Politics Archives
This is a very large file. For the full smaller digest version, click here.My new favorite actress is Heather Zichal (Aaron Sorkin's 'ChangeDotGov')
Move over, Janeane Garofalo!
My new favorite actress is Heather Zichal, who plays herself on Aaron Sorkin's new TV series 'ChangeDotGov'. He innovated at the West Wing, although I find that watching re-runs is a bit painful due to the ever-present earth tones. Anyway, Sorkin is innovating again by also uploading segments of the show to Youtube. You can see Zichal in the clip to the right, where she plays herself playing a former John Kerry staffer (link) who was candidate Barack Obama's Policy Director for Energy, Environment and Agriculture (Season One) and who's now on his transition team in the new season. Not only that, but this segment was written by Lawrence O'Donnell!
EMBARRASSING UPDATE: I was just IM'ed by Perez Hilton, and he informed me that Zichal isn't an actress, but a real person! In fact, all of this is real, and Barack Obama is the real name of our new president. I have to apologize, since I don't follow politics too closely. I was able to confirm this with Harvey Levin, and he also mentioned something about "Soviet-style propaganda designed to fool the masses into the belief that the government is listening to them" and then, after a bit, he said something about "putting on a show for the sheeple" or something like that but I didn't really follow what he was getting at.
Obama/Center for American Progress link gets mainstream media attention!
I've been discussing the Center for American Progress - a Soros-funded supposed "progressive", supposed "think tank" - for a few years. I've mainly concentrated on the fact that they're the "think tank that can't think straight", an outfit that just can't figure things out. I've also discussed their extraordinarily bad blog "ThinkProgress", which consistently engages in smears and logical fallacies. And, just last month, I included them as #16 on my list of reasons to oppose Obama.
Now, the Obama/CAP link has gotten some mainstream media attention, with Edwin Chen of Bloomberg offering "Soros-Funded Democratic Idea Factory Becomes Obama Policy Font" (link) and Daniel Libit of Politico offering "Podesta nonprofit to take center stage" (link). Unfortunately, aside perhaps from the Soros mention, both are simply puff pieces in the "valiant liberals doing cool things" mode. Now, see the links above and do a search here for all the things both sources didn't mention.
Zogby poll shows how misinformed Obama's supporters are (and is yet another example of Obama's opponents making mistakes)
John Ziegler - a former KFI talk jock who was pushed out after a dispute with John & Ken - has a video documentary including interviews with Barack Obama supporters showing how ignorant and/or misinformed they are.
His site (link) also includes a Zogby poll he commissioned that tries to show the same thing. Unfortunately, some of the questions that are supposedly true either aren't true or are disputed.
So, it's a two-fer. The poll shows not only how misinformed many Obama supporters are, but also provides yet another example of Obama's opponents making mistakes. See #18 at that list for a point directly relating to this poll.
Note that Obama's supporters will jump all over the mistakes the poll makes in order to blunt its impact. In fact, I'm going to provide a blank update section in expectation of them doing exactly that.
The poll was conducted after the election, with "97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates". Some of the questions are about Sarah Palin and show that people have bought the MSM/SNL caricature of Palin. And, very few people were actually doing effective things to fight that caricature; see the "mistakes" link above. Let's take a look at some of the Obama questions, like:
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
The veracity of this question is disputed; I haven't looked into who's telling the truth, but see mediamatters.org/items/200806020007.
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
The first part of that is wrong, the second is mostly right (the exact quote was "electricity rates", not "energy rates").
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
That question is not entirely correct: Ayers' home was only one of the places, not the exact place. In fact, Obama's surrogates spent a lot of time pointing out that the official location where he started his career was a hotel conference room; see the Lynn Sweet article. In discussing that, I said:
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.
Obviously, that same inability to figure out the correct way to do things continues with the Ziegler documentary.
Are there any Obama opponents who have both a megaphone and the ability to figure things out?
UPDATE: [space reserved for Obama's supporters using mistakes in the above questions to blunt the impact of the poll.]
UPDATE 2: Zig made yet another mistake, at least on the video. Sarah Palin said you can see Russia from Alaska. In her SNL take-off, Tina Fey changed that to seeing Russia from her "house", and that's how it is in the Zogby poll excerpt provided at the link above. However, on the video he uses the word "home", which is a more general term than "house": Alaska is Palin's "home", and some on the video might have taken it in that sense.
And, in response to the first comment, by "Obama's supporters" I'm refering to the MSM and leftwing bloggers, not necessarily all his supporters.
Eliot Spitzer returns; so, was he set up to hush him up about the financial crisis?
Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer makes his triumphant return into the spotlight with the Washington Post editorial "How to Ground The Street/The Former 'Enforcer' On the Best Way to Keep Financial Markets in Check" (link). I am, needless to say, in a forest of conflicted emotions:
* Should I concentrate on making fun of his scandal, especially since his former "temporary employee" is apparently going to try for a 16th minute at fame through doing one thing or another?
* Should I discuss the red flag that his use of the phrase "global financial system" raises for me vis-a-vis, "is he a globalist tool?"
* Should I point out that maybe Bush's idea of a "free market" is not necessarily an indictment of actually free markets but is actually an indictment of Bush-style crooked markets?
* Should I point out (unlike McCain) the role that the Democrats played in bringing us the financial crisis?
* Should I try to discuss whether Spitz's support for very strong regulation is a good idea or not?
* Should I point out that Spitzer supported illegal activity in order to get votes perhaps even including those cast by illegal aliens?
* Should I point out that the conspiracy theory surrounding his downfall - from March - looks more like a possibility? (Something that's slightly increased due to the hack Instapundit [pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/027263.php] linking to Steven Bainbridge [stephenbainbridge.com/index.php/punditry/spitzers_chutzpah] with the latter discussing the WaPo editorial and mostly just engaging in ad hominem attacks).
Who's right about the market and what to do now is definitely far more important, but - fan of conspiracies that I am - I'd really like to know the answer to the latter. And, as a bonus, that might also help discredit some of those who helped put us into our current situation.
Jesse Washington/AP's supposed "outbreak of racial anger" after Obama win
Jesse Washington of the Associate Press provides another example of Obama supporters continuing to play the race card after the election and by so doing shows that Obama's method of winning hasn't actually done much about race relations. The article is an example of the MSM and friends basically just keeping one race in line as was done in the past with another race (link).
Crosses burning. Children chanting, "Assassinate Obama." Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Yes, there definitely has been an outbreak of isolated incidents involving those who have no real power. Washington can only find one physical attack, but there's definitely been a distinct trend of a very small number of completely isolated incidents. Like this incident he mentions:
Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free expression.
According to this, what they wrote could be "borderline threats". But, don't worry. From the same link: The university painted over all the tunnel's messages Wednesday because officials felt the disparaging comments were "going over the edge of what was acceptable," [a university police officer] said.
We're also informed that there was a "glow of racial progress and harmony that bloomed after the election of Democrat Barack Obama". Oddly, I don't recall much of a glow after his surrogates - now including Washington - constantly tried to portray Obama's opponents as racists. In fact, I don't think anyone who doesn't work for or serve as a surrogate for Obama (including the MSM) could locate such a glow. In other words, Washington just invented it.
From California to Maine, police have documented a range of incidents, including vandalism, threats and at least one physical attack. There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.
Washington later points out that Potok is white, which isn't really material. What is material is that Potok and friends are far-left grievance mongers who in effect make their money from hate: without "hate" - whether real, mischaracterized, or just hyped - the SPLC wouldn't be in business. Potok also isn't honest when it comes to statistics.
UPDATE: A trend has been spotted! This time, it's of left-wing hack reporters continuing to play the race card after the election. The second instance of the trend is "After Obama's win, white backlash festers in US" by Patrik Jonsson of The Christian Science Monitor (link). It's basically the same article as Washington's, right down to relying on Potok of the SPLC.
Discuss president-elect Barack Obama's radio/Youtube address (November 15, 2008)
Our beloved president-elect Barack Obama is offering his new weekly speech not just as a radio address but also as an online video: youtube.com/watch?v=Zd8f9Zqap6U (also available at AOL, MSN, and Yahoo). On Youtube at least, almost every form of interaction is disabled: no ratings, comments, or video replies are allowed. The only sign of the outside world are the "sites linking to this video", which includes change.gov, the HuffPost, the NYT, Politico, and USA Today. In order to get on that list, you'd have to send several hundred clicks to the video.However, if you'd like to leave your thoughts on his video, someone has uploaded a copy here with comments enabled in order "to allow open discussion among the YouTube community." That's the video to the right.
Oddly enough, there don't appear to be any non-joke answer videos, not even from rightwing news sources or organizations. Of course, that might be because, as the script shows, he continues not really saying anything:
change.gov/newsroom/entry/your_weekly_address_from_the_president_elect/
Alan Keyes petitions court over Barack Obama's eligibility; guess: he has standing
Gadabout Alan Keyes - last seen running for president under the banner of the American Independent Party - has filed a court petition in California trying to block the CA Secretary of State (Democrat Debra Bowen) from certifying that state's results for Barack Obama. Details here.
The previous attempt by Philip Berg ran aground when the judge in that case ruled that he didn't have standing. As a former candidate - someone who was directly harmed by Obama being on the ballot - Keyes may turn out to have standing as long as they can get enough money to pursue this as far as necessary. We may yet see a real copy of Obama's birth certificate, not just a graphic at a friendly site. Note that, despite what the MSM wants to tell you, BHO has not proven where he was born or if he's a citizen.
Sham: Obama to hold "fireside chats" on Youtube
Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post breathlessly informs us of this:Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video -- a first. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama's transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning.In addition to youtube.com/BarackObama, he now has youtube.com/user/ChangeDotGov, with the latter having three videos all of which don't allow replies.
"This is just one of many ways that he will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told us last night.
In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews...
...Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube [said] "Obama told us in a YouTube interview last year that he plans to have 'fireside chats' on video, and we expect his administration will launch a White House YouTube channel very soon after taking office."
During the campaign comments and video replies on his videos were moderated and only those favorable were allowed. The best thing for him to do would be to either allow or disallow all comments, but given his past history he might continue to only allow those comments favorable to him. In the latter case, expect his glassy-eyed supporters to vote down unfavorable comments, meaning that people would have to click a link to see them.
And, if BHO conducts "online Q&As and video interviews", you can be assured they'll be setups. The interviews might be with an inept host who'll only ask puffballs, like Grove. Or, the questions will be screened so only those he can easily answer will be allowed.
Don't expect many of his followers to be able to figure any of that out, and those who'll be able to figure it out won't mention it.
Barack Obama misled about regular attendance at Rev. Wright's church
[SEE THE CORRECTION]
During the election, Barack Obama downplayed his attendance record at Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, but a March 27, 2004 interview (link) he conducted with Cathleen Falsani - the Religion Columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times - contradicts those claims.
Falsani asked Obama whether he's still attending TUCC, and he replies:
Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service... Ever been there? Good service... I actually wrote a book called Dreams from My Father, it's kind of a meditation on race. There's a whole chapter on the church in that, and my first visits to Trinity.
As detailed here, he told a different story in 2008. In an interview that aired on March 17, 2008, he said:
"You know, I won't say that I was a perfect attendee. I was regular in spurts, because there was times when, for example, our child had just been born, our first child. And so we didn't go as regularly then."
A July 2008 Newsweek article says:
After he began his run for the U.S. Senate, he says, the family sometimes didn't go to Trinity for months at a time. The girls have not attended Sunday school.
The 2004 interview was conducted after he'd won the Senate race.
CORRECTION: I changed the title and some content of this post; it had orginally been titled "Cathleen Falsani/Chicago Sun-Times waited until after election to release contradictory Obama interview" and that turns out to be false. The "Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service" bit was actually on her site since April 2008 (link) and that's verified by an August post where that quote is bolded. No one else on that thread seems to have picked up on it, and note also that some things posted to FR's 'news' section are shuttled off to the 'bloggers' section by moderators. Then, on October 15 it was posted here. The problem wasn't that Falsani or Steven Waldman of BeliefNet where sandbagging the interview, it was that the McCain campaign was too incompetent to find and/or push contradictions like this.
Westwood CA Mormon Temple gets white powder envelope (Prop. 8, gay marriage)
On top of all the counter-productive things they've already done, now opponents of California's Proposition 8 - the anti-gay marriage initiative - have sent an envelope containing white powder - most likely harmless - to the very large Mormon Temple on Santa Monica Blvd. in Westwood, CA. The Salt Lake City Mormon Temple received a similar missive.
Defeating Obama was easy, it's just that no one wanted to do it
Barack Obama could have been easily defeated. The problem was that many people concentrated on ineffective means to oppose him and no leaders pushed effective plans. There were many effective ways he could have been defeated, but the most effective would have been for people to go to his public appearances, ask him tough questions on video, and then upload his response to video sharing sites.
Obama was rarely asked anything remotely approaching a really tough question, and he was never asked a "prosecutorial-style" question that would have called him on his lies or the hugely obvious flaws in his policies.
If that had happened, the graphic above would have been the result. Imagine that the most viewed videos for the month of October at Youtube had been those. Would Obama still have been elected? I think even the most devoted Obama fan would be forced to admit that he would have lost in a landslide.
It was actually fairly easy to have created such videos, if enough major sites had promoted the idea. However, instead of pushing a plan I posted on October 1, those sites engaged in various ineffective, time-wasting ideas. And, some go even further, trying to dissuade people from holding politicians accountable, such as the so-called "libertarian" (and so-called "reporter") Dave Weigel (reason.com/blog/show/130075.html).
There are certainly valid reasons why many people wouldn't want to be the ones to ask a politician a tough question: they don't want to get as famous as Joe the Plumber, or go through the hassle he was put through initially, or the like. However, there aren't too many good reasons why leaders wouldn't want to promote this plan.
Some of them might not be interested in pushing the plan due to business reasons: they're trying to launch a supposed alternative to the MSM and they don't want to rock the boat or face access restrictions so instead they concentrate on milquetoast talking heads shows featuring low-grade pundits.
Others might be partisan hacks who realize just how dangerous this idea is: asking tough questions of the other side would result in tough questions being asked of their side. In a way, that's a form of MAD: Democratic partisan hacks implicitly agree not to ask the Republicans tough questions, and vice versa.
And, due to an MSM diet, some might not understand what a tough question is. For an example of asking a tough question that revealed a flaw in someone's policies, see this. I asked a largely unknown promoter of guest worker programs about one of the side effects of that program, and her answer showed that she hadn't thought through the impacts of those policies. If I had asked that of Obama and had gotten it on tape, the result would be like the ones pictured above, especially after I'd asked why we should support his policies when he clearly hadn't thought them through.
Waiting for the mainstream media to ask politicians tough questions is an entirely losing strategy. On the other hand, if regular citizens got in the habit of calling politicians on their lies and the flaws in their policies on video, that would have an extremely healthy impact the entire U.S. system. Politicians would no longer feel free to lie or promote obviously flawed policies.
So, even after the election, grab a video camera, think up really good questions, and get out there and ask them.
UPDATE: No, Obama was never asked a tough question and he was never called on his long series of lies to his face. See the bit above about some people being unable to recognize a tough question.
Barack Obama faked Selective Service registration?
Barack Obama might have faked his Selective Service registration; see this. Schlussel has a copy of the form that Obama supposedly filled out as well as a print-out associated with the form. And, things don't add up. I'll let you wade through the details, but there actually appears to be something there.
Brooks Jackson/FactCheck spins Obama's Civilian National Security Force
One of the mistakes that Obama opponents kept engaging in during the election was to make exaggerated or not 100% legalistically formulated claims (e.g., "palling around"). The MSM then jumped on the exaggerated part of those statements in order to draw attention away from the parts that were true.
And, Brooks Jackson of FactCheck uses that technique in his discussion of Rep. Paul Broun's remarks about Obama's "civilian national security force": factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_obama_planning_a_gestapo-like_civilian_national.html
Jackson quotes the Obama speech as I did here, and ends with:
Does that sound like a force that could kick down your door in the middle of the night and haul you off to a Gulag or concentration camp? You decide.
Now, to show that Brooks Jackson is little more than an Obama-supporting hack and "Fact Check" can't be trusted, here are some questions that Jackson doesn't even ask:
1. Where is the statement from the BHO campaign describing specifically what's in the CNSF, whether the CNSF is a coherent organization or just an umbrella term? A spokesman saying it's a "civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts" isn't enough. We need a detailed plan.
2. Obama said the CNSF would be "just as well-funded" as the U.S. military, which gets around a half a trillion dollars per year. Doesn't Obama's statement go well beyond "expansive... and exaggerated" as Jackson says?
3. What happens when Obama's CNSF returns home? Are there circumstances under which they could be activated here? Are there circumstances under which they could be used to push Obama's political aims? For instance, to engage in the strong-arm tactics that he's encouraged his supporters to use?
Those questions and more are left unanswered by Jackson, who instead simply serves as a reflexive defender of Barack Obama rather than a fact checker.
Was Ron Paul cheated out of delegates by McCain-supporting GOP officials?
I have absolutely no idea, due to the general incoherence and insular nature of Ron Paul supporters, but this says:Here is a video where the newly elected Chairman of the St. Charles Missouri Republican Central Committee, Tom Kuypers, claims credit for preventing properly elected delegates from being seated. It was recorded a couple of weeks before the November election...
...No delegates from St. Charles county were seated at the 2nd Congressional Convention.
By not seating these delegates, they prevented people who supported Ron Paul in the primaries from having a majority at the convention and electing their slate of delegates to the national convention...
In the tank: Google Maps front pages "Obama's Journey"
Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt is a member of Barack Obama's Economic Transition Team (link), so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the increasingly-political company he heads has given the president-elect (and Joe Biden) a special treat that they've probably already gawked over. In Obama's case, he might even have had a private chuckle over it too.
If you go to maps.google.com near post time, you'll see the image below. The front page includes two links to animated maps: "Barack Obama's Journey" and "Joe Biden's Journey". While the latter is probably accurate, the former might not be. For instance, we don't really (as in, really, as in fact-based not wishful thinking) know that BHO was in fact born in Hawaii. Mainly because he won't release his records. And, while he was probably in New York City for a couple years, even the NYT admitted that he wasn't telling the whole truth about his time spent there. There's no absolute proof that he graduated from Columbia, despite what Google Maps says.
Gebe Martinez/Politico misleads about role of "Hispanic vote" in Obama win
Ethno-boosting hack Gebe Martinez of the Politico offers "GOP must tone down rhetoric to woo Latinos" (link):
More than 10 million Hispanics voted last week, up from 7.6 million in 2004. If Hispanics were removed from the tallies, McCain would have had the winning edge in the battleground states of Indiana and New Mexico. Latinos also were a major factor in his losses in the former red states of Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and Florida. President-elect Barack Obama’s Latino support in Florida was 57 percent; in 2004, Bush’s was 56 percent.
And, if Martians voted, Bobarr would have won. Meanwhile, back here on Earth, see this:
According to the usual suspects, the benchmark in garnering Hispanic votes for Republicans is Bush's 40 percent showing in 2004. So what would have happened if McCain had matched Bush's performance, instead of the 31 percent he actually got? Based on CNN's exit polls, McCain still would have lost Nevada, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, not to mention, say, California and New Jersey. Conversely, even if Obama had won 90 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas, instead of 63 percent, he still would have lost the state. With the possible exception of North Carolina, where the results were close but the number of Hispanic voters is too small to register in the exit poll, there doesn't seem to be a single state where the Hispanic vote was critical to the outcome.
Take the Chicago Barack Obama Challenge! (list of all of Obama's mainstream associates)
Barack Obama supporters, I'm throwing the floor open to you. Will you dare take the Chicago Barack Obama Challenge?In comments, please list all the past associates of BHO who are completely mainstream. Just people, not organizations. And, "past" means those prior to, say, 2004 and doesn't include, say, his current associates, those who simply endorsed him at any time, and the like. "Associates" means those with whom Obama has voluntarily worked, funneled money to, received money from, and the like. It does not include those with whom Obama was forced to have some relationship with, such as Republicans serving on some committee to which Obama belonged. For example of what we're looking for, someone who was as close as Ayers was to Obama, but completely mainstream.
Note, of course, that convicted felon bagmen, those with alleged links to crime figures, unrepentant terrorists, radicals, etc. etc. are not "mainstream".
I will then transfer those lists of BHO's past mainstream affiliates into this post, right here:
Portland pre-teens want to name school after Barack Obama
One of the highly effective but largely ignored ways that Obama could have been opposed before the election would be to point out his cult-like followers as well as his plan to get pre-teens to join his movement. Now, ripping a page from a 2005 Berkeley story, comes this less-than-detailed report about doings at a K-8 school in
Portland:
A couple of people have e-mailed the school, suggesting it be named after the new American leader and Willamette Week was even reporting that students at the school were heard chanting Obama's name one day, and filling out forms to get his name of the voting list.
Obama cabinet might include Democrat titans: Gore, Napolitano, Vilsack, Howard Dean, Caroline Kennedy...
The Barack Obama cabinet might include such Democratic Party titans as Al Gore, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, Caroline Kennedy, Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, John Kerry, and many more truly titanic names. This link has a "transition flowchart", a PDF showing some potential picks and all of them are truly great figures who will help the Repu... er, I mean the Democrats. While this could all be a jolly joke, who knows since the head of the transition team is John Podesta and his think tank the Center for American Progress is as much a joke as the Harding Institute.
A possible "Climate Czar" is Al Gore, someone who might take Obama's outreach to pre-teens and make my April, 2008 satire about a "Green Pioneers" program a reality.
Podesta himself might head up an "Energy Security Council".
For Agriculture, Tom Vilsack is one of four possibilities.
Health and Human Services: Howard Dean or Tom Daschle.
Billionairess Penny Pritzker might be at Commerce; the tip of the iceberg on her is here.
For the Department of Homeland Security, the possiblities are:
* Tim Roemer (affiliated with George Mason University, a nexus of "cosmotarianism" and support for illegal activity),
* Raymond Kelly and Bill Bratton, chiefs of police of NYC and L.A. respectively,
* James Lee Witt (Clinton-era head of FEMA)
* Richard Clarke
For the State Department, all of them are some variation of bad jokes: John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Richard Holbrooke, Sam Nunn, and Colin Powell. The latter is listed under two additional possibilities.
At HUD, one possibility is BHO fixer Valerie Jarrett.
At Interior, Bill Richardson is one of five.
As the Department of Justice, Janet Napolitano, Rep. Artur Davis, and Eric Holder are listed. Someone from the latter's law firm visited this site after I posted about the viral video attempt at that link.
Also, from the link:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Caroline Kennedy could be the ambassador to the United Nations. Kennedy Jr. might be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Caroline Kennedy could be the ambassador to the United Nations. It's just an unofficial guide but a fun one to follow.
Yes, just watch out for that iceberg.
Obama spins Civilian National Security Force as for Iraq rebuilding
Back in July, Barack Obama gave a speech in Colorado where he proposed creating a "Civilian National Security Force". That was just in one line of the speech, and it didn't appear in the version as prepared for delivery (copy here). Since that time, many have speculated over what he could have meant, and just recently Georgia congressman Paul Broun compared the creation of such groups to that in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (link). Now, at the last link, the Barack Obama camp has responded:spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama was referring in the speech to a proposal for a civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts such as rebuilding infrastructure - an idea endorsed by the Bush administration.That doesn't make much sense. Here's the comment in context (from the second link, with the sentence BHO added in his speech added where he said it and bolded):
As President, I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots, and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their efforts connected to a common purpose. People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve. Because when it comes to the challenges we face, the American people are not the problem – they are the answer.The bit about the CNSF came after a sentence mentioning the Peace Corps, so he could have been speaking about a massive expansion of that program, and in that case the CSNF would only operate overseas. Of course, parts of that group would live in the U.S.; would they ever be activated in the "homeland"?
We’ll send more college graduates to teach and mentor our young people. We’ll call on Americans to join an Energy Corps to conduct renewable energy and environmental cleanup projects in their neighborhoods. We’ll enlist veterans to help other vets find jobs and support, and to be there for our military families. And we’ll also grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered, and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. And we’ll use technology to connect people to service. We’ll expand USA Freedom Corps to create an online network where Americans can browse opportunities to volunteer. You’ll be able to search by category, time commitment, and skill sets; you’ll be able to rate service opportunities, build service networks, and create your own service pages to track your hours and activities. This will empower more Americans to craft their own service agenda, and make their own change from the bottom up.
There's nothing on Obama's site remotely approaching the bolded sentence above, and what's really needed here is for someone to ask him to go into details on exactly what he meant. Since we can't rely on MSM reporters to do that, the job is left up to you the reader.
David Brady/Hoover Institution offers very bad advice for the GOP
David Brady, deputy director of the Hoover Institution, recently spoke to an Austrailian newspaper (link) and offered some advice for the Republican Party that was, at least in part, spectacularly bad and that showed that he has absolutely no clue whatsoever:
"In order for the Republicans to win again they have to drop the anti-gay, anti-immigrant, strict pro-life, no-abortion social positions they have taken... They have to drop those things and move to the centre where the American voters are. Look at gay marriage - support for gay marriage in America is going up; it's not going down. It's a similar situation if you're pro-life. The majority in America has been pro-choice for a while, and it's not moving anywhere."
1. He's claiming that all those who oppose gay marriage or illegal/massive immigration are "anti-gay" and "anti-immigrant". That's certainly true for some of those opponents, but not for all. And, rather than pointing that out, Brady is saying the same things that Democrats would use in smears against opponents.
2. While gay marriage may pass in several states throughout the U.S., it will always have opponents including many with good arguments. Likewise with abortion, but with the fact that the arguments against that or wishing to minimize it are even more well-founded. Where exactly would Brady have those millions and millions of people go? Brady isn't suggesting that the GOP try to achieve some sort of compromise, but is instead suggesting complete capitulation to the Democrats on those issues.
3. Perhaps supporting massive immigration is a loser for the GOP, no matter how they pander and no matter how much money they receive from crooked businesses.
4. It would be very easy for someone with a megaphone to completely discredit the Democrats over immigration. Brady is either too corrupt or too stupid to support doing that.
Michael Crowley/TNR falls for obvious hoax (source of Sarah Palin smears)
The New Republic - home to a long series of reprehensible folks like James Kirchick and Jason Zengerle - has fallen for another hoax.
This time around, Michael Crowley offers the post "Even More Palin Cluelessness" (blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/11/10/even-more-palin-cluelessness.aspx, via HotAir) about a supposed former McCain campaign advisor admitting that he was the source for the recent smears of Sarah Palin.
Just one problem: as the third comment informs us, the supposed advisor is apparently just a trickster:
sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=M._Thomas_Eisenstadt
The apparent trickster's page about this is here:
eisenstadtgroup.com/2008/11/10/eisenstadt-the-source-for-sarah-palin-africa-leak-and-proud-of-it/
I posted satires about Barack Obama... at his own site!
Now it can be revealed! I signed up for three accounts at my.barackobama.com, two of which were satires that, unfortunately, never took off.
However, the first account was done under the name of one of my sites and wasn't a satire;that's described here.
Then, using the name "Bill Hawkins", I posted the satirical entry about driving "hate" sites off the internet described here.
Finally, using the name "Robert Bellaire", I posted the best one yet at my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/robertbellaire. The second post at that page asked BHO supporters to all wear blue to his rallies. The desired result was a scary picture at the Drudgereport showing a sea of blue with the headline "Blue Shirts".
The first post at that page was a creepy program called "Neighbor2Neighbor" where people would rat out their neighbors:
What the Obama campaign should do is set up a "Neighbor2Neighbor" program. When someone in your community starts spreading lies, you can go to the Obama website and fill out an "incident" form, typing in the person's name, their contact information, and a description of the lies and smears they're peddling. A "campaign counselor" can then contact them by phone to discuss with them all the ways they're wrong. In extreme cases, counselors can even go out to the person's home and try to talk some sense into them. Obama himself said we need to get into peoples' faces and convince them to vote for him, and this program will help us do just that. Of course, the campaign shouldn't reveal the name of the tipster, but after the (former!) "smear spreader" sees the light they'll be grateful to whoever filed the tip.
It never took off at BHO's site, but it got four favorable comments when I reposted it here: dailykos.com/story/2008/10/9/142229/749
Despite the above not working, I don't think it's going to be difficult to get something to break through one of these days.
Cached copy of Barack Obama's change.gov agenda section
Barack Obama's change.gov - the official president-elect transition site - deleted their entire Agenda section over the weekend. There's apparently a cached copy here, although I haven't verified it since I didn't bother saving off my own copy.
UPDATE: There's a better-looking version from Google's cache here. As with the other one I didn't verify it.
Steve Schmidt should find a new line of work (immigration and the failed John McCain campaign)
Steve Schmidt - former chief strategist of the John McCain campaign - was interviewed by Ana Marie Cox about the various failures he was involved in and presumably he tries to defend himself against charges that he's completely incompetent; I didn't bother reading the whole thing (link) since this bit is all we need:
If you look at the returns from the southwestern and mountain west states, with rising Latino populations, it’s clear that Latinos are repudiating the party, their anger about the tone of the immigration debate, and the party has to figure out a way to communicate that wanting to have a secure and sovereign southern border and respect for Latinos are not mutually exclusive. But if the party does not figure out a way to appeal to Latino voters, it will become increasingly difficult, and maybe impossible, to ever again win a national election.
If McCain couldn't win over Latinos, one wonders which Republican could. McCain cost himself a large part of the GOP base due to his support for illegal activity in order to obtain votes. He spoke to the racial power group NCLR and, instead of taking them on for being far-left supporters of illegal activity, he went there seeking votes.
And, his Hispanic outreach director is a former cabinet-level official with the Mexican government.
Other than picking Vicente Fox as his running mate, it's unclear what he could have done different. No matter how much the GOP tries to pander, the Dems will always be able to buy more votes.
What the GOP has to do is stop putting crooked businesses ahead of their own self-preservation. And, they need to stop being Dem Lite by opposing corporate pluralism and by discrediting far-left supporters of illegal activity rather than capitulating to them.
Schmidt couldn't even beat the furthest-left major party candidate in history and someone whose past is partly unknown and partly very questionable. He should do us all a favor and find a new line of work.
UPDATE: Someone really needs to come up with a comprehensive list of all the ways that Schmidt's argument is wrong, since hacks will keep making the argument to sympathetic reporters until it's forcefully pointed out how they're wrong. One other argument against it is that the same people who got the GOP into trouble by supporting massive immigration are now offering their "solution": being "Latino-friendly", i.e., supporting even more massive immigration.
And, it looks like Schmidt's comments are part of a trend, an attempt by corrupt Republicans to signal to Obama that they want amnesty as much as the Democrats do.
The trend continues as Michael Scherer of Time Magazine's Swampland - the same site Ana Marie Cox works for - offers "The GOP's Big Hispanic Problem" (swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/11/10/the-gops-big-hispanic-problem/) which is basically a "news" report saying the same thing as Schmidt, but, of course, without even a hint at anything I wrote above. It links to this LAT article and also quotes Florida Sen. Mel Martinez (BTW: that last link is about another LAT article by the same "reporter") from an appearance on Meet the Press:
Governor Jeb Bush -- former Governor Jeb Bush last week made a comment that if Republicans don't figure it out and do the math that we're going to be relegated to minority status. I've been preaching this for a long time to my colleagues within my party. I think that the very divisive rhetoric of the immigration debate set a very bad tone for our brand as Republicans. The fact of the matter is I think in Florida there was not a great ideological shift, but I think there was plenty of room for improvement in how that state was looked upon. The fact of the matter is that Hispanics are going to be a more and more vibrant part of the electorate, and the Republican Party had better figure out how to talk to them. We had a very dramatic shift between what President Bush was able to do with Hispanic voters, where he won 44 percent of them, and what happened to Senator McCain. Senator McCain did not deserve what he got. He was one of those that valiantly fought, fought for immigration reform, but there were voices within our party, frankly, which if they continue with that kind of rhetoric, anti-Hispanic rhetoric, that so much of it was heard, we're going to be relegated to minority status.
National Council of Ethnic Americans demands equal representation in Obama cabinet
The National Council of Ethnic Americans (NCEA) - a coalition consisting of the Ethnic American Legal Defense and Education Foundation (EALDEF), the National Association of Ethnic American Elected Officials (NAEAEO), and the League of United European and Mediterranean American Citizens (LUEMAC) - has just sent the following missive:
President-Elect Barack Obama:
We are the Ethnic-Americans. During the election you reached out to us (my.barackobama.com/page/content/eahome) and asked for our support. Millions of us heard your call and voted for you, thus assuring your victory.
In fact, we are your largest voting bloc and you could not have won without out support.
Yet, it appears that your cabinet may not fully reflect the diversity of America and may not assure that our specific and united concerns are addressed (link). Please assure us that you will appoint those to your Cabinet who understand our concerns and represent our interests, and that you will do so in full knowledge of the millions of us who voted for you.
Thank you in advance,
All Ethnic-Americans, including European and Mediterranean Americans.
Mandatory community service still included in Obama's preK-12 education plan
Yesterday, we discussed how one page at Barack Obama's new change.gov site said he'd push for mandatory community service. The campaign later changed that page to match the more voluntary-oriented statements the campaign made elsewhere.However, there's still one thing they'll probably want to send down the memory hole. The file barackobama.com/pdf/issues/PreK-12EducationFactSheet.pdf (available under the link "Read the Pre-K to 12 Plan" at barackobama.com/issues/education contains the following:
VIII. ENLIST PARENTS AND COMMUNITIES TO SUPPORT TEACHING AND LEARNINGThat certainly sounds like mandatory service to me, and note also that the PDF refers to the plan as belonging to both Obama and Biden, so someone did review it recently.
[...]
Service. All students in grant recipient districts will be expected to engage in some form of community service.
I'm sure there are more nuggets elsewhere in the 14 page PDF, but I'm not an education expert and I never saw people pounding the table about all the other things that are no doubt wrong about his plan during the election. One article from June is at humanevents.com/article.php?id=27186, and see the blog posts here and here. The GOP highlights vouchers and BHO's flip-flop on NCLB here, rather than discussing more fundamental issues.
And, see also my failed attempt to let everyone know that Obama wanted to use pre-teens to get votes.
Washington Post admits coverage tilted to Obama, doesn't admit their incredibly biased coverage for him and their lies for him
Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell offers "An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage" (link). Unfortunately, about the only "tilt" she admits to is in the amount of coverage. She almost completely ignores the fact that the Washington Post served as little more than an arm of the Obama campaign by lying and misleading on his behalf and by serving as the source for and amplifier of smears. About the only thing beyond amount of coverage she'll admit to is a failure to cover some things:
But Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama's acknowledged drug use as a teenager.
Not too many people were up in arms about wanting to know more about the last sentence, since they were many things about his past that are much more important to know. I strongly suspect that Howell included the last sentence as a way to trivialize the concerns of the WaPo's critics.
Howell calls out a few of their reporters for acclaim, but completely fails to note any of those who intentionally got it wrong. None of that should be any surprise; as discussed at the first link back in March, Howell couldn't find much of anything wrong with the WaPo's incredibly biased immigration coverage either. Howell is simply a hack, paid to cover things up and give a starting point to "media critics" who'll give a feather-weight slap on the wrist to the MSM.
The following are some of the stories I've noted here. For even more, look through Digg's archives for front page stories from the WaPo that were later marked as inaccurate.
* Dana Milbank/WaPo's dangerous smear of Sarah Palin, supporters. In May, Milbank misled about Obama's links.
* Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post served as an amplifier for the NYT's 10/4/08 attempted cover-up of Bill Ayers.
* Howell praises Washington Post's "fact checker" Michael Dobbs; he "deserves praise for parsing campaign rhetoric for the overblown or just flat wrong". Now see this for just one of the examples of things he appears to have got wrong. Another thing he got wrong is in "McCain's 'Education' Spot Is Dishonest, Deceptive" (link); see the discussion here.
* Shailagh Murray offers WaPo's lightest weight coverage of Barack Obama yet?
* Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post promoted a BHO campaign ad without noting that it took a John McCain quote out of context; Howard Kurtz of the WaPo also failed to note the full context for the quote.
* Ed O'Keefe earlier helped Obama spread lies about Rush Limbaugh when he promoted a BHO campaign video and didn't point out the incredibly obvious lies; for an example of how bad it was, even Joe Klein eventually came out against the ad.
* Anne Kornblut solicited tough questions for Sarah Palin, but as far as I was able to determine when she had the chance she didn't ask BHO anything of note. In at least one case she simply acted as a transcriptionist for BHO; one of her articles misled about Palin's stance on Iraq and was later silently corrected by the WaPo.
* "Peter Slevin Award for Mainstream Media Puffery" is won by Slevin himself.
* Paul Kane started a smear about Sarah Palin "slashing" funds for a program, when in fact they were simply less than the legislature had asked for; the funding was actually increased from the previous year.
* Eli Saslow/WaPo lied in support of Barack Obama
AVWatch: Barack Obama's economic advisors include... Antonio Villaraigosa
Los Angeles' inept, corrupt, illegal activity-supporting mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - a former leader of a racial separatist group - is one of the members of Barack Obama's economic advisory board. Even the L.A. Weekly isn't amused (link):
The often stumbling Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose city budget deficit has hit a historic high and who has based his economic plan in Los Angeles almost entirely on a single industry — development, emphasizing massive housing complexes, which left L.A. bad off when the housing bubble collapsed — was chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to be on an elite, 17-member economic advice team, including Warren Buffett, that is meeting Obama in Chicago today...
Obama's aunt gets immigration lawyer, considers appeal (to prevent President Barack from deporting her?)
One of the coulda-been moments of the 2008 campaign was the failure of mostly anyone else to point out that Barack Obama supported his illegal alien own aunt being deported at the same time as he opposed the deportations of millions of illegal aliens he's never even met. Pushing that story would help dispel the widespread feeling among his supporters that he's all sweetness and light. At the time, I questioned why BHO supported her being deported instead of getting her an immigration lawyer in order to pursue a possible appeal of her case.
Now, she's got a lawyer (link):
Cleveland attorney Margaret Wong told the AP on Friday she is exploring legal options and may file a motion to re-open [Zeituni Onyango]'s case. She said Onyango is upset because she believes someone leaked information about her immigration status to try to hurt Obama's candidacy.
"Latinos push for Cabinet posts": NCLR, MALDEF, NALEO trying to embed supporters in Obama administration
"Latinos" want to be named to positions in the Barack Obama administration. Actually, it appears they want a quota system. And, it's not really "Latinos" as a group, but the familiar far-left pressure groups such as the NCLR, MALDEF, and NALEO. The second has an indirect link to the Mexican government, and the last has a direct link.The ethnic boosting "reporter" Gebe Martinez of the Politico offers "Latinos push for Cabinet posts" (link). Here's the quota bit:
Weeks before Barack Obama won the presidency, he met privately in Washington with his former Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and Latino political leaders who had fervently backed her bid.Then, she says that Latinos pushed Obama over the top; I'll wait for a reliable source.
The cards were laid upon the table, according to one of the participants. The Hispanic leaders said they expected at least two Latinos to be named to an Obama Cabinet — meeting the standard set by President-elect Bill Clinton in 1992 — but preferred three. Of course, they also wanted sub-Cabinet-level posts.
...Cecilia Munoz, vice president of National Council of La Raza, said, “It’s a foregone conclusion that we should be at the table for policy debates and in a position of authority,” because Hispanics are affected by major issues facing all voters. Latinos will be prominent in an Obama administration “just as we would be in any administration moving forward,” she added.
...Any diminishment of the Hispanic presence in today’s society and politics “would be a colossal mistake,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. “Latinos have demonstrated they can have an impact.”
...Before the election, two dozen groups that make up the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda turned over to Obama and John McCain policy recommendations that included adding more Hispanics to the federal workforce, increasing Hispanic political appointments and naming more Latinos to the federal bench.
The coalition will be collecting résumés to submit to Obama’s transition team. “It behooves us to not just suggest that the administration hire Latinos. We need to also provide good candidates,” said Peter Zamora of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
NALEO’s Vargas worries that, early on, the only names usually mentioned for possible appointment to the Obama administration are New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Obama’s Hispanic adviser Federico Pena — two Democrats who previously served in the Clinton administration.
...[Raul Yzaguirre] said he and others addressed that issue frankly with Obama at their meeting several weeks ago. “We said, ‘Look, if you are going to see us as late-comers, that’s not going to work. If you see us as partners from here on, we will have a good relationship.’ And he said he welcomed our support,” Yzaguirre said...
Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel want mandatory community service?; contradicts earlier statements; 100 hours/year in college
Yet more fun with Barack Obama's president-elect website change.gov, as the page change.gov/americaserves has this:
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.
This "requirement" contradicts not only past statements, but another statement on change.gov. From the page "Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan for Universal Voluntary Public Service" at change.gov/agenda/service:
Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year... Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year...
Not only is there a contradiction between pages, there's one in the last sentence, since usually getting money is associated with being able to opt in or out.
Note that the change.gov/agenda/service version is basically the same as the current version of barackobama.com/issues/service, the version in his "Blueprint for Change" PDF (accessed 2/11/08), and the 1/3/08 version of barackobama.com/issues/service.
So, which is controlling? Will children be "required", or is his program voluntary. Or, is it "voluntary", where hoops must be jumped through in order to avoid taking part?
Note also that in his 2006 book The Plan: Big Ideas for America (link), new BHO chief of staff and Representative Rahm Emanuel said:
It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service... Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster...
Now, see Barack Obama's "civilian national security force"
UPDATE: As pointed out by several others, the "U.S. government", also known as the part of BHO's campaign behind change.gov, has changed the language on the page at change.gov first discussed above to bring it more in line with the other language. And, they don't provide any indication that there was a change. Silently changing their website to match the new set of facts is something they've done before.
The part at change.gov/americaserves that changed was this:
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.
That's now this:
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.
The last is basically the same as in their PDF and what's at change.gov/agenda/service.
eCitizen's "Ask the President-Elect": yet another setup?
The eCitizen Foundation (ecitizenfoundation.org) has launched the "Ask the President-Elect" Project, where regular citizens can submit video or text questions for Barack Obama. The questions that get the most votes will then be asked of our new president or his transition team, with three of the top vote getters being flown to MIT for a live event.
And, it appears to be as much of a setup as similar past efforts. And, in fact, some of the same people involved in this effort were involved in past, failed efforts: see Open Debate Coalition: a failed format for fake debates.
Of course, by "failed", I mean from the perspective of those who want candidates to be asked tough, "prosecutorial-style" questions. From the perspective of those who want their favored puffballs to be asked, those past efforts were quite a success.
Are all these bright people so dim that they can't figure out the huge flaws in their method of selecting questions despite it having been illustrated to them two times already, or is this just an attempt to pretend to have a debate while not really having a debate at all? Unfortunately, I'm strongly supporting the latter explanation.
Here are some of those involved in this go-round:
This effort is co-sponsored by the Foundation, the MIT eCitizen Architecture Program under the leadership of MIT Professor William Mitchell, powered by Founding Partners communityCOUNTS (forum) and CIVICS.com (open frameworks) and supported by cyberspace luminaries like Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford, Professor Ethan Katsh of UMass and Professor Michael Froomkin of University of Miami Law School. Our growing community of partners also includes techPresident, change.org, pajamasmedia, voterwatch, blip.tv and many more.
UPDATE: One of the four submissions marked with 'ecitizen' at Youtube provides yet another in the long line of worthless questions that those who don't want a real debate tend to highlight (link). The question asks what new programs Obama will have to help the middle class go to college, and was obviously asked by someone who has web access and would seem to be able to do some research first. For instance, BHO has a PDF discussing his "Blueprint for Change", and it contains some details. Then there are his speeches, the statements of advisors, and so on. But, for some reason, the questioner was unable to look at any of those and decided to ask a completely general question. But, for the same reason discussed here, it would make great TV.
"Ashville N.C. School teacher browbeats student over being a McCain supporter" (I tried to warn everyone)
The video to the right is called "Ashville N.C. School teacher browbeats student over being a McCain supporter". Since I don't have sound here and can only slightly read Swedish I can't vouch for its contents, but it appears to be legit.
Now, see October 26's Obama Youth: campaign targets children under 12 and ask yourself two questions:
1. Exactly how many more things like this are we going to see? Note especially that BHO is now in effect also the leader of millions of people working at various levels of the government, including public school teachers.
2. Aside from drslogan.wordpress.com and littlegreenfootballs.com, no one else that I know of mentioned BHO's plans - right on his website - to bring pre-teens into his movement and then use them to get votes. Why wasn't anyone else interested in pushing a story that could have cost Obama the election?
Change.gov? Obama launches his own president-elect website
This is just great: change.gov (I actually said another word before "great", and I'll let everyone imagine what that word was.)
That's the official site for the "office of the president-elect", a new government website just to help usher in Barack Obama. And, it's not from the Bush-welcome-to-DC perspective, but instead from the Obama-I'm-in-charge-now perspective.
He's even got a wonderful form you can use called "An American Moment: Your Story" (change.gov/page/s/yourstory):
Start right now. Tell us your story in your own words about what this campaign and this election means to you. Share your hopes for an Obama Administration and a government for the people.
I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether they want to fill out the form, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's an attempt to build either a mailing/donations list or an enemies list.
UPDATE: The supposed government website's Privacy Policy is a bit interesting (change.gov/about/privacypolicy). In fact, it has more of a non-profit/corporate look to it than something one would expect from the U.S. government. It's basically the same boilerplate as used on several other sites, all of which are not government entities [1]. Comparing to the current policies at barackobama.com is left as an exercise, but some excerpts from candidate sites as of February is here.
And, it looks like the supposed government site is leaving open the possibility of adding those who fill out their forms to mailing lists:
We collect Personal Information from eligible individuals who affirmatively request to receive e-mail or other services from us. We collect this Personal Information in order to provide these eligible individuals with timely information via e-mail regarding events, resources and issues.
Could filling out the form be considered an "affirmative request"? And, the following is worthless because of the "general":
It is our general policy not to make Personal Information available to anyone other than our employees, staff, and agents.
And, in addition to FOIA, anything you say could be released:
We treat your name, city, state, and any comments you provide as public information.
But, don't worry, you can opt-out of... the mailing list:
Subscribers to our e-mail list may terminate their subscriptions via a link at the bottom of each email sent from Change.gov.
The site also provides an email address at ptt.gov, a site that doesn't seem to exist. Since that's added to the page by Javascript, it might just be a programming error, or it could be a new surprise just for us.
[1] Some sites that share some of the boilerplate are the following:
lessig08.org/privacy.php
jstreet.org/privacy_policy
run4president.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=6
votervoter.com/wot-tvad/page/privacy
spellingchange.com/privacy-policy.php
democratsforvalues.com/privacy.htm
Evan Thomas/Newsweek on Obama's "creepy cult of personality"
Now they tell us! Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas admitted on last night's Charlie Rose show that Barack Obama has a "creepy cult of personality". See the video here. I didn't watch it and, of course, no one is around to provide a transcript or an accurate summary of his remarks, but word on the street is that he means it in a slightly good way.
Note that Obama's personality cult was the first item in my non-partisan argument agains Obama. Note also that the third item is his indoctrination plan for pre-teens.
It's unfortunate that too few of Obama's opponents attempted to highlight things like that before the election.
New smear: Palin didn't know Africa was a continent or the three countries in NAFTA
An unnamed John McCain aide supposedly told Carl Cameron of Fox News - a tool if there ever was one - that Sarah Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent instead of a country. The aide also told him that she didn't know which countries were in NAFTA. Needless to say, this comes on the heels of a long line of smears against Palin, and it's almost assuredly a smear as well. She obviously knows about Canada, and she also obviously knows about Mexico. There's the slight possibility that she thought that some of the countries that are in Central America were in North America, but that probably isn't likely either. So, this doesn't even pass very basic scrutiny.
For those just dropping by, there's probably almost no chance that the allegations are true and someone is playing a game.
Unfortunately, it might be an effective smear because of the foundation that the mainstream media laid in order to help Obama become president; many of the things you "know" about Palin are actually lies planted by the Obama campaign and/or the mainstream media (as if they were that separate).
See this for the transcript of the interview, this or this for some thoughts on the palace intrigue aspects (noting that the second is just speculation), and this for the video.
What's especially worrisome about this from the standpoint of an informed electorate is that, at the same time that this smear is spreading, Obama supports a Bush trade scheme known as "NAFTA Plus" (the Security and Prosperity Partnership, spp.gov) that might be a precursor to joining the three countries of North America.
When coming out in support of that Bush trade scheme, Obama spoke in code. And, I have yet to see someone besides me and Obama himself discussing the fact that he supports that scheme. His editorial supporting Bush's scheme appeared in the Dallas Morning News, but no one else wants to discuss what he supports.
The visitor should decide which is more important: a smear, or a secretive Bush trade scheme. Then, take those pushing the smear to task. And, note that those calling Palin dumb are actually the dumb ones: they can't figure out that this is clearly a planted smear and they're just being useful idiots.
~~ Who's helping spread the smear? ~~
* The Huffington Post (of course) has it at huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html, and that has over 2200 Diggs (of course)
* Andrew Sullivan has completely bought it without any reservations whatsoever: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/the-odd-truths.html
Can you trust anyone who'd be so gullible?
* Faiz Shakir of ThinkProgress also completely buys it:
thinkprogress.org/2008/11/05/palin-africa-continent/
* However, in a report oddly similar to the one from HotAir linked above, ksh01 of DailyKos implicitly throws some cold water on this by discussing the palace intrigue aspects:
dailykos.com/story/2008/11/5/194551/287/976/651932
Dueling sockpuppets: were some anti-Palin, anti-McCain comments from the Romney campaign?
Barack Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod owns an astroturfing company.
And, during the campaign the comments at many major sites (WaPo, Politico, Digg, etc.) were chock full of sockpuppets posting lame jokes, comments insulting McCain and/or Palin, and comments extolling the virtues of The One.
Could those two things have something to do with each other? I think it's extremely likely that the BHO campaign was paying people to comment on sites, but I can't prove it.
However, after the recent "Palin doesn't know Africa isn't a country" smear there's another possible culprit: the Mitt Romney campaign. After all, smearing Palin serves his interests, as does four disastrous years under Obama.
The only way to possibly find out who was involved would be if those sites that have received such comments (which, unfortunately, doesn't include this one) would look into the IP addresses of their sockpuppet commenters. Considering that most of those sites are partisan and those that aren't are corrupt and not interested in real reporting (*cough* Politico), we may never know.
Assignment: backgrounders on Obama's transition staff
Barack Obama has named his transition staff and an advisory board thereto (link). It would be interesting to know how many of them are part of or linked to the Chicago Machine or have other interesting links.
A few on the advisory board are known hereabouts: William Daley (brother of Chicago's mayor and supposedly clean 'n' mainstream), Janet Napolitano, and Federico Pena.
If searching for the names below reveals anything of interest, please leave a comment.
Others on the board are: Carol Browner, Christopher Edley, Michael Froman, Julius Genachowski, Donald Gips, Susan Rice, Sonal Shah, Mark Gitenstein, and Ted Kaufman. Per the link, "the latter two are Biden advisers."
And, here's the transition staff:
Chris Lu – Executive Director
Dan Pfeiffer – Communications Director
Stephanie Cutter – Chief Spokesperson
Cassandra Butts – General Counsel
Jim Messina – Personnel Director
Patrick Gaspard – Associate Personnel Director
Christine Varney - Personnel Counsel
Melody Barnes – Co-Director of Agency Review
Lisa Brown – Co-Director of Agency Review
Phil Schiliro – Director of Congressional Relations
Michael Strautmanis – Director of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs
Katy Kale – Director of Operations
Brad Kiley – Director of Operations
Reason Magazine tries to pretend they opposed Barack Obama
The "libertarians" at Reason Magazine offer a list of their recent coverage of Barack Obama (reason.com/news/show/129922.html), and from that list those who don't read their Hit and Run blog frequently might think they actually opposed him. In fact, they served as a bit of a cheerleader for him and almost always showed a clear bias towards him and against McCain (as pretty much every visitor to their site knows, their editor Matt Welch wrote an anti-McCain book). Yes, there were a few negative stories on BHO, but they never really went after him, despite all the at least partly libertarian-friendly things he could and should have been opposed over.
I posted that list over at their site a few times, and suggested that they try to offer an intellectually honest counterargument. Instead, the night before the election their last post was about frozen mice. No, really: reason.com/blog/show/129851.html
And nearly every single contributor to and commenter at their blog knows about my nearly two year push to go ask politicians real questions on video and then upload their responses to Youtube. At any time during the past two years, Reason could have very easily sent Dave Weigel or someone else to a BHO appearance to ask him a question - whether about my topics or theirs - that would have greatly reduced his support and shown him to be an empty suit. Instead, during the entire election cycle, the only "tough" question Reason managed to ask was when Weigel asked Larry Sinclair (yes, that guy) something slightly discomforting.
Obviously, Reason didn't try to ask anyone with any power tough questions, despite the fact that it would have gotten tens of times more views than their most viewed video and made them close to a household name. And, they would have done a great public service by holding politicians accountable and by showing how corrupt the MSM is.
But, they did nothing.
Reason isn't really a libertarian site, but it goes deeper than that: they're complete establishment suck-ups who have no interest in ruffling anyone's feathers. They're Joe Kleins in pleather jackets, worthless, corrupt frat boys who refuse to grow up and do anything remotely approaching holding politicians accountable.
API RELEASES WHITEY TAPE!!!
DEVELOPING... BREAKING... LINK ANY MOMENT NOW... LARRY JOHNSON IS FLYING IN WITH THE TAPE AS I SPEAK...
While we're waiting, I'm going to go write-in Hillary.
UPDATE: It took less than ten minutes to go make my protest vote. As for API, the skullduggery has prevented them from airing the tape, but they promise they'll get it to us tomorrow.
Hundreds of college students might vote twice (Virginia)
A local GOP official in Virginia has compiled a list of hundreds of college students who are newly registered to vote in that state and who've also requested absentee ballots from a state in which they previously resided. Some might in fact follow through and vote twice, but of course we won't know that until after the election. Details here.
Hope, change: Black Panthers intimidate white voters in Philadelphia
Rough transcript of the video below.RICK LEVENTHAL/FOX NEWS: i do not even know where to begin, but we have reached a polling place in the city of philadelphia. one of the two black panthers who was allegedly blocking the door is standing right over here, with an accused us of intimidating voters because we were here with a camera and microphone. he did not answer questions, other people here have confirmed that another person in black panther attire was holding a night stick and apparently the concern was that they were intimidating people who were trying to go inside to vote. a republican poll observer actually called the police, the police were here and we miss them...UPDATE: There's amateur footage here.
CITIZEN: we got a phone call that there was intimidation going on. i walked up to the door, two gentlemen in black panther guard, one brandishing a nightstick, standing in front of the door. they closed ranks as i walked up...
Your election day eve assignment
Should you decide to accept it:
1. Search out local forums in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and other coal states (such as at local newspapers) and make sure that as many people as possible know exactly what Obama's position on coal is. Urge them to contact all their friends.
2. Do the preceding throughout the U.S. and let them know that Obama's plans will cause electricity rates to - in his own words - skyrocket. As above, urge everyone to contact their friends. That's non-partisan, so don't make it so, don't stick to conservative forums, etc.
3. Do the same with The Non-Partisan Case Against Barack Obama. As above, concentrate on places where independents and conservative Democrats gather. And, urge everyone to send that around. Feel free to add, remove or modify points to match your audience.
4. Let Obama's supporters or potential supporters know how great a person he is by letting them know that he supports his own aunt being deported at the same time as opposing the deportations of millions of illegal aliens he's never even met.
Video: Obama promises electricity rates will skyrocket under his plan (energy costs)
Here's the San Francisco Chronicle video (not just audio) of Barack Obama promising that under his energy plan, "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket".
The full transcript of the video is here; note this:
You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know - Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers... They — you — you can already see what the arguments will be during the general election. People will say, “Ah, Obama and Al Gore, these folks, they’re going to destroy the economy, this is going to cost us eight trillion dollars,” or whatever their number is. Um, if you can’t persuade the American people that yes, there is going to be some increase in electricity rates on the front end, but that over the long term, because of combinations of more efficient energy usage, changing lightbulbs and more efficient appliance, but also technology improving how we can produce clean energy, the economy would benefit.
We should be incorporating new energy sources and encouraging people to use better lightbulbs. However, along the road to Obama's global non-warming paradise you're going to be paying a lot more money for your electricity bills and so will every company in the U.S. His plan would have a devastating impact on the economy, and it's a sign of his lack of qualifications to be president that he'd propose such a drastic plan.
Please send the video or this page to everyone you can find in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and other coal states.
See also Video of Obama wanting to bankrupt new coal-powered plants
Video of Obama wanting to bankrupt new coal-powered plants
Here's the San Francisco Chronicle video (not just audio) of Barack Obama discussing his cap and trade plan that would result in bankrupting new coal power plants. For the transcript of what's on the tape, see this. Note that there's a elision in there somewhere; if anyone has a full transcript of the whole interview that might be useful but I guess that's too much to ask.
Note especially this:
What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there... ...So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted...
What's on the audio at the link above but not on the video is this bit:
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can... It's just that it will bankrupt them.
Please send the video or this page to everyone you can find in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and other coal states.
See also Video: Obama promises electricity rates will skyrocket under his plan (energy costs) and those in the coal industry taking him to task.
Sarah Palin cleared in Troopergate
From this:A new report just released -- hours before the polls open on Election Day -- exonerates Gov. Sarah Palin in the Troopergate controversy.
The state Personnel Board-sanctioned investigation is the second into whether Palin violated state ethics law in firing her public safety commissioner, and it contradicts the earlier findings by a special counsel hired by the state Legislature.
Both investigations found that Palin was within her rights to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.
But the new report says the Legislature's investigator was wrong to conclude that Palin abused her power by allowing aides and her husband, Todd, to pressure Monegan and others to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law, Trooper Mike Wooten. Palin was accused of firing Monegan after Wooten stayed on the job...
Senator Bob Menendez to Neil Cavuto: "I hope you are not one of the ones forced off the air"
[UPDATE: Apparently this is nothing, see below.]
Earlier today, Senator Bob Menendez appeared on the Fox's Neil Cavuto show and got into an argument with him about various Barack Obama plans. Near the end of the interview and after a discussion in which Cavuto raised the possibility of the Democrats bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, Menendez said:
"I hope you are not one of the ones forced off the air."
Unfortunately, it isn't clear from someone who saw it whether that was just a very bad joke or whether Mendenez slipped up and told the truth. Please leave a comment which it is; here's the video:
[UPDATE: Once again, I didn't have audio when I posted this and, as you can see from the link above I asked someone else to confirm that's what Menendez said. And, as happened once before, the FReeptards got it wrong and there's apparently nothing wrong with what he said, at least in reference to Fairness Doctrine-related issues. Out of thousands of members, you'd think there'd be some people there who knew how to make themselves useful.]
Is Barack Obama still in frequent contact with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn?
Law professor Steve Diamond says a source close to the campaign says so. Unfortunately, until he gets someone to go on the record or at least a second source it's not really worth much right now.
Did Barack Obama flip the bird to John McCain? (give the finger)
Back in April, Barack Obama might have "flipped the bird"/"given the finger" to Hillary Clinton. In September, BHO said "You can put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig" (link) in what was probably a swipe at Sarah Palin. His supporters know what he's doing, no matter how some try to deny it.
Now, he's back:
See the video here.
Joe Biden on gun control: flashback to 2007 debate
I'm sure everyone remembers this classic from last year's Youtube/CNN debate debacle.QUESTION: Good evening, America. My name is Jered Townsend from Clio, Michigan.
To all the candidates, tell me your position on gun control, as myself and other Americans really want to know if our babies are safe.
This is my baby, purchased under the 1994 gun ban. Please tell me your views.
Thank you.
...COOPER: Senator Biden, are you going to be able to keep his baby safe?
BIDEN: I'll tell you what, if that is his baby, he needs help.
(APPLAUSE)
I think he just made an admission against self-interest. I don't know that he is mentally qualified to own that gun. I'm being serious. Look, just like me, we go around talking about people who own guns. I am the guy who originally wrote the assault weapons ban, that became law, and then we got defeated and then Dianne Feinstein went to town on it and did a great job.
BIDEN: Look, we should be working with law enforcement, right now, to make sure that we protect people against people who don't -- are not capable of knowing what to do with a gun because they're either mentally imbalanced and/or because they have a criminal record, and...
COOPER: Time.
BIDEN: Anyway...
(APPLAUSE)
COOPER: We got one more question. Before...
BIDEN: ... I hope he doesn't come looking for me.
(LAUGHTER)
Barack Obama is apparently not a friend to the coal industry
The Wheeling News-Register offers "Obama’s Real Agenda On Coal Now Clear" (link):Clearly, Obama wants the scale set low on how much greenhouse gas a plant could emit before being forced to buy "credits" allowing it to operate. Here, in his own words, is what Obama told the Chronicle in regard to use of coal: "So, if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them, because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."And, see "Ohio Coal Association Says Obama Remarks Make It Clear: Obama Ticket Not Supportive of Coal" (link):
That would help explain comments made earlier this fall in Ohio, by Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden. "No coal plants here in America," he emphasized. Obviously, Biden made his comments in the context of Obama's plan to price coal out of the marketplace through use of draconian air pollution rules.
Sen. John McCain has made it clear that he supports clean-coal technology - with no hidden agendas such as those Obama has in mind. As we have stressed repeatedly, McCain's plan should appeal not just to coal-state voters - but to all Americans worried about energy.
Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association (OCA), today issued the following statement in response to just-released remarks from Senator Barack Obama about the nation's coal industry.And, here's a Youtube video with Joe Biden speaking in Ohio and saying "No Coal Plants Here in America", he only wants them to be built in China.
"Regardless of the timing or method of the release of these remarks, the message from the Democratic candidate for President could not be clearer: the Obama-Biden ticket spells disaster for America's coal industry and the tens of thousands of Americans who work in it.
"These undisputed, audio-taped remarks, which include comments from Senator Obama like 'I haven't been some coal booster' and 'if they want to build [coal plants], they can, but it will bankrupt them' are extraordinarily misguided.
"It's evident that this campaign has been pandering in states like Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania to attempt to generate votes from coal supporters, while keeping his true agenda hidden from the state's voters...
From yesterday, see "Coal official calls Obama comments 'unbelievable'" (link)
And, from earlier this year, Harry Reid said:
"The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don't see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it's global warming. It's ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”There's a video from the S.F. Chronicle meeting where Obama said he wasn't a coal booster here.
UPDATE: There's another round-up of reaction here ("Coal, Mining Groups Blast Obama").
Please send this page to everyone you know in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and other coal-producing states.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler: Obama didn't have the "political courage" to leave Rev. Wright's church (asking questions works)
For almost two years, I've been trying to encourage people to go to public appearances by politicians, ask them tough questions, and upload their responses to video sharing sites. A month ago, I sent an open letter to a series of mostly Pajamas Media bloggers urging them to push such a plan, and none of them did. Instead, some pushed loony theories, some sat in a dark corner moaning (PW), and others concentrated on their Amazon sales.Now, one other person from that group - almost assuredly doing so on her own initiative and not on the prompting of the other hacks at PJM - has done something similar to my plan that might have an effect on the election. It would have been better if the person asked had been Obama and if the question had been an actual tough question, but a stumbling gaffe response might be enough to spur others to do something similar in the future.
From this:
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, was down in Florida over the weekend, and one supposes that he thought he was helping Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., but it will ultimately be hard to make that case.He apparently said other things too; see the last link.
Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugged has posted [link] some video of Nadler at a synagogue in Boca Raton trying to explain why Obama was able to stay in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years.
He starts off my saying he has no idea of what he's talking about. And then he proceeds to open mouth, insert foot...
...And then, the line that may haunt Nadler for four years or longer: "[Obama] didn't have the political courage to make the statement of walking out [of Rev. Wright's church]...
Is it correct to doubt Barack Obama's patriotism, as Joe the Plumber did?
Ali Frick from ThinkProgress - whose parent fund is linked to the Obama campaign - breathlessly informs us that "Joe the Plumber" apparently just said something we're supposed to be shocked about (link):
McCain has fought and bled for our country, and loves our country. There's too many questions with Barack Obama and his loyalty to our country. And I question that greatly... ...his ideology is something that is completely different than what democracy stands for, so I had some question there. In my opinion...
He really shouldn't have said that, and he might find his campaign appearances curtailed as a result.
However, moving away from the political correctness, it's not that difficult to question the patriotism of many of our leaders due to the fact that, while they go through the proper motions, many of them also appear to be "trading for their own account" and/or basically supporting a globalist agenda rather than a completely U.S.-friendly agenda.
For an example, see George Bush making a pledge to the Mexican government to change the U.S. laws in a way that most Americans don't support. I called him a quisling at that time, and I still would call him that and I'd do it on the TV should I ever be elevated to JTP status. In that case, Bush clearly wasn't putting the U.S. first; he was putting the corrupt elites of the U.S. and Mexico first, but not the U.S. as a whole.
And, to a certain extent a similar argument could be made against John McCain as well over the same issue. Now, of course, the arguments above concern a different field than JTP was discussing, but also of course he can't discuss that for fear of McCain being implicated in the same charge.
In Obama's case, the only problem is that he hasn't yet reached the point where, like Bush, he can fully manifest his own issues with loyalty to the U.S.; he only visited Mexico in college and has yet to make a trip there to try to sell us out.
However, we do have a few data points already. For instance, Obama supports the anti-American DREAM Act, something that would take college educations away from U.S. citizens in order to give them to citizens of foreign countries who are here illegally.
And, not too long ago, Obama was regurgitating reconquista/MEChA talking points.
What JTP said was definitely rough around the edges, but for those who've been following along he's correct in general.
Note also that the ever-classy Josh Marshall offers "Joe the Skinhead" (talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242050.php), a post that contains no evidence that JTP is a skinhead but simply smears him as such.
Obama wants his poor aunt to be deported, doesn't want millions of other illegal aliens to be deported
[SEE THE SECOND UPDATE]Per this, on tonight and tomorrow night's CBS News, Katie Couric asked Barack Obama whether he would "support [his poor illegal alien aunt] being deported to Kenya". His response:
If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We're a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn't lessen my concern for her, I haven't been able to be in touch with her. But I'm a strong believer you have to obey the law.Oddly enough, Obama applies a different standard to his own aunt than he does to the millions of other illegal aliens in the U.S.: he doesn't want them to be deported but instead wants them to stay here and become citizens (and thus voters).
In his "honest conversation" about immigration on April 1, 2008, Obama said the following (note that this includes a false choice too):
We are not going to send [illegal aliens] home ...Mr. Obama said many illegals have "settled," "bought property" and have children who are U.S. citizens. He said the country would have to devote "all our law enforcement resources to rounding up people without papers, even if they weren't causing any trouble," and once that's done, the country would have to "empty out our jails." ...That would force police to ignore killers and carjackers and instead be "worried about the guy in the kitchen somewhere who's working in a restaurant... Not all of 'em are from Mexico," because some are from Ireland, Poland or Nigeria. ..."Imagine what that would look like, basically detaining, putting in jail 12 million people. We're not going to do that..."And, on March 12, 2008, Obama said this (the same false choice, and it includes a lie as well):
When I hear Rush Limbaugh or you know Lou Dobbs or some of these people talking about how we need to send them all back. We're not going to send them all back. First of all, this is a country of immigrants. Second of all, as a practical matter, we would end up having to use all of our law enforcement resources to round people up, detain them, separate families. It's not a realistic solution.It's about time his supporters realize that Obama is just a sleazy liar who will do anything to win.
UPDATE: If Obama weren't incredibly sleazy, he could have said that he was getting her an immigration lawyer to see if her case can be appealed. Instead, he said the above.
UPDATE 2: From this:
Senior aides to Sen. Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick were aware that Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, was living in the United States illegally and in a South Boston public-housing project, and were monitoring her at the request of senior Obama campaign officials, according to a current employee for Obama's key political consulting firm, AKP&D Message and Media.
Back in early 2007, as Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod was organizing and planning the Obama campaign, he identified Obama's unique family situation -- a number of half-brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, some living overseas -- as a potential problem, says an employee for Axelrod's political consulting firm, and who has done work on the Obama campaign. "Given [Obama's] father's family history here and in Africa, David wanted the campaign to know who was who, where they lived, and what they were doing. No surprises. We knew she was here illegally. We knew her income levels, but I don't think anyone from the campaign had had contact with her."
Instead, according to the source, Axelrod reached out to his former client, Patrick, who had retained Axelrod's firm for his run for governor.
Obama's first fulltime job at company with "substantial SDS ties" (Business International)
When he got out of Columbia University in the early 80s, Obama's first full-time job was at an apparently mainstream business reporting outfit called Business International.
Now, it turns out that that company had a series of links with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) via their 1966-67 president Carl Oglesby. He led the non-violent wing of the SDS and was opposed to the violent wing comprised of Mike Klonsky and Bernardine Dohrn. The latter is the wife of Bill Ayers, and the former headed the Ayers-created Small Schools Workshop that Barack Obama later funded to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And, of course, that violent wing of the SDS later became the Weathermen. The company's collaboration with the non-violent part of SDS and BHO's employment there were separated by several years, but this is yet another example of BHO being linked into a network containing Ayers, Klonsky, and friends.
If anyone has first-hand information, leave a comment here or at the comments thread at the link above.
Just for us! Campaign adds official "European & Mediterranean Americans for Obama" (WASPs, Nordics not allowed)
My fellow European & Mediterranean Americans:It's now safe for us to vote for Barack Obama, because he's recently added a section to his website just for us!
Visit Obama's official new page just for us here: my.barackobama.com/page/content/eahome
It's for white people, but not every white person: only those of us who are "ethnics". In the past, some white people were confused, "am I an Ethnic-American, or am I regular?" In many cases, figuring that out involved a skin-color, frecklization, head shape, or head bump test.
But, highly intelligent Leader that Obama is, he's provided a handy list so you can tell at a glance whether you're Ethnic or not, which I've sorted to make it even easier:
BALKAN-AMERICANS: Albanian Americans · Bosnian Americans · Croatian Americans · Greek Americans · Serbian Americans
EASTERN EUROPEAN AND SLAVIC-AMERICANS: Hungarian Americans · Polish Americans · Romanian Americans · Russian Americans · Ukrainian Americans
NEAR AND MIDDLE EASTERN-AMERICANS: Arab Americans · Armenian Americans · Turkish Americans
REGULAR BUT STILL ETHNIC EUROPEAN-AMERICANS: Irish Americans · Italian Americans
SOMEWHAT BUT NOT ENTIRELY HISPANIC-AMERICANS: Portuguese Americans
Just like Obama didn't want to be a "sell-out", neither should we: rejoice in your ethnic-ness, fellow Ethnic-Americans!
And, as you can see, the list thankfully doesn't say a damn thing about those German-Americans and Scandinavian-Americans, whether the dolicephalic Nordics or the mesocephalic types with origins from around Bavaria. But, those in the latter group needn't be overly concerned. Many will be Catholic, and thus they're presumably included in the Catholic subsection of the "People of Faith" section.
Also thankfully, the list obviously doesn't include those WASPs ("White Anglo-Saxon Protestants"). Unfortunately, we Ethnic-Americans know about them, the people who've been oppressing us Ethnic-Americans since our forefathers got off the boat.
So, my fellow European & Mediterranean Americans, rejoice! The Great Leader includes our racial and ethnic subgroup in his thoughts, and will help us fight against our eternal enemies in other racial and ethnic subgroups!
Whether you're a Balkan-American, an Irish-American, or a mix of one or more, enjoy the thoughts of our Leader:
European and Mediterranean Americans (sometimes known as Ethnic Americans) for Obama are Americans of varied backgrounds – from the newly naturalized citizen building a family and laying down roots to the fourth-generation family in the US with ties and heritage connected to the land of our ancestors. New in greater Detroit – these are just some of the stories of American families, stories of resounding hope and affirmation in the American dream – and it is Barack Obama’s story as well.Finally: a leader who will help us Ethnic-Americans stand up to that WASP bastard!
We are proud of our heritage, recognizing that our collective differences make up the rich and colorful fabric of American society. We are proud of a country that allows us to celebrate our own customs while giving us endless opportunities. It’s a country that allows our children and grandchildren, through their hard work and determination, to achieve heights previously unimaginable.
But, like so many Americans, we’ve been profoundly disappointed by the failed policies driven by George Bush over the past eight years...
Did Carla Marinucci cover up Obama's "bankrupt" coal plants plan?
The San Francisco Chronicle conducted an interview with Barack Obama on January 17, 2008 in which he said things relating to his energy policy and his plan to bankrupt coal plants under certain conditions. What he said may or may not be as shocking as some would have you believe; I don't know anything about the topic.
What I do know is that (h/t Newsbusters), the summary of the talk from Carla Marinucci of the SF Chronicle contains nothing about his energy-related discussions. Was that a cover-up or something else? I'll let the reader decide, but note that she's misled in Obama's favor before; see the last link.
Will Barack Obama "bankrupt the coal industry"?
Barack Obama's not-exactly-brilliant opponents are once again setting themselves up for failure as they have so many times in the past. The latest example is the claim that Obama will "bankrupt the coal industry", which doesn't appear to be completely accurate. [1]
And, because that claim isn't 100% accurate, what's going to happen is what's happened before: "fact check" sites and the mainstream media are going to use the fact that it isn't 100% accurate to negate the entire claim and obscure the fact that it might be partly true. (See my list of stupid things Obama's opponents do).
After the "fact checkers" do their thing, Obama's supporters at blogs, Digg, etc. are going to spread those "fact checks" around and use them at a retail level against anyone in the affected states who might otherwise be swayed.
It's all pretty sad, but I can't do everything. And, in this case I don't know anything about the coal industry so I can't come up with something that would work.
See the link above for the full quote, including this:
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.
Someone who's a recognized expert on coal needs to come up with a completely fact-based analysis of the impact that Obama's plans would have on the industry, and then boil that down to a one-sentence, completely factual summary together with a series of footnotes. If you aren't an expert, look up university professors in coal-producing areas and send them emails asking for their thoughts.
Is that really so difficult? Yes, apparently it is.
11/3/08 UPDATE: This is currently the #3 story on Digg (all sections) with 2695 diggs: digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Spreads_False_News_Report
People don't think ahead and make sure they're saying something that's 100% defensible, and that leaves an opening for the MSM to try to smack down the whole story.
[1] The audio is from an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle from January 17, 2008; Carla Marinucci summarized it, leaving out all the shocking bits.
My suspicions about the claim are raised by the fact that the audio where he makes the claims is from NakedEmperorNews, a source which was behind the wealth redistribution audio and others, and a source that I don't consider very credible. Needless to say, the video (link) has a long, inflammatory title: "SHOCK Audio Unearthed OBAMA TELLS SAN FRANCISCO HE WILL BANKRUPT THE COAL INDUSTRY".
Can't we do better than this?
Matriarch Sarah Obama says Barack Obama was born in Kenya (?)
Against my better judgment, I'm linking to this page supposedly containing audio and a transcript of a conversation held with Sarah Onyango Obama, matriarch of the Obama clan. To cut to the chase, see the lower right corner of this BMP file with the transcript:Kweli Shuhubia: He [the Luo translator] is asking her, he wants to know something was ah she present when he [Barack Obama] was born?If the red preface to the post linked above isn't enough of a warning sign, note that McRae is a street preacher with the self-assumed title of a bishop and overseer of the Anabaptists Churches in North America. And, due to the political situation there, Kweli Shuhubia isn't his real name. And, well, expect many others to come up with many other ways to mock the tape.
Translator: Yes. She says, "Yes she was! She was present when Obama was born."
Ron McRae: Okay.
It might be a real tape, and she might be telling the truth and not be confusing BHO with some other relative. But, unless she flies to the U.S. and appears on TV saying the same thing it's probably not going to make that much of a difference.
To go with the red text at the post, let me add my own:
DO NOT WASTE TIME ON THIS. DO SOMETHING EFFECTIVE. FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, ONE OF THE BEST THINGS YOU CAN DO IS TO SEND THIS LIST (OR YOUR VARIANT) TO ALL THE UNDECIDEDS YOU CAN FIND, AND TELL THEM TO SEND IT TO ALL THEIR FRIENDS.
ADN: AP Palin story on pipeline bids was "remarkably skewed" (Justin Pritchard, Garance Burke)
The Anchorage Daily News - a paper that's endorsed Obama - offers "Misfire at Palin" (link) about last week's Associated Press "investigation" from Justin Pritchard and Garance Burke about bids for a major Alaskan pipeline project [1].This report from The Associated Press is a remarkably skewed account with little new information to support the charge it implies. Presumably, readers are supposed to conclude that Palin tilted the gas line bidding toward a favored company, one that had previously employed one of her key staffers.[1] "Palin pipeline terms curbed bids"
Here's the truth: The pipeline terms were not "Palin's." They were the terms requested by the sovereign state of Alaska, as provided in the Alaska Constitution.
While Palin did indeed start by proposing very similar bid terms, all of Alaska's key decisions about those terms and the contract award itself were made through an unusually open public process that culminated in formal and enthusiastic approval from the Alaska Legislature.
huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/25/palins-pipeline-deal-flaw_n_137825.html
Obama, Farrakhan ties more extensive than thought
From this:A former top deputy to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan tells Newsmax that Barack Obama’s ties to the black nationalist movement in Chicago run deep, and that for many years the two men have had “an open line between them” to discuss policy and strategy, either directly or through intermediaries.Note also that Obama, Ayers, and Farrakhan live within just a few blocks of each other in Hyde Park.
“Remember that for years, if you were a politician in Chicago, you had to have some type of relationship with Louis Farrakhan. You had to. If you didn’t, you would be ostracized out of black Chicago,” said Dr. Vibert White Jr., who spent most of his adult life as a member and ultimately top officer of the Nation of Islam.
White broke with the group in 1995 and is now a professor of African-American history at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
White said Obama was “part of the Chicago scene” where Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and radicals would go to each other’s events and support each other’s causes.
“Even though Chicago is the third-largest city in the country, within the black community, the political and militant nationalist community is very small. So it wouldn’t be uncommon for [Obama and Farrakhan] to show up at events together, or at least be there and communicate with each other,” White told Newsmax...
Obama supports failed "portfolio-assessment" education programs
School choice supporter Lance Izumi from the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy offers this:Talking to National Public Radio, Melody Barnes, a spokeswoman for [Barack Obama's] campaign, said recently that Mr. Obama supports "portfolio assessment" of student performance. Portfolio assessment usually requires a student to perform various classroom assignments, like write essays, do individual projects, participate in group projects. These assignments are put into a portfolio for that student and evaluated. In a debate earlier this month, Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Mr. Obama, pointed to other countries where students are assessed based on “kids doing science inquiries, research papers, technology products."
Portfolio-assessment supporters claim that this method gives a broader view of a student's knowledge level. Whether this is true or not, the problem is that portfolio assessment is extremely difficult to implement effectively in practice.
Kentucky enacted a portfolio-assessment program in 1990. After a few years, a state review panel found that because teachers in the students’ own schools scored the portfolios, there was grade inflation. Furthermore, the panel found that since teaching, time allotted for assignments and opportunities for revising work differed from classroom to classroom, it was impossible to compare student performance fairly.
A RAND study of Vermont’s portfolio-assessment system, which used independent scorers, came to similar conclusions. The study found that those assessing portfolios were confused by the scoring guidelines and disagreed among themselves during the evaluations. Moreover, training a large number of scorers proved difficult and the system was hugely expensive. Finally, student task variation from classroom to classroom made reliable evaluation impossible...
The "best" of Michelle Obama
This video seems to be a compilation of the "best" of Michelle Obama, America's nightmare First Lady.
Heartless Obama throws poor, illegal alien aunt under bus; will return illegal donations; lies about not knowing?
Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt Zeituni Onyango - called "Auntie Zeituni" in his memoirs - turns out to be an illegal alien living in a Boston slum who illegally donated part of her meager income to his campaign.
And, now she joins a host of other former Obama associates under his bus. After it was discovered yesterday that she's an illegal alien, the Obama campaign has today released the following statement:
"Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed."
Now, let's parse that out, Clinton-like.
1. He's not offering to get her an immigration lawyer to see whether her case is salvageable. Instead, he's just throwing her under the bus, in effect daring the Bush administration to go deport her. He truly is Mr. Wonderful, isn't he?
2. The statement puts his supposed lack of knowledge of her status in the present tense. What about past knowledge? Wouldn't a statement like this normally say that he "had" no knowledge?
3. Does this contradict his past implications that immigration raids and associated deportations should be stopped until "immigration reform" passes? Is he more "humane" to millions of other illegal aliens than his own aunt? (See Barack details practical, progressive, and humane federal policy that fundamentally addresses issues of immigration, link)
4. Isn't this yet another in the long line of support for illegal activity that follows him around everywhere he goes? His former bagman has been convicted; he's linked to others under investigation or suspected of being involved in illegal activity; his illegal alien aunt gave him illegal campaign donations; he supports illegal immigration and would allow it to continue; and, he's received potentially tens of millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions.
5. The campaign says they'll return her donations (link). What about all the potential millions from others?
6. Let's look at the timeline the AP provides and see if it could be possible - shocking as it may be - that Obama is lying about having knowledge of her status:
~1988: [Obama] first met his father's side of the family when he traveled to Africa 20 years ago. He referred to Onyango as "Auntie Zeituni" when describing the trip in his memoir, saying she was "a proud woman."
~1992: returns to Kenya with Michelle, sees her again
~1999: Onyango visited the family in Chicago on a tourist visa at Obama's invitation about nine years ago, the campaign said, stopping to visit friends on the East Coast before returning to Kenya.
2005: She attended Obama's swearing-in to the U.S. Senate in 2004 [note: actually 2005], but campaign officials said Obama provided no assistance in getting her a tourist visa and doesn't know the details of her stay.
2006: The campaign said he last heard from her about two years ago when she called saying she was in Boston, but he did not see her there.
Does anyone in their right mind think that the hyper-ruthless and -efficient Obama campaign wouldn't have immediately have done a background check - "vetted" her - to make sure she wasn't going to be a liability? He knew she came here on a tourist visa in 2004. Did she apply for asylum on that visit? Isn't that something she would have mentioned to him? Perhaps not, but wouldn't he expect that she would have returned home? Then, when she called back in 2006 wouldn't he immediately wonder under what status she'd come back? If she'd mentioned that she'd applied for regular legal immigration (rather than seeking asylum), wouldn't he wonder about the timing? Clearly she wants to live in the U.S.; wouldn't he have inquired about what she was doing to further that goal?
And, she previously told at least two reporters that she couldn't comment on anything until after the election. Did she think up that on her own? What role if any do those in Obama friend Deval Patrick's administration have in any of this? Were any of those people "minding" her?
Everyone reading this - not MSM reporters - needs to go out and try to ask Obama some questions about this. We need to find out exactly what Obama knew about this (and when he knew it). And, we need to find out exactly what else he's hiding away until after the election.
UPDATE: Rep. John Conyers has sent a letter to Michael Chertoff, saying in part: "I was startled to read in today’s Associated Press that a 'federal law enforcement official' has leaked information about an immigration case involving a relative of Senator Obama." However, is what the official did illegal, or are they just worried about reprisal in case BHO wins? If the former, the comments here concerning the JTP case apply. What part of her case is not a part of the public record?
UPDATE 2: His swearing-in was actually in 2005, not 2004 as the AP report says. I changed that above. That also means that she was here illegally while attending his swearing-in ceremony.
"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).
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...
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.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:
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.
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.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.
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.
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!]
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
Does the Obama/Khalidi video include a dance troupe performing "beheadings"?
...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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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...Just relax! It's not like if he wins there will be four years of fun jokes or anything.
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.
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...
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.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.
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.
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.More, including contradictory statements, at the link.
...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.
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:
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."
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.
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...Right is wrong, up is down, suppressing things is bring them to light, etc.
"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."
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.
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
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.
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)
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.
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.
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."Just a gentle "looking".
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."
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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)
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.
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.
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...
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."
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?
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.
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.
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.
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].The BHO campaign denies everything. Everything!
...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...
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.Write readers.rep *at* latimes.com and suggest they stop covering for Barack Obama and release the video tape.
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.
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.
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.It's all just a coincidence, and it was always just a coincidence.
"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."
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
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
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...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.
..."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."
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.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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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...
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.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.
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."
"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).
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.See also this, where John McCain says:
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...
"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."
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.There's much more - and worse - at the link.
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...
Related:
Barack Obama funded radical Afro-centric schools (Annenberg Challenge, Rev. Wright)
"Obama Supporters Heckle at McCain Rally"
Let me know if there's anything of interest on this:
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.
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.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.
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.”
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.
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.
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).
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.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.
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."
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).
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)
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.
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
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.
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.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.
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...
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.
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.
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?"
Voter fraud discovered in Ohio
Developing:
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.
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.
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
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.The last isn't really that significant, but it is yet another link between BHO and TUCC.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Barack Obama took Rezko's money while Rezko's tenants froze in Chicago winter (-7F)
Around Christmas,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.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.
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...
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.
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
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.UPDATE: Needless to say, "Obama Camp Rejects Jackson's Claim That He Would Diminish 'Zionist' Influence" (link)
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."
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.”)UPDATE: There's more on the projects and groups funded by BHO - including ACORN - here.
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.
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...
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.And, from this 10/6/08 post:
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.
Project Vote and ACORN... just wrapped up a voter registration drive targeting battleground states Obama needs to win the White House.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:
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.
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...And, from this:
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...
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...Although located at the same address, CSI says they're a "separate organization entirely" despite the several links discussed in that article.
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."
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.
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."
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.
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.
"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...
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.
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
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.
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."He ended his speech with these:
Ayers told the great humanitarian Chavez: "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion."
Viva Mission Sucre![1] See '"He Lied" About Bill Ayers?' from Brooks Jackson and Viveca Novak of FactCheck.org (newsweek.com/id/163396), which says:
Viva Presidente Chavez!
Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana!
Hasta La Victroria Siempre!
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.BHO also blurbed Ayers' 'Fugitive Days', the book in which he recounted his terrorist acts.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.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:
* 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.
"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).[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.
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."
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:
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.
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...
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.Salgado of the ICIRR has a series of links to the Mexican government, a fact not disclosed by Antonio Oliva of the Chicago Tribune.
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.
Another person involved in the effort is Inhe Choi, 'interim director of the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center in Chicago'.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.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.
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?
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?
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.
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).
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...Corsi was also going to give $1000 to Obama's half-brother George, who lives in a Nairobi slum.
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.
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.
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.
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.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.
"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...
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.
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.
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
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.)
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.
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...
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.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):
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.
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.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:
Department of Revenue Commissioner Patrick Galvin endorsed a bill promoting divestment in Sudan at a hearing before the Senate State Affairs Committee.
"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
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...
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.
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.You can visit Kmeck's site by clicking the following image:
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..."
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.Links to the PDFs are at the previous link.
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...
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.
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...Much more at the link.
...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...
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?
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...Related:
..."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."
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.
Are you scared of Barack Obama's followers yet? (kids singing video)
Please compare these two videos of children singing to their leader. If you aren't scared of Barack Obama and his followers now, it might just change your mind [SEE THE UPDATES; 'SING FOR CHANGE' REMOVED THE ORIGINAL VIDEO]:Note that the second video was embedded at DailyKos, but none of the pages shown as linking to the video exist anymore. Apparently it's not yet time.
UPDATE: I don't know who did it, but it looks like "Bill Hawkins" - someone who is not me - posted the second video to BHO's site: my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/billhawkins If only I knew who "Bill Hawkins" was.
UPDATE 2: On the user's talk page, some people seem to be trying to spread the possibility that the second video was shot in a public school and not a private residence. That's certainly possible, but the hallway visible about 1:12 lined with framed pictures doesn't look very school-like.
Also, the BHO banner behind the conductor, visible at 1:57, seems to have part of it blacked out. Does anyone have a link to an original version of that banner?
UPDATE 3: A cache of the DK thread that was deleted is here. Out of 19 replies, only one was negative. Here's a list of those involved: Kathy Sawada, Barry Rosenbaum, Eriko Matsumoto, Wilma Wong, Jeff Zucker (apparently not the head of NBC but someone else), Ted Schilowitz, Holly Schiffer, Peter Rosenfeld, Darin Moran, Jean Martin, Andy