Joe Biden and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's choice for vice president, has been a senator since 1972.

He is one of only five senators who were present in 1973 when Congress passed legislation authorizing construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline system (TAPS).

Biden, then 30, was the youngest member of the Senate and not a leader in the lengthy debate over the pipeline. But his voting record is striking - at least to an Alaskan interested in history.

Biden was a reliable "no" on TAPS. In July, when the Senate passed the Gravel-Stevens amendment allowing immediate construction of the line and precluding further judicial review, Biden voted no. The amendment passed after Vice President Spiro Agnew broke a 49-49 tie.

In November, Biden voted against final passage of the bill. The vote was 80-5, Biden one of the five.

SINCE BIDEN'S NO VOTE, THAT PIPELINE HAS SUPPLIED 15 BILLION BARRELS OF OIL INTO OUR DOMESTIC SUPPLIES HERE IN AMERICA.

More Sarah Palin info.

TCWatch note:

So how come we have never heard the USA! USA! USA! chant at any Democratic convention, meeting, speech, etc.?

I mean, I love to hear that and there they were again.....at yesterday's Republican announcement in Ohio of the VP nomination and during Palin's speech......they started.....USA! USA! USA! USA!.

I love hearing that. But I have never heard it at a Democratic speech......any thoughts?

Profile of Alaska's Sarah Palin: Governor, Reformer, Mother

By JIM CARLTON WSJ

When a hockey mom named Sarah Palin ran for governor as a Republican outsider in 2006, she took on not only a sitting governor from her own party but also Alaska's Republican establishment -- vowing to clean up a political system that had been rocked by an Federal Bureau of Investigation corruption probe.

After handily winning, her popularity in Alaska soared as she went on to sack political appointees with close ties to industry lobbyists and shelved pork projects. Gov. Palin has shown similar fearlessness in going after Big Oil, whose money has long dominated the state. She appears, for example, to have forced Alaska's dominant oil producers, ConocoPhillips and BP PLC, to finally get serious about a natural-gas pipeline -- without making any tax or royalty concessions.

"People see her as the symbol of purity in an atmosphere of corruption," says Anchorage pollster Marc Hellenthal. "She's more like Saint Sarah."

Republican presidential candidate John McCain drew on that image in choosing Gov. Palin as the first woman to run on a Republican Party presidential ticket.

The 44-year-old Gov. Palin is a mother of five. She served as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, (pop. 8,500) and was winner of the Miss Wasilla pageant. She has been featured in a photo spread in Vogue.

Although Alaska only has about 700,000 people, the state has outsized strategic importance because it contains some of the richest mineral resources in the world, including some of the largest known oil reserves in the U.S.

Before her selection as running mate, Gov. Palin served as an informal energy adviser to Sen. McCain, saying she has spoken with the Arizona senator about the need to drill more in places like Alaska.

But Gov. Palin hasn't been completely free of controversy as governor. A flap blew up after she fired Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan on July 11.

He said afterwards that Gov. Palin and her husband had pressured him to remove a state trooper who was a former brother-in-law she and her family had feuded with. Gov. Palin denies that, saying she removed the commissioner she appointed 18 months ago because she wants "a new direction," and offered him a job as liquor board director which he turned down.

The case stemmed from a messy divorce between the trooper, Mike Wooten, and his wife, Molly, who is Gov. Palin's younger sister. In 2005, Gov. Palin alleged the trooper had threatened to harm her father and sister and that he had engaged in numerous instances of official misconduct, including using a Taser on his 10-year-old stepson and shooting a moose without a proper permit, according to state documents. In one instance, she told state investigators, she overheard him on the telephone threatening her sister: "I'm gonna f—shoot your dad. He's gonna get a lead bullet."

Mr. Wooten told investigators he tested a Taser on the boy at his request, thought he was within his rights to kill the moose and never threatened the Palins. An internal police investigation substantiated the moose and Tasering charges, but threw out most of the rest. He was ordered suspended for 10 days in 2006. He declined comment through a spokesman with the Public Safety Employees Association.

Many of Gov. Palin's supporters dismiss the trooper matter as trouble being stirred up by her enemies. "Many of those who had been in positions of power and authority have been very envious over the past year and a half with Gov. Palin's great popularity," says David Carey, mayor of Soldotna, Alaska.

Her choice to replace the commissioner, Chuck Kopp, resigned after two weeks on the job after reports surfaced that he had been issued a letter of reprimand for sexual harassment of a subordinate in his previous job of Kenai police chief. Mr. Kopp, who denied the charges, stepped down a day after the governor's office said it heard of the reprimand for the first time. At a news conference with Mr. Kopp in Anchorage, Gov. Palin didn't take any reporters' questions but said: "As your governor, I apologize. I know Alaska will overcome inevitable bumps in the road as we just traveled this week."

The state's Legislature has since called an investigation into what some Alaskans have taken to calling "Troopergate."

A native of Idaho who grew up in Alaska hunting and fishing, Gov. Palin gained a reputation for political purity early on. In 2004, she resigned as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission over ethical grounds. Among her concerns was that the chairman of the Republican Party in Alaska took a seat on the commission while keeping his partisan post. The official ended up resigning from the body after Gov. Palin, among others, disclosed he was conducting Republican business in his state job. He agreed to pay a $12,000 state fine.

"Someone has to take a stand and change some things," Gov. Palin said in an interview in June in her office in downtown Anchorage, which is adorned with Alaskan knick-knacks including the skin of a brown bear killed by her father.

In 2006, when she was running to unseat then-Gov. Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary, Gov. Palin says she got a call from Ben Stevens, then president of the Republican-run Alaska Senate and son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, the powerful Alaska Republican. "He told me, 'You're not just running against Murkowski. You're running against me, my dad, the whole state Republican party,'" Gov. Palin says.

The younger Mr. Stevens didn't return calls for comment. He opted not to seek re-election after his was one of six legislative offices raided by federal agents in 2006. Four other state legislators have been sent to prison or are awaiting prosecution in the case, which has focused on bribery and other influence by oilfield contractor VECO Corp., whose chairman and a top lieutenant have pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy charges. The elder Mr. Stevens, who handily won the Republican primary this week to face re-election in November, was indicted in the case and has pleaded not guilty.

In office, Gov. Palin -- whose husband, Todd, works as an oil-field worker and fisherman -- set an earthier style than her predecessors. For one thing, she sold the private jet Mr. Murkowski used to get around Alaska, relying instead on commercial airlines and her family's Jetta and a state-issued black Suburban. "I love to drive," she says. She also waved off a security escort, driving herself to and from work every day from the Anchorage suburb of Wasilla, about 45 miles away.

That penchant for independence has occasionally caused some complications. In early July, for example, she escaped serious injury when her Suburban was rear-ended in a fender bender on her way to the office. And on June 18, she blamed her half-hour delay in arriving to a bill signing ceremony in Kenai on road construction. "Todd kept reminding me to bite my tongue, saying 'Good roads are comin'!, Good roads are comin'!," Gov. Palin said to laughter from a small crowd in a converted fish cannery, where she signed a tourism-marketing bill.

Gov. Palin said in an interview afterwards that she ducked down to keep state troopers from seeing her as the family negotiated road construction on the 160-mile drive from Anchorage to Kenai. "I knew they would wave me through," says the 44-year-old Gov. Palin, sipping a Diet Pepsi in the booth of a restaurant in the cannery as her husband -- a four-time winner of Alaska's Iron Dog snow-machine race -- held their baby, Trig.

MORE ON THE CAMPAIGN

One of the governor's top priorities has been getting a natural-gas pipeline built from Alaska's vast North Slope oilfields. With Prudhoe Bay and other fields being steadily depleted, state officials have long pegged their economic future on a pipeline to transfer the huge amounts of natural gas on the North Slope to the rest of the U.S.

But she took the bidding process outside the state, rather than continue negotiating primarily with Alaska's existing oil producers as her predecessor had done. In a snub to the oil majors, she has proposed TransCanada Corp., a Calgary-based energy company, be given the primary contract to lead the $30 billion job along with $500 million in matching grants. She just signed a bill the legislature passed allowing that to happen.

BP and ConocoPhillips, meanwhile, have come up with their own proposal to build a gas pipeline. Gov. Palin says she has privately assured oil executives there will be more than enough business for everyone, and outside observers give her credit for getting the ball rolling after years of inertia. "She has created momentum every step of the way," says Drue Pearce, head of the Office of Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects.

Gov. Palin has raised eyebrows in other ways. Many environmentalists are livid, for example, over her support of aerial shooting of wolves in Alaska -- despite ballot measures in the state in which voters twice since 1996 have voted to end the practice. "So far, people have been forgiving of her, but I don't know how long that can last," says Tom Banks, Alaska representative for Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington-based environmental group.

The governor says she is pro-environment and has defended the aerial shooting as necessary to build up moose and caribou herds in parts of Alaska to help improve local food supplies.

Gov. Palin's opted to board a jet from Dallas in April while about to deliver a child. Gov. Palin, who was eight months pregnant, says she felt a few contractions shortly before she was to give a keynote speech to an energy summit of governors in Dallas. But she says she went ahead with it after her doctor in Alaska advised her to put her feet up to rest. "I was not going to miss that speech," she says.

She rushed so quickly from the podium afterwards that Texas Gov. Rick Perry nervously asked if she was about to deliver the baby then. She made it to the airport, and gave birth hours after landing in Anchorage to Trig, who is diagnosed with Down Syndrome. "Maybe they shouldn't have let me fly, but I wasn't showing much so they didn't know," she says.

Sarah Palin

Current Office:

Governor of Alaska
Date of Birth: Feb. 11, 1964
Age: 44
Place of Birth: Sandpoint, Idaho
Home: Wasilla, Alaska
Education: University of Idaho, 1987
Religion: Lutheran
Party: Republican
Political Experience: Wasilla Mayor, 1996-2002. Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Chairman, 2003-04. Elected governor in 2006.

Misc.:

Palin's son Track enlisted in the Army in 2007, and is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in September.

Joe Biden

Current Office:

U.S. Senator
Date of Birth: Nov. 20, 1942
Age: 65
Place of Birth: Scranton, Pa.
Home: Wilmington, Del.
Religion: Catholic
Education: University of Delaware, 1965; Syracuse University College of Law, 1968
Party: Democrat
Political Experience: U.S. Senator from Deleware, 1972-present

Misc.:

Biden's son Beau, a captain in the Army National Guard, is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in October.

 

Sarah Palin: Babies, Guns, Jesus. HOT DAMN!!

Bill Hobbs, press man for the Tennessee Republican Party reports:

http://billhobbs.com/

Brilliant

 

You have to laugh at the Obama campaign's initial reaction to John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate - they attacked her for having zero foreign policy experience.

Obama has zero foreign policy experience. He also has zero executive experience - Palin has two successful years as governor of a state, including passing tough ethics reforms, and has a deep understanding of the extremely important energy issue.

The sum total of Obama's achievements in public office amount to writing two best-selling books about himself, and running for the next job.

Palin is a game-changing pick. With Obama having no real achievements to back his empty rhetoric of hope and change, and his veep choice a Washington insider who helped build the status quo that has given Congress a 9 percent approval rating, the Republican ticket includes two people with real and impressive records of reform.

You want change in Washington? McCain-Palin. You want a president who will rubber-stamp the extreme liberal agenda of the most unpopular Congress in history? Obama-Biden.

Update: The Palin pick is generating a big positive reaction. Here at the TN GOP office we're seeing a big surge in calls, emails and sign-ups on our website for "Women for McCain" and other coalitions, plus walk-in traffic seeking McCain-Palin bumper stickers and yard signs. Some of the callers and visitors are saying the Palin pick has shifted them solidly into the McCain camp.

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2070628/posts

Family and personal background Palin was born as Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, U.S.A., the daughter of Charles and Sally (Sheeran) Heath.

The family moved to Alaska when Sarah was an infant. Charles Heath was a popular science teacher and coached track. The Heaths were avid outdoors enthusiasts; Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family would regularly run 5k and 10k races.

Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play. She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds. Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.

In 1984, Palin was first runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, winning a scholarship to help pay her way through college. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.

Details of Palin's personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose burgers, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it.

Palin holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart. One summer when she was working on Todd's fishing boat, the boat collided with a tender while she was holding onto the railing; Palin broke several fingers. Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile "Iron Dog" race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street. Todd is a Native Yup'ik Eskimo. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.

On September 11, 2007, the Palins' son Track joined the Army. Eighteen years old at the time, he is the eldest of Palin's five children. Track now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7. On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. (Sarah returned to the office three days after giving birth.) Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin said. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

 Pre-gubernatorial political experience Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska City Council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes. The ex-mayor and sheriff tried to organize a recall campaign, but failed. Palin kept her campaign promises, reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes 60%. She ran for reelection against the former mayor in 1999, winning by an even larger margin. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for Lieutenant Governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a four-way race. After Frank Murkowski became governor (resigning his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term), Palin interviewed to be his possible successor, but Murkowski appointed his daughter, then-Alaska State Representative Lisa Murkowski.

Then-Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004 -- until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest. After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners (who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail). Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.

 Governorship

Governor Palin with Alaska's At-large U.S. Representative Don Young In 2006, Palin, running on a clean-government campaign, executed an upset victory over then-Gov. Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Despite the lack of support from party leaders and being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she went on to win the general election in November 2006, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles. Palin said in 2006 that education, public safety, and transportation would be three cornerstones of her administration.

When elected, Palin became the youngest governor in Alaskan history (42 years old upon taking office), and the first woman to be Alaska's governor. Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood. She was also the first Alaskan governor not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.

Highlights of Governor Palin's tenure include a successful push for an ethics bill, and also shelving pork-barrel projects supported by fellow Republicans. Palin successfully killed the Bridge to Nowhere project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending. "Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on 'federal dollars,' as the state does today."

She has challenged the state's Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings. Palin supports holding occasional legislative sessions outside the state capital, and municipal revenue sharing to help local governments.[citation needed]

 Energy policies Palin's tenure is noted for her independence from big oil companies, while still promoting resource development. Palin has also announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors, to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska.  

Shortly after taking office, Palin rescinded an appointment by Murkowski of his former chief of staff Jim Clark to the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority, one of thirty-five appointments made by Murkowski in the last hour of his administration that she reversed. Clark later pled guilty to conspiring with a defunct oil-field-services company to channel money into Frank Murkowski's re-election campaign.

In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state's North Slope. Only one legislator, Representative Ralph Samuels, voted against the measure, and in June Palin signed it into law. On January 5, 2008, Palin announced that a Canadian company, Transcanada, was the sole AGIA-compliant applicant.

In response to high oil and gas prices, and in response to the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly and eliminate the gas tax.

 Social issues Palin is strongly pro-life and belongs to Feminists for Life. She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination. While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and signed them into law.  

She supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter. Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii.

Palin's first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to gay state employees and their partners. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska's attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation.

 

The real story on the Bush Economy.

If you have been watching ABCNBCCBSMSNBCCNN or any of the Blame Bush news media, you probably think the economy is in shambles. Here is the real story.

When Bush took office we were officially in a recession that started in the last few months of the Clinton era.

 

By November 2001 the Clinton era recession was officially over, just one month under Bush's own budget, weeks after 9/11 and just 10 months into a Bush Presidency.  It was an historically short and shallow recession.

 

From 2003 through 2006, all under President Bush and a Republican Congress, real GDP grew over 3% per year, considered a healthy and sustainable pace.

 

By early 2008, the real economy had grown about 20% since Bush took office.  Since President Bush took office, the economy has grown in every single fiscal quarter; there has been no quarter of negative real growth.

 

Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?  If you are anywhere near average, yes.

 

Personal, disposable, inflation-adjusted income grew 9% in the first six years under Bush.

 

Since Bush has been President, the unemployment rate has remained under 6.3% and averaged 5.2%  (In Clinton's eight years it remained under 7.3% and also averaged 5.2%.)

 

If you watched the democrat convention you saw a parade of single unwed mothers with swollen feet, no health insurance, no job and recent house and/or car repossessions.

 

They are all waiting for "the government" to do something to take them from the circumstances they have put themselves in.

 

I am positive Obama will raise them up from their depths of misery.

 

Meanwhile, don't listen to lies about "the Bush Economy"

What is it with Dems and American Flags???

Back during the Obion County Fair we reported the Republican booth to be adorned with flags, flags and more flags and the Democrat booth with NONE.

 

(in fairness, the dems put out one little bitty flag in a teacup sized holder on or about wednesday)

 

It seems American Flags were not flown at the democrat convention this week.

http://www.redstate.com/diaries/absentee/2008/aug/27/new-game-wheres-the-flag/

 

All this is understandable cause Obama bin Biden won't salute an American Flag and hangs out with friends that stand on American Flags.

 

Cindy McCain's houses vs. Obama/Rezko Slums

McCain might not know how many houses his wife's trust fund owns because their finances are separate but Obama doesn't know how many abandoned, broken down apartment buildings he and Rezko scammed his constituents with.

 

It's eleven dilapidated apartment buildings in Obama's State Senate district.

 

Obama gave Rezko 14 million taxpayer dollars to fix the buildings in order to supply low income housing and Rezko helped Obama buy a mansion.

 

Rezko never did and now Rezko is in jail and we cannot afford to let his partner Obama have control of the White House.

 

take a tour of the obama/rezko slums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqBFVixqQ5s

Why Martin Luther King was a Republican

By Frances Rice

It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S's: Slavery, Secession, Segregation and now Socialism.

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860's, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950's and 1960's.

During the civil rights era of the 1960's, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court which resulted in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman's issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was President Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Senator Al Gore, Sr. And after he became president, John F. Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.

In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King's leaving Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860's, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation's first goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs.

Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.

Critics of Republican Senator Barry Goldwater who ran for president against Democrat President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation.

Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater, also ignore the fact that President Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on January 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only thirty five words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King's protest against the Viet Nam War, President Johnson referred to Dr. King as "that N---er preacher."

Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist "Dixiecrats" did not all migrate to the Republican Party. "Dixiecrats" declared that they would rather vote for a "yellow dog" than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks. Today, some of those "Dixiecrats" continue their political careers as Democrats, including Democrat Senator Robert Byrd who is well known for having been a "Keagle" in the Ku Klux Klan.

Another former "Dixiecrat" is Democrat Senator Ernest Hollings who put up the Confederate flag over the state capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd praised Senator Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment," including the Civil War. Democrats denounced Senator Trent Lott for his remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Senator Byrd and Senator Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.

The thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970's with President Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" which was an effort on the Part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats.

Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.

After wrongly convincing black Americans that a minimum wage increase was a good thing, the Democrats on August 3rd kept their promise and killed the minimum wage bill passed by House Republicans on July 29th. The blockage of the minimum wage bill was the second time in as many years that Democrats stuck a legislative finger in the eye of black Americans. Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004 blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Bill Clinton before he finally signed it. Since the welfare reform law expired in September 2002, Congress had passed six extensions, and the latest expired on June 30, 2004. Opposed by the Democrats are school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black children get out of failing schools and Social Security reform, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because of a shorter life expectancy than whites (72.2 years for blacks vs. 77.5 years for whites).

Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30-40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. Over $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.

In order to break the Democrats' stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party's economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity.

Someone you should know has passed.

http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/08/someone_you_sho_12.html

 If you read We Were Soldiers, Once ... And Young, or saw the movie, you may remember the helicopter pilot who kept showing up whenever Hal Moore needed him most. You may remember the character, but I'd like you to remember the man -- MAJ Ed Freeman, the aviation company's commander...

Boise Medal of Honor recipient passes away
03:23 PM MDT on Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Maj. Ed Freeman died at a Boise hospital Wednesday. He was 80 years old.

His exploits in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam were featured in a book and on film, and for his heroism, he was awarded the nation's higest honor.

This morning, Major Ed Freeman, known as "Too Tall," passed away at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise. He was 80 years old.

Freeman's youngest son, Doug Freeman, says his father died from health complications due to Parkinson's Disease.

Freeman was a helicopter pilot, who flew multiple missions under heavy enemy fire to re-supply the 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang Valley, and evacuate wounded troopers.

The 1965 battle was the subject of the book "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young" by Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, and the Mel Gibson movie adaptation "We Were Soldiers."

Freeman was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the Vietnam War by President George W. Bush in July of 2001.

Lt. Col. Tim Marsano, with the Idaho National Guard, says funeral services have been scheduled for Saturday. Freeman will then be buried at the Idaho Veterans Cemetery in Boise.

We used to joke that Vietnam helicopter pilots earned medals for valor every day -- and sometimes somebody actually got one.

You should've heard the brags we passed around when Too Tall actually got his MOH. Damn, but we were proud of him...

Six is inbound with the numbers, Fiddlers' Green contingent -- make a hole!

And now is the time at the Castle that we Dance...

Obama and the DNC sued in Philadelphia Federal Court (constitutionally ineligible for the presidency)

TCWatch note: The basis of this suit has been kicked around the web for months.

AmericaRight.com ^  | Jeff Schreiber

A prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter (surprise - surprise) filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.

Phillip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit--just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver--for the health of the Democratic Party.

"I filed this action at this time," Berg stated, "to avoid the obvious problems that will occur when the Republican Party raises these issues after Obama is nominated.".

Berg cited a number of unanswered questions regarding the Illinois senator's background, and in today's lawsuit maintained that Sen. Obama is not a naturalized U.S. citizen or that, if he ever was, he lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia. Berg also cites what he calls "dual loyalties" due to his citizenship and ties with Kenya and Indonesia.

Even if Sen. Obama can prove his U.S. citizenship, Berg stated, citing the senator's use of a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii verified as a forgery by three independent document forensic experts, the issue of "multi-citizenship with responsibilities owed to and allegiance to other countries" remains on the table.

In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth.

Berg cites inconsistent accounts of Sen. Obama's birth, including reports that he was born at two separate hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.

Should Sen. Obama truly have been born in Kenya, Berg writes, the laws on the books at the time of his birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and non-citizen parent if the former was at least 19 years of age. Sen. Obama's mother was only 18 at the time. Therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama could not be registered as a "natural born" citizen and would therefore be ineligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.

Moreover, even if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed "natural born," that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen. Berg also states that he possesses copies of Sen. Obama's registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.

The Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg says, is a forgery. In the suit, the attorney states that the birth certificate on record is a forgery, has been identified as such by three independent document forensic experts, and actually belonged to Maya Kasandra Soetoro, Sen. Obama's half-sister.

"Voters donated money, goods and services to elect a nominee and were defrauded by Sen. Obama's lies and obfuscations," Berg stated. "If the DNC officers ... had performed one ounce of due diligence we would not find ourselves in this emergency predicament, one week away from making a person the nominee who has lost their citizenship as a child and failed to even perform the basic steps of regaining citizenship as prescribed by constitutional laws."

"It is unfair to the country," he continued, "for candidates of either party to become the nominee when there is any question of the ability to serve if elected."

2002 Illinois Senate Audio of Obama you won't believe

Audio of Obama arguing against Born Alive Infant Protection Act (saving babies who survive abortion attempts)

He says, trying to save a baby who manages to survive an abortion is just a burden on another Doctor and the "mother".

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDwNpgIUQc

 

The whole concept behind this is frightening since it completely ignores the preciousness of life. This is really really sick - well, evil actually.

TN Dems target GOP candidate with Dirty Tricks, Dem Cover-up well underway

TCWatch note: this may well be Bredsen's Watergate

 

The Tennessee newsmedia is abuzz with reports on a growing scandal in which a high-ranking state trooper with deep political ties to state Democrats has run unauthorized criminal background checks on dozens of people. While Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen claims the trooper's actions were not political in nature, the Nashville City Paper has revealed that expunged records of a Republican legislative candidate's 15-year-old DUI arrest mysteriously showed up on the desks of two state House Republican leaders one morning despite their legislative offices being locked overnight. The records were in plain manilla envelopes.

 

Copies of the candidate's old DUI arrests - long ago "expunged" from the public record - also were mailed to the candidate's wife.

Political observers say it is a classic attempt at political intimidation aimed at convincing the candidate not to run. He is running against an entrenched Democrat incumbent and if he wins it is very likely the GOP would take control of the state House for the first time in history.

The governor claimed yesterday, at a widely reported news conference, that there were no political figures on the list of people whose records were illegally checked by the politically-connected trooper, but his assertion is belied by the facts.

Meanwhile, the Democrat administration is refusing calls from a variety of public officials, including some ethical Democrats, for the investigation to be turned over to an outside entity such as the FBI or a federal prosecutor. Instead, the Democrat administration is letting the Tennessee Highway Patrol handle the investigation.

That's the same Tennessee Highway Patrol that benefited from the governor's "pay-for-promotions" program in which troopers received promotions in exchange for generous campaign donations from the trooper and their families. It's the same Tennessee Highway Patrol that refused to discipline a high-ranking officer who fixed the Deputy Governor's speeding ticket. That officer is, by the way, the same officer who made hundreds of unauthorized criminal background checks.

Republicans need to gain only four seats in the 99-seat state House to gain a majority. The state's Democrat machine is pulling out all the stops to prevent losing power, and the Republican candidate, businessman A.J. McCall, is one of their key targets. In addition to the above-mentioned dirty tricks, the state Democrat Party is likely to try to sink McCall by allocating significant resources to the campaign of incumbent state Rep. Stratton Bone.

If you can help McCall, please visit his website at www.ajmccall.com and make a donation to his campaign.

Here are the key other news links: The Tennessean: Trooper Snooped on 182

WSMV TV Department Of Safety Won't Release Names Of Individuals On List

TerryFrank.net Blogger Terry Frank details how the Bredesen administration is trying to spin away the facts

BillHobbs.com The Democrats may have been hunting for expunged records

 -----------------------------------

GOP candidate says expunged records used against him, calls for THP probe By Clint Brewer, cbrewer@nashvillecitypaper.com   A Republican State House candidate who said his expunged DUI records are being used against him in his campaign to unseat a longtime Democratic incumbent is joining leaders from both political parties in calling for an outside investigation into allegations of unauthorized background checks performed by a Tennessee Highway Patrolman. However, a THP spokesperson said a list of those whose backgrounds were allegedly probed by Lt. Ronnie Shirley would not be made public anytime soon but instead turned over to the district attorney once an internal investigation is complete. Tennessee Department of Safety Officials announced Tuesday Shirley was put on administrative leave and that the THP would continue its internal investigation. GOP Lebanon businessman A.J. McCall is challenging State Rep. Stratton Bone for the 46th District House seat, a race observers on both sides of the political aisle say is likely a close race. McCall told The Nashville Post that it was copies of his driving history – including records of two DUI arrests from the early 1990s and records of some speeding tickets – that were left in an envelope in the locked legislative offices of State House Minority Leader Jason Mumpower and State Rep. Glen Casada several weeks ago. Mumpower and Democratic House Majority Leader Gary Odom have both called for an investigation from an outside agency into allegations THP Trooper Ronnie Shirley performed some 300 background checks outside the normal investigative process at THP. Mumpower referred to the envelope with the arrest records left in his office when he publicly called for the independent probe this week. Late Tuesday, Mumpower said a federal investigation was in order. Yet, McCall said the records of his arrests, though expunged, have been used against him repeatedly in the last year in political activity. McCall said numerous automated "robo" calls and at least one negative "push" poll conducted in the 46th District have brought up the two DUI charges to voters. McCall as well as a spokesperson for his campaign said the campaign had no information about who conducted the push poll or performed the robo calls or what entity commissioned them. McCall did say he hired an attorney to research the status of the two DUI arrests and that they had been expunged from his record. "I have no way of knowing how this was done," McCall said. "It is a problem and I do think it needs to be investigated." McCall added copies of the arrest records were also sent to his wife at their home, along with what he called a "negative mail piece" targeting State Rep. Tim Dubois. Dubois was hit with allegations from the Tennessee Democratic Party in a flier that underage drinkers were drinking alcohol at a party at his home. "I made big mistakes back then," McCall said of the over 15-year old charges. "I feel bad about what I did, but it is in the past. I've joined a good church, and I do not have a problem. I have not tried to hide it, but I don't feel state resources and state systems should be used to intimidate me or my wife." Mumpower said initially he did not pay too much attention to the anonymous envelope left in both his office and State Rep. Glen Casada's with McCall's records. The THP situation, though, made him reconsider it. "At first, I just thought it was the usual political games," Mumpower said Tuesday. "When the story came out about the THP, we began to take it more seriously. The dominoes seem to continue to fall. This is looking more and more like someone illegally accessed these records." THP officials said Tuesday they would not be releasing the names of the people whose backgrounds were allegedly checked by Shirley using the Integrated Criminal Justice Web Portal maintained by the Administration Office of the Courts. "Pursuant to Rule 16 of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure, the names are not being release at this time but will be turned over to the District Attorney when the investigation is completed," THP Spokesperson Mike Browning told The Nashville Post in an e-mail response to an open records request for the list. Mumpower conceded there was no direct link established between the issues at the THP and the political activity in the 46th District House race. He said the THP should release the list of anyone whose backgrounds were checked improperly. "It is disappointing to me. It is not a statute but a rule. Perhaps we could look at the quick ability to amend the rule. I think the citizens who have been violated through an illegal background search deserve to know what happened to them," Mumpower added. Bone's campaign released a statement Tuesday condemning the use of McCall's expunged records in the campaign. "Stratton Bone and the Bone campaign do not play those kinds of politics," the statement said.

 

Remember this when the media call Senator/VP Joe Biden a Moderate

Published on NewsBusters.org (http://newsbusters.org)

By Mark Finkelstein

If Barack Obama is looking for an elder statesman with national security credentials as his running mate, my two cents say he should pick Sam Nunn. The conventional wisdom, though, has Obama leaning toward Joe Biden.  If the senior senator from Delaware is indeed tapped, we can expect that mere milliseconds will elapse before some MSM outlet labels Biden a "moderate" or a "centrist."  

We thought it might be useful to do a little prophylactic exploration of the Biden record.  Given his long tenure in the Senate, he's earned literally hundreds of interest-group ratings over the years. But here is a representative sample, as culled from the invaluable Project Vote Smart [1]. Although his "grades" have of course varied from year to year, overall we find—surprise!—that Biden is a garden-variety  liberal.

• NARAL - A [2006]
• Planned Parenthood - A [2006]
• National Right to Life Committee - 0% [2005-06]
• National Taxpayers Union - F [2007]

Continues . . .

• Business-Industry Political Action Committee 8% [2007]
• ACLU  - 75% [2007]
• NAACP - 100% [2005]
• National Council of La Raza - 100% [2005]
• Human Rights Campaign [gay rights] - 100% [2001-02]
• American Conservative Union - 0% [2007]
• National Education Association [teachers union] - A [2007]
• Environment America - 100% [2008]
• Family Research Council - 0% [2007]
• Children's Defense Fund [a Hillary fave] - 100% [2006]
• Gun Owners of America - F [2007]
• Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - 95% [1988-2003]
• NRA - F [2002]
• English First - 0% [2007]
• American Immigration Lawyers Association - 100% [2006]
• AFL-CIO - 100% [2007]
• American Bar Association - 100% [2001-02]
• National Journal-Composite Liberal Score - 94.2% [2007] [Note: third most liberal senator, trailing only Whitehouse of RI and #1 . . . Barack Obama]
• NOW - 91% [2005-06]

Should Obama pick Biden, a special recognition to the first NB reader who alerts us to an instance of the MSM labelling him "moderate" or "centrist."

Note: Let's focus for a moment on the fact that, as per the non-partisan National Journal's scoring [2], in 2007 Obama was the most liberal senator and Biden the third most liberal.  Can there be any doubt that they would collectively comprise by far the most liberal ticket in over 70 years, since FDR ran with Henry Wallace, an open admirer of the Soviet Union? [3]

---

Source URL:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/08/19/remember-when-msm-calls-biden-moderate

Links:
[1] http://www.votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=53279
[2] http://www.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/sen/lib_cons.htm?o1=lib_composite&o2=desc
[3] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/henry_wallace_with_a_website.html

Blue Dog Health Shuler gets Sweetheart TVA Deal

Shame gene absent in D.C.
Waterbury Republican-American ^ | August 16, 2008 | Editorial

Democrats pledge to make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history. — House Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi, Nov. 14, 2006.

The latest member of Congress to follow of Sens. Christopher Dodd, Barack Obama, Kent Conrad and Ted Stevens, et al., into the tank is Rep. Heath Shuler, a freshman Democrat from North Carolina who sits on a subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Tennessee Valley Authority.

As a "private citizen" in 2005, he acquired a 40 percent stake in a multimillion-dollar waterfront development, The Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC, on the TVA's Watts Bar Reservoir in Rhea County, Tenn. Whitewater — sorry, The Cove — would be worth a lot more if Mr. Shuler and his cohorts built a marina to serve their proposed 160-home gated community. The maps showed they had a developable waterfront. Alas, their cove was too shallow, and Citizen Shuler's investment, estimated at upward of $5 million, was imperiled.

In 2007, he became Rep. Shuler, and the TVA soon realized it had a deep-water cove it wasn't using, not clear across the reservoir, but right next door to The Cove. And, lo and behold, not only was it available, the TVA was willing to swap it for Rep. Shuler's worthless waterfront and $15,000 in in-kind services, not to curry favor with a congressman who sits on a committee to which it must kowtow, but because of "wildlife and other environmental considerations." Yeah, that's the ticket. On June 3, the deal was done, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported this week.

Hayden Rogers, Rep. Shuler's chief of staff, said his boss would not have used "any position he has in Congress to influence TVA or anyone else" in his pursuit of personal gain.

Where have we heard that before? "Had anyone ever suggested to me that somehow that I was going to get some preferential treatment because I was in the U.S. Senate, that would have ended the relationship immediately. ... There was no red flag for me that we were getting some special treatment in all of this," said Sen. Dodd after he got caught accepting cut-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial, ultimately saving him $75,000, under a VIP program available only to members of the Senate Banking Committee and other bigwigs.

Not every member of Congress is on the take, and not every member is in it for personal enrichment. It only seems that way.

Why Obama won't and can't win

Watch this 52 second video to see why B. H. Obama will NOT and can NOT win in November.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs

Obama's Shocking Position and Votes on Abortion

TCWatch note:  Read this article and then tell TCWatch how any caring human being could possibly support B. H. Obama.

Life with Obama
Abortion champion.

By David Freddoso

The tiny newborn baby made very little noise as he struggled to breathe. He lacked the strength to cry. He had been born four months premature.

"At that age," says nurse Jill Stanek, "their lungs haven't matured."

Stanek is the nurse who found herself cradling this baby in her hands for all of his 45-minute lifetime. He was close to ten inches long and weighed perhaps half a pound. It's just a guess — no one had weighed or measured him at birth. No happy family had been there to welcome him into the world. No one was trying to save his life now, putting him into an incubator, giving him oxygen or nourishment. He had just been left to die.

Stanek had seen it all happen. That family had wanted a baby, but when they learned that theirs would be born with Down syndrome, they wanted an abortion. For that, they went to Christ Hospital in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago, which is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.

In "induced labor" or "prostaglandin" abortion — a common procedure at the hospital — the doctor administers drugs that dilate the mother's cervix and induce contractions, forcing a small baby out of the mother's uterus. Most of the time, the baby dies in utero, killed by the force of the violent contractions. But it does not always work. Such abortions sometimes result in a premature baby being born alive. Sometimes the survivors live for just a few minutes, but sometimes for several hours. No one tried to save or treat them — it is hard to save someone you just mauled trying to kill. But something had to be done with them for the minutes and hours during which they struggled for air.

Stanek says her friend had been told to take this baby and leave him in a soiled utility closet. She offered to take him instead. "I couldn't let him die alone," she says.

Stanek was horrified by this experience. This was not an abortion — it was something worse. Could it be legal to take a living and breathing person of any size, already born and outside his mother's womb, and just leave him to die, without any thought of treatment?

Hospital officials dismissed Stanek's concerns. She then approached the Republican attorney general of Illinois, Jim Ryan, who issued a finding several months later that Christ Hospital was doing nothing illegal under the laws of Illinois. Doctors had no ethical or legal obligation to treat these premature babies. They had passed the bright line of birth that had effectively limited the right to life since the Roe v. Wade decision, but under the law they were non-persons.

Stanek's effort to right this wrong would lead her to testify before various committees. It would lead her to a state senator, Patrick O'Malley, who would propose a bill to stop what was going on at the hospital.

Her attempt to change a corrupt medical practice and bring hope to defenseless infants would put her on a collision course with a state senator named Barack Obama.

On March 30, 2001, Obama was the only senator to speak in opposition to a bill that would have banned the practice of leaving premature abortion survivors to die. The bill, SB 1095, was carefully limited, its language unambiguous. It applied only to premature babies, already born alive. It stated simply that under Illinois law, "the words 'person,' 'human being,' 'child,' and 'individual' include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."

Two related bills introduced that day included slightly more controversial provisions about liability and medical procedure, but SB 1095 did not go nearly that far. This bill did not apply to those not born, nor did it grant born persons anything beyond recognition of their rights as persons.

Under this bill, SB 1095, babies born alive during an abortion would have to be treated just like every other baby that is born alive and prematurely — not left to die as at Christ Hospital, but given treatment according to an acting physician's medical judgment as to what is necessary and what is possible — the same standard that applies to any other human being.



There was no legal conflict between this bill and the right to legal abortion, but Barack Obama was still uneasy with the idea. He and 11 other senators would vote "present" in a strategy worked out with Planned Parenthood lobbyists ("present" votes in the Illinois senate essentially count as "no" votes). The bill would pass the Senate easily with a bipartisan majority, only to die in a House committee.

Here is what Obama said on the Senate floor that day in opposition to the bill:

There was some suggestion that we might be able to craft something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion. Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit further, and so … this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term. That determination, then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute.

The absurd conclusion of Obama's argument is hard to miss. He implies that "pre-viable" babies born prematurely, even without abortions, are somehow less "persons" than are babies who undergo nine months' gestation before birth.

But even this is not the most important part of his argument. That would be his first sentence — the one about "caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion." He seems open to this idea. And he does not state explicitly that a pre-viable, premature baby is not a "person." Rather, he is arguing that the question of their personhood is a moot point. Even if the state should perhaps provide care for these babies, any recognition of their personhood might threaten someone's right to an abortion somewhere down the road. That made the bill unacceptable to him.

Most people, whatever their view on abortion, agree that the Constitution at least guarantees the rights of born and living human beings. Barack Obama does not agree. For him, the Constitution exists primarily in order to guarantee the right to abortion, and other rights of human persons — born and alive — are secondary. Beginning with abortion rights as his premise, he draws as his conclusion the unfortunate but necessary legality of infanticide.

Given Obama's position on babies born alive, it should come as no surprise that he opposes and denounces all restrictions on every kind of abortion, including partial-birth abortions. He promised at a Planned Parenthood event in July 2007 that "the first thing" he will do as president — his top priority for the nation — is sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would erase every federal and state restriction on abortion, no matter how modest. His top priority, again, is to re-legalize partial birth abortion under all circumstances, abolish all laws on informed consent and parental notification, and eliminate all state restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortions.

No humanitarian impulse or consideration of bipartisanship has ever swayed Barack Obama's legislative mind on the issue of abortion. Pro-life voters who try to convince themselves otherwise engage in willful self-deception.

Obama would speak against the born-alive protection bill once again when it was proposed in 2002, and he would kill the bill when it came before the committee he chaired in 2003, after Democrats had taken control of the Illinois General Assembly. His is a radical position that most abortion-choice advocates do not share.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) does not share his position. In 2001, just three months after Obama inveighed against protecting premature babies in Illinois, the United States Senate voted on the language of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. It contained no significant legal differences from the Illinois bill, but it did contain even more specific and redundant language stating that the bill did not apply to the unborn, only those already born.

But in case there is any ambiguity, the federal bill was identical, word for word, to the bill that Obama voted to kill two years later in the Illinois senate health committee, which he chaired. Obama's work to kill the bill in 2003 has always been attested to by witnesses (committee records are poorly kept in Springfield), but yesterday the National Right to Life Committee found and revealed the document showing definitively that Obama had voted against it in committee — against the exact same bill he is now falsely claiming on his own campaign website that he would have supported.

On June 29, 2001, Boxer had spoken in favor of that same bill, the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, on the floor of the U.S. Senate: "Of course, we believe everyone born should deserve the protections of this bill," she said. "Who could be more vulnerable than a newborn baby? So, of course, we agree with that.…We join with an 'aye' vote on this. I hope it will, in fact, be unanimous." It was unanimous: 98–0. Even Hillary Clinton voted for it.

At the time Boxer spoke enthusiastically in favor of protecting premature babies, she had a 100-percent lifetime voting score from NARAL and a 100 percent score from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She was also a leader on the abortion issue. She was the greatest ally that abortion-choice advocates had in the United States Senate.

At least she was until 2005, the year Barack Obama was sworn in.

— David Freddoso is a National Review Online staff reporter and author of The Case Against Barack Obama.

 

Bill Hobbs explains the Georgia invasion

http://www.billhobbs.com/

Moral Equivalency

Sean Braisted thinks we're wrong to consider Russia the bad guys for invading the small neighboring country of Georgia because, he writes: "On August 8th, Georgia invaded South Ossetia and killed Russian forces."

He continues:

Supplant America for Russia, and as yourself what our response would have been? Not only would we have not given a "proportional" response, we would have obliterated the country, deposed the political leadership, and formed our own favorable Government.

But wait. South Ossetia is legally part of Georgia, though there are some who live there who want to secede and join Russia, and Russian troops were there under a U.N. mandate to keep the peace between them and Georgia. Rather than keep the peace, the Russians have been helping the rebels break the province away from Georgia.

But South Ossetia is still, legally, a part of Georgia. You can't invade your own territory.

Imagine if Mexico put troops into Arizona to "keep the peace" between, say, Arizona resident/U.S. Citizens and illegal immigrants, and then Mexico announced that South Arizona was actually a part of Mexico. No doubt, the American government would dispatch troops to southern Arizona to push the Mexican military invaders/squatters out. If that happened, it would be inaccurate to say America "invaded South Arizona." What would be accurate is to say that America activated its military to drive out an invader from American territory.

The "bad guy" in the Russia-Georgia war is clear: Russia is attempting to destroy a democratically-elected government in a neighboring country. That the Left can't see that, or choses to use weasel words and obfuscate is all to predictable as the Left rarely sees the enemys of freedom and democracy for what they truly are.

Just look at Barack Obama's initial "can't we all just get along" response versus John McCain's clear-eyed assessment of the situation - he has, after all, actually been to the country of Georgia many times. And, unlike Obama, McCain has actually seen evil and experienced the true nature of the enemies of freedom and democracy in person.

After 19 years of hibernation, once again there is a bear in the woods. And once again some people see the bear and others don't see it at all.

Update: Robert Bidinotto explains the national security implications for the United States in the Russia-Georgia war:

But a final step is much more far-reaching for America's national security. One of the major strategic threats to America arising from the attack on Georgia is the looming possibility of Russian control of the vital oil pipeline traversing that small, besieged nation. This crisis underscores the crucial imperative for America to develop independent energy sources, on a crash basis. And, sorry -- we cannot power our automobiles and the vast expanses of our modern cities on windmills and solar panels. For the foreseeable future, we'll continue to need lots of oil, coal, and natural gas. These energy sources are being voraciously sought and developed everywhere else on the planet, by every nation except the United States. Mired in P.C. angst and environmentalist self-doubt, we've chose a policy of unilateral economic disarmament.

"Drill Here, Drill Now" isn't just the right thing to do politically. It is the right thing to do for the survival of the United States of America as a free and independent country.