The Obama Money Myth

A great catch from Patterico at Hot Air- one that deserves spreading.

Remember Obama's oft-repeated lie line that his campaign contributions come from "the people"? Well, not so much-

George W. Bush in 2004 had a higher percentage of contributions of $200 or less than Barack Obama has had in this campaign.

Surprised?

Lost in the attention given to Obama’s Internet surge is that only a quarter of the $600 million he has raised has come from donors who made contributions of $200 or less, according to a review of his FEC reports. That is actually slightly less, as a percentage, than President Bush raised in small donations during his 2004 race…

So, bigger donors own a bigger piece of Obama than previously thought. But hey, that doesn't worry you when it comes to a Chicago machine politician, does it? I mean, it's not like this guy's a blank page with no legislative history suddenly thrust into the most powerful position on Earth. Right? And anyway, it's not like he's a glutton for public funds funnelled towards political backers and friends. Oh, well, let's move swiftly on...

While Obama says he does not accept contributions from Washington lobbyists, that’s not much of a distinction these days. He has been accepting huge amounts from corporations, unions and endless special-interest groups. The influence of big-money donors in a possible Obama administration could create a political backlash if he doesn’t find a way to resist the enormous pressure that will be brought to bear.

And the conclusion?

MacDonald’s article explores the question whether Obama is going to be the first guy in history to take scads of money from people and not let it affect the way he governs.

Now there is a proposition that I’m willing to put big money on.

Happy Halloween

A little Frank Cho to celebrate the Halloween season.

Obama And The Press

The Obama campaign is certainly becoming more audacious as election day draws near-

The Obama campaign has decided to heave out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across battleground states — and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!

It looks like they were not sufficiently obsequious towards "Dear Leader". Upstart journalists exercising their freedom of expression- how dare they!

Now it just looks like vindictiveness, and perhaps even worse. Obama and his supporters have gotten vicious with reporters who ask questions and do research that put Obama in a bad light, and this adds to the general pattern we’ve seen since the primaries.

It also looks a little self-indulgent. Obama’s clearing room on the plane for — what? Documentarians who will produce hagiographies about his historic importance. That fits into another pattern we’ve seen for months, one marked with fake presidential seals, The Barackopolis, and infomercials. In the coming Age of Obama, only the worshipers will get front-row seats to history.

If this is the way Obama treats journalists now, just imagine what it's going to be like if he gets into the White House and, as Joe Biden points out, their favourability ratings drop.

Do you think the press is starting to show some buyer's remorse yet- or will that only happen when Obama-approved stooges reporters get access to the administration?

Michelle on Barack

I'd love to see this in a McCain ad- "even Michelle Obama says he's not ready yet".

Obama, Odinga And Politico

Politico has an article up on the "nastiest rumours" of the campaign. One of them is the Obama-Odinga story.

A third popular Obama "tip" has to do with Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister and former opposition leader who claimed that Obama was a distant cousin. The reports surfaced after a political crisis in Kenya in which many international observers believed the vote was stolen from Odinga. As the international community rallied behind the opposition, Obama spoke to Odinga briefly on the telephone. The media has ignored stories about the relationship between the two men because there's no real evidence that one exists. But the story, which comes in many varieties, suggests that Obama campaigned for Odinga and funneled money to his campaign and that they're close allies. In a particularly resonant twist, the story also subjects Odinga to the same sort of rumor that afflicts Obama: that despite Odinga's professed Christian faith (the Kenyan prime minister is an Anglican), the two men are conspiring to institute Muslim law…in Kenya.

There's a minor problem with this conclusion- and that's that it is incorrect. Here's CBS on the Obama visit to Kenya, written in 2006.

There are signs of tension between Sen. Barack Obama and African leaders. On Monday, Obama stepped up his criticism of government corruption in Kenya.

But as CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, the government fired back, saying Obama is a stooge for an opposing political party.

At the University of Nairobi two hours later, the senator offered more pointed criticism, something he's done almost every day since arriving last week. After remaining largely silent, the government of President Mwai Kibaki is beginning to respond, suggesting that Obama may have fallen under the spell of opposition leader Raila Odinga.

A potential presidential candidate himself, Odinga's been at Obama's elbow here fairly often and is a member of the Obama family's Luo tribe.

"Sen. Obama has to look at critically about where he's receiving his advice from," said government spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua. "Just because somebody, somewhere wants to run for president and is using Sen. Obama as his stooge, as his puppet to be able to get to where he wants to get to."

The article is, of course, accompanied by this photograph of Obama and Odinga appearing together-
Another report on the Obama visit notes-

Kibera loves Obama's outspoken anti-corruption crusade, as does most of Kenya. It's one reason he's getting a hero's welcome wherever he goes.

Another CBS report-

Barack Obama's forays into diplomacy have touched on Kenya, most recently on Monday when he spoke with Raila Odinga for about five minutes from New Hampshire, asking the opposition leader to meet directly with President Mwai Kibaki, said the U.S. politician's spokesman.

"He urged an end to violence and that Mr. Odinga sit down, without preconditions, with President Kibaki to resolve this issue peacefully," said the spokesman, Bill Burton.

On his last visit to Kenya, in August, Obama made a speech that was televised live in which he touched on themes not normally debated openly in Kenya, criticizing the high-level corruption and the tribal politics that have dominated the country since its 1963 independence from Britain. Both issues have played a role in the postelection violence.

As for the cousin point, it was Raila Odinga who made that claim to the BBC.

Finally there's the claim that Christian Odinga is conspiring with Muslims in Kenya, something Politico seems to dismiss out of hand. This is, of course, perfectly true. Odinga signed an agreement with Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, the leader of a Kenyan Muslim group. In return for his support, Odinga would institute policy changes favourable to Muslims in Kenya. The dispute which arises is not about the agreement between the two men but about the exact details of it. A document was published in Kenya speaking of installing Sharia law in Muslim-dominated areas of the country for example. Another document was later released after considerable pressure from the public. The demands in this document were not quite so extreme but its validity has been called into question.

A quick aside- the post-election violence committed by Odinga supporters targeted an awful lot of Christians and churches. No mosques were damaged. Also, Muslims in Kenya were also pushing for Sharia law back in 2005 too.

You can watch a TV report about the agreement- freely admitted to by Ahbdi. Note that Abdi's primary concern is the topic of rendition.



Finally we have the Washington Times report on the story. In it they note Obama's campaigning for Odinga (covered in local media) and also some interesting background on Odinga himself-

Like his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the main opposition leader in the 1960s and 1970s, Raila Odinga is a Marxist. He graduated from East Germany's Magdeburg University in 1970 on a scholarship provided by the East German government. He named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States. Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the 1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.

Obama having close links with another Marxist? I guess that must be another of those distractions we keep hearing about- and not more evidence of a pattern of behaviour on Obama's part.

Now, can someone please explain to me how this story ended up in Politico's "worst rumours" section?

Accomplishments

From the HillBuzz blog, a video of Obama himself and his supporters coming up blank when asked about his accomplishments. Heck, even Michelle Obama says "he hasn't done anything yet".

Obama And Weather Underground

I wrote not so long ago about the connections between Barack Obama, his anti-apartheid activism while at Columbia and the startling coincidence that Ayers was studying close by- while the last of the Weather Underground were also involved in anti-apartheid protesting.

Zombie has more details-

What I do know is that Obama had the same political interests as the final remnants of the Weather Underground at the exact same time in the exact same place. That as an adult he was living in the same city where and when they conducted their second-to-last terror attack, which was a protest against the Apartheid polices of South Africa -- the very topic to which Obama has said he was devoted at that time. So because of all this, Obama must have known about the Weather Underground and their tactics while he was still in college. So when he met Weather Underground founder William Ayers 13 years later, Obama certainly had to have known exactly who Ayers was and what he had done.

The point is also made that while Obama claims to have only been 8 years old when the WU started, he was 20 years old when they conducted one of their last act of terrorism. That sure does change the story and it reveals again his dissembling tactics when confronted with controversy and scandal.

The ties between Obama and Ayers/Weather Underground begin when he got involved in protesting S. Africa and gave his first political speech- a speech he delivered to the SDS, forerunner of the Weather Underground itself.

Zombie goes into great detail about Obama's time at Columbia, noting the discrepancies between Obama's scant details of that period with actual evidence. While he claims, for instance, to have constantly moved from place to place, Zombie has discovered that phone books from the time list him as being static from '82-'85.

There's much more information there and I strongly recommend reading it all. The reason Obama isn't talking about Columbia- and when he does he contradicts himself and the other available evidence- could be that he was involved in more radical behaviour than he wants the American electorate to know about.

Purple Thumbs

Any attempts at ensuring that US elections are fair and just (i.e. eliminating voter fraud) are generally met with preposterous cries of racism and disenfranchisement. Providing proof of who you are to vote, so that your vote counts and is not negated by a fraudulent one disenfranchises who exactly?

Thus far critics of fair voting have relied on the claim that the supposed burden of having an ID will negatively impact the poor because they can't afford it and don't have it to begin with.

Well, a reader at NRO makes an obvious suggestion-

Maybe we should do what Iraq did - vote and dye.

Purple stain on your thumb when you vote- a positive way to make sure that you cannot vote twice and which, more importantly, places no economic burden on the voter.

So come on Dems- you the ones always wailing about fair elections. Why not step up to the plate and make sure that each person gets to vote once and once only? It certainly wouldn't do any harm either for some Republicans to see if they could get this passed into law. With park benches now qualifying as addresses, some method of making sure people don't vote more than one is definitely required.

Purple dye isn't going to disenfranchise anyone- so how could you possibly be opposed to it?

Devotion To Duty

From Ace of Spades, a video showing Obama's tremendous devotion to his Senate duties.

Audacity

The audacity of Barack Obama- when a crisis rears its ugly head, you can be sure he will leap into action and vote present write a letter!

Mr. Obama replied that he “never promoted Fannie Mae” and that “two years ago I said that we’ve got a subprime lending crisis that has to be dealt with.” And that’s not all. “I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it,” said the Illinois Senator.

There’s more. Mr. Obama’s March 2007 letter included a stirring call to “assess options” and boldly suggested that the two men “facilitate a serious conversation” about housing. He was even brave enough to suggest that “the relevant private sector entities and regulators” might be able to provide “targeted responses.” Then in paragraph four, the Harvard-trained lawyer dropped his bombshell: a suggestion that various interest groups get together to “consider” best practices in mortgage lending.

Hot Air gives us the conclusion to this exciting tale of extraordinary inaction-

Obama didn’t take that role [US Senator] seriously enough to take real action — like introducing legislation or sponsoring another Senator’s bill that attempted to stop the meltdown before it occurred.

John McCain, on the other hand, did take action. He co-sponsored Chuck Hagel’s bill that would have required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to adhere to responsible lending practices and loan-to-value standards. Obama, after writing his magnum opus to Henry Paulson, never bothered to support Hagel’s bill or introduce another for the purpose of reforming the GSEs. Instead, Obama took their money, becoming the second-highest recipient of Fannie/Freddie contributions in the Senate in the last 20 years — having only served less than four of those.

And the polls show the race almost neck and neck? It's unreal. Studying politics in America now is like peering through the looking glass into a wonderland where there logic is dashed hard to find.

Ace of Spades makes an important point here too-

Obama made the enemy combatants' defense his personal cause, the lawyers said: "Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications of voting to preserve habeas corpus for the men held at Guantanamo."

A looming financial meltdown and Barack writes a letter.

Enemy combatants being held so that they do not return to the battlefield to kill American soldiers or commit terrorist acts aimed at civilians- and Barack works hard to provide them with legal protections. He makes that his personal cause.

Obama's Church

LGF posts a video of an Obama interview from a few years ago in which he praises Rev. "God damn America" Wright- he's a "wonderful man".

What struck me most though was that he referred to his church as being specifically an African-American one- he says Wright is “the best of what the black church has to offer.”



Remember this too- Barack Obama said his longtime pastor “has been like family to me.” Obama said he could “no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

In his memoirs, Obama recounted his first meeting with Wright. Obama remembered a Trinity brochure urging parishioners to “become black Christian activists, soldiers for black freedom.” It contained “guiding principles — a ‘Black Value System’ — that the congregation had adopted in 1979.”

These included a “commitment to the black community, commitment to the black family, adherence to the black work ethics and a pledge to make all fruits of developing acquired skills available to the black community.” Obama wrote that these and other black-oriented views comprised “a sensible, heartfelt list.”

That's some church for a man who declares himself to be "post-racial". Before he threw Wright under the bus, Obama must have been aware of Wright's own book-

In his 1995 book "Africans Who Shaped Our Faith" Wright wrote, “Modern reasoning tries to avoid the issue of race and pretend that race really doesn’t matter. That is a lie. Race does matter. Race is a reality that one cannot ignore. America was founded on racism. America lives and breathes racism. In this country, racism is as natural as motherhood, apple pie and the fourth of July. Many black people have been deluded into thinking that our BMWs, Lexuses, Porsches, Benzes, titles, heavily mortgaged condos, and living environments can influence people who are fundamentally immoral.”

And yet, despite this- not to mention the other controversial statements Wright made and which Obama just happened to be unaware of- Obama did not speak out and declare that these notions run counter to what he really believes- or at least, that he tells voters he believes. Did he not read the book of his spiritual mentor and friend?

After all, if Obama did not agree with Wright's persistent America-hating and racism, why did he bring his children to that church to hear those things being said?

Eye Candy

Not so long ago my taste in firearms, aesthetically speaking, included the likes of HK's G11, the FAMAS, the Steyr AUG and the much-maligned L85. They spoke to me of the future of arms design, one that hasn't really come to pass. Funny how designs going back to the '70s can seem to look to futuristic even today.

Times change though, and as the grey hairs become more prominent, I find myself growing in appreciation for the classics. The sleek lines of the Garand, the utilitarian appeal of the SMLE and the simple elegance that is the Sharps. Function most certainly has its place, but good grief, surely there's room for a little form too? The SCAR might be the bees knees when it comes to putting holes in terrorists but it sure is ugly. I admire the likes of the F2000 for example but, given the choice, I'd probably opt for a Mosin-Nagant instead.

Which brings me to this- among traditional designs the Colt Peacemaker has been one whose allure I've been immune to for some time. Something about it just didn't click with me. Well, and I can't rule out the effect of a greying beard on this, I've seen the light. Just the other day I was watching a neat zombie film called Dance of the Dead (fun, gory, recommended to all horror fans) when one of the characters brandished a Colt- and suddenly I got it. I can see now the mistake I've made in not appreciating it.

How on earth did I not see the beauty in the likes of this tremendous Nettleton from US Firearms? You really should check out their website for more marvellous work.

Nuisance

Okay, folks, a little tech help is required. For some reason the monitor power option is my "display properties" keeps changing the "turn off monitor" setting. No matter how many times I keep changing it (and saving my own power scheme profile) something keeps turning it back to the default "turn off after 20 mins".

Any suggestions?

Obama's Judgement

Obama's years at Columbia are pretty much a blank page but he himself does mention one aspect of it- whom he chose as friends.

"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."



Youthful cluelessness? Well, not so much-

Obama supporters point out that plenty of Americans flirt with radical ideologies in college, only to join the political mainstream later in life. But Obama, who made a point of noting how "carefully" he chose his friends in college, also chose to launch his political career in the Chicago living room of Ayers, a domestic terrorist who in 2002 proclaimed: "I am a Marxist."

The pattern of Obama's associations with radicals is well defined- his entire adult life he has chosen to immerse himself in radical company- his friendly dinners with PLO-spokesman Khalidi, his years-long work with terrorist Ayers and his decades long service at racist Wright's church.

Obama's Fraud

Steyn on Obama's fraudulent campaign donations.

On the grubby little racket of his online credit card fraud, Senator Obama merely has to run out the clock now. If it's not exposed before Tuesday, no one is going to have any appetite for investigating it once he's won.

First of all let's have a look at where it all fits in-

The Obama campaign has shattered presidential fundraising records, in part by capitalizing on the ease of online giving. Of the $150 million the senator from Illinois raised in September, nearly $100 million came in over the Internet.

But it's purely coincidental that the Obama campaign disabled every security check on their website, allowing fake names and addresses and even overseas donations. And as Steyn notes, claims that Obama's people are catching the fraudulent and illegal donations are pure bunk.

Almost every fraudulent donation sails through, and real money leaves real accounts. To give to Obama his fellow "citizens of the world" don't even have to pretend to be American. As detailed yesterday, Mr A Hitler of Berlin, Germany is only the most obvious fake donor to make a contribution and receive shortly afterwards a Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome email thanking him for joining the active community of community activists.

And here's another pertinent point-

this is part of a long pattern of behavior by Obama in which the noble ends of the Messiah's triumph justify any means.

I certainly recommend reading this too. For all his inexperience he certainly learned how politics in Chicago works.

At this stage it can certainly not have escaped his notice that his new brand of transparent politics is being accused of massive fraud- and yet the security features remain disabled and the campaign still refuses to release the names of donors giving less than $200. At the end of the day, he's the one claiming that running his campaign is proof positive of his ability to lead America- he should also realise then that, as the man in charge, the ultimate responsibility for this rests not with his staff but with him personally.

New Windows

So Microsoft is releasing a new version of Windows to replace Vista. I've got that operating system installed on my laptop and I have grown quite used to it. I particularly like the ease of browsing through My Documents and other folders. However, after a hard drive crash I bought a replacement desktop machine- and put XP onto it. Apart from not being quite so easy to flick from folder to folder, it's a much more stable system. Vista gives me more hiccups than XP. Not only is it a system hog but it thrashes hard drives pretty hard too

Hardly an improvement. Wouldn't it make more sense to develop a lean, rock-steady OS, that takes full advantage of the processing power available these days? You know, an OS that you can rely on to keep on ticking while allowing your fast processor, gigs of RAM and super-powered graphics cards to be put to use running applications rather than the background system.

Now that another OS is on the way it seems that Vista might be another Windows Me.

Issue or Non-Issue

I honestly don't know what to make of the Obama birth certificate rumours. On the one hand, LGF points out that Phillip Berg, the Clinton supporter who brought this issue to court, is a 9/11 Truther. On the other, given the continual rumours about the issue, it seems incredibly bizarre that the Obama camp has not simply released the original birth certificate.

WND has learned that Hawaii's Gov. Linda Lingle has placed the candidate's birth certificate under seal and instructed the state's Department of Health to make sure no one in the press obtains access to the original document under any circumstances.

The source also refused to answer WND's question whether the original document on file with the Department of Health was a hospital-generated birth certificate or a registration of birth that may have been filed subsequent to the birth.

Strange, no?

In a startling development, Obama's Kenyan grandmother has reportedly alleged she witnessed Obama's birth at the Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

Stranger still, is this-

In Kenya, WND was told by government authorities that all documents concerning Obama were under seal until after the U.S. presidential election on November 4.

What possible difference could it make? In the unlikely case that it emerges that he is not eligible to be President does anyone seriously suppose that this fact will be ignored? Are they hoping that simply winning will be enough to avoid the actual law?

I just don't get why his campaign- why he- is refusing to allow the original birth certificate (or registration of birth) to be revealed to the public. The Senate met to discuss John McCain's circumstances but Obama is allowed to avoid releasing original documents. If nothing else, it goes to show the curious double-standard applied to the two candidates.

If anyone wants to weigh in- I have not followed the issue too closely- feel free.

UPDATE - The jury is in and the result is, NON-issue. Check the comments for more.

Obama's Past Coming Back

The Chicago Public Radio archives are turning up some telling comments from 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.”

Yep, a candidate for President of the United States of America, compared that nation to Nazi Germany.

Using Children

I find this disturbing and not a little creepy.

In the words of Senator Barack Obama, the “Obama for America Campaign is a different type of campaign”. For the first time in campaign history, children ages 12 and under, have a place to go and actually vote—through their voice. What a great way to be introduced to politics and to express your support for Senator Obama.

His campaign is using its resources to target kids under 12- but why? Well, this might have something to do with it-

Take an adult (voting age) to the polls on Election Day and encourage them to vote for you, by voting for Senator Obama.

Classy. Now read on-

When it comes to your family, you are Barack's most effective advocate. There are less than two weeks left in this election. If you haven't already talked to your family, now is the time.

If you've already talked to your parents and grandparents about Barack and what's at stake in this election, let us know how it went, and what advice you would offer fellow supporters who are thinking about having the talk themselves.

As for "the talk", they even offer specific tips for children to use-

Approaching your parents about who they are voting for can be intimidating if you’ve never talked about politics with them before.

Don’t worry about knowing everything about policy positions before you have this conversation

Don’t wait until the last minute -- it might take a few conversations for you to convince them, so start as early as possible;

In short, he's using children to try and influence not just their parents but their grandparents. I don't know what's worse, aiming this propaganda at children who aren't even close to voting age and who don't understand politics, or the fact that they think emotional blackmail is just fine and dandy so long as they get a vote out of it.

It's a cheap, ugly tactic.

Obama And The Bomb

When the President of France couches your policy towards Iran in these terms you know there's a problem.

But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."

Until now, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have tried to maintain a united front on Iran. But according to the senior Israeli source, Sarkozy fears that Obama might "arrogantly" ignore the other members of this front and open a direct dialogue with Iran without preconditions.

Despite Obama's many protestations to the contrary that is actually what he said he would do-



And then there's this news-

The French intelligence community believes that Iran has already obtained about 40 percent of the enriched uranium it would need for its first bomb, and that at its current rate, it will obtain the rest of the uranium it needs in the spring or summer of 2009.

President Obama and a nuclear Iran. Not the a combination that inspires confidence.

Second Bill of Rights

A quick update on the revelations about Obama's view of the Constitution. In short, he thinks it gets in the way of his plans for redistributing wealth. So-called "economic justice".

A commenter at Hot Air noted that a Chicago law professor, Cass Sunstein, was in favour of a Second Bill of Rights. This would guarantee the right to a decent home, to earning a decent wage, to health care, etc. Based upon the FDR speech, he seems to think that, rather than try to effect these things through policy, that it would actually be a better plan to actually amend the Constitution.

And who is going to pay for everbody's right to a decent home and a decent living wage? Where's the money for that going to come from if not through a massive redistribution of wealth?

Unsurprisingly, he's not just a former colleague of Barack Obama but a friend and advisor.

Quite possibly an insight into the kind of Supreme Court justice that Obama has in mind? We can't be sure of course but given Obama's own proclivities towards spreading the wealth around, we can imagine.

Remember, Obama has already admitted that he doesn't want Supreme Court justices who will make rulings based on the actual Constitution, but on what they believe is "fair".

What one man calls fair, of course, another man calls Marxism.

Obama Outed

Thanks to the discovery of a radio interview from 2001, the true intent of Barack Obama- who has tried desperately to obfuscate his "spread the wealth" slip to Joe the Plumber- comes out.

Not only is he radically in favour of a redistribution of wealth but he sees the Constitution as an obstacle to achieving his aims.

There is no room for wiggle or misunderstanding here. This is not edited copy. There is nothing out of context; for the entire thing is context — the context of what Barack Obama believes. You and I do not have to guess at what he believes or try to interpret what he believes. He says what he believes.

I'll let Bill Whittle run with this one for he does it so well-

We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

That a man so clear in his understanding of the Constitution, and so opposed to the basic tenets it provides against tyranny and the abuse of power, can run for president of the United States is shameful enough.

Much has been written in the past few weeks about an Obama administration transforming America into something else entirely, about his Presidency bringing the US to a point of no return. Well, the new evidence is in and those predictions seem to be absolutely and positively correct.

“And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and [the] Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

Remember, if he's elected President then he will decide on nominations to the Supreme Court- and it's abundantly clear what that will mean. Note too that while there have been differences between Democrat and Republican before about interpreting the Constitution, none thus far have been as radical as the change Obama wants to see. For him the Constitution is something that gets in the way of the government doing what he thinks it should.

Here's Hot Air's take-

Instead, Obama sees community organizing as the essential path to move from a Constitution of personal liberties to a Constitution of federal mandates. He wants a new governing document that essentially forces both the federal and state governments to redistribute wealth, and he sees that as the natural outcome of the civil rights movement. That certainly smells of socialism on a far grander scale than ever attempted in the US, with the New Deal and Great Societies looking like pale imitations of Obama’s vision.

The stakes in this election just got higher.

Iranian Threat

There is a reason that so many people around the world pay so much attention to the US election- because as the last remaining superpower, the policies of the United States can affect everyone. The US economy affects the world's economy, and US foreign policy obviously has an impact on the rest of us.

Fearing a US strike on Iran during President George W. Bush's last months in office, a senior Iranian official has suggested the Islamic regime should target London to deter such an attack.

In an article on the Iranian Web site Aftab last week - translated by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute - the head of the Europe and US Department in the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Wahid Karimi, said that an attack on London would deter the US from attacking Teheran.

Given the remarkable focus on the economy- and the startling misinformation surrounding which party and which candidates are actually culpable for it- it bears repeating that the world is a dangerous place.

Admitting that previous Iranian warnings to paralyze "the Jerusalem-occupying regime" to deter "American adventurism" has not worked, Karimi said that "the most appropriate means of deterrence" for Iran would be to attack London.

With a rogue nation on the verge of obtaining a nuclear device and threatening to attack London and to wipe Israel off the map, the choice made by US voters this November could affect us all.

Another Tiny Minority

News that almost slipped past me.

ALMOST a quarter of young Muslims support suicide bombings, according to a shock new poll on an internet website.

Radicalised youths from the Midlands are among those to have posted messages backing terrorists on the www.ummah.com forum.

One member had started the survey by asking users: “Do you agree with suicide bombings?”

Of those who responded, an alarming 24 per cent said they supported suicide attacks like the 7/7 tube bombings in London and the 9/11 atrocity in America.

The Biden Interview

So Joe Biden was asked a few questions on TV- and he didn't like the upstart journalist's attitude.



She didn't deliver the usual fawning softballs the Obama campaign is used to. Displaying a tone of incredulity which would have had Palin forever ridiculed had she chosen to use it, Biden brushed off the legitimate questions- and the Obama campaign promptly cancelled the channel's interview with his wife.

In a statement Friday, Adrianne Marsh, Florida spokeswoman for Obama’s campaign, said the station, in talking with Sen. Biden, was “both combative and woefully uninformed about simple facts.”

How dare a journalist have the temerity to ask combative questions of a candidate for the Vice Presidency of the USA!

Funnily enough, the spokeswoman makes no mention of the fact that Joe Biden was woefully uninformed about the Obama campaign's links with ACORN. He denied the links altogether, paricularly the "get out the vote" effort. You know, this one-

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

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.

But you won't hear the Obama campaign correcting the blatant lie mistake that Joe Biden made.

Now, just for a moment imagine that Palin had delivered this Biden performance- and that the McCain campaign had petulantly cancelled another interview. Do you suppose that story might be played just a little differently by the MSM?

Flight of Fantasy

Here's Betty Page on Skull Island by Travis Charest.

The Fort Dix Dance

Billed as the McCain ad you'll never see. Fort Dix was where a dance party was to be held that Bill Ayers planned to bomb, killing off-duty American soldiers and their dates.



So where are those legions of Republican 527s that Obama was so worried about he broke his promise to accept public financing?

Food Not Fuel

Despite the unsettled science on global warming cooling, um, climate change, the rush to biofuels has continued- exacerbated in many cases by government subsidies. Using a food product for fuel has led inevitably to a rise in food prices, a rise that has affected the poorest most strongly.

The price of the flat corn bread, the main source of calories for many poor Mexicans, recently rose by over 400%.

And now we have a report on the impact of biofuel- and the outlook is not good-

With many developing nations experiencing deep shocks and citizen unrest due to rising food and fuel prices, plenaries and breakout sessions during the Program of Seminars addressed causes, effects and solutions.

Commitments by members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to reduce carbon emissions through alternative fuels development, while well meaning, have exacerbated the global food crisis and contributed to world-wide water shortages, said Nestle chief executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe.

The resulting drop in agricultural productivity has led to price increases, he said. “Water scarcity will be the most constraining element,” to additional production, he predicted. Replacing fuel with biofuel is “a very, very bad idea.”

Replacing even 6 percent of total fuel usage with biofuel would require doubling agricultural production to maintain current output. “Where are you going to get the land and the water for this? This is irresponsible policy,” Brabeck-Letmathe said. If the US alone would reverse its policy to replace fuel with biofuels, food prices would stabilize, he stated.

Obama is, of course, a big proponent of biofuels, supporting subsidies for its production.

he has powerful constituencies that help shape his views. And when it comes to domestic ethanol, almost all of which is made from corn, he also has advisers and prominent supporters with close ties to the industry at a time when energy policy is a point of sharp contrast between the parties and their presidential candidates.

So much for change and fighting against all those special interest groups, eh? Well, to be fair, it's worth noting that Obama disappeared references to biofuel from his website over the summer. Trying to hide his stance from voters or is he reneging on the promises he made during the primaries? With Obama, you never can tell.

Perspective

A stark reminder that in the world of US politics, the sum paid to outfit Sarah Palin, a politician who is neither rich nor had the time herself to accrue such a wardrobe, is not excessive. And to be sure- if she wasn't professionally turned out, we'd be hearing about how terribly she dresses 24/7.

Is anyone really surprised that in today's image conscious times that the RNC thought it was a worthwhile investment to dress her at least as well as the TV anchors who interview her?

Anyway, onto the main point. While the Republicans are accused of wasteful spending on Palin, let's just take a moment to compare that spending to the Obama budget.

Convention expenses paid by the committee included $14.1 million for construction costs, including the stage and lighting, at the Pepsi Center and $5.3 million at Invesco Field.

So Barack Obama wasted $5.3 million dollars taking his acceptance speech to Invesco, an act of the purest vanity, rather than using the perfectly adequate convention centre- which the campaign had already paid over $14 million dollars on. Now, that's wasteful spending. Kind of puts Palin's $150,000 into perspective- and that will last her for the length of the campaign, not just one night.

Then we have this staggering news-

OBAMA’S OCT 1-15 SPENDING = $105,599,963.76

That’s more than $293,000 an hour.

So he could buy nearly two sets of Palin wardrobes every hour, 24 hours a day for 15 days running.

I've never in my life seen such petty coverage of a political figure as that which Sarah Palin is subjected to. What makes it even worse is that while the media wastes time on her clothes and so on, it ignores genuine stories about the Democratic candidate.

We get headlines about Palin's shoes but Barack Obama declares he wants to create a civilian defence force funded as well as the Army and...the blogs cover it.

It's simply astonishing how the media has betrayed even the appearance of objectivity this election cycle.

Dept. Of Peace

In addition to Obama's plan for a private army- a "civilian national security" organisation in his words- one he imagines will be as well funded as the US Army- Democrats also hope to create another massive new government entity- the Department of Peace and Non-Violence.

Am I the only one who feels a shudder at the somewhat Orwellian name?

This new organisation will consist of the following sections-

the Office of Peace Education & Training, the Office of Domestic Peace Activities, the Office of International Peace Activities, the Office of Technology for Peace, the Office of Arms Control and Disarmament, the Office of Peaceful Co-Existence and Non-Violent Conflict Resolution, and the Office of Human Rights and Economic Rights.

Among the stated purposes of the new DoP is this-

analyze existing policies, employ successful, field-tested programs, and develop new approaches for dealing with the implements of violence, including gun-related violence and the overwhelming presence of handguns.

Proposed by Dennis Kucinich, the bill has 70 co-sponsors.

What piques my curiosity in the bill too is the creation of a Peace Academy which will

(A) be modeled after the military service academies;
(B) provide a 4-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.

Then there's this-

The Assistant Secretary for International Peace Activities shall--

(1) provide for the training and deployment of all Peace Academy graduates and other nonmilitary conflict prevention and peacemaking personnel;

(3) advocate the creation of a multinational nonviolent peace force.

All this on top of Obama's private civilian security force, plus his mandatory volunteer scheme- not to mention his Global Poverty Tax. Democrats certainly plan for a busy and expensive next few years.

American Genocide Part 2

After the astonished revelations about the horrific intent of the Weather Underground the other day, more evidence has emerged.

First, LGF links to video of the Grathwohl account of the WU discussing the genocide of 25 million American citizens, innocent people who the group knew would not go along with their communist dictatorship. For those of you late to the story, Bill Ayers and wife Bernardine Dohrn were both leaders of the terrorist group- and neither of them has shown an ounce of regret for what they did and intended to do. In fact, Ayers' views don't seem to have changed at all.



Next, blogger Zombie posts a detailed account of Ayers and Dohrn's book Prairie Fire, a Weather Underground manifesto. One important thing to note is that while the media characterises the group- and Ayers in particular- as being of the Sixties-era and anti-Vietnam War this is demonstrably false.

Ayers was not simply protesting "against" the Vietnam War. Firstly, he wasn't against war in principle, he was agitating for the victory of the communist forces in Vietnam. In other words: He wasn't against the war, he was against our side in the war. This is spelled out in great detail in Prairie Fire. Secondly, and more significantly, the Vietnam War was only one of many issues cited by the Weather Undergound as the justifications for their violent acts. As you will see below, in various quotes from Prairie Fire and in their own list of their violent actions (and in additional impartial documentary links), Ayers and the Weather Underground enumerated dozens of different grievances as the rationales for their bombings -- their overarching goal being to inspire a violent mass uprising against the United States government in order to establish a communist "dictatorship of the proletariat," in Ayers' own words.

Thus, Obama's assertion that he was only 8 years old when the Weather Underground was formed is shown to be preposterous. The group was active for years after its formation and, while Obama worked alongside him, Bill Ayers had neither renounced the bombings he engaged in nor the ideology that underpinned it.

This is the leader of a group which not only wanted to destroy the US government and to see the USA divided up between communist nations but which also discussed the mass murder of US citizens who opposed their ideology.

Given Ayers' radical nature and his desire to see the USA destroyed, it's not unreasonable to ask why he sought to promote Obama's career. What does a man who holds these views- who to this day remains a radical communist- see in a candidate who portrays himself not as a fellow radical but as a post-partisan moderate?

The Point of No Return

Warnings have already been given that if Obama wins the White House with a Democrat majority at his back, America could be irrevocably changed. The policies, laws, Supreme Court justices, etc, could make such a difference to the political landscape that the USA as we know it may never be the same again.

Here's someone more eloquent than myself making this very point-

"There is such a thing as a point of no return," Sowell says. If Obama wins the White House and Democrats expand their majorities in the House and Senate, they will intervene in the economy and redistribute wealth. Yet their economic policies "will pale by comparison to what they will do in permitting countries to acquire nuclear weapons and turn them over to terrorists. Once that happens, we're at the point of no return. The next generation will live under that threat as far out as the eye can see."

"The...vision [of Barack Obama] is really an elitist vision," Sowell explains. "This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world. And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked politicians."

Weakening The Military

As the race nears the end, shouldn't McCain be reminding voters that the economy isn't the major issue at hand? There are numerous dangers around the globe facing America and, as Biden himself admits, not only will Obama be tested by those who believe he is weak, but the Presidency doesn't lend itself to on-the-job training.

Awesome

Megyn Kelly does it again, this time skewering an Ayers-apologist with relentless facts to counter his dissembling and obfuscation.

Obama And Guns

From the NRA-

FACT: Barack Obama voted for an Illinois State Senate bill to ban and confiscate “assault weapons,” but the bill was so poorly crafted, it would have also banned most semi-auto and single and double barrel shotguns commonly used by sportsmen.

FACT: Barack Obama supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in America.

"...I am consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry," Obama said. Chicago Tribune, April 27, 2004

There's more there- given his deceitful identification as being pro-Second Amendment, it's important to promulgate hard facts like this; because too many people are taken in by the lies he uses to promote his career.

What part of the Second Amendment does this so-called Constitutional law expert not understand?

Obama said he believes in the Second Amendment, but that there is plenty of room for added gun regulations. "There is an individual right to bear arms, but it's subject to commonsense regulation," he said.

"I think that local jurisdictions have the capacity to institute their own gun laws…The City of Chicago has gun laws, as does Washington, D.C.," he said. "I think the notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang-bangers and random shootings on the street isn't born out by our Constitution."

All of it apparently. The Constitution, in Obama's view, can be usurped by whichever part of the country wants to infringe on the inalienable rights of its citizens. And given that he intends to nominate Supreme Court justices who value their own sense of "fairness" rather than the Constitution itself, it would appear that he would have their backing when it comes to doing so.

Gun Ban Obama

The NRA has an effective new ad out targeting Obama's anti-gun/anti-self-defence stance called "Imagine".

Hot Air has the background-

If Obama really believed that the DC gun ban “went too far”, as he said last week, then why did he vote against SB2165, which didn’t even go as far as Heller in its scope? Protecting a citizen who successfully defended his home against a criminal who could have done great harm to his family seems like a reasonable, moderate position to take — especially for someone who now professes opposition to outright gun bans such as the one in Wilmette. Instead, Obama voted to allow victims like DeMar to get victimized a second time by a criminal-justice system more interested in disarming law-abiding citizens than in prosecuting the real perpetrators of crime in the community.

Barack Obama’s record looks clear on guns. He not only supported gun bans, but he supported prosecuting acts of self-defense.

Despite his rhetoric- and as we've seen before he thinks nothing of telling a group of voters one thing while privately reassuring others that it's all lies- the evidence shows that Obama is no friend of the Second Amendment or of the right to defend yourself against criminals who actually break into your home.

Obama's Endorsement

The Iranian regime tells the world who they want in the White House-

“We are leaning more in favor of Barack Obama because he is more flexible and rational, even though we know American policy will not change that much,” Larijani said at a press conference during a visit to Bahrain…

One of the best reasons to vote for John McCain, surely, is to not do what the "Death to America" crowd wants.

Obama And Klonsky

Andrew McCarthy on yet another of Obama's communist links-

Here’s what you need to know. Klonsky is an unabashed communist whose current mission is to spread Marxist ideology in the American classroom. Obama funded him to the tune of nearly $2 million. Obama, moreover, gave Klonsky a broad platform to broadcast his ideas: a “social justice” blog on the official Obama campaign website.

To be clear, as it seems always necessary to repeat when Obamaniacs, in their best Saul Alinsky tradition, shout down the opposition: This is not about guilt by association. The issue is not that Obama knows Klonsky … or Ayers … or Dohrn … or Wright … or Rashid Khalidi …

The issue is that Obama promoted and collaborated with these anti-American radicals. The issue is that he shared their ideology.

And that's the point really, isn't it? It's no accident that Barack Obama has spent his entire adult life in the company of some of the most radical people in the US.

As Klonsky has explained, “My own support for Obama is … a recognition that the Obama campaign has become a rallying point for young activists and offers hope for rebuilding the civil rights and antiwar coalitions that have potential to become a real critical force in society.”

So get ready for Klonsky’s “social justice.” It’s what Barack Obama calls “change.”

Struggle Session

This didn't fit in the last piece about Larry Grathwohl and his insight into William Ayers' Weather Underground, but I found it so disturbing that I wanted to post it-

Planning a bombing required a "political struggle" session, usually at night, in which members debated tactics. Often the sessions evolved into heated and bitter "criticism-self-criticism" marathons, a Maoist technique to solidify political beliefs and reaffirm revolutionary commitments. Grathwohl was once badgered by other cell members for 16 straight hours for not showing enough interest in becoming a leader of the cell. Another time, cell members pressured a young mother to give away her four-year-old daughter because they thought that she interfered with her work. Was the woman into maternity or was she into revolution? Recalls Grathwohl: "She was weeping, the child was crying. But the next day she gave her up."

I find this just incredible. What kind of people were they? And to discuss it in front of the child- to demand that of a mother- and then for her to give in to that demand?

It makes no sense to me.

American Genocide

Dr. Sanity has an absolutely shocking post up featuring an interview with Larry Grathwohl. He was an undercover law enforcement agent who not only infiltrated the Weather Underground but was also responsible for averting some of their terrorist atrocities by tipping off the authorities in advance.

What's interesting about this interview though, is his revelation about just what the Weather Underground people planned for America. They weren't simply content with stopping the Vietnam War or the like- despite continued media misrepresentations that they were a '60s anti-war outfit, most of their activities took place after the war was over throughout the 1970s and into the early '80s. Grathwohl makes clear that the Weather Underground terrorists had much grander plans- plans to actually overthrow the US government and usher in their own communist regime in its place.

Grathwohl: I brought up the subject of what's going to happen after we take over the government. You know, we become responsible for administrating, you know, 250 million people. And there was no answer. No one had given any thought to economics. How are you going to clothe and feed these people? The only thing that I could get was that they expected that the Cubans, the North Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States. They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter-revolution. And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing re-education in the Southwest where we would take all of the people who needed to be re‑educated into the new way of thinking and teach them how things were going to be. I asked, "Well, what is going to happen to those people that we can't re‑educate, that are die-hard capitalists?" And the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated and when I pursued this 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. I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of whom have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well-known educational centers and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people and they were dead serious.

The Weather Underground is the organisation in which William Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn held leadership positions. Grathwohl was there when Dohrn made her infamous remarks praising the Manson Family-

During the next six months, he met many of the radical organization's top members. He recalls one memorable strategy session in Flint, Mich., when Bernardine Dohrn exulted over the grisly details of the murders committed by the Manson family. At one point, she exclaimed: "Not only did they kill those pigs, they shoved a fork in [Sharon] Tate's stomach and then sat down and ate dinner there." Dohrn's details were wrong—it was Leno LaBianca who was stabbed with a fork—but her enthusiasm was catching. Says Grathwohl: "For the next several days, we all went around giving a sign of three fingers extended. It was to symbolize the fork."

And he has knowledge of their operational planning-

Larry Grathwohl, an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated Weatherman, later testified that Ayers had identified Bernadine Dohrn as the person who bombed a San Francisco police station in February 1970, killing one officer and injuring two others. The agent also said that Ayers had constructed a bomb made from 13 sticks of dynamite that the group placed in a Detroit police officers' association building. The agent contacted the police, who cleared the area, but the bomb failed to explode. Ayers' murderous intent was clear enough, however. According to the FBI agent, "Bill said that we should plan our bombing to coincide with the time when there would be the most people in those buildings."

Obama's history with Ayers goes back much further than he has originally admitted and it's little wonder he wants to minimise the relationship. The worrying thing here though, is not simply that Obama thought it was fine to associate with Ayers and to work alongside him. What should be of the utmost concern is how much of the hateful ideology of Ayers that Obama shares.

For all of his adult life he has surrounded himself with radicals- and he appears to have spent most of his professional life linked in one way or another to the unrepentant William Ayers. That Obama wanted to associate with Ayers is one thing-but we have to ask ourselves, why on earth would a terrorist bomber like Ayers not only associate with Barack Obama but use his influence to promote his career?

Why would a man who carried out bombings in the United States of America, whose group once planned a genocide of American citizens, a man who says that "America makes me want to puke" use his largesse to benefit Barack Obama?

What is it that he sees in Barack Obama- because it sure isn't the hope and change that's being sold to the American people.

Flight of Fantasy

Frank Cho's Brandy- from his Liberty Meadows strip- as drawn by Adam Hughes. It seems fitting for this autumn day.

Just Desserts

The press corps discovers just how highly Obama values them.

The best-funded political campaign in American history says news organizations will have to pay—in some cases almost $2,000 each—if they want to cover Barack Obama’s election-night celebration in Chicago.

The only free admissions are for a “general media” area. But, the memo says, “Please note that the general media area is outdoors, unassigned and may have obstructed views . . . standing room only.”

The area also does not include access to top Obama campaign officials, whose statements likely are to be in hot demand on Election Night. They apparently will be available only in the “press file” tent, to which an additional admission fee of $935 per person is being imposed.

I can just imagine the howls of outrage if the McCain campaign informed the media that they would have to pay top dollar to cover his election night- and add extra for the privilege of actually speaking to a campaign official.

Do you wonder if there's even the faintest inkling among the press that they might have backed the wrong horse in this race? Are any of them having second thoughts about not vetting Obama way back when in the primaries?

Shared Address

Clayton Cramer makes a very pertinent point on the topic of the shared Obama-Ayers address-

In my experience, when an office has as its address an entire floor, not a suite number, it usually indicates that you have the entire floor. When multiple organizations share the same address, including an entire floor, let's just say that it is implausible that these organizations didn't have substantial overlap in staff and personnel. Imagine if the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the Small Schools Workshop, and ten or fifteen other organizations had no connection to each other except that they all had offices on the 3rd floor--with no suite numbers to differentiate them. Would you find that likely? No, I didn't think so.

Now, you might think that the press would smell a story here and think to track down people who worked there at the time. Perhaps even go so far as to ask them if there were two separate offices or if the two groups simply shared the floor. Well, you would think that if the press weren't "just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party".

Another Inconvenient Truth

Environmentalism is not science so much as it is ideology. Don't get the results you want from a study? Well then, just hush them up! Never let little things like facts get in the way- even if the thing you're supporting actually causes more environmental damage. By trying to hide the results of this study the government is essentially admitting that this isn't about the environment so much as it is about the appearance of doing things the politically correct way.

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions.

Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the “negative laundry options” outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.

Thanks to Clayton Cramer for this one.

Destroying Iraq

A stark reminder that Barack Obama is not yet ready to be commander-in-chief. And, given the current focus on the economy, one that surely needs to be made.

Despite the success of the Surge in Iraq, despite the many improvements in the local political scene, despite the vast reduction in violence, and despite the stupendous casualties inflicted on mass-murdering terrorist scum- despite all of that, it seems that Obama intends to withdraw from Iraq ASAP.

Micheal Schiffer, adviser to U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said that the first step to be taken in case Obama wins elections is to withdraw troops from Iraq.

I guess he means the first step after Obama passes the Freedom of Choice Act.

“As president, Obama will lead the United States and its allies to victory against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan - the real central front in the war on terrorism. He will start by directing the Joint Chiefs to plan for and execute a responsible redeployment of American combat forces from Iraq,” he said.

In short, he's going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and leave Iraq to the wolves. With Iran's interference and the presence of Al Qaeda, not to mention numerous other Islamic terrorists, in Iraq, a retreat now with destroy the gains made so far. And note too that by assuming that Afghanistan is the "central front" Obama- like many others- is labouring under the misconception that defeating the Taliban or capturing Bin Laden will somehow end the war. Nothing done in Afghanistan will change the ideology behind Islamic terrorism- an ideology present around the globe.

With an Obama surrender, the fledgling Iraqi military and government will be left to cope with the very worst elements- with US troops out of the country and with no sign of their return, the terrorists and their ilk, no doubt bolstered by Iran, will be able to bring down the newly democratic society. We will see a return of the worst atrocities as terrorists undermine the government and impose their totalitarian will on the populace at large.

I don't think it's going too far to say that there will be a genocide in Iraq following a premature withdrawal- particularly one which makes clear US forces will not return. How many of those working to rebuild Iraq, with their own government and with US forces, will be slaughtered in retribution by terrorists?

Care to bet how long it takes for terrorists to flee Afghanistan for the new safe-haven of Iraq once Obama switches forces from there?

Life Not Politics

It seems that Barack Obama is taking time off the campaign trail to go visit his sick grandmother.

Spare a thought for him and the family at this time.

An Obama Presidency

Melanie Phillips on Obama-

You have to pinch yourself – a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it’s considered impolite to say so.

Add to that, this-

But conservatives need to face the fact that Barack Obama has promised profound systemic changes that will be irreversible—absolutely permanent alterations of our economy and government where there is no chance at all that Republican office-holders of the future could in any way repair the damage.

The conservative movement, and the survival of a viable small-government faction in American politics, depends upon a McCain victory in November. A triumph for Barack Obama, combined with Democratic gains in both House and Senate, could easily usher in a dark new era with decades of corrupt, welfare-state, bureaucratic leftist rule.

It's certainly a sobering read- particularly for those in the "teach the GOP a lesson" camp who believe they will be able to retake the White House in four years.

By then, it could already be too late. Not voting for McCain isn't going to teach him or the Republican Party a lesson, it's going to radically affect the USA- perhaps forever. Here in the UK, voters grew sick and tired of Tory rule and elected Labour. In the years that have followed the Tories have struggled to identify just what they're supposed to represent and Labour have transformed our society, dismantling our institutions of governance and rebuilding them in such a manner as to favour their politics. In the process they've managed to squander billions on the National Health Service, lowered educational standards and increase taxes.

Given the nature of his opponent, I'm astonished that Republicans aren't flocking to McCain. You might not like his attitude towards immigration reform, for example, but isn't it obvious that you'll have more chance of convincing him not to go through with such a harebrained scheme that you will an Obama White House and Democrat Congress?

Risking the very nature of the Republic in an effort to punish a political party seems like an awful big gamble to me.

The Modern Press

Orson Scott Card has a terrific essay up on the way the press has completely betrayed their profession for the sake of a political candidate. One, I would add, who seems to hold freedom of speech in very little regard. This is definitely one to pass around.

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

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

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

Read the rest, for it is all good.

Bizarre Biden

Joe Biden has an odd way of garnering support for his ticket.

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

In other words, vote for the more experienced John McCain and avoid an international crisis.

"And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

But if you do elect Barack, be prepared for him to mess the whole thing up. And if that wasn't enough, Biden also warns potential Obama voters that they are in for a world of disappointment if Obama comes to power.

Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."

Presumably this is a reference to Obama's failure to hold to any of the moderate positions he has used to try to win the election. All those glittering promises of hope and change and healing will come to naught. The One isn't going to do a whole lot of healing.

A rare few moments of honesty from Joe?

Obama's Missing Years

Obama has been remarkably coy about the years he spent at Columbia University. Just One Minute postulates a reason for that-

What did Barack Obama do while at Columbia from 1981 to 1983 and in the year after his graduation?

These are just dots and it may be impossible to connect them, but we have Barack Obama at Columbia working on South African divestment (as were many peaceful protestors) while other radical elements with a Weather Underground flavor are setting bombs, killing cops, and working on South African divestment. As a bonus, Bill Ayers is studying at Bank Street College a quarter mile from Columbia towards his Masters in Education and Kathy Boudin, one of the Brinks getaway drivers, was working at a progressive Upper West Side School. Eventually Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn raised Kathy's child while she was in jail, so it seems a fair guess that they were close.

A small, small world in which Obama never met any of these people despite their shared passion for justice in South Africa. Never heard them speak at a rally, never heard anyone describe the Weather Underground to him, and felt comfortable assuming that Bill Ayers had been rehabilitated by 1995. In fact, a world so small that Obama won't talk about it now.

It's a remarkable coincidence that Ayers (who plucked Obama from obscurity to head up the Annenberg Challenge) and Obama were there at the same time and apparently involved in the same kinds of anti-apartheid protest.

Did Obama meet and befriend Ayers during this period? Did their paths cross?

As NRO tells us, while at Columbia Obama studied under Edward Said- a relationship that continued afterwards-

Obama plainly maintained some sort of tie with Said — a photo making the Internet rounds shows Obama conversing with the great man himself at a 1998 Arab American community dinner in Chicago, where the Obamas and Saids were seated together.

And Obama wasn't Said's only acquaintance in this tale-

Said had a wide circle of radical acquaintances. That circle clearly included Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. When they came out of hiding in the early 1980s (while Obama was attending Columbia), Ayers took education courses at Bank Street College, adjacent to Columbia in Morningside Heights — before earning his doctorate at Columbia’s Teachers College in 1987.

Said was so enamoured of Ayers that he commended the unrepentant terrorist’s 2001 memoir.

You know, if Palin had been linked- even tangentially- to a radical during her college years, you can be sure that the media would devote their considerable resources into investigating and reporting on it.

With Obama? Yet another free pass. But given the working relationship that developed between Ayers and Obama in the following years surely this is worth looking at. Bear in mind too that the two of them also worked on education issues in Chicago related to the 1988 Reform Act. So, we find not only a possible link between Ayers and Obama during the latter's study at Columbia but also just a few years later in Chicago. Steve Diamond also has a theory on how Obama landed his post at the law firm Sidley & Austin in 1989- William Ayers' father was an important client and had apparently pulled strings to get Dohrn hired there too.

And, here's yet another "coincidental" link between Ayers-Dohrn and the Obamas- Dohrn and Michelle Obama worked together at the law firm just before Barack was hired.

Quite the social circle, isn't it?

Worth mentioning too, surely, is the fact that when Barack Obama returned from Harvard he joined the law firm Davis Miner Barnhill- and the Miner involved was, surprise, a classmate of Bernardine Dohrn.

Just a couple of years after that, Obama was suddenly made head of the Annenberg Challenge-

In short, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama moved in the same circles, were driven by the same cause, and admired the same radicals all the way from Morningside Heights to Hyde Park. They ended up publicly admiring each other, promoting each other’s work, sitting on the same boards, and funding the same Leftist agitators.

You could conclude, as I do, that it all goes back to a formative time in his life that Obama refuses to discuss. Or you could buy the fairy tale that Bill Ayers first encountered an unknown, inexperienced, third-year associate from a small Chicago law-firm over coffee in 1995 and suddenly decided Barack Obama was the perfect fit to oversee the $150 million pot of gold Ayers hoped would underwrite his revolution.

Obama's whole life is one of associations with far-left radicals- from his "Uncle" Frank to Rev. Wright- and among those associations there seems to be a remarkably long period during which Obama was in close proximity, and perhaps even a good friend of, two of America's most notorious domestic terrorists.

It's not beyond the pale to suggest that the whole truth about the Obama-Ayers connection hasn't yet come out. Contrary to Obama's public statement that William Ayers was "just a guy in the neighbourhood" it seems that the pair could have a relationship going back as far as the beginning of the 1980s. Ayers- bear in mind- only came out of hiding in 1980, with his famed "guilty as sin, free as a bird" statement being delivered in 1981.

Contrary to popular misconception, the Weather Underground were not merely a '60s radical organisation, the bulk of their activities took place throughout the 1970s, culminating in the Brinks armoured car robbery in 1981, where two police officers and a guard were murdered. Ayers adopted the child of one of that group, Kathy Boudin. That child was raised by Ayers and Dohrn and recently stated that he was dedicated to fighting US imperialism.

Plainly the background and associations of Obama clearly do not tie into his post-partisan, moderate image.

Obama's Office

More evidence that Barack Obama has been lying to the people of America about his links to domestic terrorist William Ayers.

Obama and Ayers were serving on the same board in 2002- less than six years ago.
And they shared an office - for 3 years on the same floor.

The ties already exposed between a Presidential candidate and a terrorist who plotted to blow up US servicemen and their dates at a dance would have been enough to scupper anyone else's campaign- but the decision by the press to abdicate their duty in favour of a too-good-to-be-true candidate during the Primaries means that now Democrats have been left with no choice but to vote for someone more radical than the majority of them suspect- or to allow a Republican into office for another four years.

Hillary must be furious that her husband pardoned Weather Underground terrorist Susan Rosenberg- because without that she would have been able to exploit the Ayers link to the full. And Obama's close ties to him might have been exposed like this months ago.

Mateba Carbine

The Mateba- with its barrel in line with the bottommost chamber of the cylinder- is surely one of the more unusual looking revolvers in the modern world. I had no idea that a carbine was available too but Collector's Firearms is happy to prove me wrong. It's a curious weapon without a single elegant line to it but there's something fascinating about it nevertheless.

Flight of Fantasy

A little Adam Hughes to end the weekend- here's Spidergirl.

Font

I've got to admit to an irrational liking of fonts. I have far too many installed on my PC. Anyway, here's a cool one called 28 Days Later. There are plenty more over at Da Font too if you're into that sort of thing.

Digging Themselves Deeper

The mainstream media is doing their level best to avoid investigating the background of their candidate of choice but they have no problem in trying to dig up dirt on Cindy McCain. Here's the response from her lawyer-

It is worth noting that you have not employed your investigative assets looking into Michelle Obama. You have not tried to find Barack Obama’s drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father. Nor have you interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them. Thus, there is a terrific lack of balance here.

I suggest to you that none of these subjects on either side are worthy of the energy and resources of The New York Times. They are cruel hit pieces designed to injure people that only the worst rag would investigate and publish. I know you and your colleagues are always preaching about raising the level of civil discourse in our political campaigns. I think taking some your own medicine is in order here.

Given that Obama directed federal funds to the hospital where his wife worked- around the same time she received a massive pay-rise you would think that the press would at least have an excuse to go looking there. Instead they try to contact the classmates of Cindy McCain's children in the hopes of getting gossip from their parents about her? Unbelievable. Here are some other topics the media would be looking at- if Obama and Biden had an "R" after their names instead of a "D".

Demand not just medical records but earmark records from Joe Biden. Ask Barack Obama why he served on the Woods Fund with Bill Ayers for years and if he specifically approved grants to ACORN and a host of leftwing groups. Do a 3000-word piece on Obama’s earmarks and ties to corrupt Chicago officials to counterbalance the dozens of 3000-word pieces going after the other side (e.g. ”Palin annoys Wasilla librarian” and “Cindy McCain was addicted to pain killers”).

Even more shocking, not a single one of the networks news outlet or mainstream national newspaper has looked at Obama’s unprecedented attempt to use the Justice Department to chill speech. In all the pieces on “temperament” no one has reminded voters that the last president to try to employ law enforcement officials — as Obama did in Missouri — to go after opponents exercising First Amendment rights was Richard Nixon, not exactly the model of presidential temperament.

But, of course, that information would reflect badly on the man they so desperately want to win the upcoming election.

Must Watch Video

I've just watched a video over at Ace of Spades and I've got to advise everyone to watch it too. It's apparent that the upcoming Presidential election has been heavily influenced- and could even be decided- by former members of the sixties radical group, the SDS. William Ayers fostered Barack Obama's career, propelling him from nothing to serving on two major organisations and then introducing him to Chicago's Hyde Park set to launch his career. Meanwhile, SDS-member Wade Rathke's ACORN is engaged in widespread voter fraud (now under FBI investigation) aimed at tipping tightly contested battleground states over towards Obama. In a neck and neck race, those thousands of fraudulent votes could be all it takes to propell Obama into the White House.

If ever the Republicans needed their base to get out and vote, it's this election. And if they have any sense, in the next four years they'll do their utmost to pass a law requiring registration prior to election time and proof of identity on the day. It would be interesting to see how many votes certain members of Congress and Presidential candidates get if only those legally allowed to vote do so just one time.

If every vote matters, members of both parties should be clamping down on voter fraud which makes a mockery of that notion.

Democrats like to complain about voter ID disenfranchising voters but when it comes to actual, concrete voter fraud...well, have you heard Obama denounce ACORN? Remember, this is the guy who had his opponents removed from the ballot in Chicago- disenfranchising the voters who were opposed to him wasn't a concern then. And with $800,000 to ACORN, he doesn't seem particularly concerned about it now either.

I would highly recommend watching this video and then in passing it along to everyone you know, whether they are Obama supporters or undecided or just plain Republicans. This is the man who might be the next President of the United States of America?

Ayers, Nebraska And Other Associations

William Ayers is such a toxic, unsavoury character that he's been dis-invited from speaking at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

And two prominent local politicians, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, are in agreement on the decision to invite him in the first place-

Gov. Dave Heineman released a statement saying that UNL leaders should not allow Ayers, a 1960s radical-turned-professor at the University of Illinois, to talk during a campus event on Nov. 15.

“Chairman of the Board of Regents Chuck Hassebrook and President of the University J.B. Milliken should immediately rescind the invitation extended to Bill Ayers to speak at the University,” the governor said. “This is an embarrassment to the University of Nebraska and the State of Nebraska. Bill Ayers is a well known radical who should never have been invited to the University of Nebraska.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, today said in a statement that he is disappointed that UNL invited William Ayers to speak on campus Nov. 15.

“His past involvement in a violent protest group and incendiary comments are not consistent with the agenda of unity that we need in America today,” Nelson said. “I encourage the university to reconsider this decision.”

Ayers might be "mainstream" in Chicago but to the rest of America he's an unrepentant domestic terrorist. Let's face it, if ordinary, decent people don't want Ayers to speak at a university why should they want a President who had close ties with him?

Nelson's comments are also pertinent to the Obama campaign. This was a man who won the Democrat Primaries running on a ticket of post-partisan healing and unity. He has a long history of associating with radicals- his childhood mentor was a communist and self-confessed child rapist, his pastor spewed 20 years of racist, hate-filled bile at Obama and his family, on his trip to Kenya he campaigned for a radical who would have initiated Sharia law and banned Christian preaching, he has a long working relationship with Ayers who hosted the party that launched his political career, he used to regularly dine with Palestinian-terror advocate Rashid Khalidi, his other spiritual mentor, Michael Pfleger is a radical minister who called for the owner of a gun shop to be "snuffed out", and one of his long-term campaign donors is the corrupt Tony Rezko.

Has there ever been a candidate for president who has such a long history of such radical associations?

The Coming Change

This is one for all the Republican/Conservative "not voting for the lesser of two evils" folks out there. I understand the unhappiness with McCain as the candidate but to not vote this year isn't going to just "teach the GOP a lesson", it's going to allow a far-left radical candidate into the White House with a Democrat majority at his back.

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.

In both 1933 and 1965, liberal majorities imposed vast expansions of government that have never been repealed, and the current financial panic may give today's left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for "change" should know they may get far more than they ever imagined.

Add to the mix that Obama could be able to nominate four Supreme Court justices- and a Democrat majority there to rubber stamp it- there's a good chance that the USA could be transformed beyond recognition in the next four years. Remember that he's admitted himself that he believes that the Supreme Court isn't about adhering to the Constitution- it's about fairness.

I think that it’s important for judges to understand that if a woman is out there trying to raise a family, trying to support her family, and is being treated unfairly, then the court has to stand up, if nobody else will. And that’s the kind of judge that I want.

What's done cannot always be undone. I, for one, hope that America remains a bright beacon of freedom to the rest of the world for a long time to come.

Obama's Global Poverty Act

Joe the Plumber is rightly concerned about Obama's tax plans and his fanciful "95% tax cuts". What the media seems to be ignoring- among numerous other points concerning Obama- are his plans not just to tax Americans to spread the wealth around (this in addition to his plans to tax you to pay for his massively expanded government - health care, his army of Brownshirts volunteers, etc) but also to pay to fight poverty around the globe.

Yep, you heard it right. Obama not only wants your money because it isn't fair that you have more cash than someone else, he wants it to pay for the numerous promises he's made on the campain trail and he also wants to divert cash from your pocket to foreigners. And the scary thing is that this last plan has already begun to be put into effect.

A plan by Barack Obama to redistribute American wealth on a global level is moving forward in the Senate...if the Global Poverty Act (S. 2433) he has sponsored becomes law, which is almost certain if he wins in November, we're also going to be taxpayers of the world.

I'm going to quote a fair bit from the IBD article because this is such a far-reaching plan that I'm astonished McCain and Palin haven't been spreading the word about this. I wonder how many American voters are aware of Obama's plan?

A statement from Obama's office says: "With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces. It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter and clean drinking water."

It calls for the "eradication of poverty" in part through the "redistribution (of) wealth of land" and "a fair distribution of the earth's resources." In other words: American resources.

Why hasn't McCain hit Obama on this during the debates? It seems beyond belief that at a time when the US economy is hurting and people are struggling, McCain and Palin aren't telling voters that they're going to be hurting a whole lot more if Obama gets into the White House. And unlike some other topics that the Democrat can weasel his way out of, this is legislation he has actually sponsored. Personally, I think this could be a key platform of attack for the GOP.

Obama's bill would force U.S. taxpayers to fork over 0.7% of our gross domestic product every year to fund a global war on poverty, spending well above the $16.3 billion in global poverty aid the U.S. already spends.

Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.'s Financing for Development Conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S is expected to meet its part of the U.N. Millennium goals, we would be spending an additional $65 billion annually for a total of $845 billion.

During a time of economic uncertainty, the plan would cost every American taxpayer around $2,500.

And yet most Americans probably aren't aware that this is even under consideration.

NRO

Doing the job the mainstream media refuses to, NRO has several must read articles up.

First, Stanley Kurtz has more on the links between Obama, Wright and funding for anti-American Afro-centrists.

Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago.

Then, Deroy Murdock writes about Obama and the despicable terrorist William Ayers. Giving a detailed history of the Weather Underground, Murdock goes into specifics about the two men's realtionship. And for more on that, see here. As Murdock points out, the questions raised include not just why Obama got involved with Ayers, but what Ayers saw in him.

What inspired these unrepentant, hard-Left, former domestic terrorists to hand the chairmanship of Ayers’ foundation and share their home, friends, and Ayers’ only recorded campaign contribution with the charismatic then-35-year-old whose current 95.5 percent Left-wing vote record made him The National Journal’s “Most Liberal Senator In 2007?”

Finally, Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of the Wright-Obama connection. And remember that if Palin had been a member of a church like Wright's we would know now which controversial things she had heard at which services.

GG: Do you still attend Trinity?

OBAMA:Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service.

GG: Do you have people in your life that you look to for guidance?

OBAMA:Well, my pastor [Wright] is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for. I have a number of friends who are ministers. Reverend Meeks is a close friend and colleague of mine in the state Senate. Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.

The rest of the so-called journalists in the US should be ashamed of themselves. The double-standard applied to Democrats and Republicans is astounding.

Voter Fraud

It boggles the mind that requiring proof of your identity is not required to vote in elections. Here in Northern Ireland you not only have register to vote and provide proof of who you are then but you also have to to produce photographic ID to vote on the day- and if you don't have one of the required items, you can obtain a voter ID card.

Surprisingly there are no claims that anyone is being disenfranchised. It makes me wonder what's going through the minds of those in the USA who are opposed to this- Mark Steyn, another outsider looking in, seems equally bemused.

There is something ridiculous about this country's approach to elections. If a Swedish businessman flies in for a one-day meeting in New York, he'll undergo a retinal scan at JFK. But, if that same businessman decides to stay on a day or two, he can wander into half the polling stations in America and cast an illegal vote more or less with impunity.

It's a ridiculous situation, especially when one considers this-

In Lake County, Indiana, ACORN turned in 5,000 new registrations. The authorities there started reviewing them, and quit after they found that the first 2,100 were all fraudulent. The mind boggles: ACORN turns in thousands of new registrations, and not a single one represents a legitimate voter.

Astonishing. And they do it all on the dime of the US taxpayer!

Obama's Wealth Redistribution Plan

Obama comes clean about his tax plan-

“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more. Isn’t it?”

Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

In short, he's telling this man that he's going to take away some of his wealth to give to others.

Who was he talking to? A CEO maybe? Or some other wealthy businessman who makes a fortune each year?

No.

This is what Barack Obama told a plumber.

As the talking heads in the clip point out Obama talks about a tax cut for 95% of Americans- even though something like a third of them don't pay taxes. He's going to take money out of your pocket not just for his expanded government programs, but also to just give to people. It my book taking one man's hard earned income and giving it to someone else isn't a tax cut.

Can it get any clearer than that?

UPDATE- There's more on Obama's views of what taxes represent here.

GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.

So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

This isn't just about providing sufficient funds for government spending- as Gibson points out reducing tax rates increases the amount the government was able to collect- it's about taking money from the wealthy because Obama doesn't think it's fair that they have more than others.

If he's elected he plans to punish the wealthy for being successful (and his definition of wealthy is pretty loose if he includes raising the taxes of a plumber, a blue collar worker) to give that money to those with less.

This is the sort of thing I'd expect in Europe, not from a US Presidential candidate.

New ISP

So it seems the problem is that my ISP has a so-called "Fair Use Policy". Unlike my last provider, the peak period isn't 6pm-11pm but 4pm-2am, and then for the whole weekend. So pretty much when I want to use it. I have no problem scheduling downloads and the like for off-peak periods but at the moment the speed throttling is so bad that actually using the internet is pretty much impossible- unless I want to view it as text-only.

Not much use for images, embedded video, streaming radio and the like then. In short, the whole reason broadband is required.

I was all prepared to switch over to the highly recommended Be ISP but it seems that my local exchange isn't equipped to deal with them yet. Typical.

Looks like I'll be changing over to PlusNet sometime very soon instead. Like Supanet, they have a 30Gb a month policy (and to think of the wailing about Comcast in the US limiting users to 250Gb a month!), but they exclude from this anything downloaded between midnight and 8 a.m. Which is handy enough. Supanet on the other hand, has just capped their service at 30Gb a month regardless of when the "heavy use" occurs.

I can only dream of a US-type service where 250Gb is seen as unwarranted- and the situation in Japan doesn't even bear thinking about.

Anyway, just had to get that off my chest. Now all I have to contend with is Supanet's terrible reputation for dealing with cancelled accounts.

Broadband Issues

My broadband woe continues. Seems as if the problem is coming from my ISP, Supanet. I did a web-search for them and "broadband problems" and found a whole slew of complaints about the service- particularly since they changed their unlimited service (the reason people joined it in the first place) to a capped one. Nice of them to do that. For the past three days without warning my speeds will drop so badly that I'd actually be better off using a 56k modem. It would improve matters dramatically.

As always, the service status page at Supanet displays no problems.

It's a shame because they used to be a good provider (apart from the tech support which treats each and every call as if it's being made by a moron who wouldn't know how to switch a PC on without a manual).

I guess I'm going to have to go through the whole annoying experience of changing email address yet again.

Anyone in the UK who can recommend a reliable, unlimited (none of this "don't use your broadband in the evening" nonsense) broadband provider please do let me know. Right now, Be are looking pretty good.

Check In

My internet connection is playing up something shocking at the moment so here's a quick fire post to keep the place ticking over.

First up a pertinent comment on the Obama-Ayers connection-

To repent, you have to confess your wrongdoing. To be unrepentant, you have to acknowledge your actions and still maintain that you did the right thing. But to avoid prosecution, you have to duck the question altogether. That's what Ayers is doing. In a sense, he's still on the lam. Which might make Obama's situation even worse.

And then there's this which will no doubt be of little interest to the mainstream media-

The Obama campaign is trying to minimize the damage from a meeting attended by their “Muslim outreach director,” at which several notorious Hamas and Hezbollah supporters were present.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign seems to have gone off the tracks.

Biden's Past

Barack Obama isn't the only one in his campaign complaining about a set of circumstances in public, while privately reassuring another nation that it's just all talk to placate the masses that they should ignore. Joe Biden has engaged in a much more serious example of this deplorable behaviour.

According to internal Soviet Union documents from the SALT-2 negotiations in 1979, Joe Biden effectively told Soviet negotiators not to worry about American rhetoric about human-rights concerns. In fact, Biden also told the Soviets that the Senate didn’t really care about European security, but only in giving the appearance of caring about it.

This is the best the Democrats have to offer?

Obama And Free Speech

Liberals- and the further left they go the more pronounced this seems to be- always claim to be champions of free speech...but really they just mean their right to free speech. Anyone else's? Not so much. As you read this bear that in mind- and also the fact that Obama is not just one of the most liberal Senators but also has a long history of associating with far left radicals.

Hate speech codes are one example of this liberal double standard. Liberal institutions- US colleges I'm looking at you- have championed speech codes in the name of fostering a "safe" environment. Personally, I find squelching someone's right to speak their mind (no matter how racist or sexist or homo"phobic" that might be) much more offensive than whatever might come out of their mouths. The problem here is that in an effort to prevent one group from feeling insulted, these codes prevent another from expressing their opinion- an opinion which should be ridiculed or debated rather than banned.

On a side note, while liberals decry hate speech they seem to have a pretty good handle on being hateful themselves (not all obviously but there's a pretty good trend to see). Just check out some of the abuse Michelle Malkin has been subject to (disgusting racist and sexist abuse), or the comments at Huffington Post. Or the Daily Kos. Liberals have no problem is expressing their hatred of conservative figures but you can bet that they would be shocked and appalled if a conservative used their own language against a liberal figure.

Racist, sexist language is bad it seems- unless you're using it against your conservative opponents.

Or look at how universities, bastions of free speech, and the press, the so-called guardians of free speech, both squelched the publication of the dread Mohammed cartoons.

Free speech is evidently only okay so long as some whacked out crazy doesn't get upset. Better stick to insulting those "turn the other cheek" Christians, eh?

Anyway, the New York Post published an article about the Obama campaign's attacks on the Constitutionally protected right to free speech.

Enter the Obama campaign, which reflects the new ethos. It twice issued "Obama Action Wire" alerts for activists to call a Chicago radio station and try to shut down appearances by two Obama critics, writers Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso. No "chilling effect" here. CNN and the Chicago Tribune reported on the effort to silence Obama's detractors, but mostly by way of noting the Obama camp's tech-savvy mustering of its supporters.

When an outside group ran TV ads pointing out links between Obama and the former Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, the Obama campaign asked the Bush Justice Department - yes, that Bush Justice Department, the fount of all evil - to open a criminal investigation.

The Obama campaign's effort dovetails with the work of an outfit called Accountable America, run by a former MoveOn.org operative. It is devoted to threatening conservative donors with legal action and exposure of any embarrassing details of their private lives if they give money to groups running ads against Obama.

I'll bet this isn't the change a lot of Obama voters are planning on getting if he's voted into office. But hey, he looks like a rock star and gives a great speech! Can you imagine the press coverage and the liberal outrage if the McCain campaign tried to do anything remotely like this? With their candidate, though, virtually all of the mainstream media is unwilling to do anything which might harm his chances. You know, like report the facts of the matter to the public at large.

Last year, CAIR tried to silence Robert Spencer by threatening to sue the YAF. The lawyer they used has now been hired by the First Amendment-challenged Obama campaign-

Here come another of those "Guilt by Associations" that Senator Barack Obama will try to weasel himself out of. As you may know, Philip Berg is suing Senator Obama in Civil Court. Berg wants Obama to Produce his real birth certificate to prove that he meets the citizenship requirements to be President. Rather than just product the birth certificate (is he trying to hide something?) Obama's legal team filed a motion to dismiss. One of the Lawyers filing the motion was Joe Sandler of the Washington law firm Sandler, Reiff, and Young...

As Spencer points out, Obama's disregard for the Constitution and the rights enshrined therein, is cause for more than a little worry-

I am saying that if he values free speech so lightly, as this episodes suggests, it is not at all beyond the realm of possibility that once he becomes President he will acquiesce to the OIC attempts to criminalize criticism of Islam, and pressure the Supreme Court (to which he will probably appoint several key members) to declare a "hate speech" exemption to First Amendment protections.

Now, just for the sake of argument suppose that George Bush tried to pass a law that forbade the criticism of Christianity. Do you suppose for a moment that it would have any traction at all? The gales of laughter at the very idea would probably be drowned out by the howls of outrage at this gross violation of the First Amendment.

Now imagine a President Obama with a Democrat majority in Congress and the possibility of up to four new justices on the Supreme Court. Do you think the pro-hate speech crowd will dare to question or oppose a law which criminalises criticism of Islam? I can already hear the cries of racism and intolerance levelled at opponents of such a bill.

People keep saying that every election is the most important one- but I don't remember John Kerry acting in such a cavalier attitude towards the Constitution. Barack Obama, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a problem with eviscerating the First (or the Second) Amendment.

And it may not be possible to undo what is done.

Another Leak

This goes some way to redressing the embarassing break with convention that occurred when Brit PM Gordon Brown endorsed Barack Obama. British ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald has written a (now leaked) letter which is less than complimentary towards Obama.

Sir Nigel makes some unflattering comments about Mr Obama's Iran policies and expresses concern about the senator's protectionist trade policy.

He warned that his stance towards the Middle Eastern country could conflict with the United Nations Security Council's demands that the country stop enriching uranium before negotiations resume.

He adds that Mr Obama 'can seem to sit on the fence, assiduously balancing pros and cons' and that he has 'a highly educated and upper middle class mindset'.

The ambassador also describes the Democrat candidate as 'aloof and insensitive' and said 'he can talk too dispassionately for a national campaign about issues which touch people personally, eg his notorious San Francisco comments about small-town Pennsylvanians "clinging to guns and religion"'.

And with that the balance is restored!

Post Pre-Debate Comments

Well, it seems as if Palin is back if the reaction of Michelle Malkin is anything to go by. Though the debate aired last night in the US, here in the UK it will be broadcast this evening. I could watch on-line of course but my wife (who is quietly tolerant of my politics obsession) loves to watch these things. Maybe even more than me. So I'll be holding off seeing it for a few hours yet.

In the meantime one of the things that really grabbed me was Ace's list of Biden's 14 lies. Hard to believe that in this day and age of nearly instant fact-checking that a politician feels comfortable to go on national TV and just outright lie to voters. Will the mainstream media do their job and correct the record? I'm not holding my breath.

Over at The Corner Jonah Goldberg elaborates on this point-

It’s amazing how the impulse to see Biden as the more qualified and serious guy stems almost entirely from his ability to be a convincing b.s. artist... When Biden spews up a warm fog of deceitful gassbaggery the response seems to be “what a great grasp of the issues he has!”

It really is incredible. During the McCain-Obama debate when they were disputing the points each other were making I proclaimed that it would be a good idea to install a video screen behind them, split down the middle. Then, their people could each deliver on-screen evidence of the disputed points. A TV version of hyperlinks if you will. Obviously there would have to be certain rules about which material was allowed but even if it was a record of a vote for a certain bill or a quote from the candidate, I'm sure it would go a long way to reducing the amount of- let's be plain here- lies that politicians tell to the voters.

No Hope, No Change

Obama torpedoes his own post-partisan appeal.

I don't think me calling House Republican members would have been that helpful, I tend not to be that persuasive on that side of the aisle.

Kind of defeats the whole point of the newbie runing for the highest office with no credentials then, doesn't it?

Flight of Fantasy

A little colour now to brighten the place up a little. Here's Sorceress from Masters of the Universe by- of course- Adam Hughes. Enjoy.

Fact Checking

I'm a little more than halfway through Matthew Reilly's book Ice Station, a military adventure featuring a tough US Marine called Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield. Reilly has a clear writing style and there are some terrific set-pieces which would work wonderfully on film. The action's a tad Hollywood rather than being grounded in cold, hard realism but that's a feature not a bug. It's a fun read and if you're into military-themed action-adventure then you'll probably like it.

So far my biggest complaint is with the lousy weaponry mistakes- he writes of US Special Forces using a Ruger pump action shotgun, a character carries a Colt Desert Eagle and at one point someone fires an M-60 grenade launcher.

It's silly stuff- the kind of thing that a few minutes on-line by the author would correct, or that an editor (you would think) would be able to fix. Still, it bugs me- if Reilly wants to create new weapons systems I'm all for it. By all means, equip Scarecrow's Recon team with the latest M23 Carbine in 8mm KA-BLAM, but if you're going to use real world weapons, at least have the courtesy to have a look at what you're writing about so that you don't confuse this for that.

Here endeth the rant.