What Newspapers Does Obama Read?
[HT:BE]
Looking at the facially preposterous claim by Obama's campaign that he did not know of Ayers' past, Jonah Goldberg reviews the papers in Chicago relevant to the issue and concludes either Obama never read the papers or he's forwarded a preposterous lie to cover the fact that he did know but it just didn't matter to him.

The Tribune is basically the paper of record in Chicago and also probably a good bellweather of other media coverage in the region (i.e. local TV news, the Sun-Times etc). And, yep, it turns out the Trib ran quite a few pieces on Ayers and his work as a founder of the Weather Underground, including a few before Obama's fundraiser at Ayers' home and a great many during Obama's tenure on the Woods Foundation board.

Indeed, Ayers' memoir came out during that period and received national coverage, including a big story in the NYT. So presumably Obama heard something about that. If I wrote a memoir that received that kind of coverage, my guess is most of my professional friends and colleagues would have a pretty good idea of what it was about.

Maybe Couric could ask Obama what she asked Palin: What newspapers do you read?

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Getting the Vice Presidency Wrong Again

Richard Cohen has some chuckles at Sarah Palin's expense in his column today:

"She found whole new powers for the vice president by misreading the Constitution, if she ever read it at all..."

Well, the laugh's on Cohen, who has no excuse for being such a nitwit after so many years in Washington. Palin said:

"I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate "

There’s only one role the vice president has under the Constitution other than waiting in the wings in case he has to become president, and that is to preside over the Senate. In that capacity he has as much or as little power as the Senate, which writes its own rules, chooses to give him - hence the 'working with the Senate' part.

Everything Palin said is exactly right...

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[Meanwhile, in the 'press'...]

When you interview for a job, here is a hint: make sure you know what the job is. Joe Biden failed that test last Thursday. He couldn’t even get right what a vice president does, but the media didn’t notice. The media is all over itself about how smart and experienced Biden is.

Political 'analyst' Charlie Cook is quoted in the Washington Post on Saturday as saying “Biden is clearly so much more knowledgeable, by a factor of about a million.”

[what bias?]
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Standing Still and Falling Behind

On business-friendly tax reform, the rest of the world is passing us by

Of late, U.S. economic policy has been dominated by responses to short-term crises — the Wall Street bailouts, the economic-stimulus bill, and post-hurricane spending. Whether or not such interventions make sense, they divert attention from the urgent need to bolster America’s long-term competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Many of our international competitors have initiated dramatic tax reforms that put them at a distinct advantage for attracting outside investment and attendant job growth. Consider that 12 of the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have capital gains tax rates of zero; meanwhile, Congress is dithering about extending our 15-percent capital-gains tax rate... [snip]

Corporate tax rates offer an even more striking comparison. Our high rate of 40 percent is a neon sign advertising America’s hostility to job-creating capital. U.S. policymakers sat on their hands as the European Union slashed the average corporate tax rate from 38 percent in 1996 to just 23 percent today. If a country stands still in today’s global economy, it falls behind... [snip]

America is not a unique free-market haven anymore, but many U.S. policymakers are oblivious to this new reality. Here is Barack Obama in the first presidential debate responding to John McCain’s idea to cut the corporate tax rate: “There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code . . . that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world.”

In a new Cato Institute brief, Jack Mintz, one of Canada’s top tax experts, finds that the U.S. rate of 36 percent is the eighth highest of the 80 countries studied, and is far above the average rate of 20 percent... [snip]

Most of our trading partners have figured out these dynamic aspects of corporate tax cuts. Just this year, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Spain cut their corporate rates. We need to follow suit. When Congress is finished trying to fix yesterday’s economic failures, it should start focusing on future economic success by pursuing major tax reforms.

[more facts, all bad news for US, Recommended > ]

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It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

- Mark Twain

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Iraq commemorates Saddam's mass grave victims

NAJAF, Iraq – Iraqi officials paid tribute to victims of Saddam Hussein's repression on Wednesday, but fell short of meeting relatives' demands for compensation and DNA tests to identify thousands of bodies discovered in mass graves.

Saddam's Sunni Arab-led government brutally put down a Shi'ite uprising in 1991, and relatives of the victims marched in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf this week...

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New U.S. intelligence report warns 'victory' not certain in Iraq

WASHINGTON — A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

(Snip) The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq...

[do you really need an above average I.Q. to understand the dual concepts of "winning" and "but not won yet"?

Tell me this sophomoric crap isn't intentional]

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AP Just Noticed 'Iraq War Disappears' From TV

Apparently, AP's television writer David Bauder just noticed that the Iraq war has been canceled as TV fare lately. Maybe Mr. Bauder should have been reading Newsbusters because our own Rich Noyes noticed how the war had vanished from TV all the way back on Feb. 28th.

Of course, Bauder is trying to spin this neglect as mere "fatigue," as if the war were a fad that people have just grown tired of as opposed to TV losing interest because the war no longer fits the we-can't-win template that the media had been used to following with their coverage.

In fact, the surge has gone so well that even Bauder had to give the campaign its due...

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N Korea 'building atomic warhead'

North Korea is trying to develop a nuclear warhead that would fit on to a missile, South Korea's top military official has said. Gen Kim Tae-young told a parliamentary committee that the North was believed to have enough plutonium to make six or seven warheads. He said it was not clear if Pyongyang had succeeded in developing a warhead.

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Netherlands bans Iranians from studying nuclear technology

The Dutch government has enacted legislation barring Iranian nationals from access to courses and facilities related to nuclear technology. Under the new law, passed on 4 July, Iranians, including those holding dual citizenship in the Netherlands, will be unable to enroll in graduate-level courses involving nuclear and rocket technologies.

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Russia: Arms sales to Venezuela are defensive

MOSCOW — Russia's foreign minister says the country's arms sales to Venezuela are meant for defensive purposes. Russia has stepped up ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and is sending a naval squadron to Venezuela for exercises next month in a show of force near the United States. Russia has sold Venezuela weapons worth more than $4 billion since 2005 and announced a $1 billion credit for arms purchases last month.

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Menace of the growing red fleet

The slow, steady rise of China as a maritime power is increasingly concentrating the minds of defence planners in Washington and Canberra as they try to gauge its significance and weigh its implications for the region. The latest and most stunning example of China's expanding naval ambitions in the Pacific is the recent confirmation of a new underground nuclear submarine base near Sanya, on Hainan Island off China's southern coast.

Western intelligence agencies have been trying to glean information about the construction of Sanya for years because the new base says much about China's ambitions to create a genuine blue water navy that can project power well beyond China's shores and throughout the Pacific.

Sanya is reportedly being fitted out with underground berths for up to 20 advanced submarines and has facilities to house several aircraft carriers that China does not yet own.

"China's nuclear and naval build-up at Sanya underlines Beijing's desire to assert tight control over this region," according to the respected defence journal Jane's Defence Weekly. "This development, so close to the Southeast Asian sea lanes so vital to the economies of Asia, can only cause concern far beyond these straits."

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Anniversary of the Yom Kippur War

Wednesday night October 8, the holiest day within Judaism, is the beginning of Yom Kippur. In Israel, that day now has a special poignancy, a special tragic memory as exactly 35 years ago Egypt and Syria began an unprovoked war against Israel, vowing once again to eliminate the country.

Caught by surprise, the Israelis initially suffered many losses but through deadly fighting rallied and eventually drove back the Egyptians and the Syrians.
While Israelis will remember the dead in their prayers on their holy day, the Arabs have a different understanding according to Israel National News.

Speaking on Sunday in Cairo, Mubarak called on the people of Egypt to strengthen their nation by demonstrating the victorious spirit that supposedly prevailed in Cairo during their last war with Israel. An Egyptian media outlet also called on the government to release documents about the war that have been classified up to now, in order to underscore the “great Arab victory” in 1973.

Meanwhile, the Syrian newspaper Tishrin called on the Arab nations to unite “just as they did 35 years ago.”

Alas, the sounds of peace are not heard in the land.

[if your only source for 'news' is from those lying to you, how would you know?]

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EU's Do-Nothings

[HT:MM]
Financial Crisis: European leaders have been so busy gloating over the U.S. money mess, they've failed to notice that their own overregulated banking system is in even worse shape. They need to get their act together. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called an emergency meeting of European leaders last Saturday to address their fast-melting financial system. And what did they come up with?

Nothing.

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Al Gore's Nobel Prize 'illegal'

OSLO - The Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to Mother Teresa and Al Gore violated the terms of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel's will that created the awards and so are illegal, a lawyer who has written a book on the subject said today. Only 45 per cent of the Nobel Peace Prizes attributed since World War II are in line with the spirit and terms of Nobel's will, according to Norwegian lawyer Fredrik Heffermehl, author of "Nobel's Will."

[hmm. we needed a book to tell us Gore's warming hysteria didn't fully match the 'peace' prize he was awarded? It's no longer a scientific organization, but a political one - the gave Carter an award didn't they?]

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Human Cost of Global Warming Hysteria the Subject of New Documentary

Hysteria over global warming has opened the door to restrictive energy policies that greatly jeopardize not only average Americans but also low income families in developing countries who are already beset by rising prices, according a new documentary on the modern environmental movement

"Not Evil, Just Wrong" (http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/)

takes a hard look at the potential human costs associated with the demands of environmentalism in areas of the world where carbon-based energy sources are vital. The current scare surrounding man-made global warming theories should be viewed within a larger historical context that reaches back to the early 1960s when the environmental-for-profit movement began, and its incorrect and harmful record. [snip]

However, the scientific debate is not central to the film. The focus is instead on the impact intrusive government regulations might have on human lives. In many respects the modern environmental movement has become a receptacle for those who once sympathic toward communism, McAleer observed.

"The suggestion coming from Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama that people should not be permitted to keep their thermostats set at a certain temperature is but one example of government control that should alarm average Americans"

Supporters of the new documentary can offer financial support through Pay Pal on the web site >> http://www.noteviljustwrong.com/

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U.S., Future Tense

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Security: Buried in last week's news, the CIA director warned that the next president's top national security problem is the Axis of Oil...

In an interview with Fox News Friday, the CIA's Hayden said that, along with North Korea, the next president must focus on Russia, Venezuela and Iran as priorities. "Oil, at its current price . . . gives the Russian state a degree of influence and power that it would have not otherwise had," Hayden said.

It gets worse with Iran. "Our judgment is that (Iran could achieve a nuclear bomb) toward the middle of the next decade," he said.

Hayden also warned about Venezuela, just as the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead called for more Littoral Combat Ships to check the Russian navy, now in the Caribbean

[if only we had our own oil -- we could sell it and push the price, and our enemy's influence, way down. Why oh why did our forefathers found a country in an area so devoid of resources?]

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Wonderful, Magical Green Bailout

Legal Newsline notes that California attorney general Jerry Brown and Al Gore told a group of investors waiting for the government to make them rich in the name of global warming — that, in the words of Legal Newsline’s headline “green opportunity could help financial crisis.”

It seems that we could get out of this huge economic pickle if only we damned the torpedoes and charged headlong into the green agenda. Employing that knack for understatement for which he is so well known, Gore says

“I actually do think that the green revolution is the solution to the financial crisis . . . the national security crisis, the debt crisis and the climate crisis. They are all connected.”

When the biggest cheerleaders for such schemes are those who have sunk millions (or more) in the projects and are simply waiting for the government to step in and add value to those apparently nearly valueless investments — like Gore is — that should be the final warning sign anyone needs.

Stay Out.

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ACORN: Look, We Can't Weed Out Fraudulent Voters. It's What We Do.

This sounds like an Onion parody: A national voter-registration group admitted to Cuyahoga County election officials Tuesday that it cannot eliminate fraud from its operation. The group blamed inefficiency and lack of resources for problems such as being unable to spot duplicate voter-registration cards or cards that may have been filled out by workers to make quotas...

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Real ID and Reality

The REAL ID laws were a top a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission after investigators found that the hijackers had obtained 17 driver’s licenses and 13 state-issued identification cards in the process of carrying out terrorist actions. “Terrorists take advantage of the system being blind,” said Janice Kephart, President of 9/11 Security Solutions.

“This is going to make three groups of people unhappy: terrorists, illegal workers, con men and criminals,”

said Stewart A. Baker, the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the DHS. The new laws are making others unhappy as well. Because the REAL ID Act does not institute a national identification card, it is left to the states to enforce the new standards. This leaves a large financial burden on state governments.

[i.e., the government blew it again. I used to warn of and rail against a national I.D. Then the world changed, and now we need one. Regrettable, unavoidable, let's grow up and get it done - at the federal level where it belongs (otherwise our security control is only as strong as that of the weakest state)]

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Will MSM Report on Obama Membership in Socialist New Party?

The mainstream media thought that the membership of Todd Palin, who is not a candidate for any office, in the Alaska Independence Party important enough to report in such outlets as the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, and the New York Times, among others.

So now that Barack Obama's membership in the far left New Party has been unearthed, will they report his membership in that Socialist organization?

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