Thursday, October 23, 2008
Biden: Obama Will be 'Tested' by World in First 6 Months of Administration
Speaking in Seattle on Sunday, Biden said he could guarantee that the world will want to find out if Obama is up to the job, which he assured voters he is.
"Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking,"
"Remember I said it standing here. if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he's gonna have to make some really tough -- I don't know what the decision's gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's gonna happen,"
The Delaware senator's remarks were the second of their kind over the weekend...
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The Fate of Jerusalem under a President Obama
Senator Obama's newest Middle East Advisor Daniel Kurtzer, of whom we have written about here has recently telegraphed that an Obama Administration will place the fate of Jerusalem as part of the peace process that a future Obama Administration will push. Kurtzer articulated these views in a very undiplomatic way-as a mandatory reuqirement for any peace talks to proceed.
"It will be impossible to make progress on serious peace talks without putting the future of Jerusalem on the table,"
Then Kurtzer continues to inform Israel ( a sovereign nation) that future Israeli governments "will have to deal with the issue of Jerusalem, as opposed to the current Israeli Administration which is not."
This is yet another sign that a future Administration plans quite a different approach towards our ally, Israel, than any previous Adminsitration-whether Democrat or Republican-ever has in recent history.
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Where’s next in Vladimir Putin’s sights?
When Barack Obama, the US presidential candidate, stood up to deliver his speech at the Democratic convention in Denver, he was never likely to dwell long on foreign policy before an audience concerned mostly about domestic economic problems.
Even so, he gave short shrift to the crisis in Georgia, a measure of America’s startlingly relaxed response to Russian aggression. In his 44-minute address, Obama devoted just two sentences to the Russian threat, with a bland promise of “tough, direct diplomacy . . . that can curb Russian aggression”.
The candidate’s swift dismissal of what may prove the next US president’s most difficult foreign policy challenge confirmed a curious effect of the Russian invasion of Georgia. Despite warnings from numerous US officials that Moscow’s actions represent a serious long-term threat to the West, neither the US media nor most of the American public have shown the remotest interest in the turmoil in the Caucasus.
Indeed there was a widely expressed belief that this was a crisis that Europe ought to be able to handle. But the prospects for an agreement among 27 countries on anything, let alone sanctions against Russia, are not good.
The key to their timidity is energy security...
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Energy Myths
[part 3]
Many in Congress seem either disconnected from reality or intentionally disingenuous about our energy crunch. They have well-honed negative responses to common-sense ideas about solving our energy crisis.
These responses are based on a number of widely held myths. Sadly, they've somehow [read: media] become the backbone of our energy 'policy'. They include:• "Even if drilling works, it'll take a decade or more for the oil to flow."
This is quite an argument coming from a Party, which has made keeping oil off the market a linchpin of its energy policy for decades. Even so, the larger point is false anyway.
The impact on prices will be immediate. Why? Because markets would suddenly have to discount future oil prices for the expected gain in oil supply. That would cause oil prices, especially in futures markets, to drop.
By the way, this isn't just conjecture. President Reagan, within a week of his inaugural in 1981, removed domestic controls on oil. Energy prices began tumbling almost immediately, with oil falling from $34 a barrel in early 1981 to just $11 by 1986.
It worked before, and it'll work again.
[Recommended > ]
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Straining a Point
Obama released a national ad saying he has "fast-track alternatives" to imported oil. On closer examination, those turn out to be his proposal to spend $150 billion over the coming decade on energy research. Ten years doesn't sound all that "fast" to us, and there's no guarantee that the research will result in less oil being imported.
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Forced servitude in America?
In his speech on national service at the University of Colorado, Obama promised that as president he would
"set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."He would see that these goals are met by, among other things, attaching strings to federal education dollars.
If you don't make the kids report for duty, he's essentially telling schools and college kids, you'll lose money you can't afford to lose. In short, he'll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory...
[this is a perennial distinction of liberalism v conservatism: doing right by choice v doing right by force]
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Barack Obama's Health Care Rx has Dangerous Side Effects
Barack Obama is claiming that John McCain wants to run health care like Republicans have been running Wall Street - implying that McCain would let greedy private companies take advantage of average Americans.
The ironic truth is this: Obama wants to run health care like Washington, and especially Democrats, have been running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...
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Obama Suffers 'Blind Loyalty' to Economy-killing Policies
So argued on-air editor Charles Gasparino in an op-ed in the New York Post, where the CNBC talent mentioned that even Obama's Wall Street backers are nervously telling him to change course on his economic plans:
Obama's plan includes some of the most lethal tax increases imaginable, including a jump in the capital-gains rate. He'd expand government spending massively, with everything from new public-works projects to increases in foreign aid to a surge in Afghanistan - plus hand out a token $500 welfare check that he calls a tax cut to everyone else.
This is clearly the wrong way to go in the wake of an economic meltdown - yet Obama, for all his talk of how willing he is to compromise, of how he'd bring people together, is sticking to his tax guns.
I know at least one top Wall Street executive, an Obama supporter from the start of his campaign, who has recently urged Obama to rethink his tax plan - and that was before last week's record losses on the Dow.
Gasparino summarized Obama's blind loyalty as policies that bring together the worst elements of Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter." Last week Gasparino slammed the Obama tax plan, likening it to "throwing gasoline on the fire"...
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What’s Spanish For Hypocrite?
At a Georgia town hall meeting, Barack Obama found himself pontificating about American ignorance:(Snip)
". . .But understand this, instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, they’ll learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish."
So to be clear: Americans must learn Spanish. Here’s the thing, though: Barack Obama, who holds several impressive first-tier degrees, does not speak Spanish...
[oh, but it would be good for us]
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MSNBC Teams Up With ACORN, La Raza
MSNBC has launched a news project with a variety of left-wing special interest groups to boost their Election Day coverage and help viewers experiencing problems at the polls. One of the groups involved in MSNBC's ''Election Protection'' project is the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now. (Snip) The National Council of La Raza, U.S. Pirg, NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Law Association, ...
[objective reporting
at its best]
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Thomas says Constitution forbids racial preference
WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Tuesday that African-Americans are better served by colorblind programs than affirmative action.
Thomas, addressing leaders of historically black colleges, said affirmative action"has become this mantra and there almost has become this secular religiosity about it. I think it almost trumps thinking."
A longtime opponent of race-based preferences in hiring and school admissions, Thomas said,"Just from a constitutional standpoint, I think we're going to run into problems if we say the Constitution says we can consider race sometimes."
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Graffiti wall is vandalised
A blank wall built for teenage graffiti artists has been vandalised by an angry resident writing – ''I paid my tax and all I got was this lousy wall''. The £3,000 6ft high by 30ft long wall was installed so youths could practice their graffiti artwork without using local property. But ahead of its opening on October 31 the fed-up resident sneaked behind a security fence and daubed a protest about the use of taxpayer’s money.
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Powell's Predictable Endorsement
Gen. Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama for president, in effect ending Powell’s brief interlude as a Republican, was the least surprising and most predictable event of an unusually unpredictable election cycle. The interaction between Powell and the Republican Party was never a marriage made in heaven.
Powell was enticed into becoming a Republican, even though he had no connection with or affection for the Republican Party. Unlike Eisenhower, who carried no ideology into politics, Powell is much more of a liberal in his ideology.
Powell’s debut as a Republican at the 1996 GOP convention in San Diego was not an auspicious success, particularly after the general delivered a speech that seemed suspiciously Democratic to the assembled delegates.
Powell’s friend and political adviser Kenneth Duberstein, a Washington Republican operative and lobbyist, has tried hard to facilitate Powell’s entrance into the GOP. But as astute as Duberstein is, the general and the GOP simply never trusted each other.
The general resisted efforts to enlist him as a party fund-raiser, and Powell was clearly not comfortable as a Republican.
The endorsement of Obama was an event waiting to happen.
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Powell Endorses McCain (Endorsement Ignored by MSM)
Powell has endorsed McCain. Huh? Is that some sort of typo? Nope. It is the Powell endorsement that the mainstream media is ignoring. Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama which was widely heralded in the MSM. However, his son, former FCC Commission Chairman Michael Powell has endorsed John McCain. The MSM is conveniently ignoring it but here is the report of this endorsement in The Hill: [snip]
He endorsed McCain early in the Republican primary in January, and said the Arizona senator was the best candidate to “calm the turbulent economic waters and to steer the new economy in a direction that will bring growth, opportunity and prosperity to all Americans.”Now imagine if the reverse had happened. Colin Powell endorses McCain while son Michael endorses Obama. Does anyone doubt that the tenor of the Colin Powell endorsement story would be that while he endorsed McCain, his "progressive" son, representing the younger generation, endorsed Obama?
Michael Powell serves as senior adviser of Providence Equity Partners and rector of the board of visitors of the College of William and Mary. He also serves on the boards of Cisco Systems, ObjectVideo and the Rand Corporation, and served as chairman of the FCC under Bush from 2001 to 2005.
However, since the reverse happened, the Michael Powell endorsement of McCain is almost completely overlooked in the media. Check out Google and you will see the only mention of the Michael Powell endorsement of McCain is in The Hill.
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'Joe the Plumber' strikes back at media
NEW YORK – "Joe the Plumber" is lashing out at the media for analyzing his personal life since he suddenly became a focal point of the presidential race last week.
Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio, told Mike Huckabee on his Fox News talk show Saturday that he is upset by the attention and has been unable to work with reporters crowded on his front lawn.
"The media's worried about whether I've paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America,"Wurzelbacher said he agreed to appear on the show after he received phone calls from friends serving in the military who voiced their support.
"You know, when you can't ask a question of your leaders anymore, that gets scary,"READ MORE
These plumbers are on Joe's side
"Tommy the Plumber" is kind of hot. He's irritated by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes on people who make $250,000 or more. "I've made that," said Tommy Kimmons, owner of Kimmons Plumbing.
"I know a lot of other plumbers that have made more than that. We are already taxed to the death and you want to throw some more on us, especially in these economical times. People are going to be laying people off."READ MORE
Two views on voter fraud...
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45% Say ACORN Trying to Register Illegal Voters
Forty-five percent (45%) of voters say the liberal activist group ACORN is trying to register voters illegally, but they’re divided over whether Barack Obama has ties to the group, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Only 25% think ACORN, under investigation in 15 [update: 17] states for possible voter registration fraud, is not trying to put illegal voters on the rolls.
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CNN Airs Democratic Fears About GOP Voter Suppression
"Lost your house to foreclosure? Democrats in Macomb County, Michigan, say beware -- Republicans, they say, want to make sure you lose your vote, too."READ MORE
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Media Overwhelmingly Positive on Obama
It is no surprise that Barack Obama receives much better treatment in the media than John McCain, but the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs actually conducted a study that concluded just that.
The Center’s evaluation found that since both candidates were formally nominated "Senator Obama on the network evening news shows have been 65% positive, compared to only 36% positive about John McCain."
While the networks ignored the study, the October 20 edition of "Fox and Friends" interviewed CMPA’s founder Robert Lichter. Lichter noted that Obama fits the media’s template of a "fresh face," "some sort of special dimensions," and "charismatic quality." He did note that the media eventually sours on such candidates, but curiously have not done so for Senator Obama.
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ABC Touts 'Obama's Best Weekend Ever,' Powell's 'Booster Rocket'
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"Good Morning America" journalists celebrated the endorsement of Senator Barack Obama by former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday's program. An ABC graphic for reporter John Berman's segment did not hold back. It asked, "Obama's Best Weekend Ever? Powell and Donors Boost Obama."
Co-host Diane Sawyer teased the story by announcing, "This morning, Senator Obama's banner weekend: Record breaking crowds, cash and the endorsement heard around the world."[?] [audio excerpt here]
[i.e., how to spin a predictable, expected event into 'world news'. What bias? These folks would be comical if so many Americans didn't actually swallow this pap.]
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Lauer to Obama: How Will You 'Manage Expectations' of Being 'Messiah?'
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Reciting all the messianic nicknames given to Barack Obama, such as "The One," "The Savior," and "The Messiah," NBC's Matt Lauer, on Monday's "Today" show asked the Democratic presidential nominee, how he will "manage" such great, "expectations." During an interview, aired in two parts in the first hour of "Today," Lauer rarely hit Obama with a tough question, instead choosing to focus on recent campaign highlights...
[well why start asking tough questions now - the election's over, haven't you heard?]
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Pelosi: 100% Barack's Gonna Win
There are only 15 days left until Election Day, which means that pundits and pols will be busy predicting who will win come November 7. We caught up with Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Georgetown's Café Milano Friday night and she didn't pull any punches. "100% Barack Obama is going to win!" she told Yeas & Nays. "He's going to be our next president and a great president at that. We're all excited to work him."
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Obama And Ayers: Why The Excuses?
A reader writes: I'm a liberal and a decided Obama voter. But Democrats' excuses for Obama with respect to Ayers are extremely annoying to me. I haven't seen in the press a clear explanation of why Obama attended an event at Ayers' home, or whether or not he knew about Ayers activities. (Snip) If Obama knew Ayers was an unremorseful terrorist, then let him explain to us why he felt it was okay for him to call on Ayers at his home.
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The Obama-Khalidi Connection
Another radical Obama association exposed
Khalidi is a former professor at the University of Illinois and was a close friend of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. At a farewell dinner for Khalidi before he took the Columbia job, Obama 's speech was filled with glowing praise for his friend, including references to the many meals they had shared. He thanked Khalidi for opening his eyes about the problems of the Palestinians.
Khalidi himself has given vocal support to suicide bombers.
Khalidi's wife Mona ran the Chicago area charity, the Arab American Action Network, that received substantial assistance from the Woods Fund, a left wing foundation that Obama and unreconstructed terrorist Bill Ayers were Board members. The AAAN was notorious for its pro-Palestianian sympathies.
[not just one 'association' - but one in a long litany of working relationships with one extreme radical after another -- and the media? silent.]
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Obama-Khalidi-Ayers and the MSM
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza is a regular and very welcome guest on the program. Prompted by Ace of Spades, I asked Chris on Tuesday prior to the presidential debate about MSM's treatment of Joe Biden's serial misstatements at last week's VP debate. The transcript is here.
At the conclusion of the interview I inquired if Chris knew of Rashid Khalidi, and Khalidi's friendship with Bill Ayers and Khalidi's long association with Barack Obama. Chris didn't, which didn't surprise me as I hadn't know about it either until an interview with Stanley Kurtz on Monday.
What Kurtz explained to me is that Bill Ayers and Rashid Khalidi are very close: [long history, snip]
What all of this suggests is that the Hyde Park community of hard left intellectuals was tightly knit, and that Obama was at the heart of it. MSM's indifference to this community and its impact on Obama is nothing short of astounding, like leaving his Vietnam experiences out of Kerry's bio in 2004.
[yet it's being ignored]
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Bring On The Boo Birds
I don’t approve of pelting anyone with anything — but really, can you blame a McCain crowd for showing contempt for a MSM “newsman”? If MSM wants to be treated as impartial arbiter, a “watchdog” and not a lapdog of one candidate, its members should consider some behavior modification.
Demand not just medical records but earmark records from Joe Biden. Ask Barack Obama why he served on the Woods Fund with Bill Ayers for years and if he specifically approved grants to ACORN and a host of leftwing groups. Do a 3000-word piece on Obama’s earmarks and ties to corrupt Chicago officials to counterbalance the dozens of 3000-word pieces going after the other side (e.g. ”Palin annoys Wasilla librarian” and “Cindy McCain was addicted to pain killers”).
Even more shocking, not a single one of the networks news outlet or mainstream national newspaper has looked at Obama’s unprecedented attempt to use the Justice Department to chill speech...
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The Real Threat of Censorship
Since losing power in 1994, the Left has been making ugly noises about what would happen when it regained power. The “fairness doctrine” has been bandied about, but that is not what should alarm us most... [snip]
More frighteningly, speech codes and the very term “politically incorrect” have been formally adopted by college administrations as the proper way to speak, to write, and to think. Coercion, not persuasion, has become the preferred means of advancing Leftism. Why then should we be so surprised that partisans in political campaigns now find the Left menacing them for politically incorrect versions of truth? [snip]
Now, the Obama campaign has taken the next logical step. Obama supporters openly seek to censor campaign ads critical of Obama by threatening private lawsuits and, much more dangerously, punitive actions by public prosecutors against anyone who, in their partisan opinion, does not tell 'the truth' about Obama. The Left now seeks openly to shut up not only those voices who operate on the public airways, like talk radio, but it seeks to shut up any voices who challenge their positions [snip]
This Leftist agenda is dangerously brazen and critically close to becoming real. Any assumption that people who have shown no restraint at all in their pursuit of power would not take the last, bitter, necessary step toward the sort of control which the Left once exercised is an error.
Perhaps, for us, it may be the most tragic error in the history of our republic...
[something you need to know {or once it's censored, how will you?} > PLEASE READ > http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5653 ]
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McCain Would Restore America’s Standing
The left’s explanations for Middle Eastern rage can be reduced to the following: misunderstanding (almost always ours), humiliation (almost always inflicted by us, or by key allies, such as Israel) or insufficient commitment to conflict resolution (almost always by us). And since we are, in large part, to blame for the problem because of either ignorance, arrogance or absence, then the solution lies in our hands as well, by pursuing some new policy initiative that remedies whatever was lacking in our previous efforts.
The right approaches the issue from a different perspective: Middle Eastern rage is a manifestation of contempt toward the West, which is itself a result of the deep agony that has gripped the Islamic world since its failed siege of Vienna half a millennium ago. The contempt emanates from a sense of entitlement and superiority, the agitation from frustration. The rejection of the West’s rise over the last millennium drives the politics of our enemies — be they secular Ba’athists or Shiite and Sunni Islamists. As long as that contempt is confirmed and stimulated by displays of Western guilt or apology, then the embers of hope for a restored Islamic empire will continue to burn.
Ultimately, this debate should be argued not according to theories and assumptions, but by evidence of what works, what doesn’t and what has never been tried. The policies that Obama advocates — dialogue with Iran, investing the full weight of American prestige and presidential power on resolving the Palestinian issue, attempting to seduce the dictator of Damascus into a Western orbit — have all been tried, not once, but by almost all administrations until now.
Indeed, with the exception of the Reagan years, almost all the policies toward the Middle East in the last 35 years are anchored to the left’s assumptions... [snip]
Thus, the evidence amassed over decades on these sorts of policies toward Iran, Syria and the Palestinians is overwhelming: They not only fail but carry costs that further undermine American prestige, increase anti-Americanism and weaken our key allies and friends in the region. Some of the renowned Arab philosophers of past centuries would little wonder at this result. They understood the dynamic. To paraphrase one of the greatest, Ibn Hazm:"Those who chase the friendship of their foes only earn the despair of their friends and the contempt of their enemies..."
[ McCain's no Reagan, but Obama is Carter ]
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Iran Refuses to Meet US Without Preconditions
Mehdi Kalhor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media consultant and Iran's Vice President of media affairs announced on Saturday that Iran is setting two preconditions before it will engage in any talks with the United States. (h/t Wizbang).In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.
The announcement was made in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency and has been reported independently by both the Fars News Agency and Al Jezeera. Strangely though there does not appear to be any mention in the US media according to a Google search.
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Iran busts 'spy pigeons' near nuclear site
Security forces in Natanz have arrested two suspected ''spy pigeons'' near Iran's controversial uranium enrichment facility, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper reported on Monday. One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that some metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird...
[er, excuse - but if the strings are invisible - oh never mind]
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Monday, October 20, 2008
The Criticality of Vetting
For some reason, the mainstream media has taken Obama as an almost mythical figure to whom the normal vetting should not apply. Perhaps MSNBC's Chris Matthews summed up the feelings of the mainstream media about Obama when he said Obama "sent a tingling up his leg." Said Matthews of Obama: "I've never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. He comes along, and he seems to have all the answers. This is the New Testament." To paraphrase Winston Churchill, when it comes to the mainstream media and Obama, never have so many been so uninterested in so much.
To question the Obama narrative is to invite scorn and invective – even if you are Bill or Hillary Clinton. It is enough that Obama represents change – and that change must simply be taken by faith to be good change. But change can be change for the worse. That is why anyone seeking the most powerful office in the world should be carefully scrutinized... [snip]
There are many, many more such shifts in many of Obama's positions, some within mere hours. Now anyone can change a position over time based upon new data and on experience. But if genuine, such shifts usually occur over years, not hours or even months. Shouldn't the press delve much deeper into some of these? What good are the debates if the candidates are not held accountable for their statements?
The mainstream media has gone on a rampage against Sarah Palin since McCain chose her as his running mate. Some of the matters they have pursued have been fair game, some have not been. Shouldn't the mainstream media show at least one-half of the curiosity and eagerness toward finding things out about Obama, the Democrat nominee for president, as they have about Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president?
[the most pervasive spin: omission. America is being duped by the MSM. Highly Recommended {bordering on Must Read} > ]
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Is Obama a socialist?
Socialism, according to Karl Marx, is the transition between capitalism and communism. To achieve communism, Marx says, there must be continuing revolution in which the fundamental principal is: the end justifies the means.
For more than half a century, capitalism in the United States has taken a beating from the socialist revolution. Despite the best efforts of conservatives, since the Roosevelt era, socialists have made great strides toward converting the nation to socialism.
Apparently, the majority of Americans either fail to recognize the transition, or welcome it. The enthusiastic support for Barack Obama, especially among young people, is abundant evidence...
[Excellent piece {again from Canada} that quickly provides explicit examples of policy intentions that substantiate the claim of creeping socialism and its likely rapid expansion under Obama - Highly Recommended > ]
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Lies by Omission: Media withhold truth from voters
It’s time to cut through to the truth since some representatives of the media are shying away from it. And Barack Obama sure won’t disclose the truth about his socialist ideas.
These days, he’s covering up his true intentions as he’s sounding more and more like a liberal trying to espouse Republican values to fool the American public. He is for the working class, the “average Joe” in that he says he wants to cut taxes. Barack Obama has left quite a bit out of the picture, lying by omission.
The media is complicit in backing Barack Obama. All of the networks (except maybe FOXNEWS) slant their news to favor Obama. They give John McCain his props, but are willingly shilling for Barack Obama.
Here and there, the truth does come forth. The media calls them “attacks”; I call it revealing the truth...
[Recommended > ]
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Obama raises stunning $150 million in September
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised more than $150 million in September, a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide spending advantage over rival John McCain. The campaign released the figure on Sunday, one day before it must file a detailed report of its monthly finances with the Federal Election Commission.
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Who Are Obama’s Donors?
The Obama campaign has failed to release the names of donors responsible for approximately half of his campaign’s $426.9 million: those who have contributed less than $200.
In addition, press reports allege Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has accepted illegal online campaign contributions from this category of donors, which include funds allegedly donated by foreign nationals.
The Obama campaign appears to be selectively complying with campaign finance laws. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) should immediately investigate allegations of foreign campaign contributions made to the Obama campaign possibly corrupting this presidential election.
The McCain campaign, by contrast, has made its entire donor database available online.
In the interest of transparency the Obama campaign should publicly list the source of every single campaign contribution. The American people deserve to know for certain that all campaign finance laws are being followed.
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N.Y. Times Finally Smells Something Fishy on Obama's Dubious Donors List
After dismissing it in a brief story on Tuesday as "G.O.P. Query Involves 1% of Giving to Obama," the Times' Michael Luo and Griff Palmer finally decide that Obama's plethora of odd donors may be politically newsworthy. They finally devoted a more serious story to the matter on Friday ("Fictitious Donors Found in Obama Finance Records"), which comes after Newsweek's Michael Isikoff's similar piece back on October 4. Luo and Palmer ran down some of the more entertaining entries from Obama's dubious donor list:
Last December, someone using the name "Test Person," from "Some Place, UT," made a series of contributions, the largest being $764, to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign totaling $2,410.07.
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Will Media Report ACORN Voter Registration Fraud and Obama Ties?
In battleground states across the country, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is being investigated for voter registration fraud.
Yet, this group's nefarious activities this election cycle have not received the kind of mass media exposure you would expect given its ties to the current frontrunner for president, Barack Obama.
As the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday (emphasis added):Acorn uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards.
But the organization's real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. [...]
Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who got his start as a Chicago "community organizer" at Acorn's side...
One would think this should all be quite newsworthy, correct? Yet, according to LexisNexis searches, in the last month as voter registration irregularities involving ACORN surfaced around the country, neither ABC News or CBS News has done one report on this organization and its ties to Obama.
Not one.
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[ACORN's mission statement from its website]
ACORN and Project Vote Register 1.3 Million Voters
The goal of ACORN and Project Vote's voter registration drives is to empower low-income and minority communities by giving them a voice in the political process. ACORN hopes that expanding the electorate will result in more candidates who appeal to historically underrepresented voting populations. [more]
[any reason they simply don't want increased voter registration/turnout for all demographics?]
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Tom Brokaw Involved in Soros-Funded Charity that Funds ACORN
[Datum...]
"Meet the Press" interim moderator Tom Brokaw sits on the board of a liberal foundation that has given radical left-wing group ACORN $821,000 and that in turn is funded by liberal uber-donor George Soros, research reveals.
Here are the facts...
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Nevermind Whether He Would Be a Good President - He's the Coolest Figure To Ever Walk The Earth!
Over at Contentions, Abe Greenwald notices a report from the Paris fashion runways. His visage appears between the svelte curves of fashion models on Europe’s most prestigious runways. His speeches are remixed into thumping music tracks in underground dance clubs. His campaign slogans are the foundation for modern art hanging on trendy Parisian gallery walls. In Europe, Barack Obama is much more than the Democratic presidential nominee. He’s the hip new thing.
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Too Cool for the Room
It is nothing short of stunning this election year to read and listen to some of our most noted national conservatives demonstrate no practical understanding of conservative America. It would serve Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker well to shirk cocktail parties with the broadcast hierarchy in Manhattan and D.C. and travel like a presidential candidate for a time.
Potluck dinners, small-town festivals, state fairs, church picnics and bowling alleys would be great places to start. Shake some hands. Converse with people. Were they to dare attempt such a journey, it is without question our conservative "All Stars" would find far more Sarah Palins and far fewer Peggy Noonans. A fact, one might suspect, embarrasses them to their core.
Average American, working class conservatives have disdain for the dishonest turn their "intellectual superiors" have taken. Their attempt to discredit Governor Palin as an empty "follower" with nothing to offer is both disrespectful and transparent. Palin was elected by a state's majority citizenry.
This instantly qualifies the Governor for the national debate and singly trumps any perceived qualifications of both men on the Democratic ticket...
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Palin 'C***' Shirts Caused by Obama Campaign's Tone
Feminist radio host Tammy Bruce thinks so, and believes that is what "upset so many Hillary Clinton supporters from the beginning of [Obama's] presidential run" making "this Democratic campaign...the worst we've ever seen."
Bruce also told Fox News's Martha MacCallum on Monday's "America's Election HQ" that these "Sarah Palin is a C***" t-shirts are similar to "the most popular t-shirts when Barack Obama was running in the primary season...that said 'Bros Before Hos'" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Hot Air):
[will the old media now demand 24/7 that Obama publicly condemn and denounce a few of his lunatics as they have McCain? Why not?]
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Bernie Goldberg Notes Double Standard on Right vs. Left Hate
Shocker. The mainstream media highlights right wing hate, but nearly ignores hate coming from the left. Such a topic best selling author and former CBS insider Bernard Goldberg exposed appearing on the October 13 "O’Reilly Factor." [snip]
Bernie Goldberg agreed and added the media elite "were never concerned" about constant references to Bush as a Nazi. Accentuating O’Reilly’s point that Democratic presidential candidates attended the DailyKos convention, Goldberg also reminded the audience that these same candidates boycotted Fox News. Goldberg concluded "case closed. That’s all you need to know about that."
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Palin vs. Biden
How is it that an attractive woman who has been involved in state and local government since the early 1990s without much controversy is now passed off in the media as an airhead? Yet her opponent, long known as an airhead, a braggart, and even a plagiarist, is now passed off as a statesman?
[A: in the usual way - Recommended > ]
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[FLASHBACK: NNBrief 080909: Palin Finalized 20-Year Quest for Pipeline Deal in First 20 Months =In her first 20 months as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin completed a deal for a natural gas pipeline -- at $40 billion, the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history -- that had been a top economic goal for the state for nearly two decades...
Last time I checked, Canada was another country...
and Biden {or Obama}?]
Biden: Voters ''having a difficult time''electing first African American president
As Election Day looms just over two weeks away, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said Saturday that with Republicans firing ''vicious'' and ''dangerous'' attacks at Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., voters are ''having a difficult time'' opting for the man who would become the nation's first African American president.
''Undecided people are having a difficult time just culturally making the change, making the move for the first African American president''
[translation: the poor unsophisticated masses just can't get over their racism]
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Why Obama's Communist Connections Are Not Headlines
There's a lot of frustration among conservatives over how Barack Obama's radical past seems to be making no impact whatsoever among the American public. Quite the contrary, the more information that becomes available on Obama's radical associations, the more he seems to widen his lead.
I understand these frustrations completely. I'm also not surprised.
Why? How? The answer is simple: The history and truth about communism is not taught by our educators. That total failure to remind and understand means that Americans are painfully vulnerable to repeat mistakes that should have been forever tossed onto the ash-heap of history. [snip]
Of all the lectures that I do around the country, none seem to rivet the audience as much as my discourse on the horrors of communism. In these lectures I do a 10-15 minute backgrounder on the crimes of communists-from their militant attacks on private property, on members of all religious faiths, and on basic civil liberties, to their total death toll of over 100 million bloodied, emaciated corpses in the 20th century.
... the young people, especially on college campuses, are amazed at what they are hearing. They are especially struck that I ground every fact in 'reliable' authorities - books published by Harvard and Yale, quotes from the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, Vaclav Havel and Alexander Yakovlev, anti-Soviet appraisals from Democrats like Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. I rarely use right-wing sources because I don't want the professors of these students to be able to later shoot a single hole in my presentation.
And speaking of those professors, that gets to my point here: As the young people in my audience are fully engaged, hands in the air with question after question -- obviously hearing all of these things for the first time in their lives, as they are eager to inform me after my talk -- the professors often stare at me with contempt. In one case, a British professor, who could not stop sighing, squirming, and rolling her eyes as I quoted the most heinous assessments of religion by Marx and Lenin, got up and stormed out of the room. [snip]
When the leftists of the ‘60s took over higher education and the media, they really knew what they were doing. This was brilliant, masterful, a tactical slam-dunk, a tremendous coup for them and their worldview, with ripple effects we can scarcely imagine. The leftist intelligentsia that dominates higher education, and which writes the civics texts used in high schools, and which trains the teachers who teach in high schools, is not in the slightest bit notably anti-communist. So they do not teach the lessons of communism.
What's more, aside from failing to instruct their students in the crass facts about communism's unprecedented destruction -- its purges, mass famines, show trials, killing fields, concentration camps -- these educators are negligent in failing to teach the essential, non-emotional, but crucial Econ 101 basics that contrast capitalism and communism and, thus, that get at the heart of how and why command economies simply do not work. [for long. snip]
When the leftists of the ‘60s took over higher education and the media, they really knew what they were doing. This was brilliant, masterful, a tactical slam-dunk, a tremendous coup for them and their worldview, with ripple effects we can scarcely imagine.
The Santayana aphorism is correct: those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. For decades now, we haven't taught the next generation what it needs to know from its immediate past. And now, to borrow from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, America's chickens have come home to roost.
[excellent piece from someone who would know - MUST READ > ]
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In defence of 'Greed'
The common story now making the rounds is that Wall Street's "greed" is at the root of the financial crisis and that this "greed" needs to be reined in.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain has promised to put an end to, "unbridled greed that [has] caused a crisis on Wall Street," while Democrat Barack Obama claims that the financial crisis is a "direct result of greed that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years."
However, "greed" (or less derisively and more accurately "self-interest") is not the problem or the reason for the crisis. Wall Street, Bay Street, Main Street, my street and every other street in North America is built on individuals and businesses.
Self-interested individuals and businesses are the backbone of our economy, vital to economic progress and society's well-being, and ought to be celebrated rather than be demonized... [snip]
economist Milton Friedman said it best:"The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. ... the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system."
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[HT:GC]
How the stock market works
Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.
In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each."
The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!
Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.
.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Joe The Plumber: Obama Tax Plan 'Infuriates Me
John McCain may have found a blue-collar face to help him argue that no American -- not even the richest 5 percent -- should pay higher taxes. "Joe The Plumber" has weighed in on Wednesday's presidential debate and he says that Barack Obama's tax plan "infuriates me."
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Joe the Plumber Calls Obama's Tax Plan Socialist, Sawyer Defends It
Joe the Plumber, aka Joe Wurzelbacher the Ohio man that has suddenly become the face of the presidential campaign, told ABC's Diane Sawyer Thursday that Barack Obama's tax plan to spread the wealth is "a very socialist view, and it's incredibly wrong."
Predictably, Sawyer defended Obama's position by saying it's only a three percent tax increase that people making over $250,000 would be required to pay. Deliciously, the "Good Morning America" guest wasn't backing down (partial video embedded right):
JOE WURZELBACHER, PLUMBER: Well, I mean, quite honestly, why should they be penalized for being successful? That's what you're telling me, that's what it sounds like you're saying. It's wrong. I mean, because you're successful, you have to pay more than everybody else. I mean, we all live in this country, you know, I mean it's a basic right. And Obama wants to take that basic right and penalize me for it is what it comes down to. I mean, that's a very socialist view, and it's incredibly wrong. I mean, if it's $250,000 now, what if he decides, "Well, $150,000 you're pretty rich, too. Let's go ahead and lower it again." You know, it's a slippery slope. When's it going to stop?
Great question, Joe.
For those interested, the entire GMA segment is available here.
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Obama, Joe the plumber, and the gospel of envy
Minneapolis - When Barack Obama responded to the Ohio plumber who didn't want his taxes raised by saying that he wanted to "spread the wealth around," I wanted to tell the Illinois senator to spread his own wealth around.
Senator Obama, in a rare moment of candor, all but told "Joe the plumber" that his wealth should be seized in the name of equity. Their personal encounter this past Sunday played out one of the old themes of democratic politics: the appeal to the many to take from the few.
It's traditionally an easy sell in democratic regimes...
[and their downfall]
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and the media coverage?
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'Joe the plumber' isn’t licensed
"Joe the Plumber" isn’t a plumber — at least not a licensed one, or a registered one. A check of state and local licensing agencies in Ohio and Michigan shows no plumbing licenses under Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s name, or even misspellings of his name...
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'Joe the Plumber,' Owes Taxes
"Joe the plumber," the Toledo, Ohio, man whose complaints about Barack Obama's tax plan were highlighted by John McCain in the final presidential debate, owes the state of Ohio almost $1,200 in back income taxes. According to records on file with the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, the state filed a tax lien against Samuel J. Wurzelbacher for $1,182.98 on Jan. 26, 2007, that is still active.
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Enraged Leftwing Blogosphere Hurls Attacks Against Joe the Plumber
As a result, and because his name was brought up several times by John McCain at the debate last night, Joe the Plumber has been the subject of a lot of rage at both the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos.
The title of the DU thread alone tells you just how angry the left is: "Hey, Joe 'The Dumbass' Plumber. Listen up!" And the Daily Kos thread is flat out incorrect: "'Joe the Plumber'" Not a Registered Voter."
Sorry, Kossacks, but Joe the Plumber is registered to vote. He just prefers to use his middle name but you were too eager to smear him to consider that fact when poring through the Ohio voting records. Here is a sampling of leftwing anger directed at Joe the Plumber...
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Targeting Joe
After Targeting Joe the Plumber, Obamabots Pledge To Expose Scandals of Guy in Rockwell's 'Four Freedoms' Painting
Thank God we live in a free country, where you can speak your mind on public issues, without fear that those who disagree will respond by exposing anything you've ever done that you regret or that could embarrass your family.
Oh, wait, never mind. We have to know, according to some, about Joe the Plumber's tax lien, and how he doesn't have a license - which, if the smear artists bothered to check the law, he only needs for commercial work, not residential work.
This is the way our opponents operate now. Destroy anyone who stands in your way. Humiliate them. Make sure that anyone else who ever wants to skeptically question Barack Obama knows that every last bit of their dirty laundry will be aired for all the world to see. Bristol Palin, Trig Palin, — hey, it's all fair game. They've got to make an example of them. Show them that this sort of dangerous speech won't be allowed in the New America.
Remember the man in the plaid shirt, standing at the town meeting in one of Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" paintings?
He wouldn't recognize this country anymore.
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Criticizing Obama has been made off limits
Joe Scarborough
Before the vice presidential debate, we learned that the moderator was writing a fawning book about the transform- ative effects of the "age of Obama."
The media gave Gwen Ifill a free pass for her ethical breach, despite the fact she misled the debate commission about her book.
While I was concerned about Ifill's lapse of judgment, I was a bit curious about what the PBS star thought the "age of Obama" might look like.
I don't have to wonder anymore.
Let me give you a few helpful survival tips for the next four years.
The most important rule in this coming age is to remember that one must take great caution when criticizing Barack Obama.
Remember, even Democratic hero Bill Clinton was accused of being a bigot for calling Obama's political biography a "fairy tale."
Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro was compared to David Duke for suggesting that Barack Obama gained some advantages from being black.
Sarah Palin and John McCain joined the "Bigot's Club" this week when they dared to criticize The One Who Shall Not Be Criticized.
Palin was slandered for pointing out that Barack Obama launched his political career at the home of an unrepentant domestic terrorist.
The Associated Press grimly warned that any criticism of that former terrorist, William Ayers, was tinged with bigotry — despite the fact that the last time anyone checked, Ayers was white.
The New York Times' Frank Rich did what most hyperventilating leftists do when on defense, by comparing McCain and Palin's campaign to the rise of Nazi Germany.
The major networks all jumped into the fray and breathlessly read Democratic talking points, charging that McCain was encouraging angry mobs and racist rallies.
Interestingly enough, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell told me McCain's crowds were no more intense than those found at Democratic rallies. But let's not get bogged down with the facts. After all, this is a bright new age.
To understand just how much political correctness will chill free speech in this sunny era, look no further than John Lewis' statements this past weekend.
The Obama supporter and civil rights hero compared McCain and Palin to George Wallace and the bombers who killed four little girls in a Birmingham church in the early '60s.
How ironic that Obama's allies are trying to link Sarah Palin to domestic terrorists who were jailed before she was even born, while Obama's connections with William Ayers is off limits.
The double standard is as frightening as it is unfair. But fairness and open-minded debate may not be welcomed in this new age we are about to enter.
Last month, St. Louis circuit attorneys warned citizens that they would be subject to criminal prosecution if they made statements that these Obama-supporting attorneys considered "false."
Wow.
How interesting that the same merchants of hate who spent the last eight years spitting out the most vile charges against George W. Bush are suddenly champions of polite political discourse.
The left is in hysterics, free speech is on ice, and somewhere Gwen Ifill is smiling.
The Age of Obama is already here.
Joe Scarborough is the host of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC. E-mail him at joe.nbc@gmail.com.
SOURCE
'Senator Government'
Whether or not Wednesday's debate helps John McCain rally in the polls, at least voters finally got a clearer sense of the policy differences. For our money, the best line of the night was Mr. McCain's Freudian slip of referring to Barack Obama as "Senator Government."
Neither candidate is offering policies that meet the serious economic moment. But Mr. McCain would let Americans keep more of their own income to ride out the downturn, while Mr. Obama is revealing that his default agenda is to spend money and expand the government.
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[as detrimental as his monetary policies would be, I personally find the social engineering agenda behind them more dangerous and frightening - such as...]
Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant
Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview.
[it's hard to over estimate the harm this will do to our economy, life styles and most importantly liberties - it's a mechanism for government intrusion {via monetary extortion} into anything and everything it chooses]
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REGULATING GLOBAL WARMING: EXPANDING THE AUTHORITY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
In May 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that greenhouse gases met the definition of an air pollutant in the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) responded in 2008 by issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) that explains how the Clean Air Act applies to regulating emissions of greenhouse gases thought to contribute to global warming.
Unfortunately, such regulations would significantly increase energy prices, but would not affect the global level of greenhouse gases, says Amanda Berg, legislative assistant for the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Human activities are only responsible for about one-quarter of one percent of the total greenhouse effect, which is the moderation of the Earth's temperature due to the absorption of the sun's radiation by atmospheric gases.
- Human activities contribute 0.28 percent to the greenhouse effect.
- Natural greenhouse gas emissions -- including ocean biologic activity and decaying plants -- contribute 4.72 percent.
- Water vapor accounts for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect.
Attempting to reduce such a small fraction of the factors that contribute to the overall greenhouse effect will be extremely costly and ineffective.
Furthermore, the proposed EPA rule would result in an unprecedented expansion of the EPA's power, giving them the authority to regulate nearly every sector of the economy and personal decisions about housing and transportation.
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[that's what I've been trying to tell folks - it's a mechanism for a quantum leap forward in socialism, no exaggeration ... and a money maker at that...]
Pennsylvania law to cut electricity usage
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pennsylvania has begun a major effort to cut electricity use, requiring the state's 11 utilities to not only stop power usage from rising, but to cut it starting in 2011.
Legislation that Gov. Ed Rendell signed Wednesday requires the utilities to cut annual electricity usage by at least 1 percent by May 31, 2011, based on usage estimates made by state regulators, who can take into account a major anomaly, such as an unusually hot summer or a substantial surge in demand from a new user, such as a factory.
To ensure that utilities take the task seriously, the new law allows up to $20 million in penalties for failure to meet the benchmarks for electricity usage cuts...
[energy use is activity - now than can control it all - at a profit no less.]
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A Capitalist Manifesto
Markets remain our best hope for a better future
Where are the champions of free-market capitalism? Someone needs to remind us all that two great works were published in 1776, both representing game-changing advances in human freedom: The Declaration of Independence, authored by future American president, Thomas Jefferson, and "The Wealth of Nations" by Scottish economist Adam Smith.
Both embrace the social wisdom of individual liberty; both extol the importance of personal responsibility. [snip]
France's president held out the possibility that all is not lost, that we can fix what is broken."The financial crisis is not the crisis of capitalism," according to Mr. Sarkozy. "It is the crisis of a system that has distanced itself from the most fundamental values of capitalism, which betrayed the spirit of capitalism." [read: government regulation]
Mr. Sarkozy, speaking before Congress last November, who offered the most profound assessment of our nation's gift to the world.
"America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who built the greatest nation in the world: 'Come, and everything will be given to you.' She said: 'Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent.'"
It's a lesson that should never be lost or forgotten
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Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities
[HT:GC]
Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.
Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.
