John Edwards was right, sort of. There are two Americas.
You have Red America, where people who hang effigies of black presidential candidates get arrested…
…and Blue America, where people who do the same to effigies of uppity women become media minicelebs.
Glad we could clear this up.
That is all.
Step out of line, and the man’ll take you away
Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.
The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.
Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.
Harris called the multiple records checks “questionable” and said he awaits more answers. “It’s kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket,” he said.
Proles in an Obama-led America must know their place; do not question your betters!
Criminy, Wurzelbacher; didn’t you know Lord Obama was on the Harvard Law Review? How dare you question him!
Barney Frank has been the recent target of conservative attacks and of course the McCain campaign of late because he represents the absolute worst in congress today. Unapologetic liberalism: tax and spend; weaken our military by cutting funding.
Thing is, Barney is trying to turn the tables, and appear the victim; play the minority card; as if anyone cares what he does with his wiener.
“I’m flattered by this,” said Frank, who is gay. “But I don’t think I’m the single most important member of the House after Nancy Pelosi. There are also a lot of straight white men who are committee chairmen.”
McCain’s chief speechwriter, Mark Salter, shook his head when asked to respond. “We’re bringing him up for his quotes,” said Salter. “We’re prejudiced against wasteful spenders and tax hikers.”
Barney, you’re not dangerous to America because you’re Gay. Who the hell cares. You’re dangerous to America because you are morally corrupt. The two aren’t mutually inclusive.
A great many Americans are poised to vote against the status quo without regard for whom or what they will get in its stead.
Change? Hope?
Unquantifiable values by design. The deliberate work of a candidate and a campaign to sweep the electorate off its feet with empty promises of a better time and place.
But what of Obama’s Agenda? What designs does Obama have for the Presidency if he wins? That should be the question voters and the media should have asked by now – and haven’t.
When what little detail Barack Obama has selectively, calculatedly seen fit to share with us, coupled with his tactical “present” votes is put in the context of the nature of his associations…The Socialist Party, Terrorist William Ayers, “God Damn America” Reverend Wright, 2007’s Senator Joe Biden (2007’s Third Most Liberal Senator; Guess who was first), The Corrupt Barney Frank,The Convict Tony Rezko, Demolition Expert and Campaign Adviser Frank Raines…it is clear.
Barack Obama is declaring a War on Capitalism. He wants to redistribute wealth while at the same time punishing those who create it. A shocking level of ignorance of basic economics – heck, even mathematics.
Look at just a few of the things he and congressional Democrats have in mind: Higher taxes on successful entrepreneurs (anyone earning over $250,000), higher taxes on capital gains, higher taxes on dividends, a possible raid on Americans’ 401(k)s, a takeover of America’s private health care industry, strict new limits on what CEOs can make, and the reimposition of the death tax.
Add it up, and Obama will usher in a new era in America — one where capital, the engine of our economic growth and success, is punished severely through the tax code. If Democrats win a filibuster-proof majority in Congress, it’ll be the only form of capital punishment their party will support.
And this is just what we know so far.
From a Chicago Public Radio Interview of Barack Obama in 2001 on the radical Warren Court; a set of ideals and leanings that Barack Obama would never express now, in the throes of a Presidential campaign, but nonetheless reveal the radical leanings of a man America has yet to truly come to know:
…the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and, uh, sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And, uh, to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the Warren Court, uh, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed, uh, uh, by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter if negative liberties-says what the state can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government, the state government must do on your behalf. Uh, and that hasn’t shifted. And one of the, uh, I think, tragedies of the was um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused, uh, I think there was a tendency to lose track the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change [emphasis mine], and uh, in some ways we still suffer from that.
The Stock Market is already factoring it in, but if Obama becomes President, Americans may be in for a surprise. Democrats will be donning “Not My President” bumper stickers, as the true ambitions of an extreme liberal unfold.
Redistribution of Wealth is simply a seemingly innocuous way of saying “raise taxes” and “spend more.” It’s like siphoning the gas out of a car, getting in and turning the key, and Change/Hope-ing it will still take him somewhere.
The effect on our economy could be devastating as legions of economists have already attested. As is it stands, our economy may already need several years to dig out of the challenges we already face, without a liberal super majority making it worse.
Higher taxes lower returns on capital. This means everything — wages, stock prices, real estate — will have to decline further as Obama’s tax hikes take hold. That means fewer jobs.
This reverses what has always been America’s recipe for success: an economy built on low taxes, few regulations, free trade and, in general, letting markets decide winners and losers.
Obama says he’s merely “spreading the wealth” — taking money from those who’ve earned it and giving it to those who haven’t. But we already “spread the wealth.” According to economists Gerald Prante and Andrew Chamberlain, the top 40% of households redistribute $1 trillion each year through the tax code to the bottom 60%. And yes, that includes the middle class.
By the way, the top 5% of earners — those squarely in Obama’s tax-hike cross hairs — already pay 60% of all taxes. Obama’s changes would skew that further.
Worse, many of Obama’s “get the rich” tax hikes are really targeted at successful small businesses that create nearly 90% of all U.S. jobs. Among tax filers with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more, some 67% report small-business income.
This is radical stuff. These are catastrophic positions and beliefs that would otherwise be intolerable to Americans, but that are being advanced part and parcel via the popularity of a candidate, The One, for one simple fact:
He’ s not George Bush.
It appears that government computers were used to find information about Sam “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher:
Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.
Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.
It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.
Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. “It’s outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama’s allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question,” he said.
The Obama campaign’s response?
Isaac Baker, Obama’s Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay’s statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. “Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully,” he said.
Hm. I don’t know that anyone said “the campaign” did it – but while we’re on the subject, how is it that reams of personal, embarassing, government-access info about someone who dares ask a question of The One finds itself in the public domain almost immediately?
To paraphrase Nick Coleman, let’s connect the dots:
Feeling audacious?
There are a lot of movies whose sequels should not have been made. The first installment sucked bad enough.
The pay-as-you-go Social Security system is another such performance for which a sequel would be inadvisable to say the least.
A lot of Conservatives are concerned that a Democratic Trifecta may lead to a level of catastrophic creativity not seen since The New Deal.
Unfortunately, we don’t even have to wait for the election to see some of the most obtuse products of this alliance.
If you have a 401(k) or equivalent retirement plan, you’ve probably been watching nervously the past few weeks as your nest egg has shrunken owing to the current turmoil in the markets.
Well, it could be worse. But don’t take heart, for what we mean is it could get worse. The market turmoil has some politicians on Capitol Hill eyeing the end of the 401(k) as we know it.
We have a Social Security system that is currently running on fumes, backed by a trust fund containing a treasure trove of I.O.U.s.
We have a generation of taxpayers that hold little hope of ever recouping their contributions, many (most?) of which aren’t saving enough to make up for it. What is the solution?
Take away the tax benefits of saving into a 401k including the incentive the employer has to match contributions.
In exchange for what?
Another Social Security benefit. Guaranteed by whom?
The U.S. Government.
The same government that has pissed away $10,000,000,000,000 (and counting).
What would the money be invested in?
Special “Government Bonds” that would pay inflation plus three percent. Forfeit a bouquet of shares in a carefully arranged and assorted arrangement of global enterprises that have averaged between 8 and 12 percent per year over periods of time that easily fit twice within the average career span. Trade them for a share of the magnificent crater that forty years of tax-once, spend-thrice government corruption and mismanagement has left for us and the next twenty generations.
Sounds swell.
I’ll take my chances with the stock market, thank you.
Democrats think Americans are too stupid to save for retirement. The sad thing is, they might be right. Most don’t save enough. We know that.
As usual, the Democrats think it’s the government’s job to confiscate the hard-earned assets of the self-reliant, the prudent, and the hard-working and dole it out to the spendthrifts, the lazy, the leeches who can’t or won’t do anything for themselves…but vote.
After this story, coming on top of a bunch of other similar stories…:
A woman robbed at knifepoint at a Pittsburgh ATM told police her attacker knocked her down and carved a “B” in her face after noticing a John McCain sticker on her car.
Police say the victim refused medical attention for the wound. An officer saw the injury, but a police report does not describe its size or severity.
…I’m waiting for a huge media expose on…McCain Voters Gone Wild.
When I first saw the story, I was a little leery – I’ve been burned by too many hoaxes. Still am leery, actually.
But if it pans out, I think our course of action is clear; sanction Rush Limbaugh for creating a “climate of hate”.
I mean, duh.
UPDATE: Yup. Burned again, or so it’s looking.
So look for this apparent hoax to get wall-to-wall coverage, and the all the other similar stories to be completely ignored.
Just saying.
We conservatives, concerned that a potential lefty supermajority will try to impose the “Fairness” Doctrine to destroy talk radio (the backbone and beating heart of American conservatism today), warn the nation that an unprecedented assault on the First Amendment rights of average Americans is imminent.
“No – what, us? Noooooooo!” responds the left. “Why, Barack has even said he won’t push to reinstate the Doctrine!”
To them – disingenuous or naive as the case my be – that closes the discussion.
Of course, it’s not closed.
New Mexico liberal Senator Jeff Bingaman:
Nah. Nothing to worry about.
Nahthing!
Look; it’s probably natural for lefties to expect that their elected representatives do have the Constitution’s, and the nation’s, best interests at heart.
It’s just that the documentary evidence doesn’t seem to bear this out in any way.
(Via Maloney)
I ask my liberal acquaintances if they’re aware that the Democrats plan to muzzle conservative opinion in this country, by reinstating the “Fairness” Doctrine.
Leave aside for a moment that most people of all political stripes have not the faintest clue how the “Fairness” Doctrine worked during its heyday (until Reagan repealed it in 1987), to say nothing of how it would work in the future; the current party line on the left is “Barack Obama doesn’t favor restoring the Fairness Doctrine!”. I’ve heard it from no less than three different local lefties in the past 36 hours.
It’s true, sort of – in the same sense that “George Bush didn’t support McCain/Feingold”. He didn’t. Until Congress made it clear that they did, and he opted not to expend any political capital opposing it.
Because the threat isn’t Obama himself; it’s a Congressional Democrat caucus that’s already thoroughly committed to re-instating the Doctrine, combined with a President that, at best, is going to expend no political capital opposing a Democrat-controlled Congress on the issue.
Brian C. Anderson at the NYPost analyzes the reality:
SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine – and to diminish conservatives’ influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.
Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn’t seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan’s FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats – including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore – strongly support the idea of mandating “fairness.”
Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It’s doubtful.
The Democrats – and their RINOid supporters on the right, the thin film of Republicans who also support them on the Doctrine – paint a rosy picture to each other and the people about what a “Fairness” Doctrine means to free speech in this country.
Anderson has the ugly truth:
The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It’s a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.
Most people have at least an idea – however vague and propaganda-driven – of the “what” of the Doctrine. Few on either side know of the “how”:
Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham’s, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don’t do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.
Then there’s all the lawyers you’d have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged – like entertainment or sports coverage?
That, indeed, is exactly what talk radio was before 1987 (except at those very rare stations that could support political hosts on both sides of the aisle – and by “support”, I mean even putting a 25 year old kid on weekend graveyards to talk conservative politics); at all but the stations that could afford to commit to it, the subject was avoided.
Anderson catches what is by far the most chilling facet of this story; the Orwellian hijacking of the language that the left will need to do to make this go down the American throat:
For those who dismiss this threat to freedom of the airwaves as unlikely, consider how the politics of “fairness” might play out with the public. A Rasmussen poll last summer found that fully 47 percent of respondents backed the idea of requiring radio and television stations to offer “equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary,” with 39 percent opposed.
Liberals, Rasmussen found, support a Fairness Doctrine by 54 percent to 26 percent, while Republicans and unaffiliated voters were more evenly divided. The language of “fairness” is seductive.
Who wouldn’t support being “Fair”, after all?
Of course, it’s ludicrous; there is no shortage of left-leaning points of view in any medium, other than terrestrial radio (and the left has had ample chances to try to stake out a piece of that turf). It dominates the print medium, broadcast TV, cable news (save Fox), public TV and radio…every medium save AM radio and the blogs.
Anderson notes, correctly, that the “Fairness” Doctrine is only one of the bureaucratic chicanes – albeit the marquee effort – the left is going to attempt:
[Obama] and most Democrats want to expand broadcasters’ public-interest duties. One such measure would be to impose greater “local accountability” on them – requiring stations to carry more local programming whether the public wants it or not.
And on the surface, this looks like a good thing – after all, my program is local. Gotta be a good thing, right?
Well, not so much. The public votes with its feet; and while everyone pays lip service to the benefit of local radio, the market still rewards quality – and for better or worse, the best quality is usually syndicated. And that syndicated programming – everyone from Limbaugh on down – is rewarded with excellent numbers and tons of money.
The left wants to kill this status quo with a thousand bureaucratic paper cuts:
The reform would entail setting up community boards to make their demands known when station licenses come up for renewal. The measure is clearly aimed at national syndicators like Clear Channel that offer conservative shows. It’s a Fairness Doctrine by subterfuge.
Obama also wants to relicense stations every two years (not eight, as is the case now), so these monitors would be a constant worry for stations. Finally, the Democrats also want more minority-owned stations and plan to intervene in the radio marketplace to ensure that outcome.
Read the whole thing. Become informed. Because you never know when some mindless lefty parrot is going to greet the debate with “Obama opposes the Fairness Doctrine”, and assume that’s that.
The behavior of the “tanning bed media” – the hordes of media vultures that descend on whomever dares to question The One – should be getting some reactions. The “Joe The Plumber” story is merely the latest incident…:
“It actually upsets me,” Mr. Wurzelbacher [AKA “Joe”] said. “I am a plumber, and just a plumber, and here Barack Obama or John McCain, I mean these guys are going to deal with some serious issues coming up shortly. The media’s worried about whether I paid my taxes, they’re worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America. They really don’t. I asked a question. When you can’t ask a question to your leaders anymore, that gets scary. That bothers me.”
Mr. Wurzelbacher confronted Mr. Obama over his tax proposals, asserting that the Democratic nominee’s plan would tax him more if Mr. Wurzelbacher bought a plumbing business.
In the course of their conversation, Mr. Obama said, “It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success, too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
…in a trail of behavior that should make every “liberal” that’s spent the last eight years howling about the Bush Administration’s (largely imaginary-to-the-point-of-paranoid) transgressions against American civil liberties blanche with horror – were it not for the fact that nearly every damn one of them is a mindless partisan hypocrite.
The media took plenty of time off from reporting on two wars and an economic crisis to find, and report with rapturous glee, that Wurzelbacher isn’t licensed, hasn’t drawn up a business plan, and wouldn’t be buying a company that made over $250K even if he did, and has a few unpaid fines and a divorce in his past.
I’ve heard a couple of liberals respond “Then his question doesnt’ count! He couldn’t have even bought the business!”
Buncombe. A guy can dream – and he doesn’t have to vet his dreams with a producer in New York before asking a Presidential candidate a question.
Is it personal? Yell, hah. Last week, I got into an email exchange with a liberal about Obama and his Democrats’ crimes against the First Amendment.
> [The reinstatement of the “Fairness” Doctrine would be a harm felt…]
> by whom besides Limbaugh and those who echo
> him?Which is a statement that could only come from a person for whom the (liberal) ends justify the (authoritarian) means (and who supports a campaign that seems by all indications to believe the same). Is Limbaugh’s speech not protected by the First Amendment? Is not one who a (dimwitted) liberal might believe (wrongly) “echoes” Limbaugh – that’d be me – entitled to it? (We all sound the same to them).
Apparently not.
Mitch and Ed are talking about despondent conservatives on the radio on my credenza as I type. Many of us have resigned ourselves to the fact that we are likely to have a Democratic President, House and Senate and may even have lost filibuster protection in Congress. In a sick example of double jeopardy, Al Franken could be the last building block of a Liberal Supermajority.
The huns are at the wall. Soon, no one; nothing may stand between hard-working, self-reliant folks and those that think we are a people of the government, by the government, for the government, and not the other way around as Abraham Lincoln set forth in his Gettysburg Address.
Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven’t since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s.
Why do you suppose that happened? Because those were very bad times. America’s economy at its near worst. You’d think that there are enough of us around to remember how bad things were back then, but as they say, history tends to repeat itself; humans being humans after all.
As for being a despondent conservative, I have found my optimism wavering to say the least but at the same time I have given much thought, especially as a financial advisor, as to how this translates into pragmatic action and counsel.
Assuming the worst, what does it mean for the average American? What should we do? How can we prepare?
Sorry Senator Biden, but you are so very wrong, again. Sadly, for the foreseeable future, it will actually be “patriotic” to save more and spend less.
Obama’s “tax cut”, characterized more accurately as a wealth redistribution scheme by analysts with a little more economic acumen than “That One,” will essentially be taking capital from those that have historically known what to do with it and giving it to those that historically have not.
Job creation, investment, and growth will give way to an insignificant blip in consumer spending, mostly on imported goods, and visits to the casino. A drop in consumer spending and job growth will create a cyclical effect that will magnify the effects, even the perceived future effects of a more burdensome government.
You see when you run a business, every dollar you spend is a dollar not spent or invested somewhere else. It’s called opportunity cost. If the government increases its burden on consumers and employers, those dollars have to come from somewhere.
Even the prospect of higher taxes and slowed economic growth will be cause for pause among business owners and consumers. It’s happening already, which is why many believe we have been in a recession for some time now.
And in fact, I have some advice for you: make adjustments now, before you are forced too. Look at your finances with an eye for necessity. Discretionary spending should be closely scrutinized to maximize its value to you and your family or business.
Build a financial buffer of safety around you and your family as the taxman is coming and he doesn’t care what damage he does to your employer. He will simply be doing the bidding of Obama and his liberal economic pinheads.
The verdict isn’t in yet, but your financial advisor may also start to advise you to move your portfolios into allocations slightly more conservative than they have been in the past as financial analysts may determine the higher potential returns earned by investors in exchange for taking more risk (versus risk-free investments) may be reduced for the foreseeable future.
Assuming that a recession has already begun, and the liberal powers that be are likely to make exactly the wrong moves, a recession could extend itself into a depression – essentially the term for a very long recession.
Cash will be King.
And much to the surprise of the liberals that will have caused it, the rich will get even richer as assets will return to their rightful owners as the wealthy scoop up many and varied bargains in equities and real estate discarded by those who have become under or unemployed.
So don’t wait for the effects of an Obama administration and an activist liberal congress to trickle down to your financial situation. Prepare yourself now.
I studied at the U of M’s School of Professional Journalism (“The J-School”) and even though it was not that long ago, industry practices appear to have changed a great deal since then (not to mention my career as a Financial Advisor having nothing to do with Journalism).
Lost is the notion that a journalist is a professional at least in the sense that a professional follows a creed; adheres to some standard of excellence; observes a code of ethics. Nowadays, objectivity is for sissies. Everything is an editorial.
Journalistic “talent” is more apt to refer to a Journalist’s visage or breast size than more cerebral aptitudes.
A reversal of sorts has emerged. Conclusions are crafted, research is conducted and the story is written to substantiate it. Political events are reverse engineered. Newspapers didn’t use have agendas…or at least were a lot better at concealing it.
And the printed journal is suffering for it.
This morning on Sirius 144 The Patriot I heard Bill Bennett read The Journalists Creed.
The Journalist’s Creed was written by the first dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, Walter Williams. One century later, his declaration remains one of the clearest statements of the principles, values and standards of journalists throughout the world. The plaque bearing the creed is located on the main stairway to the second floor of Neff Hall.
It is engraved in bronze; surviving now only in spirit. The bronze’s worth now measured by its weight – not the import it conveys.
They were heady days…when a journalist could be counted on for the facts. Nothing more/nothing less. News was news. Opinion was relegated to the Editorial Page.
Great reward found the investigative reporter that uncovered a truth unknown but of great weight; and it was never served until it was corroborated; confirmed. If anything, the press showed too much restraint in the interest of the greater good. JFK’s affairs weren’t in the news – it wasn’t good for America.
In the interest of The Republic, in-depth coverage and vetting could be expected to be conducted on both party’s candidate. Not just the one, usually a conservative, that the paper wasn’t endorsing – a bastardization of the institution in and of itself.
Case in point: More time and effort has been invested on the part of the media to determine the the maternity of Sarah Palin’s granddaughter than Barack Obama’s associations with admitted domestic terrorists, anti-American ideologues, or the prime instigators of our current financial crisis, Raines and Frank, both either allies or advisers to Barack Obama.
And the voter is suffering for it.
Newspapers have been dying a slow death for many years now. Soon the printed page will be a thing of the past.
As for the state of Journalism? The Blogosphere has emerged as an agent for change and frictionless expression. Objectivity, and even truth are left for the reader to discern and evaluate. Feedback and commentary is real time. The Blog is the modern day version of the pamphlet of Ben Franklin’s time; published with a nom de plume, not unlike the millions of blogs across the globe.
And objectivity in the blogosphere? It’s for sissies here as well.
As for the creed? Read it and weep.
I believe in the profession of journalism.
I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.
I believe that clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism.
I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true.
I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible.
I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one’s own pocketbook is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another’s instructions or another’s dividends.
I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.
I believe that the journalism which succeeds best — and best deserves success — fears God and honors Man; is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power, constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance and, as far as law and honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship; is a journalism of humanity, of and for today’s world.
Those were heady days.
A Kansas City couple notes that their credit card has a fraudulent, $2,300 donation to the Obama campaign on it:
Steve and Rachel Larman say a strange credit card charge appeared on their statement this month — a $2300 donation to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The Larman’s say they don’t want this to be about their political affiliation, but they say they’re not about to give the Obama campaign any help from their pocketbook.
They said they notified Chase, their credit card bank, to report the fraud.
Emphasis added next:
“(They) said that they had seen-they were familiar with this,” said Steve Larman. “It was fraud, they believe through telemarketing but they were going to be doing some more investigations.”
The Larman’s don’t want their politics to enter into what is essentially just a fraudulent charge. But they say that the charge involves the Obama campaign adds insult to injury for the registered Republicans.
Stealing votes, stealing money – what’s the difference?
Chicago politics; it’s not just for Chicago anymore!
On the other hand, the Larmans just have a head-start on the financial aspects of four years of two-branch Democrat rule.
As I’ve noted in the past, I don’t so much care that Al Franken wrote for Playboy; I’ve been a freelance writer, and I know you don’t look gigs like that in the eye.
Does he cuss during the occasional speech? Yeah, and I doubt I’ll let him babysit my kids, but I’d suspect he’ll be in a different mode should Minnesota lose its collective mind and send him to DC.
And is he an aloof, elitist jerkwad – sort of a younger Garrison Keillor? Sure. But I’m not voting for a buddy – I’m voting for a Senator. Right?
Right.
But what does matter is that Al Franken is buddying up with a group that is under investigation in a third of this nation’s states for rampant, mind–numbingly bizarre, massive, immense, systematic, criminal voter (and other) fraud – including Minnesota:
It was last July that Minnesota ACORN endorsed Al Franken.
Today, the Al Franken for U.S. Senate campaign is proud to announce the endorsement of Minnesota ACORN, a member-driven community organization dedicated to providing housing services to low- and middle-income Minnesotans.
“I’m thrilled and honored to receive this endorsement,” said Al Franken. “And more motivated than ever to work with ACORN and other community organizations in this campaign and in the Senate to fight for economic justice, health care reform, good-paying jobs, and a solution to the housing crisis.”
There will need to be a national accounting for ACORN and its contributions – especially in terms of votes – to Democrats across this country.
What’s the difference between a rabid, senselessly-violent pit bull and a hockey mom?
The pit bull is most likely a Democrat who will try to commit his/her outrages behind the cover of a fraudulent (or just-plain risible) claim of equivalence.
Not as snappy as “lipstick?” Sorry. I don’t have a speechwriter.
Texas starts counting their dead voters:
Linda Kay Hill, a homemaker and Louisiana native, died Aug. 2, 2006, of a heart attack, her husband recalled, and is buried at Houston Memorial Gardens in Pearland. But Harris County voter records indicate she –- or someone using her identity –- cast a ballot in the November election that year. Linda Hill of Woodwick Street voted in person on Election Day, records show.She is among the more than 4,000 people whose names are listed both on Harris County’s voter rolls and also in a federal database of death records, a Texas Watchdog analysis has found.
And dozens of those people, like Linda Hill, have apparently cast ballots from beyond the grave, records since 2004 show. One expert says the number of deceased names used to cast ballots may be higher than what Texas Watchdog’s analysis found.
Instances of dead voters’ names being used to cast ballots were most frequent in three elections, the November 2004 general election, the November 2006 general election and the March 2008 Democratic primary, the analysis found.
So on the one hand, you have Democrats whinging about electronic voting machines, and continuously yammering about the 2000 election which, by any rational measure, was crazy but legal – basically, trying to subvert confidence in the system…
…while they actively work to flood the system with counterfeit voters.
The findings come as the group ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has faced scrutiny in multiple states for allegedly improper voter registrations — including players for the Dallas Cowboys, not in the Lone Star State, but in Nevada. The group’s Nevada offices were raided by state officials earlier this week.
That’s as officials in at least six states may have improperly removed tens of thousands of voters from the rolls or prevented them from registering, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
I used the word “Counterfeit” advisedly:
“This is subverting the ballot,” said John Fund, a Wall Street Journal columnist and author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. “Just like you counterfeit dollars, we take it seriously, if you counterfeit votes we should take it equally seriously, and we should punish people seriously for trying to subvert democracy.”
That law will never pass, of course; way too many people from one of those parties are actively profiting from that subversion.
Or so it’s starting to look.
Ray Suarez – the MPR/NPR talking head responsible for making Talk Of The Nation such an unctuous bore – says asking questions about The One is…well, racist, of course, silly:
The “pseudo controversies” about Obama’s background are symbols for a “racial calculus” hard at work in U.S. politics.
“Racial calculus” is one of those terms, like “political kabuki”, that people use to make a 25 cent theory sound like a dollar’s worth of thought.
Opinions about Obama’s inexperience, his childhood in Indonesia, and the persistent but untrue rumors of him being Muslim are stand-ins for something his detractors cannot admit, Suarez said.
Ray. Bubbie. Get a grip.
I’m hosed if I can think of a single credible conservative commentator – one that 99% of us would claim – who’s said word one about The One’s childhood or the “M” word.
And if talking about his palpable inexperience is “racist”, well, what’s the point of talking about Presidential candidates at all? I mean, the man makes John Edwards look like a solid professional.
Particularly, “religion has become a proxy for race,” he said.
And “has become a proxy for race” has become one of the many proxies for McCarthyism.
“Do you now, or have you ever found anything about Barack Obama that led you not to support him?”
Postlude: Remember all the Ashkkkroft Libertarians – the people who joked about Libertarians before January of 2001, the ones who thought Civil Liberties were the province of Rand-sodden bearded wackoes who lived in compounds in the Rockies, but suddenly became solem civil liberties junkies the moment John Ashcroft was sworn in as Attorney General, and spent the next eight years protecting this nation’s most vital liberties (flag burning, making statues of the Virgin Mary out of poop, and getting calls for people whom there is reasonable probable cause to believe are terrorists)?
Betcha they say not one thing about the liberties that an Obama administration will try to bulldoze; the First, Second and Tenth are all at immediate risk.
The markets appear poised to take a breather today as the hysteria subsides (update: ok, maybe not) if only for a moment. The bailout has passed but has not been implemented; it’s effect limited to the psychological benefit to those who value short-term fixes for long-term issues.
In her post-debate analysis of the Presidential debate, Nina Easton of Fortune magazine dramatically called the end of the conservative movement.
“We’re witnessing tonight something quite profound and that was the sinking ship of free-market Republicans keel over, groan, and fall to the bottom of the sea. John McCain, without much notice, proposed a $300 billion dollar plan to nationalize home mortgages…”
Her dramatic punditry was triggered by John McCain’s proposed plan to spend $300 Billion of the bailout kitty on buying down under-water mortgages. I’m not sure if McCain planned this or if it came to him during the debate, but let’s be clear on a couple things today.
First of all, if this action is required to rescue our financial system and preserve what’s left of our economy, let’s not confuse the medicine with the disease. We face unprecedented (at least in modern times) financial challenges that require the consideration of “all of the above”.
If some of these bailout dollars are to be used to acquire appreciating assets, taxpayers can cross their fingers and at least retain some hope of being paid back to some extent, and God willing, realize a profit.
But don’t hold your breath.
To that end, Treasury Secretary Paulson announced this morning that some of the dollars earmarked for the economic rescue plan may be invested in some of the more troubled banking institutions.
Paulson told reporters in Washington yesterday that legislation Congress passed last week to rescue financial institutions gave him broad authority that he intends to use, beyond just buying mortgage-related assets on banks’ balance sheets. He indicated that an option available may be boosting companies’ capital with cash infusions.
“It is the policy of the federal government to use all resources at its disposal to make our financial system stronger,” Paulson said. “We will use all of the tools we’ve been given to maximum effectiveness, including strengthening the capitalization of financial institutions of every size.”
This “strengthening” may include purchasing troubled assets these institutions in exchange for equity in the institution. As such, I wouldn’t characterize this as a pure play socialistic intervention as some pundits have of late.
On the other hand, lets not lose sight of the fact that American taxpayers have unwillingly found themselves party to a violation of epic proportions.
Back to the medicine and the disease: let us not at the same time forget who caused this crisis.
Once upon a time, Liberals in Washington decided that their constituents held a the right (not the opportunity) to home ownership, without regard to their economic relevance to the economy. This pressure was manifested in directives and incentives for their buddies at Frannie Make to acquire mortgages that would otherwise not be considered good long-term investments. All this while the liberals nudged and winked “Don’t worry, we’ll bail you out if this all goes awry.”
(A self fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one)
This created a vacuum that was willfully and eagerly filled by the likes of WAMU and Countrywide who flooded the market with cheap mortgages, sold them to anyone that could fog a mirror, knowing that Frannie Make would take them off of their hands.
Meanwhile, these mortgages were packaged as safe investments and sold to companies like AIG.
In turn, artificial demand for homes elevated their value and created an enormous drive to buy land and build homes to satisfy the voracious appetite for them. These homes, once occupied, continued to artificially appreciate, creating a refinancing craze and providing capital via increasing debt for the purchase of consumer goods including but not limited to the items to fill these homes.
(The Bubble)
Once the inevitable failure of many homeowners to continue servicing this ill-gotten debt ensued, the domino effect followed close behind. So much of our economy hinged on the ability of homeowners to borrow against their homes – or even the psychological effect of the knowledge that they could – that when it vanished, consumerism went with it.
Institutions found themselves in receipt of illiquid assets as the market for them was flooded.
(Pop! )
Clearly it was not free-market “Republican” principles that caused this crisis, and unfortunately, due to the magnitude, it won’t be solved by free-market principles alone. The American people have little appetite for long-term solutions that require short-term pain. Furthermore, I bristle at the fact that domain of free-market and free-enterprise principles have been relegated solely to the Republicans – I’ve always thought of them as fundamental American values.
Liberals have brainwashed Americans for years into thinking that they need government to solve their problems, to take the sting out of life, to shave the peaks to fill in the valleys in the interest of fairness.
Barack Obama is the most liberal Senator in America. He personifies all that is wrong with American fiscal policy. His rhetoric belies his record, his history, his choice of advisers and associates and his claimed intent to lower taxes. His actions speak so loud, his words we should be smart enough to discount. His brainwashed minions follow him and don’t even know why, nor do they realize the damage he and his liberal brethren could do to our economy.
It was the very government meddling that Obama espouses, some years ago, perpetuated by unchecked greed and political power, and despite warnings of John McCain and others, that created a crisis of such proportion that only government intervention could solve it. We can only hope that this truth is not lost on the American people as they consider solutions for our country’s most pressing issues.
Now I know why so many liberals make all those tittering neo-nazi references about conservatives.
They’re projecting.
And of course, we knew what happened the last time the last couple of dozen times a personality cult took over a major power, don’t we?
Er…don’t we?
Hello?
This is likely going to be a close presidential election. I think – fervently believe, in fact – that Mac can pull this out. Since the convention, I’ve actually felt that this was a plausible belief, in fact.
But it’s distinctly possible we’re going to have four years of Messianic Democrat leadership, and possible hegemony, at the federal level in this country.
Now, to some extent it’s a win-win for me; Democrat governments are a “target rich environment” for talk radio (until the “Fairness” Doctrine sends black-clad stormtroopers rappelling down from helicopters to the Patriot studio), so while the economy and our national security will be in the crapper, there’ll be plenty to talk about.
But while Barack Obama has the strong potential to be, on Inauguration Day, the worst President of my lifetime, I’ll tell you what I – and any conservative I’ve ever known – won’t do; whine and whimper like a little baby about the unfairness of the system that saddled them with an opponent as a leader. Y’know – exactly what too many lefties have been doing for the past eight years.
Chad the Elder pillories the notion, listing all the bumper stickers you likely won’t see on Republicans’ cars:
– Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For McCain
– Somewhere In
IllinoisHawaiiKansas(?) A Village Is Missing Its Idiot– Impeach Obama
I’ve also made an agreement to secure a number of bumper stickers currently in use that could be equally applicable:
– He’s Not My President
– If You’re Not Outraged You’re Not Paying Attention
– Proud Of My Country–Ashamed Of My Government
And a couple of the clever “make you think” variety:
– Buck Ofama
– 1-20-13 (with a stark black background of course)
Of course, Chad is just scratching the surface. I’ll [not] be stocking up on a few more:
On the other hand, if Obama wins, look for four years of not one single complaint about the Electoral College or electronic voting machines…
We conservatives joke about Obama, calling him “the One” or “the Messiah” because of some of the excesses, to be fair, of some/many of his followers (and his wife).
The metaphor works. But there’s a better one.
Putin.
Oh, you could fill in others; Chavez, Castro, Mussolini, Franco, what have you.
Why? Because The One has tipped his hand. He is going to sic the government on those who dissent against him.
From David Bernstein at Volokh, with emphasis added by me:
the Obama campaign has sicced its lawyers on t.v. stations that might air a well-sourced NRA advertisement that correctly points out Obama’s longstanding anti-gun record.
The ad, of course, is correct in every respect. It’s not only protected political speech, it is true. Obama was for gun control, before (he claimed) he was against it.
The proper response to such attempts to infringe on the First Amendment is to make sure that the video in question receives the widest circulation possible, to deter the Obama campaign, and other campaigns for that matter, from engaging in such tactics in the future. So here it is. Share it with a friend, with a note that Obama is threatening legal action against stations that run it, in violation of the First Amendment.
Here you go:
Go ahead, Barry. Have your goons send me a Cease and Desist. I dare you.
Sebastian from Snowflakes In Hell on the gist of Obama’s assault:
So basically, stop running NRA’s ads, or your broadcast license could be in jeopardy. They detail the WaPo’s FactCheck.org repetition as proof. This is Chicago politics at its finest folks. If you can’t win fair, win dirty. This is not how a free society is supposed to function. This is not the kind of man I want leading my country.
This is a direct attack on the First Amendment. This is positive proof that an Obama Administration would use the “Fairness” Doctrine – which they fully intend to re-instate – to squash dissent. Y’know – all that stuff Bush was supposedly going to to, but in eight years never got around to.
Obama’s started, and he’s not even president yet.
More of this, please.
It’s doing our work for us.
Thanks. That is all.
UPON REFLECTION: Seriously, lefties – especially “feminists”; does Cintra Wilson speak for you, or resonate in any way? Why?
I missed the first two days of the convention due to a family emergency. I didn’t actually get a lot of news; i didn’t go near downtown Saint Paul.
Unfortunately, I had to depend on the news media for information. It was that bad.
Like most party conventions, the RNC was pretty much a scripted, predictable pageant, up until Palin’s speech a week ago (for which I was in attendance), so there wasn’t much news.
Now, the mass of protesters – which turned out to be 1/5 to 1/10 as big as “organizers” had originally predicted? They got media coverage. Not only were most of the mainstream media gamboling about among the clots of the disaffected upper-middle-class whites on the street, but practically half of the “demonstrators” were calling themselves “media” as well. So the protests? Yes, they got covered.
Well, let’s be clear; the parts of the protests that the agenda-driven leftymedia wanted covered – alleged police overreaching and alleged excessive force – got covered in slathering detail.
Other stories? Like, atrocities committed by the anarkids?
You can scan the lefty alt-media a long time and find no reference to anything like this:
One 80 year old delegate had to be hospitalized from the violence by the Leftists.
The Alabama delegation was one of the buses that was attacked today in Minnesota.
The Leftist, anarchist, Obama-supporting radicals attacked RNC delegates today at the Xcel Center and sprayed them with a toxic substance.
An 80 year old RNC delegate had to be hospitalized!!
With all the video cameras the likes of the Minnesoros Independent were deploying, you’d think this bit of video might have gotten some play. Molly Priesmeyer would probably breezily quip that they’re all just a bunch of old white people; but if she did, it’d be more coverage than all the rest the “citizen journalists” of the lefty altmedia devoted to the lethal attack on people exercising their First Amendment rights.
They certainly didn’t cover this:
As the Connecticut delegation was getting off a bus near the Xcel Center, a group of protesters broke free from authorities and attacked the delegates.
Connecticut delegate Rob Simmons told FOX 9 that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance.
The unknown substance burned their eyes and stained their clothes.
One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing.
Or, um, this?:
…a busload of Cub Scouts were en route to the convention, where they were to present the colors to open the convention. A group of protesters–liberals, Obama supporters, or whatever–blocked the road, surrounded the bus, and attacked it, rocking the bus back and forth, denting and scratching the sides, and generally terrifying the children trapped inside. The left-wing protesters attacked a number of buses in the same way, but there is something especially despicable about attacking a group of Cub Scouts.
(UPDATE: Powerline isn’t so sure about this one anymore. Let’s wait a bit on that).
This? No? Never mind.
I know some of you leftymedia types read this blog. Where were you when your people attacked the delegates? Most of these attacks occurred before the first demonstration, on 9/1 (which was “highlighted” by anarkids smashing things and attacking the police).
No, I don’t expect an answer. I’ve been asking leftymedia types to answer that one for a week now. Not one has ponied up yet.
The leftymedia is shocked, shocked that the police – who did know about the attacks – didn’t treat the demonstrators, or the lefty alt-media with whom they were pretty much indistinguishable, with kid gloves and greet them like heroes of liberal tolerance.
Andrew Sullivan – back when the MSM considered him one of the “new generation of conservative intellectuals” – was the blog that got me started as a blogger, back in 2002.
His current obsession seems to be tittering about the sex lives of the Palin family (and of course, his endless sexist, classist, classless jabbering) – after having tried to declare his own off limits in the name of basic human decency.
Patterico:
Gee, I dunno. If Obama’s had written about the scourge of homosexual promiscuity, as Sullivan has, and then had advertised himself for promiscuous homosexual sex, as Sullivan did (link is not work-safe), advertising for “One-on-One’s, 3-Ways, Groups/Parties/Orgies, and Gang Bangs” — do you really think the press would not have written about it?
At least Sullivan’s story has a hypocrisy angle among the lurid details, the pictures of his naked buttocks on the Internet, and the description of his “power glutes.” Talking about the sex life of Sarah Palin’s sister or daughter has no legitimate purpose at all.
Truly reprehensible.
Sorry, blog-dad. I’m not taking care of you in your old age anymore.
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