Revealing Obama Video Found

We are bombarded daily by Obamaites claiming that this problem or that problem was inherited by them, as they try to blame Bush for all their miscues, and whenever it is pointed out that the housing and credit crash was mainly the result of THEIR policies, they howl and point fingers.

Yes there was greed and fraud and insufficient regulation involved in this calamity that has affected all of us, but the main blame for the existence of sub-prime mortgages falls squarely in the laps of liberal Democrats, as this video makes clear:

The American people need to be reminded of these facts over and over again, as the Obamaites try to use this crisis to destroy our free-market capitalist system - a system that has brought the highest standard of living ever known to anyone who wants to work, and as the Obamaites try to shift the blame for this crisis away from themselves.

If video doesn't load, go here.

Notre Dame, Obama and Pro-Life Apologists

Unless your life is devoted entirely to following the exploits of Britney Spears, you undoubtedly feel that most aspects of American society are disintegrating – from political civility – to respect for authority – to regard for each others' rights and privacy. At the risk of being labeled a grumpy old man, I will declare that I believe that the welfare mentality created by President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ and the federally approved and sponsored abortion plague that followed Roe v. Wade are chiefly responsible for the coarsening of our society that we all see.

Welfare destroyed the American family, for whites and especially for blacks – both of which survived the Great Depression but could not survive AFDC. Constitutionally sanctioned and federally sponsored abortion-on-demand throughout nine months of pregnancy has destroyed the notion of the sanctity of life and the worth of the individual.

The following piece by Robert George, dealing with just the abortion issue, is a long one, but well worth reading:

Obama and His Pro-Life Apologists

By Robert George May 29, 2009 American Spectator

Note: Three months into President Obama’s first term, one of his most prominent pro-life opponents, Robert P. George, engaged in a debate with one of his most prominent pro-life supporters, Douglas W. Kmiec. The article below is adopted from George's remarks, which called for candid speech on Obama's abortion record.

One does not treat an interlocutor with respect if one refuses to speak plainly. Candor, far from being the enemy of civility, is one of its preconditions. And so I will speak candidly of the points where I, as someone dedicated to the principle that every member of the human family possesses profound, inherent, and equal dignity, find myself at odds—deeply at odds—with President Obama and his administration.

In my judgment, citizens who honor and seek to protect the lives of vulnerable unborn children must oppose the Obama administration’s agenda on the taking of unborn human life. Our goal must be to frustrate at every turn the administration’s efforts, which will be ongoing and determined, to expand the abortion license and the authorization and funding of human embryo-destructive research. Because the President came into office with large majorities in both houses of Congress, ours is a daunting task. But the difficulty of the challenge in no way diminishes our moral obligation to meet it. And I here call upon pro-life Americans, including those who, like Professor Kmiec, supported President Obama and helped to bring him to power, to find common ground with us in this great struggle for human equality, human rights, and human dignity.

Professor Kmiec and I share common ground in the belief that every member of the human family—irrespective of race, class, and ethnicity, but also irrespective of age, size, location, stage of development or condition of dependency—is entitled to our care and respect and to the equal protection of our laws. This is what it means to be pro-life. In this shared conviction, Professor Kmiec and I are on one side of a crucial divide, and President Obama is on the other. Professor Kmiec and I stand together in our opposition to abortion and human embryo-destructive research, but we share very little common ground on these matters with President Obama and those whom he has appointed to high office who will determine the fate of vast numbers of our weakest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters.

I appreciated the President’s candor at Notre Dame when he said:
“Now understand, understand, class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it . . . the fact is that at some level the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.”

The President is right. His view regarding the status, dignity, and rights of the child in the womb, and the view shared by Professor Kmiec and myself, are irreconcilable. A chasm separates those of us who believe that every living human being possesses profound, inherent, and equal dignity, and those who, for whatever reasons, deny it. The issue really cannot be fudged, as people sometimes try to do by imagining that there is a dispute about whether it is really a human being who is dismembered in a dilation and curettage abortion, or whose skin is burned off in a saline abortion, or the base of whose skull is pierced and whose brains are sucked out in a dilation and extraction (or “partial birth”) abortion. That issue has long been settled—and it was settled not by religion or philosophy, but by the sciences of human embryology and developmental biology.

So it is clear that what divides us as a nation, and what divides Barack Obama, on one side, from Robert George and Douglas Kmiec, on the other, is not whether the being whose life is taken in abortion and in embryo-destructive research is a living individual of the human species—a human being; it is whether all human beings, or only some, possess fundamental dignity and a right to life. Professor Kmiec and I affirm, and the President denies, that every human being, even the youngest, the smallest, the weakest and most vulnerable at the very dawn of their lives, has a life which should be respected and protected by law. The President holds, and we deny, that those in the embryonic and fetal stages of human development may rightly and freely be killed because they are unwanted or potentially burdensome to others, or because materials obtained by dissecting them may be useful in biomedical research.

The President speaks of human rights, and I do not question his sincerity. But he does not understand the concept of human rights, as Professor Kmiec and I do, to refer to rights—above all the right to life—that all human beings possess simply by virtue of our humanity. For the President, being human is not enough to qualify someone as the bearer of a right to life. Professor Kmiec and I, by contrast, believe that every member of the human family, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is truly created equal. We reject the idea that is at the foundation of President Obama’s position on abortion and human embryo-destructive research, namely, that those of us who are equal in worth and dignity are equal by virtue of some attribute other than our common humanity—some attribute that unborn children have not yet acquired, justifying others in treating them, despite their humanity, as non-persons, as objects or property, even as disposable material for use in biomedical research.

President Obama knows that an unborn baby is human. He knows that the blood shed by the abortionist’s knife is human blood, that the bones broken are human bones. He does not deny that the baby whom nurse Jill Stanek discovered gasping for breath in a soiled linen bin after a failed attempt to end her life by abortion, was a human baby. Even in opposing the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which was designed to assure that such babies were rescued if possible or at least given comfort care while they died, Barack Obama did not deny the humanity of the child.

What he denied, and continues to deny, is the fundamental equality of that child—equality with those of us who are safely born and accepted into the human community.
During his campaign for the Presidency, then-Senator Obama was asked by Rick Warren:

When does a baby acquire human rights? In reply, the future president did not say, “well it depends on when a baby (or a “fetus”) comes to life, or becomes a human being.” He knows that an unborn baby is alive and human, and he did not pretend not to know. His response to Pastor Warren did seem to express doubt of as to when rights begin, saying that the question was “above his pay grade.” But Obama’s record as an activist, legislator, and now as President makes clear his view that an unborn baby, or even a baby outside the womb like the one discovered in that soiled linen bin by Jill Stanek, possesses no rights that others are bound to respect or that the law should in any way honor. Throughout his political career, Obama has consistently and fervently rejected every form of legislation that would provide unborn babies or children who survive abortions with meaningful protection against being killed. Indeed, he has opposed even efforts short of prohibiting abortion that would discourage the practice, limit its availability, or directly favor childbirth over abortion.

Professor Kmiec and I believe in the equal fundamental rights of all, including the equality of mother and child. We recognize that women with undesired pregnancies can undergo serious hardships, and we believe that a just and caring society will concern itself with the well-being of mothers as well as their children. We agree with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who by precept and example taught us to reach out in love to care for mother and child alike, never supposing that love for one entails abandoning care and concern for the other. President Obama holds a different view.

He has made clear his own conviction that the equality of women depends on denying the equality and rights of the children they carry. He has made what is, from the pro-life point of view, the tragic error of supposing that the equality of one class of human beings can and must be purchased by denial of the equality of another.

One wishes that President Obama had listened carefully, and with an open mind and an open heart, to the pleas of Mother Teresa during her last visit to the United States. Her message was that a pregnant woman in need is not in need of the violence of abortion. What she and her child need are love and care—love and care from all of us. Our task, Mother reminded us, as individuals and as a society, is to love and care for mother and child alike.

President Obama’s supporters do him no good service by pretending that his expressions of willingness to find “common ground” with pro-lifers involve, at some level, recognition that abortion or embryo-destructive research is bad or tragic because it kills a living member of the human family. Unlike, say former President Clinton or former New York Governor Cuomo, or even Vice President Biden, President Obama does not profess to be “personally opposed” to abortion, or to believe that abortion is a wrongful act that must nevertheless be legally permitted because the consequences of outlawing it would be worse than those of tolerating it. His belief, and his policy, is that abortion, if a woman chooses it, is not wrong. That is why he is not personally opposed to it. There is no wrong there to oppose. Indeed, the President made crystal clear his view that abortion can be an entirely legitimate and even desirable option, when he said that if one of his daughters made a mistake and became pregnant, he would not want her to be “punished with a baby.” In such a case, he saw abortion as the right solution to a problem—a solution that we should be happy is available, and that we should make available if it happens not yet to be available. Without it, a young woman would be “punished.”

I have no doubt that the President regards it as deeply unfortunate, sometimes even tragic, that the problem giving rise to the woman’s need for an abortion exists; but there is equally no room to doubt that President Obama regards it as fortunate that a solution to the problem—in the form of abortion—is available. For someone holding this view, and many people in the academic world hold it, abortion is not in itself a bad or wrongful thing, any more than a knee replacement operation is in itself a bad or wrongful thing. Of course, it would be better if no one ever injured a knee and found himself in need of a knee operation. No one regards knee operations as desirable for their own sakes. No one deliberately injures himself just so that he can have a knee operation. And people don’t have knee operations performed on them for frivolous reasons. But a knee operation is not something that one would discourage or be personally opposed to. It is a solution to a problem, and should therefore be made as available and accessible as possible for people who need them. For those who share President Obama’s view of the moral status of the child in the womb, the decision to abort may be more wrenching for many women than the decision to have a knee operation typically is, but it is like a knee operation precisely inasmuch as it is a legitimate solution to a problem.

All of this was made transparently clear at a recent meeting at the White House in which people on both sides of the abortion issue were brought together to see if they could find some common ground. The meeting was led by Melody Barnes, the Director of the President’s Domestic Policy Council and a former board member of Emily’s List, one of the nation’s most aggressive organizations devoted to legal abortion and its public funding. At one point in the meeting, she recognized pro-life activist Wendy Wright, who attempted to explain ways that the President could begin to achieve his reported goal of reducing the number of abortions. Barnes interrupted her to make clear that the precise goal of the administration is to “reduce the need for abortions.”

Two days after the meeting, the President spoke at Notre Dame, and he chose his words carefully. In speaking of common ground, he did not propose that we reduce the number of abortions, but rather [and I quote] “the number of women seeking abortions.” Get it? The President and his administration will not join us on the common ground of discouraging women from having abortions or even in encouraging them to choose childbirth over abortion. The proposed common ground is the reduction of unwanted pregnancies—not discouraging those in “need” of abortion from having them. The idea that the interests of a child who might be vulnerable to the violence of abortion should be taken into account, even in discouraging women from resorting to abortion or encouraging alternatives to abortion, is simply off the table.

The President and the people he has placed in charge of this issue, such as Melody Barnes, have a deep ideological commitment to the idea that there is nothing actually wrong with abortion, because the child in the womb simply has no rights. This commitment explains the policy positions President Obama has consistently taken since he entered the Illinois legislature. It crucially shapes and profoundly limits what he and those associated with him regard as the “common ground” on which he is willing to work with pro-lifers. And it explains why he and they reject what we, as pro-lifers, propose as common ground.

Because the President does not believe in the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family; because he does not believe that babies acquire human rights until after birth; because he does not see abortion as tragic because it takes the life of an innocent human being, he is utterly and intransigently unwilling to support even efforts short of prohibiting abortion that would plainly reduce the number of abortions. Moreover, he is adamantly in favor of funding abortions and abortion providers at home and abroad, and has already taken steps in that direction by revoking the Mexico City Policy and proposing a budget that would restore publicly funded abortions in Washington, D.C.—despite the well-documented and universally acknowledged fact that when you provide public funding for abortion, you get more abortions.

Some pro-choice people think that the killing of unborn children where there is no grave threat to the mother, though bad and unjust, should not be made illegal at least in the earliest stages. Potentially we would have significant common ground with these fellow citizens in the form of policies to discourage abortion and reduce the number of killings. For example, we could join together to oppose the funding of abortion at home and abroad; we could work together for bans on second and third trimester abortions, on abortions for sex-selection, and on particularly heinous methods of abortion, such as partial-birth abortions; we could agree on what Professor Hadley Arkes calls “the most modest first step of all,” namely requiring care—at least comfort care—for the child who survives an attempted abortion and is born alive. We could provide desperately needed financial support for pro-life clinics that assist pregnant women in need—need that is not always financial, but is often emotional and spiritual—and encourage and help these women make the choice for life. We could enact waiting periods, informed consent laws, and parental notification laws that have been shown, in research by Michael New and others, to reduce abortions. We could reject the funding of embryo-destructive research, and join together to support promising research and treatments using non-embryonic sources of stem cells.

However, far from meeting us on any of these areas of common ground, President Obama opposes our efforts. Political realities have prevented him from making good on his promise to the abortion industry to sign the pro-abortion nuclear bomb called the Freedom of Choice Act as one of his first acts in office. But he was not lying when he made that promise. His policies, and above all his appointments to key offices in the White House, the Justice Department, Health and Human Services, and elsewhere make clear that his strategy will be to enact the provisions of FOCA step by step, rather than as a package. As anyone occupying the role of David Axelrod or Karl Rove will tell you, this is obviously the politically astute way for the President to prosecute his agenda. The country does not accept President Obama’s extreme position on abortion. A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans now regard themselves as pro-life, and a majority favors significant legal restrictions on abortion.

Plainly the President’s actual views are far more favorable to abortion than those of the general public; so if he is to advance his goals, and the goals of those who share his commitment to making abortion more widely available and easily accessible, the last thing it would make sense to do is try to enact FOCA as a package.

At Notre Dame, the President offered to work with pro-lifers to draft what he called “sensible” conscience protections for pro-life physicians and other health care workers. This favorably impressed some in the pro-life community, especially since one of President Obama’s first acts was to rescind conscience protection regulations supported by the pro-life community that had been put into place by the Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services. Here, alas, I must urge caution. It seems to me overwhelmingly likely that the key word in the President’s offer is “sensible.” What is “sensible” to him, I predict, is precisely what is regarded as sensible by the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, namely, requiring physicians to refer for abortions, even if their consciences forbid it, and allowing pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists to refuse to perform abortions only when it is clear that an abortion can be provided by a willing physician in the area. For physicians and surgeons who believe that abortion is unjust killing and a grave violation of human rights, this is not sensible. It is ominous. I beg the President’s pro-life supporters urgently to request from him a statement clarifying the meaning of “sensible” conscience protection. If it means weakening current laws, so doctors will be compelled to refer for abortions and in so-called emergencies even to perform abortions, then even here pro-life citizens have no common ground with the President of the United States.

Finally, let me say a word about a matter that has been of deep concern to me—the expansion of federal funding for embryo-destructive research. I regret that the President passed up a golden opportunity to establish true common ground with pro-life citizens. He could have left the funding of research involving cell lines created by the destruction of human embryos in place, and led the charge to promote ethically unproblematic non-embryo-destructive forms of stem cell science. He could have rallied the nation around adult stem cell science and brilliant new technologies for the production of pluripotent stem cells that manifest the very qualities that make embryonic stem cells interesting and potentially useful. He could have shown that we can give both sides in the great stem cell debate what they want—the promise of stem cell science, without the moral stain of embryo killing.

But the President did not do that. He revoked the restrictions on funding research involving embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001. He even took the additional step of revoking President Bush’s 2007 executive order promoting research to advance non-embryo-destructive sources of pluripotent stem cells. Finally, he opened the door to funding research involving stem cell lines created by producing human embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer or other means specifically for research in which they are killed. He delegated the details of any new guidelines to the National Institutes for Health. The NIH, under Acting Director Raynard Kington, a Bush-administration holdover, recently published its draft guidelines, which mercifully decline to walk through the door the President opened. For now, at least, there will be no funding of research involving embryos created just for destruction.

If the President’s pro-life supporters are partially responsible for this piece of good news, they deserve our sincere thanks, and I here heartily offer mine. The NIH guidelines also include strong consent rules for parents. Already the supporters of embryo-destructive research and so-called “therapeutic cloning” are pressing the NIH to reverse course in both these areas. For that reason, I plead with all who believe in respect for human life, and especially those whose support of the President politically has given them influence with him and his administration, to work tirelessly to ensure that there is no further expansion of funding for embryo-destructive research or weakening of current consent requirements.

The common ground I am interested in is with pro-life Americans who, like Professor Kmiec, have supported the President politically. The election is over, and the current question is not who anyone thinks will do the best job as President, or even whether one may legitimately support candidates who deny the fundamental dignity and right to life of unborn human beings and who promise to protect and extend the abortion license and expand the funding of embryo-destructive research. The question is: On which issues will we support the President’s direction, and on which will we challenge him because he is heading in the wrong direction? Those pro-life Americans who voted for him and support him should not object when we speak for the most vulnerable and defenseless of our fellow human beings, even when that means severely criticizing the President’s policies. They should stand with us on common ground, and join their voices with ours.

Cheney Shows the Way By Patrick Buchanan

Sometimes even Patrick Buchanan gets it right.

Cheney Shows the Way

By Patrick Buchanan May 27, 2009 RealClearPolitics

Dick Cheney is giving the Republican Party a demonstration of how to fight a popular president. Stake out defensible high ground, do not surrender an inch, then go onto the attack.

The ground on which Cheney has chosen to stand is the most defensible the Republicans have: homeland security. In seven-and-a-half years after 9-11, not one terrorist attack struck our country.

And, unlike Obama's position, Cheney's is 100 percent reality based. He was there. He lived through this. He made the decisions to use the harsher techniques on the worst of the enemy who could yield the greatest intelligence to save American lives.

"The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do." And they "prevented the violent deaths of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of innocent people."

Having defended every decision he took, Cheney then counterattacked. He charged The New York Times with virtual treason in exposing the program to intercept calls from al-Qaida and mocked its Pulitzer Prize. He accused liberals and Speaker Pelosi of "feigned outrage" and "phony moralizing," asserting they were fully briefed on "the program and the methods." He charged Obama with endangering national security by "triangulating," adopting a policy designed less to secure America than to unite and appease his political coalition.

"There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance."

Cheney comes to this quarrel armed with credibility, certitude, consistency and conviction born of eight years of success. Listening to Obama's disquisition, one gets the sense his homeland security policy is the collective view of the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review, with a sign-off by the local chapter of the ACLU.
That Cheney is winning seems undeniable.

Not only has his approval rating risen to 37 percent, probably higher on national security, Obama's coalition is cracking apart.

Speaker Pelosi's credibility has been shredded over what she knew and when she knew it regarding waterboarding. Her comrades are all howling that the CIA lied, but no one wants an investigation.

The left wing of the party believes Obama double-crossed them when he refused to release the photos of abused prisoners, kept the military tribunals and sent 22,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

And Harry Reid and a Democratic Senate voted 90 to 6 to humiliate Obama by denying him the funds needed to close Guantanamo until he comes up with a plan to hold the 240 hard-core inmates somewhere other than in the United States.

Again, Cheney is winning because he has been there and his position is reality-based. For, while the use of harsh interrogation techniques is a legal question, it also presents a moral dilemma. A moral case can be made that, given the murderers we confronted, the prospect of more U.S. dead, the non-lethality of the techniques and the value of the intelligence acquired, it was the right thing to do.

And the Democrats are losing because, with few exceptions, they have been neither consistent nor honest.

Their key leaders were read in on the interrogation techniques. Few protested. They went along when America seemed in imminent peril. Recall: Democratic Sens. Dodd, Daschle, Edwards, Kerry, Reid and Clinton all voted to authorize war in Iraq.

But, by the time the primaries of 2008 came around, they had all moved -- some 180 degrees -- to get right with the Democratic base. And this is Obama's problem.

He ran to the left of Hillary and pledged to close Guantanamo, as the prison camp had come to be twinned, though unfairly, in the liberal mind and Muslim world with the sadistic abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Obama never thought through what he would do with the hard-core al-Qaida housed in Guantanamo.

This is a recurring problem of liberals. They are forever into posturing, assuming heroic moral stands, but rarely consider the consequences in the real world. It was brave to denounce the Shah, Anastasio Somoza and Ian Smith. But when they fell, we got the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Sandinistas and "Comrade Bob" Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

In his speeches, Obama is all abstractions. While listeners may say he speaks beautifully, 24 hours later, who remembers what he said? Cheney deals with the concrete. We remember that scene in the White House bunker, with that plane headed for the Capitol, and we remember Khalid Sheikh Mohammad saying he will talk after he gets to New York and sees his lawyer.

The Republican Party needs to get off the psychiatrist's couch, and stand up and fight for what it believes. You don't need a moderate with a pretty face to deliver a moderate message. The former vice president with the crocodile grin has just shown the way.

Another Great Liberal Lie Is Metastasizing

Another great misconception is on its way to becoming translated into a great, liberal lie that must be confronted before it becomes part of the political landscape of lies that are repeated over and over again – and believed by a body politic that doesn’t think for themselves.

Here are just a few of the backdrop of hundreds of liberal lies that come quickly to mind. I could go on and on, but you get the picture:

1. Gun control reduces violent crime. Fact: every state that has enabled laws for law-abiding citizens to carry firearms has seen a substantial reduction in violent crime and no increase in gun accidents.

2. Man-made CO2 emissions cause global warming. History revealed from ice cores shows innumerable warming and cooling cycles, and recent history shows a cooling period.

3. We want to count every vote. In fact, liberals try to deny votes from military personnel and from areas they do not dominate.

4. There is a vast right wing conspiracy. In fact, if there is any conspiracy, it is between liberal politicians and the press.

5. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. Enough said.

6. Trickle down economics does not work. The only successful stimulations of the economy that have occurred happen only when investors and entrepreneurs have been motivated to increase their efforts and their investments – through tax incentives.

7. The Swift Boat Veterans that spoke out against John Kerry were lying. In fact, these were men of high honor, and everything they said has been verified.

8. Bush 41 was a racist for allowing the Willie Horton ads. In fact, Horton, a convicted murderer and rapist serving a life sentence without parole, was set free to assault and rape again by the administration of Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts. This fact needed to be brought to the attention of voters unaware of the Dukakis record.

The particular mass lie that is now being put forth is that there was something almost criminally wrong with regarding home mortgages as safe investments – and investing in them. In fact, for a hundred years there has been no safer investment (other than US securities) than home mortgages – and the only thing safer than a home mortgage would be a diversified package of portions of thousands of home mortgages – something we call a derivative – now a dirty word.

Liberals want us to forget that until the housing bubble crash, almost everyone thought that the rise in the housing market was a good thing and that investments in mortgages were safe. Only a few, including President Bush and Senator McCain, warned that constraints were needed, and it was leading Democrats, like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, who resisted any changes.

Of real significance is the fact that sub-prime mortgages, the main culprits in the housing bubble and crash (and the subsequent credit freeze) were the result of laws and regulations pushed by liberal Democrats that forced banks to abandon time-tested procedures and make loans to dead-beats.

Certainly there was greed and fraud involved in the crisis we are in, but a wholesale condemnation of bankers and business-people in general is completely unfair and only serves to justify age-old liberal fantasies.

We must not allow them to employ these mischaracterizations to impose a socialist program aimed at substantial government ownership and/or over-regulation of banks, other financial institutions and automobile companies. What is happening now smacks of the demonization of certain classes of society that happened in Communist Russia and Nazi Germany and in other socialist nations like Venezuela and Cuba.

I Wish I Were a Liberal

The confrontation between former Vice President Dick Cheney and Obama over the duties of an American president in protecting American citizens from the horrors wrought by Muslim terrorists has been a classic example of traditional conservative instincts versus postmodern, liberal nonsense.

Cheney has been specific, pointing to cases, actions and results; Obama has been vague. His comments have been based on feel-good impulses and the desire to be liked. Obama seems to think that Islamic terrorism is really our fault, and if we just were nicer, it will all go away. Cheney realizes that the goal of the Islamists is a world-wide caliphate, and you have to kill enough of them to survive.

Obama’s wishful thinking is not limited to the War on Terror; it applies also to national healthcare, manmade global warming, how to design an automobile, so-called ‘fairness’ in outcomes and national defense in general. It would be nice if Obama could just limit his damage to writing books about his theories in academia; many of us are going to die because he is actually in charge for a while.

I wish I were a liberal

By Nancy Morgan May 19, 2009 American Thinker

I wish I were a liberal, because then everyone would like me. My family would start talking to me again, and chances are, my ex-husband would want to renew the marriage vows he broke when I started spouting conservative opinions.

I'd like to be a liberal because it's ever so much easier to allow others to form my opinions for me instead of researching an issue myself. That always gets me in trouble, especially when the facts I discover diverge from the latest politically correct consensus.

I'd like to be a liberal because then I'd be rewarded for all my shortcomings and nothing would ever be my fault. I'd be an important cog in the wheel of social justice, and a cherished warrior in the current fight for equality.

If I were a liberal, I would be free to have sex whenever and with whomever I want -- and be considered 'empowered' to boot. I could abort any inconvenience with nary a thought because my rights to my body trump the life I would have suctioned out of me.

I'd like to be a liberal because any guilt I would normally feel for what used to be considered deviant, irresponsible behavior may be assuaged by merely advocating the expenditure of other people's money on whatever the cause du jour is. Very cool. Especially since my stock portfolio has tanked.

I want to be a liberal because they care so much. They have a lock on all the fashionable emotions, like tolerance, diversity, equality and patriotism. And as long as my intentions were pure and I 'care', I wouldn't have to accept responsibility for any negative consequences that my actions might cause.

I'd like to be a liberal because everyone knows that conservatives are racist, homophobic, stupid and, well, beneath contempt. Conservatives are motivated by -- gasp -- profit, instead of being nice. Enough said.

It would be swell to be a liberal because I'd be able to redefine reality to my own specifications. I could turn failure into success, murder into choice, lies into 'misstatements', and theft into investment. I would automatically be considered wise, instead of opinionated. Best of all, I could make up the rules as I go along, change them in midstream and then demonize anyone who doesn't agree with me.

It's great to be a liberal because everyone knows they hold the moral high ground. They don't lie, cheat or steal. Oh, and they don't condone torture. The media says so, so it must be true.

Before I am able to join this community of man, however, there are a few ground rules:

I have to acknowledge that government is the best and only solution for any problems America has. Despite the fact that pretty much every government solution to date has been a disaster.

I must agree that America is bad and white Christian males are responsible for all that is wrong with the world. Further, I must agree that terrorists and third world dictators are either freedom fighters or misunderstood men of good would.

Oh, and I must acknowledge that dialogue is better than war. Even though decades of dialogue haven't worked, things are different, now that Obama is president. I must have faith. After all, the times, they are a changin'.

I'd, of course, be expected to not only condone, but happily embrace gay marriage and the long list of newly minted sexual behaviors, and swear to never mention the adverse health risks or the proven harm they do to traditional families.

I'd also have to quit judging people. (Except conservatives.) After all, liberals would allow me to do whatever I want, free from moral censure, and it's only fair I do the same for them.

I'd have to immediately quit smoking, in public at least. I'd be required to agree that global warming is real and man is the cause. Even though the earth has cooled in the last decade, everyone knows its still getting warmer. I'd also have to renounce Christianity in favor of Mother Earth and believe that the Constitution is a 'living instrument'.

I'd have to agree that victimhood trumps merit and that liberals know best. Always. And lastly, I'd have to support the notion that racism is still rampant, even if it is the silent 'institutional' type.

In return, I'll be accepted, popular, and invited to the best parties. I'll be eligible for the right to housing, health care, a living wage (even if I don't work) and happiness. And as long as I remain a liberal, no-one is allowed to insult me. How cool is that?

I'll finally get my columns published in my own hometown paper and would have a good chance of getting face time on MSNBC. Best of all, I'll be able to atone for my sins by merely paying Algore for a few carbon credits. Then, I would live happily ever after. Isn't that worth sacrificing such ethereal and frivolous notions like freedom, individualism and principles?

The Harlem Miracle and Conservative Values

Although David Brooks is the NY Time’s token conservative, those who follow him soon realize that he is a moderate who we would call a RINO. Brooks gained some notoriety recently by eagerly endorsing Obama during the campaign, and then writing articles after the inauguration saying, “What have I done; Obama’s no moderate!”.

His description below of a success in improving the lot and the lives of some disadvantaged students proves once again that conservative principles and values work every time!

The Harlem Miracle

May 8, 2009 Op-Ed Columnist DAVID BROOKS NY Times

The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center and you meet incredible people doing wonderful things. Then you look at the results from the serious evaluations and you find that these inspiring places are only producing incremental gains.

That’s why I was startled when I received an e-mail message from Roland Fryer, a meticulous Harvard economist. It included this sentence: “The attached study has changed my life as a scientist.”

Fryer and his colleague Will Dobbie have just finished a rigorous assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone. They compared students in these schools to students in New York City as a whole and to comparable students who entered the lottery to get into the Harlem Children’s Zone schools, but weren’t selected.

They found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.

Forgive some academic jargon, but the most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.

Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. “The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes,” Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder and president, has done is “the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It’s amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn’t matter if we stop there. We don’t have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying — literally and figuratively.”

These results are powerful evidence in a long-running debate. Some experts, mostly surrounding the education establishment, argue that schools alone can’t produce big changes. The problems are in society, and you have to work on broader issues like economic inequality. Reformers, on the other hand, have argued that school-based approaches can produce big results. The Harlem Children’s Zone results suggest the reformers are right. The Promise Academy does provide health and psychological services, but it helps kids who aren’t even involved in the other programs the organization offers.

To my mind, the results also vindicate an emerging model for low-income students. Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.

To understand the culture in these schools, I’d recommend “Whatever It Takes,” a gripping account of Harlem Children’s Zone by my Times colleague Paul Tough, and “Sweating the Small Stuff,” a superb survey of these sorts of schools by David Whitman.

Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.

They also smash the normal bureaucratic strictures that bind leaders in regular schools. Promise Academy went through a tumultuous period as Canada searched for the right teachers. Nearly half of the teachers did not return for the 2005-2006 school year. A third didn’t return for the 2006-2007 year. Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life.

The approach works. Ever since welfare reform, we have had success with intrusive government programs that combine paternalistic leadership, sufficient funding and a ferocious commitment to traditional, middle-class values. We may have found a remedy for the achievement gap. Which city is going to take up the challenge? Omaha? Chicago? Yours?

Ammunition Shortages and Gun Control

This video is breaking news that became available as I was preparing to publish this article. Obviously all liberals, including RINO's, have to be watched carefully on this issue.

If this video doesn’t load go here.

There are many articles these days about the shortage of ammunition and explanations for the shortage. To my mind it is the result of three factors:

1. Fear of actions by Obama to limit the supply of ammunition. Hints that this would be an easy way to control guns floated out of the Obama campaign all last year.

2. Fear of a general and widespread eruption of violence when resistance to Obama’s socialist ideas destroys his presidency.

3. Fear of a large increase in violent crime as the recession deepens and lengthens.

Like so many others, I went out a bought a large amount of ammunition to stock without having a specific reason to do so. I just felt it to be a prudent thing to do. Obviously, millions of other Americans reached the same conclusion.

Gun ammunition a tough find these days

May 13, 2009 Charlotte Sun (Excerpt)

"Fred Wolf can't keep his store shelves stocked with ammunition.
People, it seems, are hoarding bullets.

The buying frenzy started months ago, amid the economic and political anxiety. Even now, finding certain calibers can be an exercise in futility.

At shows, ammo is one of the first items to sell out, said Wolf, owner of Wolf Gunworks in Charlotte Harbor.

But the problem stretches well beyond Southwest Florida.

Online distributors are backlogged with requests for handgun and rifle cartridges. Some manufacturers are operating at full capacity to keep pace, according to officials.

"The demand has gone through the roof," Wolf said. "When people do find (ammo) now, they're buying 10 times the amount of what they need."
The surge didn't happen overnight.

Officials point to the economy as an underlying factor in the overall increase in gun sales.

Yet the mass exodus of ammunition from retail shelves is another story, one many say followed comments made by President Barack Obama.

"We believe this increase in sales of guns and ammo is the direct result of the current administration," said Alexa Fritts, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association in Fairfax, Va. "If you look at the administration's views, they appear to point toward regulation. We're very concerned."

The rumblings surfaced during the presidential election, when Obama voiced support about making the expired federal assault weapons ban permanent."

>

Some Interesting Graphics

Cap & Trade Advances as Support Erodes

Public Approves Rough Questioning


As Iran Goes Nuclear Obama Says, "Thank You, Mr. Bush"


Bush Deficits? You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Bankruptcy of Chrysler driven by Barack Magoo

“We’re throwing the rule of law in bankruptcy under the bus,” Kaufman said, likening the administration’s move to a “banana republic” tactic.

Bankruptcy of Chrysler driven by Barack Magoo

By LOREN STEFFY May 12, 2009 Houston Chronicle

Chrysler’s bankruptcy is supposed to be fast, like a Formula One lap through court.

In discussing the filing, President Barack Obama laid out a plan in which Chrysler would emerge from court protection in record time sporting fuel-efficient new models, a shiny new balance sheet and safety features for workers, suppliers and dealers.

But less than two weeks after taking the wheel, the president looks less like Mario Andretti and more like Mr. Magoo, shaking a verbal fist at dissident bondholders — he dubbed them “speculators” — and accusing them of hogging the road to Chrysler’s recovery.

In his myopic race to reorganization, Obama may yet lose control of the entire economic recovery. The speculators he was quick to deride are mostly private equity firms that invested billions in Chrysler’s debt even after it became clear the company was in deep trouble.

That investment came, as most do, with an assessment of the risk that the company might go bust. That assessment, in turn, relied on our bankruptcy laws, under which creditors are entitled to fair treatment in a reorganization.

Rewriting the rules

But in Chrysler’s case, the administration decided to rewrite the rules. It said the United Auto Workers would vault ahead of the Chrysler debt holders in seniority, giving the union a recovery of about 43 cents on the dollar while the “speculators” get 28 cents.

“I’m sure it’s politically wonderful to save union jobs and stick it to the man on Wall Street, but I worry about the systemic implications of all this,” said Peter Kaufman, president of the Gordian Group, a New York-based investment firm that finances corporate restructurings.

The administration is trying to orchestrate a quick sale of Chrysler to Italy’s Fiat and the UAW. Under the Bankruptcy Code, though, those sorts of rapid asset sales can’t be a reorganization, which the Chrysler deal clearly is.

A reorganization requires the vetting of all creditors’ claims and ensuring that each group recover at least as much as they would if the company were liquidated.

‘Banana republic’ tactic

“We’re throwing the rule of law in bankruptcy under the bus,” Kaufman said, likening the administration’s move to a “banana republic” tactic. “We’ve got a very well-developed set of bankruptcy laws that let lenders know what their downside is.”
Chrysler, of course, is just the beginning. Already General Motors is circling the courthouse, preparing for a possible filing as early as June 1.

Beyond the auto industry, though, the Chrysler case may spook potential investors as companies are seeking capital and the economy appears to be inching toward recovery.
How will potential investors calculate their risk without the assurance of the bankruptcy process, and how much more will they charge for assuming that added investment risk?

“The lessons of Chrysler will be looming large,” Kaufman said. “The implications here are even before you get to bankruptcy.

Are lenders going to be willing to put money in at all? They won’t have the comfort that the rule of law in bankruptcy will always be followed.”

Just a few weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner insisted taxpayers had to foot the bill for millions of dollars in bonuses at AIG because those payments were stipulated by contracts, and contracts are sacrosanct. So the rules apply when it comes to bonuses and backdoor bailouts for AIG clients, but not Chrysler’s creditors.

Those sorts of haphazard decisions create what’s known as political risk, and capital tends to scamper from political risk like frantic chickens fleeing an out-of-control jalopy.

In the name of a speedy Chrysler bankruptcy, we may wind up losing the race to recovery.

And if this weren’t bad enough:

CEO Confirms Treasury is Calling Shots at GM

May 11, 2009 Heritage.org

In a surprisingly frank statement this morning, General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson confirmed that the Treasury Department is calling the shots on the company’s on-going restructuring. As reported by the New York Times, Henderson stated that GM was told by the Treasury Department to offer bondholders only up to 10 percent of GM’s equity in return for $27 billion of debt.

“They didn’t support us going above 10 percent,” Mr. Henderson said. “We went to the maximum that they permitted us.” Why 10 percent? According to Henderson, Treasury didn’t give a reason.

Washington’s control over GM isn’t too much a surprise — it’s been clear ever since Rick Wagoner was fired by the White House in favor of Henderson that the government was settling into the driver’s seat. But Henderson’s comments today provide unsettling confirmation of the degree to which Washington is now in control at the erstwhile private company.

No wonder the banks are scrambling to turn back their own TARP bailout money.

Let's not ever forget that American automobile companies and their stockholders and bondholders, who are being treated like criminals by the Obama Administration, are in distress due to Democrat policies, $4 gasoline and the housing and credit crash.

A Letter to the Republican National Committee

After years of contributing my hard-earned money to both the Republican National Committee (RNC) and to the Republican Party of Florida (RPF), I have rejected requests for more donations.

I understand that both the RNC and the RPF need donated funds to combat the collectivism to which my great country is being subjected by the Obamaites, but the RNC and the RPF are not effective anymore, nor do they represent my interests and my goals.

When the first thing a new Republican governor does (Governor Crist of Florida) is to grant voting rights to convicted felons, and the next thing he does is to spend tax money to combat so-called, manmade global warming, he is not listening to me, nor is he making any sense at all. Gov. Crist’s legacy will be that he drove all the private insurance companies out of Florida.

The issues I want Republicans to stand for and to fight for are as follows:

1. Close the borders to illegal immigrants. Then institute partial amnesty.
2. Focus government attention and spending on combating terrorism and on conventional threats to American interests.
3. Lower taxes and reduce government intrusions in educational, medical and environmental issues.
4. Eliminate federal ownership of private businesses, and end the bailouts.
5. End all programs that force banks to give mortgages to deadbeats.
6. Appoint judges who will not substitute their own beliefs and will uphold the law.
7. Enact measures towards the end of making the USA self-sufficient in fossil fuels. Encourage the building of nuclear plants for clean energy.
8. End completely all attempts to affect climate change.
9. Fix Social Security and Medicare insolvency problems.

When I see the RNC supporting candidates who reflect these priorities, I will again become a contributor.

Debra Burlingame Pulls No Punches

Debra Burlingame, a former attorney and a director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. She is a smart and tough lady who is determined that her brother’s death serve a noble and long-term purpose. She has been fighting our fight, and we need to listen to her.

Obama and the 9/11 Families

The president isn't sincere about 'swift and certain' justice for terrorists.

By DEBRA BURLINGAME MAY 8, 2009 WSJ

In February I was among a group of USS Cole and 9/11 victims' families who met with the president at the White House to discuss his policies regarding Guantanamo detainees. Although many of us strongly opposed Barack Obama's decision to close the detention center and suspend all military commissions, the families of the 17 sailors killed in the 2000 attack in Yemen were particularly outraged.

Over the years, the Cole families have seen justice abandoned by the Clinton administration and overshadowed by the need of the Bush administration to gather intelligence after 9/11. They have watched in frustration as the president of Yemen refused extradition for the Cole bombers.

Now, after more than eight years of waiting, Mr. Obama was stopping the trial of Abu Rahim al-Nashiri, the only individual to be held accountable for the bombing in a U.S. court. Patience finally gave out. The families were giving angry interviews, slamming the new president just days after he was sworn in.

The Obama team quickly put together a meeting at the White House to get the situation under control. Individuals representing "a diversity of views" were invited to attend and express their concerns.

On Feb. 6, the president arrived in the Roosevelt Room to a standing though subdued ovation from some 40 family members. With a White House photographer in his wake, Mr. Obama greeted family members one at a time and offered brief remarks that were full of platitudes ("you are the conscience of the country," "my highest duty as president is to protect the American people," "we will seek swift and certain justice"). Glossing over the legal complexities, he gave a vague summary of the detainee cases and why he chose to suspend them, focusing mostly on the need for speed and finality.

Many family members pressed for Guantanamo to remain open and for the military commissions to go forward. Mr. Obama allowed that the detention center had been unfairly confused with Abu Ghraib, but when asked why he wouldn't rehabilitate its image rather than shut it down, he silently shrugged. Next question.

Mr. Obama was urged to consult with prosecutors who have actually tried terrorism cases and warned that bringing unlawful combatants into the federal courts would mean giving our enemies classified intelligence -- as occurred in the cases of the al Qaeda cell that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and conspired to bomb New York City landmarks with ringleader Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh." In the Rahman case, a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators given to the defense -- they were entitled to information material to their defense -- was in Osama bin Laden's hands within hours. It told al Qaeda who among them was known to us, and who wasn't.

Mr. Obama responded flatly, "I'm the one who sees that intelligence. I don't want them to have it, either. We don't have to give it to them."

How could anyone be unhappy with such an answer? Or so churlish as to ask follow-up questions in such a forum? I and others were reassured, if cautiously so.

News reports described the meeting as a touching and powerful coming together of the president and these long-suffering families. Mr. Obama had won over even those who opposed his decision to close Gitmo by assuaging their fears that the review of some 245 current detainees would result in dangerous jihadists being set free. "I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you can't help but believe in him," said John Clodfelter to the New York Times. His son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole bombing. "[Mr. Obama] left me with a very positive feeling that he's going to get this done right."

"This isn't goodbye," said the president, signing autographs and posing for pictures before leaving for his next appointment, "this is hello." His national security staff would have an open-door policy.
Believe . . . feel . . . hope.

We'd been had.

Binyam Mohamed -- the al Qaeda operative selected by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) for a catastrophic post-9/11 attack with co-conspirator Jose Padilla -- was released 17 days later. In a follow-up conference call, the White House liaison to 9/11 and Cole families refused to answer questions about the circumstances surrounding the decision to repatriate Mohamed, including whether he would be freed in Great Britain.

The phrase "swift and certain justice" had been used by top presidential adviser David Axelrod in an interview prior to our meeting with the president. "Swift and certain justice" figured prominently in the White House press release issued before we had time to surrender our White House security passes. "At best, he manipulated the families," Kirk Lippold, commanding officer of the USS Cole at the time of the attack and the leader of the Cole families group, told me recently. "At worst, he misrepresented his true intentions."

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder told German reporters that 30 detainees had been cleared for release. This includes 17 Chinese fundamentalist Muslims, the Uighurs, some of whom admit to having been trained in al Qaeda and Taliban camps and being associated with the East Turkistan Islamic Party. This party is led by Abdul Haq, who threatened attacks on the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing and was recently added to the Treasury Department's terrorist list. The Obama administration is considering releasing the Uighurs on U.S. soil, and it has suggested that taxpayers may have to provide them with welfare support. In a Senate hearing yesterday, Mr. Holder sidestepped lawmakers' questions about releasing detainees into the U.S. who have received terrorist training.

What about the terrorists who may actually be tried? The Justice Department's recent plea agreement with Ali Saleh al-Marri should be of grave concern to those who believe the Obama administration will vigorously prosecute terrorists in the federal court system.

Al-Marri was sent to the U.S. on Sept. 10, 2001, by KSM to carry out cyanide bomb attacks. He pled guilty to one count of "material support," a charge reserved for facilitators rather than hard-core terrorists. He faces up to a 15-year sentence, but will be allowed to argue that the sentence should be satisfied by the seven years he has been in custody. This is the kind of thin "rule of law" victory that will invigorate rather than deter our enemies.

Given all the developments since our meeting with the president, it is now evident that his words to us bore no relation to his intended actions on national security policy and detainee issues. But the narrative about Mr. Obama's successful meeting with 9/11 and Cole families has been written, and the press has moved on.

The Obama team has established a pattern that should be plain for all to see. When controversy erupts or legitimate policy differences are presented by well-meaning people, send out the celebrity president to flatter and charm.

Most recently, Mr. Obama appeared at the CIA after demoralizing the agency with the declassification and release of memos containing sensitive information on CIA interrogations. He appealed to moral vanity by saying that fighting a war against fanatic barbarians "with one hand tied behind your back" is being on "the better side of history," even though innocent lives are put at risk. He promised the assembled staff and analysts that if they keep applying themselves, they won't be personally marked for career-destroying sanctions or criminal prosecutions, even as disbelieving counterterrorism professionals -- the field operatives and their foreign partners -- shut down critical operations for fear of public disclosure and political retribution in the never-ending Beltway soap opera called Capitol Hill.

It worked: On television, his speech looked like a campaign rally, with people jumping up and down, cheering. Meanwhile, the media have moved on, even as they continue to recklessly and irresponsibly use the word "torture" in their stories.
I asked Cmdr. Kirk Lippold why some of the Cole families declined the invitation to meet with Barack Obama at the White House.

"They saw it for what it was."

Would You laugh at a Death Joke About Obama?

For eight years decent Americans smarted at continuing references by liberals to the assassination of President Bush and at books and movies glorifying his death. I guess this is what you can expect from people who want to kill babies who survive abortions.

Not funny: Barack Obama laughs at Wanda Sykes "joke" about wanting Rush Limbaugh dead

May 10, 2009 UK Telegraph

What was Wanda Sykes thinking? Perhaps more to the point, what was President Barack Obama thinking when he laughed and smiled as the comedienne wished Rush Limbaugh dead?

Although the Left is reporting her White House Correspondents' Dinner speech as "taking shots" at Limbaugh and mocking everyone, that's a gross misrepresentation of what turned into a hateful and disgusting diatribe.

I was at the dinner and I began by laughing at Sykes's gentle teases about the press loving Obama so much they never capture him on film smoking but often seem to get him on the beach.

It was amusing when she quipped that Obama trying so hard to be all things to all men that the next thing is he'll be seen mowing the White House lawn.

But the speech took a very ugly turn when she laid into Limbaugh.

This is what she said: "Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails, so you're saying, 'I hope America fails', you're, like, 'I dont care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq'. He just wants the country to fail. To me, that's treason.

"He's not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker. But he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight."

She then concluded: >"Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails, I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a good waterboarding, that's what he needs." Obama seemed to think this bit was pretty hilarious, grinning and chuckling and turning to share the "joke" with the person sitting on his right.

There's not much room for differing interpretations of what Sykes said. She called Limbaugh a terrorist and a traitor, suggested that he be tortured and wished him dead.

What was his crime? Hoping that Obama's policies - which he views as socialist - will fail.

That's way, way beyond reasoned debate or comedy and Obama's reaction to it was astonishing.

Imagine if a comedian "joked" that Obama was a terrorist who was guilty of treason and should be tortured and allowed to die. There would justifiably be an outcry.

But when the "joke" comes from a liberal, Obama-supporting comedienne and the target is a right-winger then the likes of Hilary Rosen and Donna Brazile are on CNN saying it's just comedy and Limbaugh is "fair game".

And Obama laughing when someone wishes Limbaugh dead? Hard to take from the man who promised a new era of civility and elevated debate in Washington.

Watch the video. What do you think?

If video fails go here.

Some of Those Falsely Imprisoned at Guantanamo

These are some of the people that Obama wants to release from Guantanamo.

If video does not play, go here.

I Will Always Love Sarah Palin

RINO Republicans keep trying to tell fellow Republicans that we must all “get with it”. By “getting with it” they mean that we should pretend to be Democrats, but tell the folks that we will do it better. They point to the electoral losses in 2006 and in 2008 as proof that American voters no longer care about traditional issues and traditional values. I disagree.

These RINO’s would have us forget that those elections were lost due to: 1. Republican big government spending and corruption, 2. President Bush’s inability to explain the need for the Iraq War, 3. the press hype of the greatest natural disaster in our history-Katrina, and 4. the mesmerizing of almost all the press with the second coming of Obama.

All polls point to a conservative majority among Americans, and on one big issue, abortion, the country is moving back toward embracing the sanctity of life.

I refuse to believe that many Americans support Obama’s policy of killing babies who survive abortion. My experience with typical Obama voters is that they have no concept of history or current events; they are in a swoon.

What we really need is to get rid of RINO’s and offer a clear alternative to liberal Democrats.

GOP Woes and Social Conservatives

By Kyle-Anne Shiver May 04, 2009 American Thinker

As the clamor grows to purge the GOP of its socially conservative stands, especially its pro-life stance, it might be wise for the prudent party hotshots to take a closer look. Despite some rather angry voices attempting to scapegoat conservative Christians as chest-thumping purists, the data on public opinion surrounding abortion suggests that the Party's pro-life stance is simply not the problem some imagine.

Contrary to what some GOP analysts assume, public support for legal abortion has actually fallen over the last year. In April 2008, overall support for keeping abortion legal in all or most cases, was at 54%, a clear majority. This year, however, Pew polling found that support for legal abortion is down to 46%, while support for making the procedure illegal in most or all cases rose from 41% to 44%. The pro-abortion supporters are now in a statistical tie with pro-life Americans.

Remove the spin and what you have is a Nation about evenly divided on the most divisive issue since slavery.

One of the story lines most often heard these days, among Republicans attempting to explain Democrat victories of 2006 and 2008, is that the young people are ardent supporters of keeping abortion legal and are patently repelled by Republican pro-lifers.

The huge crowds, with a great many young people, following Sarah Palin last year on the campaign trail seem to have gone unnoticed by the D.C. crowd.

And wouldn't you know it? The polling data supports those huge crowds for Palin and the young people inspired by her stout pro-life position, among other factors.

Support for keeping abortion legal in most or all cases among the 18-29 year olds has fallen a full 5% since last August. In August 2008, legal abortion support among 18-29 year olds stood at 52%; this April it's down to 47%. Support for making abortion illegal in most or all cases has risen 3% and is now at 48%. So, using abortion as the straw man argument to win back the young is now moot. By 48% to 47%, another statistical tie, the youth are evenly divided just as the older generations are.

The most notable decline in the support for legal abortion has been among those highly-cherished, sought after Independent voters. As Pew notes
There has been notable decline in the proportion of independents saying abortion should be legal in most or all cases; majorities of independents favored legal abortion in August and the two October surveys, but just 44% do so today. In addition, the proportion of moderate and liberal Republicans saying abortion should be legal declined between August and late October (from 67% to 57%). In the current survey, just 43% of moderate and liberal Republicans say abortion should legal in most or all cases.

The fact that the votes in 2006 and 2008 went against the pro-life Party merely demonstrates, in my opinion, that the priorities in those elections were not focused on social issues.

This is precisely the circumstance borne out by Pew polling on issue priorities late last summer in the lead-up to the November election. The top issue among registered voters, as of August 2008, was the economy by a whopping 87%. The next five issues in importance were all in the 72-77% range, and were energy, health care, education, Iraq and terrorism. Moral values and social issues were at the absolute bottom of the heap, a vast contrast to the elections of 2000 and 2004. And, clearly, the nation felt far more safe in 2008 than in the prior two elections.

Using the warped logic of those now wanting to purge the party of social conservatives, perhaps we should purge national security instead.

When the voters feel less safe, they vote Republican.

All in all, the data certainly does not support the idea that joining with the Democrats in their Culture of Death would in any way whatsoever bring on a Republican resurgence. To be sure, this clamor will not die easily. But for my money, Republican analysts and game-plan makers would do well to consider the fact that sacrificing principle for pander does not play well over the long term.

Just as it was Republican Party principle that brought an end to slavery over the often violent protests of many of its own rank and file, the Party needs to stand firm now in the clutches or disband itself. Without principle, the GOP will simply be a lesser form of the Democrat Party.

In the 19th Century, the big fight on the side of good was the abolition of slavery. Today, that one big fight is the protection of human life.

And it just doesn't get more basic than that. Our side is changing hearts and minds. This is no time for cowardly retreat. This is the time for bold advance.

***************

Governor supports abortion initiative

CONSENT: Voters, not lawmakers, would decide if doctors had to tell a parent of a girl younger than 18.

May 5, 2009 Anchorage Daily News (Excerpt)

"Gov. Sarah Palin is backing a ballot measure to bypass the Legislature and make it illegal for teenagers to get an abortion without telling their parents.

The initiative sponsors, including former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman, applied last week to start gathering signatures. The measure would generally forbid a girl under 18 from getting an abortion unless the doctor informed at least one of her parents beforehand.

Palin said she plans to be the first in line to sign up. The governor said she even considered sponsoring the initiative herself, but decided otherwise after checking with the state's lawyers." Anchorage Daily News

60 Minutes: Liars As Usual

Back in the day, when we only had three TV channels and had no idea that Walter Cronkite was lying to us (a practice perfected by Dan Rather), we used to watch 60 Minutes regularly. Those days are gone forever.

60 Minutes: Up to Its Old Tricks

May 4, 2009 Cross-posted from Powerline.com

Last night, 60 Minutes did a story on a purported $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador. As usual, the program was content to lead cheers for the plaintiffs and throw stones at an American company. Also as usual, CBS got the facts wrong.

The theme of the story was that Chevron had failed to clean up a number of polluted sites in Ecuador, as a result of which local villagers' water was polluted.

Moreover, the lawsuit alleges $9 billion in damages for cancer caused by such pollution, and 60 Minutes implied that this claim was reasonable and justified.

In fact, Jeff Poor writes, Texaco Petroleum ("Texpet"), Chevron's predecessor, partnered with Ecuador's state-owned oil company, PetroEcuador. It was PetroEcuador, not Texpet, that failed to clean up polluted sites:
In 1998, the government of Ecuador certified that Texpet, a minority partner in an exploration and production venture with PetroEcuador, Ecuador's state-owned oil company, had met Ecuadorian and international remediation standards and had released Texpet from future claims and obligations. Texpet had cleaned up more than 100 sites in the area as part of that effort, leaving the remainder to PetroEcuador for cleanup.

The 60 Minutes segment showed footage from 13 sites, none of which were among the more than 100 that were remediated by TexPet. CBS's "reporter," Scott Pelley, told Chevron he was "too busy" to visit any of the sites the company had cleaned up.

As we've seen so often, 60 Minutes stooped to outright misrepresentation to advance its anti-corporate (anti-American, really) agenda. This bit of fakery is really pretty funny:
The "60 Minutes" segment included footage from a native Ecuadoran, Manuel Salinas, who contended that pollution from one of the oil well sites in question made his water undrinkable.

"Manuel Salinas' house is next to one of those pits," Pelley said. "He's one of 30,000 people suing Texaco's owner, Chevron. He says the pollution leaked into his water well."

"We couldn't drink the water," Salinas had said to "60 Minutes."

However, Salinas lives next to a PetroEcuador site and tests from both Chevron and the plaintiff suing Chevron's show Salinas' well was not contaminated with hydrocarbons, but fecal coliforms.

Check out Poor's report; there is lots more, including the fact that the plaintiffs' $9 billion "cancer" claim does not include a single person who actually has cancer.

Chevron tells its side of the story here. If you want facts rather than biased sensationalism, you have to go to the company, not the television show.

I wonder why anyone still watches 60 Minutes. I recall a conversation I once had with a friend (a liberal Democrat) who said that he no longer watched the program because he had gotten sick of the endless "gotcha" stories aimed at American companies. That was in the late 1970s. Things have only gotten worse since then.

Failures of Liberal Policies Take Years to Surface

One of the unfortunate facts of life is that it often takes many years, sometimes even a generation, for the terrible results of a particular liberal policy to become generally recognized.

One of the most well-known exceptions to this general rule was the horrific result of Jimmy Carter’s Iran policy in the middle nineteen seventies that resulted in the Iranian Revolution and the taking of American hostages – and of terrorist acts that continue to this day.

Here, reported below, are just three examples of liberal blunders; there are hundreds more, including the ban on DDT, subsidizing Biofuels, shutting down domestic oil exploration, preventing the building of refineries, raising taxes on the most productive, forced school busing, affirmative action, War on Poverty, AFDC, the snail darter, etc., etc., etc.

Failure of liberal education policies on clear display in Washington, D.C.
March 14, 2009 Examiner.com (Excerpt)

One needn't look any further than the nation's capital to see the disastrous results of liberal education policies on the school system from top to bottom. As just this week Allen Sessoms, President of the University of District of Columbia, outlined plans to shut down the school's failing undergraduate Department of Education. As, according to the liberal run schools own data, only 7 to 8 percent of the students enrolled in the program have graduated from it within six (6) years. And in the early childhood major only four (4) to six (6) of the approximately 150 students graduate each year. Examiner.com

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Socialized Medicine on Display

By Hal G.P. Colebatch American Spectator 4/20/09 (Excerpt)

“Latest news in the exciting saga of Britain's socialized medicine is that a nurse, Margaret Haywood, aged 58, has been struck off for the crime of exposing neglect and mistreatment of elderly patients at the Royal Sussex Hospital on a television program. It was found that because of this: "It would not be in the public interest for her to be able to practise as a nurse."

Linda Read, chair of the panel responsible, said: "Although the conditions on the ward were dreadful, it was not necessary to breach confidentiality to seek to improve them by the method chosen."

After a decade of New Labour, much of Britain's hospital system is coming to defy description. Not even Cancer Ward, Solzhenitsyn's harrowing description of hospital treatment in Stalinist Russia, had quite such refinements of socialized medicine. And woe betide would-be whistle-blowers!

In March 2008, Lord Mancroft, a Tory peer who has held responsible positions in the public health area, claimed it was a miracle he was still alive after a stay in a filthy British public hospital with uncollected infected waste in the wards and dirty, drunken and sluttish nurses.

Instead of investigating Lord Mancroft's allegations, the leaders of both major parties turned on him. Tory leader David Cameron said he was "very cross" that Lord Mancroft had spoken like this. He had, he said, "told him in no uncertain terms" that his views did not represent the Tory Party, and that he "should think more carefully before opening his mouth."” American Spectator

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Job Losses From Obama Green Stimulus Foreseen in Spanish Study

By Gianluca Baratti Bloomberg.com March 27, 2009 (Excerpt)

“Subsidizing renewable energy in the U.S. may destroy two jobs for every one created if Spain’s experience with windmills and solar farms is any guide.

For every new position that depends on energy price supports, at least 2.2 jobs in other industries will disappear, according to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget proposal contains about $20 billion in tax incentives for clean-energy programs. In Spain, where wind turbines provided 11 percent of power demand last year, generators earn rates as much as 11 times more for renewable energy compared with burning fossil fuels.

The premiums paid for solar, biomass, wave and wind power - - which are charged to consumers in their bills -- translated into a $774,000 cost for each Spanish “green job” created since 2000, said Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at the university and author of the report.

“The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,” he said in an interview.” Bloomberg.com

So three mainstays of Team Obama's policy initiatives: ending school vouchers to payback teachers' unions, nationalized healthcare and huge funding for so-called "green" jobs - are all well-recognized failures. Why should the country putup with this nonsense? Why should we have to keep relearning over and over again that lower taxes and less government provide the best quality of life for the most people?

Obama Threatens Lawyer Over Birth Certificate

The issue of Obama’s birth certificate and his actual place of birth refuses to die – only because, for some reason, he refuses to take the simple step of releasing this document, and he strenuously opposes any attempt to gain access to this document. Why?

Why does a man who compromises our nation’s security by releasing documents and photographs detailing secret interrogation techniques – refuse this straight-forward request?

We thank God that there are some people left with enough concern for Constitutional requirements that they put themselves at risk to pursue this to the very end.

Cross-posted from Family Security Matters April 15, 2009

Exclusive: Obama Attorney Threatens Distinguished Veteran on Obama Birth Certificate Issue: Why?

Margaret Hemenway

[Editor’s note: Barack Obama’s lawyer, Robert F. Bauer, is threatening a D.C. attorney with “sanctions,” because the attorney is simply requesting that Obama show proof of his birth. No legalizing on our part. No exaggeration. No political manipulation. Just the facts in black and white. We have the shocking letter dated April 3 . The president of the United States is threatening sanctions – and the word “sanctions” is used in the threat -- against attorney John Hemenway. Read letter here.]

After the flippant dismissal by U.S. Circuit Court Judge James Robertson of the lawsuit to attempt to determine whether Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President, D.C. attorney John Hemenway received a letter from a lawyer representing Barack Obama and Joe Biden, his Vice President. (Hemenway had joined the suit launched by Hillary Clinton's ally, Philip Berg, the former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania and attorney Lawrence Joyce of Arizona, in an attempt to force President Obama to disclose his birth records, currently being protected against public scrutiny by the Obama legal team at a reported cost of as much as one million dollars.) The entire letter , written by Obama attorney Robert F. Bauer, states the following (and we note that there is no reference in this letter to an existing valid Birth Certificate for Barack Obama, as opposed to a Certificate of Live Birth, and there is no claim that a valid Birth certificate exists which can be shown to the American people, an act that immediately would shut down this query):

“I represent President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden. I write to request that, in light of the District Court’s March 24, 2009 Rule 11 order in Hollister v. Soetoro, No. 08-2254, you withdraw the appeal filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, No. 09-5080. For the reasons stated in Judge Robertson’s order, the suit is frivolous and should not be pursued.

Should you decline to withdraw this frivolous appeal, please be informed that we intend to pursue sanctions, including costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees, pursuant to federal Rule Appellate Procedure 38 and D.C. Circuit Rule 38.”

Mr. Hemenway's response to the letter was a promise to "write and protest and attack those against the demand that Obama show proof of his birth, and I will continue to do anything I can think of doing that might perhaps deter or injure those who are opposed to “transparency” and “openness” and honesty in governmental operations—all those good and vague promises that Obama threw out in speeches read from his teleprompter."

Mr. Hemenway added, "The lawyer for Obama, Robert Bauer, has abused his privileges as an attorney, because I can regard his premature (and totally inaccurate) threats to seek some sanction against me as a threat to keep me from performing my duty to my client. It won’t work and he will soon see that it has not worked to intimidate me." In his opinion, "many judges and other officials are simply crassly violating their oaths of office. Since I had been in the Department of State and served in Moscow for two years, I am mindful of an expression used by the Russians: “Nada dakazat’ kulak!” (You must show them your fist!)"

Hemenway also pledged:

“…to appeal the slap taken at me (the so-called “reprimand”) by Judge James Robertson who tried unsuccessfully to label our efforts as “frivolous” but who did not have the guts to sanction me under Rule 11. (This would have given me—and others engaged in this important battle —standing in the Court of Appeals.) I will do my duty to Colonel Hollister, who technically is a client, even though I never agreed initially to follow the case in the Court of Appeals. The military, as Colonel Hollister's interest demonstrates, is quite concerned with the basic issue of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ orders originating from a ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate’ commander-in-chief. Recall that Judge Robertson never did admit attorneys Berg or Joyce to practice in his court, never had a hearing and never examined evidence because he didn't seek any. The Judge gave the impression that his decision was predicated solely on ‘blogging and twittering’.“

For the many others who have contacted him and expressed interest in this cause, Hemenway invoked Churchill's admonition: “If a matter of principle is involved in a course of action, then never give up—never – never – never.” The most important part of that quote is the “matter of principle.” It was not just a display of the stubborn nature of Churchill. Following that advice, we can see that here, we have a grave matter of principle.

If Obama can break such a basic, fundamental rule of the Constitution, then what is to keep him from ignoring or suspending other basic rights, such as the Writ of Habeas Corpus?

Last, Hemenway points out: “Mr. Bauer claims his father was an attorney in Vienna who opposed the union with Germany (the so-called “Anschluss”) and promoted anti-Nazi political movements while he was in Austria. He says his father left Austria in 1940. Very few people left greater Germany after 1939, when the war started. In any event, if Bauer's background includes such a family history of opposition to anti-rule-of-law monsters, how does he explain his support for this Chicago-styled conspiracy to violate a basic requirement of the United States Constitution?”

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Margaret Calhoun Hemenway is a retired federal employee, having served fifteen years in the U.S. Congress and five years as a White House appointee at DoD and NASA.