candidate, the memo recommended that the party should present itself as one that believes “in a woman’s right to choose but believes all sides should come together around the common goal of preventing and reducing the number of abortions, with more sex ed, including abstinence, access to contraception, and more adoption.”
In 2008, Hillary Clinton’s strategy to paint Obama as an out-of-touch elitist who could not relate to the concerns of blue-collar Catholics paid off. In the Rust Belt states, she carried these voters by huge majorities — 70 percent in Pennsylvania alone.
The big question now: how important are these Catholics in this fall’s presidential election? The answer: very important.
If the 2008 race is as closely contested as the 2000 and 2004 elections, practicing Catholics in Rust Belt states will decide the outcome. That’s because these aging Catholics are disproportionately represented — their cafeteria Catholic offspring have migrated to economically prosperous states.
According to liberal political pollster Stanley Greenberg, these Catholics are “those most committed to, and identified with, the church and most likely to bring their Catholic identity into politics.”
In this region, Obama’s public record on social issues could prove fatal. He is not only pro-abortion and pro-funding of abortion, he voted against the ban on partial-birth abortion; opposed legislation prohibiting taking minors across state lines to procure an abortion; opposed giving legal protection to babies who survive an abortion; and voted against Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Obama will also have to live down his elitist remark that white-working class voters cling to their religion and guns because they are “bitter.”
Obama’s best approach, though still a “Hail Mary” strategy, is to peel away some of the practicing Catholic vote by appealing to their economic concerns and labor union allegiances.
On the other hand, Republican Sen. John McCain’s pro-life, pro-gun, pro-military positions could energize enough of these voters to swing their votes into his column.
Regardless of the 2008 election outcome, one thing is certain: the claim by many political pundits that the influence of the Catholic vote is declining, and marginalized in a nation dominated by secular humanism, is wrong. The Catholic vote still matters.
___________________
George J. Marlin is author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact." (St. Augustine’s Press).
© 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008 12:19 PM
By: George J. Marlin
Sen. Barack Obama’s selection of Sen. Joseph Biden underscores the important of the Catholic vote this election year. And though Biden is pro-choice, Obama thinks he can pull enough wary Catholics over in key states like Pennsylvania to beat McCain come election day.
Already the primaries between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Obama offered the first skirmishes in the battle for Catholics, a voting bloc long neglected by their party.
Vying for their votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, Clinton downed whiskey shots while Obama tried his hand at bowling. Why did these wine-and-arugula Democrats morph into beer-and-burger candidates? Because Democrats finally realized that aging, practicing Catholics who live in key battleground Rust Belt states are the pivotal swing voters who elect presidents.
It was not always this way. For decades, Catholics were loyal to the Democratic Party and voted in record numbers for their presidential nominees. The parents and grandparents of today’s Catholic voters survived the Great Depression thanks to their parishes and local Democratic political clubhouses.
But in the post-World War II era, the Democratic Party emerged as the home for social engineers. Their cultural elitism and contempt for blue-collar Catholic workers and their values engendered a new generation of political progeny who approached these voters with an attitude of “noblesse oblige,” of moral self-righteousness, of arrogance.
As a result, in the late 1960s there was a shift in the Catholic vote. They turned to Republicans who were socially conservative, supportive of New Deal programs, and critical of the Great Society’s largesse. They became known as Nixon and Reagan Democrats, and since 1972 every White House winner has carried a majority of the Catholic vote.
Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign focused on the Catholic vote, particularly among Hispanics and Catholics living in areas hard hit by the recession. This selective strategy worked. Clinton, who won with a plurality of only 43 percent of the vote, beat President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot by carrying heavily Catholic states in the Northeast and Midwest.
About 3 million Catholic voters deserted Bush in 1992 — mostly nonpracticing “cafeteria” Catholics. The returns confirmed The Wall Street Journal’s analysis: “To be sure, the Catholic vote, which represents about a quarter of the November electorate, isn’t monolithic. The group is split by ethnic heritage, generations, education level, and between the huge blocs that speak English and Spanish.”
Throughout the remainder of the century this split widened, with Clinton in 1996 and Al Gore in 2000 carrying cafeteria Catholics by wide margins; practicing Catholics voted for Republicans.
In 2004, President George W. Bush’s camp was willing to concede the cafeteria Catholics, but not practicing or Hispanic Catholics. To appeal to these Catholics, Bush reversed pro-abortion executive orders, proposed faith-based initiatives, voucher experiments, and limits on stem-cell research. He also signed into law a ban on partial-birth abortion.
As a result, Bush carried an outright majority of Catholics over Sen. John Kerry, a baptized Catholic. This Catholic turnout for Bush contributed to the margin of victory in key battleground states and helped narrow Kerry’s margins in blue states, thus assuring a popular-vote majority for the president.
The most significant Bush gains were in Hispanic communities, which are 70 percent Catholic and a key GOP target for more than a decade. In 1996, 21 percent of Hispanics voted for Sen. Bob Dole; 34 percent voted for Bush in 2000; and in 2004, 41 percent cast their ballots to re-elect the president. Hispanics, who represented 10 percent of the 2004 electorate, cast 12 million of their votes for Bush — a 2.4 million increase over 2000’s totals.
Since their 2004 defeat, elements of the Democratic power structure, led by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, have attempted to reach out to practicing Catholics. A 2004 memo titled "Reclaiming the White Catholic Vote," prepared by the leftist political tactics group Democracy Corps, conceded that pro-life sentiment is growing among Catholic voters and was “a factor in the recent losses and one of the blockages for Democrats, at least in the Midwest.”
With 55 percent of white Catholics polled admitting they were more inclined to support a pro-life Democratic candidate, the memo recommended that the party should present itself as one that believes “in a woman’s right to choose but believes all sides should come together around the common goal of preventing and reducing the number of abortions, with more sex ed, including abstinence, access to contraception, and more adoption.”
In 2008, Hillary Clinton’s strategy to paint Obama as an out-of-touch elitist who could not relate to the concerns of blue-collar Catholics paid off. In the Rust Belt states, she carried these voters by huge majorities — 70 percent in Pennsylvania alone.
The big question now: how important are these Catholics in this fall’s presidential election? The answer: very important.
If the 2008 race is as closely contested as the 2000 and 2004 elections, practicing Catholics in Rust Belt states will decide the outcome. That’s because these aging Catholics are disproportionately represented — their cafeteria Catholic offspring have migrated to economically prosperous states.
According to liberal political pollster Stanley Greenberg, these Catholics are “those most committed to, and identified with, the church and most likely to bring their Catholic identity into politics.”
In this region, Obama’s public record on social issues could prove fatal. He is not only pro-abortion and pro-funding of abortion, he voted against the ban on partial-birth abortion; opposed legislation prohibiting taking minors across state lines to procure an abortion; opposed giving legal protection to babies who survive an abortion; and voted against Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Obama will also have to live down his elitist remark that white-working class voters cling to their religion and guns because they are “bitter.”
Obama’s best approach, though still a “Hail Mary” strategy, is to peel away some of the practicing Catholic vote by appealing to their economic concerns and labor union allegiances.
On the other hand, Republican Sen. John McCain’s pro-life, pro-gun, pro-military positions could energize enough of these voters to swing their votes into his column.
Regardless of the 2008 election outcome, one thing is certain: the claim by many political pundits that the influence of the Catholic vote is declining, and marginalized in a nation dominated by secular humanism, is wrong. The Catholic vote still matters.
___________________
George J. Marlin is author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact." (St. Augustine’s Press).
© 2008
Biden Pro-abortion Stance Will Cost Obama Election
Biden Pro-abortion Stance Will Cost Obama Election
Monday, August 25, 2008 11:48 AM
By: George J. Marlin
The Obama campaign knows it is in trouble in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Public opinion polls show that many practicing Catholics who voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries as the lesser of two evils are now leaning toward the pro-life, pro-gun John McCain.
To blunt this voting trend, Sen. Obama has chosen as his vice presidential running mate, a baptized Catholic from blue-collar Scranton, Pa. – Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.
The instant media analysis that Biden will help Obama in the heavily Catholic populated rust-belt states, however, may be wishful thinking because of Biden’s pro-abortion stance.
It appears the Democrats never learn. Four years ago pro-abortion Catholic John Kerry received fewer Catholic votes than the 2000 Democratic candidate, Protestant Al Gore.
In 2004, practicing Catholics were the decisive factor in numerous swing states. In Ohio, for instance, 65 percent of them voted for Bush, and in Florida the president’s support from practicing Catholics reached 66 percent. Working-class Catholics, many of whom were of Eastern European origins, stuck with the president, because they agreed with him on cultural and moral issues.
These issues were more important to them then their economic woes.
Even in Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts, one of America’s bluest states, there was a significant shift in the Catholic vote. In 2000, Catholics for Bush totaled 32 percent of the state’s electorate while in 2004 his total was 49 percent. In raw numbers this increase represented 166,000 additional Catholic votes for Bush in Massachusetts (622,000 versus 456,000 in 2000).
Former Boston Democratic mayor, Ray Flynn, who founded the organization Liberty, Life and Family to register and motivate Catholic voters, while visiting numerous parishes in his home state sensed a shift in the loyalties of old-line Catholic Democrats. “The [Democratic] party,” he said, “thinks that just because a guy’s an electrician or works for the gas company, he will be a traditional Democrat who will ignore culture issues, but that’s not true any longer.”
In the election of 2004, Catholics were part of a growing voting population who considered the moral and cultural issues the most important factor in their electoral decision-making process, 22 percent of the voting population in 2004. The power of this block explains in part the increased support for George Bush as well as the overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriages in eleven state referendums.
Here’s the 2008 Catholic challenge Biden faces: Earlier this year in Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the Catholic bishops of the United States declared Catholics “have a serious lifelong obligation to form their conscience in accord with human reason and the teaching of the Church . . . by studying sacred scripture and the teaching of the Church as contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.” (The Catechism states: “Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. The teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.”)
The bishops also advised: “As Catholics, we are not single-issue voters. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter, to disqualify a candidate for receiving support.”
It will be interesting to hear how the loquacious Biden reconciles his pro-abortion views with these Church teachings.
Biden is in a difficult position because if he resorts to using the Mario Cuomo defense, “I personally oppose abortion but can’t impose my views.” to wiggle out of his dilemma, he will come into direct conflict with Barack Obama, who rejects the position that moral principles are an imposition on the body politic.
As Obama said in a 2004 speech: “Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
Obama is absolutely right. To argue that one can’t vote one’s conscience on issues is morally and intellectually incoherent — for both politicians and ordinary voters.
Regardless of how rehearsed, do not expect informed Catholics to fall for Biden’s double shuffle.
Elitist Barack Obama will learn this November that tossing a political sop to Catholic Reagan Democrats doesn’t guarantee they’ll shimmy back to the Democratic fold.
George J. Marlin is author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact" (St. Augustine’s Press).
Monday, August 25, 2008 11:48 AM
By: George J. Marlin
The Obama campaign knows it is in trouble in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Public opinion polls show that many practicing Catholics who voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries as the lesser of two evils are now leaning toward the pro-life, pro-gun John McCain.
To blunt this voting trend, Sen. Obama has chosen as his vice presidential running mate, a baptized Catholic from blue-collar Scranton, Pa. – Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.
The instant media analysis that Biden will help Obama in the heavily Catholic populated rust-belt states, however, may be wishful thinking because of Biden’s pro-abortion stance.
It appears the Democrats never learn. Four years ago pro-abortion Catholic John Kerry received fewer Catholic votes than the 2000 Democratic candidate, Protestant Al Gore.
In 2004, practicing Catholics were the decisive factor in numerous swing states. In Ohio, for instance, 65 percent of them voted for Bush, and in Florida the president’s support from practicing Catholics reached 66 percent. Working-class Catholics, many of whom were of Eastern European origins, stuck with the president, because they agreed with him on cultural and moral issues.
These issues were more important to them then their economic woes.
Even in Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts, one of America’s bluest states, there was a significant shift in the Catholic vote. In 2000, Catholics for Bush totaled 32 percent of the state’s electorate while in 2004 his total was 49 percent. In raw numbers this increase represented 166,000 additional Catholic votes for Bush in Massachusetts (622,000 versus 456,000 in 2000).
Former Boston Democratic mayor, Ray Flynn, who founded the organization Liberty, Life and Family to register and motivate Catholic voters, while visiting numerous parishes in his home state sensed a shift in the loyalties of old-line Catholic Democrats. “The [Democratic] party,” he said, “thinks that just because a guy’s an electrician or works for the gas company, he will be a traditional Democrat who will ignore culture issues, but that’s not true any longer.”
In the election of 2004, Catholics were part of a growing voting population who considered the moral and cultural issues the most important factor in their electoral decision-making process, 22 percent of the voting population in 2004. The power of this block explains in part the increased support for George Bush as well as the overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriages in eleven state referendums.
Here’s the 2008 Catholic challenge Biden faces: Earlier this year in Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the Catholic bishops of the United States declared Catholics “have a serious lifelong obligation to form their conscience in accord with human reason and the teaching of the Church . . . by studying sacred scripture and the teaching of the Church as contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.” (The Catechism states: “Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. The teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.”)
The bishops also advised: “As Catholics, we are not single-issue voters. Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter, to disqualify a candidate for receiving support.”
It will be interesting to hear how the loquacious Biden reconciles his pro-abortion views with these Church teachings.
Biden is in a difficult position because if he resorts to using the Mario Cuomo defense, “I personally oppose abortion but can’t impose my views.” to wiggle out of his dilemma, he will come into direct conflict with Barack Obama, who rejects the position that moral principles are an imposition on the body politic.
As Obama said in a 2004 speech: “Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
Obama is absolutely right. To argue that one can’t vote one’s conscience on issues is morally and intellectually incoherent — for both politicians and ordinary voters.
Regardless of how rehearsed, do not expect informed Catholics to fall for Biden’s double shuffle.
Elitist Barack Obama will learn this November that tossing a political sop to Catholic Reagan Democrats doesn’t guarantee they’ll shimmy back to the Democratic fold.
George J. Marlin is author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact" (St. Augustine’s Press).
BIDEN . CATHOLIC AND PRO-ABORTION ????
CNSNews.com
Obama Picks a Catholic Running Mate with Long Pro-Abortion Record
Saturday, August 23, 2008
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, Sen. Barack Obama’s choice for his vice presidential running mate, is a Roman Catholic with a long record of supporting pro-abortion causes and legislation.
Biden did repeatedly support enactment of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, but when the ban came up for a Senate vote in 1999 he voted for an amendment by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that said the Supreme Court had acted correctly in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion a constitutional right.
Biden has never wavered in defending Roe.
At a Democratic presidential primary debate in Las Vegas last November, he said that if he were elected president he would impose a pro-Roe test on anyone he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I would not appoint anyone who did not understand that Section 5 of the 14th Amendment and the Liberty Clause of the 14th Amendment provided a right to privacy,” Biden said. “That's the question I'd ask them. If that is answered correctly, that that is the case, then it answers the question, which means they would support Roe v. Wade."
On August 27, 2007, the Christian Science Monitor published a profile of Biden that focused on how his Roman Catholic faith influenced his views on public policy, including abortion.
“As a freshman Democrat, he was approached by all sides,” the Christian Science Monitor reported. “He told them that while he personally opposes abortion, he would not vote to overthrow the US Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy."
The paper reported that Biden wrote in his autobiography: "I don't think I have the right to impose my view--on something I accept as a matter of faith - on the rest of society."
In picking a pro-abortion Catholic as his running mate, Obama may be calculating that Biden’s denomination will help the Democratic ticket more with Catholic voters than Biden’s pro-abortion voting record will hurt him.
Exit polls taken during the Democratic primaries in key swing states suggest that Obama needs help with Catholic voters.
In the February 5 primary in New Mexico, for example, Sen. Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated Obama, 49% to 48%. Catholic voters, who accounted for 31% of the vote in that state, made the difference.
Among New Mexico Catholic Democratic primary voters who said they went to Mass every week, Clinton defeated Obama 64% to 32%. Among those who said they went to Mass less often, she defeated him 53% to 45%.
A month later, in the March 4 primary in Ohio, a major swing state that President Bush needed to win an electoral vote majority in 2004, Catholics who said they went to Mass weekly picked Clinton over Obama 62% to 35%. Catholics who said they went to Mass less often picked Clinton over Obama, 64% to 36%.
In the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, Clinton scored a massive victory over Obama among the 36 percent of Democratic primary voters who said they were Catholic. She defeated him 74% to 36% among those who said they went to Mass every week and 65% to 35% among Catholics who said they went to mass less often.
The Pennsylvania primary came three weeks after Obama told a crowd at a San Francisco fundraiser that people in economically distressed small towns in Pennsylvania “cling to guns and religion."
In 2003 and 2007, Biden voted against the Mexico City Policy that forbids the federal government from giving U.S. tax dollars to foreign organizations that provide or promote abortion overseas.
The policy, originally instituted by President Reagan, is based on the assumption that money is fungible and that therefore it does not matter if the foreign organization seeking U.S. tax dollars says it will use only other funds--not its U.S. aid dollars--to provide or promote abortions.
"In my view, the Mexico City policy is anti-democratic, because it attempts to silence foreign recipients of U.S. funds,” Biden said in a Senate floor speech when the policy came up for a vote on July 9, 2003. “It is the policy of the United States to advance the cause of democracy by promoting the values which we hold dear—such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of the press.
“The Mexico City policy flies in the face of these fundamental values by attempting to restrict the speech of recipients of U.S. funds,” said Biden. “This is a gag rule, pure and simple. It restricts speech. And for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone—Republican or Democrat—would support a provision that would violate the First Amendment if applied to U.S.-based organizations.
"Of course, foreign citizens and organizations do not have constitutional rights,” Biden said. “But just because we can legally apply this restriction does not mean that it is good policy. And I do not believe that it is."
On June 21, 2002, Biden voted for a provision to repeal a prohibition on U.S. military facilities overseas being used to perform abortions.
In 2004, Bishop Michael Saltarelli of the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., where Biden resides, published a statement on “Catholics in Political Life.” It especially focused on the issue of abortion.
"No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena,’” Bishop Saltarelli wrote. “Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’"
Saltarelli said the church would not invite pro-abortion politicians to speak at Catholic schools or functions.
“Our Catholic institutions will not honor Catholic politicians who take pro-abortion legislative positions or invite them to speak at our functions or schools,” the bishop wrote. “While they are to be treated civilly, respectfully and with gospel charity, they should never be put forward as a model of a Catholic in public life.”
Obama's choice of Biden won praise from leading Democrats.
"In naming my colleague and friend Sen. Joe Biden to be the vice presidential nominee, Sen. Obama has continued in the best traditions for the vice presidency by selecting an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant," Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. "Sen. Biden will be a purposeful and dynamic vice president who will help Sen. Obama both win the presidency and govern this great country."
"Today is a great day for Democrats," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), according to the Associated Press. "We now have the ticket that's going to bring the change we've all been hoping for. I join all of the members of the Senate Democratic caucus in congratulating Joe Biden a great friend, a great Democrat, and now our party's nominee for vice president. This campaign is going to make history."
"In choosing Joe Biden to join him on the ticket, Barack has struck Olympic gold," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, according to the Associated Press. "I competed against Biden in the '88 campaign. He is a bona fide expert on the judiciary and foreign policy. He is always extremely well prepared, is very smart, a top level debater, gutsy, strong and has great personal integrity."
Some Republicans also had praise for the choice.
"Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama. His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), according to the Associated Press. "An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team. Biden's selection is good news for Obama and America.:
Viewer Comments
The following comments are posted by our readers and are not necessarily the opinions of either CNSNews.com or the story’s author. To be considered for publication, comments must adhere to the Terms of Use for posting to this Web site. Thank you.
z002 at 10:21 PM - August 23, 2008
Calling Joe Biden Roman Catholic is like calling the Pope Protestant! There is no correlation between the two. We MUST STOP KILLING our BABIES in their Mothers WOMB! If you are Catholic or 'Christan" we cannot & must not vote Democratic. Pray to God. Please do it for the little ones. God bless us.
Jackson Pearson at 03:12 PM - August 23, 2008
Senator Joe Biden is a faux-Catholic! Joe can call himself whatever he wants, However, sorry folks, a person CANNOT be pro-abortion, pro-partial birth abortion, and be Catholic!
Obama Picks a Catholic Running Mate with Long Pro-Abortion Record
Saturday, August 23, 2008
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, Sen. Barack Obama’s choice for his vice presidential running mate, is a Roman Catholic with a long record of supporting pro-abortion causes and legislation.
Biden did repeatedly support enactment of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, but when the ban came up for a Senate vote in 1999 he voted for an amendment by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that said the Supreme Court had acted correctly in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion a constitutional right.
Biden has never wavered in defending Roe.
At a Democratic presidential primary debate in Las Vegas last November, he said that if he were elected president he would impose a pro-Roe test on anyone he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I would not appoint anyone who did not understand that Section 5 of the 14th Amendment and the Liberty Clause of the 14th Amendment provided a right to privacy,” Biden said. “That's the question I'd ask them. If that is answered correctly, that that is the case, then it answers the question, which means they would support Roe v. Wade."
On August 27, 2007, the Christian Science Monitor published a profile of Biden that focused on how his Roman Catholic faith influenced his views on public policy, including abortion.
“As a freshman Democrat, he was approached by all sides,” the Christian Science Monitor reported. “He told them that while he personally opposes abortion, he would not vote to overthrow the US Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy."
The paper reported that Biden wrote in his autobiography: "I don't think I have the right to impose my view--on something I accept as a matter of faith - on the rest of society."
In picking a pro-abortion Catholic as his running mate, Obama may be calculating that Biden’s denomination will help the Democratic ticket more with Catholic voters than Biden’s pro-abortion voting record will hurt him.
Exit polls taken during the Democratic primaries in key swing states suggest that Obama needs help with Catholic voters.
In the February 5 primary in New Mexico, for example, Sen. Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated Obama, 49% to 48%. Catholic voters, who accounted for 31% of the vote in that state, made the difference.
Among New Mexico Catholic Democratic primary voters who said they went to Mass every week, Clinton defeated Obama 64% to 32%. Among those who said they went to Mass less often, she defeated him 53% to 45%.
A month later, in the March 4 primary in Ohio, a major swing state that President Bush needed to win an electoral vote majority in 2004, Catholics who said they went to Mass weekly picked Clinton over Obama 62% to 35%. Catholics who said they went to Mass less often picked Clinton over Obama, 64% to 36%.
In the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, Clinton scored a massive victory over Obama among the 36 percent of Democratic primary voters who said they were Catholic. She defeated him 74% to 36% among those who said they went to Mass every week and 65% to 35% among Catholics who said they went to mass less often.
The Pennsylvania primary came three weeks after Obama told a crowd at a San Francisco fundraiser that people in economically distressed small towns in Pennsylvania “cling to guns and religion."
In 2003 and 2007, Biden voted against the Mexico City Policy that forbids the federal government from giving U.S. tax dollars to foreign organizations that provide or promote abortion overseas.
The policy, originally instituted by President Reagan, is based on the assumption that money is fungible and that therefore it does not matter if the foreign organization seeking U.S. tax dollars says it will use only other funds--not its U.S. aid dollars--to provide or promote abortions.
"In my view, the Mexico City policy is anti-democratic, because it attempts to silence foreign recipients of U.S. funds,” Biden said in a Senate floor speech when the policy came up for a vote on July 9, 2003. “It is the policy of the United States to advance the cause of democracy by promoting the values which we hold dear—such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of the press.
“The Mexico City policy flies in the face of these fundamental values by attempting to restrict the speech of recipients of U.S. funds,” said Biden. “This is a gag rule, pure and simple. It restricts speech. And for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone—Republican or Democrat—would support a provision that would violate the First Amendment if applied to U.S.-based organizations.
"Of course, foreign citizens and organizations do not have constitutional rights,” Biden said. “But just because we can legally apply this restriction does not mean that it is good policy. And I do not believe that it is."
On June 21, 2002, Biden voted for a provision to repeal a prohibition on U.S. military facilities overseas being used to perform abortions.
In 2004, Bishop Michael Saltarelli of the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., where Biden resides, published a statement on “Catholics in Political Life.” It especially focused on the issue of abortion.
"No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena,’” Bishop Saltarelli wrote. “Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’"
Saltarelli said the church would not invite pro-abortion politicians to speak at Catholic schools or functions.
“Our Catholic institutions will not honor Catholic politicians who take pro-abortion legislative positions or invite them to speak at our functions or schools,” the bishop wrote. “While they are to be treated civilly, respectfully and with gospel charity, they should never be put forward as a model of a Catholic in public life.”
Obama's choice of Biden won praise from leading Democrats.
"In naming my colleague and friend Sen. Joe Biden to be the vice presidential nominee, Sen. Obama has continued in the best traditions for the vice presidency by selecting an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant," Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. "Sen. Biden will be a purposeful and dynamic vice president who will help Sen. Obama both win the presidency and govern this great country."
"Today is a great day for Democrats," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), according to the Associated Press. "We now have the ticket that's going to bring the change we've all been hoping for. I join all of the members of the Senate Democratic caucus in congratulating Joe Biden a great friend, a great Democrat, and now our party's nominee for vice president. This campaign is going to make history."
"In choosing Joe Biden to join him on the ticket, Barack has struck Olympic gold," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, according to the Associated Press. "I competed against Biden in the '88 campaign. He is a bona fide expert on the judiciary and foreign policy. He is always extremely well prepared, is very smart, a top level debater, gutsy, strong and has great personal integrity."
Some Republicans also had praise for the choice.
"Joe Biden is the right partner for Barack Obama. His many years of distinguished service to America, his seasoned judgment and his vast experience in foreign policy and national security will match up well with the unique challenges of the 21st Century," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), according to the Associated Press. "An Obama-Biden ticket is a very impressive and strong team. Biden's selection is good news for Obama and America.:
Viewer Comments
The following comments are posted by our readers and are not necessarily the opinions of either CNSNews.com or the story’s author. To be considered for publication, comments must adhere to the Terms of Use for posting to this Web site. Thank you.
z002 at 10:21 PM - August 23, 2008
Calling Joe Biden Roman Catholic is like calling the Pope Protestant! There is no correlation between the two. We MUST STOP KILLING our BABIES in their Mothers WOMB! If you are Catholic or 'Christan" we cannot & must not vote Democratic. Pray to God. Please do it for the little ones. God bless us.
Jackson Pearson at 03:12 PM - August 23, 2008
Senator Joe Biden is a faux-Catholic! Joe can call himself whatever he wants, However, sorry folks, a person CANNOT be pro-abortion, pro-partial birth abortion, and be Catholic!
POLITICALLY CORRECT OR NOT
Dear Dave,
We frequently point out the wrong-headedness of British policy towards the cultural jihad occurring there. Why? First, because Britain’s politically correct policy has led to increasing radicalization of British Muslims and has increased, not decreased, threats of terrorism.
And second, because where Britain is now is where we in America will be at some point in the future if we do not learn from their mistakes and choose NOT to do what they have done in standing against this threat.
The article below gives example after example of the failure of this policy. One thing from the British experience is clear. The average citizen of Britain has been no match for the country’s elites, who fashioned the policy of appeasement that has brought Britain to this place. There was no organized, grassroots push back to keep this from happening.
Cultural jihad is happening here in the United States as well. But we can still stop it – and you can be an effective voice in this effort.
Beginning September 13th, ACT! for America will be conducting one-day “Leadership in Action” conferences in California, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, and New Jersey. This exciting and informative conference will equip you and empower you to be an effective force against the creeping subversion of cultural jihad and the threat of Islamofascism.
To register or find out more, simply click here. If you don’t live near one of these locations, but know people who do, forward this email to them and encourage them to attend. Just last week the Ft. Wayne, Indiana chapter hosted an event with Brigitte Gabriel and Guy Rodgers. Twenty-two people who attended found out about it because one of them received an email from a friend in Oregon.
That’s the power of the internet at work. That’s people power. And that’s what it’s going to take to keep America from going down the same road that Great Britain has traveled. So we encourage you to register for a “Leadership in Action” conference near you, or forward this email to those you know who live near one of our scheduled locations.
As the recent Tyson Foods situation demonstrates, organized and informed grassroots people power does make a difference.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
British Submission
By Douglas Stone
FrontPageMagazine.com | 8/21/2008
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F5BFAB45-7CB7-4FEB-8BF3-7E75014BE5BB
Foot baths for Muslim students at Michigan universities? Muslim cabbies in the Twin Cities who refuse to carry seeing-eye dogs? The FBI and other government agencies taking sensitivity training from radical Muslim organizations? You think we’ve lost the plot over here? Take a look at British submission to Islamofascist demands and threats, as that once great nation succumbs to creeping dhimmitude.
It has reached the point that in mid-April, the British Foreign Office instructed the Royal Navy not to return pirates to jurisdictions sporting sharia law (such as Somalia) for fear that their human rights will be violated. They have even been discouraged from capturing pirates, because the freebooters might ask to be granted asylum in Britain, a request with which the UK might have to comply under international and European Union human rights law.
This for a Navy that almost singlehandedly defeated piracy in the early 19th century, and a nation that retained the death penalty for this scourge of the high seas until the late 20th century.
Welcome to Britain today.
Another recent outrage involves special handling of a traffic violation. Seems that a Muslim driver was stopped by police while speeding between two homes in the north of England. When he appeared in court, he explained his high speed – over twice the speed limit – was necessary to accommodate his two wives. His explanation was accepted, and he was allowed to keep his license.
That comes fast – very fast – on the heels of a decision by the British government to grant full spousal benefits to multiple wives. It won’t affect more than an estimated 1,000 individuals. And it mercifully won’t affect the indigenous Christian, Hindu or Jewish population, as traditional bigamy laws apply. Britons may rest easy, as it will only cover multiple wives married in a jurisdiction that practices Sharia law, such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
These are not isolated instances; there are a myriad more: Swimming periods at pools restricted to Muslims only; the establishment of a BBC Arabic language station staffed by Arab broadcasters and managers with track records of being anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Western; the refusal of female Muslim medical students to wash their arms as that practice might reveal the forbidden flesh between wrist and elbow; an attempt by a national union of university lecturers to call for a boycott of Israeli academics; and, a local Council ban on pig-themed toys, porcelain figures and calendars on workers’ desks because it might offend Muslims.
No comment from the Home Office or No. 10 Downing Street. No comment from the government, because it has been their policy to appease Britain’s large Muslim population in response to menacing behavior up to and including the bomb outrages of July 7, 2005.
It’s no coincidence that Muslims constitute a substantial portion of the Labour Party’s electoral support in London and in much of its heartland in northern England. In the expected close election for Parliament that will be held by mid-2010, an increasing Muslim population may be the difference between victory and defeat for the Labourites.
But Labour’s bien pensant hardly needs convincing. Like most on the left today, they fancy themselves champions of the underdog and the oppressed, and sympathy for Islam, and Arab and Muslim causes fits neatly into their intellectual program. Along with America and Israel-bashing, it goes to the very heart of how liberals view themselves and, more important, how they wish to be viewed by others. It supplies them with the appearance of a self-abnegation that is supposed to relieve their Western, middle-class guilt with a cleansing humility but is nothing but moral exhibitionism; and, as always, involves other people’s money, other people’s freedom, and other people’s comfort – never or very rarely their own.
A classic of political correctness run amok, wonderful as a burlesque if it weren’t slowly undermining Britain’s way of life and its will to oppose extreme Islamism.
Worse is that acceding to this nonsense gives Islamofascists confidence that they are on the winning side of history. That if they just shout a little louder and push a little harder, they may expect more of the same that becomes increasingly normative until it convinces the longer-settled among the UK’s population that they have no power to stop, let alone reverse, the process.
One might have become inured to the gutless behavior of France or Italy, but many in the U.S. are still under the impression that, like other countries in the Anglosphere, the British remain clear-eyed, realistic and most importantly resolute about the threats with which the West is confronted. But they aren’t; and while these cultural changes are in the realm of the comical right now, they are beginning to affect British public policy, domestic as well as foreign.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACT for America
P.O. Box 6884
Virginia Beach, VA 23456
www.actforamerica.org
ACT for America is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing the most powerful grassroots citizen action network in America, a grassroots network committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam. We are only as strong as our supporters, and your volunteer and financial support is essential to our success. Thank you for helping us make America safer and more secure.
The American energy policy:
THANK YOU TED
The American energy policy:
ANWR Exploration
House Republicans:91%Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed
Fuels from Oil Shale
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed
Increased Refinery Capacity
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 96% Opposed
SUMMARY
91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the
production of American-made oil and gas.
86% of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the
production of American-made oil and gas.
How much did you pay for gas TODAY??
Why are you blaming President Bush??
The American energy policy:
ANWR Exploration
House Republicans:91%Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed
Fuels from Oil Shale
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed
Increased Refinery Capacity
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 96% Opposed
SUMMARY
91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the
production of American-made oil and gas.
86% of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the
production of American-made oil and gas.
How much did you pay for gas TODAY??
Why are you blaming President Bush??
Obama's 3 AM Text Message: Jab at Hillary?
Breaking from Newsmax.com
Obama's 3 AM Text Message: Jab at Hillary?
Barack Obama didn't pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate. No surprise here. But the timing of his announcement -- early Saturday morning at 3 a.m. -- has some in the Clinton camp downright angry.
Obama had claimed he was vetting Hillary for the job and that she was on the short list of his potential picks. But that charade became apparent when he never asked her for financial or other documents typical of the vetting process.
The tea leaves have been clear: Obama was not going to pick Hillary. In a slap in her face, Obama announced that he was making her fired campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, as the chief of staff for his new running mate.
Some in the press saw another Obama jab at Hillary when his campaign released the text message to cell phone users announcing the Biden pick at about 3 a.m. Saturday morning.
It was Hilary's campaign that aired a TV commercial questioning whether Obama could answer the phone at "3 a.m." if some crisis erupted in the world.
Hillary has taken these hits from Obama with grace. She issued a statement via her email list Satuday congratulating Biden.
"Joe is a friend and colleague, a strong experienced leader and a devoted public servant. I look forward to not only seeing him in Denver next week but on the trail as I work to help Barack Obama and Joe Biden along with many other Democratic candidates campaign this fall."
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Obama's 3 AM Text Message: Jab at Hillary?
Barack Obama didn't pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate. No surprise here. But the timing of his announcement -- early Saturday morning at 3 a.m. -- has some in the Clinton camp downright angry.
Obama had claimed he was vetting Hillary for the job and that she was on the short list of his potential picks. But that charade became apparent when he never asked her for financial or other documents typical of the vetting process.
The tea leaves have been clear: Obama was not going to pick Hillary. In a slap in her face, Obama announced that he was making her fired campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, as the chief of staff for his new running mate.
Some in the press saw another Obama jab at Hillary when his campaign released the text message to cell phone users announcing the Biden pick at about 3 a.m. Saturday morning.
It was Hilary's campaign that aired a TV commercial questioning whether Obama could answer the phone at "3 a.m." if some crisis erupted in the world.
Hillary has taken these hits from Obama with grace. She issued a statement via her email list Satuday congratulating Biden.
"Joe is a friend and colleague, a strong experienced leader and a devoted public servant. I look forward to not only seeing him in Denver next week but on the trail as I work to help Barack Obama and Joe Biden along with many other Democratic candidates campaign this fall."
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
August 24, 2008
Obama's Tax Hike
Obama's Tax Hike
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: As Barack Obama tries to convince the American people he will cut their taxes, he actually plans to undo the Bush tax cuts — and the Reagan low tax legacy.
When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, the centerpiece of his much-touted economic plan was a middle-class tax cut. Once elected, he announced that the deficit was bigger than he thought, so no tax cuts.
This year, Barack Obama also promises cuts in middle-class taxes. The current New York Times magazine contends that "for most people, Obama is the tax cutter in this campaign."
Writing in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Obama economic advisers Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee promised: "The Obama plan would cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families with a tax cut of $500 for workers or $1,000 for working couples" on top of "tax cuts for low- and middle-income seniors, homeowners, the uninsured, and families sending a child to college or looking to save and accumulate wealth."
But what's touted as tax-cutting (even assuming his plan didn't undergo a Clintonesque transformation) hides tax increases for the middle class. According to the American Enterprise Institute's Alex Brill and Alan Viard, "Senator Obama's proposed 'tax cuts for the middle class' are actually marginal rate hikes in disguise."
The reason: Obama's plan rescinds tax breaks as some taxpayers' incomes rise, reducing their incentives to earn more.
Using data from the Brookings Institution's and Urban Institute's joint Tax Policy Center, Brill and Viard considered the Obama plan's effect on a two-earner couple with one child in college and another age 12 or younger. Their marginal tax rates are between 34% and 39% in the $31,000 to $45,000 income range — a 13 percentage point or more increase from current rates.
The increase happens because Obama phases out the child and dependent-care credit for one-child families in the $30,000-to-$58,000 income range. According to Brill and Viard, the effective tax rate increases by 3 percentage points, while making certain credits refundable triggers a tax penalty of up to 15%.
The same family earning $110,000 to $120,000 would suffer "a staggering 45% effective marginal rate . . . 11 percentage points higher than under current law," the AEI scholars say, because of changes planned for Bill Clinton's Hope Scholarship Tax Credit.
An "Economists for Obama" Web site calls the AEI findings "deeply dishonest" because their example of a family is "cherry-picked." Viard immediately responded, noting that Obama's use of refundability and phase-outs means that "any example will show these kinds of disincentive effects."
Undoing the Bush tax cuts, raising income tax rates, adding complexity to the tax code and believing that you can raise taxes on the richest Americans by an average of $800,000 a year, as Obama plans, with minimal negative economic effect — it all adds up to reversing an important part of the Reagan Revolution.
Email To Friend |
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: As Barack Obama tries to convince the American people he will cut their taxes, he actually plans to undo the Bush tax cuts — and the Reagan low tax legacy.
When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, the centerpiece of his much-touted economic plan was a middle-class tax cut. Once elected, he announced that the deficit was bigger than he thought, so no tax cuts.
This year, Barack Obama also promises cuts in middle-class taxes. The current New York Times magazine contends that "for most people, Obama is the tax cutter in this campaign."
Writing in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, Obama economic advisers Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee promised: "The Obama plan would cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families with a tax cut of $500 for workers or $1,000 for working couples" on top of "tax cuts for low- and middle-income seniors, homeowners, the uninsured, and families sending a child to college or looking to save and accumulate wealth."
But what's touted as tax-cutting (even assuming his plan didn't undergo a Clintonesque transformation) hides tax increases for the middle class. According to the American Enterprise Institute's Alex Brill and Alan Viard, "Senator Obama's proposed 'tax cuts for the middle class' are actually marginal rate hikes in disguise."
The reason: Obama's plan rescinds tax breaks as some taxpayers' incomes rise, reducing their incentives to earn more.
Using data from the Brookings Institution's and Urban Institute's joint Tax Policy Center, Brill and Viard considered the Obama plan's effect on a two-earner couple with one child in college and another age 12 or younger. Their marginal tax rates are between 34% and 39% in the $31,000 to $45,000 income range — a 13 percentage point or more increase from current rates.
The increase happens because Obama phases out the child and dependent-care credit for one-child families in the $30,000-to-$58,000 income range. According to Brill and Viard, the effective tax rate increases by 3 percentage points, while making certain credits refundable triggers a tax penalty of up to 15%.
The same family earning $110,000 to $120,000 would suffer "a staggering 45% effective marginal rate . . . 11 percentage points higher than under current law," the AEI scholars say, because of changes planned for Bill Clinton's Hope Scholarship Tax Credit.
An "Economists for Obama" Web site calls the AEI findings "deeply dishonest" because their example of a family is "cherry-picked." Viard immediately responded, noting that Obama's use of refundability and phase-outs means that "any example will show these kinds of disincentive effects."
Undoing the Bush tax cuts, raising income tax rates, adding complexity to the tax code and believing that you can raise taxes on the richest Americans by an average of $800,000 a year, as Obama plans, with minimal negative economic effect — it all adds up to reversing an important part of the Reagan Revolution.
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Illegal Immigrants Returning to Mexico in Record Numbers
THIS RETURN IS COSTING THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT A BUNCH AND FROM MY VIEW TO DAMN BAD THEY (MEXICAN GOVERNMENT) HAD A CHANCE TO SLOW DOWN THE ENCROACHMENT OF THEIR PEOPLE AND DID NOTHING, DAA
Illegal Immigrants Returning to Mexico in Record Numbers
Friday, August 22, 2008
By Kris Gutierrez
DALLAS — Illegal immigrants are returning home to Mexico in numbers not seen for decades — and the Mexican government may have to deal with a crush on its social services and lower wages once the immigrants arrive.
The Mexican Consulate's office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good, especially parents who want to know what documentation they'll need to enroll their children in Mexican schools.
"Those numbers have increased percentage-wise tremendously," said Enrique Hubbard, the Mexican consul general in Dallas. "In fact, it's almost 100 percent more this year than it was the previous two years."
The illegal immigrant population in the U.S. has dropped 11 percent since August of last year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Its research shows 1.3 million illegal immigrants have returned to their home countries.
Some say illegal immigrants are leaving because a soft economy has led to fewer jobs, causing many laborers to seek work elsewhere.
Others argue that a tough stance on immigration through law enforcement has spread fear throughout the illegal population.
"There's no question there's a variety of suggestions that people are in fact returning," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "Remittances, which is the money immigrants send home to Mexico, have gone down dramatically over the past year. Again, probably part the economy, but also part enforcement, leading to fewer people being here."
Advocates for immigrants are disturbed by the trend. Albert Ruiz, an organizer for the League of United Latin American Citizens, agrees that more undocumented immigrants are going home — but says families are being torn apart in the process.
If a father is deported, Ruiz says, his family members in America are forced either to fend for themselves or follow him to a country where they've never even lived.
"So the mother is saying we should return home with the breadwinner of the family to Mexico, and the children are saying, I don't want to leave, I'm a U.S. citizen, I don't know that country," said Ruiz.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon plans to help returning nationals by providing food, medical care and temporary shelter if needed. But reports are already out in Mexico that the large number of illegal immigrants returning home could drive down wages and put pressure on social services — the same concerns many Americans have with illegals living and working in the U.S.
Illegal Immigrants Returning to Mexico in Record Numbers
Friday, August 22, 2008
By Kris Gutierrez
DALLAS — Illegal immigrants are returning home to Mexico in numbers not seen for decades — and the Mexican government may have to deal with a crush on its social services and lower wages once the immigrants arrive.
The Mexican Consulate's office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good, especially parents who want to know what documentation they'll need to enroll their children in Mexican schools.
"Those numbers have increased percentage-wise tremendously," said Enrique Hubbard, the Mexican consul general in Dallas. "In fact, it's almost 100 percent more this year than it was the previous two years."
The illegal immigrant population in the U.S. has dropped 11 percent since August of last year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Its research shows 1.3 million illegal immigrants have returned to their home countries.
Some say illegal immigrants are leaving because a soft economy has led to fewer jobs, causing many laborers to seek work elsewhere.
Others argue that a tough stance on immigration through law enforcement has spread fear throughout the illegal population.
"There's no question there's a variety of suggestions that people are in fact returning," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "Remittances, which is the money immigrants send home to Mexico, have gone down dramatically over the past year. Again, probably part the economy, but also part enforcement, leading to fewer people being here."
Advocates for immigrants are disturbed by the trend. Albert Ruiz, an organizer for the League of United Latin American Citizens, agrees that more undocumented immigrants are going home — but says families are being torn apart in the process.
If a father is deported, Ruiz says, his family members in America are forced either to fend for themselves or follow him to a country where they've never even lived.
"So the mother is saying we should return home with the breadwinner of the family to Mexico, and the children are saying, I don't want to leave, I'm a U.S. citizen, I don't know that country," said Ruiz.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon plans to help returning nationals by providing food, medical care and temporary shelter if needed. But reports are already out in Mexico that the large number of illegal immigrants returning home could drive down wages and put pressure on social services — the same concerns many Americans have with illegals living and working in the U.S.
Maxine on Relevant 'Logic'
Maxine on Relevant 'Logic'
Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in this country lately;
v illegal immigration
v hurricane recovery
v alligators attacking people in Florida
Not me. I concentrate on solutions for the problems. It's a win-win situation.
1. Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border.
2. Send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of the levies.
3. Put the Florida alligators in the moat along the Mexican border.
Any other problems you would like for me to solve today?
================= ~~~ ==================
On singing OUR National Anthem in Spanish
I'm sorry, but after hearing they want to sing OUR National Anthem in Spanish - enough is TOO much!
NEVER did they sing it in Italian, Japanese, Polish, Irish-Celtic, German, Portuguese, Greek, French, or any other language because of immigration.
It was written by Francis Scott Key (in English) and should be sung word for
word the way it was written.
The news broadcasts gave a translation that's NOT even close.
Sorry if this offends anyone, THIS IS MY COUNTRY!
Would you allow me to come to your country and then allow me to demand that you sing your National Anthem in ENGLISH?
And, because I make this statement DOES NOT mean I'm against immigration!
YOU ARE WELCOME HERE IN MY COUNTRY
Welcome to come through like everyone else has:
O Get a sponsor!
O Get a place to lay your head!
O Get a job!
O Live by OUR rules!
O Pay YOUR taxes!
O And LEARN THE LANGUAGE
LIKE ALL OTHER IMMIGRANTS HAVE IN THE PAST!!!
And please don't demand that we hand over our lifetime savings of social security funds to you to make up for ''your'' losses.
If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone, then YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!
When will AMERICAN'S stop giving away THEIR RIGHTS?
We've gone so far the other way, bent over backwards not to offend anyone. But it seems no one cares about the AMERICAN that's being offended!
WAKE UP America!
If you agree - pass this on!
Yep! I passed it on...
Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in this country lately;
v illegal immigration
v hurricane recovery
v alligators attacking people in Florida
Not me. I concentrate on solutions for the problems. It's a win-win situation.
1. Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border.
2. Send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of the levies.
3. Put the Florida alligators in the moat along the Mexican border.
Any other problems you would like for me to solve today?
================= ~~~ ==================
On singing OUR National Anthem in Spanish
I'm sorry, but after hearing they want to sing OUR National Anthem in Spanish - enough is TOO much!
NEVER did they sing it in Italian, Japanese, Polish, Irish-Celtic, German, Portuguese, Greek, French, or any other language because of immigration.
It was written by Francis Scott Key (in English) and should be sung word for
word the way it was written.
The news broadcasts gave a translation that's NOT even close.
Sorry if this offends anyone, THIS IS MY COUNTRY!
Would you allow me to come to your country and then allow me to demand that you sing your National Anthem in ENGLISH?
And, because I make this statement DOES NOT mean I'm against immigration!
YOU ARE WELCOME HERE IN MY COUNTRY
Welcome to come through like everyone else has:
O Get a sponsor!
O Get a place to lay your head!
O Get a job!
O Live by OUR rules!
O Pay YOUR taxes!
O And LEARN THE LANGUAGE
LIKE ALL OTHER IMMIGRANTS HAVE IN THE PAST!!!
And please don't demand that we hand over our lifetime savings of social security funds to you to make up for ''your'' losses.
If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone, then YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!
When will AMERICAN'S stop giving away THEIR RIGHTS?
We've gone so far the other way, bent over backwards not to offend anyone. But it seems no one cares about the AMERICAN that's being offended!
WAKE UP America!
If you agree - pass this on!
Yep! I passed it on...
Insider Report from Newsmax.com
Insider Report from Newsmax.com
(Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Bill Clinton Voters Not Yet Backing Obama
2. McCain Fights POW 'Smear' from Left
3. Bob Woodward Offering New 'Secret' White House History
4. Republicans Prefer Their Drinks Straight Up
5. Hillary Still Wallowing in Debt
6. How Many Homes Does McCain Own?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Bill Clinton Voters Not Yet Backing Obama
Barack Obama desperately needs the support of Bill and Hillary Clinton voters if he's to win the presidential race in November — and so far he's not getting it.
That's the view expressed by NBC News political director Chuck Todd during an appearance with host Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" on Wednesday. Republican John McCain and Democrat Obama have "carved up" the partisan vote and "the vote that is left to get is a vote that loves Hillary Clinton," Todd said.
"They make less than $50,000. They're Catholics … They live in small towns and rural America, the places that Bill Clinton spent all his time campaigning. And oh, by the way, they love Bill Clinton."
Matthews stated that 11 percent of voters "are sitting out there, loving the Clintons, not liking Barack Obama. What has to happen between now and November to get that critical 11 percent to move into Barack Obama's column?"
What is needed, Todd observed, is for both Hillary and especially Bill Clinton to speak strongly in support of Obama at the Democratic Convention and convince the undecided that Obama is ready to be president.
Todd: "The Clintons have to make the case, I know this guy, he's ready, I like him, he can lead."
Matthews: "Can they do it?"
Todd: "I don't know."
Todd said he's confident that Hillary will express strong support for Obama, but added: "It's the Bill Clinton question, I think, that a lot of people are going to watch."
Matthews noted that people believe Bill is angry about the way the Barack campaign dealt with him in the primaries and is reluctant to help him win.
Said Todd: "You've got to assume he's going to say and do all the right things. But how does he say it? What kind of enthusiasm is behind it?...
"Maybe the election eventually won't be about the Clintons, but … whether Obama likes it or not, the group of voters he has yet to unite are Clinton Democrats."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. McCain Fights POW 'Smear' from Left
John McCain's Web site has responded to an attack from what it calls the "most vicious corner of the Internet" that impugns his memories of his prisoner of war years.
According to the site, "liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos" have accused McCain of plagiarizing from Russian writer and Gulag denizen Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who told of a prisoner who drew a cross in the dirt in a Soviet prison camp. McCain told of a guard who drew a cross in the dirt in a Vietnamese POW camp.
McCain's site points out: "The only similarity between the two stories is a cross in the dirt, but it is hardly an unlikely coincidence that there were practicing Christians in both Russia and Vietnam, or that in the prisons of those two Communist countries the only crosses to be found were etched in the dirt, as easily disappeared as the Christians who drew them.
"But those desperate to discredit Senator McCain's record will have to impugn his fellow prisoners as well."
The site refers to Orson Swindle, who was held as a prisoner of war along with McCain. He told the McCain Report that he heard the cross in the dirt story from McCain as early as the summer of 1971, "when we first moved in together."
The article on McCain's site, headlined "Smears the Left Can Fight For," observes: "It may be typical of the pro-Obama to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others…
"As Swindle said, this is a 'desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing.'"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Bob Woodward Offering New 'Secret' White House History
The contents of Watergate journalist Bob Woodward's new book have been kept a closely guarded secret, but the work is not likely to be a highly critical expose of the Bush administration.
"The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008," due out on September 8, was written with cooperation from all levels of the administration, including President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Woodward regularly visited the White House, Pentagon, various intelligence agencies and the homes of generals and other officials, Politico reports.
Even the title of the book was kept secret, appearing as simply "Untitled on Bush, Volume IV" on Amazon.com. Its title was revealed by The Associated Press.
Publisher Simon & Schuster said the book "declassifies the secrets of America's political and military involvement in Iraq." White House officials are optimistic that it will shine a more favorable light on Bush than did Woodward's previous work, "State of Denial."
In particular, Bush aides believe Woodward's book will reflect that Bush's "surge" strategy has slowed the violence in Iraq.
Politico observed: "The book's revelations are likely to propel a re-examination of the Iraq war into the headlines just as the fall presidential campaign is taking off."
Woodward has co-authored or authored nine No. 1 national best-selling non-fiction books since his first blockbuster, "All the President's Men," detailed how his reporting with fellow Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein helped bring down President Richard Nixon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Republicans Prefer Their Drinks Straight Up
Bartenders in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area preparing for the GOP convention there in September might take note of a new survey of the drinking habits of Republicans and Democrats.
Among the findings of the survey of about 100 bartenders in the Washington, D.C., area, which were reported by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune:
Asked who is more likely to order a drink straight up, 82 percent of respondents said Republicans, and 14 percent said Democrats.
Democrats are more likely to order a fruity (pink) drink — they were chosen by 58 percent of the bartenders, compared to 34 percent for the Republicans.
74 percent of bartenders said Democrats have the best pick-up lines, and just 14 percent chose Republicans.
Republicans are more likely to arrive first for happy hour — but Democrats are more likely to be the last to go home.
The survey was commissioned by Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., whose beverages include Jim Beam bourbon and Canadian Club whisky, in collaboration with Clarus Research Group.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Hillary Still Wallowing in Debt
Barack Obama has encouraged his supporters to help Hillary Clinton retire her massive campaign debt, but so far they have been anything but generous.
Hillary raised less than $2.5 million in July and at month's end still owed nearly $24 million, according to a report filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.
Obama donors gave just $105,000 in June to help Clinton repay her campaign debt, according to the Los Angeles Times.
About $13.2 million of Clinton's debt is in loans she made herself, and she has said that any donations will be used to pay vendors, not herself, the Boston Globe reported.
Obama raised $51 million during July.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. How Many Homes Does McCain Own?
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain isn't sure how many homes he owns — and neither is anyone else.
McCain and his wife Cindy own "at lease four," located in Arizona, California and Virginia, Politico reports.
But Newsweek this summer estimated that the couple owns at least seven properties.
Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York told Politico that McCain "has six houses."
The Associated Press reported that McCain and his family appear to own at least eight homes: A ranch and two condos in Arizona; three condos in Coronado, Calif.; a condo in La Jolla, Calif.; and another in Arlington, Va. But the ranch has at least four houses and a two-story cabin on it.
And in a New York Times interview, David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief strategist, referred to "the portico of the McCain estate in Sedona — or maybe in one of his six other houses."
McCain himself, when asked by Politico how many houses he and Cindy own, said: "I think — I'll have my staff get to you. It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."
Democrats have sought to portray McCain as living an extremely wealthy lifestyle — just as Republicans in 2004 focused on the five homes owned by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his wife.
Cindy McCain inherited control of the largest beer distributorship in Arizona, and is estimated to be worth more than $100 million.
(Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Bill Clinton Voters Not Yet Backing Obama
2. McCain Fights POW 'Smear' from Left
3. Bob Woodward Offering New 'Secret' White House History
4. Republicans Prefer Their Drinks Straight Up
5. Hillary Still Wallowing in Debt
6. How Many Homes Does McCain Own?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Bill Clinton Voters Not Yet Backing Obama
Barack Obama desperately needs the support of Bill and Hillary Clinton voters if he's to win the presidential race in November — and so far he's not getting it.
That's the view expressed by NBC News political director Chuck Todd during an appearance with host Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" on Wednesday. Republican John McCain and Democrat Obama have "carved up" the partisan vote and "the vote that is left to get is a vote that loves Hillary Clinton," Todd said.
"They make less than $50,000. They're Catholics … They live in small towns and rural America, the places that Bill Clinton spent all his time campaigning. And oh, by the way, they love Bill Clinton."
Matthews stated that 11 percent of voters "are sitting out there, loving the Clintons, not liking Barack Obama. What has to happen between now and November to get that critical 11 percent to move into Barack Obama's column?"
What is needed, Todd observed, is for both Hillary and especially Bill Clinton to speak strongly in support of Obama at the Democratic Convention and convince the undecided that Obama is ready to be president.
Todd: "The Clintons have to make the case, I know this guy, he's ready, I like him, he can lead."
Matthews: "Can they do it?"
Todd: "I don't know."
Todd said he's confident that Hillary will express strong support for Obama, but added: "It's the Bill Clinton question, I think, that a lot of people are going to watch."
Matthews noted that people believe Bill is angry about the way the Barack campaign dealt with him in the primaries and is reluctant to help him win.
Said Todd: "You've got to assume he's going to say and do all the right things. But how does he say it? What kind of enthusiasm is behind it?...
"Maybe the election eventually won't be about the Clintons, but … whether Obama likes it or not, the group of voters he has yet to unite are Clinton Democrats."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. McCain Fights POW 'Smear' from Left
John McCain's Web site has responded to an attack from what it calls the "most vicious corner of the Internet" that impugns his memories of his prisoner of war years.
According to the site, "liberal bloggers at the Daily Kos" have accused McCain of plagiarizing from Russian writer and Gulag denizen Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who told of a prisoner who drew a cross in the dirt in a Soviet prison camp. McCain told of a guard who drew a cross in the dirt in a Vietnamese POW camp.
McCain's site points out: "The only similarity between the two stories is a cross in the dirt, but it is hardly an unlikely coincidence that there were practicing Christians in both Russia and Vietnam, or that in the prisons of those two Communist countries the only crosses to be found were etched in the dirt, as easily disappeared as the Christians who drew them.
"But those desperate to discredit Senator McCain's record will have to impugn his fellow prisoners as well."
The site refers to Orson Swindle, who was held as a prisoner of war along with McCain. He told the McCain Report that he heard the cross in the dirt story from McCain as early as the summer of 1971, "when we first moved in together."
The article on McCain's site, headlined "Smears the Left Can Fight For," observes: "It may be typical of the pro-Obama to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others…
"As Swindle said, this is a 'desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing.'"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Bob Woodward Offering New 'Secret' White House History
The contents of Watergate journalist Bob Woodward's new book have been kept a closely guarded secret, but the work is not likely to be a highly critical expose of the Bush administration.
"The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008," due out on September 8, was written with cooperation from all levels of the administration, including President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Woodward regularly visited the White House, Pentagon, various intelligence agencies and the homes of generals and other officials, Politico reports.
Even the title of the book was kept secret, appearing as simply "Untitled on Bush, Volume IV" on Amazon.com. Its title was revealed by The Associated Press.
Publisher Simon & Schuster said the book "declassifies the secrets of America's political and military involvement in Iraq." White House officials are optimistic that it will shine a more favorable light on Bush than did Woodward's previous work, "State of Denial."
In particular, Bush aides believe Woodward's book will reflect that Bush's "surge" strategy has slowed the violence in Iraq.
Politico observed: "The book's revelations are likely to propel a re-examination of the Iraq war into the headlines just as the fall presidential campaign is taking off."
Woodward has co-authored or authored nine No. 1 national best-selling non-fiction books since his first blockbuster, "All the President's Men," detailed how his reporting with fellow Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein helped bring down President Richard Nixon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Republicans Prefer Their Drinks Straight Up
Bartenders in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area preparing for the GOP convention there in September might take note of a new survey of the drinking habits of Republicans and Democrats.
Among the findings of the survey of about 100 bartenders in the Washington, D.C., area, which were reported by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune:
Asked who is more likely to order a drink straight up, 82 percent of respondents said Republicans, and 14 percent said Democrats.
Democrats are more likely to order a fruity (pink) drink — they were chosen by 58 percent of the bartenders, compared to 34 percent for the Republicans.
74 percent of bartenders said Democrats have the best pick-up lines, and just 14 percent chose Republicans.
Republicans are more likely to arrive first for happy hour — but Democrats are more likely to be the last to go home.
The survey was commissioned by Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., whose beverages include Jim Beam bourbon and Canadian Club whisky, in collaboration with Clarus Research Group.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Hillary Still Wallowing in Debt
Barack Obama has encouraged his supporters to help Hillary Clinton retire her massive campaign debt, but so far they have been anything but generous.
Hillary raised less than $2.5 million in July and at month's end still owed nearly $24 million, according to a report filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.
Obama donors gave just $105,000 in June to help Clinton repay her campaign debt, according to the Los Angeles Times.
About $13.2 million of Clinton's debt is in loans she made herself, and she has said that any donations will be used to pay vendors, not herself, the Boston Globe reported.
Obama raised $51 million during July.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. How Many Homes Does McCain Own?
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain isn't sure how many homes he owns — and neither is anyone else.
McCain and his wife Cindy own "at lease four," located in Arizona, California and Virginia, Politico reports.
But Newsweek this summer estimated that the couple owns at least seven properties.
Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York told Politico that McCain "has six houses."
The Associated Press reported that McCain and his family appear to own at least eight homes: A ranch and two condos in Arizona; three condos in Coronado, Calif.; a condo in La Jolla, Calif.; and another in Arlington, Va. But the ranch has at least four houses and a two-story cabin on it.
And in a New York Times interview, David Axelrod, Barack Obama's chief strategist, referred to "the portico of the McCain estate in Sedona — or maybe in one of his six other houses."
McCain himself, when asked by Politico how many houses he and Cindy own, said: "I think — I'll have my staff get to you. It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."
Democrats have sought to portray McCain as living an extremely wealthy lifestyle — just as Republicans in 2004 focused on the five homes owned by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his wife.
Cindy McCain inherited control of the largest beer distributorship in Arizona, and is estimated to be worth more than $100 million.
Alice In Obamaland
Alice In Obamaland
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: One of the "lies" Barack Obama says are being told about him is quite true. It involves a staunch admirer of the Soviet Union and its communist society who helped launch Obama's political career.
Among the alleged lies mentioned in the Obama campaign's 40-page response to author Jerome Corsi's book "Obama Nation" is the claim that when Obama ran for state senator, "instead of stepping aside in deference to (state Sen. Alice) Palmer, Obama decided to fight her for the nomination."
The Obama campaign quotes a state representative who said Palmer "pulled her own plug."
But as ABC News senior correspondent Jake Tapper notes on his blog, it is Obama who is the truth-challenged one. "This is not a lie, this is true," Tapper says. "Palmer had decided to run for Congress, and Obama was tapped to run to replace her. When Palmer lost in the (U.S. House) primary, she wanted to stay as a state senator. Obama said no. He had every right to do so, but he decided to fight her for the nomination instead of stepping aside in deference to her."
According to the Chicago Tribune, Obama operatives flooded into the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners on Jan. 2, 1996, to begin the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of Palmer and three other lesser-known contenders for her Illinois state Senate seat. They kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.
As the Tribune noted, "The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it."
In 1995, Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district's influential liberals at the home of two well-known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former members of the terrorist Weather Underground.
"I remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the Senate and running for Congress," says Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care. "(Palmer) identified (Obama) as her successor."
It was in 1995 that Palmer decided to pursue the opportunity of an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after Mel Reynolds of Illinois' 2nd District resigned due to allegations of sex with an underage campaign volunteer.
But Palmer hit a speed bump in November of that year when Jesse Jackson Jr. defeated her in a special election for Reynolds' empty seat.
Palmer then refiled to keep her state Senate seat and asked Obama to withdraw. Obama refused.
"I liked Alice Palmer a lot," Obama would say later. "I thought she was a good public servant. It (the process by which Obama got Palmer off the ballot) was very awkward. That part of it I wish had played out entirely differently."
Who Alice Palmer is and what she believed is the real story here.
Ten years earlier she was an executive board member of the U.S. Peace Council, which the FBI identified as a communist front group, an affiliate of the World Peace Council, a Soviet front group.
Palmer participated in the World Peace Council's 1983 Prague Assembly, part of the Soviet launch of the nuclear-freeze movement. The only thing it would have frozen was the Soviet Union's military superiority.
In June 1986, while editor of the Black Press Review, she wrote an article for the Communist Party USA's newspaper, the People's Daily World, now the People's Weekly World. It detailed her experience attending the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and how impressed she was by the Soviet system.
Palmer gushed at the "Soviet plan to provide people with higher wages and better education" and spoke of the efficiency of the Soviets' most recent five-year plan, attributing its success to "central planning." She praised their "comprehensive affirmative action program, which they have stuck to religiously — if I can use the word — since 1917."
Palmer also marveled that all Russian citizens were guaranteed a job matching their training and skills, free education, affordable housing and free medical care. Because Soviet school curricula were established at the national level, she said, "there is no second-class 'track' system in the minority-nationality schools as there is in the inferior inner city schools in my hometown, Chicago, and elsewhere in the United States."
Obama and Palmer both oppose school choice and vouchers and successful programs like the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships. They prefer the central planning of education as dictated by the teachers unions and the commissars at the National Education Association.
When Obama won the Iowa caucuses, Frank Chapman, a member of the U.S. Peace Council Executive Committee, wrote a letter to the People's Weekly World celebrating the victory of Alice Palmer's former protege.
"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move," Chapman wrote. "It was a dialectical leap ushering in a new era of struggle. Marx once compared (the) revolutionary new era of struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface."
Before old-style Chicago politics as practiced by an ambitious Obama doomed their friendship, he thought Palmer was a good public servant, and Soviet admirer Palmer thought he was a worthy heir. Why?
Email To Friend
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: One of the "lies" Barack Obama says are being told about him is quite true. It involves a staunch admirer of the Soviet Union and its communist society who helped launch Obama's political career.
Among the alleged lies mentioned in the Obama campaign's 40-page response to author Jerome Corsi's book "Obama Nation" is the claim that when Obama ran for state senator, "instead of stepping aside in deference to (state Sen. Alice) Palmer, Obama decided to fight her for the nomination."
The Obama campaign quotes a state representative who said Palmer "pulled her own plug."
But as ABC News senior correspondent Jake Tapper notes on his blog, it is Obama who is the truth-challenged one. "This is not a lie, this is true," Tapper says. "Palmer had decided to run for Congress, and Obama was tapped to run to replace her. When Palmer lost in the (U.S. House) primary, she wanted to stay as a state senator. Obama said no. He had every right to do so, but he decided to fight her for the nomination instead of stepping aside in deference to her."
According to the Chicago Tribune, Obama operatives flooded into the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners on Jan. 2, 1996, to begin the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of Palmer and three other lesser-known contenders for her Illinois state Senate seat. They kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.
As the Tribune noted, "The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it."
In 1995, Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district's influential liberals at the home of two well-known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former members of the terrorist Weather Underground.
"I remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the Senate and running for Congress," says Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care. "(Palmer) identified (Obama) as her successor."
It was in 1995 that Palmer decided to pursue the opportunity of an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after Mel Reynolds of Illinois' 2nd District resigned due to allegations of sex with an underage campaign volunteer.
But Palmer hit a speed bump in November of that year when Jesse Jackson Jr. defeated her in a special election for Reynolds' empty seat.
Palmer then refiled to keep her state Senate seat and asked Obama to withdraw. Obama refused.
"I liked Alice Palmer a lot," Obama would say later. "I thought she was a good public servant. It (the process by which Obama got Palmer off the ballot) was very awkward. That part of it I wish had played out entirely differently."
Who Alice Palmer is and what she believed is the real story here.
Ten years earlier she was an executive board member of the U.S. Peace Council, which the FBI identified as a communist front group, an affiliate of the World Peace Council, a Soviet front group.
Palmer participated in the World Peace Council's 1983 Prague Assembly, part of the Soviet launch of the nuclear-freeze movement. The only thing it would have frozen was the Soviet Union's military superiority.
In June 1986, while editor of the Black Press Review, she wrote an article for the Communist Party USA's newspaper, the People's Daily World, now the People's Weekly World. It detailed her experience attending the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and how impressed she was by the Soviet system.
Palmer gushed at the "Soviet plan to provide people with higher wages and better education" and spoke of the efficiency of the Soviets' most recent five-year plan, attributing its success to "central planning." She praised their "comprehensive affirmative action program, which they have stuck to religiously — if I can use the word — since 1917."
Palmer also marveled that all Russian citizens were guaranteed a job matching their training and skills, free education, affordable housing and free medical care. Because Soviet school curricula were established at the national level, she said, "there is no second-class 'track' system in the minority-nationality schools as there is in the inferior inner city schools in my hometown, Chicago, and elsewhere in the United States."
Obama and Palmer both oppose school choice and vouchers and successful programs like the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships. They prefer the central planning of education as dictated by the teachers unions and the commissars at the National Education Association.
When Obama won the Iowa caucuses, Frank Chapman, a member of the U.S. Peace Council Executive Committee, wrote a letter to the People's Weekly World celebrating the victory of Alice Palmer's former protege.
"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move," Chapman wrote. "It was a dialectical leap ushering in a new era of struggle. Marx once compared (the) revolutionary new era of struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface."
Before old-style Chicago politics as practiced by an ambitious Obama doomed their friendship, he thought Palmer was a good public servant, and Soviet admirer Palmer thought he was a worthy heir. Why?
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25 Reasons You Might Be A Liberal
THANKS TED SEE YOU
25 Reasons You Might Be A Liberal (Part 2)
Jon Sanders
Friday, August 22, 2008
With yet more apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, you just might be a liberal if...
* You blame the oil companies for high gas prices, but believe in doing everything humanly possible to keep them from drilling for more oil.
* You'd have no problem with a Democratic President talking with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jung-Il without conditions, but would be very upset if he started seriously negotiating with Republicans over national security or energy issues.
* You don't see a conflict between "supporting the troops" and trying to insure that they lose the war that they're fighting.
* You think the solution to an underperforming economy is higher taxes, more regulations, and publicly attacking businesses, but don't understand how that relates to the phrase, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
* You're surprised that people don't think you're patriotic just because you were photographed not holding your hand over your heart during the national anthem and made a big deal out of refusing to wear a flag pin.
* You tell everyone who'll listen that Bush is "worse than Hitler" and that Republicans are fascists, but you never stop to consider that if that were true, you'd be dead or in a gulag already.
* You think Christmas songs at school plays shouldn't be allowed because they might offend people who don't believe, but don't understand what the problem is supposed to be with government funded "art" that defiles Christianity.
* Your idea of "reparations for slavery" is white people who have never owned slaves giving money to black people who were never slaves, more than a hundred years after slavery ended.
* You "assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, (you're) against it." -- Ann Coulter
* You think celebrities are just exercising their right to free speech when they criticize conservatives, but believe that the celebs are having their First Amendment rights abridged if anyone criticizes them for their comments.
* You called George Bush, "George Herbert Walker Bush," and George Allen, "George Felix Allen," but think someone referring to Barack Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama" is a racist.
* You think we should give condoms to thirteen year-olds because "they're going to do it anyway," but feel that we can get rid of every gun held by criminals in the U.S. simply by making them illegal.
* You think Anita Hill was telling the truth about Clarence Thomas, but Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, Dolly Kyle Browning, Sally Perdue, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick -- among many others -- are all lying about the Clintons.
* You "are willing to do whatever it takes to defend the American public from terrorists...as long as the French and Germans say it's OK."
* You continually claim that we don't do enough for the poor, but you want to add 12-20 million more of them to the ranks by giving illegal aliens American citizenship.
* You blame "society" for creating the conditions that turn people into criminals, but you don't think that gives "society" even more of a moral obligation to lock those criminals away so that they won't hurt innocent people.
* There's a conflict between America and any other country, over just about any topic, and you're more likely to side with the other nation than your own.
* You believe that fanatical Muslims who want to fly planes into our skyscrapers aren't a serious threat to the U.S., but Christians are.
* You think we can improve our health care system by putting the same government that brought us FEMA, ICE, Airport Security, and the IRS in charge of it.
* You believe that conservative criticism of Barack Obama's abilities is primarily driven by racism, but actual race-based criticism leveled at Clarence Thomas, Michelle Malkin, and Condi Rice by liberals obviously has nothing to do with race.
* You live in a great and free nation like America and can use phrases like "audacity of hope" or "speaking the truth to power" without the slightest hint of irony.
* You say, "Why do they hate us?" when America is attacked and "we're just furthering the cycle of violence" when we retaliate.
* You generally mean "threatening to the interests of the Democratic Party" or "Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton needs some more money" when you use the word "racist."
* Your first thought after hearing that someone who publicly criticized murderers actually murdered someone himself is, "What a hypocrite!"
* You tell anyone who'll listen that our elections are fraudulent and then you fight tooth and nail to prevent states from requiring a photo ID to vote.
25 Reasons You Might Be A Liberal (Part 2)
Jon Sanders
Friday, August 22, 2008
With yet more apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, you just might be a liberal if...
* You blame the oil companies for high gas prices, but believe in doing everything humanly possible to keep them from drilling for more oil.
* You'd have no problem with a Democratic President talking with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jung-Il without conditions, but would be very upset if he started seriously negotiating with Republicans over national security or energy issues.
* You don't see a conflict between "supporting the troops" and trying to insure that they lose the war that they're fighting.
* You think the solution to an underperforming economy is higher taxes, more regulations, and publicly attacking businesses, but don't understand how that relates to the phrase, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
* You're surprised that people don't think you're patriotic just because you were photographed not holding your hand over your heart during the national anthem and made a big deal out of refusing to wear a flag pin.
* You tell everyone who'll listen that Bush is "worse than Hitler" and that Republicans are fascists, but you never stop to consider that if that were true, you'd be dead or in a gulag already.
* You think Christmas songs at school plays shouldn't be allowed because they might offend people who don't believe, but don't understand what the problem is supposed to be with government funded "art" that defiles Christianity.
* Your idea of "reparations for slavery" is white people who have never owned slaves giving money to black people who were never slaves, more than a hundred years after slavery ended.
* You "assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, (you're) against it." -- Ann Coulter
* You think celebrities are just exercising their right to free speech when they criticize conservatives, but believe that the celebs are having their First Amendment rights abridged if anyone criticizes them for their comments.
* You called George Bush, "George Herbert Walker Bush," and George Allen, "George Felix Allen," but think someone referring to Barack Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama" is a racist.
* You think we should give condoms to thirteen year-olds because "they're going to do it anyway," but feel that we can get rid of every gun held by criminals in the U.S. simply by making them illegal.
* You think Anita Hill was telling the truth about Clarence Thomas, but Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, Dolly Kyle Browning, Sally Perdue, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick -- among many others -- are all lying about the Clintons.
* You "are willing to do whatever it takes to defend the American public from terrorists...as long as the French and Germans say it's OK."
* You continually claim that we don't do enough for the poor, but you want to add 12-20 million more of them to the ranks by giving illegal aliens American citizenship.
* You blame "society" for creating the conditions that turn people into criminals, but you don't think that gives "society" even more of a moral obligation to lock those criminals away so that they won't hurt innocent people.
* There's a conflict between America and any other country, over just about any topic, and you're more likely to side with the other nation than your own.
* You believe that fanatical Muslims who want to fly planes into our skyscrapers aren't a serious threat to the U.S., but Christians are.
* You think we can improve our health care system by putting the same government that brought us FEMA, ICE, Airport Security, and the IRS in charge of it.
* You believe that conservative criticism of Barack Obama's abilities is primarily driven by racism, but actual race-based criticism leveled at Clarence Thomas, Michelle Malkin, and Condi Rice by liberals obviously has nothing to do with race.
* You live in a great and free nation like America and can use phrases like "audacity of hope" or "speaking the truth to power" without the slightest hint of irony.
* You say, "Why do they hate us?" when America is attacked and "we're just furthering the cycle of violence" when we retaliate.
* You generally mean "threatening to the interests of the Democratic Party" or "Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton needs some more money" when you use the word "racist."
* Your first thought after hearing that someone who publicly criticized murderers actually murdered someone himself is, "What a hypocrite!"
* You tell anyone who'll listen that our elections are fraudulent and then you fight tooth and nail to prevent states from requiring a photo ID to vote.
PLANT? 57 STATES? WHAT MOLE?
IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE IDEA OF A PLANTED PRESIDENT (MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE) HAS COME TO TRUITION??
ARTICLE SENT BY OUR FRIENDS TED AND ALICE.
I thought all along he was a plant. (read mole)
You are aware, probably, that Barack Obama lost his bearings recently and said that he was going to campaign in all 57 states.
You heard this? And everybody chalked it up to, 'Well, he's tired.'
You know, this is a Dan Quayle moment. I mean, Dan Quayle goes out there and misspells 'potato', and we still hear jokes about it.
Barack Obama says he's gonna go out and campaign in 57 states, he was just tired, you know, it's been such a long campaign, he's been to so many places, he probably thinks there are 57 states.
Well, I have here a printout from a web site called the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
And here is how the second paragraph of an article on that website begins.
'Every year from 1999 to 2005 the organization of the Islamic conference representing the 57 Islamic states presented a resolution to the United Nations Commission on human rights called commbating.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_of_the_Islamic_Conference
Obama said he's going to campaign in 57 states, and it turns out that there are 57 Islamic states. There are 57 Islamic states.
So did Obama just lose his bearings, or was this a more telling slip, ladies and gentlemen?
ARTICLE SENT BY OUR FRIENDS TED AND ALICE.
I thought all along he was a plant. (read mole)
You are aware, probably, that Barack Obama lost his bearings recently and said that he was going to campaign in all 57 states.
You heard this? And everybody chalked it up to, 'Well, he's tired.'
You know, this is a Dan Quayle moment. I mean, Dan Quayle goes out there and misspells 'potato', and we still hear jokes about it.
Barack Obama says he's gonna go out and campaign in 57 states, he was just tired, you know, it's been such a long campaign, he's been to so many places, he probably thinks there are 57 states.
Well, I have here a printout from a web site called the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
And here is how the second paragraph of an article on that website begins.
'Every year from 1999 to 2005 the organization of the Islamic conference representing the 57 Islamic states presented a resolution to the United Nations Commission on human rights called commbating.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_of_the_Islamic_Conference
Obama said he's going to campaign in 57 states, and it turns out that there are 57 Islamic states. There are 57 Islamic states.
So did Obama just lose his bearings, or was this a more telling slip, ladies and gentlemen?
Volatility of Presidential Race
Friday, August 22, 2008 8:06 AM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
In following a presidential race, the most important way to understand what is happening is to follow voter responses to open-ended questions. Those are questions which ask, What do you like the most about Barack Obama? and What do you like the least about Barack Obama? These questions, which let voters tell pollsters what they think in their own words, offer the best way to figure out what is really going on.
Fortunately, the Fox News tracking polling for the election has now included these questions and the results offer an excellent insight into the current state of the race.
Oddly for a race that has been going on for two years and holds the nation rapt in attention, the contest is still in a very, very primitive phase. Voters' awareness level of the issues or of the candidates is quite limited. Neither campaign has done much to project its issues or its message and the attacks on one another, which increasingly dominate the dialogue, show little resonance among most voters.
Overwhelmingly, the thing voters like the most about Obama is that he is new, a fresh face, for change: intelligent, inspiring, a good speaker, outspoken, and charismatic. A full 57 percent of all voters use one of these phrases to describe him, including 48 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of independents. But only 13 percent of all voters cite any specific position of Obama's including his signature opposition to the war in Iraq.
Only 2 percent mentioned the war in citing what they liked about Obama and only 1 percent cited the economy and jobs. So Obama is still a personality running for office and the voters have yet to identify him with any policy or proposal. And the one identification he used to have — opposition to the war — has faded. But Obama has vast potential appeal.
Even though the Fox News poll gave him only a three point lead over McCain, 4 voters in 5 cite something they like about Obama in open ended questions (including 66 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of independents).
Opposition to Obama is also centered on fears of his youth, inexperience, and lack of qualifications. Some 31 percent of all voters, 33 percent of independents, and 29 percent of Democrats, cited this concern in open-ended questions. But just as Obama's positive ratings do not include much in the way of specific mentions of his issue positions, so his negatives don't either.
Only 19 percent of all voters said they disliked his liberalism, connection with the Rev Wright, radicalism, religious views, elitism or even said they disagreed with him about anything. Another 8 percent disliked his flip-flops on issues. But the potential for Obama to fall apart is also enormous. A full 78 percent of all voters, including two-thirds of all Democrats and four-fifths of all independents cited something about Obama that they did not like.
So everybody basically agrees that Obama is a new fresh face who advocates change but is too inexperienced and lacks some or all of the qualifications needed for the job. The question of which part of this statement outweighs the other is the issue on which the election hinges.
But just as Obama has not succeeded in identifying himself with any specific issue, idea, or proposal (and voters might be asking, as they did of Gary Hart, "where's the beef?") so McCain and the Republicans have failed to link him to extreme liberalism, radicalism, Wright or any of the identifications they have been trying to pin on the Democrat.
Both campaigns have almost totally failed to move past square one on Obama.
For McCain, it's pretty much the same story: 33 percent of all voters see him as experienced and qualified (including 26 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of Independents). On his military experience, 10 percent like his military record. A smaller percentage praise his honesty: 7 percent. And 9 percent say they approve of how he would handle foreign policy.
But McCain's negatives are the flip side of his positives: 24 percent of all voters and 26 percent of Republicans and 20 percent of independents say he is too old. And another 23 percent feel he is too conservative, too close to Bush, or too supportive of the war. Just 4 percent criticize his flip-flops.
So Americans of all parties have reached a consensus that Obama is young, charismatic, intelligent, articulate, and in favor of change, but also that he is too inexperienced, possibly too liberal, and less qualified than they would like. And they also have come to a common agreement, also cutting across party lines, that McCain is experienced, able, an heroic veteran, and honest but also that he is too old, possibly too conservative, and perhaps too pro-war.
Just as 80 percent of all voters find something to praise in Obama and 78 percent find something to criticize, so 80 percent have something good to say about McCain and 82 percent have some criticism to make.
This broad agreement on the pros and cons of each candidate and the willingness of even their partisans to consider their negatives and of their enemies to concede their positives is highly unusual and underscores why the race is so close.
But it also suggests that it is very volatile. Either campaign can paint the other with issue negatives if they start going about it effectively.
It is a glaring omission that only 1 percent cite Obama's tax positions as a negative and that nobody mentioned his opposition to offshore oil drilling.
Likewise, how odd that only 15 percent cited specifically McCain's support for the war and his connection with Bush as a negative.
On the other hand, neither Obama's healthcare nor McCain's energy proposals have registered with the voters and few can name any specific issue position for either man of which they approve.
For a campaign that has been going on for two years, how odd that voter opinions of the candidates are still so unformed and general.
© 2008 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
In following a presidential race, the most important way to understand what is happening is to follow voter responses to open-ended questions. Those are questions which ask, What do you like the most about Barack Obama? and What do you like the least about Barack Obama? These questions, which let voters tell pollsters what they think in their own words, offer the best way to figure out what is really going on.
Fortunately, the Fox News tracking polling for the election has now included these questions and the results offer an excellent insight into the current state of the race.
Oddly for a race that has been going on for two years and holds the nation rapt in attention, the contest is still in a very, very primitive phase. Voters' awareness level of the issues or of the candidates is quite limited. Neither campaign has done much to project its issues or its message and the attacks on one another, which increasingly dominate the dialogue, show little resonance among most voters.
Overwhelmingly, the thing voters like the most about Obama is that he is new, a fresh face, for change: intelligent, inspiring, a good speaker, outspoken, and charismatic. A full 57 percent of all voters use one of these phrases to describe him, including 48 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of independents. But only 13 percent of all voters cite any specific position of Obama's including his signature opposition to the war in Iraq.
Only 2 percent mentioned the war in citing what they liked about Obama and only 1 percent cited the economy and jobs. So Obama is still a personality running for office and the voters have yet to identify him with any policy or proposal. And the one identification he used to have — opposition to the war — has faded. But Obama has vast potential appeal.
Even though the Fox News poll gave him only a three point lead over McCain, 4 voters in 5 cite something they like about Obama in open ended questions (including 66 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of independents).
Opposition to Obama is also centered on fears of his youth, inexperience, and lack of qualifications. Some 31 percent of all voters, 33 percent of independents, and 29 percent of Democrats, cited this concern in open-ended questions. But just as Obama's positive ratings do not include much in the way of specific mentions of his issue positions, so his negatives don't either.
Only 19 percent of all voters said they disliked his liberalism, connection with the Rev Wright, radicalism, religious views, elitism or even said they disagreed with him about anything. Another 8 percent disliked his flip-flops on issues. But the potential for Obama to fall apart is also enormous. A full 78 percent of all voters, including two-thirds of all Democrats and four-fifths of all independents cited something about Obama that they did not like.
So everybody basically agrees that Obama is a new fresh face who advocates change but is too inexperienced and lacks some or all of the qualifications needed for the job. The question of which part of this statement outweighs the other is the issue on which the election hinges.
But just as Obama has not succeeded in identifying himself with any specific issue, idea, or proposal (and voters might be asking, as they did of Gary Hart, "where's the beef?") so McCain and the Republicans have failed to link him to extreme liberalism, radicalism, Wright or any of the identifications they have been trying to pin on the Democrat.
Both campaigns have almost totally failed to move past square one on Obama.
For McCain, it's pretty much the same story: 33 percent of all voters see him as experienced and qualified (including 26 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of Independents). On his military experience, 10 percent like his military record. A smaller percentage praise his honesty: 7 percent. And 9 percent say they approve of how he would handle foreign policy.
But McCain's negatives are the flip side of his positives: 24 percent of all voters and 26 percent of Republicans and 20 percent of independents say he is too old. And another 23 percent feel he is too conservative, too close to Bush, or too supportive of the war. Just 4 percent criticize his flip-flops.
So Americans of all parties have reached a consensus that Obama is young, charismatic, intelligent, articulate, and in favor of change, but also that he is too inexperienced, possibly too liberal, and less qualified than they would like. And they also have come to a common agreement, also cutting across party lines, that McCain is experienced, able, an heroic veteran, and honest but also that he is too old, possibly too conservative, and perhaps too pro-war.
Just as 80 percent of all voters find something to praise in Obama and 78 percent find something to criticize, so 80 percent have something good to say about McCain and 82 percent have some criticism to make.
This broad agreement on the pros and cons of each candidate and the willingness of even their partisans to consider their negatives and of their enemies to concede their positives is highly unusual and underscores why the race is so close.
But it also suggests that it is very volatile. Either campaign can paint the other with issue negatives if they start going about it effectively.
It is a glaring omission that only 1 percent cite Obama's tax positions as a negative and that nobody mentioned his opposition to offshore oil drilling.
Likewise, how odd that only 15 percent cited specifically McCain's support for the war and his connection with Bush as a negative.
On the other hand, neither Obama's healthcare nor McCain's energy proposals have registered with the voters and few can name any specific issue position for either man of which they approve.
For a campaign that has been going on for two years, how odd that voter opinions of the candidates are still so unformed and general.
© 2008 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Obama Out of Sync With Most Americans
Obama Out of Sync With Most Americans
By: David Limbaugh
The press is shocked that Barack Obama has "yet to close the sale," given the "political logic" that favors Democrats in this election. They must not have been paying attention during the final segment of the primary season, when Hillary Clinton consistently thrashed the hollow superstar.
That said, Obama's handlers betray not the slightest concern because they believe that despite the statistical tie in the polls, Obama's supporters are much more intense than McCain supporters. "That is going to mean more favorable turnout patterns; it is going to help us register voters; it is going to help us organizationally," said Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe.
Indeed, political analysts have been speculating for months now that Obama could transform presidential politics by energizing a whole new class of voters.
If that's true, McCain has his work cut out for him because the voters Obama is inspiring seem more enamored with his image than who he really is and what he stands for. Being largely apolitical and emotionally driven, they won't be as receptive to the ever-unfolding, troubling revelations about Obama.
While the media are stunned that Obama is not resonating in line with their expectations, others wonder how he can resonate at all, given his McGovernesque, leftist agenda and his damning associations with America-hating preachers (Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger), terrorists and radicals (William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) and a mentor (Frank Davis) who was a member of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA and who, according to Investor's Business Daily, "fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his 'subversive,' 'un-American activities.'"
Obama better hope he can initiate new voters oblivious to the threat he represents to the foundational principles of the republic because if McCain continues to expose Obama over the resistance of the media and baseless, malicious charges of dirty campaigning and racism, even modestly informed voters should awaken to these concerns.
Truthfully, an Obama presidency should scare the pants off 70 percent of Americans.
Across the board, Obama is dramatically out of sync with this center-right nation. But like all liberal politicians aspiring to the presidency, he's doing his best to keep voters in the dark about his hard-core leftism.
On social issues, Obama, while not openly admitting his support for same-sex marriage, has written letters to homosexual activist groups, saying he favors homosexual adoption and a repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. He says he would reduce abortion, yet he has fought valiantly to protect it as a constitutional right, supports partial-birth abortion, and arguably enabled infanticide by opposing an Illinois version of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.
On economics and energy, he favors punishing producers and spreading misery rather than prosperity. He would increase capital gains rates, even though that would decrease revenue and help no one — all in the name of fairness. Despite his expedient vacillation, he opposes domestic drilling and nuclear energy. He would impose an arbitrary "windfall" profits tax on oil companies (and transfer that money directly to American families in defiance of constitutional principles) despite historical evidence (from the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980) that it would reduce our domestic oil supply, further increase our dependency on foreign imports, only marginally increase revenues, and raise gas prices for everyone, including the hapless rebate recipients to whom Obama would assign these transfer checks from the illusory revenue.
On defense and foreign policy, he very well might dismantle our nuclear weapons in this increasingly nuclear age and would abandon missile defense programs.
He would precipitously withdraw our troops from Iraq, thereby jeopardizing its stability and our victory there and inviting the very terrorist enemy he says he would hunt down to re-enter and thrive again. He would adopt policies concerning Afghanistan wholly inconsistent with everything he claims to stand for — and against — in Iraq. He would greatly increase our role there and disincentivize participation of our allies in flagrant contradiction to his criticisms of President Bush's "unilateralism" in Iraq. But he would not add enough troops to simulate Gen. Petraeus' successful surge strategy in Iraq — only enough to risk entangling us in a Soviet-like quagmire that Democrats claim to oppose, except when they are in control of the executive branch. And he would transform stingy America into a safety net for the entire world with his Global Poverty Act.
Then again, as Obama told Berliners, we are not merely American citizens, but "citizens of the world."
On top of all this, Obama's entire campaign theme is fraudulent. How can a man unite America when his views are so far out of line with average Americans for whom he has revealed unbridled contempt? How can he inspire America when he advertises his disdain for what he believes America has become?
No, it's not really surprising that Obama has allowed McCain to catch him in the polls. It's amazing that he's in serious contention himself.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
By: David Limbaugh
The press is shocked that Barack Obama has "yet to close the sale," given the "political logic" that favors Democrats in this election. They must not have been paying attention during the final segment of the primary season, when Hillary Clinton consistently thrashed the hollow superstar.
That said, Obama's handlers betray not the slightest concern because they believe that despite the statistical tie in the polls, Obama's supporters are much more intense than McCain supporters. "That is going to mean more favorable turnout patterns; it is going to help us register voters; it is going to help us organizationally," said Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe.
Indeed, political analysts have been speculating for months now that Obama could transform presidential politics by energizing a whole new class of voters.
If that's true, McCain has his work cut out for him because the voters Obama is inspiring seem more enamored with his image than who he really is and what he stands for. Being largely apolitical and emotionally driven, they won't be as receptive to the ever-unfolding, troubling revelations about Obama.
While the media are stunned that Obama is not resonating in line with their expectations, others wonder how he can resonate at all, given his McGovernesque, leftist agenda and his damning associations with America-hating preachers (Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger), terrorists and radicals (William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) and a mentor (Frank Davis) who was a member of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA and who, according to Investor's Business Daily, "fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his 'subversive,' 'un-American activities.'"
Obama better hope he can initiate new voters oblivious to the threat he represents to the foundational principles of the republic because if McCain continues to expose Obama over the resistance of the media and baseless, malicious charges of dirty campaigning and racism, even modestly informed voters should awaken to these concerns.
Truthfully, an Obama presidency should scare the pants off 70 percent of Americans.
Across the board, Obama is dramatically out of sync with this center-right nation. But like all liberal politicians aspiring to the presidency, he's doing his best to keep voters in the dark about his hard-core leftism.
On social issues, Obama, while not openly admitting his support for same-sex marriage, has written letters to homosexual activist groups, saying he favors homosexual adoption and a repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. He says he would reduce abortion, yet he has fought valiantly to protect it as a constitutional right, supports partial-birth abortion, and arguably enabled infanticide by opposing an Illinois version of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.
On economics and energy, he favors punishing producers and spreading misery rather than prosperity. He would increase capital gains rates, even though that would decrease revenue and help no one — all in the name of fairness. Despite his expedient vacillation, he opposes domestic drilling and nuclear energy. He would impose an arbitrary "windfall" profits tax on oil companies (and transfer that money directly to American families in defiance of constitutional principles) despite historical evidence (from the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980) that it would reduce our domestic oil supply, further increase our dependency on foreign imports, only marginally increase revenues, and raise gas prices for everyone, including the hapless rebate recipients to whom Obama would assign these transfer checks from the illusory revenue.
On defense and foreign policy, he very well might dismantle our nuclear weapons in this increasingly nuclear age and would abandon missile defense programs.
He would precipitously withdraw our troops from Iraq, thereby jeopardizing its stability and our victory there and inviting the very terrorist enemy he says he would hunt down to re-enter and thrive again. He would adopt policies concerning Afghanistan wholly inconsistent with everything he claims to stand for — and against — in Iraq. He would greatly increase our role there and disincentivize participation of our allies in flagrant contradiction to his criticisms of President Bush's "unilateralism" in Iraq. But he would not add enough troops to simulate Gen. Petraeus' successful surge strategy in Iraq — only enough to risk entangling us in a Soviet-like quagmire that Democrats claim to oppose, except when they are in control of the executive branch. And he would transform stingy America into a safety net for the entire world with his Global Poverty Act.
Then again, as Obama told Berliners, we are not merely American citizens, but "citizens of the world."
On top of all this, Obama's entire campaign theme is fraudulent. How can a man unite America when his views are so far out of line with average Americans for whom he has revealed unbridled contempt? How can he inspire America when he advertises his disdain for what he believes America has become?
No, it's not really surprising that Obama has allowed McCain to catch him in the polls. It's amazing that he's in serious contention himself.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
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