From Ace of Spades:
Labels: 2008 Elections, American history, Video
You decide. It seems to me that Malik Zulu Shabazz of The New Black Panther Party haughtily admitted to quite a lot in the video below the fold (hat tip to Gateway Pundit):
Labels: 2008 Elections, race relations in America, the Obama administration, Video
Now that the intitial weeping and gnashing of teeth following the election has diminished a bit, the conservative blogosphere has a task ahead, that of contrarian dissent. In my view, that dissent shouldn't descend into the lowest of the tactics shown by many of the lefties in the blogosphere and the media. On the other hand, being too refined and too dignified won't likely yield results, with either the electorate or the rebuilding of the Republican Party. Certainly, remaining quiet and sulking will have no outcome.Labels: 2008 Elections, Commentary
Labels: 2008 Elections, change, Obama
Even if you've seen this video before, watch it again. About 10 minutes in length, the video provides a possible answer as to Obama's "coming out of nowhere":
Labels: 2008 Elections, Leftism, Obama
As we count down to the remaining hours of this election, I urge all readers who have not yet voted to continue listening to what the candidates are saying; feel free to question their rhetoric.Labels: 2008 Elections, blog burst, No Obama 08
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
(With a hat tip to Bob McCarty Writes)
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay.
But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of 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 redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
(With a hat tip to Michael)
An independent lab that tests and certifies voting machines is being suspended by the federal Election Assistance Commission from testing voting systems for failing to conform to procedures and requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).Read the rest.
[...]
...SysTest [an independent laboratory which tests voting systems for certification] failed to create and validate test methods, maintain proper documentation of its testing and employ properly trained or qualified personnel.
Labels: 2008 Elections
From this source:
Surrick ruled that Berg lacked standing to bring the case, saying any harm from an allegedly ineligible candidate was "too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters."I don't know that I quibble with Berg's lacking standing. That may indeed be so.
In the “never-ending” drama that is known as the 2008 Presidential election, there is an appearance that the decision issued yesterday by the Honorable Judge R. Barclay Surrick in the matter of Berg v. Obama might have been SENT to the judge just a short time BEFORE he released the decision.Go HERE to read the rest and view the graphics.
A fax copy of the decision from Judge Surrick was faxed to Mr. Berg from the Judge’s Chambers, pages 1-36, beginning at 18:09 October 24, 2008, and that is clearly notated by the receiving fax, starting at page 01/36. Page 36/36 is marked 18:16 October 24, 2008. What is interesting is not at the TOP of the fax pages; it is at the bottom.
At the bottom of each page is a notation from another FAX machine, indicating the date, page number and time. Unlike the pages faxed from Judge Surrick’s fax at 18:09, the “name” of the fax sender is blank, presumably so the sender’s identity could not be seen, and obviously with the sender unaware that the date and time would be stamped on it. The fax began from this mystery fax at 04:55P on October 24, 2008, and ended at 05:11P.
From all appearances, the clerk at Judge Surrick’s office merely took the fax off the machine, the Judge signed it, and it was faxed to Mr. Berg and the other attorneys involved in the case....
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
(Click directly on the image to enlarge it)
Having "drunk the Kool-Aid" also refers to being a strong or fervent believer in a particular philosophy or mission — wholeheartedly or blindly believing in its virtues.The question now: Have so many voters drunk the Kool-Aid that Obama will be elected on November 4?
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama, The Wry Truth, Wry humor
Perhaps, you've seen or heard the ad, with the approval message in Obama's own voice:
Announcer: John McCain’s health care plan … first we learned he’s going to tax health care benefits to pay for part of it.From this article at FactCheck.org (Annenberg):
Now the Wall Street Journal reports John McCain would pay for the rest of his health care plan “with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid.”
Eight hundred and eighty-two billion from Medicare alone. “Requiring cuts in benefits, eligibility, or both.”
John McCain … Taxing Health Benefits … Cutting Medicare. We Can’t Afford John McCain.
Obama: I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.
● In a TV ad and in speeches, Obama is making bogus claims that McCain plans to cut $880 billion from Medicare spending and to reduce benefits.From the "Analysis" section of the article at FactCheck.org:
● A TV spot says McCain's plan requires "cuts in benefits, eligibility or both."
Obama said in a speech that McCain plans "cuts" that would force seniors to "pay more for your drugs, receive fewer services, and get lower quality care."
● Update, Oct. 21: A second Obama ad claims that McCain’s plan would bring about a 22 percent cut in benefits, “higher premiums and co-pays," and more expensive prescription drugs.
These claims are false, and based on a single newspaper report that says no such thing. McCain's policy director states unequivocally that no benefit cuts are envisioned. McCain does propose substantial "savings" through such means as cutting fraud, increased use of information technology in medicine and better handling of expensive chronic diseases. Obama himself proposes some of the same cost-saving measures. We're skeptical that either candidate can deliver the savings they promise, but that's no basis for Obama to accuse McCain of planning huge benefit cuts....
[T]o state as a matter of fact that McCain will be forced to cut benefits, or that he is proposing any such thing, is simply a falsehood designed to frighten elderly voters.Read the entire article HERE, including the links at the end.
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
This item found in the comments section of Gayle's blog:
One day after the former secretary of state endorsed him, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says if elected, he would offer formal or informal role to Colin Powell.Read the rest HERE.
WASHINGTON -- Colin Powell will have a role as a top presidential adviser in an Obama administration, the Democratic White House hopeful said Monday.
"He will have a role as one of my advisers," Barack Obama said on NBC's "Today" in an interview aired Monday, a day after Powell, a four-star general and President Bush's former secretary of state, endorsed him.
"Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss," Obama said....
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
“It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too… I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”—Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) speaking to Joe Wurzelbacher, Ohio plumber.Labels: 2008 Elections, Leftism, Obama, Wry humor
The following graphic says it all:
Obama's 95% IllusionRead the rest. The Obama tax-cuts plan is a tool for wealth redistribution.
It depends on what the meaning of 'tax cut' is
One of Barack Obama's most potent campaign claims is that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of "working families." He's even promising to cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% -- which is lower than it is today.
It's a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he's also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of "tax cut."
For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:...
What Obama's plan would do is to write a check to the millions of Americans who currently pay no taxes at all. For those of us who work for a living, we will pay higher taxes to support this massive transfer of wealth.Pity that the Obamamaniacs believe their candidate's promises. Those promises are full of hot air.
Another item in Obama's tax cuts are the tax credits he will provide. All but one of these tax credits are refundable -- the others only work if you have a tax liability. The liability is reduced by the credit, but you don't get it as a refund.
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
Note: Two posts today
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama, Obama-Ayers, Video
Did the Illinois senator violate the Logan Act in campaigning for his "ethnic cleansing" cousin's bid for the Kenyan presidency?
Labels: 2008 Elections, Obama
Labels: 2008 Elections, blog burst, No Obama 08, Obama
Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.To say Mr. Obama is not ready for the presidency is a gross understatement. It is not simply that he lacks experience … it is also that he repudiates traditional American values and culture by embracing Marxist ideology, has been an acolyte of black racist theology, cuddled up with the anarchist activism of Saul Alinski, and even worse … the man is simply and irrevocably dishonest. There is nothing about Barack Obama that may cause us to think he honors American tradition, or share with us our time-honored values.
The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers's home.
The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I've recently spent days looking through them.
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago's public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation's other key body, the "Collaborative," which shaped education policy.
The CAC's basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda.
One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's "recruitment" to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval.
The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto.
In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC.
CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead, CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).
Mr. Obama once conducted "leadership training" seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity, and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement.
CAC also funded programs designed to promote "leadership" among parents. Ostensibly this was to enable parents to advocate on behalf of their children's education. In practice, it meant funding Mr. Obama's alma mater, the Developing Communities Project, to recruit parents to its overall political agenda. CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents "organized" by community groups might be viewed by school principals "as a political threat." Mr. Obama arranged meetings with the Collaborative to smooth out Mr. Weber's objections.
The Daley documents show that Mr. Ayers sat as an ex-officio member of the board Mr. Obama chaired through CAC's first year. He also served on the board's governance committee with Mr. Obama, and worked with him to craft CAC bylaws. Mr. Ayers made presentations to board meetings chaired by Mr. Obama. Mr. Ayers spoke for the Collaborative before the board. Likewise, Mr. Obama periodically spoke for the board at meetings of the Collaborative.
The Obama campaign notes that Mr. Ayers attended only six board meetings, and stresses that the Collaborative lost its "operational role" at CAC after the first year. Yet the Collaborative was demoted to a strictly advisory role largely because of ethical concerns, since the projects of Collaborative members were receiving grants. CAC's own evaluators noted that project accountability was hampered by the board's reluctance to break away from grant decisions made in 1995. So even after Mr. Ayers's formal sway declined, the board largely adhered to the grant program he had put in place.
Mr. Ayers's defenders claim that he has redeemed himself with public-spirited education work. That claim is hard to swallow if you understand that he views his education work as an effort to stoke resistance to an oppressive American system. He likes to stress that he learned of his first teaching job while in jail for a draft-board sit-in. For Mr. Ayers, teaching and his 1960s radicalism are two sides of the same coin.
Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.
The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.
Labels: 2008 Elections, blog burst, No Obama 08, Obama
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