Recently in Obama Category

What is Obama doing with his grandiose rescue plan for the economy? He is frightening people all over again, stirring the panic that had begun to subside.

He wants the government to dispense now -- urgently -- a trillion dollars as the "last chance" "to save the American economy." He, Obama, can and will do it.

Such government programs didn't end the Great Depression; as studies show (for example, Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man), they actually lengthened it and caused the economy to continue in stagnation. But, politically, it was a master stroke for FDR and his Democratic Party. It kept them in power for years. (By the way, The Forgotten Man was he who ultimately had to pay the bills for all that spending.)

OBAMA'S PLAN IS TO TRANSFORM AMERICA INTO A SOCIALIST SOCIETY DEPENDENT ON THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

Community Organizer-in-Chief Obama is following the Marxist Saul Alinsky (Rules for Radicals) playbook to destroy capitalism and replace it with totalitarian socialism, with power in and dependence on the government, which spreads wealth to those it deems deserving taken from those who have earned it.

The fiscal crisis has handed Obama the Alinsky opportunity of a lifetime. Obama can condemn what brought it about (capitalist society) that isn't working for the middle class and assert that only immense government action can save the country. The re-panicked people need to be saved. To mask what he's doing, he talks about the great history of American innovation, initiative and entrepreneurship that one day will be restored. He says individuals will get "tax cuts," but nobody's tax is being cut, it's wealth redistribution. Why, he even rolled out new Doublespeak, referring to himself as a "pragmatic conservative." Do not be misled: His intention is to create a society of dependence on government largesse (of course equally distributed), not enlarging opportunity for all.

And at the top of this totalitarian society is Obama the Benevolent dispensing favors, which suits his narcissist personality (as evidenced repeatedly throughout the campaign, e.g., Greek temple settings, healing the planet, waters receding, words coming from above to tell one and all to vote for Obama, we (that is, I) are the one(s) we have been waiting for).

It is a dangerous time for the American way of life. With Democrats in power in Congress and the White House, replacing equal opportunity with equality of outcome as dictated by the government has never been closer. And the ever enlarging dependent class will deliver dependable votes to those (Democrats) who bestow the favors. We are already dangerously close to having half the adult population paying no income tax at all; how much will they care about taxing earners and producers?

Obama has made it clear (most openly so in a Chicago radio interview) he finds the U.S. Constitution flawed because it only addressed what government couldn't do to the people, not what the government should do for the people. The idea that people should be free to make their life choices is not good enough for Obama. He wants the government to fill their outthrust hands, making sure nobody gets too much. In Obama's view, the government should run the economy, not just regulate it. Does anyone really believe the government can create utopia? How far from Reagan's view can Obama's be -- Reagan who said some of the most dangerous words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

When will his economic advisors finally figure out what he's doing and speak up? Summers and Volcker are not socialist ideologues and surely are not part of the Obama conspiracy. But his Democratc (Chicago) political advisors, who want lasting power, and supporters (such as ACORN) are. And, most importantly, so is his newly appointed Domestic Policy Advisor Chicagoan Cass Sunstein, who already has served Obama by last March explaining away his campaign remarks about "redistributive change," the kind of slip Obama also made with Joe the Plumber.

As Alinsky says, first you have to make your target constituency unhappy and resentful about their current circumstances, then rally them with "hope" and "change" to demand a better deal. Obama paints a bleak picture, calls on Congress for urgent action on massive wealth distribution to the people to cure the disease infecting America. Just listen to him about what omnipotent government can do: The people who have lost their jobs are "counting on us" as are those who have lost their homes. He will save us.

When the debt the government incurs to pay these hundreds of billions (trillions?) comes due, you can be sure that those who have earned and saved and succeeded will be the ones paying for the handouts to those who have not.

For all those successful folks who supported Obama and never paid any attention to his Marxist background (if they even bothered to learn about it), a very rude shock is coming.

The twin desires of Congressional Democrats for never-ending political power and Obama's for a totalitarian socialist state over which he rules are coming together to threaten America's future as a land of opportunity.

The socialist ideologue Obama, lacking any real world experience, plans to put his textbook utopian dreams to work. But there is no utopia.

Who will stop them before severe damage is done?

FOOTNOTE: Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal carried a wonderfully titled piece "From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years" detailing how Ayn Rand's fictional magnum opus about capitalism's defeat at socialist hands is currently playing out in our bailout and handout hysteria. Stephen Moore summarizes:

[T]he moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

Our housing bubble was blown up to the point of explosion by Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank and his Democratic do-good colleagues promoting mortgage loans to people who could not afford them. Now that the burst bubble has triggered a global crisis of credit confidence, Barney and friends, including the incoming president Obama, are front in center with more good ideas of how government can help.

As for Rand's novel, there were critics but, asMoore recount, the messsage was there:

Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer.

It is happening.

The Illnois circus about Obama's Senate successor may be drawing to a close. Obama continued the habit he showed throughout the campaign of taking a position, then reversing it without ever admitting he had changed his position. And the media dutifully declines to take note of it and ask why he had taken the position in the first place and then changed.

Senate Democrats said Burris, an African-American former attorney general of Illinois appointed by the Democratic governor of Illinois Blagojevich, who is immersed in accusations of political corruption but not formally charged by prosecutors, would not be seated in the Senate. They had no legal ground for their position. Obama immediately agreed with the Senate Democratic leadership that Burris should not be admitted as the junior senator from Illinois, even though Burris' record had no blemishes on it.

Burris then made a rain-soaked appearance at the Capitol surrounded by black supporters, drawing much national and international television. The lawlessness and political stupidity of the Democratic position were aired for all to see.

Suddenly, Democratic leaders found that just maybe Burris could join their ranks. And Obama also reversed himself. and agreed. The king can do no wrong, so the press merely nodded. After all, the alternative, a special election in Illinois in which, who knows, a Republican might win, was out of the question.

Even the press is protective of Obama in its headline, making it appear as if Obama took the lead on admitting Obama. Not a mention of Obama supporting the rejection of Burris in the first place before all the media attention arose until the sixth paragraph of the story.

Senate Democrats yield to Obama, retreat on Burris
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 8, 2:21 am ET

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats beat a hasty retreat Wednesday from their rejection of Roland Burris as President-elect Barack Obama's successor, yielding to pressure from Obama himself and from senators irked that the standoff was draining attention and putting them in a bad light. Burris said with a smile he expected to join them "very shortly."

Though there was no agreement yet to swear Burris in, he posed for photos at the Capitol with Senate leaders, then joined them for a 45-minute meeting followed by supportive words that bordered on gushing. The events came one day after Burris had left the Capitol in the pouring rain in a scripted rejection.

Obama had spoken to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday on the need to find a quick solution to defuse the dispute, according to Democratic officials. Reid was told by Obama that if Burris had the legal standing to be seated — despite controversy surrounding his appointment by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — it should be done "sooner rather than later," said an Obama transition aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because the conversation was private.

The dispute had taken on racial overtones after comments by some Burris supporters. The former Illinois attorney general would be the Senate's only black member following Obama's departure.

"My whole interest in this experience is to be prepared" to lead Illinois, Burris, 71, said after meeting with Reid and assistant Democratic leader Dick Durbin, himself an Illinois senator. "Very shortly I will have the opportunity to do that."

Neither Reid nor Durbin disputed that, though they had declared with certainty a week ago that Democrats would not seat a senator appointed by a governor now accused of trying to sell the seat. Obama said then, "I agree with their decision."

On Wednesday, only words of good will, with photos, poured forth.

The new stimulus plan being proposed by the soon-to-be Obama administration is said to contain "tax cuts" for businesses and individuals. No details as yet have been issued on the business "tax cuts."

But as far as individuals are concerned, these are not tax cuts, but Obama spreading the wealth around as he inadvertently blurted out to Joe the Plumber he would do when elected.

Every person earning less than some number will get a payment whether he's a taxpayer or not and the amount of the payment will have no relation to how much the taxpayers getting payments pay in taxes.

While it is suggested that payees may "mentally" treat the payments as offsetting some of their payroll or Social Security taxes they pay, in fact those taxes will not change. Nor will the income tax. In the somewhat hysterical bailout environment we are passing through, it's borrow now to make payments and do the tax thing later. And when it's time to pay off the debt, the second part of the "spread the wealth" plan will come into play, with the so-called "rich" paying for 2009 welfare payments to the people Obama favors.

If these were truly to be tax cuts, the government need only declare an income tax holiday for some period or, better yet, permanently lower income tax rates proportionately, leaving people to make their own spending decisions about their own money, not money they get in a check from the government.

Sorry to say, even before the Obama folks are in office they are engaging in Doublespeak.

Mark Steyn wonders what the Age of Obama will do to America. Will it accelerate us down the path to the weakness bred by totalitarian "daddy knows best" government offering handouts instead of encouraging opportunity?

All inspired by a Christmas song by American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson.

December 27, 2008, 9:00 a.m.

Grow Up!
An Obamafied American Idol Christmas.

By Mark Steyn

I was at the mall two days before Christmas, and it was strangely quiet. So quiet that, sadly, I was able to hear every word of Kelly Clarkson bellowing over the sound system “My Grown-Up Christmas List.” Don’t get me wrong — I love seasonal songs. “Winter Wonderland” — I dig it. “Rudolph” — man, he’s cool, albeit not as literally as Frosty. But “Grown-Up Christmas List” is one of those overwrought ballads of melismatic bombast made for the American Idol crowd. It’s all about how the singer now eschews asking Santa for materialist goodies — beribboned trinkets and gaudy novelties — in favor of selfless grown-up stuff like world peace.

Which is an odd sentiment to hear at a shopping mall.

But it seems to have done the trick. “Retail Sales Plummet,” read the Christmas headline in the Wall Street Journal. “Sales plunged across most categories on shrinking consumer spending.”

Hey, that’s great news, isn’t it? After all, everyone knows Americans consume too much. What was it that then Senator Obama said on the subject? “We can’t just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times regardless of whether we live in the tundra or the desert and keep consuming 25 percent of the world’s resources with just 4 percent of the world’s population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead, we’ll be fine.”

And boy, we took the great man’s words to heart. SUV sales have nosedived, and 72 is no longer your home’s thermostat setting but its current value expressed as a percentage of what you paid for it. If I understand then Senator Obama’s logic, in a just world Americans would be 4 percent of the population and consume a fair and reasonable 4 percent of the world’s resources. And in these last few months we’ve made an excellent start toward that blessed utopia: Americans are driving smaller cars, buying smaller homes, giving smaller Christmas presents.

And yet, strangely, President-Elect Obama doesn’t seem terribly happy about the Obamafication of the American economy. He’s proposing some 5.7 bazillion dollar “stimulus” package or whatever it is now to “stimulate” it back into its bad old ways.

And how does the rest of the world, of whose tender sensibilities then Senator Obama was so mindful, feel about the collapse of American consumer excess? They’re aghast, they’re terrified, they’re on a one-way express elevator down to Sub-Basement Level 37 of the abyss with no hope of putting on the brakes unless the global economy can restore aggregate demand. What does all that mumbo-jumbo about “aggregate demand” mean? Well, that’s a fancy term for you — yes, you, Joe Lardbutt, the bloated disgusting embodiment of American excess, driving around in your Chevy Behemoth, getting two blocks to the gallon as you shear the roof off the drive-thru lane to pick up your $7.93 decaf gingersnap-mocha-pepperoni-zebra mussel frappuccino, which makes for a wonderful cool refreshing thirst-quencher after you’ve been working up a sweat watching the plasma TV in your rec room all morning with the thermostat set to 87. The message from the European political class couldn’t be more straightforward: If you crass, vulgar Americans don’t ramp up the demand, we’re kaput. Unless you get back to previous levels of planet-devastating consumption, the planet is screwed.

“Much of the load will fall on the US,” wrote Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, “largely because the Europeans, Japanese and even the Chinese are too inert, too complacent, or too weak.” The European Union has 500 million people, compared with America’s 300 million. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain are advanced economies whose combined population adds up to that of the United States. Many EU members have enjoyed for decades the enlightened progressive policies Americans won’t be getting until January 20th. Why then are they so “inert” that their economic fortunes depend on the despised moronic Yanks?

Ah, well. To return to Kelly Clarkson — and Barbra Streisand and Michael Buble and Amy Grant — the striking thing about their “Grown-Up Christmas List” is how childish it is. The concerned vocalist tells Santa that what she wants for Christmas is:

“No more lives torn apart,
That wars would never start…”

Whether wars start depends on the intended target’s ability to deter. As to “lives torn apart,” that, too, is a matter of being on the receiving end. If you’re in an African dictatorship, your life can be torn apart. If you’re in a society that values individual liberty, you’ll at least get a shot at tearing your own life apart — you’ll make bad choices, marry a ne’er-do-well, blow your savings, lose your job — but these are ultimately within your power to correct. The passivity of the lyric — the “lives” that get “torn apart” is very revealing. A state in which lives aren’t torn apart will be, by definition, totalitarian: As in The Stepford Wives or The Invasion Of the Body Snatchers, we’ll all be wandering around in glassy-eyed conformity. “Lives” will no longer be “torn apart” because they’re no longer lives, but simply the husks of a centrally controlled tyranny. To live is messy but liberating: Free societies enable the citizenry to fulfill their potential — to innovate, to create, to accumulate — while recognizing that some of their number will fail. But to attempt to insulate free peoples from moral hazard is debilitating and ultimately fatal. To Martin Wolf’s list of a Europe “too inert, too complacent, too weak,” we might add “too old”: Healthy societies recharge their batteries by the aged and wealthy lending their savings to the young and eager. But Germany is a population of prosperous seniors with no grandchildren to lend to. Japan is a society of great invention with insufficient youth to provide a domestic market. That’s why if you’re Sony or Ikea or any other great global brand, you want access to America for your product. That’s why economic recovery will be driven by the U.S., and not by Euro-Japanese entities long marinated in Obamanomics.

One final thought on “My Grown-Up Christmas List.” The first two lines always give me a chuckle:

“Do you remember me?
I sat upon your knee…”

When was the last time you saw a child sit upon a Santa’s knee? Rod Liddle in the British Spectator reports that at a top London department store Santa sits at one end of the bench while a large “X” directs the moppet to a place down the other end, well out of arm’s reach. For even Santa Claus is just another pedophile in waiting. Naughty or nice? Who really knows? Best not to take any chances. That’s another way societies seize up — by obsessing on phantom threats rather than real ones.

Are free peoples now merely vulnerable infants in need of protection from the pedophile Santa of global capitalism? This is the issue that will determine the future: Euro-style state-directed protectionist sclerosis vs. individual liberty in all its messiness. I know what I want on my “Grown-Up Christmas List.”

Obama has named a woman from UCal Berkeley Christina Romer as head of the Council of Economic Advisors, perhaps on the mistaken assumption that anyone from Berkeley had to be a left-wing economist. Luckily for the country, she isn't. Last year she and her husband published the results of a study they had done which concluded this:

"The most striking finding of this exercise is that tax increases have a large negative effect on investment."

Estimating the cumulative impact of a tax increase of 1% of GDP, they found that "over the next three years output is on average 1.8% lower than it otherwise would have been."

This "is followed by a large and highly significant rise in the unemployment rate." How much job loss? "The estimated output effect after 12 quarters is a decrease of 2.9%," the Romer study found.

Also, another Romer report issued last year found that "a tax cut of 1% of GDP increases real output by 3% over the next three years."

Will Obama listen to this wisdom?

All Roads Lead To Romer

Read it all.

Britain's Channel 4 TV network created some controversy by inviting Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver a message for Christmas Day. It contended that European viewers really didn't know Ahmadinejad and his positions and it was a public service to have him, in a sense, respond to Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message as head of the Church of England.

Caroline Glick, the most perceptive of all Middle East political analysts, believes Channel 4 did the right thing.

THE FACT of the matter is that Channel 4 is right. There is a great deal of ignorance in the West about what the likes of Ahmadinejad and his colleagues in Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas stand for. But this isn't their fault. They tell us every day that they seek the destruction of the Jews and the domination of the West in the name of Islam. And every day they take actions that they believe advance their goals.

The reason that the West remains ignorant of the views and goals of the likes of Hamas and Iran is not that the latter have hidden their views and goals. It is because the leading political leaders and foreign policy practitioners in the West refuse to listen to them and deny the significance of their actions.

As far as the West's leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West's leading foreign policy "experts" and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world. Oddly enough, this dominant political philosophy, which is based on denying the existence of non-Western actors on the world stage, is referred to as political "realism."

Glick rightly denounces this "realism" as fantasy, whether it involves dealing with Iran, Syria, the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese government, Hamas or North Korea.

These foreign policy realists maintain that talking and appeasement are the way to bend these actors to the will of the West, even though years doing that have not produced the desired Western results. The age-old definition of a madman applies: Doing the same thing that failed over and over again expecting a different result.

Professor Thomas Sowell hopes that the federal governmnent will not repeat the mistakes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that unnecessarily prolonged and deepened the Great Depression.

The stock market crash, which has been blamed for the widespread suffering during the Great Depression of the 1930s, created no unemployment rate that was even half of what was created in the wake of the government interventions of Hoover and FDR.

Gov't Solutions Only Deepened '30s Downturn

By THOMAS SOWELL

With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies — and more important, their consequences — were.

The prevailing view in many quarters is that the stock market crash of 1929 was a failure of the free market that led to massive unemployment in the 1930s — and that it was the intervention of Roosevelt's New Deal policies which rescued the economy.

It is such a good story that it seems a pity to spoil it with facts. Yet there is something to be said for not repeating the catastrophes of the past.

Let's start at square one, with the stock crash in October 1929. Was this what led to massive unemployment? Official government statistics suggest otherwise. So do new statistics on unemployment by two current scholars, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway, in their book "Out of Work."

The Vedder and Gallaway statistics allow us to follow unemployment month by month. They put the unemployment rate at 5% in November 1929, a month after the stock market crash. It hit 9% in December — but then began a generally downward trend, subsiding to 6.3% in June 1930.

That was when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were passed, against the advice of economists across the country, who warned of dire consequences. Five months after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, the jobless rate hit double digits for the first time in the 1930s.

This was more than a year after the stock market crash. Moreover, the unemployment rate rose to even higher levels under both Presidents Herbert Hoover and Roosevelt, both of whom intervened in the economy on an unprecedented scale.

Before the Great Depression, it was not considered to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression. But the Smoot-Hawley tariff — designed to save American jobs by restricting imports — was one of Hoover's interventions, followed by even bigger interventions by FDR.

The rise in unemployment after the stock market crash of 1929 was a blip on the screen compared with the soaring unemployment rates reached later, after a series of government interventions.

For nearly three consecutive years, beginning in February 1932, the unemployment rate never fell below 20% for any month before January 1935, when it fell to 19.3%, according to the Vedder and Gallaway statistics. In other words, the evidence suggests that it was not the "problem" of the financial crisis in 1929 that caused massive unemployment, but politicians' attempted "solutions."

Is that the history that we seem to be ready to repeat?

The stock market crash, which has been blamed for the widespread suffering during the Great Depression of the 1930s, created no unemployment rate that was even half of what was created in the wake of the government interventions of Hoover and FDR.

Politically, however, Roosevelt could not have been more successful. After all, he was the only president elected four times in a row. He was a master of political rhetoric.

If Barack Obama wants political success, following in the footsteps of FDR looks like the way to go. But people concerned about the economy need to take a closer look at history. We deserve something better than repeating the '30s disasters.

There is yet another factor that provides a parallel to what happened during the Great Depression. No matter how much worse things got after government intervention under Roosevelt's New Deal policies, the party line was that he had to "do something" to get us out of the disaster created by the failure of the unregulated market and Hoover's "do nothing" policies.

Today, an increasing number of scholars recognize that FDR's policies were extensions of interventions begun under Hoover. Moreover, the temporary rise in unemployment after the market crash was nowhere near the massive and long-lasting unemployment after government interventions.

Barack Obama already has his Herbert Hoover to blame for any and all disasters that his policies create: George W. Bush.

As we celebrate the birth of a child who taught love and the value of every life, here on earth and in heaven, the world cannot close its eyes to those malign forces who are fixated on death. It must open its eyes and ears to the child's message or else the culture of death will prevail. Is the world listening, is America listening?

Kit Lange is an Air Force veteran and military writer who fears what an Obama presidency will bring (HT: Richard C).

She specializes in investigating murder cases stemming from actions in combat. Her work was used as evidence in the Lt. Ilario Pantano case, and has been quoted extensively in other news publications for other cases. In 2005, she co-wrote a 10-part series disproving war crime allegations against an elite Army unit; her blog, EuphoricReality.com, was named as one of the top 10 milblogs of the year. She is also the National Web Coordinator for Gathering of Eagles, a nationally-recognized troop support organization. Kit holds a degree in Aircraft Maintenance Technology from Spartan College of Aeronautics, and is currently working on a second degree in Aviation Technology Management. She resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is an occasional talk-show host.

My Predictions for the New Obama "Presidency"

Now that America has shown us all that affirmative action even works in politics, I've compiled a list of things that you can probably expect to happen. These predictions are 80% gleaned from information all of us have access to, and 15% gut instinct based on many years of research, historical study, and being glued to current affairs. The other 5% is just anger at my countrymen's stupidity--I admit it.

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- Websites and mass emails offering "free grants," courtesy of the government and "Obama's wealth redistribution." Actually, this one's a freebie, because I have an email with a date and timestamp of literally minutes after Obama was declared the winner, offering exactly that.

- Israel will understand this election was the end of any type of assistance, military or otherwise, from the U.S., and will stop holding back their defense at the request of the American administration. Look for a first strike on Iran soon, as well as increased activity by the Israeli military in general. Israel is on her own now, and God help us all because of it.

- Look for Iranian retaliation--against American targets. That goes doubly for other terrorist organizations. We just elected a man with the full endorsement of every major terrorist group in the world as leader of the free world. It's the political equivalent of hiring a child molester to babysit your kids while you leave for the weekend.
Not only is HE going to have fun with your child, but he'll probably sit and watch while his friends come over and do it too.

- Look for far-left justices appointed to the Supreme Court, effectively tying up the entire government in a trifecta of liberal humanism, the buzzwords of which remain empty platitudes like "hope and change," and the ultimate goal of which is socialism--and soon, sharia law.

- Military cases of troops being tried and convicted for killing the enemy in combat will continue to rise--and the conviction/plea-bargain rate will stay at nearly 100%, as the government seeks to use the best men and women this country has to offer as sacrificial lambs on the altar of global appeasement. Those brave and honorable men who currently reside in prison cells across the country, stripped of their rank, their careers, families, and their good name, will not taste free air again for many years. Their sacrifices and their stories will be forgotten by the general public, remembered only by those of us who continue to fight for them.

- Look for the slow but steady erosion of rights you have enjoyed for your entire lives--all the while being told it's "for your own good." Restrictions on gun ownership, home schooling, encouraged dependence on the ever-growing federal government. More nanny-state provisions will be put into place to protect the "disadvantaged" and the "poor," (read: lazy, uneducated, unwilling to better themselves) even while groups like the unborn, the mentally handicapped, elderly, and terminally ill are slowly pushed toward euthanasia. Of course, this will be done with feel-good phrases like "death with dignity," "not wanting to be a burden," and "merciful release from suffering," all of which ignore the basic fact that we are killing people without their consent for the "good of the people." Before you tell me I'm crazy, let's just remember that Barack Obama was the ONLY senator in the Illinois state senate to vote against providing medical care for babies who were inconsiderate enough to survive an abortion. Also, look for taxes to go up. Yes, they'll go up.

- You think t he economy is bad now? Just wait. You'll have the most expensive "free" health care ever. Bread lines aren't just for Russians anymore.

We have traded experience for color, freedom for slavery--and the irony is that the average American sheeple thinks their vote somehow righted an ancient wrong, somehow ENDED the spectre of slavery and ushered in some beautiful era of liberty. In reality, we are about to be less free than you ever thought possible.

I watched the faces of those crowded into the mob (excuse the pun) in Chicago. They stared at Obama like he was a god, an idol, a panacea to their every want and need. We have truly failed as a nation if we are at the point where we feel we must look to one man to take care of us all, to be our father figure and our sugar daddy. We have lost not only the "can-do" attitude of past generations, but the "MUST-do" attitude of our forefathers. We have allowed ourselves to become reduced from Patrick Henry's proud cry of "liberty or death" to the sniveling, whining idea that we are owed something. We have gone from being the honorable defenders of freedom, to being told we are the problem.

The eyes of Obama and McCain were also telling. McCain acted with class and grace in his concession speech, offering the most honorable response I've seen yet. I don't agree with all of McCain's positions, but it cannot be denied that the man has served his nation--at permanent and severe detriment to himself--for half a century. His eyes were clear and sincere, honest. His speech underlined the very reasons why, of the two men offered, he was hands down the best choice.

On the other hand, Obama's eyes were cold, calculating. His manner was smug and still carried the arrogance he has always had. His facial expression was one of barely disguised disdain for everything people like me believe in. His body language was smooth, polished--too much so. He talked of patriotism as though it is a value he is familiar with--and yet, his horrifying attitude toward the country he now leads is as well-documented as his friendships with those who seek its demise. He is charismatic to those who don't know what to look for, and he is inspiring to those who cannot or will not think for themselves. However, too many who voted for him are guilty of the most dangerous kind of hypocrisy. You see, we are told daily that we must not see color, just mankind. (We are all family, you know--or so we're told.) And yet Barack Obama was handed the White House on a silver platter by a fawning media, a bevy of foreign donors (who, to this day and in violation of U.S. election laws, remain nameless and unaccounted for), and a populace who voted based on color instead of right and wrong--even in the face of the most damning evidence against a Presidential candidate in many years , perhaps ever.

It is said that the people receive the government they deserve. Sadly, I fear that's correct. We have become complacent, unwilling to see the writing on the wall, content to frolic in the warm water without bothering to notice that it's been getting hotter by the minute. We are two seconds from a rolling boil--and perhaps it is already too late.

So, liberals, enjoy your victory. Jump around. Have a party, file for your free grants. Scream "Gimme my handout!" and make fun of those of us who fought to make sure your "messiah" didn't get access to the most powerful position in the world. Just remember when it all comes crashing down: You own the White House, the Congress, and soon the Supreme Court. You have no one to blame but yourselves for the mess you just created.

As for me, I'm buying my handguns this week so I have an answer for those who will come try to take them.

As always, Professor Thomas Sowell sees things clearly and tells it like it is simply and plainly. Would that our government and government-to-be were as clear-eyed and sensible and would have learned the lessons of history.

The auto bailout that the Bush Administration and the Democrats are discussing is for the unions, not for the companies. The sooner the companies take the necessary steps to reform themselves through Bankruptcy's Chapter XI, the better the chance they will emerge as companies ready for the competiton. It worked for the airlines, it can work for the auto companies.

In the meantime, Dr. Sowell suggests we look at the larger picture of life, of which the auto rescue plan is just one example of denying what needs to be done. Reality is still there when the fantasy fades.

Postponing Reality At Detroit's Big Three By THOMAS SOWELL | Posted Wednesday, December 17, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Some of us were raised to believe that reality is inescapable. But that just shows how far behind the times we are. Today, reality is optional. At the very least, it can be postponed.

Kids in school are not learning? Not a problem. Just promote them on to the next grade anyway. Call it "compassion," so as not to hurt their "self-esteem."

Can't meet college admissions standards after they graduate from high school? Denounce those standards as just arbitrary barriers to favor the privileged, and demand that exceptions be made.

Can't do math or science after they are in college? Denounce those courses for their rigidity and insensitivity, and create softer courses that the students can pass to get their degrees.

Once they are out in the real world, people with diplomas and degrees — but with no real education — can hit a wall. But by then the day of reckoning has been postponed for 15 or more years. Of course, the reckoning itself can last the rest of their lives.

The current bailout extravaganza is applying the postponement of reality democratically — to the rich as well as the poor, to the irresponsible as well as to the responsible, to the inefficient as well as to the efficient. It is a triumph of the non-judgmental philosophy that we have heard so much about in high-toned circles.

We are told that the collapse of the Big Three automakers in Detroit would have repercussions across the country, causing mass layoffs among firms that supply the automobile makers with parts, and shutting down automobile dealerships from coast to coast.

A renowned economist of the past, J.A. Schumpeter, used to refer to progress under capitalism as "creative destruction" — the replacement of businesses that have outlived their usefulness with businesses that carry technological and organizational creativity forward, raising standards of living in the process.

Indeed, this is very much like what happened a hundred years ago, when that new technological wonder, the automobile, wreaked havoc on all the forms of transportation built up around horses.

For thousands of years, horses had been the way to go, whether in buggies or royal coaches, whether pulling trolleys in the cities or plows on the farms. People had bet their futures on something with a track record of reliable success going back many centuries.

Were all these people to be left high and dry? What about all the other people who supplied the things used with horses — oats, saddles, horseshoes and buggies? Wouldn't they all go falling like dominoes when horses were replaced by cars?

Unfortunately for all the good people who had in good faith gone into all the various lines of work revolving around horses, there was no compassionate government to step in with a bailout or a stimulus package. They had to face reality, right then and right there, without even a postponement.

Who would have thought that those who displaced them would find themselves in a similar situation 100 years later?

Actually the automobile industry is not nearly in as bad a situation now as the horse-based industries were then. There is no replacement for the automobile anywhere on the horizon. Nor has the public decided to do without cars indefinitely.

While Detroit's Big Three are laying off thousands of workers, Toyota is hiring thousands of workers right here in America, where a substantial share of all our Toyotas are manufactured.

Will this save Detroit or Michigan? No.

Detroit and Michigan have followed classic liberal policies of treating businesses as prey, rather than as assets. They have helped kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. So have the unions. So have managements that have gone along to get along.

Toyota, Honda and other foreign automakers are not heading for Detroit, even though there are lots of experienced automobile workers there. They are avoiding the rust belts and the policies that have made those places rust belts.

A bailout of Detroit's Big Three would be only the latest in the postponements of reality. As for automobile dealers, they can probably sell Toyotas just as easily as they sold Chevys. And Toyotas will require just as many tires per car, as well as other parts from automobile parts suppliers.

UPDATE: No reality. President Bush punted to the union-supporting Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, who will use taxpayer money to save the unions, not GM and Chrysler. Painful changes are needed and Chapter XI bankruptcy is the obvious ways to accomplish them. Unaffordable contracts are dragging the car companies down: Think of this: 90,000 build cars for the Big Three, but the Big Three are paying the health care and pension costs for one million retirees. Doesn't work.

The word is that a Kerry for President in 2004 worker now living in New Hampshire made off with $100,000 in campaign funds and has now been indicted. When will somebody get indicted for the Obama campaign's fraudulent online fundraising that bought him the election? Somebody with Chicagoland political smarts had to be in on it.

On second thought, if Eric Holder is the attorney general, it probably won't happen. Anybody who engineered the pardon of multimillionaire fugitive financier Marc Rich and okayed the pardon of Puerto Rican terrorists to get the Puerto Rican vote for Hillary's run for Senate in New York probably won't be interested in such inconsequential stuff as his boss buying the presidency. Oh, and Holder also okayed the commutation of the decades' long sentences of two convicted Weather Underground terrorist friends of (guess who?) Obama friends WU terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. In the course of the WU robbing a Brinks-type truck, two policeman and a guard were killed.

As the nation at last is becomng informed about the rampant political corruption that has been business-as-usual in "Crook County," Illinois for decades, Michelle Malkin's investigations reveal that lurking behind those crooked Chicago politicians and their pals are their partners-in-crime the wives. While it's not exactly "behind every bad man is a bad woman," in Chicagoland politics it's a good working assumption. As Obama was backing Blogdejavich for Governor and doing his sweetheat home deal with Rezko, Michelle was hanging out with their wives, showing solidarity.

Michelle Obama was apparently friendly with the sordid sorority, according to Chicago Magazine. Writer James Merriner reported on a fashion show/political back-scratching gala chaired by Mrs. Rezko and co-chaired by Mrs. Blago two days before the November 2006 elections:

"Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic U.S. senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, was a special guest that day (even though the news had just broken about Rezko's participation in a funky real-estate transaction involving the Obamas' Hyde Park home). The fashion show attracted little if any media coverage, which may have been exactly as its organizers and sponsors had hoped. Just three weeks earlier, Tony Rezko had been indicted on charges of extorting kickbacks from businesses seeking contracts from the Blagojevich administration."

The Real Housewives of Crook County
Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Cable television introduced us to "The Real Housewives of Orange County" -- an estrogen-infused reality show featuring a coven of conniving and ambitious women living pampered lives in Southern California. Blago-gate has brought us something even juicier: The Real Housewives of Crook County, Illinois. The public may be wearying of indicted Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Chicago boys' club, but the conniving and ambitious women behind the scenes of the corruption scandal are a must-see political drama all their own.

Mrs. Blago, the former Patti Mell, won the hearts of old-school thugs everywhere with her f-word-filled rants captured on FBI wiretaps, some of which were colorfully detailed in the criminal complaint against her hubby last week. It's old news to folks in Chicago, but the woman who masquerades as a sweet gubernatorial spouse dedicated to children's advocacy is a cutthroat wheeler-dealer in heels who schemed with the gov to fire pesky editorial writers and get herself placed on paid corporate boards in exchange for naming the president-elect's pick to the Senate. First Lady by day, Dragon Lady by night.

For the rest of the Chicagoland wives story...

President-to-be Obama wants to "reboot" America's relationship with the Muslim world and muses about making a speech in the capital of a major Muslim country.

Amir Tahiri, an Iranian journalist in exile since the Islamic state emerged in Iran, is skeptical. He urges Obama to think carefully about what he has said he wants to do and the implications of whatever move he makes. He doesn't quite call Obama "naive," but he comes close.

Obama talks of "a unique opportunity to reboot America's image," as if his nation's problems with terrorism were due to poor public relations on Washington's part. Does he think so highly of his own talent for seducing people with words that he believes that he can do with a single speech what his five predecessors have failed to do since 1979 - namely, remove the threat of Islamic terror?

Hubris has marked Obama all his life and he won't change now. He probably believes he can do it.

An Interesting read.

There are still some researchers looking into what clearly appears to be criminal violations of campaign financing laws by the Obama campaign. New information is reported on by columnist Herb Denenberg of the Philadelphia Bulletin. Hundreds of millions poured in from unidentified sources, tens of millions from unidentified foreign donors who cannot contribute legally. Only the Philadelphia Bulletin among the mainstream media is covering this scandal.

Did Obama Buy The White House With Illegal Money?
By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin, Philadelphia
Published:
Monday, December 8, 2008

There is now growing evidence that Sen. Barack Obama bought the White House by using illegal and fraudulent fundraising, but that's a story you won't read in the mainstream media. You will read about it here today. While that story of Obama election law violations is still developing, what is the mainstream media reporting on? The New York Times isn't interested in election fraud ... if committed by Sen. Obama and the Democrats. So it is using its resources to investigate the amount of money the McCain campaign spent on hair stylists for Gov. Sarah Palin. (New York Times, Dec. 6, 2008). They've already investigated the amount spent on her wardrobe. Yes, the bias and dishonesty of the New York Times no longer just oozes out, it floods out in epic proportions. The once great paper has become a sad joke, a puppet and propagandist for the Democratic Party that can hardly write an honest word on politics.

The mainstream media paid little attention to ACORN, the organization that is the headquarters for election fraud, and its long-time and close association with Sen. Obama. Nor would it spend time reporting on some of the strange expenditures of the Obama campaign, such as the one for 400,000 temporary Obama tattoos. Of course, the mainstream media doesn't question how Sen. Obama spent his campaign money. In the eyes of the mainstream media, the Messiah, the Savior, the Chosen One, a.k.a. Sen. Obama can do no wrong. But the Times and the mainstream media have endless resources for how the McCain campaign spent its money.

Mainstream media and columnists have been singularly uninterested in Obama's philosophy and his immersion in Marxist studies and activities. Saul Alinsky, the founder of community organizing, was a hero to Obama and he studied his methods carefully and extensively. Alinksy wanted to overthrow capitalism and establish a totalitarian Marxist socialist (or communist) system in America. The signs are that Obama wants that, too.

Fortunately for us, British writer Melanie Phillips is paying attention even if no one in the American media is. Today she notes the first Alinsky-style steps Obama is taking to mobilize his 13 million email correspondents to help push through his programs.

Obama in a careless recorded moment in 2001 revealed his dissatisfaction with the U.S. Constitution. Its focus was on freedom of opportunity, whereas Obama wants the government to use its power for "redistributive change." He said he didn't think the Supreme Court, no matter how left wing, would be able to accomplish that, so Phillips believes he's aiming to undermine the values of the Constitution at street level.

[C]ommunity organising’ is straight out of the Alinsky/ Gramsci Marxist playbook – a means of radicalising the proletariat so that it takes power and overturns the values of the society. Instead of the Founding Fathers and the Supreme Court, America is about to get a new constitution written by the thugs of ACORN.

Obama learned the value of ACORN in the early 1990s when he worked with them on voter registration. More important, he taught ACORN operatives how to harass and intimidate bankers into making mortgage loans to people who couldn't afford them. Obama literally planted the seeds that led to today's subprime mortgage loan crisis, world credit breakdown, the collapse of the markets and the loss of hundreds of billions in savings.

In his presidential compaign, Obama used ACORN for voter registration and employed Alinksy techniques, especially rhetorically, with his calls of "hope' and "change," never identifying what change he wanted. Start with a dissastified group (ready made from the financial collapse), proceed with calm and quiet deception on the way to exciting the masses into a frenzy of demand.

Alinsky, who believed that the revolution had to be carried out through stealth and deception with its proponents cultivating an image of centrism and pragmatism, set out in Rules for Radicals how capitalism would be overthrown by the mobilisation of the masses and the whipping up of their discontent.

Those who are lulled by the centrist defense and economic appointments have no idea of the radical redistributive changes Obama intends to ram through Congress and the media with the aid of his millions of community organizers. As Phillips observes, all those exhibiting the muscle at most represent the 54% who voted for Obama and not at all the 47% who did not, who will have no say. Indeed, since so many of the 54% were totally oblivious to or ignorant of Obama's radical past and demonstrated inclinations it is a fair assumption that they will be as astonished and dismayed at what is being foisted on them as the 47%.

The American system has produced the greatest prosperity the world has ever seen and an America of unparalleled economic strength. This is what Obama, by his past words and actions, seems bent on destroying and replacing with his socialist utopia. He's wasting no time in getting ready.

Phillips is open in her grave concern about an Obama presidency:

As history tells us, sometimes democratic elections bring to power a leader who threatens freedom. This is just such a moment.

Her fear-tinged observation:

December 9, 2008

Ruling by a Radical
Melanie Phillips

At the end of October, I wrote here about the interview Barack Obama gave back in 2001 in which he said the American Constitution was flawed because it only provided for “negative liberty” – which I suggest is what genuine freedom consists of – as opposed to what the state should do for individuals, or “positive rights” as this is known, which I suggest amounts to state control of individual behaviour. He regretted the fact that the civil rights movement had

a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.

I commented that, since Obama recognised that the Supreme Court was unlikely to redraft the constitution, his stated aim was to bring about some kind of undermining of its values at street level:

As has been pointed out on this blog and in numerous investigations published on the net, ‘community organising’ is straight out of the Alinsky/ Gramsci Marxist playbook – a means of radicalising the proletariat so that it takes power and overturns the values of the society. Instead of the Founding Fathers and the Supreme Court, America is about to get a new constitution written by the thugs of ACORN.

Alinsky was the Marxist thinker who preached cultural revolution from the grass roots up through community organisation, and whose thinking permeates ACORN and other community groups that in the past were associated with or funded by Obama – now the nation’s First Community Organiser. Now look at the latest email Camp Obama has sent to the 13 million-plus names on its database of supporters:

Exactly one month ago, you made history by giving all Americans a real opportunity for change. Now it's time to start preparing and working for change in our communities. On December 13th and 14th, supporters are coming together in every part of the country to reflect on what we've accomplished and plan the future of this movement. Your ideas and feedback will be collected and used to guide this movement in the months and years ahead. Join your friends and neighbors – sign up to host or attend a Change is Coming house meeting near you.Since the election, the challenges we face -- and our responsibility to take action – have only gotten more urgent.

You can connect with fellow supporters, make progress on the issues you care about, and help shape the future of your community and our country.Learn what you can do now to support President-elect Obama's agenda for change and continue to make a difference in your community. Take the first important step by hosting or attending a Change is Coming house meeting. Sign up right now: http://my.barackobama.com/changeiscoming

To get our country back on track, it will take all of us working together. Barack and Joe have a clear agenda and an unprecedented opportunity for change. But they can't do it alone. Will you join us at a house meeting and help plan the next steps for this movement?

And at the Change is Coming website itself, we learn:

As President, Barack Obama is counting on you to organize in your neighborhood and continue this movement. This guide will provide you with all the tools and resources you need to host a successful Change Is Coming house meeting. At your event you will:

• Get to know others in your area who are ready to work for change.
• Determine the issues most important to your group.
• Plan how you can reach out to your local representatives and media to ensure your voices are heard.
• Get started bringing change right away by planning a service event before the Inauguration.

It is up to each one of us to take the fate of our country into our hands. Use this guide to start planning your own Change is Coming event.

Alinsky, who believed that the revolution had to be carried out through stealth and deception with its proponents cultivating an image of centrism and pragmatism, set out in Rules for Radicals how capitalism would be overthrown by the mobilisation of the masses and the whipping up of their discontent. As I noted here, the strategy revolved around creating apparently moderate local organisations that would be manipulated by community organisers – effectively deniable political agitators -- to foment grievance and dissent.

Apparently oblivious – like so many – to the implications of all this, the Washington Post has told us breathlessly that health policy is to be shaped by harnessing the campaign supporters’ database – despite a few, er, legal pitfalls.

“This is the beginning of the reinvention of what the presidency in the 21st century could be,’ said Simon Rosenberg, president of the center-left think tank NDN. ‘This will reinvent the relationship of the president to the American people in a way we probably haven't seen since FDR’s use of radio in the 1930s.”

Since those whose input is to be tapped, however, are Obama’s supporters, this “reinvention of the relationship to the American people” will effectively exclude from helping shape the policy of their country the 47 per cent of the people of that country who did not vote for Obama.

A couple of other stories have started waking up to this. Bloomberg has noted that the email list would also give Obama the ability to pressurise Congress.

“When President Obama says, "21 members of Congress are standing in the way of my health plan", one out of 10 voting Americans start to go to work on those members of Congress', said Democratic consultant Joe Trippi, who ran Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, the first to make widespread use of the Internet to raise money and organize supporters.

It’s called Ruling by a Radical.

Warning: If you click though to the publication where the article appears and click on the link in the Obama letter to his 13 million email army that says "Sign up right now," you will get caught in installing a special Obama network on your computer. Don't.

Obama's Illinois Democratic governor has been arrested for peddling Obama's Senate seat for personal benefit. Prosecutor Fitzpatrick said he stepped in to arrest the governor to stop a crime spree. Illinois and Chicago are interrelated centers of political corruption. Convicted felon Tony Rezko, who raised more than $250,000 for Obama and made it possible for him to buy his Hyde Park mansion, was a big fundraiser for Blagojevich. The 16 counts Rezko was convicted on all involved political corrupution.

Obama had a candidate which he discussed with the governor, but she withdrew her name just before Fitzpatrick struck. Hmm. Did Fitzpatrick or somebody else tip Obama off? It turns out David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist and, like Obama, an alumnus of the Chicago Democratic machine, said about a month ago that Obama had discussed the vacancy with the governor. Today Obama seemed to say he hadn't spoken to the governor about it and an Obama spokesman said Axelrod had "misspoke."

It also was learned today that the Chicago Tribune had dug out the story last October about the Democratic governor's shakedowns of campaign contributors and state contractors as well as the parent company of the Tribune itself, but had not published the story at the request of the prosecutor, who said it would interfere with the ongoing investigation. What effect might this sordid story of political corruption have had on the presidential election if published in October?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrested, charged

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said today that federal authorities arrested Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich today because the governor went on "a political corruption crime spree" that needed to be stopped.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said today that federal authorities arrested Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich today because the governor went on "a political corruption crime spree" that needed to be stopped.

Fitzgerald said secret tape recordings showed Blagojevich was attempting "to sell the U.S. Senate seat" that President-elect Barack Obama recently vacated. The governor has the sole power to pick Obama's replacement under the state constitution.

"The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave," Fitzgerald said, quoting Blagojevich as saying the Senate seat is "a bleeping valuable thing. You just don't give it away....I've got this thing and it's bleeping golden."

Blagojevich wasn't against the corrupt deal for the Senate seat, he was against "being stiffed in the corrupt deal," Fitzgerald said.

more ...

And read the whole Criminal Complaint here. It's amazing.

British writer Peter Hitchens is the brother of Christopher Hitchens, a wild-eyed atheist liberal except for his all-out support of the Iraq war. Peter is conservative and on most things is on the opposite pole from his brother Christopher, who supported Obama.

The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.

Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America ’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US , like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World . How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

Peter got it right.

The Daily Mail ( London ) Peter Hitchens Monday, Nov 10 2008

The night we waved goodbye to America ... our last best hope on Earth

Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

Continue reading "A BRIT: WHERE NOW, OUR LAST BEST HOPE ON EARTH?"

Posted by Republican on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)
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It's disturbing that Obama has so many aides who are anti-Israel. It's disturbing that Obama aides met with leaders of terrorist, Iran-supported Hamas during the campaign and told the Hamas leaders to keep quiet about the meeting so as not to cause upset before the election. It's disturbing that one of Obama's most virulently anti-Israel advisors went to Damascus to meet with Syrian leader Assad.

But there's even more.

This week, Middle East Newsline reported that President-elect Obama recently sent "senior foreign policy adviser" Malley to Egypt and Syria where he "relayed a pledge from Obama that the United States would seek to enhance relations with Cairo as well as reconcile with Damascus." According to an unnamed aide, "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests."

Are we entering a new era of accommodation of jihad terrorists bent on Israel's — and the West's — destruction?

Diana West says, "I'm very afraid."

Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

By Diana West, Syndicated Columnist
November 17, 2008

How dumb does President-elect Barack Obama think we are?

Let me rephrase the question: Are we as dumb as Obama thinks?

Evidence is mounting that Barack Obama was elected president BECAUSE he was black.

Pride of blacks resulted in at least a 95% vote for Obama.

But white guilt fanned by Obama himself, his campaign and the media probably played an even bigger part.

So far, much of the evidence is random and anecdotal, but the accusations by Obama supporters and the media that those not planning to vote for Obama were “racists” certainly had a powerful effect. Voters were anxious to prove they weren't, that they had "moved on" from that.

Obama himself played the race card againt Hillary Clinton in the primaries and against John McCain in the final, playing the victim and inviting a guilty white reaction.

Media glorification of Obama and their trashing of Palin (a threat since she added an exciting and appealing dimension to the McCain candidacy) made it still easier to assuage white guilt with an Obama vote.

President Bush signed and sent to Congress two years ago the Colombia Free Trade Act, which the law requires Congress to have an up-or-down vote on within a short period of time. Speaker of the House Pelosi, to please her union supporters, twisted House rules, to take it out of the required process. Michael Barone called Pelosi's action the most despicable act of this Congress.

Colombia is our closest ally in the hemisphere and a valiant partner in the fight against drug trafficking. President Uribe has done a superb job weakening the drug cartels and making Colombia safer. One couldn't ask for better cooperation.

Democrats, including President-Elect Obama, have supported Pelosi in her determination to let the trade agreement die, despite the fact it is beneficial to American exporters.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, after many months of silence, the New York Times editorialists tell Congressional Democrats they should approve the Colombia agreement now. They cite all the positive reasons and also accurately describe the progress that has been made on some of the troubling history in Colombia. Bottom line: The Times said approving the agreement is in the nation's interest.

Let's see if this is sufficient cover for Obama and Pelosi to put the nation's interest before the wishes of their union supporters.

New York Times
November 18, 2008
Editorial
Pass the Colombian Trade Pact
We don’t say it all that often, but President Bush is right: Congress should pass the Colombian free-trade agreement now.

Mr. Bush signed the deal two years ago. The Democratic majority in Congress has refused to approve it out of a legitimate concern over the state of human rights in Colombia and less legitimate desires to pander to organized labor or deny Mr. Bush a foreign policy win.

We believe that the trade pact would be good for America’s economy and workers. Rejecting it would send a dismal message to allies the world over that the United States is an unreliable partner and, despite all that it preaches, does not really believe in opening markets to trade. There is no more time to waste. If the lame-duck Congress does not approve the trade pact this year, prospects would dim considerably since it would lose the cover of the rule (formerly known as fast track) that provides for an up-or-down, no-amendment vote.

Because of trade preferences granted as part of the war on drugs, most Colombian exports already are exempt from United States tariffs. The new agreement would benefit American companies that now have to pay high tariffs on exports to Colombia.

It also would strengthen bonds with an important ally in a volatile corner of South America — that also is the main source of cocaine shipped into this country and where the United States has very few friends these days.

In neighboring Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez spouts fierce anti-American rhetoric to distract attention from his autocratic policies. Last month, Bolivia expelled the United States ambassador and accused Drug Enforcement Administration agents of conspiring against his government. Ecuador has refused to renew a lease on an airbase used by American counternarcotics flights in the coastal city of Manta.

We, too, have strong concerns about human-rights violations committed by the government of President Álvaro Uribe. But Democrats opposing the trade pact on these grounds are ignoring undeniable improvements. Violence has abated considerably during the Uribe administration as it has taken on the left-wing guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and right-wing paramilitaries. The number of trade unionists killed, a major Democratic concern, is still too high but has dropped sharply.

Washington must keep pressing Bogotá to reduce abuses by Colombia’s Army, ensure the prosecution of paramilitary thugs and further rein in violence against union members. It has a powerful tool to do that: $600 million a year in mostly military and anti-narcotics aid.

Failing to approve this trade agreement would do nothing to improve Colombia’s human-rights record. Walking away from it now would alienate many people in Colombia and undermine Washington’s credibility.