http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YmFlNDI3OWIwM2JmOTRlMzc3NTE1OGYyYTFhYTU0ZWI=
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Saturday, December 27, 2008
Steyn: Grow Up!
Well, we followed Kelly Clarkson this Christmas. Obama doesnt even seem happy about it.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The Subprime Lending Bias
Media: If, as they say, it's journalists who write history's first draft, then future texts will be riddled with errors about the origins of the...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/InvestorsBusinessDailyOpinion/~3/anq2SVVvlMs/EditorialContent.asp
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Steyn: Can You Still See the USA in Your Chevrolet?
So many areas of endeavor that once embodied the youth and energy of this great land are now old and sclerotic.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTMxODc2NzY0OTNhODNhNmUwMjY5MzU2NzliMjA2NDY=
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Friday, December 12, 2008
Krauthammer: Obama the Centrist?
Our community-organizer-in-chief has no intention of being a foreign-policy president.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2RjYjRiODk2MGEzNjA0MGJhMzdmMjc2NzAxZDRkNjg=
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Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Bailout Ownership
If the American People are bailing out the banks and the big automobile manufacturers (yes they will), shouldn't the American People also get stock and/or warrants in exchange, and shouldn't they, The People, own the stock and warrants themselves rather than having them held in trust on their behalf by the United States Government? The bailout is insane but the Washington Wise Guys are dragging the country down that road so it is prudent to ask what can be done to mitigate some of the worst side effects?
The usual excuse given for why other large public holdings, primarily land and natural resources, must be held in trust by the government rather than dispersing ownership among the people in shares the way ownership rights in most other assets are held is that something about the asset in question requires perpetual centralized management and bureaucratic stewardship on behalf of all the people.
Now don't get me wrong. Personally I dispute most of those claims, whether they are made on environmental grounds where national parks and preserves are concerned or on some other spurious "public-interest" grounds where natural resources are concerned. But, certainly none of these arguments hold where the proceeds of the financial bailout are concerned, so for the sake of argument, I am willing to set aside a discussion about these other public holdings and ask two simple questions about the multi-trillion-dollar financial bailout now underway:
1. Shouldn't the United States Government insist that all companies receiving an injection of capital, loans or guarantees from the federal government give up an amount of ownership and/or warrants entitling the bearer to purchase ownership at a specified price in the company commensurate with the size of the pubic investment, loan or guarantee?
2. Why doesn't the United States Government distribute these stocks and warrants directly to the American People?
There are various estimates of the amount of money that has been or will be spent on the bailout. Let's look at a range of them and how the various estimates would translate into personalized holdings of equity interests.
The simplest way to think about a distribution is on a per capita basis, although I do not think that really is the most equitable way. Nevertheless, it may be the only politically viable way. Regardless, the formula for distribution of the assets to the American People is far less important than the principle that these assets should be distributed directly to them, right now.
According to the latest Census Bureau estimates, there are currently 305,754,329 people in the United States. The highest figure so far being bandied about as the eventual cost of the bailout is $8.5 trillion, which amounts to $27,800 for every man, woman and child in the country. Even if the federal layout for the bailout turned out to be no more than, say, $2.5 trillion dollars, surely a low-ball estimate, that would amount to $8,176 per capita.
There are numerous ways the distribution of these shares and warrants could occur. The simplest would be to use the stock and warrants acquired through the bailout to capitalize one, preferably several mutual funds under private management. Shares of these mutual funds could then be put into a personal retirement account established in the name of every person in the country totally independent of Social Security. Each account would be completely under the control of the individual whose name it is in or that individual's trustee if he or she is a minor or incapacitated. No restrictions or taxes would be placed on the account beyond the restrictions placed on any other Roth 401(K) account. Shares of the mutual funds held in the accounts could be sold and purchased freely at individuals' discretion, and any other asset permitted held in any other retirement account could be held in this account.
It's the simple, just, and efficient thing to do. It's change we can believe in and change we need. Why not do it, Mr. Obama? Yes, you can.
The usual excuse given for why other large public holdings, primarily land and natural resources, must be held in trust by the government rather than dispersing ownership among the people in shares the way ownership rights in most other assets are held is that something about the asset in question requires perpetual centralized management and bureaucratic stewardship on behalf of all the people.
Now don't get me wrong. Personally I dispute most of those claims, whether they are made on environmental grounds where national parks and preserves are concerned or on some other spurious "public-interest" grounds where natural resources are concerned. But, certainly none of these arguments hold where the proceeds of the financial bailout are concerned, so for the sake of argument, I am willing to set aside a discussion about these other public holdings and ask two simple questions about the multi-trillion-dollar financial bailout now underway:
1. Shouldn't the United States Government insist that all companies receiving an injection of capital, loans or guarantees from the federal government give up an amount of ownership and/or warrants entitling the bearer to purchase ownership at a specified price in the company commensurate with the size of the pubic investment, loan or guarantee?
2. Why doesn't the United States Government distribute these stocks and warrants directly to the American People?
There are various estimates of the amount of money that has been or will be spent on the bailout. Let's look at a range of them and how the various estimates would translate into personalized holdings of equity interests.
The simplest way to think about a distribution is on a per capita basis, although I do not think that really is the most equitable way. Nevertheless, it may be the only politically viable way. Regardless, the formula for distribution of the assets to the American People is far less important than the principle that these assets should be distributed directly to them, right now.
According to the latest Census Bureau estimates, there are currently 305,754,329 people in the United States. The highest figure so far being bandied about as the eventual cost of the bailout is $8.5 trillion, which amounts to $27,800 for every man, woman and child in the country. Even if the federal layout for the bailout turned out to be no more than, say, $2.5 trillion dollars, surely a low-ball estimate, that would amount to $8,176 per capita.
There are numerous ways the distribution of these shares and warrants could occur. The simplest would be to use the stock and warrants acquired through the bailout to capitalize one, preferably several mutual funds under private management. Shares of these mutual funds could then be put into a personal retirement account established in the name of every person in the country totally independent of Social Security. Each account would be completely under the control of the individual whose name it is in or that individual's trustee if he or she is a minor or incapacitated. No restrictions or taxes would be placed on the account beyond the restrictions placed on any other Roth 401(K) account. Shares of the mutual funds held in the accounts could be sold and purchased freely at individuals' discretion, and any other asset permitted held in any other retirement account could be held in this account.
It's the simple, just, and efficient thing to do. It's change we can believe in and change we need. Why not do it, Mr. Obama? Yes, you can.
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/12/09/bailout-ownership
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Sunday, December 7, 2008
How a Federal Health Board Will Cancel Private Coverage and Care
President-elect Barack Obama,Senator Max Baucus, and former Senator Thomas Daschle (D-SD)—Obama’s choice for Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—have outlined policy proposals that, if enacted, would negatively impact private health care for millions of Americans.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2155.cfm
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Return to the Wilderness
The prepared text of remarks delivered at The American Spectator's annual Robert L. Bartley Dinner in Washington, D.C. on December 3, 2008.
AND SO THE LAMENTABLE November 4 presidential election is entombed in history… and in keeping with the benevolent wishes of the mainstream moron media the American conservative movement once again enters the wilderness. In the wilderness, all we shall have to comfort us is the L.L. Bean catalogue. As you might have noted, we have distributed several versions of the renowned Bean catalogue on your tables. My personal favorite is the fishing catalogue. Regnery prefers the hunting catalogue. Pleszczynski is waiting for his very own Polish-language edition. I urge you all to take your L.L. Bean catalogues home with you tonight. Study them assiduously. Learn the bird calls.
Winston Churchill, during his wilderness years, was comforted by Pol Roger and a fistful of Havanas. Unfortunately, Champaign has become very pricey, and nowadays smoking is malum prohibitum almost everywhere. Even in the wilderness a lit cigar would be highly controversial. Thus we American conservatives are left with L.L. Bean as our solace and our guide. In my fishing catalogue there are many varieties of warm and sturdy boots, colorful parkas, and a product that I am particularly curious about, "breathable rainwear." I ask myself, "Am I to breathe it or will it breathe me?" -- all very exciting. So perhaps the wilderness will not be so bad -- especially for those of us who drive Hummers.
Of course, to hear some conservatives, for instance David Brooks, David Frum -- both being members of the conservative movement's Davidian Branch -- the rest of us are going to be out there with the flora and the fauna for many, many years. Personally, I hope to get a tent not far from Sarah Palin. She is very cute and can handle a firearm. Shortly after the November 4 election David Brooks, writing from his sofa at the New York Times -- predicted that the Republican Party will veer to the right and suffer still more defeats. That means that we shall be out there in the poison ivy with the wolves and the coyotes for a long time. I pray that Alaska's curvaceous governor will keep her shootin' iron handy.
Now, as I look around this grand and distinguished audience I can see the worried looks on your faces. Probably it has occurred to you that as the Prophet Obama surrounds himself with Clintonistas many of you will be forced to become virtual Boat People. Actually, with Hillary at State, the Prophet Obama himself may become a Boat Person too. Well, relax. I have arranged the boat. Our friend Taki Theodoracopulos has promised that he will have his yacht, Bushido II, at anchor off Nantucket. And if you cannot make it to Nantucket, try Cap Cod. Perhaps the Kennedys will supply a boat. They have been trying to get us out of the country for years.
Of course, we conservatives have been thrust into the wilderness before: in 1964, in 1976, and in 1992. Every time the experience has proved to be highly amusing: recall if you will, LBJ (we called him Old Beagle Ears), Jimmy Carter (we called him the Wonder Boy), and Bill Clinton (we called him many things, the Boy President, Boy Clinton, and our Ithyphallic President). Who needs Pol Roger or the accouterments advertised in the L.L. Bean catalogue when the Democratic Party provides entertainment like that?
Incidentally after every stay in the wilderness we conservatives have come back stronger. The reason we keep coming back is that we are not a party of prophets or messiahs but a party of principles. Our principles have been preferable to the dreams and fantasies of the likes of LBJ and Jimmy Carter.
Now Boy Clinton was a different kettle of fish. He was the one who said "the era of big government is over." Well that seemed to be true, until this autumn when the bell tolled for government-ordered subprime mortgages and the social engineering of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now we have big government as America has never had it before, and it is going to be up to conservatives to sound the alarm when the Democrats are negligent about returning to the prosperous America of the late 20th century created as it was by tax cuts and free markets.
Our belief in free markets is one of the reasons that our critics think that we are going to be shivering in the wilderness. They seem to agree with the heralds of the incoming Administration that the time is now for a new New Deal. Yet as the best recent scholarship has made clear the old New Deal presided over nearly a decade of a no-growth economy with double digit unemployment -- at times 25% of the workforce was unemployed. In today's looming intellectual struggles to return America to free markets and to growth economics we conservatives are going to emerge from the wilderness sooner than the Davidian conservatives anticipate. As the distinguished economist, Henry Manne, recently observed in Forbes magazine, today, unlike the 1930s, we have think tanks and publications that will be at the center of the public debate, arguing for a return to Reaganite prosperity with Reaganite economic therapies.
Nor are we going to be alone in this debate. The majority of the American people side with us. In an October 2nd Rasmussen survey, fully 59% of those polled agreed with Ronald Reagan's pronouncement enunciated in his first inaugural address a quarter of a century ago: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Moreover, even after the congressional Republicans tarnished the brand of conservatism, more Americans claim to be conservative than liberal and by a lot. In both the election of 2006 and 2008 a solid 34% of Americans claimed to be conservatives. Liberalism's number increased from 2006 to 2008 by but one percentage point, from 21% to 22%.
So let us not panic. We libertarian conservatives are the people whose ideas have spread throughout the world, to India, to China. Even Senator Obama seems to be picking them up. This September, as he slipped behind Senator John McCain in the polls, Senator Obama finally identified himself as a tax cutter. Today he is an advocate of growth. Possibly in the months ahead he will keep the lights on at the Pentagon. Yet I suppose we should have known all along that he recognized the fragility of individual liberty. After all, Senator Obama has been a smoker, a real smoker, a cigarette smoker. And he is sending his children to private schools!
Also he is somewhat of a traditionalist. When it came to choosing a vehicle for his political ascent he chose not the guerrilla band of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn but the highly-thought-of Daley Machine of old Chicago. Al Regnery and I, as you might know, originally hailed from Chicagoland. Both of us have actually been acquainted with Mayor Daley over the years. I once had a beer with him back in my college days.
As ex-Chicagoans we know what Senator Obama had in mind when, during the campaign, he repeated over and again that he was going "to fix Washington's broken government." In Chicago the word "fix" is pregnant with meaning. Chicago politicians have been putting in the fix for generations. In fact, when President Obama is in the White House there will undoubtedly be a special office where parking tickets can be fixed and property taxes fixed. Your recently deceased relatives will be able to vote again. When the President-elect announced his jobs program for 2.5 million Americans, we ex-Chicagoans knew what he meant: hundreds of thousands of Americans are about to become sewer inspectors, parking lot commissioners, co-pilots on garbage trucks. All that is required of them is that they vote and vote often.
As a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama was a man of many firsts. On January 20th he will be sworn in as the first Chicago Alderman ever to be president. Already he is America's first motivational speaker to be elected president. Some will object that there have been other motivational speakers residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But none of them has had his background, a background utterly uncluttered by experience. In fact, Senator Obama has had less executive experience than Alaska's curvaceous governor. In point of fact, the junior senator from Illinois has had no executive experience.
---------------
IF YOU WILL ALLOW ME a moment of self-satisfaction, I saw it all coming. As early as 2006 in finishing up my book on the Clintons' post-White House extravagances, The Clinton Crack-Up, I prophesied that a new generation of Democrats was emerging to challenge Hillary -- at the time, the so-called "inevitable" Democratic nominee. I made the point very publicly. Check the transcript of Brian Lamb's May 2007 interview with me on C-Span. There I predicted, "Hillary's going to have real problems getting the nomination. A new generation's come up…." I suppose that went down with the mainstream moron media as but another extravagant canard from another tiresome Clinton Hater.
Truth be known, I hate no one. The American Spectator hates no one. We greet the challenges ahead with cheerful anticipation. Our aim is to be the rallying point for a revitalized conservative movement. At the beginning of the conservative movement, Henry Regnery was one of the movement's founding fathers. He was also his son, Al's, predecessor on The American Spectator's Board of Directors. Conservatives such as Henry Regnery laid down the principles of a movement that has moved from obscurity to capturing the White House, spreading the message of individual liberty throughout the world, even into lands once crushed under Communist tyranny, lands liberated by our message of freedom and our military resolve. We shall fight on for personal liberty. And if this president will lead us we shall follow him. Either that or we shall find another defender of liberty.
I look forward to seeing you next year. My gratitude to you all for your support and involvement with The American Spectator.
AND SO THE LAMENTABLE November 4 presidential election is entombed in history… and in keeping with the benevolent wishes of the mainstream moron media the American conservative movement once again enters the wilderness. In the wilderness, all we shall have to comfort us is the L.L. Bean catalogue. As you might have noted, we have distributed several versions of the renowned Bean catalogue on your tables. My personal favorite is the fishing catalogue. Regnery prefers the hunting catalogue. Pleszczynski is waiting for his very own Polish-language edition. I urge you all to take your L.L. Bean catalogues home with you tonight. Study them assiduously. Learn the bird calls.
Winston Churchill, during his wilderness years, was comforted by Pol Roger and a fistful of Havanas. Unfortunately, Champaign has become very pricey, and nowadays smoking is malum prohibitum almost everywhere. Even in the wilderness a lit cigar would be highly controversial. Thus we American conservatives are left with L.L. Bean as our solace and our guide. In my fishing catalogue there are many varieties of warm and sturdy boots, colorful parkas, and a product that I am particularly curious about, "breathable rainwear." I ask myself, "Am I to breathe it or will it breathe me?" -- all very exciting. So perhaps the wilderness will not be so bad -- especially for those of us who drive Hummers.
Of course, to hear some conservatives, for instance David Brooks, David Frum -- both being members of the conservative movement's Davidian Branch -- the rest of us are going to be out there with the flora and the fauna for many, many years. Personally, I hope to get a tent not far from Sarah Palin. She is very cute and can handle a firearm. Shortly after the November 4 election David Brooks, writing from his sofa at the New York Times -- predicted that the Republican Party will veer to the right and suffer still more defeats. That means that we shall be out there in the poison ivy with the wolves and the coyotes for a long time. I pray that Alaska's curvaceous governor will keep her shootin' iron handy.
Now, as I look around this grand and distinguished audience I can see the worried looks on your faces. Probably it has occurred to you that as the Prophet Obama surrounds himself with Clintonistas many of you will be forced to become virtual Boat People. Actually, with Hillary at State, the Prophet Obama himself may become a Boat Person too. Well, relax. I have arranged the boat. Our friend Taki Theodoracopulos has promised that he will have his yacht, Bushido II, at anchor off Nantucket. And if you cannot make it to Nantucket, try Cap Cod. Perhaps the Kennedys will supply a boat. They have been trying to get us out of the country for years.
Of course, we conservatives have been thrust into the wilderness before: in 1964, in 1976, and in 1992. Every time the experience has proved to be highly amusing: recall if you will, LBJ (we called him Old Beagle Ears), Jimmy Carter (we called him the Wonder Boy), and Bill Clinton (we called him many things, the Boy President, Boy Clinton, and our Ithyphallic President). Who needs Pol Roger or the accouterments advertised in the L.L. Bean catalogue when the Democratic Party provides entertainment like that?
Incidentally after every stay in the wilderness we conservatives have come back stronger. The reason we keep coming back is that we are not a party of prophets or messiahs but a party of principles. Our principles have been preferable to the dreams and fantasies of the likes of LBJ and Jimmy Carter.
Now Boy Clinton was a different kettle of fish. He was the one who said "the era of big government is over." Well that seemed to be true, until this autumn when the bell tolled for government-ordered subprime mortgages and the social engineering of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now we have big government as America has never had it before, and it is going to be up to conservatives to sound the alarm when the Democrats are negligent about returning to the prosperous America of the late 20th century created as it was by tax cuts and free markets.
Our belief in free markets is one of the reasons that our critics think that we are going to be shivering in the wilderness. They seem to agree with the heralds of the incoming Administration that the time is now for a new New Deal. Yet as the best recent scholarship has made clear the old New Deal presided over nearly a decade of a no-growth economy with double digit unemployment -- at times 25% of the workforce was unemployed. In today's looming intellectual struggles to return America to free markets and to growth economics we conservatives are going to emerge from the wilderness sooner than the Davidian conservatives anticipate. As the distinguished economist, Henry Manne, recently observed in Forbes magazine, today, unlike the 1930s, we have think tanks and publications that will be at the center of the public debate, arguing for a return to Reaganite prosperity with Reaganite economic therapies.
Nor are we going to be alone in this debate. The majority of the American people side with us. In an October 2nd Rasmussen survey, fully 59% of those polled agreed with Ronald Reagan's pronouncement enunciated in his first inaugural address a quarter of a century ago: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Moreover, even after the congressional Republicans tarnished the brand of conservatism, more Americans claim to be conservative than liberal and by a lot. In both the election of 2006 and 2008 a solid 34% of Americans claimed to be conservatives. Liberalism's number increased from 2006 to 2008 by but one percentage point, from 21% to 22%.
So let us not panic. We libertarian conservatives are the people whose ideas have spread throughout the world, to India, to China. Even Senator Obama seems to be picking them up. This September, as he slipped behind Senator John McCain in the polls, Senator Obama finally identified himself as a tax cutter. Today he is an advocate of growth. Possibly in the months ahead he will keep the lights on at the Pentagon. Yet I suppose we should have known all along that he recognized the fragility of individual liberty. After all, Senator Obama has been a smoker, a real smoker, a cigarette smoker. And he is sending his children to private schools!
Also he is somewhat of a traditionalist. When it came to choosing a vehicle for his political ascent he chose not the guerrilla band of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn but the highly-thought-of Daley Machine of old Chicago. Al Regnery and I, as you might know, originally hailed from Chicagoland. Both of us have actually been acquainted with Mayor Daley over the years. I once had a beer with him back in my college days.
As ex-Chicagoans we know what Senator Obama had in mind when, during the campaign, he repeated over and again that he was going "to fix Washington's broken government." In Chicago the word "fix" is pregnant with meaning. Chicago politicians have been putting in the fix for generations. In fact, when President Obama is in the White House there will undoubtedly be a special office where parking tickets can be fixed and property taxes fixed. Your recently deceased relatives will be able to vote again. When the President-elect announced his jobs program for 2.5 million Americans, we ex-Chicagoans knew what he meant: hundreds of thousands of Americans are about to become sewer inspectors, parking lot commissioners, co-pilots on garbage trucks. All that is required of them is that they vote and vote often.
As a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama was a man of many firsts. On January 20th he will be sworn in as the first Chicago Alderman ever to be president. Already he is America's first motivational speaker to be elected president. Some will object that there have been other motivational speakers residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But none of them has had his background, a background utterly uncluttered by experience. In fact, Senator Obama has had less executive experience than Alaska's curvaceous governor. In point of fact, the junior senator from Illinois has had no executive experience.
---------------
IF YOU WILL ALLOW ME a moment of self-satisfaction, I saw it all coming. As early as 2006 in finishing up my book on the Clintons' post-White House extravagances, The Clinton Crack-Up, I prophesied that a new generation of Democrats was emerging to challenge Hillary -- at the time, the so-called "inevitable" Democratic nominee. I made the point very publicly. Check the transcript of Brian Lamb's May 2007 interview with me on C-Span. There I predicted, "Hillary's going to have real problems getting the nomination. A new generation's come up…." I suppose that went down with the mainstream moron media as but another extravagant canard from another tiresome Clinton Hater.
Truth be known, I hate no one. The American Spectator hates no one. We greet the challenges ahead with cheerful anticipation. Our aim is to be the rallying point for a revitalized conservative movement. At the beginning of the conservative movement, Henry Regnery was one of the movement's founding fathers. He was also his son, Al's, predecessor on The American Spectator's Board of Directors. Conservatives such as Henry Regnery laid down the principles of a movement that has moved from obscurity to capturing the White House, spreading the message of individual liberty throughout the world, even into lands once crushed under Communist tyranny, lands liberated by our message of freedom and our military resolve. We shall fight on for personal liberty. And if this president will lead us we shall follow him. Either that or we shall find another defender of liberty.
I look forward to seeing you next year. My gratitude to you all for your support and involvement with The American Spectator.
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/12/05/return-to-the-wilderness
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Steyn: Silence=Acceptance
Rabbi Holtzberg was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of Bushs foreign policy.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzA2Y2E2MDU2YjQzOTQwZjUzNjcwZDA0OTE3YmFkYzg=
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Friday, December 5, 2008
Prepackaged Failure
Bailout: GM, Ford, Chrysler and Congress seem to be inching toward some sort of bailout that would give Washington unprecedented control over...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/InvestorsBusinessDailyOpinion/~3/QNkBOMSj1cM/EditorialContent.asp
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Fw: A Quiet Earthquake in Baghdad
------Original Message------
From: Chris Knoll
To: Chris Knoll
ReplyTo: Chris Knoll
Subject: A Quiet Earthquake in Baghdad
Sent: Dec 5, 2008 10:02 PM
From: Chris Knoll
To: Chris Knoll
ReplyTo: Chris Knoll
Subject: A Quiet Earthquake in Baghdad
Sent: Dec 5, 2008 10:02 PM
The barbarism in Mumbai and the economic crisis at home have largely overshadowed an otherwise singular event: the ratification of military and strategic cooperation agreements between Iraq and the United States.
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Friday, November 28, 2008
Krauthammer: Washington, Our New Wall Street
In the old days, if you wanted to get rich, you read balance sheets; today, you read political tea leaves.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjNlOTEwM2QwNTc5YTVhMzJhMDkwZmNkOTQ1NTNkNjM=
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Why Canada Loves Nancy Pelosi
Her protectionist stance has helped open markets for others.
http://feeds.wsjonline.com/~r/wsj/xml/rss/3_7041/~3/BNIsJX9zzto/SB122757205904454793.html
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Friday, November 21, 2008
Dow Down 22 Percent Since Election Day
Stocks continue to move lower. And lower. And lower.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
BUSH’S LEGACY: EUROPEAN SOCIALISM
Published on TheHill.com on November 18, 2008.
The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in toto, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation and excessive government regulation. Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merger with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.
(more)
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2008/11/19/bush%e2%80%99s-legacy-european-socialism/
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Saturday, November 15, 2008
Supreme Court Upholds Bill Of Rights In 5-4 Decision
Pretty damn funny.....only because it could be true one day.
WASHINGTON--In a landmark decision Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly ruled to uphold the Bill of Rights, the very tenets upon which...
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/453027759/supreme_court_upholds_bill
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Bush Shows Obama the Way
The president reminds the president-elect that free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
President George W. Bush came out fighting for free markets with a strong and stirring defense of American capitalism on the eve of the G-20 World Economic Conference. Stocks soared 550 points Thursday as Bush's luncheon speech was played live on all the major cable networks. It was as though Mr. Bush was trying to leave an economic-primer to his successor-elect Barack Obama. Markets cheered because it's the best thing they've heard in many weeks.
Here's one of several great passages from Bush: "At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity — the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others."
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
During a gloomy period of financial crisis, recession, big-government rescues, and ailing banks and industrial companies, Bush has provided a strong visionary dose of big-picture economic prosperity and optimism that can lead the U.S. and the rest of the world out of its economic doldrums.
Here's another uplifting passage from Mr. Bush: "Free-market capitalism is far more than an economic theory. It is the engine of social mobility — the highway to the American Dream. And it is what transformed America from a rugged frontier to the greatest economic power in history — a nation that gave the world the steamboat and the airplane, the computer and the CAT scan, the Internet and the iPod."
Capping all this off, Bush said, "The triumph of free-market capitalism has been proven across time, geography, culture, and faith. And it would be a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success."
That reference to 60 years harkens back to the original post-WWII economic-rebuilding conference held in Bretton Woods, N.H., in July 1944. At that historic meeting, the U.S. and Britain led 170 delegates from around the world into a new era of free markets, free trade, and stable currencies. It was a conference of global coordination that broke down the isolationist and protectionist sentiments that upset the world order so badly during the prior 15 years.
Ultimately, the free-market system forged at Bretton Woods, which was in no small way predicated on economic prosperity, led to a triumph of Western values over Soviet state socialism. And it was President Reagan — along with his friend, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — who applied the final blow to the now-defunct Soviet system with his rejuvenation of free-market capitalism.
So what George W. Bush seems to be saying is this: Do not discard that triumphal system just because we've had a rough year in the financial markets and the economy.
In a few weeks Barack Obama will inherit the mantle of the capitalist system. What will he do with this responsibility? That's the question being asked everywhere.
Since the election, and up until President Bush's important G-20 speech, stock markets sold off nearly 15 percent. Investors want to know if economic rewards will be encouraged or penalized. Will trade remain open and free? Will we maintain competitive businesses that can compete worldwide? Or will we resort to the protection of ailing or failed businesses?
Will the U.S. lurch toward the semi-socialism of Old Europe? Or will we stay with free-market capitalism? Will we expand the nanny-state economy? Or will we keep the door wide open to entrepreneurial spirit and gales of creative destruction?
Investors want to know which way President-elect Obama is going to go. Might he reach back to the Democratic pro-growth supply-side policies of John F. Kennedy's tax cuts, free trade, and strong dollar? Will he opt for Bill Clinton's free-trade and strong-dollar policies, or even his capital-gains tax cut? Or will he fall back to the hopeless government tinkering of Jimmy Carter or the welfare-statism of Lyndon Johnson?
I'm keeping an open mind on Mr. Obama during this post-election honeymoon period. After all, he stole the tax-cut issue from Sen. McCain during the election. And surely he knows the conservative red states that joined his campaign for change didn't vote for a leftward lurch to socialism lite.
Mr. Obama has a huge opportunity and an outsized responsibility to mend and revive the economy. It may be too much to ask, but perhaps he will give President Bush's marvelous speech a close read. There is much wisdom there. And there is no iron-clad reason why a Democrat can't adopt the economic-growth model that has worked so well and so long for this country.
President George W. Bush came out fighting for free markets with a strong and stirring defense of American capitalism on the eve of the G-20 World Economic Conference. Stocks soared 550 points Thursday as Bush's luncheon speech was played live on all the major cable networks. It was as though Mr. Bush was trying to leave an economic-primer to his successor-elect Barack Obama. Markets cheered because it's the best thing they've heard in many weeks.
Here's one of several great passages from Bush: "At its most basic level, capitalism offers people the freedom to choose where they work and what they do … the dignity that comes with profiting from their talent and hard work. … The free-market system also provides the incentives that lead to prosperity — the incentive to work, to innovate, to save and invest wisely, and to create jobs for others."
In other words, free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity.
During a gloomy period of financial crisis, recession, big-government rescues, and ailing banks and industrial companies, Bush has provided a strong visionary dose of big-picture economic prosperity and optimism that can lead the U.S. and the rest of the world out of its economic doldrums.
Here's another uplifting passage from Mr. Bush: "Free-market capitalism is far more than an economic theory. It is the engine of social mobility — the highway to the American Dream. And it is what transformed America from a rugged frontier to the greatest economic power in history — a nation that gave the world the steamboat and the airplane, the computer and the CAT scan, the Internet and the iPod."
Capping all this off, Bush said, "The triumph of free-market capitalism has been proven across time, geography, culture, and faith. And it would be a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success."
That reference to 60 years harkens back to the original post-WWII economic-rebuilding conference held in Bretton Woods, N.H., in July 1944. At that historic meeting, the U.S. and Britain led 170 delegates from around the world into a new era of free markets, free trade, and stable currencies. It was a conference of global coordination that broke down the isolationist and protectionist sentiments that upset the world order so badly during the prior 15 years.
Ultimately, the free-market system forged at Bretton Woods, which was in no small way predicated on economic prosperity, led to a triumph of Western values over Soviet state socialism. And it was President Reagan — along with his friend, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — who applied the final blow to the now-defunct Soviet system with his rejuvenation of free-market capitalism.
So what George W. Bush seems to be saying is this: Do not discard that triumphal system just because we've had a rough year in the financial markets and the economy.
In a few weeks Barack Obama will inherit the mantle of the capitalist system. What will he do with this responsibility? That's the question being asked everywhere.
Since the election, and up until President Bush's important G-20 speech, stock markets sold off nearly 15 percent. Investors want to know if economic rewards will be encouraged or penalized. Will trade remain open and free? Will we maintain competitive businesses that can compete worldwide? Or will we resort to the protection of ailing or failed businesses?
Will the U.S. lurch toward the semi-socialism of Old Europe? Or will we stay with free-market capitalism? Will we expand the nanny-state economy? Or will we keep the door wide open to entrepreneurial spirit and gales of creative destruction?
Investors want to know which way President-elect Obama is going to go. Might he reach back to the Democratic pro-growth supply-side policies of John F. Kennedy's tax cuts, free trade, and strong dollar? Will he opt for Bill Clinton's free-trade and strong-dollar policies, or even his capital-gains tax cut? Or will he fall back to the hopeless government tinkering of Jimmy Carter or the welfare-statism of Lyndon Johnson?
I'm keeping an open mind on Mr. Obama during this post-election honeymoon period. After all, he stole the tax-cut issue from Sen. McCain during the election. And surely he knows the conservative red states that joined his campaign for change didn't vote for a leftward lurch to socialism lite.
Mr. Obama has a huge opportunity and an outsized responsibility to mend and revive the economy. It may be too much to ask, but perhaps he will give President Bush's marvelous speech a close read. There is much wisdom there. And there is no iron-clad reason why a Democrat can't adopt the economic-growth model that has worked so well and so long for this country.
http://kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com/2008/11/bush-shows-obama-way.html
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No UAW Bailout
Carmakers: Why not let the Big Three just file Chapter 11? It's not a problem-free solution, but it beats using taxpayer money to prop up a...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/InvestorsBusinessDailyOpinion/~3/DVNbhMldHRg/EditorialContent.asp
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Friday, November 14, 2008
Telling It Like It Is At A Tipping Point
Milestones: European leaders gathered in Washington for the G-20 summit are pushing for an end to American-style capitalism. But on Thursday,...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/InvestorsBusinessDailyOpinion/~3/CPU1tulNLUk/EditorialContent.asp
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Monday, November 10, 2008
Al-Qaeda Planning Attack Bigger Than 9/11
On November 9, 2008, the London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported, citing "a source close to the Al-Qaeda leadership in Yemen," that Osama bin Laden had ordered a new attack against the U.S. which will be "far greater than the 9/11 attacks." ...
November 10, 2008, 10:50 am
November 10, 2008, 10:50 am
http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/11264.htm
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Obama Speak! All shall listen!
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OBAMA’S ‘CHANGE’: BACK TO THE DEMOCRATIC WASHINGTON INSIDERS
<p>What’s with Obama’s choice of old-time Clinton cronies and recycled Washington insiders to run the transition to his new politics of change?</p>
<p>Can’t the anti-Washington candidate find anyone who isn’t a Beltway has-been? </p>
<p>Judging by the appointments to his transition committee and leaks about possible top staff and Cabinet choices, Obama appears to be practicing the politics of status quo, not the politics of change. </p>
<p> <a href="http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2008/11/07/obamas-change-back-to-the-democratic-washington-insiders/#more-485" class="more-link">(more…)</a></p>
<p>Can’t the anti-Washington candidate find anyone who isn’t a Beltway has-been? </p>
<p>Judging by the appointments to his transition committee and leaks about possible top staff and Cabinet choices, Obama appears to be practicing the politics of status quo, not the politics of change. </p>
<p> <a href="http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2008/11/07/obamas-change-back-to-the-democratic-washington-insiders/#more-485" class="more-link">(more…)</a></p>
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2008/11/07/obamas-change-back-to-the-democratic-washington-insiders/
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Saturday, November 8, 2008
Steyn: The Death of the American Idea
Under President Obama, just under half the population will be on the dole.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDcxYWNiZTVkNjZkY2I1YmUyMjQzNzc4Y2FjNzI4MjA=
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Friday, November 7, 2008
How proud We Must Be.
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Goldberg: Progressivism's Achilles Heel
The ballot measure results on gay marriage expose the underlying weakness of progressivism.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTJhYmE2MjI4ZjZiMGI5NGQzZTY5N2I4YTE2YmEyYTY=
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Thursday, November 6, 2008
Saul Alinsky Takes the White House
Conservatives may not realize just how difficult it might be to recover from this week's elections.
The day after the big defeat, the conservative chatter everywhere was about how the "movement" and the Republican Party (two different things) could finally unshackle themselves from the bad old habits that brought them down, and about how the ability to draw a sharp contrast with the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate would allow us to focus attention, rally the faithful, and re-storm the castle in 2010 and 2012.
Fat chance.
Too many conservatives think we've seen all this before -- in 1964 and 1974 and 1992 -- and that we know how to handle it. Fly, meet ointment: We're not dealing with the same sorts of opponents. These New Alinskyites who are taking over the White House, combined with the most leftist congressional leadership in memory, will not let us play by the same rules under which conservatives recovered from those earlier debacles. They will try to drastically tilt the playing field, seed our side of the field with land mines and, in short, rig the process to make it next to impossible for the political right, or Republicans, to recover. And they are likely to succeed in at least some of these designs.
It will begin with their efforts to secure a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators (including the two independents). Right now the libs (and yes, all the Democratic senators, with the possible exception of Nebraska's Ben Nelson, are libs) have 56, with three Republican moderates and one conservative leading their races but awaiting recounts or runoffs. Watch for the Alinskyites to try stealing all four, and to succeed in at least two. We've seen this game before. They did it in Indiana's "Bloody Eighth" congressional district in 1984. They almost succeeded in 2000 in Florida. They did succeed, outrageously so, in the Washington State governor's race in 2004. Those are just the most obvious of many similar examples. And now they are even more ruthless, more lawyered-up, and in a more powerful position to pull it off than they were in any of those instances.
Next, watch what happens if they regularly can't peel off enough Republicans (or hold their own semi-fairminded people like Nelson and Joe Lieberman) to overcome whatever filibuster attempts Republicans do mount. Watch for an assault on the filibuster itself. Watch how they use as precedent the GOP "nuclear/constitutional option" on judges in 2005 -- except instead of just using it for judges, watch them use it against all filibusters. It's easy: Make the ruling from the chair that the filibuster is out of order for some reason. Instruct the parliamentarian to rule in their favor. Win the appeal of the parliamentarian's ruling by simple majority vote. And watch the courts pronounce it an internal matter of the legislative branch and thus outside of courtroom purview.
Watch a cheerleading establishment media -- the Fourth Estate as a veritable Fifth Column -- actually back these lefty maneuvers. It's all in the name of one-man/one-vote democracy, dontcha know? The filibuster once served its purpose, they'll say, but as a vestige of Southern "massive resistance" to integration it is now being used for massive resistance to the first black president, which invalidates it (suddenly) as a legitimate tool.
Watch the left use these tactics and others to pass even more liberalized voting laws -- an open invitation to even more fraud that is more creative, easier to hide, and less challengeable in court.
Watch what Michael Barone called the Obama "thugocracy" use the Justice Department to stifle dissent. Anybody who complains about vote fraud will be charged with "vote suppression." Anybody who complains about DoJ's actions will be charged with interfering with an investigation. Anybody who denies having interfered will be charged with perjury. Likewise, anybody who peacefully protests abortion clinics or the use of state-sponsored racial quotas will be charged with a civil rights violation. And the accused won't be able to look to the Supreme Court for help: Anthony Kennedy's "evolving standards" of justice will evolve to match the new zeitgeist, providing a 5-4 majority for the administration. Meanwhile, of course, Obama's other appointments will be filling up the rest of the judiciary at a rapid clip, with nobody able to stop them.
Other ways the Obama axis will tilt the playing field: "card check" legislation to eliminate secret ballots in unionizing and to force union victories in contract negotiations. Provision after provision giving favors to the trial bar so it can sue enemies into submission. Copious new regulations, especially environmental, to be used selectively to ensnare other conservative malcontents. Invasive IRS audits of conservative think tanks, other conservative 501 organizations, and PACs.
What Ohio officials did in rifling through so many of Joe Wurzelbacher's files will serve as ample precedent. (Just watch, by the way: Nobody ever will be effectively disciplined for the violation of Wurzelbacher's rights.)
And, only when the time is right and the ground (or air) has been well prepared, will come the grand-daddy of all fights, the re-enactment of the misnamed "Fairness Doctrine."
Oh, they'll be clever. They'll pick their spot. They'll wait until Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin says something innocent they can twist out of context and call "hate speech" -- and then they'll highlight some schoolyard fight where a member of a "victim group" gets the worst of it as if the "attack" were caused by talk-rad…no, make that "hate radio," which will be the new moniker the Fifth Column/Fourth Estate hangs on the talkmeisters.
(Even before imposing the Fairness Doctrine, they'll use the Federal Communications Commission in other ways to put a muffler on their opponents.)
And, always, a few carefully calibrated street demonstrations, splashed with just the right headlines across the East Coast newspapers and captured by just the right camera angle on CBS News, will be used any time, on any issue, to make the point that civil unrest would be the price of resistance to the benevolent desires of the Obama regime.
The erosions of conservative rights will be incremental. Each one will have its own justification. Each one will be supported by the establishment media. Each one will be timed so as to allow the general public to become accustomed to it, to accept it as unremarkable, or even to come to regard it as a public good for the sake of keeping conservative "troublemakers" from fomenting disorder.
And the Obamessiah, still speaking frequently to stadia full of admirers, will provide a tone of reasoned moderation, combined with further appeals to hope, in order to justify it all.
These are the sorts of things Alinskyites do. These are the sorts of tactics used by ACORN, at whose conferences Obama himself regularly taught seminars on "power." These are the sorts of policies favored by the academic left, Obama's old milieu -- the policies that favor speech codes and stolen campus newspapers and the firing of faculty for "offensive" remarks.
Conservatives have fought things like this for years already, of course. But they've never fought it while the left controlled so many of the levers of power, and certainly not when the left was led by such a charismatic and near cult-inspiring leader who was so smart, so well steeped in these stratagems, and so fully supported by a Fourth Estate up whose legs warm feelings run every time he waxes eloquent.
It will take very focused, very intelligent, very skillful action by conservatives to stop this creeping subversion of a free society. This is a whole different political battlefield than any on which we've fought before. And we haven't yet found our Omar Bradley.
The day after the big defeat, the conservative chatter everywhere was about how the "movement" and the Republican Party (two different things) could finally unshackle themselves from the bad old habits that brought them down, and about how the ability to draw a sharp contrast with the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate would allow us to focus attention, rally the faithful, and re-storm the castle in 2010 and 2012.
Fat chance.
Too many conservatives think we've seen all this before -- in 1964 and 1974 and 1992 -- and that we know how to handle it. Fly, meet ointment: We're not dealing with the same sorts of opponents. These New Alinskyites who are taking over the White House, combined with the most leftist congressional leadership in memory, will not let us play by the same rules under which conservatives recovered from those earlier debacles. They will try to drastically tilt the playing field, seed our side of the field with land mines and, in short, rig the process to make it next to impossible for the political right, or Republicans, to recover. And they are likely to succeed in at least some of these designs.
It will begin with their efforts to secure a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators (including the two independents). Right now the libs (and yes, all the Democratic senators, with the possible exception of Nebraska's Ben Nelson, are libs) have 56, with three Republican moderates and one conservative leading their races but awaiting recounts or runoffs. Watch for the Alinskyites to try stealing all four, and to succeed in at least two. We've seen this game before. They did it in Indiana's "Bloody Eighth" congressional district in 1984. They almost succeeded in 2000 in Florida. They did succeed, outrageously so, in the Washington State governor's race in 2004. Those are just the most obvious of many similar examples. And now they are even more ruthless, more lawyered-up, and in a more powerful position to pull it off than they were in any of those instances.
Next, watch what happens if they regularly can't peel off enough Republicans (or hold their own semi-fairminded people like Nelson and Joe Lieberman) to overcome whatever filibuster attempts Republicans do mount. Watch for an assault on the filibuster itself. Watch how they use as precedent the GOP "nuclear/constitutional option" on judges in 2005 -- except instead of just using it for judges, watch them use it against all filibusters. It's easy: Make the ruling from the chair that the filibuster is out of order for some reason. Instruct the parliamentarian to rule in their favor. Win the appeal of the parliamentarian's ruling by simple majority vote. And watch the courts pronounce it an internal matter of the legislative branch and thus outside of courtroom purview.
Watch a cheerleading establishment media -- the Fourth Estate as a veritable Fifth Column -- actually back these lefty maneuvers. It's all in the name of one-man/one-vote democracy, dontcha know? The filibuster once served its purpose, they'll say, but as a vestige of Southern "massive resistance" to integration it is now being used for massive resistance to the first black president, which invalidates it (suddenly) as a legitimate tool.
Watch the left use these tactics and others to pass even more liberalized voting laws -- an open invitation to even more fraud that is more creative, easier to hide, and less challengeable in court.
Watch what Michael Barone called the Obama "thugocracy" use the Justice Department to stifle dissent. Anybody who complains about vote fraud will be charged with "vote suppression." Anybody who complains about DoJ's actions will be charged with interfering with an investigation. Anybody who denies having interfered will be charged with perjury. Likewise, anybody who peacefully protests abortion clinics or the use of state-sponsored racial quotas will be charged with a civil rights violation. And the accused won't be able to look to the Supreme Court for help: Anthony Kennedy's "evolving standards" of justice will evolve to match the new zeitgeist, providing a 5-4 majority for the administration. Meanwhile, of course, Obama's other appointments will be filling up the rest of the judiciary at a rapid clip, with nobody able to stop them.
Other ways the Obama axis will tilt the playing field: "card check" legislation to eliminate secret ballots in unionizing and to force union victories in contract negotiations. Provision after provision giving favors to the trial bar so it can sue enemies into submission. Copious new regulations, especially environmental, to be used selectively to ensnare other conservative malcontents. Invasive IRS audits of conservative think tanks, other conservative 501 organizations, and PACs.
What Ohio officials did in rifling through so many of Joe Wurzelbacher's files will serve as ample precedent. (Just watch, by the way: Nobody ever will be effectively disciplined for the violation of Wurzelbacher's rights.)
And, only when the time is right and the ground (or air) has been well prepared, will come the grand-daddy of all fights, the re-enactment of the misnamed "Fairness Doctrine."
Oh, they'll be clever. They'll pick their spot. They'll wait until Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin says something innocent they can twist out of context and call "hate speech" -- and then they'll highlight some schoolyard fight where a member of a "victim group" gets the worst of it as if the "attack" were caused by talk-rad…no, make that "hate radio," which will be the new moniker the Fifth Column/Fourth Estate hangs on the talkmeisters.
(Even before imposing the Fairness Doctrine, they'll use the Federal Communications Commission in other ways to put a muffler on their opponents.)
And, always, a few carefully calibrated street demonstrations, splashed with just the right headlines across the East Coast newspapers and captured by just the right camera angle on CBS News, will be used any time, on any issue, to make the point that civil unrest would be the price of resistance to the benevolent desires of the Obama regime.
The erosions of conservative rights will be incremental. Each one will have its own justification. Each one will be supported by the establishment media. Each one will be timed so as to allow the general public to become accustomed to it, to accept it as unremarkable, or even to come to regard it as a public good for the sake of keeping conservative "troublemakers" from fomenting disorder.
And the Obamessiah, still speaking frequently to stadia full of admirers, will provide a tone of reasoned moderation, combined with further appeals to hope, in order to justify it all.
These are the sorts of things Alinskyites do. These are the sorts of tactics used by ACORN, at whose conferences Obama himself regularly taught seminars on "power." These are the sorts of policies favored by the academic left, Obama's old milieu -- the policies that favor speech codes and stolen campus newspapers and the firing of faculty for "offensive" remarks.
Conservatives have fought things like this for years already, of course. But they've never fought it while the left controlled so many of the levers of power, and certainly not when the left was led by such a charismatic and near cult-inspiring leader who was so smart, so well steeped in these stratagems, and so fully supported by a Fourth Estate up whose legs warm feelings run every time he waxes eloquent.
It will take very focused, very intelligent, very skillful action by conservatives to stop this creeping subversion of a free society. This is a whole different political battlefield than any on which we've fought before. And we haven't yet found our Omar Bradley.
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/11/06/saul-alinsky-takes-the-white-h
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Sunday, November 2, 2008
Obama and School Uniforms
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Thursday, October 30, 2008
Struggling Lower-Class Still Unsure How Best To Fuck Selves With Vote
WASHINGTON--As election day nears, millions of the nation's poorest voters have reportedly yet to settle on the most profound and enduring...
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/437197177/struggling_lower_class
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Sowell: A Perfect Storm
An economic crisis. A war for our culture's survival. Will Americans really vote now for symbolism and style over substance?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTY3MzcyNjA3NjJmZTk0Zjc5ODBhMmI1ZDFhNjJlZGQ=
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Muslims In Belgium Seek To Form Own Party
Muslim immigrants in Belgium are compiling a list of candidates to run in the country's 2012 elections, with the aim of establishing an Islamic party.
The new party's platform will include helping immigrants, particularly Muslim ...<br>October 28, 2008, 12:04 pm
The new party's platform will include helping immigrants, particularly Muslim ...<br>October 28, 2008, 12:04 pm
http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/10924.htm
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Defining Problems With Socialism For The Post-Cold War Generation
Election '08: John McCain has finally called Barack Obama's agenda by its proper name. But if he assumes voters understand what he means when he...
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/InvestorsBusinessDailyOpinion/~3/dZzJqOWt3LA/EditorialContent.asp
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“Go Fail, Young Man!”
<p>An end to failure seems to be the new American creed of the twentieth-first century. If you were on Wall Street, and bought and sold subprime mortgage paper, gambled on derivatives, garnered spectacular bonuses as you piled up debt—and then helped to bankrupt your investment company—the government was often there to ensure that your past profits were your own, and your present failures everyone else's. In our brave new world, no one took too many millions he didn't earn, or was a fool who squandered someone else's 401(k)s. Instead, nebulous forces, not real people, did this, and so an equally nebulous "government" must set things right.</p>
<p>If you were a federal banking bureaucrat at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and enriched yourself by cooking the books under the politically-correct cover of putting the poor and unprivileged in homes of their own—at the cost of ruining hallowed institutions— then no problem: you failed; others cleaned up your mess; while you sought refuge in victimhood with millions in past bonuses.</p>
<p>For much of the 1990s, the Big Three auto companies preached the gospel of let the market adjudicate popular tastes in automobiles, when warned that their big-profit Tahoes, Yukons, Hummers, and Escalades might make both America more vulnerable to foreign oil spikes and themselves at the mercy of a sudden radical shift to small cars should gas prices ever rise.</p>
<p>Then energy prices spiked. Consumers did not want any more 15-mpg behemoths. Cars went unsold—and Detroit then asked for, and received, a bailout guarantee to cover their own failures. We never heard that the CEOs, the marketers, the advertisers, and the designers failed—only that union health care costs, or market forces, or consumer choices did the automakers in, and thus the government had to intercede to save automakers from themselves</p>
<p>But at the other end of the spectrum, failure is becoming just as obsolete. We are told hourly that millions of Americans have lost their homes, rarely that 94% of home debtors continue to pay their monthly mortgages. And there is almost no information given on how or why those who defaulted walked away? Did at least a few buy a house who had no business taking on a mortgage? Did at least some wish to speculate, buy property, flip it, and profit in a perceived permanently bullish housing market? Did some others take out second and third mortgages to expand their consumer spending and hope to make it deductible on their income taxes? Did others still simply make a business decision to walk away from a freely incurred debt that proved larger than the falling equity in their homes?</p>
<p>Yet it seems to matter little how these mortgages failed, since both political parties are now outbidding each other to offer some sort of debt relief, mortgage reduction, or suspension on foreclosures. Indeed, no one failed at all—"they" (fill in the blanks with "the banks", "the economy" or "George Bush") caused the defaults, and so "they" should make it right.</p>
<p>Listen to almost any Congressman, or tune in to radio ads, and rather quickly you will hear a plan to bail out those with onerous credit card debt. No one dares to ask anymore what was charged on the Visa or Mastercharge. Were such debts always heart operations or food purchases to stave off hunger, rather than an occasional plasma television, video game, or vacation? Instead, the failure to pay one's debts is assumed again to be the fault of someone else.</p>
<p>The message in all of these cases is now becoming unmistakable: if you are hyper-wealthy, gamble with someone else's money, and lose big-time, then the government will cover your losses. Or better yet, work for a quasi-government agency where the bonuses are yours, while the losses belong to the public. If you build the wrong car, and bet wrongly on the future price on gas, then your successful gambles make you rich, and in times of miscalculation your government covers your losses. And if you buy a house beyond your means, or decide it makes no sense to pay off the mortgage, then someone or something, not you, failed to honor your debt.</p>
<p>But what happens if you are not enormously rich and not rather poor—and, worse still, made the ethical, but old-fashioned decision to pay your debts and not default on what you owe others?</p>
<p>Let us hope that you do not make over $250,000 like many family physicians, small business owners, or restaurateurs. You are way too big to be part of the fifty percent of wage owners who would, under the Obama tax plan, not only be excused from income taxes, but in many cases receive a check from the government.</p>
<p>You are also way too small to be a corporation in need of a bailout, or a megafarm that needs more agricultural subsidies. Instead, as a reward for belonging to the 4% who pay 60% of the nation's income taxes, and working industriously to achieve an enviable income, you may well soon pay between 60% and 65%—or more— of your gross income in state income, federal income, Medicare, and social security payroll, taxes. And you will be considered the suspect "rich" and then told it is "patriotic" to "spread the [rather than your] wealth around." Nor can you sigh that your tax liability will ensure that the deficit disappears—not when another trillion dollars in federal entitlements are promised by would-be President Obama.</p>
<p>In the mid-nineteenth century, young people of industry and vision were advised "Go West, Young Man!" Today we might instead suggest "Just Fail!"</p>
<p>If you were a federal banking bureaucrat at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and enriched yourself by cooking the books under the politically-correct cover of putting the poor and unprivileged in homes of their own—at the cost of ruining hallowed institutions— then no problem: you failed; others cleaned up your mess; while you sought refuge in victimhood with millions in past bonuses.</p>
<p>For much of the 1990s, the Big Three auto companies preached the gospel of let the market adjudicate popular tastes in automobiles, when warned that their big-profit Tahoes, Yukons, Hummers, and Escalades might make both America more vulnerable to foreign oil spikes and themselves at the mercy of a sudden radical shift to small cars should gas prices ever rise.</p>
<p>Then energy prices spiked. Consumers did not want any more 15-mpg behemoths. Cars went unsold—and Detroit then asked for, and received, a bailout guarantee to cover their own failures. We never heard that the CEOs, the marketers, the advertisers, and the designers failed—only that union health care costs, or market forces, or consumer choices did the automakers in, and thus the government had to intercede to save automakers from themselves</p>
<p>But at the other end of the spectrum, failure is becoming just as obsolete. We are told hourly that millions of Americans have lost their homes, rarely that 94% of home debtors continue to pay their monthly mortgages. And there is almost no information given on how or why those who defaulted walked away? Did at least a few buy a house who had no business taking on a mortgage? Did at least some wish to speculate, buy property, flip it, and profit in a perceived permanently bullish housing market? Did some others take out second and third mortgages to expand their consumer spending and hope to make it deductible on their income taxes? Did others still simply make a business decision to walk away from a freely incurred debt that proved larger than the falling equity in their homes?</p>
<p>Yet it seems to matter little how these mortgages failed, since both political parties are now outbidding each other to offer some sort of debt relief, mortgage reduction, or suspension on foreclosures. Indeed, no one failed at all—"they" (fill in the blanks with "the banks", "the economy" or "George Bush") caused the defaults, and so "they" should make it right.</p>
<p>Listen to almost any Congressman, or tune in to radio ads, and rather quickly you will hear a plan to bail out those with onerous credit card debt. No one dares to ask anymore what was charged on the Visa or Mastercharge. Were such debts always heart operations or food purchases to stave off hunger, rather than an occasional plasma television, video game, or vacation? Instead, the failure to pay one's debts is assumed again to be the fault of someone else.</p>
<p>The message in all of these cases is now becoming unmistakable: if you are hyper-wealthy, gamble with someone else's money, and lose big-time, then the government will cover your losses. Or better yet, work for a quasi-government agency where the bonuses are yours, while the losses belong to the public. If you build the wrong car, and bet wrongly on the future price on gas, then your successful gambles make you rich, and in times of miscalculation your government covers your losses. And if you buy a house beyond your means, or decide it makes no sense to pay off the mortgage, then someone or something, not you, failed to honor your debt.</p>
<p>But what happens if you are not enormously rich and not rather poor—and, worse still, made the ethical, but old-fashioned decision to pay your debts and not default on what you owe others?</p>
<p>Let us hope that you do not make over $250,000 like many family physicians, small business owners, or restaurateurs. You are way too big to be part of the fifty percent of wage owners who would, under the Obama tax plan, not only be excused from income taxes, but in many cases receive a check from the government.</p>
<p>You are also way too small to be a corporation in need of a bailout, or a megafarm that needs more agricultural subsidies. Instead, as a reward for belonging to the 4% who pay 60% of the nation's income taxes, and working industriously to achieve an enviable income, you may well soon pay between 60% and 65%—or more— of your gross income in state income, federal income, Medicare, and social security payroll, taxes. And you will be considered the suspect "rich" and then told it is "patriotic" to "spread the [rather than your] wealth around." Nor can you sigh that your tax liability will ensure that the deficit disappears—not when another trillion dollars in federal entitlements are promised by would-be President Obama.</p>
<p>In the mid-nineteenth century, young people of industry and vision were advised "Go West, Young Man!" Today we might instead suggest "Just Fail!"</p>
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/%e2%80%9cgo-fail-young-man%e2%80%9d/
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Monday, October 27, 2008
Steyn: Point of No Return
Obama's path of personal glory has been, in terms of policy and philosophy, the path of least resistance.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nzk5MWY5YjU0MDI0ODFkYTZjMDQ2MjlhZDM0MjAwNTA=
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Friday, October 24, 2008
McCain for President
Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
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Thursday, October 23, 2008
Hero
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"Spread the Wealth" this Halloween
From a reader:
Larry,
Halloween is coming up, and with it comes a great opportunity for parents to show their kids how the world really works, with the added bonus of touching on current political and economic themes. When their kids get back from trick-or-treating, parents should take 30% or so off the top as "income taxes." (I did this last year – the reaction on my kids' faces was priceless. I didn't have the heart to keep it, though.) Then, parents can take another 5% or so to bail out kids who've already eaten their candy, and another 5% or so to "spread the wealth" to kids who didn't go trick or treating. Then, parents can take away anything that's left that has transfats, and some more to sell to offset the carbon produced in the candymaking. When the kids complain, the parents can tell them that they can go out and collect some more –except that since the kids are already "rich" with candy, the marginal rate on any additional candy they bring home will go up from 30% to, say, 50%.
Larry,
Halloween is coming up, and with it comes a great opportunity for parents to show their kids how the world really works, with the added bonus of touching on current political and economic themes. When their kids get back from trick-or-treating, parents should take 30% or so off the top as "income taxes." (I did this last year – the reaction on my kids' faces was priceless. I didn't have the heart to keep it, though.) Then, parents can take another 5% or so to bail out kids who've already eaten their candy, and another 5% or so to "spread the wealth" to kids who didn't go trick or treating. Then, parents can take away anything that's left that has transfats, and some more to sell to offset the carbon produced in the candymaking. When the kids complain, the parents can tell them that they can go out and collect some more –except that since the kids are already "rich" with candy, the marginal rate on any additional candy they bring home will go up from 30% to, say, 50%.
http://kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com/2008/10/spread-wealth-this-halloween.html
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Trick or....
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Marxism's Rebirth?
Election '08: America's Communist Party is giddy over current political events, saying its movement has reached a "turning point."...
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Saturday, October 18, 2008
Steyn: Joe the Plumber vs. Joe the Hair-Plugger
Obama's still willing to talk to Ahmadinejad without preconditions. But never again will he talk to Joe the Plumber without preconditions.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTUzMWU1ZDExNzM5ZDFkZmIyMDYxYTk3ZjhjYTdlZjI=
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Friday, October 17, 2008
Southern Sheriff Pulls Over Obama Campaign Bus For Broken Taillight
FOXWORTH, MS—Addressing him as "Barry," the sheriff told Obama that "someone 'bout his height, 'bout his skin color knocked out a Piggly Wiggly a coupla hours ago."<img src="http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~4/423715782" height="1" width="1"/>
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/423715782/southern_sheriff_pulls_over_obama
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Hawaii Ending Universal Child Health Care After 7 Mos.
Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,439607,00.html
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Lessons Learned Part 2
1. Real equality before the law runs contrary to our government's tendency to promote equality of result. Democracy runs best when general legal principles are applied and adhered to at all times. Socialism runs best when eclectic, arbitrary rules are passed to address current social problems.
2. A socialist government, due to the prominence of planning, becomes anything but impartial.
3. Morality to socialists is one's subservience to government policies, whether these are actually moral or not!
4. By judging a governments' actions as viable due to legislative consent instead of the Rule of Law, invites tyranny to creep into legitimacy.
5. Socialism tends to install itself when a government invests tremendous powers in agencies, boards, etc. with no caps on regulation.
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Lessons Learned.
Here are a few interesting bits of info I picked up while reading "The Road to Serfdom" by F A Hayek:
1. Socialism is the pet project of frustrated idealists who use look upon democracy and capitalism as impediments to planning for the common good.
2. Socialism inevitably leads to authoritarianism due to the need for uninhibited social planning.
3. As a society evolves and gets more complex, the greatest asset for its' flourishment is NOT increased central planning, but increased decentralized democratic capitalism. It is foolish to think a small body of experts can conceive of a planning system more responsive to socio-economic needs than that produced by a free market.
4. There is a fine line between the saint campaigning on social reform for the common good and the fanatic who believes in authoritarian power to impose his programs.
5. Collectivism is the death knell of capitalism.
6. Socialism is often introduced as 'our only option' in dealing with emergencies.
7. Socialism requires a legal system that operates on political arbitrariness instead of moral judgements and strict interpretation. There are no absolutes, just malleable decisions designed to effect a certain group at a specific time.
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1. Socialism is the pet project of frustrated idealists who use look upon democracy and capitalism as impediments to planning for the common good.
2. Socialism inevitably leads to authoritarianism due to the need for uninhibited social planning.
3. As a society evolves and gets more complex, the greatest asset for its' flourishment is NOT increased central planning, but increased decentralized democratic capitalism. It is foolish to think a small body of experts can conceive of a planning system more responsive to socio-economic needs than that produced by a free market.
4. There is a fine line between the saint campaigning on social reform for the common good and the fanatic who believes in authoritarian power to impose his programs.
5. Collectivism is the death knell of capitalism.
6. Socialism is often introduced as 'our only option' in dealing with emergencies.
7. Socialism requires a legal system that operates on political arbitrariness instead of moral judgements and strict interpretation. There are no absolutes, just malleable decisions designed to effect a certain group at a specific time.
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Beware of Idealists!
"The hopes they (social planners & Idealists) place in planning, however, are the result not of a comprehensive view of society but rather of a very limited view and often the result of a great exaggeration of the importance of the ends they place foremost. [I]t would make the very men who are most anxious to plan society the most dangerous if they were allowed to do so. From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step."
Frederich Hayek
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Woman, 90, Dies After Crashing New Sports Car! Are you kidding me?
A 90-year-old woman was killed when she lost control of her new sports car and slammed into a pole, officials in Florida said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,437522,00.html
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Monday, October 13, 2008
Steyn: The Indefinable Barack Obama
That big empty hole in the heart of the Obama logo will not stay blank for long.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzFiZDgzZDY0ZTUzMTY2NjI2MzQwZmQzZTdjNDNiMzE=
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Financial Planner Advises Shorter Life Span
This is what things might come to:
TUCSON, AZ—After reviewing his client's income, assets, and personal budget Tuesday, Morgan Stanley financial adviser Henry Dalton...<img src="http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~4/419609798" height="1" width="1"/>
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/419609798/financial_planner_advises
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Saturday, October 11, 2008
Trick or Treat will be tough this year!
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Friday, October 10, 2008
If only he knew!
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We give this laurel and hearty handshake to our new....
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Thursday, October 9, 2008
Fatty want cake!
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Demonizing Deregulation
Legal minds know better than anyone what clamping down on Wall Street will mean.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=14018
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Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Sowell: The Real Obama
Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, William Ayers, and Antoin Rezko are not just people who happened to be at the same place at the same time as Barack Obama.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmM1NzBkNGI4MGRkZjFmOTg4ZjU3ODVjNmE5ZGM0OGI=
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Saturday, October 4, 2008
Steyn: With a Wink and a Smile
Palin sounded like the citizen-politician this countrys Founders intended.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmNjYTc3NzFiZGU1NjM2YmQ3NmMzNTM3NjJlNGMzMjU=
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The Dems did it!
Exclusive: Henry Lamb blames meltdown on Clinton-era policy of lending to credit risks
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=76922
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What Obama means for our military!
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Friday, October 3, 2008
De Tocqueville on Socialism.
Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
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Thursday, October 2, 2008
Faust, Greenspan and America's financial collapse
Exclusive: Ellis Washington compares 'sell your soul' literary classic to current crisis
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=76725
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Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Middle-Class Warfare
Election '08: Barack Obama accuses John McCain of ignoring the concerns of middle-class Americans. But it's Obama who doesn't really give a hoot...
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Saturday, September 20, 2008
Obama: The Danger He Presents
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From: "Geri oliverie" <fdgerio@comcast.net>
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:14:31 -0400
To: <chrisandkaren2@verizon.net>
Subject: obama
CHANGE WE DON'T NEED
(Below is an excerpt from David Freddoso's Book The Case Against Barack Obama)
Hope. Change.
Do you hope that Barack Obama will change politics if he becomes president?
On what grounds?
If Barack Obama is a reformer, he could be the first one ever to become president of the United States having done almost nothing difficult in the name of reform. Consider: What has he really changed? In a positive way?
He did no change politics in Chicago. You can't reform a town like that by becoming a "Soldier for Stroger" (a corrupt politician). By endorsing crooked Machine politicians who reward their campaign donors and door knockers with a government salary. By backing a mayor whose aides and appointees sell city contracts in exchange for campaign contributions. By endorsing an alderman who pulls a gun on her colleagues. By failing to endorse the rare candidate who has a chance to win and change something in Cook County (Illinois). By covering up for the excesses of the Chicago Teachers Union, knowing just how abysmal the city's public education is. By earmarking funds for a radical Catholic priest who encourages blacks to hate whites.
Obama did not change politics in Springfield. You can't reform a state like Illinois by voting "present" 130 times to avoid controversial issues.By teaming up with a state Senate Majority Leader whose main concern appears to be placing every member of his family somewhere on the state payroll. By backing for statewide office a financier whose family bank lends money to organized crime. By negotiating to minimize the impact of welfare reform. By writing letters to get state grants for someone who just put $112,000 in your bank account. By co-sponsoring nearly any bill that helps Tony Rezko and his friends make money from the taxpayers for building uninhabitable slums where rodents roam and sewage backs up into kitchen sinks.
Obama has certainly not changed politics in Congress. You can't reform Washington by earmarking a million dollars for your wife's employer after they double her salary. By voting to throw away money on ethanol, farm subsidies, and the Bridge to Nowhere while much of New Orleans is still underwater. By reaching across the aisle on ethics reform, only to pull your hand back and bury it in your pocket. By earmarking funds for your campaign contributers. By suddenly deciding it's time to leave Iraq only once you start running for president.
It's not that Barack Obama is a bad person. It's just that he's like all the rest of them. Not a reformer. Not a Messiah. Just like all the rest of them in Washington. And just like all the liberals, too.
That's not entirely true, though-most liberals in Congress know more than Obama does on foreign policy and how diplomacy works. Most of them-nearly all of them-believe that babies have a right to medical care once they have been born alive.
Obama's radical ties don't make him a radical. His ties to Communists don't make him a Communist. His ties to terrorists don't even remotely make him a terrorist. But his continued relationships with radicals throughout his public life show an important influence in Obama's public career. What ideas are so important to Barack Obama that he desperately seeks the approval of Black Commentator (an anti-white socialist magazine) and the New Party (socialists), but drops the Democratic Leadership Council as if it were a molten porcupine?
These connections do not disqualify Obama from the presidency. But they do raise questions about his judgement. By what criteria does a man choose his friends and end up with the likes of Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and Bill Ayers? How does he choose his advisors and end up with people who chat with terrorists, advocate reparations for slavery, and praise Hugo Chavez as a champion of democracy?
What sort of nominations does such a man make as president? What kind of diplomacy does he pursue, given that so much diplomacy consists of reading, understanding, and judging others' intentions and character?
This is why these ties deserve scrutiny. If Barack Obama becomes president, his good judgment, or lack thereof, will affect the entire country.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Palin Unveils 911 Firefighter Cousin, Reformed Lesbian Niece, Naturalized Mexican Half Brother
I love Palin but this is too funny!
CARBONDALE, PA--Less than two weeks after introducing to the nation her developmentally disabled newborn and her 19-year-old son preparing...
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/394558370/palin_unveils_9_11
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Saturday, September 13, 2008
de Russy: Radical Mind
Tour what we know of Obamas education and mindset.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODA1ZjI3NTJiYWU0YTI1Y2FkNTJhMTk5YmUxNTk5ZjQ=
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Friday, September 12, 2008
Krauthammer: Obamas Descent to Earth
No one can levitate forever.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2JiYTc5OWEyYmRlZjY0ZTI1NjQ5OTU4ODgzMmM2YmE=
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Sunday, September 7, 2008
Obama Changes His Campaign Theme
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Thursday, September 4, 2008
Cliff May: Euro-Trashing Free Speech: How Some Europeans and the UN Are Helping Islamists Undermine Freedom
In Europe, free speech may end with neither a bang nor a whimper - but with a lawyerly assist.
It was three years ago this month that the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published twelve editorial cartoons...
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Wednesday, September 3, 2008
5 People I would like to meet....and beat the shit out of!
1.) Jimmy Carter- this failed peanut farmer, crack house builder and one-time pretender to the presidency uses every opportunity to slam his country and its allies. It reminds me of that creepy geek in high school who, having been spurned by the hottest girl when asked to the prom, spreads vicious falsehoods about her with indignant righteousness. Jimmy, your ass is mine 2 o'clock at the bike racks!
2.) Rosie O'Donnell- a female model of Michael Moore, Rosie has become the most acclaimed pseudo-expert on such things as architecture, psychology, foreign affairs, and government conspiracies. The only conspiracy I see is the one involving major media outlets keeping this ignorant windbag afloat! Put on a sweatband and grab a donut Rosie, Cuz your going down like the Hindenburg! Oh, the humanity!
3.) Osama bin Laden- No one should be surprised that this curry-smelling camel sodomizer is on my list. Anyone who picks a fight with us due to their moral crisis of dedicating a life to a useless religion or masturbating to the Maxim girls, deserves to get his nasty ass handed to him. Hey warrior of Muhammad, plan on seeing those 72 virgins real soon!
4.) Beethoven- Just because he wouldn't hear it coming.
5.) Keith Olberman- an over-hyped sportscaster turned liberal loudmouth, Keith's voice resonates like a bullhorn in the hands of a drunken college drop-out. He doesn't report the news as much as he gives it his idiotic spin flavored with his elitist condescention. Here's a news flash for ya Keith: I plan on bathing in your blood tonight!
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2.) Rosie O'Donnell- a female model of Michael Moore, Rosie has become the most acclaimed pseudo-expert on such things as architecture, psychology, foreign affairs, and government conspiracies. The only conspiracy I see is the one involving major media outlets keeping this ignorant windbag afloat! Put on a sweatband and grab a donut Rosie, Cuz your going down like the Hindenburg! Oh, the humanity!
3.) Osama bin Laden- No one should be surprised that this curry-smelling camel sodomizer is on my list. Anyone who picks a fight with us due to their moral crisis of dedicating a life to a useless religion or masturbating to the Maxim girls, deserves to get his nasty ass handed to him. Hey warrior of Muhammad, plan on seeing those 72 virgins real soon!
4.) Beethoven- Just because he wouldn't hear it coming.
5.) Keith Olberman- an over-hyped sportscaster turned liberal loudmouth, Keith's voice resonates like a bullhorn in the hands of a drunken college drop-out. He doesn't report the news as much as he gives it his idiotic spin flavored with his elitist condescention. Here's a news flash for ya Keith: I plan on bathing in your blood tonight!
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Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Class Warfare and the Hard-Working Wealthy
finally, the mainstream media admits a truth!
"Duh." People who work harder make more money—as it should be.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/sam-dealey/2008/9/2/class-warfare-and-the-hard-working-wealthy.html?s_cid=rss:sam-dealey:class-warfare-and-the-hard-working-wealthy
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"Duh." People who work harder make more money—as it should be.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/sam-dealey/2008/9/2/class-warfare-and-the-hard-working-wealthy.html?s_cid=rss:sam-dealey:class-warfare-and-the-hard-working-wealthy
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For a free download, go to http://getviigo.com
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Monday, September 1, 2008
Fw: I'm a dick!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: chrisandkaren2@verizon.net
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:40:15
To: Elaine & Dan Raby<dogpound3@cogeco.ca>
Subject: I'm a dick!
I happened to have the unfortunate experience the other day of standing near a group of people blathering away about every inane thing imaginable. During one of my many disgusted glances in their direction I noticed the only woman in the group to be of a very large stature...oh who the fuck am I kidding, she was a mind boggelingly huge, dense mass! We're talking legs the size of luxury hotel furniture, an ass that looks like a flesh covered VW bug, arms that hung like dead pigs in a slaughter house, and feet resembling 50 pound bags of sausage crammed into a size 3 shoe! As my eyes attempted to take in the vastness of her girth, my mind began to race with such poignant thoughts as:" She is the single reason why food prices are so high";"this is what is killing our healthcare system; and "I don't want her, you can have her, she's too fat for me!"
Than it hit me. Here I am, a fat guy making fun of a fat woman. I am no longer the thin godlike beauty of my youth (pause for dramatic effect). I am a self-hating obese person. I despise my own kind! God, I am a dick!
It is scary being me.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: chrisandkaren2@verizon.net
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:40:15
To: Elaine & Dan Raby<dogpound3@cogeco.ca>
Subject: I'm a dick!
I happened to have the unfortunate experience the other day of standing near a group of people blathering away about every inane thing imaginable. During one of my many disgusted glances in their direction I noticed the only woman in the group to be of a very large stature...oh who the fuck am I kidding, she was a mind boggelingly huge, dense mass! We're talking legs the size of luxury hotel furniture, an ass that looks like a flesh covered VW bug, arms that hung like dead pigs in a slaughter house, and feet resembling 50 pound bags of sausage crammed into a size 3 shoe! As my eyes attempted to take in the vastness of her girth, my mind began to race with such poignant thoughts as:" She is the single reason why food prices are so high";"this is what is killing our healthcare system; and "I don't want her, you can have her, she's too fat for me!"
Than it hit me. Here I am, a fat guy making fun of a fat woman. I am no longer the thin godlike beauty of my youth (pause for dramatic effect). I am a self-hating obese person. I despise my own kind! God, I am a dick!
It is scary being me.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
RUSSIA AND GEORGIA: THE REAL STORY
Meet Igor Sechin, nominally the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. In fact, he is the dominant power in the Kremlin. In Russia, the speculation is over whether Putin is his puppet! According to top Kremlinologists, Sechin was calling the shots when Russia invaded Georgia.
Take a minute to look at Sechin's photo (Go to http://www.daylife.com/photo/0gul0IVfMXbEY.) It explains all you need to know about him!
Robert Amsterdam, an international lawyer who knows all about the inner workings in Moscow, calls the invasion, in part, "an effort to sidetrack Dmitry Medvedev," the newly elected Russian president who has focused on bringing to Russia the rule of law. Determined to show real power and to trivialize the legalisms of Medvedev, Sechin and Putin ignored the Russian president in invading their neighbor.
(more)
Take a minute to look at Sechin's photo (Go to http://www.daylife.com/photo/0gul0IVfMXbEY.) It explains all you need to know about him!
Robert Amsterdam, an international lawyer who knows all about the inner workings in Moscow, calls the invasion, in part, "an effort to sidetrack Dmitry Medvedev," the newly elected Russian president who has focused on bringing to Russia the rule of law. Determined to show real power and to trivialize the legalisms of Medvedev, Sechin and Putin ignored the Russian president in invading their neighbor.
(more)
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2008/08/20/russia-and-georgia-the-real-story/
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Monday, August 18, 2008
Truth In Advertising
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
History repeating?
Forty-seven years ago this week the Berlin Wall began to be erected throughout that German city. Flash forward to this week; Russian forces invade democratic Georgia. The first event codified the beginning of the Cold War. What effect does this new Russian aggression portend?
Another historical parallel? British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to meet Hitler over his unwarranted invasion of the Sudetenland and returned to London with a 'peace agreement' not worth the paper it was written on.
Just yesterday, French President Nicholas Szarkozy flew to meet with his Russian counterpart Medvedev and returned to Paris with a ceasefire that was violated before the French premiere's plane was off the ground!
What do these events have in common? They are European problems exacerbated by European reliance on unenforceable diplomatic overtures. And this is the model of global statesmanship Obama and Liberals want to subscribe to?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Another historical parallel? British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to meet Hitler over his unwarranted invasion of the Sudetenland and returned to London with a 'peace agreement' not worth the paper it was written on.
Just yesterday, French President Nicholas Szarkozy flew to meet with his Russian counterpart Medvedev and returned to Paris with a ceasefire that was violated before the French premiere's plane was off the ground!
What do these events have in common? They are European problems exacerbated by European reliance on unenforceable diplomatic overtures. And this is the model of global statesmanship Obama and Liberals want to subscribe to?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Rita: The Army We Need
Don Rumsfeld has been wrongly maligned.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWQyMmUzZDk4MGYzN2RjMDAzNDdiM2UxYTliNmFkOGM=
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Sunday, August 10, 2008
Man Realizes Fly Has Been Down For Entire Life
CHICAGO--"You mean this entire time? On the bus? During my first communion?" Fred Havemeyer said. "Oh, Christ, the 60s! I just remembered the 1960s."
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/360309035/man_realizes_fly_has_been_down_for
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New recruitment Poster
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Friday, June 27, 2008
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