It’s the judges who need a legal guardian

Rule of law in this country has been replaced by rule of judges. In case after case, citizens have watched as judges assumed sovereignty and ruled, like Humpty Dumpty, that the law is “just what they choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” The latest case of such legal hubris comes from Missoula, Montana, where a judge has ruled that a parent is whoever he decides is a parent...
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Judge rules on 'enemy combatants'

A federal judge recently issued a ruling that limits the number of terrorism suspects being detained at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who can face trial as enemy combatants. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that the term ''enemy combatant'' applies only to detainees who are accused of ''supporting Taliban or al Qaeda forces'' in battle against the U.S.
[we must get our courts out of warfare, they've no place there: war isn't about justice - it's about winning at all costs]
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Obama Judges

The issue of judicial philosophy has been mostly overlooked in this campaign, but the differences between the two candidates are stark: Obama has the most left-wing position of any presidential candidate in U.S. history.

Obama has said he would appoint Supreme Court justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, two of the most liberal judges ever to serve on the Court. (Before her appointment, Ginsburg had served as general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, and as a member of the ACLU Board of Directors.) He openly criticized Justice Clarence Thomas. He said he would never appoint someone like Justice Antonin Scalia. He voted against both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito during their Senate confirmations.

The dramatic differences between McCain and Obama on judges go all the way to the most basic questions. McCain has taken the conservative view (called strict constructionism) that judges should apply the law and Constitution as written. A conservative judge will do this without regard to his policy preferences. Liberal judges, by contrast, are activists who make up laws from the bench, regardless of what the written law or Constitution actually says.

Obama has said quite explicitly that judges should look at the social impact of their rulings, not just the law as written. He has said he would appoint judges who, beyond objective legal expertise, would have empathy in their rulings for an unwed pregnant teenager, or a gay man suffering from AIDS, or a homeless woman with nowhere else to turn.

Obama would replace retiring Reagan and Bush I appointees with ACLU zombies...

[think of Kelo and Boumediene decisions, to name just two demonstrably insane rulings - add our current practice of assigning the demi-gods to life-long positions, and this issue will likely effect your children's children]

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MRC Demands that Media Report Sen. Obama's Radical Views

Media Research Center Founder and President L. Brent Bozell, III today demanded the press report on damning new evidence of Illinois Democratic Senator and Presidential nominee Barack Obama's radical views on how we need to "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution" [snip]

In the 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview, the audio of which has just surfaced, Sen. Obama laments that "the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society."

The media have refused to report on or obfuscated what has now become a series of comments from Sen. Obama that indicate a radical outlook on America, wealth redistribution and the courts. On his nominees for the courts, he said "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Brent Bozell:

"To the liberal media I say: if you're not totally in the tank for Sen. Obama, prove it. Report this latest evidence of the Senator, in his own words, describing his radical view of and for America. An outlook that has him standing in direct opposition to our founding fathers and the vast majority of Americans today.

[the most long lasting aspect of the upcoming election]

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Terrorists And Tyrants Of The World Root For Obama

During an interview on WABC radio Sunday, top Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said the terrorist group supports Obama’s foreign policy vision.

“We don’t mind–actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election..."

Yousef said in response to a question about the group’s willingness to meet with either of the Democratic presidential candidates.

Cameron wonders if this endorsement will be a problem for Obama. It probably wouldn’t be if it were just one example, all by itself. But let’s pause, and take a look at all the endorsements he’s gotten so far from the world’s radicals, terrorists, tyrants, and their supporters. They’re starting to stack up:

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All despots and tyrants love Obama

Thanks to http://www.clintons4mccain.com/ on this info. - if you don't believe us - just WATCH the VIDEO of it HERE.

Here's lifelong despot, tyrant and enemy of freedom Muammar Gaddafi professing his hatred for America and love for Barack Obama, and falling in with the likes of China, Iran, and other despotic regimes in endorsing Obama.

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US election: If Iraqis could vote it would be for McCain

Baghdad - For five years Ali and Mohammed have lived alongside US soldiers in their Baghdad neighbourhood near Rasheed Street, a prominent commercial artery running through the heart of the Iraqi capital. During that time American culture and politics have become familiar to them, and they say that if they could, they would vote for Republican candidate John McCain in next week's US presidential election.
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The End of the Special Relationship?

For those inclined to see the workings of Divine Providence in human history, the special affinity of the American people for Israel provides a happy example. If Israel could have only one consistent ally in the world, it would surely have picked the world's (still) most powerful nation. Without the United States, Israel would be hard pressed to obtain the weapons needed to defend itself.

In Western terms, America is a Center-Right country. A major aspect of the American exceptionalism discussed by historians is its refusal to develop a class-based political movement. Belief in American exceptionalism has always played a major role in American civic religion. The two dominant conceptions of American foreign policy — isolationism and internationalism — are both predicated upon it.

Senator Barack Obama represents a third foreign policy approach — what Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington calls the "cosmopolitan." Far from taking American virtue as its starting point, the cosmopolitan seeks to remake America in Europe's image. Thus Senator Obama presented himself to Europeans last summer as a citizen of the world, one of them. "Mr. Obama," in the words of Fouad Ajami, "proceeds from the notion of American guilt"...

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Obama or McCain: Israel Debates

JERUSALEM - Israelis believe that they, too, have a stake in the upcoming U.S. elections, and many appear to favor Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for his hawkish stand on Iraq and Islamic militants to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who they fear will favor the Palestinians. ABC NEWS.com conducted an unscientific survey among the students at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

(Snip)Many Israeli students said they are sad to see President Bush go.

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Our National Defense

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who has told a hometown newspaper House Democrats will seek a 25 percent reduction in defense spending upon Obama's ascension.

Talk of an eviscerated Pentagon and higher taxation rates meant to fleece Joe the Plumber, et al., is tonic to the party base.

Undecided voters are probably less likely to be persuaded by Frank's vision - that is if they ever hear of it before the election...

[as I've said, the economy is actually far down the list of my concerns - a 25% reduction in defense spending at this point in history is suicidal ]

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Ahmadinejad Sees Collapse of ‘Bullies’ As Good Chance to Spread Islam

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted on Thursday that the imminent collapse of international “bullies” would be a good opportunity to spread Islam and Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad did not mention the U.S. by name but said that the ''bullying powers'' were on the verge of collapse...
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Ultraconservative Islam on rise in Mideast

Cairo, Egypt - The Muslim call to prayer fills the halls of a Cairo computer shopping center, followed immediately by the click of locking doors as the young, bearded tech salesmen close up shop and line up in rows to pray together. Business grinding to a halt for daily prayers is not unusual in conservative Saudi Arabia, but until recently it was rare in the Egyptian capital...

[there are immediate consequences whenever America is perceived as week - nowhere better demonstrated in the cultural war occurring world wide re: the spread of radical islam ]

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McCain tilts towards Taiwan, Obama may favor China

TAIPEI – Republican presidential candidate John McCain would seek to defend Taiwan and play hard ball with China if he comes to office, but Democratic front runner Barack Obama would further sideline Taipei as he courts Beijing...

[pop quiz:
1) which is the democracy?
2) which the totalitarian regime?
3) who's surprised?]

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Surprise: Government Mandates Behind Ethanol ‘Bubble’

Leave it to the foreign press to explain one of the major problems with American over-regulation and subsidies.

The Financial Times published a series Oct. 22 and 23 examining a subject the U.S. media have largely ignored: the effect ethanol mandates and subsidies have had on the ethanol market, investors, and food prices. Here's a hint: the effects are not good.

The first report highlighted the billions of dollars in losses investors have suffered after fluctuations influenced by legislation. Congress passed a mandate in 2005 requiring 7.5 billion gallons be mixed into the gasoline supply by 2012. They doubled that goal in an energy bill in 2007, requiring 36 billion gallons by 2022.

"Congress and the president created a multi-billion dollar market for corn-based ethanol virtually overnight," the report said, leading to a surge of investment culminating in late 2006. But as more ethanol plants came online and the price of the fuel dropped, the companies' values started declining even as the price of corn continued to rise.

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High Gas Prices and the Marxist tactic of Crisis revolution

Congressional Democrats, who have created the current crisis, will allow a certain degree of suffering on the part of the people in order to insure their agenda is furthered. They will continue to blame and punish "big oil" for the rise in gas prices just as Clinton blamed and punished Smith & Wesson for the violent crimes that took place while he was in office.

Moreover, like Lenin, these Democrats will try to to push their agenda through even if many of their countrymen fail to place the blame on "big oil." With the power of the federal government today's Obama-led Democrat party will implement their agenda through at the expense of the people by using scare tactics, and raw force when necessary, to silence their detractors.

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Unnamed Democratic Aide Regarding the Refusal by House Democrats to Take Up Energy Legislation for Fear of a GOP-Forced Vote on Domestic Drilling:

“Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind.’”

.

The Obama campaign targets young children

[textbook socialist tactic]

Using tactics that would get any maker of sugary cereal in trouble, the Obama campaign shamelessly targets immature minds, and incites them to manipulate their elders into voting for the Obama. Dr. Slogan's Prescriptions has the details:

(Snip) That is your weapon! "Precious" needs to get on the phone and say, ''Grandpa, Grandma, I am asking you to vote for Barack Obama. This is really important to me. It's about my future. It's about the world I will be living in...''

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Look for long health care delays if the U.S. gets a national system

One of the campaign themes this election cycle is “affordable” health care. Shouldn't we ask ourselves whether we want the politicians who brought us the “affordable” housing, that created the current financial debacle, to now deliver us affordable health care?

Shouldn't we also ask how things turned out in countries where there is socialized medicine?

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Democrats Promises More Business Regulation

If the nation's big investment banks proceed with plans to give employees billions of dollars in bonuses this year, they can expect more regulation from Congress. That's what House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told NBC News on Monday.

"There's nothing we can do to stop it immediately, but we will be regulating next year in a way that hasn't been seen I think since the New Deal,"

Frank told NBC News

[brilliant]

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Calling the Old Media: Five Million Illegals Have Illegal Mortgages in U.S.A.

A single report by KFYI radio of Phoenix, Arizona highlights a shocking claim made by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD says that five million illegal aliens hold illegal mortgages. This is just one more example of the lax lending laws put into place by Democrats like Barney Frank that have contributed to this economic crisis.

One would think this would be big news. But, so far we have only this one report to cover it.

There have been earlier stories of home flipping schemes that made liberal use of illegal aliens as straw buyers and the FBI has followed numerous cases to prosecution and conviction. But the Old Media have not done much with this story.

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Florida Dems miffed by Obama's Latin outreach

There is a fierce behind-the-scenes battle for influence over presumptive Democratic candidate Barack Obama's Hispanic and Latin American agenda, and some Democratic strategists say that its outcome could determine the result of the November elections.

Some Obama backers in South Florida, in particular, are especially miffed at what they see as excessive power by labor-union-tied, left-leaning Mexican-American leaders at Obama's Chicago headquarters over the campaign's nationwide Hispanic policy strategies.

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The Obama Temptation

I've been thinking this for a while so I might as well air it here. I honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country - not yet anyway - but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places. I can't help but observe that even some conservatives are caught in the moment as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are unpersuasive and even illogical. And the pull appears to be rather strong. Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, and others, reach for the usual platitudes in explaining themselves but are utterly incoherent. Even non-conservatives with significant public policy and real world experiences, such as Colin Powell and Charles Fried, find Obama alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way.

There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me. The messiah complex. Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything from Obama's plane to his street literature. Young school children singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the world. I dare say, this is ominous stuff.

Even the media are drawn to the allure that is Obama. Yes, the media are liberal. Even so, it is obvious that this election is different. The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the outcome of this election. I've never seen anything like it. Virtually all evidence of Obama's past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media's role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It's as if the media use the Obama campaign's talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn't hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny.

And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency. So in the tank are the media for Obama that for months we've read news stories and opinion pieces insisting that if Obama is not elected president it will be due to white racism. And, of course, while experience is crucial in assessing Sarah Palin's qualifications for vice president, no such standard is applied to Obama's qualifications for president. (No longer is it acceptable to minimize the work of a community organizer.) Charles Gibson and Katie Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama.

But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization.

Obama's entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy.

The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created.

Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich." The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual.

Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he will get much of what he demands.

The question is whether enough Americans understand what's at stake in this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a different place.

Mark R. Levin

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Never Enough

A week after his last money plea, Obama asks everyone for another $5


It seems like only a week ago that The Ticket was whining about Barack Obama whining that after raising $605 million through September to buy the presidency, he was asking all of us one last time for just $10 more for some reason.

And we figured out that, October money aside, he'd have to spend $12.5 million a day just to unload September's haul by Nov. 4.

The Democrat is already outspending the Republican by four to one, which if it was the other way around would surely be unconscionable.

So last night Obama dumped several million bucks on several TV networks, which they don't mind, to talk at us slickly for 27 minutes about his change that we need. (Transcript and video here.)

And when that was over, pingo, here comes another e-mail from Windy City HQ. You'll never guess what.

He wants more money. More. Still.

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Where's Media Talk About Obama Buying The Election?

If John McCain had gone back on his promise to accept public campaign money, and instead set fundraising records that put him as many as fourteen points ahead in the polls with less than two weeks to go before Election Day, do you think there'd be a lot of media carping and whining about rich Republicans buying the White House?

Probably 24 hours a day, seven days a week until the final vote had been counted, correct?

Yet, despite Barack Obama having gone back on his campaign promise to accept public funds, and reports that he's now over $600 million in contributions, the Obama-loving press don't seem very concerned with liberals buying the presidency.

This obvious hypocrisy struck the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm Thursday (emphasis added):

Having now collected more than $605 million altogether, the freshman senator shows no concern over the appearance of buying the presidency. Imagine for a moment the national political conversation that could be going on now if rich Republicans had raked in that much loot for one campaign.

Yeah, just imagine - it's likely the only thought the topic's going to get.

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CNN Attacks Obama's 'Broken Promise' on Funding

[credit where due]
On Tuesday's Election Center program, CNN anchor Campbell Brown criticized Barack Obama's decision earlier this year to break his November 2007 pledge to accept public financing of his presidential campaign:

“For this last week, Senator Obama will be rolling in dough. His commercials, his get-out-the-vote effort, will, as the pundits have said, dwarf the McCain campaign's final push. But, in fairness, you have to admit, he is getting there, in part, on a broken promise.”

Brown's attack, which she made in her regular “Cutting Through the Bull” commentary at the beginning of her program, came 24 hours before Obama is scheduled to run a 30-minute infomercial on five television networks.

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A Perfect Storm

by Thomas Sowell

If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic-- and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

Policies that he proposes under the banner of "change" are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries-- and failed repeatedly in other countries. [snip]

The economies of China and India began their take-off into high rates of growth when they got rid of precisely the kinds of policies that Obama is advocating for the United States under the magic mantra of "change." [snip]

Economic disasters, however, may pale by comparison with the catastrophe of Iran with nuclear weapons.

Suicidal fanatics cannot be deterred. If they are willing to die and we are not, then we are at their mercy-- and they have no mercy. Moreover, once they get nuclear weapons, that is a situation which cannot be reversed, either in this generation or in generations to come...

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UN: Iran blocking IAEA from verifying its nuclear ambitions

The UN nuclear chief said Monday that Iran is blocking his watchdog agency from verifying whether the nation has any ambitions for nuclear weaponry. ''I regret that we are still not in a position to achieve full clarity regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,'' Mohamed ElBaradei, (Snip) the IAEA does not in any way seek to pry into Iran's conventional or missile-related military activities.
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Iran Gen. Admits Arming Region's Militants

Tehran, Iran - Iran is supplying weapons to ''liberation armies'' in the Middle East, a top Revolutionary Guards commander said, offering the first official confirmation the country provides weapons to armed groups in the region. Gen. Hossein Hamedani, deputy commander of a volunteer militia that is part of the elite Revolutionary Guards, did not provide specific details.
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TAXES ARE HEADED UP

With the coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, federal income taxes are about to increase sharply, and automatically [for 100% of those who pay taxes]. Under conventional "current law" accounting, when a tax cut expires, marginal tax rates are forced higher, but budget officials do not see this as a tax increase at all.

• If Congress were to stabilize federal revenue at its 30-year average of 18.4 percent of GDP, taxpayers would keep an extra $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years.
• In absolute terms, $2.6 trillion is slightly more than all the individual income taxes the federal government will collect in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 combined.
• That amounts to roughly $22,000 per household -- enough to buy a new car or to make a meaningful down payment on a home.
• Even by government standards, $2.6 trillion is a large amount of money.

Our elected officials may ultimately decide it is necessary to allow federal revenue to rise above its historical average, and voters may also decide to deny them re-election, but taxpayers deserve the truth.

Instead, we are subjected to political word games designed to hide the fact that our tax bills are slated to increase significantly unless Congress acts, say Carter and Miller.

[the key here is in denying them re-election before the tax cuts expire. We'll be voting on a lot next week]

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Obama's Four Tax Increases

I confess. Senator Obama's two tax promises: to limit tax increases to only those making over $250,000 a year, and to not raise taxes on 95% of "working Americans," intrigued me. If Senator Obama is shooting straight with us, under his presidency I could look forward to paying no additional Federal taxes -- I might even get a break -- and as I struggle to support a family and pay for two boys in college, a reliable tax freeze is nearly as welcome as further tax cuts... [snip]

The first loophole was easy to find:

Senator Obama doesn't "count" allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse as a tax increase. Unless the cuts are re-enacted, rates will automatically return to the 2000 level. Senator Obama claims that letting a tax cut lapse -- allowing the rates to return to a higher levels -- is not actually a "tax increase." It's just the lapsing of a tax cut.

See the difference?

Neither do I.

Senator Obama is willfully deceiving you and me when he says that no one making under $250,000 will see an increase in their taxes. If I were keeping score, I'd call that Tax Lie #1...

[there's more - know what we're in for > ]

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"We Will All Need To Sacrifice"

When Barack Obama spoke in Colorado, he said something that may be of interest to Joe the Plumber: "Now, make no mistake: the change we need won't come easy or without cost. We will all need to tighten our belts, we will all need to sacrifice and we will all need to pull our weight because now more than ever, we are all in this together."

[isn't the expression; "pull our own weight"?]

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Argentina Spreads The Wealth

With Congress eyeing 401(k)s and Barack Obama decrying "corporate greed," it might pay to look at Argentina's pension nationalization. The country's mediagenic socialist president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, announced Tuesday the state would "protect" private pensions from "policies of plunder" by proposing to hand them over to the government.(Snip)

U.S. Democrats in Congress are mulling like-minded moves to scrap 401(k)s and transfer them into government-managed "guaranteed retirement accounts" --- with a 3% return.

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Would One Candidate Make a Better CEO?

It's all about leadership. Business & Media Institute columnist and businessman Dan Kennedy looks at the candidates the way the media should. Who is the best leader?

On Obama:

Sen. Barack Obama has zero experience running anything but his presidential campaign - which has the most bloated staff and largest budget of any, is out-spending his opponent by a wide margin but failing to gain proportionate market share. His wife mentioned that Barack would be surprised at the amount of money she spends on their children's activities, so he's obviously not running their household or its budget.

On McCain:

He has actually managed something in addition to his smaller, leaner funded presidential campaign; he had military command, responsible for troops and assets. He has at least been within sight of business and might have picked up something about how business works, thanks to wife Cindy's family's adult beverage distributorship. Thin credentials I admit for a CEO, but still superior to none. I also view his admission that the complexities of the economy are not his strong suit as a plus. Knowing what you do not know is a very important type of knowledge. It leads to care, caution, and consultation.

This is the analysis the MSM are skipping in their headlong rush to coronate Obama.

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ABC and CBS Morning Shows Skip Obama 'Redistribution of Wealth' Tape

ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS's "Early Show" on Tuesday avoided any mention of the newly found 2001 audiotape in which then-state Senator Barack Obama lamented to a radio interviewer that "the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth." Only NBC's "Today" show played any of the tape.

Both morning shows replayed McCain's critique in a Pennsylvania speech: "Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist [sic] in chief. I'm running to be commander in chief." But without the context of the audiotape, GMA and "Early Show" portrayed it as just more negative campaigning.

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Palin:Obama's Tax-and-Spend Ideology Will 'Squash the Entrepreneurial Spirit'

On the first hour of his nationally syndicated radio show Tuesday night, Mark Levin interviewed Republican veep selection Gov. Sarah Palin. She scorned Barack Obama's ideological commitment to higher taxes and noted that the 2001 tapes of Barack Obama radio shows demonstrate that "he had thought even back then that government should redistribute others people's hard earned money according to a politician's priorities." She said it was scary and would "squash the entrepreurial spirit."

There's more at Mark's website, marklevinshow.com.

[she didn't graduate from an ivy league school therefore her opinion doesn't count. Next distraction...]

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Palin Criticized - For Doing Her Job

The Associated Press this morning did a short and sweet hit piece on Sarah Palin, criticizing the Alaska Governor for acting as, well, the Alaska Governor.

Anne Sutton of the AP essentially mocks Palin for governing the state by ‘remote control.’ It’s not so much the criticism as it is the reality that if Sarah Palin wasn’t doing her job, the AP would be hammering her for that instead. The headline would go from ‘Palin manages to govern Alaska from afar’ to ‘Palin manages to neglect Alaska while campaigning.’

Sutton goes on to offer these hard-hitting examples of journalism that have come to define the AP, using such concrete descriptors as ‘almost a month’ and ‘probably’ to define lengths of time and cost respectively. The entire article follows (emphasis mine):

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The Networks and Palin: A Study in Character Assassination

In a just released study, "A Study in Character Assassination: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon," CMI analysts found that ABC, CBS and NBC are airing 18 negative stories for every one positive story on Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate.

After examining the TV news coverage of Palin from September 29 to October 12, CMI found that ABC, NBC and CBS news shows ran 69 stories about Palin. 2 stories were positive, 37 were negative and 30 were neutral. The 2 positive stories were a two-part interview with Palin's parents on the CBS Early Show. Not one of the major network evening news programs - ABC's World News, NBC's Nightly News, and CBS's Evening News - ran a single positive story about Palin.

Is it any wonder that polls revealed a 17 percent increase in Palin's unfavorability ratings in just one month?

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Study: 3 Times More Negative Than Positive Reports About McCain

Want to talk media bias?

A new study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that since the Republican National Convention, there have been three times more negative press reports about John McCain than positive ones.

By contrast, during the same period, media coverage of Obama has been more positive than negative.

Think this might be impacting voter perceptions?

Here are the study's key findings (emphasis added):

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Obama Speechwriter Switches to McCain; Ignored by MSM

Imagine if a speechwriter for John McCain had switched sides and announced she was going to vote for Barack Obama. Would she not be featured bigtime in the mainstream media complete with new thrills running up Chris Matthews leg? Well, this did happen except that it was an Obama speechwriter, Wendy Button, who became disillusioned with The One and switched to supporting McCain. Here are the highlights of Wendy Button's explanation of why she made the switch:

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete..."

Young lady, only when the switch is made from Republican to Democrat will it be mentioned in the MSM. They search the country for "lifelong Republicans" who are going to vote for Obama but when an Obama speechwriter switches over to the "Dark Side," all you will hear from the MSM is the sound of crickets chirping.

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Time Magazine’s Picture-Perfect Pitch of Obama

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the Nov. 3 edition of Time magazine just gave Barack Obama 13,000 words to a few hundred for John McCain. Starting with a corner shot on the cover, Obama is pictured 13 times throughout the magazine.

The only photo of his opponent in this election-eve issue is a goofy thumbnail of McCain under the Gaffes section of the Campaign Scorecard. Sarah Palin is featured exactly once, also, in the letters section under a quote from a reader who compares her to impersonator Tina Fey and says "They are both better entertainers than politicians."

[what bias?]

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Steep Newspaper Circ Declines Continue; 5-Year Trend Even Worse

On Tuesday, Editor & Publisher released daily and Sunday newspaper circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations as of September 30, along with percentage changes from the preceding year. Showing that the press can't even report accurately about itself E&P's accompanying commentary vastly understated the situation: ...

[they're probably dumbfounded as to why...]

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Why a big Barack Obama win is likely to damage America

Democrats finally have found a surge they like. It's a surge of liberal ideas, and if they descend on Washington with the force the polls suggest, America is about to take a leftward lurch.

The ramifications would be dramatic. If Obama delivers on the change he has promised, it could mean that capitalism as it has been defined becomes a dirty word while "sharing the wealth" gains scriptural significance. American exceptionalism, the guiding if unspoken force of our foreign policy for most of our history, will be out, international cooperation in.

Even McCain's charge that Obama is a socialist is largely falling flat. While such an explosive charge should be reliable against someone as liberal as Obama, it's not working because voters are so frightened and angry by the economic meltdown that they want bigger government and a larger safety net, whatever the costs in dollars and free-market principles...

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Will Obama's Uncle Sam scare swing voters?

CHICAGO – Here’s my advice to Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters: Stop predicting that the Democrats will sweep into the White House and Congress come January with a mandate to expand Big Government. That prospect, coupled with some of your candidate’s own tax and health-care plans, could scare swing voters you need next Tuesday.

[so by all means don't talk about it before the election...]

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Obama's radicalism: Destroying the Constitution

The Founders wrote the Constitution to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Barack Obama envisions a very different Constitution. In a recently unearthed 2001 interview with Chicago Public Radio, Obama discussed the Supreme Court's decisions during the Civil Rights era and lamented that the court only granted black Americans the same rights as white Americans.

[nicely phrased, for its accuracy - exaggeration? Read > ]

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Spreading wealth long time value of Obama

Barack Obama's statement to “Joe the Plumber” about redistributing wealth was not an off-the-cuff statement. Obama stood by it in a recent interview and has been reinforced by his own words in this 2001 audio of an interview he conducted with a Chicago Public Radio station, where he says that has been a tragedy that “redistribution of wealth” is not pursued by the Supreme Court...

[and with a Democratic congress, he'll appoint anyone he wants to the supreme court unopposed]

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Obama Promoted Redistribution at a Socialist Group's Meeting in 1996; Media Could Easily Have Found

First it was Barack Obama's encounter with Joe the Plumber. Then there was his 2001 interview at Chicago radio station. Today, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air highlights yet another in what is turning out to be a long line of links and other items proving that the Democratic candidate is a longtime socialist.

It comes from the March-April 1996 edition of New Ground, a publication of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (CDSA).

I'll cite the relevant verbiage after the jump. But what's more important, I will show just how easy it would have been for a journalist searching Google to find this item. The fact that either no one found this, or that those who might have found it obviously ignored it, shows just how lazy and/or negligent Old Media has been in vetting the Illinois senator's fitness to be president. [snip]

They say curiosity killed the cat. Perhaps, but in this case lack of curiously is killing Old Media.

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Barack Obama : " I Chose My Friends Carefully... Marxist Professors and Structural Feminists"

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Bill Sammon wrote about Obama's Affinity to Marxists today at Americans Election HQ:

Barack Obama laughs off charges of socialism. Joe Biden scoffs at references to Marxism. Both men shrug off accusations of liberalism.

But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.

Obama's affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully," ... "The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists."

Obama's interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called "the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union."

After graduating from Columbia in 1983, Obama spent a year working for a consulting firm and then

"In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia," ... "At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature."

Obama supporters point out that plenty of Americans flirt with radical ideologies in college, only to join the political mainstream later in life. But Obama, who made a point of noting how "carefully" he chose his friends in college, also chose to launch his political career in the Chicago living room of Ayers, a domestic terrorist who in 2002 proclaimed: "I am a Marxist."

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Bill Ayers throws a racial Molotov cocktail

It's right on Amazon -- the new book by Weatherman bomb throwers Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who sponsored Barack Obama's political coming-out party in Chicago leftwing politics. And no, it's not something Ayers and Dohrn wrote when Obama was eight years old. It's a book that is timed to come out right after this election.

Here's the Amazon blurb:

Race Course Against White Supremacy
(Paperback)
by William C. Ayers (Author), Bernardine Dohrn (Author)

White supremacy and its troubling endurance in American life is debated in these personal essays by two veteran political activists. Arguing that white supremacy has been the dominant political system in the United States since its earliest days-and that it is still very much with us-the discussion points to unexamined bigotry in the criminal justice system, election processes, war policy, and education. The book draws upon the authors' own confrontations with authorities during the Vietnam era, reasserts their belief that racism and war are interwoven issues, and offers personal stories about their lives today as parents, teachers, and reformers.

This book is a flaming Molotov cocktail, aiming to worsen race relations in America by convincing blacks and Leftist whites that you --- yes, you who are reading this --- must be a White Supremacist. It spurs black paranoia, which has a real enough basis in history. This is the most cruel and malignant bomb to throw into the most racially charged election in American history. Regardless of who wins, this book will do further damage to human relationships in America.

This is not Dr. King's dream. It may be Obama's dream, and it is certainly Bill Ayers' dream.

But it certainly tells us who Ayers and Dohrn are today, doesn't it?

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Newsweek's Alter Insists: Only Racism Could Prevent President Obama

America’s either racist, or it will elect Obama. So writes Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, who focuses in his weekly column on imagining the ''horror'' scenario, titled ''Why McCain Won: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: how that scenario could (but likely won't) play out.'' Alter’s theory in a nutshell: If McCain wins, racism is the answer.

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Watch What You Say

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... Biden was so rattled by her questions that the Obama campaign canceled a scheduled interview between the station and Biden's wife Jill.

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely at best, for the duration of the remaining days until the election,"

the campaign fumed. Ask a question, get frozen out.

More importantly, this episode points to a very troubling pattern. Whenever confronted by difficult questions posed by people who haven't succumbed to the creepy Obama Hypnosis, the Obama Team’s reaction is to silence them. They did it to a Chicago radio station that dared to interview someone critical of Obama's past. They did it to Joe the Plumber, seeking to destroy him for daring to ask Obama a question about taxes. They are threatening to do it nationwide with the Fairness Doctrine.

You aren't allowed to raise Obama's middle name, Hussein. You aren't allowed to say that half of his family is Muslim. You aren't allowed to say that he was born to a Muslim father, which, under Islam, automatically made him a Muslim. You aren't allowed to discuss Reverend Wright. Or Bill Ayers. Or Bernardine Dohrn. Or Louis Farrakhan. Or Father Phleger. Or Tony Rezko. You aren't allowed to point out that so far, the Iranians, the Russians, the Syrians, Hamas, parts of al Qaeda, Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers, and Kim Jong Il have endorsed him. You aren't allowed to ask him about the vote fraud or illegal campaign contributions being done in his name. You aren't allowed to say he's lying about his tax plan. Or about his past associations. Or his past, period.

If you raise any of these issues, you risk being punished, smeared, and silenced. If this is the chill that has set in already, just imagine what it will be like once they take the White House. Watch what you say.

Or else.

[Recommended > ]

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Big Media Pull Out All Stops to Elect Obama

Big Media have pulled out all their stops in trying to elect Barack Obama by withholding from the American people the truth about his radical record and associates. Big media, their polls and the presidential debates practically ignored front-burner issues important to millions of Americans.

• By excluding abortion and same-sex marriage from national debate, Big Media obviously didn't want a repetition of Obama's embarrassing handling of these issues in the Saddleback dialogue.

• The issue of illegal aliens was censored out of the presidential debates and other coverage. The voters were kept oblivious to the fact that Obama favors giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens and John McCain does not.

• How many times have you heard that Obama will cut taxes on 95 percent of Americans? Have you even once heard Big Media tell us that's a big lie because 40 percent of Americans don't pay any federal income taxes at all?

• Big Media have cloaked him with a security blanket that not only protects him from criticism, but viciously attacks anybody who tells the truth about Obama's life story in Indonesia, Hawaii, Kenya or Chicago.

• Why don't Big Media dissect the revelations and biases in Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," with the same journalistic curiosity they use about Sarah Palin's wardrobe?

• Media present Obama as some sort of intellectual, but why don't we hear about his failure to write anything meaningful for the Harvard Law Review when he was its affirmative-action president?

• Why don't we hear more about Obama's friendship with the communist Frank Marshall Davis, who was part of a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii?

• Why haven't Big Media assigned their investigative reporters to trace the hundreds of millions of dollars that may be illegally flowing to the Obama campaign from foreign sources?

• Why aren't we given details about Obama's financial relationship with Tony Rezko, the Chicago fixer now in prison?

Pew Research confirms that 70 percent of Obama's media coverage has been positive and 60 percent of McCain's has been negative.

Memo to the American people: Will we let Big Media decide this election by censoring the news we have a right to know?

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Sarkozy views Obama stance on Iran as 'utterly immature'

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France, but according to a senior government source, Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."

Obama visited Paris in July, and the Iranian issue was at the heart of his meeting with Sarkozy, who

told Obama that if the new American president elected in November changed his country's policy toward Iran, it would be "very problematic."

Until now, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have tried to maintain a united front on Iran. But according to the source, Sarkozy fears that Obama might "arrogantly" ignore the other members of this front and open a direct dialogue with Iran without preconditions.

Following their July meeting, Sarkozy repeatedly expressed disappointment with Obama's positions on Iran, concluding that they were "not crystallized, and therefore many issues remain open." Advisors to the French president who held separate meetings with Obama's advisors came away with similar impressions and expressed similar disappointment.

According to the Israeli source, Sarkozy plans to begin intensive negotiations with the new American administration, regardless of whether it is headed by Obama or Republican Sen. John McCain, even before the new president takes office in January, with the goal of persuading him to continue the current policy on Iran.

The French intelligence community believes that Iran has already obtained about 40 percent of the enriched uranium it would need for its first bomb, and that at its current rate, it will obtain the rest of the uranium it needs in the spring or summer of 2009.

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Obama and the “Nightmare Scenarios”

With the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran, and with Iran threatening to deal the U.S. “a strong blow in the mouth,” what kind of message are Democrats sending Tehran by insisting on quickly withdrawing U.S. troops from the region? Having stood idly by while Iran progressed through step after step in their near-complete quest to obtain nuclear weapons, we now will be telling the mullahs that we will be splitting town when our ally finally opposes them. In today’s New York Sun, Eli Lake compiles some of the “nightmare scenarios” that may be unleashed...

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Investors Flee From 'Change' Obama Hypes

Obama's proposed tax increases are adversely affecting our financial markets.

With the bottom 40% of income earners not paying any federal income taxes, such tax credits would not reduce any tax liability for these workers. Instead, since they're refundable, they would involve new checks from the federal government.

These are not tax cuts as Obama is promising. They are new government spending programs buried in the tax code and estimated to cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

Obama argues that while these workers do not pay income taxes, they do pay payroll taxes. True, but his planned credits do not involve cuts in payroll taxes. They are refundable income tax credits designed to redistribute income and "spread the wealth."

Meantime, Obama has proposed effective tax increases of 20% or more in the two top income-tax rates, phasing out the personal exemptions and all itemized deductions for top earners, as well as raising their tax rates.

He wants a 33% increase in the tax rates on capital gains and dividends, an increase of 16% to 32% in the top payroll tax rate, reinstatement of the death tax with a 45% top rate, and a new payroll tax on employers estimated at 7% to help finance his health insurance plan. He's also contending for higher tariffs under his protectionist policies.

Finally, he would increase corporate taxes by 25%, though American businesses already face the second-highest marginal tax rates in the industrialized world, thus directly harming manufacturing and job creation while weakening demand for the dollar.

Obama argues disingenuously that his tax increases would only affect higher-income workers and "corporate fat cats." But it is precisely these top marginal tax rates that control incentives for savings, investment, entrepreneurship, business expansion, jobs and economic growth. While he wants to tax the rich, the burden will fall on the poor and the middle class.

In their new book, "The End of Prosperity," Art Laffer, Steve Moore and Peter Tanous argue that the threat of this tax tsunami is already destabilizing our financial markets and causing capital flight from America...

[Highly Recommended > ]

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Teen shot over vandalized McCain sign, police say
A Warren Township, Ohio, man faces charges of felonious assault after authorities say he fired his rifle at two teens who were attempting to deface his McCain presidential campaign yard sign. (Snip) Rowles told police he was sitting on his porch Saturday when a tan SUV pulled up and a black youth jumped out and ran toward his house, screaming, "This is for Obama."
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Campaign workers attacked
Two people were arrested Monday afternoon after an altercation led to five Republican campaign workers being sprayed with Mace at their headquarters in Galax. Galax Police Chief Rick Clark said officers were dispatched shortly before 1 p.m. to the Galax Republican headquarters on East Grayson Street when a caller reported someone had sprayed office workers with Mace.
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Effigy of Palin Hanging by Noose
Ghosts, goblins, gargoyles . . . and Sarah Palin hanging by a noose? That's the latest imagery of the Republican vice presidential candidate and her running mate John McCain on display at a West Hollywood home that has been decorated for Halloween.
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Vandals strike York County GOP headquarters
Vandals spray-painted the words “Republican means slavery” on the door of the York County GOP campaign headquarters overnight Friday. Party volunteers called police after discovering the message when they arrived at the office on Rock Hill’s Oakland Avenue. The vandals also stole about 45 candidate signs from the front yard and spray-painted over a banner that carried a picture of Republican presidential nominee John McCain.
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Pictured: The Cave of Crystals discovered 1,000ft below a Mexican desert

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Obama's birth certificate sealed by http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifHawaii governor

[HT:DT]

HONOLULU, Hawaii – Although the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate has become a focus of intense speculation – and even several lawsuits – WND has learned that Hawaii's Gov. Linda Lingle has placed the candidate's birth certificate under seal and instructed the state's Department of Health to make sure no one in the press obtains access to the original document under any circumstances.

The Obama campaign website entitled "Fight the Smears" posts a state of Hawaii "Certificate of Live Birth" which is obviously not the original birth certificate generated by the hospital where Obama reportedly was born.

Although the Obama campaign could immediately put an end to all the challenges by simply producing the candidate's original birth certificate, it has not done so. And the "Fight the Smears" website offers no explanation as to why Obama has refused to request, and make public, an original hospital-generated birth certificate which the Hawaii Department of Health may possess.

In Kenya, WND was told by government authorities that all documents concerning Obama were under seal until after the U.S. presidential election on November 4.

[DT says: More evidence on Obama birth cirtificate/birthplace. It's does't proove Obama was born in Kenya, but one has to ask the question--why doesn't Obama show his birth certificate and make fools of us all?]

[I says: How is it we tolerate being told by a candidate that any of his/her records {like university writings} are 'off limits' to us, their prospective employers?]

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MRC/NB's Motley on FNC to Discuss the Media's Silence on Sen. Biden's Huge Gaffe

The Media Research Center's Director of Communications and NewsBusters.org Contributing Editor Seton Motley appeared on the Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends this morning to discuss the media's stone silence on Delaware Democratic Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden's alarming comments on Sunday:

"... (M)ark my words, within the next, first six months of this administration if we win, you're gonna face a major international challenge, because they are going to want to test him...."

Alaskan Republican Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin later rightly pointed during an interview on CNN that were she to have said the exact same thing, the press would have "clobbered" her.

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ABC's 'Nightline' Gleefully Investigates 'the Palin Problem'

At one point, the ABC journalist asserted, "The hockey mom, a woman dubbed the killa' from Wasilla, and then the blunda [sic] from the tundra, she just might be here to stay." After playing a clip of General Colin Powell claiming the Republican vice presidential nominee isn't qualified, Moran opined, "Ouch!"

Moran, who just last week asked Senator Joe Biden if Palin's rhetoric made him concerned about his safety, pronounced the candidate's downfall: "When McCain nominated her, she was just incandescent and it looked for a while like it was one of the most brilliant and daring political moves in recent times. Now, well, not so much."

[thanks to who?]

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Gingrich: Media Attacks On Palin 'Like Watching Pravda'

[HT:BB]
Appearing on Fox News's "On the Record," Gingrich called recent press reports involving the Republican vice presidential candidate

"factually wrong, intellectually dishonest, totally biased, worthy of the Polish state news media attacking Lech Walesa back in the 1980s."

Moments later, he put an exclamation point on his criticism:

"This is like watching Pravda. This is a one-sided, vicious, unending and dishonest campaign."

What follows is a partial transcript (video embedded right):

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Sarah Palin's a Brainiac

The former editor in chief of Ms. magazine (and a Democrat) on what she learned on a campaign plane with the would-be VP.

High toned and authoritative dismissals of Sarah Palin come from people who have never met or spoken with her. Those who know her, love her or hate her, offer no such criticism. They know what I know, and I learned it from spending just a little time traveling on the cramped campaign plane this week: Sarah Palin is very smart.

Now by “smart,” I don't refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don't really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had.

Palin is more than a “quick study”; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

For all those old enough to remember Senator Sam Ervin, the brilliant strict constitutional constructionist and chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee whose patois included “I'm just a country lawyer”… Yup, Palin is that smart...

[Recommended > ]

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Sarah Palin's Wardrobe Front-Page News at NY Times

[front page. doesn't anything embarrass those folks? {rhetorical}]

Troops: Election needs bigger military focus

Seven out of 10 career-oriented service members say military issues are not getting enough attention in the presidential campaign, and nearly 30 percent don’t believe their vote will matter, according to a Military Times poll of nearly 2,200 troops.

Navy Fire Controlman 1st Class Robert Benjamin Pryor of the Aegis Training and Readiness Center in Dahlgren, Va., said he would like to see more discussion of plans for troop levels and military funding.

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[can't: got a wardrobe crisis to cover...]
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Obama And Frank: A Farewell To Arms

In a revealing meeting with the editorial board of the Southcoast (Mass.) Standard-Times last week, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., called for a 25% cut in military spending, saying: "We don't need all these fancy new weapons."

Judging from his past comments, Obama seems to agree. Caucus for Priorities says its goal is to

"redirect 15% of the Pentagon's discretionary budget away from obsolete Cold War weapons towards education, healthcare, job training, alternative energy development, world hunger, deficit reduction."

The irony here is that this call to disarm is coming from the party of Franklin Roosevelt, who called the United States the "arsenal of democracy." Obama is a far cry from Harry Truman or the Jack Kennedy who said that only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt will we be certain beyond doubt they will never be employed.

It's "fancy new weapons" that now provide a rudimentary amount of protection against ballistic missile attack both here and abroad. What olive branch does Obama suppose will protect against Iraq's Shahab missiles, once they're armed with nuclear warheads?

Unfortunately, people in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran will be defining our needs for us. And as our enemies turn out everything from ballistic missile submarines to anti-satellite weapons, we'd do well to remember that providing for national defense is in the U.S. Constitution - and that job training is not.

[Recommended > ]

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[FLASHBACK: NNBrief June 19:

“I Will Slow Development of Future Combat Systems”

Among other things, Obama promises to “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems,” which in reality have already proven remarkably effective; [snip]

Most alarmingly, however, he literally promises to “slow development of future combat systems.”

Think about the frightening implications of this pledge for a moment.

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Russians prefer the more ''approachable'' Obama

...the preference is widely for Obama because he represents a clean slate and will be more open to new proposals, according to Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Russian Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee and a senior figure in the dominant pro-Kremlin party...

[how surprising]

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What Will Obama Say About Syria?

The news comes today — about five years late, I’d say — that U.S. forces raided a facility inside Syria involved in transferring foreign fighters into Iraq to kill Americans. The strike will likely have the desired effect, whether Bashar is in control of the border region or not (many suspect that even if interested, his regime is not strong enough to stop the cross-border traffic).

If Bashar can exert himself on the border problem, then he has now been given a firm reason to do so — to avoid future humiliations of his sovereignty. And if the situation is beyond his control, then those involved in jihadi smuggling will now understand that they no longer enjoy a safe haven in Syria. It boggles the mind to wonder why such raids weren’t conducted upon the first instance of hard evidence that Assad was aiding the insurgency, but never mind that.

What’s important right now is that both candidates go on record about the raid. Should there be repeat performances — as many as needed to impress Bashar that his days of meddling with impunity are over? Should Iran be targeted for similar strikes? Do you, Mr. Obama, view this news as an unacceptable expansion of the war that will never be countenanced in your administration, or do you believe it a vital component of a winning strategy in Iraq?

I think most people intuitively know how McCain would answer these questions.

[better: Bashar intuitively knows how McCain will answer]

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The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama’s Khalidi Bash Tape

Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.

Now let’s say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.

Question: Is there any chance — any chance — the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we’re pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y’know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?

Do we really have to ask?

So now, let’s leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat? [snip]

"U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST!

END AID TO ISRAEL!"

Barack Obama wouldn’t possibly let something like that pass without a spirited defense of the Israel he tells us he so staunchly supports … would he? I guess to answer that question, we’d have to know what was on the tape.

But who has time for such trifles? After all, isn’t Diana Vreeland about to critique Sarah Palin’s wardrobe?

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