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"Obama Friend Khalidi Praised Palestinian Terrorist Behind Munich Olympics Attack"

I link, you decide:

Fox News reports that Rashid Khalidi wrote a 1991 obit of Salah Khalaf (also known as Abu Iyad): "Abu Iyad will be sorely missed by the Palestinian people to whom he devoted his life."

Note that Khalidi's book 'The Iron Cage' mentioned Iyad on Page 141 (link).

Posted to Politics at 10:09 PM

Obama's illegal alien, impoverished aunt redistributed her "wealth" to Obama's campaign via illegal donations

Barack Obama's impoverished Aunt Zeituni - recently discovered living in poverty in a Boston slum - donated $260 to Obama's campaign. From this:

Federal Election Commission records show that Onyango donated at least five times to her nephew's campaign in July and September. Three of the donations were for $5 each, and two of the donations were for $25. Records compiled by The Huffington Post show she gave a total of $260 to the campaign.

Her actions were illegal, but she can be forgiven. Obama on the other hand...

Posted to Politics at 09:23 PM

Barack Obama's impoverished, Boston-living aunt is an illegal alien (ICE halts all depotations!?)

[UPDATE: Obama throws her under the bus!]

From this:

Barack Obama's aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned.

Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in Obama's memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcment official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

While reading this, I thought that two things would happen: either she'd be shuttled quickly out of the country (perhaps aboard Obama's 757), or there'd be an emergency private relief bill quickly passed to make here legal. It looks like the Bush administration has, for one reason or other, already taken steps in that direction:

Onyango's case — coming to light just days before the presidential election — led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday's election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.

The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango's case coming to light so close to the election.

UPDATE: She also donated to his campaign. That was illegal, but the one who should take all the blame for the situation is Obama himself. She's a sympathetic figure; he is not.

Did he know she was here illegally? What contacts has he had with her? If he knew she was staying in the U.S. on and off he must have had some inkling of knowledge of her immigration status. Did he try to hide her away? The article linked from the last link has her telling a reporter this:

"We'll talk after the election... Come talk to me after the fifth."

And, from this she said:

"I can't talk about it, I just pray for him, that's all... After the 4th, I can talk to anyone."

Did someone from the campaign tell her to keep quiet?

Why was BHO letting her illegally redistribute her wealth to him, when he could have been helping her by getting her an immigration lawyer? If BHO had gotten her a lawyer, could they have appealed? Why then didn't BHO help her out? When is he going to introduce an emergency private relief bill to give her a green card?

Those are all good questions he should be asked, but I'm absolutely positive that no one is going to ask them, least of all so-called citizen journalists.

[UPDATE: Obama throws her under the bus!]

Posted to Politics at 09:14 PM

Obama's October surprise-ish: State of Hawaii says his birth certificate is genuine (but...)

The Associated Press offers an article perhaps misleadingly titled "State declares Obama birth certificate genuine" (link). There are some problems with the article, as will be discussed below.

State officials say there's no doubt Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Fukino says that no state official, including Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, ever instructed that Obama's certificate be handled differently.

She says state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest.

First, Obama could have been born somewhere else and still have a Hawaii birth certificate; see the provision of their state law linked from here. The AP's first sentence above could be an accurate representative of what those state officials explicitly said, or it could be simply the AP's assumption or spin that if they have his birth certificate that means he was born there.

And, what exactly is the "original birth certificate"? Are they talking about the Certificate of Live Birth ("COLB"), information provided by the hospital, or something else? Why aren't there more details? While there's a good chance we can trust they're telling the truth about something, it would be foolish to completely trust them, especially because they aren't providing enough details to tell what they're referring to.

And, why was this announced four days before the election, and shortly after Obama making a special trip to that state?

As always, I don't suggest spending a lot of time on this and instead concentrating on things that will actually have an impact. However, some of the things about this just don't add up.

Posted to Politics at 08:40 PM

Charles Ogletree - advisor and part of Barack Obama's "inner circle" - supports massive reparations; "interesting" comments

Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree is an advisor to the Barack Obama campaign and part of his "inner circle" (National Journal, March 31, 2008, link). Perhaps I should have said "was an advisor", because Ogletree seems to have some quite interesting thoughts.

See the video collection here.

See the Oct. 25, 2008 audio here; summary:

Top Obama adviser Prof. Charles Ogletree says 21st-century white America, as a general rule, remains racist towards Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, and racism is likely to persist for decades -- Barack Obama is an exception only because "he happens to be biracial," so that his election will not be proof that whites have moved beyond racism.

And, see the many other links here.

UPDATE: See also this. In 2002 - also at that time supporting reparations - Ogletree was a co-chair of the presidential exploration committee for... wait for it... Al Sharpton (link). And, the ABA Journal speculates here:

Ogletree was an adviser to the Black Law Students Association when Obama arrived at Harvard Law, and Obama has long cited him as a mentor. Ogletree’s in­terest in civil rights and racial disparities in the criminal justice system made him a natural choice as Obama's adviser on black issues in the campaign... When the NAACP believed it was obligated to support Clarence Thomas in his confirmation battle for the Supreme Court, Ogletree wrote a 30-page report that changed its mind. The 55-year-old professor could be Obama’s choice to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division, perhaps with a close eye on its voting section, which some Democrats believe has been used to suppress minority voting in recent years.

Posted to Politics at 06:11 PM

Elderly McCain supporter allegedly attacked by Obama supporter

From this:

A 75-year-old man was hospitalized after another man shoved him into a fire hydrant during an argument about the upcoming election, DeLand police said.

Timothy L. Rundle, 53, faces charges of felony battery after allegedly pushing William Hunter on Thursday near the intersection of Woodland Boulevard and New York Avenue in DeLand [Florida].

Hunter was displaying a sign for Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain, and he was asked to leave by a group of people who were displaying signs supporting Democratic presidential candiate Sen. Barack Obama because Hunter was causing a disturbance, according to a dispatcher's log...

Posted to Politics at 06:09 PM

Does the Obama/Khalidi video include a dance troupe performing "beheadings"?

From this (via this):

...a kids' dance troupe that appeared at the [Barack Obama/Rashid Khalidi] event has a history of simulating beheadings and stomping on American, Israeli, and British flags... In June 2004, I went undercover and attended a Dearborn fundraising dinner for Islamic Relief, the Muslim Brotherhood charity that is a front for HAMAS and Al-Qaeda... Sanabel AlQuds performed to songs calling for martyrdom to "get back Palestine." The kids were young boys, some of them appearing to be no older than seven years old... But they didn't just dance the debkah... Suddenly the Sanabel AlQuds dancers pulled out fake swords and rifles and adorned three of their troupe respectively with an American, Isreaeli, and British flag. The others pretended to behead and/or shoot the boys wearing the flags. Then they put red scarves over the three boys heads, signifying blood and no head. Then, the flags were taken off, thrown to the ground, and trampled on by this young group of Milwaukee dancers.

Posted to Politics at 04:17 PM

Loretta Waldman: "Lenin's Obama's Letter Was Answer To A Little Boy's Request"

Instead of concentrating on Barack Obama's creepy outreach to pre-teens where he wants to use those children 12 and under to get votes, how about some good news? You know, the kind you don't have to think about and that any hack (in this case Loretta Waldman of the Hartford Courant) could write? Accordingly, here's her heart-warming tale (with an image of my choosing on the right):

When Amy Mondschein dashed into Solomon Schechter Day School last Thursday, the head of the school and her son's teacher were waiting. The Enfield resident, whose son is a second-grader at the Jewish day school, was running late that day. Was she in trouble?

Far from it.

An envelope addressed to her son, Aron, 7, had been delivered to the school that morning. It was from Barack Obama, senator from Illinois and Democratic presidential candidate... [etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.]

Note: My choice of image is not meant to imply that Obama supports communism or that his use of propaganda is in any way comparable to Soviet propaganda. In fact, when it comes to such propaganda the Soviet Union clearly could have learned from the Obama campaign.

Posted to Politics at 03:12 PM

1995 Obama praises Rev. Wright: "the best of what the Black Church has to offer"

Here's a 1995 interview with Barack Obama where he praises Reverend Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ, calling him "the best of what the Black Church has to offer" (more quotes from the video here).

Posted to Politics at 10:44 AM

How to get the Khalidi tape (or at least make Obama look bad)

Do you really want the Rashid Khalidi videotape that the Los Angeles Times refuses to release?

OK, then here's how to either get the videotape, or at least make Obama look bad: ask Obama to help get the tape released.

No, really: go to an Obama appearance and ask him this question:

When will you be calling on anyone who has a copy of the Khalidi videotape to make it publicly available? If you won't be issuing that call, why not?

Get his answer on video, and then upload that to Youtube. Then, contact Drudge.

At the very least, asking this question will make Obama look bad and will get the story out there even more.

It's easy to just agree with this post and move on. But, this plan isn't going to work unless you help push it.

I know it's not going to be easy to get anyone to do this because I've been trying to get people to ask Obama questions on video for almost two years. No one wants to "get involved", or there's a game on, or you might get tased, or you might get Joe the Plumber'ed.

And, as a result, Obama is still the favorite.

If you want to either get the tape or at the least make Obama look bad, help push this plan.

The way you can do that is to contact every major blogger you can find and urge them to promote this plan on their sites. And, post the plan to forums, send it to your friends via email, post it on Facebook, and so on. Once enough people are promoting it on the web, it will jump to the MSM and cable.

If hundreds of thousands of people see the plan, eventually someone is going to get around to asking Obama a real question.

Hopefully it won't be too late.

Note:
* Don't waste time contacting the MSM, talk radio, etc. about this right now. This is something that has to build up momentum on the internet first before it can jump to those sources.

* If you just ask Obama to call on the Los Angeles Times to release the tape, he'll simply use one of their dodges and this will go nowhere. The question is designed to avoid that dodge and make sure that he either issues a general call, or looks bad by not issuing such a call.

* No doubt someone will point out how difficult it is to ask Obama a question. That's correct, but it's not impossible. Obama will be making plenty of appearances and he'll be available at rope lines, when entering or leaving an event, or even when taking questions from the audience. If you go to one of his events, try to blend in to increase the possibility of being called on.

* In the worst case, make up a large sign with something like, "Obama: tell the LAT to release the tape!" or similar. And, make sure and print up a large number of fliers to pass out to passersby so they understand what the sign means.

* If you can't ask Obama the question, get video of you asking one of those in the press pool - preferably a nationally known reporter - whether they'll be asking Obama the question. Shaming members of the media into doing their jobs is one way to get someone to ask the question.

Posted to Politics at 07:27 PM

Barack Obama's DailyKos diary on the judiciary, Supreme Court, etc.

Like a couple other wondeful folks, Barack Obama has his own Daily Kos diary: barack-obama.dailykos.com. He appears to have only posted two entries just about three years ago, although there might have been others that fell victim to DK's habit of sending things down the memory hole. One of the diaries deals with the judiciary, the Supreme Court, etc. I'll leave seeing if there's something useful there to you.

Posted to Politics at 01:23 PM

Barack Obama's Pay to Play Chicago Way: got donations after state funded grant

From the Sep. 8, 2007 L.A. Times article "Fresh face or old-school player?" (link, via this):

Later [in 1999], [associates former Obama opponent, Yesse B. Yehudah, a Republican] pitched in an additional $5,000 to help retire Obama’s debt [from his run against Bobby Rush]. The contributions were recorded on Oct. 7, 2000, three days after the Illinois Senate, at Obama's behest, approved a $75,000 state grant to Yehudah's nonprofit [a social services organization called Fulfilling Our Responsibility Unto Mankind], state records show.

Posted to Politics at 12:51 PM

Barack Obama jokes about white people being too racist to vote for him (Jon Stewart)

Relax! No race card involved at all! It was all just a joke, just a wonderful, heart-warming merry jest straight from the heartland last night on the Daily Show (text link, video link):

Jon Stewart: Are you concerned in some respects, you know, and I don’t even know how to bring this up. Obviously your mother is from Kansas. She’s a white woman. Your father, African. Are you concerned that you may go into the voting booth and...

Barack Obama: I won’t know what to do.

Jon Stewart: Your white half will all of a sudden decide, “I can’t do this.”

Barack Obama: That’s a problem.

Jon Stewart: (laughing).

Barack Obama: I’ve been going through therapy to make sure that I vote properly on the 4th.

Just relax! It's not like if he wins there will be four years of fun jokes or anything.

Posted to Politics at 12:31 PM

Obama campaign intentionally disabled address verification on donations (AVS)

A company hired by Newsmax to look into some of the questionable donations to the Barack Obama campaign has found even more strange cases of those who don't appear to be U.S. citizens, such as thousands for an assortment of Middle Eastern and Asian countries: link.

However, the most important bit appears to be the news that AVS was intentionally disabled and by a major company. Some news reports haven't mentioned it, and some have thought it could have just been an innocent move such as due to a bug in their software (no, really: meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/persecute_or_prosecute.php). However:

Newsmax asked James Wester, a spokesman for Chase Paymentech, who was responsible for taking the unusual step of deactivating the Address Verification Service recommended by VISA USA on the Obama Web site. Such security features can be deactivated by the processing company, or at the request of the merchant, in this case, Obama for America.

Wester said that Paymentech was “not going to be issuing a statement at this time.”

VISA USA has a series of verification tools it recommends to online merchants to prevent online credit card fraud and to guarantee the security of personal credit-card information...

Posted to Politics at 12:08 PM

Enemy of the State: checks on Joe the Plumber more extensive than thought

Thou shalt not question The One. Because:

A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on "Joe the Plumber" were more extensive than it first acknowledged.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.

Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said.

Indeed. Jones-Kelley - a max'ed out Barack Obama donor - continues to maintain that there was no funny business involved, something that seems extremely unlikely.

10/31/08 UPDATE: From this:

Vanessa Niekamp said that when she was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16 [at about 3 p.m.], she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

...The senior manager would not learn about "Joe" for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry.

...Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. "I've never done that before, I don't know of anybody in my office who does that and I don't remember anyone ever doing that," she said today.

More, including contradictory statements, at the link.

Posted to Politics at 08:40 PM

President Dr. Phil: Barack Obama's infomercial belongs on Hallmark Channel

I'd say about three minutes of tonight's infomercial from Barack Obama (youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA) are more than enough. The first thing I noticed was the horrible acoustics in the room where he was giving his spiel, dissipating his voice and giving it a whiny, nasal character. (Perhaps that was intentional). Then, I noticed him being a good listener while an older white man was describing how he'd lost his pension. Then it struck me: Barack Obama is running to be "Dr. Phil, President". But, not just Dr. Phil, but a very special Dr. Phil on the Hallmark Channel Live Special from Topeka, Kansas, complete with heartwarming tales straight from the heartland, accompanied by cheesy piano.

Now, he's going on and on about all the wonderful things he's going to buy you, the American people. Even the AP has noticed his BS (link):

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews feel thrills up each others' legs here:

Posted to Politics at 08:06 PM

2004 Michelle Obama on presidential run: "It's way too soon, he hasn't done anything yet"

From December 6, 2004 comes this clip of Michelle Obama's response to a question on what she think of Barack Obama running for president:

"It's way too soon, he hasn't done anything yet."

Posted to Politics at 07:50 PM

The Non-Partisan Case Against Barack Obama

You don't have to be a conservative or a Republican to be opposed to Barack Obama. Here are some of the reasons that almost anyone should oppose him:

1. PERSONALITY CULT
As a host of Youtube videos, comments on blogs, chants at rallies, and even tattoos show, Obama clearly has a growing personality cult. About the only policy positions some of those supporters could name would be "hope" and "change". Most of his supporters find little fault with him and are willing to believe in him whole-heartedly. In the U.S., we should be supporting ideas, not blindly following Great Leaders. Such movements are extremely dangerous in all cases, including when the Great Leader eventually is shown to be a mere mortal. Who knows how his supporters will react should he finally be shown to be an empty suit.

2. SMART, BUT UNTESTED
Obama is indeed smart. However, a good part of his reputation is due to his speaking skills and the fact that he's only very rarely been challenged. He's frequently said things that, were someone around to engage him in dialogue, would reveal that he hasn't thought things through in much depth. However, the media has completely given him a pass. During the last debate he was momentarily flustered after he was called on his past associations and on about the only occasion when he was pressed by the media he did not respond too well. He clearly has a narcissistic personality, and that personality type is prone to breaking down when challenged in the right fashion. America's enemies will attempt to take advantage of that.

3. HIS INDOCTRINATION PLAN FOR PRE-TEENS
No, really. Right on their website, the Obama campaign is specifically reaching out to pre-teens, and he wants to use those kids 12 and under to get votes. That plan is like something from Red China or the Soviet Union.

4. PART OF THE CHICAGO MACHINE
While Obama wasn't originally part of the Machine, he is now. Electing him will bring Machine politics to our national government. It won't be as bad as, for instance, electing Mayor Daley (either one) to be president, but there's no way that someone who's part of the Machine and who has advisors and supporters linked to the Machine will not give them something.

5. DIRTY CAMPAIGNING
Obama himself has largely kept his hands clean, while his surrogates have done the dirty work. Nothing McCain or Palin have said or done comes remotely close to the dirty campaigning that Obama's surrogates and supporters - including those in the media - have done. An Obama win would validate all of the tactics that Obama's supporters have engaged in.

6. SUPPORTING QUESTIONABLE PEOPLE WITH QUESTIONABLE LINKS
The person Obama supported to be Illinois Treasurer had little experience and a questionable background. Such links go beyond Obama's links with radicals.

7. VALIDATION OF INCREDIBLE MEDIA BIAS
In this election, the mainstream media has become little more than an arm of the Obama campaign. The smallest infraction by McCain is blown out of proportion and Sarah Palin is taken to task for failing to state things in the most exact and legalistic terms. At the same time, Obama is allowed to make false statements and propose plans that have hugely obvious flaws. The press has served as both the source for and amplifier of outrageous smears, especially those targeted at Palin. They've also failed to ask Obama tough questions at the same time as engaging in ambush journalism against Palin. They've even taken quotes out of context. An Obama win would completely validate and reward the media's coverage. An Obama defeat would also be a crushing, humiliating defeat to the mainstream media.

8. RACE CARD
Obama himself has played the race card; as he said, he's not like all the presidents on the dollar bills. But, his surrogates and supporters have taken it to a new level, with one of them even claiming that "socialist" was a code-word for "black". The supposed "post-racial candidate" is in many ways simply a slicker version of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

9. NEARLY ONE-PARTY CONTROL
If Obama wins, the Congress will be Democratic, the mainstream media will continue lying and covering up for Obama as they have been doing, and Obama's past associates will still be around. And, millions of people at various levels within various public agencies will be more or less controlled by Obama through their unions: teachers, office workers, low-level bureaucrats, etc. While extreme Democratic Party hacks will certainly have no problem with something approaching one party rule, everyone else should be deeply concerned. Those who are extremely partisan should also note that any failures will clearly be the responsibility of the Democrats.

10. THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT
Just as George Bush has done, Obama will stock the permanent government - the faceless mid-level bureaucrats, Assistant Undersecretaries, etc. - with his cronies. Some of those will come from the Chicago Machine.

11. SOME SUPPORTERS HAVE FASCISTIC TENDENCIES
It used to be that liberals would oppose corrupt foreign governments "losing" a reporter's paperwork in order to shut them up. Now, see the response from some of those in Obama's netroots base to such a case. While some at those sites no doubt oppose such things, very few of them spoke out against it. Some of the people highlighted at the previous link would have been right at home in East Germany. [UPDATE: the important point here is that those netroots supporters would gain political power should Obama win. While every candidate has questionable supporters, in McCain's case he isn't going to invite them to the White House. The same can't be said about, say, Kos if Obama wins.]

12. ASSOCIATIONS WITH RADICALS
In 'Dreams from My Father', Obama said, "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully... The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.". That's continued until very recently, with a long line of associations with radicals, extremists, and those on the far-left. Most politicians would not associate with largely unrepentant terrorists, racists, and the like. And, in fact, Obama has thrown several of his past friends and affiliates under the bus, but only after his association with them became an issue. Just as one might expect that a politician who spends their days going to Chamber of Commerce events has some sympathy with the positions of the Chamber of Commerce, Obama clearly has sympathies with the positions of the radicals with whom he's been associated. In fact, it's difficult to find many past Obama associates who are completely mainstream.

13. CRITICISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED
The case of Joe the Plumber should be shocking to anyone who supports the U.S. Constitution. Someone dared to ask Obama a question and was later mentioned several times during a debate. Obama's supporters and surrogates responded by leaking private information on him and by trying to drive him out of work. The Obama campaign was probably involved in that, and at the least they did absolutely nothing to stop it. Those are the types of activities more commonly found in authoritarian societies. If Obama is president expect similar situations and perhaps even worse. [UPDATE: the possibility that the Obama campaign was involved in hampering JTP's work prospects is based in part on things like "Plumbers union rips McCain on 'Joe the Plumber'" (link), where the Obama-endorsing 'United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry' pointed out in a statement that JTP did not have a plumber's license, something that he might not need.]

14. THE FIRST AMENDMENT
Barack Obama is a clear threat to the First Amendment. Some Democratic leaders support the Fairness Doctrine and the like; for instance, the Center for American Progress supports more government control over radio station ownership. And, Obama himself has said that "hate" has no place on the airwaves. However, the "hate" part was a reference to Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh, both of whom he's also smeared. Whether Obama personally pushes it or not, the Democrats will attempt to pass some sort of bill having an impact on what you can hear on the radio and perhaps on the TV as well. Petitioning the government is also a key part of the First Amendment; as described above, Joe the Plumber was almost driven out of work after asking Obama a question.

15. THE GREAT UNKNOWN
There's been controversy over Obama's eligibility to be president, with some thinking he could be a citizen of Kenya or Indonesia. There's a very good chance that he is indeed a U.S. citizen, but he has not proved it despite what you might have heard from "fact checkers". He could have easily prevented all the speculation by releasing his original birth certificate and other information to, for instance, an impartial judge. Yet, he did not. And, he even refuses to release something as simple as his college applications. Even the New York Times has noted that Obama isn't telling the truth about his years at Columbia University ("Obama's Account of New York Years Often Differs From What Others Say", link). His failure to release even the most basic background information isn't just a stunt designed to tie up his opponents; it's clear that there's something that he does not want to reveal. His opponents will only fight harder to discover potentially embarrassing information if he's elected. If something damning is found it will have a dramatic impact not just on his administration but also on the Democratic Party and all of those public figures who supported him.

16. CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS
The head of Obama's transition team and some of his advisors come from one of the lowest-wattage think tanks around, the Center for American Progress. They also support illegal immigration; per them, a "progressive" precept is opposition to xenophobia, and in their case that's manifested by supporting illegal activity. One of their senior fellows is part of the Mexican government's extended network. They also run the blog ThinkProgress, a juvenile site that specializes in gaffes, mockery, enforcing political correctness, and the like. That blog also refers to mainstream rightwing talk radio as "hate radio".

17. IMMIGRATION
Both Obama and McCain support illegal and massive immigration, both would allow it to continue, both are panderers, and both would push amnesty ("comprehensive immigration reform"). McCain might try to push it earlier in his administration than Obama would, since his goals are less sweeping and he'd have less to do. However, Obama has shown himself even worse than McCain, such as by uttering 'reconquista'-style comments, thanking an open borders extremist for his work, and the like. The American public blocked amnesty once, and it can be blocked again.

18. BUSH'S SPP.GOV
Obama supports a Bush trade scheme called the Security and Prosperity Partnership (spp.gov). That highly secretive plan - conducted completely without Congressional oversight - has been called "NAFTA on steroids", and some think it's a precursor to a North American Union. One doesn't have to be a "conspiracy theorist" to think that a highly secretive Bush trade scheme could be much more than we're being told. Obama continued the secrecy surrounding the plan by speaking in code when he came out in support of it.

19. HABIT OF LYING
McCain and Palin have both made false and misleading statements. However, Obama has taken it to a new level by uttering obviously false statements that he's rarely been called on. See, for instance, the list here. His campaign has also silently modified his website as his lies were revealed and silently omitted part of a quote to make someone look bad. See also this ad which even Joe Klein eventually called him on. In one case he even admitted to having been deceptive.

To summarize: please do not vote for Barack Obama.

~~~~~ BONUS ~~~~~

20. VERY QUESTIONABLE FUNDING
Obama has received hundreds of millions in campaign contributions, and millions of that are questionable. Unlike McCain or Clinton, the Obama campaign didn't try to ensure that those donations were legal. Unlike McCain, they aren't publishing a list of the donors who've given amounts under $200. They've received hundreds of millions in such donations, and large amounts of money could have been funneled to them by foreign citizens or even foreign governments simply by making a large number of small donations. And, they intentionally disabled address verification. They may also have broken federal law.

~~~~~ UPDATES ~~~~~

* Regarding the personality cult, some supporters are now tattooing numbers having to do with tasks performed for the Obama campaign on their wrists: dailykos.com/story/2008/10/29/212558/98/530/646276

* The state of Hawaii says his birth certificate exists, but that raises more questions than it answers.

* Since this was written, Obama played the race card again, and the interesting thoughts of Obama advisor Charles Ogletree came to light.

Posted to Politics at 05:45 PM

Los Angeles Times: McCain camp accuses us of suppressing Obama/Khalidi tape

An unnamed Los Angeles Times staff reporter offers "McCain campaign accuses L.A. Times of 'suppressing' Obama video" (link):

John McCain's presidential campaign Tuesday accused the Los Angeles Times of "intentionally suppressing" a videotape it obtained of a 2003 banquet where then-state Sen. Barack Obama spoke of his friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a leading Palestinian scholar and activist...

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

Jamie Gold, the newspaper's readers' representative, said in a statement: "More than six months ago the Los Angeles Times published a detailed account of the events shown on the videotape. The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite -- the L.A. Times brought the matter to light."

Right is wrong, up is down, suppressing things is bring them to light, etc.

One of the ways to get the video is to offer money for "gray" copies; this offer of $25,000 (or perhaps more) may or may not be valid, but if it's a really good tape I'm sure even more than that could be scraped together.

Posted to Politics at 11:20 PM

Don't donate to Goodwill Industries (Palin smear)

How could anyone encourage people not to donate to Goodwill Industries? Well, because they spent the money they received in past donations on smear ad campaigns like the one described here. The two page ad features "Dear Sarah Palin, We eagerly await your $150,000 clothing donation on Nov. 5th" in the left pane and "Dear Barack Obama, If you'd care to donate any of your $1,500 suits on Nov. 5th, we'd greatly appreciate it".

While it might seem balanced, the fact is that the costs of BHO's suits has not been the subject of an MSM smear campaign. They are in effect simply furthering a smear, and I strongly suspect they were fully aware of what they were doing.

It's not clear where the ads ran, but you can contact Goodwill and let them know what you think: contactus *at* goodwill.org

Posted to Politics at 10:44 PM

Naomi Wolf: *Sarah Palin* - not Obama - will usher in a police state

Ah, the HuffPost. Other than scraps of paper on laundromat walls the only place where Naomi Wolf could write 'The Battle Plan II: Sarah "Evita" Palin, the Muse of the Coming Police State' (link):

Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state... Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal... I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them... [etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.]

Dude needs help. If Obama wins, everything is going to be stacked in his favor. He's going to have a Democratic Congress and the MSM will continue lying for him. And, all his friends in the teachers and civil service and other unions will help him out. And, as we see with the Joe the Plumber case, there's much they're willing to do. And, BHO winning would also be a victory for his fascist supporters.

However, if Palin becomes president she'll be opposed by the Democratic Congress and the MSM. Unless they're in on it (someone check with Wolf), they'll fight every effort on her part to be Bush-like.

I don't know whether Wolf has completely rounded the bend or what, but one would think she'd be able to figure that out.

Posted to Politics at 10:24 PM

Keith Olbermann lies, says Sarah Palin is a socialist and described Alaska that way

This site doesn't normally track the lies of Keith Olbermann since there are so many and no one outside his bubble trusts anything he says. However, sometimes he crosses the line, as he did with tonight's "Olbermann on Palin: Socialist, fraud/Governor doesn't have a problem with Alaska's socialistic collectivism" (link) which contains this:

Who was the collectivist share-the-wealther, who was boasting to the reporter visiting from "The New Yorker Magazine," of having been able to send a check for $1,200 to every man, woman and child in the state since, quote "Alaska is sometimes described as America's socialist state, because of its collective ownership of resources?"

And, the blurb under the video at the page above says this:

In this case, Sarah Palin is accusing Barack Obama of advocating socialism when she literally used that word to describe the collective wealth sharing in her home state of Alaska.

However, the quote in question is actually from the New Yorker writer (Philip Gourevitch), not Palin (link). There's only one instance of socialis* at that page, and it's the writer saying it:

Alaska is sometimes described as America’s socialist state, because of its collective ownership of resources—an arrangement that allows permanent residents to collect a dividend on the state’s oil royalties. It has been Palin’s good fortune to govern the state at a time of record oil prices, which means record dividend checks: two thousand dollars for every Alaskan. And because high oil prices also mean staggering heating bills in such a cold place—and because it’s always good politics to give money to voters—Palin got the legislature this year to send an extra twelve hundred dollars to every Alaskan man, woman, and child.

~~ Who's helping spread the smear? ~~
* User voxlisa999 links to the MSNBC page and invents a Palin quote, one she did not say and does not even appear at MSNBC: "Alaskans Share the Wealth Collectively as Socialists" (digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Alaskans_Share_the_Wealth_Collectively_as_Socialists)

* The HuffPost lies, saying "Sarah Palin is accusing Barack Obama of advocating socialism when she literally used that word to describe the collective wealth sharing in her home state of Alaska" (huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/olbermann-sarah-palin-is_n_138765.html)

Posted to Politics at 10:11 PM

Alexander Lane, Amy Hollyfield/Politifact spin redistribution for Obama

Alexander Lane and Amy Hollyfield of Politifact continue to show that that "fact checking" site might as well be working for the Barack Obama campaign by offering 'Obama would "experiment with socialism."/The McCain campaign experiments with dishonesty' (politifact.org/truth-o-meter/statements/826). It's another example of the MSM taking a statement that wasn't phrased in a painfully legalistic fashion, playing dumb, and then spinning things Obama's way.

In this case, they discuss the following Sarah Palin statement:

"Senator Obama says that he wants to spread the wealth, which means - you know what that means... It means that government takes your money, (handed) out however a politician sees fit. Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth, and Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic. And yet to Joe the Plumber, he said it sounded like socialism. And now is not the time to experiment with socialism."

They then go on to point out correctly that progressive taxation is not socialism, and give her statement their ultra-classy 'Pants on Fire' animated GIF.

If she'd said that Obama's statements to Joe the Plumber were socialistic instead, one wonders how they would have spun it for the benefit of what's clearly their candidate, because what Obama stated was very clearly socialistic.

There's a huge difference between progressive taxation and just spreading the wealth around "because it's good for everybody". The first is to pay for things like roads. The second is a socialistic notion that attempts to normalize incomes. And, the second is what BHO supports. He didn't say the government should tax people just to pay for needed infrastructure. He specifically supported redistribution in and of itself. That doesn't mean he's a socialist, but he does have socialistic notions above and beyond progressive taxation.

More on Politifact here and here.

Posted to Politics at 04:46 PM

Obama campaign itself turned in fake voter registrations (St. Charles County, MO; but, just 15 of them)

The Barack Obama campaign itself - i.e., Obama for American and not ACORN - turned in 15 bogus voter registration forms in St. Charles County, Missouri (link). However, that might be out of 3000 total that they submitted, and the person who turned those registrations over to the FBI and discussed this with the media, St. Charles County elections directorRich Chrismer, may be a McCain supporter. The total and Chrismer's links haven't been confirmed, and might just be noise from Obama supporters in the comments at the link.

Posted to Politics at 01:35 PM

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of Ohio JFS, took a "look" at Joe the Plumber's records (Obama donor)

From this, via this:

Ohio's inspector general is investigating why a state agency director approved checking the state child-support computer system for information on "Joe the Plumber."

Helen Jones-Kelly [sic], director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed today that she OK'd the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

She said there were no political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential campaign fixture though the Support Enforcement Tracking System.

Amid questions from the media and others about "Joe the Plumber," Jones-Kelley said she approved a check to determine if he was current on any ordered child-support payments...

"Our practice is when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight, we often take a look" at them, Jones-Kelley said, citing a case where a lottery winner was found to owe past-due child support. "Our practice is to basically look at what is coming our way."

Just a gentle "looking". She may have some minor link to BHO or at least has shown herself to be a supporter; see the second link. She donated $2,300 to the Obama campaign in July 2008.

Bear in mind that if BHO becomes president he's going to stock the permanent government with plenty of people who'll take a "look" at BHO's opponents.

Posted to Politics at 09:35 PM

Did Barack Obama compare the U.S. to Nazi Germany, or is there another explanation? (public radio audio)

According to this and other sites, there's yet another nugget on the Chicago public radio interview with Barack Obama:

just to take a, sort of a realist perspective...there's a lot of change going on outside of the Court, um, that, that judges essentially have to take judicial notice of. I mean you've got World War II, you've got uh, uh, uh, the doctrines of Nazism, that, that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home

It's at 15:30 of the January 18, 2001 broadcast here. Note that that was before 9/11 and two days before the Bush inauguration.

However, note especially the comment discussing "realist perspective" here. There may be a somewhat plausible explanation for BHO's comments.

I'll leave it to others to a) verify that his remarks weren't taken out of context, and b) indicate whether he was actually comparing the U.S. to Nazi Germany or was simply making a legalistic point.

Posted to Politics at 09:00 PM

Fake flier tells Democrats to vote on November 5; telepathic plagiarism?

A phony flier is being distibuted in Virginia telling Democrats to vote on November 5 (link). Oddly enough, it mirrors a satire I wrote but never got around to posting. I think mine is better, so here it is:

----------------------
Reminder: November 5 is Overflow Voting Day

I know everyone's probably sick of the TV commercials and billboards by now, but just to make sure everyone's heard about it I thought I'd mention (again!) that Wednesday, November 5, 2008 is now Overflow Voting Day, and you can vote on either the 4th or the 5th.

As everyone knows, this Overflow Voting Day was added due to expected heavy turnout due to the certain blowout by Barack Obama. Because of that blowout, it's probably not necessary for many Democrats to vote, but if you do you might find that there are shorter lines on the 5th.

Posted to WackyHumor at 04:00 PM

Palin's wardrobe: $150,000. Obama's trips to Hawaii: $800,000. Obama at Invesco: $5.3 million

The fact that Sarah Palin and/or her GOP helpers spent $150,000 or so on her wardrobe should be a very minor matter. Except, it isn't because the BHO campaign and their surrogates in the MSM have blown it into a major "scandal". Meanwhile, they've ignored the cost of Obama's trips to Hawaii: $800,000 (link). And, they've ignored the fact that Barack Obama spent $5.3 million on his Invesco extravaganza as part of the DNCC (link; it's not clear how much was spent on the Acropolis).

If anyone has a free moment, find contrasting examples showing media bias. But, perhaps it would be better to wait until after the election to analyze that.

Posted to Politics at 01:06 PM

"The Obama campaign willfully and intentionally defrauded the American public by systematically undermining the caucus process"

So said this site in August:

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.

There's a 98 page PDF at the link with her findings, and for a summary see this article. Needless to say, ACORN is involved.

Posted to Politics at 12:57 PM

Paging Andrew Sullivan, MSM: Palin in a noose

Chad Michael Morrisette of West Hollywood shows how low "liberals" are willing to go with the following Halloween decoration of Sarah Palin in a noose (link):

Wonderfully "liberal" person that he is, he also has a display of John McCain emerging from flames of some kind.

Now awaiting the condemnation from "liberals" in 3,023,094,392,393... 3,023,094,392,392...

UPDATE: New frontiers in vetting await! "The smoking gun: Palin plastic surgery?" (DU, peekURL.com/zk1xkib)

Posted to Politics at 11:18 PM

Bombshell: Obama wealth redistribution audio from 2001

The audio to the right is from a 2001 public radio interview where Barack Obama showed some pretty clear redistributionist tendencies, among others:

...the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth... I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change...

UPDATE: I was originally skeptical of this due to one of the video provider's past efforts. However, I've removed those remarks based on the assurances here, and this is legit, with the original source at WBEZ here (Full RAM file here). The video has also been linked by Drudge; a full transcript is here.

You can digg this here. If you don't have an account, now might be a good time to sign up (it's free).

Since WBEZ is a public station, it might be possible to obtain their other BHO shows under some form of FOIA. Can someone look into that?

UPDATE 2: The latter might not be necessary since they appear to have made all the audio they have available here in RAM files; they say they'll have MP3s later on 10/27.

Also, the Digg link above has almost 600 Diggs now, but it's also been buried, meaning that it won't make their front page unless thousands of people bother to digg it.

UPDATE 3: Don't believe the BHO camp's spin. From this:

Cass Sunstein and others, like Bruce Ackerman, have been touting this positive law stuff for years. They advocate institutionalizing the liberal agenda through the courts, particularly the 14th Amendment. Equal rights would be expanded to include "economic justice," i.e., the equal (or more equal) provision of wealth, education, etc., among the citizenry. The agenda would not be subject to electoral results or congressional influence because it would be imposed from the judiciary. This is an extremely radical proposition, completely at odds with the Constitution itself and the Framers' intent. And Sunstein and Obama know that the public would be appalled with their views if honestly presented to them. So, Sunstein denies it — even characterizing it as conservative, and Obama's spokesman calls the 2001 interview a distraction. It is neither.

See also this.

Posted to Politics at 07:39 PM

Instapundit, or The Strange Case of the GOP Hack Who Didn't Shill During the Election

Four years ago at this time, Instapundit was in full-on GOP shill mode, desperately doing his best to get Bush re-elected, such as by promoting obviously misleading stories.

Now, the magic seems to be gone. Sure, Insty hasn't linked to anything pro-Obama that I've seen, and he's linked to plenty of anti-Obama things, but there's something missing: the fire. He just doesn't seem to be all that concerned about a victory by the furthest left president in U.S. history. In fact, he refuses to push a highly effective plan to prevent that presidency.

Instead, he's certainly noticed a lot of Amazon sales lately, hasn't he? I'm going to guess that only 10 or 20 percent of his readership knows what he's doing: those links to Amazon contain his personal code, and if someone clicks on of the links and buys something he gets a cut. But, he also takes it a step further: sending clicks through an Amazon redirect that isn't necessary but at the same time probably sets their cookie. Nothing wrong with that (more or less), it's just that instead of trying to milk the cow perhaps he should be concentrating on protecting the whole damn farm.

Posted to Bloggage at 07:18 PM

Obama Youth: campaign targets children under 12

I have a question for all the parents in America: would you like your kids to fall under the sway of a creepy, Messianic cult led by a charismatic leader?

Sure, you yourself might be a supporter, or you might like him. But, what about your kids? Do you want them to be indoctrinated into supporting a Leader?

With that answered, go visit Obama's page for kids, specifically targeting those 12 and under: my.barackobama.com/page/content/kidshome

From the summary here:

People who would like to utilize many kids for Sen. Obama’s promotion can find a handy “Kids for Obama Starter Kit”. The kit opens with a scientific claim: “Studies have shown that kids can affect their parents and their siblings’ opinions and even change the opinions of older family members . . . including those of voting age”. Having set the tone, the kit offers simple guidelines for setting up a “Kids for Obama” event, covering such as aspects as invitations, broad advertising and planning. Its pragmatic advice is hard to misinterpret: “Ask kids to draw a picture of Barack Obama or what America means to them. These pictures could be used on campaign buttons and/or bumper stickers. It’s a great way to get kids involved!” A video shows a successful adult-led event and happy children who share their perspectives: “I want to vote for Barack Obama because he is cool!”

Please send the link to this page or to the last link to every parent you can find.

Posted to Politics at 07:09 PM

Ben Smith/Politico falls for Obama camp spin on New Party

From this post discussing Ben Smith of the Politico:

Have you ever heard of a political party that has no members? Ben Smith has [link], and he believes. Based on a claim by New Party co-founder Joel Rogers that "we didn't really have members," Smith seems to think he's disposed of the issue of Barack Obama's ties to the "dread New Party." In other words, Smith has accepted a transparently absurd statement by an intensely interested Obama supporter responding to a dangerous charge just before an election, while rejecting not only logic, but written evidence contemporaneous with the events in question. Smith has also ignored arguments at the heart of the New Party dispute. In his post on "The Obama Temptation," Mark Levin describes a press that disregards evidence of Obama's past radicalism, mentions it only when it must, and then simply to dismiss those who raise it in the first place. Smith's credulous, incurious, sarcastic, and transparently biased post fits the bill.

UPDATE: Ben Smith tries to defend himself here by trying to suggest that the GOP should attack BHO using "David Freddoso's approach" (BHO is very liberal and linked to the Chicago Machine) vs. the "Jerome Corsi angle, which relies on a mixture of inflation and outright error in casting Obama as a crypto-radical". He then pretends that the latter approach has been repeatedly debunked by the MSM. In fact, what's happening is that the MSM is clearly covering up for BHO. While both approaches should be used, the fact remains that BHO has a long series of radical or far-left friends, and the MSM has tried to cover for him by obscuring those relationships.

UPDATE 2: Stanley Kurtz responds here:

The larger point is that the very existence of so many of these radical political partnerships (and that is what they are, significant political partnerships, not mere "marginal relationships," as Smith would have it) reveals a systematic pattern–a pattern that shows Obama to be a man of the left–so far left that he long had one foot out of (but also one foot in) the conventional Democratic mainstream... Radical or liberal? It’s not an either/or. What’s certain is that Obama is not the post-ideological, post-partisan pragmatist he presents himself as. The press has shamefully colluded in that false presentation... Ben Smith has done us a favor by putting his journalistic bias out in the open. We no longer need to ask: "What were they thinking?" Now we know. Smith’s obvious distaste for the Corner, and other critics of Obama’s radical past, has gotten the best of him...

Posted to Politics at 10:48 AM

Joe Biden enraged by semi-tough but worthless questions; Jill Biden then cancels appearance

I have yet to see two things: Idiocracy and the interview Barbara West of WFTV-Channel 9 conducted with Joe Biden earlier today (link, video link). I suspect those two things are related.

West apparently asked Biden a series of what might appear to be tough questions, and Biden responded by asking "who was writing her questions" and calling them a "joke". One of the questions was apparently "How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist?", and that's where Idiocracy comes in.

There's an excellent chance that Obama is not a full-on Marxist. However, his remarks certainly do reveal socialistic tendencies, and there's a world of difference between the two. In order to avoid being discredited while trying to discredit someone it's necessary to make that distinction. Otherwise, you're just putting on a sideshow while also helping the other side; see the list here.

She didn't discredit Biden, she just made him look bad. Real questions would have completely discredited him. And, because her questions weren't good enough, she gave the - if you will - libtards breathing room.

See, for instance, the Digg entitled "Joe Biden Destroys Neocon Anchorwoman", featuring comments that verge on "in fact, the Central Committee says..." See also the HuffPost's coverage: huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/25/biden-slammed-during-flor_n_137830.html

When doing things like this, ask tough questions, but make sure they're smart questions.

UPDATE: ThinkProgress says (thinkprogress.org/2008/10/25/biden-marx-mccain) West loaded her interview questions with right-wing smears, likening progressive tax policies to Marxism. Biden responded to West’s ridiculous line of questioning with disbelief...

If she had asked questions which were actually tough questions and she had pressed the issue to the point of discrediting him, they wouldn't be able to say that.

UPDATE 2: Let the "vetting" commence! The current top item in the Politics 2008 section of Digg is "Barbara West, Biden Interviewer: Her Husband is a GOP Flack!" (bluetidalwave.com/2008/10/conflict-of-interest-orlando-journalist.html) with over 1300 diggs. The HuffPost story above has almost 3200 diggs. The Youtube video linked at the top of this post has almost 900,000 views, but just 220 diggs.

Also, for posterity, here's the statement from the BHO campaign:

"There's nothing wrong with tough questions, but reporters have the very important job of sharing the truth with the public -- not misleading the American people with false information... Senator Biden handled the interview well; however, the anchor was completely unprofessional. Senator Biden's wife is not running for elected office, and there are many other stations in the Orlando television market that would gladly conduct a respectful and factual interview with her."

Translation: "If only we'd had known what was coming, we could have jammed the station's phone lines. And, don't do it again or we'll work to drive you off the air."

Posted to Politics at 08:17 PM

Some things about Barack Obama you don't have to spend time making up

I was mulling over creating a fake group like the following, but I see that the real ones have saved me time by creating it themselves:

my.barackobama.com/page/group/ScientologistsforObama

It all just fits together, doesn't it?

Posted to Politics at 03:37 PM

McCain volunteer behind hoax is obviously troubled former Ron Paul volunteer

Somehow I don't think the following bit about the John McCain volunteer and College Republican National Committee field representative who recently staged a mugging at an ATM is going to get a lot of attention:

In March, [Ashley Todd] was asked to leave a grass-roots group of Ron Paul supporters in Brazos County, Texas, group leader Dustan Costine said. He said Ms. Todd posed as a supporter of former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and called the local Republican committee seeking information about its campaign strategies.

"She would call the opposing campaign and pretend she was on their campaign to get information," Mr. Costine said last night. "We had to remove her because of the tactics she displayed. After that we had nothing to do with her."

About a month earlier, he said, Ms. Todd sent an e-mail to the Ron Paul group saying her tires were slashed and that campaign paraphernalia had been stolen from her car because she supported Mr. Paul.

"She's the type of person who wants to be recognized," Mr. Costine said.

Posted to Politics at 02:56 PM

Berg lawsuit over Obama citizenship dismissed; didn't have standing

The Philip Berg lawsuit against Barack Obama in which he claimed that BHO wasn't eligible to be president due to not being an American citizen has been tossed. According to judge Barclay Surrick, Berg didn't have standing, saying:

If, through the political process, Congress determines that citizens, voters, or party members should police the Constitution’s eligibility requirements for the Presidency, then it is free to pass laws conferring standing on individuals like Plaintiff. Until that time, voters do not have standing to bring the sort of challenge that Plaintiff attempts to bring in the Amended Complaint.

See also this:

There are two plausible alternative means by which a party may challenge the eligibility of a presidential candidate. The first is through a statecourt action filed under state election laws, seeking to prevent the election of an ineligible candidate. Conceivably, a party could file such an action either before or after an election, depending on what state law allows. The second possibility is that a member of Congress could challenge the eligibility of a presidential candidate as part of the process by which Congress counts the Electoral College votes. Both of these present, at least in some respects, more satisfactory ways of resolving disputes over presidential eligibility than actions brought in federal court.

UPDATE: Per obamacrimes.com, Berg is going to take it to the Supreme Court. I don't suggest wasting any of your time following this and I don't suggest counting on it. Concentrate on things that will work.

UPDATE 2: Seriously now, until there's evidence of something can we stop this? One new allegation is that the decision was FAXed to the judge by someone else, and then the judge just re-FAXed out "his" decision. The presumed real writer of the decision? Why, none other than former Surrick clerk Christoper B. Seaman of Sidley, Austin in Chicago. That's the same firm that used to employ Michelle Obama and Bernardine Dorn. Cue ominous music until we wait for actual proof.

Posted to Politics at 02:09 PM

How *you* can help Barack Obama finally win this thing

A lot of people aren't content to simply sit back and wait for Obama to win. Instead, they want to get involved and help him finally seal the deal.

Here's a list of ways that you can help:

1. Simply bringing a stuffed monkey bedecked with Obama stickers to the next McCain/Palin rally isn't enough. Make sure that CBS News gets it on tape.

2. On your website or TV show, just keep asking, "why won't the MSM cover this?" Because, eventually someone from the MSM is going to come along and do something. Just wait, they'll be there eventually.

3. Stage your own robbed-at-the-ATM-by-an-Obama-supporter stunt. Just plan it better.

4. Do not under any circumstances ask Obama a tough question. He's only rarely been challenged, and when he was slightly challenged he didn't respond too well. Instead, just rely on the MSM to ask him questions, knowing that they'll be completely fair and let us know everything we need to know. Bonus: try to discourage others from asking those questions, because as we all know Obama has never put himself in situations where he can be asked questions. Plus, you'd have to wait in line for a few minutes and you might get Joe the Plumber'ed or or it might be raining or you might even get tased!

5. Just preach to the choir, don't try to reach out to the millions of non-far-left Democrats or the undecided.

6. Trust blogdom's leaders. They aren't just paper tigers; they really are interested in defeating Obama.

7. Rail against the "MSM" in general, or the "NYT" in general. When discussing articles containing lies, do not even mention the name of the reporter who's spreading the lies in an attempt to discredit that specific reporter and eventually have an impact on their career.

8. Spend all day long freeping polls over and over, content in the knowledge that everyone relies on their accuracy.

9. Just completely play into the narrative Obama supporters and the MSM want. Do not under any circumstances think ahead.

10. Try to get Andrew Sullivan to link to you so you can get a "cool conservatives" thing going (shoutout to DL).

11. Be a "libertarian" who supports someone who has absolutely no libertarian thoughts whatsoever nor any real use for the First and other Amendments (shoutout to Reason Magazine).

12. Don't go to major, Obama-supporting blogs and attempt to discredit the bloggers. That's too easy due to the fact that they keep being intellectually dishonest or just make things up. Instead, just completely ignore them. You ignoring them will have a telepathic impact on others, or something. Plus, if you do leave comments at sites like that, they might get deleted after a while or - even worse - others might say bad things to you. But, if you must comment on such sites, spend your time engaging in useless ad hominem attacks against other commenters.

13. When leaving comments at sites, do not point out how the site is lying. Instead, just copy and paste in a long, useless comment. Bonus: make sure that your copy 'n' paste is ten thousand words long, completely unformatted, and all in uppercase.

14. Spend as much time as you can researching obscure things that have little chance of success. Bonus: count on those highly improbable things happening, and encourage others to join you.

15. Figuratively sit in a quiet corner rocking back and forth. Bonus: do it literally too. Extra bonus: try to drag others into the corner with you.

16. Ignore Digg and similar sites. Those are just extensions of the Huffington Post anyway. Plus, monitoring upcoming stories and pointing out flaws in them is useless: those comments will just get dugg down anyway so just let Obama supporters post "joke" after "joke". Don't Digg accurate stories against Obama and don't encourage others to do the same; keep Digg's lists free of any contrary information.

17. Don't waste your time even signing up for Time's Swampland or similar MSM sites where you can leave comments in an attempt to discredit MSM reporters. Because of the fact that you ignore Time and the Washington Post and similar sources, that automatically means that what they write has no impact on anyone else.

18. Don't provide a fact-based argument pointing out Obama's ties to the largely unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. Instead - since you're busy - just cut right to the chase and call Obama himself a terrorist. Don't point out that "spreading the wealth around" is a socialistic thought different from even progressive taxation, but just shortcut things and call Obama a socialist. Don't worry, you won't play right into the hands of "fact checkers" or anything like that.

19. When posting videos to your site or others, be just as mysterioso as you can be. Don't even provide a basic who/what/where/when for those who won't or can't watch videos. Do not provide an accurate summary including the most salient points. Bonus: post a mysterioso link to a 93 minute video in order to waste the most of others' time as you can.

20. Make videos containing quotes taken out of context, then give them highly inflammatory, 100 word titles and then hype them to the greatest extent possible. Because, your view counts hold the key to the election.

And, finally: Don't learn from this list.

Posted to Politics at 09:37 PM

Garrulous Pajamas Media paper tiger warns: mainstream media is biased (or something)

Newspaperman Michael Malone takes to the esteemed web pages of Pajamas Media to offer "Editing Their Way to Oblivion: Journalism Sacrificed For Power and Pensions" (link). Rather than being sarcastic or anything, I'll just point out that it's a worthless and wordy rant against the mainstream media ("MSM"), claiming that the MSM's support for Barack Obama is because they expect him to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and save their jobs.

The problem isn't necessarily in what he writes, but in that the only solution he offers is in the subtext: support Pajamas Media. The article is basically just an ad for a hugely flawed concept that isn't attempting to reform the media but is simply attempting to offer a web-based, highly partisan alternative to the MSM. See this for my alternative solution, and see this for an example why PJM is a false alternative.

Posted to Bloggage at 09:24 PM

Joe the Plumber privacy violated by government officials? (an Obama preview)

Remember the glory days of 2002 when you saw things like "IRS Official to Judicial Watch: Clinton Enemies Were Audited" (link)?

Well, Barack Obama's surrogates look like they're intent on bringing those glory days back:

"State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber." [i.e., Joe Wurzelbacher].

...Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business...

The BHO campaign denies everything. Everything!

Posted to Politics at 08:40 PM

Peter Wallsten/LAT refuses to release Barack Obama/Rashid Khalidi videotape

Back on April 10, 2008, Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times offered "Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama" (link), about Barack Obama's friendship with Rashid Khalidi, an "internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights". Per Wallsten:

the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.

You know what's coming. In May, BHO was asked about this by unnamed Jewish voters in Miami and played the usual "he's not an advisor" trick he's played with Ayers and others (link).

But, as it turns out, apparently the event described by Wallsten turned a bit interesting and not only that he has a video of the event.

But, Wallsten won't release a tape that would be damaging to Barack Obama. Gateway Pundit spoke with him (link):

Wallston said that the article was written after he watched video taken at the Khalidi going away party. When I asked him about the video he said that as far as he was concerned he was through with the story.

I asked him if he was planning on releasing this video of Obama toasting the radical Khalidi at this Jew-bash. He told me he was not releasing the video. He also would not comment on his source for the video. Wallston also said he did not know if Khalidi's good friend Bill Ayers was at the event or not.

Write readers.rep *at* latimes.com and suggest they stop covering for Barack Obama and release the video tape.

UPDATE: In her own special way, back after the LAT article came out Debbie Schlussel said something I take to be that Wallsten basically based his article on something she'd written (link).

And, the Ayers' might have been at the dinner also, or they might have just contributed to a commemorative book compiled after the event; it isn't clear from the following:

In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the Arab American Action Network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada, and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. (There were also testimonials from then-state Senator Barack Obama and the mayor of Chicago.)

UPDATE 2: As could have been expected, one of the minor "fact check" sites says Khalidi's group isn't controversial: politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/402 (those involved: Robert Farley, Shirl Kennedy, Amy Hollyfield). Their entire contention is based on interviews with Rep. Robert Wexler (co-chair of Obama's Florida campaign); the AAAN's executive director; the president of the Woods Fund; and, Louise Cainkar from Marquette University. She used to be with the Great Cities Institute, which was at... University of Illinois-Chicago. Whether she's linked to Ayers/Obama isn't known, but she's definitely part of their circle, as are the others. So, basically, Politifact bases its reports on one side of the debate.

UPDATE 3: No tape is necessary, we have reported all there is to see! Move along now! An exchange with Jamie Gold, the Los Angeles Times' Reader's Representative, is here: littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31717_LA_Times_Responds_to_Readers-_Get_Lost

It sounds as if you don't find "mere reporting" to be enough, but The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite — the L.A. Times brought the matter to light.

UPDATE 4: The McCain campaign wants the tape released.

And, there's more on the controversy surrounding Khalidi himself in the April 2005 articles here and here.

Posted to Politics at 03:43 PM

Surprise: woman who quit call center over McCain script turns up at Joe Biden event

A couple days ago, in completely and absolutely unrelated incidents, two people quit call centers over anti-Obama scripts they were asked to read.

Now, shock of all shocks, one of those who quit turns up at a Joe Biden rally:

In [Charleston, West Virginia], Biden announced that [Chaylee Cole, a student at Fairmont State University] was in the crowd - and praised her as personifying the need for America to move beyond divisive politics.

"What we need more of is the kind of gut, core American sentiment expressed by a woman, a woman I called on the phone, I heard about her, I leaned about her, her name is Chaley Cole," Biden said.

"She said, 'Democrat or Republican I wouldn't have done this.' End of quote. Ladies and gentlemen. Chaley recognized that regardless of your personal politics, attacks like that, attacks like that are out of bounds."

It's all just a coincidence, and it was always just a coincidence.

10/27/08 UPDATE: Supposedly, 30 or so call center workers at Americall in Indiana walked off their jobs rather than read a script that they supposedly were asked to read that supposedly contained things they disagreed with. They weren't apparently fired, and no word from Americall was offered. The only testimony is from two people who, for all we know, could be spinning a tale and at a site not exactly known for getting things right: tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/dozens_of_call_center_workers.php

Posted to Politics at 01:26 PM

ZOMG! Sarah Palin wears donkey scarf at Reno rally! (Democrats!)

OMG! OMG! At a rally in Reno, Sarah Palin wore a donkey-themed scarf, just like the Democratic Party's logo!

The mindless, Obama-supporting drones across the internet are using this as yet another instance of their attempts to portray Palin as the new Dan Quayle. Just one problem: there's the strong possibility that some cute little prankster planted it on her. From this interview with the photographer who took the picture:

The Reno event "went down like any other campaign rally," [Max Whittaker, a professional photog from Sacramento] says. Palin did not have a scarf on during her speech and wasn't wearing it "at least the first five or ten minutes of working the rope line" afterward. Whittaker worked his way through the post-speech crowd toward Palin and "shot her for about 5 minutes until she was out of my sight, and she had the scarf on the whole time." How did she get it? It's still unclear, but Whittaker notes that in the meet-and-greet-frenzy "it's pretty inconceivable that anything happened beyond someone in the crowd giving her this scarf. I can't see her suddenly pulling it out of her handbag in this rope line." When he went to shoot her a half-hour later for an interview with CNN, the scarf had disappeared, he said.

Whittaker himself said he didn't notice it at first, but then he got a laugh out of it when he saw what it was. Others who got a laugh out of it include the Kos Kids (dailykos.com/story/2008/10/22/83752/893/194/638476), HuffPost, and, of course, Newsweek [1].

Can anyone review tapes of the event to see if we can find out who planted this on her?

[1] blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/10/21/
in-which-sarah-palin-displays-the-latest-in-donkey-fashion.aspx

Posted to Politics at 11:56 PM

FWIW: Berg says has tape of Obama's grandmother discussing BHO's birth in Kenya

Picture a gigantic, flashing neon sign saying, "it might be true, but we need actual evidence" as you read this:

[Philip J. Berg, Democrat and a former deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania] has confirmed he has a recording of a telephone call from the senator's paternal grandmother confirming his birth in Kenya...

..."This has been a real sham he's pulled off for the last 20 months," Berg told Savage. "I'll release it [the tape] in a day or two, affidavits from her talking to a certain person. I heard the tape. She was speaking [to someone] here in the United States."

Just release it now, all these people keep promising things down the road which never happen. While Berg is probably more credible than API, those who make allegations like this have to come up with the goods.

Posted to Politics at 10:03 PM

Michael Luo/NYT spins away Barack Obama's fraudulent donations

Michael Luo of the New York Times discusses the various attempts by Barack Obama's opponents to test just how easy it is to donate to the Obama campaign using fake names and addresses ("Donor Patrol: Obama’s Online Site Accepts More Fakes", link). He spins the story completely in favor of the Obama campaign to the point of covering up for them:

[The fake donation] experiment would not necessarily be notable, except it appears that many others are doing the same thing. Power Line, a conservative political blog, reported a reader had successfully made donations under the names Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Bill Ayers. While those experiences could not be immediately verified, Ms. Franzi sent The Caucus a screenshot from her bank account that showed a contribution to Obama for America going through at 1:02 p.m.

To be fair to the Obama campaign, officials there have said much of their checking for fraud occurs after the transactions have already occurred. When they find something wrong, they then refund the amount...

However, unless the Obama campaign is given the full credit card number and is storing it (a huge security risk considering they don't have the same expertise and experience as processing companies), they're unable to later verify that a specific credit card number belongs to a specific person at a specific address. That's a bit like a store checking for fraudulent currency not at checkout but after dozens of bills from different parties are already in the cash drawer. See also this.

Posted to Politics at 08:07 PM

New from Obama cultists: the November 4 PROPHECY (Quincy Jones)

Some of you were probably asking, "Why hasn't Quincy Jones produced his own creepy video showing a cult-like devotion to Barack Obama's personality cult, complete with the contention that it's a 'prophecy' for him to be elected president?" Well, your prayers to The One have been answered!

I rush to remind our "liberal" friends that this is not at all creepy, and it would be great if it went viral just like the kids singing to Dear Leader video did. I especially urge everyone to send it to religious people, so they can be well aware of our newest prophet.

From their site:

The prophecy tells us that many may try to prevent it from occuring, yet it cannot be stopped.

Everyday, those supporting it gets larger and larger, and those fearing it get smaller and smaller.

The prophecy says we are the ones that will rise, awaken, and change the future.

Many have hoped for us, and many have feared us, yet the prophecy cannot be changed.

We will arise and awaken...

Posted to Politics at 05:14 PM

My in-depth, completely spurious conversation with Scott from Power Line

Earlier today, I conducted a completely spurious conversation with Scott from PowerLineBlog! (I think there's an exclamation point in their name, but if that's wrong it doesn't hurt). It went like this:

24AHEAD: Thanks for bringing the story about the guy who made bogus donations to the Obama campaign to our attention (link). I previously saw how he put it in comments at minx.cc/?post=276324, but it's good to have a dedicated page for it.

SCOTT FROM POWERLINEBLOG!: It is merely part of the service we provide as part of our in-depth reportage on today's political scene.

24AHEAD: However, there is one thing. You quoted Mark Steyn's sarcastic comment about the MSM's priorities, and how they prefer to concentrate on shoes etc. rather than looking into BHO's donations etc. Then you ended the piece with this: "It is a point that needs making and that could be made every day." You'll never guess what I said to myself when I read that!

SCOTT FROM POWERLINEBLOG!: I would imagine that, like we at PowerLineBlog!, you scratched your chin and thought over our deep thoughts about today's political scene.

24AHEAD: Actually, I said, "and I'm sure you will", as in, I'm sure that between now and doomsday you and your comrades will keep whining about MSM bias instead of actually doing something that would actually have an impact.

24AHEAD: Hello, Scott? Are you there?

Posted to Bloggage at 10:21 AM

Barack Obama campaign accepts bogus gift card donations

Back on the first, I linked to a Ken Timmerman article about the Barack Obama campaign having millions in possibly fraudulent campaign donations. In that post I verified with the BHO campaign that they accept credit card-style gift cards. Those can be bought with cash and in large enough denominations that it would be possible to donate large sums of cash to their campaign. Those donations would be nearly untraceable, for instance, if it were done over the internet using one or more proxy servers.

Whether that post was the inspiration or not, someone else tried a test about a week ago, making a series of $5 donations to the BHO campaign using one of those cards and using a series of fake names: Bart Simpson, Family Guy, Daffy Duck, King Kong, and so on. (You would have known it was me if one of the names had been Rusty Shackleford). They clearly aren't checking those donations, and they may have turned off security features that match names and addresses with credit card numbers.

Details here.

It's time to put pressure on Congress to investigate his fundraising activities. Someone else needs to move that forward.

Related:
37,000 Obama donations possibly from foreign currency; federal law violations?

UPDATE: Neil Munro of the National Journal offers "FEC Rules Leave Loopholes For Online Donation Data" (link), in which he tries using gift cards to donate to both BHO and McCain. Only the BHO campaign accepted the donation. However, apparently Munro doesn't mention that AVS has to be turned off intentionally. And, the BHO campaign doesn't store credit card numbers.

Posted to Politics at 10:14 AM

What John McCain should say about Bill Ayers

This suggestion is good, but it could be even better if it worked in all the other associations Barack Obama has had. There really is enough already known to sink him, but McCain just won't attack him hard enough and there are no surrogates around to fill in the gaps.

Posted to Politics at 10:18 PM

Should SP go bf?

This, this, this, this, and this are great, but for a change of pace how about things like this or this?

Posted to WackyHumor at 10:12 PM

Ready for even more questionable Obama links? (Rezko's buddies)

Well, then go here. Think of it this way: if Obama becomes president he's going to take the entire Democratic Party and most of our wonderful elites down with him.

Posted to Politics at 09:30 PM

Great: Sarah Palin immigration stance magically same as McCain's

Sarah Palin was recently interviewed by Jorge Ramos of Univision [1], and she repeatedly asked him why he - a citizen of Mexico who has no interest in becoming a U.S. citizen - keeps interfering in our internal politics. She repeatedly asked him why he was allowed to take up valuable time during a CNN debate where he wasn't even identified as a foreign citizen.

Unfortunately, I'm kidding.

Actually, her responses to his questions were virtually identical to what John McCain himself would have said. Bear in mind that the following is their incompetent translation, but the gist is quite understandable. After first being asked about the number of illegal aliens in Alaska and her not knowing, Ramos asked what she'd do about all the millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. She responded.:

There is no way that in the US we would roundup every illegal immigrant -there are about 12 million of the illegal immigrants- not only economically is that just an impossibility but that's not a humane way anyway to deal with the issue that we face with illegal immigration.

That is, of course, the same line that McCain, Obama, Bob Barr, and an endless line of other hacks have used. The current situation is not humane, and the proposed fixes would only make it worse. And, of course, the implication is that our choices are between amnesty and mass deportations, a false choice.

Then, he asks whether she favors amnesty. She replied:

No, I do not. I do not. Not total amnesty. You know, people have got to follow the rules. They've got to follow the bar, and we have got to make sure that there is equal opportunity and those who are here legally should be first in line for services being provided and those opportunities that this great country provides.

As detailed many times, that non-amnesty amnesty will be perceived as amnesty, and also because there's no real end to the line, large numbers of prospective legal immigrants will end up waiting much longer than they would have. Ramos then tries to verify whether she supports a "path to citizenship" for illegal aliens; she replies:

I do because I understand why people would want to be in America. To seek the safety and prosperity, the opportunities, the health that is here. It is so important that yes, people follow the rules so that people can be treated equally and fairly in this country.

So, to encourage people to follow the rules we're going to reward millions of breakages of those rules? And, of course, illegal aliens have some rights in the U.S., but more rights in their home countries. When they came here illegally they knew what they were getting into, and if they want more rights they can simply return home. It isn't our responsibility to give more rights to those who refused to acknowledge our perfectly reasonable laws.

[1] univision.com/content/content.jhtml?chid=3&schid=10414&secid=25534&cid=1716304

UPDATE: Apparently the transcript only included part of the interview. She also discussed Hugo Chavez, and she also spouted McCain's "secure the border" nonsense.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 09:15 PM

MSM reporters: will you be employable after the election?

Dear mainstream media reporters:

Have you considered the impact your coverage of the 2008 election might have on your career? Many of you have gone all out to elect Barack Obama as president, completely oblivious to the long-term impact that advocacy could have.

It's easier than ever for news consumers to do research on specific reporters and see whether they have a habit of lying, misleading, ignoring relevant facts, failing to ask tough questions, or other forms of bias. And, as time goes on that's going to become even easier. Some will help in that effort, such as by publishing lists of reporters who crossed the line into advocacy or who clearly lied in order to support Obama.

Before reading an article, a news consumer might spend just a few seconds doing a little research and be able to quickly find page after page detailing past instances of that reporter's low journalistic ethics.

Now, certainly, papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have powerful megaphones, but dozens or hundreds of other sites loosely working together can have a major impact. Eventually, a critical mass will be reached, and a media source might decide that a specific reporter is too much of a liability. Why continue publishing news reports from someone when those reports are instantly dismissed by a good portion of their readership?

Thankfully, it's not too late for the media to somewhat redeem themselves by finally asking Obama tough questions, by avoiding lying or misleading on his behalf, and by releasing any information on him that they've assiduously tried to cover up.

The press serves a vital role in the American system, yet too much of the press has abrogated their responsibilies and now simply serves as an arm of the Obama campaign.

Mainstream media reporters should take a longer-term view of the full impact that will have on their careers.

Posted to Politics at 01:08 PM

Odd: two quit different robocall firms over fact-based scripts

Now, here's something odd. Two people in different states have both quit robocall firms over what they say are misleading scripts they were asked to read. What are the odds of that happening, and over the same script? (Hint: it's a large number).

First up, from that hotbed of conservatism Madison, Wisconsin, Ted Zoromski of Middleton quit Sitel ("Even though I was being paid to do it, I didn't feel comfortable", link). He'd joined that company this month.

At about the same time hundreds of miles away in Weston, West Virginia, Fairmont State University student Chaylee Cole quit the company 1.2.1 Direct Response where she'd been working for a few months (link).

Now, certainly, I have no proof that this is a coordinated attempt by "moles" for the BHO campaign, but it's certainly quite the coinkydink. Especially since Cole is mischaracterizing what she was asked to say as the following:

"We got a campaign ad talking about how Obama had been part of terrorist attacks on the Capitol, the Pentagon and a judge's home and had ties with Bill Ayers."

Actually, the script both she and Zoromski is quite different from her characterization:

Hello, I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers [airs], whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans... And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democrat allies lack the judgment to lead our country... This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee."

The first sentence is completely factual. The second is opinion, and highly defensible opinion at that. The third is also opinion, albeit just slightly less defensible, but still opinion.

I'm contacting the author of the second piece to see if he can shed any light on this interesting coincidence.

Posted to Politics at 11:28 AM

Drew Griffin/CNN smears Sarah Palin with completely out-of-context National Review quote

Drew Griffin of CNN recently conducted an interview with Sarah Palin and asked her this:

Governor, you've been mocked in the press, the press has been pretty hard on you, the Democrats have been pretty hard on you, but also some conservatives have been pretty hard on you as well. The National Review had a story saying that, you know, I can't tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.

As detailed here, Griffin took that NR quote completely out of context; the laundry list referred to the impression that the media has been trying to give of her. How recursive!

Here's the article in question:

Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it's sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above. Palin, the governor of Alaska, has faced more criticism than any vice-presidential candidate since 1988, when Democrats and the press tore into Dan Quayle. In fact, Palin may have it even worse than Quayle, since she's taking flak not only from Democrats and the press but from some conservative opinion leaders as well.

UPDATE: Drew Griffin spent a minute apologizing on the air for this (link), but CNN has apparently not posted a correction on their site. Others say Griffin has been at least somewhat of a fair reporter, so perhaps he made an honest mistake or a producer/writer snuck it in.

UPDATE 2: This quotes Media Research Center President Brent Bozell as saying:

"We also take Drew Griffin and CNN at their word — that this mistake was not intended to mislead viewers to think a conservative magazine had trashed Gov. Palin... Conservatives have endured hundreds — even thousands — of examples of the media deliberately distorting our words and positions. In this case, there was not a deliberate attempt...As far as the Media Research Center is concerned... this case is closed."

Posted to Politics at 08:57 PM

Is Jimmy Lee Shreeve trustworthy, or does he just make things up? (Sarah Palin)

Jimmy Lee Shreeve wrote an article for England's Telegraph yesterday ("Sarah Palin: Pointing a loaded gun at the environment?", link via this) which contained this completely fabricated Palin quote:

"magnificent, cuddly white bears are doing just fine and don't need our protection. If the ice melts, they'll adapt to living on the land."

That article went on to get over 3300 Diggs. While the person who submitted it has now also posted a mea culpa, the damage has already been done.

The Telegraph has now deleted that quote from their article, without noting that it was deleted.

So, if you want to trust Jimmy Lee Shreeve go ahead, although I don't recommend it in the least.

Posted to Politics at 08:51 PM

San Francisco loon tries to arrest Karl Rove for treason

At an event earlier today, apparently a San Francisco loon tried to arrest Karl Rove for treason... by slapping him in handcuffs. Presumably she was led away to a detention center in Hayward. Developing...

Posted to Politics at 03:19 PM

Barack Obama, Bill Ayers spoke on panel together in 2002

From our "just a guy in my neighborhood" file comes the news that on April 20, 2002 Barack Obama and Bill Ayers spoke on the same "Intellectuals in Times of Crisis" panel at a conference sponsored by The Center for Public Intellectuals and the University of Illinois-Chicago (link, copy here). This was after Ayers' August 2001 profile in Chicago Magazine picturing him stepping on a flag. The day before, Ayers' wife and fellow former Weatherman Bernardine Dohrn spoke on another panel.

Posted to Politics at 01:05 PM

Conservatives: here's why not to vote for Obama or at least why to vote against him

Mary Katharine Ham and some other guy offer "The comprehensive argument against Barack Obama" (link). It lays out a non-smear case against BHO over several categories: abortion, taxes, his radical associations, foreign policy judgment, his disdain for the heartland, his habit of playing the race card, and his lack of accomplishments. And, it will serve a valuable purpose for those millions and millions of conservatives who were planning on voting for BHO.

I kid! It might serve as a slight nudge that some need to get out and vote against BHO, but, aside from those for whom the above listed topics are their make-or-break issues, it won't have much of an impact on independents and non-far-left Democrats.

For that, you need something from their perspective. However, something that would be far more effective is to show everyone - regardless of ideology - that Obama is not qualified.

The way to do that is what I've been pushing completely without success for almost two years: going out and asking him a tough question on video. Please write major bloggers and urge them to help push that plan.

Posted to Politics at 11:03 AM

Has Barack Obama (legalistically) admitted his COLB is a forgery and he's not a U.S. citizen?

I tend to be very doubtful of this, but I'm linking it here anyway just in case it turns out that Obama has fled the U.S. tomorrow. According to Philip Berg - he of the lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to run for president - the defendents (BHO and the DNC) only had 30 days to respond to Berg's laundry list of admissions, which includes various things that would make BHO ineligible to run for president.

However, the BHO campaign has apparently not responded within the 30 days required by Rule 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (link). That rule says it must be done "within 30 days after being served", and thus the question becomes when they were served. It was definitely before October 6, since that's when they acknowledged that they'd been served, however, it might have been as early as September 15 and thus more than 30 days ago.

On the 21st, Berg is going to take further action to press this forward. Whether the BHO campaign will respond with a loophole, a reasonable objection, or by fleeing the country isn't known.

In the case of the latter, consider this post an endorsement of emergency replacement presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

10/21/08 UPDATE: Darn, nothing happened. But, anyway, maybe this will work out later. However, today the FEC filed a Motion to Dismiss, claiming that Berg doesn't have standing and asking not to be a party to the suit. Berg claims he's already established standing. Once again: instead of engaging in technical battles, why doesn't the Obama campaign simply release his records? Most of the demands are completely reasonable. What is he trying to hide?

Posted to Politics at 11:06 PM

Brass dacks: top international military officials fly into Saranac Lake, NY

From this:

SARANAC LAKE - Powerful generals and admirals from some of the most powerful nations on Earth are reportedly meeting somewhere in the local area this weekend after flying into the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear on Friday.

Among the passengers of a large Boeing 757 airplane with "United States of America" printed on its fuselage were top members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and their counterparts from France, Germany and another country, possibly Great Britain, according to Barry DeFuria, a town of Harrietstown councilman and Airport Committee member who was there when the plane landed. A top military delegation from Italy flew in on a separate Falcon airplane, DeFuria said.

Are they there for leaf-peeping? Preparing to climb Mt. Marcy? Planning for a coup in case BHO becomes president? Planning on what to do when Bush cancels the elections? Planning for a global flu crisis (link; warning: Icke)? Going to a local hunting lodge? No one knows... Developing...

Posted to Miscellania at 10:12 PM

Barack Obama going to Hawaii; is something else involved?

First, I hope that Barack Obama's grandmother is OK. Unfortunately, since we're dealing with someone who's running for president, there are some questions that need to be asked. I don't want to ask them, but is something else involved? For instance, see #107 here.

Posted to Politics at 07:40 PM

Colin Powell in 2001: Mexico, U.S. united by "common aspirations, values and culture"

A February 4, 2001 New York Times article contained this:

"Our common border is no longer a line that divides us, but a region that unites our nations, reflecting our common aspirations, values and culture," said Colin Powell last Tuesday in Washington at his first news conference as secretary of state, held jointly with the new Mexican foreign minister, Jorge Castaneda.

A couple other quotes - including his support for amnesty - at the link.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 12:30 PM

Weathermen planned re-education camps, "eliminating" millions of counter-revolutionaries?

From this:

In a chilling video on YouTube, Larry Grathwohl, a former member of the Weather Underground which Ayers helped found, says the organization planned to take over the U.S. government and give parts of the country to Russia, Cuba, North Vietnam, and China. The plans included “re-educating” Americans as Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries.

In the video, Grathwohl says he asked 25 leaders of the Weather Underground who were discussing the plans, “Well, what is going to happen to those people that we can’t re-educate, that are die-hard capitalists?”

The reply, says Grathwohl, was that they would “have to be eliminated.” When he pursued the question further, they estimated that “they’d have to eliminate 25 million people in these re-education centers. And when I say eliminate, I mean kill 25 million people."

Grathwohl was apparently an FBI informant who infiltrated the group, so take it for what it's worth. The exact video referred to isn't clear, but this might be it. His quotes were apparently featured in a recent Sean Hannity special; see this or the other videos from the same user. A documentary interview with Grathwohl is here. An unsourced (of course) "primer" is here, with more here.

Posted to Politics at 12:21 PM

Valiant: private blog post about Obama - already cited over 500 times - saved from "memory hole"!

Some only sit on the sidelines in the battle to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president. Others are fully engaged, valiantly and intelligently fighting with all their force, fighting the good fight no matter what happens.

For a perfect example of that, turn to this post: patterico.com/2008/10/20/evidence-of-obama-ayers-tie-sent-down-the-memory-hole-almost (hat tap: pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/026008.php).

That, my friends, is truly brave and highly intelligent keyboard work. It doesn't matter that her quote has been featured on over 500 other pages, including at Politico. What really matters is that her page itself has been preserved for eternity. Because, no one would have thought it existed without that. Simply being cited on 500 other pages isn't enough. And, it doesn't matter that her quote isn't really "proof" so much as her opinion (I suspect she got it right, but it's not "proof").

Pajamaderians, hold your keyboards high! And, don't worry about doing things that actually would work.

Next up: let's freep a poll! Because that's a really good use of your time.

Posted to Bloggage at 10:13 AM

"Amazing" Barack Obama/Bill Ayers audio

The title of this one is "Amazing Ayers Audio Unearthed from Same Week Obama worked with him! Extremist Ayers and Obama views matched almost word for word!" I'll leave it up to someone else to listen to it and offer a summary, including the most damning parts (if any).

Posted to Politics at 10:25 PM

37,000 Obama donations possibly from foreign currency; federal law violations?

From this (a followup to this):

more than 37,000 Obama donations appear to be conversions of foreign currency.

According to a Newsmax analysis of the Obama campaign data before the latest figures were released, potential foreign currency donations could range anywhere from $12.8 million to a stunning $63 million in all. With the addition of $150 million raised in September, this amount could be much more...

But many of the donors Newsmax canvassed said they had “never” been contacted by the Obama campaign or seen any refunds, even though their contributions went over the limit months ago.

In all, Newsmax found more than 2,000 donors who had contributed in excess of the $4,600 limit for individuals per election cycle.

Such donations, if not returned within 60 days, are a clear violation of federal campaign finance laws...

See also this, where John McCain says:

"We know that when you have unlimited amounts of money — in this case $200 million unreported — and there’s already been stories of people who have made small contributions multiple times and all that. I'm saying it's laying a predicate for the future that can be very dangerous... There’s $200 million of those campaign contributions — there’s no record. You can report online now. Two hundred million that we don’t know where it came from. Lot of strange things going on in this campaign. The American people should know where every penny came from... They know where every penny of my campaign contributions came from."

Posted to Politics at 10:05 PM

The "mainstream" Bill Ayers/Bernadine Dohrn guide to parenting

Some time around 2001, Mothering ("The natural family living magazine") published 'The Son Also Rises/Boys to Men, Outside the Stereotypes' by William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn (link). I'd prefer to ignore stuff like this, but if any of their thoughts seeped into projects funded by Barack Obama's Chicago Annenberg Challenge there's a public interest:

...At B.J.’s Kids, parents and teachers struggled to free our language from the constraints of a sexist society, and it became natural to hear conversations laced with terms like “mail carrier,” “police officer,” “cowhand,” and “waitron” (waiter or waitress, an evolution from the clumsy “wait person”). Not only did “firefighter” replace “fireman,” but the center’s play area featured a poster of a black firefighter in action, and the toy block area had a unique collection of little figures and wedgies that included a white male nurse and an Asian woman firefighter.

B.J.’s Kids was across the street from the firehouse, where the firefighters, however, were exclusively white and male. The kids visited often, trying on the hats and ringing the bell, and of course, finding their nonsexist, nonracist world collided with some hard realities--such as the time one of the hosts told the visiting kids that he hoped there would never be any women working at the firehouse because they would never be as good as the men at fighting fires. Four-year-old Megan led the chorus in unison--“UNFAIR!”--and the kids wrote letters to the mayor...

There's much more - and worse - at the link.

Related:
Barack Obama funded radical Afro-centric schools (Annenberg Challenge, Rev. Wright)

Posted to Politics at 09:48 PM

"Obama Supporters Heckle at McCain Rally"

Let me know if there's anything of interest on this:

Posted to Politics at 09:12 PM

Obama sees "merit" in taxing the heck out of people and then just redistributing it

It's important to note that in the following quote (from this), Barack Obama is paraphrasing Warren Buffet, and that the following is not a direct quote from him. Only the "merit" part is from BHO himself. With that said, here's part of this recent NYT profile of him:

"If you talk to Warren [Buffet], he'll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it," Obama said. "That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re achieving equity on the back end." He continued by saying that he thought there was some merit in Buffett's argument.

Posted to Politics at 05:08 PM

Maria Gavrilovic/CBS News: Barack Obama opposes the North American Union. Oh, really.

Maria Gavrilovic of CBS News offers 'Obama Addresses N.C. Voter Who Called Him "Socialist"' (link) in which she allows Barack Obama to mislead and confuses what someone says with what they actually believe:

[At a campaign stop in Fayetteville, North Carolina, someone] asked the Democratic nominee about the North American Union, which he opposes.

"I know some people have been hearing rumors about it. But as far as I can tell that's just not something that's happening. We would never give up our sovereignty in that way. Any other questions?" Obama asked [her]...

The NAU is like immigration, in that candidates frequently use misleading language in an attempt to deceive. If Gavrilovic were a real reporter and not just a BHO transcriptionist, she would have asked him about his March statements in Lancaster PA where he more or less confirmed the NAFTA Superhighway, something that's tied to the NAU. He also faked being ignorant of the "Union" part of the NAU term, and he lied about the CFR. And, she'd point out that Barack Obama supports Bush's Security and Prosperity Partnership, something that some consider a precursor to the NAU. Not only that, but he spoke in code when coming out for the SPP.

The article also provides an example of how BHO has been able to get to where he is: because no one has asked him a good, "prosecutorial-style" question. Simply asking someone whether they support the NAU will always result in statements like those made by BHO above. Better questions need to be asked. Also, the person who asked him about the NAU also shouted "socialist, socialist, socialist – get out of here!" to him, something that only makes him look better to many as the MSM comes to his rescue. Note: per this, BHO's full remarks about the NAU were:

"Well, you know, I am opposed to it if it were happening. But it doesn't seem to be actually be happening. The truth of the matter is there is no plans. I've talked to a lot of people, including folks down in Texas. There's no plan to create a common government between Mexico, U.S. and Canada. That's just not... that's just not happening. I know some people have been hearing rumors about it. But as far as I can tell, that's just not something that's happening. We would never give up our sovereignty in that way. Any other questions?"

There may not be formal "plans", however, many powerful people have made proposals, including the CFR. See also Jim Hoagland/Washington Post: Obama should create North American Union.

Posted to NAU at 04:45 PM

Where was Barack Obama born? In Hawaii? In Kenya? Somewhere else?

Was Barack Obama born in Hawaii, or Kenya, or somewhere else? He claims to have been born in Hawaii, but no definitive proof has been provided. It is a false statement to definitively state that he was born in Hawaii, as some media sources have done. The most they should state is that there's a very strong possibility that he was born in Hawaii and he claims to have been born there, but some reporters and other sources cross the line into pretending that the matter has been settled.

The matter has not been settled, and in fact attorney Philip Berg is currently suing Obama and the DNC, trying to get them to release his records. It's also apparently possible for a Hawaii resident who was born out of state or out of the country to obtain a birth certificate (link). The copies of the Certificate of Live Birth ("COLB") discussed below do list Honolulu as his place of birth, but that could have been the result of fraud or a mix-up of some kind.

The following have been offered as proof, even though they aren't:

1. An announcement that appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961, nine days after his birthdate (picture here). According to that link, those listings came directly from the hospitals. However, neither that nor the listing itself have been confirmed. And, the listing doesn't say where he was born, only providing the address of his parents. There's certainly the possibility that he was born elsewhere and the listing was somehow placed by, for instance, his grandparents. The usual argument against that mockingly asks whether his grandparents planted the announcement thinking that one day he would run for president (used by FactCheck, #3 below). However, there are other explanations. They could have wanted it to confer U.S. citizenship rather than the less valuable Kenyan (or other) citizenship. Or, they could have wanted it in the case of divorce and a resulting custody battle. The announcement alone is not proof.

2. Obama's own statements, such as those made at his site: fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate. One would have to be quite gullible to take that page at face value, as all it contains is a picture of his COLB and two links. The first is to the FactCheck article (#3) below. The second is even worse: a link to what is actually merely the opinion of Eli Saslow of the Washington Post: "The truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service." As pointed out in this post, it's false to definitively state that Obama was born in Hawaii, and that article - the one upon which the Obama campaign is relying - contains a series of other lies. The bottom line is that Obama's own statements are not proof. He could be lying. Or, he might not even know for sure, and could simply be relying on a falsified family history.

3. FactCheck was allowed to take photographs of the COLB (factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html), however, there are several problems that their supposed proof:
A. FactCheck doesn't indicate that they showed it to document experts.
B. They were able to contact representatives of the state of Hawaii about some related issues, but they weren't able to verify it with that state.
C. Their mocking tone - including the use of the phrase "tinfoil hat" - doesn't speak to their commitment to determine the truth.
D. Their photos show the certificate was issued on June 6, 2007. This may contradict a statement from Politfact (#4 below): "[Janice Okubo of HI's health department] said a copy of the birth certificate was requested in June 2008, but she wouldn't specify by whom." Were there two requests, is that a typo, did Okubo make a mistake, or what?
E. FactCheck is "funded primarily by the Annenberg Foundation" (factcheck.org/about), the same foundation that started the Chicago Annenberg Challenge which was headed up by Barack Obama.
F. While FactCheck for the most part gets things right, they've also gotten several things wrong (link, link) or shown bias (factcheck.org/elections-2008/wrong_paul.html).
G. The EXIF data shown in original photos had a date months before they were supposedly taken, and that EXIF data was removed when they recompressed the photos.
H. FactCheck hasn't exactly pursued this case to the ends of the Earth. For instance, it was a week after the posting of their "definitive" proof that they finally informed us that "[Obama] held both U.S. and Kenyan citizenship as a child, but lost his Kenyan citizenship automatically on his 21st birthday" (http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_barack_obama_have_kenyan_citizenship.html).
Bottom line: what FactCheck says is not proof.

4. The Politfact article (politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii), which is even less reliable than the one from FactCheck. They attempted to obtain Obama's birth certificate without luck, but eventually they received a picture of the COLB from the Obama campaign (politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/13/obamas-birth-certificate), which is presumably the same picture as at Obama's "Fight the Smears" site. However, because such information is only available to direct family members, they were unable to confirm the certificate with the state of Hawaii. The best they could do is interview a spokeswoman for the state of Hawaii's health department (Janice Okubo):

Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received.

And about the copy we e-mailed her for verification? “When we looked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it.”

Still, she acknowledges: “I don’t know that it’s possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents.”

Then, after bringing in someone to discuss conspiracy theories, they punt. Their statement that Obama was born in Hawaii is completely based on the assumption that he couldn't have gotten as far as he has without providing proof to others, such as colleges. However, those colleges could have said the same thing and might not have seen his birth certificate or might have seen a forged document. An article based completely on such assumptions is not proof.

Until Obama releases an official copy of his birth certificate to some reliable authority - such as a respected judge - and that certificate is verified with the issuing agency there will always be doubts about his birthplace. Even showing some form of his birth certificate to a group of reporters will not be proof because reporters are not document experts and a very large number of reporters have shown themselves willing to lie on his behalf.

There's certainly the possibility that Obama is playing a game by not releasing documentation. He could be trying to give his opponents false hope that he'd be knocked out of the race at the last moment or even after being elected. Or, he could just be trying to distract his opponents from pursuing an unrelated line of attack that would actually work. Or, there could be something else in his records that he doesn't want his potential voters to see, such as the birth certificate showing some detail that would be damaging, or something similar in a college application.

I don't recommend being distracted by or counting on this issue. However, if anyone definitively says that Obama was born in Hawaii, please direct them to this page. It is false to definitively say that he was born in Hawaii.

Posted to Politics at 02:10 PM

Bill Ayers: just a guy from Barack Obama's office building, to whose group he gave at least $1 million

It turns out that the offices of a Bill Ayers-founded organization (the Small Schools Workshop, "SSW") and that of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge ("CAC") - headed by Barack Obama - were in the same office building between 1995 and 1998. And, their offices were on the same floor of that building during at least part of that period. The CAC gave the SSW over $1 million and other foundations gave them almost another million during BHO's tenure at those organizations.

Details on both here.

The building in question has recently been demolished (link), but it was located at 115 S. Sangamon Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607. That appears to have been a University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) property called the "Sangamon Building" (link) or the "Sangamon Street Building" (link) and having four or so floors.

The SSW was a UIC effort (link) headed up by Mike Klonsky; per this he was leader of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, which was effectively recognized by China as the all-but-official U.S. Maoist party.

In what appears to be a small office building it would certainly be difficult for Obama, Klonsky, and perhaps Ayers not to have frequent contact, especially since those offices were on the same floor. However, the next round of explanations from the Obama campaign is eagerly awaited.

UPDATE: There might be photos of 115 South here. However, the PDF here identifies what looks like the same building as 125 South. Those could be connecting buildings, a "115-125"-style address, or a mistake.

Posted to Politics at 10:36 PM

Dana Milbank/WaPO lied about Secret Service; may have lied about "kill him"

Showing once again that it's the dumb ones that give the game away, on the 16th Dana Milbank of the Washington Post claimed the following during an online chat:

In cooperation with the Palin campaign, [the Secret Service has] started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd.

As could be expected, various "liberal" sites rushed to retransmit Milbank's claim; for instance it got almost 1000 comments at the HuffPost (huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/secret-service-blocking-r_n_135336.html).

However, the Secret Service denies that there's such cooperation (link), pointing out that members of the press are isolated as a matter of course.

And, Milbank was one of the originators of the "McCain's angry mob" meme, when on the 6th he claimed that an audience member at a Clearwater, Florida rally had shouted "kill him" (second link above). Although Milbank later pointed out that the remark had been made in relation to William Ayers - and as shown by a correct reading of his post - many others played dumb and assumed that the remark had been made about Barack Obama. If Milbank hadn't wanted to give the wrong impression or help start a meme he would have written the article in a different fashion.

Now, it turns out that the remark might have been made, or it might have been "tell him" instead (link). That's less clear-cut than the lie about the Secret Service, but based on the article's overall attempt to smear Sarah Palin and her supporters, it's certainly not impossible that Milbank simply made it up. Note also that there were two alleged instances of "kill him"; the second occurred in Scranton PA and didn't involve Milbank; the Secret Service has been unable to find any evidence that anything like that was shouted in Scranton (link).

Posted to Politics at 09:33 PM

Rachel d'Oro/AP's sleazy race-baiting to support Barack Obama

Rachel d'Oro of the Associated Press offers an extremely sleazy, disreputable, race-baiting article called "Alaska's minorities feel ignored by Palin" (link). Articles like this show exactly how a Barack Obama presidency would operate: surrogates - assisted by the mainstream media - would attempt to racialize every decision made by Obama in an attempt to silence critics.

Alaska's black leaders say they're not surprised to see Gov. Sarah Palin at the center of the controversy over injecting the race issue into the presidential campaign.

Palin, Republican John McCain's running mate, has repeatedly insisted that Barack Obama's former preacher, the inflammatory Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a legitimate issue even though McCain himself has said it's out of bounds.

"She has no sensitivity to minorities," said the Rev. Alonzo Patterson, a Baptist minister and president of the Alaska Black Leadership Conference. "She's really inciting a lot of African-Americans to get out and vote."

Discussing Wright isn't "injecting the race issue", despite the fact that McCain apparently thinks it is (or is afraid of a tu quoque argument involving his and Palin's religious activities). Wright's comments would still be "inflammatory" were he white; the issue with Wright's comments is certainly based on his race, but others have made similar comments despite not being black: no doubt Father Pfleger is considered off limits by the McCain campaign as well. The last paragraph above attempts to give the impression that it would be "[in]sensitive" to bring up examples of Wright's radicalism, when the race of someone engaging in such radicalism shouldn't be an issue. Obviously, Rachel Doro and Obama's surrogates want it to be out of bounds simply because Wright is black.

Continuing:

Since taking office in December 2006, Palin has had a sometimes tense relationship with black leaders, who say they've been ignored in their efforts to get more minorities hired in her administration.

For more on that, see "How Sarah Palin Excluded African-Americans in Alaska" by, drumroll please, Max Blumenthal (thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/371959):

Gwen Alexander, the president of the African-American Historical Society of Alaska, told me that Palin stated defiantly that she had no intention to hire any minority staffers.

You combine the fact that Blumenthal is known to lie with the fact that no politician in their right mind would make that statement and you come up with two possibilities: either Alexander is lying, or Alexander misunderstood what Palin said. In the latter case, Palin could have expressed her unwillingness to establish a quota system (Alaska's black population is 3.7%, link). Back to D'oro:

At one point [in a meeting with black leaders], [Alaskan Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell] broke in and asked the group if they were accusing Palin of being racist, participants said. Parnell said the group was making "outlandish claims" and added, "I'm not going to let somebody say that about her or me." He said the meeting ended on a positive note with Palin's assurances that minorities have an equal shot at appointments and state contracts.

Apparently that wasn't good enough. There's more, including an attempt to blame Palin for "fringe" people who've attended her rallies without, of course, acknowledging that Barack Obama is linked to several people on the "fringes" as well as a discussion of "Juneteenth", something that Palin didn't issue a proclamation for in 2007 (link) but did in 2008 (link).

Posted to Politics at 08:07 PM

The Barack Obama/Bill Ayers/ACORN/Klonsky/Dohrn/SSW/TLA document dump

"TLA" means "three letter acronym", but the others are real people or organizations. However, there's too much here to look through but others are willing to give it a go.

* Rethinking Schools, Joyce Foundation, Deborah Leff, etc. from 1996: link

* ACORN's 12th Annual Legislative and Political Conference: includes appearances by Bill Gates Sr., several far-left speakers, and a "take over" of a Jackson-Hewitt office: acorn.org/index.php?id=2022

* Illinois ACORN state chair Ted Thomas led a field of 12 candidates in the race for 15th ward alderman on the Windy City’s southside in the February 23 municipal election. He faces the second-place finisher in a spring run-off. Endorsed by Congressman Danny Davis, the SEIU State Council, State Senator Barack Obama and the Chicago Sun-Times, Thomas is running on his record as chair of the community-labor Chicago Jobs & Living Wage Campaign that won Living Wage ordinances in Chicago and Cook County last summer after two years of opposition by Mayor Daley. (link)

* Something about Ayers and Obama funding - not "founding" - ACORN (link). Includes an unwatched-by-me 10 minute video that may or may not have new or accurate information.

* An Obama/Ayers/Dohrn timeline (link)

Posted to Politics at 04:30 PM

John Podesta/CAP/Obama transition team has minor link to ACORN

Former Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta founded the Center for American Progress and now heads that group's foundation. He's also the head of Barack Obama's transition team. And, from acorn.org/index.php?id=8516 [1]:

On September 22, ACORN and Floridians for All partnered with John Podesta, former chief of staff to president Bill Clinton and director of the Center for American Progress, and economist Robert Pollin to release a study on the economic impacts of raising Florida’s minimum wage by one dollar per hour. The study, “Economic Analysis of the Florida Minimum Wage Proposal,” explores the effects that raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 will have on the state’s economy, finding that the wage raise would have a positive impact on Florida’s economy and would result in higher wages for 850,000 Florida workers. In low-income neighborhoods, for example, retailers would see a two to four percent increase in profits simply because their patrons have more money to spend. ACORN and allies in the Floridians for All Campaign gathered over 1 million signatures from citizens across the state in order to put the measure on the November 2 ballot. If the measure is passed, Florida would be the 13th state in the country to pass a minimum wage higher than the federally mandated $5.15.

This is a relatively minor link.

[1] There's a picture here. Contrary to what the freepers say, the page hasn't disappeared from ACORN's site. The link they were using uses the https protocol, and apparently ACORN has a setup problem.

Posted to Politics at 04:08 PM

Are Amero coins being printed by the Denver Mint?

Probably not. Extremist radio host Hal Turner - a not very credible source - has a video (link) and a post claiming otherwise:

Earlier in the week, I reported via this blog, the shipment of 800 Billion AMEROS from the USA to China. Many of you called "bullshit" on the posting, claiming it was a hoax. I now offer irrefutable proof.

Below is a video of me holding one of the actual 20 AMERO coins sent to China. Additional coins with face values of 50 and 100 AMEROS were also sent from the U.S. in addition to paper currency shipped BY the U.S. from the currency printing firm in Europe!

I didn't watch the video, but the pictures provided at the last link match this page where someone is selling "private-issue fantasy pattern coins" ("Amero"s) to collectors. That could certainly be a false front, or the coins Turner is discussing could be different, but there doesn't appear to be anything to this story.

Posted to NAU at 03:30 PM

Pranked: New York politicians jump at chance to meet cruel dictator

From this:

Islam Karimov is the autocratic leader of Uzbekistan and a man routinely described as one of the worst dictators on earth by the likes of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. (The group Common Dreams once suggested he's so bad that he made Saddam "look good.") Since taking over the oil and gas-rich country in 1989, he's plundered billions, held fake elections to keep himself in power, censored the media, and tortured those who dare to challenge him, often using some of the most barbarian methods to do so, like submerging them in boiling water. And now he's coming to visit New York! Not really. But we wondered: What would happen if one of the most evil tyrants did decide to come to New York. Would he receive a warm welcome from the local political establishment? We wanted to know. So we did what you'd probably do in such a situation: We printed up some official-looking letterhead and sent out letters to various City Council members and local congressmen to see if they'd take the meeting. And guess what? Lots of influential politicos have no objection to sitting down with one of the worst men on earth.

Several New York politicians - but unfortunately not Michael Bloomberg - took them up on the offer, and the office of at least one was rather eager for a meeting.

I think it would be incredibly wonderful if someone else could try something similar in Los Angeles or in California.

Posted to WackyHumor at 02:42 PM

Justin Rood/ABC: no worries about voting fraud! (Dem-linked experts say; ACORN)

Justin Rood of ABC News offers "McCain Acorn Fears Overblown/Charges of Voter Fraud Are Out of Proportion to Reality, They Say" (link). As it turns out, the "they" refers to three sources: a Barack Obama contributor, a former director of the leftwing, illegal immigration-supporting People for the American Way, and FactCheck. No others sources are allowed to weigh in. Not only that, but Rood doesn't mention the background of the PFAW director and tries to give the impression that he's a Republican:

McCain's voter fraud worries – about Acorn or anyone else – are unsupported by the facts, said experts on election fraud, who recall similar concerns being raised in several previous elections, despite a near-total absence of cases... "There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts... Becker should know: he was a lawyer for the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort...

Becker [1] is now Project Director for Voting Initiatives at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and his links to his former organization aren't known. However, PFAW is coming to the aid of ACORN, including taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times in support of the group [2].

Later in the article, Rood uses FactCheck as another source trying to claim that worries about voting fraud are overblown.

More at [3], including the fact that the third quote source, Lorraine Minnite, gave $250 to the Obama campaign.

[1] linkedin.com/pub/3/7A8/62B
[2] site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_2008_10_right_wing_smear
[3] newsbusters.org/blogs/terry-trippany/2008/10/17/
abc-news-used-obama-contributor-expert-defense-acorn

Posted to Politics at 08:53 PM

Andrew Sullivan finds a new way to worship The One: his church-going habits

The post-delusional Andrew Sullivan ecrit, albeit without the helpful links I provide below:

Obama's skin color has obscured a pretty basic fact about him: he seems to have had a very conservative private life as a public figure. His marriage and family life have been much more traditional than John McCain's - someone who admits to promiscuity and adultery and divorce. Unlike McCain he's a long-time regular church-goer. Biden is also a family man, devoted to his kids and first and second wife, and a tee-totaler.

There are a couple other smears/rumors I could link as well, but I'm not going to link to those even in jest. Pointing out his long involvement with Reverend Wright should be enough, but not if people aren't going to push it.

Posted to Politics at 02:28 PM

ACORN-related voting fraud in New Mexico

From this:

The Republican Party of New Mexico alleges 28 people voted fraudulently in one Albuquerque state House district in the June Democratic primary.

Party representatives said at a news conference Thursday they found the suspect voters in a review of 92 newly registered voters in House District 13...

[State Rep. Justine Fox-Young, an Albuquerque Republican] said several of the suspect voters were registered by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN...

It's important to note that this is an example of voting fraud, not simply voter registration fraud; ACORN apologists have rushed to claim that there's no evidence of the former and the latter wasn't really ACORN's fault at all. According to those apologists, ACORN is actually the victim of scammers that they've hired. Obviously, the story is quite a bit different, although it remains open whether ACORN was directly involved in getting those "people" to vote.

The most memorable part of this is that one of the fraudulent voters was named "Duran-Duran". As it turns out, there is someone with that last name (link) and the NM GOP should have done their research first. However, most of the others will probably pan out.

There's also a round-up of ACORN stories here.

Posted to Politics at 12:43 PM

Endorsement: Barack Obama for President

I'm sure you're as shocked as I am that I'm coming out in support of Barack Obama. However, after reviewing this blog's postings for the past couple of years, I've come to the sudden realization that I've been on the wrong track.

Now, I am officially on the right track. I am on the track for Obama!

I deeply regret all the lies I've told about Obama. Now, I pledge to only tell the truth. Barack is truly the best man for the job, and he truly has the best interests of the U.S. at heart. Under his astute leadership, the U.S. will truly prosper and live in peace with our global neighbors. Not only will Obama help heal the wounds we've opened around the world, he'll bring new prosperity here at home. His plans for the U.S. are truly outstanding and I urge you to take note of their main areas of interest: health, education, liberty, peace, management, electrification.

I want to stress that I arrived at this endorsement after much deep thought, and I am giving it completely voluntarily. I must vote for Obama. You must vote for Obama. Our peace and security depends on it. Obama will watch over each and every one of us and already has a support network in place, in every city, neighborhood, and city block throughout the U.S. If he isn't elected president, who knows what will happen.

And, I urge all other former Obama opponents to join us. Join our movement. Bring hope, and change!

However, at the same time as Obama will give much, he will also demand that we do our best and that we help his plans. Therefore, in order to do my part to bring hope and change, I will be helping him reach out to his opponents and bringing them in to the fold. I have already provided his campaign with a list of their names. I encourage other opponents to contact the campaign with the names of those who would thwart his plans. Obama is correct. His enemies are wrong. And, yes, it's as simple as that.

Please, please vote for Obama. We have no other choice.

UPDATE: Some people are reacting in horror to this endorsement, but I urge them to remain calm. You have nothing to fear from a Barack Obama presidency. Please do not resist.

UPDATE 2: Listen to your leaders at the Los Angeles Times. Like Barack, they are only thinking of what's best for you (link).

UPDATE 3: How sad. Some people are trying to claim that I was coerced into giving this endorsement. Nothing could be further from the truth...---... I made this endorsement completely voluntarily and of my own free will.

Please, please, please...---... I urge you to join with me and help Obama with the six themes of his presidency:

* Health
* Education
* Liberty
* Peace
* Management
* Electrification

...---...Please!

Posted to WackyHumor at 10:30 AM

Joe Klein misleads about Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers

It's always the stupid ones that give the game away, and two of the stupidest are at Time Magazine's Swampland. A few days ago, Ana Marie Cox lied about (and later corrected) something someone said at a McCain rally.

Today, repeat liar and explicit illegal immigration supporter Joe Klein is being extremely misleading about Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers. He's not really lying; the only question is whether he knows he's not lying or whether that was an accident or not. From this:

Now McCain's campaign is making robocalls distorting Barack Obama's non-existent relationship with Bill Ayers:

The call begins: "Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC," before telling recipients that they "need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."

If the robocalls had said that the relationship continued to the present day, then the robocalls would be lying. However, the tense used in the robocall and that used in Klein's introduction are different. The robocall speaks of something that happened in the past, and if the relationship continued today the robocall would have almost certainly have pointed it out. Klein is correct that the relationship "is" non-existent; however it wasn't non-existent in the past.

Moreover, everything in the robocall is the truth. Obama did work closely with Ayers. The organization with which he was affiliated did plant those bombs and did kill Americans.

UPDATE: Klein is back with "McCain's Radical Pal" (link), an attempt at a false equivalence. Marc Cooper already tried this in his discussion of Daniel Ifshin, but apparently Klein wanted his own attempt at a logical fallacy:

I’ve told this story many times, especially to veterans groups, because it says so much about the importance of forgiveness, of reconciliation. But, in the heat of the campaign, I’d forgotten about it…until the past weeks, when Obama’s passing relationship with the radical Bill Ayers—not nearly as close as McCain’s friendship with David Ifshin—became news, and has been relentlessly exploited by John McCain and his campaign, most recently in robo-calls that flagrantly distort the nature of Obama’s relationship with Ayers. If you want to know why I—like so many others--held John McCain in such high regard for so long, it had a lot to do with David Ifshin. And if you want to know why my opinion of him has plummeted, it has something to do with William Ayers.

Posted to Politics at 08:38 PM

Barack Obama mocks McCain over Joe the Plumber (after day of leftwing attacks)

After a day of the leftwing viciously trying to smear "Joe the Plumber" - including trying to drive him out of work (link) - here's Barack Obama mentioning him while mocking McCain at a rally:

Please go to an Obama appearance - and as long as your paperwork is in order - ask him a tough question and then upload his response to Youtube.

UPDATE: I don't have audio here, so I took the freepers' - and the video titles' and comments - word for it. However, it appears that BHO wasn't mocking JtP as previously stated, but was mocking McCain for his concern for people like JtP, saying:

"He's trying to suggest that a plumber is the guy he's fighting for... How many plumbers you know that are making a quarter-million dollars a year?"

Posted to Politics at 05:26 PM

Nebraska xenophobes object to influx of willing workers (hate, mean-spiritedness)

I am literally sobbing as I link to this article (from Kirk Semple of The New York Times) about hate, racism, xenophobia, and mean-spiritedness in Grand Island, Nebraska:

Like many workers at the meatpacking plant here, Raul Garcia, a Mexican-American, has watched with some discomfort as hundreds of Somali immigrants have moved to town in the past couple of years, many of them to fill jobs once held by Latino workers taken away in immigration raids.

Garcia has been particularly troubled by the Somalis' demand that they be allowed special breaks for prayers that are obligatory for devout Muslims. The breaks, he said, would inconvenience everyone else.

"The Latino is very humble," said Garcia, 73, who has worked at the plant, owned by JBS U.S.A. Inc., since 1994. "But they are arrogant," he said of the Somali workers. "They act like the United States owes them."

Garcia was among more than 1,000 Latino and other workers who protested a decision last month by the plant's management to cut their work day — and their pay — by 15 minutes to give scores of Somali workers time for evening prayers...

Posted to Immigration2008a at 04:24 PM

Voter fraud discovered in Ohio

Developing:

Posted to Politics at 12:40 PM

Instead of "Joe the Plumber", how about "Pete the Prosecutor"?

"Joe the Plumber" - aka Joe Wurzelbacher - is America's hot new thing (link), after having asked Barack Obama a question about taxes at one of his public appearances and after being mentioned in yesterday's debate. He even got an interview with Katie Couric. This is to a good extent a good thing: it gets the idea out there that people should go to Obama's public appearances and ask him things designed to make him look bad.

Now, we need a follow-up, but this time featuring someone more along the lines of "Pete the Prosecutor":

Senator Obama, isn't it true that you lied when you said [one of Obama's lies]? I have documentation here showing that you lied. Despite evidence to the contrary, do you continue to maintain the lie?

We only have two weeks to find someone who can go out and ask Obama a tough question on video and then upload that to Youtube. I urge everyone reading this to either try and ask him a tough question (see the cautionary note here), or at the least to contact everyone who can help promote this idea and urge them to get behind the plan. For the latter, please email every blogger and every anti-Obama pundit you can find this link describing how to beat Barack Obama.

Posted to Politics at 10:58 AM

Lynn Sweet is misleading about the Obama-Ayers link (after McCain campaign made mistakes)

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times offers "McCain misleading public in role Ayers played in Obama political career". It helps illustrate a problem the McCain campaign has had that the Obama-supporting MSM has tried to drive a truck through. Namely, when speaking about the Bill Ayers-Barack Obama connection they haven't presented the matter in ultra-precise, lawyerly terms.

First, Sarah Palin said that Obama was "palling around with terrorists". The media played dumb, calling her on the plural, when that plural was apparently a reference to Ayer's wife Bernardine Dohrn. The MSM also pointed out that "palling" implied frienship and rushed to pretend that Obama and Ayers weren't close. They also pointed out that Obama threw Ayers under the bus, which might indeed have happened two or three years ago.

In other words, the media applied a Clinton-level parsing to her comments rather than dealing with the gist of those comments. If she'd said that Obama had previously had a long collaboration with an unrepentant terrorist the media would still have found something to object to, but at least the McCain campaign wouldn't be leaving themselves open to the media's attempts to mislead.

Another mistake the McCain campaign has made is the one Sweet discusses. McCain said that Obama launched his political career chez Ayers, or words to that effect. If you take a look at the Sweet article you'll see that she's gone through that claim with a fine toothed comb, desperately concentrating on the trees of the other meetings Obama held in Hyde Park to avoid looking at the forest of Obama's long collaboration with an unrepentant terrorist.

Posted to Politics at 11:35 PM

Live coverage: John McCain/Barack Obama Hofstra "debate", 10/15/08

Live coverage of the "debate" at Hofstra University between John McCain and Barack Obama commences now.

McCain is taking BHO to task for the "Sarah Palin is a ****" t-shirts and for BHO's implication of widespread rabble-rousing at McCain/Palin rallies.

And, BHO is stumbling. He indeed has a "glass jaw", yet no one wants to take advantage of his lack of experience at being challenged.

"Let's get the record straight" = BHO is about to mislead. And, mislead he does. After white-washing his involvement with Ayers, he then lies about his involvement with ACORN, which is much more extensive - and recent - than he indicated. Now he's off on a distraction about who his advisors are.

Obama then misleadingly called McCain's contention that Obama "started a campaign" at Ayer's house a lie; that's where he had his introductory party, according to one of those who was there.

McCain gets in a good point about renegotiating NAFTA; instead of laughing per usual, BHO seems to admit the point.

More apparent lying from BHO: the Illinois law on after-birth abortions was modified to resolve his concerns.

Schieffer brings up the U.S. lagging behind in education. I'm going to guess that neither of them will discuss immigration's role in developing an uneducated underclass. For a clear example, see California.

The WaPo conducted a live "fact check" of the "debate" (voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/10/final_presidential_debate.html). See how many BHO talking points you can count! Here's a modified version of the comment I left:

-------------
Alec MacGillis completely forgot to point out that BHO lied about his ACORN ties.

Michael Dobbs is relying on an extremely fine point: over whether BHO launched his career in Bill Ayer's house, or whether that was merely one of the places. One of the people who was at the kaffeeklatsch chez Ayers, Dr. Quentin Young, said it was the 'political coming-out party for Obama' (link).

There's more on BHO's relationship Ayers here.

Note that BHO was 19 years old when the Weathermen killed three people. Note also his self-admitted involvement with the anti-apartheid movement, something that was also associated with the Weathermen. The idea that BHO didn't know about Ayers' past is beyond ludicrous. Apparently BHO thinks his followers are stupid.
-------------

"Joe the Plumber" was mentioned 15 times during the debate (link). Look for hacks - such as those who aren't interested in pushing my plan to go ask Obama questions - to adopt him as one of their own. Example: pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/025804.php

Posted to Politics at 05:11 PM

Barack Obama supported gun control in 2000 (Alaska, Trinity United)

This February 24, 2000 recounting of a debate between Barack Obama, Donne Trotter, and George Roby - then vying to replace Bobby Rush - includes the following:

All three said they were in support of gun control legislation, with Obama citing a need for higher taxes on ammunition and registration requirements on firearms, and Trotter citing his 1989 support of background checks and seven-day waiting periods in the State House.

All three also said they were opposed to the oil extraction proposed in the Alaska wilderness. On foreign policy, all three agreed that while attention to dangerous fringe groups and other potential problems was needed, the U.S. should not take on the role of the world policeman. They even agreed on a proposal to legalize medicinal marijuana, winning them all pro-marijuana T-shirts from a member the audience.

All four candidates participated in a live debate on WVON-AM radio Friday morning, and Rush's challengers had another debate later in the day at the Trinity United Church of Christ on West 95th Street.

The last isn't really that significant, but it is yet another link between BHO and TUCC.

Posted to Politics at 04:46 PM

Barack Obama's biography, as of 2001

A copy of Barack Obama's biography as of 2001 is in the extended entry, from Harvard (link). Among other things I didn't know was that he also worked as a community organizer in Harlem after graduating from Columbia in 1983. He's also listed as a "senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School"; the university's site confirms that designation: "Senior Lecturer in Law" (link). However, if they now say that he was a "professor", so be it.

In addition to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the Joyce Foundation, and the Woods Fund of Chicago, they also list three organizations I hadn't hear about before:
* the Center for Neighborhood Technology
* the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law
* Public Allies.

There's more on the CLCCRUL here; "interesting" cases, including at least one about immigration. On that topic, see this from the bio:

He is the recipient of the 1995 Legal Eagle Award from IVI-IPO for his work in bringing Illinois into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (Motor-Voter).

--- from Harvard's page ---
Barack H. Obama '91

Barack Obama, D-Chicago, is the Illinois State Senator for the 13th State Senate District representing areas of Chicago's South Side. He earned his A.B. in political science from Columbia University in 1983 and then spent five years working as a community organizer, first in Harlem, then in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled at Harvard Law School, where he served as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and was a member of the Executive Board of the Black Law Students Association. He earned his J.D., magna cum laude, in 1991.

In 1992, Senator Obama served as Illinois Executive Director of PROJECT VOTE!, an effort that added over 100,000 newly registered voters in Illinois. That year, he also joined Miner, Barnhill and Galland as a civil rights attorney and was elected to the Illinois State Senate. He is currently in his second term as state senator, having been reelected in 1998. His term runs through January 2003. Additionally, Senator Obama still works with the firm Miner, Barnhill and Galland and is also a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, where he teaches constitutional law.

Senator Obama lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois' seat in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year.

In 1993, Senator Obama was named by Crain's Chicago Business as one of "40 under 40" outstanding young leaders in the City of Chicago. He is the recipient of the 1995 Legal Eagle Award from IVI-IPO for his work in bringing Illinois into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (Motor-Voter). His commentaries have been heard on National Public Radio and published in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, which was published by Random House in August 1995.

Senator Obama serves on the boards of several organizations including the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where he is chairman, the Joyce Foundation, the Woods Fund of Chicago, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, and Public Allies.

Senator Obama is married to Michelle Obama. They have one daughter, Malia Ann Obama.

Posted to Politics at 04:34 PM

Judge Peter Busch: San Francisco can pass out ID cards to all, including illegal aliens

From this:

A lawsuit to block San Francisco from handing out municipal identification cards to anyone who has lived in the city for at least 15 days regardless of their immigration status was tossed out of court Tuesday.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch ruled against the Immigration Reform Law Institute of Washington D.C., which left open the possibility of an appeal.

A quote from Julia Harumi Mass from the American Civil Liberties Union follows; the ACLU joined with Frisco in the suit. On another matter, the ACLU is directly collaborating with the Mexican government (here are some questions you're urged to ask them about that).

The IRLI might appeal (link). At that, Mass says:

The municipal ID program is a modest public safety measure, meant to ensure that all San Franciscans have access to services and police protection... Our clients are organizations whose members -- as youth, homeless people, immigrants, and transgender San Franciscans -- face particular obstacles to obtaining identification cards... Access to ID cards is important for all San Francisco residents to feel comfortable reporting crime and standing up for their rights...

It would only be "modest" in the sense that not that many illegal aliens would move to Frisco due to the high cost of living there; however, many would move there by living 20 or 30 to an apartment. Others from less expensive Bay Area locations would "maintain an address" in the city. And, legal immigrants have a plethora of documentation, and thus don't face difficulty obtaining ID. And, of course, citizens of other countries have no right to come here illegally and then obtain ID cards. And, if this program succeeds it would probably be pushed in other cities, such as Los Angeles. The ACLU is just offering a tortured explanation for their support for illegal activity.

Related:
Feds investigating San Francisco over sanctuary policy
"Governor" Gavin Newsom defends San Francisco's sanctuary policy
Gavin Newsom's San Francisco violated federal law? Perks for illegal aliens, and much more
San Francisco's IDs for illegal aliens plan may spread to East Bay
Bill Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger promote corruption, try to fool people about "unbanked" program

Posted to Immigration2008a at 03:20 PM

Land reform, ACORN-style: squatting campaigns they admitted were illegal

I've considered writing a satire about Barack Obama proposing "land reform", aka "agrarian reform" (see, for instance, this). As it turns out, ACORN - a group with which he's been linked in one form or other for several years - was working on something similar, although they were serious. It would be interesting to know whether BHO was involved in any way with those efforts.

From this 1997 recruiting email from Madeline Talbott, ACORN's Chicago-based National Field Director:

We are moving families without housing into abandoned houses without families, a process known as squatting. The fight to make this legal and to get financial assistance to the squatters is on the cutting edge of the kind of struggles we will be involved with over the next few years.

See this for a long description, and in fact, ACORN even has a section about that effort on their site. From their description of the Reagan Years (acorn.org/index.php?id=2752):

Turning adversity into opportunity, ACORN launched a campaign to obtain affordable housing. Long before it became fashionable to be concerned about the homeless, ACORN was fighting for homes for low- and moderate-income people. Noting that economic upheaval had forced many people to default on mortgages, ACORN sought to place needy people in the resulting vacant homes. This required the forceful and illegal (though logical and moral) seizing of the properties - squatting... Squatting did not occur under cover of darkness. It was well publicized. This was a part of the political dimension of squatting. First, local officials had to agree not to evict or prosecute squatters. Second, ACORN attempted to legalize the act. Then, local officials were asked to subsidize the costs of squatting in an effort to improve the quality of life of the squatters and their neighbors...

Obviously, some people are going to be vehemently for things like this, others are going to be vehemently against, and most are probably going to be largely against. I realize that abandoned houses are a major problems in some urban areas, but at the time ACORN doesn't exactly appear to have gone out of their way to think of the people who owned the properties and who presumably, you know, paid money for them. If those owners had basically just washed their hands of the properties and the cities took legal steps to purchase them or other non-trivial means to acquire the properties that would be one thing. However, this sounds more than a bit like something that would happen in Venezuela. It would be interesting to find out whether Barack Obama was involved in these efforts in any way.

UPDATE: There are some interesting documents described here; if anyone is in Chicago perhaps they could go take a look.

Posted to Politics at 01:26 PM

Did Barack Obama fans shut down an internet radio show? (Blog Talk Radio)

Someone named Tracy who runs a show at Blog Talk Radio (blogtalkradio.com) called No Compromise Radio was conducting an interview of Phil Berg two days ago about the Obama/U.S. citizenship issue. She was 13 minutes into her show when BTR pulled the plug, apparently claiming that her show was:

racially or ethnically offensive, defamatory, unreasonably violent, threatening, intimidating or harassing; 2. contains falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage BlogTalkRadio or any other person;

Details here. I'd tend to think that Berg would avoid doing anything listed above, although I wouldn't be surprised to learn that someone who doesn't appear to be that lawyerly-inclined might have crossed the line. BTR may have justifiably pulled the plug in order to protect themselves, they might have over-reacted, they might have unjustifiably responded to contacts from BHO fans, or they might be in the tank for BHO. Others are welcome to contact them and ask for the details.

Posted to Politics at 12:12 PM

Barack Obama took Rezko's money while Rezko's tenants froze in Chicago winter (-7F)

Around Christmas, 2006 1996 the low temperature in Chicago was just three degrees Fahrenheit. Over the New Year there was a "heat wave", and it warmed up to a low of 26F. But, the next week it fell to a low of -2F. The next week it was even worse: a low of -7F. You don't need a Weatherman to tell you that with the wind chill in a city like Chicago it can feel much, much colder. Which brings us to this cheery holiday tale featuring Barack Obama from April 23, 2007:

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side.

It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.

Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.

But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building...

The heat was turned off from December 27, 1996 to early February 1997. The city eventually stepped in and sued to get the heat turned back on (link). Seasons Greetings.

Posted to Politics at 11:30 PM

Did Michelle Obama angrily defend Barack in a phone call?

Supposedly, Michelle Obama called something called the African Press International (API) and angrily denounced their attempts to keep Barack Obama from becoming president:

[API] is supposed to support Africans and African-American view... it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband's face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband's adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband's heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner"

Does that sound like MO? Not to me, and never having heard of them before let's just say I'm very, very doubtful. Plus, the BHO/MO MO would have them encouraging their followers to call in to API en masse in order to shut them up. Now, there's certainly the possibility that the BHO campaign decided not to do that in this case to save their followers the overseas phone charges, but that's not likely either.

UPDATE: The API is standing by their story, and invites people to call them to verify it starting 10/16. Because of their timezone that might start around midnight 10/15. Meanwhile, the BHO campaign flatly denies that MO called them. Per this, the interviewer claims there's an audio tape (where have we heard that before?) and Jerome Corsi is trying to get a copy. Feel free to call them and if this works out push the story endlessly, but please don't waste too much time on things like this and don't spend any time counting on it working out. Concentrate on things that work instead.

Posted to Politics at 11:11 PM

Did Barack Obama help Kenya prime minister Raila Odinga raise funds?

The answer to that is... it could happen. See this. One of the debunkings of that claim that I've seen is that the "fact checkers" [1] couldn't find a $1 million transfer from the Obama campaign to Odinga, and that there's no such thing as the "Friends of Senator B.O." However, the wording at the first link implies that it wasn't a transfer so much as Obama facilitating donations from others directly to Odinga.

However, before you get too excited, see this email supposedly from Obama:

"I will kindly wish that all our correspondence [be] handled by Mr Mark Lippert. I have already instructed him. This will be for my own security both for now and in future."

You probably had the same reaction as I did: that doesn't sound like the BHO we know. In fact, it sounds more like someone who sends you an email wanting to establish a "mutually beneficial business relationship" in order to retrieve Thirty Three Million American Dollars.

Despite that, there are definitely links between BHO and Odinga, and it's pretty clear that - while he did speak with Odinga's opposition - he was in Odinga's corner.

However, the claim that the pact between Odinga and Muslim leaders promised Sharia law appears to be falsified [2].

[1] politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/465
[2] wikileaks.org/wiki/
Framing_Obama:_what_the_Spectator_and_the_New_York_Sun_won't_tell_you

Posted to Politics at 11:00 PM

Is Jesse Jackson trying to undermine Barack Obama's candidacy?

I'm just asking:

[Speaking at the World Policy Forum in France, Jesse Jackson said that after Barack Obama is elected the] most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.

Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House...

...What of Obama's promise to withdraw by 2010? Jackson believes that position will have to evolve, reflecting "realities on the ground."

UPDATE: Needless to say, "Obama Camp Rejects Jackson's Claim That He Would Diminish 'Zionist' Influence" (link)

Posted to Politics at 04:05 PM

Barack Obama funded radical Afro-centric schools (Annenberg Challenge, Rev. Wright)

Just a couple days ago, both Politfact and FactCheck told us that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge ("CAC") - as run by Barack Obama - was only involved in "mainstream" educational projects. Now, it turns out that CAC gave $200,000 to Chicago's Coalition for Improved Education in South Shore ("CIESS"). That ran the South Shore African Village Collaborative ("SSAVC"), which was a network of Afrocentric schools, based on various radical teachings.

Needless to say, BHO's hack apologists like the anti-American Jason Zengerle will try to downplay this (link).

However, it's clear that Barack Obama knew what the schools were about:

Given the precedent of his earlier responses on [Bill Ayers] and [Reverend Jeremiah Wright], Obama might be inclined to deny personal knowledge of the educational philosophy he was so generously funding. Such a denial would not be convincing. For one thing, we have evidence that in 1995, the same year Obama assumed control of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he publicly rejected “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” a stance that clearly resonates with both Wright and Carruthers. (See “No Liberation.”)

And as noted, Wright had invited Carruthers, Hilliard, and like-minded thinkers to address his Trinity congregants. Wright likes to tick off his connections to these prominent Afrocentrists in sermons, and Obama would surely have heard of them. Reading over SSAVC’s Annenberg proposals, Obama could hardly be ignorant of what they were about. And if by some chance Obama overlooked Hilliard’s or Carruthers’s names, SSAVC’s proposals are filled with references to “rites of passage” and “Ptahhotep,” dead giveaways for the anti-American and separatist ideological concoction favored by SSAVC.

We know that Obama did read the proposals. Annenberg documents show him commenting on proposal quality. And especially after 1995, when concerns over self-dealing and conflicts of interest forced the Ayers-headed “Collaborative” to distance itself from monetary issues, all funding decisions fell to Obama and the board. Significantly, there was dissent within the board. One business leader and experienced grant-smith characterized the quality of most Annenberg proposals as “awful.” (See “The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The First Three Years,” p. 19.) Yet Obama and his very small and divided board kept the money flowing to ideologically extremist groups like the South Shore African Village Collaborative, instead of organizations focused on traditional educational achievement.

UPDATE: There's more on the projects and groups funded by BHO - including ACORN - here.

Posted to Politics at 12:39 PM

Bill Ayers calendar: "Days of Rage" ended 39 years ago... tomorrow Harvard Center bombed 38 years ago

When Barack Obama was just about eight years old, from October 8 to 11, 1969, the Weathermen held their "Days of Rage" riots in Chicago where dozens of their members were arrested and they smashed shop windows and the like in an attempt to "Bring the war home". That followed them bombing the Haymarket Police Statue.

Tomorrow, October 14, is the 38th anniversary of them bombing the Harvard Center for International Affairs.

The day after tomorrow is the 37th anniversary of them bombing someone's office at MIT.

And, October 20 will be the 27th anniversary of them robbing a Brinks armored car of $1 million, killing two policemen and one Brinks guard in the process.

Barack Obama was just around nineteen years old at that time.

Those and over thirty other Weatherman incidents are presented in this summary. Now, certainly, Bill Ayers wasn't directly involved in everything on that list.

Plus, he's just a guy who lives in Barack Obama's neighborhood and/or just some guy who serves on a couple boards with Barack Obama. And - rest assured - Barack Obama wasn't even aware of anything they'd done.

Everything's on the up and up.

UPDATE: BHO was actually only nineteen and not twenty when the three persons were murdered by the Weathermen.

From this:

It is also a bit of a canard for Obama to maintain that Ayers and Dohrn were engaged in terrorism only when he was 8 years old. In fact, their violent tactics began when he was 8 and continued until at least 1980, when he was already 19 and active politically at Occidental College in the anti-apartheid movement. Occidental was a member at the time of Campuses United Against Apartheid, which I was also a member of as an activist in Berkeley. And believe me everyone knew who the Weather Underground and SDS was. In 1981, in fact, an offshoot of Weather Underground took part in a murderous bank robbery where two police officers and one bank security guard were killed. This robbery was apparently only one of a string of robberies carried out by the group, according to the FBI. Bernardine Dohrn was suspected of assisting those involved by using identification cards obtained from customers in a store where Dohrn worked. She went to jail for six months rather than testify to a grand jury about the matter in 1982. Only because her lawyer was able to convince the judge that Dohrn's "fanaticism" meant she would never testify was she released.

And, Bob McCarthy wrote a letter to the editor attempting to support BHO, and in so doing saying more than he should have said (link):

From 1990 to 1997, I was a senior staff member of the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. In that capacity, I worked with the Chicago school system as a resource for the establishment of a grant to bring better education and a brighter future to the children of that city... During the Annenberg work in Chicago, the group was aware of Ayers's past and, like Obama, found the acts of the Weathermen 40 years ago reprehensible. However, our goal was to help Chicago's teachers and children, and Ayers, who has spent his adult life pursuing the same goal, was an important resource and collaborator. We should judge a person by his entire life's work, not convenient sections. McCain should know that.

UPDATE 2: Ayers goes underground... again! (link):

There was no one home when The Times visited Mr Ayers' house in a quiet street three blocks from Mr Obama's mansion in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The Education Department of the University of Illinois, where Mr Ayers works, said that he had gone on sabbatical. In response to an e-mail he stated: "I'm not available right now. Perhaps in the future. Best, Bill."

While the rest of that highlights some of the things that McCain might want to focus on instead of Ayers - such as BHO being a Machine man and not a reformer - it also has Martin Fletcher saying: "There is no evidence they are close." Compare David Axelrod: "There's no evidence that they're close." I'd prefer more than simply parroting BHO's chief strategist.

UPDATE 3: See also this footnoted summary of the Ayers-Obama connection.

UPDATE 4: There's a partial list of some of BHO's earlier friends here, and from this:

[Eric Newhall, a professor of American studies and American literature at Occidental College] and others recall a strong speech Obama made at a campus rally urging South Africa divestment. Obama, in his book, considered that a big moment...

Posted to Politics at 10:20 PM

ACORN Ohio worked *with* Obama campaign on GOTV; ACORN/Project Vote did GOTV in battleground states

Barack Obama has long-term ties to the far-left group ACORN. And, those ties continued at least as late as February 2008, when ACORN's Ohio branch worked with the Barack Obama campaign on a GOTV effort. See this job announcement from Mari Engelhardt, political director of Ohio ACORN:

GOTV for Obama! Ohio ACORN is doing a Get Out The Vote project with the OBAMA Campaign. Ohio ACORN is hiring canvassers to go door to door encouraging voters to vote for Barack Obama.

ACORN is hiring [in or for Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo]. Or email [address deleted] and your inquiry will be routed to the appropriate person in each of these cities. Intake and training will be held daily at local ACORN offices. Canvass begins on Wednesday Feb. 27th and will work through election day...

Please do not contact the Obama campaign directly regarding this post as they are not the organization doing the hiring and it will only distract their staff and volunteers from the other important work they are doing on behalf of Senator Obama.

And, from this 10/6/08 post:

Project Vote and ACORN... just wrapped up a voter registration drive targeting battleground states Obama needs to win the White House.

Though officially non-partisan, the focus of the ACORN/Project Vote voter drive was on groups leaning Democratic in the presidential contest: African American, young, Latino and low income earners. They are called "historically underrepresented in elections" in a press release issued by the group on Monday. Republicans would call these target groups Democrats.

ACORN/Project Vote ran voter registration operations in 21 states; included are the battlegrounds Colorado, Florida, Michigan (since move to Obama) Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

UPDATE: There's more on BHO's links to ACORN here, including where they get their money from, what they spend it on, and their history of submitting bogus voter applications and more:

Then there's Lake County, Indiana, which has already found more than 2,100 bogus applications among the 5,000 Acorn dumped right before the deadline. "All the signatures looked exactly the same," said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county election board. Bridgeport, Connecticut estimates about 20% of Acorn's registrations were faulty. As of July, the city of Houston had rejected or put on hold about 40% of the 27,000 registration cards submitted by Acorn...

Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who got his start as a Chicago "community organizer" at Acorn's side. In 1992 he led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn. This past November, he lauded Acorn's leaders for being "smack dab in the middle" of that effort. Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls.

During his tenure on the board of Chicago's Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn. More recently, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to an Acorn affiliate. The campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for "staging, sound, lighting." It later admitted the cash was to get out the vote...

And, from this:

In the Indianapolis metro area, ACORN has been so successful that the number of registered voters now stands at 105 percent of the voting-age population.

And, this implies that the job application above was related to the $832,000:

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary...

The Ohio primary was March 4. According to FEC records, the Obama campaign paid Citizens Services Inc. $832,598.29, from Feb. 25 to May 17.

A Trib analysis of campaign finance reports showed Obama paid CSI for services that stood out as unusual. For example, CSI received payments of $63,000 and $75,000 for advance work. Excluding the large payments to CSI, the average amount the Obama campaign spent with other organizations was $558.82 per check on more than 1,200 entries classified as advance work.

Citizens Services Inc. is headquartered at the same address as ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans. Citizens Services was established in December 2004 to "assist persons and organizations who advance the interests of low- and moderate-income people," according to paperwork filed in Louisiana. In a 2006 ACORN publication, Citizen Services Inc. is described as "ACORN's campaign services entity."

Although located at the same address, CSI says they're a "separate organization entirely" despite the several links discussed in that article.

See also this group that tracks ACORN.

UPDATE 2: From this:

The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based think tank, today filed a state RICO action against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on behalf of two Warren County voters. The action filed in Warren County Court of Common Pleas alleges ACORN has engaged in a pattern of corrupt activity that amounts to organized crime. It seeks ACORN's dissolution as a legal entity, the revocation of any licenses in Ohio, and an injunction against fraudulent voter registration and other illegal activities.

UPDATE 3: There's a long article about ACORN from 2003 here.

UPDATE 4: There's a BHO/ACORN timeline here.

UPDATE 5: There's a comprehensive page on ACORN here.

Posted to Politics at 02:15 PM

Rolling Stone: Obama has "openly radical" background; another shocking Rev. Wright quote

Back on February 22, 2007, Rolling Stone published "Destiny's Child" by Ben Wallace-Wells (link). After first quoting an unnamed aide as saying that Barack Obama is not "wedded to any ideological frame" and quoting one of his friends calling him a "human Rorschach test", it includes this quote from Reverend Jeremiah Wright (now under BHO's bus):

"Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college... Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run! ...We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!" The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: "And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SHIT!"

The video of his speech is here.

The first fact may be correct. The second "fact" is only very slightly correct. The U.S. wasn't designed to be some sort of plantation; the use of slavery was an artifact of the age. And, those who are racists have very little power; those who have actual power in the U.S. are mainly interested in maintaining that power and in enriching themselves. I'll leave the guns and drugs bit to someone else if they want. The "killers" bit is probably a reference to the School of the Americas, but knowing Wright's other comments he could be referring to the U.S. military. Most of the rest is his opinion, and most Americans are going to strongly disagree.

In fact, even Rolling Stone admits he's an extremist:

This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is not an incidental figure in Obama's life, or his politics. The senator "affirmed" his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a "sounding board" to "make sure I'm not losing myself in the hype and hoopla." Both the title of Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright's sermons. "If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from," says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, "just look at Jeremiah Wright."

Posted to Politics at 01:10 PM

Shocking video of racist rage, hate, racism, and anger at a McCain-Palin march!

Here's an extremely shocking video showing racism, rage, hate, xenophobia, racist anger, and mean-spiritedness at a McCain-Palin march! Kossacks to the barricades!

Oh, wait:

A Pro-McCain march on the Upper West Side in Manhattan on Sunday, September 21, 2008. A group of McCain-Palin supporters dare to march through the Upper West Side - infidels in the liberal Mecca. Local "progressives" boo, jeer, and flip fingers at them with a rage they never display even to this country's enemies.

Posted to Politics at 09:01 PM

Karen Tumulty misleads for Barack Obama (Jeffrey Frederick)

Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine offers this bit of mainstream media wisdom designed explicitly to support Barack Obama. It starts with something that could have been written by the BHO campaign:

If John McCain is as serious as he says about running a "respectful" campaign against an opponent he considers "a decent person," word hasn't yet trickled down to his newly opened storefront field office in Gainesville, Virginia.

Then, she shows her lack of respect for anything approaching real reporting:

With so much at stake, and time running short, [Jeffrey Frederick, Chairman of the Virginia Republican Party] did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. "And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it's Hawaii.

1. The Weathermen did indeed bomb the Pentagon. The only thing Tumulty can hang her hat on is whether Ayers himself was directly involved; as he was a Weathermen leader, that's a very fine point.

2. We can probably assume that OBL was behind the plane crashing into the Pentagon.

3. Therefore, the only thing "not exactly true" about that Frederick contention is a) the extent to which Ayers was personally involved in the Pentagon bombing, and b) the extent to which flying a jet into a building qualifies as a "bombing".

4. Tumulty then makes a magical leap, referring to "another myth" as if what she'd just discussed was a myth.

5. Frederick was not the person who said the bit about the flag, nor was he the person who said the bit about where BHO was born. Tumulty doesn't tell us whether Frederick heard what they said and what he said in response.

6. Where exactly BHO was born - and whether he's even a U.S. citizen - is still an open question. Unless Tumulty has definitive proof, she's just misleading Time's millions of readers in order to support Barack Obama.

UPDATE: Here's a more in-depth discussion about where Barack Obama was born.

Posted to Politics at 04:56 PM

"Iraqi Billionaire Threatens Reporters Investigating Rezko Affair" (Nadhmi Auchi)

From this:

Why aren’t the American media investigating the role of British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi in supplying loans to Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? Some point to media bias, but there is another factor. Working for Auchi, who was born in Iraq, attorneys from London law firm Carter-Ruck have for several months been flooding American and British newspapers and websites with letters demanding removal of material they deem “defamatory” to their client...

...The Obama campaign recently issued a non-denial denial in response to claims that Obama met with Auchi―contained in Jerome Corsi’s bestseller, The Obama Nation. They cited only two references. One is, “Mr. Auchi’s lawyer” who told the February 27, 2008 London Evening Standard, “As far as he can remember he has had no direct contact with Mr. Obama.” Another is, “A lawyer for Auchi, Alasdair Pepper” who says, according to the April 16, 2008 Washington Post, “Auchi Had ‘No Recollection’ Of Meeting Obama or Michelle.” Alasdair Pepper is the attorney whose name appears on the Carter-Ruck demand letters...

Posted to Politics at 03:31 PM

Barack Obama link #49232: black nationalist and/or advisor to Saudi royal family? (Khalid al-Mansour)

Is Barack Obama linked to someone named "Khalid al-Mansour" ("KAM", aka "Khalid Mansour" or "Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al-Mansour")? Is KAM the black nationalist and former Black Panther formerly known as Donald Warden? Or, is KAM the person who's an advisor to Saudi Arabian prince Alwaleed bin Talal? Or, are they the same person or merely two different people with similar names?

What we know is that earlier in the year former Manhattan borough president Percy Sutton said in a TV interview that someone with the short form of the name said he was raising money for Barack Obama and asked him to write a recommendation to Harvard on Barack's behalf. Whether the recommendation was for admittance to that school or concerning the Harvard Law Review isn't clear. The video is here.

The BHO campaign later flatly denied it (link), and since that time the story appears to have faded from view in favor of the more obvious links BHO has to highly questionable people.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave it at that, but someone else had a similarly confused round-up here. See also "Obama Had Close Ties to Top Saudi Adviser at Early Age" (link). A selection of KAM's (or one of the KAMs') extremist videos is here. See also this, this, this, and this.

Posted to Politics at 03:11 PM

No class: Barack Obama supporters boo Sarah Palin, eight-year old daughter

Some might question why the Philadelphia Flyers were celebrating hockey moms instead of getting to the game. Some might question why Sarah Palin was bringing her daughters out onto the ice. Some might worry about the injection of politics into The Game.

Me, I prefer to point out that Barack Obama's fans have absolutely no class and, instead of politely disagreeing are willing to boo an eight-year-old:

If anyone finds even a single Obama fan online who doesn't cheer the booing, leave a comment.

UPDATE: The extent of the booing might have been overstated, and might include some applause. Also, the New York Times severely edited the report from their hockey blogger Lynn Zinser in order to make it comport with reality:
newsbusters.org/blogs/terry-trippany/2008/10/12/
nyt-pulls-misleading-account-palin-puck-dropping-ceremony

Posted to Politics at 08:28 PM

Is "Barack Obama" a complete scam? (Philip Berg lawsuit; Indonesia)

Could "Barack Obama" be a complete fake? Hillary Clinton supporter and decades-long Democrat Philip Berg is suing Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), claiming he's not eligible to be president. From this:

the Plaintiff, Philip J. Berg, a Philadelphia attorney, alleged that Defendant Barack Hussein Obama is not eligible for the Office of the President because Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian citizen and naturalized in Indonesia. Plaintiff further alleged that Obama followed her naturalization and failed to take an oath of allegiance when he turned 18 years old, to regain his U.S. citizenship status. The lawsuit raises not only the Indonesian citizenship issue but also questions whether Obama was a citizen of Kenya.

The last move in the case appears to be that Obama and the DNC are trying to block discovery; see this.

I wish Berg well, and I think there's maybe a 5% or so chance he's right. And, if he's right it would certainly be sweet. However, while I'm sure the suit was filed in good faith, issues like this serve as a bit of a dangerous distraction. In other words, please don't count on him being right but instead concentrate on the things that we already know.

Despite that, I suggest sending this interview with Berg (via this) to everyone you know. I suggest sending a variant on the previous paragraph too:

UPDATE: The docket is here. And, GOP establishment hack Ed Morrissey comments on the video here. While he echoes my comment above about not counting on this and instead concentrating on easier to prove things, he also shows his GOP hack side by calling Berg a "truther" (I didn't bother looking into that because it doesn't really matter to this case and it might be a smear). He also retails the BHO supporter line that there's no there there, sounding a bit like a BHO apologist.

The problem is that, looking over the October 9, 2008 response, while some of the things in there are a bit onerous, I fail to see why someone who wants to be president of the U.S. won't release his "vault" (long form) birth certificate, the "certified copy of Obama's Oath of Allegiance taken upon age of
majority", "Certified copies of Obama's Application and Admission forms for Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School", and "Certified copies of any Court Orders or legal documents changing Obama's name from Barry Soetoro to Barack Hussein Obama". In fact, it's more than a bit suspicious that BHO isn't rushing to turn that over and put this behind him. Aren't those reasonable requests for someone who, once again, wants to be president of the United States?

UPDATE 2: See also this Hillary Clinton complaint about the actions of BHO's supporters at the Nevada caucus.

Posted to Politics at 07:39 PM

Bill Ayers in 2006: "education is the motor-force of revolution" (in Venezuela, with Hugo Chavez)

Bill Ayers (who's just some guy in Barack Obama's neighborhood and/or someone he used to serve on a couple boards with) gave a speech in November 2006 (when Obama was just 45 years old) at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela. The full text of his speech is at his site: billayers.wordpress.com/2006/11/07/world-education-forum with a copy here, and a discussion here. The speech is a bit... radical. The major question becomes finding instances of Ayers' radicalism seeping into his activities with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. If that can be done, it would help discredit sources such as FactCheck and Education Week [1], as well as the MSM sources which have downplayed the radicalism of the Challenge.

From the last link comes this excerpt:

Ayers voiced his support for "the political educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how . . . all of you continue to overcome the failures of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane."

Ayers told the great humanitarian Chavez: "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion."

He ended his speech with these:

Viva Mission Sucre!
Viva Presidente Chavez!
Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana!
Hasta La Victroria Siempre!

[1] See '"He Lied" About Bill Ayers?' from Brooks Jackson and Viveca Novak of FactCheck.org (newsweek.com/id/163396), which says:

Education Week says the group's work "reflected mainstream thinking" among school reformers.

That article is subscriber-only: edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/10/09/08annenberg.h28.html

UPDATE: What's really needed here is direct evidence of BHO pushing some series of specific Ayers goals. BHO has to be shown to be not just a friend and collaborator with Ayers, but a direct supporter of his goals. Even this isn't close enough:

Yesterday, asked to comment on the Ayers relationship, David Axelrod, Obama's top political adviser, hilariously chirped, "There's no evidence that they're close." Translation: Get back to us when you can prove more damaging information — until then, we don't need to further refine our perjury.

And then Axelrod gave us still more lies: "There's no evidence that Obama in any way subscribed to any of Ayers' views."

Oh yeah? Well, Mr. Axelrod, how do you explain Obama's breathless endorsement of Ayers's 1997 Leftist polemic on the criminal-justice system, A Kind and Just Parent? As Stanley Kurtz has recounted, Ayers’s book is a radical indictment of American society: We, not the criminals, are responsible for the violent crime that plagues our cities; even the most vicious juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults; prisons should eventually be replaced by home detention; American justice is comparable to South Africa under Apartheid. Obama's reaction? He described the book as "a searing and timely account" — a take even the Times concedes was a "rave review."

BHO also blurbed Ayers' 'Fugitive Days', the book in which he recounted his terrorist acts.

Also worth following up is that at the same time BHO was studying at Columbia - something he won't discuss and the MSM won't press him on - Ayers was studying at Bank Street College, which is just 200' to 700' distant. Was Ayers just another guy in that neighborhood too?

UPDATE: A picture of BHO's blurb for Ayers' 1997 book is here.

Posted to Politics at 03:42 PM

CQ Transcriptions/NYT/CNN made transcript "error" for Palin/Biden debate (no funny business at all!)

As pointed out here, the transcripts of the Sarah Palin/Joe Biden debate from both CNN and the New York Times contained a rather curious "error". Through a complete coincidence, that "error" played into the Democratic narrative.

Those transcripts both had Palin saying:

"And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also."

However, what she actually said was (bolding added):

"And I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm..."

This "error" followed the MSM pushing the "Palin won't answer questions" message; while that was to a good extent true, it's extremely odd that an "error" trying to help that message along made it into the debate transcript.

The NYT lists CQ Transcriptions as their source, and they've since corrected it, albeit without a correction on its page (elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/vice-presidential-debate.html).

CNN doesn't list an outside company as supplying their transcript, but it's likely that they got it from the same source, unless they're colluding with the NYT. They still have not corrected their copy however (cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript).

The Commission on Presidential Debates includes "the way", but whether it contained that in all versions isn't known (debates.org/pages/trans2008b.html).

~ Who helped spread the smear? ~

A list of all those misquoting Palin would be too long, but let's start with an egregious example:

* peoplegetready.jockamofeenanay.com/?p=2423
A commenter points out the misquote, and the post's author ("Schroeder") refuses to make a correction ("I don't really care. I'm not even going to waste my time to investigate because: 1) It's obvious you're a Palin apologist. 2) What Palin said confirms what she actually did.")

The rest of these also don't have a correction:

* Kathleen Parker (in her screed against Palin: kansas.com/205/story/550123.html)

* Matt Corley of Think Progress (thinkprogress.org/2008/10/05/palin-ifill and alternet.org/blogs/video/101700/ifill:_palin_'blew_me_off'_during_the_debate; I asked for a correction in comments at the first, but none has appeared at either)

* Brad DeLong (links to the previous TP article, no correction there either: delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/10/gwen-ifill-says.html)

* Christopher Beam from Slate (slate.com/blogs/blogs/trailhead/archive/2008/10/02/the-palin-strategy.aspx)

* David Corn at MoJo (motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/10/10062_veep_debate_an.html)

* Melissa Merz, Vice President of Communications of the NDN/New Democrat Network (ndnblog.org/node/2966)

* Chicago Tribune editorial (realclearpolitics.com/news/tms/politics/2008/Oct/03/editorials_on_the_biden_palin_debate.html)

* Sacramento Bee editorial (ibid; at the same page, the Kansas City Star has the correct quote)

* David Edwards and Andrew McLemore of Raw Story (rawstory.com/news/2008/Gwen_Ifill_Conservatives_used_me_to_1005.html)

* Bob Burnett of the Huffington Post (huffingtonpost.com/bob-burnett/palin-wins-sorta_b_131544.html)

* Michelle Goldberg at Comment is Free (guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/03/sarah.palin.debate.feminism)

10/19/08 UPDATE: After posting this, I sent an email to three top officials at Congressional Quarterly. I didn't receive a reply from any of the three.

Posted to Politics at 01:15 PM

Ana Marie Cox/Time lies about quote at McCain rally

Wonkette, aka Ana Marie Cox of Time Magazine's Swampland offers "McCain Denounces Pitchfork-Wavers", yet another example of how McCain capitulating to the Democrats is a very bad idea (time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/mccain_denounces_pitchforkwave.html). The update to that post says:

Indeed, [John McCain] just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, "I'm scared of Barack Obama... he's an Arab terrorist..." ..."No, no ma'am," he interrupted. "He's a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements."

As pointed out here (yes, desperate times...), Anna Marie Cox got the quote wrong, and I'm sure it was an intentional attempt to deceive:

It's not: "I'm scared of Barack Obama... he's an Arab terrorist..." It's: "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him, and he's not he's not he's a uh he's an Arab." "Terrorist" is simply not there. The McCain quote is a bit off too. He says: "He's a decent family man citizen that I just happen to have some disagreements with on fundamental issues." Don't pin "terrorist" on the little old lady in the audience, and don't pin "whom" on the presidential candidate.

10/13/08 UPDATE: After I posted this I left a comment on one of Swampland's posts. Now, AMC has posted this (time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/not_all_arabs_are_terrorists.html):

And though that lady at McCain's Lakeville townhall seemed to think Obama was both, the audio of the event didn't pick up what I thought I heard as McCain took the mic away... I will add, however, that the woman talked to reporters afterward and seemed pretty keen on the idea of Obama being at terrorist at that time. She read it on the internet... Sorry for the delay in posting the video.

I don't know if it was me or someone else that got her to do that, but if more people would take counterarguments directly to the MSM's door (through leaving comments at their sites pointing out their specific lies) that would have a very good impact on their coverage.

Posted to Politics at 01:00 PM

John McCain promises to stamp out hate at campaign appearances, completely capitulates to left, MSM thugs

John McCain provides yet another example of his inept campaign and his complete capitulation to leftwing tenets when he said the following earlier today in response to an audience member who'd forcefully pointed out that McCain didn't seem to have much fighting spirit:

"[Obama is a] decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared (of) as president of the United States... We want to fight and I want to fight, but we will be respectful... That doesn't mean you have to reduce your ferocity... It's just got to be respectful..."

The Reuters title to that article (link) isn't "McCain makes diplomatic move", or anything like that. In fact, the title is "Republican anger bubbles up at McCain rally". Now, take a look at some of the other response here and here.

In brief, comments like McCain's are like trying to fight off sharks by cutting yourself in order to cloud the water with your own blood. If you don't get eaten, you'll bleed to death.

McCain has slapped down his own supporters at the same time as he's helped those who've been trying to push the "McCain rallies are like lynch mobs" meme. Even a worthless ditz like Ann Althouse has noticed what the MSM has been trying to do ("McCain/Palin supporters are an angry mob. That's the virulent meme this week", althouse.blogspot.com/2008/10/mccainpalin-supporters-are-angry-mob.html)

It's good that McCain asked people to settle down, but it would have been far, far better if in the same breath he'd pointed out the MSM's attempts to mischaracterize his and Palin's rallies, and called on his supporters to actually work to discredit the Democrats and their friends in the MSM.

UPDATE: A news search for McCain Palin lynching only turned up hits from one major source, but expect to see others use that word. The one source so far is Joe Conason (truthdig.com/report/item/20081008_honor_won_and_lost):

Entering the election's final weeks, the rhetoric of the former maverick and his lipstick-toting pit bull, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has turned so ugly and inflammatory that their rallies have begun to sound like lynch mobs.

Posted to Politics at 09:19 PM

Has Barack Obama admitted that he was an ACORN trainer?

About six hours ago, I posted Barack Obama lied about ACORN involvement (he was a trainer).

Now, quicker than you can say "down the memory hole", the BHO campaign has changed their website to apparently admit that he was indeed a trainer for that organization. This is an example of how, under the BHO presidency, the truth would change from day to day.

Earlier today, the page fightthesmears.com/articles/20/acornrumor contained this "fact":

Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.

Now, that "fact" has been changed to the following (see also the picture here):

ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee.

At first I thought this was just a minor, legalistic change. While I'm not a labor lawyer, I believe there's a difference between being "hired" (i.e., as a salaried employee) and "work[ing] for", which might encompass something like being a volunteer, an independent contractor, someone working for a third-party but under ACORN's direction, etc.

So, apparently Barack Obama is admitting that - despite the implication earlier posted on his site - he was indeed an ACORN trainer. He just wasn't "hired" by them.

Now, there certainly is the possibility that they actually did this innocently thinking they would clarify the matter. However, it certainly hasn't clarified the matter for me, until such time as someone is able to quiz him about this. But, they're going to need to bring along a labor lawyer to make sure they've covered all the Clintonian contingencies.

Posted to Politics at 05:00 PM

Christopher Buckley shows: talent skips a generation

Christopher Buckley - son of William F. Buckley - has decided to help Tina Brown get links for her new venture by posting a clear example of the adage that talent skips a generation (link):

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon... But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves...

Buckley is beyond delusional if he thinks BHO wouldn't engage in "traditional left-politics". While he's triangulated somewhat, if he becomes president everything is going to be lined up to the left. He'll have a Democratic congress, combined with an exuberant mainstream media that lied to get him elected, combined with his far-left and Chicago associates. About the only opposition would come from a small number of House members. He'd be free to engage in as much "traditional left-politics" as he wanted to.

Further, Buckley is confusing having a "first-class intellect" with "appearing to have a first-class intellect because no one's ever challenged you."

Barack Obama is a serial liar who pushes policies that are incredibly flawed, but no one dares call him on any of it to his face.

Call me egotistical or whatever you want to, but if I ever got to "cross-examine" BHO on immigration matters, he'd probably take his "first-class intellect" and run crying off the stage after five minutes.

P.S. So far I've seen at least Julian Sanchez and David Brooks pushing the same line as Buckley about BHO's "intellect".

Posted to Politics at 04:18 PM

Canada integrating their economy with European Union

From the 3/10/08 Globe & Mail story "Provinces key to EU trade deal, Quebec Premier says" by Karen Howlett (subscriber-only here, excerpted here):

Canada's premiers will play a pivotal role in the country's efforts to integrate its economy with the 27 nations of the European Union, Quebec Premier Jean Charest says.

Preliminary talks between Canadian and European officials will begin on Oct. 17 at a summit in Montreal. The provinces' role in the negotiations will be instrumental to the fate of the proposed massive agreement because it involves issues that primarily fall under their jurisdiction, Mr. Charest told The Globe and Mail yesterday.

No deal could happen without the premiers at the table, he said.

"Unless we are fully involved in the negotiations, we are not going to get the deal we want," Mr. Charest said...

He described the proposed pact as a groundbreaking initiative on a scale that has never been attempted. The accord would go well beyond the scope of the NAFTA agreement between Canada and the United States by encompassing not only trade in goods and services but also the free movement of skilled workers and an open market in government services and procurement.

The pitch he is making to Europeans is to do a deal with Canada that can serve as a model for something far more ambitious with the United States.

See also 3/12/08's Corporate global govenance? "Transatlantic Economic Union"? Open borders at the State Department and 5/8/07's "Bush OKs 'integration' with European Union".

Posted to NAU at 03:09 PM

David Tanenhaus: how bad could Bill Ayers be if he made gingerbread-cookie houses with me?

David Tanenhaus - "teaches history and law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is the author of Juvenile Justice in the Making" - offers 'Barack, Bill, and Me/The Bill Ayers that Barack Obama and I worked with was no "domestic terrorist"' (link). Summary: it's like something Dean Wheeler would write.

He describes how he met Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn while studying at the University of Chicago and they seemed like normal, upstanding members of the Chicago - or at least Hyde Park - establishment. In fact, some of Ayers' ideas have since been adopted by others. But, due to "generational" differences, Tanenhaus had never heard of the Weathermen.

Then, Bill Ayers suddenly revealed (at least to idiots like Tanenhouse) his radical nature by writing 'Fugitive Days'.

But, then things changed back to normal again, as everyone's forgotten about everything (or at least they should). He ends with this even-more-idiotic-than-what-went-before bit:

I now include the Weather Underground in the history surveys I teach to undergraduates. I do my best to place them in the context of the radicalism of the late 1960s. I sometimes find it hard to believe that the Bill and Bernardine that Barack and I met in Hyde Park in the 1990s are the same people that my students are learning about in class. I know them better as the couple that invited me into their home in 2000 to meet their extended family, make gingerbread-cookie houses, and share Christmas dinner. Our conversation that night, as it almost always did, focused on the future, not the past.

Posted to Politics at 11:50 AM

Barack Obama lied about ACORN involvement (he was a trainer)

[UPDATE 2: the BHO campaign changed their website, possibly to admit that he was indeed an ACORN trainer.]

Barack Obama has been caught in yet another of his lies. Here's what his "Fight the Smears" website says about his involvement with ACORN (fightthesmears.com/articles/20/acornrumor):

Discredited Republican voter-suppression guru Ken Blackwell is attacking Barack Obama with naked lies about his supposed connection to ACORN.

* Fact: Barack was never an ACORN community organizer.
* Fact: Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity.
* Fact: ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992.

Now, turn to a 2004 article from Social Policy, which was apparently scrubbed from their site [1]. That article was uncovered by this site, which has more:

"Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar (the name of the Republican governor at the time) and we won. Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win the Senate that year. Project VOTE delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them).

Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office. Thus it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers in his first campaign for STate Senate and then his failed bid for U.S. Congress in 1996. By the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends."

[1] It was previously at socialpolicy.org/index.php?id=838. That page now returns a listing of other articles, but an 10/4/08 cache is here. That page requires a login, but if they've removed the original page it probably wouldn't work even if you signed up.

UPDATE 3: See also ACORN Ohio worked *with* Obama campaign on GOTV; ACORN/Project Vote did GOTV in battleground states

UPDATE 2: There's much more on ACORN and Obama here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: Here's a McCain campaign video about BHO's involvement with ACORN:

Posted to Politics at 10:48 AM

Max Blumenthal/David Neiwert smear Sarah Palin (true guilt-by-association, bad reporting)

Max Blumenthal - last seen here spinning a fantastic tale - joins with Mr. "white supremacist under every bed" himself, David Neiwert, to offer a smear called "Meet Sarah Palin's radical right-wing pals" (link). Their report was partly funded by the "Nation Institute Investigative Fund", which isn't getting its money's worth.

In this campaign we've heard a lot about guilt-by-association, but most have been using that phrase incorrectly. Thanks to the two authors, we finally have a real example of guilt-by-association. It's also tremendously bad reporting because - besides apparently trying to get a comment from the Palin camp - they don't appear to have interviewed anyone with an opposing point of view. Instead, they base their entire report on the (probably) inflated recollections of Alaska Independence Party gadabout Mark Chryson, combined with the self-interested comments of Palin's local enemies (former Democratic mayor of Wasilla John Stein, a friend of his, and the former head of the City Council, someone who's presumably not friends with Palin).

Consider, for instance, this:

Indeed, Chryson boasted that he and his allies urged Palin to focus her campaign on slashing character-based attacks. For instance, Chryson advised Palin to paint Stein as a sexist who had told her "to just sit there and look pretty" while she served on Wasilla's City Council. Though Palin never made this accusation, her 1996 campaign for mayor was the most negative Wasilla residents had ever witnessed.

Assuming for the moment that her campaign was that negative, there's no evidence that Chryson had a hand in her decision to conduct such a campaign. And, they even provide one example of her not following his advice.

Out of the entire three-page article, there's only one paragraph that might objectively indicate some close relationship between Palin and those linked to the AIP or those that the authors consider "extremists":

Palin attempted to pay back her newfound pals during her first City Council meeting as mayor. In that meeting, on Oct. 14, 1996, she appointed [John Stoll] to one of the City Council's two newly vacant seats. But Palin was blocked by the single vote of then-Councilman Nick Carney, who had endured countless rancorous confrontations with Stoll and considered him a "violent" influence on local politics. Though Palin considered consulting attorneys about finding another means of placing Stoll on the council, she was ultimately forced to back down and accept a compromise candidate.

I might have missed it, but they don't indicate that Stoll is a member of the AIP. They only say that he's 'a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as "Black Helicopter Steve"'. Does everyone call him that, or is that just a smear from his enemies? Is there another explanation for her trying to name Stoll to the Council besides her trying to mainstream the AIP? Oddly enough, the "reporters" don't go into that.

They follow the above with yet another attempt to try to portray a firing of a local official as politically motivated. In this case it's John Cooper, the former museum director of the town.

In small towns like this there are always warring factions and different interpretations of events, and without living there it's not possible to differentiate between facts and fancy. Obviously, that doesn't concern Blumenthal and Neiwert, their only goal was to piece together a smear.

Posted to Politics at 09:35 PM

Kenya admits Jerome Corsi was detained due to his political activities

On Tuesday, 'Obama Nation' author Jerome Corsi was detained in Kenya just before holding a press conference to discuss his book and discuss his investigation of links between Barack Obama and Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The original explanation was that his work permit had been lost. Despite the fact that that was such an incredibly obvious sham that most kindergarteners could see through it, almost all Obama supporters who discussed this either bought the Kenyan government's line, or tried to retail it to their readers.

Now comes this from the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation:

Jerome Corsi, author of the anti-Obama book titled The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality was deported back to America not because of a hitch in his travel documents as reported earlier but due to the nature of his mission in the country.

According to Foreign affairs minister Moses Wetangula, Corsi displayed inconsistent conduct with the expected norms of good behaviour in the country.

Corsi was on Tuesday night deported back to America after he attempted to launch the book blasting White House hopeful Barrack Obama at a Nairobi hotel.

The initial explanation offered by the authorities for his deportation was that his travel documents were not in order.

But it emerged on Wednesday that his deportation squarely lay on his suspect intentions and mission in the country, the launch of an anti-Obama book.

According to Wetangula, Corsi who was in the country on a tourist visa was ordered to leave the country by the immigration department.

Corsi's scheduled launch of the book at the Laico hotel failed to kick off after a section of Kenyans demonstrated against it leading to his detention by security officials.

In the book, Corsi ridicules Prime Minister Raila Odinga accusing him of supporting the agenda of radical Muslims.

He had also announced he would expose alleged connections to certain sectoral groups in Kenya and subsequent plots to be executed in Kenya Should Obama win the US election...

Posted to Politics at 07:48 PM

Mexico-linked ICIRR conducting voter drive in Chicago

From this:

During the next four weeks, Immigration activists plan to swarm through nearly 700 Chicago-area neighborhoods, visiting some homes several times in a $1 million effort to pull at least 140,000 voters into the polls for the Nov. 4 elections, organizers announced Tuesday.

The campaign, involving about 2,500 volunteers, is part of an aggressive last push across the country to sway the result of the presidential race and several congressional contests in the direction of Immigration reforms.

"This is a serious campaign," said Juan Salgado, president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which is coordinating the effort. "We have an agenda that's about democracy and living the best ideals of what this country is about."

[They say they got 25,000 registrations...] The next phase will also feature nearly 350,000 live and automated phone calls, 172,000 pieces of mail and intensive lobbying of voters to make a stand for Immigration reform, Salgado said.

Salgado of the ICIRR has a series of links to the Mexican government, a fact not disclosed by Antonio Oliva of the Chicago Tribune.

Another person involved in the effort is Inhe Choi, 'interim director of the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center in Chicago'.

Posted to Politics at 07:43 PM

Chicago City Council passes pro-illegal immigration resolution

Back in June we offered Chicago Aldmn Cardenas, Flores introduce anti-"hate speech" resolution; Mexico-linked ICIRR cheers. The usual suspects are back:

Chicago lawmakers added their [unanimous] voices Wednesday to the call for a moratorium on raids and deportations, an action they hope will lead to comprehensive immigration reform.

..."Immigrants are being uprooted, they are being persecuted. They are losing their jobs, they are losing hope," said Ald. George Cardenas (12th).

...The "Ya Basta" Campaign, an initiative launched in August by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, called the resolution's passage a successful first step in stopping the raids...

As detailed at the last link, the ICIRR is headed by someone with a series of links to the Mexican government.

Another person quoted in support of the resolution was Emma Lozano of Pueblo Sin Fronteras:

"This is torture. Families will breathe a sigh of relief when Congress and the president call for a moratorium, which is the first step to legalization... We're sending the message from Chicago, saying we're not going to tolerate this."

Posted to Immigration2008a at 07:35 PM

Ray Suarez/PBS plays cards: opposition to Obama a proxy for race

Speaking in Michigan yesterday, PBS news anchor Ray Suarez said:

The "pseudo controversies" about Obama's background are symbols for a "racial calculus" hard at work in U.S. politics.

Opinions about Obama's inexperience, his childhood in Indonesia, and the persistent but untrue rumors of him being Muslim are stand-ins for something his detractors cannot admit, Suarez said.

Particularly, "religion has become a proxy for race," he said.

Characterizing Obama as Muslim "is a way to confer otherness on him for those people who are uncomfortable saying they're against him because he's black."

Posted to Politics at 12:07 PM

Isaac P. Friehle says: Support Bill Ayers! (supportbillayers.org)

One of Bill Ayers' glassy-eyed followers has created a site called "Support Bill Ayers" (supportbillayers.org), which includes this:

The current characterizations of Professor Ayers---“unrepentant terrorist,” “lunatic leftist”---are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans.

And, that's right. Why, I distinctly remember the mandatory bomb-making classes which were mandatory "back in the day". Oh, those wild and crazy sixties! Public school teachers across the land would lead their charges in chants of "Kill the piggies!" Those were the days!

The site also has a petition you can sign. Seeing that "Alfred E. Newman" from the "University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople" had already signed, I gladly and completely voluntarily signed as well: "Isaac P. Friehle", the "Huell Howser professor of Law, Coleman State University at Gary".

Posted to WackyHumor at 07:55 PM

"HUD: Five Million Fraudulent Mortgages Held by Illegals" ?

I'm not willing to put much faith in this until I see evidence from HUD; a very basic search didn't bring up anything but if anyone has another news report or link to hud.gov please leave it in comments.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 07:51 PM

Barack Obama was New Party member (far-left; Democratic Socialists of America?)

According to an October, 1996 page from the New Party (link) and a November, 1996 article from the editor of the Progressive Populist (Jim Cullen, link), Barack Obama was a member of the "New Party". The New Party is a now-defunct, left-leaning alternative to the Democrats and the Republicans that promoted "fusion voting" (newparty.org). It was started by Daniel Cantor (formerly with the 1998 Jesse Jackson campaign), Sandy Pope (union activist), and Joel Rogers (University of Wisconsin professor). According to this, in 1992 USA Today said they were "self-described [as] 'socialist democratic.'". They were involved with the SEIU and with ACORN; regarding the last, BHO is now lying about being linked to them.

While the New Party certainly appears to be quite far-left, the exact links between the NP and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), as outlined here, aren't exactly clear.

See also the many unverified-by-me claims made here; there are too many to list. However, if true, they provide a very clear, long-running link between Obama and the DSA.

UPDATE: See this and this for much more on the Obama-ACORN-New Party-DSA nexus. On a topic unrelated to CPUSA members, Marxists, etc. see this for a new-to-me topic: Obama's apparent friendship with Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who was apparently involved in a sleazy financial scam.

Many of those discussing these "interesting" Obama links then close with, "when will the MSM cover this?" as if that means something. The MSM is not going to cover BHO's links if they can avoid it, and if they have to they're going to lie about them to the greatest extent possible. The only solution is to go out and ask Obama about the links at one of his public appearances. Get his response on video and upload it to a video sharing site. Let Drudge take care of the rest.

UPDATE 2: Brit Hume of Fox briefly covered this issue, including this (text link, video link):

A spokesman for the Obama campaign insists his candidate ran as a Democrat in that race and said, "Don't believe the trash you read on the Internet."

Getting out our Clintonian parsing machine, does him running as a Dem preclude him being a New Party member? After all, fusion voting was what they were all about. Certainly someone must have access to contemporaneous records and other statements.

One other thing that's come to light is the photo here showing BHO with other NP members and endorsees; the caption is ambiguous, but they also say (without a photo) that Page 2 of that flier contains this:

New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)..."these victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work' said Obama

And, according to this, the New Party wasn't that radical at all. However, he bases that on what they later became, the Working Families Party. The latter group has since endorsed some Republicans.

UPDATE 3: From "New Ground 42/September - October, 1995" in the "Chicago New Party Update" section by Bruce Bentley (chicagodsa.org/ngarchive/ng42.html, also here):

About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to update members on local activities and to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates. The NP is being very active in organization building and politics. There are 300 members in Chicago. In order to build an organizational and financial base the NP is sponsoring house parties... Candidates must be approved via a NP political committee. Once approved, candidates must sign a contract with the NP. The contract mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with the NP... The political entourage included Alderman Michael Chandler, William Delgado, chief of staff for State Rep Miguel del Valle, and spokespersons for State Sen. Alice Palmer, Sonya Sanchez, chief of staff for State Sen. Jesse Garcia, who is running for State Rep in Garcia's District; and Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer. Obama is running for Palmer's vacant seat...

UPDATE 4: More here. According to that, the New Party was definitely on the left wing of the Democratic Party. It also discusses the 2002 book 'Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America' by Micah L. Sifry:

Sifry reports a quip by New Party co-founder, Daniel Cantor: “The shorthand strategy for accomplishing all this is to get the Bruce Springsteen, Lauryn Hill, and Pete Seeger vote united in one party.” The Peter Seeger vote does sound like shorthand for the old-time socialist Left — but also for far-left-leaning baby boomers in general. Bruce Springsteen and Lauryn Hill point to young blacks and whites on the left, perhaps including, but not restricted to, openly socialist sympathizers. In short, the New Party was a mid-1990s effort to build a “progressive” coalition to the left of the Democratic party, uniting left-leaning baby boomers with minorities, relatively militant unionists, and “idealistic” young people... ...according to Sifry, the party explicitly thought of itself as made up of committed “progressives,” rather than conventional “liberals.”

UPDATE 5: There are pictures from their newsletters showing that BHO was a member of the NP here.

Posted to Politics at 03:52 PM

Mitch Weiss,Jeffrey Collins/AP intro new immigration article device: the Sympathetic Victim/Representative

In the past there were PIIPPs. Now, a growing number of articles about immigration raids and the like are employing a device that I'll henceforth refer to as the use of SVRs: the "Sympathetic Victim/Representative". When an immigration raid occurs, instead of interviewing the local residents who saw their wages decline, hack reporters turn to one of the "victims" of the raid (i.e., an illegal alien) and allow him or her to say obviously illogical things completely unopposed. That sympathetic "victim" also serves to represent the other "victims".

The first instance of the "SVR technique" we'll introduce comes from Mitch Weiss and Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press in their report about the Greenville SC raid:

[two introductory paragraphs giving a summary of the raid, then the SVR is brought out:]

Maria Juan, 22, was one of about 50 relatives and friends who huddled at the edge of the plant after the raid, some weeping and others talking frantically on cell phones. She was seeking information about her 68-year-old grandmother, a legal immigrant from Guatemala who went to work without identification papers but was later released.

"Families are going to be broken apart," Juan said. "There will be kids and babies left behind. Why are they doing this? Why? They didn't do anything. They only wanted to work."

Workers began running down hallways crying and screaming, said Herbert Rooker, 54, a third-shift janitor. He wore a blue band on his wrist, indicating agents had determined he was in the country legally.

The last paragraph is something they threw in for extra credit: the CSVR or "Citizen Sympathetic Victim/Representative". That's supposed to make the reader think, "it could happen to me too, I could be a victim of George Bush's evil crackdown on the undocumented."

For another recent SVR example, see the report from Miguel Bustillo and Richard Fausset of the Los Angeles Times. Unlike Weiss and Collins, they lead off with the SVR, who says:

"They said we took their jobs, but I was working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m... I didn't see them working like us."

UPDATE: Weiss and Collins have an additional weepfest designed to support illegal activity (link):

When Magdalana Domingo Ramirez Lopez moved to this South Carolina city nearly two years ago to work at the chicken processing plant, she felt at home...

Anyone who reads this site can probably write the rest of the article in their sleep.

Posted to Immigration_piipps at 03:06 PM

Greenville SC immigration raid at House of Raeford's Columbia Farms

From this:

Federal agents swept through a chicken processing plant Tuesday, detaining more than 300 suspected illegal immigrants, sending panicked workers running and screaming through the hallways. Worried relatives collected outside, fearful their loved ones would be deported.

Police and agents during a shift change ordered all workers at the House of Raeford's Columbia Farms to show identification, according to officials and witnesses. The business had been under scrutiny for months and the raid comes on the heels of even larger roundups at plants across the country...

Posted to Immigration2008a at 03:04 PM

Arkansas state Senator Joyce Elliot backs in-state tuition for illegal aliens

Former Arkansas state representative Joyce Elliott - after November a state Senator - has signaled that she'll re-introduce legislation to give in-state tuition to illegal aliens. This will have the impact of taking college educations from U.S. citizens, and I urge everyone in that state to work to discredit her.

Elliot was the author of a previous bill, one supported by Mike Huckabee; the mainstream media frequently lied about the details of what he supported.

Current Arkansas governor Mike Beebe says her plan won't work due to federal laws providing that any such offer given to an illegal alien must also be given to a U.S. citizen. She's relying on attempts in other states to evade the spirit of that law.

What she doesn't know is how incredibly vulnerable she is on this issue. If anyone in AR wants to do a public service, go to one of her appearances, ask her tough questions about this issue, and then upload her response to video sharing sites. For instance, ask Joyce Elliot this question.

Tysen Kendig (associate vice chancellor of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville), University of Arkansas at Fort Smith Chancellor Paul Beran, and Tom Courtway, interim president of the University of Central Arkansas didn't want to comment on Joyce's proposed bill.

However, Robert Potts - chancellor of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro - says that, speaking only as a private citizen, he supports her efforts.

And, there's this ironic note:

Lawrence Davis, chancellor of the predominantly black University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, compared the current plight of undocumented Hispanics to the plight of black students in the South before integration.

What he's actually supporting is taking college educations from poorer, largely black U.S. citizens in order to give them to poorer citizens who are here illegally and who should be supported by their own governments. Someone should make that point to him publicly.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 02:45 PM

Thomas Friedman/NYT: wimpy, unintelligent smearer of Sarah Palin

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times offers "Palin's Kind of Patriotism" in which he sleazily questions Sarah Palin's patriotism (link). It starts out with this:

Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can't just ignore what she has to say.

If someone said the same first sentence about BHO, the Huffington Post would go to red alert, and might even call the Secret Service.

But, Thomas L. Friedman is right about one thing: it's easy to criticize Palin, because she's disfavored by the establishment. Friedman is just a bullying toady who's piling on, picking on someone knowing that his patrons approve and he won't get any flak for it.

Continuing, with bolding added:

And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: "You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that's not patriotic." ...What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

1. She didn't say that those who pay taxes aren't patriotic. She was complaining about being required to pay higher taxes, and said that's not considered patriotic in "the middle class of America". Whether Tom Friedman doesn't understand the difference or thinks his readers won't notice his leap isn't known.

2. Thomas Freidman presents a false choice: there are other sources for the revenue mentioned, for instance, higher taxes for those above middle class.

3. Palin didn't make the decision to go into Iraq; if she had been president perhaps she would not have made that decision and thus those billions of dollars wouldn't have had to be spent.

Posted to Politics at 01:08 PM

The Cenk Uygur Race Card Play-O-Matic (John McCain, Fannie Mae)

The new first rule of the Democratic Party is: "Twist anything an opponent of Barack Obama says in order to play the race card". If BHO wins the presidency, expect them to abide by that rule endlessly.

The latest example comes from multiple "liberals" who are trying to racialize John McCain referring to Barack Obama as "that one" at last night's "debate". About that, Air America host ("Young Turks") Cenk Uygur says (huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/worse-than-that-one_b_132863.html, also at peekURL.com/zak44q5):

Some questioned if it had racial implications.

Expect to see lots of references to what "some say" should BHO become president.

But, seeking to explore new frontiers in racial divisiveness, Uygur also says:

For me, the more worrisome moment of the debate came when McCain told a young, black questioner, "You've probably never heard of Fannie Mae." We were doing play-by-play of the debate on our website and I shouted out, "Why not? Why wouldn't he have heard of Fannie Mae?"

Now, let's go to the transcript (link):

But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis. But you know, they're the ones that with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his cronies and his friends, in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back.

Note that Uygur is leaving off the important "before this crisis" bit. And, considering that, in 2007, according to this perhaps biased poll, only 69% of Americans could name the VP and less than half could identify Nancy Pelosi, I think it's safe to assume that a very large number of Americans had never heard of Fannie/Freddie before now. (Other polls here and here). I have no doubt that McCain would say the same thing to anyone who was not connected to politics in some way.

Someone needs to keep track of all the instances of BHO supporters trying to racialize things like this.

Posted to Politics at 12:50 PM

Andy McCarthy: "You guys are nuts". Me: "yes, and they refuse to do anything effective"

At The Corner, Andy McCarthy writes:

Memo to McCain Campaign: Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn't; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he's qualified for public office. You helped portray Obama as a clealy qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists.

If that's what the public thinks, good luck trying to win this thing.

With due respect, I think tonight was a disaster for our side. I'm dumbfounded that no one else seems to think so. Obama did everything he needed to do, McCain did nothing he needed to do. What am I missing?

Not much, except for one thing: what are you doing to ensure that - despite all McCain's faults - Barack Obama doesn't become our next president? McCain wouldn't be a horrible president, especially because the Democrats and also opposition from within the GOP would keep him in check. On the other hand, Barack Obama - and especially his supporters - would be a disaster for the U.S.

So, instead of simply typing away at The Corner, McCarthy should come up with a plan. If he can't come up with a plan, he should feel free to use mine. Mine would be very effective; why isn't anyone else - such as those at The Corner - pushing it?

Posted to Politics at 09:47 PM

John McCain/Barack Obama townhall debate live coverage (10/7/08)

Live coverage of the John McCain/Barack Obama town hall "debate" - concomitant with me weeping for those who want to turn our political system into something closely approximating the Soviet Union - begins now. The questions I've seen so far are simply allowing them to replay their stock speeches.

You bet BHO supports nuclear energy. His contributors depend on it.

Tom Brokaw has a follow-up. Don't worry: it's a simple one rather than something that would reveal that neither are fully qualified to be president of the U.S.

Some stiff in the audience asks whether BHO supports treating healthcare as a "commodity". I don't know exactly what that means, but BHO responded by simply replaying his stock speech about healthcare.

McCain works in a completely forced joke during his replay.

J'accuse! BHO rudely points at McCain, claiming he voted against SCHIP.

Delaware, the "loose standards" state.

Another stiff asks about going into Pakistan without their permission to get al Qaida members. Faux tough guy BHO outright says that if Pakistan won't or can't go in to get bin Laden the U.S. would go in. McCain correctly points out that there are things you say, and there are things you don't say. A much better question would have pointed out the many problems with BHO's plans and his habit of saying them out loud.

Tom Brokaw asks what might just be the dumbest question ever asked this season by a major moderator: "is Russia under Putin an 'Evil Empire'?" Seriously, he's acting like neither one of these stiffs has ever spoken about Russia before.

Did you know that McCain was in the Navy? I didn't know that.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz Oh, sorry, I nodded off there.

This "debate" was a sham. It simply allowed the candidates to replay their stock speeches, when they should be called on their lies and misleading statements, and on the hugely obvious flaws in their policies.

The mainstream media is not going to do that job. We have to do that job.

Please go to a public appearance by Obama or McCain and ask them tough questions. Get their response on videotape, and then upload it to Youtube and other sites. We have to do the job the mainstream media refuses to do.

Posted to Politics at 04:34 PM

Lil' fascists: Barack Obama supporters on Jerome Corsi's detention in Kenya

It used to be that "liberals" would strongly oppose corrupt foreign governments "losing" paperwork in order to stifle speech. However, when things like that are done in support of Barack Obama, their response is a bit different. Here are some instances of those discussing the detention in Kenya of Jerome Corsi, author of the anti-BHO book Obama Nation. Think of these as a preview of how his supporters will act should he become president:

* "BooMan" says: "Jerome Corsi wrote a nasty, dishonest book about Barack Obama. Jerome Corsi went to Kenya to try to promote the book. Jerome Corsi was arrested and will be deported. He's actually lucky that the police dealt with him, rather than the people." (boomantribune.com/story/2008/10/7/124116/247) In other words, BooMan suggest that violence is the proper response to speech he doesn't like.

* Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake - who recently appeared with Corsi at bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/14970 - doesn't have any concern about the circumstances of the detention, then goes on to promote her Bloggingheads appearance and smear Corsi (Alternet: peekURL.com/zk1z2vz)

* "Drew" (jossip.com/anti-obama-author-deported-from-kenya-20081007) uses a photo of Corsi standing with a picture of "bigfoot evidence". He doesn't indicate that it's a photoshop (unconfirmedsources.com/index.php?itemid=3481). He also fails to note the links between Obama and the Kenyan president. The tagline is "They should have just kept him there".

* Truthdig simply has a short introduction and then links to The Guardian. The vile is provided by their commenters (truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20081007_corsi_deported_from_kenya).

* Terry Krepel - also with Media Matters - takes Corsi to task for failing to fill out the proper forms: conwebwatch.tripod.com/blog/index.blog?entry_id=1846576 (one of the groups was indeed identified in a previous version of the WND story, and one can imagine why publicizing the names of those friendly to Corsi inside a corrupt foreign country might not be a good idea.)

* the DailyKos has a field day, analogizing those who knowingly entered the U.S. illegally to a corrupt foreign country "losing" someone's paperwork:
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/9500/75263 ("bob newserman")
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/102730/178 ("RumsfeldResign")
There are many others:
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/1095/22888
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/14387/8581
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/94310/1996
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/44721/7051
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/91641/6830
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/82621/5050
dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/102521/867
If anyone finds anything remotely liberal in any of those, feel free to leave a comment.

* Hannah Dreier of Media Matters for America engages in various logical fallacies but in regards to the topic of this post she completely takes the Kenyan government's word for the facts of the detention (mediamatters.org/items/200810080027). A similar report from Julie Millican and Nathan Tabak focuses on a politically incorrect skit from G. Gordon Liddy and completely ignores any of the circumstances of the detention (mediamatters.org/items/200810090017).

Posted to Politics at 02:06 PM

Jerome Corsi detained in Kenya after investigating Barack Obama links to Kenyan president

Jerome Corsi - author of the best-selling book Obama Nation and someone that the Barack Obama campaign subsequently smeared - has been detained in Kenya. The official word is apparently that he hasn't been detained, but Corsi says his passport has been taken. He and his publicist apparently haven't been charged with any crimes, and contrary to other reports he hasn't been deported; he was scheduled to leave the country today. The officials may have picked him up after "losing" his work permit.

Corsi traveled to Kenya to discuss his book and also to investigate Barack Obama's ties to that country, and Kenyan immigration officials detained him just before he was to hold a press conference. Those actions were certainly taken by BHO supporters, but whether the BHO campaign itself played a role will probably never be known. According to Corsi, Obama has been in direct contact with the president of Kenya since 2006. (For more on that, see this; yes, I know but desperate times...)

See this for how some Obama supporters reacted, which is what you'd expect.

From this:

Corsi had extensive meetings with top Kenyan officials upon his arrival. His visit and his activities during his stay have been well-known to authorities at the highest levels...

Obama has a long history of connections in Kenya, where his father worked as a government economist. Corsi documented this history in his book and went to Kenya to find answers to lingering questions – particularly about the links between the presidential candidate and Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Corsi had promised a news conference today that would "expose details of deep secret ties between U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and a section of Kenya government leaders, their connection to certain sectoral groups in Kenya and subsequent plot to be executed in Kenya should Senator Obama win the American presidency."

...A hotel worker in Nairobi told Reuters Corsi was picked up as soon as he walked into the hotel for the scheduled press conference: "He was walking in and then some immigration officers who were following him snatched him. It happened so fast, they just vanished with him."

...Corsi was set to show Obama and Odinga have been in direct contact since the senator's visit to Kenya in 2006. He was to claim Obama advised Odinga on campaign strategy and helped him raise money in the U.S. for the Kenya presidential campaign.

Corsi was to report Odinga's 2007 presidential campaign strategy called for exploiting anti-Kikuyu tribal sentiments, claiming victory and charging voter fraud even if the campaign knew the election had been legitimately lost. Odinga, Corsi said, also was willing to fan the flames of ethnic tribal tensions and use violence as a last resort by calling for mass action that led to the destruction of properties, injuries, loss of life and the displacement of over 500,000 Kenyans. The purpose was to compel the Electoral Commission of Kenya to declare him the winner or enable him to declare himself the winner by force.

Even though Odinga has not fulfilled his campaign promises to the Muslims who voted for him, he continues to cause concern among Kenyans because he has not declared his position on Shariah law, Corsi said.

Corsi said Obama remained in active phone contact with Odinga through the New Hampshire Democratic Party primary in January. The Illinois senator continued to support Odinga, he said, turning a blind eye to an agreement signed with Muslims and the post-election violence instigated as part of the campaign strategy.

Corsi was also going to give $1000 to Obama's half-brother George, who lives in a Nairobi slum.

UPDATE: Tom Odula and Elizabeth Kennedy of the Associated Press say: "The best-selling book, released earlier in the United States, collects false rumors and distortions to portray Obama as a secret radical who cannot be trusted... Corsi's book claims the Illinois senator is a dangerous, radical candidate for president and includes innuendoes and false rumors - that he was raised a Muslim and attended a radical black church... Obama is a Christian who attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and his campaign picks apart the book's claims on the Web site FightTheSmears.com." Their interpretation of BHO could have been written by the BHO campaign itself. For instance, while some might disagree, TUCC is a radical church; because of that disagreement it's not correct to flat-out state it isn't a radical church. Their report also includes one more paragraph promoting Barack Obama's supposed debunking of Corsi's book.

UPDATE 2: I haven't seen too much real support for a free press lately, but at least one person comes close. Frank James says:

It's a sad commentary on the state of freedom in Kenya that a Kenyan journalist would say Corsi shouldn't have had anything about his planned appearance, presumably an ad or story, in the morning paper, that he "should have kept it secret." Hard to do a publicity stunt while keeping it quiet.

UPDATE 3, 10/8/08: Corsi is going to be on tonight's Hannity & Colmes, and there's more on the incident here and here.

Posted to Politics at 12:21 PM

CNN does expose on Barack Obama/Bill Ayers?

According to this, tonight's Anderson Cooper show on CNN included a segment from one of their other reporters that included this:

But the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said.

In comments, others agree that the segment was unexpected. Perhaps they've decided to do some real reporting, or perhaps they're just trying to help BHO put Ayers behind him.

Posted to Politics at 11:20 PM

Dana Milbank/WaPo's dangerous smear of Sarah Palin, supporters

Unctuous liar Dana Milbank - last discussed here in May regarding him misleading for Barack Obama - is back with an even more disgusting smear. This one a) portrays Sarah Palin supporters as bloodthirsty yahoos, b) tries to give the impression that Palin doesn't renounce bloodthirsty yahoos, and c) most importantly, raises the specter of Barack Obama being assassinated by a Palin supporter.

Discussing a speech today in Florida ("In Fla., Palin Goes for the Rough Stuff as Audience Boos Obama", link), he first downplays Barack Obama's links to Bill Ayers ("[m]any independent observers say Palin's allegations are a stretch; Obama served on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers, now an education professor, and has condemned his past activities"). Then:

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin went on to say that "Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers's living room, and they've worked together on various projects in Chicago." Here, Palin began to connect the dots...

1. There's no indication that Palin heard the "one man in the audience". Even if she did, she can't be responsible for what others shout out. Milbank doesn't say whether she heard him, leaving that up to the reader's fevered imagination.

2. Milbank is trying to portray Palin's audience as composed of yahoos, when similar call and response happens at most political rallies, especially those conducted by Obama.

3. Milbank almost certainly knew that some people would think that the "one man in the audience" was referring to Obama, causing some to smear the GOP, Palin supporters, and any other Obama opponents and also introducing an even more vile component to the campaign than both campaigns - but especially Obama's - have done so far.

The last point is bolstered by at least two widely-read "liberals" intentionally or unintentionally taking the comment in that sense. Josh Micah Marshall pretends he doesn't know who the shout was referring to ("Who They Are, What They're About", talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/222324.php, discussed in a demagogic way at http://www.patterico.com/2008/10/06/josh-marshall-is-a-liar), as does Jeralyn Merritt ('Palin Ignores Supporter Who Yells "Kill Him" After She Insults Obama', talkleft.com/story/2008/10/6/22537/3821).

UPDATE: Milbank's despicable smear spreads to the HuffPost, with Jeffrey Feldman saying "McCain Campaign Amplifies Violent Rhetoric, GOP Crowds Threaten Obama's Life" (huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/is-palin-trying-to-incite_b_132534.html) and Nico Pitney and Seth Colter Walls offering 'Obama Hatred On Display Again At Palin Rally, Supporter Screams "Treason!"' (huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/obama-hatred-on-display-a_n_132572.html). Both reference Milbank's article.

UPDATE 2: Another Milbank reference hits Daily Kos' front page, this from "BarbinMD" at dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/12422/0539/654/622785

UPDATE 3: There's a discussion of Milbank's smear here including a round-up of others who took his smear and ran with it. That also discusses two other MSM reports from the same rally that described a much more placid event than Milbank's invention.

Posted to Politics at 10:58 PM

Feds investigating San Francisco over sanctuary policy

From this:

A federal grand jury is investigating whether San Francisco's policy of offering sanctuary to undocumented immigrants violates U.S. laws against harboring people who are in the country illegally, city officials say.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera said his office has hired a criminal defense lawyer to represent employees who might be questioned or asked for documents. He and Mayor Gavin Newsom said they would cooperate with the investigation...

Herrera's office was notified of the investigation several weeks ago when the grand jury issued a subpoena for documents. It's not clear whether prosecutors are seeking evidence of possible criminal violations by city officials...

It'd be great if they were however.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 04:41 PM

Questions for Barack Obama about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Please go to a Barack Obama public appearance, ask him one of the following questions (derived from a McCain campaign missive [1]), get his response on videotape, and then upload that to Youtube. If you can get a "good" answer from him it would have a devastating impact on his campaign.

"Senator Obama: You got over $100,000 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and their employees. Did you ever talk to the executives of Fannie and Freddie about the reckless loans they were giving out? That is, could you please list some approximate dates when you discussed those reckless loans made by your contributors' organizations? I don't need exact dates, but just a few off the top of your head. Just some approximate dates, please."

Or:

"Senator Obama: You got over $100,000 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and their employees. Did you ever talk to the executives of Fannie and Freddie about proposals from Senator McCain dealing with stronger oversight of their operations? That is, could you please list some approximate dates when you discussed that proposed stronger oversight with your contributors or their organizations? I don't need exact dates, but just a few off the top of your head. Just some approximate dates, please."

The source for the donations is here and if anyone asks says it's from the "OpenSecrets.org database and various news reports".

The source for McCain's reforms is the "Congressional Record of May 25, 2006 with John McCain's floor speech relating to the 'Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005'" (link).

Read both of those beforehand and print out several copies of each to give out to interested parties.

For more on my long-running and so far unsuccessful effort to get people to ask Obama tough questions, see this.

[1] From this:

...Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread. This corruption was encouraged by Democrats in Congress, and abetted by Senator Obama... the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place... He has received more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other senator in history, with the exception of the chairman of the committee overseeing them. Did he ever talk to the executives at Fannie and Freddie about these reckless loans? Did he ever discuss with them the stronger oversight I proposed? If Senator Obama is such a champion of financial regulation, why didn’t he support these regulations that could have prevented this crisis in the first place? He won't tell you, but you deserve an answer.

Posted to Politics at 02:23 PM

Who's behind the Obama Youth video, and why are they so successful?

Drudge is currently linking to this video of black teenagers at a Kansas City charter school - dressed in fancified paramilitary outfits - pledging allegiance to Barack Obama and describing how he's changed their lives. I linked to that video back on the second in the post about the then-previous example of BHO's personality cult.

Something about the video producer's modus operandi sets off red flags, but it's probably nothing. The owner of that video is listed as 39 years old: youtube.com/user/keepitwildtv. However, at this profile apparently from the same person, he's listed as 16 years old: youtube.com/user/NoObamaCant. It's certainly possible that those are two separate people who are related, but they're clearly either that or the same person since both profiles link to this site: obamaganda.weebly.com. And, the videos on both profiles are very similar. The first profile joined at the end of August, the second joined at the end of September.

And, since that time they've been quite successful. The two videos from NoObamaCant have over 50,000 views, and the two from keepitwildtv have over 500,000 views, with most of the ones for the last coming from Drudge. However, he's also gotten links from a radio station, hotair.com, worldnetdaily.com, powerlineblog.com, instapundit.com, breitbart.tv, etc. And, all his videos and pages use a lot of exclamation points and exhortations to subscribe. And, all are written in English that has a whiff of a foreign accent. But, maybe he's just a master of promotion.

Posted to Bloggage at 11:31 AM

Marc Cooper/Huffington Post pretends Obama/Ayers similar to McCain/David Ifshin

Marc Cooper is an ultra-lightweight Huffington Post "reporter"; I used to leave comments at his site completely eviscerating what little immigration-related argument he could provide. After a while he had a mini-meltdown and stopped being able to present even a slightly cogent argument. He never once was able to respond to any of my points [1].

Now, the "reporter" offers "McCain's Own 60's Radical Pal" (link). John McCain apparently forged a friendship with Vietnam-era radical David Ifshin, and Cooper tries to pretend that there's some equivalence between that friendship and the Barack Obama/William Ayers collaboration.

However, even Cooper is forced to admit that Ifshin moved to the center, eventually becoming Bill Clinton's general counsel. Cooper is also forced to admit that, unlike Bill Ayers, Ifshin didn't get involved with any bombings. Obviously, Ifshin was never as radical as Ayers and became part of the establishment years later. And, just as McCain was able to forge a friendship with John Kerry, he forged one with Ifshin and presumably forgave him for his actions during Vietnam.

On the other hand, all indications are that Ayers is almost as radical now as he was then, albeit without the bombs. He's part of the leftwing Chicago establishment, but it's extremely doubtful whether Bill Clinton would hire him as he did Ifshin.

Cooper also doesn't understand what "guilt-by-association" means. It refers to "A believes a something, B believes the same thing, A is a bad person, therefore B is a bad person also." That's a logical fallacy: just because Stalin might have liked strawberries doesn't mean that everyone who likes strawberries is like Stalin.

The association at the heart of the Ayers matter is that Barack Obama worked with Ayers - an unrepentant terrorist - for several years, and Ayers was to a certain extent his patron. Bringing up that association is not a logical fallacy.

[1] See the comments from "TLB" and other names pointing to this site's previous domain name:
marccooper.com/what-dream
marccooper.com/ice-cold
marccooper.com/immigration-good-bad-and-the-ugly
marccooper.com/gilded-gophers

Posted to Politics at 10:27 PM

Dave Winer deletes comment, locks thread

Earlier today, Dave Winer of Scripting News offered "I'd like to have a word with Republicans" (scripting.com/stories/2008/10/05/idLikeToHaveAWordWithRepub.html). Clamping his hands down over his ears just as hard as he could, he said:

Barack Obama is an honorable person. You may not agree with him, or like where he would take our country, that's your right of course, but he doesn't "pal around" with terrorists. I think we all know that, right? If you have any doubts, you can skip the rest of this post, and please don't leave any comments.

Ever the maverick, I left the comment in the extended entry (needless to say, I could have said much more).

My comment was deleted and then Winer locked the thread from further replies. I guess finding out the truth about Obama is just too much for some of his lighter-weight supporters to bear.

10/13/08 UPDATE: He's now moderating comments, and another comment I left on scripting.com/stories/2008/10/12/michelleMalkinLikeHerParty.html wasn't approved. That's also below.

-------------- 10/5/08 comment -----------------
DW: "Barack Obama is an honorable person."

BHO is a serial liar whose campaign has engaged in an extremely sleazy, Chicago-style campaign using proxies, including those in the MSM. You probably haven't heard about most of those lies because the MSM refuses to call him on them: http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/007954.html

While he might not *now* "pal around with terrorists", he has in the past. The NYT article linked above was simply a whitewash, the NYT attempting to get in front of GOP ads on the issue. For the truth, follow the links here: http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/008087.html
-------------- 10/5/08 comment -----------------

-------------- 10/12/08 comment -----------------
Since a comment I left on another thread was deleted, this might disappear as well. However, the candidates can't be responsible for things they don't hear, nor is it generally a wise idea to draw attention to those causing disturbances (for instance, Vin Scully didn't acknowledge fans who ran onto the field). The majority of the "hate" involved in this case is coming from the MSM. In their attempt to elect BHO, they're attempting to portray those attending those rallies as violent yahoos and even playing the Hitler card (see a recent Frank Rich column referencing Weimar). Rather than playing along with the MSM's attempts, perhaps Winer should consider acknowledging what they're trying to do. See also this from 10/6:
http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/008098.html
-------------- 10/12/08 comment -----------------

Posted to Bloggage at 03:59 PM

Does Andrew Sullivan support accountability for Barack Obama too?

Sully links to this video of Margaret Thatcher being grilled by a regular citizen during the Falklands War as, of course, a way to criticize Sarah Palin:

The horrifying sequestering of Sarah Palin from a press conference and anything like this kind of public interrogation is a scandal.

Of course, what Sully fails to note is that Barack Obama has been "sequestered" since he started running for president around two years ago. That's the main scandal: the front-runner for president of the U.S. has only very rarely been asked slightly tough questions, has never to my knowledge been called to his face on even just one of his lies, and as far as I know not a single "reporter" has tried to hold him accountable for the hugely obvious flaws in his policies. Instead, the mainstream media has repeatedly lied on his behalf and, when they weren't doing that has thrown him extremely puffball questions. The one or two times when "reporters" came close to doing their jobs, he didn't respond too well (asked about Rezko, answers some questions, flees room; March 4, 2008; link).

I am absolutely positive that Andrew Sullivan is intellectually honest and doesn't want to suffer from cognitive dissonance. So, I am absolutely positive that Sully will use his platform to urge "reporters" to finally call BHO on his lies, his misleading and incomplete statements, and the glaring flaws in his policies and get an answer from him.

Anything less would reveal Sully to be nothing more than a delusional, obsequious toady, so I have no doubt he'll rush to take the media and Barack Obama to task. I also look forward to Sully urging his readers to go out and ask Obama all the questions that the MSM has so far failed to ask him.

Let Sully's new rallying cry be: 'End Obama's "sequestration"!'

P.S. Sully also presents the video as a lesson "to remind American voters what a real democracy sounds like". Thanks! We Yanks certainly do appreciate a foreign citizen - someone who isn't able to vote in our elections but is trying to influence them - telling us what to do and reminding us of the errors of our ways.

UPDATE: I sent a trackback and several hours later it hasn't appeared. There are certainly innocent explanations for that, such as Sully never bothering to check incoming pings, a technical problem, etc. Or, he realizes as much as everyone else does that if he allowed people to talk back to him he'd be quickly discredited. (Note: past attempts to send pings using the Wizbang online version failed, so I wrote a little snippet of code to use this. It said the ping had succeeded.)

Posted to Politics at 10:04 AM

Steve Benen/Washington Monthly gets hat trick: deletes three comments in one day

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly has scored a hat trick: he or his helpers deleted three comments I left on his entries today. And, the deletions happened very shortly after I left the comments, so obviously they're very worried about their readers learning about the things that Steve Benen isn't willing to tell them. An earlier comment I left was also deleted from one of his entries (see the first link), and during the Kevin Drum era at that site about a dozen comments were deleted or edited without notice.

The three comments are in the extended entry, in reverse chronological order.

-------------------------
washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015030.php
Steve Benen writes: "we already learned". Actually, that's just the NYT's take on it, in their desperate attempt to get out in front of a story and minimize the damage to BHO.

For the truth of the matter, see this and this.

[Note: Washington Monthly/Steve Benen deleted a valid comment I left here recently (including two just today), continuing a long-term habit during Kevin Drum's tenure. Because it contains information you aren't supposed to know about, this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted. Search for "steve benen" or "kevin drum" at my site for examples of comments that were deleted.]

-------------------------
washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015023.php
BHO is a great champion of the press. In fact, he recently encouraged his followers to in effect shut down a couple radio shows that featured people he didn't like. They were saying things BHO didn't like, so it's perfectly valid to try to shut them down. (Note: I'm referring to BHO, not Hugo Chavez just so no one gets confused.)

[Note: Washington Monthly/Steve Benen deleted a valid comment I left here recently, continuing a long-term habit during Kevin Drum's tenure. Because it contains information you aren't supposed to know about, this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted. Search for "steve benen" or "kevin drum" at my site for examples of comments that were deleted.]

-------------------------
washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015024.php
Whew! The NYT says BHO is faultless, and that's all everyone needs to hear!

Of course, if you go here and compare it to the second paragraph on page 2 you might have a sense of deja vu, but just completely ignore that and believe what WaMo wants you to believe.

[Note: Washington Monthly/Steve Benen deleted a valid comment I left here recently, continuing a long-term habit during Kevin Drum's tenure. Because it contains information you aren't supposed to know about, this comment may disappear or be different from what I posted. Search for "steve benen" or "kevin drum" at my site for examples of comments that were deleted.]

Posted to Bloggage at 02:55 PM

Scott Shane/NYT's pro-BHO spin on Bill Ayers/Barack Obama collaboration

Scott Shane of the New York Times offers "Obama and '60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths" (originally titled "Obama Had Met Ayers, but the Two Are Not Close"). If you believe the NYT, then everything's fine and dandy, and Barack Obama and 60s radical Bill Ayers are not close. The fact that they aren't close and never were close and nothing funny went on and there's nothing to see here is especially important because Ayers is a former and allegedly unrepentant terrorist who's since been, in Shane's words, "rehabilitated".

On the other hand, if you actually want the truth, compare the second paragraph on page 2 ("In fact, according to several people involved...") to the email here. Why, it's almost like Shane is reading from a script provided by Ken Rolling, the former executive director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

And, for much more, see this response to the article: NYT's Ayers-Obama Whitewash. Regarding Scott Shane letting Ayers claim that he mostly only wanted to do property damage with his bombs, see this.

See also this from Steve Diamond:

an exchange of letters in late 1994, copies of which I obtained from Brown University, between Vartan Gregorian, then President of Brown and the individual responsible for assessing applications for grants from the national Annenberg Challenge, and Bill Ayers, the founder of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, demonstrates that Ayers played a direct role in "composing" the Challenge's board of directors... I was interviewed at length by the New York Times for today’s story. In fact, this was the third Times reporter to interview me about the Ayers/Obama relationship - and I provided the Times with the letters I discuss here. They are not mentioned in the story at all.

See also "Ayers Was on Woods Fund Board with Obama When He Stepped on Flag" (LGF, peekURL.com/zab252h). That links to this August 2001 Chicago Magazine article entitled "No Regrets"; it includes a picture of Bill Ayers stepping on a U.S. flag. It also links to 'Obama served on a board with former Weather Underground member William Ayers and "that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11"', a fact check of a Hillary Clinton statement about Obama's association with Ayers (link). They agree that her statement was truthful.

And, see this:

It turns out as these ten key points confirm what I have argued all along - that Bill Ayers was responsible for the elevation of Obama to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge board and the New York Times reporting on this story actually supports my conclusion, though inadvertently.

BHO and Ayers also appeared at a far-left University of Chicago 11/20/1997 event about juvenile justice (link, copy here). The article also quotes Michelle Obama.

10/9/08: Obama lies again, with this being the latest explanation for his actions: "The gentleman in question, Bill Ayers, is a college professor, teaches education at the University of Illinois... That's how i met him -- working on a school reform project that was funded by an ambassador and very close friend of Ronald Reagan's" along with "a bunch of conservative businessmen and civic leaders... Ultimately, I ended up learning about the fact that he had engaged in this reprehensible act 40 years ago, but I was eight years old at the time and I assumed that he had been rehabilitated." (link) As indicated above, Obama continued working with him after 9/11/01, when even the most willingly blind person could see what Ayers was all about.

~ Who's helping the NYT spread their spin? ~

The people listed below all share one thing in common: they pretend that that NYT was actually trying to write an investigative report rather than a cover-up, and they all come to the conclusion that there's nothing there because the NYT says there's nothing there. Whether they actually believe that or whether they're just trying to sell the NYT's lies isn't clear.

* Steve Benen of Washington Monthly says the NYT "couldn't find any dirt", trying to make his readers think the NYT was looking for dirt rather than covering for BHO (washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015024.php). A comment I left was later deleted.

* Ben Smith from The Politico tries a similar technique: "though the Times has pinned down a couple of new details on the relationship, there's no real news, and the main new detail is exculpatory: A different Chicago figure picked Obama to chair an education fund. The conservative blog reaction to the story is outrage, as it has failed to turn up the secret Rosetta Stone that many seem to believe will reveal some deeper truth about Obama's politics." (politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Republicans_again_reading_the_Times.html?showall)

* Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post (voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/04/palin_turns_to_nyt_citing_arti.html). She starts out with snark and a lie: "It turns out GOP vice presidential nominee does like the mainstream media after all -- at least, when it's publishing unflattering stories about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama." The NYT article isn't "unflattering", it's an attempt at a cover-up.

She then spins the story the same way the BHO campaign does: "In fact, both a Washington Post article in April and today's New York Times piece revealed Obama and Ayers to have had only a casual association: the former radical hosted a coffee for Obama's first bid for state Senate, they served together on an educational charity board and both live in Chicago's Hyde Park."

The WaPo article she mentions is "Former '60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago" by Peter Slevin (link). That WaPo article is even more of a cover-up than the one from the NYT; in fact, almost everything in there tries to portray Ayers as an upstanding member of his community, and the only link to Obama is this cozy scene: The two men served for three years on the board of the Woods Fund, an anti-poverty group. The board, which Obama has since left, was small and collegial, said chair Laura Washington, who served with them. It met four times a year for a half-day, mostly to approve grants, she said. The atmosphere was "friendly but businesslike." Needless to say, a real reporter would try to determine what Washington isn't saying, but that leaves Peter Slevin out.

* Michael Shaw of the Huffington Post - who concentrates on a lightweight interpretation of images - basically reads from the card he's been handed: "all kinds of long hashed-over and discredited innuendos... resuscitating feeble allegations -- all then discounted..." (huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-emny_b_131855.html)

* Martina Stewart of CNN references the NYT article and then says: "Several other publications, including the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic, have debunked the idea that Obama and Ayers had a close relationship." (says) However, an earlier version of the article - the change not noted - had "The National Review" in place of "The New Republic". (link) Presumably that was just a mistake and not (like their other coverage) an attempt to deceive.

* Sockpuppets, various. BHO supporters are clogging up MSM comments boards with Winner-style attacks. See, for instance, the 04:15 PM comment from "John" and the 04:26 PM comment from "Larry" at latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/sarah-palinbill.html and the 8:06 PM comment from Luke2 and the 7:34 PM comment from seemstome at voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/04/palin_turns_to_nyt_citing_arti.html. If I didn't think they were just citizens voicing their opinions I'd think they were actually paid workers for the Obama campaign.

* Izvestia, aka CNN, offers a "Fact Check" that discusses Sarah Palin's comment that BHO is "palling around with terrorists" (link). Obviously, Palin should have put it in the correct legalistic format: "in the recent past, Barack Obama has worked with and associated with known and unrepentant terrorists". If she had, CNN wouldn't have been able to pretend that her non-legalistic formation was binding: 'Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.' No really: they actually try to pretend that her imprecise wording is more important than BHO's past collaboration with and association with a terrorist.

* Todd Beeton links to both CNN and the NYT and continues the trends discussed above: mydd.com/story/2008/10/5/164214/299

* Obsequious toady, repeat liar, and supporter of illegal activity Joe Klein offers "Embarracuda", an obvious attempt to deceive (time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/embarracuda.html). Needless to say, he downplays the Obama-Ayers connection and even works in a BHO talking point about how BHO was just a child when the Weather Underground were terrorizing the U.S.: Over the weekend, [Sarah Palin] picked up on an article in The New York Times, which essentially says that Barack Obama and the former terrorist Bill Ayers have crossed paths in Chicago, served on a couple of charitable boards together, but aren't particularly close. To Palin--or her scriptwriters--this means that Obama has been "palling around" with terrorists. Now, I wish Ayers had done some serious jail time; he certainly needed to pay some penance for his youthful criminality--even if most people in Chicago, including the mayor, have decided that he has something of value to say about education. But I can also understand how Obama, who was a child when Ayers was cutting his idiot swath, would not quite understand the enormity of the professor's background...

* Scott Conroy of CBS News offers "Lagging In The Polls, Palin Shifts To Fear Tactics" (cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/06/politics/fromtheroad/entry4503812.shtml), which follows 10/4's equally biased "Palin Says She Wants To Talk About Issues, Adds That Obama Pals With A Terrorist" (cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/06/politics/fromtheroad/entry4503812.shtml). In the first article he says: '[Palin] said [Obama and Ayers] had a relationship akin to being "pals," even though the Associated Press and many other news outlets have concluded that Obama and Ayers' relationship added up to far less than a close friendship.' Needless to say, that's extremely disingenuous.

* Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.

10/6/08 UPDATE: The latest lie from the BHO campaign is that BHO had little knowledge of the radical past of Ayers and the Weatherman group. This was presented by David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs (thepage.time.com/mccain-campaign-release-on-obama-and-ayers); see Joe Klein retailing their lie above.

Posted to Politics at 12:45 PM

O.J. Simpson: guilty on all counts

Breaking now: OJ Simpson has been found guilty on all charges. His co-defendent Clarence Stewart was also found guilty on all charges. The minimum possible sentences aren't known, but both of them could face life imprisonment.

Posted to Miscellania at 10:56 PM

Did James Glassman/State Department mock Sarah Palin?

An anonymous commenter at yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/10/simmons_mocks_palin.php says:

James Glassman, the Undersecretay of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, was just introduced on C-Span at the National Press Club. As he approached the speaker's platform he said: "Thank you Donna. May I call you Donna?" Then he went immediately into "a shout out" to the school his daughter(s) go to. I thought those were pretty amusing considering he was in front of such a staid institution. He got a few chuckles too!

I'm not about to fully take the word of some random commenter and I'd like to see video. I also don't trust the interesting writing style of the commenter.

However, Glassman's bio is at state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/105829.htm. Note that he's a co-founder of TechCentralStation.com, a site that publishes articles from such worthies as Instapundit, Arnold Kling, etc.:

James K. Glassman leads America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes communications with international audiences, cultural programming, academic grants, educational exchanges, international visitor programs, and U.S. government efforts to confront ideological support for terrorism. He oversees the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs and International Information Programs, and participates in foreign policy development.

Mr. Glassman previously served as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the independent federal agency that oversees all U.S. government non-military international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA), Alhurra, Radio Sawa, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Radio and TV Martí...

Prior to assuming his position as Under Secretary, Mr. Glassman was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington public policy think tank...

He is the former president of The Atlantic Monthly Co., publisher of The New Republic, Executive Vice President of U.S. News & World Report, and editor-in-chief and co-owner of Roll Call, the congressional newspaper.

...He was also formerly host of Capital Gang Sunday on CNN and TechnoPolitics on PBS and has been a frequent guest on television public affairs programs. In 2000, he co-founded Tech Central Station.com, a technology and policy website...

Posted to Politics at 05:17 PM

Justin Rood/ABC News misleads about Sarah Palin divestment from Sudan

Followers of the MSM's attempt to destroy Sarah Palin have probably noticed a trend: the MSM reports something that's false or misleading and uses the "recollections" of a Democratic politician from Alaska as their authority on the matter. That's then picked up by the blogs and amplified, until such time as a new smear is ready.

Thus it is that Justin Rood of ABC News offers "Record Refutes Palin's Sudan Claim/Palin Administration Against Sudan Divestment Before It Was For It, Documents Show" (link). The main quote source in the article is Alaskan Democratic politician Les Gara, who's also the "validator" for a highly misleading "fact check" from the Barack Obama campaign: factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/10/02/debate_reality_check_palin_wro_1.php

That BHO page says "Palin's administration was complicit in killing Darfur divestment bill" and provides a few quotes in support of that claim. However, the BHO campaign "forgets" to point out that Palin later supported the bill when it was reintroduced in the next session.

Taking his cues from the BHO campaign, ABC's Rood says:

In Thursday's debate, Palin said she had advocated the state divest from Sudan. "When I and others in the legislature found out that we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars," Palin said.

But a search of news clips and transcripts from the time do not turn up an instance in which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or concerns about Alaska's investments tied to the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin's administration openly opposed the bill, and stated its opposition in a public hearing on the measure.

Rood himself and the subhead both admit that the most that can be said is that she (i.e., her administration) were against it to begin with for one reason or other. There are only two angles for an honest reporter: why was her administration was against it initially, and does her statement above imply some sort of immediate action rather than allowing for initial opposition. Rood is trying to give the impression that she was outright lying about supporting divestment, something that this April 03, 2008 article shows to be false (link):

Gov. Sarah Palin's administration signaled support Tuesday for the Legislature to order the divestment of Alaska's public funds from Sudan, where thousands of people have died in the Darfur region.

Department of Revenue Commissioner Patrick Galvin endorsed a bill promoting divestment in Sudan at a hearing before the Senate State Affairs Committee.

Also, the bill that ABC discusses was sponsored by Democrat Les Gara and Republican Bob Lynn. The latter couldn't be reached, but Gara is quite eager to pin blame on Palin and lays it on thick:

"At the last minute they showed up" and supported the divestment effort, Gara said. But by then the legislative session was almost over, and there wasn't enough time to get it passed.

Rood's timeline appears to place that "early this year". Yet, the Alaskan legislature began its session on January 15 (link), and according to this, state senator Hollis French was to co-sponsor a new version of the bill. Rood's timeline is obviously off.

For the details, one possibility would be to contact "Save Darfur Anchorage"; if she were the sticking point I'm sure they would have covered it (link). When a Chinese company that invests in the Sudan (Sinopec) wanted a major state contract (link,link) and was rejected for one reason or other, they took her to task for not publicly rejecting that company over Darfur (link); they also met with her over divestment in December 2007 (link).

And, concerning Sinopec, this December 7, 2007 report says:

Alaska Revenue Commissioner Pat Galvin said concerns about either exports or alleged human-rights violations could be valid considerations during the months-long review process of the gas project proposals.

Galvin is also quoted at some of the previous links as a representative of the Palin administration dealing with divestment.

~ Who's pushing the smear ~
* Needless to say, someone else is buying it and trying to resell it: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-odd-lies--2.html. He calls that a "lie", when in fact Sully is the liar.
* Martin Kaste of NPR fails to point out that she later supported divestment: npr.org/blogs/politics/2008/10/palins_budget.html
* Americablog does the same: americablog.com/2008/10/sarah-palins-18-lies-tonight.html That same list was posted by Lowell (raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16416), this site (yestodemocracy.com/yes_to_democracy_no_to_pu/2008/10/sarah-palins-18.html), and a large number of other blogs and forums. Some don't have a link back, and the ones that do link back to Americablog. However, the list screams "sent from the BHO campaign".
* Americablog again, with John Aravosis quoting only the "good parts" of the ABC piece, the ones that don't mention that the Palin administration later came out in support of divestiture: americablog.com/2008/10/abc-palin-lied-last-night-about.html

Posted to Politics at 02:03 PM

New York Times: if the "nativists" weren't really "anti-immigration", they'd support massive immigration

The New York Times editorial board is back with yet another very special editorial (link):

One of the false pieties uttered by anti-immigration politicians is that they love immigrants. If that were true, Congress would not be having so much trouble passing a simple law to smooth out a serious kink in the legal immigration pipeline.

Seriously, does anyone - even those in their target market - buy this? One doesn't have to support all types and all levels of immigration in order to "love immigrants". That should have been obvious to even the writers of their screed.

What they're advocating for is "visa recapture", where visas that weren't used for one reason or other can be applied to the current year's limit. If this were a video they'd have a Harry Shearer-narrated animation of their sales job:

Every year thousands of potential green cards vanish, like unused cellphone minutes.

The visas they're discussing are green cards, although I haven't checked whether H1Bs and the like would be covered as well. The two bills they mention are sponsored by immigration lawyer Zoe Lofgren and Robert Menendez, so there's probably a lot more they aren't mentioning; see also this.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 12:11 PM

Barack Obama: "This is not the ___Larry_Walsh_&_Matt_Ryan___ that I knew" (FBI raid)

The Obama Bus got all fired up, two soft thuds were heard, and then typing was heard from the campaign's teleprompter office as this was typed in: "This not the Larry Walsh and Matt Ryan that I knew" (link):

The FBI on Wednesday raided the county offices of a former Illinois state senator who is a poker-playing buddy of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

According to Chicago authorities, the FBI visited the offices in Joliet, Ill., of Will County executive Larry Walsh, a longtime friend of Mr. Obama's, and his chief of staff Matt Ryan.

Mr. Walsh, who served in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2005, was endorsed by Mr. Obama in his county executive election bid. With the support of some of Mr. Obama's U.S. Senate volunteers, he easily defeated incumbent Republican Joseph Mikan...

Posted to Politics at 10:33 PM

Sarah Palin/Joe Biden vice presidential debate live coverage 10/2/08

Summary: Palin "won", in that she held her own, which was much better than the MSM and the "pundits" expected (and hoped). She didn't eviscerate Biden (even though she got in a subtle dig against Michelle Obama), but simply by being able to match him she hasn't doomed the McCain campaign and her folksy ways probably helped a good deal. She's also shown herself not to be the monster that the MSM has tried to portray her as.

Commencing now..

Biden implies that madrassas aren't schools. I'm sure he knows, but...

Palin had a "good conversation" with Henry Kissinger. Oh my. Was David Rockefeller there too?

TROUBLE IN POWER GLUTES PARADISE! Andrew Sullivan says:

Palin has very little substance but is killing him stylistically. And Biden sounds very liberal. He's throwing this debate away so far... Biden is just foundering... Biden is just dreadful...

Palin points out that she isn't a DC insider; points out that she withdrew state money from a fund that had invested in the Sudan...

CNN's "uncommitted" Ohio voters sure seem to like everything Biden says. In fact, they just redlined when Biden was speaking, and plummeted just as Palin was starting to speak. It picked up again, and it hasn't redlined during a later Biden speech. However, it's not like CNN is above doing things like I suspect they're doing with those "uncommitted" voters... Oddly enough, afterwards several of those "uncommitted voters indicated that the debate had helped them make up their minds. Nervous but gap-toothed Becky Mock was the only one who'd decided to vote for McCain. How incredibly odd that there'd be so many crypto-Obama supporters among CNN's pool of "uncommitted" voters!

Joe Biden spends a lot of time at Home Depot. Most days you can find him in the lumber department, just shootin' the breeze...

"Oh, Joe, there you go again!" Biden laughs at himself...

Palin's specialities will be energy and "working with special needs children", all under the watchful eye of John McCain...

Biden says Dick Cheney has been the most dangerous VP in history. He's probably right, but he said it like he expected a laugh from other DC insiders, only realizing that wasn't who he was speaking to DC insiders...

Inner thought: Is America ready to elect a vice president who talks like a Canadian?

The ticket of "Drastic Change to the Left" and "No Change in 35 Years"...

Biden's house is his total investment? Someone double-check...

Was Biden cracking up or cracking up? Someone get him a Ricola...

McCain voted against "My Heat" program for seniors to allow them to heat their homes? The only search for that brought up a program in England. Is Biden in the right country? [SEE UPDATE 4]

Sarah Palin says she's always been proud to be an American, and so has McCain (and, by implication, she's referring to Michelle Obama's statements and, well, pretty much everything BHO says...)

THE POWER GLUTES HAD A MOOD SWING:

10.23 pm. I'm changing my mind about this debate. Biden is now cleaning up... 10.29 pm. She's just whirring now... 10.30 pm. Biden's sobriety and authority and call for fundamental change is both reasonable and solid. It will resonate, I think...

P.S. Why is Campbell Brown's leg in the foreground on CNN's coverage? I'm sure it's not just eye candy or anything!

UPDATE: A commenter says this unconfirmed bit at meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/media_bias.php:

Media not covering Biden's Lebanon gaffe... First he said Hezbollah was kicked out of Lebanon... Biden's suggestion of moving Nato forces into Lebanon is not practical... Nato is seen as a puppet of the U.S in the middle east and that idea of moving nato into lebanon has long been rejected... Sounds like a good idea but the UN blue hats are the only thing the shia in Lebanon will agree to... This was discussed two years ago and Nato and Hezbollah were both against it.

UPDATE 2: Nine out of ten sockpuppets/BHO supporters posing as "reporters" agree: Biden won the debate (despite unmentioned gaffes). They agree that Palin held her own, but she didn't really answer any of the questions. Plus, she got the name of Gen. David D. McKiernan wrong; she said McClellan, presumably having a minor mix-up with the Civil War general. Oh, my. How will Ahmedinejad respect her now?

Kos says (dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/2/21471/4403/39/618299) "So who won? Who cares. Nothing happened to change the dynamics of this race." Sully, whose mood swings have temporarily stablized, says (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-bottom-line.html) "The campaign's trajectory remains unaltered."

Translated from Obamaian, those mean that Palin clearly won.

UPDATE 3: Reuters says:

Biden, who is known for his verbal miscues, managed to only have one major gaffe, apparently erroneously referring to Hezbollah instead of Syria when he talked about the United States and France coming to the aid of Lebanon... "When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said, and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know — if you don't, Hezbollah will control it,'" Biden said.

However, whether the issue in the first update is another gaffe remains open.

Biden might have also gotten his Constitution wrong.

And, straight outta the McCain campaign comes a list of 14 alleged Biden lies (link).

UPDATE 4: Biden was refering to the LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) program above, not "My Heat". There are a lot of pages taking him to task for voting against increased for that program and it took a while to find this McCain quote:

"Of course I favor increases in LIHEAP or whatever is necessary to help people meet literally incredible challenges this winter. I have always supported whatever is necessary to help those who can't care for themselves." But he said with spending "out of control," such programs should be paid for rather than add to the deficit.

UPDATE 5: There's more on the Lebanon bit here. FactCheck says they both got things wrong here. Fact-checking them is left as an exercise. And, there are eight more Biden "Errors/Lies/Hallucinations" other than those from the McCain campaign here. That points out that the Katie's Restaurant Biden mentioned in his "I'm one of you" speech shut down in the 80s, changing names and owners. Only recently was it reopened as Wings to Go at Katies. He might have meant to refer to a different restaurant, or maybe all the time he spends hanging out in the lumber department at Home Depot has warped his mind.

Posted to Politics at 06:35 PM

Bob Menendez, Teddy Kennedy still trying to hamper immigration enforcement (S.3594)

Senator Robert Menendez has introduced S.3594, the "Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act", co-sponsored by Teddy Kennedy (link). The PCRURDA appears to be as bad as you might expect; some of the differences between his bill and the current law are more in the realm of those who are immigration lawyers. However, some are clearly designed to tie the hands of ICE in order to make immigration enforcement very difficult, which is a recurring crusade by Bob Menendez.

In fact, one of his provisions could undercut enforcement efforts entirely:

In any immigration-related enforcement activity that is expected to target more than 50 individuals, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall... notify State and local child welfare authorities of such immigration-related enforcement activity not later than 24 hours before the commencement of such activity...

In one case, an illegal immigration supporter was proud about being tipped off to a raid by the spouse of a local official. Menendez is proposing what could become an early warning system for illegal aliens and crooked businesses.

He also wants illegal immigration supporting groups like CHIRLA to be involved in the process:

"State and local social service providers to [be allowed to] determine whether nongovernmental organizations may participate in screening individuals detained by the Department for humanitarian purposes"

In addition to being very immigration lawyer-friendly, there's also a sop to another profession:

ensure that not fewer than one independent certified interpreter who is fluent in Spanish or any language other than English spoken by more than 5 percent of the target population of the operation for in-person translation is available for every 5 individuals targeted by an immigration-related law enforcement activity

And, there will be a talk:

[The DHS should] provide a legal orientation presentation for any individual detained through an immigration-related enforcement activity through the Legal Orientation Program administered by the Executive Office for Immigration Review

More on the EOIR here.

He also wants to get the Department of Labor and state counterparts involved, including this wide open provision under which even more illegal aliens could be allowed to remain:

An alien against whom removal proceedings have been initiated pursuant to chapter 4 of title II, and who has filed a workplace claim or is a material witness in any pending or anticipated proceeding involving a workplace claim, shall be entitled to a stay of removal and an employment authorized endorsement unless the Department establishes, by a preponderance of the evidence in proceedings before the immigration judge presiding over that alien's removal hearing, that (I) the Department initiated the alien's removal proceeding for wholly independent reasons and not in any respect based on, or as a result of, any information provided to or obtained by the Department from the alien's employer, from any outside source, including any anonymous source, or as a result of the filing or prosecution of the workplace claim; and (II) the workplace claim was filed in a bad faith with the intent to delay or avoid the alien's removal.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there would be many "anticipated" claims made in entirely bad faith that would clog up the system and let many illegal aliens remain here.

But, wait, there's more. He also wants to:

- extend Miranda-like rights to those caught in immigration raids; note that they'd have to be read those rights in their own language and in some cases that might be an obscure Indian language. Any statements made if they aren't read their rights would be inadmissable in removal proceedings...
- have ICE agents hand out a list of free legal service organizations to detainees...
- allow detainees to be represented throughout the process...
- impose time limits that might result in some illegal aliens being released...
- "An official of the Department of Homeland Security may not issue a detainer unless the official (A) has confirmed that the individual who is the subject of such detainer is not a United States citizen; and (B) notes the information collected regarding the individual's alienage on the detainer." I'm going to guess that that would also result in many illegal aliens being set free...
- the DHS Secretary should "avoid the apprehension of persons on the premises or in the immediate vicinity of day care centers, schools, legal service providers, courts, funeral homes, cemeteries, colleges, victim services agencies, social service agencies, hospitals, health care clinics, and places of worship; and (B) [require agents to] tightly control investigative operations at the places described in subparagraph (A)."
- prevent moving detainees from one facility to another in some cases and weigh a long list of conditions before making a move...

Posted to Immigration2008a at 03:30 PM

Pew: enforcement, economy caused fewer illegal aliens to enter U.S. in 2007

From this:

Illegal immigration appears to have fallen last year, marking the first drop in years and coinciding with Congress' failure to pass a legalization bill and the Bush administration's stepped up raids and enforcement.

In a study released Thursday, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates the illegal immigrant population fell by 500,000 from 12.4 million in March 2007 to 11.9 million this year.

The study's authors caution that the finding is "inconclusive" because of the margin of error of the estimates, though the findings mirror those of the Center for Immigration Studies, which also estimated a drop in illegal immigration.

The Pew study says there could be many reasons for the drop: a slowdown in U.S. economic growth that has dried up opportunities for illegal workers, economic growth in Latin American countries that has kept some workers at home, and heightened enforcement in the U.S...

Ginger Thompson of the New York Times has a similar story here. Note that the NYT has acknowledged that attrition would work, they've just falsely tried to claim that it would be inhumane.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 02:52 PM

Pro-life, pro-Obama: Douglas Kmiec says abortion foes should vote for Barack Obama

Douglas Kmiec offers a warm welcome to his effort "Pro-life, Pro-Obama":

"As Ronald Reagan's legal counsel and as a dean and professor at Catholic University and Notre Dame, I have worked to put the law on the side of life where it belongs.

I believe we are all called to build a culture of life - but there's more to it than just hoping that the next Supreme Court justice somehow deals with Roe v. Wade. A bad economy is threatening to human life. Women facing the moral tragedy of abortion - are facing it, now, today - and they need a supportive community and tangible help, not condemnation.

But after 35 years, a new approach is needed. Senator Barack Obama's strengthening of support for prenatal care, health care, maternity leave, and adoption will make help drastically reduce the numbers of abortions. Studies confirm it..."

You can visit Kmeck's site by clicking the following image:

Posted to Politics at 12:09 PM

ICE: Houston, Phoenix blocking immigration enforcement against gangs

From this:

[Julie L. Myers, the assistant secretary of homeland security in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE] on Wednesday released a report that showed Houston has fallen short in a nationwide crackdown on violent, predominantly Latino street gangs that draw strength from undocumented immigrants.

Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, accounted for just 71 of the 1,759 arrests in the roundup in 53 cities over the past four months...

Myers said the reluctance of police departments in cities such as Houston and Phoenix to fully cooperate had forced federal immigration authorities to negotiate narrow, targeted enforcement efforts.

[Myers said] "We have had certain instances where the cooperation has not been as full as we'd like... It's definitely a problem for us if local law enforcement are encouraged not to cooperate with ICE or not to work with ICE even when we're talking about known gang members who may have committed very, very serious crimes..."

Somewhat surprisingly, someone from ICE's Houston office defends that city's efforts. Myers was also unable or unwilling to discuss specific instances of those cities blocking enforcement.

However, considering that the mayor of Phoenix is a corrupt illegal immigration supporter (Phil Gordon), I'm sure they've put up as many roadblocks as they can get away with. Also see "'Sanctuary' practice in Houston draws fire" from 2004.

Posted to Immigration2008a at 11:17 AM

Colorado Democracy Alliance/Jared Polis to "educate the idiots"

The Colorado Democracy Alliance is a relatively new organization that apparently has a plan to - in their words - "educate the idiots" to encourage them to vote for the Democratic Party. That's according to an internal memo obtained by FaceTheState.com; it's not available at present due to a link from Drudge but a copy is here. This description of those involved in the CDA includes Jared Polis, a Democratic politician who received an award from the Mexican government presumably due to his in effect helping them profit from illegal immigration. It also includes an organization (ProgressNow) involved in the incident where a librarian was supposedly ejected from a McCain event:

An invitation list to the 2006 CoDA election night party (PDF), held in a swanky suite at downtown Denver's new Hyatt reads as a who's who of powerful western liberals. Members of the "Gang of Four," core financiers of Colorado's liberal infrastructure (Tim Gill, Rutt Bridges, Jared Polis and Pat Stryker) are listed as "members and donors" alongside Mitch Ackerman of the Service Employees International Union, Jenifer Brandeberry of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, Boulder "activist-philanthropist" Linda Shoemaker and Rob Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts.

CoDA "strategy group" members (PDF) include liberal activists Bobby Clark and Michael Huttner of ProgressNow, Chantell Taylor of Colorado Ethics Watch, and Jason Bane, a former SEIU PR man, blogger and Jeffco commissioner candidate. John Stocks of the National Education Association, Carrie Doyle of Colorado Conservation Voters and Democrat go-to attorney Mark Grueskin are also on the exclusive invite list. Click here (PDF) for the full roster. When interviewed by Face The State for a recent story about political litigation, both Grueskin and Taylor played down the role of their legal complaints as a campaign tool...

Links to the PDFs are at the previous link.

Posted to Politics at 03:02 PM

Open Letter: How to Defeat Barack Obama

Open Letter to:
Glenn Reynolds/instapundit.com
Charles Johnson/littlegreenfootballs.com
Patrick Frey/patterico.com
Ace/ace.mu.nu
Tom Maguire/justoneminute.typepad.com
Jeff Goldstein/proteinwisdom.com
Dan Riehl/riehlworldview.com
Rob Port/sayanythingblog.com

Unless we do something now, the mainstream media is going to throw the election to Barack Obama. I need your help to promote a very effective plan that will show that Obama isn't qualified. The plan will also help reveal media bias and show that the media has not done its job.

Under the plan, regular people will go to Obama's public appearances, ask him tough questions about his policies and his lies to his face, get his response on video and then upload his response to Youtube and other video sharing sites.

A good question that gets a "good" response will show hundreds of thousands or even millions of people that Obama is not qualified to be president. A very favorable response would probably be linked to by Drudge and featured on TV and would have a devastating impact on his chances.

Please bear in mind that Obama has rarely been pressed on his policies and his lies, and on the few occasions when he was pressed on something he didn't respond too very well. If someone asks him a really tough question, there's no telling how he'll respond.

Note that I'm only talking about honorable questions about his lies, his misleading and incomplete statements, his documented associations with radicals, and the incredibly obvious flaws in his policies. I'm not talking about smear or personal questions. And, I only want the questions to be asked in a polite but forceful manner, and only at designated Q&A sessions or whenever else it's appropriate.

Based on almost two years' experience trying to push this plan without luck, I know it's going to be difficult to get people to ask real questions. I've posted dozens of posts urging people to ask questions, I've posted dozens of comments on this topic at other sites, I've come up with several tough questions, and I've even offered money to anyone who'd ask one of those questions. No one took me up on the offer.

Some might argue, in good faith or not, that Obama doesn't take questions. In fact he has and there will probably be many opportunities during this month. Some won't think that the plan would be effective. We'll never know until it happens, but I have yet to see Obama really pressed on something, and it's possible to come up with questions that will make him look bad and that leave little room for him to deliver a stock speech. And, some people might even be worried about being tased or beaten up by his supporters. There's only a very minor possibility of that happening, provided that people ask legitimate questions in a legitimate fashion. But, if it does happen, it would be news in itself and would make the Obama campaign or its supporters look almost as bad as asking a real question would.

I am absolutely positive that this plan will work if the questions are good enough, and I ask you to come up with very tough questions in your fields of expertise and then urge your visitors to go ask them.

It is vitally important that the questions are succinct, are easy to understand for those who aren't familiar with the topic, that they try to solicit information not already discussed, and that they're designed to anticipate the answer that Obama would provide.

Too many questions - such as those submitted to the CNN/Youtube debate - are general in nature and act as little more than an opportunity for a candidate to replay a stock speech. The questions must go beyond that and must be designed in recognition of positions already taken and statements already made. The questions must ask about specific failings, lies, or misleading or incomplete statements. And, they must give Obama a choice between either directly answering the question or clearly avoiding answering the question. And, of course, to avoid any doubt about the validity of the questions they must be fully sourced.

The topic that I mainly cover is immigration, and a few questions I have for Obama are here. Another is here, and this question applies to Obama as well. Countless other questions can be fashioned by searching through the coverage of Obama at my site.

I am willing to help edit questions for maximum effectiveness or help in any other way with this effort.

If we don't do something now, Obama is going to be president in the new year. I think avoiding that is worth a few hours spent waiting to ask a question.

Please develop very tough questions for Obama and then urge your visitors to go ask them.

UPDATE: I posted this to FreeRepublic (link) and all I got were nine off-topic and/or worthless replies. Meanwhile, a few hours after I posted this entry Instapundit posted this suggestion about what to do about media bias. It basically boils down to supporting Pajamas Media and constructing a mirror image of the MSM rather than an unbiased system. More importantly for those worried about Rome burning, nothing in there is going to prevent BHO from becoming president.

UPDATE 2: I slightly changed the wording above to make it clear that I'm refering to asking Obama questions to his face at his public appearances. Specifically, I'm not refering to submitting video or text questions to the campaign in the hope that they'll respond, since they'd never respond to tough questions. Only by going to his appearances and surprising him with a tough question can we get a good response.

I've also so far received zero response from any of those mentioned above, although I did receive a favorable response from someone else. However, unless this catches on in short order I'll be forced to try Plan B: replacing "Obama" with "McCain" above and posting this to leftwing sites. Since those on the left are more activist and have actually done things like this before (albeit in their own special way), perhaps they can show those who don't want Obama to be president how to do things.

UPDATE 3: Insty posts a link to this suggestion from Ed Wheaton that reporters should ask Obama real questions about Bill Ayers. The problem, of course, is that reporters will never ask Obama tough questions, putting both of them in the position of advocating something that will never happen.

UPDATE 4 10/6/08: I sent an email to some people at The Corner and, while they haven't embraced my idea Peter Kirsanow does have some questions for Tuesday's townhall "debate" here.

UPDATE 5 10/14/08: Finally a little movement on this proposal comes from this post.

Posted to Politics at 01:32 PM

Barack Obama: millions in very questionable campaign contributions

[See the update about gift cards.] The Barack Obama campaign has raised millions of dollars in very questionable contributions. The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) won't say whether they're conducting an investigation, but they have asked the BHO campaign to explain or to return some of it.

That includes over $17,000 given in $25 increments by someone named "Good Will" and listing his employer as "Loving" and his occupation as "You". Someone using similar obviously false information donated even more, claiming to be from a different city.

It also includes millions of dollars from overseas. While past campaigns have placed stringent safeguards to ensure that all of that money was coming from U.S. citizens, the BHO campaign hasn't done the same:

The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less [note: more than half of the total]. Only $39.6 million of that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has identified...

...The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as “UK,” the United Kingdom...

...[about $200,000 might be legit, but other foreign contributions] came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France.

Until recently, the Obama Web site allowed a contributor to select the country where he resided from the entire membership of the United Nations, including such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran...

Much more at the link.

Something that would be interesting to know is whether you can donate to the BHO campaign using a Visa/MC/Amex gift card. Those have legitimate credit card numbers, but some don't require any personal information and all can be bought with cash.

10/6/08 UPDATE: I called the BHO campaign's donations line and a supervisor confirmed that they accept both debit cards and gift cards. The latter would allow large amounts of cash to be laundered to the BHO campaign, since some cards have maximum amounts of $500 or $1000. The supervisor was also aware that gift cards don't necessarily have indentifying information for the bearer attached to them, so she helpfully told me to enter my name in their donation form.

Hopefully someone can look into how much the BHO campaign has taken in from mostly untraceable sources like that.

10/19/08 UPDATE: 37,000 Obama donations possibly from foreign currency; federal law violations?

Posted to Politics at 11:07 AM

VP debate moderator Gwen Ifill: in the tank for Barack Obama? (didn't tell CPB, plays race card)

Unbeknownst to the McCain campaign (link), Gwen Ifill of PBS - host of Thursday's vice presidential debate - has a book due to be released Inauguration Day (link):

Gwen Ifill of the Public Broadcasting Service program "Washington Week" is promoting "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," in which she argues the "black political structure" of the civil rights movement is giving way to men and women who have benefited from the struggles over racial equality...

..."Her attitude was dismissive and the look on her face was one of disgust [after Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the RNC convention]," [PBS viewer Brian Meyers] said. "Clearly, she was agitated by what most critics view as a well-delivered speech. It is quite obvious that Ms. Ifill supports Obama as she struggled to say anything redemptive about Gov. Palin's performance."

Related:
PBS "Engage" deletes comment critical of Gwen Ifill (they later put it back after I complained
PBS NewsHour's Soviet-style immigration coverage
PBS NewsHour: pro-illegal immigration, pro-amnesty bias

UPDATE: According to the AP (link), Ifill says she didn't tell the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPB) she was writing the book. Not only that, but - after noting a few sources that had mentioned the book - she plays the race card:

Ifill questions why people assume that her book will be favorable toward Obama... "Do you think they made the same assumptions about Lou Cannon (who is white) when he wrote his book about Reagan?" said Ifill, who is black. Asked if there were racial motives at play, she said, "I don't know what it is. I find it curious."

Now, that's sleazy.

See also newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2008/10/01/gwen-ifill-pro-obama-anti-palin for examples of her bias from 2004.

Posted to Politics at 10:45 AM

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All Posts(links to each post by title)

• "Obama Friend Khalidi Praised Palestinian Terrorist Behind Munich Olympics Attack"
• Obama's illegal alien, impoverished aunt redistributed her "wealth" to Obama's campaign via illegal donations
• Barack Obama's impoverished, Boston-living aunt is an illegal alien (ICE halts all depotations!?)
• Obama's October surprise-ish: State of Hawaii says his birth certificate is genuine (but...)
• Charles Ogletree - advisor and part of Barack Obama's "inner circle" - supports massive reparations; "interesting" comments
• Elderly McCain supporter allegedly attacked by Obama supporter
• Does the Obama/Khalidi video include a dance troupe performing "beheadings"?
• Loretta Waldman: "Lenin's Obama's Letter Was Answer To A Little Boy's Request"
• 1995 Obama praises Rev. Wright: "the best of what the Black Church has to offer"
• How to get the Khalidi tape (or at least make Obama look bad)
• Barack Obama's DailyKos diary on the judiciary, Supreme Court, etc.
• Barack Obama's Pay to Play Chicago Way: got donations after state funded grant
• Barack Obama jokes about white people being too racist to vote for him (Jon Stewart)
• Obama campaign intentionally disabled address verification on donations (AVS)
• Enemy of the State: checks on Joe the Plumber more extensive than thought
• President Dr. Phil: Barack Obama's infomercial belongs on Hallmark Channel
• 2004 Michelle Obama on presidential run: "It's way too soon, he hasn't done anything yet"
• The Non-Partisan Case Against Barack Obama
• Los Angeles Times: McCain camp accuses us of suppressing Obama/Khalidi tape
• Don't donate to Goodwill Industries (Palin smear)

My trip to Alpine County What not to do, again (September 1-2, 2002)

Boston Market Cornbread Temperatures Please help contribute to this important study (August 28, 2002)

Did The Gap Put Celebrities at Risk? An Open Web Letter to The Gap (May 20, 2002)

Humphreys Peak Arizona's highest point (May 19, 2001)

Go Heavy, Go Slow, Get Lost Bay Area highpoints (December 14, 2000)

Hubris in New England The highpoints of RI, CT, and MA (October 8, 2000)

Let's go to Utah Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon (August 14, 2000)

Your host, climbing Monkey Face (5.14d)

Your host's arm (circled)

Your host's hopelessly outdated conditioning progress

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