postcards from marilyn 37

August 26, 2008

Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers

By Michael Barone

It doesn't help the Obama campaign that William Ayers is back in the news. Ayers, you'll recall, was the Weather Underground terrorist in the late 1960s and '70s whose radical group set bombs at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. During the April 16 Democratic debate, Barack Obama explained his past association with Ayers by saying he was just a guy "in my neighborhood," meaning the University of Chicago enclave known as Hyde Park. But is that end of it? This is, after all, Chicago we're talking about; where political patronage and nepotism are the only ways one moves up the power ladder.

Decades after his radical youth, Ayers was one of the original grantees of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform organization in the 1990s, and was co-chairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one the two operational arms of the CAC. Obama, then not yet a state senator, became chairman of the CAC in 1995. Later in that year, the first organizing meeting for Obama's state Senate campaign was held in Ayers's apartment.

You might wonder what Obama was doing working with a character like this. And you might wonder how an unrepentant terrorist got a huge grant and cooperation from the Chicago public school system. You might wonder--if you don't know Chicago. For this is a city with a civic culture in which politicians, in the words of a story often told by former congressman, federal judge, and Clinton White House counsel Abner Mikva, "don't want nobody nobody sent."

That's how William Ayers got where he was. When he came out of hiding after the federal government was unable to prosecute him (because of government misconduct), he got a degree in education from Columbia and then moved to Chicago and got a job on the education faculty of the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. How did he get that job? Well, it can't have hurt that his father, Thomas Ayers, was chairman of Commonwealth Edison (now Exelon) and a charter member of the Chicago establishment. As Mayor Richard M. Daley said recently, in arguing that the Ayers association should not be held against Obama, "His father was a great friend of my father."

In none of our other major cities is genealogy so important. The voters of Chicago and Illinois respect family ties in a way that voters in no other state or city do. Mayor Daley is, of course, the son of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. The two Daleys have been mayors, and effective and competent mayors, of Chicago for 40 of the last 53 years. The attorney general of Illinois is the daughter of the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. The governor of Illinois is the son-in-law of the Democratic ward committeeman in Chicago's 33rd Ward. The congressman from the 2nd Congressional District is Jesse Jackson Jr. Jackson's predecessor-but-one in the district was Morgan Murphy Jr., whose father was chairman of (get this) Commonwealth Edison.

But my favorite example of the importance of family ties is 3rd District Rep. Dan Lipinski, who was first elected in 2004 to replace his father, Bill Lipinski, who was first elected in 1982. Bill Lipinski won the Democratic nomination in the March 2004 primary. But on Aug. 13, he announced he would not seek re-election and would resign the Democratic nomination. The deadline for replacing him was Aug.26, and a meeting was set on Aug. 17 for the 19th Ward and township Democratic committeemen to choose a new candidate. Lipinski announced his support for his son, who was then a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee and had not lived in Chicago for many years. Among the committeemen making the decision were: 11th Ward committeeman and County Commissioner John Daley, son of the late mayor and brother of the current mayor; 13th Ward committeeman Michael Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House and father of Attorney General Lisa Madigan; 14th Ward committeeman Edward Burke, who succeeded his father as a council member in his 20s and was longtime chairman of the Finance Committee, and whose wife is a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court; 19th Ward committeeman Tom Hynes, former Cook County Assessor and father of Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes; and 23rd Ward committeeman Bill Lipinski. An electorate more averse to an argument against nepotism cannot be imagined. Lipinski advanced his son's name and said, "I'm optimistic, but one never knows in politics until the votes are counted." It did not take long to count them: Dan Lipinski was nominated without opposition. To the charge that the nomination was rigged, one participant dryly noted that anyone could have run.

One reason that Chicago and Illinois voters have acquiesced to the politics of nepotism is that its products--or many of them--are quite competent. Mayor Richie Daley, if I can call him that, has on the whole been an excellent mayor. Edward Burke is a cultured man of high intellect. Michael Madigan seems to be a solidly competent sort, and for all I know his daughter is, too. Dan Rostenkowski was a highly competent chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee for 14 years, until he was laid low by a bit of cheap chiseling; at that point he and his father had been the 32nd Ward committeemen for just about 60 years. (The younger Rostenkowski got his seat in the House in 1958 because his father, Joe Rostenkowski, had supported the late Mayor Daley in the 1955 Democratic primary against fellow Polish-American Benjamin Adamowski.) There are exceptions. Many political observers would put Rod Blagojevich, the son-in-law of 33rd Ward committeeman Dick Mell, on the top of the list of the nation's dumbest governors. But then, for Chicago, it has always been more important who is mayor than who is governor (not to mention out-of-town jobs like U.S. senator).

Which leads us back to Barack Obama, who is now a U.S. senator and will shortly become the Democratic nominee for an office that even Chicago regards as more important than mayor. And the question presents itself: How did this outsider from Hawaii and Columbia and Harvard become somebody somebody sent? His wife, Michelle Robinson Obama, had some connections: Her father was a Democratic precinct committeeman; she baby-sat for Jesse Jackson's children; and she worked as a staffer for the current Mayor Daley. Obama made connections on the all-black South Side by joining the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. But was Obama's critical connection to le tout Chicago William Ayers? That's the conclusion you are led to by Steve Diamond's blog. And by the fact that the National Review's Stanley Kurtz was suddenly denied access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. (Kurtz had already been given an index to the records.) Presumably the CAC records would show a closer collaboration between Ayers and Obama than was suggested by Obama's response at the debate that Ayers was just a guy "in the neighborhood."

The increasingly sharp McCain campaign had the wit to ask the University of Illinois to open up the CAC records. But it didn't seem likely the university will open them up; as John Kass puts it in a characteristically pungent column in the Chicago Tribune, "Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Kurtz." Now the University says the archives are open. But Kurt's friends wonder if they have been flushed of inconvenient documents in the meantime.

Does it matter if William Ayers was the key somebody who made Barack Obama a somebody somebody sent? I think it does. Not that Obama shares all of Ayers's views, which surely he does not. Or that he endorses Ayers's criminal acts, which, as he has pointed out, were committed while he was a child in Hawaii and Indonesia. But his willingness to associate with an unrepentant terrorist is not the same as Daley's:

"Bill Ayers, I've said this, his father was a great friend of my father. I'll be very frank. Vietnam divided families, divided people. It was a terrible time of our country. It really separated people. People didn't know one another. Since then, I'll be very frank, (Ayers) has been in the forefront on a lot of education issues and helping us in public schools and things like that.

"People keep trying to align himself with Barack Obama. It's really unfortunate. They're friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he's been making a strong contribution to our community."

For Daley, family is paramount, and Ayers is admitted into le tout Chicago because his father is one of its pillars. And electoral politics is also paramount: In a city that is roughly 40 percent (and falling) white ethnic and 40 percent black, with an increasing gentrified white population, the current Mayor Daley has maintained very strong support from lakefront liberals, including the Hyde Park/Kenwood leftists like Ayers who were the original movers behind Obama's 1996 state Senate candidacy. It's in Daley's interest to work with these people and against his interest to do anything that seems like disrespecting them. As Bill Daley told me when I asked him some years ago whether his father would have approved of Richie marching in the gay rights parade, "Our father always told us when a group was big enough to control a ward; we should pay attention to them." Staying mayor is real important to Daley, and Daley staying mayor is real important to le tout Chicago. An unrepentant terrorist? Hey, we know your dad. And you control the 5th Ward.

For Obama, the outsider who gained the trust of the insiders, the position is different. He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate. Ayers evidently helped Obama gain insider status in Chicago civic life and politics--how much, we can't be sure. But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers's past or of Ayers's beliefs. It's something voters might reasonably want to take into account.

 

http://www.volpac.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View&
Blog_id=938

The Christian Science Monitor has a story by Ron Scherer discussing the
Census Bureau's survey of American economic health.  According to the
report, from the perspective of their pocketbook, Americans had a good
solid year last year.  The standard of living rose and the middle class
grew while the number of wealthy actually shrank somewhat compared to
2006.  At the same time, the official poverty rate was basically
unchanged, and the number of Americans without health coverage fell. 
Read the complete article here.

Illegal Immigration: Feds Add Prosecutors to Las Cruces Field Office
to Combat Border Crime
August 13 -- Las Cruces Sun-News

LAS CRUCES  Federal authorities are getting help in fighting immigration and drug crimes along New Mexico's 180-mile international border with Mexico. Seven new prosecutors are expected to be in place by November. Four of the assistant U.S. attorney positions are going to the Las Cruces field office, where immigration caseloads have increased dramatically in recent years because the Border Patrol has clamped down on illegal entries. [more]

Economics: New Left Wing Anti-Energy Strategy: Drill Nothing,
Tax Everything
August 19 -- www.HumanEvents.com

The last few days have seen left wing anti-energy Democrats scrambling to find a survivable position. When we first launched the Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less petition drive at American Solutions, left wing anti-energy Democrats were deeply and decisively opposed. [more]

Energy & Environment: Oil, Green Donors Fix Colorado Senate Race
August 15 -- The Denver Post

Targeting Colorado's U.S. Senate race as a top political priority, energy companies and environmental activists are pumping money into Bob Schaffer's and Mark Udall's campaign coffers. Environmental groups from 2007 through June gave more money to Democrat Udall than any other Senate candidate or incumbent nationwide, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. [more]

Severance Tax: First Severance Tax Plan Makes Ballot
August 18 -- Education News Colorado

The proposal to redirect some severance tax revenues to Interstate 70 improvements has been certified for the Nov. 4 ballot as Amendment 52. The measure joins seven other interest-group initiatives and four legislative referenda on what is promising to be a very crowded ballot this year. Petitions for seven other proposals await verification. [more]

 

August 2008

The Porker of the Month Hall of Shame

Nominate a Porker of the Month

Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

 

Speaker of the House
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
Washington Office:
Phone: 202-225-4965
Fax: 202-225-8259
http://www.house.gov/pelosi
Email Form

Majority Leader
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
Washington Office:
Phone: 202-224-3542
Fax: 202-224-7327
http://reid.senate.gov/
Email Form

CAGW Names Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid
Porkers of the Month

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) its August Porkers of the Month for leading a do-nothing Congress into a five week vacation.

Congress left for its traditional August recess after accomplishing nothing.  Of the 106 bills enacted since January, 94, or 89 percent were to name government buildings or lands, extend or make technical corrections to existing laws, or passed either by unanimous consent or with less than 10 dissenting votes.  The accomplishments included “Frank Sinatra Day,” National Plumbing Industry Week,” and “National Day of the Cowboy.”

The deadline for passing the 12 annual appropriations bills has been deliberately ignored.  Only one of the bills has passed the House, and only four others have been approved by the House Appropriations Committee.  In the Senate, nine have been approved by the Appropriations Committee but none have reached the floor.  There are two reasons for this failure to act.  First, the Speaker and Majority Leader appear to be waiting for the presidential election to decide what to do with these bills, hoping that the winner in November would favor higher spending and more earmarks.

Second, the moratorium on offshore drilling expires on September 30, and it is usually renewed through the appropriations process.  However, both Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are opposed to lifting the moratorium.  Rather than allowing a vote, they shut down Congress.  House Republicans took to the darkened House floor, demanding that Congress go back into session and hold an up-or-down vote to lift the drilling ban.

The Speaker’s first response was to continue her taxpayer-financed vacation to promote her new book.  She has since indicated some willingness to consider a vote, but only tied to a larger (and costly) energy package.  Majority Leader Reid’s response has been to threaten to shut down the government by refusing to allow any appropriations bills to reach the Senate floor, including a continuing resolution that would allow agencies to operate at the fiscal year 2008 spending levels.

For leaving town after Congress has spent nearly all of its time on frivolous legislation, failing to address critical issues, and threatening a government shutdown, CAGW names Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid its August 2008 Porkers of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

####

For more information, contact:    Alexa Moutevelis          
                                                202-467
-5318                 
                                                amoutevelis@cagw.org

After a long slide, dollar on the rebound A stronger US currency reduces inflation pressures, but American exports could run into head winds. By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the August 20, 2008 edition

New York - This fall, as customers shop for imported olive oil and pungent French cheeses at Fairway Market's stores in Manhattan, they will be in for a pleasant surprise: Their prices are coming down.

Lower food prices?

Yes, thanks to a somewhat more muscular dollar, the greenback is up 10 percent compared with other major world currencies in the past month. Some importers, such as Fairway Market, are trying to pass on the savings to customers. The rise of US currency is taking place in large part because the rest of the world is looking at slower growth or, in some cases, even recession.

A more powerful dollar has important implications. It takes some pressure off hedge funds to put money into oil, whose price continues to fall. A stronger dollar reduces some of the inflation pressures, which should give the Federal Reserve the opportunity to keep interest rates where they are.

But a more muscular greenback also means it becomes more expensive for Europeans to buy American condos and beach cottages. And exports of US goods, which have been strong, may run into head winds if the dollar keeps rising.

"The stronger dollar at this point is a net positive," says Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics in Minneapolis. "There has been enough depreciation to give us a boost and enough stability to help us on the inflation front."

Before the recent rally, the dollar had fallen about 45 percent from its peak in 2002. The short-term boost means the dollar is now down about 36 percent from that peak.

"If the dollar continues to strengthen, it does open the door for oil prices to move lower," says Jay Bryson, international economist at Wachovia Economics Group in Charlotte, N.C.

On Tuesday morning, the price of oil on the commodities markets fell below $112.50 a barrel, down from a peak $145.85 in early July.

One main reason for the falling price of oil and the rising dollar is the slowing world economy, Mr. Bryson says. For example, the German economy, a powerful engine for Europe, is starting to slow as global investment spending weakens.

"Whereas two months ago some thought the European Central Bank would raise interest rates, now things in Europe are looking pretty shaky," he says. "If anything, interest may be skewered to the downside."

In fact, the Japanese economy appears to already be in recession, says Sung Won Sohn, a professor of economics at California State University, Channel Islands. "Japanese exports are lower than a year ago, and that is the first time that has happened in the [post-World War II] period," Mr. Sohn says. "It tells you how slow the global economy is."

One indication of the change in trade flows to the United States can be seen at California's Port of Long Beach, the second-largest US port. For the past several years, the biggest export there was empty containers, says Larry Cottrill, director of master planning at the port. Now when vessels leave the port, he says, they are carrying more full containers.

"In San Pedro Bay [the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach], loaded exports increased 22.5 percent for the first six months of 2008 compared to the same period last year," Mr. Cottrill says. "The stronger dollar will not work its way through until 2009."

In part, this lag with the dollar is because of the long lead times for business. For example, Ransom + Scout, a recently established leather bag company in Santa Fe, N.M., purchased its first shipment of Italian leather in January and then reordered in June. "What we noticed is price increases," says Gary Hahs, managing partner, who was exhibiting the company's decorative handbags at the New York International Gift Fair this week. "The recent strength of the dollar hasn't trickled down yet."

A stronger dollar should help another handbag manufacturer, Murval Paris, says its chief executive officer, Bruno Zerdoun. His company, which manufacturers most of its goods in China, tried to absorb price increases while the dollar was weak, he says. "It was tough not to raise prices," says Mr. Zerdoun, who was also at the gift fair.

Many companies exporting to the US tried to cope with the falling dollar by pricing their goods in US dollars. Now, with the dollar increasing, this helps their profit margins. "It's good for business, bad for shopping in New York," says Tess Lloyd, a designer at Polli, a jewelry firm in Sydney, Australia. The Australian dollar has fallen compared with the US dollar.

Importer and exporter Paul Stewart-Stand of Brooklyn says the relatively weak dollar in June helped him win an order from a British firm for 24,000 collapsible cups. "The sale was driven by the strength of the pound sterling," he says. "With the type of volume we're dealing with, we don't feel a 5 percent change [in currency]."

However, grocer Steve Jenkins of Fairway says the stronger US dollar has helped restore his profit margins on the cheeses and imported foods for sale at his Upper West Side market. "We get 400 to 600 different types of cheeses, and the vast majority are European, from Italian Parmigiano Reggiano to Spanish Manchegos. I suspect we will be able to charge less," he says.

He anticipates the lower prices will also extend to olive oils. "We get 11 private brands of olive oil, plus one store label – all from the Mediterranean basin – not to mention 14 organic brands," he says. "I expect all will be less expensive this fall, even before the new crop is pressed."

 

The University of Illinois Chicago refuses to release documents held at the public institution's library relating to the Annenberg Challenge on Excellence in Education.

The Annenberg Challenge was run by none other than Barack Obama and was started by terrorist Bill Ayers, in whose home Barack Obama got his political start.

The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library at the university had agreed to make the documents available for review by reporters, but the university then refused.

The records now will not be released.

What is the University of Illinois hiding?  Is it destroying damning information about Obama before deciding to release the information?

Contact the Richard J. Daley Library at (312) 996-2724 and tell them to release the Annenberg Challenge files for public inspection.

Call Barack Obama at (202) 224-2854 and ask him to support the public release of the Annenberg Challenge files.

What are they hiding?  I suspect the documents will show that Barack Obama had a direct, substantial relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers -- a relationship Obama denies having.

But we will not know without your help.

Call now.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

 this is an old article but thought it contained some important reminders   m

 

Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 28, 2008
 

Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

IBD Series: The Audacity Of Socialism <http://www.ibdeditorials.com/series8.aspx
> 
The website shown above contains a series of articles on Obama, which I think are very insightful. 


During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

 

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.
 
It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.
 
"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.
 
In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).
 
Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.
 
It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.
 
Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.
 
Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.
 
Among his proposed "investments":

• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.

• "Free" college tuition.

• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).

• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").

• "Free" job training (even for criminals).

• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).

• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.

• More subsidized public housing.

• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."

• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.
 
His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.
 
That's just for starters — first-term stuff.
 
Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.
 
You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.
 
But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?
 
Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.
 
The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.

A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."
 
As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.

"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."
 
After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.
 
His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.
 
The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.
 
After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.
 
While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.
 
(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)
 
Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.
 
As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."
 
His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."
 
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and siphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."
 
Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.
 
(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)

In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe,Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
 
With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.
 
Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.  (Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)
 
With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."
 
He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.
 
Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."

He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.
Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.
 
Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.
 
The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.
But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
 
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
 
A perfect storm of statism* is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
 
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.

 statism* - the theory, or its practice, that economic and political power should be controlled by a central government leaving regional government and the individual with relatively little say in political matters.

US CENTCOM Press Release – OUR COLATION MULTI NATIONAL FORCE IS ALIVE AND WELL.  M

Bahrain Defense Force chief of staff vsits NAVCENT HQ

5th Fleet Public Affairs  

MANAMA, Bahrain – Bahrain Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Shaikh Duaij Bin Salman Al-Alkhalifa visited U.S. Naval Forces Central Command headquarters April 27 to discuss Bahrain’s role in the Coalition as well as Combined Task Force (CTF) 152 operations.

“I am looking forward to continued interaction with the U.S. Navy and other Coalition forces to increase the cooperation for a better and safer world,” said Gen. Al Alkalifa.  “I am very proud of the close work we have taken part in with the Coalition.”

March 4 Royal Bahrain Navy Brig. Gen. Abdulla Saeed Al Mansoori relieved U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Bill Gortney as CTF 152 in a ceremony held at the Bahraini Naval Headquarters, marking the first time Coalition forces have been commanded by a Gulf nation.  Established in March 2004, CTF 152 is responsible for conducting Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in the central and southern Arabian Gulf.

Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, commander, Combined Maritime Forces, said Bahrain taking charge of CTF 152 represents an important success of the Coalition.

“Our maritime forces interact with virtually every country in the region. And to my thinking, the combination of persistent, credible naval powers conducting maritime security operations is precisely the sort of things we ought to be doing.  The key to success in this region is the fullest possible integration of all Coalition and regional partners.”

MSO help develop security in the maritime environment, which promotes stability and global prosperity.  These operations complement the counterterrorism and security efforts of regional nations and seek to disrupt violent extremists’ use of the maritime environment as a venue for attack or to transport personnel, weapons or other material. -30-  Bookmark: del.icio.us, digg it

Tag: CTF 158, NAVCENT, Fifth Fleet, Combined Maritime Forces, Maritime Security Operations, Navy

Multimedia: http://www.cusnc.navy.mil/articles/2008/XX.html

COGCC: COMPROMISE COMING?

Those close to deliberations of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission hearings over proposed new drilling regulations say the commission is nearing a compromise on the new regulations. Commission members have urged staff to see if they could “revise or resolve conflicts through compromise language.” A final decision is due next month.

-Rocky Mountain News, 08.19.08

God Bless the men and Women serving our Great Country.  And God Bless the families that are at home missing them and praying for there safe return.  m

TURN UP YOUR SPEAKERS !!!!!

this is very nice ~~ awesome video
this soldier video is new and different.  it is moving and heartwarming. enjoy and pass it on! i am told three soldiers wrote the song and put this together in their 'free time' over there. the singer needs a recording contract when he comes home!

http://www.flashdemo.net/gallery/wake/index.htm<
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Carroll: Udall Faces Reality

Friday, August 15, 2008

Vincent Carroll
Rocky Mountain News

If you want to know why U.S. Rep. Mark Udall switched his stand this week on offshore drilling, direct your attention to a poll that appeared in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. When unaffiliated voters were asked whether they would be more or less likely to support someone who favored easing restrictions on offshore drilling, 60 percent answered "more likely" while only 28 percent went the other way (the issue apparently didn't matter to some).

Even Democrats tilted slightly in favor of easing restrictions.

Udall, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and a longtime foe of offshore drilling (and much other drilling besides), recognizes an albatross when he sees one clinging to his neck. So he tried to yank it off by reversing his position. We'll see if he succeeds.

Two years ago, when a Rocky editorial called Udall shortsighted for voting against a bill to ease the ban on offshore drilling for natural gas (oil wasn't even on the table in order to eliminate fearmongering about spills), Udall wrote to say that we had "oversimplified the question."

Drilling "may be justified with the right safeguards," he maintained, but "that has not been properly established."

One would have thought that the vast experience of extracting natural gas in the western Gulf of Mexico had established that safeguards could be successfully imposed elsewhere, but the congressman was very picky at the time.

More to the point, perhaps, gasoline wasn't $4 a gallon.
Click here to read the full story.