Tennessee Conservative Watch

Roy Herron effectively supports Obamacare‏

2010-04-08T20:58:00.001-04:00

Rep. Mike McIntyre, a Blue Dog Democrat from North Carolina, supports repealing Obama’s healthcare takeover:

“One of the Democrats who voted against health care reform in Washington D.C. lent his support Monday to the discussion of repealing the legislation. U.S. Congressman Mike McIntyre (D-NC) says he would favor repealing the entire health care bill that President Obama recently signed into law.” (Gavin Johnson, “McIntyre supports repeal of health care bill,” WECT-TV, 3/29/10)

So do most Americans:

“Currently, two weeks after passage, 54% of the nation's likely voters still favor repealing the new law.” (“54% Favor Repeal of Health Care Bill,” Rasmussen Reports press release, 4/5/10)

But not liberal politician Roy Herron – he wants the president’s package of Medicare cuts, tax hikes, abortion funding and budget-busting government handouts to remain law:

“Dr. Lee Carter questioned if Herron will help clean-up the recently approved health care reform…Herron said he would work to keep the good and change the problematic areas.” (Joel Washburn, “Herron brings jobs tour to Carroll County,” The McKenzie Banner, 4/6/10)

He also defended the bill last month, claiming it’s not as bad as Americans are making it out to be:

“…[Herron] added that the legislation is not as terrifyingly bad as the GOP has painted it…” (Nicholas Beadle, “Fincher, Herron talk health care reform in early morning campaign stops in Jackson,” Jackson Sun “Motion Carried,” 3/22/10)

And no wonder: Roy has a long record of supporting government-run healthcare.

In 1993 – when President Bill Clinton and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) offered up similar government healthcare takeover plans – he supported their efforts:

“‘Do not give up on universal coverage,’ asked Clinton. Cooper followed Clinton and said his approach was much closer to Clinton's bill than either the single-payer plan proposed by liberal Democrats or the moderate Republican plan. ‘We are also committed to achieving universal coverage, and I think it should be on the President's timetable of 1998,’ said Cooper…Tennesseans and Mississippians attending the DLC's annual conference said they believe Clinton is now on the right path after a rocky start…‘The big issue for a lot of us is health care reform,’ said Tennessee State Rep. Roy Herron of Dresden. ‘I hope he and Congressman Cooper would continue to talk and find a solution.’” (James Brosnan, “Clinton, DLC tout success; health care split looms,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, 12/4/93)

“‘Our bills are very similar,’ Cooper acknowledged last month. ‘(They) have a lot in common and we’re very proud of that’…Indeed, like Clinton, Cooper would turn over control of America's health care system to the government.” (Joseph Perkins, “Clinton Lite: `Rival' health reform plan is just as ill-advised,” San Diego Union Tribune, 3/11/94)

“Alternatives rising in Congress, as support for President Clinton's original health care reform plan dwindles, have flaws…One, called ‘Clinton-Lite’ because of its resemblance to Clinton's proposed Health Security Act…would force people into government-approved health care plans, severely limit health care options, make employees pay more, and limit choice of doctors and access to specialists…With other features similar to Clinton's plan, Cooper-Grandy would move relentlessly toward greater regulation and more taxes - things lawmakers claim they want to avoid.” (“Beware ‘Clinton Lite,’ Daily Oklahoman EDITORIAL, 4/19/94)

And Roy Herron was a vocal supporter of TennCare, a disastrous state-level precursor to Obamacare:

“Tennessee in a year has done what Washington talks about doing in a decade. Washington aims for 95 percent of our citizens to have health insurance in the next millennium. Tennessee will achieve it next month.” (Roy Herron, “A ‘Tennessee Treasure,’ Memphis Commercial Appeal, 12/25/94)

“Sen. Herron said that TennCare has been beneficial to the state in a number of ways.” (Michael Finn, “Legislator Cites Difficulty In Obtaining Tenncare Info,” Chattanooga Times Free Press, 10/10/97)

“In 1994, Tennessee launched an ambitious public insurance program to cover its uninsured. The plan, TennCare, fulfilled that mission but nearly bankrupted the state in the process. As originally envisioned, the Tennessee plan expanded Medicaid, the government health-care program for the poor, to cover people who couldn't afford insurance or who had been denied coverage by an insurance company. With an initial budget of $2.6 billion, TennCare quickly extended coverage to an additional 500,000 people by making access to its plans easy and affordable. But the program became so expensive that Tennessee was forced to scale it back in 2005. Now, as Congress debates a national health-care overhaul, state experiments like Tennessee’s are informing the discussion.” (Avery Johnson, “Tennessee Experiment's High Cost Fuels Health-Care Debate,” Wall Street Journal, 8/17/09)

“Years ago Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, called it a ‘disaster.’ Today President Obama calls the same idea ‘reform.’ Both the president's prescription for the uninsured and Tennessee's TennCare program are premised on the same sugar pill: a vast expansion of health insurance coverage without affecting cost or quality…Given Tennessee's predictable experience, one wonders what ObamaCare cheerleaders have been smoking. No wonder attorneys general in so many states have gone to court.” (“The TennCare lesson: A national disaster,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review EDITORIAL, 3/27/10)

Indeed, Roy campaigned on universal healthcare while running for state Senate in 1996:

“He also stressed support for ‘better schools for our children, better jobs for adult, and affordable health care for all citizens’…‘Every citizen should have access to affordable, life-saving health care.’” (“Representative Roy Herron announces for Senate,” Dresden Enterprise, 7/24/96)

------

Andy Seré

Regional Press Secretary

National Republican Congressional Committee

Census used as 'gay gimmick'

2010-04-07T15:09:00.000-04:00

Jim Brown and Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 4/7/2010 6:00:00 AM

Traditional marriage proponents are warning that homosexual activists and the Obama administration are once again working in concert to "manipulate" federal law.

The Associated Press reports that the Census Bureau plans to count same-sex couples who say they are married, regardless of whether they have a marriage license (see AP article). Even though only five states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex "marriages," the Census Bureau says same-sex couples should feel free to check the "husband" or "wife" boxes on the census form, rather than "unmarried partner."

Story continues below ...

Results from our related poll

Why would the Census Bureau be so bold about encouraging homosexuals

to lie about their marital status on their census forms?

Peter LaBarbera, executive director of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, argues that the Bureau is clearly violating the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which does not recognize same-sex marriages.

"What they're obviously trying to do is magnify the numbers of homosexuals in the society," he suspects. "This dates way back in the gay movement. There was a time when homosexual activists just lied and said that ten percent of the public was gay -- that was a bald-faced lie. It took decades to finally disprove that lie, but here again we see them calling themselves married because they want to be called married. Well, that's not what the law says."

LaBarbera believes homosexual activists are using the census as their latest "gimmick" to seek affirmation of their lifestyle, and he challenges Congress to "step up" and prevent the Obama administration from promoting the "gay" agenda by dictate.

Marriage by opinion is not marriage by law

Similarly, Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs at Liberty Counsel, believes the source for the Bureau's instructions can perhaps be traced as far as the White House. (Listen to audio report)

"It's a shame that the Census Bureau, in tangent with radical homosexual activists, are choosing to use the census, which is supposed to provide objective, quantifiable information relative to varying demographics around the country, that they're using this as a tool for political activism," Barber laments.

He notes that just because a homosexual couple might call their relationship a marriage, that does not make it so. "It is directly contrary to probably the letter, at least the spirit, of the Defense of Marriage Act," he adds.

The federal law recognizes marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and the cultural affairs director believes the purpose in the census campaign is to "create an impression in the minds of the American people" that the movement for legalizing homosexual marriage has more steam behind it than it actually does.

Now that he’s running for Congress, liberal politician Roy Herron talks as if he’s an Independent – not a Democrat:

2010-03-23T15:00:00.001-04:00

“But Herron also seemed to try to distinguish himself this morning as a moderate…‘Republicans think you should cut taxes no matter how big the deficit is and Democrats think you should increase spending no matter how big the deficit is,’ Herron said. ‘Neither one is right in my opinion.’” (Nicholas Beadle, “Fincher, Herron talk health care reform in early morning campaign stops in Jackson,” Jackson Sun “Motion Carried,” 3/22/10)

But – as Roy reminded Democratic activists when he was running in a heated gubernatorial primary last year – he’s a Democrat, alright:

“‘I’m not just a little bit Democrat and I’m not just a new Democrat,’ candidate Roy Herron said. ‘I’m all way through Democrat.’” (Brad Hicks, “Candidates muster at Rocky Mount,” Johnson City Press, 7/12/09)

And a “partisan” one at that!

“…Herron has been a Democrat partisan.” (Tom Humphrey, “Lawmaker's book offers slices of life,” Knoxville News-Sentinel, 10/7/99)

“…if by partisanship you mean a commitment to a set of principles and values, and the determination to work to see them find expression in the real world, then I am all for partisanship.” (Roy Herron, God and Politics, p.115)

“Herron really threw out the red meat, basically tarring Republicans as racist retrogrades.” (Jeff Woods, “Who hates Republicans more? Kyle and Herron debate the question,” Nashville Scene “Pith in the Wind,” 6/18/09)

“Al Gore on Monday appointed state Sen. Roy Herron, a longtime friend from the same county where the vice president's mother was born, as state director of his presidential campaign.” (“State senator named state Gore campaign director,” Associated Press, 8/7/00)

“Senate Democrats also re-elected Sen. Jim Kyle, D-Memphis, as minority leader and chose Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, as caucus chairman.” (“Berke tapped for Senate Democratic leadership post,” Chattanooga Times Free Press,” 11/26/08)

Democrats Make up Rules as they go along

2010-03-21T18:11:00.001-04:00

Blue Dog votes examined: exposed as total frauds

2009-04-09T19:03:00.001-04:00

Blue Dogs' Moment of Truth
Some Democrats claim they're fiscally conservative but don't vote that way.

By Michael G. Franc

Barely 100 days in, this session of Congress has already seen a number of consequential votes.

Some involve major changes in bankruptcy and labor law. For example, one would give bankruptcy judges unilateral authority to rewrite the terms of mortgage contracts, including the amount of principal and the interest rate. Another would give a new lease on life to the oft-discredited labor theory of "comparable worth"; the Paycheck Fairness Act would require employers to justify all pay disparities between their male and female workers.

But the real action has been on the spending front. As Bloomberg News reported, "In this crisis, the U.S. government and the Fed alone have spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion to try to prop up the banking industry and overall economy to stem the longest recession since the 1930s." The House has approved legislation to release an additional $350 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program; borrow $787 billion to "stimulate" the economy; borrow another $410 billion to expand domestic spending programs; expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program by tens of billons of dollars; and triple the level of government funding for volunteerism (even as the president proposed restricting deductions for private charitable giving).

Oh, and let's not forget that $3.5 trillion budget blueprint for next year. It increases spending, raises taxes, and incurs debt at a rate that even the most jaded Washington insiders would have thought impossible just a few months ago.

Where will it end? A top priority will be to refocus Congress on balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the debt places on them. The prospects for these goals will depend largely on the Blue Dogs, a coalition of 51 House Democrats.

According to the Blue Dogs' website, they have "been particularly active on fiscal issues, relentlessly pursuing a balanced budget and then protecting that achievement from politically popular 'raids' on the budget." But just how "relentlessly" have they pursued a balanced budget during this year's spending blitzkrieg?

To answer that question, I reviewed nine recent House votes related to the following issues: the release of the second half of the TARP funds, the expansion of SCHIP, the economic-stimulus package, the omnibus spending bill, the expansion of government funding for volunteer activities, and the FY2010 budget.

To determine whether each Blue Dog had voted in a fiscally conservative manner, I looked at whether they voted against Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the poster child for the views and policy instincts of today's House Left. Frank missed the vote on the omnibus appropriations bill, so on that vote, lefty representative Barbara Lee (D., Calif.) took his place.

The extent to which members of the Blue Dog Coalition agree with Frank and Lee is nothing short of astounding. Eleven sided with them 100 percent of the time. Ten others stood with them all but once, eleven more all but twice. Bottom line: Two of every three of these self-proclaimed fiscal hawks voted pretty much in lock-step with the biggest spenders on the Left.

Frank-Lee's 100 percent clones include Reps. Leonard Boswell (Iowa), Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Dennis Moore (Kan.), Patrick Murphy (Penn.), and Earl Pomeroy (N. Dak.). Those who strayed from the Frank-Lee axis only once include Reps. Jason Altmire (Penn.), Melissa Bean (Ill.), Ben Chandler (Ky.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.), Mike Ross (Ark.), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S. Dak.), and John Tanner (Tenn.). Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Gabriella Giffords (Ariz.), Baron Hill (Ind.), and Charles Melancon (La.), were among those who voted the big-government line all but twice.

Some of the most outspoken members of the Blue Dog Coalition also scored points with the big spenders, voting with Frank and Lee six out of nine times. They include Reps. John Barrow (Ga.), Dan Boren (Okla.), Allen Boyd (Fla.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), and Jim Matheson (Utah).

Only six Blue Dogs (four of them freshmen and all representing districts that John McCain carried in the 2008 presidential election) voted against this spending more than half the time. They are Bobby Bright (Ala.), Parker Griffith (Ala.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Colin Peterson (Minn.), and Gene Taylor (Miss.).

To be sure, the Blue Dogs include a disproportionate number of House Democratic dissenters. The two House Democrats who opposed the SCHIP expansion, for example, were Blue Dogs (Bright, and Jim Marshall of Georgia). Blue Dog Marion Berry of Arkansas was the sole Democratic dissenter on the bill to triple the federal government's role in subsidizing volunteerism. And all but one of the eleven Democrats who opposed the economic-stimulus bill hail from the Blue Dog Coalition.

But most of the time, the large majority of Blue Dogs have been enablers of the Big Government agenda. Ultimately, the extent of their alliance with House uber-liberals reflects the Democratic leadership's most remarkable and overlooked accomplishment: the use of a form of legislative triage. On the big issues, the Democrats quietly condone the loss of an "acceptable" number — but only an acceptable number — of Blue Dog votes. For example, Tennessee representative Jim Cooper recently said the White House had encouraged him to work against the stimulus bill. He claimed the encouragement came because the White House itself didn't like the bill, but changed his tune when the administration objected. The incident fits the Democrats' modus operandi of letting Blue Dogs demonstrate their fiscal austerity — so long as the votes don't affect the ultimate outcome.

Is there a limit to how often the Blue Dogs will trade their bib overalls for the trendy attire of their liberal House colleagues? We already have seen them blanch at the prospect of cap-and-trade legislation that would wreck havoc on the heavy concentration of manufacturing and agricultural jobs in their districts. The same trepidation may soon become apparent with respect to universal-health-care legislation.

As with any addiction, however, the first step to overcoming the obsession with bigger and bigger government is the recognition that, yes, there is a problem. If their votes are any indication, our Blue Dog friends are not there yet.

Obama says, "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation"

2009-04-06T13:04:00.001-04:00

See for yourself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIVd7YT0oWA&feature=player_embedded

With roughly 80% of Americans that identify themselves as Christian, President Obama tells the Turkish P.M.

that "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation." This after the President saying we will "never be at war with Islam."

I'm glad he clarified, the United States liberating 50 million muslims from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq,

and from the control of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they might have gotten confused.

Does anyone think that a leader from a muslim country would ever come to Washington D.C. and make a speech saying

"we don't consider ourselves a muslim nation?" What would be the response from his country?

This is what happens when you elect an untested, inexperienced man who had no problem being friend with a domestic

terrorist, and sat in the pews of a church with a hate filled pastor for 20 years.

Why not just say, America values freedom of religion for every citizen?

Elections have consequences....

Who is this guy? Has he ever studied history? Read anything from the Founding Fathers?

I understand "freedom of religion", but should he be saying this in a Muslim country?

Oh... that's right! This is Barack Obama who hates America, hates capitalism and wants to destroy us from within!

This is nice; now he's attacking religion and our Judeo-Christian value system this country was built upon.

Auditions for "The Women"

2009-03-07T10:20:00.001-05:00

A TCWatcher reports:

Auditions for "The Women" next Wednesday, March 11 from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Masquerade Theatre.

This play is set in the 30's not like the recent movie.

Google "1939 The Women" to see a b&w trailer of the old movie...it's a hoot!

There are 40+ parts for all levels of experience and even some non-speaking parts for those just wanting to just get their feet wet. Plus Johnny is so fun to work with!

All women are encouraged to come try out!

Blue Dogs Roll Over

2009-02-20T09:26:00.000-05:00

Toothless Blue Dogs Roll Over on Stimulus Bill
Donald Lambro
Friday, February 20, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The House's Blue Dog Democrats like to pretend they are the deficit tigers of Congress, determined to stop runaway spending and stamp out waste, fraud and abuse.

But when push came to shove, as it did in the pork-crammed $800 billion economic-stimulus bill, most of these tigers mewed like pussycats, voting in lock step with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank for a bill they had not read.

One by one, they inserted their voting cards into the slot in front of their seats and charged the stimulus money to the taxpayers. The first payment will be due April 15. Brace your wallets.

"Toothless tigers is one way to describe them. They are more gums than teeth when it comes to putting a bite on deficits," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union.

NTU's "bill tally" monitoring showed that Blue Dogs propose three-quarters less spending increases than the Democrats as a whole, but the majority of Blue Dogs still vote for most of the spending bills their party brings to the floor.

"The Blue Dogs can't say with a straight face that they have a moderate or conservative bone in their body. They're exposed as pawns of the most left-wing Democratic leadership in American history," says tax-cut crusader Grover Norquist.

There are about four-dozen Blue Dog Democrats who took their name about a dozen years ago from their Southern ancestry and who showed their party loyalty by saying they would vote for an old yellow dog before voting Republican.

At the start of the new Congress, they vowed that a "top priority will be to refocus Congress on truly balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the national debt places on them."

In a Feb. 4 letter to Speaker Pelosi, Indiana Rep. Baron Hill and seven other Blue Dog leaders said they had "serious reservations" about the big stimulus bill then working its way through Congress.

But on final passage, only a half-dozen brave Blue Dogs voted against the bill that will, with interest, add $1 trillion-plus to the federal debt.

One of them was Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick of Idaho, who had offered a $200 billion alternative, but when it failed, he voted no on the stimulus put together by Democratic leaders and the White House.

Minnick soberly told his constituents: "We must be mindful of the legacy we leave for future generations. The consequences of this bill will be painful and possibly harsh for those tasked with the burden of paying for what has been passed today."

The only other Blue Dog no votes came from Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith, both of Alabama, Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Heath Shuler of North Carolina.

Not all Blue Dogs are entirely honest or accurate in reporting what they voted for on Friday, Feb. 13. Rep. Allen Boyd of Florida issued a release that said "The final stimulus package includes $320 billion in spending initiatives, compared to $544 billion in the original House stimulus bill."

Actually, the bill he voted for contained $515 billion in spending and a whittled-down $275 billion in tax reductions.

But if some of the bill's questionable spending is a sign of things to come, the Blue Dogs and their colleagues will have a lot of explaining to do.

Go online to www.Propublica.org, a journalistic watchdog outfit that is shining some sunlight on the spending spree, and you will get an eyeful. The group boiled down the 1,000-plus-page bill to its separate appropriations. The list is a veritable who's who of all the major departments, agencies and programs in Washington. Everyone has his fingers in the pie.

There's $150 million for the Economic Development Administration, a tired Great Society holdover whose expenditures have wasted untold sums; $636 million for the Small Business Administration whose loans have never made a dent in new business development, affecting only a tiny fraction of start-ups; $1 billion for the Census Bureau for temporary census-taker jobs; and $2.5 billion for National Science Foundation grants to university academics who already have jobs.

Propublica also reported last week that, when it crunched the figures in the stimulus bill for about $100 billion in transportation and infrastructure projects, it "found that states with high unemployment are getting less money per-capita or even per-unemployed worker than states with low unemployment."

For example, Rhode Island, with 9.3 percent jobless, gets $193 million, while Virginia, with 4.8 percent unemployment, gets $890.6 million.

And www.StimulusWatch.org now lists all of the projects that are being funded under Obama's plan, many of which raise questions as to need.

In Lewiston, Maine, for instance, $2.6 million will be spent to build a bike and pedestrian path. In Portland, Maine, $2 million will go for a skateboard park; $1 million for a bike-pedestrian trail; $2.5 million to restore a pond; and $500,000 to replace the city's fleet of police cruisers and SUVs.

This is just a small sampling of what the Blue Dogs voted for, and no doubt there's more to come. Stay tuned.

"Conservative" Blue Dogs jet with wives to Paris on our dime.

2009-02-15T16:34:00.000-05:00

Tanner, Gordon Vote to Give You $13 a Week, Take Wives to Paris for Valentine's Day on Taxpayers' Tab

Congressmen John Tanner and Bart Gordon are headed to Paris for Valentine's Day at taxpayers' expense

NASHVILLE – What are you doing for Valentines Day? Tennessee Congressman John Tanner – who claims to be a fiscally conservative Democrat – is taking his wife to Paris, France – and you are paying for it.

This will be Rep. Tanner's second taxpayer-funded trip to Europe since the November election. He traveled with a Congressional delegation to Valencia, Spain, and Rome, Italy, in November. This weekend, he's leading another Congressional delegation – 13 Congress members and 10 spouses – on a nine-day trip to Europe include Brussels, Rome, Vienna, Paris on Valentine's Day, and a stop at a famed ski town in the Bavarian Alps.

While the average American in tough economic times looks for bargains when they travel, Tanner and the delegation will be flying with an entourage of spouses, staffers and military escorts on a military plane at huge expense.

"The estimated average tax cut that middle class Americans will receive for the last six months of the year as part of the bloated 'economic stimulus' package that John Tanner and the Democrats passed in Congress today is $13 a week," said Bill Hobbs, communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party.

"At $13 a week, it would take the average American several years to save up enough money to take their sweetie to Paris for Valentine's Day, but John Tanner and Bart Gordon aren't average Americans," Hobbs said. "They are Democrat congressmen who claim to be fiscal conservatives but are right now jetting off to Europe at taxpayers' expense instead of coming back to Tennessee to explain why they voted for billions of dollars in pork projects and payoffs to special interest groups but only $13 a week for the average middle class taxpayer."

The front page of Tanner's congressional website notes today that each American's share of America's $10.7 trillion national debt is $35,038.15. On Friday, before jetting off to Europe, Tanner and Gordon voted to add $787 billion dollars to the national debt. Your share of that – more than $2,600 - would be enough to pay for a weekend in Paris.

In December 2007, Tanner gave a speech on the House floor in which he criticized continued borrowing to pay for today's federal spending., calling a proposal to add $50 billion to the national debt "irresponsible."

Another reason to thank the "conservative" Blue Dogs for supporting "Porkulus"

2009-02-15T15:55:00.001-05:00

Fox News is on air now giving details of Porkulus.

According to Fox, the only part of the economy to be cut by Porkulus is our military -- 10% "to start," in the words of Barney Frank, for maintenance, training, and procurement

Other details include the Veterans Administration sharply cutting medical treatment for vets, and for military retirees, patient premiums and co-pays for TRICARE are being raised 100-400%, PLUS medical care for veterans and retirees will be the first to be rationed by the White House Office of Healthcare Coordination.

FEEL the love, tolerance, and bipartisanship...

Congress is voting on a bill they have not read or seen.

2009-02-13T14:54:00.001-05:00

Our Congress is voting on a 1,434-page bill that no one—repeat, no one—has had a chance to read in its entirety, much less digest and deliberate. More lobbyists have copies of the bill than congressmen.

*This bill has been advertised as an economic stimulus bill—despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will actually weaken our nation's long-term economic growth.

* The bill reverses the bipartisan and highly successful welfare reforms of 1996 and drastically expands the welfare state. For instance, it will start rewarding states for adding people to their welfare rolls, rather than for helping them find gainful employment. And contrary to long-established practice, it will entitle able-bodied adults without children to receive cash assistance.

* It does extreme violence to the concept of federalism—bailing out states that have spent irresponsibly at the expense of taxpayers in states that have been fiscally prudent

* It greatly shifts the responsibility and power over health care delivery and decision making from individuals to government. Among other things, it would create a new federal health board to decide which medical services are "effective" in America, paving the way for government effectively to overrule the clinical decisions of private physicians.

* It deliberately censors religious speech and worship on school campuses by prohibiting use of any "stimulus" funds for facilities that are used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school of divinity.

The list goes on. These and similar provisions will mean fundamental changes in our society. In many instances, the bill would establish policies that directly challenge widely held American values.

Both the President and the leaders of the House and Senate have violated their solemn promises that the bill would be available for several days of public review prior to voting, so that the American people might have a chance to learn what is in the bill and to make their views known to their elected officials.

Blue Dogs Give Mouse $30 Million Dollars

2009-02-12T20:00:00.001-05:00

Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese

Talk about a pet project. A tiny mouse with the longtime backing of a political giant may soon reap the benefits of the economic-stimulus package.

Lawmakers and administration officials divulged Wednesday that the $789 billion economic stimulus bill being finalized behind closed doors in Congress includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi represents the city of San Francisco and has previously championed preserving the mouse's habitat in the Bay Area.

The revelation immediately became a political football, as Republicans accused Democrats of reneging on a promise to keep so-called earmarks that fund lawmakers' favorite projects out of the legislation. Democrats, including Mrs. Pelosi, countered that the accusations were fabricated.

Politics aside, the episode demonstrates that no matter how hard lawmakers argue that they technically lived up to their pledge to keep specific projects from being listed in the bill, there is little stopping the federal money from going to those projects after the legislation passes and federal and state agencies begin deciding where to spend their newfound dollars.

Programs for sexually transmitted diseases, smoking prevention, a clean-burning power plant and a computer center also appear ready to get infusions of money once the bill becomes law, congressional offices told The Washington Times.

"One of the proudest boasts of Democrats supporting their trillion-dollar spending plan is that it doesn't contain earmarks. But it seems like powerful Democrats will still find a way to bring home the bacon," said a frustrated Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, who took direct aim at the mouse.

"This certainly doesn't sound like it will create or save American jobs," Mr. Steel said. "So can Speaker Pelosi explain exactly how we will improve the American economy by helping the adorable little" critter?

A spokesman for Mrs. Pelosi said Republicans "fabricated" the claim.

"The speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. This is yet another contrived partisan attack," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. "Restoration is key to economic activity, including farming, fisheries, recreation and clean water."

Republican lawmakers said they learned of the marsh money when asking about how various agencies plan to spend stimulus money. The vitality of the mouse has been an issue for Mrs. Pelosi and other California Democrats since the early 1990s.

President Obama boasts that the stimulus plan contains no earmarks because Congress technically did not use the earmark process for lawmakers to request and drop in specific spending items. Congressional leaders were putting the finishing touches on a $789 billion final version of the bill Wednesday night. It was not clear how many of the programs criticized by Republicans remained in the package.

Some of those items that Republicans are calling earmarks include $200 million for a clean-burning power plant in Mattoon, Ill., and $750 million for the National Computer Center and $500 million for the National Institutes of Health offices, both located in Maryland.

Other spending questioned by Republicans -- but not considered on the chopping block -- are $275 million for flood prevention, $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries, and $650 million for the digital TV converter-box coupons.

The list goes on: $1 billion for administrative costs and construction of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office buildings, $100 million for constructing U.S. Marshals office buildings, and $1.3 billion for NASA, including $450 million tagged for science.

Then there is the $300 million for hybrid and electric cars for the federal government. The funding includes golf carts for federal workers.

The "Change" brought to DC by 0bama

2009-02-09T12:47:00.000-05:00

The only Change Obama has brought to DC is now the corruption is bigger and bolder.

The List

First president not to attend The Inaugural Medal of Honor Ball
5 exectutive orders the first week in office. Including
* -allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States.
* - Scrapping the Mexico City Policy that protected taxpayers from involvement in overseas abortions for eight years. Obama will send hundreds of millions of dollars to groups that aggressively promote abortions on a worldwide scale.
Insults China
First interview, with foreign news outlet- for Muslims
Talks about his muslim family
Picks fight with Limbaugh
Won't take question from press
Allows to FDA approve first human embryonic stem cell safety trial (3 days after Pres. Bush left)
Excludes any compromise with GOP on Stimulus bill Massive pork in stimulus bill
5% of stimulus bill to actually go to infrastructure
Offers to negotiate directly with Iran
Puts 5 millionairs on his cabinet
Makes a tax cheat the Sec. of the Treasury
Bombs Pakistan
Argues with the Pope on abortion
Signed the SCHIP bill, that gives health care to illegals
Won't allow a video of his retaking of the oath of office
Ordered the closure of Gitmo
Halts all pending Bush regulations

Second week:

Appoints extremist Samantha Powers to head foreign policy team
Secret nuke talks with Iran/Syria
Appoints tax cheat for commerce secretary
Illegal alien aunt, granted a "stay" of deportation Daschle the tax cheat/lobbiest proposed as secretary for health care
Nancy Killefer for candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for federal government fails to pay household help taxes ...withdrawn
Obama brings the U.S. Census Bureau under White House jurisdiction under protest from Republican lawmakers
12 lobbyists (or more) appointed to high gov't positions within the first 14 days of his administration (up to 17 by another source)
Administration demands defense cuts of 10% during wartime
Obama envoy George Mitchell tells Palistinians " they believe can extract from Israel concessions reaching "much further" than during talks held under the previous administration
The European Union warns the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting Obama's "Buy American" policy, intensifying fears of a trade war Obama immediately backs down from policy
After stating her priority would be "mum-in-chief", Michelle Obama goes on listening tour and then makes political speeches with her husband not yet one month in office...
George Mitchell resigns from a Saudi Lobbying firm, two weeks into his appointment as "Special Middle East Envoy"
Obama administration says it will cancel 77 drilling leases near Utah parks
Ogden, President Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, used to represent Playboy
Steven Chu, Obama's secretary of energy (not a climatologist) states: California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming
Obama names "most fined" Washington State bureaucrat Ron Simms to the #2 position in HUD
Hilda Solis, Obama's pick for labor secretary's husband is found to be a tax cheat just before the confirmation vote
Directed military prosecutors to revoked charges pending against mastermind of USS Cole bombing: Al Nashiri
Adding insult to injury: speaks to families of USS Cole dead, after decision to free Al Nashiri- not before

Third week in office

Obama changes the setup of the National Security Councel by executive order
Shauna Daly, professional "dirt digger" hired as "White House councel research director"
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel got free housing from House rep (D) Rosa DeLauro for 5 years . DeLauro is married to Stan Greenberg; a pollster (Quinlin Rosner Research) with lucrative contracts from both that representatives.

Stay tuned for more "change"

Blue Sky for Obama - Nothing but Blue Sky

2009-02-03T20:57:00.001-05:00

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Media: Katrina crashes into New Orleans, FEMA responds feebly and President Bush is blamed for the loss of life and limb. Winter smacks middle America, killing 55, FEMA's late again, but President Obama gets a pass.

Last week's winter storm, paying no attention to Al Gore's warnings about global warming, has left a trail of dead and broken bodies and wrecked property from the Plains to the East Coast. Of the 55 deaths, 24 have been in hard-hit Kentucky.

Throughout the region, hundreds of thousands are still without power and some survivors have had to resort to using melted snow for their water supply. A shortage of gasoline and heating oil has made life miserable for many.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear called the ice storm "the biggest natural disaster that this state has ever experienced, at least in modern history." The Federal Emergency Management Agency, however, apparently didn't get the memo. Much as they did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, locals are complaining that FEMA has not been swift enough in delivering aid.

Nothing remarkable about that. FEMA, whose performance in the 2005 Katrina disaster wasn't exactly sterling, is a federal agency that supplements state and local authorities. It's not an on-site organization and can't respond instantly. That's the job of the city, county and state governments.

Sensing that the gloomy stories gushing out of New Orleans were the perfect platform from which to lash into the president, an opportunistic media-political-celebrity pack roundly accused Bush of negligence, incompetence and outright malice.

From rapper Kanye West's immediate charge that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's blog entry from just over a month ago lamenting that Bush did a "terrible" job of handling of the disaster, smears rained down in a devastating storm of their own.

The bitter criticism achieved its intended effect. Many people believe that Bush's FEMA response — or more accurately the media's biased portrayal of it — was the moment he began to lose the public.

Meanwhile, Obama, whose administration on taking office vilified Bush on Katrina, has done no more for the victims of the winter storm. Yet no tirade has been forthcoming from either the media or the loopy orbit of Celebrity Planet.

The double standard is what we've come to expect, but it's not what we should continue to accept.

THOSE FOLKS IN KENTUCKY ARE MADE OF SOME PRETTY TOUGH STUFF! (Steve Gill)

An email from a person in Graves County, Kentucky who hasn't seen all those FEMA people that President Obama and the Governor have been touting. Keep these folks in your prayers, as they continue to be ignored by the mainstream media and their President.

"I am a resident of Graves County in Western Kentucky and live in an area that has been devastated by the Ice Storm. Members of my family have been without electricity since Tuesday Night Jan 27, 2009. We have been told that is will be up to 4 weeks before the power will be up and running.   I am very disappointed in President Obama for not showing any interest at all in my state. I did not vote for Obama because I felt his qualifications and lack of experience would lead this country in a downward spiral and cause great damage to our would status. I saw video and pictures of President Bush personally going to areas of devastation after Katrina, Rita, Tornado Damaged regions, etc. once the areas were secure and safe for travel. I find it hard to believe that Obama shows no interest in a state that has had a record number of people affected by the Ice Storm with no power. Is Obama afraid of the gun toting, God fearing, patriotic citizens of the Great State of Kentucky? Is it because Kentucky did not vote/support him in the election? Or is it because his handlers have not told him what to do yet? (i.e. Pelosi and Reid)

This being said, no one in my family has been contacted by FEMA/National Guard/County Sheriff's office/ etc. to check on our well being. We have 4 families that have been living in a house.   There are 5 children (ages 10 to 5) and 6 adults. We have a wood burning stove for heat and we use it to cook on. We had to buy a $1000.00 generator to provide electricity to run our well for water, our freeze/fridge, and to provide entertainment for our children. We have not relied on anyone to provide for our families and I am glad that we have not relied on any outside help. We live in the south end of Graves County and we are about 15 miles from the county seat of Mayfield. Our Gov., Steve Beashear, has been our end of the state a few times since the Ice Storm has ended and he has been praising the Pres for his help in sending FEMA and federal help to our area. Beashear is a democrat and I am sure he is afraid to speak out against Obama but we need to have leaders that show real interest in their people.

We have been told the things would be better with FEMA and that FEMA would help and provide assistance to the people of this area. The fact is FEMA will repay the State and Local Governments for their costs in the clean up and recovery, but that all of the money individual citizens have spent to take care of themselves and others will not be paid back or no assistance will be made available to them. Generators, Propane, and Kerosene have all been made available to the people affected with power outages, but is has come as a price. Water has been given out to people in need, if you can make it to the shelters and distribution centers. The government has provided MRE's to the shelters and center, however all of the Wal-Mart/Grocery Stores in our area had to throw out all of their frozen/refrigerated food, due to power outages, spoiled or not.

It would be nice to see the President in our area showing support to American Citizens in a time of need. He could make us a bunch of empty promises to help and assist us all, like he did during the campaign. Well this is not going to happen. So what I am trying to say is We are doing fine without the help and assistance that is being mentioned in the news and we will pray, comfort, and take care of each other on our own."

"Stimulus" Bailout Brilliant Politicial Move by Dems

2009-01-31T17:35:00.001-05:00

Republicans and Conservatives Will Pay For It!

It's halftime at a good basketball game, and I was sitting doing what I often do at halftime, when I had a giant epiphany.

The so-called "stimulus" bill and the literally hundreds of billions of dollars it will pump into the coffers of big time Dem supporters, such as ACORN, AIDS clinics, teachers' unions and the like, is a brilliant political move by the Dems. It's more big government/taxpayer money to pay big salaries to people running big, useless government programs, given to people who always vote Democratic!

But that's only half of it!

Not only will Dems get all the benefits, and all the cash, but Republicans and their political brethren will be the only ones pay all the bills! The Dems won't have to pay the extravagant repayment costs, because an overwhelming majority of Democrat voters don't pay federal income taxes! If they do pay income taxes, they often receive offsetting welfare benefits that more than compensate for the income tax they pay. Of course, if inflation hits us all, as it will, their "entitlements" will go up too!

This is a brilliant political move on the Dems part!

It's as if you and your school teacher-neighbor went out and bought a new Cadillac together. But you have to make all the payments, you pay for the insurance, gasoline and maintenance…. and your neighbor is the only one who gets to drive the car!

I know I am probably the last peerson on the block to comprehend the double whammy political and monetary benefits to the Democrats of this plan, but I marvel at Obama, Reid and Pelosi's brilliance. They make Nero, Evita and Al Capone look like rank amateurs!

Welfare class Dems get the gold mine…. and we get the shaft…. and they will keep electing Dems because of it!

The Coming Civil War!

2009-01-26T13:59:00.001-05:00

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7901

Government is the epitome of waste, fraud, abuse and corruption

By Ron Ewart Monday, January 26, 2009

If you are a hard-working, responsible, self-reliant and successful American, how do you like billions of your taxes paying for bank, business and ne'er-do-well homebuyer bailouts, homebuyers that were encouraged by government to buy homes they couldn't afford? How do you like your government using trillions of your tax dollars for ill advised stimulus packages that won't work and aren't working?

How do you like paying for education, health care, housing and safety-net benefits for illegal aliens that are streaming into America by the millions? How do you like our open border policy and the lack of enforcement of existing laws that have become the magnet for those millions to come here in the first place? And how do you like the fact that politicians in both parties purposely allow these things to happen, for the sole purpose of increasing their base of future voters? To make matters worse, under the current regime, (socialist administration) amnesty for illegals is coming our way very soon, no matter how most Americans will object. After all, these politicians know what is best for us, don't they?

How do you like individuals being appointed by the new president to become Secretary of the Treasury, who will oversee the IRS, when the appointee has cheated on his income tax, hired illegal aliens as house keepers and some other little misdeeds he was purported to have committed? How do you like an individual (Holder) with an avowed mindset against individual gun ownership, being appointed to the top American Justice official, attorney general of the United States?

How do you like your tax dollars being used in foreign aid, that is given to dictators, despots and other cretins who use our money for their own enrichment and trickle only a few of our dollars to their "subjects"? Did you know that your current socialist president is now pushing for 0.7% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP - $14 Trillion) to be paid out in foreign aid, because that is what the United Nations says is the fair amount for America? Did you know that 0.7% of GDP is just shy of $100,000,000,000 (billion) dollars of our tax money going offshore, and for what? This is nothing more than government forcing you to be charitable to the entire world, at the point of a gun. (Don't think so? Try not paying your taxes.)

National Health Care is coming whether we like it our not. Did you know that Obama's current stimulus package of almost $1 Trillion dollars, sets aside $600,000,000 to prepare for National Health Care? If they are spending this kind of money for preparation, you can bet we will get National Health Care.

How do you like government telling you what to eat, what to wear, where to live, where to work, what to drive, or being forced to not drive at all and paying for government mega-projects that always come with huge cost overruns, where they have to go back to the taxpayer for more money to finish the project? Happens every time. Government is the epitome of waste, fraud, abuse and corruption.

How do you like your government telling you that you have to get off of oil, drive your car less and decrease your carbon foot print to save us from the dire predictions of the fraud that is man-caused global warming? How will you like the cost of everything increasing because of government's headlong drive to decrease man-caused CO2 emissions and engage in the insanity of cap and trade policies? How do you like your government telling you that you have to subsidize highly inefficient wind and solar power, that is but a small fraction of what oil and coal produce? How do you like the fact that environmentalists and government have stood in the way of clean nuclear energy for 30 years?

How do you like government telling you what you can or cannot do with your land? And you rural landowners, how do you feel about being asked to bear almost the entire burden of environmental protection, while your city brethren get off virtually scot-free? These same city folks who have the majority votes to elect the politicians that pass the environmental laws that only affect rural landowners. That's fair, isn't it? No it isn't fair and in fact, violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

How do you like your federal government sticking their fingers into local public schools and mandating, with federal law, socialism, radical environmentalism, multi-culturalism and the one-world-order being taught to your children in those schools? How do you like the fact that the federal government prints the books that teach our children about our form of government, but those books teach that our form of government is a Constitutional Democracy, not a Constitutional Republic? The distinctions between a Democracy and a Republic are a canyon wide. Does brainwashing and indoctrination come to mind?

How do you like the fact that the injustices that were being inflicted on the colonials in 1776, that caused them to revolt against the tyrannical rule of England, are now the very same injustices Americans are being accosted with, by their own government, for the last 80 to 100 years? How do you like the fact that under the current Obama administration and a very liberal congress, those injustices will increase at an accelerated rate?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The giant question is, how long will freedom-loving Americans take it? How long will the producers put up with paying for the non-producers and outright billion-dollar gifts in foreign aid? How long will those brave Americans who are embedded with the song of liberty, take the theft of their sweat, blood and tears, before they say, enough is enough? Which of the injustices we are now enduring, will be the trigger that will send a large percentage of these Americans over the edge and declare civil war against the non-producers, who leverage government with their majority vote, to fill their government-sponsored "pig trough"? Or, how long will it be before the producers of our society, either "check out", or declare war on their own government for these injustices?

The current direction of America will and is producing mediocrity, self-loathing and a decline in production and morality. These cultural maladies will only get worse on this path we take.

Predictions of future events is a dicey game. Many have tried but predictions, throughout history, turn out to be mostly inaccurate ..... the Mayans, Nostradamus and a few others have been given marginal credit. But we will take a stab at some general predictions. The hard truth is, we are headed for a civil war. Nevertheless, rest assured, this will not be the civil war of 1861, wherein brother rises up against brother and state declares war against another state or states. This war won't be fought with larger-than-life generals, unless nationwide anarchy ensues.

As the liberals in the current administration squeeze Americans with their socialist, radical environmental and one-world-order agenda, as they work towards dismantling American sovereignty, even more so than previous administrations have done, small armed revolts will begin to appear in isolated areas. These small revolts will be immediately squashed by local law enforcement. Even so, the small revolts will grow and become larger ones. There will be individual attacks on other individuals for perceived threats or revenge for acts of violence. Occasions of Hatfield and McCoy feuds will grow. There will be attacks by individuals on government institutions, as more and more folks let their growing frustrations morph into violent acts. There will be individual and multiple violent attacks on illegal aliens.

Still, other non-violent revolts will come in the form of silent and noisy protests. Some revolts will come in the form of disobeying the law and withholding taxes. These are already happening. Some will come in the form of increased lobbying of politicians and rising numbers of court cases to undo what the liberals have done and are doing. But even worse, some will come in the form of wholesale cheating. The prevailing attitude will be, if the government can cheat, abuse our trust and their power and corrupt our institutions, why should individual Americans be any different? A breakdown in morality, honesty, integrity and honor will accelerate. This breakdown is already well underway.

Large infusions of borrowed or printed dollars for government stimulus packages and outright handouts, will accelerate inflation and/or end up in hyper inflation. This will lead to rising hunger as it takes more dollars to buy the necessities of life. Rising hunger will trigger more government intervention and the requirement for more taxes. Taxes will rise accordingly. More banks will fail. A deep depression could be just around the corner.

In some of these occurrences, the government will declare martial law and they will suspend constitutional protections, like Habeas Corpus, as did President Lincoln during the Civil War.

All these things will come to pass in one form or another, because "We The People" have allowed government to become all powerful and corrupt and this corruption has infected a large percentage of the American population. Should we not return to the principles of our constitution, should we not re-claim our morality, and soon, as a country and as a free society we are doomed to fail and ultimate disintegration. If were trying to fail, we are doing an excellent job.

In spite of these dire predictions, there is still time to save America, if only the millions of Americans who cherish freedom, will rise up individually and collectively and get involved in the hard work of preserving, protecting and defending our Constitution and giving aid and comfort to those organizations that are working valiantly on their behalf. And to that end, have you GIVEN YOUR DOLLAR FOR FREEDOM today?

Sorry to be a party pooper

2009-01-20T22:23:00.001-05:00

Has everyone lost their marbles? The inauguration of President Obama is being treated like the Second Coming.

The coverage is so gushing we might all drown. Of course it's a great thing that America, with its history of slavery and segregation still a shockingly recent memory, now has a black President; the palpable joy of African-Americans is entirely understandable and deeply touching. And there's no doubt that Obama is a highly charismatic and attractive personality.

But what's more than a wee bit troubling is that the swooning hysteria reflects the fact that people appear to believe that as of today the world will be saved. Swords will be beaten into ploughshares, peace will be brought to the Middle East, Iran will be pacified, every American will have health insurance, poverty will be eliminated and utopia will have arrived.

Crowds: Thousands of people have been waiting through the night to gain access to the National Mall for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama

Sorry to be a party pooper but I'm afraid I must register a small note of dissent. It's not just that people have projected onto the person of Obama expectations that - especially given the world financial crisis - cannot possibly be met.

I think that the desperate dangerousness and complexity of our world and a profound terror of what properly facing up to its problems would entail have led people to believe a cartoon version of why we're in such a state - and to have invested their hopes similarly in a fantasy figure of hope, to such an extent that they have shut their ears to some very loud warning bells ringing from his past history.

People believe that Obama represents a renunciation of an America that throws its weight around the world. And they think it's that 'war-mongering' characteristic, represented in particular by President Bush and the war in Iraq, which has caused so much global trouble and resentment.

I believe that's a dangerously false analysis which fails to grasp the extent to which western civilisation is under attack from a world-wide enemy that intends to destroy it, and which further fails to distinguish between true aggression and true self-defence.

Like the hydra, the enemy now waging war on the west has many heads - but it is one enemy, and it feeds in particular on the perception that the west is weak and is no longer willing to defend itself by military means.

The very reason that so many in the west are so entranced by Obama is thus the very reason why our enemies are today rubbing their hands in satisfaction.

Obama stands for 'soft power' - the replacement of military action in defence of his nation by talking, negotiation and compromise. But with people who have non-negotiable and unconscionable agendas - such as Iran's genocidal intention to wipe Israel off the map and destroy the west - such an approach merely plays into their hands while catastrophically undermining more moderate regimes and allies.

And there's a still more troubling aspect of America's new President. For his whole career has been solidly embedded in an ultra-radical tradition which believes in revolution from the grass-roots up - and which teaches that to gain power, an activist must pose as a centrist while pursuing his real agenda of radicalising the people and revolutionising society.

Cleverly drawing upon the little-observed fact that the appeasement-minded folk who took control in the second, terminally weakened stage of the Bush administration have an approach to the world's conflicts which is strikingly similar to anti-war left-wingers, he has neutralised concerns about his supposed radicalism by assembling a governmental team which appears to be so centrist it is merely carrying on much as before.

A more careful look at all his appointments, particularly those in the second tier, reveals however a rather different and more troubling picture.

But that's all for the future. Today, no-one can predict just how the Obama presidency will turn out. He may indeed be constrained not just by current difficulties but by events not yet forseen. He may change his mind about a lot of things as a result. He may on the other hand opt for expediency until an opportunity presents itself for the kind of 'change' he dreams of. He may even turn out to be well-intentioned but hampered by inexperience and naivety. Who knows? All we can do is watch and hope that this new President does not plunge us all into even greater peril yet.

Saul Alinsky, the immensely influential far-left ideologue who invented the role of grass-roots 'community organiser' that Obama filled for so many years, laid out in his book Rules for Radicals that the revolution could only be brought about by stealth politics.

This is what he wrote: 'This is the job for today's radical - to fan the embers of hopelessness into a flame to fight. To say, 'You cannot turn away - look at it - let us change it together!' 'Look at us. We are your children. Let us not abandon each other for then we are all lost. Together we can change it for what we want...it is a job first of bringing hope and doing what every organiser must do with all people, all classes, places and times - communicate the means or tactics whereby the people can feel that they have the power to do this and that and on

'Tactics must begin with the experience of the middle class, accepting their aversion to rudeness, vulgarity and conflict. Start them easy, don't scare them off...Tactics such as stock proxies and others are waiting to be hurled into the attack...'

'Change' and 'hope': does that strike a chord with anyone? Just bear this in mind when you hear today's soaring rhetoric as America's 44th president is sworn in.

Sleep soundly, Global Warming cure coming.

2009-01-16T09:20:00.000-05:00

Waxman promises quick action on climate

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of a key House committee said Thursday he will move "quickly and decisively" to push legislation curbing greenhouse gases with a goal of passing climate legislation out of his committee before Memorial Day.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., opening the new Congress' first hearing on the threats from global warming, said inaction on the climate issue is causing uncertainties that make it more difficult to emerge from the recession.

"Our environment and our economy depend on congressional action to confront the threat of climate change and secure our energy independence," said Waxman. "U.S. industries want to invest in a clean energy future, but uncertainties about whether, when and how greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced is deterring these vital investments."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., another strong proponent of moving climate legislation, has given no indication how quickly House action might come.

But given the broad impact that regulating greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, would have, it is widely viewed that any legislation will require substantial bipartisan support, especially in the Senate.

To dramatize the business community's growing consensus that the climate issue must be confronted, Waxman invited to the first hearing 14 corporate executives and environmental leaders who have pressed for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

The 14 executives and environmentalists sat shoulder to shoulder across at a witness table spanning two-thirds of the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing room.

Dealing with climate change "will not be cheap and not be easy," warned James Rogers, chairman of Duke Energy Corp. But he said coupling a short term stimulus package with a long-term climate plan, "we have the ability to stimulate greater confidence ...(and) put the recession in the rear view mirror."

Earlier the group, the 31-member United States Climate Action Partnership, outlined its blueprint for limiting greenhouse gases, calling for an 80 percent emission reduction by mid-century with half of that coming by 2030. It calls for a ramp up of 20 percent reduction as within a dozen years. Carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing about 1 percent a year since 1990.

The group endorsed a cap-and-trade system where greenhouse gas emissions would be limited, but pollution allowances would be provided by the government, especially for carbon intensive industries such as utilities with coal burning power plants. And it would provide incentives for coal plants that capture carbon dioxide.

The business group's plan does not go as far as what President-elect Barack Obama has proposed, nor one that Waxman has floated. Obama has called for an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels, meaning greater reductions would have to be made.

Obama also has opposed giving industry free emission allowances, saying that 100 percent should be auction and the proceeds used to promote clean energy, energy efficiency and carbon capture from power plants. The coalitions plan would phase in auctions.

But the proposal outlined by the business and environmental leaders is expected to be a starting point.

"This is the model to solve the problem," Rep. Jane Harmon, D-Calif., told the group.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who chairs the subcommittee that will write the initial legislation and chairs a separate committee on climate, said a consensus for mandatory emissions reductions is clear.

"Now the hard task of enacting global warming legislation is before us," said Markey.

That point was demonstrated by Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the committee's top Republican, who said the cap-and-trade plan threatens jobs. And he recounted how each of the companies represented by the witnesses had recently suffered dramatic declines in the value of their stock.

"You cannot tell me if we adopt mandatory cap-and-trade it's going to help your stock prices," said Barton.

Among the executives were the chairmen of ConocoPhillips, General Electric, DuPont and electric utilities Exelon, NRG Energy Inc. and Duke Energy. Environmental groups included Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nature Conservancy and World Resources Institute.

Dems won the battle but may have lost the war.

2009-01-15T09:16:00.001-05:00

The following is an editorial from the left leaning liberal Jackson Sun newspaper. They get it. Judy Barker doesn't.

When you are elected with some Obion County Republican support, your first official act shouldn't be a stick in the eye of the majority party.

Judy, remember the old adage, What goes around, comes around. When you place the State of Tennessee in the control of a man whose word means nothing, you jeopardise ALL citizens.

I'm sure your thug friend, Jimmy Naifeh, will reward you for voting for a trator to his own party.

-------------------

Tennessee House Democrats have won the battle for House Speaker on Tuesday, but they might have lost the legislative cooperation war in the process. By sabotaging plans to make heir-apparent Jason Mumpower the new speaker, replacing Jimmy Naifeh, they have undermined whatever fragile trust existed between the parties and may have ultimately derailed their agenda.

Democrats nominated Kent Williams, an Elizabethton Republican, as speaker to oppose Mumpower. Then, they banded together to support him. When Williams voted for himself, it gave him the votes needed to become the new speaker. Then, Lois Deberry, a Memphis Democrat, was re-elected as speaker pro-tem.

Clearly, Democrats pulled a fast one on the unsuspecting GOP majority. But while they may have gotten what they wanted in the short term - someone of their choice as speaker and favorable committee assignments - they likely have hurt themselves in the long run.

By sabotaging Republican plans, they have destroyed the already tenuous trust that existed between the parties. How does that help them when they have a legislative issue they care about and need Republican help to advance? It doesn't. How does it help manage the serious financial problems facing the state that need bipartisan cooperation? It doesn't.

Tennessee is facing a deficit of at least $800 million. Serious cuts have already been made, with more possibly on the way. Considering that the legislature's one responsibility each year is to balance and pass the budget, it will be a lot harder to do that when the parties don't trust each other.

With their political sleight of hand, Democrats have created hard feelings and opened the door to political get-backs. One thing they can count on is that the Republicans will retaliate somehow, somewhere. And so it goes, a tit-for-tat battle that didn't have to be.

The real losers in all this are the people of Tennessee who aren't being served by the partisan bickering and political gamesmanship. But then, the people were the furthest thing from the Democrats' mind in their rush to goad the Republicans. And it will be the people who will be hurt as this political drama plays itself out during the legislative year.

He's Got No Peeps

2009-01-07T11:57:00.001-05:00

http://modernconservative.com/metablog_single.php?p=2748

By Mike Farquhar

Watching our President-elect attempt to put together a working cabinet, it finally dawned on me what he was struggling with. He's got no peeps!

Having sprung so suddenly and so successfully onto our national – even the world stage — he's been abruptly confronted with success he for which he is woefully unprepared. So he went on vacation.

In the course of a normal politician's life, he or she would have come up through the ranks, serving at local and state level—perhaps even in the military or in law enforcemen— before seeking national office. Then that candidate, with a full résumé of experience and accomplishments, would seek the presidency. That candidate would have a very big Rolodex of trusted friends who could be called upon for higher office when the candidate won.

But Mister Obama has no large Rolodex of friends, outside of the corrupt streets and back-alley dealings of the Chicago Democratic machine - and of course his very special group of preacher friends.

Now, with no actual experience with the inner workings of the Federal Government, he will be running it in just days. He is scrambling to find people who he can trust—and who are willing to work for him.

And that's a tough decision for many of the folks he's talking to, since with his zero leadership record, nobody out there has a clue what kind of a boss or commander-in-chief he'll actually be.

Many who have survived and even prospered after serving Carter and Clinton are reluctant to risk another thankless tour of government service in the ruthless spotlight of Washington today. And with the memory of how fast The Messiah reversed himself and flung Reverend Wright under the bus, anybody contemplating working for His administration knows they will always be just one hiccup or crisis away from becoming road kill.

With no peeps of his own, Mister Obama has resorted to the whisperings of the Clintons—and is picking and choosing from amongst their shopworn former retainers. Thus the selection of Governor "Pay to Play" Richardson to lead Commerce. As it turns out, some of his "commercial dealings" are being scrutinized by a grand jury. Ooops!

Would it be too cynical to suggest that ~ just maybe ~ the Clintons might misguide The Messiah enough to crack open the door to 2012? Naah, they wouldn't sink that low!

And with his well-known disdain for our military and intelligence services, it is little wonder that he picked retired Clinton budget wonk Leon Panetta to become his chief spymaster. Obama already believes he knows all the answers, and can resolve all disagreement by face-to-face negotiations. So what does he really need a functioning intelligence agency for anyway? Simply plug a proven old bureaucrat into General Hayden's empty chair, and everything will be just fine.

Now a callous or skeptical observer might conclude that this is really a plot to resume Jimmy Carter's dismantling of our intelligence services. I would never believe that of such a patriotic man as our President-elect, even if he doesn't render customary honors to our flag, and wants a new "less warlike" national anthem.

No, Obama's problem is that he and his Faithful Followers are just full of ideas about how things should be run, what laws need to be passed, and what our government should look like. But none of them have ever actually ever run anything of a serious nature.

Mrs. Clinton once worked as an attorney in Arkansas—but managed to lose her billing records in the move to Washington in 1993. And her legal assistant, Vince Foster, killed himself just six months later. Throughout her marriage, she was unaware or unmoved by her husband's serial philandering which led to his impeachment in 1998. Now, she will help formulate, direct, and deliver our nation's foreign policy, and oversee some 288 embassies and missions worldwide, always keeping tabs on subtle nuances in the positions of all of our friends and foes? She is just so well qualified!

Governor Richardson was once our high-profile ambassador to the UN—but no amount of diplomacy will get him out of his pending legal problems. His idea of Commerce is "Pay to play" with a list of his favorite projects delivered to contract bidders. His decision to "withdraw his nomination" will not end the scandal, or absolve Obama from the burden of another public display of poor judgement.

Even political wizard and campaign genius Rahm Emanuel is connected to too many Chicago politicians of questionable virtue, and who today knows for sure what US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has on tape? When before in history has a president-elect and his chief of staff been questioned by law enforcement weeks before taking the oath of office?

We could have seen this coming. When he picked the village idiot – Joe "Lying Lips" Biden to become his official stooge, we should have seen that The Messiah was preoccupied with getting elected, and hadn't given a moment's thought to actually governing. He certainly wasn't thinking about our country in the event he died in office.

Why doesn't Mister Obama have good people around him—qualified, trustworthy people?

The American press and the American voters should have been asking this throughout the election cycle. But the huge crowds of adoring worshipers, the Obama T-shirts, the bumper stickers, and the highly successful web-based campaign hid a fatal shortcoming—Obama doesn't make friends easily. He's not that kind of person. He doesn't need friends. He needs mirrors, microphones, admirers, worshipers, sycophants, fawning adulators, and supplicants . . . but not friends.

He is almost a textbook case of narcissism. His two books were about himself, planned packaging for his eventual presidential run. He wrote nothing about his vision of how to run the country, beyond the basics of Socialism. Was he keeping it a secret, or was there really no detailed vision?

Who are this man's close friends and buddies? Who are his wife's close friends and buddies? Is anybody close to this most unusual man? Nobody asked these questions throughout the campaign. They just felt chills running up their legs, they worshiped, and they voted.

And now we have a president-elect with no close trusted friends, and no people around him that he's known for years who are qualified for key high-level appointments. Since most of you reading this can think of at least one person far more qualified to be our next spymaster than "Save the Seals" Panetta, why couldn't Barack Hussein Obama?

Anybody worried yet?

/s/ Iron Mike
Old Soldier, - Still Good for Parts!

Predictions for the New Obama "Presidency"

2009-01-06T09:36:00.001-05:00

by Kit Lange

Now that America has shown us all that affirmative action even works in politics, I've compiled a list of things that you can probably expect to happen. These predictions are 80% gleaned from information all of us have access to, and 15% gut instinct based on many years of research, historical study, and being glued to current affairs. The other 5% is just anger at my countrymen's stupidity--I admit it.

Websites and mass emails offering "free grants," courtesy of the government and "Obama's wealth redistribution." Actually, this one's a freebie, because I have an email with a date and timestamp of literally minutes after Obama was declared the winner, offering exactly that.
Israel will understand this election was the end of any type of assistance, military or otherwise, from the U.S. , and will stop holding back their defense at the request of the American administration. Look for a first strike on Iran soon, as well as increased activity by the Israeli military in general. Israel is on her own now, and God help us all because of it.
Look for Iranian retaliation--against American targets. That goes doubly for other terrorist organizations. We just elected a man with the full endorsement of every major terrorist group in the world as leader of the free world. It's the political equivalent of hiring a child molester to babysit your kids while you leave for the weekend. Not only is HE going to have fun with your child, but he'll probably sit and watch while his friends come over and do it too.
Look for far-left justices appointed to the Supreme Court, effectively tying up the entire government in a trifecta of liberal humanism, the buzzwords of which remain empty platitudes like "hope and change," and the ultimate goal of which is socialism--and soon, sharia law.
Military cases of troops being tried and convicted for killing the enemy in combat will continue to rise--and the conviction/plea-bargain rate will stay at nearly 100%, as the government seeks to use the best men and women this country has to offer as sacrificial lambs on the altar of global appeasement. Those brave and honorable men who currently reside in prison cells across the country, stripped of their rank, their careers, families, and their good name, will not taste free air again for many years. Their sacrifices and their stories will be forgotten by the general public, remembered only by those of us who continue to fight for them.
Look for the slow but steady erosion of rights you have enjoyed for your entire lives--all the while being told it's "for your own good." Restrictions on gun ownership, home schooling, encouraged dependence on the ever-growing federal government. More nanny-state provisions will be put into place to protect the "disadvantaged" and the "poor," (read: lazy, uneducated, unwilling to better themselves) even while groups like the unborn, the mentally handicapped, elderly, and terminally ill are slowly pushed toward euthanasia. Of course, this will be done with feel-good phrases like "death with dignity," "not wanting to be a burden," and "merciful release from suffering," all of which ignore the basic fact that we are killing people without their consent for the "good of the people." Before you tell me I'm crazy, let's just remember that Barack Obama was the ONLY senator in the Illinois state senate to vote against providing medical care for babies who were inconsiderate enough to survive an abortion. Also, look for taxes to go up. Yes, they'll go up.
You think the economy is bad now? Just wait. You'll have the most expensive "free" health care ever. Bread lines aren't just for Russians anymore.
We have traded experience for color, freedom for slavery--and the irony is that the average American sheeple thinks their vote somehow righted an ancient wrong, somehow ENDED the spectre of slavery and ushered in some beautiful era of liberty. In reality, we are about to be less free than you ever thought possible.

I watched the faces of those crowded into the mob (excuse the pun) in Chicago. They stared at Obama like he was a god, an idol, a panacea to their every want and need. We have truly failed as a nation if we are at the point where we feel we must look to one man to take care of us all, to be our father figure and our sugar daddy. We have lost not only the "can-do" attitude of past generations, but the "MUST-do" attitude of our forefathers. We have allowed ourselves to become reduced from Patrick Henry's proud cry of "liberty or death" to the sniveling, whining idea that we are owed something. We have gone from being the honorable defenders of freedom, to being told we are the problem.

The eyes of Obama and McCain were also telling. McCain acted with class and grace in his concession speech , offering the most honorable response I've seen yet. I don't agree with all of McCain's positions, but it cannot be denied that the man has served his nation--at permanent and severe detriment to himself--for half a century.

His eyes were clear and sincere, honest. His speech underlined the very reasons why, of the two men offered, he was hands down the best choice.

On the other hand, Obama's eyes were cold, calculating. His manner was smug and still carried the arrogance he has always had. His facial expression was one of barely disguised disdain for everything people like me believe in. His body language was smooth, polished--too much so. He talked of patriotism as though it is a value he is familiar with--and yet, his horrifying attitude toward the country he now leads is as well-documented as his friendships with those who seek its demise. He is charismatic to those who don't know what to look for, and he is inspiring to those who cannot or will not think for themselves. However, too many who voted for him are guilty of the most dangerous kind of hypocrisy. You see, we are told daily that we must not see color, just mankind. (We are all family, you know--or so we're told.) And yet Barack Obama was handed the White House on a silver platter by a fawning media, a bevy of foreign donors (who, to this day and in violation of U.S. election laws, remain nameless and unaccounted for), and a populace who voted based on color instead of right and wrong--even in the face of the most damning evidence against a Presidential candidate in many years, perhaps ever.

It is said that the people receive the government they deserve. Sadly, I fear that's correct. We have become complacent, unwilling to see the writing on the wall, content to frolic in the warm water without bothering to notice that it's been getting hotter by the minute. We are two seconds from a rolling boil--and perhaps it is already too late.

So, liberals, enjoy your victory. Jump around. Have a party, file for your free grants. Scream "Gimme my handout!" and make fun of those of us who fought to make sure your "messiah" didn't get access to the most powerful position in the world. Just remember when it all comes crashing down: You own the White House, the Congress, and soon the Supreme Court. You have no one to blame but yourselves for the mess you just created.

As for me, I'm buying my handguns this week so I have an answer for those who will come try to take them.

Kit

Kit Lange is an Air Force veteran and military writer who specializes in investigating murder cases stemming from actions in combat. Her work was used as evidence in the Lt. Ilario Pantano case, and has been quoted extensively in other news publications for other cases. In 2005, she co-wrote a 10-part series disproving war crime allegations against an elite Army unit; her blog, EuphoricReality.com, was named as one of the top 10 milblogs of the year. She is also the National Web Coordinator for Gathering of Eagles, a nationally-recognized troop support organization. Kit holds a degree in Aircraft Maintenance Technology from Spartan College of Aeronautics, and is currently working on a second degree in Aviation Technology Management. She resides in Tulsa, Oklahom

Happy New Year from Tennessee Conservative Watch

2008-12-31T20:04:00.000-05:00

http://www.julescrittenden.com

Happy New Year

2008 is coming to an end. A wretched year overall, but you know me, eternal optimist, glass half full, all that. I'm coming out of it feeling pretty good.

Obama won. Like a buddy of mine said the day after that happened, it felt kind of good to let go. They wanted it, they got it. No more "Bush this, Bush that, blah blah blah Bush this and that." Who was the first person to put an end to that? Obama, George Bush's newest, biggest fan.

American elected a grossly underqualified candidate largely because he was charming, black, had good timing, and got a free ride from the national media. You know what would have happened if it went the other way. There would be no end to the "racist America" denunciations, the Palin-bashing, the McCain deathwatch. And however contradictory and complicated the racial aspect of the race ended up being, I'm glad we've crossed that threshold. Maybe we can start to move past race in this country. Obama, tear down that wall! An end to racial preferences. Make the dream real, and let us finanly in the country judge a man by the content of his character …

Speaking of which, still an enigma. How can we judge a man when we don't know what the content is?

But Obama appears to be largely adopting the Bush foreign policy, so there is something to look forward to in 2009. Iraq finally has been acknowledged as a win … not least by Obama, who now plans to listen to the generals … and the counter-insurgency advocate who presided over Iraq is now running the war in Afghanistan, too. Apparently he's been having some second thoughts about Guantanamo.

Terrorists are on the run everywhere. Gaza's feeling the heat and so is Pakistan. The Taliban has been all along and is about to feel more. Maybe Obama will back Israel's dismantling of terrorist infrastructure in Gaza. Maybe he'll take tough stands against Iran, Russia, China, al-Qaeda and other threats to world peace, stability, democracy and free enterprise. Obama ironically may yet prove to be the president who legitimizes George Bush and his tough stands in defense of our nation and our values in the world.

Maybe the new socialism both sides have adopted will work, and the world's economy won't go any farther down the toilet. Let's hope so. We're apparently stuck with it, anyway, the new socialism, so we might as well get used to it and focus on channeling it.

As tough as things are for many people, we're plugging on. Look on the bright side. Gas prices are way down and expected to stay there. And what are the chances Obama's going to pass any boondoggle socialized health-care mandates? Knock on wood. All the predictions conservatives made about Obama's unknowns and unreliability have turned out to be true … only for the so-called progressives, if not exactly as the cons predicted. But it's early yet, and hope as we might, there are no firm indicators of lasting, substantive change. All it's been good for so far are a few laughs and a couple sighs of relief.

Closer to home, my own business, newspapering, is coming apart at the seams. But like so much else that doesn't follow the script, my own newspaper, the much-maligned tabloid whose doom has been predicted for decades, is operating in the black, lean and mean, while the staid Boston Globe, bought for $1.1 billion by the New York Times 15 years ago, reportedly is now worth $20 million, loaded with overpaid do-nothings with job protections, and the absentee landlord has a cash-flow problem. We never know how these things are going to go, but maybe a white knight will step in to save the Boston Globe and keep this a healthy, two-newspaper town. I hope so. There will be shakeups large and small in my industry in the coming year, much as there will be in the automotive and other industries. They will not necessarily be bad things. If anything, we've learned in this decade, nothing follows the script.

2009 promises to be a wild ride, and the world could well look a lot different by this time next year. I'm staying optimistic.

OK, now I have to go drive 30 miles through white-out conditions because I'm lucky enough to still have a job. Happy New Year!

Our Friend Wally Speaks.

2008-12-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

I think the United States uses an economic model other than capitalist or interventionist. If one were to coin a descriptive word, it would probably be "corruptionalist," in which government uses tax policies and taxpayer dollars (subsidies, grants, etc.) to create competitive advantages for those that dole out the largest campaign contributions.

We've created a system where instead of having to bribe each individual in Congress, all you have to do is bribe the two parties and then they use soft money to keep the rank-and-file in line.

It's this corruption of the capitalist model more than the model itself that has caused the economic turmoil we now find ourselves embroiled in.

History has shown that the best system is one in which government defines the rules within which business operates and then leaves businesses alone as long as they stay within those rules.

Those rules should promote the nation's general welfare and should take into account that while competition is far better than regulation, in the absence of true competition, you'd better have regulation.

Regulation within the economy should be temporary, though the true goal being to restore rather than to replace a competitive environment.

Wally Garneau

Lowell, Michigan

Economy in Shambles, Congress gets a raise

2008-12-19T10:12:00.001-05:00

By Jordy Yager

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

"As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain," said Daniel O'Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. "This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter."

However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

"Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren't counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they're just happy to have gainful employment," said Ellis. "But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way."

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members' districts are in financial despair.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.

"They don't even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it's wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise," Ellis said.

Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.

"It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress's salary," he said. "I don't think you're going to find taxpayers saying, 'Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more'."

Value of 2008 Bailouts exceeds combined costs of ALL major US wars.

2008-12-18T14:19:00.001-05:00

Democrats took over Congress in 2007

Where's Tanner and the "Conservative" Blue Dogs when you need them???

Value of 2008 Bailouts Exceeds Combined Costs of All Major U.S. Wars
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

In this Sept. 23, 2008 file photo, the amount of U.S. national debt on Sept. 23 is shown on the National Debt Clock in New York. (AP Photos/Bebeto Matthews, file)

(CNSNews.com) – The total value of the bailouts undertaken by the federal government in 2008 now exceeds the combined cost of every major war the United States has ever engaged in, according to a comparison of war costs calculated by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the value of the bailouts as calculated by Bloomberg News or Bianco Research.

According to CRS, all major U.S. wars (including such events as the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, but not the invasion of Panama or the Kosovo War), cost a total of $7.2 trillion in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars.

According to Bloomberg, the federal government has made commitments worth a total of $8.5 trillion in the bailouts of 2008. That includes actual expenditures as well as loan and asset guarantees.

Bianco Research puts the total value of the bailouts at $8.7 trillion.

The $296 billion spent on World War II, America's most expensive war, would be $4.1 trillion adjusted to today's dollars, according to the CRS report from June.

The adjusted cost of the Civil War would be $60.4 billion for both the Union and the Confederacy combined. The inflation-adjusted cost of the Vietnam War would be $686 billion. The cost of the current Iraq war up to last June was $648 billion, while the adjusted cost for Afghanistan to that point was $171 billion.

The total cost of the American Revolution was a relatively inexpensive $1.8 billion.

"World War II was financed by savings, the American people's savings, when Americans bought war bonds," said Olivier Garret, CEO of Casey Research, who analyzed the value of the bailout compared to the major U.S. wars and other major historical government expenses. "Today, families are in debt and government is in debt."

In this Sept. 25, 2008 file photo, Dara Blumenthal, of Brooklyn, holds up a sign during a rally against Wall Street bailout in front of the New York Stock Exchange in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)

A Bianco Research report cited in Politico puts the number for the total value of bailouts at $8.7 trillion and also affirms the value to be higher than the cost of all American wars and historic initiatives. A spokesman with Bianco Research could not be reached for comment as this story went to press.

The bailouts, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, were taken as emergency actions to keep U.S. companies from going under and to prevent a total financial markets meltdown in the United States. Similar bailouts were issued in other countries to address the global financial crisis.

The Bush administration is mulling whether to use some of the $700 billion in TARP funds approved by Congress to bailout the financial industry to bailout U.S. automakers.

The bailouts could put U.S. taxpayers in a tough spot in the future, said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union.

"I'm assuming the figures do not include the Cold War defense expenditures, which would probably amount to several trillion on their own," Sepp told CNSNews.com. "In any case, it's a stark illustration of just how quickly the federal government has gotten into a huge financial hole and dragged taxpayers into it in the process."

"We can only hope and pray that many of these liabilities and guarantees and commitments the government has made will not have to be made good on," Sepp said. "If we were to be responsible for paying out all of these obligations, even in the period of one or two years, it would be financially disastrous to the government's credit rating and our own as taxpayers."

Garret pointed to the cost that will be paid by Americans in the future. "Future generations of Americans are going to continue to finance the enormous amount of debt," he said.

What has Al Gore wrought?

2008-12-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

Bruce Bialosky
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Al Gore has managed to convince most Americans that global warming is a serious problem. He has gone on an elongated mission culminating in his masterpiece of propaganda entitled an "An Inconvenient Truth." There is one major theme that he attempts to purport through all of this: no credible sources disagree with his position.

Ask Dr. Richard Lindzen of Harvard University who testified in front of Gore's senate committee back in the 1980's. Even then, Gore attempted to browbeat Dr. Lindzen into supporting his hypothesis about global warming. He has a perverse need whereby no one asserts a contradictory position. Gore has built on that for almost twenty years, even though there is a large body of credible individuals who assert that facts do not support Gore's theories. This is probably why he has never agreed to debate anyone on the matter.

Now his tactics have seeped into the liberals' playbook as they have taken over the levers of government. Instead of just asserting their position and attempting to win support of the majority of Congress and their constituents, they are following the Gore Plan and stating no credible opposition exists to their policy positions.

Listen to Tom Daschle on health care reform. He is President-elect Obama's choice to run Health and Human Services (HHS) and apparently his point man for effecting change to our health care system. Mr. Daschle stated that things have changed since the 1990's. Now there is no opposition to universal health care, states our incoming Secretary of HHS. It may be couched in other terms like "reform," but clearly Daschle wants a government-run health care system. He is in the process of deriding the current system without defining clearly what will replace it because on its own it cannot be sold. You will see other liberals embrace his mantra that there is no credible opposition. He has adopted this tactic for two reasons. The first is because of the weakness of his position and the second is to dupe others into believing in his plan and blindly supporting it.

But there is monumental opposition to a government plan. The Democrats have tried to bring the matter to a crisis level by refusing any reasonable reforms such as portability, cross-state insurance sales and stratified insurance policies. State legislatures driven by Democrats desire for government- controlled health care have mandated policies that include every medical option conceivable. Governor Charlie Crist of Florida worked with his legislature to create policies that give residents options for affordable plans. In most states, the Democrats would rather have people uninsured than have some insurance they can afford that protects them for hospitalization and catastrophic circumstances.

Mr. Daschle needs to know that the only businesses that want a government- run program are those that want to dump their health care costs on the government –- such as the auto industry. The rest of us realize that the challenges created by the current system are minuscule when compared to a government-run, unionized health care system.

Next you can be prepared for the argument that everyone believes there should be a $500+ billion stimulus package. Again there is no credible opposition. In fact, as stated by Paul Krugman, the economist and New York Times columnist, the problem is that the stimulus package is too small. He states that the problem with FDR's policies were they did not go far enough.

But those facts belie that nonsense. For seven years of the Roosevelt Administration, very little change was affected by their government run-projects. Yes, bridges, libraries and schools were built, but unemployment was still a staggering 18% until a madman in Europe changed the world and created a wartime economy.

The reason the liberals' new-honed tactic has been drafted for the stimulus package is because they are interested in stuffing into the bill their entire pet projects in the name of economic revival. Someone arguing for different policies -- that would encourage private investment and thus permanent job creation – could undermine their attempt to backdoor their policies during an economic crisis. They all need to go back and listen to their cult hero, John F. Kennedy, who stated in late 1962 that tax cuts were the solution to a prolonged recession.

You may have been disconcerted by Al Gore's flatulence regarding our environment, but little did you know he was refining new tactics that would be used for every big policy the liberals want to foist upon America. Now you know Al Gore is more dangerous than you ever dreamed.

News about Lt. Dan

2008-12-16T10:31:00.001-05:00

Sinise: A Man for All Services

By Andrew Breitbart

Since war became a geographically distant but very real way of life after Sept. 11, 2001, no Hollywood star has stepped up to support active duty U.S. military personnel and wounded veterans like Gary Sinise. There is no close second. And quietly, as is his nature, he is becoming something akin to this generation´s Bob Hope.

One step in conferring this worthy title on the award-winning actor, director and producer occurred last week when President Bush bestowed on him the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second highest civilian honor awarded to citizens for exemplary deeds performed in service of the nation. Previous recipients include Henry "Hank" Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Colin L. Powell and Bob Dole.

While the White House ceremony flew under the radar of most of the media, most notably the entertainment press, word has trickled out to many of his countless admirers in and out of the military. And on the occasion of him receiving the award, they want America to take in their words of praise for, as Sharon Tyk in the USO of Illinois put it, this "gallant American patriot."

Michael Yon, a Special Forces vet and the pre-eminent war journalist of our time, communicated his admiration in a dispatch from Bahrain: "Gary is a true friend of the American soldier. He does not hesitate to travel into war zones to express his admiration and personal support for those who defend us. He visits wounded soldiers, some of whom I personally know. All love him.

"Soldiers from privates to generals admire Gary for his dedication to a cause greater than any of us. Gary's dedication went much further. He personally supported sending millions of dollars worth of school and clothing supplies to Iraqi children. I saw this effort with my own eyes. Gary Sinise is a Great American."

In 2004, "Seabiscuit" author Laura Hillenbrand with Mr. Sinise founded Operation Iraqi Children, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping the U.S. military distribute school supplies in the war-stricken country.

"For a lot of celebrities, charitable work equals photo opportunity and nothing more," Miss Hillenbrand wrote in an e-mail. "For Gary, giving of himself, and giving to his country, is what makes life meaningful and joyful. It is perhaps the most essential part of his character, and it is his passion."

Mr. Sinise not only "supports the troops," but he champions their mission as well.

"I have seen Iraqi kids climbing on our soldiers and hugging them and kissing them," Mr. Sinise said. "I have seen their smiling faces and their attempts to say 'I love you' in broken English. The folks I saw had hope in their eyes and gratitude in their hearts for what was done for them."

Mr. Sinise, who currently stars in "CSI: New York," is best known for his Oscar-nominated turn as Lt. Dan Taylor in "Forrest Gump," which won the best picture Academy Award in 1994.

Lt. Dan - the iconic character who lost his limbs in the Vietnam War - created a connection between Mr. Sinise and veterans that reached far beyond the big screen.

"His superb performance brought awareness of the lifelong sacrifice of disabled veterans into the public consciousness in a remarkably positive way," said retired Maj. Gary Weaver of the U.S. Marine Corps and national director of communications for Disabled American Veterans.

In 2004, Mr. Sinise, wanting to do more, formed the Lt. Dan Band, a jam band created almost exclusively to entertain the troops in and out of war zones.

"It´s very important that you know we are grateful," the bass guitar playing Mr. Sinise recently said while performing at the Pentagon. "The sacrifice you and your families make - you are not forgotten."

Miss Tyk recalled their first performance: "There were only about 30 of us present - at tops - at the Great Lakes Naval Base. I said to my colleague, 'Oh, another actor band.' Then the magic happened. During the break, Gary took the microphone and addressed the troops from the heart. He spoke about his commitment to them, to our country and how much he appreciated their willingness to protect and fight for our freedoms. That is the moment I knew he was the 'genuine article.' You could actually feel his love for them."

Miss Tyk recalled another memorable experience with Mr. Sinise.

"We picked up Gary at 5 a.m.," she wrote. "I felt somewhat crabby because I had to get up very, very early to get him to the CBS studios. There he was in front of the residence waiting for us with a smile on his face eagerly waiting to help. I thought to myself, Sharon you need to learn a lesson from this man. Look at him, he´s honored and thrilled to help and he´s not even getting paid to do this and you are! His love for the mission that day completely changed my thought process. He is the perfect example of 'you teach what you live.' "

Lt. Col. Scott Rainey concurred: "If I have learned anything from over 25 years of being around troops it is that they are among the most perceptive of souls. It is virtually impossible to 'pull the wool over their eyes.' Insincerity and falseness are immediately recognized for what they are and those who demonstrate these characteristics are quickly marginalized and ignored. What I learned within the first 10 minutes of meeting Gary Sinise at a dusty airbase in Kuwait last July was that these character flaws are completely absent in this patriotic and selfless man."

Spc. Jason M. Hale, who encountered Mr. Sinise at Camp Ramadi, e-mailed: "He was the only celebrity that came to take pictures with us where we worked on base, and you had the feeling that if he could, he would have grabbed a weapon and gone on patrol with us. That's how much he connected with the troops. He's one of those Hollywood guys who doesn't act like he's from Hollywood, and to those who are living in the desert, putting their lives on the line, that's quite refreshing."

To get a sense of the scope of what Mr. Sinise means to soldiers like Spc. Hale, filmmaker and Army 82d Airborne veteran Jonathan Flora followed him and his band to Afghanistan and Iraq in 2008. He recounts one time when he witnessed one of Mr. Sinise´s typical interactions with the troops.

"It was hot, Iraq hot when we stopped at a check point before entering an FOB (Forward Operating Base). Gary began speaking with a soldier through the window and soon we were all standing outside so he could have his picture taken with him and a few of his buddies. Soon there were at least fifty guys around him and he greets each one as he always does. This is an unscheduled stop and we are being urged to move on so as to be on time for his next stop, but Gary, still, meets with each one and gives them their time. Finally, we have to move on as he says good-bye to the last soldier.

"As we are about to get into the vehicle we hear the guys yelling and in the distance is one more soldier. He is dressed in full battle-rattle humping as fast as he can in this unbearable heat to get to Gary before he leaves. He had just been relieved from his point and heard that Gary Sinise had stopped by the check point, and he was determined not to miss him. Gary without hesitation stopped and waited and he greeted this young man as if he was the first man in line, full of enthusiasm and appreciation.

"When we did finally get into the vehicle I mentioned to Gary how I observe how he makes each and every man or woman feel special and appreciated, he paused in thought before answering, as he often does, and then says with a heavy heart, 'It's because we don't know what the next hour holds for them. As tired as I might get sometimes, and I do, it is nothing compared to what they go through day-after-day with the price they are so readily willing to pay.' "

Fox News will be broadcasting Mr. Flora´s one-hour special in prime time on Jan. 10.

Deb Rickert of Operation Support our Troops said it best about Mr. Sinise, the recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal.

"In an age when the public often lavishes epitaphs of greatness on celebrities merely because they are famous, the military community bestows the simple title of friend on Gary Sinise truly because that is what he is to us."

Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - the Case Against Celebrity."

An inside look at Chicago & Illinois Politics

2008-12-09T11:28:00.001-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TUESDAY DECEMBER 9, 2008

ILLINOIS GOV. ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH AND HIS CHIEF OF STAFF

JOHN HARRIS ARRESTED ON FEDERAL CORRUPTION CHARGES

Blagojevich and aide allegedly conspired to sell U.S. Senate appointment, engaged in pay-to-play schemes and threatened to withhold state assistance to Tribune Company for Wrigley Field to induce purge of newspaper editorial writers

CHICAGO - Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges alleging that they and others are engaging in ongoing criminal activity: conspiring to obtain personal financial benefits for Blagojevich by leveraging his sole authority to appoint a United States Senator; threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical of Blagojevich; and to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions - both historically and now in a push before a new state ethics law takes effect January 1, 2009.

Blagojevich, 51, and Harris, 46, both of Chicago, were each charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. They were charged in a two-count criminal complaint that was sworn out on Sunday and unsealed today following their arrests, which occurred without incident, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both men were expected to appear later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

A 76-page FBI affidavit alleges that Blagojevich was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month conspiring to sell or trade Illinois U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama for financial and other personal benefits for himself and his wife. At various times, in exchange for the Senate appointment, Blagojevich discussed obtaining:

* a substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;

* placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;

* promises of campaign funds - including cash up front; and

* a cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

Just last week, on December 4, Blagojevich allegedly told an advisor that he might get some (money) up front, maybe from Senate Candidate 5, if he named Senate Candidate 5 to the Senate seat, to insure that Senate Candidate 5 kept a promise about raising money for Blagojevich if he ran for re-election. In a recorded conversation on October 31, Blagojevich claimed he was approached by an associate of Senate Candidate 5 as follows: We were approached pay to play. That, you know, hed raise 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him (Senate Candidate 5) a Senator.

On November 7, while talking on the phone about the Senate seat with Harris and an advisor, Blagojevich said he needed to consider his family and that he is financially hurting, the affidavit states. Harris allegedly said that they were considering what would help the financial security of the Blagojevich family and what will keep Blagojevich politically viable. Blagojevich stated, I want to make money, adding later that he is interested in making $250,000 to $300,000 a year, the complaint alleges.

On November 10, in a lengthy telephone call with numerous advisors that included discussion about Blagojevich obtaining a lucrative job with a union-affiliated organization in exchange for appointing a particular Senate Candidate whom he believed was favored by the President-elect and which is described in more detail below, Blagojevich and others discussed various ways Blagojevich could monetize the relationships he has made as governor to make money after leaving that office. The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering, Mr. Fitzgerald said. They allege that Blagojevich put a for sale sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism. The citizens of Illinois deserve public officials who act solely in the publics interest, without putting a price tag on government appointments, contracts and decisions, he added.

Mr. Grant said: Many, including myself, thought that the recent conviction of a former governor would usher in a new era of honesty and reform in Illinois politics. Clearly, the charges announced today reveal that the office of the Governor has become nothing more than a vehicle for self-enrichment, unrestricted by party affiliation and taking Illinois politics to a new low.

Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Grant thanked the Chicago offices of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General for assisting in the ongoing investigation. The probe is part of Operation Board Games, a five-year-old public corruption investigation of pay-to-play schemes, including insider-dealing, influence-peddling and kickbacks involving private interests and public duties.

Federal agents today also executed search warrants at the offices of Friends of Blagojevich located at 4147 North Ravenswood, Suite 300, and at the Thompson Center office of Deputy Governor A.

Pay-to-Play Schemes

The charges include historical allegations that Blagojevich and Harris schemed with others - including previously convicted defendants Antoin Rezko, Stuart Levine, Ali Ata and others - since becoming governor in 2002 to obtain and attempt to obtain financial benefits for himself, his family and third parties, including his campaign committee, Friends of Blagojevich, in exchange for appointments to state boards and commissions, state employment, state contracts and access to state funds. A portion of the affidavit recounts the testimony of various witnesses at Rezkos trial earlier this year.

The charges focus, however, on events since October when the Government obtained information that Blagojevich and Fundraiser A, who is chairman of Friends of Blagojevich, were accelerating Blagojevichs allegedly corrupt fund-raising activities to accumulate as much money as possible this year before a new state ethics law would severely curtail Blagojevichs ability to raise money from individuals and entities that have existing contracts worth more than $50,000 with the State of Illinois. Agents learned that Blagojevich was seeking approximately $2.5 million in campaign contributions by the end of the year, principally from or through individuals or entities - many of which have received state contacts or appointments - identified on a list maintained by Friends of Blagojevich, which the FBI has obtained.

The affidavit details multiple incidents involving efforts by Blagojevich to obtain campaign contributions in connection with his official actions as governor, including these three in early October:

* After an October 6 meeting with Harris and Individuals A and B, during which Individual B sought state help with a business venture, Blagojevich told Individual A to approach Individual B about raising $100,000 for Friends of Blagojevich this year. Individual A said he later learned that Blagojevich reached out directly to Individual B to ask about holding a fund-raiser;

* Also on October 6, Blagojevich told Individual A that he expected Highway Contractor 1 to raise $500,000 in contributions and that he was willing to commit additional state money to a Tollway project - beyond $1.8 billion that Blagojevich announced on October15 - but was waiting to see how much money the contractor raised for Friends of Blagojevich; and

* On October 8, Blagojevich told Individual A that he wanted to obtain a $50,000 contribution from Hospital Executive 1, the chief executive officer of Childrens Memorial Hospital in Chicago, which had recently received a commitment of $8 million in state funds. When the contribution was not forthcoming, Blagojevich discussed with Deputy Governor A the feasibility of rescinding the funding.

On October 21, the Government obtained a court order authorizing the interception of conversations in both a personal office and a conference room used by Blagojevich at the offices of Friends of Blagojevich. The FBI began intercepting conversations in those rooms on the morning of October 22. A second court order was obtained last month allowing those interceptions to continue. On October 29, a court order was signed authorizing the interception of conversations on a hardline telephone used by Blagojevich at his home. That wiretap was extended for 30 days on November 26, according to the affidavit.

Another alleged example of a pay-to-play scheme was captured in separate telephone conversations that Blagojevich had with Fundraiser A on November 13 and Lobbyist 1 on December 3. Lobbyist 1 was reporting to Blagojevich about his efforts to collect a contribution from Contributor 1 and related that he got in his face to make it clear to Contributor 1 that a commitment to make a campaign contribution had to be done now, before there could be some skittishness over the timing of the contribution and Blagojevich signing a bill that would benefit Contributor 1. Blagojevich commented to Lobbyist 1 good and good job. The bill in question, which is awaiting Blagojevich s signature, is believed to be legislation that directs a percentage of casino revenue to the horse racing industry.

Sale of U.S. Senate Appointment

Regarding the Senate seat, the charges allege that Blagojevich, Harris and others have engaged and are engaging in efforts to obtain personal gain, including financial gain, to benefit Blagojevich and his family through corruptly using Blagojevichs sole authority to appoint a successor to the unexpired term of the President-elects former Senate seat, which he resigned effective November 16. The affidavit details numerous conversations about the Senate seat between November 3 and December 5. In these conversations, Blagojevich repeatedly discussed the attributes of potential candidates, including their abilities to benefit the people of Illinois, and the financial and political benefits he and his wife could receive if he appointed various of the possible candidates.

Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration at being stuck as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public office; facilitating his wifes employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

In the earliest intercepted conversation about the Senate seat described in the affidavit, Blagojevich told Deputy Governor A on November 3 that if he is not going to get anything of value for the open seat, then he will take it for himself: if . . . theyre not going to offer anything of any value, then I might just take it. Later that day, speaking to Advisor A, Blagojevich said: Im going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. He added later that the seat is a [expletive] valuable thing, you just dont give it away for nothing.

Over the next couple of days - Election Day and the day after - Blagojevich was captured discussing with Deputy Governor A whether he could obtain a cabinet position, such as Secretary of Health and Human Services or the Department of Energy or various ambassadorships. In a conversation with Harris on November 4, Blagojevich analogized his situation to that of a sports agent shopping a potential free agent to the highest bidder. The day after the election, Harris allegedly suggested to Blagojevich that the President-elect could make him the head of a private foundation.

Later on November 5, Blagojevich said to Advisor A, Ive got this thing and its [expletive] golden, and, uh, uh, Im just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing. Im not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there, the affidavit states.

Two days later, in a three-way call with Harris and Advisor B, a consultant in Washington, Blagojevich and the others allegedly discussed the prospect of a three-way deal for the Senate appointment involving an organization called Change to Win, which is affiliated with various unions including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

On November 10, Blagojevich, his wife, Harris, Governor General Counsel, Advisor B and other Washington-based advisors participated at different times in a two-hour phone call in which they allegedly discussed, among other things, a deal involving the SEIU. Harris said they could work out a deal with the union and the President-elect where SEIU could help the President-elect with Blagojevichs appointment of Senate Candidate 1, while Blagojevich would obtain a position as the National Director of the Change to Win campaign and SEIU would get something favorable from the President-elect in the future. Also during that call, Blagojevich agreed it was unlikely that the President-elect would name him Secretary of Health and Human Services or give him an ambassadorship because of all of the negative publicity surrounding him.

In a conversation with Harris on November 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but theyre not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them. Earlier in that conversation, Blagojevich suggested starting a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization, which he could head and engage in political activity and lobbying. In that conversation with Harris and other discussions with him and others over the next couple of days, Blagojevich suggested by name several well-known, wealthy individuals who could be prevailed upon to seed such an organization with $10-$15 million, and suggesting that he could take the organizations reins when he is no longer governor, according to the affidavit.

On November 12, Blagojevich spoke with SEIU Official who was in Washington. This conversation occurred about a week after Blagojevich had met with SEIU Official to discuss the Senate seat, with the understanding that the union official was an emissary to discuss Senate Candidate 1's interest in the Senate seat. During the November 12 conversation, Blagojevich allegedly explained the non-profit organization idea to SEIU Official and said that it could help Senate Candidate 1. The union official agreed to put that flag up and see where it goes, although the official also had said he wasnt certain if Senate Candidate 1 wanted the official to keep pushing her candidacy. Senate Candidate 1 eventually removed herself from consideration for the open seat.

Also on November 12, in a conversation with Harris, the complaint affidavit states that Blagojevich said his decision about the open Senate seat will be based on three criteria in the following order of importance: our legal situation, our personal situation, my political situation. This decision, like every other one, needs to be based upon that. Legal. Personal. Political. Harris said: legal is the hardest one to satisfy. Blagojevich said that his legal problems could be solved by naming himself to the Senate seat.

As recently as December 4, in separate conversations with Advisor B and Fundraiser A, Blagojevich said that he was elevating Senate Candidate 5 on the list of candidates because, among other reasons, if Blagojevich ran for re-election, Senate Candidate 5 would raise[] money for him. Blagojevich said that he might be able to cut a deal with Senate Candidate 5 that provided Blagojevich with something tangible up front. Noting that he was going to meet with Senate Candidate 5 in the next few days, Blagojevich told Fundraiser A to reach out to an intermediary (Individual D), from whom Blagojevich is attempting to obtain campaign contributions and who Blagojevich believes is close to Senate Candidate 5. Blagojevich told Fundraiser A to tell Individual D that Senate Candidate 5 was a very realistic candidate but Blagojevich was getting a lot of pressure not to appoint Senate Candidate 5, according to the affidavit.

Blagojevich allegedly told Fundraiser A to tell Individual D that if Senate Candidate 5 is going to be chosen, some of this stuffs gotta start happening now . . . right now . . . and we gotta see it. Blagojevich continued, You gotta be careful how you express that and assume everybodys listening, the whole world is listening. You hear me? Blagojevich further directed Fundraiser A to talk to Individual D in person, not by phone, and to communicate the urgency of the situation.

Blagojevich spoke to Fundraiser A again the next day, December 5, and discussed that days Chicago Tribune front page article stating that Blagojevich had recently been surreptitiously recorded as part of the ongoing criminal investigation. Blagojevich instructed Fundraiser A to undo your [Individual D] thing, and Fundraiser A confirmed it would be undone, the complaint alleges.

Also on December 5, Blagojevich and three others allegedly discussed whether to move money out of the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund to avoid having the money frozen by federal authorities and also considered the possibility of prepaying the money to Blagojevichs criminal defense attorney with an understanding that the attorney would donate the money back at a later time if it was not needed. They also discussed opening a new fund raising account named Citizens for Blagojevich with new contributions.

Misuse of State Funding To Induce Firing of Chicago Tribune Editorial Writers

According to the affidavit, intercepted phone calls revealed that the Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Cubs, has explored the possibility of obtaining assistance from the Illinois Finance Authority (IFA) relating to the Tribune Companys efforts to sell the Cubs and the financing or sale of Wrigley Field. In a November 6 phone call, Harris explained to Blagojevich that the deal the Tribune Company was trying to get through the IFA was basically a tax mitigation scheme in which the IFA would own title to Wrigley Field and the Tribune would not have to pay capital gains tax, which Harris estimated would save the company approximately $100 million.

Intercepted calls allegedly show that Blagojevich directed Harris to inform Tribune Owner and an associate, identified as Tribune Financial Advisor, that state financial assistance would be withheld unless members of the Chicago Tribunes editorial board were fired, primarily because Blagojevich viewed them as driving discussion of his possible impeachment. In a November 4 phone call, Blagojevich allegedly told Harris that he should say to Tribune Financial Advisor, Cubs Chairman and Tribune Owner, our recommendation is fire all those [expletive] people, get em the [expletive] out of there and get us some editorial support.

On November 6, the day of a Tribune editorial critical of Blagojevich , Harris told Blagojevich that he told Tribune Financial Advisor the previous day that things look like they could move ahead fine but, you know, there is a risk that all of this is going to get derailed by your own editorial page. Harris also told Blagojevich that he was meeting with Tribune Financial Advisor on November 10.

In a November 11 intercepted call, Harris allegedly told Blagojevich that Tribune Financial Advisor talked to Tribune Owner and Tribune Owner got the message and is very sensitive to the issue. Harris told Blagojevich that according to Tribune Financial Advisor, there would be certain corporate reorganizations and budget cuts coming and, reading between the lines, hes going after that section. Blagojevich allegedly responded. Oh. Thats fantastic. After further discussion, Blagojevich said, Wow. Okay, keep our fingers crossed. Youre the man. Good job, John.

In a further conversation on November 21, Harris told Blagojevich that he had singled out to Tribune Financial Advisor the Tribunes deputy editorial page editor, John McCormick, as somebody who was the most biased and unfair. After hearing that Tribune Financial Advisor had assured Harris that the Tribune would be making changes affecting the editorial board, Blagojevich allegedly had a series of conversations with Chicago Cubs representatives regarding efforts to provide state financing for Wrigley Field. On November 30, Blagojevich spoke with the president of a Chicago-area sports consulting firm, who indicated that he was working with the Cubs on matters involving Wrigley Field. Blagojevich and Sports Consultant discussed the importance of getting the IFA transaction approved at the agencys December or January meeting because Blagojevich was contemplating leaving office in early January and his IFA appointees would still be in place to approve the deal, the charges allege.

The Government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Reid Schar, Carrie Hamilton and Christopher Niewoehner.

If convicted, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, while solicitation of bribery carries a maximum of 10 years in prison, and each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000. The Court, however, would determine the appropriate sentence to be imposed under the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.

The public is reminded that a complaint contain only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Source: U.S. Attorney's Office.

Liberal Economics for Dummies

2008-11-29T18:18:00.000-05:00

Tony Rubolotta

Developing energy sources in America is bad for the environment. Consequently, we buy oil from Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, Iraq and other countries where energy development must be good for the environment.

Dotting every hilltop in America with windmills must also be good for the environment, but putting them within sight of Ted Kennedy's house is bad for the environment. Don't worry about the unsightliness, noise and unreliability of wind power. You'll get used to it. Will the Hollyweirdo's get used to it; that is the question.

Solar electric panels covering vast expanses of America's deserts must be good for the environment too. Never mind the cost per kilowatt because we can afford anything we have a mind to get a credit line to purchase. Besides, solar panels are a little less unsightly than wind mills, and slightly more reliable. Let's empty out New Mexico for starters and make room for solar energy production. We can send all the squeegee guys from New York to Santa Fe to keep the panels clean. Better yet, we can do that with illegal aliens.

Devoting millions of acres of American cropland to ethanol production must be better for the environment than drilling for oil on 2,000 acres of Alaska. Don't worry about ethanol not being as efficient a fuel as gasoline. We can just produce much more of it to get the same result. If the higher price depresses you, you can always put it in your favorite mixed drink. As for ethanol competing for food production, I wouldn't worry about that either. Let them eat cake.

Ethanol must be better than drilling offshore too, unless you are Cuba. Let them ruin their beaches. It is very important that Americans enjoy pristine beaches and eat less too. That will eliminate the unsightliness of obese people on the beaches of New Jersey and Long Island. Wouldn't that also be good toward making free health care more affordable?

Hybrid and all electric cars are good for the environment because we can always arrange a deal with China to accept the battery packs for recycling or disposal. It will also cut down on accidents since we will be doing less driving because of our less reliable sources of electrical energy. Perhaps Congress can pass some legislation repealing the laws of thermodynamics that make energy conversion inefficient. If Congress can repeal the law of Supply and Demand, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Laws of Thermodynamics should be a piece of cake.

Employment without belonging to a union should be illegal. Every person in America should be part of a group extorting higher salaries from those evil businesses. The labor monopoly that controls auto production, steel, construction, trucking and port facilities should not be alone to enjoy the benefits of their monopolies. In fact, doctors and nurses would be remiss if they didn't immediately form a union to deal with the federal bureaucracy that will run health care. Follow the example of the National Education Association and you can get a far better deal than you are getting now. Better yet, get AFSCME to help you organize since you will be government employees.

In the same vein, our military should be organized to demand better working conditions and much higher pay. Considering the risk they take, they should be making at least three times what teachers are paid. They should also have the right to select their own commander-in-chief. Voters not in the military should have no say about who their boss will be. That isn't liberal.

Shouldn't government run all businesses? That will save a lot of time and money since the politicians negotiating for our votes can negotiate our salaries at the same time. I'm going to vote for the guy (or gal) that offers the best deal.

Finally, and most importantly, we should all stop paying our debts. That is what government is for after all. I want my bailout and free stuff and I'm getting a bit impatient with Obama and his promises. The Office of the President-Elect has had more than enough time to send its legislative agenda to the Congress-Elect and start passing some laws. What do they think this is anyway, a constitutional republic or something?

Proofin' the prez: Who's in charge? Is Obama Eligible to be Prez?

2008-11-25T12:05:00.001-05:00

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Constitutional lawyer says electors
have duty to investigate citizenship

By Bob Unruh

WorldNetDaily

Barack Obama

A one-time vice presidential candidate who is considered an expert on the U.S. Constitution says it is up the electors from the 50 states to make certain President-elect Barack Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen before they cast votes for him in the Electoral College Dec. 15.

"If they do their duty, they would make sure that if they cast a vote for Mr. Obama, that Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen," Herb Titus, the Constitution Party's running mate to Howard Phillips in 1996, told WND today.

"I think it should be resolved. The duty is in the Electoral College. Every Obama elector that is committed to casting a vote on the 15th of December, they have a constitutional duty to make certain whether Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen," he said.

If the electors fail their duty and Obama proves ultimately to fail the eligibility requirement of the U.S. Constitution, there would be only the laborious, contentious and cumbersome process of impeachment available to those who would wish to follow the Constitution, he suggested.

The issue of Obama's citizenship has been in the news for weeks as multiple legal claims have asserted the Democrat is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. There have been claims he was born in Kenya, that he's a British subject because of his father and that he lost his citizenship in Indonesia.

(Story continues below)

Two of the cases are pending before the U.S. Supreme Court and several others that have fallen by the wayside.

Also, thousands of people are jumping aboard a petition that demands documentation of Obama's eligibility to hold the highest office in the U.S., not just assurances from party officials.

As of this afternoon, about 70,000 petitioners have joined the effort coordinated by WND founder and editor Joseph Farah.

To participate, sign the petition here.

A report accompanying Farah's petition explains the many questions raised about Obama's eligibility, from an apparently fabricated "Certification of Live Birth" posted online to questions about what nation's passport he used to travel to Pakistan.

One case is scheduled for a conference among U.S. Supreme Court justices Dec. 5. Conferences are private meetings of the justices at which they review cases and decide which ones to accept for formal review. The Supreme Court's website listed the date for the case brought by Leo C. Donofrio against Nina Wells, the secretary of state in New Jersey, over not only Obama's name on the 2008 election ballot but those of two others, Sen. John McCain and Roger Calero.

Do you agree with contentions made in "The Audacity of Deceit" about the impact of an Obama White House on the United States?

The case, unsuccessful at the state level, was submitted to Justice David Souter, who rejected it. The case then was resubmitted to Justice Clarence Thomas for conference Dec. 5.

Titus holds a law degree cum laude from Harvard, is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and a long list of federal court districts, and helped found a law school. He told WND the framers of the Constitution specifically wanted the electors, citizen voters from all the states, to determine the presidency to avoid chief executives who are indebted to political parties or court decisions.

In 1788, Titus noted, Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers on the issue of the presidential election that "nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption."

"They have not made the appointment of the president to depend on any pre-existing bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment," Hamilton wrote. "And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the president in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors.

"Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single state; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States," Hamilton wrote in support of the concept of the Electoral College.

If the electors fail, Titus said, "I think it moots the point."

"I don't think there is anything in the Constitution [that would allow a challenge based on a candidate's constitutional qualifications.]

"It would politically undermine Obama's re-election … and there may be an impeachment if someone concluded he deliberately misled the people, and knew he was not a natural-born citizen," he said.

Titus said the evidence clearly shows there are questions about Obama's birth that should be resolved. But he said he doesn't believe the courts will do anything, nor should they.

"If it's revealed it's only going to be [revealed because of] investigative journalism or by Obama himself," he said.

"It's only the Electoral College that has the duty and authority to determine is a person is qualified to be president," Titus said.

"We should act accordingly, get the names of all the electors, including McCain's electors, and urge them to do their duty," he said.

He said, however, the bottom line is that there are some people who would rather ignore the Constitution than dispense with a candidate who may be unqualified.

"Politically, [being ineligible] would be a very serious problem for [Obama,]" he said. "But there also would be people who would only shrug."

"It's up to the people. Essentially the Constitution is a covenant of the people with their government. If the people don't insist on their government officials abiding by the covenant, I don't know what you can do," he said.

Titus said the basis of a natural-born requirement traces back to the Old Testament, where Moses prophesied about the people of Israel getting a king.

"The whole notion of a natural-born citizen is designed for the purpose of making sure that the chief executive would not have politically divided loyalties," he said.

Supreme Court would decide?

Meanwhile, a veteran law enforcement officer and director of criminal justice courses says he believes the 2008 election results ultimately could come down to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a ruling eight years ago that helped put George W. Bush in the White House.

The assessment comes from James H. Hafeman, a veteran of decades in law enforcement who supervised an armed security force, taught criminal justice and directed criminal justice programs in Michigan. He submitted a commentary to WND, outlining his evidence.

Hafeman said his argument is based mostly on the U.S. Constitution, which outlines the requirements for eligibility for president, including that the candidate be a "natural-born" citizen.

While replacing a president is outlined in the Constitution, he warned the replacement of a president-elect who is found to be ineligible isn't simple.

"While many have speculated that an official declaration of Obama's ineligibility may lead to the appointment of Joe Biden as president, the speculation is inaccurate. Since it was up to the respective political party to properly vet their candidate before a primary election, they may not qualify to be rewarded for their lack of integrity. Additionally there is no separate balloting for president and vice-president; they share the same slot. Obama's ineligibility would effectively void the entire Obama-Biden ticket," he said.

Therefore, he said, other provisions likely would come into play.

"We already know that if two candidates have an equal number of Electoral College votes, the members of the House of Representatives will collectively choose the president. Many citizens have been led to believe that it is the responsibility of the House is to decide the winner by majority vote, but that is incorrect. Members of the House of Representatives from each state would meet in a state-caucus type of meeting and vote with all congressional members from their respective state. The majority of the state's delegation would only have only one vote. Out of the 50 votes allotted among the House of Representative members, 25 plus a minimum of one vote would be required to elect the president," he wrote.

William Ball, a political science professor at Northern Michigan University, has said, "The results of the Electoral College are sent to the president of the Senate, but if there is no winner, then the House of Representatives, not the whole Congress, decides who will be president. But, in this process the State of Vermont or Wyoming with their one vote each would have as much power as California or New York."

Hafeman said the Constitution demands the same process for a situation in which a seated president becomes ineligible, but Obama won't be inaugurated until Jan. 20.

"This may be the first known case where a presidential candidate intentionally attempted to side step the specific requirements of the Constitution in order to run for the office of president," Hafeman said. "The 12th Amendment is quite clear. If the president is found ineligible, the vice-president shall become the president. However, the key is the 'president,' not the president-elect. In other words, if Mr. Obama is found ineligible to hold the office prior to his January 20, 2009, inauguration, the 12th Amendment would not necessarily be the guiding instrument for the Supreme Court.

"The Justices would be free to make their own determination regarding the specifics of the general election," Hafeman wrote.

So, Hafeman concluded, the high court may have to make some decisions.

If the worse fears about Obama's birthplace prove true, Hafeman said, the court will have to decide the consequences for providing inaccurate assurances of eligibility.

"Second, what process will be used to designate someone who will assume the office?" he wrote.

"Since all the secretaries of state will be forced to nullify the Obama-Biden ticket, the Electoral College votes would go to the next highest contender. The principle would award McCain-Palin with the total possible Electoral College votes – all 538 electors," he suggested.

"In the national-interest scenario, the question that might be asked by the Democrats may focus on the question as to whether or not they could hold an emergency national convention in order for the party to re-nominate a president and/or another vice-president candidate. If the Supreme Court declares the entire election invalid, then that may be a possibility, but it is highly unlikely since every other presidential team on the ticket were legitimate," he wrote.

"The Supreme Court may decide a new election is in order and would have to waive the two-term limitations of George W. Bush so that he can remain in office until the conclusion of the election. The continuation of his term is a viable course of action, but it may not be an action favored by the Supreme Court. Instead, the justices may simply view the anomaly as a political race with an illegitimate and disqualified opponent, which would result in a win for the McCain-Palin ticket."

On WND's new forum page, the level of frustration was rising. Dozens contributed their thoughts immediately after the forum was posted:

"What makes Obama non-respon[sive] to the simplest of requests?" asked one reader. "Does he think that it is politically incorrect to ask for authentication of the myriad of facts about himself … Is he testing the grounds to see how far he can play with this charade?"

Other comments included:

"Obama won his first election ever by getting three Democratic opponents thrown off the ballot? He's all for using the law to help himself win. Wouldn't it be ironic if he is not allowed to serve as president due to the law? … Turn around is fair play!

"Even the left-wing liberal news media is beginning to ask the question: 'Who is this man we have elected? We really do not know much about him.'"

"Obama's refusal to produce the ORIGINAL given birth certificate gives us all pause. His silence on these allegations is deafening. The anointed one believes that if he can hold us all back until he's in the Oval Office he's hit a home run and he's 'safe.' Ah, not so! Check your law, Obama, and you will see that even if were to make it to the White House you will no longer be able to hide behind those red velvet ropes."

"There must be something that would have caused him great harm prior to the election, and would have stopped him from becoming elected. What could that little piece of information be?"

I'm the one who answers when freedom rings

2008-11-25T11:35:00.001-05:00

give this a listen

"I've got thirty rounds of justice in my magazine. I back it up with a Navy F-18. The business end on an Apache Is trouble like you ain't seen. I'm the one who answers when freedom rings"

http://www.amaze.fm/artist/Perry/when-freedom-rings/

Lies in the Wind

2008-11-21T10:23:00.001-05:00

This past election season every politician on both sides of the isle had them in their commercials. Every oil, gas, or major energy company advertises with them in their publications, brochures, and public announcements. They are the answer to our energy problem, the solution to the global climate crisis. I am speaking of wind turbines; the massive structures being erected at break neck speeds across the Midwest and coastal regions.

As an electrical engineer working for a power generation company, I have been naturally curious as to the actual application of this technology, its cost, performance abilities, and overall impact on the industry. Simply put, we are constructing them, how are we going to use them? The answers I have found are not only startling, but down right disturbing when put in the context of consumers being sold something they are not being told the truth about. The following is a 2 part series of reasons wind power is not the answer to our problems, and the corresponding half truths and bold lies being sold to the public on the issue.

Part I… Feasibility

Wind turbines today are being manufactured to provide much more power than those of even 5 years ago. It is not uncommon to hear about 2 megawatt machines being put into service in farm sizes that may be thousands of megawatts. So the average person can look at a 4,000 MW (megawatt) wind farm and comfortably believe this will eliminate the need for say 4 power coal fired power plants of 1,000 MW each, correct? Well, not so fast. First we must understand what this 4,000 MW number means. When wind farms are installed they advertise their size on a total "Max Capacity" number. Meaning this is the amount of power they will generate if the wind is blowing at exactly the right speed, in the right direction, 100% of the time. Studies have shown however that average onshore wind farms will produce about 22% of their max capacity annually. Suddenly we are down to 880 MW. Well, you think, we can still get rid of almost one small coal fired power plant. Wrong again. To explain this we must realize the difference between "base load" and "peaking" power generation. Base load power is the "cheap" power that the majority of your electricity comes from, and the power plant generating it is generally running at close to full output the entire time. (ie. coal, nuclear) Peaking generation plants are called into service only during times when electrical demand is higher than normal. Typically times like afternoons in the summer when everyone's AC is running the hardest. Most peaking plants are natural gas fired because of their ability to ramp up and down quickly. Keep in mind this is also much more expensive generation than your cheap base load facilities, primarily because of the price of natural gas.

So where does the wind fit in? Due to the nature of the wind itself, it generates rapid ups and downs as far as electrical outputs, sometimes hundreds of times per month. It is because of this characteristic that wind power could NEVER be a substitute for base load power. From an engineering standpoint, these ups and downs must be backed by quick start gas turbines in order to balance the frequency swings on the electrical grid. Simply put, if the wind falls off, and the power is not replaced from somewhere else almost immediately you will experience either a "brown out" or a "black out" if the loss is large enough. Since base load power plants cannot ramp up and down nearly fast enough to match the erratic output of the wind farms, power companies end up running natural gas turbines in a fashion that would compare to you driving your car by going 0-100 as fast as possible, slamming on the brakes, and then repeating. This creates inefficient power, tears up machines (which costs money), and also ……creates CO2 emissions. Aside from having to balance wind with "quick start" peaking power, engineers really have no idea how to accomplish even this if the wind power on the grid is more than just a few percent of the total grid capacity. Earlier this year, Texas had a massive power outage because the wind fell off one day, and they did not have enough "quick start" replacement power to inject into the grid. So best case scenario you will be running gas turbines like a teenager who just swiped the keys to dad's Corvette, and worst case… your lights will go off. In conclusion, not one pound less coal will be burned because of the wind, and more CO2 will be created to chase it.

Power companies across the country are installing wind turbines at record speeds simply because they are being forced to by laws requiring certain amounts of "renewable energy" by a certain date. Thus they are also building a lot of natural gas fired "peaking" plants.

Knowing T. Boone Pickens didn't become a billionaire because he was stupid, I couldn't figure out what he was thinking when he starting pitching his wind/natural gas energy solution. The more I learn about wind generation, the more I'm convinced he's a financial genius. He's going to make another billion drilling for and selling natural gas.

Part II .....Cost

In my investigation into the true cost of wind power I started at the residential level. As a staunch advocate of the free market, I was a bit skeptical of the true feasibility of wind power since if we could all install wind turbines, spin our electric meters backwards, and pay back our initial investments after just a few years, wouldn't we all have one?

After realizing that installation is typically twice as expensive as advertised, and that the "payback" assumes the machine will last for 20 years or more virtually maintenance free, I started to see the catch. These machines are money pits. They break and cost a lot of money to fix unless you happen to be one of the few who owns your own crane.

The situation with commercial wind turbines is not much different with a few additional complications. First of all, they start with an inherent advantage because they are heavily subsidized through federal and state governments. In the northern plains subsidized wind energy costs about 5 cents a kwh to produce. Compare this to the fact that electricity in the same area can be made for 2.5 cents per kwh with coal. So WITH tax incentives and subsidies from the government, wind is already way behind. Adding to the problem is the fact that in order to comply with new standard and renewable energy quotas, power companies have to take the wind power whenever it is available. Study after study has shown that the wind is generally more stable and produces best at night, and other "off-peak" hours when electricity is not worth as much because demand is low. So to make a long story short, power companies are being forced to buy wind power at 5 cents per kwh and sell it at night for 1.5 cents per kwh(or whatever their off peak rate is). They are losing money on the wind. This also does not take into account the capital cost for construction of gas fired peaking plants, their operation, and maintenance costs. The bottom line is that the more wind turbines you see your local utility erecting, the higher your electric bills are going to be. When you see the term "power cost adjustment" on your bill, a major culprit is blowing in the wind.

To risk sounding like a pessimist I must mention that wind proponents do have a solution to fix the cost problem. The answer that is being proposed is a tax on coal. Cap and trade, CO2 emissions restrictions, carbon sequestration laws, etc… These are all phrases that mean coal is about to be taxed to the point, where it is no longer the cheapest solution available. As an engineer this troubles me. We aught to be striving to fix these problems of feasibility and cost, not tax the other guy to the point that suddenly wind becomes competitive.

Conclusion

The biggest problem with the renewable, "green power" industry today is its blatant dishonesty to the public. If a select few want to pay more for a less reliable source of power that would be one thing. However, it is being sold to the masses as a complete and better solution, when that is simply not true. Let's tell the truth and make it better, after all this country is the world's birthplace of new ideas and innovation. Leave the lies out of it.

-knowseverything

The night we waved goodbye to America... our last best hope on Earth

2008-11-11T13:20:00.001-05:00

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.

I really don't see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.

It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama's victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn't yet a children's picture version of his story, there soon will be.

Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.

If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn't believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he'd promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.

He needn't worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America's Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton's stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a 'new dawn', and a 'timeless creed' (which was 'yes, we can'). He proclaimed that 'change has come'. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn't know what 'enormity' means. He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don't try this at home).

I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.

And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – 'Yes, we can'. They were supposed to thunder 'Yes, we can!' back at him, but they just wouldn't join in. No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice. He'd have been better off bursting into 'I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony' which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.

Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know. They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America. They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.

They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.

If Mr Obama's election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn't. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.

If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn't get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.

And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn't vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.

I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America's beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

As I walked, I crossed another of Washington's secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.

They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.

Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America's conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

TCWatch note: Obama agents have been in contact with the terrorist HAMAS outfit for months before the election.

Voter Fraud Underway in Philadelphis

2008-11-04T08:56:00.001-05:00

TCWatch note: Tennessee Co-ordinator of Elections, Brook Thompson, is doing his part to support voter fraud. Thompson ruled yesterday that an OUT OF STATE drivers license could be used for voter id.

Powerline ^ | 11/4/08 | John Hinderacker

It's a time-honored tradition in some Philadelphia precincts: commandeer the premises and start running ballots through the machines, voting for Democrats. It's happening again this year. Amanda Carpenter reports:

GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in more than half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.

A liberal judge previously ruled that court-appointed Republican poll watchers could be removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, citing their "minority" status as cause.

It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process.

Those on site as describing it as "pandemonium" and there may be video coming of the chaos.

... The City of Brotherly Love was roiled in controversy during the 2004 election because of rigged voting machines that showed nearly 2,000 votes for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry before the polls had opened. A man also used a gun to intimidate poll workers at Ward 30, division 11 in 2004.

Both campaign finance fraud and voter fraud have become significant elements of the Democrats' electoral strategy. Reform is urgently needed, but the Democrats won't let it happen.

Obama staff knew Aunt Zeituni was illegal but lied about it

2008-11-03T19:59:00.001-05:00

Washington Prowler

Aunt Zeituni's Protectors

By The Prowler on 11.3.08 @ 10:49AM

ALL IN THE FAMILY
Senior aides to Sen. Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick were aware that Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, was living in the United States illegally and in a South Boston public-housing project, and were monitoring her at the request of senior Obama campaign officials, according to a current employee for Obama's key political consulting firm, AKP&D Message and Media.

Back in early 2007, as Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod was organizing and planning the Obama campaign, he identified Obama's unique family situation -- a number of half-brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, some living overseas -- as a potential problem, says an employee for Axelrod's political consulting firm, and who has done work on the Obama campaign. "Given [Obama's] father's family history here and in Africa, David wanted the campaign to know who was who, where they lived, and what they were doing. No surprises. We knew she was here illegally. We knew her income levels, but I don't think anyone from the campaign had had contact with her."

Instead, according to the source, Axelrod reached out to his former client, Patrick, who had retained Axelrod's firm for his run for governor. Onyango was living in a state-funded housing project, "so Patrick's people could just as easily keep track of things, and could do it without drawing a ton of attention," says the AKP&D Message and Media employee, who requested anonymity as he hopes to get a job in an Obama administration should the candidate win. "If we had Obama people around, the media would probably have found her much sooner. She was in [Obama's] book, it wasn't like she couldn't be found." Indeed, that is exactly how the London Times found her.

While the South Boston housing project is managed by the Boston Housing Authority, it is a state-funded facility, according to the BHA press office, and so it would not be uncommon for state housing officials to be on the grounds or in the area. "Patrick was the go-between, he's trusted by David and Senator Obama," says the aide.

In fact, Patrick spent most of the past two or three days stumping for Obama up and down the East Coast. His and Obama's relationship goes back a couple of decades, and the two actually represented ACORN together in a civil suit back in 1993. Some Republican political operatives believe that Patrick and his political team have been cutouts for un-reported cash distributed to ACORN officials around the country for Democrat "get out the vote" projects.

Some Obama aides believe that Obama was briefed at least twice by Axelrod or campaign manager David Plouffe on the status of family members. "We tracked who was talking to the press, we kept in touch with some of these people," says an Obama campaign media aide. "Anyone who thinks we didn't doesn't understand just how nervous we were about all of these people, particularly the members of [Obama's] father's family. Axelrod had everything covered." The aide said she was never present for such a briefing, but "we all knew the candidate's family was being taken care of, to protect their privacy and try to contain any damage."

The Obama campaign has denied knowing anything about Onyango's illegal status or her poor financial situation.

Obama says he will bankrupt the coal industry

2008-11-02T21:28:00.001-05:00

Barack Obama actually flat out told the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate) that he was willing to see the coal industry go bankrupt in a January 17, 2008 interview.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It's just that it will bankrupt them.

TCWatch Note: Is Obama bin Biden out of his ever loving mind.

In 2006 coal produced 50% of all electrity in the US
US Department Of Energy ^ </^http://www.energy.gov/energysources/coal.htm>

Coal is one of the true measures of the energy strength of the United States. One quarter of the world's coal reserves are found within the United States, and the energy content of the nation's coal resources exceeds that of all the world's known recoverable oil.

Coal is also the workhorse of the nation's electric power industry, supplying more than half the electricity consumed by Americans.

Coal-fired electric generating plants are the cornerstone of America's central power system. To preserve this economically-vital energy foundation, innovative, low-cost environmental compliance technologies and efficiency-boosting innovations are being developed by the Energy Department's Fossil Energy research program.

A little diddy to laugh about

2008-10-30T10:56:00.000-04:00

'Twas the night before elections
And all through the town
Tempers were flaring
Emotions all up and down!

I, in my bathrobe
With a cat in my lap
Had cut off the TV
Tired of political crap.

When all of a sudden
There arose such a noise
I peered out of my window
Saw Obama and his boys

They had come for my wallet
They wanted my pay
To give to the others
Who had not worked a day!

He snatched up my money
And quick as a wink
Jumped back on his bandwagon
As I gagged from the stink

He then rallied his henchmen
Who were pulling his cart
I could tell they were out
To tear my country apart!

" On Fannie, on Freddie, On Biden and Ayers!
On Acorn, On Pelosi"
He screamed at the pairs!

They took off for his cause
And as he flew out of sight
I heard him laugh at the nation
Who wouldn't stand up and fight!

So I leave you to think
On this one final note-

IF YOU DON'T WANT SOCIALISM GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!

Freshman Studies Indoctrination Assembly at UTM

2008-10-29T22:25:00.001-04:00

A TCWatcher enrolled at UT Martin reports a disgusting experience during a freshman student assembly.

I thought you might find this interesting. All freshman at UTM have a MANDATORY assembly every Wednesday this semester, this is known as "Freshman Studies". What I understood this class to be and it was today is very different.

This class was developed to help incoming freshman learn their way around the campus, activities on campus, and to just learn about the college experience period.

Well today State Senator Roy Herron, a Liberal Democrat Lawyer from Dresden, came to address over 1200 freshman, most 18 year old first time voters.

He began by telling a joke that no one laughed at and then proceeded to say that there is a bias in media coverage and like Fox news it is not fair or balanced. I assumed here that he meant that the media was bias toward McCain, what!

The next sentence out of his mouth was that the media makes a big deal of associations that Obama has with a man who is like 70 or 80 years old that did some bad things when Obama was 8 years old.

But he said "Jesus hung out with prostitutes and thieves." He is comparing, on the same level, Obama and Jesus.

At this point another student and I stood straight up and walked out. Many followed and many that I have spoken to are angry. I and others are going to complain to the university that our tuition does not pay for a politician to come and make stump speeches during our MANDATORY class time. Especially when it is not even a political science class.

This is the filth that covers our public campuses in TN and we need Conservative Representatives in Nashville to hold these institution accountable and see that these are places of higher learning and not indoctrination centers funded by tax dollars.

TN Right to Life endorses Bill Sanderson - pass it on

2008-10-27T14:22:00.001-04:00

Every Life Matters...So Does Every Vote...Make Yours Count!

Early Voting Continues Until October 30

Election Day:Tuesday, November 4

I am writing to urge your support for one of Tennessee's strongest pro-life candidates for the state House, Bill Sanderson. Of the many candidates seeking office this year, I am convinced that Bill has the knowledge, concern, and ability to articulate the pro-life position with great effectiveness.

With the election of Bill Sanderson, you have a unique opportunity to add a pro-life seat in the Tennessee State House. Because the 77th district is strongly pro-life and voters share concern for the protection of Tennessee's unborn children, I know that Bill Sanderson is the natural candidate to represent those pro-life convictions in Nashville.

Election of pro-life leaders is all the more critical considering recent debate on SJR 127, a proposed amendment resolution calling for a public vote on abortion regulation in Tennessee. The resolution has passed the Senate four times but has been opposed and defeated each time in the House by pro-abortion Democratic leadership despite the sponsorship and support of a majority of state House members. Sanderson supports allowing a public vote.

Toward that goal, Tennessee Right to Life PAC strongly urges the election of pro-life Bill Sanderson in the general election on November 4. Your vote can mean the difference between the passage or defeat of pro-life bills in the upcoming legislative session!

Sincerely,

Brian Harris, President

Tennessee Right to Life PAC strongly urges your active support and vote for the following Pro-Life candidates:

United States President: John McCain

United States Vice-President: Sarah Palin

Tennessee State Senate, District 32: Mark Norris

Tennessee State House, District 77: Bill Sanderson

For more information please visit, vote4life.org.

Do you know where the Presidential Candidates stand on LIFE?.

Visit vote4life.org for a piece comparing the presidential and vice-presidential candidates' positions on life issues.

Did you know that Senator Barack Obama has stated that the first thing he would do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act(FOCA)? FOCA, if enacted, would wipe out 35 years of laws restricting and regulating the practice of abortion, including the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. Click here to watch a video of Senator Obama's statement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0__ctD48nfQ.

A Dem calls out the media

2008-10-27T10:28:00.000-04:00

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card, 10/26/2008

TCWatch note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

ACORN fraud is PROVEN in Ohio

2008-10-21T10:34:00.001-04:00

Deters Steps Aside from Voter Registration Fraud Probe

Judge appoints special prosecutor to avoid political allegations.

By 700WLW News

Monday, October 20, 2008

(Cincinnati) -- On Friday, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters issued a subpeona for records related to some of the voters who registered and cast their ballots on the same day during early voting. Deters said he had "numerous credible complaints" of irregularlities. But the Hamilton County Election Board and Ohio Secretary of State's office said they had no record of complaints.

But in an interview with 700WLW's Bill Cunningham, Deters said his staff reviewed 610 ballots cast, and found 266 with problems. He says 166 "voters" apparently don't exist. Another 100 had the wrong address listed on their voter registration card.

But Ohio Democrats are calling the investigation a "political witch hunt". Deters also serves as John McCain's southwest Ohio campaign chairman.

Monday, Deters asked Common Pleas Court Judge Norbert Nadel to appoint a special prosecutor. Nadel named former assistant prosecutor Mike O'Neill to the task.

O'Neill used to work for Deters, but was first hired by Mike Allen.

He says he will go to work immediately on the investigation. There are two weeks before the election, and it's not clear if O'Neill will have a report before then.

Governor Strickland is accusing Ohio Republicans of trying to scare newly registered voters by filing lawsuits on whether they're eligible.

At a news conference today, the Democratic governor also said the GOP is trying to distract voters from real issues.

Where have all the Democrats gone?

2008-10-21T10:12:00.001-04:00

Running Scared

An interest trend of sorts of popping up in state legislative races in West Tennessee. Democrat candidates are refusing to go on a popular radio talk show in Jackson while Republicans in all of those races are all unafraid to take questions and talk to the people.

http://thenewtj105.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/where-have-all-the-democrats-gone/

Mike Slater explains

Where Have All The Democrats Gone?

It seems as if the SlaterRaiders have been blacklisted!

Randy Camp is one of those candidates who doesn't want to come on the show. Heaven forbid he talks to his potential constituents:

Judy Barker gave us the brush off. Bill Sanderson came to the studio.

Jim Ryal bailed on his scheduled interview, no explanaition, won't call us back. Curtis Halford talked with you.

Stan Wheeler won't return our phone calls. Vance Dennis gave specifics as to how he will increase the number of jobs in his district.

Randy Camp is too busy campaigning to…campaign. Dolores Gresham chatted with us on her cell phone on the way to another meeting. She wasn't too busy. She wants your vote.

More products of the John Tanner owned and operated Political Machine. Not the type of representation West Tennessee needs. Of course, the invitation is still out there for all of these candidates. I will ask them the following questions 1) Why do you want to run for this office. 2) What's the most important issue in your district. And 3) What will you bring to Nashville that isn't being talked about right now.

Those 3 questions. What's that take, 5 minutes?

Stealing the Presidency: An Obama/ACORN Primer

2008-10-20T21:01:00.001-04:00

By Kyle-Anne Shiver

"A People's Organization is dedicated to an eternal war...A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play."
- Saul Alinsky; Reveille for Radicals; p. 133

Rules? What rules? Laws? What laws?

Clearly, Alinsky's acolytes take him at his word. When one is fighting a war "against social evils," one is above the law. Rules and laws are for the other people.

I'm stunned by the irony here.

For the past eight years, Americans have been bombarded nearly nonstop by cries of "Bush stole the White House," without a single proven shred of evidence, without a single indictment or conviction of Republicans on vote fraud, vote rigging or anything even close. Meanwhile the only group indicated and convicted in actual vote fraud cases in the last two elections -- ACORN -- is fully mobilized still, claims to have registered 1.3 million new voters this year, and is tied historically and inextricably to our front-running candidate for President, Barack Obama.

If anyone tried to sell this story as fiction, no publisher in his right mind would touch it. The average reader's willingness to suspend disbelief simply doesn't stretch this far.

Yet, here we are two weeks out from what may very well be an actual, stolen presidential election.

ACORN pledged to spend $35 million this year in voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives. The bulk of this money has been targeted at the most important battleground states of the past 2 elections. And as the National Black Republican Association proclaims, ACORN's motto is: "Let Every Fraudulent Vote Count!" Indeed the ACORN strategy apparently rests on Mickey Mouse & company voting early, often and everywhere.

Should legal, registered, qualified voters be concerned that their votes will be negated by fraudulent votes? Yes, we all should be.

State of the Investigations

With investigations ongoing in about a dozen states, Barack Obama has requested that everything be turned over to a special prosecutor. Not just any special prosecutor either. Obama wants all of the ACORN investigations lumped into the ongoing, Democrat-launched probe into Justice Dept. attorney firings in the Bush Administration.

The bottom line here is simple. Obama and the Democrats are attempting to frame every investigation into voter fraud, vote rigging and vote buying from the past 2 elections, as well as this one, as purely political. According to Obama and the Democrats in control of Congress, none of this ACORN fraud ever happened. The attorneys were fired because they refused to investigate ACORN and the Democrats say that was political. Obama claims that all investigations now being mounted by states and the FBI are intended to suppress voter turnout, and are politically motivated.

Only ivy-league lawyers could turn this heap of poppycock into thousands of words on good paper.

Maybe the individual state efforts can save American democracy.

Ohio, the state to watch: When Sarah Palin implored Ohioans last week not to let "the Buckeye state become the ACORN state," she hit that nail squarely upon its head. In the very state that could decide this election, if it turns out to be close, the Democrat Secretary of State got her way last week with an emergency decision of the Supreme Court. The High Court overturned a circuit court ruling that had instructed Ms. Brunner to aid counties swamped with new voter registrations to weed out fraud by checking them against state databases of driver's license and social security numbers. She refused.

But the U.S. Supreme Court did not address the substance of the suit. It ruled in Brunner's favor on a technicality of the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which directed the suit to state court, rather than federal. Attorneys have now filed a brief with Ohio's state supreme court. The judges have instructed Brunner to respond by Monday, and both sides must file briefs by Friday.

Of course, all this stalling on Brunner's part has the appearance of being purely political. The legitimate Ohio voters have a right to a legally protected process. They may be forced to demand it, or we all may pay the price.

Meanwhile, also in Ohio, the Buckeye Institute has filed a RICO suit against ACORN. What may be the most encouraging sign in this entire election is the fact that Hillary Clinton Democrats are joining Republicans and investigators in this struggle to protect the integrity of America's vote.

Nearly completely ignored by our watchdog mainstream media is the fact that a huge rift still exists in the Democrat Party due to the thuggish tactics used by Obama, his supporters and ACORN to garner the Democratic nomination. Caucus fraud was rampant and Democrats have been collecting evidence and video testimonies by eye witnesses for months now. This is the evidence that they are now sharing with plaintiffs in the Ohio RICO suit.

As reported on the Hillbuzz website last week:

"What's happening here is something we have never seen before: centrist Clinton Democrats and Republicans are working together to expose the DNC and Obama campaign's illegal activities and orchestrated, coordinated fraud. Both parties are working with federal agents to investigate ACORN, which has been funded with upwards of $800,000 in questionable donations from the Obama campaign (in what appears to be the expressed and explicit direction to engineer voter fraud in the general election).

"The tactics being employed now in the 15 states currently under investigation are the VERY SAME TACTICS we saw on the ground in Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, and other states working for Hillary Clinton in the primaries."

A lifelong Democrat from D.C., Dr. Lynette Long, has spent the past 6 months investigating and tallying results from the Democratic Party nominating contests. Her conclusion:

"As I write this, the Democratic Party is poised to formally nominate Barack Obama as its candidate for President of the United States.

"It's the triumph of fraud.

"I've spent the past two months immersed in data from the 2008 Democratic caucuses. After studying the procedures and results from all fourteen caucus states, interviewing dozens of witnesses, and reviewing hundreds of personal stories, my conclusion is that the Obama campaign willfully and intentionally defrauded the American public by systematically undermining the caucus process." (emphasis in original)

Even as Barack Obama and his attorneys attempt to portray investigations into ACORN voter fraud as politically motivated attacks brought by Republicans, faithful Democrats band together with Republicans and Independents behind the scenes to protect the integrity of the American electoral system from systematic fraud.

Apparently Barack Obama's mama forgot to teach him the meaning of shame.

In this I second Hillary Clinton: Shame, shame on you, Barack Obama.

Missouri: George W. Bush won Missouri by 7 points, but John McCain is now neck and neck with Barack Obama. In this state, where every single legitimate vote will be crucial, eight ACORN workers pleaded guilty in April to vote fraud in the 2006 election for submitting registrations with false names and addresses, and forged signatures.

Presently, local and state officials are attempting to verify the mounds of ACORN-submitted registrations dumped on them the final day in typical Cloward-Piven fashion that seeks to overwhelm and crash the whole system. Hundreds of fraudulent registrations have already been identified. But whether officials' efforts will be enough, or whether they will be in time, is anybody's guess. In a contest where every electoral vote is crucial, the integrity of Missouri's 11 votes is threatened by a far more dangerous possibility than a bunch of hanging chads.

Pennsylvania: Last Friday, the Associated Press reported that Republican Party leaders filed suit to protect the integrity of the vote against widespread ACORN fraud, "accusing the group of fostering voter registration fraud and asserting that the election system lacks adequate safeguards to stop it."

In a state with 21 electoral votes that Hillary Clinton won in a landslide during the primaries, Pennsylvania has become one of the primary sites for PUMA Pac activities. PUMA people are not fading into the woodwork in the manner that our mainstream media would have us believe. No, they are a force to be reckoned with, and have signaled that they will work hand in hand with Republicans to protect this election.

The Obama/ACORN National Strategy

Investigations ongoing in about a dozen states indicate widespread and systemic fraud. The FBI is currently probing these allegations, most of them involving ACORN, the group that proudly operates Camp Obama and who trains its membership in militant tactics taken from the Alinsky "rule book" that specifically instructs organizers to disobey the law.

According to the comprehensive research published by Heidi J. Swarts in her book, Organizing Urban America: Secular and Faith-Based Progressive Movements (University of Minnesota Press), ACORN differs significantly from the kinds of organizations that have any charitable motives whatsoever. The organization has no interest in good deeds, nor organizing any sort of programs that do not entail political/government solutions to all social problems.

In addition, writes Swarts, ACORN set itself apart from all other socially motivated progressive initiatives with its "strategic innovations," involving "national campaigns...which are quickly disseminated through one centralized organization" to its 1,200 nationwide offices in more than 35 states. Even though ACORN had visions of national political campaigns since its inception in 1970, the group was until the 1980s more interested in keeping its own prominence as the "only truly radical community organization" than in moving towards unity with other progressive movements for "change."

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, ACORN leader Wade Ratke decided to widen his scope and seek the cooperation of other groups. And his decision has paid off. Swarts writes that "since the 1990s, but particularly since 2000, ACORN has demonstrated far greater openness to building alliances, not only with labor unions and the Church-based community organizations but with a wide range of advocacy groups."

These massive numbers of community organizers working in cohesive concert, especially since 2000, have made their national campaigns for "change" possible. And what do these groups seek? Power for low- and moderate-income Americans. They see mass mobilization as their fundamental source of power. They intend to use that power, not only to "spread the wealth around," as Obama states, but also to fundamentally change taxpayers into hog-tied guarantors to their manifesto's demands.

And it would seem now that ACORN & company stand at the threshold of having one of their very own in the White House. Barack Obama did promise ACORN in 2007 that he would make their representatives part of his transition team to the Presidency and from there they would together map the "change" they intend to bring posthaste.

One thing, I believe, is certain. The minute Barack Obama is sworn in as the Chief law enforcement officer in America, the FBI will no longer be investigating ACORN. Neither will the Justice Department.

And I doubt there will be a mainstream media outlet in the Country who will dare to call Obama's use of federal agencies "political." In fact, they probably will not even bother to report on any of it. They'll be far too busy singing the praises of our new Community Organizer in Chief.

Welcome to the Revolution. Hail Obama.

Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent journalist and a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She blogs at kyleanneshiver.com.

The Last Two Years: Let's undo what we did in 2006

2008-10-19T23:05:00.001-04:00

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/the_last_two_years.html

By Randall Hoven

The Obama/Biden ticket's entire campaign theme is based on "the last eight years." Maybe we should really look at "the last two years," or the time period when both the House and the Senate were run by Democrats.

In December 2006, after six years of Bush and the last month before the Democrats took over both houses of the national legislature, a snapshot of our economy looked like this.

Unemployment stood at 4.4%.
Real GDP growth over the previous four years (under a Republican President, House and Senate) averaged 3% per year.
A gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.30.
The S&P 500 stock index stood at 1418, or 84% above its post-911 low and more than 7% higher than when Bush took office.
Every year of Bush's Presidency, real (inflation-adjusted) disposable income per person went up. By the end of 2006, the average person was making 9% more in real terms than before Bush became President .

If you recall, that 2006 election was considered a referendum on Iraq. The people wanted change, so they threw out the Republicans and replaced them with Democrats. Welcome Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Here is how they handled Iraq once in office: Harry Reid told us that the Iraq war was "lost" and the surge was not "accomplishing anything." Senator Obama introduced legislation that would have prevented the surge and would have taken all US troops out of Iraq by March 2008 (that would be seven months ago, as you read this) .

Were they right?

Barack Obama now admits that "the surge succeeded." So much for that change. And as the surge succeeded, Congress's approval ratings plummeted. The latest CBS/New York Times poll has it at 12%, well less than half of the already low level it stood at when the Republican Congress was being tossed out in 2006.

The Democratic Congress did a great job, if what you're looking for in a Congress is continual investigation of Republicans. Did the White House out CIA agent Valerie Plame? No, it was the anti-White House Richard Armitage at State, but Congress investigated anyway. Did Alberto Gonzalez, with White House urging, fire nine prosecutors for political reasons? Probably not, and it wouldn't be a crime anyway, but Congress investigated, and is still investigating. Did the CIA, under orders from the White House, "torture" prisoners? No evidence of that yet, but Congress is on the case.

What Congress would not investigate was anything about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, they fought against such investigations and cast aspersions against anyone who would even doubt the soundness of those institutions. Here is what Barney Frank said:

These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.

You can also see on YouTube how Democrats treated the regulators trying to reign in Fannie and Freddie.

But now we know what happened. Fannie and Freddie were run corruptly and ineptly and went bankrupt. Their $1.5 trillion portfolios had to be rescued by the government this year. Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed CEO of Fannie Mae who was vigorously defended by Congressional Democrats, was sued by government regulators for cooking the books to the tune of $10 billion to increase his own bonuses to the tune of tens of millions. He settled his suit for an estimated $25 million.

On the other hand, here is what the New York Times had to say in 2003 .

The Bush administration is rightly pushing for the Treasury Department to regulate the two giants, along with the network of federal home loan banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide financing to lenders by creating a secondary market for mortgages. All told, these two institutions' debt portfolio exceeds more than $1.5 trillion. Their current regulator is ill equipped to keep tabs on Freddie's and Fannie's sophisticated hedging strategies and the other financial moves they use to manage their huge investments.

And here is what John McCain said on the Senate floor:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

So on the big things, the surge in Iraq and the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to our recent financial mess, the Democrats were wrong. Dead wrong. One hundred eighty degrees out wrong.

On the other hand, who supported the surge? George W. Bush and John McCain.

Who tried to strengthen the oversight and regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? George W. Bush and John McCain.

In the case of the surge, Bush and McCain got their way. The result? Apparent victory in Iraq, a country that is now a democracy, at peace with its neighbors, no longer a WMD threat, no longer a terrorist sanctuary, and no longer filling hundreds of mass graves with hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.

In the case of Fannie and Freddie, Bush and McCain did not get their way - Barney Frank did. The result? The failure of Fannie and Freddie, law suits against their executives and the spark that sent banks failing and stocks falling across the globe to the point of threatening a Great Depression.

Let's vote for change. Let's undo what we did in 2006.

Charlie Daniels: The Stealing of America

2008-10-19T14:00:00.001-04:00

Charlie Daniels Soapbox ^

Lest you cherry pickers accuse me of developing a Johnny-come-lately idea due to the political climate, let me say that if you'd care to peruse my soapbox columns of several years ago you'd find that I was saying the same thing.

I have for many years felt that there is a movement afoot in this nation for a handful of elitist left-wing political groups to seize power over every aspect of American life.

Now I know this is not news to you levelheaded thinking people, but the rest of my opinion may be. You see, I think they not only plan on seizing power but keeping it permanently.

Impossible you say with our system of checks and balances and our free election process?

Well let's take a look.

For the last several decades we have had what is basically an open border with Mexico and politicians from both sides of the aisle have done their best to shove amnesty programs down the throats of a protesting American public.

They absolutely refuse to do anything meaningful to stop the dangerous flow of illegals, under the guise of human decency and wanting everybody to have a shot at the American dream.

This claim, for the most part is composed of the same stuff we dig out of the lot where we keep our bulls. In my humble opinion the reason for laxity on the border is not concern or compassion but a political fallacy being purported on the American public by power-hungry politicians who had no business in Washington in the first place.

Can't you see what's happening here folks? The Democrats and moderates aided by wimpy, spineless Republicans in Congress are creating their own voting block, an alliance of undereducated immigrants, welfare families and fanatical fringe groups that seek to change the face of America forever.

We in America are lazy when it comes to taking the time to vote but you'd better believe that these people won't be lazy. They'll go to the polls every time they open and vote for the candidate and the party who promises to give them the most.

These people don't care about democracy. Did Congress listen to the overwhelming opinion of the American people who didn't want a seven hundred billion dollar government bailout of the banks? They care about power, and if they pull this off I believe we'll see America fall into a cycle of government entitlements and vote buying that we have never had in our history.

Look around you at the voter fraud going on in this country. ACORN currently has allegations of voter fraud in at least 15 states, and many of those are considered battleground states. Do you think the Democratic-controlled Congress is going to do anything meaningful about it? No, because the illegally registered voters would all be voting for them and their party.

Look at the opaque wall that has been built up around Barack Obama. To mention his hate-spewing pastor of twenty years, his friendship with unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers, his association with convicted Chicago slumlord, Tony Rezko, his shady association with Khalid Rashidi - a man who has ties to the PLO, or Obama's own reluctance to release his college history, the doubt about the validity of his birth certificate and all the other things including his full name are forbidden and any one who tries to do so is branded a racist.

What Obama wants appears to be the Socialist States of America. He says that 95% of Americans will get a tax cut, but I don't see any way he can keep that promise considering the trillion dollars in new spending he wants. Bill Clinton promised a middle class tax cut too, and how did that work out?

Obama is the purest example of a silver-tongued charlatan. When Obama says he's not raising taxes on the middle class, what he neglects to tell you is that he and the other Democrats will allow the Bush tax cuts to expire which will result in your taxes going up while promising all along that he won't be raising taxes. That's what I call speaking with a forked tongue.

Under Obama's plan, any person or business making more than $250,000 a year will end up with massive tax increases. The problem is that Obama won't say if that $250,000 is the gross, net, or profit or personal. He also says that very few small businesses make more that $250,000, but that isn't the case.

According to a recent report, 70% of small business with more than 10 employees DO make more than $250,000 a year, and not too long ago, in a year when major corporations were downsizing, small business created close to 100% of all new jobs.

In their last debate, both McCain and Obama talked a lot about Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber from Holland, Ohio who challenged Obama on his tax policies. Joe wants to buy the plumbing company he works for, but that will automatically push him into the over $250,000 bracket, and when Obama knocked on Joe's door this week in Ohio, Joe confronted him with his tax situation.

He asked Obama, "Do you believe in the American dream? I'm being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream.'' Obama said that he didn't want to punish him for his success, but he thought that it was important to "spread the wealth around", and God bless him, Joe told him how he felt about that.

John McCain needs to put Joe the Plumber on the campaign trail to stump for him, because Joe's not afraid to call Obama what he really is, a socialist.

With Obama's "Hope and Change", people will hope they have some change left in their pockets.

This is one big socialistic power-grab, and in my opinion Barack Obama is going to tear this country apart whether he is elected or not.

After all these years I'll finally have to agree with James Carville on something. If the vote is close but Obama is not elected, I believe we'll see riots in the inner city streets of America.

If he is elected I believe that on his inauguration day, America will go into what could well be an irreversible tailspin and armed with a Democrat Congress and Senate the damage done to this country could well topple America from it's long held place as number one on the planet.

The really maddening thing about it is going to be that after their voting block is established there won't be a single thing Americans who disagree with their policies can do about it.

This situation has been developing over many years and has reached an exponential rate of progress and the America we know and love hangs in the balance.

Louis Farrakhan actually called Barack Hussein Obama "the Messiah".

But let not your heart be troubled. The real Messiah is still in charge and in a time like this it is so comforting to know that no matter what, God will take care of His own.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

The Saul Alinsky Connection

2008-10-15T15:25:00.000-04:00

TCWatch note: A TCWatcher from Texas sent us the following:

In doing some research, I've become more convinced that one can't understand the Obama plan of action unless one understands Saul Alinsky. (Hillary wrote her college thesis on him) I've been aware of the link for some time, and remember Alinsky from the 60's --- but was fuzzy on some of the details. Take a look at the following:

http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/alinsky.htm

With hope for a Republican win dwindling away, concern is now surfacing in the Country Club Republican ranks about "too much bitterness against Obama" --- with the implication (even sometimes expressly stated) that "Obama won't be so bad ... we'll come out OK here ... Let's just all get along." I disagree --- the Alinsky connection is extremely important to understand, and the implications are obvious and chilling. Some of the things that will happen under Obama/Reid/Pelosi:

Fairness Doctrine imposed.(conservative talk radio will be banned or crippled)

"Card Check" vs. union elections [In fact, why not for the next POTUS election? -- each voter is presumed to vote Democrat unless they fill out the public card indicating otherwise --- and fully disclosing their personal information (for subsequent "re-education" purposes.]

Military demoralized and reduced. Iraq abandoned.

Taxes up of course. Except "targeted cuts" for Dem supporters.

End of immigration reform. Bring 'em in -- sign 'em up, ACORN.

Federal legislation to mandate voting rights for felons (currently state law controls this)

End of school choice considerations.

Repeal of DOMA (gay marriage mandated)

No drill, no nuclear, -- but fed money for non-effective "green" programs (provided they are managed by loyal Dems)

Personal Gun rights -- forgetaboutit.

And ....much more.

Point here is --- the Alinsky method (totalitarian, atheist, elitist) expressly suggests lying to the masses anytime it's beneficial (like before this election). They are perfectly clear about this. Additionally, the outcome (which Jonah Goldberg calls a liberal, fascist State Religion) justifies any means necessary. These people are devoted, and ruthless. All of Obamas actions, when viewed from an Alinsky framework, are 100% coherent. Lies, "Present" votes, flip flops, more lies, voting fraud, race card plays, etc.

So -- I'm not in the "Let's All Get Along" crowd. When this piece of Marxist crap is elected, I'm for raising hell and resisting every inch of the way -- and yes, doing everything possible to discredit, damage, and destroy them. For the life of me I don't understand why Bush (and McCain too) continue to think that there is such a thing as "Bipartisan action". It's not just purely partisan -- it's a death struggle for the survival of classically-liberal Democracy. I wish it weren't this way, but it is. The cultural battle has been won, at least for now, because the liberal fascists have been in the game to win, while conservatives were in the game to enjoy the nice weather and have a few beers afterwards.

One more thing: I was at the Pentagon on the night of May 19, 1972 when the WU bombed the place. If they had any competent chemists on staff (think Tim McVeigh), they would have got my butt. So I'm sensitive about this. In the entire Obama-Ayers presentation, even by McCain, it's all about "Obama's bad choice of allies". They are missing the more damning point: Why did Bill Ayers select Obama to run his Annenberg-funded Organization Scam? It was NOT because Obama lived close and they could chat over drinks -- it was because Obama was totally committed to the Alinsky Marxist goals that Ayers envisioned -- and the results bear this out. ( The fact that there were a few non-committed folks (who didn't have the votes to change policy) in the mix is, again, straight out of the Alinsky playbook -- to afford tacit plausible deniability to the stacked deck.)

How did we let this thing go so bad so fast?

Obama's Abortion Extremism

2008-10-15T10:08:00.001-04:00

TCWatch note: Read this and then ask Ms. Barker how she can claim to be Pro-Life and support Obama.

by Robert George

Oct 14, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.

Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.

Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals - who aggressively promote Obama's candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of view.

What is going on here?

I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama's self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what they are saying. But before proving my claims about Obama's abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as ''pro-abortion'' rather than ''pro-choice.''

According to the standard argument for the distinction between these labels, nobody is pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without abortions. After all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to have an abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find themselves with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when having a baby would present significant problems for them. So even if abortion is not medically required, it should be permitted, made as widely available as possible and, when necessary, paid for with taxpayers' money.

The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus if we shift to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of Americans: slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition. Such people - Thomas Jefferson was one - reasoned that, given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn't think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given constitutional protection.

Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as ''pro-choice''? Of course we would not. It wouldn't matter to us that they were ''personally opposed'' to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were ''unnecessary,'' or that they wouldn't dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said ''Against slavery? Don't own one.'' We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being ''pro-abortion'' and being ''pro-choice.'' Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden has sometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to create a meaningful category called ''pro-choice,'' then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.

The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ''forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.'' In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.

But this barely scratches the surface of Obama's extremism. He has promised that ''the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act'' (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed ''fundamental right'' to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, ''a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons.'' In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would ''sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.''

It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many ''pro-choice'' legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ''punishment'' that she should not endure. He has stated that women's equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing ''pro-choice'' about that.

But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies. In fact, Obama has opposed key provisions of the Act, including providing coverage of unborn children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed consent for women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age of their child. This legislation would not make a single abortion illegal. It simply seeks to make it easier for pregnant women to make the choice not to abort their babies. Here is a concrete test of whether Obama is ''pro-choice'' rather than pro-abortion. He flunked. Even Senator Edward Kennedy voted to include coverage of unborn children in S-CHIP. But Barack Obama stood resolutely with the most stalwart abortion advocates in opposing it.

It gets worse yet. In an act of breathtaking injustice which the Obama campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist's unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. This legislation would not have banned any abortions. Indeed, it included a specific provision ensuring that it did not affect abortion laws. (This is one of the points Obama and his campaign lied about until they were caught.) The federal version of the bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate, winning the support of such ardent advocates of legal abortion as John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked to defeat it. For him, a child marked for abortion gets no protection-even ordinary medical or comfort care-even if she is born alive and entirely separated from her mother. So Obama has favored protecting what is literally a form of infanticide.

You may be thinking, it can't get worse than that. But it does.

For several years, Americans have been debating the use for biomedical research of embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (originally for reproductive purposes) but now left in a frozen condition in cryopreservation units. President Bush has restricted the use of federal funds for stem-cell research of the type that makes use of these embryos and destroys them in the process. I support the President's restriction, but some legislators with excellent pro-life records, including John McCain, argue that the use of federal money should be permitted where the embryos are going to be discarded or die anyway as the result of the parents' decision. Senator Obama, too, wants to lift the restriction.

But Obama would not stop there. He has co-sponsored a bill-strongly opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to save an embryo by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being implanted in her womb so that he or she could be brought to term. This ''clone and kill'' bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that has heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors misleadingly call this an anti-cloning bill. But it is nothing of the kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the embryonic children produced by cloning to survive.

Can it get still worse? Yes.

Decent people of every persuasion hold out the increasingly realistic hope of resolving the moral issue surrounding embryonic stem-cell research by developing methods to produce the exact equivalent of embryonic stem cells without using (or producing) embryos. But when a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to put a modest amount of federal money into research to develop these methods, Barack Obama was one of the few senators who opposed it. From any rational vantage point, this is unconscionable. Why would someone not wish to find a method of producing the pluripotent cells scientists want that all Americans could enthusiastically endorse? Why create and kill human embryos when there are alternatives that do not require the taking of nascent human lives? It is as if Obama is opposed to stem-cell research unless it involves killing human embryos.

This ultimate manifestation of Obama's extremism brings us back to the puzzle of his pro-life Catholic and Evangelical apologists.

They typically do not deny the facts I have reported. They could not; each one is a matter of public record. But despite Obama's injustices against the most vulnerable human beings, and despite the extraordinary support he receives from the industry that profits from killing the unborn (which should be a good indicator of where he stands), some Obama supporters insist that he is the better candidate from the pro-life point of view.

They say that his economic and social policies would so diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops! ''pro-choice''-candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive research. They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of the unborn.

This is delusional.

We know that the federal and state pro-life laws and policies that Obama has promised to sweep away (and that John McCain would protect) save thousands of lives every year. Studies conducted by Professor Michael New and other social scientists have removed any doubt. Often enough, the abortion lobby itself confirms the truth of what these scholars have determined. Tom McClusky has observed that Planned Parenthood's own statistics show that in each of the seven states that have FOCA-type legislation on the books, ''abortion rates have increased while the national rate has decreased.'' In Maryland, where a bill similar to the one favored by Obama was enacted in 1991, he notes that ''abortion rates have increased by 8 percent while the overall national abortion rate decreased by 9 percent.'' No one is really surprised. After all, the message clearly conveyed by policies such as those Obama favors is that abortion is a legitimate solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies - so clearly legitimate that taxpayers should be forced to pay for it.

But for a moment let's suppose, against all the evidence, that Obama's proposals would reduce the number of abortions, even while subsidizing the killing with taxpayer dollars. Even so, many more unborn human beings would likely be killed under Obama than under McCain. A Congress controlled by strong Democratic majorities under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would enact the bill authorizing the mass industrial production of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed. As president, Obama would sign it. The number of tiny humans created and killed under this legislation (assuming that an efficient human cloning technique is soon perfected) could dwarf the number of lives saved as a result of the reduced demand for abortion-even if we take a delusionally optimistic view of what that number would be.

Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues about which reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans of every faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism, how to restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the tax burden and reduce poverty, etc.

But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect. Across the spectrum of pro-life concerns for the unborn, he would deny these small and vulnerable members of the human family the basic protection of the laws. Over the next four to eight years, as many as five or even six U.S. Supreme Court justices could retire. Obama enthusiastically supports Roe v. Wade and would appoint judges who would protect that morally and constitutionally disastrous decision and even expand its scope. Indeed, in an interview in Glamour magazine, he made it clear that he would apply a litmus test for Supreme Court nominations: jurists who do not support Roe will not be considered for appointment by Obama. John McCain, by contrast, opposes Roe and would appoint judges likely to overturn it. This would not make abortion illegal, but it would return the issue to the forums of democratic deliberation, where pro-life Americans could engage in a fair debate to persuade fellow citizens that killing the unborn is no way to address the problems of pregnant women in need.

What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama's America is one in which being human just isn't enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama's America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: ''that question is above my pay grade.'' It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator's pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then.

In the end, the efforts of Obama's apologists to depict their man as the true pro-life candidate that Catholics and Evangelicals may and even should vote for, doesn't even amount to a nice try. Voting for the most extreme pro-abortion political candidate in American history is not the way to save unborn babies.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.

How to Steal the Election in Ohio

2008-10-14T19:22:00.001-04:00

By Rick Moran

Imagine: It is the very early morning of November 5, 2008. Despite all the predictions and polls, John McCain and Barack Obama are locked in an extremely close race for President of the United States. McCain made a furious comeback over the previous 3 weeks following the last debate where Obama fumbled several answers while looking tired.

McCain's momentum propelled him back into the race and in a furious last minute charge that involved spending more than $25 million in combined campaign and Republican National Committee ad money that last weekend surged to within just a few points of Obama by Election Day.

Now, at 6:00 AM the following day, the race hangs on the results in just one state; Ohio.
McCain leads by nearly 50,000 votes but suddenly, Ohio's Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announces that several thousand McCain absentee ballots have been disqualified while additional thousands of votes in Cuyahoga County were "discovered" to have not been counted. After several more hours of confusion -- which included the discovery of more uncounted votes in heavily Democratic counties by the Secretary of State -- McCain's lead is gone and Obama is declared the winner of Ohio and the election.

Of course, this scenario is not credible, is it? No Secretary of State would act so brazenly, right?

Meet Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's real life Secretary of State, whose actions in the lead up to this election have been so shamefully partisan -- violating both federal and state law in the process -- that it is doubtful any result on Election Day from Ohio is going to be accepted as credible.

Coupled with the outrageously illegal registration activity of ACORN and the shockingly illegal actions of the Obama campaign itself and what you have is an effort to not only "count every vote" but also steal as many votes as will be necessary for Obama to win the state on Election Day.

Strong stuff. But here's former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski writing in the New York Post:

A perfect example is Ohio. Last Monday the Ohio Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, interpreted Ohio law to allow for people to register to vote and cast an absentee ballot on the same day.

(As the three dissenters noted, this directly contradicts Ohio's Constitution, which requires that a person register to vote 30 days in advance of actually casting that vote. But the Ohio Supreme Court is the last word on Ohio state law.)

So now the Obama campaign is using buses to take tens of thousands of people to go register and cast same-day votes. Some media reports say that the Obama camp hopes to get hundreds of thousands of votes this way.

Secretary Brunner, incredibly, got around the provision that one had to be registered 30 days before being able to vote with the following bit of Orwellian doublespeak.

Soren Dayton:

The first thing she did was issue an advisory opinion allowing people to register and vote on the same day, during the "overlap" between the beginning of early voting (35 days out) and the end of registration (30 days out). This was a reversal of the 2006 precedent. Republicans asked how someone could register and vote on the same day when Ohio statute says that you have to be registered 30 days before voting. She answered that when you vote by no-fault absentee you aren't voting. Your vote occurs on election day when it is counted, not on the day you cast it.

Dayton links to a conservative student organization site -- Palestra -- that has been following this early voting in Ohio. Correspondent Shelby Holiday's revelations are pretty shocking:

One of the biggest issues? These voters didn't need to show ID or proof of residency in order to cast their ballot.

We witnessed dozens of homeless people being driven to the polls, and none of them had to prove that they were Ohio residents. In fact, one man I spoke with was about to hop on a Greyhound bus to go back to Chicago.

We have been trying for a week now to get a comment from the Secretary of State to see how she plans on verifying the residency and identification of all these early voters. Despite numerous phone calls and emails, we have yet to be granted even just a ten minute interview.

Who I did speak with was the Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. When I asked him what would prevent the homeless man from voting in Illinois just weeks after he cast a ballot in Ohio, he told me that their voter checks are "just county-to-county, we do not do state by state."

One "voter" reportedly said he was voting for Obama because of his "thug thizzle." This was just before he boarded a Greyhound bus back to Chicago.

In addition to this invitation to fraud invented by Brunnner, she also -- once again in violation of state law -- prevented Republicans from monitoring this early voting.

Dayton again:

The second thing she did was to issue an advisory opinion advising county election officials that Ohio law does not require that partisan election observers be allowed to observe registration and voting. This is contrary to the practice on election day and a reversal of the 2006 precedent. Two of the largest counties, Montgomery (containing Dayton) and Franklin (containing Columbus), did not allow Republican election observers to enter the polling place. Media, however, were allowed.

Liberals especially cheered this ruling, believing that GOP election monitors "intimidate" minorities and young people in order to keep them from voting. Given the problems with out of state voters and other irregularities that occurred during this 6 day "Golden" period where people can register and vote on the same day, anyone halfway concerned with free and fair elections just might have welcomed election monitors in order to prevent obvious fraud. But Democrats do not appear to care very much about the "fair" part in elections and instead wish to be "free" to violate the law with impunity.

Another insult to the integrity of our election system was Brunner's attempt to prevent thousands of McCain absentee ballots from being counted.

Dayton again:

Brunner also tried to throw out absentee ballot applications sent out by the McCain campaign because the campaign added an extra check-box to the application. This time, the GOP won in court. Clearly Brunner was not protecting everyone's right to vote. If that was her interest, she would have applied the same lax standards to the McCain campaign's applications that she applies to absentee voting.

The Republicans took that one to court and prevailed. Thank the Lord for small favors. And it appeared very briefly that Republicans had won a stunning court victory on Thursday when a US District Judge ruled that Brunner must verify the registrations by checking them against the motor vehicle and social security databases. She was also ordered to share the information on how to verify registrations with Ohio's 88 county registrars.

But a federal appeals court struck down the district judge's ruling:

Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and that nothing in the Help America Vote Act required her to do what the district court ordered. The appeals court agreed in a split decision.

"With less than a month until the election, and less than two weeks until the beginning of counting absentee ballots, the secretary cannot be required to undertake the extensive reprogramming and other changes to the election mechanics without complete disruption of the electoral process in Ohio," the majority said in its opinion. "The irreparable harm to the voting public caused by the district court's order is equally clear."

No word on the "irreparable harm" done to the integrity of the election process by Brunner, Obama, and the rest of the Democrats in Ohio.

Then, of course, there are the vastly more entertaining antics of ACORN in Ohio. One must give credit where credit is due. ACORN should win some kind of award for its spectacular creativity in finding new ways to game the system and flood it with false, forged, and illegal voter registration applications.

First, it is important to recall that the Obama campaign funneled more than $800,000 to ACORN and then tried to hide it by designating it as payment to "Citizens Services, Inc." for work such as $310,000 for "Stage, Sound, and Lighting." Michelle Malkin looked deeper into this fraud and found some startling facts:

For your information: The New Orleans building that houses CSI also houses multiple chapters of ACORN and the SEIU- as well as the 527 group Communities Voting Together.

And for your information: A tipster points to shady business by CSI -detected by Maryland Democrat Al Wynn, of all people. His team, which filed an FEC complaint over the matter, linked several suspicious outfits used by his primary opponent to one address: 1024 Elysian Fields in New Orleans. That's the address of CSI and ACORN.

As we've seen in Ohio, the Obama campaign apparently bussed in people to register and vote illegally during Ohio's early voting period. The close connection between the Obama campaign and ACORN begs the question of whether activities like this coupled with ACORN's registration shenanigans are a coordinated effort to set the stage on election day for the most massive fraud in the history of the United States - fraud that would make any 19th century election where votes were bought and sold look on the up and up.

Some of the outrageous actions of ACORN in Ohio were detailed in this Cleveland Plain Dealer article:

Yesterday two Ohio voters came forth and claimed that although they had made it clear they were already registered to vote, ACORN canvassers encouraged them to sign up several times. One of those was Christopher Barkley of Cleveland, who estimates that he registered to vote "10 to 15" times after ACORN relentlessly pursued him.

"I kept getting approached by folks who asked me to register," Barkley said. "They'd ask me if I was registered. I'd say yes, and they'd ask me to do it [register] again. Some of them were getting paid to collect names. That was their sob story, and I bought it," he said.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has thus far subpoenaed at least three people as part of a wider inquiry into potential voter fraud by ACORN. The community organization looks to register low-income voters, that tend to overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

Lateala Goins, who was subpoeaned along with Barkley and others, said, "You can tell them you're registered as many times as you want - they do not care. They will follow you to the buses, they will follow you home, it does not matter."

Also subpoenaed was Freddie Johnson, who filled out voter registration cards a total of 72 times over the course of 18 months.

The ACORN spokesman in Ohio insists "that his group has collected 100,000 voter registration cards, and only about 50 were questionable." How this is possible when one poor guy was harassed to sign up 72 by times by ACORN makes one wonder what other lies and frauds the far left Democratic partisan group is capable of.

There is much more. And the sad fact is nobody -- not ACORN (who wouldn't care anyway), Ohio election officials at every level, Republicans, non-partisan observers -- knows just how many false, forged, or illegal registrations were dumped into Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's lap. No one knows how many early voters voted illegally. No one knows how many Republicans were discouraged from voting by absentee ballot thanks to Brunner's original ruling on the matter. No one knows the extent of cooperation between the Obama campaign and ACORN in Ohio. And no one knows if any of this will affect the outcome of Ohio's presidential election.

There are other states where ACORN and the Democrats have been playing fast and loose with registration and early voting. Over the next weeks and until the election, American Thinker will look at many of these states and detail the attempts to hijack the democratic process in service to Barack Obama's presidential ambitions.

No doubt we will hear much from authorities in the coming weeks who finally appear to be aroused to the threat ACORN poses to the integrity of the election and are carrying out numerous investigations in at least 11 states across the country.

Rick Moran is associate editor of American Thinker.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/how_to_steal_ohio.html at October 14, 2008 -

October 14, 2008

By Rick Moran

Of course, this scenario is not credible, is it? No Secretary of State would act so brazenly, right?

Strong stuff. But here's former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski writing in the New York Post:

A perfect example is Ohio. Last Monday the Ohio Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, interpreted Ohio law to allow for people to register to vote and cast an absentee ballot on the same day.

(As the three dissenters noted, this directly contradicts Ohio's Constitution, which requires that a person register to vote 30 days in advance of actually casting that vote. But the Ohio Supreme Court is the last word on Ohio state law.)

So now the Obama campaign is using buses to take tens of thousands of people to go register and cast same-day votes. Some media reports say that the Obama camp hopes to get hundreds of thousands of votes this way.

Secretary Brunner, incredibly, got around the provision that one had to be registered 30 days before being able to vote with the following bit of Orwellian doublespeak.

Soren Dayton:

The first thing she did was issue an advisory opinion allowing people to register and vote on the same day, during the "overlap" between the beginning of early voting (35 days out) and the end of registration (30 days out). This was a reversal of the 2006 precedent. Republicans asked how someone could register and vote on the same day when Ohio statute says that you have to be registered 30 days before voting. She answered that when you vote by no-fault absentee you aren't voting. Your vote occurs on election day when it is counted, not on the day you cast it.

Dayton links to a conservative student organization site -- Palestra -- that has been following this early voting in Ohio. Correspondent Shelby Holiday's revelations are pretty shocking:

One of the biggest issues? These voters didn't need to show ID or proof of residency in order to cast their ballot.

We witnessed dozens of homeless people being driven to the polls, and none of them had to prove that they were Ohio residents. In fact, one man I spoke with was about to hop on a Greyhound bus to go back to Chicago.

We have been trying for a week now to get a comment from the Secretary of State to see how she plans on verifying the residency and identification of all these early voters. Despite numerous phone calls and emails, we have yet to be granted even just a ten minute interview.

Who I did speak with was the Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. When I asked him what would prevent the homeless man from voting in Illinois just weeks after he cast a ballot in Ohio, he told me that their voter checks are "just county-to-county, we do not do state by state."

One "voter" reportedly said he was voting for Obama because of his "thug thizzle." This was just before he boarded a Greyhound bus back to Chicago.

In addition to this invitation to fraud invented by Brunnner, she also -- once again in violation of state law -- prevented Republicans from monitoring this early voting.

Dayton again:

The second thing she did was to issue an advisory opinion advising county election officials that Ohio law does not require that partisan election observers be allowed to observe registration and voting. This is contrary to the practice on election day and a reversal of the 2006 precedent. Two of the largest counties, Montgomery (containing Dayton) and Franklin (containing Columbus), did not allow Republican election observers to enter the polling place. Media, however, were allowed.

Another insult to the integrity of our election system was Brunner's attempt to prevent thousands of McCain absentee ballots from being counted.

Dayton again:

Brunner also tried to throw out absentee ballot applications sent out by the McCain campaign because the campaign added an extra check-box to the application. This time, the GOP won in court. Clearly Brunner was not protecting everyone's right to vote. If that was her interest, she would have applied the same lax standards to the McCain campaign's applications that she applies to absentee voting.

But a federal appeals court struck down the district judge's ruling:

Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and that nothing in the Help America Vote Act required her to do what the district court ordered. The appeals court agreed in a split decision.

"With less than a month until the election, and less than two weeks until the beginning of counting absentee ballots, the secretary cannot be required to undertake the extensive reprogramming and other changes to the election mechanics without complete disruption of the electoral process in Ohio," the majority said in its opinion. "The irreparable harm to the voting public caused by the district court's order is equally clear."

No word on the "irreparable harm" done to the integrity of the election process by Brunner, Obama, and the rest of the Democrats in Ohio.

For your information: The New Orleans building that houses CSI also houses multiple chapters of ACORN and the SEIU- as well as the 527 group Communities Voting Together.

And for your information: A tipster points to shady business by CSI -detected by Maryland Democrat Al Wynn, of all people. His team, which filed an FEC complaint over the matter, linked several suspicious outfits used by his primary opponent to one address: 1024 Elysian Fields in New Orleans. That's the address of CSI and ACORN.

Some of the outrageous actions of ACORN in Ohio were detailed in this Cleveland Plain Dealer article:

Yesterday two Ohio voters came forth and claimed that although they had made it clear they were already registered to vote, ACORN canvassers encouraged them to sign up several times. One of those was Christopher Barkley of Cleveland, who estimates that he registered to vote "10 to 15" times after ACORN relentlessly pursued him.

"I kept getting approached by folks who asked me to register," Barkley said. "They'd ask me if I was registered. I'd say yes, and they'd ask me to do it [register] again. Some of them were getting paid to collect names. That was their sob story, and I bought it," he said.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has thus far subpoenaed at least three people as part of a wider inquiry into potential voter fraud by ACORN. The community organization looks to register low-income voters, that tend to overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

Lateala Goins, who was subpoeaned along with Barkley and others, said, "You can tell them you're registered as many times as you want - they do not care. They will follow you to the buses, they will follow you home, it does not matter."

Also subpoenaed was Freddie Johnson, who filled out voter registration cards a total of 72 times over the course of 18 months.

Rick Moran is associate editor of American Thinker.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/how_to_steal_ohio.html

The Complete Guide to ACORN Voter Fraud

2008-10-14T13:54:00.001-04:00

October 14, 2008 - by Jim Hoft

And you thought 2000 was bad.

This year's election is shaping up to be one of the most controversial in history. Just this week, a [1] federal judge ordered Ohio's top elections official to verify the identity of newly registered voters by matching them with other government documents. The very next day a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals[2] set aside the federal judge's order on verifying registrations.

Further igniting the voter fraud/voter registration debate was the news that a national community organizing group is being investigated in at least 14 states and several swing states for massive irregularities. This news would make headlines anyway, but what made it worse was that Barack Obama was a key player in this organization, the [3] Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, in the past. Obama [4] trained its local leaders, [5] represented the organization in court, and worked to [6] funnel funds to the organization. The Obama campaign also [7] donated $800,000 this year to an ACORN affiliate.

What is ACORN?

The [8] Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a community-based organization that advocates for low and moderate income families founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado. [9] Rathke, one of the most powerful hard-Left activists in America, is a former member of a radical 1960s group, the [10] Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Weathermen terrorist group split off from the SDS in 1969. [11] ACORN says its priorities include better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, and better public schools.

ACORN is also known for its voter registration efforts.
[12]

This year alone [13] ACORN has registered 1,315,037 voters.

Although the organization prides itself for its registration efforts, it also has a long history of scandal. In the state of Missouri in 1986, [14] 12 ACORN members were convicted of voter fraud. But that case was not an isolated incident in the state. In December 2004, in St. Louis, six volunteers pleaded guilty of dozens of election law violations for filling out registration cards with names of dead people and other bogus information. Authorities launched an earlier investigation after noticing that among the new voters was longtime St. Louis alderman Albert "Red" Villa, who died in 1990. The volunteers worked for "Operation Big Vote" — a branch of ACORN — in St. Louis.

On February 10, 2005, Nonaresa Montgomery, a paid worker who ran Operation Big Vote during the run-up to the 2001 mayoral primary, was found guilty of vote fraud. Montgomery hired about 30 workers to do fraudulent voter-registration canvassing. Instead of knocking on doors, the volunteers sat at a St. Louis fast food restaurant and wrote out names and information from an outdated voter list. About 1,500 fraudulent voter registration cards were turned in.

In October 2006, St. Louis election officials discovered [15] at least 1,492 "potentially fraudulent" voter registration cards. They were all turned in by ACORN volunteers.

In [16] November 2006, 20,000 to [17] 35,000 questionable voter registration forms were [18] turned in by ACORN officials in Missouri. Most all of these were from St. Louis and Kansas City areas, where ACORN purportedly sought to help empower the "disenfranchised" minorities living there. But the ACORN workers weren't just told to register new voters. The workers [19] admitted on camera that they were coached to tell registrants to vote for Democrat Claire McCaskill.

In 2007, in Kansas City, Missouri, four ACORN employees were [20] indicted for fraud. In April of this year [21] eight ACORN employees in St. Louis city and county pleaded guilty to federal election fraud for submitting bogus voter registrations.

And, that was just Missouri.

This year there have been several accusations of fraud against ACORN. Over a dozen states are investigating the organization already. Here is a complete list of the ongoing investigations:

North Carolina — State Board of Elections officials have [22] found at least 100 voter registration forms with the same names over and over again. The forms were turned in by ACORN. Officials sent about 30 applications to the state Board of Elections for possible fraud investigation.

Ohio — [23] The New York Post reported that a Cleveland man said he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times. The complaints have sparked an investigation by election officials into the organization, whose political wing has supported Barack Obama. Witnesses have already been [24] subpoenaed to testify against the organization.

Nevada — Authorities [25] raided the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now on Tuesday October 7, 2008, after a month-long investigation. The fraudulent voter registrations included the Dallas Cowboys starting line-up.

Indiana — More than [26] 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana's Lake County filled out by ACORN employees turned out to be bogus. Officials also stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

Connecticut — Officials are looking into a [27] complaint alleging ACORN submitted fraudulent voter registration cards in Bridgeport. In one instance, an official said a card was filled out for a [28] 7-year-old girl, whose age was listed as 27. 8,000 cards were submitted in Bridgeport.

Missouri — The Kansas City election board is reporting 100 duplicate applications and 280 with fake information. Acorn officials [29] agreed that at least 4% of their registrations were bogus. Governor Matt Blunt [30] condemned the attempts by ACORN to commit voter fraud.

Pennsylvania — Officials are [31] investigating suspicious or incomplete registration forms [32] submitted by ACORN. 252,595 voter registrations were submitted in Philadelphia. Remarkably, 57,435 were rejected — most of them submitted by ACORN.

Wisconsin — In Milwaukee ACORN improperly [33] used felons as registration workers. Additionally, its workers are among 49 cases of bad registrations sent to authorities for possible charges, as first reported by the Journal Sentinel.

Florida — The Pinellas County Elections supervisor says his office has [34] received around 35 voter registrations that appear to be bogus. There is also a question of [35] 30,000 felons who are registered illegally to vote. Their connections with ACORN are not yet clear.

Texas — Of the 30,000 registration cards ACORN turned in, Harris County tax assessor Paul Bettencourt says just more than 20,000 are valid. And just look at some of the places ACORN was finding those voters. A church just next door is the address for around 150 people. More than 250 people claim a homeless outreach center as their home address. Some listed a county mental health facility as their home and one person even wrote down the [36] Harris County jail at the sheriff's office.

Michigan — ACORN in Detroit is being [37] investigated after several municipal clerks reported fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications coming through. The clerk interviewed said the fraud appears to be widespread.

New Mexico – The Bernalillo County clerk has notified prosecutors that some 1,100 fraudulent voter registration cards were [38] turned in by ACORN.

That's not all. So far this year at least 14 states have started investigations against ACORN. Talk about a culture of corruption. It is so bad that Representatives of Congress [39] have asked for the Justice Department to investigate, and GOP presidential candidate John McCain is [40] bringing it up in his stump speeches. The Obama camp is [41] stealthily altering its "Fight the Smears" website to distance themselves from the organization — quite a challenge considering how close their candidate's association has been with the group.

The liberal vs. conservative, voter fraud vs. voter intimidation debate will no doubt continue after this election. But this year, with the assistance of scandal-plagued ACORN, it appears that — so far — the voter fraud side is winning.

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-acorn-voter-fraud/

The BEST explanation of why we're in this financial mess

2008-10-14T12:46:00.001-04:00

A Financial Primer
by: James F. Davis, October 14, 2008

As someone who spent the majority of my life as an international bank analyst and executive, I learned that to fix a problem, one needs to understand what caused it. This can be difficult to see because sometimes it takes time for the effects of bad decisions to manifest themselves. It also requires that we examine the facts rather than our emotional biases.

The facts are that approximately 6% of all mortgage loans in United States are in default. Historically, defaults were less than one third of that, i.e., from 0.25% to 2%.

A huge portion of the increased mortgage loan defaults are what are referred to as "sub-prime" loans. Most of the sub-prime loans have been made to borrowers with poor credit ratings, no down payment on the home financed, and/or no verification of income or assets. Close to 25% of sub-prime loans are in default.

These loans increased dramatically as a 9/30/99 New York Times article explained, "In a move that could help increase homeownership rates among minorities and low income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corp. is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders."

Why would banks make such risky loans? The answer is that the Clinton administration demanded that the banks help poor people become homeowners, a noble liberal idea. Also the Clinton Justice Department threatened banks with lawsuits and fines ($10,000 per application) for redlining (discrimination) if they did not make these loans.

To allow Fannie Mae to make more loans, President Clinton also reduced Fannie Mae's reserve requirement to 2.5%. That means it could purchase and/or guarantee $97.50 in mortgages for every $2.50 it had in equity to cover possible bad debts.

Principally Senate Democrats demanded that Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac (FM&FM) buy more of these bad sub-prime loans to help the poor. Since the mortgages purchased and guaranteed by FM&FM are backed by the U.S. government, the loans were re-sold primarily to investment banks which in turn bundled most of them, taking a hefty fee, and sold the mortgages to investors all over the world as virtually risk free. As long as the Federal Reserve (another government-created agency) kept interest rates artificially low, monthly mortgage payments were low and housing prices went up. Many home owners would get home equity loans to pay their first mortgages and credit card debt.

Unfortunately home prices peaked in the winter of 2005-06 and the house of cards started to crumble. People could no longer borrow more to pay previous debts.

During the past eight years, the Bush administration made 17 attempts to reform FM&FM, having been made aware by whistleblowers that the books had been cooked by Clinton appointees, James Johnson and Franklin Raines (most recently Barack Obama's financial advisors), who gave large bonuses to themselves and other Clinton appointees by falsely showing huge profits.

In 2005, John McCain submitted a Fannie Mae reform bill. Democrats blocked it in Committee from getting to the Senate floor for a vote.

By 2006 there was enough evidence of malfeasance that Raines was forced out. He had paid himself over $90 million. Recently the court ordered him to pay back $50 million in bonuses that he gave himself based on misstatements of Fannie Mae profits.

In the 2006 elections, the Democrats took control of the House and Senate. There are plenty of videos on the internet showing many Democrats including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Democrat Christopher Dodd and House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank, responsible with overseeing FM & FM, assuring us that there were no problems with FM&FM right up to their collapse.

Not surprisingly, virtually all the investment banks that are in trouble and being bailed out are run by financial supporters of Obama and other Democrats. Secretary of the Treasury Paulsen is a Democrat and former head of Goldman Sachs. The new head of the $700 million bailout is also from Goldman Sachs. This is like letting the fox be in charge of henhouse security.

Barack Obama has received more campaign donations than any other politician in the past three years from Fannie Mae and Wall Street. FM&FM have been virtual private piggy banks of campaign contributions for Democrats for the past ten years. Yes, a token amount went to some Republicans.

And there is plenty of blame to go around in this financial crisis, but the reason it happened is 100% caused by a Democrat-run government that forced a liberal policy initiated by President Clinton and reforms blocked by primarily Democrats. One would never know this by watching the news or reading newspapers.

Until the majority of our citizens understand who (government liberals) and what (liberalism) caused this mess, we will allow our elected officials to lower the standard of living of those of us who are financially prudent and give it to those who are not.

James F. Davis is the President of Accuracy in Academia.

"Spread the Wealth Around" = Obama Speak for Socialism

2008-10-13T19:48:00.001-04:00

Obama to Plumber: My Plan Will 'Spread the Wealth Around'

Barack Obama tells a plumber in Ohio he wants to "spread the wealth around," eliciting criticism that his economic recovery plan is socialist in nature.

FOXNews.com

Monday, October 13, 2008

Barack Obama told a tax-burdened plumber over the weekend that his economic philosophy is to "spread the wealth around" -- a comment that may only draw fire from riled-up John McCain supporters who have taken to calling Obama a "socialist" at the Republican's rallies.

Obama made the remark, caught on camera, after fielding some tough questions from the plumber Sunday in Ohio, where the Democratic candidate canvassed neighborhoods and encouraged residents to vote early.

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed "more and more for fulfilling the American dream."

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Obama's remarks drew fresh criticism on the blogosphere that the Illinois senator favors a breed of wealth redistribution -- as well as a rebuke from the McCain campaign.

"If Barack Obama's goal as President is to 'spread the wealth around,' perhaps his unconditional meetings with Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and Kim Jong-Il aren't so crazy -- if nothing else they can advise an Obama administration on economic policy," McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said in a written statement to FOXNews.com. "In contrast, John McCain's goal as president will be to let the American people prosper unburdened by government and ever higher taxes."

Obama frequently rails against what he calls a Republican concept that tax breaks for the wealthy will somehow "trickle down" to middle-class Americans.

Obama says he will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

However, McCain's aides and supporters argue that Obama wrongly wants to raise taxes on businesses in a time of economic distress.

Both candidates spent Monday discussing how they would resurrect the ailing economy. McCain again pointed to his plan to buy up cumbersome mortgages from homeowners and renegotiate them. Obama unveiled what he called an economic rescue plan for the middle class, which included a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures.

Click here to watch the video of Obama's remarks.

Bought and Paid For (must read for all Americans)

2008-10-13T16:49:00.001-04:00

http://www.therightangler.com/59_Bought_and_Paid_For.html

Todd A. Carges

I believe there are many good Americans who call themselves Democrats. They are hard-working, compassionate, and patriotic. Unfortunately, their Party has abandoned them by allowing well-funded, radical leftists to take over. These groups and their operatives have transformed the Democrat Party from the Party of JFK into a Party run by anti-American Marxists. Many Democrat politicians and voters have ignored this transformation because they benefit financially. If America, as we know it, is to survive, the Marxists controlling the Democrat Party and their candidate Barack Obama must be defeated.

Capitalism can be defined as: "an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit." Capitalism is the engine that runs America and provides opportunity to everyone in this country. It is central to our individual freedom, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Marxism on the other hand can be defined as "a system of socialism in which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange." In other words, the Government controls everything including your property, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

In 2003, Marxist billionaire George Soros, declared he would use his entire fortune to defeat George W. Bush. His efforts failed but according to James Norell of America's 1^st Freedom, Soros created: "a complex, secret political infrastructure...consisting of a murky network of radical left-wing political organizations." These organizations are funded by Soros and 70 fellow leftist millionaires and billionaires. According to authors, Matthew Vadum and James Dellinger of the Capital Research Center, Soros and his group of wealthy progressives sought to create: "a permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks, media outlets, leadership schools and activist groups...the goal is not merely to elect Democrats this November but to permanently realign U.S. Politics."

Vadum and Dellinger describe a meeting held in April 2005 in Phoenix where Soros met with his fellow true believers for a secret planning session to discuss their long-term strategy. They cleverly introduced themselves to the world as the Democracy Alliance (DA). The DA is a taxable non-profit and is therefore exempt from reporting requirements that might reveal their clandestine activity. Membership requirements are a $25,000 upfront fee to become a partner. There is then a $30,000 annual fee and partners must pledge to donate $200,000 annually to groups that the DA endorses.

In July 2006, the Washington Post took note of the DA's activity: "A new alliance of Democrats spreads funding...made up of billionaires and millionaires who are accustomed to calling the shots." The Post reported that more than 25 groups have been funded by the DA. "The goal was to invest in groups that could be influential in building what activists call 'political infrastructure'--institutions that can support Democratic causes, not simply in the next election, but for years to come."

So who are these groups and what are their "Democratic" causes? There is the Center for American Progress whose main goal is regulate talk radio and provide more "fairness" on the airwaves. There is the group Media Matters for America purportedly dedicated to exposing right-wing media bias (right wing media bias???). There is the group Citizens for Responsibilities and Ethics in Washington. This group is made up of lawyers who file lawsuits that promote liberal causes. There is Soros' group, the Open Society Institute. They've poured millions of dollars into punitive lawsuits with the intent to bankrupt America's firearm industry. There is the Center for Community Change dedicated to promoting welfare programs and leftist anti-poverty programs. Then there is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Sound familiar? ACORN is a group of radical community organizers with two specialties: shaking down banks to give mortgages to people who can't afford them and massive voter fraud.

At the center of these organizations and the very strategy itself are radial community operatives. That is the very world that Barack Obama came from. In fact, he worked with ACORN in Chicago and the same people who fund and control the DA, fund and control Barack's campaign and perhaps his future Presidency. Did you know that Barack Obama already has a presidential transition team in place run by John Podesta, partner in the DA? Barack is merely the disguise for this anti-American, anti-Capitalism cabal.

It has long been thought by Marxists that the best way to topple American capitalism and democracy is a long, destructive march through its valued institutions. These well-funded, well-mobilized community organizations are doing just that. One of their first goals was to gain control of a major political party. By funding politicians and social causes, the DA has done just that. Eli Pariser is the head of the radical MoveOn.org, perhaps the most powerful DA funded entity. Eli proclaimed in 2004: "last year, grass roots contributors like us gave over $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee...now it is our party, we bought it, we own it, and we are going to take it back." Now, 4 years later, with one month to go, their candidate is a few votes away from the White House. Only your vote can stop them.

Obama's Kenya ghosts and his "Cousin Raila Odinga"

2008-10-12T21:33:00.001-04:00

TCWatch note: Read this and be dumbfounded why you don't already know about Raila Odinga's relationship with his cousin Barack H. Obama

http://www.washtimes.com/news/2008/oct/12/obamas-kenya-ghosts/

Sunday, October 12, 2008 by Mark Hyman

About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000.

The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda genocide of a decade earlier.

By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.

The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga (Obama's cousin), the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama's father.

Mr. Odinga had the backing of Kenya's Muslim community heading into the election. For months he denied any ties to Muslim leaders, but fell silent when Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, appeared on Kenya television displaying a memorandum of understanding signed on Aug. 29, 2007, by Mr. Odinga and the Muslim leader. Mr. Odinga then denied his denials.

The details of the MOU were shocking. In return for Muslim backing, Mr. Odinga promised to impose a number of measures favored by Muslims if he were elected president. Among these were recognition of "Islam as the only true religion," Islamic leaders would have an "oversight role to monitor activities of ALL other religions [emphasis in original]," installation of Shariah courts in every jurisdiction, a ban on Christian preaching, replacement of the police commissioner who "allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists," adoption of a women's dress code, and bans on alcohol and pork.

This was not Mr. Odinga's first brush with notoriety. Like his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the main opposition leader in the 1960s and 1970s, Raila Odinga is a Marxist He graduated from East Germany's Magdeburg University in 1970 on a scholarship provided by the East German government. He named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States. Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the 1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.

Mr. Odinga spent eight years in prison. At the time, he denied guilt but later detailed he was a coup leader in his 2006 biography. Statue of limitations precluded further prosecution when the biography appeared.

Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies.
In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. "The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials," Mr. Obama announced.

"Kenyans are now yearning for change," he declared. The intent of Mr. Obama's remarks and actions was transparent to Kenyans - he was firmly behind Mr. Odinga.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama had met several times before the 2006 trip. Reports indicate Mr. Odinga visited Mr. Obama during trips to the U.S. in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Mr. Obama sent his foreign policy adviser Mark Lippert to Kenya in early 2006 to coordinate his summer visit.
Mr. Obama's August trip coincided with strategizing by Orange Democratic Movement leaders to defeat Mr. Kibaki in the upcoming elections. Mr. Odinga represented the ODM ticket in the presidential race.

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama's father were both from the Luo community, the second-largest tribe in Kenya, but their ties run much deeper. Mr. Odinga told a stunned BBC Radio interviewer the reason why he and Mr. Obama were staying in near daily telephone contact was because they were cousins. In a Jan. 8, 2008, interview, Mr. Odinga said Mr. Obama had called him twice the day before while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary before adding, "Barack Obama's father is my maternal uncle."

President Kibaki requested a meeting of all opposition leaders in early January in an effort to quell the violence. All agreed to attend except Mr. Odinga. A month later, Mr. Kibaki offered Mr. Odinga the role of prime minister, the de facto No. 2 in the Kenyan government, in return for an end to the attacks. Mr. Odinga was sworn in on April 17, 2008.

Mr. Obama's judgment is seriously called into question when he backs an official with troubling ties to Muslim extremists and whose supporters practice ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was Islamic extremists in Kenya who bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, killing more than 200 and injuring thousands. None of this has dissuaded Mr. Obama from maintaining disturbing loyalties.

Mark Hyman is an award-winning news commentator for Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.

Is ACORN Stealing the Election??

2008-10-09T21:12:00.001-04:00

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election Fraud: A radical group Barack Obama used to work for is committing voter-registration fraud in several states, ahead of the election. What does Obama know about this scam?

It's a legitimate question to raise now that the FBI has raided the offices of the nonprofit Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in Nevada and North Carolina, two states where Obama and John McCain are running neck-and-neck. ACORN has registered bogus voters in both states.

The group's voter-registration fraud is rampant, and authorities plan a nationwide sweep of ACORN offices to collect records.

In Nevada, state officials say the fraudulent registrations included forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team, including quarterback Tony Romo.

"Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada," Secretary of State Ross Miller said, "and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4."

While those names will be flagged on Election Day, felonious voters may have better luck using other cutouts. Nevada, along with several other key battleground states, requires no ID to vote.

In North Carolina, where Obama has been running nonstop ads, ACORN has registered a record number of new voters, many of them suspicious. Statewide, Democrats are doing better than the GOP in new converts — even in traditionally Republican counties.

There have been 218,749 newly registered Democrats in North Carolina since January — more than five times the 38,337 new Republicans, state records show.

The numbers show a startlingly close political battle even in Republican-dominated Union County, with 4,233 new voters registering as Democrats and 4,362 as Republicans. In previous election years, new Republicans have outnumbered Democrats 2-to-1 in the fast-growing Charlotte-area county.

In Missouri, one ACORN registrant named Monica Rays showed up on no less than eight forms, all bearing the same signature.

Suspicious election officials sent letters to some 5,000 ACORN registrants in St. Louis, asking the letter recipients to contact them.

Fewer than 40 reponded.

In Kansas City, 15,000 registrations have been questioned, and last year four ACORN employees were indicted for fraud.

In addition, ACORN officials have also been indicted in Wisconsin and Colorado. Investigations against others are active in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

ACORN has also been registering convicted felons — including inmates — in Florida and other battleground states. ACORN boasts registering a record 1.5 million new voters so far this election.

What does all this have to do with Obama, besides the fact that he'd be the beneficiary of most, if not all, of these new votes?

For starters, Obama paid ACORN, which has endorsed him for president, $800,000 to register new voters, payments his campaign failed to accurately report. (They were disguised in his FEC disclosure as payments to a front group called Citizen Services Inc. for "advance work.")

What's more, Obama worked as executive director of ACORN's voter-registration arm, Project Vote, in 1992. Joined by two other community organizers on Chicago's South Side, Obama conducted the voter-registration drive that helped elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the Senate that year.

The next year, 1993, Obama joined the civil-rights law firm Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, where he sued the state of Illinois on behalf of ACORN to implement the federal "Motor Voter" law, which the GOP governor at the time refused to do. Then-Gov. Jim Edgar argued, presciently, that the Clinton law would invite voter fraud.

Obama downplays his ties to ACORN, and his campaign denies coordinating with ACORN to register voters.

Meantime, New Orleans-based ACORN maintains that it has no control over volunteers who are falsifying application forms, that they're like employees who steal from the store.

But the fraud is widespread and not isolated. It also turns out that some ACORN execs allegedly are involved in a $1 million embezzlement cover-up at their headquarters. Representing them in the case is none other than Michelle Obama's old law firm in Chicago.

ACORN's corruption is not just out in the field, as they claim. There's a pattern of corruption from the top down.

McCain would be wise to start preparing a challenge to voter registration rolls should he lose the race in a close contest. He'd be crazy not to contest the results in light of these events.

No, Barack, Medical Care is Not a "Right"

2008-10-09T11:53:00.001-04:00

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28929

by Dr. Lee Hieb

At last night's presidential debate, Barack Obama led the charge for government run health care by declaring in no uncertain terms that health care is a "right". I suppose he thinks Tom and the boys accidentally left that one out of the Constitution. Or maybe it is an extension (in his mind) of the right to life.

But let's think about this a minute. When our American form of government was created to form "a more perfect union" by insuring the "rights" of its citizens, it recognized only the "inalienable rights". And to protect those rights, which I'm pretty sure only included life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the government was empowered to use force if necessary.

We created armed forces (and finally an adequate border patrol) to protect our people's life and liberty from foreign invasion, and then police to protect our pursuit of happiness in the form of private property. So how will we insure medical care?

We can pay for care -- we've begun doing that in Medicare and Medicaid. We can set up an army of doctors to attend the unattended. We have done that in the form of Public Health Service scholarships that recruit medical students, who, after graduation work in inner cities, reservations, and prisons, etc. But ultimately, when inducements fail, will we draft young people to become doctors and nurses to fill the need to supply medical services? Will we shackle doctors at the job for 36 hours at a time, without sleep or food because there are not enough physicians to meet the "rights" of the people? Will we violate truly inalienable rights of our citizens by taking more and more of their private property through taxation to pay for an inefficient system of government run health care?

No, health care is not a right. It is a service, just like the food service, or transportation. They may be important to out lives -- hey, food is more critical than medicine. But they are not rights. We cannot demand food at the grocery store, and pay according to our ability. We cannot force a car dealer to sell us a care at "Medicar" discount rates because we need transportation to get us to work.

Barack Obama is a smart guy. He's Ivy League-educated and is surrounded by a bevy of similarly bright educated people. Yet he promotes a policy that has failed everywhere it has been tried -- Universal Health Care.

Now I grant you that there are other bright people who believe in this Universal Health Care nonsense, but most are taken in by the slogans and cosmic ideals -- they have not really delved into the historical details. Viewed from 30,000 feet a cesspool may look like a sylvan lake. Sweden looks reasonably good if you look at global numbers such as perinatal mortality -- but this does not disclose the nightmare in Swedish Emergency Rooms where children die for lack of nurses to administer an IV. In Britain, only 42% of patients had brain imaging to confirm their diagnosis of stroke within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms,-- a number they themselves deemed "unacceptably low". By contrast, a study in North Carolina was distressed that only 11% of people had a CT scan within 25 minutes! Over 44% had a CT within 2 hours, and by 24 hours over 60-70% of patients in the US will have received a CT scan.

We continue to hear how miserable American medical care is, and how expensive it is. Yes, there are problems -- some that are inevitable, and most dating to the sixties advent of Medicare and Medicaid. It is fine to look for improvements, but why do Barack, and his predecessor Kerry, look to socialized Europe or Canada for solutions? During peak times, an American may wait 6 hours to be seen in the ER. In Montreal, he would be on a gurney in the hall for three days. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranks Canada in the bottom third of its 29 member countries for availability of medical technology such as MRI and CT scanners. In fact, there are more MRI scanners in Seattle than in all of British Columbia. And, Canadians are not getting this poor access to care at a discount. The OECD ranked Canada fifth (out of 29 member countries) in national health expenditures in 1997.

Universal health care appeals to the well, but fails the sick. Socialized systems allow young, generally healthy people to obtain free low level medical care. But God help you if you need surgery! You'll wait a year in socialized countries for total joint replacement, and the Ontario Medical Society's official recommendation, at one point, was to leave the country to get a cardiac catheterization because you might die while waiting in Ontario.

Unfortunately the right answer is not amenable to a sound bite as is the call for free and universal health care. The answer is returning to the free market medical system, which was in place before 1962. Senator McCain is correct in proposing removing tax breaks from corporate health plans. In the past, insurance was insurance, not pre-paid health care. You, not your employer, owned the insurance. You could buy the type and level of insurance you wanted and could afford. You, not your employer, was the insurance customer, so you could vote with your feet against bad policies. (We didn't need a patient's bill of rights, nor a portability act until corporations owned your health insurance.) And you didn't expect insurance to pay for every runny nose or stubbed toe. Charity hospitals, family, and private altruism -- not the government -- helped to care for the indigent.

The final truth is, politicians who devise these government run systems never have to live with the consequences. Barack Obama will never wait in a crowded inner city Emergency Room. When Boris Yeltsin had his open-heart surgery -- he didn't go to the lousy Soviet universal care hospital, but to a hospital just for the politburo. His Russian doctors were American trained, and even then, he flew Dr. Debakey from Texas to supervise. He knew intuitively what Ayn Rand had stated was true --"It is not safe to trust your life to a man whose life you have throttled." Trust me, Barack will declare you have a "right" to mediocre medicine, but he will insure his own right to seek out what privilege brings.

Lee Hieb is an Orthopaedic Surgeon, in solo private practice. Her first-hand experience in medicine began in the 1950's, when she accompanied her father on his housecalls in Iowa.