Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Quote of the Day
“It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise.” —Alexander Hamilton
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
To the Heart of the Matter
Humanity's Insurrection Against God
A Former Hitler Youth Warns America
By Hilmar von Campe
© 2008
Socialism is the phantastic younger brother of despotism, which it wants to inherit. Socialism wants to have the fullness of state force which before only existed in despotism. ... However, it goes further than anything in the past because it aims at the formal destruction of the individual … who … can be used to improve communities by an expedient organ of government.
– Friedrich Nitzsche
Nietzsche is an atheist German philosopher who lived from 1844-1900 and together with others of the radical left of that time like Arthur Schopenhower created the intellectual atmosphere for Karl Marx and his Communist Manifesto. They called for changing society – but not to improve the life of people but to use them to gain power and keep it. He created the concept of "overman," the man stronger than others with the right to step over the weak, which attracted Hitler. The alternative to Marxism is not capitalism, as so many people believe. The only alternative is an answer to the spiritual fundament of this godless philosophy. The change they are talking about is no change but a steppingstone to their own power on the way to a totalitarian system. Socialist Hitler destroyed free society in a few months. Socialist Obama is close to his steppingstone. The following is an attempt to clarify the issue.
There is a fundamental difference between Marxism, provider of the socialist philosophy, and Christian teachings. The difference makes the two worldviews incompatible – in other words, you cannot be both. Whoever says that they are compatible either lies or is ignorant.
Marxists believe that a non-socialist society is to blame for what is wrong with people and therefore, change has to begin with those who are responsible for society, mainly "the rich." Others, not they, have to change, and the others are in the end all those who oppose socialism. People are either forced to comply or they are killed, as happened in Nazi Germany. If you put right what is wrong in society, so goes Marxist theory, you will heal injustice and people, products of a hostile society, will become their good selves. Healing is created by installing more and more socialists in office, socialist immorality and socialist programs.
Barack Obama has not touched corruption and moral issues. His plans for dealing with issues are of economic nature and are pure Marxism – blaming the non-socialist enemies and distributing money to bribe poor voters, making them dependent on government and cementing its power. Marxism's concepts lead to the welfare state – and on to a totalitarian system built on lies where government is central. There is no real concern for people; power is at the heart of all their projects.
Christianity teaches that what is wrong is the fallen nature of man, who gives in to the evil inside. Moral change in people and restoring the broken relationship with God will change what is wrong in society. Christian teachings are at the heart of our Constitution. Responsibility for oneself is a pre-condition for a healthy society. That is why America is special and prosperous.
Government's task is to clear the way for initiatives of their citizens and not block it. John McCain and Sarah Palin's priority to clean up the government and bring it back to the people is exactly what America needs. They know, as we do, that Republicans, especially those at the center in Washington, are also responsible for ousting our Constitution from American society, with devastating consequences. John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting at this corruption, beginning with their own ranks. Their priorities are job creation, drilling and fighting inflation. They are pro-life and so is the Republican Party.
Sen. Obama answered the question of the Rev. Rick Warren regarding when life begins during a national television interview with "This is above my pay grade." I think he lied. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated, "I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over centuries the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. … We don't know. The point is that it shouldn't have an impact on a woman's right to choose." I think she lied. She is neither an ardent nor a normal Catholic; she is a godless socialist pagan. Colorado Archbishop Charles Chaput commented, "Democrats don't know Christianity." No woman has a right to have her child killed.
I heard Sen. Joe Biden say that he is pro-life but cannot force his religious views on others. So he is part of the abortion gang like a myriad of Democratic colleagues who also like to be on both sides of the issue.
The Democratic Party, with the leadership of Obama, the Clintons, Reid, Pelosi and comrades, is an illegitimate party that is destroying the Constitution – which leads to spiritual, political and economic disaster. It is illegitimate because of policy principles like abortion and also Darwinism being taught in schools. Instead of protecting life, this party promotes killing life. The Republican Party, on the other hand, is legitimate in principle with a majority that wants to do what is right but is lacking a national and personal purpose and therefore so often appeases what is wrong. Nobody wants to risk his position. It is the Appeaser's Party. There are too many who are looking after themselves first and their country second.
One central theme is enough to clarify why I say that the socialist Democratic Party is illegitimate. Their policies are Marxist and not American, and they promote immorality. It was the Soviet Union, for instance, that was the first state to make abortion legal, already at the beginning of the '20s. Having grown up in the godless totalitarian Nazi society, it is appalling for me to watch that in America, politicians can speak of their "Christian faith" and at the same time make abortion, same-sex marriage and homosexuality their party policy. Democrats are not fit for American constitutional government.
No government or parliament across the globe has the authority to overrule God. The godless national Socialists, called Nazis, did it, and my family, Jewish people, all Germans and Europeans paid dearly for it, because millions of us did not see our own evil inside. American soldiers shed their blood to liberate us from Nazi power. It pains me to see America today on the same track. Not only those who actively promote the godless programs allowed by our government establishment but also those who for personal reasons or lack of backbone appease them. They will pay for it, here and when they face their Creator. I know the consequence of a godless government. America must have a God-fearing government. The abortionists are closer to the Nazis than to our Founding Fathers. Both base their philosophy and action on lies.
According to an article by Gary Parker, president of the Alabama Policy Institute, in the Mobile Press-Register, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, the national abortion provider, said, "I am still having trouble expressing the depth of my anger about McCain's choice of a running mate." Richards and Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, were featured speakers at the Democratic National convention in Denver. They endorsed Obama, who supports federal funding for abortions. As Illinois state senator, he voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection bill, which would have prohibited the killing of late-term babies that survive attempted abortions. You wonder on what information Obama voted. Does he play superficially with human life? The following information is easy to come by. Pelosi's statement at the beginning of this article clearly means that it doesn't matter whether the baby inside the womb of the mother is alive or not we – will kill it anyway.
There are various ways to perform an abortion, but abortion is said to be more dangerous than childbirth. In a late-term partial-birth abortion, which is also used for advanced pregnancies, the cervix is dilated to allow passage of a ring forceps. A foot or lower leg is located and pulled into the vagina. The baby is extracted in breech fashion until the head is just inside the cervix. The baby's legs hang outside the woman's body. With the baby face down, scissors are plunged into the baby's head at the nape of the neck and spread open to enlarge the wound. A suction tip is inserted and the baby's brain is removed. The skull collapses and the baby is delivered. Sharp and suction curettage is continued until the walls of the womb are clean.
Suction aspiration is the most common method of abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. General or local anesthesia is given to the mother and her cervix is quickly dilated. A suction curette (hollow tube with a knife-edged tip) is inserted into the womb. This instrument is then connected to a vacuum machine by a transparent tube. The vacuum suction, 29 times more powerful than a household vacuum cleaner, tears the fetus and placenta into small pieces, which are sucked through the tube into a bottle and discarded.
Another procedure is called Dilatation and Evacuation and is performed during the second trimester, 4-6 months of pregnancy. A pliers-like instrument is needed because the baby's bones are calcified, as is the skull. There is no anesthetic for the baby. The abortionist inserts the instrument into the uterus, seizes a leg or other part of the body and, with a twisting motion, tears it from the baby's body. This is repeated again and again. The spine must be snapped and the skull crushed to remove them.
Let me educate Obama, Pelosi and their abortion gang who are exposing an unbelievable superficiality and disdain for human life in dealing with this subject of central importance for our nation. After all, according to the statistics, around 50 million killings of living human beings took place since the Supreme Court, with a one-vote majority, made unconstitutional abortion legal. The Nazis murdered 6 million Jews and 10 million others – Germans, Slavs, gypsies, handicapped, Christians, their opposition and others.
Life begins at conception. Modern technology allows observing what happens in the uterus of a woman and how in only five weeks a fetus grows from the size of a sesame seed to a baby developing brain, backbone, heart and everything else that makes a person. Science explains that it is possible that from one cell sex, the color of the eyes and hairs and a myriad of other features can be determined. Eighteen days after conception, there is a heartbeat; after 40 days the fetus has brain waves. Nothing changes in the nine months of pregnancy; everything just grows. My wife, Dina, and I can observe photos of how our grandchild grows from the size of sesame seed to a baby. We also saw on Fox News a video of another baby in the womb of her mother, a bit older than our grandchild. It is fascinating! Abortionists must be stopped from killing human beings.
We are living in the middle of humanity's insurrection against God. The insurrection consists of the organized abandonment of God's commandments in the once-Christian Western world and the establishment of a global social and political infrastructure, which is contrary to His order but capable of integrating Christian voters with a toothless Christian understanding. The United States is now spearheading this movement. At the same time, this nation still has a strong moral substance with people committed to reverse the trend into disaster. America will never win the ideological war unless it can defeat the lies that dominate our society. Change must come, but there must be moral change, each person beginning with oneself. Stop lying, make restitution, and stand up for truth. America should be spearheading lasting freedom across the world. Only freedom based on our Constitution and the absolute truth of God can last.
New Link To Barbara West - Biden Video
YouTube has shut down access to the video, probably due to the incredibly high demand. (Or it's support for Obama - you decide) You can still see it on NEWSMAX.COM.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/biden_intervew_angered/2008/10/26/144294.html
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/biden_intervew_angered/2008/10/26/144294.html
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Judge Dismisses Obama Birth Certificate Lawsuit
Philip J. Berg is Appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court as Obama is "NOT" qualified to be President of the United States Lawsuit Against Obama Dismissed from Philadelphia Federal Court
Go Here To Help Counselor Berg
Go Here To Read Related WND Article
Does Refusal To Answer Mean Guilty As Charged?
A Pennsylvania lawsuit alleging that Barack Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” of the United States took an unusual twist this week, after a federally mandated deadline requiring Obama’s lawyers to produce a “vault” copy of his birth certificate expired with no response from Obama or his lawyers.
The lawsuit, filed by former Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Philip J. Berg — a self-avowed supporter of Hillary Clinton — alleges that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus “ineligible” to run for president of the United States. It demands that Obama’s lawyers produce a copy of his original birth certificate to prove that he is a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Berg's suit and allegations have set off a wave of Internet buzz and rumors, though Obama could easily have put the matter to rest by providing the federal court with the basic documentation proving he is eligible to take the oath of a president. But Obama has apparently decided to deny the court and the public that documentation.
The Constitution provides that any U.S. citizen is eligible to become president if the person is 35 years of age or older and is a natural-born citizen; that is, born in the territorial United States.
By failing to respond to the Request for Admissions and Request for the Production of Documents within 30 days, Obama has “admitted” that he was born in Kenya, Berg stated this week in new court filings.
Berg released a long list of “admissions” he submitted to Obama’s lawyers on Sept. 15, and asked that they produce documents relating to Obama’s place of birth and citizenship.
Instead of responding, lawyers for Obama and the DNC asked the court to dismiss the case. But Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has issued no ruling in the case that would have given Obama’s lawyers more time.
“There are lots of legal ways to stonewall,” a well-placed Republican attorney told Newsmax, who was not authorized to comment officially on the case. “But failing to respond is not one of them.”
“The first thing they teach you in law school,” he added, “is don’t put a complaint like this in a drawer. That’s how a nuisance case can become a problem.”
The 30-day deadline for defendants to comply with a discovery request is set forth in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures.
“It all comes down to the fact that there's nothing from the other side,” Berg said after he filed a motion on Thursday for summary judgment.
“The admissions are there. By not filing the answers or objections, the defense has admitted everything. [Obama] admits he was born in Kenya. He admits he was adopted in Indonesia. He admits that the documentation posted online is a phony. And he admits that he is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president of the United States.”
In a contentious case, lawyers on both sides will haggle over the production of documents, and will frequently go beyond the deadlines, several lawyers told Newsmax.
“The rules are more often complied with in the breech rather than the observance,” a senior trial attorney who has close ties to the Democrat Party, but is not involved in the current case, told Newsmax.
“Lawyers frequently do not return telephone calls or meet discovery deadlines because of sheer inadvertence. Therefore, we do not consider a failure to respond as a ‘violation,’” he said.
Allegations surrounding Obama’s place of birth have been swirling for months. Earlier this year, the Obama campaign sought to put down the rumors by making available a computer-generated Certification of Live Birth, issued in 2007 by the State of Hawaii. [See the Certification of Live Birth — Click Here.]
Respected conservative blogger Ed Morrissey called the Berg lawsuit a “conspiracy theory” that had been put to rest by the Obama campaign over the summer but ”has arisen like a zombie yet again to suck the credibility out of the conservative blogosphere.”
However, the 2007 document produced by the Obama campaign omits key information that normally appears on birth certificates in the United States, including the name of the hospital where he was born, the size and weight of the baby, and sometimes the name of the doctor who delivered him.
In addition, the critics of the 2007 document note that Obama's father is described as “African,” a term used today. The formal language in official documents at the time — 1961 — would have identified his race as “Negro” or “Colored.”
The Web site snarkybytes.com has produced a vault copy of a Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth from 1963, issued by the Hawaii Department of Health. [See the vault copy — Click Here.]
In addition to naming the hospital and more details about the baby, the 1963 vault copy also includes the “usual residence of the mother,” and the “usual occupation” of the father. None of this information appears on the 2007 Live Birth certificate produced by the Obama campaign.
Berg has been a perennial political candidate in Pennsylvania, having run in Democrat primaries for attorney general, lieutenant governor, governor, and other offices without success. He served as deputy attorney general of the State of Pennsylvania from 1972-1980.
His credibility was tarnished by work he did for the far-left “9/11 for the Truth” campaign, which alleged in a federal lawsuit that the collapse of the twin towers in New York was caused by “controlled demolition” ordered by the president of the United States.
Nevertheless, in recent weeks, lawsuits have been filed in seven additional states demanding that Barack Obama produce an original vault copy of his birth certificate, to dispel the rumors that he is not a natural-born United States citizen.
The latest suits have been filed in state and federal courts in Hawaii, Washington, California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Connecticut to compel Obama to release his birth records.
Lawsuits in Washington and Georgia are seeking state superior courts to force the states’ secretary of state, as the chief state elections officer, to require Obama to produce original birth records from Hawaii, or else decertify him as a candidate for the presidency.
Ironically, Obama mentions his birth certificate in passing on Page 26 of his 1995 memoir, “Dreams of My Father.” “I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school,” he wrote.
Lawyers for Obama and the DNC did not return calls for comment on the current status of the case, or explain why the Obama campaign did not simply put to rest the whole controversy by releasing the birth certificate that Obama apparently cherished as a teenager.
In the past, questions about Sen. John McCain's legal status have arisen. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone at a U.S. Army hospital. McCain had legal experts vet his constitutional qualifications, and he also disclosed a copy of his birth certificate.
Obama Refuses to Answer Birth Certificate Lawsuit
The lawsuit, filed by former Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Philip J. Berg — a self-avowed supporter of Hillary Clinton — alleges that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus “ineligible” to run for president of the United States. It demands that Obama’s lawyers produce a copy of his original birth certificate to prove that he is a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Berg's suit and allegations have set off a wave of Internet buzz and rumors, though Obama could easily have put the matter to rest by providing the federal court with the basic documentation proving he is eligible to take the oath of a president. But Obama has apparently decided to deny the court and the public that documentation.
The Constitution provides that any U.S. citizen is eligible to become president if the person is 35 years of age or older and is a natural-born citizen; that is, born in the territorial United States.
By failing to respond to the Request for Admissions and Request for the Production of Documents within 30 days, Obama has “admitted” that he was born in Kenya, Berg stated this week in new court filings.
Berg released a long list of “admissions” he submitted to Obama’s lawyers on Sept. 15, and asked that they produce documents relating to Obama’s place of birth and citizenship.
Instead of responding, lawyers for Obama and the DNC asked the court to dismiss the case. But Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has issued no ruling in the case that would have given Obama’s lawyers more time.
“There are lots of legal ways to stonewall,” a well-placed Republican attorney told Newsmax, who was not authorized to comment officially on the case. “But failing to respond is not one of them.”
“The first thing they teach you in law school,” he added, “is don’t put a complaint like this in a drawer. That’s how a nuisance case can become a problem.”
The 30-day deadline for defendants to comply with a discovery request is set forth in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures.
“It all comes down to the fact that there's nothing from the other side,” Berg said after he filed a motion on Thursday for summary judgment.
“The admissions are there. By not filing the answers or objections, the defense has admitted everything. [Obama] admits he was born in Kenya. He admits he was adopted in Indonesia. He admits that the documentation posted online is a phony. And he admits that he is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president of the United States.”
In a contentious case, lawyers on both sides will haggle over the production of documents, and will frequently go beyond the deadlines, several lawyers told Newsmax.
“The rules are more often complied with in the breech rather than the observance,” a senior trial attorney who has close ties to the Democrat Party, but is not involved in the current case, told Newsmax.
“Lawyers frequently do not return telephone calls or meet discovery deadlines because of sheer inadvertence. Therefore, we do not consider a failure to respond as a ‘violation,’” he said.
Allegations surrounding Obama’s place of birth have been swirling for months. Earlier this year, the Obama campaign sought to put down the rumors by making available a computer-generated Certification of Live Birth, issued in 2007 by the State of Hawaii. [See the Certification of Live Birth — Click Here.]
Respected conservative blogger Ed Morrissey called the Berg lawsuit a “conspiracy theory” that had been put to rest by the Obama campaign over the summer but ”has arisen like a zombie yet again to suck the credibility out of the conservative blogosphere.”
However, the 2007 document produced by the Obama campaign omits key information that normally appears on birth certificates in the United States, including the name of the hospital where he was born, the size and weight of the baby, and sometimes the name of the doctor who delivered him.
In addition, the critics of the 2007 document note that Obama's father is described as “African,” a term used today. The formal language in official documents at the time — 1961 — would have identified his race as “Negro” or “Colored.”
The Web site snarkybytes.com has produced a vault copy of a Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth from 1963, issued by the Hawaii Department of Health. [See the vault copy — Click Here.]
In addition to naming the hospital and more details about the baby, the 1963 vault copy also includes the “usual residence of the mother,” and the “usual occupation” of the father. None of this information appears on the 2007 Live Birth certificate produced by the Obama campaign.
Berg has been a perennial political candidate in Pennsylvania, having run in Democrat primaries for attorney general, lieutenant governor, governor, and other offices without success. He served as deputy attorney general of the State of Pennsylvania from 1972-1980.
His credibility was tarnished by work he did for the far-left “9/11 for the Truth” campaign, which alleged in a federal lawsuit that the collapse of the twin towers in New York was caused by “controlled demolition” ordered by the president of the United States.
Nevertheless, in recent weeks, lawsuits have been filed in seven additional states demanding that Barack Obama produce an original vault copy of his birth certificate, to dispel the rumors that he is not a natural-born United States citizen.
The latest suits have been filed in state and federal courts in Hawaii, Washington, California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Connecticut to compel Obama to release his birth records.
Lawsuits in Washington and Georgia are seeking state superior courts to force the states’ secretary of state, as the chief state elections officer, to require Obama to produce original birth records from Hawaii, or else decertify him as a candidate for the presidency.
Ironically, Obama mentions his birth certificate in passing on Page 26 of his 1995 memoir, “Dreams of My Father.” “I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school,” he wrote.
Lawyers for Obama and the DNC did not return calls for comment on the current status of the case, or explain why the Obama campaign did not simply put to rest the whole controversy by releasing the birth certificate that Obama apparently cherished as a teenager.
In the past, questions about Sen. John McCain's legal status have arisen. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone at a U.S. Army hospital. McCain had legal experts vet his constitutional qualifications, and he also disclosed a copy of his birth certificate.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Obama - Socialist Party Member
Newspaper shows Obama belonged to socialist party -
Democrat's campaign denied allegations, but new evidence indicates membership
JERUSALEM – Evidence has emerged that Sen. Barack Obama belonged to a socialist political party that sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party
far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.
Several blogs, including Powerline, previously documented that while running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the socialist-oriented New Party, with some blogs claiming Obama was a member of the controversial party.
The New Party, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA, was an electoral alliance that worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party's aim was to help elect politicians to office who espouse its policies.
Among New Party members was linguist and radical activist Noam Chomsky.
Obama's campaign has responded to the allegations, denying the presidential candidate was ever a member of the New Party.
But the New Zeal blog dug up print copies of the New Party News, the party's official newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, list him as a New Party member and include quotes from him.
The party's Spring 1996 newspaper boasted: "New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary). The paper quoted Obama saying "these victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work."
The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.
... the rest of the story
Meanwhile ...
Democrat Says: Obama's grandma confirms Kenyan birth -
'This has been a real sham he's pulled off for the last 20 months'
The Pennsylvania Democrat who has sued Sen. Barack Obama demanding he prove his American citizenship – and therefore qualification to run for president – has confirmed he has a recording of a telephone call from the senator's paternal grandmother confirming his birth in Kenya.
The issue of Obama's birthplace, which he states is Honolulu in 1961, has been raised enough times that his campaign website has posted an image purporting to be of his "Certification of Live Birth" from Hawaii.
But Philip J. Berg, a former deputy attorney general
for Pennsylvania, told the Michael Savage talk radio program tonight that the document is forged and that he has a tape recording he will soon release.
"This has been a real sham he's pulled off for the last 20 months," Berg told Savage. "I'll release it [the tape] in a day or two, affidavits from her talking to a certain person. I heard the tape. She was speaking [to someone] here in the United States."
... the rest of the story
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
U.S. Military Implies "Political Correctness" Is Impeding the GWOT
Why We're Still Losing the GWOT
A U.S. military "Red Team" charged with challenging conventional thinking says that words like "jihad" and "Islamist" are needed in discussing 21st-century terrorism and that federal agencies that avoid the words soft-pedaled the link between religious extremism and violent acts.
"We must reject the notion that Islam and Arabic stand apart as bodies of knowledge that cannot be critiqued or discussed as elements of understanding our enemies in this conflict," said the internal report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.
The report, "Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words," was written by unnamed civilian analysts and contractors for the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East and South Asia. It is thought to be the first official document to challenge those in the government who seek to downplay the role of Islam in inspiring some terrorist violence.
"The fact is our enemies cite the source of Islam as the foundation for their global jihad," the report said. "We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion."
The report contributes to an ongoing debate within the U.S. government and military over the roots of terrorism, its relationship to Islam and how best to counter extremist ideology.
• Read the internal report, "Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis." (download pdf)
It cites two Bush administration documents that appear to minimize anylink between radical Islam and terrorism.
A January 2008 memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties stated that unidentified American Muslims recommended that the U.S. government avoid using the terms "jihadist," "Islamic terrorist," "Islamist" or "holy warrior," asserting that would create a "negative climate" and spawn acts of harassment and discrimination.
Dan Sutherland, Homeland Security officer for civil rights and civil liberties, said the document is not department policy.
"This was a compilation of recommendations and thoughts provided to us by some prominent American Muslim thinkers and never was intended to be Department of Homeland Security policy," he said in an interview.
"If a paper from another part of government says this doesn't make sense, that's a valid point. This memo is a thought piece meant to stir discussion."
Mr. Sutherland said he agrees that a debate on terrorist terminology is needed in describing "the very serious threat we face."
A second document mentioned by the report was developed for the State Department by the National Counterterrorism Center's Extremist Messaging Branch.
It urges officials to use the term "violent extremist" and never to use "jihadist" because that will "legitimize" terrorists.
Michael E. Leiter, director of the counterterrorism center, questioned some of the memo's conclusions during a July 10 Senate hearing, said spokesman Carl Kropf.
"I do think you cannot separate out the fact that the terror fight we are fighting today involves Islam as a religion," Mr. Leiter said under questioning from Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent. He added, however, "the ideology which motivates these terrorists has very little to do in reality with the religion of Islam."
One of the most sensitive issues in the new report involves the word jihad.
An Arabic word derived from the verb meaning "to strive," it appears about 30 times in the Koran, but "the preponderance of references refer to internal striving to prove one's piety," said William Graham, a professor of Middle East Studies at Harvard University.
About 10 references are clearly to fighting, said Mr. Graham, who is also dean of the university's divinity school.
The word, often translated as "holy war," has been used in a military context throughout Muslim history, said Princeton University Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis, a leading authority on Islam.
Several terrorist groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, include the word in their titles.
The Red Team report said jihad is an obligation of all Muslims under Islamic law and must be performed "until the whole world is under the rule of Islam."
However, the Koran states that the embrace of Islam must be voluntary, Mr. Graham said.
Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said he had no problem using words such as jihad, provided it was made clear that militant groups were misusing the terms to justify their violent actions.
"They're not talking about jihad in a theological sense," Mr. Zogby said. "Jihad means to struggle or strive for the good and against evil. These people are talking about violent revolution."
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, cautioned against interpreting the debate as a dispute between those who think Islam as a whole is bad and those who think Islam as a whole is good.
"Islam is manifestly in crisis, with bad people who are Muslims fighting against good people who are Muslims. That should be the point - how to mobilize the good people against the bad people," Mr. Schwartz said.
The Red Team report said the government documents in question reflect "the views and opinions of a very small [number] of Americans whose contributions may have escaped critical review. ... While there is concern that we not label all Muslims as Islamist terrorists, it is proper to address certain aspects of violence as uniquely Islamic," the report says.
The report notes that some terms for terrorists, such as "Islamo-fascist," are "conspicuously offensive."
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent U.S. Muslim group, has argued that government terminology should minimize any connection between Islam and terrorism to avoid fanning religious hatred.
A council spokesman said Corey Saylor, CAIR's legislative director, recently stated the group's views on the issue in a Detroit News Op-Ed article.
Mr. Saylor said CAIR opposes the use of "jihadist" and other Islamic terms because the use of non-Islamic terms "serves the strategic purpose of isolating extremists and removing the false cloak of religiosity that they use to justify their barbarism."
Marine Corps Maj. Joseph D. Kloppel, a Central Command spokesman, said Red Team reports "are often controversial."
"But the resulting debate sharpens reasoning, forces intellectual integrity, and improves decisionmaking and subsequent action," he said in an e-mail, noting that its products are "designed for internal use" and not meant to represent the personal views of the Centcom commander.
The Observer
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Tiger Calls For World Summit To Address Bush's Socialism
If there were any doubt left as to Bush's overt socialism, it should be totally squelched by now! FOXNEWS.COM just recently headlined; Bush Calls for World Summit to Address Economic Crisis . Of course, I'm joking about a world summit concerning Bush's socialism. The "world" is even more socialist than G.W. Bush, if that's possible.
Many of us saw it coming for years. George H. W. Bush was a liberal extraordinaire, a lover of the U.N., and a pain in the ass to Reagan. Bush senior was chosen as a running mate to Reagan to satisfy the "liberal" segment of the republican party anyway. And before you ask; no! - I didn't like Bush the elder as president. I knew then he was heading the party into oblivion. The son continued the sins of the father and became even more Marxist. G.W. truly believes government is the solution to our ills! He promotes the continued drinking of the poison called government.
Now, the U.S. and "world" governments have successfully executed a tremendously game-changing power-grab. Control the banks and you control the world. Don't be surprised if Obama makes it harder and harder to buy, sell, and trade without following certain laws.
G.W. Bush will forever be the man who pulled the trigger on the gun that finally killed the elephant.
Many of us saw it coming for years. George H. W. Bush was a liberal extraordinaire, a lover of the U.N., and a pain in the ass to Reagan. Bush senior was chosen as a running mate to Reagan to satisfy the "liberal" segment of the republican party anyway. And before you ask; no! - I didn't like Bush the elder as president. I knew then he was heading the party into oblivion. The son continued the sins of the father and became even more Marxist. G.W. truly believes government is the solution to our ills! He promotes the continued drinking of the poison called government.
Now, the U.S. and "world" governments have successfully executed a tremendously game-changing power-grab. Control the banks and you control the world. Don't be surprised if Obama makes it harder and harder to buy, sell, and trade without following certain laws.
G.W. Bush will forever be the man who pulled the trigger on the gun that finally killed the elephant.
The Observer
Friday, October 17, 2008
If the Reagan Era is Dead, Who Killed it?
By Michael Reagan
If you believe Newsweek magazine -- something that usually requires a serious suspension of disbelief -- the Reagan Era is dead. Politico also chimed in, proclaiming the death of the Reagan revolution.
Newsweek doesn’t go on to tell you who killed the Reagan Era, so I will. It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution. They forgot who he was; and having forgotten who he was, they stopped following in his footsteps that should have led to smaller, less-intrusive government, and restrained government spending. They are the ones who began to undermine the sturdy foundation my father built.
By the way, the same thing happened to Maggie Thatcher in Britain. Her own party was responsible for undermining all the great advances she made towards dismantling the socialist welfare state that had made England an economic basket-case. It happened because once she was out of power her party weakened. Maggie was strong and Ronald Reagan was strong, but when they no longer were in power and at their prime, their followers turned into weak-kneed office seekers.
Being weak they were easily led astray and went in other directions, and fell prey to the lure of big government, big spending and big deficit politics. The end of the Reagan Era was brought to us by the Republican Party, which had thrived under his leadership and is now in danger of becoming a minor player in the nation's politics and a spectator at the birth of a socialist America doomed to follow the path to ruin of every failed state has embraced the Marxist creed.
Can the Reagan Era be resurrected? It can, but only by the party that was responsible for its death. Republicans killed it and it's up to Republicans to revive it. And if America is to survive the coming debacle looming ahead under an ultra-left-wing Obama government drenched in the welfare-state philosophies of Karl Marx, only a reborn Republican Party will be capable of bringing America back from the brink of destruction.
Unless John McCain understands what is at stake here, Nov. 5 is going to resemble the smoking rubble of Dresden in the wake of the Allied firebombing of that city. The Republican Party is going to be in shambles.
It's going to be in shambles because the Republican Party abandoned the trail leading to that shining city on the hill to become itself a quasi-left-wing organization which looks at the Democrats’ welfare programs and says “me too.”They destroyed the party from within. They are the ones to blame. Not the left-wing media , not left-wing academia, not the Democratic Party but the GOP -- the Grand Old Party -- no longer grand, just old and scared silly.
Ronald Reagan had the same media that we have today. He had the same left-wing academia that we have today and the same Democratic Party that we have today. But when the media and the Democrats attacked him he found it invigorating, and found strength and fortitude in being under fire, and he fought back like a tiger.
Today, when Republicans are attacked, they tremble and run for cover. And they give in and begin to mumble “me too.”I've heard people say that Ronald Reagan would have supported the bailout. My answer to that is: “Balderdash!” Ronald Reagan would never have supported a bailout, because under his leadership there never would have been a need for a bailout. He never would have allowed the double-dealing and sheer criminality that brought about our current crisis. In a Ronald Reagan administration the Chris Dodds and Barney Franks -- who bled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dry -- wouldn’t be running Congressional committees, they’d be fending off Federal prosecutors.
Let's not have any more talk about the end of the Reagan Era and the Reagan Revolution. It's time to re-fire the jets and move forward.
... sorry, Michael, but I smell the stench of rotting elephant already. And tigers can sense it a long way off! It's been stinking now for quite awhile. - Tiger
If you believe Newsweek magazine -- something that usually requires a serious suspension of disbelief -- the Reagan Era is dead. Politico also chimed in, proclaiming the death of the Reagan revolution.
Newsweek doesn’t go on to tell you who killed the Reagan Era, so I will. It was the Republican Party that demolished the shining city on the hill my father built. It was the Republican Party that was 100 percent responsible for the end of the Reagan Revolution. They forgot who he was; and having forgotten who he was, they stopped following in his footsteps that should have led to smaller, less-intrusive government, and restrained government spending. They are the ones who began to undermine the sturdy foundation my father built.
By the way, the same thing happened to Maggie Thatcher in Britain. Her own party was responsible for undermining all the great advances she made towards dismantling the socialist welfare state that had made England an economic basket-case. It happened because once she was out of power her party weakened. Maggie was strong and Ronald Reagan was strong, but when they no longer were in power and at their prime, their followers turned into weak-kneed office seekers.
Being weak they were easily led astray and went in other directions, and fell prey to the lure of big government, big spending and big deficit politics. The end of the Reagan Era was brought to us by the Republican Party, which had thrived under his leadership and is now in danger of becoming a minor player in the nation's politics and a spectator at the birth of a socialist America doomed to follow the path to ruin of every failed state has embraced the Marxist creed.
Can the Reagan Era be resurrected? It can, but only by the party that was responsible for its death. Republicans killed it and it's up to Republicans to revive it. And if America is to survive the coming debacle looming ahead under an ultra-left-wing Obama government drenched in the welfare-state philosophies of Karl Marx, only a reborn Republican Party will be capable of bringing America back from the brink of destruction.
Unless John McCain understands what is at stake here, Nov. 5 is going to resemble the smoking rubble of Dresden in the wake of the Allied firebombing of that city. The Republican Party is going to be in shambles.
It's going to be in shambles because the Republican Party abandoned the trail leading to that shining city on the hill to become itself a quasi-left-wing organization which looks at the Democrats’ welfare programs and says “me too.”They destroyed the party from within. They are the ones to blame. Not the left-wing media , not left-wing academia, not the Democratic Party but the GOP -- the Grand Old Party -- no longer grand, just old and scared silly.
Ronald Reagan had the same media that we have today. He had the same left-wing academia that we have today and the same Democratic Party that we have today. But when the media and the Democrats attacked him he found it invigorating, and found strength and fortitude in being under fire, and he fought back like a tiger.
Today, when Republicans are attacked, they tremble and run for cover. And they give in and begin to mumble “me too.”I've heard people say that Ronald Reagan would have supported the bailout. My answer to that is: “Balderdash!” Ronald Reagan would never have supported a bailout, because under his leadership there never would have been a need for a bailout. He never would have allowed the double-dealing and sheer criminality that brought about our current crisis. In a Ronald Reagan administration the Chris Dodds and Barney Franks -- who bled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dry -- wouldn’t be running Congressional committees, they’d be fending off Federal prosecutors.
Let's not have any more talk about the end of the Reagan Era and the Reagan Revolution. It's time to re-fire the jets and move forward.
... sorry, Michael, but I smell the stench of rotting elephant already. And tigers can sense it a long way off! It's been stinking now for quite awhile. - Tiger
The Observer
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
More Evidence We're Doomed As A Species!
Woman Changes Name to Web Address
&
The Swiss Government Says; "Don’t Hurt Veggies’ Feelings"
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — You can call her CutoutDissection.com, Cutout for short, but just don't call her Jennifer.
The former Jennifer Thornburg — whose driver's license now reads Dissection.com, Cutout — wanted to do something to protest animal dissections in schools.
The 19-year-old's new name is also the Web address for an anti-dissection page of the site for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, where she is interning.
"I normally do have to repeat my name several times when I am introducing myself to someone new," she told The Asheville Citizen-Times. "Once they find out what my name is, they want to know more about what the Web site is about."
The Asheville High School graduate who is working in Virginia said she began opposing dissections in middle school after a class assignment to cut up a chicken wing made her uncomfortable. She helped create a policy at her high school that allows students who object to dissections to complete an alternative assignment.
Despite her legally changing the name, she said most of her family members still call her Jennifer.
... I suppose Abortion, also known as Murder, is OK, Jennifer, ... er, Cutout?
... and on a lighter note ...
Wheat and all plant life has feelings and researchers must take veggie’s tender emotions into account when tinkering around with their genes, the Swiss government has ruled.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s Gautam Naik, last spring under an amendment to the constitution, Switzerland began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant's alleged dignity.
"Unfortunately, we have to take it seriously," Beat Keller, a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich told the Journal. Keller who recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus added, "It's one more constraint on doing genetic research."
Keller said he found himself having to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. He then had to explain why his planned trial wouldn't "disturb the vital functions or lifestyle" of the plants. Eventually he got the green light to go ahead with his research.
According to the Journal, the Swiss constitution was amended back in the 1990s -- in order to defend the dignity of all creatures, including the leafy kind, against unwanted consequences of genetic manipulation. When the amendment was turned into a law -- known as the Gene Technology Act -- it didn't say anything specific about plants.
The excursion into the psychology of plants began with a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians assembled to establish the meaning of the dignity of plants.
"We couldn't start laughing and tell the government we're not going to do anything about it," an amused Markus Schefer, a member of the ethics panel and a professor of law at the University of Basel told the Journal . He explained, "The constitution requires it."
Last April the Journal reported the group published a 22-page treatise on "the moral consideration of plants for their own sake." They ruled that vegetation has an inherent value and that it is immoral to arbitrarily harm plants by "decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason," for example.
[... oh, the humanity! - Tiger]
It also declared that the dignity of plants could be safeguarded "as long as their independence, i.e., reproductive ability and adaptive ability, are ensured." In other words, the Journal explained “It's wrong to genetically alter a plant and render it sterile.”
While many scientists believe the dignity rule applies mainly to field trials such as Dr. Keller's, some worry it may one day apply to lab studies as well.
The new rules raise such questions as what is a more mortifying fate for a carrot than being peeled, chopped and dropped into boiling water? Do carrots scream as lobsters are said (falsely) to do when being thrown unceremoniously into a pot and boiled alive?
"Where does it stop?" Yves Poirier, a molecular biologist at the laboratory of plant biotechnology at the University of Lausanne asked the Journal. “Should we now defend the dignity of microbes and viruses?"
Seeking clarity, Dr. Poirier recently invited the head of the Swiss ethics panel to his university.
In their public discussion, Dr. Poirier said the new rules are flawed because decades of traditional plant breeding had led to widely available sterile fruit, such as seedless grapes. The discussion turned squirrely when it became obvious that some panel members believe plants have feelings, Dr. Poirier told the Journal.
The Ethics Committee on Non Human Gene Technology and the Swiss Committee on Animals Experiments have created brochures with the goal of defining the dignity of plants and animals. It was not clear if weeds are now a constitutionally protected endangered species.
Left unanswered was the question: Does this new development open the door to a brand new profession -- plant psychology with potato patients prone on a plant shrink’s couch, expressing fears their dignity might be violated by being peeled, mashed and drowned in hot gravy?
The Observer
Monday, October 13, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism - Investors.com
Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.
During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.
And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.
It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.
"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.
In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.
In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).
Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.
It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.
Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.
Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.
Among his proposed "investments":
• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.
• "Free" college tuition.
• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).
• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").
• "Free" job training (even for criminals).
• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.
• More subsidized public housing.
• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."
• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.
His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.
That's just for starters — first-term stuff.
Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.
You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.
But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?
Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.
The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.
A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."
As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."
After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.
His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.
The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.
After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.
While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.
(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)
Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.
As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."
His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."
Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.
(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)
In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.
Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.
(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)
With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."
He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.
Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."
He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.
Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.
Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.
The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.
But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.
During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.
And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.
It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.
"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.
In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.
In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).
Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.
It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.
Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.
Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.
Among his proposed "investments":
• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.
• "Free" college tuition.
• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).
• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").
• "Free" job training (even for criminals).
• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.
• More subsidized public housing.
• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."
• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.
His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.
That's just for starters — first-term stuff.
Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.
You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.
But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?
Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.
The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.
A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."
As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."
After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.
His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.
The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.
After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.
While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.
(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)
Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.
As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."
His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."
Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.
(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)
In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.
Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.
(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)
With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."
He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.
Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."
He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.
Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.
Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.
The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.
But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Legislation That Actually Needs Your Support - And No, It's Not The Bailout
The B.A.T.F.E. is a renegade federal agency
It uses tactics against law-abiding gun owners which are not only outrageous, but unlawful. They routinely tamper with evidence, use paid criminal informants, and lies to convict law-abiding citizens. They are trampeling our Constitutional gun rights.
From using paid "informants" to provide false testimony, to physically altering firearms to turn them into "machine guns," to abusing and harassing mom and pop gun shops who cannot afford to legally defend themselves, this agency appears not only to have little or no regards for the rights of citizens, but is clearly willing even to ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court.
You may or may not know, Gun Owners of America is helping to defend David Olofson, a recent victim of BATFE abuse who has been sentenced to 30 months in the Federal Correctional Institute at Sandstone, Minnesota for the alleged crime of knowingly transferring an unregistered machine gun.
GOA submitted an appeal on August 25, 2008, to get him released from prison.
GOA took on the case when they learned that the so-called "machine gun" that Olofson owned was, in reality, one of thousands of ordinary semi-automatic rifles made by Olympic Arms. It happened to misfire a few extra rounds when a friend was using it at a range -- thus drawing the attention of the feds. However, it only became a machine gun when the BATFE, behind closed doors, mechanically tampered with the rifle.
Getting guns to malfunction is a favorite technique of the BATFE as it gives them a great opportunity to rack up convictions on the possession or selling of "machine guns," which requires a special type of license.
As a result, David Olofson has been robbed of all his freedom, not just his right to keep and bear arms. He has lost his liberty, his family, and his life outside of prison.
It is just a turn of fate that it is David Olofson -- not you or any other semi-auto owner you know -- who is rotting away in prison.
The Fairness in Firearms testing bill, H.R. 1791, will require the B.A.T.F.E. to use honest, open, and legitimate testing procedures for suspected firearm problems and investigations. The investigations would be required to be filmed and reviewed by lawyers and gunsmith professionals. Support H.R. 1791!
The Observer
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
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