Flag Day

From Milchelle Malkin's blog.

This is Barak's friend Bill Ayres in 2001 ... I see he doesn't wear a flag pin either

Fickled Finger of Fate

See Barak Obama's fickled finger of fate at:

The Natural Truth (Thanks to Michael Graham)

Notice the audience's reaction and his smirk.

For you who have already drunk the Kool Aid, here are the ten reasons for this smirch:
1) His face really was itchy
2) It was clearly accidental
3) He was surprised at the audience's reaction, ergo the smirk
4) Hillary video-edited this YouTube snippet
5) He was auditioning for "Animal House II"
6) Hillary disserved it (I might even agree with this one)
7) He was practicing acting “presidential”
8) His other fingers are paralyzed (from bowling)
9) It was really directed at Bush
10) This was the patriotic salute he learned at Harvard Law School

Signed,
A Typical (Bitter) White Person

Obama Nation

My many liberal Massachusetts friends (it’s in the water) have convinced me that it is inevitable that Barak Obama will be elected our next President. So, to adjust myself to this rather unpleasant thought, I have made a list of things that I’m pretty certain will occur during his administration(s):
- As a reward for his help in the election, Bill Clinton will be named our U.N. Ambassador
- The U.S. will recognize Hamas
- Bill Richardson will be named our Secretary of State
- Taxes will be increased across the board
- The budgets for the Defense Department and U.S intelligence activities will be slashed
- President Obama will sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and bin Laden
- Lani Guinier will be appointed to the Supreme Court (and confirmed this time)
- The U.S. will withdraw from NATO
- Sharia law will be made a local option throughout the U.S.
- Jimmie Carter, George Soros, and Louis Farrakhan will be given the Medal of Freedom
- All U.S. soldiers will be out of Iraq and Afghanistan by July 1, 2009
- John Murta will be named the U.S. Secretary of Defense
- The U.S. will stop all foreign and military aid to Israel
- All wire-taps will be stopped and those who have been tapped will be informed and any such evidence collected will be destroyed
- Illegal immigrants will be granted amnesty and given Social Security benefits
- Our new Attorney General will be John Edwards
- Raila Odinga, Barack cousin, will be recognized by the U.S. as Kenya’s legitimate president
- Presidential pardons – O.J. Simpson, Jose Padilla, Michael Vick, Lynne Stewart and all current and past Guantanamo prisoners
- Oil will hit $200 per barrel
- Bill Moyers will be (re)named Presidential Press Secretary
- Deval Patrick will be named the Secretary of the Interior
- A national carbon tax will be endorsed by the U.S. and implemented through the U.N.

Coal in Our Stocking

“By Reuters 07 Apr 2008 03:16 PM ET Global coal supply will fall short by up to 35 million tons in 2008 and the deficit is set to grow going forward, ensuring that prices remain strong, the CEO of coal miner Arch Coal said on Monday.”

A few weeks ago another commentator (on CNBC) said that the “United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal.” (Montana, Illinois, Wyoming and other states basically sit on hundreds of square miles of easily strip-mined coal. See US Coal Sources.) Hmm, does this suggest to you what it suggests to me? I think that the United States should form a coal cartel (OCEC = Organization of Coal Exporting Countries) just like the world oil cartel, OPEC. Since China has recently gone from a coal exporter to a net coal importer, perhaps we can drive up the price of coal far enough so that we can pay for all our stupid imports and rebalance our balance of payments.

Wouldn’t that be a sweet Christmas present?

TAXING TIMES

The Clintons have released their tax returns covering the years 2000 through 2007. During this time they earned $109 million and paid $33.8 million in federal taxes (31%). There are a few interesting twists to these disclosures:

- What about all the furniture and Presidential gifts that the Clintons trucked out of the White House in the fall of 2000. Was this largess declared on their disclosed tax forms? It has been estimated by some that this thievery was worth hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. Also did the Clintons pay taxes on all the improvements that the U.S. taxpayers made to their home in Chappaqua, NY?

- Bill and Hillary gave $10.2 million to charity over this period. However, according to the NY Times, virtually all this money was donated to a Clinton-run family foundation. (Sourced from the NY Times via Drudge). Not only does this allow the Clintons to move tax-sheltered money from one pocket to another but it also draws a curtain between the Clintons and the ultimate receivers of these "gifts". According to the Times “the Clintons ha[ve] given away only about half of the money they put into it, and most of that was last year, after Mrs. Clinton declared her candidacy.” I wonder to whom?

- Does the income that the Clinton’s received from their book deals jibe with the number of books sold? According to the NY Times “Mr. Clinton has earned $29.6 million from two books, ‘My Life’ [$12 million advance, estimated 2.25 million sales @ $26 per book at Barnes & Noble] and ‘Giving,’ [@ $29.95 at B&N] while Mrs. Clinton has collected $10.5 million from two books, ‘Living History’ [$8 million advance, @ $14.40 at B&N ] and ‘It Takes a Village’ [@ $25 at B&N]. She donated $1.1 million from book proceeds to charity. Mr. Clinton last year earned $6.3 million from ‘Giving,’ a book on philanthropy, and reported giving $1 million of that to charity. [Assumedly both these charitable donations were also to the family foundation.]” From what I have been able to calculate, it doesn’t add up (assume a generous 15% royalty). Do the math yourself. (If the Clintons got $40.1 million from these 4 books with a 15% royalty, this means that $267.3 million of books had to have been sold. Assuming an average price of around $25 per book, this means that over 10 million books had to have been sold … or over 2.5 million copies per book. This is more than the biggest book, “My Life” sold. Are these book deals something more than arms-length transactions?)

FOOLS RUSH IN

Rush Limbaugh recently said the following: “When small men cast long shadows, it’s a sure sign that the sun is setting.” I’m not sure that this epigram is original to him, but it sure makes a lot of sense in the current context.

Liberal Progressive

Barak Obama does not want to be known as a liberal. (Or should I say that Barak Obama’s very savvy handlers don’t want him to be tagged as a liberal.) They want him to be known as a “progressive” (in the mold of Robert LaFollett and Teddy Roosevelt??) [From Drudge] “Obama, in an interview, said that ‘a lot of these old labels don't apply anymore.’ He said he was a progressive and a pragmatist, eager to tackle the big issues like health care and convinced that the Democrats could rally independents and disaffected Republicans to their agenda.

Again a politician’s pronouncements don’t jibe with the facts. Here are a few things I have picked up on the internet about Barak's church. See http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

"The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision: [italics mine]
1) A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2) A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3) A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4) A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5) A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6) A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7) A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF
AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8) A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9) A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10) A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY."

Most of these points are fine, but the one that bothers me the most is #10. "Working toward economic parity" ... to me this means an adherence to Socialism. (I think this might be considered liberal.) And the word "liberation" also pops out because the Reverend Wright is an avowed proponent of the "Black Liberation Philosophy" … also liberal with a capital “L”. See Obama’s Mentors

Also, here are a list of the 12 precepts that each member of the Trinity United Church of Christ must sign when he/she joins the church (including Barak and Michelle.Obama.) [italics mine]

"Below are the church's 12-precepts and covenantal statements called the Black Value System.
- Commitment to God
- Commitment to the Black Community
- Commitment to the Black Family
- Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
- Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
- Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
- Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
- Disavowal of the Pursuit of "Middleclassness [sic]"
- Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired
skills available to the Black Community
- Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources
for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions
- Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and
embrace the Black Value System
- Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value
System."

Again, what does "disavowal of the pursuit of middleclassness" mean? Is this a referral to the middle class whom the Communists used to call the "bourgeoisie" and tried valiantly to destroy? I’m pretty certain that this falls under the precepts of a “liberal”. Don't forget that Barak aspires to preside over a country which derives much of its strength from its large and prosperous middle class.

Flagging Candidacy

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, in his sermon right after 9/11/2001 called what happened at the World Trade Towers and at the Pentagon fully justified considering what the U.S. had done to Japan with our atomic bombs and added that it was the “chickens coming home to roost.”

In his sermon on the Sunday following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Wright suggested the United States had brought on the attacks. From: this source

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright said. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Interestingly and coincidently, Barak Obama also stopped wearing his American flag lapel pin shortly after 9/11. From: this source

Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism." (italics mine)

Could Obama have taken his clue about not wearing his American flag pin from Reverend Wright’s polemics? Despite the message sent by that phalanx of American flags behind him in his speech today, this is a question Americans may well have to answer before they enter the voting booth this coming November.

Am I a Racist?

I have been accused of being a racist because I don’t support Barak Obama for President. I, myself, have done some soul searching. I definitely like Obama’s style and his upbeat message … but I find little to like in his politics. I also question his management ability. Even though his campaign seems well run, our huge U.S. bureaucracy is something else again. Being from Massachusetts, I have seen first-hand how Deval Patrick’s starry-eyed message of “together we can” has turned into “together we can’t.” Part of my soul searching has involved making a list of those blacks that I like and those that I dislike. In my heart, I don’t believe that any of those blacks I dislike has anything to do with the amount of melanin in their skin. It usually has to do with their political bent, the lack of content in their character … or, that their reputation far exceeds their talents. Read the following taxonomy of my likes and dislikes … and you decide:

Blacks I like: Bill Cosby, Hank Aaron, Thomas Sowell, Condoleezza Rice, Walter E. Williams, James Golden (aka Bo Snerdly), Roy Innis, Tiger Woods, Clarence Thomas, Barbara Jordan, Sidney Poitier, Ward Connerly, Bill Russell, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Joe Lewis, Nat King Cole, Alan Keyes, Dinesh D'Souza, Juan Williams

Blacks I don’t like: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, O.J. Simpson, Louis Farrakhan, Kweisi Mfume, Cynthia A. McKinney, Carole Moseley-Braun, William J. Jefferson, Whoopi Goldberg, Harry Belafonte, Cornell West, Bill Clinton, Myah Angelou, Michelle Obama, Danny Glover, Dennis Rodman, Michael Jackson, Don King, Franklin Raines, Angela Davis, Naomi Campbell, Henry Lewis Gates, Johnnie Cochran

Blacks I am ambivalent about: Barak Obama, Colin Powell, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Oprah Winfrey, J.C. Watts

FLAG DAY

Eliot Spitzer, when he appeared in front of the press yesterday to apologize for his unspecified sexual peccadilloes, wore a crossed-flag pin on his suit lapel … one flag of which was Old Glory (unlike Barak Obama). The wire-transferred $4,300 question is – what was the other flag? It is not clear from the photo in the NY Times, but that doesn’t stop me from speculating. Could it be the New York state flag? Maybe it’s the Mexican flag … commemorating his trying to give illegal immigrants drivers licenses? Perhaps Richard Grasso gave him the New York Stock Exchange flag (but I doubt it)? Or, might it be the embroidered logo of the Emperors Club VIP?

George Fox

Ohh-Ohh-Ohh Feelings

A tip of the hat to Joe’s Dartblog for this directive:
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/849oyckg.asp

It seems that Barak Obama first priority in selecting new federal justices would be how empathetic they would be to the downtrodden. This, in the mind of our would-be President, appears to be ahead of the rule of law, precedent, and Constitutional intent. Somehow I remember that the image of “Justice” is blindfolded and holding up a set of scales with nary a finger on either side. However, Hillary would probably outdo Barak in this department. She most likely would prefer her judicial nominees to take feelings and precedent into account … unfortunately, like Justice Stephen Breyer, it would be French precedent or Italian precedent or Indonesian precedent or…

ANOTHER QUESTION

If the Democrat party can’t run their own primary process without tying themselves in knots, how can they be expected to run this country?

A Concerned Citizen

P.S. for Barak Obama: Hillary has now once again arisen from the grave to pose a threat to your nomination. My advice for you is to find a nice heavy mallet and a good sharp wooden stake.

An Economic Disconnect

The stock market is up three days in a row! This despite the fact that inflation is rearing its ugly head. The dollar is on life support. Each new quarter brings more huge write-offs in the financial sector. House prices are swooning and the U.S. auto industry is on the ropes, etc. etc. So why is the market going up? Could it be that inflation might be good for us (for a change)? The U.S. consumer has been on a spending binge and our savings rate is microscopic. Inflation would devalue the dollar and push up interest rates (eventually). This would make paying back debts (both national and personal) easier and encourage savings growth. And a cheaper dollar boosts exports and constrains imports. So perhaps the medicine (for now) is more inflation?

Obamarama

At the risk of being called a racist neocon (again) and based upon the fact that Barak almost certainly will be the Democrat candidate for President of the United States, I offer two internet links to info on the Obamas. The first is a video of him when he was President of his freshman class at Occidental College (THIS, IT TURNS OUT, IS A SPOOF AND I AM CERTAINLY CHAGRINED AT HAVING INCLUDED IT HERE ... BUT ALSO QUITE PUZZLED AS TO THE MOTIVATION OF ITS CREATOR. I LEAVE IT IN HERE SO THAT YOU MAY SEE IT AND NOT BE FOOLED BY IT IN THE FUTURE):
Barak in College

The second is a link (in four parts) to Michelle Obama’s senior thesis at Princeton. This is unique in that Princeton has now shut down access to this document:
Michelle in College

No smoking gun here, but this will give you a better idea of who might well be our first family.

Google Giggle

“MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA: More than three decades after the last Apollo astronauts roamed the lunar surface, disparate universities, open-source engineers and quixotic aerospace start-ups are planning to start their own robotic missions to the Earth's barren cousin.
The return to the moon is part of the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition sponsored by Google with $30 million in prizes for the first two teams to land a robotic rover on the moon and send images and other data back home.”

SELL!!!

A Healthy Debate

I have a question that I would like asked of both Hillary and Barak in their next (and final) debate:

When you both say you want to have government-paid-for health insurance for all Americans (as good as that for those in Congress), does this include all 12 million illegal immigrants, all 6.6 million Americans living abroad, all 3.2 millionaires, all 2.3 million prisoners, all 40,000 multi-millionaires, and Bill Gates?

McCain Mutiny

The NY Times championed John McCain's quest for the Republican nomination until such time as it looks like he has it sewn up. Then they do a U-turn and do a front-page hit piece on him implying that he was schtooffing a pretty blond lobbyist in exchange for legislative favors. I have no idea whether these charges are true or not … but I do know that these implications sound a lot like that old Italian phrase for pederasty -- innuendo

TWIN PEAKS

A tip of the hat to the Politico blog in its making this apt comparison between Deval Patrick’s rhetoric and Barak Obama’s (the NY Times also references it this AM) … as follows:

“Here's Patrick at a rally for his gubernatorial campaign on Oct. 15, 2006, during the final stretch of his successful campaign against then-Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R): “But her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is that all I have to offer is words — just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, [applause and cheers] that all men are created equal.’ [Sustained applause and cheers.] Just words – just words! ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words! ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ Just words! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words!”

Here’s Obama on Saturday night at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Founders Day Gala in Milwaukee: “Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words! [Applause.] ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words — just speeches!”An Obama official said: “They're friends who share similar views and talk and trade good lines all the time.””

(Remember that both Patrick and Obama have the same campaign strategist – David Axelrod.) Maybe this obvious similarity is why Hillary won both the New Hampshire and Massachusetts Democrat primaries. We here have had first-hand experiences on how hard it is to translate rhetoric into action. I expect that the rest of the country may still have to learn this lesson.

GORED

“Gore Warns Business Leaders To Dump 'Subprime Carbon Assets' Feb 14, 2008 17:56:47 (ET)

UNITED NATIONS (AP)--Nobel laureate Al Gore advised Wall Street leaders and institutional investors Thursday to ditch their "subprime carbon assets" - businesses too reliant on carbon-intensive energy - or prepare for huge losses down the road.
"You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you - as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you - that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets," said the former U.S. vice president who won a Nobel Prize for his environmental work.
Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the leading greenhouse gas, trapping the sun's heat in the atmosphere.
Gore's remarks before a high-profile business crowd that collectively controls some $20 trillion in capital were intended to unleash a financial ripple effect that would force the entire world to start putting a price on carbon emissions and treating them as a scarce commodity.”

I frequently have thought that Al Gore is nuts. First, when he put this country through weeks of political and financial turmoil in 2000 over the vote recount in Florida. Then, when he propagandized global warming in his movie full of half truths. And now, with the above incendiary speech. In fact, now I am sure he is cocoa-pie. It is the height of irresponsibility to utter such inflammatory (and unproven) words to an audience of businessmen who, if panicked, could bring down financial markets around the world. This truly is like yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater. Al baby, it’s time for the rubber room.

Lester Lanin vs. Ice T

FROM THE POLITICO BLOG:
"Grammy-winning Senator Obama is scheduled to meet in Chapel Hill tonight chez potential endorser Senator EDWARDS, the papers report. Wonder if they'll use the mansion's basketball court or squash court?"

Referring to Edwards' greenhouse gas producing mansion outside Chapel Hill, NC.
To me this is stereotyping ... perhaps they could listen to Lester Lanin on the music center ... or would it be Ice T?