We have been getting blown away with words this election cycle. It seems like the election has been going on forever. That is because it has. It is between two currents, those with more and those who have less, which has been the tendency since the American experiment began and really is the pervasive currents in human nature. It is the tension between the tendency for a natural distribution of resources and things and the unnatural redistribution of those same things to be determined by an overlord or governing or priestly order. It is an ongoing competition restrained historically by governments since we took to living in larger groups where it became desirous to have some control to prevent violence and to provide to some degree for the general welfare. This election is one of the most intense competitions Americans have experienced in their lifetime and likely to be one of the most important. It seems each election is just a little bit worse than the last. The choices are never completely acceptable and perhaps they never will be? It is always a choice between two evils. I just wonder if those who are going to vote for Obama really understand they may get what they are wishing for and they may not like it? The kind of change which can come out of this election may alter the economic and political landscape of this once great country forever.
Gene Lyons * Gene Lyons, a free-lance columnist and recipient of the National Magazine Award, writes in the (February 20, 2008) Arkansas Democrat-Gezette:
"Chances are you've seen the video clips. First comes Sen. Barack Obama, responding to the charge that he's long on rhetoric, short on substance. "Don't tell me words don't matter," Obama told voters. "`I have a dream' -- just words. `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' --just words. `We have nothing to fear but fear itself' --just words. Just speeches." It's rhetorically brilliant, even thrilling. In four pungent sentences, delivered in an accent and cadence very like Martin Luther King Jr.'s, Obama associates himself with King, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It's bedrock Americanism, sheer magic. No wonder Obama has amassed fervent mass of followers."
"It's also a steal from Obama's friend, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. You can watch Patrick on YouTube delivering virtually identical remarks to a cheering crowd in 2006. Obama's better, a far more convincing actor. But is it plagiarism, as the Hillary Clinton campaign charges? Well, if I passed it off as mine in a column, I'd be fired, deservedly so. It would merit an F in a student term paper. But it's a political speech, and Patrick, who probably didn't write it himself--consultant David Axelrod masterminded both men's campaigns--says he's not offended." (ibid)
"Obama dismisses it as a minor gaffe. Any Democrat who didn't get a queasy feeling, however, has definitely succumbed to Obamamania. Back in 1988, Sen. Joe Biden's presidential run ended after he borrowed a line from British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. To the Washington media, it proved that he was a big faker, who, in the usual formulation, "would say or do anything" to become president." (ibid)
"It's also not the first time that Obama's been accused of lifting others' words. Announcing his own presidential candidacy in 1993, Sen. John Edwards said, "I haven't spent most of my life in politics... but I've spent enough time in Washington to know how much we need to change it." For months, Obama has been saying, "I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." An Edwards aide commented dryly, "Next thing you know, he'll be rooting for the Tar Heels." Of course, they all run against Washington, except Sen. Clinton, who's touting her experience. There are a limited number of ways to say it." (ibid)
"But did you catch Obama in South Carolina, warning African American audiences, "Don't be hoodwinked, don't be bamboozled" You can also Google those words and watch actor Denzel Washington deliver them in Spike Lee's brilliant film "Malcolm X": "You've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok." The irony of Obama's borrowing the fictive words of Malcolm X, a black Muslim, to rebut a scurrilous e-mail campaign calling him a secret Islamist would be almost disabling, except for the greater one: All this was going on while Obama's media acolytes were accusing the Clinton campaign of "playing the race card." (A brilliant tactic to guarantee landslide defeat in South Carolina.)" (ibid)
He claims to be a distant cousin of Barack Obama. He is an Anglican who intends to expand Sharia law (from the Koran) to Kenya. It is interesting that Obama who has a Muslim background and also now claims to be a Christian but even though born to a Muslim father, which makes him a Muslim in the eyes of other Muslims has nowhere admitted to being a Muslim nor has he renounced his Islamic heritage. We know Obama has a history, we just don't know what it is. All we have is some persona he has invented for himself in his autobiographies. The important questions remain unanswered and his past has been intentionally obscured. A prudent person would wonder what he might be hiding?
Gene also reminds us that obama campaigned in Kenya for Raila Odinga.
"Did you know that Obama campaigned in Kenya for opposition leader Raila Odinga, who claims to be his distant cousin. That Odinga has been accused of scheming to bring Sharia, or Islamic law, to Kenya, how credibly would it matter once GOP propagandists got to work on Obama? So far, Obama's strategy of playing upon the Washington media clique's loathing for everything Clinton has succeeded. To the extent that Hillary Clinton is polarizing, however, it's due to 16 years of deliberate character assassination, accusing her of everything, including drug smuggling and murder. The basic GOP method is to portray Democrats as fraudulent elitists who "Blame America First" and seek power by encouraging minorities to see themselves as victims. (The real victims, of course, being Rush Limbaugh listeners.) Obama, alas, has given them plenty to work with. If he wins the nomination, will voters still recognize him come November?" (ibid)
(Quotes)
by Mark Hyman
(award-winning news commentator
for Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc)
COMMENTARY:
About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000.
The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda genocide of a decade earlier.
By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.
The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. Odinga supporters began the genocide hours after the final election results were announced Dec. 30. Mr. Odinga was a member of Parliament representing an area in western Kenya, heavily populated by the Luo tribe, and the birthplace of Barack Obama's father.
Mr. Odinga had the backing of Kenya's Muslim community heading into the election. For months he denied any ties to Muslim leaders, but fell silent when Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, appeared on Kenya television displaying a memorandum of understanding signed on Aug. 29, 2007, by Mr. Odinga and the Muslim leader. Mr. Odinga then denied his denials.
The details of the MOU were shocking. In return for Muslim backing, Mr. Odinga promised to impose a number of measures favored by Muslims if he were elected president. Among these were recognition of "Islam as the only true religion," Islamic leaders would have an "oversight role to monitor activities of ALL other religions [emphasis in original]," installation of Shariah courts in every jurisdiction, a ban on Christian preaching, replacement of the police commissioner who "allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists," adoption of a women's dress code, and bans on alcohol and pork.
This was not Mr. Odinga's first brush with notoriety. Like his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the main opposition leader in the 1960s and 1970s, Raila Odinga is a Marxist He graduated from East Germany's Magdeburg University in 1970 on a scholarship provided by the East German government. He named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
Raila Odinga was implicated in the bloody coup attempt in 1982 against then-President Daniel Arap Moi, a close ally of the United States. Kenya has been one of the most stable democracies in Africa since the 1960s. The ethnic cleansing earlier this year was the worst violence in Kenya since that 1982 coup attempt.
Mr. Odinga spent eight years in prison. At the time, he denied guilt but later detailed he was a coup leader in his 2006 biography. Statue of limitations precluded further prosecution when the biography appeared.
Initially, Mr. Odinga was not the favored opposition candidate to stand in the 2007 election against President Mwai Kibaki, who was seeking his second term. However, he received a tremendous boost when Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Kenya in August 2006 to campaign on his behalf. Mr. Obama denies that supporting Mr. Odinga was the intention of his trip, but his actions and local media reports tell otherwise.
Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25. "The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials," Mr. Obama announced.
"Kenyans are now yearning for change," he declared. The intent of Mr. Obama's remarks and actions was transparent to Kenyans - he was firmly behind Mr. Odinga.
Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama had met several times before the 2006 trip. Reports indicate Mr. Odinga visited Mr. Obama during trips to the U.S. in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Mr. Obama sent his foreign policy adviser Mark Lippert to Kenya in early 2006 to coordinate his summer visit. Mr. Obama's August trip coincided with strategizing by Orange Democratic Movement leaders to defeat Mr. Kibaki in the upcoming elections. Mr. Odinga represented the ODM ticket in the presidential race.
Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama's father were both from the Luo community, the second-largest tribe in Kenya, but their ties run much deeper. Mr. Odinga told a stunned BBC Radio interviewer the reason why he and Mr. Obama were staying in near daily telephone contact was because they were cousins. In a Jan. 8, 2008, interview, Mr. Odinga said Mr. Obama had called him twice the day before while campaigning in the New Hampshire primary before adding, "Barack Obama's father is my maternal uncle."
President Kibaki requested a meeting of all opposition leaders in early January in an effort to quell the violence. All agreed to attend except Mr. Odinga. A month later, Mr. Kibaki offered Mr. Odinga the role of prime minister, the de facto No. 2 in the Kenyan government, in return for an end to the attacks. Mr. Odinga was sworn in on April 17, 2008.
Mr. Obama's judgment is seriously called into question when he backs an official with troubling ties to Muslim extremists and whose supporters practice ethnic cleansing and genocide. It was Islamic extremists in Kenya who bombed the U.S. Embassy in 1998, killing more than 200 and injuring thousands. None of this has dissuaded Mr. Obama from maintaining disturbing loyalties.
Mark Hyman
(End Quotes)
(Quotes)
By Herb Denenberg
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 the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin.
Here are a few suggestions for figuring out what is behind the mask that now disguises and distorts the real Barack Obama, who is in fact an ultraliberal, radical and extremist with a long line of dangerous associates and equally dangerous ideas and plans:
* Notice how the Obama spokesmen almost flip out when questioned about his friendship and long and close relationship with the unrepentant terrorist, William Ayers, who bragged about bombing the Pentagon, the Capitol and other public buildings, causing property damage and death. Their explosive reaction betrays the fact that the accusations are right on target, and that if the public understands Mr. Obama's propensity to associate with and help terrorists, racists, bigots and anti-Americans, it will kill his candidacy. This kind of fury from the Obama people is sparked by truthful accusations about dangerous and damning associations. To borrow and slightly amend a great sentence from H.L. Mencken, the situation is thus: False accusations are relatively easy to bear; what stings is truth!
* When confronted with his radical associates, you can almost predict the usual responses that have come forth in other cases, such as that of Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright. He wasn't aware of his anti-American raves and rants - even though he was a close associate and member of the church for 20 years. His denials were so ridiculous, they formed the basis of a superb comedy piece from Jackie Mason. Mr. Obama also claimed you can't judge someone by a few "snippets." No, Mr. Obama, some pictures and some snippets are worth a thousand words, and those snippets weren't taken out of context. This proves he not only associates with anti-American racists and bigots on a routine basis but also lies through his teeth when caught. As someone has suggested, if he didn't know what Rev. Wright was up to, he's the dumbest graduate of Harvard and Columbia in history. And you can say the same for the long list of his close and dangerous associates including Mr. Ayers, Father Pfleger, the felon Tony Rezko, and the others. If he knew what these people stood for, he's disqualified to be president because of the associations; if he didn't know, he's disqualified for stupidity.
* Do you really want to risk the future of the free world on someone who has not been vetted by the mainstream media, who routinely lies about his questionable associates and other matters, and who stonewalls when asked questions about such crucial facts relating to his character, his values, and his fitness to serve. He has a record of stonewalling on the long list of associates that should doom his candidacy. Remember his close association with convicted felon Tony Rezko. The Chicago papers were after him for many months and he refused to explain the relationship. He finally talked to a couple of Chicago newspapers, but the transaction is still smelly and raises questions about his judgment. The land transaction with Mr. Rezko suggests there was a payoff to Mr. Obama (a.k.a. bribe) for money Mr. Obama obtained for Mr. Rezko through appropriations. When finally confronted about Rev. Wright, he danced and double-talked from one position to the other. At first, he explained he was just like a strange uncle. He could no more denounce him than his own grandmother. (He finally suggested his grandmother was a bigot.) He wasn't there when he said such things. Even when he heard those "things," he still didn't denounce Rev. Wright, until Rev. Wright said Mr. Obama was behaving just like another politician. He yields to political expediency and will do anything to win.
* You should also note that there are many "blank spaces" in his resume and biography. For example, he doesn't talk about many of the questionable associations and activities in his life and has conveniently left them out of his two autobiographical books. If they weren't so damning, why has this great author so conveniently omitted so many questionable associations and activities from his book. And there are blanks in his timeline. For example, there is almost nothing known about his three years as an undergraduate at Columbia and his three years at Harvard Law School. When there are blanks and many blanks in a resume and biography, beware. It is obvious that the blanks are there because Mr. Obama knows the truth would put him in a bad light.
* The whole Obama picture is made murkier by his willingness to use Storm Trooper tactics to suppress information. He even encouraged prosecutors in Missouri to threaten criminal action against any critic who "lied" about his record. He organized a protest to flood and shout down some superb writers and critics of Mr. Obama that were to appear on Chicago radio station WGN to report on their findings. Those two critics are David Freddoso, author of The Case Against Obama, a piece of must reading before the election, and Stanley Kurtz, who investigated how Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama teamed up for years to finance organizations dedicated to radicalizing students. If you know what kind of education Mr. Ayers favors, remember he is the educator who went to Venezuela to pay homage to the dictator and anti-American Hugo Chavez and his educational methods (also known as totalitarian indoctrination worthy of the Hitler Youth Corps).
* Beware of politicians who don't seem to be able to respond to criticism or do so untruthfully. Consider some of the things Mr. Obama has said about Mr. Ayers. He's just a guy in the neighborhood. No, Mr. Ayers had a long and close association with Mr. Obama and one to no good end. They worked together on a project that sent tens of millions of dollars into leftist organizations to finance the radicalization of students (a la Mr. Ayers and a la Mr. Chavez). They sat on boards together and gave speeches from the same platform. Mr. Obama launched his political career in Mr. Ayers's home. But Mr. Obama tried to lie out of it as if the two were just distant ships passing in the night. Mr. Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood. That has to be characterized as the greatest lie since "the check is in the mail." He said their kids went to school together. That suggested another passing association and is an attempt to fabricate. He also claimed he didn't know of Mr. Ayers' radical background. This is the equivalent of I didn't know the anti-American views of Rev. Wright after 20 years of close collaboration. Here's a guy who is supposed to be a well-informed politician and he never seems to know anything about his associates and collaborators.
* Finally, beware of a candidate who is so self-centered and arrogant that he assumes he's the next president. Notice his comments during the debate and during speeches. It's not "if" I am elected president," but it is "When I'm president." He already has announced plans for a basketball court instead of a bowling alley in the White House, and I suspect he's already writing his inaugural speech. I might add he's the candidate that devised his own version of the presidential seal for placement on the podium before him. He is so hungry for power that he can't wait for the election. He is a man of boundless ambition, but without core principles.
Here's an example of how Mr. Obama reveals his pathetic inability to do anything but give speeches and the like. During the debate, Sen. John McCain indicated how he had fought for legislation to subject Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to tough regulation. If enacted, what Mr. McCain backed could have prevented the current financial crisis. The needed reforms were opposed by the Democrats, and in his usual stance, Mr. Obama was on the sidelines. He didn't even have a pretty speech.
Then Mr. Obama was asked what he had done and would do. He said, "We've got a subprime lending crisis that had to be dealt with." Then he said that years ago he sounded a warning: "I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it."
Why didn't Mr. Obama do something about it by introducing legislation and getting regulatory reforms on the books? Instead, he passed the buck and wrote two letters. Anyone could write letters. He was elected to the Senate to identify problems and enact legislation to solve those problems. But Mr. Obama must have been too busy giving his pretty speeches so he did nothing. He wrote two letters, and waited for Secretary Henry Paulson and Chairman Ben Bernanke to act. He assumed no responsibility and took no initiative.
I haven't heard anyone comment on it, but Mr. Obama revealed in this brief answer why in his career he has never accomplished anything of note. He gives speeches and writes letter. Then he leaves the problem for someone else to solve. This is reminiscent of his behavior during the Congressional battle over bailout legislation. He said, "If you need me call; I've got a telephone." This is also reminiscent of his voting record in the Illinois legislature, where he voted present 130 times. That's a vote that is neither yes or no, but is "I'm sitting on the fence, and don't want to take a stand. Yes, I'm a political wimp." As Rudy Giuliani so well pointed out, in the White House there is no such thing as a present vote.
One more example. Mr. Obama ran for the U.S. Senate on the platform of a tax cut for the middle class. But when he got to the Senate he never bothered to introduce a bill to get a middle class tax cut into law. He thinks giving a speech is enough to bring about the "change" and "hope" and "new politics" he advocates. That's why it is clear he is all hat and not cattle. He is an empty suit. He is an eloquent windbag.
He gives speeches, but he avoids specifics. In two debates, he was asked in view of the spending problems created by the bailout, what programs would he cut. In the first debate, he named none, and actually went into a list of programs he marks for higher spending. In the second debate, he again named no program, but made some sort of comment about going over the budget line by line. He is a politician of glittering generalities but when it comes to specifics the lights go out.
At a time of unprecedented crises on both the foreign and domestic front, we can't take a chance on Mr. Obama. He has demonstrated bad judgment but no accomplishments. He is mired in associations with terrorists, bigots, racists and anti-Americans. He seems to have no principles and he soon abandons any he might have when expedient to do so. An examination of his record indicates he could only bring disaster to the nation and the free world.
(End Quotes)
There will be a lot of cross-over votes in this election. There will also be an attempt to steal the election. It is becoming more difficult to tell the left from the right. The Democrat is a center-right socialist and the Republican is a center-left conservative. And the economy is tanking. But everyday is a new day and anything can and usually will happen.
Hank Roth
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