The Depression Of 2008? Don't Count On It

by Jason Zweig - September 30th, 2008 - Wall Street Journal

After the crash of 1929, when the Fed was still weak, years passed before the federal government could flood the economy with cash.

Today, however, the resolve of the Fed is not in question; nor is there any doubt that the Treasury Department is willing to provide the financing it takes to get the economy moving again. Furthermore, U.S. nonfinancial companies have just under $1 trillion in cash on their books. Even though Wall Street is dead, innovation is not: In the months to come, clever new financial go-betweens will spring up and find a way to get that cash flowing again. It's hard to see how a depression could get under way when so much capital is waiting in the wings.

The biggest concern we have is when government steps in to solve a problem. It is almost always the wrong thing to do. During the Great Depression, many actions by FDR and the New Deal prolonged and deepened the pain felt by the American people. That is my greatest fear about the current crisis. Not that government will fail to act. The converse is my fear, whatever government does will make things worse.

With George Bush as President and Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, America has never had two more incompetent buffoons at the helm of leadership at the same time. I can not understand how anyone can look at these two and feel confident that a program they worked out together is something that we should actually do. I am encouraged that their bailout failed to get enough votes. Maybe we can find someone who deserves our trust to work out a good program. Their program was ridiculous.

Daring To Say Loans Made No Sense

by David Carr - September 28th, 2008 - The New York Times

Sometimes, if you want the real answer, you have to ask a dumb question.

Alex Blumberg, a producer at “This American Life,” a public radio show that specializes in old-fashioned storytelling about local slices of Americana, has never owned a house or had a mortgage, let alone covered the financial industry. Nonetheless, he was fascinated as he watched the subprime mess unfold.

His dumb question? “Why are they lending money to people who can’t afford to pay it back?”

It turns out the answer is "Because they were black and they would call you racist if you refused to loan the money." See Financial Affirmative Action to see how the intimidation was applied. Since for the bankers it was OPM (Other People's Money) the Bankers made the loans. That was the easiest way to get out of the limelight. For any one loan it was no big deal. When the volume of bad loans reached a critical point, it destroyed the American Real Estate Market. Now it turns out the people who got the loans are not responsible. It was the evil bankers who, at government insistence, loaned the bad credit risks the money to buy a house that were the criminals.

They were racist if they turned the loan down just because a minority borrower could not afford the loan and evil if they gave the minority borrower a loan they could not afford. Sound like Catch-22?

Now it is being made Catch-22 for taxpayers.

Almost no one is willing to say what happened in this crisis. If you do, you will be accused of being a racist, just like the bankers were accused.

Why Americans Can’t Get U.S. Oil

by Alan Caruba - September 28, 2008 - Canada Free Press

The Chukchi Sea is offshore of northern Alaska, one of several seas that border the Arctic Ocean. The potential of oil in the Arctic is such that Russia is making noise about extending its claims in the Chukchi Sea.

If Congress should ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty, the United States would lose its claim to the vast reserves that potentially exist in the Arctic and you don’t need three guesses to figure out which political party supports ratification. That would be high on the agenda if it remains in Democrat control and if Sen. Obama were to be elected.

It is important that more Americans understand what this article is talking about. The Democrat Party and its constituency, environmental extremists, take every act possible to deny energy resources to Americans. This is not just the energy they falsely claim is carbon based and thus causing global warming from greenhouse gases ... at least according to them. They oppose any energy source that is not expensive and a waste of money. You have to ask exactly what their real agenda is? Damage America or protect the environment?

Financial Affirmative Action

by Matthew Vadum - September 29th, 2008 - The American Spectator

When the history of the Great Economic Meltdown of 2008 is written, in-your-face shakedown groups like the Greenlining Institute will be held to account.

Greenlining, headquartered in Berkeley, California (where else?), is a left-wing pressure group that threatens nasty public relations campaigns against lenders that refuse to kneel before its radical economic agenda. Its principal goal is to push politicians and the business community to facilitate "community reinvestment" in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

The Greenlining name is a play on the unlawful practice of "redlining." That's when financial institutions designate areas, typically those with a high concentration of racial minorities, as bad risks for home and commercial loans. The Institute wants banks to give a green light to loans in these areas instead.

Recently profiled by John Gizzi, Greenlining uses carrot-and-stick tactics to blackmail public agencies, banks, and philanthropists to achieve its objectives. The Institute brags it has threatened banks into making more than $2.4 trillion in loans in low-income communities.

Was this a good idea?

Good question. Even better question is what party is leading this effort? Actually everyone knows the answer to that question. It is the Democrat Party that has led this effort. Democrats own this crisis, though you will not find a single member of the MSM or the Democrat party who will acknowledge this. To the contrary, every single statement they make starts with the amazing accusation that Wall Street and its greed is to blame for the crisis. They are not willing to delve in to the logic of how giving bad loans to people who could not pay for them, under blackmail threats from a socialist government and its supporters, benefits Wall Street. The reason is simple. There is not a single iota of logic to the idea that this crisis benefits Wall Street. There is not a single iota of logic to the idea that this is a crisis created by free enterprise. There is not a single iota of logic to the idea Democrat laws and Democrat officials should walk away from this Democrat created crisis with no blame.

Yet that is starting to become the general theme of the reporting on this crisis. It is all the fault of Wall Street. If you believe that, you are part of the problem, and will never have a clue why your nation is rapidly becoming a socialist tyranny.

The truly sad part is that the socialized system of issuing stupid loans to people who cannot repay has not been shut down. That is right. Nothing has been done to stop the stupidity. Under current laws, the issuance of loans to people who cannot possibly repay them will start again as soon as this "bailout" is approved.

The next time the crisis hits, it will be taxpayer's money, not foreign investors money, that will get wiped out in the crisis.

O'S Dangerous Pals

by Stanley Kurtz - September 29th, 2008 - The New York Post

[Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama] insisted that banks show a commitment to minority lending by lowering their standards on downpayments and underwriting - for example, by overlooking bad credit histories.

By September 1992, The Chicago Tribune was describing Talbott's program as "affirmative-action lending" and ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities.

And Talbott continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks "kicking and screaming" into high-risk loans. A September 1993 story in The Chicago Sun-Times presents her as the leader of an initiative in which five area financial institutions (including two of her former targets, now plainly cowed - Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings) were "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories."

What made this program different from others, the paper added, was the participation of Fannie Mae - which had agreed to buy up the loans. "If this pilot program works," crowed Talbott, "it will send a message to the lending community that it's OK to make these kind of loans."

Well, the pilot program "worked," and Fannie Mae's message that risky loans to minorities were "OK" was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history.

It turns out that Barack Obama had more than a minor role in causing this financial meltdown. This article critiques Obama's role in supporting the ACORN organization, a group which employed Obama as a "community organizer" and which used him to train them in activist techniques, such as the militant techniques of anti-American Saul Alinsky.

He specifically backed actions by ACORN leader Madeline Talbott to force banks to lend to people who were not credit worthy under any reasonable rules. Now these same people, backed by ACORN, are insisting that the bad loans that were granted be written off but the people who got the loans get to keep their houses. That is sort of like robbing a bank. Then when caught demanding that you get to keep what is left of the proceeds.

If you think that makes sense, I guarantee you are voting for Obama. If you think this is unreasonable, I guarantee you are voting for McCain.

Obama And The Reagan Doctrine

by Dinesh D'Souza - September 29th, 2008 - Townhall.com

None of the hijackers or their planners [from 9/11] actually came from Afghanistan. Every single one of them was from the Middle East, mostly Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Moreover, Afghanistan has only minor strategic significance compared to Iraq. Iraq’s neighbors include Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Islamic radicals, who have controlled Iran for a generation, fully understand the importance of winning a second major state in the Middle East. With Iran and Iraq in their control, they can then turn their sights to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. No wonder Bin Laden and his associates have declared Iraq the central front of the war on terror, the launching pad for a new world war.

Obama, by contrast, still regards the Taliban as the vanguard of global jihad. This shows Obama as being both naïve and out of date.

There is no question that the most serious problem we currently face is the issue of nuclear bombs in Pakistan, and their imminent possession by Iran. Yet we cannot allow that to be our only focus.

That concern over nuclear weapans is part and parcel of one of the three wars America finds itself fighting at this moment. These wars are by movements not nation states and thus we are not historically prepared to understand how to fight them.

We are in the midst of an Hispanic Cultural invasion driven by economic failures throughout the America Hemisphere, an Islamo-fascist invasion driven by the desire for a world dictatorship under a restored Caliphate, and finally the global socialist movement continues its quest to end free enterprise and install a pacifist dictatorship within our borders by subversion of our economic system.

All three movements see America as their number one target due to the economic success of our nation. Not one of the three recognizes what it is about America that leads to this success. Not one of the three wants to end that success. They merely want to control it. However not one of the three understands that their dominiance over America will end the economic success and drag the world down with it. The individual freedom of America is key to the success of our free enterprise economic system. End free enterprise and you will end individual freedom and the greatness of America ends too.

This article about the difference between the Bush Doctrine (one of them) and the Reagan Doctrine (one of them) in the middle east is a credible assessment of one part of one of these serious wars. However it ignores the other two wars America finds itself in at this point.

I am concerned that we need to pay as much attention to the other two wars as we have paid to the war against Islamo-fascism. We need to fight all three wars all the time. Obama is leading one front in the war by global socialism to end free enterprise in America. If our people put him in power, his pacifism will assure we lose the other two wars as well. This is one future that many of our citizens seem oblivious to as they focus on the crisis of the moment.

Biden The Bumbler

by Jeffery T. Kuhner - September 28th, 2008 - The Washington Times

Mr. Biden is not a foreign policy guru. Rather, he has shown himself to be a feckless internationalist moralist, who is naive about world affairs. Mr. Biden was wrong on Vietnam, on the Cold War and on Iraq.

That is the summary of critical issues on which Biden has been wrong. If you doubt it read the article and see the list of issues, with explanations, on which Joe Biden has not just been wrong, but stupidly wrong. It is an insult for anyone to try and compare Biden's abilities on foreign affairs with Governor Sarah Palin. She is better on every issue.

There is a classic description of experience and Biden is the perfect example. A significant difference exists between 20 years experience and 1 years experience 20 times. They take the same length of time but they are not the same. Biden is a perfect example of the second. He is clueless.

Is Capitalism On The Ropes?

by Larry Elder - September 25th, 2008 - Jewish World Review

In 1930, before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, taxpayers paid about 12 percent of their income to all three levels of government — state, local and federal. Today we pay approximately 40 percent — even more if you attach a value to unfunded mandates, such as those issued by agencies such as OSHA.

So, yes, our recent financial turmoil does suggest failure — a failure to truly practice capitalism and a failure to accept and believe in the value, appropriateness and morality of a limited government and maximum personal responsibility.

We are slowly creeping towards socialism and it is becoming a major concern whether anyone can stop it. Even a major part of the Republican Party has embraced the socialism of George Bush's "compassionate conservatism". Socialism always evolves into tyranny, and quickly reduces a nation's productive capacity. We are well on our way to both.

The idiocy of our current socialist financial system with its destruction of our housing market is a perfect example.

Media Mum on Barney Frank's Fannie Mae Love Connection

by Jeff Poor - September 24th, 2008 - Business and Media

Are journalists playing favorites with some of the key political figures involved with regulatory oversight of U.S. financial markets?

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews launched several vitriolic attacks on the Republican Party on his Sept. 17, 2008, show, suggesting blame for Wall Street problems should be focused in a partisan way. However, he and other media have failed to thoroughly examine the Democratic side of the blame game.

Prominent Democrats ran Fannie Mae, the same government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that donated campaign cash to top Democrats. And one of Fannie Mae’s main defenders in the House – Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a recipient of more than $40,000 in campaign donations from Fannie since 1989 – was once romantically involved with a Fannie Mae executive [Herb Moses - assistant director for product initiatives at Fannie Mae who was at the forefront of relaxing lending restrictions which significantly contributed to the current crisis].

In addition to many other Democrat contributions to the current crisis, this blatant conflict of interest continues to be suppressed by the MSM and Democrat leadership. The double standard is contemptible. Barney Franks is off limits because he is gay and had a sexual relationship with someone whose position made Frank's role in congress a complete conflict of interest. Any Republican would be crucified in these circumstances but when it is a Democrat, the press looks the other way.

As noted in several articles posted here, the Democrats own this crisis and their constant attempt, along with the MSM, to blame Republicans is a monumental joke.

Three Articles From Newsbusters Including "I've Got A Bracelet Too"

If you don't think that the MSM is in the tank for Obama, these reviews of the debate are certainly not going to make you happy. All of the MSM was giddy over the showing of the Magic Marxist after the debate.

[Update to original posting - September 28th, 2008 - "Family Told Obama NOT To Wear Soldier Son's Bracelet ... " by Warner Todd Huston - NewsBusters] The key moment in the debate for me was when Barack Obama could not remember the name of the soldier whose bracelet he wears. Barack Obama does not care about the soldier's sacrifice for our country. Proof he doesn't care is that " ... Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son's name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family." Does Obama have any character at all?]

Before the Debate all the MSM was greatly excited about a poll from ABC News and the Washington Post that claimed a 9 point lead. An article, here, by Rich Noyes compares that with a poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal that only shows a 2 point lead for Obama. His summary?

The real question is whether the ABC poll that so titillated the media is the first sign of a pro-Obama trend, or merely a stray data point in a statistically-tied horse race. Both ABC/Post and NBC/Journal looked at relatively few voters (780 likely voters and 1085 registered voters, respectively) compared to the big Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls that present a three-day rolling average of 2,700 and 3,000 voters every day.

And those polls have shown no sign of validating the big swing towards Obama that ABC/Post theorized.

The second article of interest, here, was by Tim Graham pointing out the record of liberal bias by the debate moderator, Jim Lehrer. Basis for some of the doubts about Lehrer are in this summary:

In 2004, Lehrer moderated the first George Bush-John Kerry debate, devoted to foreign policy matters. He pressed Bush: “President Putin and Russia. Did you misjudge him?...Do you feel that what he is doing in the name of anti-terrorism by changing some democratic processes is okay?” He asked Bush to get personal: “Are there also underlying character issues that you believe, that you believe are serious enough to deny Senator Kerry the job as commander in chief of the United States?” Bush protested: “That's a loaded question.”

In the same event, Lehrer’s questions to Kerry sounded like helpful speech set-ups ...

The final article of interest, here, was by Matthew Sheffield, talking about what some consider the huge gaffe by Obama that proves most of the criticism about his lack of patriotism.

... shortly after pointing out that, like John McCain, he sports a bracelet given to him by a military family, Barack Obama had to stop and look down to find out the name of the soldier he's honoring.

That soldier is Ryan David Jopek. Barack Obama doesn't appear to have known that fact.

Here's his complete line:

"Jim, let me just make a point. I've got a bracelet too. From, Sergeant, uh, uh, from the mother of, uh, Sergeant, Ryan David Jopek."

Had a Republican, say Sarah Palin, made this gaffe, who wants to bet that we wouldn't hear this clip repeated endlessly during the post-debate spin shows and in the days ahead?

The question of who won this debate is always an issue of perception, however who can trust the perception of the MSM when they are so obviously in the tank for a man who really cares as little for America as they do?

Judgment Day

by Cal Thomas - September 25th, 2008 - Townhall.com

It is an affront to the nation that some of the people who brought on the crisis (and financially and politically benefited from the status quo) were asking the questions at the Banking Committee hearing. They should have been in the witness chair. Dodd said the crisis was "entirely foreseeable and preventable." Then why didn't he try to prevent it? He should have been answering questions about the PAC contributions he received from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (according to opensecrets.org, he's the Senate's no. 1 recipient of campaign contributions, $133,900, Barack Obama is no. 3, $105,849), his sweetheart Countrywide Financial mortgage rate and whether they influenced his inattentiveness to the growing mortgage crisis.

Will the judgement on November 4th be to punish those who caused this crisis, the Democrats, or to reward them and continue the rush to socialism?

How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable

by Terry Jones - September 24th, 2008 - Investor's Business Daily

While President Carter in 1977 signed the Community Reinvestment Act, which pushed Fannie and Freddie to aggressively lend to minority communities, it was Clinton who supercharged the process. After entering office in 1993, he extensively rewrote Fannie's and Freddie's rules.

In so doing, he turned the two quasi-private, mortgage-funding firms into a semi-nationalized monopoly that dispensed cash to markets, made loans to large Democratic voting blocs and handed favors, jobs and money to political allies. This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and the Fannie-Freddie collapse.

[snip]

Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks due to implicit government guarantees for their debt, the government-sponsored enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions of dollars of loans into poor communities, often "no doc" and "no income" loans that required no money down and no verification of income.

With these changes Bill Clinton turned our home mortgage industry into a socialism based system of corruption and cronyism. It was set up for failure the first time there was a serious down turn in the home market that sustained long enough to result in significant foreclosures. This was because the people who had loans they could not afford could not get out from under them by simply selling the home in a rising home market.

Another Democrat regulation of capitalism, the ridiculous Fair Value accounting rules, provided the spark to set off this tender box. It forced lending institutions to write down loans that were not in danger of foreclosure based on fire sale prices of the problem loans. This wiped out the apparent financial integrity of the institution. The result is the crisis we face today.

Biden Flubs FDR, Television Dates

by Staff - September 24th, 2008 - The New York Sun

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened,'" Senator Obama's running mate told the "CBS Evening News." Except Republican Herbert Hoover was in office when the stock market crashed in October 1929. There also was no television at the time; TV wasn't introduced to the public until a decade later, at the 1939 World's Fair.

ROTFL

You know beyond any doubt that if Governor Sarah Palin had said something this stupid, the press would have dubbed her "Ms. Dan Quayle" and the flub would have been mentioned in every article ever written about her for the rest of her life.

A Democrat, though, will merely be said to have mis-spoken and it will never be mentioned again. In this case it merely proves what most people have known for a while, Biden is an idiot and not qualified to be VP, much less President.

Palin and Obama-- What Really is Wisdom?

by Victor Davis Hanson - September 22nd, 2008 - Real Clear Politics

I have been asked by many why I have such confidence in a rookie Alaskan governor, given the rigors of the campaign to follow. (Many Republican pundits apparently do not.) I think we are starting to see the answers to that question. The proverbial "they" hacked into her private email accounts. They swore that her daughter was the real mother of her Down Syndrome baby. They sent legions of reporters and lawyers to Alaska to dig up dirt. They wrote columns suggesting that she was stupid, uneducated, dishonest, a liar, and worse still. All this was the work of moralists, who, in their more extreme manifestations, tried to flood a Chicago radio station to disrupt guests, who doctored photos of McCain to subvert his portrait, who disgraced the Atlantic brand by trafficking in pregnancy rumors, and who now publish the private email of Palin.

And? She is still smiling and apparently unmoved.

Victor Davis Hanson has become one of my favorite writers because of his ability to make sense of complex issues and explain them with simple and specific logic. It is the magic of truly great thinkers who help us all to understand the world around us. When article after article is sound and logical, you reach a point of confidence about a man such as Victor Davis Hanson.

He reminds me of my favorite writer Thomas Sowell. Mr. Sowell has written for years and yet I can find no incident where he allowed emotion and prejudice to lead him into writing something that he later regretted. He uses simple and specific logic to explain the world. When I read something he has written, I usually find that if I agreed before, I can better explain my own position more definitively. When I disagree with Sowell on some issue, I have almost always gone back, found the error of my logic (sometimes embarrassingly so) and changed my mind.

It is writers like these two who help a representative Republic like ours work out the future. We do not all have time to reason out each and every issue. We need to find leaders and thinkers that we trust. We need analysts like Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson to help us in this process. What is interesting is that writers such as these rarely get published in the Main Stream Media (MSM). The New York Times and the Washington Post would not publish either except to shoot them down.

Hanson admires Governor Sarah Palin. He explains in this article why we all should admire her. On the same day that evidence surfaces of the petty little Democrat brat who stole Palin's family emails . . . and evidence of Obama's attack dog smearing Palin with video's that are complete frauds is released . . . Hanson explains the reason some of us admire her grit and determination. Last night I was talking with a feisty lady Republican over in Williamston about Governor Palin. During the conversation, we talked for a while about Dr. Ada Fisher, the grass roots candidate for National Committee Woman from North Carolina. Dr. Fisher happens to be black, but she was not elected because she is black. She was elected because for years she has helped other grass roots Republicans.

Dr. Fisher is not a fat-cat Republican. She is a popular down to earth hard working and practical friend of Republicans who just happens to be black and is now one of North Carolina's two National Committee members. Like Governor Sarah Palin I would trust Dr. Fisher to be President before I would trust many of the candidates like Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Joe Biden or Barack Obama. Our state press ignores Dr. Fisher just like the National Press would love to ignore Governor Palin.

It really is about wisdom. The difference is that I see no one in the Democrat Party who exhibits wisdom any more. The Democrats ran out of their party a large intellectual contingent called neo-conservatives because they wanted to talk . . . just talk . . . about issues that Democrats insisted were politically incorrect to even discuss.

I have my own reasons for feeling Governor Sarah Palin is filled with more wisdom than Barack Obama. I trust her to be President much more than anyone who is a disciple of Saul Alinsky, an American hating communist. Obama admires people who hate America. Palin does not.

It is not totally that simple, but that explains the logic nearly as well as any more complex argument ever could. However a better explanation is contained in this article by Victor Davis Hanson. In the world of Presidential Politics, it is a must read.

Smear Videos Against Palin Linked To Obama Campaign

by Ray Robison - September 22nd, 2008 - Charlotte Examiner

A series of videos designed to spread lies about the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin has been connected to a professional Public Relations firm. Those videos also share production qualities used in pro-Obama videos produced by Obama media campaign strategist David Axelrod.

Axelrod is considered by many to be a master of planting campaign messages on the internet to look like they did not originate from an organized campaign, a practice know as “astroturfing” (because of the fake grass-roots nature of the message).

Fake grass roots! What a concept. Fake grass roots. Sort of like the fake messenger of "Hope we can believe it". The first thing that Obama's campaign did was set up a web site to defend themselves from Republican smears. All they have done though is smear John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Now, Axelrod (Obama's merchant of dirt) is trying to use "youtube" videos to smear Palin even worse than she has already been smeared by the MSM. Smearing others and attacking them is the standard technique of the people on the left who actually do what they constantly claim others do to them. There is a famous old cliche that people always accuse others of their own sins. So who is surprised that Obama is doing the smearing? Oh that's right. We don't have absolute proof. We only have the level of proof needed for people who are not bone headed idiots. It would never stand up in the American Court System populated by bone headed idiot judges.

Michael Reagan: Wall Street Bailout 'Robbery'

by Phil Brennan - September 22nd, 2008 - NewsMax

"Democrats Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, Penny Pritzker, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are robbing the American taxpayer, and Republicans in the House and Senate had been tapped to drive the getaway car," said Reagan.

“In a political system where well-paid Democrat operatives can enrich themselves at the expense of the American people with zero downside, there is no incentive to behave properly, when the taxpayer will bail you out. Enough is enough, bad decisions have consequences and those consequences ought to include indictments and jail time for those who cashed in."

I guess I don't understand why John McCain is not saying the things that Michael Reagan is saying. McCain has good advisers, but too often I think that the advisers are concerned with the view of the left. In this crisis the easy answer is there is some fat-cat group of rich that are evil who did this. However, pointing at these vaguely defined villains usually causes the misunderstanding that they are Republicans, not Democrats who own this scandal. Is this McCain trying to be an independent again?

This is a Democrat scandal and McCain is letting it become a fat-cat scandal, meaning Republican. I am not pleased with that.

Palin Draws Crowd Of 60,000 In The Villages

by Bill Cotterell - September 22nd, 2008 - Fort Myers News-Press

Palin, whose son shipped out for Iraq this month, made a point of asking veterans and military members in the crowd to raise their hands for a round of applause.

Then she recalled that McCain took an early, unpopular stance in support of the Iraq troop surge, a policy shift now widely credited with stabilizing Iraq. "That's the kind of man I want as commander in chief," she shouted, as applause and whoops rose in the town square.

"John McCain is the only great man in this race."

The image being fostered by the MSM is that the Palin phenomenon is over. Certainly you could not tell it from the crowd yesterday. Let's be honest. Governor Sarah Palin is good people. She is dealing with the popularity the way an American deals with it. And she certainly appears to be focusing on the fact that the real star is the man who heads the Republican ticket, John McCain.

Bush Called For Reform of Fannie Mae

& Freddie Mac 17 Times in 2008 Alone... Dems Ignored Warnings

by Gateway Pundit - September 21st, 2008 - gatewaypundit.blogspot.com

In 2005-- Senator John McCain partnered with three other Senate Republicans to reform the government’s involvement in lending.
Democrats blocked this reform, too.

Bloggers continue to provide proof that Democrats own this crisis. This is a great series of links to the proof. The MSM is refusing to even cover the historical record where Bush, and McCain have repeatedly predicted this fiscal crisis in home financing. Of course, due to bias, they swallow the Democrat line that Bush "presided" over the failure and that therefore it is his fault. The next line in their lie is that McCain is a Republican so of course he too is at fault.

You should not buy this deceit. The Democrats own this crisis. They legislated the loopholes that allowed it to exist. Former Democrat politicians manage these GSE (government sponsored entity) organizations, in a revolving door system of corruption. They knowingly hid hug losses to cover up the growing crisis. Democrats blocked all attempts to fix the regulatory scandal before it became a crisis. And now Democrats are blaming the people who tried repeatedly to stop the crisis before it occurred. Bias of the press means it is almost impossible to get honest news about this crisis.

Thankfully the blogs mean you no longer have to depend on Democrat stooges in the MSM to give you the facts.

'Iran Halfway To First Nuclear Bomb'

by Herb Keinon - September 22nd, 2008 - The Jerusalem Post

Iran is halfway to a nuclear bomb, and Hizbullah, Hamas and Syria are using this period of relative calm to significantly rearm, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, the Military Intelligence's head of research, told the cabinet Sunday during a particularly gloomy briefing on the threats facing the country.

Baidatz said there was a growing gap between Iran's progress on the nuclear front and the West's determination to stop it.

This is a horrifying situation because of the last statement above. While Islamo-fascists continue to plan the nuclear destruction of the West, the so-called anti-war elements in America are working to disarm America and, as Obama keeps insisting, negotiate with them. There is no will to stop Iran and the Islamo-fascist movement from acquiring the bombs that will rip our major cities apart.

What I find amazing, it is the large number of urban poor, the ones who will die in the nuclear holocaust the Islamo-fascists keep insisting they will inflict on us, who are the major supporters of the party trying to stop us dealing with the problem while it can be dealt with.

The Drilling Bill That Bans Drilling

by Jeff Jacoby - September 21st, 2008 - Boston Globe

This bill permanently bans all drilling within 50 miles of the US coast, which just happens to be where most of the recoverable oil and gas reserves are. It permits drilling between 50 and 100 miles out only if the adjoining states agree - which they won't, since the bill denies them any share in the royalties the oil companies would have to pay, thereby eliminating any financial incentive for a state to say yes. Virtually all the oil off the California coast and beneath the Eastern Gulf of Mexico would be locked up for good. Don't be fooled: The only offshore drilling this bill really opens the door to would have to be 100 miles or more out to sea, where the oil companies have no infrastructure.

This election is the most bizarre election in history. The Democrat Party has stopped all exploration of practical fuel resources ... oil, natural gas, shale oil and coal, as well as blocking expansion of nuclear ... for two generations. The Democrat Party, for the purpose of expanding home ownership, has corrupted the home mortgage marketplace for nearly 20 years, turning it into a socialized system that forces loans to be made to people who cannot afford them. This is proved by the fact that mortgage firms are all controlled by Democrats. Their management has been a revolving door for Democrat Party hacks like Jamie Gorelick. It is not possible to believe the preponderence of Democrats is a coincidence.

Now the Democrats are trying to sell the idea that both of these problems they created are the fault of capitalism and those greedy insensitive Republicans. They insist they are still out there protecting the American people by subsidizing the Democrat controlled companies in a bailout (and bailing out the people who bought homes they cannot afford) and also pretending to allow drilling for oil while making sure that the two generation ban stays in place in all practical ways. Both are con jobs.

Yet people are actually believing their story on both issues. Is the world insane?

Astronomical Influences Affect Climate More Than CO2

by Kevin Mooney - September 17th, 2008 - CNS News

Contrary to what has been stated in a “Summary for Policymakers” attached to the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report -- and in subsequent press coverage of the report -- there is scant evidence in favor of human-caused global warming, according to geologists, astrophysicists, and climatologists who have released updated studies.

What you get when you eliminate the political bias of the chicken little environmental extremists and their self serving evaluation of scientific data is the scientific reality . . . man is NOT causing global warming. You will NOT see this in the MSM. They are a part of the political bias.

How To Save The Financial System

by William M. Isaac - September 19th, 2008 - Wall Street Journal

At the outset of the current crisis in the credit markets, we had no serious economic problems. Inflation was under control, GDP growth was good, unemployment was low, and there were no major credit problems in the banking system.

The dark cloud on the horizon was about $1.2 trillion of subprime mortgage-backed securities, about $200 billion to $300 billion of which was estimated to be held by FDIC-insured banks and thrifts. The rest were spread among investors throughout the world.

The likely losses on these assets were estimated by regulators to be roughly 20%. Losses of this magnitude would have caused pain for institutions that held these assets, but would have been quite manageable.

How did we let this serious but manageable situation get so far out of hand -- to the point where several of our most respected American financial companies are being put out of business, sometimes involving massive government bailouts?

Really good question. The reality is that we have allowed government to destroy many of the financial barriers to good decision making in a free market. I concur with the three recommendations here, suspend the Fair Value Accounting rules, clamp down on abuses by short sellers, and withdraw the Basel II capital rules, which hamstring banks in finding liquidity when it is most needed.

These are complicated issues. However the consequences (during hard times) of each of these rules were identified when they were proposed. Our current problem is simply a refusal to acknowledge that government rules that work well in good times can have serious consequences when times go bad. Some of our earlier structural protections (such as Glass-Steagall to limit speculation and corruption) were also done away with because of the good times during the nineties, when huge productivity surges due to the Internet and the World Wide Web convinced many people that the world had changed.

It is time we accept, the world has not changed that much. Just because we are starting at a higher level of productivity does not mean that the basic rules of banking can be altered. Requiring banks to liquidate and mark down assets creating paper losses that are not rational over the long term is a sure way to bankrupt otherwise solvent entities.

If you doubt that, read today's headlines!

Mistress of Disaster: Jamie Gorelick

by C. Edmund Wright - September 18th, 2008 - The American Thinker

Imagine playing a central role in the biggest national defense disaster in 50 years. Imagine playing a central role in one of the biggest economic disasters in your country's history. Imagine doing both as an un-elected official. Imagine getting filthy rich in the process, and even being allowed to sit self-righteously on a commission appointed to get to the bottom of the first disaster ...

Jamie Gorelick must walk around with a black cloud over her head. The Clinton hatchet "man" is involved again in a monumental disaster. Everything that she does is wrong. How can anyone be this incompetent and never be held accountable? That one is easy. Be a Democrat appointee in this time of Democrat cover ups. The latest is true arrogance. First the Democrats subvert free enterprise under the claim of affordable housing. Then they sweep under the rug the mounting losses until the real estate bubble bursts. When their crisis can no longer be contained, send out their Presidential candidate to declare this is all the problem of those greedy scum on wall street rather than a government created crisis due to interference in free enterprise. Nothing is ever the fault of Democrats or Socialists. Once again Jamie Gorelick's direct responsibility is being denied and covered up. Amazing.

Democrats Own The Wall Street Debacle

by Michael Reagan - September 18th, 2008 - Newsmax.com

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top three U.S. senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats, and No. 2 was Sen. Barack Obama, who as Fox noted had only been in the Senate four years but still managed to grab that No. 2 spot ahead of longtime colleagues John Kerry and Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

It is amazing but the one person who fought against this looming disaster the hardest is John McCain. And yet after only one day, Obama has been able to presuade a huge number of our citizens that he, Barack Obama, one of the Democrats who was helping to hide the crisis, is the best person to protect them from the fat-cat Republicans on Wall Street. The disaster is the making of Democrats and yet they benefit from the crisis by blaming Republicans. Overnight polls indicate a huge move back to Obama from McCain-Palin. There are certainly times when I despair for the future of our nation. Do these voters ever read? Do they follow anything?

Opinion Poll Raises Pressure On Brown

by Adrian Croft and Frank Prenesti - September 18th, 2008 - Reuters

Labour is consistently near 30-year lows in polls and its lack of popularity has been compounded by the global economic crisis, in which the largest savings group, HBOS, was taken over by Lloyds TSB in a $20 billion (11 billion pound) deal on Wednesday.

Unemployment rose last month by the biggest amount in 16 years, figures this week showed. Rising food and energy costs and slumping house prices have also stoked discontent with Labour's 11 years in office.

The United Kingdom has been following the Barack Obama prescription for economic policy, and as it was for America under Carter back in the 1970s, it has been a disaster. In England the Labour Party has been in sole power for nearly a decade. I wonder how long it will take for Democrat control of America to last if Obama takes over the Executive Branch?

Palin, The Base, And The Northeast Corridor Conservatives

by J.R. Dunn - September 17th, 2008 - American Thinker

The selection of Sarah Palin as Republican vice-presidential candidate has revealed a serious chasm in conservatism, a chasm separating conservative elites – opinion leaders, pundits, spokesmen -- from the vast population of center-right Americans they purport to represent.

This is a great article, and indicative of why the American Thinker has burst on the scene to become a major force in the intellectual discussions that drive the conservative movement.

It is curious how few on the left see the struggle between various factions in the conservative movement as the valuable asset it is for conservative thought. The constant discussions allow for ideas to be brought forward that help our nation. There are social (Dobson) conservatives , good-old-boy (Hastert) conservatives , fat-cat (Rockefeller) conservatives, fiscal (no one stands out) conservatives, pro-life (Falwell) conservatives, paleo (Buchanan) conservatives, libertarian (Reagan) conservatives, neo-conservatives (Kristol), big-government (Bush) conservatives and various other factions that some see as important (like the Northeast Corridor Conservatives identified by Dunn for this article). The interesting thing is that most Republicans are sympathetic to (and identify with) more than one faction of the party. This unwillingness to be single issue conservatives the way we have so many who are single issue liberals is the key difference (to me) between the two American political parties.

I was astounded when Charles Krauthammer attacked Governor Palin. Though not named by Mr. Dunn in his article, Charles certainly is typical of what this article is talking about. Krauthammer seemed astonished with the ebullient acceptance of Governor Palin by people he thought should be rejecting her.

I am excited by the implication of the reaction to Governor Palin because I believe it is time for an old fashioned house cleaning to rid ourselves of some of the dead wood conservatism has accumulated over the decades. Governor Palin got rid of some of the worse Republican tendencies in Alaska. We need to do that across the party and across the nation. That is what the Republican base sees that Krauthammer seems to miss. The minions of Dennis Hastert and cronies of Jack Abramoff do not belong among the principaled people in the Republican Party. The 2006 demoralization of the base started with our inability to understand how so many of our leaders could think Abramoff was okay.

What I am trying to understand at this point is how someone I admire as much as Krauthammer can be so wrong on the essence of what Sarah Palin brings to the party. The writer, Mr. Dunn, has at least started to bridge this gap. As I said, great article.

The Audacity Of Honor

by Mary Katharine Ham - September 18th, 2008 - The Daily Standard

When John McCain first started saying he'd "rather lose an election than see the country lose a war," it was a serious aside in a self-deprecating assessment of his own uncertain political future.

He'd chuckle and deliver his reworking of Chairman Mao's line, "It's always darkest before it's totally black." He was speaking of himself, but he could just as easily have meant Iraq, to which his future had become so inextricably linked.

Despite Obama's snide and nasty claims that McCain has no honor, John McCain is the one person in this campaign that I KNOW is a man of honor. I have not always agreed with McCain on some issues. Hell, I don't agree with him on some issues right now. However I have always considered him an incredible patriot and a man of integrity, courage, character and honor.

This article talks about an organization of these men, Vets for Freedom.

It also talks about an issue that is a major component of the three wars in which America currently finds itself. This political campaign may deal with two of these issues, but it is an active extension of one of the three wars. There is a lot of coverage of the war against the Islamo-fascists. The Vets for Freedom group discussed in the article are all veterans of this war. That is one war that is an issue in the campaign.

Another issue in the campaign is the economic and cultural war represented by the Hispanic invasion of our borders. These are people who are equally dedicated to ending the current America by making us provide them jobs and wealth. They are under the impression that our success has nothing to do with the culture of individual freedom in America. Their assumption is that it is all about our natural resources, not our cultural attitudes. They love their culture and they are invading us because they want to bring their culture here and yet have good jobs too. They do not accept that it is the culture of their country that leaves them poor. In some ways it overlaps with the final war in which America finds itself.

The final war that has been going on since the 1800s is the war over economics, how is society best organized to create wealth and share that wealth. There are a number of people in America who hate America because we are oriented towards free enterprise. The essence of free enterprise is the idea that society benefits when the products are created through competition. It creates the highest quality product at the lowest price. All society benefits. Walmart proves that free enterprise is actually the best way to provide products for the poor. However those who do not wind up rich in this form of economic system hate and despise it since they are convinced they should be the rich and powerful. They therefore look for a system that allows them to take the wealth of others and spread it around as a matter of justice and claim the right to rule in the process. Its proponents go by various names such as socialist, communist, marxist, liberal and progressive.

This economic system always fails. Yet its proponents never concede that failure is the fault of their system. Obama and his supporters are still determined to impose socialism on our nation. The litany of Vets for Freedom candidates who are getting no traction in their campaigns is a direct result of the fact that in many parts of our nation, the people are so oriented to socialism that they hate America and don't care about honor. These men who have risked their lives for America are not appreciated for their service. They are hated for defending a system, free enterprise, that many of our fellow citizens want to end.

We are currently watching the Democrats refuse to drill for oil because their followers see oil as a part of this economic system they want to destroy. The real campaign issue is conflict between a system of freedom that admires honor and a system of redistribution of wealth that rationalizes stealing. Honor is not prized in the latter. Somehow we have got to find a way to show people that these wars are all about freedom, individual freedom, and the honor and character that individual freedom inspires in our citizens. Unless we do, in this campaign a lot of patriots will lose to men with no honor as a result.

Freedom is the most important part of honor.

Bold Sculpture Of Michelle Obama

with American flag across her bare chest

by Lucy Cockcroft - September 18th, 2008 - London Telegraph

The work, by controversial sculptor Daniel Edwards, is clearly a nod to both Mrs Obama's ethnic roots and her position at the heart of American culture and politics.

What? Her position at the heart of American culture? Since when?

Nothing epitomizes the disconnect between the two political campaigns currently being waged more than this statue. To Obama supporters, they see their nation as African-American, not American. Their opponents are American and everything that it stands for. The belief among blacks, African-Americans as they like to call themselves, that a 12% minority deserves equal billing to white America, 71% of the nation, is the reason that so many other Americans, Asian, Hispanic and white, cannot grasp the totality of the Obama view of the world.






At its core it is more militantly racist than any political effort in our history. Approximately 30% to 35% of blacks in America espouse views that are overwhelmingly conservative. Yet only 12% to 14% of blacks have tradtionally voted conservative. This year 96% of blacks are voting for Obama, a man whose political philosophy is overwhelmingly Marxist. Only 4% of blacks see any issue as more important than their race. No more powerful statement of a racist view of our nation has ever been made. To anyone who loves the American ideal of respect for the individual and opposition to racism (or any form of group identification) this campaign seems destined to display that a level of hate that we have worked really hard to end has really simply gone underground. It smolders among people we thought were friends, but who may not be friends at all.

Prominent Clinton Backer And DNC Member To Endorse McCain

by Mark Preston - September 16th, 2008 - CNN

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday, her spokesman tells CNN.

I wonder why CNN is giving this endorsement so much prominence? Is it to attack de Rothschild or to aid McCain-Palin?

The Democrat establishment is in an uproar about the disintegrating Obama campaign as it abandons its very essence (a new style of politics that is positive) and returns to the core Democrat message (hate of middle America and their stupid failure to vote for their own economic well being, at least as the Democrats define their economic well being).

Very curious article to say the least. I wonder how long de Rothschild will stay on the DNC Platform Committee?

Obama Objects

But The Evidence Says I'm Right

by Amir Taheri - September 17th, 2008 - The New York Post

The real news I see in the Obama statement is that there may be an encouraging evolution in his position on Iraq: The "rebuttal" shows that the senator no longer shares his party leadership's belief that the United States has lost the war in Iraq.

He now talks of "the prospect of lasting success," perhaps hoping that his own administration would inherit the kudos. And he makes no mention of his running mate Joe Biden's pet project for carving Iraq into three separate states. He has even abandoned his earlier claim that toppling Saddam Hussein was "illegal" and admits that the US-led coalition's presence in Iraq has a legal framework in the shape of the UN mandate.

In his statement on my Post article, Obama no longer talks of "withdrawal" but of "redeployment" and "drawdown" - which is exactly what is happening in Iraq now.

While I am encouraged by the senator's evolution, I must also appeal to him to issue a "cease and desist" plea to the battalions of his sympathizers - who have been threatening me with death and worse in the days since my article appeared.

The article below accusing Obama of asking Iraq to wait until he is elected to negotiate troop withdrawals, and this article, are proof positive of the duplicity of Barack Obama. His clear belief that Americans are too stupid to follow his double dealings is displayed by vaguely acknowledging that the war in Iraq was legally valid under the U.N. Framework in private, while he publicly insists to his supporters that the war was illegal.

Like his earlier statements in Scranton of how much he likes small town America and then in San Francisco where he derides small town America for its bitterness, clinging to guns and religion as a result, his duplicity is clear. There is a famous old saying that you criticize in others the flaws you see in yourself. I think that Barack Obama is a bitter man, who clings to certain delusions to hide his own bitterness.

You cannot trust or believe anything that he says, other than the certainty that he has always aligned himself with communists and socialists, racists and traitors.

This is not the type of person who should lead the most powerful and greatest nation on earth. We tried a socialist once before and we are still paying for Carter's mistakes.

Obama Can’t Be Trusted On National Defense

by Peter Ferrara - September 17th, 2008 - The American Spectator

If the media is to have any credibility at all, it should reassign a few of the dozens of reporters it now has in Alaska investigating the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter to investigate the explosive charges now raised by Taheri. They can start by interviewing Taheri, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, and other Iraqi officials.

I am calling on Obama now to answer these charges, or withdraw from the race, freeing the American people from the trouble of having to impeach him after the election, if he should defy the now lengthening odds and somehow win the race.

Now this is getting serious. It appears that more and more people are starting to realize that Obama actually did commit treason on his "grand foreign policy tour", during which he spoke to the multitudes in Germany. Obama seems to have lost sight of the fact that he does not yet have power. To interfere with the current American negotiations with Iraq for political gain is the absolutely STUPIDEST act I can remember in quite some time. It is brazen arrogance as well. Obama used to argue that judgment is more important than experience. What kind of judgment is displayed by this incredible fiasco?

Great article about the most serious issue of this campaign.

Media Abet Communist Cover-Up

by Cliff Kincaid - September 15th, 2008 - Accuracy in Media

The cover-up is now so blatant that an article that is generally sympathetic to Davis has been edited by the Obama campaign in order to delete references to Davis’s CPUSA activities.

We are finally getting more information about the mysterious relationship between the young Barack Obama and the sex pervert and communist party member who was a heavy influence on Obama during his youth. Though only mentioned as "Frank" in his autobiography, it is now well established that the individual in question was Frank Marshall Davis, a long term member and leader in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). CPUSA was a Russian sponsored and financed organization dedicated to subverting American interests.

Like his mysterious ties to Bill Ayers, another anti-American radical, Obama has obfuscated and minimized the relationship publicly. At the same time he has used the backing of these radicals to establish his adherence to the principles shared with the extremist advocates of socialism and Marxism in America. That is why more than 90% of these group's members support Barack Obama. There has to be some accounting of the fact that Obam has such overwhelming support from people in the socialist and Islamo-fascist movements.

More Obama Resume Inflation . . .

. . . His Days at Business International

by Tom Blumer - September 15, 2008 - Media Research Center

As to traditional media outlets, Tom Maguire at Just One Minute, writing on another matter (Obama, Bill Ayers, and the Annenberg Challenge) has a good prediction as to when they'll get around to questioning the accuracy of Obama's books: "after they resolve open issues about Ms. Palin's 4-H dues from 1971."

ROTFL

Just one more example of the blatant press bias in favor of Barack Obama. This article shows a pattern of Obama exaggeration in his first job out of college. However the press has no interest in Obama's exaggerations. Just as they have no interest in his alignment with Bill Ayers and his constant support for the Marxist plan to use education to foster reparations to blacks for the slavery of the 18th century.

Ayers argues that all whites still benefit from the residual effects of that slavery and therefore owe blacks a portion of their income for the damage done. How this can be argued with a straight face as applying to a black who voluntarily immigrates to America because he can get ahead here easier than any other place of the globe is not explained. These immigrants are to be granted reparations too.

The press is so biased it is an embarrassment.

Bad Will Hunting

by Andrew Breitbart - September 16th, 2008 - Real Clear Politics

. . . "The Path to 9/11" focused on the emergence of radical Islamic terror as a clear and present American threat. Neither administration was cast as the villain; the Islamic terrorists were. Both administrations were rightfully portrayed as underestimating the threat.

Yet politicians and government employees tied to Bill and Hillary Clinton, all who admittedly hadn't seen the film, took to the airwaves to demand it not be aired or be radically edited, with only days to go before its premiere.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Rep. Louise M. Slaughter and even former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who was convicted of destroying top-secret national security documents, demanded that Disney cut the movie to their liking or pull it from the air, within days of its anticipated airing.

Political hacks gleefully declared victory over free speech. Hollywood stood silent as the political class demanded blatant censorship.

The repeated success by those on the left in using blatant manipulation of our society and it's press to suppress truth, "book burning" in absolute fact, makes a mockery of the current hyteria claiming that asking about the process by Palin is some great threat to the truth getting out. The left does not ask about the process of blocking a book. They actively ban anything they dislike and the concern by liberal actors is totally absent.

This issue is not about "book burning." It is about character assasination by liberals of anyone they dislike.

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL IRAQ WITHDRAWAL

by Amir Taheri - September 15th, 2008 - New York Post

While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its "state of weakness and political confusion."

"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open." Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

Barack Obama is playing politics with the lives of our troops. Is it any wonder he would not visit our troops in the hospital while on his grand trip to get "foreign policy experience?" The experience he seems to have obtained is committing treason, betraying our troops and clear violations of the Logan Act.

Obama On The Ropes

by Jack Kelly - September 14th, 2008 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The McCain campaign is betting Mr. Obama's ego is so great and his skin so thin that he can't resist responding to the barbs Ms. Palin delivers with such a sweet smile. So far, they're winning the bet.

The bitter words Mr. Obama had for the news media in Norfolk on Wednesday suggest a campaign overcome by panic and confusion. And ingratitude, considering the way his friends in the press have stacked the deck on his behalf.

Egotistical. Thin skinned. Ingrate. In a panic over a woman Governor he claims is not his equal. There are still 7 weeks in this campaign but you have to wonder how long it will take for people to forget the pitiful performance of Barack Obama the last two weeks. He has not shown much Presidential poise.

The Big 'What If'

The hopes of black America ride on his [Obama's] shoulders.

by Randall Kennedy - September 14th, 2008 - Washington Post

The senator's progressive politics, cosmopolitan ethos and pragmatic style have turned me into an enthusiastic supporter, and I savor the prospect of his triumph. But I'm watching this election very closely as I teach a course about it this semester. And I know that the conclusion to this electoral drama is far from determined. Yes, political gravity would seem to favor the Democratic candidate after two terms of Republican control of the White House. Yet the possibility is very real: Barack Obama could lose.

Randall Kennedy, a beneficiary of racist advantage as codified in the special privilege known as affirmative action, sees everything through the lens of racism. It permeates this article, especially when he refers to fellow blacks as unable to appreciate "their miserable fates."

Kennedy is like the black student who wrote, "Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime black candidate . . . our one shot, probably the only real contender that my parents and grandparents will ever see, and maybe the only contender my generation will see. All my hopes ride with him." To many blacks in America their hatred of whites is such that the only thing they see is the color of John McCain's skin. Hating his whiteness, they will vote for anyone who is black, especially if they espouse racial grievance dialog as the community organizer Obama has so frequently done.

Kennedy notes in the article that Obama is actively espousing a political philosophy that is antithetical to most Americans. Progressive / Liberal / Socialist / Marxist ideology is NOT what Americans embrace or believe. The trail of liberal Democrat candidates who went down to defeat promoting this agenda is a matter of public record. Such candidates as John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, George McGovern and Walter Mondale were not elected President, often losing by huge margins. Were they black? Does Randall Kennedy not realize that Colin Powell would have been our first black President if he had wanted to be? Randall Kennedy would probably not have voted for him though, since Powell would not have gotten there based on being a black activist espousing racist complaints and racist grievances.

Kennedy notes that if Obama loses many black's feelings "will be accompanied by bitter disappointment, and in some quarters, stark rage." We know what he means here. Riots are a well known phenomenon in the black sections of our cities.

I think that a major part of the problem is affirmative action. As long as affirmative action is the law of the land blacks can believe that they deserve to be given special privilege. That allows them to argue it is only a matter of degree and they deserve MORE advantage based on the color of their skin. The dream of America is not sharing the wealth of individuals based on quotas, but each person, working as an individual building their American Dream. The idiocy that whites are not competing and that success is not hard for whites is the fallacy of affirmative action. Affirmative action destroys the dream for those who have their chance taken away by government rules making it easier for anyone who is black. The scales of justice are not balanced. When it was out of balance against blacks it was considered evil. Now government hands on the scales of justice to favor blacks is just fine with some blacks.

It is clear to Randall Kennedy that he feels current government privilege is not enough. In this article he talks about the prejudice that hurt John F. Kennedy in 1960 and yet Randall Kennedy is too self absorbed to recognize that proves many whites suffer bigotry too. Mitt Romney was not judged honestly this year, but was judged by the same type of bigotry that John F. Kennedy was referencing. I bet anything Randall Kennedy does not care about the bigotry that harmed Romney or that harms any white. Randall Kennedy is too bigoted to even notice or care about injustice for whitey. To Randall Kennedy it is all about him and his rights and his wants and the prejudice he has experienced. That anyone not black can overcome greater prejudice than he has experienced is something he cannot and will not ever concede.

Affirmative action is an insult to the American Dream that each individual will be treated with equal opportunity under the law. Government cannot chose winners. When that happens the dream has been abandoned and replaced with the Marxist dream of equal results under the law . . . but only "equal" for some among us. Such tyranny is never fair. Affirmative action provides cover for the bigotry of those in the black community who see everything through the prism of race. Affirmative action is not just and it must end.

'McCain Can't E-Mail' Claim Not Only a Lie . . .

. . . It's Irrelevant to the Presidency

by Tom Blumer - September 13th, 2008 - Media Research Center

(Forbes; May 29, 2000; via Ace and Jonah Goldberg at the Corner)

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

As a computer geek and a patriot, I am disgusted with the Apple Computer fan Barack Obama who feels justified in sneering at John McCain and the disabilities he has to deal with due to his service to our nation. Like the meaningless ads that Apple runs for their computers, saying little about their own computers but ridiculing their competition, most Apple computer fans sneer at anyone who is not an Apple user. Obama's snarky ad claiming McCain couldn't read email was simply, like much about Obama, a complete lie. Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to bother mentioning this.

Climate Change Chicanery

by Christopher Booker - September 14th, 2008 - London Telegraph

... there was the much-publicised speech to Compassion in World Farming by Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pleading for people to give up meat, on the grounds that the digestive methane given off by cattle contributes more to greenhouse gases than all the world's transport.

Although hailed by the BBC as "the UN's top climate scientist", Dr Pachauri, who holds PhDs in economics and engineering, is nothing of the kind, but just an apparatchik.

As noted in the article Dr. Pachauris is also a vegetarian! No bias there, right? Great article.

Whoopi Asks McCain: 'Do I Have To Be Worried About Becoming A Slave Again?'

by Justin McCarthy - September 12th, 2008 - Media Research Center

The legalization of slavery is a big campaign issue. Just ask Whoopi Goldberg. Republican nominee John McCain appeared on the September 12 edition of "The View." Answering a question about his opposition to Roe v. Wade, McCain insisted that he would support judges who strictly interpret the Constitution. This must have set alarms for Whoopi Goldberg who asked "do I have to worry about becoming a slave again?"

Excuse me Whoopi, but what do you use for brains?

If black women can't have an abortion ... then that is slavery? Poor Whoopi. How can someone as rich as this woman constantly harp about all the racism she has to deal with?

Just a reminder, if Roe v. Wade is overturned, decisions about abortion will be back in the hands of the State Legislatures, most of them like here in NC in the hands of Democrats. If Whoopi is afraid of being made a slave it is Democrats that will do it ... just like the last time.

The Death Of Orthodox Islam

by Alan Caruba - September 12th, 2008 - Canada Free Press

Iraq has been deemed “the wrong war in the wrong place” by people who, decades hence, will be deemed very wrong in their judgment. One of its critics, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, said not long ago, “The war is lost.” He’s wrong.

[snip]

Throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, al Qaeda and other jihadists are being hunted and killed.

Bin Laden may be alive but it no longer matters. Throughout the Middle East and even in the heart of the most orthodox practice of Islam, in Saudi Arabia, opinions are shifting and the tides of social change are on the move. In a decade or two they will shed their seventh century outlook and wonder that they were ever so backward and barbaric.

For that you can thank President George W. Bush and the Neocons who understood the lessons of history, who understood that 9/11 had to be dealt with by punishing the enemy, Islamofascism, until the price for it was too harsh to pay.

Many have said repeatedly for a couple of years now that the opponents of the war against Islamo-fascism are simply trying to apply old lessons about war between nation states to a new environment where it does not fit. It is a war against a movement, a unique movement which has control of few nation states, but which is dedicated to ruling the world. Islamo-fascism is simultaneously conducting guerrilla war against nation states in the middle east while raging against the supposed injustice of those dictators actually selling oil to the west. We are condemned for buying that oil and for daring to try and live free within a culture they decry. This movement does not tolerate freedom. Everyone must be subservient to the religious dogma of the movement.

This war is far from over. It is not a war against Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. It is a war against Hamas and Hezbolla and Iran's Ayatollahs and Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood and etc., etc., etc. It is even a war against the pansies in our State Department who have banned use of any Muslim term to describe them because they do not understand what we are fighting and do not see how such waffling weakness hurts our side in the war. Still we are winning.

I am not sure who Alan Caruba is, but he has written an extremely intriguing article about this war for western freedom, and those in the west who still do not seem to "get it".

Giants Among The Lilliputians

by Kathleen Parker - September 12th, 2008 - Townhall.com

While the political class was focused on the meaning of pigs wearing lipstick, a few fortunate South Carolinians were riveted by the meaning of valor.

The occasion was a celebration of four of the state's living recipients of the Medal of Honor -- Charles Murray Jr., (Army, WWII, 1944), John Baker (Army, Vietnam, 1966), James Livingston (USMC, Vietnam, 1968) and Michael Thornton (Navy, Vietnam, 1972).

The four appeared in Camden (at an event my husband helped organize) to raise awareness and funding for the Congressional Medal of Honor Museum in Charleston, S.C., and for the Medal of Honor conventions to be held in Chicago in 2009 and Charleston in 2010.

Thank you Kathleen Parker. This is a great article and the story of Petty Officer Michael Thornton is moving and powerful. That we have 103 of these great men still alive is something I did not know. Thank you for sharing that also.

During this time of war it is always appropriate to remember how much we owe to all the heroes who keep us free with their sacrifice. God bless them.

The Washington Post Distorts Palin On Page One

by William Kristol - September 12th, 2008 - The Weekly Standard

Here are the headline and the first two paragraphs from an article posted online that apparently will be on the front page of Friday’s Washington Post:

“Palin Links Iraq to 9/11, A View Discarded by Bush"
By Anne E. Kornblut - Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 12, 2008; A01

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 -- Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that Iraq shared responsibility with al-Qaeda for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. On any other day, Palin's statement would almost certainly have drawn a sharp rebuke from Democrats, but both parties had declared a halt to partisan activities to mark Thursday's anniversary.”

Kornblut’s interpretation of what Palin said is either stupid or malicious.

I sometimes think liberals are pathologically incapable of telling the truth. When the meticulously polite Bill Kristol finds it necessary to say that something is "stupid or malicious" you know that they have gone totally over the line of decency.

Right now liberals believe that saying anything at all about Governor Sarah Palin is okay, no matter how outrageous, because she is harming their idol Barack Obama. The Magic Marxist has dropped nearly 10 points in polls since Governor Palin was announced as the Republican VP candidate, and the fall continues at this point. This interview is the first chance the liberals get to misquote and mis-characterize her directly, and they still are operating on the belief that they have to smear her before the American people really get to know her.

Don't expect that these smear attacks will lessen any time soon. That Anne E. Kornblut found it necessary to lie about what Governor Palin said is proof that Palin did a really good job on her first interview. The lie is necessitated by the fact that she said nothing wrong.

Age And Experience: Carter's Catastrophes

by Staff - September 10th, 2008 - Investor's Business Daily

His {Jimmy Carter's] most damaging miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran, a strong and longtime military ally. Carter objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overthrow Iran's government. He thought the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader.

Having lost U.S. support, the Shah was overthrown, the Ayatollah returned, Iran was declared an Islamic nation and Palestinian hit men were hired to eliminate opposition.

The Ayatollah then introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine Liberation Organization, paying $35,000 to PLO families whose young people were brainwashed to kill as many Israelis as possible by blowing themselves up in crowded shopping areas.

Next, the Ayatollah used Iran's oil wealth to create, train and finance a new terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which later would attack Israel in 2006.

The summary? The worst problems we currently face in the world today were all caused by Jimmy Carter. As we look back on the incompetence of this naive socialist, the most frightening aspect is that Barack Obama is just as incompetent, just as socialist oriented, just as contemptuous of America's greatness, and just as self righteous.

Jimmy Carter has never accepted responsibility for anything he did that caused our nation harm. He is as certain of himself today as he was when he was screwing up our economy and our future. Just like Obama.

'They Must Think You're Stupid'

by Kenneth Blackwell - September 11th, 2008 - The New York Sun

On Monday, Senator Obama uttered one sentence that could haunt him until Election Day. He said of Senator McCain telling voters they would bring change and Governor Palin, "they must think you're stupid." Given his stances on the surge, social issues, and his past, Mr. Obama will regret those words.

Barack Obama has flip flopped on issue after issue. Kenneth lists just a few here. However Obama always does this with "As I have repeatedly said, blah blah blah . . . " and then goes on to contradict his previous position.

The point is now being made that Oama "must think you are stupid" if you believe anything he says. Using that line against his opponent will only make everyone focus on Obama's presumptuous arrogance.

Great article.

The Other 9/11 Story

by Victor Davis Hanson - September 11th, 2008 - Townhall.com

Seven years ago we suffered the worst attack on the American homeland in our history. The material damage proved far greater than the 1814 British burning of Washington, the human losses more grievous than the almost 2,400 Americans lost at Pearl Harbor.

Years later, we tend to forget all the dimensions of that sinister homicidal bombing of our institutions. Radical Islam brazenly signaled that it need not have missiles or sophisticated bombers to burn 16 acres in the heart of Manhattan and set the Pentagon afire. Instead, it could turn from the inside out our own technology against us, in a manner that we were scarcely aware of — and in an iconic fashion at the heart of our greatest cities, ensuring collective psychological trauma that trumped even the terrible loss in blood and treasure.

Some bewildered Americans offered apologies that either the attacks were tit-for-tat payback for America’s overreaching global presence, or — more preposterously still — that our record against Muslims incited such hatred. And so yet another cultural war broke out over the “causes” of 9/11.

The lesson of 9/11 must never be forgotten. The Islamo-fascists will use any technology against us that allows them to kill us. Beheading innocents whose only crime is that they are NOT MUSLIM makes them joyful. Just as they have no qualms at all in burning down the heart of a city, with zero regard for all the innocent women and children who die, the use of nuclear bombs is no moral quandary for them either. The fear of what happens when some branch of the Islamo-fasicsts gets nuclear weapons is something we must not lose.

And yet ... we have a new culture war here in America, agonizing over whether the barbaric acts of these killers is justified or not. This culture war fills me with both sadness and rage. We are wasting time arguing over how clean our energy should be while the middle east gets richer for our failure to provide domestic sources. We are wasting time arguing over the moral stance of offensive acts against the Islamo-fascists while these militant savages prepare for their next attack. We debate military versus police strategies, whether we have the right to defend ourselves against their supporters or we have to wait until a specific individual takes a specific act. All the while they are seeking nuclear bombs.

There has always been a question whether a democracy based republic could survive. 150 years ago Abe Lincoln persuaded the stronger half of a nation to fight for union against an evil institution whose adherents tried to leave this great experiment we call the United States. He saw then that the greatness of our nation was worth any price to keep us together, as the last great hope for individual freedom. Most agreed and that civil war was fought. Yet today the children of the slaves he freed are dedicated to group rights rather than individual freedom. They have joined the political party that tried to keep their ancestors slaves and which advocates the socialist state ... which many see as the modern version of slavery.

I think of this as I think of the irony of the other 9/11 story that Victor Davis Hanson speaks of. Those on one side of the culture war can only rail against George Bush while those who were kept free are too busy to separate his short term failings from the great success he attained. We are winning. I am no George Bush fan. Yet on this seventh anniversary I too agree we need to acknowledge, seven years and counting! Meantime the culture war continues to sap our energy to fight.

Studying The Islamic Way Of War

by Raymond Ibrahim - September 11th, 2008 - National Reivew Online

based on the words and deeds of Muhammad, most schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that the following are all legitimate during war against the infidel: the indiscriminate use of missile weaponry, even if women and children are present (catapults in Muhammad’s seventh century context; hijacked planes or WMD today); the need to always deceive the enemy and even break formal treaties whenever possible (see Sahih Muslim 15: 4057); and that the only function of the peace treaty, or “hudna,” is to give the Islamic armies time to regroup for a renewed offensive, and should, in theory, last no more than ten years.

Quranic verses 3:28 and 16:106, as well as Muhammad’s famous assertion, “War is deceit,” have all led to the formulation of a number of doctrines of dissimulation — the most notorious among them being the doctrine of “Taqiyya,” which permits Muslims to lie and dissemble whenever they are under the authority of the infidel. Deception has such a prominent role that renowned Muslim scholar Ibn al-Arabi declares: “In the Hadith, practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than the need for courage.”

In the West we focus on courage, Islam focuses on deceit. Is it any surprise that we are unable to appreciate complexities of the current war with Islamo-fascism? This is a very important article for all to read if we wish to remain free.