Free Republic

Lo and behold, Team Obama is moving toward the supply side and pivoting toward the political center on key aspects of its tax policy. Writing in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, Obama advisers Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee outlined a plan that would raise tax rates on capital gains and dividends only from 15% to 20% for individuals making more than $200,000 and on family incomes above $250,000. Before this, investors worried that Barack Obama would double the 15% tax rate on cap gains and bring the 15% rate on dividends back to 40%. Can investors take some relief from this?...

The Democrats are very, very worried over the lack of Obama's dominance in the polls. In fact, The Politico has this story, apparently this Jerome Corsi book that's been opening at number one on the New York Times list, the anti-Obama book, and they put John Kerry on the Swift Boat team now to rebut these attacks, because they said Kerry didn't do it fast enough, Obama is not doing it fast enough, they're not going to sit by and let happen to Obama what happened to John Kerry. This whole story features so much double-talk and pseudo action by...

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today released its latest television ad, entitled "Maybe." The ad highlights Barack Obama's "false" and "misleading" attacks in Ohio. The ad will air in Ohio. VIEW THE AD HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiDVRvzjZLA Script For "Maybe" (TV :30) ANNCR: Maybe the applause has gone to his head ... Saying John McCain cost Ohio jobs, though it's just not true. It's Obama's taxes that will hurt Ohio families. Higher taxes on your paycheck, your life savings, your electric bills. His taxes are a "recipe for economic disaster." That's the real Obama. Ready to tax....

Barack Obama proposes that we seize the profits of the oil companies and use them for $1,000 "energy rebate" checks to every working family in America. That is what he said in his speech in Lansing, Michigan on August 4, 2008, entitled "New Energy for America." Economist Donald Boudreaux pointed out that seizing all oil profits would still not be enough to fund these $1,000 giveaway checks. If the government is going to target an industry it has vilified in the public mind, loot all its profits, and then use the money for giveaway checks to buy votes, then what...

The McCain campaign this morning released a new ad, "Taxman," that suggests that Barack Obama's economic plan will lead to "economic disaster." "Celebrity? Yes," says an announcer, as the spot opens on cheering crowds at an Obama rally. "Ready to lead? No." She concludes: "Higher taxes. Higher gas prices. Economic disaster. That's the real Obama."

Timing is a funny thing. Just a few days ago Russia invaded Georgia, in an attempt to rein in a nascent democracy that Russia has always considered to be within its sphere of influence. And yesterday Poland and the U.S. come to agreement on ballistic missile defense and reciprocal defense. What a curious coincidence, huh? Would a President Obama be willing to commit to the defense of nations such as Poland, and to invest in missile defense and other combat systems that those allies seek? This clip goes a long way to answering that question: Video at link

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain went to the mat over their respective tax policies on Thursday, as Obama's economic advisers laid out the senator's tax plans in an op-ed and said his Republican opponent would offer "a third Bush term." McCain's campaign fired back that Obama's tax proposals represent "lavish new government spending" to be paid for by tax increases amid a struggling economy. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Obama advisers Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee said Obama is focused on cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses and investing in health, education and...

Critics accuse Barack Obama of presenting himself as some kind of Messiah (see "Hurry Up and Wait," WORLD, March 22/29, 2008). His speech upon clinching the Democratic nomination claimed for the event a cosmic significance that future generations would look back upon: "This was the moment," he said, "when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." His campaign slogans exhort us to "Believe." One of his posters gives biblical concepts a new object: "Faith. Hope. Change. Barack Obama for President." But Obama's messianic image is more than just over-the-top political rhetoric. Many Americans...

HONOLULU — For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia. The fluency with which Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, discusses Georgia, citing the history of the region and the number of times he has visited, lends an aura of commander in chief. And as if he already had a cabinet, Mr. McCain said he was...

Last August, John McCain's campaign was a guttering candle, out of money but flush with half-baked ideas unlikely to be improved by further baking. Anyway, to have many ideas is to have too many for a campaign's concluding sprint, and McCain's revival hasn't been robust enough to bring him even with Barack Obama. Now his rejuvenated hopes rest on his ability to refocus this election on who should lead America in a world suddenly darkened by Russia's war of European conquest. To begin the recasting, he should weed from the unkempt garden of his political thinking the populism which often...

Barack Obama has a Catholic problem. If he doesn’t do better than John Kerry did in 2004 with this quintessential swing voting bloc, he won’t be elected president. Obama’s campaign understands this — which is why they’re considering allowing a pro-life Democrat, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, to speak at the Denver convention. Sen. Casey’s father, the late Governor of Pennsylvania Robert Casey Sr., was denied a speaking slot at the Democrats’ 1992 convention for fear of offending pro-choice Democrats. But simply allowing his son to speak at the convention won’t be enough to woo Catholics back. Catholics are by...

When: The Islamists obtain a nuclear weapon, they will use it against the United States or one of our allies. When: Our politicians shamelessly finish selling-out to get the Hispanic-American vote, the Mexican Army and its drug cartels will completely control parts of formerly U.S. sovereign territory. When: Liberals enthusiastically give national health insurance, free education, drivers licenses, and sanctuary, to illegal aliens, they not only dishonor the rule of law, but spit in the face of the millions of immigrants who came here legally and proudly became U.S. citizens. When: Conservative and reasoned talk radio is silenced, your voice,...

Hillary Clinton's best anti-Obama ad came to be known as the "3 a.m. phone call." It stoked voter worries that in the event of an international crisis, the first-term junior senator from Illinois might be out of his depth. On Aug. 8, the White House phone did ring, alerting President Bush that the Soviet Union, um, that is, Russia, had just sent columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers across the internationally recognized border of Georgia (formerly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia), a tiny, democratic, America-friendly, Western-leaning country in the Caucasus mountains. It was a near perfect laboratory test...

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2008 TechDude, Anti-Obama Investigator, Threatened With Violence Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs reports that Techdude, the analyst who first reported that the Internet-posted birth certificate is a forgery, has been threatened with violence. Pamela writes: "I have heard from 'Techdude'. "'My family is now being harassed and threatened. She [his wife] is absolutely terrified and is afraid to leave the house or even go to work. She is begging me to stop and I am going to listen to her. I cannot endanger my family any further...' "I stand behind his analysis. The COLB is the fake,...

Will John McCain turn Tsar Putin’s invasion of Georgia into a drill, drill, drill issue? He should. It will throw Democrats even more on the defensive -- especially Sen. Obama whose weak response to Putin’s neo-Soviet actions have already put him way behind the eight ball on Russia. McCain’s responses have been superb. And President Bush today adopted many of them -- in particular the warnings on world trade, the G8 (G7?), and a Truman-like airlift of humanitarian assistance relief. Even sending Condi Rice over there and putting SecDef Bob Gates into play. McCain has been appropriately tough all along....

In the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama rolled up more than 90 percent of the African-American vote. Among Catholics, he lost by 40 points. The cool liberal Harvard Law grad was not a good fit for the socially conservative ethnics of Altoona, Aliquippa and Johnstown. But if Barack had a problem with Catholics then, he has a far higher hurdle to surmount in the fall, with those millions of Catholics who still take their faith and moral code seriously. For not only is Barack the most pro-abortion member of the Senate, with his straight A+ report card from the National Abortion...

The Associated Press reported Monday details of a proposal by the Interior and Commerce departments that would change how the 1973 law is implemented, allowing federal agencies to decide for themselves - without seeking the opinions of government wildlife experts - whether dams, highways and other projects have the potential to harm endangered species and habitats. Current law requires federal agencies to consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service if a project poses so much as a remote risk to species or habitats. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne defended the changes in a call...

The Democratic Party is planning a convention designed to soften the edges on the party's support for abortion rights, with a revamped platform and a speaking lineup that reinforces efforts to broaden Democrats' appeal on the hot-button issue. In a statement fraught with symbolism for those on both sides of the abortion debate, Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., an abortion-rights opponent, will be given a prime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month. Casey's father, the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey, a Democrat who also held strong anti-abortion views, was denied a speaking role at...

Democrats ‘Still Don’t Get It’ on Guns Wednesday, August 13, 2008 By Susan Jones, Senior Editor (CNSNews.com) - Beware of what the Democrats are saying about guns in their party platform, a Second Amendment group says. The draft 2008 Democratic National Platform includes the “Utopian fantasy that gun control laws will somehow make neighborhoods safer,” said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “While promising to preserve our Second Amendment rights, the party platform demonizes semiautomatic sport utility rifles and wants them banned, calls for anti-gun show legislation and proposes so-called ‘common-sense’ gun laws,” said CCRKBA...

The opponents of increased domestic drilling complain that it will take too many years before the oil it produces will get to market, and that it will make very little difference in the price of gasoline at the pump. Both arguments are totally without merit, as I have shown here, here and here. But let's forget all that for the moment. Though high prices at the pump hurt us all, there's a much more compelling reason to ramp up domestic exploration, production and refining. It's the most important issue in the United States right now, and it has been since...