Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

DUBOB 11- more tales from the Dark UnderBelly Of the Beast...
various links and websites | 01-31-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy

Posted on 01/31/2003 5:07:21 PM PST by backhoe

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 8,961-8,9808,981-9,0009,001-9,020 ... 12,501-12,502 next last
To: All

Ten Myths in America

Pelosi to protesters: "Can we drill your brains?" (Pelosi moron alert)

The Arrogance of Nancy Pelosi ( Rush Limbaugh )

Getting poor to use toilets a major health conundrum, forum told

Zimbabwe - Fuming Mugabe rattled by hecklers

EPA: Ban ozone-depleting air conditioners by 2010 (R-22 out, R-410A in) "The change is a big deal"

Global Warming - Data refutes the hysteria

 
Flashback: “Internet privacy: rights vs. privileges (an open forum),” Feb 2007

In light of the late unpleasantness here — and as a reminder of where I stand on certain issues and why I believe the way I do — I’m going to reprint this earlier post that tackles the ethics of revealing the names of anonymous attackers.

You are free to discuss this, but I ask that you please keep it civil. In the year and a half since I wrote this, my position hasn’t much changed. In fact, if anything, my patience with such attacks has worn even more thin — making my fuse that much shorter.

From Feb 25, 2007:

What my latest dustup with Broome Community College’s Dr Andrew Haggerty and NPR’s David Ferguson has showcased, I believe, are some of the growing pains of the new media, which, given its virtual nature, makes it easy for anyone wishing to do so to obscure his or her personal identity online.

This ability to create a controlling persona— to write from the position of near-absolute freedom that comes with shedding your meatspace identity—is both a blessing and a curse, and so, from an ethical perspective, should necessarily, as I’ll argue here, resist the kind of absolutist approach to privacy protections many have advocated (myself, at one time, among them). 

Dr Haggerty and his fellow ideologues DEMAND the freedom to write what they wish; and on this point, I agree with them both philosophically and in practice, provided they follow applicable laws.  Free speech is an essential component of liberty, as well as one of the driving forces behind whatever successes to which a representative form of government can lay claim.

But what Haggerty and his fellow ideologues also demand—and to be clear, ideologues exist on all sides of the political divide— is the right to launch smear campaigns aimed at people who use their real identities, and to do so without fear that these attacks will come back to “anyone” other than their online personasландшафт.  Which, too, is a position I can live with—up to a point. 

It is only when these personal attacks approach libel, or are intended to incite violence—or when they are being deployed as a cynical and dishonest way to discredit the person in question (a McCarthyesque tactic if ever there was one)—that the ethics of commanding anonymity should, in my opinion, be open to re-examination.

Posted by Jeff G. @ 11:12 am
Comments (41)
 
==============================================

 

 
Rabble.ca: A Microcosm of Left-Wing Narrow-Mindedness
 
The Gullible Left
 
Sharia courts rule on sex lives in Britain ( coming soon to America and Canada... )
 

If your kids are behaving badly treat them like a dog, says Battersea Dogs Home behaviour expert

 
==============================================
 
BITTERNESS: James Carville's Kicks Reveal Party Split

Obama speech stage resembles ancient Greek temple

 
The Big Money Behind U.S. Gay Political Push
 

OBAMA LOSES GAY-MEDIA KING

OOPS:

Former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson -- yes, that Charlie Wilson -- was speaking at an anti-war rally when he, um, flubbed a line:

"We should be led by Osama bin Laden," he said, then quickly corrected himself. "I mean Obama and Biden."

You know, Ted Kennedy made a similar slip.

The RNC Meets to Draft Their Platform: Sparks Fly on the Issue of Illegal Immigration

 The American people want secure borders. Who gives a sweet phock about party image. The public sentiment is so high on this that the image should be of absolutely no concern. And that includes a lot of Hispanics who are sick of having their communities trashed by the illegal Barrio Bros, their drugs and ho's.

They really are blowing it, not just legally and constitutionally, but even politically.

Like one poster here clarifies, for the Republicans it's about the money from those making it off the backs of the illegals, e,g,Tyson, corp agriculture, et al. For the Democrats it's about the votes.

"NEVER MIND:" No Charges Over Obama "Death Plot." No plot, just some druggies talking smack, apparently. . .

WHO KNEW THAT THERE WERE SO MANY RACISTS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY:

Of course, they may not be racists -- they may have problems with Obama's (and, now Biden's) hardline anti-gun stance. Then there's the whole Bill Ayers thing . . . . (Via Michelle Malkin).

BEWARE: In America, racism is everywhere! Everywhere people don't support Obama, anyway . . .

Some related thoughts from Shannon Love.

HERE'S THE BILL AYERS AD that Barack Obama is trying to silence. Though you actually have to wonder if he isn't really trying to get it more viewers, since that's the inevitable result. I thought he was supposed to be the hip young candidate who understands the Internet!

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg: "I am amazed, simply amazed, at the amazement of many liberals that Ayers and Dohrn should matter to anyone."

And She Represents The Right Wing Of The Democratic Party

Selected excerpts from HRC's speech at the DNC tonight...

I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.

I notice she didn't say anything about being a proud wife...

I ran for President to renew the promise of America. To rebuild the middle class and sustain the American Dream, to provide the opportunity to work hard and have that work rewarded, to save for college, a home and retirement, to afford the gas and groceries and still have a little left over each month. To promote a clean energy economy that will create millions of green collar jobs. To create a health care system that is universal, high quality, and affordable so that parents no longer have to choose between care for themselves or their children or be stuck in dead end jobs simply to keep their insurance.

Why, after eight years as the first lady, was this universal health care thing not done during the Clinton presidency? What am I missing?

To create a world class education system and make college affordable again.

Harvard University... The most elite community college in the world.

To fight for an America defined by deep and meaningful equality - from civil rights to labor rights, from women's rights to gay rights, from ending discrimination to promoting unionization to providing help for the most important job there is: caring for our families. To help every child live up to his or her God-given potential.

That unionization thing isn't working all that well for those UAW fellas.

To bring fiscal sanity back to Washington and make our government an instrument of the public good, not of private plunder.

The public good, as defined by whom?

We need a President who understands that we can't solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that will build a green economy.

How exactly is the GWB doing that now? By NOT nationalizing the oil companies? I like the green economy thing. Right out of the NDP playbook. It worked for the.. never mind.

He'll transform our energy agenda by creating millions of green jobs and building a new, clean energy future. He'll make sure that middle class families get the tax relief they deserve. And I can't wait to watch Barack Obama sign a health care plan into law that covers every single American.

What exactly is a "green job" and who creates it? And at what cost? As for the health care plan, good luck with that, BHO.

Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend. He has served our country with honor and courage. But we don't need four more years . . . of the last eight years. More economic stagnation …and less affordable health care. More high gas prices …and less alternative energy. More jobs getting shipped overseas …and fewer jobs created here. More skyrocketing debt ...home foreclosures …and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families. More war . . . less diplomacy. More of a government where the privileged come first …and everyone else comes last. John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it's okay when women don't earn equal pay for equal work.

Remind again. How did GWB create all those bad things in the economy? And when did McCain think it OK for women not to earn equal pay for equal work? I missed that handout.

Now the one thing HRC did not mention is that she thought BHO would be the best person for the job of President, or that he would make a well qualified Commander-In-Chief. That was noticably absent.

HRC played her part to help unite the Democrats, but she didn't make any extra effort.

I think she's waiting for 2012. Or for the USSR to rise again...


Posted by The Greek at 11:56 PM | Comments (2)
 

Gloves off: Now, Obama calls for prosecuting GOP donor; Update: AIP responds

By Michelle Malkin  •  August 26, 2008 04:41 PM

Scroll down for updates…

I noted this morning that the Obama campaign’s Chicago-style thug effort to shut down the independent ad on Bill Ayers is part of the larger effort to intimidate conservative donors and curtail the free speech of The One’s critics.

It’s getting uglier, people.

Obama’s lawyer has sent a second letter to the Justice Department calling for the head of Dallas billionare Harold Simmons, who funded the Ayers ad that the Obama campaign doesn’t want the public to see.

Feel the chill:

Obama general counsel Bob Bauer today sent a second, sharper letter to the Justice Department, directly attacking the Dallas billionaire funding a harsh attack ad, Harold Simmons.

“We reiterate our request that the Department of Justice fulfill its commitment to take prompt action to investigate and to prosecute the American issues Project, and we further request that the Department of Justice investigate and prosecute Howard (sic) Simmons for a knowing and willful violation of the individual aggregate contribution limits,” he wrote.

He called the group’s activities “patently illegal.”

Bauer made the case that Simmons’ group [is not] fulfilling its [...] nonprofit charter because it hasn’t spent any money on anything other than attacking Obama. Simmons’ spokesman, Christian Pinkston, told me yesterday that plans to, and dismissed the complaints as an effort to lawyer away charges the campaign can’t rebut.

I posted AIP’s rebuttal here yesterday. And as I’ve noted today and will note again: Obama has some nerve whining about campaign finance integrity after getting caught hiding $800,000 in ACORN payments.

What’s going on? Simple: The Left has its George Soros sugar daddy and can’t stand that conservatives have their own committed benefactors. They’ve got a massive non-profit infrastructure funded with taxpayers and operating flagrantly in an illegal, partisan manner (hello, ACORN Watch!). They want the playing field all to themselves. And they are fighting for that turf by any means necessary.

Can they do it?

No, they can’t. Not if you don’t let them.

***

AIP responds again:

American Issues Project Calls Obama Campaign Efforts to Prosecute Political Opponents “Bullying” and “Censorship”

AIP Responds to Second DOJ Letter from

Obama Campaign Demanding Donor Prosecution

Washington, DC – August 26, 2008 – The Barack Obama campaign has now sent a second letter to the Department of Justice calling for the prosecution of one of American Issues Project’s donors for his role in funding a political advertisement in full compliance with all election laws.

“Having failed in its attempts to get our legal, factual and fully-supported ad off the air, Barack Obama’s campaign now wants to put our donors in prison for exercising their right to free speech,” said Ed Martin, American Issues Project’s president. “These over-the-top bullying tactics are reminiscent of the kind of censorship one would see in a Stalinist dictatorship, with the only difference being that those guys generally had to wait until they were in power to throw people who disagreed with them into jail.”

In addition to two letters sent to the Department of Justice asking the government to investigate American Issues Project, its officers, board of directors, and donors, the Obama campaign has been contacting stations running American Issues Project’s ad in an unsuccessful attempt to compel them to pull the spot. With no success on either front, the campaign has also begun running its own ad in response. Notably, this ad fails to dispute a single fact in the American Issues Project’s initial ad.

American Issues Project is a 501(c)4 organization, similar in structure to NARAL and the League of Conservation Voters, two liberal organizations that have claimed status as “qualified nonprofit corporations” for two decades. In accordance with federal law, American Issues Project only solicits and accepts contributions from individuals and not from any business corporation. The FEC also sets out specific regulations for the activities of a qualified nonprofit corporation, which American Issues Project follows.

The American Issues Project’s ad began airing Thursday, August 21, and will continue through the Democratic Convention. An electronic version of the ad and full documentation of all statements made are available at American Issues Project’s website: www.americanissuesproject.org.

About American Issues Project

American Issues Project is a 501(c)4 organization representing a coalition of conservative activists committed to raising important issues that deserve deeper examination given their impact on policy and politics. In accordance with federal law, American Issues Project only solicits and accepts contributions from individuals and not from any business corporation. For more information, visit: www.americanissuesproject.org.

Posted in: Barack Obama

8,981 posted on 08/27/2008 2:27:32 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Home gardening offers ways to trim grocery costs [Survival Today, an on going thread]

Amtrak Train Runs Out of Fuel

Italy Proposes Bill to end all Mosque Construction

Updated: Hurricane Gustav

===========================================

960 babies in TB scare at Kaiser in San Francisco [Hospital]

U.S. immigration cops nab 595 in largest-ever raid

American businesses should not be hiring illegals and displacing American workers.

Yet in fairness to employers, have you looked around at the 'hirables' lately? Pants pulled so low you're staring at boxers and hats on sideways- and that's just the white guys.

The RNC Meets to Draft Their Platform: Sparks Fly on the Issue of Illegal Immigration

It's All About Me

Obama speech stage resembles ancient Greek temple

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

What I Saw At the Discombobulation

Is America Ready for an Affirmative Action President?

McCain Ad: Try to Silence Us, Senator Obama!


8,982 posted on 08/27/2008 5:11:04 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Poll Reveals Floridians’ Bipartisan Support for Offshore Drilling

73.2 percent... or 3 out of 4 Floridans...
 

The 1 and Only Solution to America's Energy Problem

 
The silencing of our doctors
 
Bubonic Plague diagnosed in Yellowstone visitor
 
Mumps outbreak headed for Vancouver
 

Fear grips immigrants after Miss. plant raid

 
12 Facts about Global Climate Change That You Won’t Read in the Popular Press

1 Temperatures have been cooling since 2002, even as carbon dioxide has continued to rise.

2 Carbon dioxide is a trace gas and by itself will produce little warming. Also, as CO2 increases, the incremental warming is less, as the effect is logarithmic so the more CO2, the less warming it produces.

3 CO2 has been totally uncorrelated with temperature over the last decade, and significantly negative since 2002.

4 CO2 is not a pollutant, but a naturally occurring gas. Together with chlorophyll and sunlight, it is an essential ingredient in photosynthesis and is, accordingly, plant food.

5 Reconstruction of paleoclimatological CO2 concentrations demonstrates that carbon dioxide concentration today is near its lowest level since the Cambrian Era some 550 million years ago, when there was almost 20 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as there is today without causing a “runaway greenhouse effect.”

6 Temperature changes lead, not lag, CO2 changes on all time scales. The oceans may play a key role, emitting carbon dioxide when they warm as carbonated beverages lose fizz as they warm and absorbing it as they cool.

7 Most of the warming in the climate models comes from the assumption that water vapor and precipitation increase as temperatures warm, a strong positive feedback. Water vapor is a far more important greenhouse gas than CO2. However, that assumption has been shown in observations and peerreviewed research to be wrong, and in fact water vapor and precipitation act as a negative feedback that reduces any small greenhouse warming from carbon dioxide.

8 Indeed, greenhouse models show the warming should be greatest at mid to high atmosphere levels in the tropics. But balloon and satellite observations show cooling there. The greenhouse signature or DNA does not match reality, and the greenhouse models thus must greatly overstate the warming – and in a court of law would have to be acquitted of any role in global warming

9 The sun has both direct and indirect effects on our climate. Solar activity changes on cycles of 11 years and longer. When the sun is more active it is brighter and a little hotter. More important though are the indirect effects. Ultraviolet radiation increases much more than the brightness and causes increased ozone production, which generates heat in the high atmosphere that works its way down, affecting the weather. Also, an active sun diffuses cosmic rays, which play an important role in nucleation of low clouds, resulting in fewer clouds. In all these ways the sun warms the planet more when it is active. An active sun in the 1930s and again near the end of the last century helped produce the observed warming periods. The current solar cycle is the longest in over 100 years, an unmistakable sign of a cooling sun that historical patterns suggest will stay so for decades.

10 The multidecadal cycles in the ocean correlate extremely well with the solar cycles and global temperatures. These are 60 to 70 year cycles that relate to natural variations in the largescale circulations. Warm oceans correlate with warm global temperatures. The Pacific started cooling in the late 1990s and it accelerated in the last year, and the Atlantic has cooled from its peak in 2004. This supports the observed global land temperature cooling, which is strongly correlated with ocean heat content. Newly deployed N.O.A.A. buoys confirm global ocean cooling.

11 Warmer ocean cycles are periods with diminished Arctic ice cover. When the oceans were warm in the 1930s to the 1950s, Arctic ice diminished and Greenland warmed. The recent ocean warming, especially in the 1980s to the early 2000s, is similar to what took place 70 years ago and the Arctic ice has reacted much the same way, with diminished summer ice extent.

12 Antarctic ice has been increasing and the extent last year was the greatest in the satellitemonitoring era. We are running ahead of last year’s record pace.

What will it take for the media to let go of their biases and begin doing their job, reporting the truth?

Joseph D’Aleo is executive director of Icecap.

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=970
 
 
===============================================
 

Joe Biden, a Good One for Gun Violence Reduction, Says Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

...common sense laws to keep dangerous people from getting dangerous weapons

Gosh, you mean making murder, armed robbery, and assault illegal isn't working?

New John McCain Ad on Obama: "Tiny" - Video 8/27/08

Good Gawd! MoDo is actually starting to make sense again!

High Anxiety in the Mile High City (Dowd on the DNC - "Teresa Heinz Kerry reprising Blanche DuBois")--

this Democratic convention has a vibe so weird and jittery, so at odds with the early thrilling, fairy dust feel of the Obama revolution, that I had to consult Mike Murphy, the peppery Republican strategist and former McCain guru.

“What is that feeling in the air?” I asked him.

“Submerged hate,”

Hillary Goes Out With a Whimper

GAFFNEY: Democrats' 'soft' jihadist

Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America. With this choice, Barack Obama's campaign has committed a strategic error of the first order.

After all, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has been identified by the Department of Justice not only as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood - a global Islamist movement with the stated mission in America of "destroying Western civilization from within." Worse yet, it has also been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the United States' largest alleged terrorism financing conspiracy.

BODY LANGUAGE expert of the FBI says Hillary did not show support for Obama

John Edwards Scandal: Mainstream Media Adhering to Schieffer Standard of Coverage

Conservative Dems bailing on Obama; Rasmussen has no Michelle O bounce

Early this year I said on this forum that the more people know about Obama, the worse his polls would be. McCain was a known entity.
 

About the Weather Underground-related police killings mentioned in the new anti-Obama ad (revised)

The Temple of Obama (Photo included)

Up to 80,000 supporters will see Mr Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of the White House, to accept the party's nomination for president.

He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.

Change: The miniature Greek temple created for Barack Obama's acceptance speech

Presidential image: A full-scale replica of Air Force One fuselage arrives at Invesco Field before Mr Obama speaks

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

Remind you of some other egomaniacs we've known?

 


8,983 posted on 08/27/2008 11:31:49 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Video: Clinton Delegate Upset with her Party (breaks down and cries)

O SHOW A GREEK DRAMA....Title...."Barack Obama and the Temple of DUMB"

I just hope the crowd starts chanting “TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!”
 

Obama’s Friend, America’s Enemy (Bill Ayers)

Hillary Supporters for McCain: West Virginia Democrats aren't warming up to Obama.

Clip From New Film on Barack Obama: Obama and Terrorist William Ayers - Video

Many Clinton Supporters Say Speech Didn't Heal Divisions


8,984 posted on 08/27/2008 12:35:57 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
JIM MEIGS IN POPULAR MECHANICS: Why Offshore Drilling Can Bridge Gap to U.S. Energy Future. Read the whole thing.
 

WIND ENERGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE:

When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

But building new infrastructure is hard, and limited by NIMBY efforts, regulatory gridlock, and money. The money part is easy -- cut entitlements by ten percent across the board -- but the other parts are hard.

RESEARCH: Red-light Cameras Don't Work. Except at enriching municipalities, which is all they're really about anyway.

===============================================

 It's the O-cropolis!

O-Bama-Berg

click


 

Posted by Cjunk at 1:14 PM | Comments (18)
 
The Temple of Obama

Reuters reports that "Barack Obama's big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple." John McCormack posts a photograph of the stage under construction here. The Political Inquirer visualizes the scene below.

worshipme.jpg

  McCain Aide Mocks Obama: 'Is This From the Onion?'

Ace is speechless.

clashofthetitanicegos.jpg
"Clash of the Titanic Egos,"
by Slublog

I think he's pretty much baiting people to call him the AntiChrist at this point.

Behold the Temple of Obama

(H/T Hot Air).

Fausta made this connection before I did, and combined with the so-called “sign of progress”, Barack Obama may be better suited to run for the presidency of the United Federation of Planets than the USA.  Allahpundit reported last night on the plans for Obama to deliver his acceptance speech in front of a fake Greek temple, and John McCormack has the picture... What genius thought of this motif?  Probably the same one that concocted Vero Possumus and the Fleeing Eagle.  It’s a paean to an ego run amuck — and if American voters wondered about the cult of personality that Obama has inspired, this settles the question and explicitly makes Obama the cult leader.

Posted by Scott at 6:47 AM | Permalink  
 

8,985 posted on 08/27/2008 1:04:12 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Obama's Benefactor: Dr. Khalid al Mansour, I presume ...

Percy Sutton, NYC  political icon in the African American community, tells a news reporter that Dr. Khalid al Mansour solicited favor and recommendation on behalf of Barack Hussein Obama in order to secure Barack's entry into Harvard. Think about that.Percy_sutton_malcolm_x

During the 1950's and 1960's, Percy Sutton became one of American's best known lawyers. He represented many controversial figures such as Malcolm X and argued many cases (photo: Malcolm X and Percy Sutton at a Harlem rally on Seventh Avenue between 125th and 126th streets, 1963)

Richard Fernanadez over at Fallback Belmont has a very curious piece on the ever changing Obama narrative concerning this jawdropper revealed by Amanda  Carpenter in her  post over at Townhall, Are Khalid al Mansour and Obama Friends?. This bombshell story asks more questions than it answers. And  Wretchard's twist on just which Mansour we are talking about is a whole other question.

Obama's mentors, friends, comrades tells us his story. These associations  show us who he is. Terrible, all of it.
I often wondered where Obama got the money for his long strange trip. But this, Dr. Khalid al Mansour development is .... outta hand.

Watch these videos. Stunning indictment of Mansour. He's a  total racist Islamist very much in the mold of Obama's best buds Louis Farrakhan and Reverend Wright. 

Check Mansour's diatribe video against the Jews here.

Video Dr. Mansour's "The Birth and Death of Christianity: posted by Muslims by choice here.

And this video, uploaded by IslamStudios and titled "Christians Designed Discrimination:"

Sutton is an unabashed Obama supporter. The last thing he would want to do is hurt Obama. And if you watch the video, it is obvious Sutton is telling the story of Mansour and Obama with great pride. And the reporter is sharing, kvelling along with Sutton. Both see nothing wrong with what he is saying.

Can any of my readers help me out here?

The Wrong Man, Sir

Townhall links to a video in which civil rights activist Percy Sutton claimed he was asked by a certain “Dr. Khalid al Mansour”, adviser to ‘one of the richest men in the world’ to write a letter of reccomendation on behalf of Barack Obama to help him gain acceptance to Harvard many years ago.  Mansour was raising money for Obama at the time, according to Sutton, which is strange in itself. Townhall identifies the Mansour in question as a preacher from Islam Studios. A video purporting to show Dr. Mansour exemplifies his somewhat comical style of preaching is featured. However, Townhall may have erred in its identification of the right Mansour. The Islamic preacher featured in the video is unlikely to have been any kind of adviser to billionaries. But this other Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour’s biographical details fit the Sutton profile much better. However the lack of online information on such an august man leave me a little worried. Can Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour be the man? Sutton’s memory seems a little vague and confused, as would be natural for a man of his age. So the identification of Mansour and his connection to Obama might be a little hazy.

Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour is an internationally acknowledged advisor to Heads of State and business leaders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America. He has been actively involved in structuring investments and joint ventures worldwide for over 35 years. Dr. Al-Mansour was also responsible for the Africa investment activities of Kingdom Holdings, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s investment company. During his distinguished career, Dr. Al-Mansour has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Bombay University, Columbia University, UCLA, University of Kenya, London School of Economics and the University of Ghana.

In addition to Africa Venture Partners, Dr. Al-Mansour sits on the Boards of: Saudi African Bank; Kingdom Holdings, Africa; Multimedia Super Corridor (Malaysia); Space Tech Inc.; AmNet Corp. International; New Avenues Fund Ltd; United Bank for Africa; United Networks; and Landmark Entertainment.

Dr. Al-Mansour has authored 24 books and is listed in Who’s Who in the World; International Who’s Who in the Arab World; Two Thousand Men of Achievement; Royal Blue Book of London; World’s Who’s Who of Intellectuals and American Hall of Fame. Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University (Phi Beta Kappa) and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of California at Berkeley.

[...] I wonder if the readers can shed any additional light on this matter. Knowing someone at the right hand of very rich men is a great thing when you’re looking for entry into law school. Sutton took Mansour’s advice, whoever he was, and wrote Harvard saying there was a “genius” who would soon be available to them. And the rest is nearly history.

UPDATE: JAD just sent me this and opined, "Al Mansour represents OPEC?  No wonder Obama doesn't want the US drilling anywhere." Check it out! He's the preacher.  Keep it Mansour_2 coming folks:

Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al-Mansour
Dr. Al-Mansour is an International Attorney and Businessman. His college education was obtained at Howard University, where he majored in Philosophy and Logic, and at the University of California School of Law at Berkeley where he received his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree.
He is a Phi Beta Kappa recipient and is listed in the World's Who's Who in Finance and Industry, International Who's Who in the Arab World, Who's Who in Public Affairs, Royal Blue Book of London, International Who's Who of Intellectuals, Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in California, Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in Black America.
Dr. Al-Mansour
has spent most of his adult life as a businessman/lawyer, intellectual, religious activist, author and teacher. His business and professional interests include co-founding the International Law Firm of Al-Waleed, Al-Talal & Al-Mansour, representing the O.P.E.C. interest of the famous Los Angeles trial, I.M.A.W.C. vs. O.P.E.C.; and serving as a co-founder and director of the Saudi African Bank (SAB), the United Bank for Africa (UBA) and the World United Bank for Africa (WUBA).

UPDATE: Richard Fernandez just tracked down the video promo on this dvd, Will the West Rule Forever? and his books. Please, check out the titles:

Americans Beware! The Zionist Plot Agnst.S.Arabia Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 19 $3.00 Out of Stock
Cultural Dynamism In The 21st Century Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 488 $19.95 Out of Stock
Laws Without Justice Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 343 $19.95 Out of Stock
PC Vs TV - Can America Be Saved? Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 289 $21.95 Out of Stock
Strains Of Modern Marriage Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 322 $21.95 Out of Stock
The Challenges Of Spreading Islam In America Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 213 $16.95 Out of Stock
The Destruction Of Western Civilization ... Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 316 $19.95 Out of Stock
The Pentecostals: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 343 $19.95 Out of Stock
The Reflections Of An African Arabian In Captivity Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 378 $19.95 Out of Stock
Welcome To Islam Dr Khalid Tariq Al-Mansour S 717 $27.95 Out of Stock

UPDATE: It seems to be a common thread in Obama's liasons. Heroyalwhyness sent me this link to 2001 NYT quote:

Today, Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn, 59, who is director of the Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center of Northwestern University, seem like typical baby boomers, caring for aging parents, suffering the empty-nest syndrome.

Their son, Malik, 21, is at the University of California, San Diego; Zayd, 24, teaches at Boston University.

UPDATE: From Slimguy:

African Leadership Academy ...
Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour, Senior Advisor, HRH Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal


8,986 posted on 08/27/2008 1:38:38 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

 

 
 *   Welcome to FreeRepublic   * 

Uranus Ping List
Don't ask to be added to or dropped from this list. Just don't.
 

 

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 
========================================================================
 

Fire in the Night: The Weathermen tried to kill my family

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors

Pondering The Black Underclass

6% Of DNC Delegates are gay? (As per Foxnews screen-blurb)

I found an article that is a few months old, talking about the gay caucus pushing for : "the gay caucus is calling on all state parties to set as a voluntary “goal” a contingent of gay delegates to the 2008 convention that come to at least 6 percent to 7 percent of the total number of delegates.
 

Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, Sikhs and Hindus Join to Fight Homosexual "Marriage"

Michelle Malkin CAN File Charges Videotaped Verbal Assault

GOP platform backs off pet issues to help McCain (Idiots all!)

 Drilling is the main road to a victory for them. Looks like the idiots are going to throw away their only advantage.

It's almost comical.
 

Storm could swamp GOP convention

Be OK with me...

8,987 posted on 08/27/2008 4:08:18 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Updated: Hurricane Gustav

 

Louisiana, Mississippi keeping eye on Gustav (Category 5 by the time it hits New Orleans?)

[Louisiana Governor] Jindal outlines tentative plan for Gustav evacuation

Storm could swamp GOP convention


8,988 posted on 08/27/2008 4:23:00 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Illegals shock, suffocate, slit throats in U.S.

Despite Press Claims To Contrary, Corporations Do Pay Their Taxes

Steynian 232

August 27, 2008 by binky

~ WE THINK ROBERT JAGO ROCKS, but a recent posting of his indicates (’Decontamination‘) just how far politically correct speech-fascism has infected even the very best of us. ‘Homophobia’™ is political speech-code favoured by same-sex activists for silencing and controlling any debate or discussion of a forbidden topic. Think bully-boy Rob Wells, Pastor Boissoin, Scott Brockie.. the HRCs are all about thought-control, forbidding debate, and taking away human rights. Some are more equal than others. Unless he, too were not a proponent of same-sex intimacy, then these critical remarks of John McKeller about pride extremism would be, ironically, a ‘homophobic’™ hate-crime. We’re in a no-holds-barred culture-war. Like militant Jihadis and other fascisms, many totalitarian same-sex activists want to bully and brainwash their own constituency (only these thoughts are permitted), and control the debate (now staying outside the permitted talking-points), and even forbid any criticism of same-sex individuals, on matters unrelated to their sexual views. Just recall Svend Robinson’s attempt to shut down debate during the gay ‘marriage’ debacle in Canada, or how te media fawned over him after he stole a valuable ring. Homophobia™? = Some fascisms are more equal than others. Such psychologizing thought control wil eventually join past discredited thought-control on the dust heap of history.. but not before wreaking untold damage to politics, philosophy, religion, society, and the lives of many people. All of us and all our views and behaviours are all up for discussion, or freedom and justice and truth are being put in chains. Once we sip from the fascist cup, who shall be silenced? On what topic? By Whom? Barbara Hall? Mohamed Elmasry? Barack Obama? Rob Hall? Richard Warman? That’s how we got here– down that road lies doom and our current crisis of freedom.

Sorry, Robert.. not gonna head back down that path to Stupidville.

Binks

 

In the Grip of the Greenie Monster

There isn't a single windmill owner in Holland who doesn't have a second job, for when there is no wind. ~ Johnny Ball

Few people at the moment realise quite what is at stake, as the ROC "contribution" is not identified on consumer bills and is currently less than £400 million a year. But, as each mast is erected to disfigure the countryside, the costs will ratchet up until we are all paying this incredible sum of £6 billion a year for the privilege.

And, such is the grip of the greenie monster that is driving this insanity, even when people have expressed a clear rejection of a development, the officials plan to go ahead regardless. And to think we once lived in a democracy.


Posted by Cjunk at 7:44 PM | Comments (17) "This makes the McCarthy Era look like a tea party. One psychosis piled onto another. Energized by blind faith in an improvable theories. All with our tax money .The Good Lord help anyone who speaks out. Its the HRC for you buddy!"
 
 
 

GUSTAV THREATENS THE CAYMANS: "I think it is plausible that Gustav could intensify further, to Category 4 strength, before hitting the Caymans, though the most likely intensity is Category 2. Keep in mind that our skill forecasting intensity changes is poor. If you have plans to be on the northern Cayman Islands--Cayman Brac or Little Cayman Island--on Friday, be prepared to be stuck there for several days, as Gustav may heavily damage these islands. Grand Cayman Island is also at risk--the HWRF model predicts Gustav will pass over Grand Cayman on Friday afternoon."

UPDATE: Preparing for Gustav in New Orleans by buying guns. At least this time, the police won't be able to confiscate 'em.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin Returns To New Orleans Due To Gustav (WE'RE SAVED!)

 
 
=================================================
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will give you no rest."

 
 
 

 
 

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

 

 
===========================================================
 

MoveOn.Org Uses Kids To Promote Lefty Talking Points(VIDEO)

 
Democrats vs. the First Amendment

We noted here Barack Obama's effort to drum up a criminal prosecution of those who disagree with him politically. The prospect of such a man in control of the Department of Justice is sobering, to say the least. Another instance of the Democrats' effort to suppress inconvenient First Amendment rights occurred in Denver today, when policemen arrested an ABC newsman, Asa Eslocker, whose camera crew, on a public sidewalk, was photographing Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

If you follow the link above, you can see shocking footage of the ABC reporter being arrested for crossing the Democratic Party.

Will expressing conservative political opinions and taking pictures on a public sidewalk--pictures that are inconvenient for the Democratic Party--result in jail terms when Barack Obama is President? If Obama has his way, the answer appears to be Yes.

To comment on this post, go here.

Posted by John at 9:37 PM | Permalink 
 

BILL CLINTON JUST DEMONSTRATED that he's still the best the Democrats have. And -- wonder of wonders -- he kept it short.

UPDATE: More: "Bill Clinton finally did what no one else has done effectively in the first two and a half days of the convention: He articulated a clear rationale for supporting Barack Obama, while also pointedly attacking McCain."

OBAMA KEEPS PUSHING BACK ON THE AYERS AD, ensuring that it gets further attention.

Meanwhile, more on who the Weathermen really were:

You Say You Want a Revolution: Political worshippers of the new Messiah.

Sparks fly as GOP battles over 'amnesty,' 'anchor babies'

Fox News Feels Wrath Of DNC Protesters: Reporter Besieged With F-Bombs On Live Air

Is America Ready To Send Its Political Opponents to Jail?

Gay Pride Parade Features Obscene Act (Barack Obama Marched In This 2004 Parade

The Blogger (Freeper)Behind the Obama Hit Job


8,989 posted on 08/28/2008 2:48:08 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Chilling News: “Sunspots May Vanish by 2015” (counter CAGW)

This is a hard scientific study out of the National Solar Observatory that seems to show that the current solar cycle is going to be longer and weaker than expected, and may portend something resembling the Maunder Minimum. The icecap.us article links two other articles, an analysis and the complete paper in PDF format. I'll provide those here as well:

paper:

http://www.astroengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/livingston-penn_sunspots2.pdf 

analysis:

http://www.astroengine.com/?p=678

As the analysis points out, they don't yet have an extensive data set. Still, sure looks like the Farmer's Almanac has this winter pegged...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2065287/posts

Some dems hope for catastrophic Hurricane Gustav

It was disgusting watching the giddiness of some of MSNBC's Democrat National Convention commentator panel at the possibility that Hurricane Gustav will slam New Orleans in catastrophic fashion, kill a lot of people, destroy a lot of property, and remind voters about the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.
 

TEMPLE OF DEM ON MT. O-LYMPUS - GOP MOCKS GRAND STAGE FOR BAM AS GREEK HUBRIS


8,990 posted on 08/28/2008 4:39:31 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Russia Tests Intercontinental Missile (Topol ICBM)

U.S. Q2 GDP revised up to 3.3% (The Recession That Never Was)

============================================

New McCain Ad "Remote Control

Dems nervous over Invesco risks (Second thoughts!)--

 Looks sort of like this.


8,991 posted on 08/28/2008 5:56:14 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

TVA Nuclear Plan a Boost to DeKalb County (AL)

TVA seeks reinstatement of permit for two unfinished nuclear reactors at Bellefonte (AL)

For those too young to remember the Cold War...

Why Americans Want a Cold War 2

 This is what you get when you let retards write philosophy.

Boom Times for Job Site Thieves

British journalism student gang-raped by asylum seekers in Calais squatter camp

Electric Gravity in an Electric Universe

TS Gustav & TS Hanna

 
===============================================

Why Taxes Don't Matter Much Anymore

Report: Clinton knew of bin Laden's 'murderous intent' in '96

The Mainstream Moron Media

NBC to ‘Gay’ Journalists: ‘Your Victories Are Our Victories’

Introducing FRED PAC (Thompson speaks out)

When Libs scream "80% of America thinks we are on wrong track"!

20 Reasons to Kill the Corporate Income Tax

Ronald Reagan - July 17th, 1980

Gay Activists Target Businesses

As Nation Watches Denver, Obama Campaign Muscles Chicago Station Over ex-radical Ayers

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears,"

As opposed to the MSM which gives 24/7 airing of left-wing fear-mongering and smears.

Ayers Head

Economy Grew 3.3% in 2nd Quarter, Much Higher Than Initial Reading (The Recession that Never Was)

Democrats Try to Minimize Stadium’s Political Risks

 Great ad for McCain. Words of Dems screaming about the economy, poor people, kids with no food, two years of Dem majority in Congress; contrast with the messiah’s temple, rich convention spending, do nothing Congress... this is what happens when people believe their own hype.

Obama and His Temple


8,992 posted on 08/28/2008 11:43:31 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Cartoonists convention

| | |

Artizans.jpgOver the weekend I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker at the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists, in Banff. I don't think I'd normally be invited to speak at such a gathering, but over the past three years I've talked about editorial cartoons almost every single day. Of course, it's not just the Danish cartoons that we republished in the Western Standard that were subject to human rights complaints; Bruce MacKinnon of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald is currently being hounded by the Nova Scotia HRC, for publishing this work, at left. (Here's more information about that cartoon, and its would-be censors.)

Cartoonists will naturally be targeted by political censors, as it is in the nature of an editorial cartoon, particularly a one-panel editorial cartoon, to communicate without the euphemisms of political correctness that can water down the meaning of, say, a 700-word Op-Ed. Radical Muslim Cheryfa Jamal, pictured in MacKinnon's cartoon, cannot be drawn without her one-woman prison, though an Op-Ed could omit her strikingly misogynist personal appearance. How could any honest cartoonist not draw her in the manner MacKinnon did?

Cheryfa Jamal.jpg

But enough about Jamal. Here is a friendly report from Patrick Lamontagne, the outgoing president of the cartoonists and the host of the convention in Banff:

Ezra Levant turned out to be quite an interesting speaker, and not the reactionary grandstander I had incorrectly assumed he would be. I had the pleasure of dining with him before the speech, I found him to be a likable, well-informed individual with some excellent and frightening points. Turns out that Canadians looking down on the US for the freedoms they've given away to The Department of Homeland Security should take a long hard look at our own Human Rights Commissions. No qualifications, auditors, oversight committees or warrants necessary for these folks. All it takes is an accusation, and you're guilty until proven innocent. One step removed from Big Brother, and a short step at that.

LamontLevant.jpgI'm always pleased when I enter a room as a reactionary grandstander, and leave as a likeable, well-informed individual!

I'm just kidding -- Lamontagne and the entire group were incredibly kind and friendly, and seemed genuinely concerned by the erosion of freedom of speech in Canada. I sensed that some of them were not fully familiar with the story of the Danish cartoons, such as the fact that the Danish imams who went on their world-wide "hate Denmark" tour added in three vile cartoons of their own fabrication to stoke anti-Danish feelings. The wikipedia page is excellent, for those who'd like to know more.

I give a good number of speeches in a year, but I have never received as fitting a present as I did from the cartoonists: a caricature of me wearing a Danish cartoon-style turban! It was painted by Lamontagne himself, and I was truly astonished that he would put so much time and talent into a thank-you gift. And what a perfect gift! You can see a picture of it, above.

As I remarked earlier this summer, for the human rights commissions to take on editorial cartoonists is a strategically foolish decision. Cartoonists are the best-loved people at a newspaper, and certainly the ones whose editorial work is the best-read of all a newspaper's features. They're the last people in the world I'd want to tick off if I were up to no good, like the HRCs are. I hope my speech encouraged the cartoonists to fight back against censorship -- while they still can.

 
The Big Chill: Islamists Inted to Muzzle Americans' Free Spe...
 

WORDS WOMEN USE

Oprah Magazine: Female Teachers Who Have Sex with Students Are Misguided Souls Looking for Love...

New Orleans faces evacuation as Gustav looms (President Bush stikes again)

Governor Jindal's  already deployed them. He’s also already issued a standing pre-order for federal assistance. None of that idiotic Blanco/Nagin crap going on this time.

 
=============================================
 
The Democrats' Missing History
 

Michelle Malkin: Fake “lifelong Republican” alert

Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife

This is the Obama audience. They do not want reality, they want to be led away in illusion to a 'hopeful' place. If reality intrudes (Kurtz on WGN last night) they will have no part of it. The illusion is what is all to them. The One who brings the illusion, the magician.

Hillary Launches Her 2012 Campaign

Hillary’s Done, But Universal Health Care Proposals Live On

Live from DNC: The Big Dawg Delivers

Karl Rove: Biden's Exaggerations -- Inflating Obama's record will not resolve doubts.

Move Over Chuck Norris

Best Obama facts are here...

On a serious note, the US presidential election is taking on a real "soldiers in your cities" feel to it. When people start spoofing your candidate and their positions, there's real trouble in your campaign.

If Obama rises from the floor this evening as I've heard he will, this election is over.

Republicans will benefit more from that image during the rest of the campaign from the average voter, than the Democrats will from their partisan crowd tonight.

Posted by The Greek at 11:59 AM | Comments (29)

Morris: Dems’s big blunder and McCain’s big chance

 They are so anxious to run against Bush, their animosity is so pent up, that they persist in running against a man who is not seeking a third term.
 
ANN ALTHOUSE CALLS THIS MCCAIN AD "devastating." She adds: "I want to post devastating Obama ads too. Please point me to some!" Weirdly, McCain seems to have taken a lead in the rapid-delivery YouTube department. I wouldn't have predicted that. The Obama stuff, meanwhile remains in this vein. It's well-produced and star-studded, but it's not hitting the key points. As Phil Bredesen suggests, he should get more specific.

8,993 posted on 08/28/2008 1:49:56 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

WHO study backs universal health care

US Racing Icon Phil Hill Dies

 
==============================================

Democrat National Convention-(The ascension of the messiah) LIVE THREAD - Day 4

New McCain Ad To Run Tonight "Congrats Obama"

In a switch, McCain to Obama: 'Well done'

Myths In The Making

Well, it took a little time to fully develop, but the Boston Globe has gone fully in the tank for Barack Obama. And they're laying the groundwork for the spins and deceptions and outright lies that they will trot out to push their candidate.

This morning, they feature three columns on Barack Obama, but the one I'm going to focus on is by longtime Democratic activist Dan Payne.

It's such a predictable, by-the-numbers piece I almost could have written it myself, just so I could smack it down.

BARACK OBAMA can deliver a brilliant speech tonight, but its impact could evaporate within days. John McCain and his allies have opened the 2008 Swift Boating season. Four years ago, a smear outfit called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began trashing John Kerry's Vietnam War record. Kerry was never the same.

True enough. He had to admit that he'd made up at least part of his story about his service in Vietnam, and never -- NEVER -- released his full service record to the general public, as he repeatedly promised. In other words, he had to admit that he'd made up some details (the "Christmas in Cambodia" fairy tale) and make sure no more embarrassing details were made public.

Helter Skelter. What the GOP does is throw out so many attacks that the target and voters get confused and disoriented. This all-out Helter Skelter Republican attack machine is something Obama has never experienced.

Oh, poor Bambi. He's a veteran -- hell, a product -- of the Chicago political machine; he's seen up close and personal how dirty politics can be. Also, he's surrounded himself with experienced Democrats who've been through the process numerous times, so they know what to expect -- precisely the same things that they'll do to McCain. It's called "politics."

It always starts small. A small lie. First, they say he's like Paris Hilton. Then he's why gas prices are high. Then he'll raise taxes on the middle class (Funny how powerful Obama is for a man who lacks experience.)

What, saying that Obama's famous for being famous? Sounds pretty accurate. Lord knows he has no lengthy record of accomplishments to run on.

And it isn't Obama that is so powerful, it's the office of the presidency. Look at all the things Bush has been accused of doing to the nation and the world. Some of them are even true, and that is the power of the presidency. That is the office Obama aspires to.

The escalation. McCain's part of the attack machine quickly ginned up a TV spot showing newly minted VP candidate Joe Biden at an early debate saying Obama wasn't ready to be president. Next they found video clips of Hillary Clinton criticizing Obama - imagine, one Democrat knocking another in the middle of a heated primary! Such things never happen to Republicans.

Um... minor problem here, Mr. Payne: those video clips are TRUE. Biden and Clinton actually said those things.

The last time I recall a presidential candidate tapping a former rival for the veep slot was 1980, and I recall a LOT of ads featuring George Bush's describing Reagan's plan as "voodoo economics" in that race. And when Bush ran again for president to succeed Reagan, a lot of his own clips from 1980 came back to haunt him.

Should McCain choose one of his primary opponents for his vice presidential nominee, then we can fully expect to see clips from the debates and ads that candidate ran about McCain, and vice versa. The main difference is that there will be a lot less of Payne-style whining about it, because that's how the game is played.

McCain vs. the Pig. During the Republican primary, John McCain and Mitt Romney tangled over immigration. McCain said this about Romney: "Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."

Case. In. Point. Thank you for proving my point so quickly, Mr. Payne.

The book of lies. Four years ago his book smeared John Kerry's war service. Now Jerome Corsi has a book out on Obama, published by none other than Mary Matalin, longtime hit-woman for the attack machine for the Bushes and Dick Cheney.

Corsi regurgitates every ugly rumor about Obama. He even asks if Obama has continued to use drugs since high school and college. The book contained so many lies and distortions that the Obama campaign had to issue a 40-page response.

Corsi's a nut, a 9/11 Truther. He's actually doing the Obama camp a favor -- while everyone dismisses HIS book, it draws attention away from another book that has far, far more credible -- and damaging -- stuff on Obama. The Democrats ought to keep this book on the top of the charts for as long as they can, just so it sucks up all the attention Freddoso's book would otherwise get.

And it was one of Hillary's national co-chairman, Bill Shaheen, who pushed the drug angle -- and had to resign for it.

The weirding begins. The favorite move of the GOP attack machine is to define an opponent as weird, outside the mainstream of America's Brady Bunch self-image. Michael Dukakis was weird because he was an ethnic, Northeast liberal who carried an ACLU card, and as governor vetoed a bill making the pledge of allegiance mandatory. Obviously, Dukakis hates America.

Again, just part of the game. McCain's weird because he spent five years as a prisoner. Because he has a temper. Because he married a wealthy woman who owns a lot of stuff. Because he's OLD.

I, too, remember the 1988 campaign, Mr. Payne. And you're right about most of the things, but I don't recall Mr. Dukakis' ethnicity being much of an issue. Indeed, I recall it was just the opposite -- he was held up by his backers as the embodiment of the American dream, the child of Greek immigrants who would grow up to be president. Well, maybe. And, thank heavens, not.

Obama is weird because of his race, name, upbringing outside the continental United States, and a host of malicious lies: He doesn't put his hand on his heart during the national anthem (wrong). He's a closeted Muslim (false). He attended an anti-American madrassa school (nope). He was sworn into office on the Koran (untrue). He snubbed hospitalized veterans while in Germany (bogus).

Yup, and it's been a lot of Democrats who pushed those crocks, during the primary season. I lost count of how many Hillary Clinton campaign people "resigned" after being caught pushing them.

And Obama DID snub hospitalized veterans in Germany. It appears to have been an accidental snub, a series of errors and whatnot, but that just shows that Obama's "judgment" and priorities and competence are not what they claim to be.

Michelle Obama, according to attack machine gunner Rush Limbaugh, was seen on a video berating "whitey" at some meeting. Supposedly she wasn't referring to Bulger. Regardless, no such video has ever been found.

Um... minor problem there, Mr. Payne.The earliest and biggest pusher of the "whitey" tape story was Bob Beckel, longtime Democratic activist and Hillary Clinton supporter.

Got surge? The right-wing Vets for Freedom has started a $1.1 million TV campaign in key states that uses three veterans of the Iraq war who knock Obama for not supporting the surge in Iraq.

So? It's true. And those veterans aren't being "used" as Mr. Payne wants you to think. They CHOSE to make the ad, of their own free will, with no deception or manipulation involved.

The Ayers TV spot. The American Issues Project is running a TV commercial making it seem as though Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, an unrepentant radical in the 1960s and '70s, are best friends and that Obama supports his violent acts.

No, Mr. Payne, Mr. Ayers is an unrepentant TERRORIST. When the prosecution against him fell apart due to government malfeasance, Ayers himself proclaimed "Guilty as hell, free as a bird--America is a great country."

And Obama has repeatedly tried to minimize his relationship with Ayers, only to have to go back and revise it as more and more details of their history together come to light. The reason that the Obama camp finds this ad so frightening is that it not only shows a pattern of Obama choosing to surround himself with people of extremely dubious character (Tony Rezko and Reverend Jeremiah Wright come to mind), but that goes to their single strength of Obama's they tout -- their judgment.

And just how badly to they fear attacks like this?

Get some Justice. Obama's campaign has demanded that the Justice Department investigate the Ayers spot, claiming it's electioneering, not issue advocacy. Dallas megamillionaire Harold Simmons is bankrolling the ad. By himself. Simmons was a major donor to the Swift Boat smear job against Kerry and has raised more than $50,000 this time for McCain. Hard to call this an independent expenditure.

Hey, Mr. Payne, unless you can show that McCain had anything to do with the ad directly, it's "independent." The issue of the ad is "keep terrorists and buddies of terrorists out of the White House."

But if you wanna play that game, Mr. Payne, can we take a look at those who are spending literally millions on behalf of Obama? Let's start with George Soros, and MoveOn down the list. Careful what precedents you might set.

Yet another hit man, who shall go nameless because he thrives on publicity, created the infamous Willie Horton TV spot that attacked Dukakis for a weekend prison furlough program that resulted in a convicted murderer traveling to Maryland where he brutally beat a man and raped his fiancee.

The nameless one is now attacking Obama in a TV spot for opposing in the Illinois state Legislature a bill to extend the death penalty to gang murderers, after the killing of innocent Chicagoans during gang gunplay.

Hmm... who could this be? As I recall, it was Al Gore's campaign that first made Willie Horton a campaign issue.

And in both cases, the charges have the virtue of being true. If Obama felt so strongly about that law, why shouldn't he have a forceful defense of his opposition?

Formula for defeat. White bigots + lies about Obama + Hillary holdouts = President McCain. Nothing Obama says tonight can change that. Enjoy it because the next 68 days won't be fun.

Alternately, it's more like "guilty whites + lies about Obama + willful blindness = President Obama."

Obama can change that. Literally anything can happen in the next 68 days.

I've often spoke of my disregard for polls, and I'm going to make my own analysis about how the election: it's a dead heat. There's a 50% chance that Obama will win, and a 50% chance that McCain will win.

And it's going to stay that way right up until the actual election -- the only poll that counts.

Oh, and one last thing, Mr. Payne: there's a very good chance that the next 68 days could be very fun. For example, your "analysis" gave me some great belly laughs.

Democratic far-left wing sees its best chance in decades

Barry's Delusions Of Grandeur (Don't You Know Who I Am? I'm The Messiah, Damnit, Alert)


8,994 posted on 08/28/2008 3:29:29 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

But, but...

If we just elect the new, improved black Jesus, bunnies will dance with unicorns, and all manner A' tings will be made well in the land again...

Russia tests missile that can beat shield

 Keep in mind-the Russians put a LOT of their money and technology into their military—while we tend to spend it for health care for illegals, gay pride parades, “Global warming” studies, etc

Russia tests out new lethal nuke

 
DAVID BERNSTEIN ON THE AARP'S "ridiculous claim that 1.85 million Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills. In other words, the AARP is claiming that every single bankruptcy in the U.S. is due to medical bills. Even Elizabeth Warren doesn't go that far. The AARP has launched a mass media campaign, including television ads, based on this blatantly dishonest premise. One can only hope it will damage its credibility." Yeah, every time I turn on the TV I see this commercial.
 

H.I.V. Is Spreading in New York City at Three Times the National Rate, a Study Finds

happy shoot-iversary to me

GDP Shows Economy Is Far from Recession

Classic Vespa scooter falls foul of EU emissions

The Parking Garage To Nowhere?  “Paul Kanjorski is the epitome of what is wrong with Congress.”

 
 

IDENTITY THEFT: JAMES WOODS PROVES CRIME DOES NOT PAY

 
KATRINA TIMELINE
 
When is somebody going to say, "enough with the perpetual victimology, already!?

Katrina survivors turn to Venezuela for support

Katrina survivors turn to Venezuela for support Handout

There, fixed it!

 
If Catastrophe Were To Strike

TS Gustav & TS Hanna

As Gustav nears, Gulf Coast puts faith in planning

================================================
 

Levant to CHRC: "You should all be fired"

| | |

siren.gifAs I mentioned in this blog post, I have been targeted again with a human rights complaint, this time before the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The complaint,which you can see here, was filed by Rob "Fred Phelps" Wells, an anti-Catholic bigot in Edmonton who has made a habit of harrassing school children and little old ladies outside St. Joseph's Basilica. The fact that Wells is a CHRC complainant (he also filed complaints against Catholic Insight magazine and Rev. Stephen Boission) and not a target of a CHRC investigation shows the moral inversion at work at the CHRC. Then again, the CHRC is one of Canada's largest hate groups on the Internet, with its staff posting literally hundreds of anti-Semitic, anti-gay and anti-Black comments with impunity.

As per the notice from the CHRC, I filed my reply today. You can see it here in .pdf format. And here is the full text:

 

August 28, 2008

 

Natalie Dagenais

Canadian “Human Rights” Commission

344 Slater Street

Ottawa, ON K1A 1E1

 

Dear Natalie,

 

Re: Rob Wells v. Ezra Levant

 

I received your letter dated August 8, 2008. At first I wasn’t sure it was yours, because you didn’t write your name on it, and your signature was illegible.

 

I can understand your shyness. It has become an embarrassment to publicly admit to being a “human rights investigator” in Canada, because Canadians have caught on to what you really do: you don’t actually protect human rights, you violate them. At least you didn’t sign it as “Jadewarr”, or any of the other false names that your office uses when surfing the Internet in the guise of a neo-Nazi, spewing anti-Semitic and racist venom.

 

In Alberta, Shirlene McGovern, the human rights investigator who pursued an Islamic fatwa against me for publishing some cartoons, received such a backlash from the public that she actually quit my case. It is my hope that you have a revelation as to the odious nature of your work.

 

Come to think of it, if I worked for the CHRC, I’d use an alias, too.

 

As to the substance of your letter, I object to your Assessment Report because it is hypocritical, it demonstrates the corruption of the CHRC, and it is unfounded in law.

 

Hypocritical

 

It is hypocritical because the bullies at the CHRC have already found that the exact words at the center of this complaint are contrary to the section 13 “hate speech” provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act. In CHRC investigation number 2005-2462, you decided that a Christian pastor, Rev. Stephen Boissoin, had contravened the law by publishing the exact same words in an Alberta newspaper.

 

I republished the same words as Rev. Boissoin and yet you have recommended that the CHRC not proceed against me.

 

There is only one reason for this: the CHRC is anti-Christian, and thus you excuse in me what you condemned in Rev. Boissoin.

 

This is not the first indication of a deep-seated bigotry at the CHRC. You have mercilessly persecuted other Christians in Canada for merely expressing their faith, such as Fr. Alphonse de Valk of Catholic Insight magazine and Ron Gray and the Christian Heritage Party to name just two others.

 

I note that the CHRC has never once prosecuted a “hate speech” complaint against any non-Christian, though there is plenty of non-Christian bigotry in Canada. No Muslim extremist, no Tamil extremist, no Sikh extremist has ever been prosecuted, though those communities are wracked with internecine hates between radical and moderate camps, that sometimes spill over into violence. But you’d rather pick on a seventy-something Catholic priest for publishing a newsletter.

 

That’s why you’re letting me go – I’m not a weak, penniless Christian clergyman.

 

That’s hypocrisy, but it’s not surprising coming from an organization so sick that its staff perpetrate racist slurs through their own vile posts on the Internet. It is now public knowledge that staff at the CHRC, like Dean Steacy and Richard Warman, joined neo-Nazi groups and surfed the net in full racist drag. The fact that everyone from the Chief Commissioner on down hasn’t been fired for this scandal is amazing to me.

 

Corruption

 

One of the tenets of Canadian law – a real human right, not one of your counterfeit human rights such as the “right not to be offended” – is equal justice under law. That means that rich or poor, powerful or powerless, everybody is treated the same way before the law. It’s a legal tradition that dates all the way back to the Magna Carta signed by King John. I know he’s a dead white man, and Christian to boot, so the CHRC would regard him as the enemy. But Canada still follows those rules.

 

But not over at the CHRC. Your own staff commits heinous acts of online bigotry, publishing the worst filth imaginable. Richard Warman – your former staffer, currently your most active complainant, and the CHRC’s star witness whose expenses are paid for with tax dollars to this day – went online to write that gays are “sexual deviants” who are a “cancer” in society. He called for the creation of an Apartheid city in Canada to be called “Whiteville”. He called federal cabinet ministers, such as former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, “scum” because they’re Jewish. He made literally hundreds of similar posts. Yet every complaint to the CHRC about Warman’s own hatemongering has been rejected.

 

That’s a form of corruption – just like it’s corrupt that the CHRC refuses to comply with its statutory obligations to disclose records to respondents; it’s corrupt that the CHRC refuses to comply with access to information laws, despite an order by the Information Commissioner; it’s corrupt that your own little squad illegally solicits and receives police evidence obtained in criminal search warrants; it is corrupt that you release inaccurate transcripts of CHRT hearings, with embarrassing facts about the CHRC left out.

 

A few years ago, the CHRC underwent a confidential internal government audit. You received a failing grade when it came to ethics. You don’t even have a written ethics policy – let alone anyone to enforce that ethical code. The only question is why it took so long for the CHRC to fall under an RCMP investigation.

 

The Commission is rotten to the core. And you and your commissioners don’t give a damn about it. The CHRC even hired a crooked cop, Sandy Kozak, who was drummed out of a police force for corruption. She was too dirty for them, but just right for you. That’s the standard of ethics at the CHRC.

 

Incorrect law

 

My contempt for the CHRC and its political masters is deep. The thought that your crooked ex-cop colleague, Sandy Kozak, was the investigator examining the saintly Fr. de Valk, is a grotesque moral inversion.

 

But when it comes to your “reasoning” for acquitting me but convicting Rev. Boissoin, it is laughable.

 

In paragraph 31 of your letter, you try to distinguish my acquittal with Rev. Boissoin’s conviction by saying the context is different – and that for the CHRC to find material illegal, it must appear in vile forums, like neo-Nazi websites. I know you’re pretty familiar with those neo-Nazi websites, as half of your office has membership privileges. But Rev. Boissoin’s publication didn’t appear in any of your favourite neo-Nazi sites. It appeared on the pages of the Red Deer Advocate, a moderate and mainstream newspaper.

 

In paragraph 33, you state that my republication of Rev. Boissoin’s words were “more likely” to generate a debate, than to promote “hatred”. Again, that’s a fabrication: Rev. Boissoin’s column generated an enormous debate, both in the pages of the Red Deer Advocate and elsewhere. The debate is still going on, six years later.

 

But putting aside this factual falsehood, you falsely imply that hate speech jurisprudence grants an exemption for publications that create a debate. You just made that up, as a fig leaf to cover up your double-standard against Rev. Boissoin.

 

In paragraphs 14 and 33 of your letter, you distinguish my publication from Rev. Boissoin’s by asserting that mine had a “social purpose”. So did Rev. Boissoin’s – he was a Christian pastor promoting his social views in a public forum. Again the conclusion is hypocritical. But the point here is that you’re just making up an excuse. You’ve confected it out of thin air. Truth, fair comment and the defence of “reasonable journalism” have not been treated by the CHRC as defences to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

 

Why did you do it?

 

Why would you write such a letter? You did it because the Commission doesn’t want to proceed against me. You’d rather pick on poor Christians like Rev. Boissoin. Because you know that, unlike him, I’m going to expose you and the CHRC to be the inconsistent human rights violators that you are.

 

I object to your reasoning because it’s false. I deliberately republished a column that I knew had been condemned as “hate speech” by the Alberta human rights commission. You have made up excuses to let me go that no other target of the CHRC has been able to use as a defence for themselves. You are making a special exception for me, for political reasons. That is inappropriate and cowardly.

 

However, the truly odious parties here are the CHRC commissioners themselves, who condone and enable your actions and – in Jennifer Lynch’s case – publicly excuse your actions. You should all be fired.

 

Signed,

 

Ezra Levant

 

P.S. Stop sending your correspondence to my father.

I haven't spent a lot of money fighting against this complaint, and frankly I expect the CHRC will be too cowardly to proceed against me. If that's the case, my expenses to date on this one are probably less than $2,000 -- I simply had my lawyer, Tom Ross, review the letter from the CHRC and review and revise my reply. If you want to chip in, I'd be grateful. You can click the PayPal button below, or send a cheque by snail mail to Tom, payable to "McLennan Ross in Trust", and indicate that it's for my human rights complaints. Tom's address is:

McLennan Ross

1600 Stock Exchange Tower
300 - 5th Avenue SW
Calgary, AB T2P 3C4

Thank you.

By the way, dear reader -- and to my less dear daily visitors from the Canadian Human Rights Commission -- if you're wondering if I'm getting tired of fighting against these fascists, and if you're still wondering after the above letter, the answer is: hell no.

 
================================================
================================================
 

HERE'S THE FULL TEXT OF OBAMA'S SPEECH. As with McCain, I have to go to The Corner for these things.

UPDATE: The trademark five-minute take from PoliPundit.

I can usually sum up the impact of a speech or debate within the first five minutes of watching it (I did this, for example, after John Kerry’s 2004 convention speech, and the 2005 California gubernatorial debate.)

After watching the first five minutes of Obama’s speech, I’m certain that - barring some unforeseen event - John McCain will be the next president of the United States.

Obama’s problem is that he’s too Mandela, too MLK. In his effort to rise above it all, he has made himself the perfect ultra-liberal, post-partisan candidate for almost any high position but the American presidency.

-- PoliPundit

Is This Dr. King's Dream for Black America?

 In Los Angeles, illegal alien gang members randomly shoot down Black Americans, but Mr. Obama says immigration raids are ineffective and that illegals should have a 'path to citizenship.'
 
Was It Effective Demagoguery, Or Ineffective?

Fireworks! The perfect end to an evening of BS slinging of historic proportions. Barack Obama is a demagogue who will stoop to any lie or distortion; the question is how many people he can fool. On that, the jury is out. The answer will emerge between now and November.

It will take some time to dissect all of the foolishness we heard tonight, but here are a few observations:

Obama outlined, in the vaguest terms possible, countless billions or trillions of new federal spending. How would he pay for it? By "closing corporate loopholes"--like what? The idea that Obama's orgy of spending can be funded by "closing corporate loopholes" is frankly childish. By increasing taxes on the top 5% of taxpayers, i.e., precisely those who are grossly over-taxed already. The top 5% already pay 60% of all federal income taxes. And by "eliminating programs that no longer work." Really? Which ones? No one seriously imagines that Obama--let alone the Democratic Congress!--has any intention of eliminating any significant government programs.

Obama says he wants to become independent of foreign oil in ten years. How? By tapping natural gas reserves. I wonder whether Obama, unlike Nancy Pelosi, understands that natural gas is a fossil fuel for which we must drill offshore, in ANWR, etc. There was perhaps some news here: Obama also came out for developing nuclear energy, yet another flip-flop. But does anyone imagine that nuclear energy development would go forward in a Democratic Congress and White House? In one of his many cheap shots, Obama said that we import three times as much foreign oil as when John McCain went to Washington. That's no doubt true, because the Democratic Party has enacted legislation that makes it illegal to develop our domestic resources.

Obama said he is happy to debate John McCain about who has the judgment and temperament to guide foreign policy. Of course, he has had many opportunities to do so, and has ducked them. Does this mean that Obama will now accept McCain's challenge to a series of town hall appearances? But what about Obama's foreign policy judgment? He barely mentioned Iraq--once, in the distant past, his signature issue--but never referred at all to the surge. Obama was dead wrong on the most important foreign policy issue that has arisen during his time in the Senate, and he failed even to mention it, let alone try to justify his error.

Rather weirdly, Obama attacked McCain for alleged unwillingness to "follow Osama bin Laden to the cave where he lives." If this means anything, it means that Obama is still in favor of invading Afghanistan. Again, no one really believes Obama will do this; it's just another example of how he doesn't feel any obligation to conform his words to reality.

He says we "don't deter Iran by talking tough," so how, then, do we deter Iran? Obama offers no clue. Likewise with Georgia; "talking tough" won't stop the Russians. True enough; deterring the Russians requires military capability. Yet Obama has pledged to reduce our military capability. So how, exactly, are the Russians to be stopped?

Obama is utterly unreliable every time he recites a statistic. Examples could be multiplied endlessly; to take just one, he said tonight that "the average American family saw its income go down $2,000 under George Bush." That is untrue. Here are the real median household income figures from the Census Bureau; click to enlarge:

Inflation-adjusted median income during the Bush administration is up, not "down $2,000" since 2001, and it increased again last year.

Of course, Obama has no intention of appealing to the well-informed. Like other Democrats, he feeds on ignorance. Whether a majority of voters are ignorant enough to swallow Obama's whoppers is, as yet, unknown.

One last thought: was there a single sentence in Obama's speech that could not have come from Jimmy Carter?

Posted by John at 9:56 PM | Permalink 
 

15,000 Reporters At The DNC

And not of them has heard of William Ayers. "Oh, you truth-telling rebels!"

Posted by Kate at 11:09 PM | Comments (3)

Obama's DNC Speech

OK, let's hear it,

If you watched it, what did you think? Was this a turning point in the US presidential election? Or will people forget this come November 04th?

All comments welcome...

Posted by The Greek at 11:07 PM | Comments (37)
"What really amazes me however is the complete and total grovelling of the media over Obama. I've never seen anything quite like it. They are no longer even trying to hide their bias. They might as well all be wearing Obama buttons. The Obama movement in my mind has become a cult."
 
DOG BITES MAN: Media Cheers Obama Speech. "Several members of the media were seen cheering and clapping for Barack Obama as the Illinois senator accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday. Standing on the periphery of the football field serving as the Democratic convention floor, dozens of men and women wearing green media floor passes chanted along with the crowd."
 
"...just couldn't stand the faux-ness of its surroundings - show-biz hype and optics masquerading as a political event.

Much the same reason why I hated KISS. "

He cometh; the money tree shaketh

August 28, 2008 09:54 PM by Michelle Malkin278 Comments

"What we are witnessing tonight is the Disneyfication[new word] of the election of one of the most important political figures in the entire world."
 
protein wisdom delivers his review of Barack Obama’s coliseum speech

All’s I can tell you is, I doubt it was as entertaining as the re-runs of “Monk” I watched instead.

– Though I grant, it was probably a bit more street, as the kids say.*

****
update: Inexplicably, these folks all bothered to turn on and tune in.

Reached for comment, the ghost of Timothy Leary papered his uppers with happyface tabs, then tried, with mixed success, to reach the ghost of Timothy Leary for comment.


8,995 posted on 08/29/2008 3:15:29 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
 

12 decapitated bodies found in Mexico

Coming soon to an Amexican barrio near you.
 

Flu shot does not reduce risk of death (in elderly)

Schwarzenegger's 'post-partisanship' killing California

Scientists work out best way to swat a fly

===============================================
 

Anti-Obamanomics: Why Everyone Should Be in Favor of Reducing Taxes on the "Rich"

Obama Desperately Trying to Keep Lid On Bill Ayers Story

What Lurks in the Ayers-Annenberg Files?

Stanley Kurtz's Fairness Doctrine Preview (Obots try to shut down talk of Obama - Ayers connection)

 Obama supporters will riot whether he wins or loses. If he wins, they’ll riot just to show us our new masters (thugs, who will probably soon be wearing the uniforms of Obama’s new domestic security corps) and what they can get away with.

I think we have a better chance of living through this and saving our country if we resist now. If they lose, they’ll riot; but after the smoke has cleared, we’ll be able to rebuild out country. If they win, we’re going to see repression like Stalin only dreamed of.

McCain appears set to name Palin as running mate (FR exclusive analysis)


8,996 posted on 08/29/2008 5:46:55 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

John McCain Selects Alaska Governor Sarah Palin [From the McCain official site]

Brilliant McCain Stroke: Now Hillary & Bill Can Vote For A Female... (Debbie Schlussel Thumbs Up!)

Palin's First Shot at Obama

BUILDING A SARAH PALIN PICTURES THREAD

 
Image:Sarah Palin Kuwait 14.jpg 
 
 

8,997 posted on 08/29/2008 9:16:47 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
SANTA BARBARA'S RESOLVE AGAINST DRILLING FADES: "The speed with which opinions have changed in Santa Barbara County as gasoline prices have climbed has been astonishing.

Drill Here, Drill Now- (Live Thread, Day XXI)

 

Iran 'operating 4,000 nuclear centrifuges'

'Israel reaches strategic decision not to let Iran go nuclear'

Lights Out on Liberty (Importante, Norte Americanos)

How Many Illegal Aliens Live In L.A.? (I have a dream too. There are no illegals in my dream)

 
REGRETS AFTER prostate surgery.
 

Sweden's Loch Ness monster possibly caught on camera

 
L’Fin de Nouvelle Orleans //¡ Gustav ! //Florida- watch for TS Hanna //I-10 NOLA contraflow starts Saturday
 
===============================================
 

Palin for America: A true conservative: “She knows when to stand up and doesn’t let anyone tell her to sit down”

By Michelle Malkin  •  August 29, 2008 11:03 AM

Scroll down for updates…vid of the announcement at HA

The announcement from Dayton will start any minute. There’s a new rock star in town. Conservatives are full of Hope that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will bring much-needed Change to McCain Republicanism.

Catch the fever.

I’m starting a new thread and kicking off discussion with this YouTube ad from Palin supporters.

Yes, I’m impressed. Very impressed.

Flashback: You go, girl: Alaska GOP Gov. will sue Bush administration over polar bear listing

***

The official statement from McCain:

U.S. Senator John McCain today announced that he has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate and to serve as his vice president.

Governor Palin is a tough executive who has demonstrated during her time in office that she is ready to be president. She has brought Republicans and Democrats together within her Administration and has a record of delivering on the change and reform that we need in Washington.

Governor Palin has challenged the influence of the big oil companies while fighting for the development of new energy resources. She leads a state that matters to every one of us – Alaska has significant energy resources and she has been a leader in the fight to make America energy independent.

In Alaska, Governor Palin challenged a corrupt system and passed a landmark ethics reform bill. She has actually used her veto and cut budgetary spending. She put a stop to the “bridge to nowhere” that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars.

As the head of Alaska’s National Guard and as the mother of a soldier herself, Governor Palin understands what it takes to lead our nation and she understands the importance of supporting our troops.

Governor Palin has the record of reform and bipartisanship that others can only speak of. Her experience in shaking up the status quo is exactly what is needed in Washington today.

***

The ACU raves:

CONSERVATIVES HAIL MCCAIN VICE PRESIDENTIAL PICK

(Minneapolis, MN) - David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, has issued the following statement on Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain’s pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

“The selection of Governor Palin is great news for conservatives, for the party and for the country. Her dedication to principle, her courage both before and after her election as Governor of Alaska and her personal qualities make her a perfect choice for Vice President. I predict any conservatives who have been lukewarm thus far in their support of the McCain candidacy will work their hearts out between now and November for the McCain - Palin ticket.”

***

Jennifer Rubin at PJM:

…Palin will argue that in fact Obama has no more experience than she does, and that Palin has the advantage of sharing McCain’s views (and thus being right) on the surge, Russian ambitions, and meetings with state terror sponsors. The VP debate against Biden may be dicey, but the McCain camp knows full well that a vice-presidential debate isn’t going to make or break their candidate. In short, McCain is hoping that Palin is good enough on this score for a number two pick against a Democratic ticket headed by a man with virtually the same meager national security credentials.

As to the second, Palin has much to offer McCain. On a non-political level few can doubt her Q-factor. (She will be the first former beauty queen to run on a national ticket.) The daughter of a teacher and mother of five, she has an ebullient personality and an excellent TV presence. The Right will be entranced : a pro-life hunter with a passion for domestic energy development? And in the battle for “change” she has the record of reform and the identity of a complete Washington outsider. Finally, as a lifelong NRA member, an outdoorswoman, and a western governor she may provide extra help in mountain and western states such as Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico which are certain to be in play.

On the policy front, Palin can make the case that the Democratic program of higher taxes, more spending, and a government takeover of health care is a proven loser. She will argue that she can bring practical experience from as far outside the Beltway as one can get. And, of course, the presence of a woman on the ticket creates instantaneous excitement and puts into play Clinton voters looking for a new champion.

The pick also tells us something about McCain: he thinks he can win. He was not willing to rock the boat with his conservative base. He can use Palin on offense to make a run at women voters and on defense to blunt the populist attacks from the Democrats. And it shows he understands the need to generate enthusiasm and “newness” in his own campaign.

Ed Morrissey: Change conservatives can believe in!

LifeNews has an excellent overview of Palin’s staunch, pro-life activism.

James Pethokoukis sends the 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Sarah Palin:

. Sarah Louise Palin (nee Heath) was born Feb., 1964, in Sandpoint, Idaho. Her family moved to Alaska when Sarah was an infant. Her father, Chuck, is a retired schoolteacher.

2. She attended Wasilla High School where she played point guard on the state champion basketball team. Her nickname was “Sarah Barracuda.”

3. Palin graduated in 1987 from the University of Idaho with a degree in journalism. She worked briefly as a sports reporter in Anchorage.

4. She refers to her husband, Todd, as the “First Dude.” He’s worked as a commercial fisherman and as a production operator on the North Slope for BP. He enjoys snowmobiling and has won the Tesoro Iron Dog, billed as the world’s longest snowmobile race, four times.

5. Palin and her husband have five children, Bristol, Piper, Track, Willow, and Trig. Trig, born in 2008, has been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Her son Track joined the army in 2007.

6. Her favorite meal is moose stew.

7. She comes from a family of outdoor enthusiasts. Her parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, enjoy hunting and fishing, and have both completed marathons.

8. Palin was named Miss Wasilla in 1984 and was a runner-up for Miss Alaska. In 1996 she was elected mayor of Wasilla.

9. She’s a lifetime NRA member and enjoys hunting, fishing, and snowmobiling.

10. Elected in 2006, she’s Alaska’s first female governor and the youngest governor elected in the state.
***

12:22pm Eastern. McCain: It is with great pride and gratitude that I tell you that I have the right partner for those who value their responsibilities over their privileges, someone who has fought corruption, stopped government from wasting taxpayers’ money…someone with executive experience, who has shown great tenacity and skill in tackling tough problems, especially our dependence on foreign oil, someone with strong principles, a fighting spirit, and deep compassion, someone who grew up in a decent, hard-working middle-class family…

Good stuff: “She knows when to stand up and doesn’t let anyone tell her to sit down…She’s exactly who I need, she’s exactly who this country needs…”

Really good.

The next vice president of the United States, Gov. Sarah Palin of the great state of Alaska.

Huge roar of applause. Huge.

Obama-Biden has to be in full snit-fit mode.

And Hillary must be experiencing a schadenfreude-licious moment right now.

It’s McCain’s birthday and the Palins’ 20th anniversary today.

12:44pm Eastern. Palin gives props to Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. “The women of America aren’t finished yet…We can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all!”

Palin coopts the Hope and Change mantra. Sweet.

Audience coopts “Yes, we can!” Sweet.

God bless America!

For real.

Posted in: John McCain
 
JIM LINDGREN reports that Sarah Palin is playing well with Hillary supporters.
 
 
 
Palin bio - not just another pretty face
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net

Posted on Friday, August 29, 2008 10:25:47 AM by Brookhaven

Sarah Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the current Governor of Alaska, and a member of the Republican Party. She is the youngest and first female governor of Alaska. Brought to statewide attention because of her whistleblowing on ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders,[1] she won election in 2006 by first defeating the incumbent governor in the Republican primary, then a former Democratic Alaskan governor in the general election. On August 29, the Associated Press reported that "speculation [has] moved to [Palin as a] darkhorse" pick for the vice president running mate slot by presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.[2] The CNBC news service is now reporting that Palin will in fact be the GOP vice-presidential nominee.[3]

She is reported to be a possible choice for the Republican Party's nomination as Vice President of the United States in the 2008 election. Formal announcement of the presumptive nominee will be made in Dayton, Ohio on August 29, 2008, by Presidential candidate John McCain. Palin was born as Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Charles and Sally (Sheeran) Heath.[4] Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant.[5] Charles Heath was a popular science teacher and coached track.[5] The Heaths were avid outdoors enthusiasts; Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family would regularly run 5k and 10k races.[5]

Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play.[5] She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds.[5] Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.[5]

In 1984, Palin was second-place in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, winning a scholarship to help pay her way through college.[5] In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.

Details of Palin's personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose burgers, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane.[6][7] Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it.[8]

Palin holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart.[5] One summer when she was working on Todd's fishing boat, the boat collided with a tender while she was holding onto the railing; Palin broke several fingers.[5] Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope[9] and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile "Iron Dog" race four times.[5] The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street.[5] Todd is a Native Yup'ik Eskimo.[5] The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.[10]

On September 11, 2007, the Palins' son Track joined the Army. Eighteen years old at the time, he is the eldest of Palin's five children.[10] Track now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7.[11] On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome.[12] She returned to the office three days after giving birth.[13] Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin said. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"[13]

Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes.[5] The ex-mayor and sheriff tried to organize a recall campaign, but failed.[5] Palin kept her campaign promises, reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes 60%.[5] She ran for reelection against the former mayor in 1999, winning by an even larger margin.[5][14] Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.[11]

In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for Lieutenant Governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a four-way race. After Frank Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term to become governor, Palin interviewed to be his possible successor. Instead, Murkowski appointed his daughter, then-Alaska State Representative Lisa Murkowski.[5]

Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission[15], where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest.[5] After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail.[16] Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.[5]

In 2006, Palin, running on a clean-government campaign, executed an upset victory over then-Gov. Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary.[5] Despite the lack of support from party leaders and being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she went on to win the general election in November 2006, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles.[5] Palin said in 2006 that education, public safety, and transportation would be three cornerstones of her administration.[8]

When elected, Palin became the first woman to be Alaska's governor, and the youngest governor in Alaskan history at 42 years old upon taking office. Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood. She was also the first Alaskan governor not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.

Highlights of Governor Palin's tenure include a successful push for an ethics bill, and also shelving pork-barrel projects supported by fellow Republicans. Palin successfully killed the Bridge to Nowhere project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending.[13][17] "Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on 'federal dollars,' as the state does today."[6]

She has challenged the state's Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young[18] and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings.[13] Palin supports holding occasional legislative sessions outside the state capital, and municipal revenue sharing to help local governments.[citation needed]

Palin's tenure is noted for her independence from big oil companies, while still promoting resource development.[6][13] Palin has announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors, to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska. [19]

Shortly after taking office, Palin rescinded an appointment by Murkowski of his former chief of staff Jim Clark to the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority, one of thirty-five appointments made by Murkowski in the last hour of his administration that she reversed. [20][21] Clark later pled guilty to conspiring with a defunct oil-field-services company to channel money into Frank Murkowski's re-election campaign. [22]

In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state's North Slope.[23] Only one legislator, Representative Ralph Samuels, voted against the measure,[24] and in June Palin signed it into law.[25][26] On January 5, 2008, Palin announced that a Canadian company, Transcanada, was the sole AGIA-compliant applicant.[27][28]

In response to high oil and gas prices, and in response to the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates.[29] She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly and eliminate the gas tax.[30][31]

SOCIAL ISSUES Palin is strongly pro-life and belongs to Feminists for Life.[8] She opposes same-sex marriage(we will have to work on this one, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination.[8] While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and signed them into law. [32]

She supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter.[33] Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii.[34]

Palin's first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to gay state employees and their partners. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska's attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation.[35]
 

THEY'RE SAYING THAT MCCAIN HAS PICKED SARAH PALIN. The Insta-Wife is ecstatic, which may bode well for that demographic. I'd like it if she had more executive experience, but to be fair, she's got more than anyone else on either ticket. Is she too liberal on gay rights? Not for me, but maybe for some people.

UPDATE: Sissy Willis has more, including video of an interview of Palin by Larry Kudlow.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Judging from SayUncle, Palin will play well among the crucial bitter gun-clinger demographic. [They prefer to be called 'blasty-Americans' now -- ed. Oh, good grief.]

Plus, the WaPo's Ben Pershing on Sarah Palin's Porkbusting.

The pick is getting good marks from Geraldine Ferraro.

And, Palin as the anti-Ted Stevens."In an election where the Republican’s biggest liability isn’t Iraq but Ted Stevens and the Alaskan Bridge To Nowhere, McCain took his maverick mantle by the reins and just signed up the Anti Stevens to help him root out the corruption endemic in DC."

This rather churlish response from the Obama campaign won't help them -- dissing small towns doesn't fit well after Biden's "nobody is better than anybody" talk. [LATER: McCain response: "I'd think the Obama people would have learned by now not to belittle the experience of women."]

By contrast, I just saw Palin praise Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro as pathbreakers. And that "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" line was delightfully sly.

MORE: Reader Kyle Griffin emails: "Did the Obama campaign just accuse the Republican campaign of having a VP with insufficient experience? Was that really smart? Will we see an ad about that tomorrow from the McCain youTube team?" Yeah, it did seem like an unforced error.

An "I told you so" from Katie Granju. [LATER: Granju emails: "I'm telling you. She's got the goods. Of course, I disagree with her on, well, mostly everything, but she's super impressive." Yeah, I'd never seen her speak before, and I was wrong to discount her, though I thought she'd said she didn't want the job.]

More on Geraldine Ferraro on Palin.

Roger Simon: Obama the stodgy, McCain the Maverick.

Ha! Say the Online Hillary Supporters [Rat Remorse Alert]

Sarah Palin Video

The Base Hearts Sarah Palin

Defending Against the First Attacks on Sarah Palin

Gov. Sarah Palin: On The Issues


8,998 posted on 08/29/2008 11:59:02 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

'Israel decides to stop nuclear Iran' (Israel Prepares for Military Action)

Read the above carefully.
If you really think Happy Dancing Bunny Talk is going to help, vote for the New, Improved Black Jesus...
Otherwise, vote for the adults.

Combat Medicine at Its Finest

Major Anti-Semitic Motifs in Arab Cartoons

Army Picks up Slack for our Failed, Union-Dominated Education System

===========================================

GRIP Contract Probed (NM-Richardson PAC's probed by FBI)

Sarah Palin and Experience

From the Comments:

Brilliant choice. It will be hard to criticize her on experience as she probably does more before breakfast than Obama does all day.

American Thinker:

That's an easy one to dismiss. Sarah Palin has had more executive experience, meaning experience in running either a business or a government, than either Barack Obama or his running mate, Joe Biden. She has more executive experience than even her running mate, John McCain. Governor Palin served as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska from 1999 to 2002. She was elected as President of the Alaska Conference of Mayors. She was elected as Governor of Alaska in 2006. And she has quite a few concrete achievements, considering the amount of time she's been in office.

Double Think:

The McCain campaign is hoping and praying that someone will say that Palin is unready for the job. “Please,” John McCain is praying right now AS I TYPE, “Let a Democrat say that an executive with 2 years of experience and no foreign policy expertise isn’t ready for the presidency. Oh pretty please. Because you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take that soundbite, put it in an ad, slap Obama’s mug up there, and run it over and over and over again.”
Posted by Cjunk at 3:02 PM | Comments (9)
 

CNN’s John Roberts: Palin Might Neglect Her Disabled Infant?

 Here’s what Palin said about the arrangements she has ALREADY made for Baby Trigg as Governor of Alaska...

Anchorage Daily News
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/382560.html

“The governor said she won’t take a maternity leave but will bring Trig with her to work. Her spokesperson later clarified, at Palin’s request, that the governor will take time off for medical appointments, physical therapy and whatever Trig needs.”

Sarah’s bringing a Baby to the White House!

"The last two callers to Michael Medved show, both claiming to be lifelong Republicans, were “appalled” that McCain would pick a mother with a disabled baby. They said she should be home caring for her child and not running for VP. Clearly the seminar callers have received their marching orders and the Dems are well along on one of the most despicable attacks on a candidate in history."

Dem Boykin: Palin 'Affirmative Action' Pick

Carter says McCain is "milking" his POW experience

Now's Response to Palin



8,999 posted on 08/29/2008 3:56:36 PM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Profile of Alaska's Sarah Palin: Governor, Reformer, Mother

Palin pick already yielding rhetorical dividends?

See, this is why journos in the bag for Obama should await the royal talking points before opening their dullard yaps. CNN’s John Roberts: Palin Too Young and Inexperienced:

During the 9 a.m. EDT hour of “CNN Newsroom,” “American Morning” co-anchor John Roberts gave an analysis of Governor Sarah Palin during discussion of Senator John McCain’s vice presidential choice. Roberts focused on Palin’s lack of experience, saying that a prerequisite for the vice presidency should be the ability to step right into the office, especially because of McCain’s age. Roberts stated [...] “she’s the youngest governor ever in Alaska’s history, and she’s the first woman. She’s only been in office for a couple of years now, which really raises the experience issue here.”

Leave aside for the moment the dissonance of pretending to worry about Palin’s “inexperience” should she be forced (by the death of a fossilized McCain) into the Presidency when you haven’t offered the same argument for a man with even less executive experience getting the job outright; that probably has to do with her being “the first woman” governor or something equally patriarchal.

But in making this argument — that a 72-year old candidate is almost certain to kick while in office — what you have further done is begun alienating aging boomers who will soon be McCain’s age, questioning their worth and viability, throwing into doubt their general competence.

– Which means Roberts has managed to 1) highlight the inexperience of the Dem candidate for president by going after the inexperience of the Republican candidate for vice president; 2) has managed to make an implied argument that the inexperience of a woman is somehow more dangerous than the inexperience of a man, or a man of (half) color; and 3) has managed to make an ageist argument that could, at some level, get aging Dem Boomers to believe that their party thinks of them as prop voters, necessary for victory, but after that, to be set afloat on an ice chunk and allowed to drift off serenely into the great political beyond.

Add to that the calculus that many Hillary supporters will be thinking, “that should have been Hillary!” and what we have here is a perfect storm of identity politics for the Dems to try to steer their shiny yacht through safely.

Of course, the wildcard here is that female Democrats who detest Obama’s shiny empty banality will be forced to bite the bullet for him just to prevent the GOP from getting elected the first female VP. But I’m not sure that’s enough to counteract moderates who may now swing heavily in favor of McCain.

At any rate, the lines of attack should prove instructive — and, for the Dem’s sake, let’s hope they’re a bit better thought out than those offered by CNN’s John Roberts. Who really should wait for the next “Obama Action Alert” before he decides to speak again publicly.

For the narrative consistency and all.

O!

****
update: Wait, why can’t women have both a career and children? What, you want to see them barefoot and in the kitchen?

YES WE CAN!

****
update 2: David Harsanyi calls Palin “the libertarian vp candidate.” Which might could just temper McCain’s progressivism — even if she has to bat her pretty li’l eyes to get his macho in check…

Posted by Jeff G. @ 10:56 am
Comments (720)
 
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=5055328
 
PIC: Meet the new USA VP - Sarah Palin - WOW HOTTIE!!!
 
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021365.php
 
The Bright Side

Paul and I have already voiced our concerns about John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin for Vice-President. Now it's time to look at the upside. In fact, there is a lot to like about Palin. To begin with, her nomination provoked a typically mean-spirited reaction from the Obama campaign:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Of course, "zero foreign policy experience" describes Obama, too, unless giving ill-informed campaign speeches constitutes "experience." So maybe, in the end, Palin will highlight Obama's lack of qualifications rather than undermining McCain's critique of them. Maybe.

Then, too, Palin's selection was probably the only one that could drive Obama's speech last night off the front pages. Just in time, perhaps, as the Obama bounce is now up to 8 points if you believe Gallup. (That tends to support the conclusion that Obama is an effective demagogue.)

Palin could help McCain with several demographics, like the pageant community. Here she is as Miss Wasilla 1984:

MissWasilla984.jpg

News reports indicate that the crowd in Dayton, Ohio responded enthusiastically to references to Palin as an athlete. She was the point guard on a state champion basketball team:

I think McCain has pretty much got the hunter/fisherman demographic sewn up, but Palin will certainly be a plus there, too:

She is a big supporter of the troops, and her oldest son is headed for Iraq:

I like this one; Palin is the one with the gun. Unlike Michael Dukakis, she actually knows how to fire it:

I think voters will like the whole Palin family. Her husband Todd is a commercial fisherman and also works in oil production on the North Slope. I think this photo is of Sarah working on the family's fishing boat; I'm told that as Governor, she still does that on weekends:

Todd Palin is a union member and a world-class snowmobile racer; here they are at a race:

A lot of voters are going to find this image appealing. I certainly do. In general, Palin's strengths seem to reinforce McCain's, but she could help a bit with blue-collar voters.

Substantively, Palin is a legitimate reformer. She killed the "bridge to nowhere," which is probably the only pork project most voters have heard of. She is a solid conservative and, perhaps best of all, she is an expert on energy and a staunch advocate of drilling. A large majority of Alaskans want develop ANWR; one hopes that Palin can change McCain's mind on that part of the energy issue.

I, for one, am very tired of hearing Democrats say that we can't drill ourselves out of our energy shortage. We could, actually, but since when is that the standard? Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates estimates that developing ANWR petroleum alone could create 736,000 American jobs... Permalink 

Read it all at the link, dammit!

 Defending Against the First Attacks on Sarah Palin ( -more-

Madam Vice President

Palin? Perfect

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/

BILL STUNTZ on Palin, Obama, and the experience issue. "Perhaps the jobs she has held are too small to count in a national presidential campaign. But that isn't obvious, not yet anyway. What matters more, to me and I bet to more than a few others, is what she's done in those jobs. The fact that her approval rating among Alaskans is in Mark Warner territory suggests that she might be the kind of governor Warner was in Virginia. If so, that should count for a lot--even if she hasn't had much time in office. Because time-serving won't count for much in the offices these four candidates are seeking."

Plus, fellow lawprof Ann Bartow on sexism: "The Supposedly Liberal Doods threw the most disgusting sexism at Hillary Clinton and her supporters during the Democratic primary. Then Obama picks Joe 'no friend of women' Biden as his running mate, rather than choosing somebody who would help build party unity. Now the Supposedly Liberal Doods are back in gear, throwing disgusting sexism at Palin. Why does it have to be like this? Hey Supposedly Liberal Doods, if you want Obama elected, stop burning bridges with women voters and start building some." Good advice. But is Biden really "no friend of women?"

More on experience, from Ross Douthat ("Yes, Joe Biden has more experience than Sarah Palin. But there's a not-implausible case to be made that Sarah Palin has more experience than ... Barack Obama!"), Jonathan Adler ("Sure, Sarah Palin was a 'hockey mom' before her entry into politics, but Barack Obama has never held a single full-time job for more than three years.") and Tyler Cowen ("Around the blogosphere you will see many left-wing writers criticizing Palin for lack of experience. Maybe this criticism is correct, but these commentators are falling into The Trap.")

But from Ramesh Ponnuru, cold water. Eric Scheie, meanwhile, comments: "I wonder whether a media analysis would reveal whether 'inexperienced' Republicans draw more media criticism than 'inexperienced' Democrats." Yes, as noted at TalkLeft, the Tim Kaine double-standard appears. Though that's more a case, perhaps, of a gender double-standard.

UPDATE: Via Ann Bartow, this post on the Palin pick: "It will complete the alienation of the rest of the Hillary supporters from the Obama camp. How? That’s easy — the Obamabots will do it themselves. Go read the Washington Post blog or anywhere online where the Palin pick is being discussed, and you’ll see the trademark Obama misogyny already out in full force. She’s been on the ticket for two seconds and already the Obamabots are saying she 'looks like a porn star,' they’re making rude remarks about her childbearing, they’re ridiculing her intelligence."

Yeah, Obama's supporters are his biggest weak point. Including the ones in the media.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ann Althouse and Rachel Sklar on the Palin pick.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Swimsuit competition? Yeah, that's a killer issue. "The Obamabots really aren't going to try to reverse that reputation for misogyny any time soon."

Bounce

Right after watching the CGI re-enactment of Richard Candelaria’s 1945 dogfight in a P-51 Mustang with 2 ME-262s and 15 ME-109s, I read Roger Simon’s observation that McCain was apparently demonstrating a willingness to take more political risks, by choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate, than the One. “John McCain has once again shown he is willing to, in fact eager to,  move in a positive and (relatively) unexpected direction. He is his own man.  Obama - the agent of change - picked the most conventional of the conventional.” I think that’s only half true: McCain will take risks, but only after figuring the odds.  Those who watch the video will notice that Richard Candelaria took two huge risks in his epic dogfight, once against the ME-262 and another against an ME-109 flown by a better pilot than he was. They were calculated risks; but once taken were pursued without hesitation or reservation.

The parallels between any pilot and McCain are going to be obvious.  He has the ability to wait patiently until his opponent commits himself to a move then ruthlessly strikes to exploit it.  He gives nothing away to clue his opponent on which way he is going to turn. Then suddenly he snaps the stick. A collection of links by Glenn Reynolds reveals a sudden appreciation by McCain’s opponents of his unpredictability. Some are hesitating to criticize Palin’s relative youth and inexperience, lest they fall into the Trap.  What trap? A classic AP head says it all: Analysis: Palin’s age, inexperience rival Obama’s.

But the other piece of combat experience McCain endured, separate from his pilot training, one which every jailbird will appreciate, was his experience as a POW.  Resistance in prison is one of the hardest forms of combat there is. As a prisoner you are always in the slower plane; the guard is always, by definition in the ME-262. A prisoner has only two friends: his mind and his nerve.  McCain survived years of this and some of the skills he learned may have been on display just now. A number of political commentators thought John McCain would be easy meat for BHO. Maybe. Maybe not. Candelaria got the ME-262.

(more…)

Read bullet | (37) Comments bullet "McCain suddenly persuades the dispirited and the cynical that he has something good to say and do. I’m in. Sarah Palin is an inspired pick, both because of what it says about McCain’s gutsiness and his strategic willingness to take the angle shot, but also because of what it says about the Republican next gen. She’s got game, and Johnny Mac is willing to let her use her game. Notice how different that is, where Obama Know-nothing is looking to Joe Do-Nothing (for 30 years) as his “successor.” The dynamics of this race just reversed, big time."

Palin: Global Warming Not Man-Made

Democrat Wexler Smears Sarah Palin as "Nazi Sympathizer" Sympathizer

FWIW: VoteMatchQuiz, Palin is a Moderate Populist Conservative.

John McCain & Sarah Palin on Shattering the Glass Ceiling (People Mag. Interview Today)

===========================================

Santa Barbara (CA) Board Votes To Support Off-Shore Drilling

Surge in Natural Gas Cars Has Utah Driving Cheaply

UK: 'Environmental volunteers' will be encouraged to spy on their neighbours

Ben Macintyre on the gory reality behind nursery rhymes

‘Burying women alive for honour is tribal tradition’ (Pakistan)

Muslims in fed terror probe making donations to Obama

Great article with a lot of hypertext-links:

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2008/08/26/iraqi-billionaire-threatens-reporters-investigating-rezko-affair/

ADVICE: Time to leave New Orleans. Maybe too early for mandatory evacuation, but not too early to get out on your own if you can. I think I would. "It is still far more likely, percentage-wise, that a calamity won’t strike New Orleans than that one will. But alas, that’s no reason not to evacuate, whether today or tomorrow. Forecasting technology is such that a calamitous direct hit is always going to be 'unlikely' at the time when prudent evacuation decisions must be made in major cities. But the decisions still must be made."

UPDATE: Turning toward Little Cayman and Cayman Brac.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Don Zeiter emails: "I just talked to my daughter who is in law school at Tulane. She is on her way to St. Louis because of the evacuation order and school is closed because of Gustav. But she said the locals down there are acting like it's nothing to worry about, the same attitudes before Katrina hit. They keep saying we only get hit by female hurricanes and we go years between hurricanes hitting the city. Fortunately they have a better governor this time, though the same mayor." That's not encouraging.

GUSTAV IS A HURRICANE AGAIN, and Brendan Loy has the scoop. "After it exits Cuba, all bets are off. Intensification in the Gulf to Category 4 or 5 status is very much in the mix — though, if that happens, it would probably then weaken somewhat before landfall."

Countdown: The Political Storm (Michael Moore and Olberman hope for big Gustav hit on New Orleans)

Post-Katrina gains are few


9,000 posted on 08/30/2008 3:10:34 AM PDT by backhoe (Just an old keyboard cowboy, ridin' the Trakball in to the Sunset...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 8,961-8,9808,981-9,0009,001-9,020 ... 12,501-12,502 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson