If there were ever evidence that the MSM will defend Obama to the death, you are looking at it. In the same breath they defend him and prove that Appeasement is alive and well on the left after nearly 70 years. From the Seattle Times via Ace and LGF.
Democrats are rebuking President Bush for saying in his speech to the Knesset, here, that to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” is “appeasement.” The Democrats took it as a slap at Barack Obama. What bothers me is the continual reference to Hitler and his National Socialists, particularly the British and French accommodation at the Munich Conference of 1938.
The narrative we’re given about Munich is entirely in hindsight. We know what kind of man Hitler was, and that he started World War II in Europe. From the view of 1938, what Hitler was demanding at Munich was not unreasonable, according to the prevailing idea of the nation-state. His claim was that the German-speaking areas of Europe–and ones that thought of themselves as German –be under German authority. He had just annexed Austria, which was German-speaking, without bloodshed. There were two more small pieces of Germanic territory: the free city of Danzig and the Sudetenland, a border area of what is now the Czech Republic.
We live in an era when you do not change national borders for these sorts of reasons. We have learned the hazards of it. But 1938 was only 19 years since Germany’s borders had been redrawn, and not to its benefit. In the democracies there was some sense of guilt with how Germany had been treated after World War I.
With a few more friends like this, Obama won’t have to worry about the Republicans in November.
We Americans are an impatient lot. The hue and cry to get out of Iraq now is not because we are losing. We are not. It is because some Americans are sick of hearing about it and want to move on.
We have sustained just over 4,000 killed in Iraq. And Iraq will be won.
There isn’t an American alive that wouldn’t take our current killed/year ratio in Iraq over any other war we’ve had.
Our problem is impatience, a virtue seriously lacking in our country, especially on important issues.
Some perspective on the rebuilding effort in Iraq.
World War II was fought from 1939-1945. It took two years to develop the Marshall Plan, which was implemented from 1947-1951, with American Aid continuing beyond that. So from surrender in 1945 until 1951 we were in the post-combat rebuilding phase.
In light of the number of casualties in Iraq and the pace of recovery, especially since the surge, which began a little over one year ago, a little more patience is warranted.
We owe it to our military and our country to see it through.
McCain is the only candidate who can bring Iraq to a successful, timely resolution.
Here is Obama’s lame, empty response to Bush’s smackdown yesterday. From the New York Times.
Senator Barack Obama responded sharply Friday to recent criticism of his foreign policy by President Bush and Senator John McCain, saying that the Republican leaders were guilty of “dishonest, divisive attacks” and had engaged in “hypocrisy, fear-peddling, fear-mongering” in an effort to continue what Mr. Obama called “the failed policies” of the past seven years.
“George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” Mr. Obama said at a town hall meeting in a barn here, listing the war in Iraq and stalled diplomacy in other parts of the Middle East. He added “If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have any time, any place.”
That is responding sharply? What a wuss. Obama did not provide a single reason why Bush was wrong. Because he can’t.
See, appeasers like Obama believe they can talk murderous thugs out of their murderous plans. And he proved it in his response.
“In the Bush-McCain worldview, everyone who disagrees with their failed Iran policy is an appeaser,” Mr. Obama said. He added: “I believe we need to use all elements of American power to pressure Iran – including tough, principled and direct diplomacy.”
He didn’t say military power, or including military power, just the American power of his hypnotic words.
According to Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot, Larry Johnson is a Hillary supporter. So the following from Johnson’s blog, No Quarter USA is, happily, blue on blue fire.
I now have it from two three sources close to senior Republicans that they have video dynamite–Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” at Jeremiah Wright’s church. Republicans may have a lousy record when it comes to the economy and the management of the war in Iraq, but they are hell on wheels when it comes to opposition research. Someone took the chance and started reviewing the recordings from services at Jeremiah Wright’s United Church of Christ. Holy smoke!! I am told there is a clip that is being held for the fall to drop at the appropriate time. The last thing Barack and Michelle need is a new clip that raises further questions about her judgment and temperament. [snip]
When the ugly video tapes about Jeremiah Wright’s racist ravings first broke Barack Obama told us he could no more disown Jeremiah Wright than his own Grandmother. Well, we all know how that turned out. So will Barack stand by Michelle when the tape emerges of her verbally attacking “whitey?” Republicans, who are otherwise gloomy about prospects in November, recognize that this recording will create real problems for Barack and give them a shot at the White House. It is their October surprise.
Does Barack have an obligation to tell the Democrats, super delegates in particular, about this tape? Did Barack and his campaign do their basic homework and identify this tape as a potential problem? And, more importantly, do they have a copy? Probably better to deal with this issue before the convention rather than wait for October. What do you think?
Now who would ever believe Michelle Obama would say something like that? Pass the popcorn.
Yesterday the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. But they may want to hold off on all the kissin’ in San Francisco.
“Pro-family” organizations have submitted more than 1.1 million signatures for an initiative that would amend the state Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. If at least 694,354 signatures are found to be valid, the measure would go on the November ballot and, if approved by voters, would override [the] court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage.
The initiative the Court invalidated, Proposition 22, was approved by the voters in 2000 by a margin of 1.7 million votes. Proposition 22 will come back on the November ballot, this time as a constitutional amendment, and the gays won’t have the numbers to stop it. In 2004, eleven states had gay marriage bans on the ballot. All passed. It was a down-ticket issue which some credited with strengthening the ticket for Bush’s re-election. Regular voters get pretty honked off when judges start monkeying with basic facts of life, like the definition of marriage.
“John McCain supports the right of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution sanctioning the union between a man and a woman, just as he did in his home state of Arizona. John McCain doesn’t believe judges should be making these decisions.”
Good answer. Slamming judges for once again screwing around and making law from the bench which is directly contrary to the views of the people. When the constitutional amendment re-banning the practice goes on the ballot in November, he will be on the right side.
Here is Obama’s non-response.
“Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as President. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage.”
He, of course, does not say whether he believes marriage is only between a man and a woman. He is purportedly against gay marriage, so why doesn’t he just say so? He says he respects the decision of the court, but not whether he agrees with it. He says the “states” should make their own decisions, but the voters did make their decision, and it was overturned by activist judges. So does he support the court or does he support the voters? He won’t answer because he wants to wiggle and pander of course. Will he support a state constitutional amendment banning it? Unless he comes out in favor of traditional marriage, he will pay in November for his fence-sitting.
The second part of this one-two punch is Obama’s undying support for drivers’ licenses for illegals. You would think he would have learned from Hillary’s disastrous answer in the Philadelphia debate that this issue is kryptonite. But we have this from SFGate via RedState.
Barack Obama is easily winning the African American vote, but to woo Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
It’s a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It’s also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama’s stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in states such as California, where driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.
* * *
“Barack Obama has not backed down” on driver’s licenses for undocumented people, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton administration Cabinet member and Denver mayor now supporting Obama. “I think when the Latino community hears Barack’s position on such an important and controversial issue, they’ll understand that his heart and his intellect is with Latino community.”
Californians elect Republicans like McCain. Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson are cut from the same cloth, and if Obama stays where he is on marriage licenses for gays and drivers’ licenses for illegals, California may be his Waterloo.
Townhall signed him up and he’s going to be writing regular posts. If we are going to have to suffer the indignities of a McCain presidency, or worse . . . , Fred’s crisp, clear, conservative message may inspire the faithful just when we need it most. His inaugural post.
Spending some time on the campaign trail has confirmed a couple of thoughts I’ve had before I entered the Republican primary race.
First, conservatism is alive and well in America; don’t let anyone tell you differently. And by conservatism, I don’t mean the warmed-over “raise your hand if you believe …” kind of conservatism we see blooming every election cycle. No, I’m speaking of the conservatism grounded in principles based upon enduring truths: an understanding of the importance of human nature in the affairs of individuals and nations. Respect for the lessons of history, the importance of faith and tradition. The understanding that while man is prone to err, he is capable of great things when not subjugated by a too-powerful government. These are the principles that inspired our Founding Fathers, and resulted in a Constitution that delineated the powers of the central government, established checks and balances among the branches of government and further diffused governmental power by a system of Federalism.
Second, change – whether it “real change,” “bold change” or the “change we can believe in” variety others are selling – isn’t itself an innovative policy or a particularly strong leadership stance. In fact, from Burke to Buckley, there has been an acknowledgement that change in the political arena is inevitable and necessary, and we in the U.S. tend to experience it in regular, 2, 4 and 6 year intervals, so 2008 is hardly our first rodeo. The challenge for conservatives is calibrating whether the change being proposed is consistent with our principles and our philosophy, and whether that change is appropriate.
Our nation has some serious issues to work through for today … and for the next generation. Now isn’t the time for conservatives to be looking for a tailored message or a politically expedient route to victory if the end result is going to be the inevitable slide toward the liberalization and secularization of America, and the growth of government and loss of freedom that inevitably ensues. For us conservatives it must be about principles and policies that are grounded in freedom, free markets and the rule of law. That’s what I’ve been talking and writing about for the past few years, and that’s what I want to talk write about here on Townhall and in the new Townhall Magazine.
I joined Townhall and am writing exclusive commentaries for Townhall Magazine because I see them elevating the discourse on issues based on these principles — smaller government, individual liberty, standing for common values that have become all too uncommon, a strong national defense and, most of all, an optimism and belief in America.
I’m glad to be back here in familiar territory, and we’ll be talking to you soon.
Senator John McCain declared on Thursday that most American troops will be home from Iraq by 2013 and that Iraq will be a functioning democracy with only “spasmodic’’ episodes of violence, a striking departure from his refusal so far to set a date for U.S. withdrawal.
In a speech in the heart of Ohio, a major battleground state in the fall election, Mr. McCain set forth a sweeping, extraordinarily positive vision of what the world will look like 2013, when he says he will have been in the White House for four years.
“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom,’’ Mr. McCain said at the Columbus Convention Center. “The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.’’
Nice move Mac. In one fell swoop, he exposes the anti-war left for what they are: Pacifist appeasers who don’t believe troops should be sent anywhere, anytime, for any reason. They will be left bleating on deaf ears about bringing troops home now.
Normal Americans support military action against America’s enemies as long as the cause is just and the exit strategy is known. They are patient and they can live with a date, even if it is 5 years down the road. Before today, McCain was saddled with the perception of a perpetual war combined with the scurrilous 100-years-in-Iraq lie by the left. Unaddressed, that is a deal breaker for McCain at the ballot box. No longer.
The nice part is that he can assess as he goes and decide in 2013, if he wins a second term, whether that is the prudent course at that time.
In the meantime, he has just grabbed a pile of moderate, war-weary Democrats right out of the D column.
Ninety percent of black Democrats support Barack Obama. So that might leave an observer wondering: What the hell is up with that other 10 percent? Are they stupid? Do they hate their own race? Do they not understand the historical import of the moment?
I can shed some insight on this demographic anomaly. In gatherings of black people, I’m invariably the only one for the Dragon Lady. I’ll do my best to explain how those of us in the ever-shrinking minority of a minority came to our position.
But, before going any further, let me fully disclose my predispositions. I disliked Obama almost instantly. I never believed the central premises of his autobiography or his campaign. He is fueled by precisely the same brand of personal ambition as Bill Clinton. But, where Clinton is damned as “Slick Willie,” Obama is hailed as a post-racial Messiah. Do I believe that Obama had this whole yes-we-can deal planned from age 16? No, I would respond. He began plotting it at age 22. This predisposition, of course, doesn’t help me in making the case against Obama, especially not with black people. But, believe me, there’s a strong case to be made that he isn’t such a virtuous mediator of race. And it’s this skepticism about Obama’s racial posturing that has led us, the 10 percent, into dissent.
But here is the money quote. The dirty little secret about why white liberals really like Obama. Emphasis mine.
We have arrived at the crux of the matter. So much of the educated white people’s love for Barack depends on educated white people’s complete ignorance of and distance from the rest of us. Barack is the black person they want the rest of us to be–half-white and loving, or “racially transcendent,” as the press loves to call him. And, since picking a candidate makes you allies with his other supporters, why would I want to be allies with educated whites whose glorification of Barack depends in large part on their implicit denigration of the rest of us?
And there it is. All of the liberal white guilt that has driven all of the liberal social policies for decades has this underlying premise: “We can help these dirty wretches out of their undignified social position with money and they will become perfect, clean, well spoken Americans like us.”
Like Barack Obama.
Somebody ought to give Hillary this guy’s phone number. Quickly.
President Bush spoke yesterday to the Israeli Knesset celebrating the country’s 60th birthday. In his remarks, from the Wall Street Journal via RedState, he reminds the world why people who think like Barack Obama cause wars and the deaths of millions of people.
This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is the ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.
That is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the “elimination” of Israel. That is why the followers of Hezbollah chant “Death to Israel, Death to America!” That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that “the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties.” And that is why the president of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.
There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain their words away. This is natural. But it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.
Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before.
As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
This election is not about who pays for our frickin’ health care. It is about stopping evil before it kills us first.
Bush here is arguing in very broad brush against a generally meliorist view of foreign policy — one, moreover, that is held by many people who work inside his own government. For some reason, people who work for the almost-certain nominee of the Democratic party have decided that Bush was attacking him. As Kate Phillips writes on the New York Times website:
In a telephone interview on CNN just a few minutes ago, Robert Gibbs, the communications director for Senator Barack Obama, called Mr. Bush’s remarks “astonishing” and an “unprecendented political attack on foreign soil.”
An “unprecedented attack on foreign soil”? That is completely deranged. Not only did Bush not mention Obama by name, it is doubtful he or his people were thinking about Obama. The argument that negotiating with terrorists is appeasement akin to Europe’s appeasement of Hitler is a standard view among hawks on the Right — decades old, dating back even before Barry Obama found the audacity to hope in the pews of Jeremiah Wright’s church. It is exactly the sort of thing a man with Bush’s politics would say in a speech before the Knesset, whether Obama had run for president or not.
The Obama campaign has even issued a statement on the matter in Obama’s name:
It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power - including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.
I’m not sure what this all says about Obama. Is this smart politics, getting his base riled up on his behalf? Is he trying to use Bush as a wedge to make the case to the Jewish community in the United States that the bad man in the White House is mischaracterizing him and therefore Jews should like him more? Is he trying, for the millionth time, to rule any criticism of himself out of reasonable bounds by complaining about something that isn’t even criticism of him?
Or is this just another example of Obama’s thin-skinned-ness?
Here he gives some not-so-friendly advice to a heckler.
In this one, Reagan had shelled out the cash to pay for the event.
He jabs the Dems.
Skewering big government.
Dealing with America’s allies and enemies.
On the commies.
Here, Reagan crushes Carter. Note in the first segment, 28 years ago, Carter is beating the same socialist national health care drum Obama and Hillary are pounding on.
For some real patriotic stuff, this post gives us Reagan talking about the Americans Rangers at Pointe du Hoc on D-Day, the Challenger astronauts “touching the face of God” in January 1986, and calling out Gorbachev in the Evil Empire’s front yard, and telling him to tear down the Berlin Wall.
After seeing Reagan you realize how this year’s election is such an amateur hour.
John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who bowed out of the presidential race in January, is expected to endorse Senator Barack Obama at a rally being held here tonight.
Officials announced the news shortly after Mr. Obama landed here late this afternoon. The campaign has timed the announcement to coincide with the start of the major evening newscasts, which would have otherwise focused on Senator Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in West Virginia, which raised new questions about Mr. Obama’s strength with white working class voters.
Certainly getting a millionaire trial lawyer turned hedge fund guy on board will probably be the talk of the coal mines in the morning.
And lest we forget how Silky a.k.a The Breck Girl got his noms de guerre.
And with that, San Francisco retains its title of the Most Ridiculous City in America. Did somebody dump toxic waste in the Bay? What is wrong with these people? From SFGate via Ace.
Rather than tossing loose change into a panhandler’s empty cup, San Francisco officials want you instead to slide your spare quarters and nickels into a homeless meter.
The city’s latest attempt to deal with one of its most vexing problems will be announced in coming weeks in the form of 10 old parking meters installed in some of the most heavily panhandled areas, The Chronicle has learned.
Money deposited in the meters would go directly to charities that help the homeless.
“The reason people are panhandling is because there’s a market for panhandling,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said Monday. “We’re not helping these individuals by handing out cash. If there was strong evidence to suggest this helped people turn their lives around, we would not be using this approach.”
Ok, knew that by 3rd grade. Welcome to the World of Common sense. We have a map to help you navigate, because obviously you are new here.
The goal, officials say, is to reduce panhandling and to educate tourists and residents about the problem of giving money directly to people on the streets.
I seem to recall decades of leftist sneering at people who would not give money to the homeless and instead told the bums to GET A JOB. See panhandling is not really new. And some big city mayors know how to take care of such things.
Mr. Giuliani announced that the homeless could either move on when prodded by the police or face arrest.
People in homeless shelters need to work to keep their beds. If not, they’re out in the street, and if they are parents, their children can be taken away and put in foster care.
The mayor has announced, heretically, that the able-bodied homeless should help themselves. He wants those shelter residents who can work in exchange for their benefits to do so. He also proposes that street vagrants who refuse the offer of shelter, and who persist in violating laws against blocking public space or harassing pedestrians, should be issued summonses.
Funny, I don’t recall Homeless Parking Meters as part of Rudy’s solution.
But Newsome has steeled his resolve. He is a man of conviction.
“I ask them to give us a chance,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, show me the evidence, and then we’ll abandon it.”
Atta boy Gav.
By the way mayor, Rudy Giuliani resides in New York. His number is in the book.
According to CNN, with 58% of the vote counted at 10:35 PM Eastern, she beat him 65%-28%, well over double.
UPDATE: With 100% reporting, it got worse for Obama. The final was 67%-26%.
There is this little nasty (if you are a Democrat) tidbit buried in the exit polls.
Looking ahead to the general election, 59 percent of Clinton voters say they would either vote for Republican John McCain or not vote at all if Obama is the Democratic nominee. Thirty six percent of Clinton voters said they would vote for Obama while 35 percent said they would vote for McCain and 24 percent said they would sit the election out. Fifty one percent of Obama’s voters said they would support Clinton in the general election while 31 percent said they would support McCain and 14 percent would not vote.
Since Obama likely has the nomination, the first figure, 59% of Hillary’s very large majority will not vote for Obama. That is huge.
But exit polls have again showed potential problems on the horizon for Democratic strategists. White voters chose Senator Clinton by a margin of 68 per cent to 28 per cent. Almost three in four blue-collar voters backed her.
Some will call that racism. The whites can’t vote for the black guy.
Anyone see any exit polls for how many African-Americans voted for Obama? I couldn’t find any. Did the media forget to get this information or do they not want to publish it? If his majority among blacks is higher than hers among whites, is that racism?
Silly me. I thought this screw job wasn’t coming until next year.
The Heritage Foundation has done a detailed analysis of a Bill Co-Sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner currently pending in the Senate.
Imagine this nightmare economic scenario playing out over the next two decades:
$1.7 to $4.8 trillion-cumulative losses to economic output by 2030.
$155 billion to $500 billion-potential single-year losses to economic output.
500,000 to 1,000,000-annual job losses before 2030.
$100 billion-cost of new government permits mandated for energy users by 2020. This could exceed $300 billion by 2030.
$467-average additional cost per household each year for natural gas and electricity. That means that the average household will spend an additional $8,870 to purchase household energy over the period 2012 through 2030.
(All financial figures are in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars.)
But this is no fantasy. This is the impact on our economy of climate change legislation now before lawmakers, according to a careful and thorough new analysis by The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.
The legislation, principally sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.), would impose emissions caps on six greenhouse gasses. Those who produce such gasses would have to purchase a government permit, or “allowance,” for the amount they emit. This will drive up energy costs and cause real problems for the economy.
“In addition to taking a bite out of consumers’ pocketbooks, the high energy prices throw a monkey wrench into the production side of the economy,” explain Heritage experts Bill Beach, David Kreutzer, Ben Lieberman and Nick Loris.
Economic growth, output and employment would all be reduced, despite liberal claims that such a program would result in economy-boosting “green investment” coupled with “green-collar” job creation.
What’s more, “the increase in energy costs creates correspondingly large transfers of income from private energy consumers to special interests.”
Oh yeah, and did we mention it is an absolute job killer?
Get used to this. As of next year, we will have to act quickly to find this kind of ludicrous legislation and kill it in the crib. Get your pitchforks and torches, we’re headed for the Capitol.
To all republicans who can’t stand McCain and intend to sit home in November rather than sully your pure conservative conscience by voting for the apostate, I have one observation.
First, for the record, McCain was nowhere near the top of my list.
Second, you are living in the primaries. They are over for us and not (pass the popcorn) for the Dems. But we have our guy. Once the primaries are over, they are over. Reset your dials, get rid of your wish list for what you would like to see in a candidate. McCain is what he is.
It’s real simple now. McCain v. Obama.
If you love this country, you only have two choices. To not choose one is a vote for the other. So you can sit on your hands and when Obama is POTUS 44 and he eviscerates SCOTUS for 30 years, we will come knocking and see how you feel then. When his Global Poverty Act bill is signed and countless billions of our money will be mandated by the U.N to be spent on eradicating WORLD poverty, we’ll see how you feel. When businesses and American citizens are saddled with crippling taxes to pay for enumerable earmarks, I hope you have an answer.
You don’t have to like McCain. Just vote against Obama for God’s sakes.
Remember the line in The Patriot?
“This war, [Mel Gibson] says, will be fought not on distant battlefields but among the colonists’ farms and homes. “Our children,” he warns, “will learn of it with their own eyes.” When asked how he can square his refusal to fight with his patriotic principles, Martin answers, “I’m a parent. I haven’t got the luxury of principles.”
Mel, of course, goes on to kick some Redcoat ass.
You are an American first. There are only two choices. You don’t have the luxury of principles.
The Washington Post today has really outdone itself. Did you know that Indianans and Pennsylvanians are racists? And if you live in Muncie or Kokomo, Indiana or Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, you are a particularly vile strain.
Listen to the broad brush the Post uses to slander people. Note the neat trick in a lot of these examples: Use a term describing several or many people, then cite an example of one person uttering a racial slur. All emphasis mine.
First it is Indiana’s turn.
In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into “a horrible response,” as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.
“The first person I encountered was like, ‘I’ll never vote for a black person,’ ” recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. “People just weren’t receptive.” [snip]
Then Pennsylvania.
Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!”
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across “a lot of racism” when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: “White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people.”
Sometimes the Post just cites unsubstantiated incidents of widespread racism.
As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.[snip]
During his own canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had “a lot of doors slammed” in his face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip in broad daylight? “I was very shocked at first,” Murrell said. “Then again, I wasn’t, because we have a lot of racism here.”
And it is not just the evil Republicans who are racist, it’s all white people, including Hillary Clinton supporters.
Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way:
“Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don’t know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can’t convince me that some of that didn’t rub off on him.
“No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office.”
Obama’s campaign workers have grown wearily accustomed to the lies about the candidate’s supposed radical Muslim ties and lack of patriotism. But they are sometimes astonished when public officials such as Ball or others representing the campaign of their opponent traffic in these falsehoods.
But, you see, if you criticize Obama, you are a racist. There is no objective, legitimate reason not to vote for him, you are simply “trafficking in falsehoods.”
The Post then gives us the dirty little secret about why Kokomo has a problem with Obama.
Kokomo, which was once a Ku Klux Klan stronghold. On July 4, 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest Klan gathering in history — an estimated 200,000 followers flocked to a local park.
Get that, 85 years ago, the Klan had a meeting in town. And so, therefore, their descendants currently living in Kokomo are also racists, because we all know racism is hereditary.
And of course, the citizens of Kokomo, Home of The KKK, must be that way because they are bitter, bitter, about hard economic times, and that makes them cling to their bigoted ways.
Kokomo, population 46,000, is another hard-hit Midwestern industrial town stung by layoffs. Longtimers wistfully remember the glory years of Continental Steel and speak mournfully about the jobs shipped overseas. Kokomo Sanitary Pottery, which made bathroom sinks and toilets, shut down a couple of months ago and took with it 150 jobs.
The press can write stories about racists if they want. But to slander entire American cities and states is reckless, journalistic malpractice.
I am not sure I agree with all of these predictions, especially some of the “leaning” states. For example, as between these two guys, Virginia would be solid red. It may also be more accurate that leaning blue states like Pennsylvania are really, leaning red. McCain could potentially blow him out. From the New York Times
Here are what the Obama and McCain campaigns now consider the true battleground states going into the fall campaign, assuming — as both candidates now do — that Barack Obama is likely to win his party’s nomination. In addition to these states, both sides have states that they say (or rather hope) will come into play in the months ahead — think New Jersey for Republicans and Georgia for Democrats — but for the time being, this is where the action is going to be.
Of course this map looked a whole lot different in 1980 and 1984.
Why is Hillary staying in the race, showing no signs of giving in, when mathematically she can’t win? Bill is campaigning his heart out in West Virginia. From Jake Tapper at ABC.
He can do the math. He must know that it’s quite improbable that his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will be the Democratic presidential nominee. [snip]
So what purpose does it serve for him to barnstorm a state like West Virginia and tell rural voters that Obama and his elitist political/media cabal allies are mocking Appalachia?
He’s using the kind of language Democrats typically use against Republicans — as in, stuff you say when you don’t want voters to vote for the other guy under any circumstance.
This is tough stuff to walk back from.
Maybe they have no plans to walk back from that stuff at all . . . and they don’t want voters to vote for “the other guy” under any circumstances.
Now that they realize the nomination is likely not theirs, they will do whatever is necessary to ensure that Barack Obama will not win in the fall. Then Hillary Clinton will run again in 2012, gambling that by that time, the Democrats will have become so hungry for a Presidential win that they will forgive her and her husband for the efforts they are currently undertaking to destroy the Democratic Party.
And don’t think that a few of the Clintons’ supporters won’t take what they are doing to heart and heed the implicit message not to vote for Barack Obama under any circumstances this fall.
Emphasis mine. The Hillary crowd despises Obama and his supporters. See this post and the uncivil war in the comments between Hillary and Obama supporters. I think they would happily torpedo Obama this year to get their girl in the White House in 2012.
The instructive yet sad thing about our British cousins is that they have to be guinea pigs for all the leftist ruses for a few years before the same policies actually take hold in the United States. They have had their fill of the Global Warming hoax. From the Independent.
More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.
The survey also reveals that most Britons believe “green” taxes on 4×4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.
And listen to this lefty logic about why the public is skeptical.
Mike Childs, the head of campaigns for Friends of the Earth, blamed the Government for generating a cynical response to “green taxes”. “People do get cynical unless they see benefits,” he said. “The Government is playing a dangerous game. They are using climate change to identify potential new taxes and revenues but the public aren’t seeing anything in return. The public aren’t being helped to go green. The Government could put a windfall tax on the big oil companies and use that money to insulate homes or introduce a feed-in tariff to pay people to produce renewable energy.”
So it really has nothing to do with whether man-made global warming actually exists. The people don’t believe it because the government has blown the money on other stuff? The public will never see anything in return, because government policies cannot be shown to have any effect on the climate.
Yet these nuts will not be deterred because clearly the public is not as smart as these brilliant politicians.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said: “The Government is committed to building a low-carbon economy, here and around the world. That means a complete change in the way we live and an economic transformation that will put Britain at the forefront of a technological revolution in the way we use and source our energy.”
I don’t surf much in Democrat waters; if they ever caught me they’d make remote Pacific island cannibalism look like a state dinner. But I stumbled across this on a Democrat site, and though you have to read between the lines a bit, I think this Hillary supporter is not happy with Obama’s impending nomination. You be the judge.
On behalf of millions of Clinton supporters who have made it very clear that we will vote for a cockroach before we vote for Barack Obama, I would like you pieces of Obama crap to know that you can kiss our asses. We will collectively do everything in our power to see to it that you and that mysogynist, bigoted, race-baiting pig you worship, the fraud who has already set gender and racial relations back thirty years, goes down in flames in a big way. And there are millions of us. Millions. The kind of millions that brought his type down before from the voting booth.
So kindly don’t bother trying the Nicey-Nicey. We are not your wives you can beat the crap out of and later come back and get back together with. You are so vile you give yourselves away by the third comment, so really it’s a waste of time. You don’t even know you are offensive because it’s in your DNA or something. So really, there’s no sense of stressing yourselves trying to hide your disdain for us. It’s not necessary. We hate you even more than you hate us and all of you only serve to solidify our resolve. And when Barry Obama goes down in November, kindly remember why. Or don’t remember why. Nobody cares.
Hey, would you consider putting out a yard sign for the guy?
The next time we hear any reference from the Obama camp insinuating McCain is too old and possibly befuddled to be President, just haul this bad boy out.
Were they giving out free Colt 45 at this event?
Obama, ever the cool cat and trendsetter, has started marketing a new line of lapel pins.
Barack Obama gave a speech in June 2006 to a Pentecostal conference. His stated purpose seemed worthy.
I’d like to look at the connection between religion and politics and offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often-bitter arguments that we’ve been seeing over the last several years. We can raise up the religious call to address poverty and environmental stewardship all we want, but it won’t have an impact unless we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America.
But Obama told us a whole lot more about himself than he may have intended. The speech talks about “progressives” and “secularists” versus people of faith. He starts off talking like an impartial sports announcer calling the game, referring objectively to each side. He soon shows us on which team he plays. And the speech turns into a handbook for liberals on how to talk to and deal with those zealots on the Religious Right.
Obama is clearly including himself in the “we” and “us” in the following.
That is why, if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at—to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own—then as progressives we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse. Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome—others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
In other words, if we don’t reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.
Translation: We are going to have to actually talk to these fanatics. Continue Reading »
An article entitled The New Inquisitors, by Theodore Dalrymple, November 5, 2002.
Signs of our new, improved multicultural times: a friend of mine, a small independent bookseller, told me that her store recently received a visit from a woman who announced that she worked for the Equal Opportunities Commission. The commission—one of England’s busy-bodying, quasi-governmental organizations—sniffs out racism, much as the Spanish Inquisition once sniffed out judaizing heresies among the conversos, and in the process it provides non-manual employment for the semi-educated.
“Where is your section by black authors?” she demanded to know.
“We don’t have one,” replied my friend.
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t classify authors by race.”
The lady from the commission demanded to know where the volumes by such and such black authors were. My friend showed her where they were, among all the other books.
“You should have a section for black authors,” she said.
“We don’t classify books by race,” my friend repeated.
The lady from the commission, very annoyed, stormed out, exclaiming for all to hear, “This is a white racist bookshop!”
My friend told me this in her bookshop—sotto voce, when she was certain that there was no one who could overhear.
The last line tells it all. How to express to uninformed Americans that that incident is truly a hair’s breadth from Stalinist tactics? It is an example of liberal, politically correct, thought police acting under color of authority. Wait a minute, acting under color of authority makes them the actual thought police.
He has good sources in the Clinton camp and this may be the leak that greases the skids. She can bow out of the race gracefully, mend fences, and continue to stump for all the same policies she has been talking about for 15 years. She was beaten fair and square and her supporters will come around.
Sen. Barack Obama, perhaps giving America a preview of priorities he would pursue if elected president, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations.
The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, “We can – and must – make … a priority,” said Obama, a co-sponsor.
It would demand that the president develop “and implement” a policy to “cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief” and other programs. [snip]
Many Americans were alerted to the legislation by a report from Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media. He published a critique asserting that while the Global Poverty Act sounds nice, the adoption could “result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States” and would make levels “of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.”
He said the legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years he said would amount to $845 billion “over and above what the U.S. already spends.”
The plan passed the House in 2007 “because most members didn’t realize what was in it,” Kincaid reported. “Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require.”
A statement from Obama’s office this week noted the support offered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“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,” Obama said. “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. As we strive to rebuild America’s standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in the developing world.
“Our commitment to the global economy must extend beyond trade agreements that are more about increasing profits than about helping workers and small farmers everywhere,” he continued.
Read this next part closely.
The bill institutes the United Nations Millennium Summit goals as the benchmarks for U.S. spending.
[snip]
Specifically, it would “declare” that the official U.S. policy is to eliminate global poverty, that the president is “required” to “develop and implement” a strategy to reach that goal and requires that the U.S. efforts be “specific and measurable.”
The bill would make it official U.S. policy to eliminate global poverty and the American spending for it would be set by the United Nations.
Kincaid said that after cutting through all of the honorable-sounding goals in the plan, the bottom line is that the legislation would mandate the 0.7 percent of the U.S. GNP as “official development assistance.”
Of course there is also the small matter of turning over our sovereignty to the United Nations on fundamental Constitutional rights.
“In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that (U.N.) declaration commits nations to banning ’small arms and light weapons’ and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention of Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention of the Rights of the Child,” he said.
Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims.
How to pay for all this?
Kincaid also reported Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the “Millennium Project,” confirms a U.N. plan to force the U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of GNP would add about $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already donates overseas.
And the only way to raise that funding, Sachs confirms, “is through a global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels,” Kincaid writes.
On the forum run by Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, one writer reported estimates of taxes from 35 cents to $1 dollar a gallon on gasoline would be needed.
“This is disgusting, sickening and angers me to the depths of my soul,” the forum author wrote. “Obama wants us to support the world. I wonder how they intend to eliminate poverty. Most of the money always winds up in some dictator hands and in the U.N. coffers.”
WND calls to Obama’s office, as well as the offices of others who supported the plan, were not successful in obtaining a comment.
We may have a small window and we need to hit the Senate hard on this.
Kincaid reported several more budget-minded senators have put a hold on the legislation “in order to prevent it from being rushed to the floor for a full Senate vote.”
The legislation requires the president to do whatever is required to fulfill a strategy that would result in “the elimination of extreme global poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide … who live on less than $1 per day.”
It further requires the president not only to accomplish that goal but, “not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this act,” to submit a report on “the contributions provided by the United States” toward poverty reduction.
Here is the link to the Senate phone numbers and emails.
Sorry for the volume and histrionics, but it looks important.
