Dear Amy:

Emergency Situation

No On 8 Obama

Proponents of Prop 8 sent a deceptive mailer insinuating that Barack Obama and Joe Biden support their effort. Both have denounced this tactic and reminded voters that they oppose Prop 8.

We cannot let this go unanswered.

We need to respond quickly and effectively through new flyers, paid phone banks and get out the vote efforts countering this lie.

Give Today Green No On 8

Ask you friends and family to donate.

There are times in a political campaign when you think you know what you need to do to win.

We said we needed $3 million in 3 days to win this campaign. And over 24,000 of you helped us meet that goal.

And then the other side does something so insidious you must react.

Proponents of Prop 8 sent a deceptive mailer insinuating that Barack Obama and Joe Biden support their effort to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.

They are using this and other shameful tactics to try to mislead undecided voters throughout California.

They have forced us into an emergency situation.

We cannot let this go unanswered. We need to respond quickly and effectively through new flyers, paid phone banks and get out the vote efforts countering this lie.

We are running out of time.

Donate now so we can counter this appalling tactic.

In solidarity,

Kate Kendell
Executive Committee Member
No On Prop 8

Guess who we won’t be supporting anymore?? You got it! Just more money to send to other organizations who don’t try to manipulate their members!

Whaddya they mean they “cannot let this go unanswered”? Obama and Biden DO oppose same-sex marriage! Obama has made this clear time and time and time again, in his debates, in his statements, in his choice of associates:- McClurkin, Meeks, and ESPECIALLY Doug Kmiec, the former Reagan/Bush attorney who is an ACTIVE PROPONENT OF PROPOSITION 8. Kmiec was Obama’s choice to lead his “Faith Tour” - an attorney. He chose an attorney to lead his evangelical faith tour around the country (as if there weren’t enough problems with the whole concept from the get-go! Heck, I even worked as a paralegal when I lived up North, but I surely don’t go around billing myself as an authority on the law. Anywho - I digress again.) Now, I admit that Obama has said that they shouldn’t change the law now that it is in place, but to imply, as NCLR does, that he SUPPORTS same-sex marriage is a flat out lie. I have written about this a gazillion times already:

“Two-fer: Faith Train and Same Sex Marriage”

“So What”, with the bonus of Joe Biden saying emphatically that he and Obama are opposed to same-sex marriage.

“Going to the Chapel and We’re Gonna Get Married”, also a two-fer since it deals mainly with CT, BUT it also deal’s with Doug Kmiec, Obama’s F(aith) buddy.

“Saddle Up”

“It Was Only A Matter Of Time”

And one from my blog on Same Sex Marriage, link HERE.

I might add, my friend, Truthteller, had an outstanding post on Obama and the GLBT community, at No Quarter: “Barack Obama’s Compulsively Repeated Gay Bashing Risks the Loss of A Key Voting Bloc”. This is an EXCELLENT overview of all the ways in which Obama has screwed (ahem) the LGBT community.

All of that is to say, Obama did send a letter of support to opponents of Proposition 8, but as this article clearly points out, he opposes same-sex marriage. He and John McCain have the SAME position on this issue. Only McCain, as I have written before, does not shy away from his gay friends when they need him. He supports and embraces them, unlike Obama. This article demonstrates, in one place, how Obama panders to whichever side he thinks will get him elected, all in ONE ARTICLE! It is staggering - he opposes Same-Sex marriage everywhere else but CA, apparently. At least until the voting is done. That’s his MO, and if any GLBT people think he will truly stand on their side, they are sadly mistaken. Just ask his formerly gay buddy, Donnie McClurkin. Or his actively anti-gay BFF James Meeks. Or Doug Kmiec, hater of equal rights for GLBT people. Oh - and ask Gavin Newsome how he felt about Obama dissing him over a photo shoot just because he SUPPORTS same sex marriage. Oh, yeah - what a guy.

The information is there, people - don’t be hoodwinked or bamboozled on this issue, I ask you. Don’t let Obama get over on this - he doesn’t deserve the pass.

Stand up America!

First, I want to address those supposed internal poll numbers that have McCain ahead in PA, MI, NJ and closing in on CA. I have not been able to verify those numbers. They could be true, they might not be. I said back during the primaries that a Pampers nomination would put PA, MI, and NJ in play. Since we know that the pollsters have not been releasing accurate numbers, as their models are weighted heavily to Pampers, with interviewees being mostly Democrats, I think it is safe to say that this race is tied, and will be decided by the undecided voters, which have been breaking for McCain, and will continue to do so. Why? Because if you haven’t made the commitment to Pampers by now you are nervous enough about his fraudulent fascist ass that you are going to hold your nose and vote for McCain; at least he is a known quantity. Internals cannot always be trusted either.

In NC internal numbers had Clinton within 5 points and shaving a point each day off Pampers lead; she lost by 15, but we know now that was due to double counted ballots, and other methods of fraud. Numbers can be given to motivate workers, volunteers, and voters. I think the best strategy is to not put faith in numbers and work your asses off in the next 24 hours to defeat Pampers. Keep making calls. Keep canvassing, get out the vote, and go vote yourselves. The Pampers fraud machine is in full force so we need every vote for McCain to count (we can deal with the “what should have been” with Hillary later). DO NOT ALLOW ANY POLL NUMBERS MAKE YOU FEEL THIS IS OVER.

And lay off the conscientious abstainers. They have made their decision based on their ethics. Respect it. If, in the privacy of the voting booth they have a change of heart, they will do that without being cajoled by us (my entire immediate family is voting for Pampers, guess how that feels?). Now, on to Pennsylvania.

I believe that John McCain is going to win the 21 electoral votes in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on Tuesday. In 2004 Bush lost the state by 144,248 votes (see the above map of the 2004 result). The cities of Philadelphia, Allentown, Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Erie went to Kerry, while the entire rest of the state voted for the Shrub. Pampers will no doubt take Philadelphia. But McCain doesn’t need Philadelphia to win. He needs, and he’s going to get, Allegheny County.

In 2004 Kerry won Allegheny, and outlying counties, by slim margins:
Allegheny: 96,987

Beaver: 2,230
Washington: 552
Fayette: 4,075
That’s 103,844 votes. Leaving a margin of 40,044 votes in the 2004 totals.

There is one reason and one reason only that Kerry took these counties: Tereza Heinz-Kerry. Knowing this, Obama tried to trot her out in the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary. Her lack of enthusiasm for the candidate was pretty obvious. Obama has no such connection. In fact, the one thing he had going for him in the area, John Murtha, decided to pick the scab off the bitter/cling incident by calling his constituents racists, and then rednecks. Personally I think Murtha fell on a grenade, potentially ending his political career to prevent Obama from getting into the White House. Between that, Joe the Plumber, Bittergate, the Hillary/PUMA effect and Obama’s ever shrinking tax break income threshold (it used to be $250,000…now his ads say $200,000….his VP says $150,000….Bill Richardson says $120,000….we know it’s really around $42-50,000…middle class, get ready for the mugging) chances are McCain is going to win all four of those counties.

Another Kerry stronghold was Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties. Margins were not that wide there either.
Lackawanna County (Scranton is County Seat): 14,807
Luzerne County: 4,620

I believe that it is the PUMA effect that will have the greatest impact in drawing Democrats away from Obama. Forget Biden’s connection to Scranton. He hasn’t had any there in decades. No one is seeing his appearance there as a homecoming. It’s a hey I used to be from here vote for me kind of feeling. When Democrats for McCain and Harriet Christian are leading PUMAs on major canvassing safaris, reminding everyone what Obama and the DNC did to Hillary, the candidate they still love, what Obama said about them, etc. I see both counties in play big time. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication up there!

Joe the Plumber will also pull in votes in Allentown, and Erie. We hear time and time again that working class voters are “values voters,” meaning that they vote with the candidate whom they feel represents their beliefs, even if they are voting against their economic interests. In 2008 the McCain/Palin ticket not only speaks to them more, especially with a woman who comes directly from the working class, but will better serve their economic interests by not taxing them into the poor house, or taxing their employers into laying them off (and with those ever lowering tax thresholds that is exactly what is going to happen).

The simple fact of the matter is that if McCain’s internals didn’t have him in striking distance he and Palin wouldn’t be wasting their time. And if Camp Pampers didn’t think the same thing he and Biden wouldn’t be there either.

One final factor working for McCain: Pampers fatigue. Pennsylvania was the state that shocked the nation when polls came out saying they were sick and tired of hearing Pampers’ voice and seeing his face everywhere. They felt that way during the primaries. I can only guess how they feel now. I would imagine there are a lot of people in PA doing what I do…turning down the volume on the TV, changing the channel, or throwing random objects. No one overkills like Pampers whose motto must be, “Too much of me is never enough.” Pampers, I’ve got news for you; too little of you is too much of you. PA is also the state where Pampers told Ed Rendell, “We don’t need the people, we just need the checks.”

Don’t be surprised if it’s going to be Pennsylmania for McCain tomorrow. Sorry Pampers, you need the people, not just the checks.

[More of Shtuey Van Shtuey's superb writing can be found here]

The media continues its incessant drumbeat to help Barack Obama ascend to the White House. This includes giving him a pass on questions that other candidates have to answer.

This situation was made a little more preposterous by the always entertaining, abusive and seemingly clueless Andrew Sullivan who just made this his daily dish:

Palin’s Medical Records
Still AWOL. No explanation. Not even a gesture, which suggests to me that some in the McCain camp realize they’d rather release nothing than be implicated in anything that might hurt them after the election. Only ABC News’ Kate Snow seems to care. Only this blog has really pursued this story for two long months. For the record, I find the idea that a vice-presidential candidate refuses to either give a press conference or release full medical records as a dreadful precedent for transparency. Obama and Biden and McCain have been pathetic as well. But no one has been as secretive as Palin and no one else has similar strangeness in her medical history. Presumably the records are there and could have been released easily two months ago. Unless there really was no vetting at all and the McCain camp is now covering up its own incompetence as well as preparing to throw her under the bus in a few days’ time.

Sullivan is so ludicrous in his hunt for Governor Palin so as to defy description. And what does he say about Obama/Biden — they have been “pathetic as well”.

Well, no Andrew, they have been disgraceful — as have you and the rest of the pundit class and press for not demanding more of Senator Obama — who is running for the toughest job in the world and, as of this writing, hasn’t had a checkup in nearly two years and has submitted a scant 276 words to explain his medical history for the last 21 years.

Biden, survivor of two brain aneurisms, likewise refuses to release anything.

Sullivan’s statement “some in the McCain camp realize they’d rather release nothing than be implicated in anything that might hurt them after the election” might also be applied to Barack Obama, might it not? What has that man got to hide?

Here’s an idea. Why don’t McCain, Palin, Obama, Biden ALL show up with their medical records AND their birth certificates at the same time in front of ALL the press and we’ll compare notes — I’m sure our good friend Andrew will be the first one to make this request — in the interest of “fairness and transparency.”

Obama is a long time smoker who admitted recently to smoking again on the campaign trail. He has also been a drug user which he himself has admitted in his books. I think Bush was a drug user, too? You see how good he’s worked out in office.

ABC News’ Sunlen Miller reported back on June 10th:

The presumptive Democratic nominee has been open about his smoking past: Once a heavy smoker, he publicly gave up the habit, per his wife’s request, to run for president.

Since quitting, Obama has indicated in the past that he has “fallen off the wagon” but before today was not specific about how recent his smoking was.

The release of a scant one-page summary for 21 years of care brought some criticism to the Obama campaign – especially when compared to the thousands of pages of medical records released by McCain. Obama promised reporters that if there are additional health-related questions, his campaign would make that information available. “In terms of additional records, if there are particular things that people have questions about, then we’d be happy to give that information,” he said.

But the media didn’t ask any more questions. Typical.

Well, Senator Obama, we have some more questions even if the media doesn’t. Obama’s supporters are always complaining about Senator McCain’s age and that Governor Palin is ‘a heartbeat away from the Presidency.’ Well, pardon me, but Barack’s ‘second’ is a 66 year old man who has had two brain aneurisms so that isn’t really very comforting. Obama keeping his health a mystery isn’t comforting either.

In re the 276-word summary submitted by Obama’s physician, Dr. David L. Scheiner, the LATimes’ Scott Martelle reports:

The overview was contained in a one-page letter with no supporting documentation. “With no surgery or hospital stays, this is a complete summary of his doctor visits and medical records for the past two decades,” said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

The brief Obama letter contrasted with Arizona Sen. John McCain’s decision to let a selected group of reporters spend three hours with nearly 1,200 pages of health records last week.

So Senator McCain releases 1200 pages of medical records and from Obama, a once heavy smoker and former drug user, we get 276 words? Senator McCain released his actual birth certificate and Obama’s COLB is … where?

Never mind all the other medical stuff we don’t know about. What we do know is that someone on the planet dies a smoking-related death once every six seconds. More information about his medical history is warranted. From the American Cancer Society:

Each year, a staggering 440,000 people die in the US from tobacco use. Nearly 1 of every 5 deaths is related to smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined.

Also contained in Dr. Scheiner’s laughable ‘summary’ (which you can read in full here):

His family history is pertinent for his mother’s death from ovarian cancer and grandfather who died of prostate cancer.

“His own history included intermittent cigarette smoking,” David L. Scheiner, M.D. wrote in a letter released to reporters. “He has quit this practice on several occasions and is currently using Nicorette gum with success.”

Well no, he’s admitted to smoking again. Stressful on the campaign trail, no? Just ask Joe Biden. The smoking also doesn’t seem to go with the image of Mr. I-can’t-get-any- arugula-at-Whole-Foods. More do as I say, not as I do.

There is a history of cancer in his family and he has admitted to drug use. And he continues to smoke. Okay.

Additionally, we know nothing about any of Obama’s college records, papers, articles, his state senate records, nothing that might make clear his true political leanings. This is vital because he only spent 143 days in the Senate before deciding to run for the highest office in the land.

Obama panders to everyone and tells a different story to each group he speaks to. No one can be all things to all people. I honestly can’t tell if he is to the left what Neocons are to the right – or if he is a Republican in sheep’s clothing himself. Just as I want to know Obama’s true politics, I want to understand why he is so secretive about everything including his health? .

In contrast Senator McCain has been much more open about this issue, McCain is fit and cancer free:

I think physiologically he is considerably younger than his chronologic age based on his cardiovascular fitness,” Eckstein said in an interview Thursday. ”I got a call from the cardiologist who said that he had not seen anyone that age exercise for that long in a long time.”

McCain has shrugged off the issue [of his age] by highlighting his stamina and strong genes. He has recalled his “rim-to-rim” Grand Canyon hike in 2006; he has campaigned with his energetic mother, age 96.

Like everything else about Senator Obama, his records – of every stripe – are something we are just supposed to take on faith. Who else could get away with this behavior?

Golly gosh, Andrew, why the double standard?

What? No Ginsu Knives??????????!!1111!!!??

From my blog, Uppity Woman.

What else is going on?

I don’t really enjoy attacking Joe Biden. He seems so vulnerable I feel it is almost like attacking a defenseless kitten with a sledgehammer. But since the Obama-bots have been so ungentlemanly to Sara Palin, and since he is lending his support to a rampant manipulator with no real substance or experience, I have decided that he is fair game (particularly as he seems to have been getting an easy ride from the media compared to Sarah Palin). I have two new videos that spotlight Biden. One is entitled “Joe Biden gets sand kicked in his face” (YouTube) and the latest (which quite a few people have said is my best video to date) is entitled “The Ballad of Barack and Joe” (above).

The latter video consists of a reading of a poem I wrote, inspired by the A.A. Milne poem “Disobedience”. It reads as follows: (And by the way, Biden’s middle name really is Robinette)

THE BALLAD OF BARACK AND JOE

by OldGrumpyGuy
(adapted from A.A.Milne’s poem “Disobedience”)
(permission given to reproduce in any public media)

Joseph Robinette Biden, otherwise known as Joe was famous for saying the wrong things
and being a little bit slow
It was a surprise then when Joe was elected to run as Obama’s VP
Even though, as wise people know, his emotional age is three.

Joseph Robinette Biden said to Obama, said he:
“It should be quite fun; I can get the job done, and be home in time for tea.”
But Joseph Robinette Biden was being a little naive
And had no inkling whatever of what Barack had up his sleeve

For how could slow Joe be expected to know that Obama had cunningly planned
to pick someone like Joe as his fall guy for the time when things got out of hand

For it wouldn’t be long before things would go wrong
While Obama was playing his game
For his promises lacked any substance and the horse he was riding was lame
So when the web of illusion unraveled, it was Joe who would shoulder the blame

For Joseph Robinette Biden was considerably long in the tooth
and all his experience should have showed him that Obama wasn’t telling the truth
But slow Joe, like a great many others, was too trusting, too easily swayed
by the conjurer’s bag of illusions and the sweet-sounding statements he made

Like the tale of the Emperor’s clothing, Obama was utterly bare
Quite devoid of any true knowledge. while seeming to show so much care
For this man was a very smooth talker, and all the folk longed to believe
all the swell sounding things that he promised
But he lied, or was he simply naive?

Whatever the reason, it’s tragic how so many folk were entranced
by the great manipulator’s illusions, and how so many joined in the dance
A dance that had only one outcome: Disappointment and heartache and ruin
For that is the price all must forfeit for dancing to the mad piper’s tune

I have watched in horror and amazement as deeds, gaffes, falsehoods and gross errors in judgment that would have taken down any other politician just slide from Obama like Teflon, much like George Bush. Bush’s problem is not that he’s a Republican. It is that he is a petty, arrogant bully who thinks he is anointed by God, much like Barack Obama.

I believe Obama’s supporters are voting for a carefully crafted narrative; a symbol rather than a man. Symbols don’t govern. Men do. Women do. A symbol is nothing if there is no substance behind it. Here is my closing argument that he is “words, just words” and the substance of Barack Obama is as thin as tissue paper.

Campaign manager David Axelrod had to find a way to propel an affable but rather wishy-washy, under-achieving legislator from Illinois with only a couple of years in the Senate under his belt past a host of far more accomplished candidates. Therefore ‘experience’ became a dirty word.

With Senator Obama’s silvery speeches, his slick, evasive way around all direct questions and no policy decisions one could pin on him, he was able to move close to the front of the field. But he could not get past his biggest obstacle: the brilliant Joan of Arc in a pantsuit, Hillary Clinton. All eight guys sharing the debate stage piled on, including Obama, but still, she came out on top with her preparedness and smarts. So the narrative had to be amended. Not only is experience a dirty word, “Clinton” had to become a dirty word as well.

We were reminded of Republicans hunting Bill Clinton endlessly in the 90’s and told that we didn’t want to support political dynasties, i.e., Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Well, Hillary is Bill’s wife, so technically, she’s a Rodham. No dynasty there, but no matter. So first “experience” became a dirty word and “Clinton” became a dirty word, too.

After seven years of George Bush, Democrats, starved to retake the presidency, were sick and tired of partisan bickering and infighting. Whether people loved the Clintons or not, some were afraid that perhaps the Clinton name meant that the “hunt” would start all over again so they were willing to buy Axelrod’s first narrative in order to escape the second.

And then the third narrative was born: Barack Obama is post-racial, post-partisan and stands apart from inside-the-beltway politics. He will cut through the gristle and build consensus because he has no enemies and is not set in his ways like some old pol.

Axelrod then had to create a fourth narrative: Barack as rock star. He needed to draw the eye in order to bypass the Clintons’ rock star status within the Democratic Party and to distract the American public from the most important reason not to vote for him: he didn’t know what he was doing and had a paper-thin resume.

Hence we got the super-sized rallies, the soaring speeches, the ‘fainting,’ people screaming “I love you, Barack” from the throngs in the audience. We now know that many of his enormous rallies had freebie giveaways – rock concerts and the like. But that was a well kept secret, like the rest of this well-crafted stage farce. So the mystique of Obama was born.

The Democrats’ antipathy toward the Iraq war also helped to birth the fifth Obama narrative – Obama as the anti-war candidate, because of a speech he allegedly gave in the ultra liberal Hyde Park district of Illinois in 2002, at no political cost to himself. He was the man of “good judgment” for his war opposition. Not that he had the power to vote on any such a thing at the time. If he did, surely he would have found a way to do as he had always done in the State Senate when challenged by a politically risky vote: vote “present” as he did there 130 times.

But then, an all too compliant media started to get the collective tingle up their leg. Whether this was out of fear of being called racist if they didn’t ‘treat the black guy nicely’, or just their obsession with taking Hillary down or both, I don’t know. But they willfully decided not to do their jobs. He received no vetting whatsoever.

Still, Hillary Clinton had a formidable lead in the polls and was winning the majority of primaries before Super Tuesday (including Michigan and Florida), so he needed a new narrative to blunt her momentum and I’m sure everyone remembers what that was. It was born after Hillary’s unexpected win in New Hampshire and solidified with the South Carolina primary in January – ‘Bill Clinton is a racist and Hillary is insensitive to the plight of the African American community.’

When the campaign started, Obama was ‘bi-racial.’ That wasn’t working for him so well, so he became ‘African American.’ Another new narrative – is that number six? I am beginning to lose count.

Axelrod knew that Obama’s exotic background and dispassionate, professorial demeanor was not connecting well with the black community. Therefore, he had to drive a wedge between the Clintons and the AA community who were so fond of them. Professor Sean Wilentz published a brilliant article in the New Republic called “Race Man” detailing exactly how this was done. Again, the media played an important role here because they gave carte blanche to any nonsense that came out of Obama’s mouth, or that of his surrogates. This narrative of Hillary and her supporters as racist, low-information “Archie Bunkers” grew legs, although it had no basis in fact.

Even the clueless Senators John Kerry and the bloviating Joe Biden told us we had to vote for Obama because he is black. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is just as racist to vote for someone based on the color of their skin as it is not to. So I guess narrative three (post-racial, post-partisan) was discarded.

Then, against the will of most of the mainstream media in March and April, word of Obama’s malignant associations started to bleed out: the now convicted criminal Tony Rezko, Reverend Wright, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and more. Another new narrative was born: the “I didn’t know” or the “it was boneheaded” narrative: a convenient way for Obama to avoid taking personal responsibility for any of his past actions or associations. Good judgment, you say?

Sometimes I think Senator Obama gets up in the morning, walks to the mirror, smiles at it and challenges himself to see how many dissembling statements he can make to the press without getting called on them. I think it must be a game to him, otherwise, how could he dare to be so cavalier with the truth before the American people.

I’m not going to detail his lies about these close associations, or his involvement with ACORN, nor am I going to detail his reneging on his important policy promises like FISA, NAFTA, Iraq, Israel, don’t ask don’t tell, women’s rights, gun control, Bush’s faith based initiatives and so on. All of these are egregious breaks in faith and trust not only with his supporters but with the entire party. Worse still were the press and DNC elite riding shotgun for him at every turn helping him to steal the Democratic nomination through caucus fraud, blocking re-votes and illegitimately being awarded delegates he did not actually earn. Let’s leave that aside for the moment, too.

To me, the worst break in faith was his reneging on public financing, for one very simple reason: his entire candidacy was built on the notion that the American people needed a new way of doing business in Washington. That lobbyists, special interest groups or billionaires cannot buy the Presidency.

So far, he has spent nearly a billion dollars trying to buy the Presidency.

Much of this money has come to him from questionable – and untraceable – donations on the internet. He just spent millions blanketing five networks with a thirty minute infomercial; this after spending six million for his faux-Greek column event at Invesco Field bullying all into submission at the Convention; this after his Barack-apolooza celebrity European Tour, trying to overwhelm the multitudes, foreign and domestic, into believing he is the President without him actually having done anything to earn the title.

He has said that he rejects lobbyists but the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac scandal have revealed that aside from his ardent supporter, Senator Chris Dodd, head of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Obama has received more lobbying money from them than anyone. A new way of doing business?

Pollsters are cooking the numbers shamelessly in Obama’s favor. Until this last week, where we finally had the likes of CNN’s John King admitting to the ridiculously biased media coverage, it was a veritable love fest for Barack and a sandstorm for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Had Obama kept his word to accept public financing, as John McCain did, and just campaigned on the issues, as McCain has worked to do – do you think Obama would still be in this contest at all?

These are his fighting tools: Experience is a dirty word. Clinton is a dirty word. I take lobbying money but I pretend I don’t and no one calls me on it. I change my tune daily on different networks and no one bothers to compare my false statements. I am not bi-racial, I am black. I insult the white grandmother who raised me by labeling her a “typical white person.” I insult people who don’t vote for me by calling them “bitter voters who cling to God and guns.” The Clintons and their supporters are racists. Everyone who says anything bad about me must be racist. If the press does not write glowing reports about me, I kick them off my plane, although they have paid good money to be there. “I didn’t know” (about Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Pfleger, my aunt living illegally and in squalor in Boston). Everything you find wrong with me or my campaign I either didn’t know about or it was ‘boneheaded.’

This is a new, cleaner way of doing business in Washington? What is cleaner about trying to overwhelm everyone else out of the race before the American people notice that your policies won’t hold water, and that you won’t hold any position long enough to stand against the changing wind. Obama promised hope and change. He, like George Bush, proclaimed himself a great ‘uniter,’ yet he has rapidly emerged as the most divisive figure in politics. How ironic that he, and the media, tried to paint Hillary as ‘divisive and polarizing’ when he and his supporters are responsible for more hateful vitriol than I have yet seen. Friends and couples are actually breaking up over supporting or not supporting this man.

His careless ‘let’s throw money at the problem’ attitude is horrid, particularly in such difficult economic times.

Obama and Biden deriding the “Joe the Plumbers” of this world belies not only their rhetoric but basic Democratic principles. Further it shows Obama to be an elitist, out of touch with the needs and concerns of average Americans. He postulates on “spreading the wealth around” from the safety of his Chicago mansion, and says it is “selfish” not to do so, while he and his wife, millionaires, give relatively little to charity, and his ‘favorite aunt’ in allowed to contribute $260 to his campaign yet lives illegally and in squalor in Boston. Oh, he “didn’t know.”

More do as I say, not as I do. That is the most damning and devastating part of his candidacy. It was always built on a lie built upon yet another bunch of lies.

How can anyone run on their “good judgment,” yet say “I didn’t know” to breaking revelations at every turn and be given a pass? How can we trust such a man ‘to know’ enough to take care of us when he doesn’t know enough to take care of himself or his own? Or willfully turns a blind eye to crooked and divisive behavior?

A grossly inexperienced, under-qualified man is poised to take the most difficult job in the world at one of the most challenging times in our recent history. And the entire narrative the svengali Axelrod and the media have crafted for him is built on nothing but smoke and mirrors. Hope and change indeed.

Contrary to his image, he is nothing more than an old style politician, an opportunist borne of the Chicago Daley machine, a man who has worked to buy the presidency and changes his policy positions as one would change their socks. After the Joe the Plumber debacle, the myth of Mr. Hope and Change has been debunked. What was initially appealing about his candidacy no longer exists. What is left?

I can find no good reason to vote for him.

I certainly hope the American people will come to the same conclusion this Tuesday.

The San Diego-Union Times has a concise argument against the Robin Hood concept.

We should point out that the Real Robin Hood took back from the rich that which the rich stole from the poor. He is not to be confused with Robin Hoodwink.

Robin Hoodwink wants to just take what belongs to somebody else and give it to those to whom these things never belonged–and some of whom haven’t always exactly worked very hard either.

Perhaps they haven’t gone to night school after work, paid for it themselves and inched their way to a degree or better job training. They haven’t gone home at night worrying about how to pay the business bills, make payroll or meet customer deadlines. They haven’t taken The Risk. They don’t hold the loan paper. Or perhaps they just plain made their own crappy life decisions, never saved a dime, borrowed to buy things they couldn’t afford, prefer to work at jobs that don’t interfere with their free time. All of these things will guarantee lack of financial success. To be sure, there are plenty of people who deserve the help of all of us who have a conscience. The disabled comes to mind. I’m not talking about the ones with the fake back injuries because God knows we all know several people in that category as well.

The point is, you don’t get to share in profits if you aren’t willing to share in the risk. This is something most sensible employees already comprehend. Unfortunately, they too will reap the punishment of this attempt to destroy capitalism in the last real refuge for those who have left other countries to get away from the concept of the Government in charge of your life and your financial growth.

There isn’t a soul reading this who doesn’t know someone who had a bad start in life, was born dirt poor, but had the ambition and fortitude to succeed. That’s what’s great about America. You can do that if you have the ambition, persistence and desire–if you are willing to make sacrifices and put the time into doing what has to be done in order to grow.

Although the goal of Barack Obama is clearly Socialism by any sensible definition, this silly notion (to mimic a word Obama uses whenever he gets caught at something–which is often) will create an historical unemployment percentage, not seen since the Great Depression. Government jobs will be artificially created, a doomed idea, considering somebody has to pay for those jobs.

The very rich have already figured out how to circumvent socialism. They didn’t get very rich being stupid. The small business owner also knows how to recover the cut in their own take-home pay: Unlike Barack Obama, who never ran a thing in his life and has spent most of his time on the government take, they built their businesses into successes on their own and they generally don’t take kindly to entrenched politicians telling them to give up the fruits of their labors and sacrifices. So they have other ways to circumvent greedy socialist politicians. It’s called raising prices, contract outsourcing to companies to avoid employee benefit payouts – and layoffs. I anticipate that most of these small business owners will figure out a way to make $249k just to get some of their own handout back to spite the idea that someone could turn our Democracy into a pre-Communist country lorded over by a vindictive Totalitarian with smarmy friends, who expects PRAVDA to do his bidding.

Every formerly dead Anti-American fringe party in our country didn’t revive itself to work for Obama for nothing. The leaders of the Marxist-Leninist, Socialist and Communist Parties are thrilled with his candidacy.

Of late, Barack Obama has poked fun at the distaste for this Robin Hoodwink idea. He has said, Since When Is Selfishness a Virtue between snickers and sneers–while speaking of people who gave more to charity last year than he and cheapskate Joe Biden combined. He has snorted about how they might find out that he shared his toys or his peanut butter sandwich when he was a kid.

In spite of Obama’s Narcissistic tendency to imagine he is the only smart person in the world, the reality of his “notion” has not escaped others who are smart enough to circumvent his capitalism-crushing plans.

That will leave the middle class to pay for all the candy. When it comes to voting to tax the middle class, Barack Obama hasn’t even voted “Present” in the past. He has no problem with it. You’ve been warned.

Spread the wealth economics harmful to all

November 1, 2008

At the risk of coming across as selfish and greedy capitalists with not an ounce of concern for the less fortunate, we’d like to put in a good word for the concept of not spreading the wealth.

It’s funny how that chance encounter between Joe the Plumber and Barack the Presidential Candidate and the sound bite it produced dominated the final days of this seemingly interminable campaign. But it turns out that Americans feel very strongly about the Robin Hood politics of taking from the well-off and giving to the economically challenged.

It is not surprising that those who have worked hard, made sacrifices, saved money, started businesses and made payrolls would frown on the idea of a presidential candidate actually boasting that he plans to raise their taxes, if elected, in order to give tax breaks to those who make less money. But it is a little frightening to think that there are so many people on the other side who covet their neighbor’s bank account.

And what’s the cut-off for the tax cuts? No one knows, because Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, can’t settle on a figure. First, it was said that only wage-earners who earned more than $250,000 annually would have their taxes raised. Then Obama, in an interview, lowered the figure to $200,000. Then Biden, in a speech, lowered it to $150,000. Luckily, this campaign is ending. Or we might be headed for a situation where anyone earning more than poverty level gets a tax increase.

But the real problem with Robin Hood economics isn’t just that it is unfair, but also that it’s harmful to the same people it professes to help. Like any handout, it kills incentive and rewards a lack of achievement. And, in this case, by confiscating the assets of the haves, it also punishes initiative and penalizes success.

That’s not a winning formula. In fact, it wouldn’t be good for anyone. And let’s hope we never get a chance to see that for ourselves.

Just when you had wished you had indeed heard the last of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, it turns out they are publishing a new manifesto described in brief on Amazon.com.

What makes the book blurb - this one apparently not written by their long time, umm, colleague, co-education policy wonk, fellow intellectual and, yes, neighbor Barack Obama - worrisome is that it links what Ayers and Dohrn say is America’s continuing sin, racism and “white supremacy,” with their views on war. 

In other words just as Barack Obama moves to the White House, these two destructive figures out of the past are about to advocate an entire new world view for America built around their curious race-centric obsession. Presumably this will be an opportunity to peddle, one more time, their Third Worldist clap trap which mandates that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” 

This narrow and dangerous thinking is what led Ayers, Dohrn and others in their camp to embrace figures like Castro, Ortega, and Chavez even as they trample all over the civil rights of their citizens in order to maintain their authoritarian hold on power.  

[Editor's note: See Uppity Woman's October 28th article here, "RBO: Team Cuba” — Ayers, Dohrn, just “two political activists” from Obama’s neighborhood, visited Cuba in September 2008.]

If you need a recap, suffice it to say I will not vote for the most arrogant, condescending, homophobic, lying, bullying, cheating (with help from the DNC), unqualified, inexperienced, race baiting, Authoritarian Socialistic misogynist ever. I mean, NEVER. Apparently, neither will Charles Krauthammer, a commentator who is growing on me (H/T to SusanUnPC for this article!).

Recently, in this article, McCain for President, Dr.Krauthammer
endorsed McCain. Dr. Krauthammer laid it all out there, saying what a lot of us out here think, too:

Contrarian that I am, I’m voting for John McCain. I’m not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it’s over before it’s over. I’m talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they’re left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe — neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) — yelling “Stop!” I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I’d rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

Well, good for him.

Scott McClellan apparently couldn’t sign up fast enough, the man who served as Bush’s mouthpiece for the war is now an Obama supporter. Funny, I haven’t heard any disdain coming out from the Obamabots about him. Or “If We Don’t Invade Iraq We Will Be Awash In White Powder” Powell. I guess it’s okay that the man who SOLD the war so many of us oppose, and one of the MAIN reasons Obamabots claim they support Obama, now endorses an Obama presidency is somehow a great achievement to these people. Logic is not their strong suit, apparently.

Krauthammer continues:

First, I’ll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The “erratic” temperament issue, for example. As if McCain’s risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.

McCain the “erratic” is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Here is what is so, so, so sad about this whole election campaign. An amazingly qualified candidate had her decades’ worth of experience minimized and belittled by her opponent, her party, members of her party, and the media, largely because she is a woman. Had anyone else had that breadth and depth of experience, they would be glorified. And now they have started on McCain, but taking a different tact. Now it is that McCain is so old his experience doesn’t matter - it’s old school, and we’re the new kids on the block. Get out the way, Gramps - the cool kids are coming through now, and they’re gonna show you how it’s REALLY done. Never mind that these wet-behind-the-ears pups haven’t the FOGGIEST into what they are getting themselves. They have proclaimed The One to be the cat’s meow, and he can do no wrong. Especially since they haven’t bothered to listen to what he actually SAYS he is going to do or how he is going to do it. I reckon they think they’ll just be getting a check from him if he’s elected, and that’s all they need. Either way, experience is BAD - inexperience is GOOD!!! Sheesh.

Krauthammer won’t put up with all of the Obama Camp nonsense, though, thank heavens:

Nor will I countenance the “dirty campaign” pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports “cutting Social Security benefits in half.” And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.

McCain’s critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What’s astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Halle-damn-lujah - Someone is saying what we have been saying. How is it that Obama has continued this relationship with this man, this “educator” trying to radicalize the youth of Chicago, who bombed the Pentagon and our Capitol Building? How can that possibly be? I think we all know the answer to that question, and the recently revealed video tapes in which Obama expresses his true ideology are confirmed. Though Barbara West, she of the interview with Biden that actually tried to get answers, said that Obama said himself, in his book, that he was intrigued by Marxism, and sought out friends with a Marxist bent. I’ll provide that video for you at the end of this post. The point is that we should ALL have been offended by Obama’s relationship to Ayers, not excusing it.

The good doctor continues his explanation for his choice, including the race-baiting of the Obama camp:

Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama’s most egregious association — with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who’s been cramming on these issues for the past year, who’s never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of “a world that stands as one”), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as “the tragedy of 9/11,” a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

Is this a trick question? Well, I agree with Krauthammer when he writes:

There’s just no comparison. Obama’s own running mate warned this week that Obama’s youth and inexperience will invite a crisis — indeed a crisis “generated” precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?

And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he’s been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.

The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.

Today’s economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I’m for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb. letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Do the Obama people just want to pretend all of McCain’s qualifications don’t exist because of his age, or because he is Republican, or because if they do acknowledge it, they will negate their own campain? In any event, so far, they have been allowed to get away with it, courtesy of the Fourth Estate. Most of the MSM never acknowledge McCain’s stand on the economy, all the way back to 2005, and Obama’s bounty from the very people who got us into this economic mess. No, rather they lump McCain into the pool of people they claim are responsible for the misfortune facing so many, TOO may, people in this country now. Apparently, creating news has become more important than reporting news, at least when it comes to Obama and McCain. And while I was opposed to the surge, thinking it was a bad idea, I have to admit that it does seem to be working now. Rather than give McCain the credit he deserves for knowing that from the beginning, media prefers to rationalize away Obama’s stand, or they seem to steer away from any discussion of what is happening in Iraq at all these days. That seems to be how they deal with everything - ignore, obfuscate, justify, manipulate, lie.

Yep, that Dr. Krauthammer is one smart man, I have to say. While I do not agree with him on everything in general, I agree with him on this: McCain is far more qualified, both in terms of experience and in terms of character, to lead this country.

As promised, here is the Barbara West piece in which she explains where she got her questions to ask Joe Biden about Obama’s socialistic tendencies. Obama himself, of course: