The Final Six Reasons?Not To Vote For Obama (Denenberg)

* Mr. Obama's irrationality pervades his approach to most issues. It is not just his idea of raising taxes even knowing it will cut government revenue, job growth, and economic vitality. It is not just announcing his Iraq/Afghanistan plans first, and fact-finding and going there second. Consider some of his other proposals. Let's start with his proposals for socialized medicine, and giving everyone the same coverage that members of Congress now get. His plan would include coverage for 10 million illegal immigrants, 15 million people who are eligible for Medicaid but don't apply, and 15 million adults whose children are eligible for free insurance. He has repeated many times his plan covers 47 million uninsured, and the Congressional Budget Office confirms that figure includes the illegals. His plan would so flood the system there would have to be unacceptable delays in giving treatment and outright rationing of treatment. Dick Morris, Bill Clinton's former political guru, says it would mean illegal aliens would probably be getting care that would be denied to senior citizens. For more on this, see Mr. Morris and Eileen McGann, Fleeced, page 31. But if you have any doubts about whether an Obama-Hillary socialized medicine scheme would wreck our healthcare system consider one fact. We're now going broke with a Medicare system we haven't figured out to bring under control and pay for. Obama-Hillary care would multiply that problem by about four or five times. That's not to mention Social Security and other entitlements.

* Here's another Obama excursion into irrationality. He would grant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants, as soon as the children had lived in the U.S. for five years, regardless of the illegal entry. And once they attain legal status, he would grant them access to lower in-state tuition in colleges and universities. They would get that along with free health insurance from the U.S. government as part of his socialized medicine system. So he is intent on setting up every incentive to continue the flood of illegal immigration and to accelerate the federal deficit.

* The proposals Mr. Obama supported on the Patriot Act and related security issues are even more frightening and irrational. For example, he wanted to establish limits on roving wiretaps that would destroy their value. The NSA (National Security Agency) now audits billions of conversations between foreigners and Americans looking for signs of terrorism in the making. That's how they discovered the plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. There is no good translation for "Brooklyn" so that was picked up as a red flag by the NSA. Mr. Obama would require warrants on these wiretaps (billions of them), which would be impossible to obtain. Fortunately, Mr. Obama and the Democrats did not get their way, but this is just a preview of how the Democrats and Mr. Obama would be the terrorists' best friends, would water down the Patriot Act, and would make it impossible to fight the war on terrorism. Mr. Obama wanted a provision that before business records could be seized, the government would have to provide specific evidence linking that individual to terrorism. Now, the Patriot Act requires only that the government show that the search would be relevant to a "terror" investigation. But the Obama approach would make this approach useless, as the government would not be able to proceed to get records even if they suspected a link to terrorism. This ability to seize records is now routine in an IRS investigation of a taxpayer or a DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) investigation. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats think that terrorists should get special protection not even accorded American citizens. For more information on how Mr. Obama and the Democrats would water down the Patriot Act and make it difficult or impossible to stop terrorist plot, see Chapter 2 of Fleeced by Mr. Morris and Ms. McGann.

* One of the most important reasons to vote against Mr. Obama involves his court appointments. He voted against confirming Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alito. This was wrong as both of these jurists were highly qualified and he was voting against them only because they follow the U.S. Constitution rather than make law from the bench. Mr. Obama would appoint justices of the Associate Justice Ginsburg variety, a leftist who is more interested in her concept of what the law ought to be rather than the concepts of the founding founders as expressed in the Constitution. Mr. Obama also has ideas on the law that are at odds with long established and sound precedents. For example, he believes that if Osama bin Laden were captured and brought to the United States, he should have access to the federal courts and to the writ of habeas corpus.

* Perhaps Mr. Obama and his handlers know he's an empty-suiter who can't answer questions without getting the answers first from his hundreds of handlers. That's why he refused to debate or participate in town meetings responding to invitations coming from Mr. McCain. That's why his handlers keep him away from the press. That's why he avoids questions and press conferences. That's why he sticks to his teleprompters and scripts. That's why when answers aren't provided in advance, he tends to get into trouble. How many times have you heard him say, "I'll be glad to debate that issue anytime anyplace."? Yeah, until he actually is asked to do so, and then he demonstrates he's the phony he is, with his rhetoric the opposite of his reality.

* These are just a few of the reasons for voting against Mr. Obama based on his inexperience and his platform and positions. He is truly a lightweight, an empty suit, and an eloquent windbag. Then there are the questions of his associations and the nature of his personality and character. The most widely discussed aspect of that is his 20-year long association with an racist, bigot, anti-American pastor, that he closely associated with for 20 years, without discovering his views. In fact, Mr. Obama defended the pastor until the pastor turned on him in a speech at the National Press Club and said he is just another politician doing what politicians have to do. Then Mr. Obama denounced him, but only after it was necessary to do so for political advantage. This is coupled with all the other incidents such as those involving his refusal to wear an American flag pin, his association with unrepentant terrorist William Ayres, and his wife's view of America as a "mean" country and one she could not be proud of until her husband was running for president. There is his elitist views, seeing Pennsylvanians as bitter and clinging to their "guns and bibles." Perhaps his most despicable campaign act is to play the race card. In a speech, he said that the "Republicans" will tell you I am black and have a funny name to scare you. That is an outrageous lie and an outrageous attempt to play the victim and to insert race into the campaign. No Republican has attempted to play the race card like that, and Mr. Obama's bringing it up as a straw man shows he wants to play the race card for whatever it is worth. This is the racist and bigot of the Rev. Wright tradition, who claims to be the post-racial-divide candidate but showed himself to be on the level of the usual race hustler and a bigot in his own right. Then there are his business dealings with Tony Rezko, the convicted crook in Chicago, and more than a faint whiff of corruption. Even Mr. Obama admitted his dealings with him were a "bone-headed mistake." But they are also part of a larger pattern.

There is this view of himself as president even before elected. He appeared with his own design of a quasi-presidential seal, until criticism forced him to drop it. It is no accident that two of his foreign policy advisors on his recent trip abroad on two occasions spoke of Obama as if he were president. They must have noted that Obama thought he was in the position of President Kennedy and President Reagan, and wanted to give a speech before the Brandenburg Gate (before the idea was rejected by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany). The great columnist Charles Krauthammer has written that Americans are beginning to notice Mr. Obama's elevated opinion of himself, leading Mr. Krauthammer to ask, "Who is Obama representing [in a speech before the Brandenburg Gate]? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop?" He seems to be suffering from delusions of grandeur and a Messiah complex, as suggested by the words of one of his campaign slogans: "We are the ones we've been waiting for." Mr. Krauthammer writes, that the slogan uses the royal "we" and that means "I am the one we've been waiting for."

No one could summarize the Obama opinion of Mr. Obama better than Mr. Krauthammer. He writes, "For the first few months of the campaign, the question about Obama was: Who is he? The question now is: Who does he think he is? We are getting to know. Redeemer of our uninvolved, unredeemed lives. Lord of the sea and more.

"As he said on victory night, his rise marks the moment when 'our planet began to heal.' As I recall - I'm no expert on this -Jesus practiced his healing just on the sick. Obama operates on a larger canvas."

But all this means the public is going to get bamboozled into voting for the cat-in-the-bag, pig-in-the-poke, unvetted, untested, untried Mr. Obama unless the public gets a picture of the real Mr. Obama, not the Messiah Obama presented by the mainstream media.

This means we have to start reading the alternative media. Here are a few suggestions.

There are few newspapers that have been presenting the full picture of Mr. Obama. Locally, of course, there is the Philadelphia Bulletin. Then to our south is the Washington Times and Washington Examiner. To our north are the New York Sun and the New York Post.

Two high quality conservative magazines are the National Review and the Weekly Standard. There is the relatively new NewsMax and another new one from townhall.com, the Town Hall magazine.

Television is a true wasteland for political reporting as everything else. The best for political news on television the Fox Cable News channel.

Radio is one of the richest sources of news and information that is not in the tank for Mr. Obama. In Philadelphia, there is WNTP-AM presenting a powerhouse of conservative commentators including Bill Bennett, Laura Ingram, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Miller, Mike Gallagher and Mike Savage. And 1210-AM, the old WCAU-AM, has two of the superstars of conservative talk - Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

There are all kinds of good Web sites for the full view of politics including the Web site of the Heritage Foundation, heritage.org, and the American Enterprise Institute at aei.org. Among the many others are townhall.com, newt.org, americansolutions.com, frontpagemagazine.com and humanevents.com. Many of the conservative radio hosts named above also have valuable Web sites.

Bernard Goldberg recently made a telling observation. He noted brigades of cameras and reporters are following Mr. Obama. Then he said when John McCain recently arrived in Manchester, N.H., and got off the plane he was greeted by a single camera. The American people have to decide if they are going to let the mainstream media, with its biased, false and fraudulent journalism, elect our next president, or whether the American people are going to do so on the merits of the candidates.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at

That's not to mention Social Security and other entitlements.

SS is not an entitlement. It's simply giving me money back that I was forced to pay into the system. If I live to be 120 or so, I'll break even on the deal. If I die before that, it's a net gain for the gov't since I can't have back what I paid in for my heirs.

That's why he refused to debate or participate in town meetings responding to invitations coming from Mr. McCain. ?

"If John McCain wants to meet me anywhere, anytime, to have a debate about our respective policies in Iraq, in Iran, in the Middle East or around the world, that is a conversation I am happy to have," the Illinois Democrat told reporters at an afternoon news conference in Watertown, S.D., May, '08.

------------Huh?

Television is a true wasteland for political reporting as everything else. The best for political news on television the Fox Cable News channel.

Faux News?

THE Faux News!?

BAHAAAHAAAAAAHAAAAA!!!! You're a funny guy!

Political news, in between dead blondes and white Broncos and O-basm's, when do they have the time?

Huh is right. When McCain invited him to debate, Obama flat turned him down. I believe it was about a month after Obama said anywhere, anytime.”

A month? This is a long time for Obama to do his flip flop...

oh! how glorious it is to contemplate that the u.s. government would take over our economy, thereby creating jobs for everyone, forgiving debt, increasing entitlements, removing wealth from private hands, bringing justice to the world and leveling the playing field and making opportunity available for all based upon their need. oh!!! how wonderful!!!

It was probably because McCain was slow in inviting him. :)>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LOL.

That and the fact that ...Uh....ehh.....(blank stare)...... no teleprompter.............would result in McCain ripping several new A$$ Hats in Obabma's blistered bingata.

Obama is a coward, and an empty suit.

May the curse of freedom be upon him.

SS is not an entitlement.

SS has been turned into an entitlement, courtesy of the Federal Congress, the AARP, and countless other socialist organisations stealing OUR money from the funds.

If I recall, originally, it was only supposed to provide for Retirement, Disability (with severe restrictions), and Survivors (Children to 18yo). It has been morphed into a grand Welfare Entitlement, allowing access to the fund from those who have never contributed and Supplemental Security Income, along with placing the Fund into the General Treasury instead of retaining it separately; thank you LBJ and the Demoncrats.

I also resent that FedGov created the "Identity Theft" problem by their failure to maintain the original inscribed declaration contained on the front of my original card: "For Social Security Use Only. Not to be used for Identification."

Thanks for posting this, Jaz. Herb has been one of my favourite writers for several years, ever since I found his Denenberg's Dump.

I agree with you on SS and thanks for linking Denenberg’s Dump, I got it marked.

I wasn’t aware of Denenberg until several months ago and really like the way he thinks and writes. We need more people like him speaking out in the media.

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