Killing of thousands of innocent people and vowing to destroy all non believers did not upset them. Calling Obama a house negro has really set them off.
Al Qaeda's number two crackpot, Ayman Zawahiri, called Barack Obama a "house Negro" in an audio tape released yesterday. That was beyond the pale, as State Department spokesman Sean McCormack explained:
"It's just, you know, more despicable comments from a terrorist," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters when asked to comment on the remarks.
"And if anybody needed ... more of a contrast between what ... the West and the United States stand for, in terms of democracy and what these terrorists stand for, I don't think you need to go any further than those comments," he said.
I would have said that you don't need to go farther than the fact that the terrorists try to crash airliners, blow up buildings and kill as many innocent people as possible. In some people's eyes, though, that seems to be a subtle distinction.
What's ironic about this is that liberals have been calling people like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell "house Negroes" for some years now. Maybe the Left needs a new aphorism: "One man's terrorist is another man's liberal.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Another great example of the anti religion anti God feeling of the Democrats.
On his November 10 Huffington Post, Nicholas Graham and nearly every commenter thereafter, purposefully distorted what Governor Palin said about prayer and the 2012 presidential race. The universal misconstruction of Palin's comments was that she was "praying to become president" in 2012 and that somehow God was speaking directly to her. But reality is she did not say that at all.
Graham offhandedly claimed that Palin said that she was waiting "for a sign from God" as to whether she would run in 2012. Further distorting her comments, he claimed she was "confident God would show the way to the White House." But, once again, she said neither of these things. In fact, what she actually said is rhetoric that is pretty much in accord with what even elected presidents have said at one time or another.
Unfortunately, we have arrived at a time when the default position for Democrats as a party is to despise religion even if individually they consider themselves religious. They consider any expression of religious sentiment whatsoever to be an example of "extremism," and "bigotry" against others. Well, at least the second any Republican expresses a religious sentiment, that is. When anyone from their side does it, they wink, nod and assume that their politician is just lying and merely trying to get elected and doesn't really mean it -- which is still an expression of a hatred for religion when all is said and done.
Graham offhandedly claimed that Palin said that she was waiting "for a sign from God" as to whether she would run in 2012. Further distorting her comments, he claimed she was "confident God would show the way to the White House." But, once again, she said neither of these things. In fact, what she actually said is rhetoric that is pretty much in accord with what even elected presidents have said at one time or another.
Unfortunately, we have arrived at a time when the default position for Democrats as a party is to despise religion even if individually they consider themselves religious. They consider any expression of religious sentiment whatsoever to be an example of "extremism," and "bigotry" against others. Well, at least the second any Republican expresses a religious sentiment, that is. When anyone from their side does it, they wink, nod and assume that their politician is just lying and merely trying to get elected and doesn't really mean it -- which is still an expression of a hatred for religion when all is said and done.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
ready to rule day 1
So says Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of Barack Obama's transition team. Part of Obama's "ruling" will be a quick succession of executive orders, news reports indicate. High on the list will be an order reversing President Bush's order that cleared the way for expanded offshore drilling.
The price of gasoline and heating oil has dropped off the radar screen somewhat as a political issue, but blocking the development of domestic energy reserves is absurdly short-sighted. As soon as the economy rebounds, so will the price of petroleum, and the high cost of energy will brake the recovery that is sure to come in the next 12 months. The Democrats must know this, but to the victors go the spoils, and the Dems have little choice, apparently, but to reward the interest groups who financed their victory.
Still, poll data indicate that even most Democrats favor more offshore drilling, so Obama's order will be a sop to the hard environmental left, not the Democratic base as a whole. Which explains why Obama will issue the order: in September, before the financial crisis took center stage and when John McCain was making energy a centerpiece of his campaign, Congressional Democrats let the statutory ban on offshore drilling expire.
By issuing an executive order banning development of this critical source of domestic energy, Obama will take the Democrats in Congress off the hook. They won't have to take the blame for the economic havoc wreaked by their party's fealty to the hysterical wing of the environmental movement. Obama figures, perhaps, that in four years no one will remember the implicit tax that he placed on everyone who drives a car, heats a home, or buys products in stores.
The price of gasoline and heating oil has dropped off the radar screen somewhat as a political issue, but blocking the development of domestic energy reserves is absurdly short-sighted. As soon as the economy rebounds, so will the price of petroleum, and the high cost of energy will brake the recovery that is sure to come in the next 12 months. The Democrats must know this, but to the victors go the spoils, and the Dems have little choice, apparently, but to reward the interest groups who financed their victory.
Still, poll data indicate that even most Democrats favor more offshore drilling, so Obama's order will be a sop to the hard environmental left, not the Democratic base as a whole. Which explains why Obama will issue the order: in September, before the financial crisis took center stage and when John McCain was making energy a centerpiece of his campaign, Congressional Democrats let the statutory ban on offshore drilling expire.
By issuing an executive order banning development of this critical source of domestic energy, Obama will take the Democrats in Congress off the hook. They won't have to take the blame for the economic havoc wreaked by their party's fealty to the hysterical wing of the environmental movement. Obama figures, perhaps, that in four years no one will remember the implicit tax that he placed on everyone who drives a car, heats a home, or buys products in stores.
Most affluent voters key to Obama sweep
Barack Obama promised he would lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans and presumably raise them for the 5 percent who benefited most under President Bush’s tax policies. But, remarkably, the most affluent 5 percent supported Obama and that was perhaps the key to his victory last week.
This group — and the rise of a new elite class of voters — is at the heart of the fast-paced changes in demographics affecting the political, sociological and economic landscape of the country. While there has been some inflation over the past 12 years, the exit poll demographics show that the fastest growing group of voters in America has been those making over $100,000 a year in income. In 1996, only 9 percent of the electorate said their family income was that high. Last week it had grown to 26 percent — more than one in four voters. And those making over $75,000 are up to 15 percent from 9 percent. Put another way, more than 40 percent of those voting earned over $75,000, making this the highest-income electorate in history.
The poorest segment of the electorate, those making under $15,000, has shrunk from 11 percent to 6 percent over the past dozen years. And those making $15,000 to $30,000 annually — the working poor — also shrunk from 23 percent to 12 percent of the electorate.
At the same time, the voters have become more racially diverse (with white voters dropping 9 points from 1996 to 74 percent of the electorate and minorities) and better educated — voters who had attended some college are surging.
While Obama received record votes from the expanded minority communities, that alone would not have led to victory had he not also secured so much support among the growing professional class — and in doing so went beyond the successful 1996 coalition that also climbed the income ladder to include newly targeted soccer moms. Back then, President Clinton got 38 percent of the vote among those making over $100,000. This year Obama earned 49 percent of that vote. He also got 52 percent of a new polling category — those making over $200,000 a year who were no longer among the top 1 percent of earners, as they had been in past elections, but were now the top 6 per cent.
And for all the talk about the surging youth vote, those under 29 went from 17 percent in 1996 and 17 percent in 2004 to a mere to 18 percent of the electorate today — and that youth surge was heavily fueled by the fact that the minority communities are much younger than their white counterparts. Of the 18 percent under age 29 who voted this year, 11 percent were white and 7 percent were minority.
So the fusion of expanded minority voting and the expanded upper class, combined with shifting demographics, were key to Obama’s victory. But while demographers have been predicting the growth in minority voting — especially the Latino increases — for decades, they did not predict the upscale income changes in the electorate or focus on them. Most people in America (over 80 percent) no matter what their income, say they are middle class, which is why that phrase is so powerful on the stump.
But 69 percent of all Americans in polls I conducted in recent years now also call themselves “professionals,” a new class transcending the old class labels or working or middle class or the wealthy. They have white-collar jobs requiring higher education and are earning more than ever before. Because of layoffs and business scandals of recent years, they have become increasingly embittered toward the corporate cultures that would have otherwise been their natural home base.
Unlike the small-businessman who is typically anti-government, these professionals come out of the era of the growth of global corporations believing more than ever before in government intervention, teamwork and collective action. They are the voters who favored the bailout, while the left and the right saw it as a betrayal of their fundamental principles.
These higher educated voters generally believe more in science than religion, in the interconnectedness of the world, and in pragmatism over ideology. They see us all living in a new world and are watching their kids enter it taking new economy kinds of jobs in places increasingly far away from home.
This group is at the core of voters receiving more of their information online and through cable TV in their offices all day long. As they leave many of the problems of working class life behind, this new class is easily captivated by the Sunday shows. What appears on the front pages has more impact on shaping their views than what they experience in their everyday life.
In the end when it comes to a congressional vote, will they support higher taxes if they have to pay them? That is a big question that remains to be seen – they could quickly fragment over the issue if it gets raised early in the Obama administration. And they part company with many other Obama supporters in believing that we need to compete and win in the global economy, seeing trade as a necessity for economic growth.
These new professionals in software, the media, consulting, and mid-management have now declared themselves to be Democrats. After seeing Clinton and Bush back to back, they have switched their votes as part of a rejection of the religious right, the war in Iraq, and laissez-faire economics.
The history of revolution usually parallels the history of rising, not falling incomes, and the middle class revolutions of 1848 brought many countries the democratic system in the first place. In the Obama revolution, the upper-classing of America took a front seat – the central question is whether they will remain there.
This group — and the rise of a new elite class of voters — is at the heart of the fast-paced changes in demographics affecting the political, sociological and economic landscape of the country. While there has been some inflation over the past 12 years, the exit poll demographics show that the fastest growing group of voters in America has been those making over $100,000 a year in income. In 1996, only 9 percent of the electorate said their family income was that high. Last week it had grown to 26 percent — more than one in four voters. And those making over $75,000 are up to 15 percent from 9 percent. Put another way, more than 40 percent of those voting earned over $75,000, making this the highest-income electorate in history.
The poorest segment of the electorate, those making under $15,000, has shrunk from 11 percent to 6 percent over the past dozen years. And those making $15,000 to $30,000 annually — the working poor — also shrunk from 23 percent to 12 percent of the electorate.
At the same time, the voters have become more racially diverse (with white voters dropping 9 points from 1996 to 74 percent of the electorate and minorities) and better educated — voters who had attended some college are surging.
While Obama received record votes from the expanded minority communities, that alone would not have led to victory had he not also secured so much support among the growing professional class — and in doing so went beyond the successful 1996 coalition that also climbed the income ladder to include newly targeted soccer moms. Back then, President Clinton got 38 percent of the vote among those making over $100,000. This year Obama earned 49 percent of that vote. He also got 52 percent of a new polling category — those making over $200,000 a year who were no longer among the top 1 percent of earners, as they had been in past elections, but were now the top 6 per cent.
And for all the talk about the surging youth vote, those under 29 went from 17 percent in 1996 and 17 percent in 2004 to a mere to 18 percent of the electorate today — and that youth surge was heavily fueled by the fact that the minority communities are much younger than their white counterparts. Of the 18 percent under age 29 who voted this year, 11 percent were white and 7 percent were minority.
So the fusion of expanded minority voting and the expanded upper class, combined with shifting demographics, were key to Obama’s victory. But while demographers have been predicting the growth in minority voting — especially the Latino increases — for decades, they did not predict the upscale income changes in the electorate or focus on them. Most people in America (over 80 percent) no matter what their income, say they are middle class, which is why that phrase is so powerful on the stump.
But 69 percent of all Americans in polls I conducted in recent years now also call themselves “professionals,” a new class transcending the old class labels or working or middle class or the wealthy. They have white-collar jobs requiring higher education and are earning more than ever before. Because of layoffs and business scandals of recent years, they have become increasingly embittered toward the corporate cultures that would have otherwise been their natural home base.
Unlike the small-businessman who is typically anti-government, these professionals come out of the era of the growth of global corporations believing more than ever before in government intervention, teamwork and collective action. They are the voters who favored the bailout, while the left and the right saw it as a betrayal of their fundamental principles.
These higher educated voters generally believe more in science than religion, in the interconnectedness of the world, and in pragmatism over ideology. They see us all living in a new world and are watching their kids enter it taking new economy kinds of jobs in places increasingly far away from home.
This group is at the core of voters receiving more of their information online and through cable TV in their offices all day long. As they leave many of the problems of working class life behind, this new class is easily captivated by the Sunday shows. What appears on the front pages has more impact on shaping their views than what they experience in their everyday life.
In the end when it comes to a congressional vote, will they support higher taxes if they have to pay them? That is a big question that remains to be seen – they could quickly fragment over the issue if it gets raised early in the Obama administration. And they part company with many other Obama supporters in believing that we need to compete and win in the global economy, seeing trade as a necessity for economic growth.
These new professionals in software, the media, consulting, and mid-management have now declared themselves to be Democrats. After seeing Clinton and Bush back to back, they have switched their votes as part of a rejection of the religious right, the war in Iraq, and laissez-faire economics.
The history of revolution usually parallels the history of rising, not falling incomes, and the middle class revolutions of 1848 brought many countries the democratic system in the first place. In the Obama revolution, the upper-classing of America took a front seat – the central question is whether they will remain there.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Good show of strong media bias, so sickening
Having run interference for Barack Obama throughout the campaign, the press is now preparing to do the same once he has been sworn in. A common theme, as the media anticipate Barack's ascendancy, is how tough he has it. Today's Associated Press account is typical: "Like Lincoln and FDR, Obama faces nation in crisis:"
All presidents are tested. Few walk into the Oval Office when the nation is in the throes of multiple crises.
Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President-elect Obama is facing a banking emergency.
Like Abraham Lincoln, Obama is trying to patch up national divisions. ...
"With two wars and an economic crisis, this is one step away from what Lincoln or FDR faced," said Terry Sullivan, associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Well, yes, I can see the analogies. Like Lincoln, Obama will take office confronted by a threat of secession and civil war from the states that supported his opponent. No, wait....
The better analogy must be Roosevelt, who took office with the nation more than two years into a depression and with unemployment at 25%. Hey, at 6.5%, we're a quarter of the way there! In addition, of course, not only did Roosevelt face a "banking crisis" of his own, he had to worry about fascism rising in Europe and the threat of world war.
The "two wars" meme is one we're hearing a lot, but by historical standards it's pretty silly. The war in Iraq is nearly won, while the Afghan conflict has so far claimed the lives of 609 American military personnel, every one of them a hero. But still: around 400,000 American servicemen died in World War II. Let's have a little sense of perspective here.
Actually, it isn't just Lincoln and Roosevelt who took office under more difficult conditions than Obama. Think of Truman; World War II was still raging and he had to decide to use atomic weapons to bring it to an end; beyond that, the Soviet threat was visible on the horizon. Or Eisenhower, who assumed office while the Korean War was going on. Or Richard Nixon: Vietnam and riots in the streets. Or Ronald Reagan, who began his Presidency with unemployment at 7.5 % and inflation at 12%. Was there a banking crisis? Oh yes, interest rates were at 18-20%. Now, THAT was an economic challenge! In addition, not only was the Cold War in full swing, the U.S. was losing with the Soviet Union advancing around the world.
It's not hard to understand what lies behind the current spate of articles on how tough Barack has it. Reporters and editors are preparing the battlefield. They are concerned that Obama's first year or two won't appear to be notably successful, so they're lining up excuses in advance. How long are they willing to continue to cut their candidate some slack?
Knowing his opening moves will be widely scrutinized, Obama tried to roll back expectations on election night.
"Our climb will be steep," he said. "We may not get there in one year or even in one term."
Yet he remained upbeat as did Roosevelt, who took the reins of a nation in the depths of the Depression.
That answers the question, I think. The press is already preparing to run interference for Obama's campaign for a second term.
PAUL adds: The two wars that Obama and his cheerleaders harp on have ensured that Obama won't have to deal with two regimes that attacked and/or abetted attacks on us and/or our allies during the presidencies of Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. The two wars are part of a larger effort that has routed terrorists around the world and vastly decreased the likelihood of a successful attack on the U.S. during Obama's administration.
Ironically, though, Obama actually does have it tough when it comes to one foreign situation that the Bush administration hasn't successfully handled -- Iran's substantial progress towards developing nuclear weapons. For obvious reasons, Obama and his cheerleaders are less inclined to portray this as a crisis. The AP story John links to above makes no mention of Iran.
All presidents are tested. Few walk into the Oval Office when the nation is in the throes of multiple crises.
Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President-elect Obama is facing a banking emergency.
Like Abraham Lincoln, Obama is trying to patch up national divisions. ...
"With two wars and an economic crisis, this is one step away from what Lincoln or FDR faced," said Terry Sullivan, associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Well, yes, I can see the analogies. Like Lincoln, Obama will take office confronted by a threat of secession and civil war from the states that supported his opponent. No, wait....
The better analogy must be Roosevelt, who took office with the nation more than two years into a depression and with unemployment at 25%. Hey, at 6.5%, we're a quarter of the way there! In addition, of course, not only did Roosevelt face a "banking crisis" of his own, he had to worry about fascism rising in Europe and the threat of world war.
The "two wars" meme is one we're hearing a lot, but by historical standards it's pretty silly. The war in Iraq is nearly won, while the Afghan conflict has so far claimed the lives of 609 American military personnel, every one of them a hero. But still: around 400,000 American servicemen died in World War II. Let's have a little sense of perspective here.
Actually, it isn't just Lincoln and Roosevelt who took office under more difficult conditions than Obama. Think of Truman; World War II was still raging and he had to decide to use atomic weapons to bring it to an end; beyond that, the Soviet threat was visible on the horizon. Or Eisenhower, who assumed office while the Korean War was going on. Or Richard Nixon: Vietnam and riots in the streets. Or Ronald Reagan, who began his Presidency with unemployment at 7.5 % and inflation at 12%. Was there a banking crisis? Oh yes, interest rates were at 18-20%. Now, THAT was an economic challenge! In addition, not only was the Cold War in full swing, the U.S. was losing with the Soviet Union advancing around the world.
It's not hard to understand what lies behind the current spate of articles on how tough Barack has it. Reporters and editors are preparing the battlefield. They are concerned that Obama's first year or two won't appear to be notably successful, so they're lining up excuses in advance. How long are they willing to continue to cut their candidate some slack?
Knowing his opening moves will be widely scrutinized, Obama tried to roll back expectations on election night.
"Our climb will be steep," he said. "We may not get there in one year or even in one term."
Yet he remained upbeat as did Roosevelt, who took the reins of a nation in the depths of the Depression.
That answers the question, I think. The press is already preparing to run interference for Obama's campaign for a second term.
PAUL adds: The two wars that Obama and his cheerleaders harp on have ensured that Obama won't have to deal with two regimes that attacked and/or abetted attacks on us and/or our allies during the presidencies of Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. The two wars are part of a larger effort that has routed terrorists around the world and vastly decreased the likelihood of a successful attack on the U.S. during Obama's administration.
Ironically, though, Obama actually does have it tough when it comes to one foreign situation that the Bush administration hasn't successfully handled -- Iran's substantial progress towards developing nuclear weapons. For obvious reasons, Obama and his cheerleaders are less inclined to portray this as a crisis. The AP story John links to above makes no mention of Iran.
The Importance of Being Careful
November 9, 2008 Posted by John at 10:04 AM
The only news Barack Obama made in his first post-election press conference was when, in a classless moment, he falsely ridiculed Nancy Reagan for holding "seances" in the White House. He was then compelled to call her to apologize for what he termed his "careless remark."
It appears that Obama may have been careless again yesterday, with international consequences. He spoke with the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, on the telephone. Afterward, Kaczynski wrote that Obama "said that the missile-defense project would continue." The Obama camp then released a statement to the effect that Obama had said no such thing: "President Kaczynski raised missile defense but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it."
It's possible that President Kaczynski deliberately misquoted Obama, but that seems highly unlikely. It's much more probable that Obama indulged in his usual ambiguity, failed to choose his words carefully, and thereby conveyed a misleading impression.
Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.
The only news Barack Obama made in his first post-election press conference was when, in a classless moment, he falsely ridiculed Nancy Reagan for holding "seances" in the White House. He was then compelled to call her to apologize for what he termed his "careless remark."
It appears that Obama may have been careless again yesterday, with international consequences. He spoke with the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, on the telephone. Afterward, Kaczynski wrote that Obama "said that the missile-defense project would continue." The Obama camp then released a statement to the effect that Obama had said no such thing: "President Kaczynski raised missile defense but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it."
It's possible that President Kaczynski deliberately misquoted Obama, but that seems highly unlikely. It's much more probable that Obama indulged in his usual ambiguity, failed to choose his words carefully, and thereby conveyed a misleading impression.
Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.
Another scarry thing said by russians about Obama as president.
Pravda records the enthusiastic reaction of Russian politicians toward the election of Barack Obama. Most perceptive, I think, is the head of Russia's Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov:
All Republican presidents have always defended national interests, ignoring the interests of other countries of the world. The new US president cannot but understand that it is impossible to seek and find answers to many global issues without the participation of such a great country as Russia.
All Republican presidents have always defended national interests, ignoring the interests of other countries of the world. The new US president cannot but understand that it is impossible to seek and find answers to many global issues without the participation of such a great country as Russia.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Puttin to return to Kremlin now that U.S will be weak under president Obama.
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev could resign from his post in 2009 to pave the way for Vladimir Putin to return to the Kremlin, Vedomosti newspaper reported on Thursday, citing an unidentified source close to the Kremlin.
Medvedev Wednesday proposed increasing the presidential term to six years from four years, a step the newspaper said was part of a plan drawn up by Vladislav Surkov, who serves as Medvedev's first deputy chief of staff.
Under the plan, Medvedev could implement changes to the constitution and unpopular social reforms "so that Putin could return to the Kremlin for a longer period," the newspaper said.
Medvedev Wednesday proposed increasing the presidential term to six years from four years, a step the newspaper said was part of a plan drawn up by Vladislav Surkov, who serves as Medvedev's first deputy chief of staff.
Under the plan, Medvedev could implement changes to the constitution and unpopular social reforms "so that Putin could return to the Kremlin for a longer period," the newspaper said.
Obama day 2
Market dropped 440 points. The businesses are very scared. The threat of tax increases and the raising of the capital gains taxes will lower the amount of money that investors will put in the market.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Israel-Hamas violence disrupts Gaza truce
Kassam attacks from Gaza continued on Wednesday afternoon with a rocket landing between Sderot and the Sha'ar Hanegev region. No one was wounded and no damage was reported.
Rockets and mortar shells fired into Israel after IDF counter-terror operation in Gaza
In total, some 40 Kassam rockets and mortar shells were fired since the IDF's counter-terror tunnel operation overnight Tuesday.
In what was the worst outbreak of violence since a shaky cease-fire took effect in June, two of the rockets hit Ashkelon, one landing near a school and sending six people into shock.
On Tuesday night, seven IDF soldiers were wounded and six gunmen were reported killed in clashes which erupted when IDF special forces entered Gaza in order to blow up a tunnel dug by Hamas terrorists for the purpose of kidnapping IDF soldiers.
Rockets and mortar shells fired into Israel after IDF counter-terror operation in Gaza
In total, some 40 Kassam rockets and mortar shells were fired since the IDF's counter-terror tunnel operation overnight Tuesday.
In what was the worst outbreak of violence since a shaky cease-fire took effect in June, two of the rockets hit Ashkelon, one landing near a school and sending six people into shock.
On Tuesday night, seven IDF soldiers were wounded and six gunmen were reported killed in clashes which erupted when IDF special forces entered Gaza in order to blow up a tunnel dug by Hamas terrorists for the purpose of kidnapping IDF soldiers.
President Dmitri Medvedev orders missiles deployed in Europe as world hails Obama
President Dmitri Medvedev took advantage of the euphoria in America today to order the deployment of missiles inside Europe as a response to US plans for a missile defence shield.
Speaking within hours of Barack Obama's election as the new US President, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad next to the border with Poland.
He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads. Mr Medvedev also cancelled earlier plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia.
"An Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region to neutralise if necessary the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe," Mr Medvedev said in his first state-of-the-nation address.
He added that Russia was also ready to deploy its navy and to install electronic jamming devices to interfere with the US shield, which involves the deployment of a radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.
Speaking within hours of Barack Obama's election as the new US President, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad next to the border with Poland.
He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads. Mr Medvedev also cancelled earlier plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia.
"An Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region to neutralise if necessary the anti-ballistic missile system in Europe," Mr Medvedev said in his first state-of-the-nation address.
He added that Russia was also ready to deploy its navy and to install electronic jamming devices to interfere with the US shield, which involves the deployment of a radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Sarah Palin cleared of all ethical wrong doing just before election.
Imagine this on the day before the election.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - This time, Gov. Sarah Palin can claim vindication against allegations that she abused her power in office by firing her public safety commissioner.
Palin - running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain - violated no ethics laws, according to a report released by the state personnel board on the eve of Election Day. An earlier, separate investigation by the Legislature found that Palin had abused her office.
"There is no probable cause to believe that the governor, or any other state official, violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters," the personnel board's report said.
"The Governor is grateful that this investigation has provided a fair and impartial review of this matter and upholds the Governor's ability to take measures when necessary to ensure that Alaskans have the best possible team working to serve them," her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said in a statement after the report was released Monday.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - This time, Gov. Sarah Palin can claim vindication against allegations that she abused her power in office by firing her public safety commissioner.
Palin - running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain - violated no ethics laws, according to a report released by the state personnel board on the eve of Election Day. An earlier, separate investigation by the Legislature found that Palin had abused her office.
"There is no probable cause to believe that the governor, or any other state official, violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters," the personnel board's report said.
"The Governor is grateful that this investigation has provided a fair and impartial review of this matter and upholds the Governor's ability to take measures when necessary to ensure that Alaskans have the best possible team working to serve them," her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said in a statement after the report was released Monday.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Who’s to blame for the financial crisis — and why does that matter?
The 109th Congress has become the focus of hindsight in the financial meltdown of the past few days. With perhaps as much as one trillion dollars in federal funds in play for bailouts under a Bush administration proposal, people want to know why no one saw this coming before now. As Kevin Hassett reports at Bloomberg, Congress had an opportunity to force better practices on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but some familiar names failed to act:
It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end.
Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission’s chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie’s position on the relevant accounting issue was not even “on the page” of allowable interpretations.
Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a “world-class regulator” that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.
Alan Greenspan told Congress that they needed to act, and quickly:
If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”
What happened? Despite moves from Republicans such as Chuck Hagel, John Sununu, Elizabeth Dole, and John McCain to get more regulatory oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress took no action. Why? Fannie and Freddie had already co-opted Chris Dodd with over $130,000 in campaign contributions over 20 years, and over $120,000 to Barack Obama over less than four years. Hillary Clinton took tens of thousands in eight years, and Chuck Schumer also opposed any new regulation on markets that Congress had forced open.
We can play blame games for the next several months and years, but what would be the point? In this case, there is a point, and it couldn’t be more clear or important. We have two candidates running for President who would bring much different styles to executive authority over regulatory responsibility. Barack Obama and his allies took the money and stayed on the sidelines rather than take proactive action to resolve the credit crisis. McCain and his co-sponsors of this bill had the right idea and instincts, but could not get any cooperation from Clinton, Schumer, or Obama.
Does this mean that Obama gets the entire blame for the financial crisis? Of course not; it’s shared among many people who failed to act, and some who acted poorly to create the problem in the first place by mandating loans to ill-qualified lenders and then allowed those loans to form the basis of widely-traded securities. McCain doesn’t become the sole protagonist in this morality play, either. However, this demonstrates the qualities of both judgment and leadership of both men — and those two qualities are critical for determining which man should be running the executive branch for the next four years.
It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end.
Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission’s chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie’s position on the relevant accounting issue was not even “on the page” of allowable interpretations.
Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a “world-class regulator” that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.
Alan Greenspan told Congress that they needed to act, and quickly:
If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”
What happened? Despite moves from Republicans such as Chuck Hagel, John Sununu, Elizabeth Dole, and John McCain to get more regulatory oversight on Fannie and Freddie, Congress took no action. Why? Fannie and Freddie had already co-opted Chris Dodd with over $130,000 in campaign contributions over 20 years, and over $120,000 to Barack Obama over less than four years. Hillary Clinton took tens of thousands in eight years, and Chuck Schumer also opposed any new regulation on markets that Congress had forced open.
We can play blame games for the next several months and years, but what would be the point? In this case, there is a point, and it couldn’t be more clear or important. We have two candidates running for President who would bring much different styles to executive authority over regulatory responsibility. Barack Obama and his allies took the money and stayed on the sidelines rather than take proactive action to resolve the credit crisis. McCain and his co-sponsors of this bill had the right idea and instincts, but could not get any cooperation from Clinton, Schumer, or Obama.
Does this mean that Obama gets the entire blame for the financial crisis? Of course not; it’s shared among many people who failed to act, and some who acted poorly to create the problem in the first place by mandating loans to ill-qualified lenders and then allowed those loans to form the basis of widely-traded securities. McCain doesn’t become the sole protagonist in this morality play, either. However, this demonstrates the qualities of both judgment and leadership of both men — and those two qualities are critical for determining which man should be running the executive branch for the next four years.
Dems Threaten Anti-Iran Rally Organizers With IRS Attack if They Let Palin Speak
News has emerged that the organizers of that anti-Iran rally that famously got snarled up in Senator Hillary Clinton's ire at Governor Sarah Palin last week were threatened by New York Democrats with IRS action against their tax-exempt status if they allowed Palin to speak. CBS local NY news reported this little fact and so did NBC but most of the national news has ignored this outrageous threat to use the IRS to silence Governor Palin.
Accusing New York Democrats of using "McCarthyism" to shut Palin down, Democrat Assemblyman Dov Hikind was flabbergasted by the behind the scenes threats against the rally organizers. "It's an absolute shame that this has happened," CBS quoted Hikind as saying. "To threaten organizations … to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don't withdraw the invitation to Gov. Palin we're going to look into your tax exempt status … that's McCarthyism."
Accusing New York Democrats of using "McCarthyism" to shut Palin down, Democrat Assemblyman Dov Hikind was flabbergasted by the behind the scenes threats against the rally organizers. "It's an absolute shame that this has happened," CBS quoted Hikind as saying. "To threaten organizations … to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don't withdraw the invitation to Gov. Palin we're going to look into your tax exempt status … that's McCarthyism."
Here is the speech that Sarah Palin was going to give today at the Anti Iran rally, before she was uninvited.
I am honored to be with you and with leaders from across this great country - leaders from different faiths and political parties united in a single voice of outrage.
Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York - to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan - and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for.
Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world. We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator's intentions and to call for action to thwart him.
He must be stopped.
The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a "Final Solution" - the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a "stinking corpse" that is "on its way to annihilation."
Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman -not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world.
The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year.
The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions. How has Ahmadinejad responded? With the declaration that the "Iranian nation would not retreat one iota" from its nuclear program.
So, what should we do about this growing threat? First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq.
If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons ? they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe.
But Iran is not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world. It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world's most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today. They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran's desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish.
Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran's official ideology and murder is part of its official policy. Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government's threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments.
It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens. By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under Ahmadinejad's rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens.
If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed. If she walks down a public street in clothing that violates the state dress code, she could be arrested.
But in the face of this harsh regime, the Iranian women have shown courage. Despite threats to their lives and their families, Iranian women have sought better treatment through the "One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws." The authorities have reacted with predictable barbarism. Last year, women's rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 20 lashes and 10 months in prison for committing the crime of "propaganda against the system." After international protests, the judiciary reduced her sentence to "only" 10 lashes and 36 months in prison and then temporarily suspended her sentence. She still faces the threat of imprisonment.
Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that "Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that" effort. Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. John McCain and I could not agree more.
Senator Clinton understands the nature of this threat and what we must do to confront it. This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Period. And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world to hear: Stop Iran!
Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime's dangerous behavior. Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran's behavior.
Tomorrow, Ahmadinejad will come to New York. On our soil, he will exercise the right of freedom of speech - a right he denies his own people. He will share his hateful agenda with the world. Our task is to focus the world on what can be done to stop him.
We must rally the world to press for truly tough sanctions at the U.N. or with our allies if Iran's allies continue to block action in the U.N. We must start with restrictions on Iran's refined petroleum imports. We must reduce our dependency on foreign oil to weaken Iran's economic influence.
We must target the regime's assets abroad; bank accounts, investments, and trading partners.
President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.
We must sanction Iran's Central Bank and the Revolutionary Guard Corps -which no one should doubt is a terrorist organization. Together, we can stop Iran's nuclear program.
Senator McCain has made a solemn commitment that I strongly endorse: Never again will we risk another Holocaust. And this is not a wish, a request, or a plea to Israel's enemies. This is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us. It is John McCain's promise and it is my promise.
Thank you.
Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York - to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan - and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for.
Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world. We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator's intentions and to call for action to thwart him.
He must be stopped.
The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a "Final Solution" - the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a "stinking corpse" that is "on its way to annihilation."
Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman -not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world.
The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year.
The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions. How has Ahmadinejad responded? With the declaration that the "Iranian nation would not retreat one iota" from its nuclear program.
So, what should we do about this growing threat? First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq.
If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran's nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons ? they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe.
But Iran is not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world. It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world's most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today. They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran's desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish.
Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran's official ideology and murder is part of its official policy. Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government's threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments.
It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens. By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under Ahmadinejad's rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens.
If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed. If she walks down a public street in clothing that violates the state dress code, she could be arrested.
But in the face of this harsh regime, the Iranian women have shown courage. Despite threats to their lives and their families, Iranian women have sought better treatment through the "One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws." The authorities have reacted with predictable barbarism. Last year, women's rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 20 lashes and 10 months in prison for committing the crime of "propaganda against the system." After international protests, the judiciary reduced her sentence to "only" 10 lashes and 36 months in prison and then temporarily suspended her sentence. She still faces the threat of imprisonment.
Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that "Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that" effort. Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. John McCain and I could not agree more.
Senator Clinton understands the nature of this threat and what we must do to confront it. This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Period. And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world to hear: Stop Iran!
Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime's dangerous behavior. Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran's behavior.
Tomorrow, Ahmadinejad will come to New York. On our soil, he will exercise the right of freedom of speech - a right he denies his own people. He will share his hateful agenda with the world. Our task is to focus the world on what can be done to stop him.
We must rally the world to press for truly tough sanctions at the U.N. or with our allies if Iran's allies continue to block action in the U.N. We must start with restrictions on Iran's refined petroleum imports. We must reduce our dependency on foreign oil to weaken Iran's economic influence.
We must target the regime's assets abroad; bank accounts, investments, and trading partners.
President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.
We must sanction Iran's Central Bank and the Revolutionary Guard Corps -which no one should doubt is a terrorist organization. Together, we can stop Iran's nuclear program.
Senator McCain has made a solemn commitment that I strongly endorse: Never again will we risk another Holocaust. And this is not a wish, a request, or a plea to Israel's enemies. This is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us. It is John McCain's promise and it is my promise.
Thank you.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Here is an excerpt from the resource for Catholic Educators
Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This 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:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. Catechism of the Catholic Church - CCC 2271
And here is Nanci Pelosi with her version of what this says.
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. Catechism of the Catholic Church - CCC 2271
And here is Nanci Pelosi with her version of what this says.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
There is no doubt that there is a huge media bias toward the Republicans.
The amazing thing is that they still won't admit it.
On Sunday, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell noticed in passing an obvious example of front-page Obama favoritism in the Post. On Thursday, the huge McCain-Palin rally in suburban Fairfax, Virginia, with an estimated crowd of 23,000 reported in the story, was bizarrely placed on the front page of the Metro section. On June 6, the Post put an Obama rally in Virginia at the Nissan Pavilian concert venue with an estimated attendance of 10,000 people on the front page. (Actually, they offered two front-page stories.) How does the Post defend itself?
Then McCain and Palin's large Fairfax County rally was on the Metro section front page Thursday; a June 6 rally for Obama at Nissan Pavilion was on Page A1. [Assistant managing editor Ed] Thiede said, "We had a busier day with more competing for A1 play Wednesday, including a main art package commemorating the opening of the Sept. 11 memorial." These are logical answers in a newsroom, but they don't cut it with Republican-leaning readers, especially when, as I've reported, Obama has had a preponderance of Page 1 stories and photos throughout the paper.
The New York Times is clearly in full meltdown mode concerning the popularity of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and is having a hard time covering up its obvious state of panic.
In its popular Sunday edition, the Gray Lady published four hit pieces about the Alaska Governor: a 3,100-word article prominently placed on the front page; two scathing columns by Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, and; an article questioning Palin's husband's role in their state's government.
That's over 6,000 words about the vice presidential nominee, most of them quite hostile as evidenced by the following from Dowd's piece (emphasis added):
On Sunday, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell noticed in passing an obvious example of front-page Obama favoritism in the Post. On Thursday, the huge McCain-Palin rally in suburban Fairfax, Virginia, with an estimated crowd of 23,000 reported in the story, was bizarrely placed on the front page of the Metro section. On June 6, the Post put an Obama rally in Virginia at the Nissan Pavilian concert venue with an estimated attendance of 10,000 people on the front page. (Actually, they offered two front-page stories.) How does the Post defend itself?
Then McCain and Palin's large Fairfax County rally was on the Metro section front page Thursday; a June 6 rally for Obama at Nissan Pavilion was on Page A1. [Assistant managing editor Ed] Thiede said, "We had a busier day with more competing for A1 play Wednesday, including a main art package commemorating the opening of the Sept. 11 memorial." These are logical answers in a newsroom, but they don't cut it with Republican-leaning readers, especially when, as I've reported, Obama has had a preponderance of Page 1 stories and photos throughout the paper.
The New York Times is clearly in full meltdown mode concerning the popularity of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and is having a hard time covering up its obvious state of panic.
In its popular Sunday edition, the Gray Lady published four hit pieces about the Alaska Governor: a 3,100-word article prominently placed on the front page; two scathing columns by Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, and; an article questioning Palin's husband's role in their state's government.
That's over 6,000 words about the vice presidential nominee, most of them quite hostile as evidenced by the following from Dowd's piece (emphasis added):
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Here is a great aticle on Obamas ideas on the economy.
Author Bio
Letter to the Editor
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Political Hay
Barack’s Failed Euronomics
By Ralph R. Reiland
Published 9/12/2008 12:07:50 AM
The top concern of voters this year is the economy, with 40 percent of respondents in a recent New York Times/CBS News poll rating the "economy and jobs" as their primary issue in the election and another 15 percent ranking the economic issues of "gas prices and energy policy" as their chief concern.
That combined total of 55 percent is more than double the 21 percent of respondents who ranked "terrorism and national security" as their chief concern.
The bad news for Republicans is that these surveyed voters said Barack Obama would be better than John McCain at handling the economy.
"Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they were confident that Mr. Obama would make the right decisions on the economy, compared with 54 percent who expressed confidence that Mr. McCain would," reported the Times.
"Voters are more negative about the condition of the nation's economy in this election year than they have been at any time since 1992, when Bill Clinton unseated an incumbent president by running an 'it's the economy, stupid' campaign," reported the Times.
Moreover, nearly half of the poll's respondents said they expected Sen. McCain to continue the policies of President George Bush (while only 9 percent agreed that he should).
Obama, adding to the negativity about the economy in order to sell "change," regularly portrays the U.S. economy as in a state of near-collapse. "Economic disaster is already here," he declared at a recent campaign stop in Virginia.
In fact, the economy is not in a state of "disaster," and "change" in the wrong direction would only make things worse.
With high gas prices, for instance, the most likely consequence of Obama's calls for restrictions on drilling and higher taxes on oil companies would be less supply and even higher prices at the pump.
KEITH MARSDEN PROVIDES a more accurate and less-politicized description of the current condition of the American economy than the picture Obama paints at his rallies.
On the global level, Marsden, a senior economist at the International Labor Organization, a former economic adviser at the World Bank and a fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, reports that "U.S. output has expanded faster than in most advanced economies over the eight years of George Bush's presidency."
More precisely, the latest Eurostat report from the European Commission regarding the change in economic growth in the second quarter of 2008 compared to the first quarter shows that the U.S. economy was up by 0.5 percent while the Euro zone taken as a whole declined by 0.2 percent. "It marked the first time since the early 1990s that GDP has fallen overall in the 15 countries that use the euro," reported the Wall Street Journal.
Moving in the opposite direction of the increase in growth in the U.S. economy, the percentage change in the growth rates in the second quarter of this year in Italy, France, Germany and Japan were universally negative at, respectively, -0.3, -0.3, -0.5, and -0.6 percent.
On income, the World Development Indications 2008 report from the World Bank shows national income per capita in the U.S. to now be approximately a third higher than in England, Germany or Japan.
Obama, arguing that the distribution of U.S. incomes is increasingly "unfair," is calling for redistribution by way of higher taxes at the top and more government subsidies at the bottom. In fact, the latest World Bank figures "show that the richest 20 percent of U.S. households had a 45.8 percent share of total income, similar to the levels in the U.K. (44.0 percent) and Israel (44.9 percent)," reports Marsden, while in "65 other countries the richest quintile had a larger share than in the United States."
With jobs, the U.S. unemployment rate averaged 4.7 percent from 2001 to 2007. "This compares with a 5.2 percent average rate during President Clinton's terms in office," reports Marsden, "and is well below the euro zone average of 8.3 percent since 2000."
Obama, pursuing "social justice," is calling for a euro-style economic strategy of more taxes, more protectionism, more unionism, and more regulations -- the exact formula of community organizing that's produced slow economic growth and high unemployment throughout Europe.
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Letter to the Editor
Print This Article
Email This Article
About RSS Feeds
Political Hay
Barack’s Failed Euronomics
By Ralph R. Reiland
Published 9/12/2008 12:07:50 AM
The top concern of voters this year is the economy, with 40 percent of respondents in a recent New York Times/CBS News poll rating the "economy and jobs" as their primary issue in the election and another 15 percent ranking the economic issues of "gas prices and energy policy" as their chief concern.
That combined total of 55 percent is more than double the 21 percent of respondents who ranked "terrorism and national security" as their chief concern.
The bad news for Republicans is that these surveyed voters said Barack Obama would be better than John McCain at handling the economy.
"Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they were confident that Mr. Obama would make the right decisions on the economy, compared with 54 percent who expressed confidence that Mr. McCain would," reported the Times.
"Voters are more negative about the condition of the nation's economy in this election year than they have been at any time since 1992, when Bill Clinton unseated an incumbent president by running an 'it's the economy, stupid' campaign," reported the Times.
Moreover, nearly half of the poll's respondents said they expected Sen. McCain to continue the policies of President George Bush (while only 9 percent agreed that he should).
Obama, adding to the negativity about the economy in order to sell "change," regularly portrays the U.S. economy as in a state of near-collapse. "Economic disaster is already here," he declared at a recent campaign stop in Virginia.
In fact, the economy is not in a state of "disaster," and "change" in the wrong direction would only make things worse.
With high gas prices, for instance, the most likely consequence of Obama's calls for restrictions on drilling and higher taxes on oil companies would be less supply and even higher prices at the pump.
KEITH MARSDEN PROVIDES a more accurate and less-politicized description of the current condition of the American economy than the picture Obama paints at his rallies.
On the global level, Marsden, a senior economist at the International Labor Organization, a former economic adviser at the World Bank and a fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, reports that "U.S. output has expanded faster than in most advanced economies over the eight years of George Bush's presidency."
More precisely, the latest Eurostat report from the European Commission regarding the change in economic growth in the second quarter of 2008 compared to the first quarter shows that the U.S. economy was up by 0.5 percent while the Euro zone taken as a whole declined by 0.2 percent. "It marked the first time since the early 1990s that GDP has fallen overall in the 15 countries that use the euro," reported the Wall Street Journal.
Moving in the opposite direction of the increase in growth in the U.S. economy, the percentage change in the growth rates in the second quarter of this year in Italy, France, Germany and Japan were universally negative at, respectively, -0.3, -0.3, -0.5, and -0.6 percent.
On income, the World Development Indications 2008 report from the World Bank shows national income per capita in the U.S. to now be approximately a third higher than in England, Germany or Japan.
Obama, arguing that the distribution of U.S. incomes is increasingly "unfair," is calling for redistribution by way of higher taxes at the top and more government subsidies at the bottom. In fact, the latest World Bank figures "show that the richest 20 percent of U.S. households had a 45.8 percent share of total income, similar to the levels in the U.K. (44.0 percent) and Israel (44.9 percent)," reports Marsden, while in "65 other countries the richest quintile had a larger share than in the United States."
With jobs, the U.S. unemployment rate averaged 4.7 percent from 2001 to 2007. "This compares with a 5.2 percent average rate during President Clinton's terms in office," reports Marsden, "and is well below the euro zone average of 8.3 percent since 2000."
Obama, pursuing "social justice," is calling for a euro-style economic strategy of more taxes, more protectionism, more unionism, and more regulations -- the exact formula of community organizing that's produced slow economic growth and high unemployment throughout Europe.
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Another example of the peacfulness of Islam.
Our Friends the Saudis: 'It Is Permissible to Kill Them'
Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 9:07:54 am PDT
The chief of Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Judiciary Council has issued a fatwa letting Muslims know that if a TV channel airs “immoral” content during Ramadan, it’s OK to murder the owners.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.
The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the “deviance of thousands of people.” ...
Al-Lihedan was answering listeners’ questions during the daily “Light in the Path” radio program in which he and others make rulings on what is permissible under Islamic law. One caller asked about Islam’s view of the owners of satellite TV channels that show “bad programs” during Ramadan.
“I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls for such indecency and impudence ... and I warn them of the consequences,” he said.
“What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?” he said.
“Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it’s permissible to kill them,” he said. “Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but don’t, it is permissible to kill them.”
Religion of peace!
Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 9:07:54 am PDT
The chief of Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Judiciary Council has issued a fatwa letting Muslims know that if a TV channel airs “immoral” content during Ramadan, it’s OK to murder the owners.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.
The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the “deviance of thousands of people.” ...
Al-Lihedan was answering listeners’ questions during the daily “Light in the Path” radio program in which he and others make rulings on what is permissible under Islamic law. One caller asked about Islam’s view of the owners of satellite TV channels that show “bad programs” during Ramadan.
“I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls for such indecency and impudence ... and I warn them of the consequences,” he said.
“What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?” he said.
“Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it’s permissible to kill them,” he said. “Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but don’t, it is permissible to kill them.”
Religion of peace!
Perfect example of why the top femenists are so full of crap. Palin is exactly what they have been saying for decades that they want.
Feminist Army Aims at Palin
By Jonah Goldberg
Whether or not Sarah Palin helps John McCain win the election, her greatest work may already be behind her. She's exposed the feminist con job.
Don't take my word for it. Feminists have been screaming like stuck pigs 24/7 since Palin was announced as McCain's running mate. (Are pig metaphors completely verboten now?)
Feminist author Cintra Wilson writes in Salon (a house organ of the angry left) that the notion of Palin as vice president is "akin to ideological brain rape." Presumably just before the nurse upped the dosage on her medication, Wilson continued, "Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She's such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it's easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism."
And that's one of the nicer things she had to say. Really.
On Tuesday, Salon ran one article calling Palin a dominatrix ("a whip-wielding mistress") and another labeling her a sexually repressed fundamentalist no different from the Muslim fanatics and terrorists of Hamas. Make up your minds, folks. Is she a seductress or a sex-a-phobe?
But this any-weapon-near-to-hand approach is an obvious sign of how scared the Palin-o-phobes are.
Gloria Steinem, the grand mufti of feminism, issued a fatwa anathematizing Palin. A National Organization for Women spokeswoman proclaimed Palin more of a man than a woman. Wendy Doniger, a feminist academic at the University of Chicago, writes of Palin in Newsweek: "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."
It's funny. The left has been whining about having their patriotism questioned for so long it feels like they started griping in the Mesozoic era. Feminists have argued for decades that womanhood is an existential and metaphysical state of enlightenment. But they have no problem questioning whether women they hate are really women at all.
Since we know from basic science that Palin is a woman -- she's had five kids, for starters -- it's clear that these ideological thugs aren't talking about actual, you know, facts. They're doing what people of totalitarian mind-sets always do: bully heretics, demonize enemies, whip the troops into line.
The academic feminist left has scared the dickens out of mainstream men and women for so long, the liberal establishment is terrified to contradict feminists' nigh-upon-theological conviction that female authenticity is measured by one's blind loyalty to left-wing talking points. This is a version of the Marxist doctrine of "false consciousness," which holds that you aren't an authentic member of the proletariat unless you agree with Marxism.
It works like this: If you don't agree with feminist scolds, you're not a real woman, even if you're a very feminine working mom. But even if you're an actual man -- never mind a childless feminist who looks like a Bulgarian weightlifter in drag -- you're a "real woman" solely because you nod your head like a windup clapping monkey every time you read the latest editorial in Ms. Recall how they christened Bill Clinton the "first female president," too.
But here's the fun part. Feminists are hooked on their own Kool-Aid; they actually believe the stuff they say. The shrill, angry women you see on MSNBC claiming to speak for all women actually think they do. But they don't. They speak for a few left-leaning women in faculty lounges, editorial boardrooms and that's about it.
Mainstream liberals have been in captivity for so long, eagerly accepting their ritual beatings, that they've gotten Stockholm Syndrome and convinced themselves that Gloria Steinem and Co. are the authentic voices of women everywhere.
Stop laughing.
The reality is that there is an actual reality out there, and it doesn't look anything like what feminists see beyond the rims of their ideological blinders.
For instance, immediately after the Palin announcement, the priestesses not only ruled it "sexist" for McCain to pick a woman but also said it was strategically dumb -- "insulting to women!" -- to think any real women would switch support from the beatified Obama to that old devil McCain.
Well, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, there's been a 20-point swing among white women from Obama-Biden to McCain-Palin. Did this "ideological brain rape" suddenly induce an epidemic of false consciousness?
Of course not. Nor are women mindlessly switching loyalties because there's a woman on the ticket. What the Palin pick has demonstrated, however, is that the Feminist-Industrial Complex is a fraud. Disagreeing with self-described feminists doesn't mean you're anti-woman. Usually it just means you're sensible.
And for that lesson alone, we should all be grateful.
By Jonah Goldberg
Whether or not Sarah Palin helps John McCain win the election, her greatest work may already be behind her. She's exposed the feminist con job.
Don't take my word for it. Feminists have been screaming like stuck pigs 24/7 since Palin was announced as McCain's running mate. (Are pig metaphors completely verboten now?)
Feminist author Cintra Wilson writes in Salon (a house organ of the angry left) that the notion of Palin as vice president is "akin to ideological brain rape." Presumably just before the nurse upped the dosage on her medication, Wilson continued, "Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She's such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it's easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism."
And that's one of the nicer things she had to say. Really.
On Tuesday, Salon ran one article calling Palin a dominatrix ("a whip-wielding mistress") and another labeling her a sexually repressed fundamentalist no different from the Muslim fanatics and terrorists of Hamas. Make up your minds, folks. Is she a seductress or a sex-a-phobe?
But this any-weapon-near-to-hand approach is an obvious sign of how scared the Palin-o-phobes are.
Gloria Steinem, the grand mufti of feminism, issued a fatwa anathematizing Palin. A National Organization for Women spokeswoman proclaimed Palin more of a man than a woman. Wendy Doniger, a feminist academic at the University of Chicago, writes of Palin in Newsweek: "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."
It's funny. The left has been whining about having their patriotism questioned for so long it feels like they started griping in the Mesozoic era. Feminists have argued for decades that womanhood is an existential and metaphysical state of enlightenment. But they have no problem questioning whether women they hate are really women at all.
Since we know from basic science that Palin is a woman -- she's had five kids, for starters -- it's clear that these ideological thugs aren't talking about actual, you know, facts. They're doing what people of totalitarian mind-sets always do: bully heretics, demonize enemies, whip the troops into line.
The academic feminist left has scared the dickens out of mainstream men and women for so long, the liberal establishment is terrified to contradict feminists' nigh-upon-theological conviction that female authenticity is measured by one's blind loyalty to left-wing talking points. This is a version of the Marxist doctrine of "false consciousness," which holds that you aren't an authentic member of the proletariat unless you agree with Marxism.
It works like this: If you don't agree with feminist scolds, you're not a real woman, even if you're a very feminine working mom. But even if you're an actual man -- never mind a childless feminist who looks like a Bulgarian weightlifter in drag -- you're a "real woman" solely because you nod your head like a windup clapping monkey every time you read the latest editorial in Ms. Recall how they christened Bill Clinton the "first female president," too.
But here's the fun part. Feminists are hooked on their own Kool-Aid; they actually believe the stuff they say. The shrill, angry women you see on MSNBC claiming to speak for all women actually think they do. But they don't. They speak for a few left-leaning women in faculty lounges, editorial boardrooms and that's about it.
Mainstream liberals have been in captivity for so long, eagerly accepting their ritual beatings, that they've gotten Stockholm Syndrome and convinced themselves that Gloria Steinem and Co. are the authentic voices of women everywhere.
Stop laughing.
The reality is that there is an actual reality out there, and it doesn't look anything like what feminists see beyond the rims of their ideological blinders.
For instance, immediately after the Palin announcement, the priestesses not only ruled it "sexist" for McCain to pick a woman but also said it was strategically dumb -- "insulting to women!" -- to think any real women would switch support from the beatified Obama to that old devil McCain.
Well, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, there's been a 20-point swing among white women from Obama-Biden to McCain-Palin. Did this "ideological brain rape" suddenly induce an epidemic of false consciousness?
Of course not. Nor are women mindlessly switching loyalties because there's a woman on the ticket. What the Palin pick has demonstrated, however, is that the Feminist-Industrial Complex is a fraud. Disagreeing with self-described feminists doesn't mean you're anti-woman. Usually it just means you're sensible.
And for that lesson alone, we should all be grateful.
Obama now hitting Mccain because of POW injuries
The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Read this from Rush on 9/11
RUSH: This is the seventh anniversary of the terror attacks on September 11th of 2001. Everybody says you shouldn't politicize this day. Sorry, can't help it. My remembrances of the September 11th attacks do not just stop on the day of 9/11. There have been a lot of things that have happened since those attacks, and I think we need to remind ourselves of them, because it was seven years ago, ladies and gentlemen, that we were blindsided. Nineteen terrorists possessed by evil, hijacked our airplanes using box cutters. They stopped an election that was taking place in New York City. They brought down the twin towers. They blew a hole in the Pentagon. They crashed a plane in Pennsylvania that they were trying to get back to Washington to crash into either the Capitol or the White House. At the end of it all, nearly 3,000 Americans were dead. But up 'til that point, Al-Qaeda's war on America had already claimed hundreds of American lives, through embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, and countless other attacks.
The Clinton administration treated them as criminal cases, deliberately handicapping and handcuffing our intelligence agencies, and eschewed any kind of a strong military response. And, of course, Jamie Gorelick, the then vice attorney general, whatever, deputy attorney general, erected the now famous wall that prevented the CIA and the FBI from sharing information because they were gathering it in grand jury testimony, which must remain private and secret, limiting our ability to figure out what was up, what was next. In the immediate hours after the 9/11 attacks, Drive-By journalists sneered that President Bush was running scared aboard Air Force One. The late Peter Jennings lamented on ABC, after the president spoke, (paraphrasing) "It's just obvious some presidents are better at this than others," referring to, of course, Bill Clinton. Within days, ladies and gentlemen, Clinton associates were quoted as saying they wished these attacks had occurred on Clinton's watch so he could have had a chance at greatness, so that something momentous would have happened on his watch. The Democrat leader, Tom Daschle, attacked George Bush in the days after the attacks, within weeks, two weeks, for doing nothing.
On the day that Daschle launched his attack into Bush for not doing anything, Bush was planning that very attack. Daschle's attack on Bush for doing nothing came on the eve of our military operations in Afghanistan. Democrat political memos suggested that the president's popularity could be diminished by branding him a liar on weapons of mass destruction and any number of other things. The Democrat Party began to politicize this event within days. They were doing everything they could to come up with a strategy, to end up blaming this on Bush, head into the 2002 elections so that they could retake the House and the Senate. Democratic political memos, in addition to suggesting that Bush could be branded a liar, Democrat political memos surfaced from Jay Rockefeller, strategizing how to use the war for political gain, and I, to this day, have that memo from Jay Rockefeller on my desktop of this computer in my studio here at the EIB Southern Command. I have not filed it away so that it will be tough to find, and even with my Spotlight search feature, I have put it on my desktop, and it's never left.
Hillary Clinton echoed the conspiracy-based claim that Bush knew about the attacks beforehand. We had a Democrat-voting poet laureate from New Jersey claiming the Jews did it because all of the Jews got out of the World Trade Center. The Drive-By Media amplified this guy's theory. All over the place, theories were expounded and amplified that suggested George W. Bush not only knew about it, but if he knew about it, he had to be in on it, let it happen. The Democrat Party seized after just a couple days, couple weeks the opportunity of these attacks on 9/11 to politicize everything so as to reacquire their power, and they did not stop, and they have not stopped for seven years. Left-wing Hollywood's revisionist history movie, Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11 was released. It won the big award at the Cannes Film Festival. I am convinced to this day that to whatever extent the American president, our population, our country is hated and despised around the world, it's because of who around the world has seen that lying propaganda piece of garbage movie that Michael Moore made. And then Jay Rockefeller's memo surfaced.
Seven years later, where are we? The president's property is diminished, video of the 9/11 attacks rarely seen, although MSNBC today replayed it all in real time. Our victories in this war on terror are downplayed. Let us not forget that the Democrat Party sought defeat in Iraq. They were waving the white flag of surrender. They were condemning our troops. They were suggesting our troops were rapists, murderers, and thugs. They were compared to Nazi thugs. Meanwhile, the same Democrat Party doing that embraced the rights, the congressional rights, the US constitutional rights, I should say, of the people who wanted to do to us again what they had done to us on 9/11. They became the sympathetic figures. We became the brutes. We were violating their rights. They were planning numerous 9/11s, but they haven't happened, have they? There have been no more attacks on this country. Not one train's been attacked, not one bus, not one bomb has made it through a port, not one airplane's been hijacked. We don't know how many terrorist attempts have been blocked because we cannot brag about our successes. We can only brag or publicize our failures, which the Democrat Party is willing to do.
Even to this day, the Democrat Party, as a political item in its new platform is claiming we are no safer. In fact, we are at greater risk than we've ever about, despite the fact they have done nothing to help protect this country. They've ended up voting for things, but they opposed them. When the rubber hit the road, the Democrats did the right thing, but not until they had ginned up so much anti-American hatred within this country, so much anti-administration hatred, so much anti-war fervor with their buddies in the Drive-By Media. Our victories have been profound. They have been downplayed. But the truth is that tens of thousands of Al-Qaeda terrorists are dead. There have been no more attacks on American soil. That, among the remembrances of the dead and the recollections of where you were and what you were feeling and what you saw that day, in addition that those, remember one thing: despite anything you've heard from the Democrats and their associates in the Drive-By Media for the last seven years, not one more attack on American soil has occurred. Remember that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, let's not forget one thing on this, the seventh anniversary of 9/11: The Reverend Jeremiah Wright from the pulpit of his church in Chicago, saying we deserved it. "America's chickensssss have come home to roost." We are digging that audio sound bite of the archives even as we speak. From CBS News: "As the nation marks the seventh anniversary of 9/11, most Americans believe the U.S. is adequately prepared to deal with another terrorist attack against the country, according to a new CBS News poll. In the poll, 52 percent said they thought the U.S. was adequately prepared," meaning, ladies and gentlemen, that the efforts on the part of the Democrats to convince people here that we are less safe than ever before have not succeeded. The Washington Post today, Michael Abrahamowitz: "Terrorism Fades as Issue in 2008 Campaign, Reflects the Changing Attention of the Electorate."
No, that's not what's going on. He said "the shift reflects a nod to the changing attention of the electorate." No. The reason why so few people named terrorism as the number one issue is because of the success of the Bush administration -- despite being fought by Americans in the Senate, Americans in the legal community, George W. Bush -- has had to overcome two enemies here in securing the safety of this country, and he's done so to the extent that most people now think we're adequately prepared and they have freedom of mind, peace of mind to go ahead and pursue other interests such as the economy. The San Francisco Chronicle, Matthew Stainard writing: "Terrorism Takes Back Seat to Economy." It's a Gallup poll. Only 2% say that terrorism is a problem. Thirty-eight percent say that they are "at least somewhat worried."
An ABC poll is not good for Democrats overall: "56% of the American people say that significant strides toward bringing order in Iraq have taken place," and even 38% of Democrats agree with that. So here we are: the Democrat Party, as led by Obama and Biden, is imploding. They're unhinged. They are falling apart, and every effort they have made over the past seven years to steer public opinion against this country, against the war on terror, against the war in Iraq, has been a failure, if we go by this polls.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the official pastor to Barack and Michelle Obama and their two little girls discussing 9/11.
WRIGHT: Not God bless America, God (bleep) America. It's in the Bible. They're killing innocent people. God (bleep) America. And now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.
RUSH: Obama's official pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his thoughts on what happened on 9/11, on this, the seventh anniversary of 9/11.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to again, for those of you who were not here at the beginning of the program, I want to revisit thoughts earlier expressed on this, the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Because we're told that we're not supposed to politicize this, we can't bring any politics into this. I steadfastly reject that notion because 9/11 was not just something that happened on one day. There has been a seven-year aftermath that I think we should all remember. True, on 9/11, seven years ago, we were blindsided. Nineteen terrorists possessed by evil hijacked our airplanes with box cutters and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. They blew a hole in the Pentagon, and they crashed a plane outside Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, which they were attempting to turn around and either hit the Capitol building or the White House. At the end of that day, 3,000 Americans were dead. But that wasn't the first day of such attacks on Americans.
Al-Qaeda's war on America had already claimed hundreds of lives by then. We just hadn't accepted the reality of it. They had claimed these lives via embassy bombings, the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and countless other attacks. But the Clinton administration treated all of these cases as criminal cases, deliberately handicapping our intelligence agencies and forgoing a strong military response, and even Jamie Gorelick who was the deputy attorney general at the time famously constructed the wall between the intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the FBI and the DIA because they were conducting all these investigations as part of grand juries and that meant secrecy, so whatever was learned in grand jury testimony could not be shared. So our intelligence agencies were behind.
Now, in the immediate hours after the 9/11 attacks, Drive-By Media journalists sneered. I mean, this was the same day, Drive-By Media journalists were sneering that President Bush was running scared aboard Air Force One. The late Peter Jennings of ABC said on the air after the president's speech, "Well, it's just the case that some presidents are better at this than others," meaning, Bill Clinton, of course. Within days, various associates of Bill Clinton were quoted wishing the attacks had occurred on his watch so that Bill Clinton could have had a chance at greatness. The Democrat leader Tom Daschle attacked Bush for doing nothing on what turned out to be the eve of our military operations in Afghanistan. Once again, looking like a fool, 'cause that was back in the day, by the way, where the Democrats wanted to look tough. They wanted to look like they could be counted on to defend the country. And, by the way, there's polling data out, and I have it in the stack here, they have lost ground in the area of the American people trusting them on national security and their willingness to defend the country. I'll find it in a second.
Daschle and the boys, they wanted to look really tough, all over Bush's case for not doing anything about it, and it happened they opened a door right into their nose again, bloodied their nose themselves, stepped right in the bag of manure because the very day Daschle's out there whining and moaning, the next day our operations at Tora Bora began. Democrat political memos suggested, strategic political memos suggested that the president's popularity could be diminished by branding him a liar in all of this. Hillary Clinton echoed the conspiracy-based claim that Bush knew about the attacks beforehand. In a poll that was just referenced here some two years ago, 35% of Democrats, 35% of the American electorate believe that Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened. And if they think that, then they have to also admit that they think Bush let it happen. Left-wing Hollywood's revisionist history movie Fahrenheit 9/11 by the bloated bigot Michael Moore, that movie was released, it got the big award over at the Cannes Film Festival, played all over the world, and I am convinced to this day that to what degree this country is hated and despised and that Bush is hated and despised could be laid at the feet of the lying, stinking propaganda put out by Michael Moore in that movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Let us not forget that Michael Moore only recently said -- and was one of many Democrats who was gleeful over the fact that Hurricane Gustav would roll into New Orleans -- and was God's gift to Democrats. He forgot that Hurricane Gustav had rolled through Cuba, his favorite country, and had wreaked havoc there, even as it missed New Orleans.
The degree of hate for this country expressed the last seven years by the Democrat Party and its associates, the desire for defeat of the United States and its military by the Democrat Party and its associates has been constant. It has been a loud, swelling drumbeat that we have not been able to escape. "This war is lost," on the eve of the surge, said Harry Reid. They accused General Petraeus of lying before he has opened his mouth in testimony before House and Senate committees. I could go on and on. Jay Rockefeller and his memo to Democrats strategizing how to use the war for Democrat Party political gain. I have that memo right on the top of my desktop. I have not filed it away in case I need immediate access to it. So here we are seven years later, after having our troops compared to Nazi thugs by Dick Durbin, having our troops compared by Dick Durbin to people who ran the Soviet gulags and Pol Pot's killing fields. We have the same Democrat Party feeling sorry for terrorists, wanting them to have constitutional rights, wanting them to have Miranda rights read to them on the battlefield.
The American judicial system, the legal community, many of which populated by Democrats, have sought to co-opt commander-in-chief duties in prosecuting the war on terror for themselves. The ACLU and other interested civil rights groups have gone to court to prevent any intelligence-gathering information that would help to secure this country further. The Democrat Party and its associates have very publicly, very loudly, very blatantly, very openly, campaigned against victory. They have sought to foment hatred for this country around the world. Their talking points the last seven years are no different than those that come out of the mouth from the latest tape from Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or even Hugo Chavez, just to name four. And they aren't the slightest bit embarrassed that people who hate us and our enemies echo their own Democrat talking points. So after all of this, seven years later, the president's popularity is diminished, video of the 9/11 attacks is rarely seen, we're told it's too soon, it's too emotionally upsetting, we can't see this.
The Democrat Party is for the last seven years trying to convince everybody we can go back to a pre-9/11 frame of mind and mind-set. I can't think of too many security measures that they have openly supported. I can only think of security measures they have been forced into accepting. Wiretaps, phone calls, international phone calls, trying to find out what terrorists are saying to each other, Democrats opposed anybody doing that and then lied, saying that the president wanted to spy on Americans. They wanted to sue the telephone companies for facilitating the effort to track down people who were conducting phone conversations overseas aimed at conspiring against the United States, planning future attacks. They wanted to stop the ability to find that out. So, the president's popularity has been diminished. We rarely see video of the 9/11 attacks. The victories that we have had in the war on terror are downplayed and were opposed by today's Democrat Party. Despite all this, 58% of the American people now say we're doing well in Iraq, 52% of the American people now think we are safer than we have been, safer than we were.
Despite the best efforts of the Democrat Party to convince the people of this country that we are at greater risk, that we are no safer whatsoever, that Bush lied, people died, our troops are thugs, they are rapists, they are murderers, hello, Jack Murtha, the list of Democrats is endless. Those who have impugned the honor and the integrity of the armed forces and tell us politics is off-limits today? Sorry. 'Cause 9/11 didn't just happen on one day. It has an aftermath. We're still living through it and every day we turn on any television station, we have to put up with drivel and bilge from Democrats and media people who are sour on the fact that we have succeeded. They can't wait to report bad news. They hide the good news. Look, Hurricane Ike, about to plow into Texas. The Drive-Bys aren't there 'cause it's not New Orleans. They'll eventually send the B team down there, but they're not there now wreaking havoc, praying for the worst.
But I want you to remember something. Despite all of this, we had an administration which did not cave on this, the whole concept of US national security. Democrats issue this stupid report this week saying the ports are no safer; the bus lines are no safer; the train lines are no safer. We haven't had a bomb. We haven't had one terrorist act succeed in this country for seven years. No ports blown up; no buses blown up; no train has blown up; no airport, no airplane has been hijacked or blown up. But tens of thousands of Al-Qaeda terrorists are dead and running for the sand dunes in Iraq while there have been no more attacks against Americans on American soil. While you remember everything else about 9/11 today, also remember that. Not one successful attack since 9/11, 2001.
The Clinton administration treated them as criminal cases, deliberately handicapping and handcuffing our intelligence agencies, and eschewed any kind of a strong military response. And, of course, Jamie Gorelick, the then vice attorney general, whatever, deputy attorney general, erected the now famous wall that prevented the CIA and the FBI from sharing information because they were gathering it in grand jury testimony, which must remain private and secret, limiting our ability to figure out what was up, what was next. In the immediate hours after the 9/11 attacks, Drive-By journalists sneered that President Bush was running scared aboard Air Force One. The late Peter Jennings lamented on ABC, after the president spoke, (paraphrasing) "It's just obvious some presidents are better at this than others," referring to, of course, Bill Clinton. Within days, ladies and gentlemen, Clinton associates were quoted as saying they wished these attacks had occurred on Clinton's watch so he could have had a chance at greatness, so that something momentous would have happened on his watch. The Democrat leader, Tom Daschle, attacked George Bush in the days after the attacks, within weeks, two weeks, for doing nothing.
On the day that Daschle launched his attack into Bush for not doing anything, Bush was planning that very attack. Daschle's attack on Bush for doing nothing came on the eve of our military operations in Afghanistan. Democrat political memos suggested that the president's popularity could be diminished by branding him a liar on weapons of mass destruction and any number of other things. The Democrat Party began to politicize this event within days. They were doing everything they could to come up with a strategy, to end up blaming this on Bush, head into the 2002 elections so that they could retake the House and the Senate. Democratic political memos, in addition to suggesting that Bush could be branded a liar, Democrat political memos surfaced from Jay Rockefeller, strategizing how to use the war for political gain, and I, to this day, have that memo from Jay Rockefeller on my desktop of this computer in my studio here at the EIB Southern Command. I have not filed it away so that it will be tough to find, and even with my Spotlight search feature, I have put it on my desktop, and it's never left.
Hillary Clinton echoed the conspiracy-based claim that Bush knew about the attacks beforehand. We had a Democrat-voting poet laureate from New Jersey claiming the Jews did it because all of the Jews got out of the World Trade Center. The Drive-By Media amplified this guy's theory. All over the place, theories were expounded and amplified that suggested George W. Bush not only knew about it, but if he knew about it, he had to be in on it, let it happen. The Democrat Party seized after just a couple days, couple weeks the opportunity of these attacks on 9/11 to politicize everything so as to reacquire their power, and they did not stop, and they have not stopped for seven years. Left-wing Hollywood's revisionist history movie, Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11 was released. It won the big award at the Cannes Film Festival. I am convinced to this day that to whatever extent the American president, our population, our country is hated and despised around the world, it's because of who around the world has seen that lying propaganda piece of garbage movie that Michael Moore made. And then Jay Rockefeller's memo surfaced.
Seven years later, where are we? The president's property is diminished, video of the 9/11 attacks rarely seen, although MSNBC today replayed it all in real time. Our victories in this war on terror are downplayed. Let us not forget that the Democrat Party sought defeat in Iraq. They were waving the white flag of surrender. They were condemning our troops. They were suggesting our troops were rapists, murderers, and thugs. They were compared to Nazi thugs. Meanwhile, the same Democrat Party doing that embraced the rights, the congressional rights, the US constitutional rights, I should say, of the people who wanted to do to us again what they had done to us on 9/11. They became the sympathetic figures. We became the brutes. We were violating their rights. They were planning numerous 9/11s, but they haven't happened, have they? There have been no more attacks on this country. Not one train's been attacked, not one bus, not one bomb has made it through a port, not one airplane's been hijacked. We don't know how many terrorist attempts have been blocked because we cannot brag about our successes. We can only brag or publicize our failures, which the Democrat Party is willing to do.
Even to this day, the Democrat Party, as a political item in its new platform is claiming we are no safer. In fact, we are at greater risk than we've ever about, despite the fact they have done nothing to help protect this country. They've ended up voting for things, but they opposed them. When the rubber hit the road, the Democrats did the right thing, but not until they had ginned up so much anti-American hatred within this country, so much anti-administration hatred, so much anti-war fervor with their buddies in the Drive-By Media. Our victories have been profound. They have been downplayed. But the truth is that tens of thousands of Al-Qaeda terrorists are dead. There have been no more attacks on American soil. That, among the remembrances of the dead and the recollections of where you were and what you were feeling and what you saw that day, in addition that those, remember one thing: despite anything you've heard from the Democrats and their associates in the Drive-By Media for the last seven years, not one more attack on American soil has occurred. Remember that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, let's not forget one thing on this, the seventh anniversary of 9/11: The Reverend Jeremiah Wright from the pulpit of his church in Chicago, saying we deserved it. "America's chickensssss have come home to roost." We are digging that audio sound bite of the archives even as we speak. From CBS News: "As the nation marks the seventh anniversary of 9/11, most Americans believe the U.S. is adequately prepared to deal with another terrorist attack against the country, according to a new CBS News poll. In the poll, 52 percent said they thought the U.S. was adequately prepared," meaning, ladies and gentlemen, that the efforts on the part of the Democrats to convince people here that we are less safe than ever before have not succeeded. The Washington Post today, Michael Abrahamowitz: "Terrorism Fades as Issue in 2008 Campaign, Reflects the Changing Attention of the Electorate."
No, that's not what's going on. He said "the shift reflects a nod to the changing attention of the electorate." No. The reason why so few people named terrorism as the number one issue is because of the success of the Bush administration -- despite being fought by Americans in the Senate, Americans in the legal community, George W. Bush -- has had to overcome two enemies here in securing the safety of this country, and he's done so to the extent that most people now think we're adequately prepared and they have freedom of mind, peace of mind to go ahead and pursue other interests such as the economy. The San Francisco Chronicle, Matthew Stainard writing: "Terrorism Takes Back Seat to Economy." It's a Gallup poll. Only 2% say that terrorism is a problem. Thirty-eight percent say that they are "at least somewhat worried."
An ABC poll is not good for Democrats overall: "56% of the American people say that significant strides toward bringing order in Iraq have taken place," and even 38% of Democrats agree with that. So here we are: the Democrat Party, as led by Obama and Biden, is imploding. They're unhinged. They are falling apart, and every effort they have made over the past seven years to steer public opinion against this country, against the war on terror, against the war in Iraq, has been a failure, if we go by this polls.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the official pastor to Barack and Michelle Obama and their two little girls discussing 9/11.
WRIGHT: Not God bless America, God (bleep) America. It's in the Bible. They're killing innocent people. God (bleep) America. And now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.
RUSH: Obama's official pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his thoughts on what happened on 9/11, on this, the seventh anniversary of 9/11.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to again, for those of you who were not here at the beginning of the program, I want to revisit thoughts earlier expressed on this, the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Because we're told that we're not supposed to politicize this, we can't bring any politics into this. I steadfastly reject that notion because 9/11 was not just something that happened on one day. There has been a seven-year aftermath that I think we should all remember. True, on 9/11, seven years ago, we were blindsided. Nineteen terrorists possessed by evil hijacked our airplanes with box cutters and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. They blew a hole in the Pentagon, and they crashed a plane outside Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, which they were attempting to turn around and either hit the Capitol building or the White House. At the end of that day, 3,000 Americans were dead. But that wasn't the first day of such attacks on Americans.
Al-Qaeda's war on America had already claimed hundreds of lives by then. We just hadn't accepted the reality of it. They had claimed these lives via embassy bombings, the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and countless other attacks. But the Clinton administration treated all of these cases as criminal cases, deliberately handicapping our intelligence agencies and forgoing a strong military response, and even Jamie Gorelick who was the deputy attorney general at the time famously constructed the wall between the intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the FBI and the DIA because they were conducting all these investigations as part of grand juries and that meant secrecy, so whatever was learned in grand jury testimony could not be shared. So our intelligence agencies were behind.
Now, in the immediate hours after the 9/11 attacks, Drive-By Media journalists sneered. I mean, this was the same day, Drive-By Media journalists were sneering that President Bush was running scared aboard Air Force One. The late Peter Jennings of ABC said on the air after the president's speech, "Well, it's just the case that some presidents are better at this than others," meaning, Bill Clinton, of course. Within days, various associates of Bill Clinton were quoted wishing the attacks had occurred on his watch so that Bill Clinton could have had a chance at greatness. The Democrat leader Tom Daschle attacked Bush for doing nothing on what turned out to be the eve of our military operations in Afghanistan. Once again, looking like a fool, 'cause that was back in the day, by the way, where the Democrats wanted to look tough. They wanted to look like they could be counted on to defend the country. And, by the way, there's polling data out, and I have it in the stack here, they have lost ground in the area of the American people trusting them on national security and their willingness to defend the country. I'll find it in a second.
Daschle and the boys, they wanted to look really tough, all over Bush's case for not doing anything about it, and it happened they opened a door right into their nose again, bloodied their nose themselves, stepped right in the bag of manure because the very day Daschle's out there whining and moaning, the next day our operations at Tora Bora began. Democrat political memos suggested, strategic political memos suggested that the president's popularity could be diminished by branding him a liar in all of this. Hillary Clinton echoed the conspiracy-based claim that Bush knew about the attacks beforehand. In a poll that was just referenced here some two years ago, 35% of Democrats, 35% of the American electorate believe that Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened. And if they think that, then they have to also admit that they think Bush let it happen. Left-wing Hollywood's revisionist history movie Fahrenheit 9/11 by the bloated bigot Michael Moore, that movie was released, it got the big award over at the Cannes Film Festival, played all over the world, and I am convinced to this day that to what degree this country is hated and despised and that Bush is hated and despised could be laid at the feet of the lying, stinking propaganda put out by Michael Moore in that movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Let us not forget that Michael Moore only recently said -- and was one of many Democrats who was gleeful over the fact that Hurricane Gustav would roll into New Orleans -- and was God's gift to Democrats. He forgot that Hurricane Gustav had rolled through Cuba, his favorite country, and had wreaked havoc there, even as it missed New Orleans.
The degree of hate for this country expressed the last seven years by the Democrat Party and its associates, the desire for defeat of the United States and its military by the Democrat Party and its associates has been constant. It has been a loud, swelling drumbeat that we have not been able to escape. "This war is lost," on the eve of the surge, said Harry Reid. They accused General Petraeus of lying before he has opened his mouth in testimony before House and Senate committees. I could go on and on. Jay Rockefeller and his memo to Democrats strategizing how to use the war for Democrat Party political gain. I have that memo right on the top of my desktop. I have not filed it away in case I need immediate access to it. So here we are seven years later, after having our troops compared to Nazi thugs by Dick Durbin, having our troops compared by Dick Durbin to people who ran the Soviet gulags and Pol Pot's killing fields. We have the same Democrat Party feeling sorry for terrorists, wanting them to have constitutional rights, wanting them to have Miranda rights read to them on the battlefield.
The American judicial system, the legal community, many of which populated by Democrats, have sought to co-opt commander-in-chief duties in prosecuting the war on terror for themselves. The ACLU and other interested civil rights groups have gone to court to prevent any intelligence-gathering information that would help to secure this country further. The Democrat Party and its associates have very publicly, very loudly, very blatantly, very openly, campaigned against victory. They have sought to foment hatred for this country around the world. Their talking points the last seven years are no different than those that come out of the mouth from the latest tape from Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or even Hugo Chavez, just to name four. And they aren't the slightest bit embarrassed that people who hate us and our enemies echo their own Democrat talking points. So after all of this, seven years later, the president's popularity is diminished, video of the 9/11 attacks is rarely seen, we're told it's too soon, it's too emotionally upsetting, we can't see this.
The Democrat Party is for the last seven years trying to convince everybody we can go back to a pre-9/11 frame of mind and mind-set. I can't think of too many security measures that they have openly supported. I can only think of security measures they have been forced into accepting. Wiretaps, phone calls, international phone calls, trying to find out what terrorists are saying to each other, Democrats opposed anybody doing that and then lied, saying that the president wanted to spy on Americans. They wanted to sue the telephone companies for facilitating the effort to track down people who were conducting phone conversations overseas aimed at conspiring against the United States, planning future attacks. They wanted to stop the ability to find that out. So, the president's popularity has been diminished. We rarely see video of the 9/11 attacks. The victories that we have had in the war on terror are downplayed and were opposed by today's Democrat Party. Despite all this, 58% of the American people now say we're doing well in Iraq, 52% of the American people now think we are safer than we have been, safer than we were.
Despite the best efforts of the Democrat Party to convince the people of this country that we are at greater risk, that we are no safer whatsoever, that Bush lied, people died, our troops are thugs, they are rapists, they are murderers, hello, Jack Murtha, the list of Democrats is endless. Those who have impugned the honor and the integrity of the armed forces and tell us politics is off-limits today? Sorry. 'Cause 9/11 didn't just happen on one day. It has an aftermath. We're still living through it and every day we turn on any television station, we have to put up with drivel and bilge from Democrats and media people who are sour on the fact that we have succeeded. They can't wait to report bad news. They hide the good news. Look, Hurricane Ike, about to plow into Texas. The Drive-Bys aren't there 'cause it's not New Orleans. They'll eventually send the B team down there, but they're not there now wreaking havoc, praying for the worst.
But I want you to remember something. Despite all of this, we had an administration which did not cave on this, the whole concept of US national security. Democrats issue this stupid report this week saying the ports are no safer; the bus lines are no safer; the train lines are no safer. We haven't had a bomb. We haven't had one terrorist act succeed in this country for seven years. No ports blown up; no buses blown up; no train has blown up; no airport, no airplane has been hijacked or blown up. But tens of thousands of Al-Qaeda terrorists are dead and running for the sand dunes in Iraq while there have been no more attacks against Americans on American soil. While you remember everything else about 9/11 today, also remember that. Not one successful attack since 9/11, 2001.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Savaging Sarah Palin
by L. Brent Bozell III
September 2, 2008 Tell a friend about this site
When MSNBC’s Chris Matthews suggested in Denver that Barack Obama earned his present elevation in American politics, unlike “showcase appointments” like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, he reminded the world of the peculiarity of liberalism. John McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate underlined it. Liberals find no joy when Republicans select women or minorities for top positions. They are all fraudulent traitors to their own apparent group interests. Conservative blacks aren’t really black. Conservative Latinos aren’t really Latino. Now, conservative women are somehow not really women.
Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift spoke for her colleagues on the Palin selection: “If the media reaction is anything, it's been literally laughter in many places...In very, very many newsrooms.”
This principle – that Hell hath no fury like a liberal who’s been insulted by a conservative not sticking to white male appointments – explains why President Bush successfully placed two white men on the Supreme Court. Only picking Harriet Miers was outrageous (although her capacity for the job was clearly an issue). Bush saw how upset the Left became when Clarence Thomas was nominated. John McCain could have played safe. He chose to mix things up and pick a woman who matched his tendency to mix things up.
That decision led inexorably to a big, fat Exhibit A of media bias. The media’s treatment of Palin was nothing like their approval for Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, the week before. The Washington Post called the Biden selection an “infusion of experience and aggressiveness,” and he was “a sharp-witted and energetic foreign policy expert.” There was no mention that Biden was a liberal, or that while National Journal found Obama to be the most liberal Senator in 2007, Biden came in close behind in third place.
When Palin was picked, the Post couldn’t stop pounding away on her conservatism. The lead story underlined: “The self-described 'hockey mom' brings a blue-collar conservatism and strong antiabortion views to the ticket.” Another story on the front-page called her “the pro-gun, antiabortion governor of Alaska.” The caption under her picture noted Palin was “a conservative with strong antiabortion views.”
Next came Exhibit B. The media didn’t simply slam Gov. Palin as a conservative, they went intensely ugly and personal. CNN’s John Roberts quickly suggested she might be a crummy mother: “There's also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down's syndrome....Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?”
On the next day, ABC's Good Morning America weekend co-anchor Bill Weir piled on with the disabled-child-neglect attack in an interview with McCain spokesman Mike DuHaime. “Adding to the brutality of a national campaign, the Palin family also has an infant with special needs. What leads you, the Senator, and the Governor to believe that one won't affect the other in the next couple of months?" When DuHaime tried to answer, Weir repeated himself: “She has an infant with special needs. Will that affect her campaigning?” Weir was accurately describing himself when he mentioned “adding to the brutality of a national campaign.”
Then came the media’s heavy rush to cover the news that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol was pregnant, and would keep the baby and marry the father. Once again, ABC led the media insult machine. They called the baby a “skeleton in the closet,” a strange term for an unborn child, a “bombshell” cynically timed to explode on the day Hurricane Gustav swept ashore. The story emerged in reaction to the left-wing blogsite Daily Kos circulating the incredibly disgusting and wholly inaccurate smear that Gov. Palin somehow faked her latest pregnancy to cover for her daughter’s supposed motherhood of her disabled son.
ABC and CNN also used the Bristol news to lecture the Republicans about their hypocrisy on sex education in high schools, wildly presuming Gov. Palin’s daughter didn’t know how babies were made. The agenda seemed clear: keep Palin constantly under attack, and suggest perhaps McCain should just dump her and go find someone else….for the media to brutalize.
John McCain made a bold choice in not merely picking a woman, but picking a pro-life woman courageous enough to put her motherhood where her mouth is. Now the media want him to pay dearly for it. The idea that they would lecture anyone else about rumor-mongering or “Swift-boating” ought to be laughed off the public stage.
September 2, 2008 Tell a friend about this site
When MSNBC’s Chris Matthews suggested in Denver that Barack Obama earned his present elevation in American politics, unlike “showcase appointments” like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, he reminded the world of the peculiarity of liberalism. John McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate underlined it. Liberals find no joy when Republicans select women or minorities for top positions. They are all fraudulent traitors to their own apparent group interests. Conservative blacks aren’t really black. Conservative Latinos aren’t really Latino. Now, conservative women are somehow not really women.
Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift spoke for her colleagues on the Palin selection: “If the media reaction is anything, it's been literally laughter in many places...In very, very many newsrooms.”
This principle – that Hell hath no fury like a liberal who’s been insulted by a conservative not sticking to white male appointments – explains why President Bush successfully placed two white men on the Supreme Court. Only picking Harriet Miers was outrageous (although her capacity for the job was clearly an issue). Bush saw how upset the Left became when Clarence Thomas was nominated. John McCain could have played safe. He chose to mix things up and pick a woman who matched his tendency to mix things up.
That decision led inexorably to a big, fat Exhibit A of media bias. The media’s treatment of Palin was nothing like their approval for Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, the week before. The Washington Post called the Biden selection an “infusion of experience and aggressiveness,” and he was “a sharp-witted and energetic foreign policy expert.” There was no mention that Biden was a liberal, or that while National Journal found Obama to be the most liberal Senator in 2007, Biden came in close behind in third place.
When Palin was picked, the Post couldn’t stop pounding away on her conservatism. The lead story underlined: “The self-described 'hockey mom' brings a blue-collar conservatism and strong antiabortion views to the ticket.” Another story on the front-page called her “the pro-gun, antiabortion governor of Alaska.” The caption under her picture noted Palin was “a conservative with strong antiabortion views.”
Next came Exhibit B. The media didn’t simply slam Gov. Palin as a conservative, they went intensely ugly and personal. CNN’s John Roberts quickly suggested she might be a crummy mother: “There's also this issue that on April 18th, she gave birth to a baby with Down's syndrome....Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of Vice President, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?”
On the next day, ABC's Good Morning America weekend co-anchor Bill Weir piled on with the disabled-child-neglect attack in an interview with McCain spokesman Mike DuHaime. “Adding to the brutality of a national campaign, the Palin family also has an infant with special needs. What leads you, the Senator, and the Governor to believe that one won't affect the other in the next couple of months?" When DuHaime tried to answer, Weir repeated himself: “She has an infant with special needs. Will that affect her campaigning?” Weir was accurately describing himself when he mentioned “adding to the brutality of a national campaign.”
Then came the media’s heavy rush to cover the news that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol was pregnant, and would keep the baby and marry the father. Once again, ABC led the media insult machine. They called the baby a “skeleton in the closet,” a strange term for an unborn child, a “bombshell” cynically timed to explode on the day Hurricane Gustav swept ashore. The story emerged in reaction to the left-wing blogsite Daily Kos circulating the incredibly disgusting and wholly inaccurate smear that Gov. Palin somehow faked her latest pregnancy to cover for her daughter’s supposed motherhood of her disabled son.
ABC and CNN also used the Bristol news to lecture the Republicans about their hypocrisy on sex education in high schools, wildly presuming Gov. Palin’s daughter didn’t know how babies were made. The agenda seemed clear: keep Palin constantly under attack, and suggest perhaps McCain should just dump her and go find someone else….for the media to brutalize.
John McCain made a bold choice in not merely picking a woman, but picking a pro-life woman courageous enough to put her motherhood where her mouth is. Now the media want him to pay dearly for it. The idea that they would lecture anyone else about rumor-mongering or “Swift-boating” ought to be laughed off the public stage.
interview with US magazine editor
This guy is a huge Obama supporter. It is disgusting what they will do.
Would you hire this man to run the most successful and generous corporation in the world?
Suppose for a second that the United States of America is a corporation, and you, a citizen, are a stockholder in that corporation. Further suppose that your corporation has been going through a rough patch for the last half a year or so after 30+ years of strength. And finally, suppose that the current President of your corporation is retiring, and you need to hire a new President. Forgetting for the moment, that your corporation has real enemy’s intent on literally destroying it, would you hire this man?
Imagine that this man comes to you and says he wants to change everything your corporation has done for the past 30 years as the most successful and generous corporation in the world. He doesn’t want to change a few things that your corporation has done successfully for the last 30 years. He wants to change everything. He is saying 100% change.
So you ask this man, have you ever done any of these things before? Have you ever run a corporation of any size? Have you ever been an employee of a corporation that has done the things that you are talking about?
This man replies to you that he has not, but he has heard about it. Then the man goes on to lecture you about all of your failings as stockholders. How you have been a moral failure for not giving more of your corporate earnings to help the poor. How he and only he can make your corporation what it really needs to be. How he is the one you have been waiting for lo these past few centuries.
When you ask this man for a resume, he replies you’ll need a court order to see it. When you ask this man for references, he tells you that he’s got a few new friends that you can talk to who don’t know him very well and have just recently changed their view of him, but other than that, he really hasn’t been close to anyone.
Finally, this man’s wife shows up. She tells you, you better get this man now, because after today, he won’t be available any longer. Oh, and by the way, until you decided to interview him to run your corporation, she had never been proud to be a fellow stockholder in the most successful and generous corporation in the world.
Would you hire this man? Really? Would you?
Imagine that this man comes to you and says he wants to change everything your corporation has done for the past 30 years as the most successful and generous corporation in the world. He doesn’t want to change a few things that your corporation has done successfully for the last 30 years. He wants to change everything. He is saying 100% change.
So you ask this man, have you ever done any of these things before? Have you ever run a corporation of any size? Have you ever been an employee of a corporation that has done the things that you are talking about?
This man replies to you that he has not, but he has heard about it. Then the man goes on to lecture you about all of your failings as stockholders. How you have been a moral failure for not giving more of your corporate earnings to help the poor. How he and only he can make your corporation what it really needs to be. How he is the one you have been waiting for lo these past few centuries.
When you ask this man for a resume, he replies you’ll need a court order to see it. When you ask this man for references, he tells you that he’s got a few new friends that you can talk to who don’t know him very well and have just recently changed their view of him, but other than that, he really hasn’t been close to anyone.
Finally, this man’s wife shows up. She tells you, you better get this man now, because after today, he won’t be available any longer. Oh, and by the way, until you decided to interview him to run your corporation, she had never been proud to be a fellow stockholder in the most successful and generous corporation in the world.
Would you hire this man? Really? Would you?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
The truth about the Bush presidency
A Brief History of Bush's Time
By Randall Hoven
The current narrative of the Bush Presidency is that it is a failure (believed by 107 of 109 historians surveyed) and that George W. Bush is the worst President in history (believed by 61% of those surveyed historians). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "The president already has the mark of the American people -- he's the worst president we ever had."
That's one narrative. I have another.
Despite being handed one of the worst situations in history from President Clinton, and being fought tooth and nail by his opponents in government and the media, literally from the day of his election, President George W. Bush persevered to restore prosperity at home and to make the US and the world more free and secure.
The 2000 Election and Transition to Office
On November 7, 2000, voters went to the polls and elected George W. Bush to be President of the United States. After initially conceding defeat in a private phone call to Bush, Al Gore decided instead to contest the outcome in Florida. He sued for various recounts and was joined by the Florida Supreme Court, while Bush fought for counting votes per the rules in place prior to the election.
Complaints that Bush "stole" the election boiled down to two: (1) we should use a method of determining the winner other than the one in the Constitution, and (2) we should use a method of determining "voter intent" other than by counting legally cast ballots per the rules in place prior to the election.
Later recounts would show that George W. Bush would have won the election in Florida under any method considered by either Al Gore or the Florida Supreme Court.
"The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue."
Al Gore would not concede in public until December 13, more than a month after the election. But the Clinton administration denied the Bush team the keys to the transition office set up two blocks from the White House and waiting since November 8, until December 15. Normally a newly-elected President is provided a transition office the day after the election. George W. Bush was finally allowed to use his just 36 days before being sworn in as President, or less than half the transition time allowed other Presidents-elect.
The Pre-Bush Situation and His First Eight Months
A year before Bush took office, the stock market peaked and subsequently declined 8% by the end of 2000. The last four fiscal quarters under President Clinton showed steadily declining GDP growth rates of 4.8, 3.5, 2.4, and 1.9 percent, respectively. When Bush took office, the US Government was still operating under the fiscal budget signed by President Clinton, and would remain so for more than another eight months. Within six weeks of Bush being sworn in, the economy was officially in recession.
On the defense front, President Bush was handed a smoldering crisis that had been brewing throughout President Clinton's two terms.
* The World Trade Center was bombed by Islamists in 1993, killing six and injuring 1,042.
* We lost 18 US Special Ops forces in Mogadishu while fighting Islamist allies of Osama bin Laden.
* Osama bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in his fatwa of 1996.
* The Khobar Towers used to house our servicemen in Saudi Arabia were bombed by Islamists in 1996, killing 19 US servicemen.
* Our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed in 1998 by bin Laden supported Islamists, killing at least 223 and injuring thousands.
* Pakistan and India both successfully tested nuclear warheads in 1998, to the surprise of our CIA.
* The USS Cole was bombed in 2000 by Islamists, killing 17 US sailors.
* In Israel, the Oslo accords had broken down, the PLO had rejected the most generous "peace for land" deal ever offered, and the intifada was back in business by the end of 2000.
* Nations pursuing nuclear weapon capability (beyond Pakistan and India, who had it by 1998) were North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had kicked out the UN weapons inspectors in 1998 and was in defiance of multiple UN resolutions from 1991 through 2000. Saddam's Iraq had tried to assassinate former President Bush and fired thousands of times at US and coalition forces enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations.
Throughout this time, President Clinton's administration forbade communications between the CIA and the FBI regarding terrorists or terrorist activities. Clinton withdrew US forces from Somalia shortly after the Mogadishu incident. And he treated the terrorist incidents as crimes to be dealt with by our legal system.
When he did send missiles into Iraq, he made sure it was at night so no one would get hurt. According to the Washington Post,
"Clinton ordered the attack Friday, but the raid was delayed a day so it would not fall on the Muslim sabbath... The missiles struck late at night -- between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Baghdad time -- because Clinton wished to minimize possible deaths of innocent civilians."
I'm thinking a strike at 2 am would also minimize possible deaths of guilty Baathists.
On September 11, 2001, or less than eight months after President Bush took office, Islamist terrorists perpetrated the worst attack by foreigners on US soil since the burning of Washington, DC, in 1812, killing almost 3,000 civilians. The attackers had been planning and preparing it for five years.
That was President Bush's welcome to office. A recession within two months. The 9/11 attacks within eight months. And an Iraq in continual defiance of its terms of surrender, multiple UN resolutions and WMD inspectors. And this after being given only half the transition time as usual.
The Following Seven Years
By November 2001 the recession was officially over, just one month under Bush's own budget, weeks after 9/11 and just 10 months into a Bush Presidency. It was an historically short and shallow recession. From 2003 through 2006, all under President Bush and a Republican Congress, real GDP grew over 3% per year, considered a healthy and sustainable pace. By early 2008, the real economy had grown about 20% since Bush took office. Since President Bush took office, the economy has grown in every single fiscal quarter; there has been no quarter of negative real growth.
Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? If you are anywhere near average, yes. Personal, disposable, inflation-adjusted income grew 9% in the first six years under Bush. Since Bush has been President, the unemployment rate has remained under 6.3% and averaged 5.2% (In Clinton's eight years it remained under 7.3% and also averaged 5.2%.)
On the foreign front, President Bush used "aggressive diplomacy" to convince Pakistan to support us in fighting against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and to allow us insight into the status of its nuclear weapons. India, the other new member of the nuclear club, remained on good terms with us throughout.
President Bush, with Congressional support, our NATO allies and our first-rate military, freed the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban warlords, helped install a democracy there, captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida there and drove those remaining, probably including Osama bin Laden and his top commanders, to remote mountains and caves. By also cutting off funding sources and communications channels, al Qaida appears to have been rendered ineffective as a coordinated network of terrorists under any kind of effective command and control. It's possible ad hoc "cells" of those sympathetic to al Qaida might still do some damage on US soil, but none have so far.
President Bush, with large and bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, support from more than 45 countries and our first-rate military, freed the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, helped install a democracy there, and captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida, radical Islamists and other terrorists there. Saddam's WMD capabilities, programs and remaining weapons were removed from an outlaw regime. I have written elsewhere on the justification of the Iraq war, which was supported by both pre-war and post-war intelligence.
President Bush, with diplomacy, the example of Iraq and the assistance of foreign allies, convinced Libya to cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
President Bush, using diplomacy and working with China, Japan and South Korea, appears to have reached a breakthrough with North Korea, getting it to dismantle its plutonium creating sites and to allow intrusive inspections. While this all needs to be finalized and verified, such progress illustrates President Bush's skill at effective diplomacy - one that has real results, not paper promises quickly broken and never verified.
Iran is still a problem, but even there President Bush is waging diplomacy in concert with our allies and the United Nations.
In short, all the new and major WMD proliferation threats were dealt with one way or another: Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya. They are not all put to rest, but about three-and-a-half of the five biggies appear to have been dealt with sufficiently. And terrorists, even those inside Iraq and Afghanistan at this point, seem to be kept at bay for now as well.
I think these are tremendous achievements, and ones that would not have occurred under either a President Gore or President Kerry.
But what have been the costs? In dollars, defense spending has gone from 3% of GDP to 4%. That's it -- a level that is still below where it was for over 50 years, from World War II through 1994.
In US lives, 4,147 servicemen lost their lives due to hostile or non-hostile action in Iraq to date. Each lost life is a tragedy, and I am deeply grateful to our lost troops and their families. From 2001 to 2006, the worst year for active military duty deaths was 2005, with 1,941 deaths due to all causes. In 1980, President Carter's last year, there were 2,392 such deaths in a larger military establishment. Each year in which we had troops engaged in both Iraq and Afghanistan saw fewer US military deaths than any year from 1980 through 1987, all years without major conflicts. The major conflicts of World War II, Korea and Vietnam had 405,399, 36,574, and 58,209 fatalities, respectively.
Judging A President
"However tempting it might be to some, when much trouble lies ahead, to step aside adroitly and put someone else up to take the blows, I do not intend to take that cowardly course, but, on the contrary, to stand to my post and persevere in accordance with my duty as I see it."
If we use these words of Winston Churchill to judge our presidents, did President Bush "step aside adroitly" or did he stand his post and "persevere"? He has surely taken the blows.
By Randall Hoven
The current narrative of the Bush Presidency is that it is a failure (believed by 107 of 109 historians surveyed) and that George W. Bush is the worst President in history (believed by 61% of those surveyed historians). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "The president already has the mark of the American people -- he's the worst president we ever had."
That's one narrative. I have another.
Despite being handed one of the worst situations in history from President Clinton, and being fought tooth and nail by his opponents in government and the media, literally from the day of his election, President George W. Bush persevered to restore prosperity at home and to make the US and the world more free and secure.
The 2000 Election and Transition to Office
On November 7, 2000, voters went to the polls and elected George W. Bush to be President of the United States. After initially conceding defeat in a private phone call to Bush, Al Gore decided instead to contest the outcome in Florida. He sued for various recounts and was joined by the Florida Supreme Court, while Bush fought for counting votes per the rules in place prior to the election.
Complaints that Bush "stole" the election boiled down to two: (1) we should use a method of determining the winner other than the one in the Constitution, and (2) we should use a method of determining "voter intent" other than by counting legally cast ballots per the rules in place prior to the election.
Later recounts would show that George W. Bush would have won the election in Florida under any method considered by either Al Gore or the Florida Supreme Court.
"The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue."
Al Gore would not concede in public until December 13, more than a month after the election. But the Clinton administration denied the Bush team the keys to the transition office set up two blocks from the White House and waiting since November 8, until December 15. Normally a newly-elected President is provided a transition office the day after the election. George W. Bush was finally allowed to use his just 36 days before being sworn in as President, or less than half the transition time allowed other Presidents-elect.
The Pre-Bush Situation and His First Eight Months
A year before Bush took office, the stock market peaked and subsequently declined 8% by the end of 2000. The last four fiscal quarters under President Clinton showed steadily declining GDP growth rates of 4.8, 3.5, 2.4, and 1.9 percent, respectively. When Bush took office, the US Government was still operating under the fiscal budget signed by President Clinton, and would remain so for more than another eight months. Within six weeks of Bush being sworn in, the economy was officially in recession.
On the defense front, President Bush was handed a smoldering crisis that had been brewing throughout President Clinton's two terms.
* The World Trade Center was bombed by Islamists in 1993, killing six and injuring 1,042.
* We lost 18 US Special Ops forces in Mogadishu while fighting Islamist allies of Osama bin Laden.
* Osama bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in his fatwa of 1996.
* The Khobar Towers used to house our servicemen in Saudi Arabia were bombed by Islamists in 1996, killing 19 US servicemen.
* Our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed in 1998 by bin Laden supported Islamists, killing at least 223 and injuring thousands.
* Pakistan and India both successfully tested nuclear warheads in 1998, to the surprise of our CIA.
* The USS Cole was bombed in 2000 by Islamists, killing 17 US sailors.
* In Israel, the Oslo accords had broken down, the PLO had rejected the most generous "peace for land" deal ever offered, and the intifada was back in business by the end of 2000.
* Nations pursuing nuclear weapon capability (beyond Pakistan and India, who had it by 1998) were North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had kicked out the UN weapons inspectors in 1998 and was in defiance of multiple UN resolutions from 1991 through 2000. Saddam's Iraq had tried to assassinate former President Bush and fired thousands of times at US and coalition forces enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations.
Throughout this time, President Clinton's administration forbade communications between the CIA and the FBI regarding terrorists or terrorist activities. Clinton withdrew US forces from Somalia shortly after the Mogadishu incident. And he treated the terrorist incidents as crimes to be dealt with by our legal system.
When he did send missiles into Iraq, he made sure it was at night so no one would get hurt. According to the Washington Post,
"Clinton ordered the attack Friday, but the raid was delayed a day so it would not fall on the Muslim sabbath... The missiles struck late at night -- between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Baghdad time -- because Clinton wished to minimize possible deaths of innocent civilians."
I'm thinking a strike at 2 am would also minimize possible deaths of guilty Baathists.
On September 11, 2001, or less than eight months after President Bush took office, Islamist terrorists perpetrated the worst attack by foreigners on US soil since the burning of Washington, DC, in 1812, killing almost 3,000 civilians. The attackers had been planning and preparing it for five years.
That was President Bush's welcome to office. A recession within two months. The 9/11 attacks within eight months. And an Iraq in continual defiance of its terms of surrender, multiple UN resolutions and WMD inspectors. And this after being given only half the transition time as usual.
The Following Seven Years
By November 2001 the recession was officially over, just one month under Bush's own budget, weeks after 9/11 and just 10 months into a Bush Presidency. It was an historically short and shallow recession. From 2003 through 2006, all under President Bush and a Republican Congress, real GDP grew over 3% per year, considered a healthy and sustainable pace. By early 2008, the real economy had grown about 20% since Bush took office. Since President Bush took office, the economy has grown in every single fiscal quarter; there has been no quarter of negative real growth.
Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? If you are anywhere near average, yes. Personal, disposable, inflation-adjusted income grew 9% in the first six years under Bush. Since Bush has been President, the unemployment rate has remained under 6.3% and averaged 5.2% (In Clinton's eight years it remained under 7.3% and also averaged 5.2%.)
On the foreign front, President Bush used "aggressive diplomacy" to convince Pakistan to support us in fighting against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and to allow us insight into the status of its nuclear weapons. India, the other new member of the nuclear club, remained on good terms with us throughout.
President Bush, with Congressional support, our NATO allies and our first-rate military, freed the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban warlords, helped install a democracy there, captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida there and drove those remaining, probably including Osama bin Laden and his top commanders, to remote mountains and caves. By also cutting off funding sources and communications channels, al Qaida appears to have been rendered ineffective as a coordinated network of terrorists under any kind of effective command and control. It's possible ad hoc "cells" of those sympathetic to al Qaida might still do some damage on US soil, but none have so far.
President Bush, with large and bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, support from more than 45 countries and our first-rate military, freed the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, helped install a democracy there, and captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida, radical Islamists and other terrorists there. Saddam's WMD capabilities, programs and remaining weapons were removed from an outlaw regime. I have written elsewhere on the justification of the Iraq war, which was supported by both pre-war and post-war intelligence.
President Bush, with diplomacy, the example of Iraq and the assistance of foreign allies, convinced Libya to cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
President Bush, using diplomacy and working with China, Japan and South Korea, appears to have reached a breakthrough with North Korea, getting it to dismantle its plutonium creating sites and to allow intrusive inspections. While this all needs to be finalized and verified, such progress illustrates President Bush's skill at effective diplomacy - one that has real results, not paper promises quickly broken and never verified.
Iran is still a problem, but even there President Bush is waging diplomacy in concert with our allies and the United Nations.
In short, all the new and major WMD proliferation threats were dealt with one way or another: Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya. They are not all put to rest, but about three-and-a-half of the five biggies appear to have been dealt with sufficiently. And terrorists, even those inside Iraq and Afghanistan at this point, seem to be kept at bay for now as well.
I think these are tremendous achievements, and ones that would not have occurred under either a President Gore or President Kerry.
But what have been the costs? In dollars, defense spending has gone from 3% of GDP to 4%. That's it -- a level that is still below where it was for over 50 years, from World War II through 1994.
In US lives, 4,147 servicemen lost their lives due to hostile or non-hostile action in Iraq to date. Each lost life is a tragedy, and I am deeply grateful to our lost troops and their families. From 2001 to 2006, the worst year for active military duty deaths was 2005, with 1,941 deaths due to all causes. In 1980, President Carter's last year, there were 2,392 such deaths in a larger military establishment. Each year in which we had troops engaged in both Iraq and Afghanistan saw fewer US military deaths than any year from 1980 through 1987, all years without major conflicts. The major conflicts of World War II, Korea and Vietnam had 405,399, 36,574, and 58,209 fatalities, respectively.
Judging A President
"However tempting it might be to some, when much trouble lies ahead, to step aside adroitly and put someone else up to take the blows, I do not intend to take that cowardly course, but, on the contrary, to stand to my post and persevere in accordance with my duty as I see it."
If we use these words of Winston Churchill to judge our presidents, did President Bush "step aside adroitly" or did he stand his post and "persevere"? He has surely taken the blows.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
An interesting story from Newsbusters
MSM Ignores Democrat Lawsuit Against Obama
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
August 22, 2008 - 16:08 ET
Imagine if a prominent Mitt Romney supporter who was a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania as well as former Republican Party chair in Montgomery County in that state had filed a lawsuit against John McCain questioning his eligibility to become president. How many milliseconds after the filing of that lawsuit do you think it would take for that news to be prominently featured on the New York Times website as well as the many other MSM websites? Well, something very much like that has happened only instead of a Republican suing McCain it was Democrat Philip J. Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter and former Deputy Attorney General as well as former Democrat Party chair for Montgomery county, who filed a lawsuit yesterday against Barack Obama to keep the DNC from nominating him because Berg claims he is ineligible to become president. So far there has been a collective yawn from the MSM to this news. The one exception was a very small blurb in the Philadelphia News Clout section:
Barack Obama's presidential campaign has faced so many false rumors about his family history that it has put his birth certificate on the Internet: he was born in Honolulu, nearly two years after Hawaii became a state, making Obama a U.S. citizen by birth.
But that hasn't stopped Montgomery County lawyer Philip J. Berg from challenging Obama's qualifications to be president.
Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter, announced he's filing a federal lawsuit today, claiming that Obama lost his citizenship when his mother relocated the family to Indonesia when Barack was a boy.
Under the law, however, moving to a foreign country does not negate an American's citizenship.
Berg said that he's acting on his own, not as an agent for the Clinton campaign. Republicans were prepared to file a similar lawsuit after the Democratic convention, he said.
To find out what the real details are of this lawsuit we once again, as with the John Edwards scandal, have to rely on the blogosphere. One of the blogs which provides detailed information about this lawsuit is legal writer Jeff Schreiber's America's Right:
A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.
Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit--just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver--for the health of the Democratic Party.
"I filed this action at this time," Berg stated, "to avoid the obvious problems that will occur when the Republican Party raises these issues after Obama is nominated.".
Berg cited a number of unanswered questions regarding the Illinois senator's background, and in today's lawsuit maintained that Sen. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen or that, if he ever was, he lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia. Berg also cites what he calls "dual loyalties" due to his citizenship and ties with Kenya and Indonesia.
Even if Sen. Obama can prove his U.S. citizenship, Berg stated, citing the senator's use of a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii verified as a forgery by three independent document forensic experts, the issue of "multi-citizenship with responsibilities owed to and allegiance to other countries" remains on the table.
In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.
Berg cites inconsistent accounts of Sen. Obama's birth, including reports that he was born at two separate hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.
Should Sen. Obama truly have been born in Kenya, Berg writes, the laws on the books at the time of his birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and non-citizen parent if the former was at least 19 years of age. Sen. Obama's mother was only 18 at the time. Therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama could not be registered as a "natural born" citizen and would therefore be ineligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Moreover, even if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed "natural born," that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen. Berg also states that he possesses copies of Sen. Obama's registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.
The Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg says, is a forgery. In the suit, the attorney states that the birth certificate on record is a forgery, has been identified as such by three independent document forensic experts, and actually belonged to Maya Kasandra Soetoro, Sen. Obama's half-sister.
"Voters donated money, goods and services to elect a nominee and were defrauded by Sen. Obama's lies and obfuscations," Berg stated. "If the DNC officers ... had performed one ounce of due diligence we would not find ourselves in this emergency predicament, one week away from making a person the nominee who has lost their citizenship as a child and failed to even perform the basic steps of regaining citizenship as prescribed by constitutional laws."
"It is unfair to the country," he continued, "for candidates of either party to become the nominee when there is any question of the ability to serve if elected."
Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to cover this lawsuit story but if you want the latest information as it breaks, check out the updates at the America's Right blog.
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
August 22, 2008 - 16:08 ET
Imagine if a prominent Mitt Romney supporter who was a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania as well as former Republican Party chair in Montgomery County in that state had filed a lawsuit against John McCain questioning his eligibility to become president. How many milliseconds after the filing of that lawsuit do you think it would take for that news to be prominently featured on the New York Times website as well as the many other MSM websites? Well, something very much like that has happened only instead of a Republican suing McCain it was Democrat Philip J. Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter and former Deputy Attorney General as well as former Democrat Party chair for Montgomery county, who filed a lawsuit yesterday against Barack Obama to keep the DNC from nominating him because Berg claims he is ineligible to become president. So far there has been a collective yawn from the MSM to this news. The one exception was a very small blurb in the Philadelphia News Clout section:
Barack Obama's presidential campaign has faced so many false rumors about his family history that it has put his birth certificate on the Internet: he was born in Honolulu, nearly two years after Hawaii became a state, making Obama a U.S. citizen by birth.
But that hasn't stopped Montgomery County lawyer Philip J. Berg from challenging Obama's qualifications to be president.
Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter, announced he's filing a federal lawsuit today, claiming that Obama lost his citizenship when his mother relocated the family to Indonesia when Barack was a boy.
Under the law, however, moving to a foreign country does not negate an American's citizenship.
Berg said that he's acting on his own, not as an agent for the Clinton campaign. Republicans were prepared to file a similar lawsuit after the Democratic convention, he said.
To find out what the real details are of this lawsuit we once again, as with the John Edwards scandal, have to rely on the blogosphere. One of the blogs which provides detailed information about this lawsuit is legal writer Jeff Schreiber's America's Right:
A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.
Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit--just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver--for the health of the Democratic Party.
"I filed this action at this time," Berg stated, "to avoid the obvious problems that will occur when the Republican Party raises these issues after Obama is nominated.".
Berg cited a number of unanswered questions regarding the Illinois senator's background, and in today's lawsuit maintained that Sen. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen or that, if he ever was, he lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia. Berg also cites what he calls "dual loyalties" due to his citizenship and ties with Kenya and Indonesia.
Even if Sen. Obama can prove his U.S. citizenship, Berg stated, citing the senator's use of a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii verified as a forgery by three independent document forensic experts, the issue of "multi-citizenship with responsibilities owed to and allegiance to other countries" remains on the table.
In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.
Berg cites inconsistent accounts of Sen. Obama's birth, including reports that he was born at two separate hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.
Should Sen. Obama truly have been born in Kenya, Berg writes, the laws on the books at the time of his birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and non-citizen parent if the former was at least 19 years of age. Sen. Obama's mother was only 18 at the time. Therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama could not be registered as a "natural born" citizen and would therefore be ineligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Moreover, even if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed "natural born," that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen. Berg also states that he possesses copies of Sen. Obama's registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.
The Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg says, is a forgery. In the suit, the attorney states that the birth certificate on record is a forgery, has been identified as such by three independent document forensic experts, and actually belonged to Maya Kasandra Soetoro, Sen. Obama's half-sister.
"Voters donated money, goods and services to elect a nominee and were defrauded by Sen. Obama's lies and obfuscations," Berg stated. "If the DNC officers ... had performed one ounce of due diligence we would not find ourselves in this emergency predicament, one week away from making a person the nominee who has lost their citizenship as a child and failed to even perform the basic steps of regaining citizenship as prescribed by constitutional laws."
"It is unfair to the country," he continued, "for candidates of either party to become the nominee when there is any question of the ability to serve if elected."
Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to cover this lawsuit story but if you want the latest information as it breaks, check out the updates at the America's Right blog.
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