IF OBAMA SUPPORTS INTERVENTION TO STOP GENOCIDE, WHY DID HE OPPOSE THE LIBERATION OF IRAQ?

During tonight's "town hall" debate in Nashville, Senator Barack Obama opined that the United States should intervene militarily --even when our interests are not at stake-- for humanitarian reasons, such as to end genocide and ethnic cleansing. He said we had a moral interest in stopping mass killing in places such as Darfur, Somalia, and the Congo.

What a liar.

The Saddam Hussein regime was responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shi'ites, and had used chemical and biological warfare against the Kurds.

Toppling the Saddam Hussein regime required boots on the groud for less than three weeks, and fewer than 200 Americans were killed in battle during one of history's most brilliant and effective campaigns.

And that stopped Saddam Hussein's genocide cold.

Moreover, Saddam Hussein had drained the Iraqi marshes, an act of ecological terrorism almost without parallel in history, whose intention was the genocide of the "marsh Arabs."

But that intended genocide was stopped cold by America's intervention, and the marshes are well on their way to complete restoration.

Yet Obama continues to trumpet his ill-conceived and wrong-headed opinion that the war to liberate Iraq from the genocidal tyranny of Saddam Hussein was a mistake.

What makes you think that he and his fellow defeatists in the Democrat Party would be any more supportive of American military action anywhere else?

What a lying hypocrite.

Vote accordingly.

UPDATE: Wednesday 10:30 AM.

Added from my response to a comment from a reader:

I should add that military intervention is always more attractive to the Democrat Party whenever American vital interests are NOT at stake.

If military intervention might actually do something to help our Country and the American people, it is always suspect in the eyes of defeatist Democrats.

But military action that will do nothing to advance American interests is automatically more attractive to them. If there is no chance that military action will actually help America, the Democrats actually like it better.

Since at heart, they are opposed to American interests. They have become anti-American globalists who see the United States as the problem rather than the solution.

UPDATE #2: TAB SCOOPS HOT AIR AND JEFF JACOBY:

PUNDITARIAN SCOOPED THEM BY A DAY. THEY WROTE ON THIS ISSUE HERE AND HERE.

REGULAR READERS KNOW THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. SPREAD THE WORD. BLOGROLL US.

Obama's Father Figure

It is refreshing to see Sarah Palin going after Obama's radical, America-hating intimates. This is Obama's most vulnerable point, because it betrays more clearly than anything else his true attitude toward his country.

It is truly mind-boggling that so far McCain has not pressed this point. It almost seems as if he were engaged in a form of self-imposed political correctness whereby he has strenuously avoided pointing out the most embarrassing and damaging aspects of his opponent's background and candidacy.

I have put together a little video to remind us of the twenty-year relationship that Obama had with Jeremiah Wright. This friendship is an outrage and an offense to every America-loving citizen. Obama must answer for this.



Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here

Here's all you need to know about the financial crisis

Two British comedians get perilously close to the truth





The alarming thing is that the video is 12 months old yet it is totally up to date. Even comedians could foresee what the Democrat Congresscritters could not. (H/T Agmates)

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here

MORE ELECTION FRAUD?

Because of my work schedule, I don't get to watch a lot of news programs right now. And with the computer problems I've been having, I don't get to spend much time on the web either.

Thanks to blogger The Educated Shoprat, I found and viewed the following news video this morning:



Is the Democratic Party desperate to win, or what?

(Note: Apologies if this video has already been posted here at TAB)

WHY FINANCIAL MARKETS CRASH - AND WHEN

If you haven't noticed yet the financial bubble has burst. And while everyone complains, and points the blame, let's remember no one I know was complaining when everything was on the way up! We can read how we got here - cheap and easy money - and why it burst - breakdown in bank interloan system. Many, especially left wing europeans, proclaim this the end of the American Empire. Many of these pundits also make comparisons to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. If I recall correctly the United States survived that, and WWII, and came out in pretty good shape. The question is not what happens but how we respond to crisis.

Markets are always right - except when they're wrong! Price volatility is natural - it is the pump that enriches and impoverishes financial speculators. Why are the markets collapsing now? I am sure some financial interests benefit from a fall in prices: If they are short, then they will wait until a bottom is made. While billions of dollars of value has evaporated there are still piles of money waiting to buy. The banks are reloading with cheap money, and they will pick up the pieces for pennies on the dollar. Others - like Soros and Obama - derive political and/or financial benefits from the crash. Finally, I am afraid many investors are afraid Obama will win the election - and they fear that would proove catastrophic.

Another factor: Anti-democratic forces have successfully influenced elections in the past. Sovereign funds could be imposing their weight upon the markets...so hold on to your hats! and vote!

OBAMA'S GALLERY OF ROGUES

I'VE BEEN VOTING IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES & ELECTIONS SINCE 1976.

I'VE NEVER EVER SEEN A CANDIDATE IN ANY PARTY WITH A ROGUE'S GALLERY AS DEEP AND SCUMMY AS OBAMA'S:

MONEY-MEN DEEPLY CONNECTED TO THE CURRENT CRISIS:

• PRITZKER.
• RAINES.
• JOHNSON.
• THE SANDLERS.

• AND REMEMBER: FANNIE MAE GAVE OBAMA MORE MONEY THAN ANYONE ELSE SINCE HIS ARRIVAL IN THE CONGRESS.

AND THEN THERE'S CONVICTED SLIME-BALL REZKO - HIS BIGGEST FUNDRAISER FOR DECADES.

AND DONT FORGET HIS 20 YEAR ASSOCIATION WITH THE TERRORIST AYERS.

HERE ARE HIS LONGTIME ANTI-AMERICAN AND RACIST RELIGIOUS SUPPORTERS:

• WRIGHT.
• PFLEGER.
• AL MANSOUR.
• FARRAKHAN.
• NO JEWS OR RABBIS.
  

• NOT ONLY MIGHT OBAMA BECOME THE LEAST EXPERIENCED LEAST ACCOMPLISHED PERSON EVER ELECTED, BUT THE SLEAZIEST, MOST LEFT-WING AND MOST ANTI-AMERICAN.

THIS GUY MAKES THE CLINTONS LOOK LIKE JOHN & ABIGAIL ADAMS!

VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

SIMILAR THOUGHTS - AND MORE - HERE.

WHAT DID OBAMA KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?

WHAT DID OBAMA REALLY KNOW AND WHEN DID HE REALLY KNOW ABOUT:

• WRIGHT - HIS PREACHER FOR TWENTY YEARS.
  
• REZKO. HIS PRINCIPLE FINANCIAL BACKER - FOR 20 YEARS.
  
• AYERS. A TERRORIST ASSOCIATE - FOR 17 YEARS.
  
• KHALIDI. A PLO FRIEND OF 17 YEARS.
  
• DAVIS. A COMMUNIST AND HIS EARLIEST MENTOR.
  
• JOHNSON - A CROOKED LOBBYIST HE MADE THE CHIEF OF HIS VEEP SEARCH COMMITTEE.
  
• FANNIE MAE - WHICH GAVE HIM MORE MONEY THAN ANY OTHER SENATOR SINCE HE ARRIVED IN THE SENATE.
  
• ACORN - WHO HE DID LEGAL WORK FOR AT HIS FIRST LAW FIRM.
  

OBAMA WOULD HAVE TO BE A COMPLETE TOTAL FREAKING MORON NOT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THESE CREEPS AND SHADY ORGANIZATIONS.

SINCE WE KNOW OBAMA IS NOT A MORON, WE MUST CONCLUDE HE'S A BAD PERSON.

VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

KNEE-JERK REACTION FROM BARNEY FRANK: CRITICISM OF FANNIE MAE IS RACIST

NYTIMES/AP:

Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated.

The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act.

He said that blame is misplaced, because those loans are issued by regulated institutions, while far more foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities.

''They get to take things out on poor people,'' Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. ''Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people.''

Frank also dismissed charges the Democrats failed on their own or blocked Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The federal government recently took control of both entities.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called Frank's remarks ''a lame, desperate attempt to divert Americans' attention away from the Democratic party's obstruction of reforms that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helped our nation avoid this economic crisis.''

I AGREE WITH BOEHNER, BUT I'D SAY IT A LITTLE MORE BLUNTLY:

B*RN*Y FR*NK IS A M*ND*CI*US AND C*RR*PT C*CKS**K*NG-T*RD-B*RGL*R WH* H*S N'T ANY SH*ME.

LIKE MCCAIN, CNBC'S CRAMER PREDICTED THE POTENTIAL FOR A TOTAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN OVER A YEAR AGO

MCCAIN - IN 2005 - SAW THE RISKS PILING UP AT FANNIE MAE AND WANTED THE GOVERNMENT TO TAKE ACTION:

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

CRAMER IN AUGUST 2007:



CRAMER WAS FOCUSING ON AND BLAMING HIGH RATES FROM THE FED AND TIGHT MONEY.

HE SAID THAT MILLIONS OF PEOPLE TOOK OUT LOANS AT "TEASER" RATES AND THEN GOT HURT AS GREENSPAN - YES ALAN GREENSPAN - RAISED RATES 17 TIMES!

• THE FIRST LEG ON THE STOOL WAS FANNIE MAE - AND ITS DEMOCRAT CRONIES IN CONGRESS.

• THE FED IS THE SECOND LEG - BY RAISING RATES 17 TIMES FROM LATE 2004 TO 2006.

• THE THIRD LEG IS EXORBITANT CRUDE OIL PRICES.

• THESE THREE FACTORS HAVE WRECKED THE WORLD FINANCIAL SYSTEM.

WE POSTED ON THIS LAST WEEK WITH THESE THREE CHARTS:

THE ROOT CAUSES [OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE REAL ESTATE MARKET] WERE HIGH CENTRAL BANKS RATES AND OIL.

GREENSPAN KEPT RAISING RATES THE LAST TWO YEARS HE WAS FED CHAIRMAN, AND THE ECB KEPT THEIR RATES HIGH.

HERE'S A CHART OF THE FED FUNDS RATE - LOOK AT IT FROM 2004 TO 2006 -- THIS IS ONE REASON WHY THE ECONOMY SLOWED:


HERE'S THE CRUDE OIL PRICE CHART; NOTE WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE 2004:


FURTHER PROOF - AND WHY IT'S A GLOBAL CRISIS: LOOK AT WHAT THE ECB DID: THEY KEPT RAISING RATES. THEY RAISED IT WHEN THEY SHOULD HAVE LOWERED IT!

AT THE TIME SARKOZY SAID THIS WAS THE WRONG THING, AND THAT THE ECB SHOULD HAVE LOWERED RATES. SARKO WAS CORRECT!

THESE TWO FACTORS - (THE HIGH COST OF MONEY AND HIGH COST OF ENERGY) SLOWED US DOWN AND BURST THE LENDING/REAL ESTATE BUBBLE. PEOPLE HAD THEIR MORTGAGES GO UP AND THE CREDIT CARD EXPENSES GO UP AND THEIR ENERGY EXPENSES GO UP.

SO THEY CUT BACK WHERE THEY COULD, AND THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE.

THESE FACTORS CAUSED THE CURRENT CRISIS AND THEY ALSO POINT THE WAY OUT, THE WAY BACK:

1. LOWER THE COST OF MONEY - BY BRINGING DOWN RATES TO 1.5%.
2. REDUCE THE PRICE OF OIL BELOW $75/BARREL (BY DRILLING HERE NOW, AND BUILDING NUKE PLANTS AND COAL PLANTS).
3. AND REFINANCE THE BAD MORTGAGES AND GOING FORWARD END SUBPRIME AND ALT-A MORTGAGES.

• THE SOONER WE DO THE FIRST ITEM THE BETTER.
  
• AND WE SHOULD ANNOUNCE WE ARE PROCEEDING TO ITEMS 2 & 3 ASAP.

• THIS WILL SIGNAL THAT WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE BOTTOM AND ARE NOW CLIMBING BACK.

WE CAN DO IT.

AND SOONER THAN YOU THINK.

CRITICAL IN THIS EFFORT WILL BE ELECTING MCCAIN.

OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRAT CONGRESS WILL MAKE THINGS WORSE.

VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

"Tell them about the real Obama"

Sarah Palin rally in Burlingame, Calif.



In conversation with various attendees, it unraveled to me that the profusion of California conservatives-who are in truth mostly libertarians-is not new; these are dormant Republican voters activated by either the simple goodness of the Governor of Alaska or the increasing feeling that the vaporous, vacant, "imperfect vessel" Barack Obama is a cipher hiding quite poisonous views.

So what played to this audience? What caused genuine applause? Well, one line, in particular: near the end of her twenty-minute speech, Sarah Palin told the audience that out on the hustings one comment from supporters has dominated, in frequency, all others: tell people about the real Barack Obama. She said this quietly, without drama. But: thunder, hoots, an ovation. It was the one real firework in her stump speech; yet from the cadence of the speech one could tell that it was not intended thus. Audiences know that standing up for one particular line in a political speech is reserved for positive lines-lines that honor someone, or declaim some principle, or express some affirmation, or promise some victory. Rarely are audiences moved to bolt from their chairs over a negative line. (They're more likely to boo affectedly.) But Mr. Obama's guile has created considerable resentment-so much, in fact, that even a flat recitation of his positions, with not a drought of oratorical flare, dazzles and refreshes and fires an audience.

Sarah Palin spent some time piquing the newsmedia, and thanks to a zealous tablemate who initiated them the New York Times earned decidedly unaffected boos from the Silicon Valley audience. But you understand that if the newsmedia were doing their job, it would not be enough for a political candidate merely to mention the opinions of her opponent. Some argument would be necessary. Not so, not so with Barack Obama. The free pass he has been given is felt-and felt widely. In the final analysis I suspect this will make the man's candidacy weaker, not stronger. It leaves him vulnerable, qual piuma al vento, to a late-October truth-squad attack.

There was, otherwise, little new in the stump speech. It was the same one given yesterday in Southern California (photo above) and reported on by the Associated Press, which dribbled into its dispatch some surrogate outrage because Mrs. Palin mentioned Barack Obama's relationship with a violent left-wing terrorist who once intrigued the bombing of the Pentagon. And portions of Mrs. Palin's speech today were recycled from the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last month. That, at least, is a letdown: Barack Obama today had a fresh stump speech that made able parry to yesterday's Palin event in the Los Angeles area. The McCain campaign is utterly unable to work as efficiently as that. But my sense was that few donors got that feeling: the excitation of Sarah Palin overshadowed easily any sense one might otherwise receive that the momentum is shifting away from John McCain.

And why not? The crowd of 25,000 she elicited yesterday is proof that Sarah Palin is attracting new voters. And today was further evidence of her effect: a ballroom flush with self-made men and women who, though accustomed to living the dreary life of a permanent political minority, now feel there's someone for them, too. They see Sarah Palin as a political Ghostbuster singularly able, by dint of her background, her charm, and her cool, to suss out the spectrous Barack Obama, holding him up for everyone to see. She should, soon.

Source


Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here

A shattering moment in America's fall from power (?)

I rarely fisk Leftist ignorance but I will do so now because the article below is typical of the frantic self-congratulation that Leftists are trying to extract from the banking crisis. It relies heavily of course on a belief that empty assertion can replace the facts. A great combination of supreme self-confidence and supreme ignorance is excerpted below

OUR gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over. [Yet it was America that the world looked to to solve the global banking crisis]

You can see it in the way America's dominion has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity. [Why should America be worried by a Chihuahua?]

The setback of America's standing at the global level is even more striking. With the nationalisation of crucial parts of the financial system [All that is happening in the main is that some banks are taking over others. The big bank nationalization spree has been in Left-run Britain, where they have a history of that sort of thing], the American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated. [So why are European banks in meltdown?]

In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed. Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced the American orthodoxy.

China, in particular, was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are going bust. [The Chinese banks are VERY shaky and have long been propped up by the Chinese government]

Despite incessantly urging other countries to adopt its way of doing business, America has always had one economic policy for itself and another for the rest of the world. Throughout the years in which the US was punishing countries that departed from fiscal prudence, it was borrowing on a colossal scale to finance tax cuts and fund its overstretched military commitments. Now, with federal finances critically dependent on continuing large inflows of foreign capital, it will be the countries that spurned the American model of capitalism that will shape America's economic future. [Like how?]

The dire condition of America's financial markets is the result of American banks operating in a free-for-all environment A typically Leftist reversal of the truth. It is Congressional regulation preventing normal market operations that led to the problems] that these same American legislators who have been debating a bail-out created. It is America's political class that, by embracing the dangerously simplistic ideology of deregulation, has responsibility for the mess.

In current circumstances, an unprecedented expansion of government [All that has happened is that the Feds have bought a huge gob of undervalued paper which they will in due course sell back to the market at a profit] is the only means of averting a market catastrophe. The consequence, however, will be that America will be even more starkly dependent on the world's new rising powers. The federal government is racking up even larger borrowings, which its creditors may rightly fear will never be repaid. It may well be tempted to inflate these debts away in a surge of inflation that would leave foreign investors with hefty losses....

There has been a good deal of talk in recent weeks about imminent economic armageddon. In fact, this is far from being the end of capitalism. The frantic scrambling in Washington marks the passing of only one type of capitalism - the peculiar and highly unstable variety that has existed in America over the past 20 years. This experiment in financial laissez-faire [Heavy and stupid regulation = laissez faire?] has imploded. While the impact of the collapse will be felt everywhere, the market economies that resisted American-style deregulation will best weather the storm..... Yadda, yadda, yadda

More here


Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here

WHY IS PALIN IN CALIFORNIA AND NOT PENNSYLVANIA!?

• CARSON. COSTA MESA, BURLINGAME. I DON'T GET IT.
• I'M GLAD SHE'S GETTING CROWDS IN CALIFORNIA, BUT CAN THEY WIN THE STATE?
• IF NOT, THEY SHOULD BE IN MICHIGAN AND PENNSYLVANIA AND VIRGINIA AND - WELL... YOU GET IT.
• IS MCCAIN THROWING THE ELECTION ON PURPOSE!?
• OR CAN HE WIN IN AHNOLD TERRITORY?

Federal Judge Orders Obama to Produce Birth Certificate

From the Daily Herald:

ORDERED that the Motion to Dismiss pursuant to F.R.C.P. 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) is DENIED. 

It is further ORDER of this Court that the following discovery is to be turned over to Plaintiff within three (3) days:

1. Obama's "vault" version (certified copy of his "original" long version) Birth Certificate; and

2. A certified copy of Obama's Certification of Citizenship;

3. A Certified copy of Obama's Oath of Allegiance.

IT IS SO ORDERED

Showdown.

IS THIS THE OCTOBER SURPRISE: OBAMA IS NOT A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN OF THE USA?

THE COURT HAS RULED: OBAMA MUST PRODUCE THIS REAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

MORE HERE.

Democratic Congressman Accuses Bush Administration Of Threatening Martial Law On The Floor Of The House

Brad Sherman - limpwristed sedition-advocate

Watch as Brad Sherman disgraces himself on the floor of the House!

After leveling such accusations on the floor of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, Brad Sherman showed up on the Alex Jones Radio Show to disgrace himself even further.

(For those of you who are like me and do not know who the hell Alex Jones is, here's his website. He is one of those "the Illuminati control America" types.)





That Brad Sherman would go on Alex Jones radio show to talk about it tells you all you need to know about Brad Sherman.

If he is going to level such a charge against the Executive Branch of our government , he needs to be prepared to prove it.

If this guy said something like this about you or I, and he were not a Congressman, we would be able to sue him for slander.

This is an absolute disgrace. Such a charge is tantamount to the advocation of sedition. Because, think about it, if this is true, then we ought to overthrow the government by force, right?

What other conclusion would there be?

What is his purpose in making such a charge? Does he want us to sit idly by and do nothing while the government prepares to shoot us in the streets? Is he trying to demoralize us?

If so, then the real crime is his. But, if he's advocating that we overthrow the government, then he is either doing it with real or false allegations. So, which is it, Mr. Sherman?

I discussed this with Reliapundit. His response was:

Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, and Barack Obama have done as much harm to the USA as anyone or anything.

The Democrats do not care about American victory or a good economy.

They'd just as soon see us lose the war and sink into a Depression, if it meant they could win the White House.

CONSIDERING THE TRULY FRIGHTENING PROSPECT OF AN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

THE FOLLOWING LIST IS INCONTROVERTIBLE:

• Obama has never made a decision effecting the lives of more than a few people.

• He has never been a commander of uniformed armed men.

• He's never run a business or had to meet a payroll.

• He's never taken on an entrenched power - not in Chicago, not in Springfield and not in DC. Obama played ball with the corrupt Chicago machine and the corrupt Cook County Machine and corrupt Illinois Combine; he never challenged them.
  

• He never accomplished one single lasting beneficial thing - not as a community organizer, or state senator (a par time job!), or US Senator (a job he had for a year before deciding he deserved to be president!).

• He has lied consistently about Ayers and his parents and his years as a lawyer in Chicago. (For eample, Obama said in Selma that his parents met a s result of Selma, when he was actually born before it!)
  

• He has yet to release his medical records or legal records or state senatorial records.

• He has long-term friendships with people who are solidly anti-Israel - Khalidi and Wright.

• He has poor half-brothers/sisters and cousins in Kenya who he has totally neglected.

• His vice presidential pick couldn't manage to answer a single question without either lying or getting the facts wrong.

• Both Obama and Biden and their families have directly personally and financially benefited from contacts they made as politicians with businessmen who had business before the legislative bodies in which they served - both have homes which they couldn't have bought without the help of these businessmen. This is bald-faced corruption.

• Obama has been the single largest recipient of Fannie Mae money since arriving in DC. Corruption at Fannie Mae and lax oversight by the Democrats in Congress is why we have a financial crisis.

• Obama will owe his major backers -- the SEIU and AFSCME, the unions which represent most government workers and the bureaucracies -- many favors; they stand to directly benefit from his policies and programs of expanding government's role in health care and "green collar jobs; (because the Earth is not warming and is actually no warmer now than ion 1940, these "green collar" jobs may turn out to be the biggest hoax since Fannie Mae guarantees subprime derivatives!).

All this adds up.

It adds up to a disaster in the making.

Economically we will decline ever more rapidly as Obama institutes more and socialism.

And this will make us even less able to maintain leadership of the Free World.

Anyone who knows anything about history and recent events knows that without the leadership of the USA the Free World can't do crap.

Which means Europe will become even more dhimmified and beholden to Russia and Iran.

I predict... that the first thing Obama will do if he's elected president is vote for a UNSR sanctions against Israel, and he will say that "a new era of even-handedness has arrived".

"Even-handedness" is leftest code for screwing Israel - a pluralist democracy, and favoring terrorists ins Gaza and Syria and Lebanon.

Obama will do this for much the same reason Clinton ordered the "DON'T ASK; DON'T TELL" policy, and it will have the same effect: chilling.

I predict... HIS NEXT MOVE WILL BE TO BRING BACK "EQUAL TIME"AND "THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE" AND DESTROY RIGHT-WING TALK RADIO.

THEN, AS WE PROTEST, I PREDICT THAT HE AND PELOSI AND REID WILL PASS NEW HATE SPEECH LAWS MAKING IT A CRIME TO CRITICIZE HIM.

DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.

YOU CAN HELP AVOID ALL THIS:

VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

NEW DOCUMENTARY: THE THIRD JIHAD

A new documentary on Islamofascism called The Third Jihad is coming soon to limited theatrical release in various areas across the USA. It's been recommended by Rudy Giuliani and Tom Tancredo. Go to the website to find out more about how you can get the opportunity to check it out.

America's THREE Great VICTORIES in Iraq

Jules Crittenden noted that the AP seems to have discovered what a difference a free, democratic, and stable Iraq will make in the Middle East:

But try as it might to discuss where we are five years on without giving Bush any props, the Associated Press has to admit that we have some leverage, and a substantial national interest, at stake in that nascent democracy won with the blood of many thousands of Iraqis and Americans, wedged between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The AP article notes:

However unlikely it may seem today, a relatively stable Iraq would have all the cards necessary to emerge as a major player in the Persian Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing for leadership.

Those three countries account for most of the population and most of the oil in the Gulf, which has about 60 percent of the world's proven reserves.

How the three deal with one another will shape the Middle East for decades.

And then:

Sectarian fighting has eased, and thousands of Sunni insurgents turned against al-Qaida and joined forces with the Americans.

Still, Arab governments have been slow to develop full diplomatic relations with Iraq, despite intense American pressure. Iraqis face enormous problems in seeking refuge elsewhere in the Arab world.

Many Iraqis resent the Arab attitude and fear that shunning them only enhances the influence of Iran, which embraced the new Iraqi government.

All these uncertainties will probably encourage Washington to pay close attention to Iraq for years.

"All Americans should be and are proud of the achievements in Iraq and the American role in bringing about the change," U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said recently.

The positive developments and achievements in and of Iraq are the direct result, the fruit of America's military victory -- or victories -- in Iraq.

Because from 2003 to 2008, the United States fought three wars in Iraq, and won them all.

What were those three wars?

The first war won by the United States in Iraq was the war against Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Socialist Regime. This was the war the Senator Joe Biden supported, and if he were honest enough to admit it, would support today. It was a war to dismantle a genocidal regime that had murdered as many as 5 million of its own citizens and which by supporting and harboring anti-American terrorists, presented us with a grave threat.

This first war against the Saddam Hussein regime was an unparalleled military victory. In little more than 3 weeks, some 250,000 American troops defeated as many as 400,000 Iraqi troops, moving a major armed force across hostile territory farther and faster than any previous campaign in recorded history. And in this war, the United States suffered fewer than 200 dead. The war against Saddam Hussein was in fact won as swiftly and cleanly as the Bush Administration had promised.

But after Saddam Hussein had been vanquished, Al Qaeda, from its headquarters in Pakistan, declared Iraq to be the new primary battleground in its jihad against America. Thus began the second war won by the United States in Iraq after 2003.

Al Qaeda poured as many as 50,000 foreign fighters into Iraq along the ratlines running to and from Syria and Iran. Iraqi terrorists and remnants of the Ba'ath Socialist regime also participated. The war against Al Qaeda and its allies in Iraq lasted years, and is still not entirely finished. But the United States defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq, accomplishing a successful counterinsurgency, something American defeatists and America's leftist enemies said that could never be done.

Most of those 50,000 Al Qaeda fighters died on the soil of Iraq. They won't be able to carry their jihad to the Madrid or London subway systems. They won't be able to commit acts of terror against American interests and freedom's defenders anywhere.

The victory against Al Qaeda in Iraq was much more costly than the war against the Saddam Hussein regime for American troops. Most of the casualties suffered by Coalition Forces in Iraq were the result of this counter-terrorist and counterinsurgency war.

The third great victory of the United States in Iraq, was the strategic victory of suppressing the Sunni-Shi'a civil war finally ignited by Al Qaeda when terrorists blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra. The civil war in Iraq ignited when this act of sectarian hatred rekindled yet again the embers of a 1400-year-old hatred. The anti-American pundits and the defeatists (such as the entire leadership of the Democrat Party) said we could never win it. We could never end the bloody civil war, and Senator Joe Biden even recommended the partition of Iraq into separate Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurdish statelets.

But thanks to the persistence of President Bush, who would not accept that America should merely fight for a draw, and thanks to the leadership of General David Petraeus, the United States of America won again, ending the Iraqi civil war and bringing stability to the country.

Two of these victories -- the war against Al Qaeda and the war to bring an end to the Iraqi civil war -- would never have happened with a Democrat in the White House. Barack [middle name redacted] Obama wanted to surrender to Al Qaeda before the so-called surge ever started, and he still thinks that was the right position even today. He would have been happy to see the United States defeated, American interests thwarted, and Iraq descend into a maestrom of terror and genocide -- merely to advance his own political ambitions.

There is only one word for that: evil.

Vote accordingly.

UPDATED: MANY FEEL OBAMA IS SMART ENOUGH TO BE A GOOD PRESIDENT - AND THAT THIS IS ENOUGH. HERE'S WHY THEYRE WRONG:

They don't think he has the experience, but they think he is smart enough to make better decisions than Bush or McCain.

I think this is misguided analysis.

WHY?!?! Because intelligence alone doesn't necessarily lead to - and certainly doesn't guarantee - better decision making.

Advice doesn't come in boxes marked good or bad; when advice enters the Oval Office it's all marked good and it's all over the place - with competing interests each having their own agendas and advice.

Weighing advice and making good decisions depends on proper problem analysis and then in properly analyzing potential solutions against each other and thereby testing how well they might each solve the problem.

This should always mean that the decision-maker first creates a priority list of desired outcomes and evaluates potential side-effects by ascribing a value to each potential outcomes of the decision at hand; in other words, all effects and side effects are not created equal and some side effects are less problematic than others. Good decisions requires analyzing all effects and side-effects and evaluating them according to VALUES.

[For thorough discussion of this use this link and read Here is a link to the Kempner Tregoe Analysis System.]

This phase of the decision making process is decidedly UNINTELLECTUAL and has everything to do with VALUES.

This why smart people with bad values make terrible decisions.

Let's look at Obama's decision to OPPOSE the Surge and propose a retreat on a fixed timetable.

This decision reveals a value system which ignores the side effects of giving al Qaeda a huge victory, and ignores the side effect that such a defeat would signal all other real and potential adversaries of the USA and the free World. Obama's retreat would have signaled them that the USA doesn't have staying power and has reverted to Vietnam Era "resolvlessness". It would motivate all our enemies to become more dangerous to us. And make us and all our allies LESS SAFE.

That's why the the decision to cut losses by cutting-out would have been worse than staying the course until the job was done.

The AWFUL decision on Obama's part to oppose the Surge reveals he doesn't have the best set of values for the job of president.

Obama overvalues what foreigners FEEL about the USA and undervalues the INDISPENSABLE role we have played since WW2.

Ot proves that Obama would sacrifice our national security strength on the altar of multi-lateralism and pacifism. It proves that the pacifist/multilateralist VALUE is central to Obama's worldview and it also explains why he is opposed to Missile Defense and would chat with Ahmadinejad et al without any preconditions.

Overall, his values are decidedly leftist and pacifist, and his leftist and pacifist values will mean that all of his decisions will likely have very bad consequences - regardless of his supposed intelligence.

REPEAT: Overall, his values are decidedly leftist and pacifist, and his leftist and pacifist values will mean that all of his decisions will likely have very bad consequences - regardless of his supposed intelligence.

REPEAT: Overall, his values are decidedly leftist and pacifist, and his leftist and pacifist values will mean that all of his decisions will likely have very bad consequences - regardless of his supposed intelligence.

A dumb leftist may make stupid decisions with bad consequences, but a smart leftist will make clever decisions which will have TERRIBLE consequences.

Decision makers with left-wing value systems will make bad decisions because leftist values are unreal: they don't work; they've never worked' they can't work.

Left-wing utopianist schemes implemented by totalitarian regimes run by the best and the brightest in any given nation have ALWAYS failed not because those who ran them were dummies or especially corrupt, but because the schemes are based on a warped value system.

Lefties have a value system which denigrates the sanctity of the individual and which denies the fact that the individual is the sole agent in human social intercourse, and which treats humans as members of a class, and which seeks to set up elites which will predetermine and control outcomes which it deems are better is a fundamentally warped and anti-human system and everything such a value system builds is bound to be bad as a result.

Carter was no dummie. Neither was Attlee or Brezhnev or Gorbachev - or Pol Pot or Stalin or Kim il Sung.

History is lettered with "well-meaning" smart lefties who ruined their countries.

And Obama is one of this ilk - at best.

That's why - if elected, (G-D PLEASE FORBID!), Obama will ruin America, and that will endanger the entire free world.

*******UPDATE - NOTE:

One reason Palin frightens all the lefties and many northeast conservative elite is that she is not an intellectual.

Palin has conservative values and has led a conservative life; she is not a conservative of ideas or essays.

This is also why she has been and would continue to be a great decision maker.

I'm begging the RNC to run this ad: "Can your family afford two more years of a Democratic Congress?"

Congressional Democrats swept to power two years ago.

Since that time gas prices have soared.

They've continued to block oil exploration in our own country.

And instead want Americans to send money overseas to pay for our fuel.

Housing prices have collapsed thanks to Democratic policies.

People who were unqualified for a home loan were subsidized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

And for eight years, Republicans have warned that these entities were melting down.

Democrats who took million from Fannie and Freddie blocked every effort at reform.

Unless you want the next two years to look like the last two...

...Give Democrats the Pink Slip.

We can't afford two more years of a Democratic Congress.

LA'S N.O.W. PRESIDENT ENDORSES AND INTRODUCES PALIN

MUST SEE TV.

THEY'RE NOT PACIFISTS THEY'RE ON THE OTHER SIDE

JANE SMILEY: IDIOT. SHE MAKES A WILDLY IMMORAL AND FALSE EQUIVALENCE.

• HERE'S THE FALSE MORAL EQUIVALENCE: MCCAIN AND AYERS ARE THE SAME.
• BUT SHE IS WRONG BECAUSE ALL VIOLENCE IS NOT CREATED EQUAL:
  
• FOR EXAMPLE, SERIAL MURDERERS AND UNFORMED POLICMEN WHO EXECUTE KKKLANNERS FOR MURDERING PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY ARE BLACK ARE NOT MORALLY EQUAL.
  
• AND ONE WOMAN'S TERRORIST IS NOT ANOTHER WOMAN'S FREEDOM FIGHTER;
• YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY BE DEFENDING FREEDOM TO BE A FREEDOM FIGHTER.

• UNIFORMED TROOPS CARRYING OUT ORDERS IN A FORMAL COMMAND CHAIN (LIKE GRANT, MCCAIN AND PETRAEUS) ARE NOT THE SAME AS UN-UNIFORMED COMBATANTS IN A CLANDESTINE GROUP CARRYING OUT THEIR PRIVATE AGENDA AND DELIBERATELY TARGETING UN-INVOLVED THIRD PARTIES (LIKE AYERS AND OSAMA BIN LADEN) FOR THE TERROR-EFFECT.

• PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO SEE THIS ARE EITHER BRAIN DEAD, OR INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST AND AMORAL.
• JANE SMILEY - AND MANY MILLIONS OF LEFTIES - ARE THE LATTER.

VOTE ACCORDINGLY.

PADDING THE VOTER ROLLS

In Virginia:

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has granted voting rights to nearly 1,500 felons this year, bumping up the voter rolls ahead of next month's presidential election and putting himself on pace to exceed the record-setting pattern of his predecessor.

During his four years as governor, Mark Warner, a Democrat now running for the U.S. Senate, restored voting rights to 3,414 ex-convicts in Virginia. That exceeded the combined total for all Virginia governors during the previous 20 years, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Mr. Kaine, a Democrat in the third year of his term, had restored voting rights to 2,633 people with felony convictions as of Monday, including 1,445 this year.

"It's not something that was just handed to him," Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey said. "He believes in it."...

Stuffing the ballot box - a tradition in the Democratic Party.

Advice from Karl Rove

On experience, I'm all for it. But judgment is at least as important. Biden has 35 years in the Senate, yet his record on national-security issues during that span has been atrocious. He might be able to name Germany's chancellor, but he was wrong in his fierce opposition to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and to the surge in 2007. Even Democrats don't see Biden as president. He got 0.9 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses. Forced out of the 1988 White House race for plagiarizing, he is that blend of longevity and long-windedness that Washington accepts as statesmanship.

McCain and Palin face an uphill struggle. Economic woes, war and the natural desire of Americans to give the other side a chance (after eight years with one party in the White House) should mean a big edge for Obama and Biden. But the race is tight, no candidate can get above 50 percent for more than a day or two, and it is likely to stay close right to the end.

The reason is, people have persistent doubts about whether Obama is qualified. NEWSWEEK's poll last month found that 47 percent felt Obama "has enough experience in politics and government to be a good president" but 46 percent said he didn't. In the recent ABC/Washington Post poll, 45 percent said Obama doesn't have "the needed experience," the same as last March. Even the late-September CBS News/New York Times poll found that while 46 percent feel "Obama has prepared himself well enough for the job of president," 45 percent do not. For good reason: Barack Obama has less than half a term in the Senate, where he's proposed little, accomplished less and spent virtually every day campaigning-as if being on the trail is a principal qualification for president.

McCain-Palin must deepen those doubts by pounding away on questions about Obama's character, judgment and values. Drawing on Obama's own record and statements, they need to paint him as a big spender, class warrior and cultural elitist; they need to say he's never worked across party lines or gotten his hands dirty solving big issues. But the duo must also give voters reasons to support them. They must crystallize a positive, forward-looking vision so people who see Obama as unqualified have something to hang on to. It can't be a laundry list of positions. McCain-Palin must offer a narrative about what they will do to help America see better days, especially on kitchen-table concerns.

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here

Who were the defaulters among holders of sub-prime loans?

The following report seems intended to show that whites were the main culprits. It fails to do that, however. It shows that it was mainly whites who got the loans but it does not show who were the main defaulters. I suspect that will be kept a deep, dark secret

ComplianceTech, a provider of technology and business intelligence for consumer lending institutions and government agencies, has released an industry report indicating that the majority of subprime-rate loans originated in 2006 were made to non-Hispanic Whites and upper-income borrowers (conventional, 1st lien, 1-to-4 family, owner-occupied, home purchase and refinance).The findings are contrary to the way subprime-rate lending has been portrayed. Frequent media portrayals and congressional dialogue refer to subprime-rate lending as a minority and low-income issue. Findings in the report are based on data submitted by lenders under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) analyzed with the data-mining tool LendingPatterns(TM).

The report concluded that a disproportionate share of loans made to minorities and low-income borrowers were subprime-rate loans, but the majority of subprime-rate loans were made to non-Hispanic Whites and upper-income borrowers. Of the 1,917,809 subprime-rate loans originated in 2006, non-Hispanic Whites had 70.82 percent of the loans, and 56.23 percent of the subprime-rate loans. Upper-income borrowers had the highest share of the subprime-rate loans at 39.37 percent, followed by 27.55 percent for middle-income borrowers and 20.99 percent for moderate-income borrowers.

Contrary to popular belief, low-income borrowers had only 149,173, or 7.57 percent, of 2006 subprime-rateloans. The report also concluded that the majority of subprime-rate loans were originated in predominately-White geographic regions (areas representing census tracts less than 30 percent minority).

More here

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here

VP DEBATE: Did they answer the questions?

There's been a lot of discussion about whether Sarah Palin answered the questions in the VP Debate.  I was curious and so examined the debate transcript to see whether both candidates answered all the questions.

I did not check whether their answers were factual or whether I agreed with them but only whether I thought the candidates answered the question.

I found the moderator's questions confusing at times.  There were also questions where I couldn't determine whether the question was really answered or not.  

I also noticed several interesting issues which I point out in the analysis below.  For example, does Biden support Sharia marriage law?  Where does he contradict himself?  Why didn't Palin say she agreed with Biden on gay marriage? 

My comments are in red throughout the text.

1. Bailout -  As America watches these things happen on Capitol Hill, Senator Biden, was this the worst of Washington or the best of Washington that we saw play out?

Biden: Neither, it's the polices which are bad.  [answer]
Palin: Bad economic times. [no answer]


2. How would you work to shrink this gap of polarization which has sprung up in Washington, which you both have spoken about here tonight?

Biden: I've done so my whole career  [no answer]
Palin: My experience is reform [no answer]


3. Sub-prime lending meltdown - Who do you think was at fault? Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?

Palin: Predatory lending is at fault, Americans should take responsibility  [partial answer]
Biden: Deregulation is at fault, Obama would bring relief  [partial answer]


4. Taxes/class warfare - Senator Biden, we want to talk about taxes, let's talk about taxes. You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare and the same question for you, Governor Palin, is you have proposed a tax employer health benefits which some studies say would actually throw five million more people onto the roles of the uninsured. I want to know why that isn't taking things out on the poor

Biden: It's fairness  [answer]
Palin: Explained McCain's health plan (after prompting)  [no answer]


5. What promises -- given the events of the week, the bailout plan, all of this, what promises have you and your campaigns made to the American people that you're not going to be able to keep?

Biden: Lists commitments he won't be able to uphold.  [Ed: Unclear whether these are Obama's or Bush's]  [unclear answer]
Palin: None (after prompting) [answer]


6. Last year, Congress passed a bill that would make it more difficult for debt-strapped mortgage-holders to declare bankruptcy, to get out from under that debt. This is something that John McCain supported. Would you have?

Palin: Yes, but things are different now.  [answer]

Q: you voted for this bankruptcy bill. Senator Obama voted against it. Some people have said that mortgage- holders really paid the price.

[Ed: This is a statement, not a question]

Biden: We disagreed, it's complicated.  We should allow adjusting the principal that you owe. McCain/Palin oppose this. [unclear answer]

Q: Is that so?

Palin: That is not so, returning to energy issues.  [answer]


7. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

Palin: It's real, but not only man-made   [answer]
Biden: It's man made   [answer]


8. Senator McCain has said he supports caps on carbon emissions. Senator Obama has said he supports clean coal technology, which I don't believe you've always supported. .. clear it up for us, both of you, and start with Governor Palin.

Biden: We support clean coal   [answer]
Palin: Says McCain supports it, but then talks about drilling.  Answers 'yes' to question after prompting.   [answer]


9. Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?

Biden: Yes [answer]
Palin: Not if it leads to nontraditional marriage  [answer]


10. Do you support gay marriage?

Biden: No [answer]

[ed: Notice what Biden says:

No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.

Is he supporting Sharia or Mormon polygamous marriage?]

Palin: No  [answer]

[Ed: Several people have noted that Palin did not want to say that she 'agreed' with Biden, but I think she answered this way for a completely different reason.  Note what both Biden and Palin say:

BIDEN: (..) The bottom line though is, and I'm glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that's the case, we really don't have a difference.

IFILL: Is that what your said?

PALIN: Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.

Palin did not answer whether there should be no civil rights distinction.  In other words, she did not want to elaborate on her first answe.]


11. You both have sons who are in Iraq or on their way to Iraq. You, Governor Palin, have said that you would like to see a real clear plan for an exit strategy. What should that be, Governor?

Palin: We have a plan, the surge [answer]
Biden: Leave within 16 months [answer]


12. I'm curious about what you think starting with you Senator Biden. What's the greater threat, a nuclear Iran or an unstable Afghanistan? Explain why.

Biden: They're both dangerous, attacks McCain on Iraq [answer]
Palin: They're both dangerous, defends McCain on Iraq, focuses on Iran [answer]


13. Secretaries of state Baker, Kissinger, Powell, they have all advocated some level of engagement with enemies. Do you think these former secretaries of state are wrong on that?

Palin: No, but it should be done on lower levels. [answer]
Biden: Obama didn't say he'd sit down with Ahmadinejad, attacks McCain. [no answer]


14. What has this administration done right or wrong -- this is the great, lingering, unresolved issue, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- what have they done? And is a two-state solution the solution?

Palin: Supports two state solution. [partial answer]
Biden: Rephrases the question 'you asked a question about whether or not this administration's policy had made sense or something to that effect' and answers that  [no answer]

Q: Repeats Biden's new question

Palin: It's not been a failure. [answer]


15. Interventionism, nuclear weapons. What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?

[Ed: I understood the question to mean: when should America use nuclear weapons?]

Palin: Nuclear weaponry is used as a deterrant, brings up surge in Afghanistan [partial answer]
Biden: Answers Afghanistan, we need nuclear arms control regime, test-ban treaty [no answer]

(Both then argue about the surge option in Afghanistan)


16. Senator, you have quite a record, this is the next question here, of being an interventionist. You argued for intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, initially in Iraq and Pakistan and now in Darfur, putting U.S. troops on the ground. Boots on the ground. Is this something the American public has the stomach for?

Biden: They have stomach for success.  [unclear answer]

[Ed: Note that Biden contradicts himself.  He ridicules McCain for expecting Sunnis and Shiites to work together after being enemries for 700 years, but then brings Bosnia as an example where he was told intervention wouldn't work because Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats have been at war for 1000 years, and despite that, he achieved peace.

Note also that Sunnis and Shiites have been at war for almost 1400 years.]

Palin: American should help, talks about funds in Alaska.  [unclear answer]


Q: Is there a line that should be drawn about when we decide to go in?

Biden: Yes, whether we have ability to help, genocide is always reason to intervene [answer]

[Ed: Note that Biden contradicts himself - should American intervene in genocide even if it might not be successful?]

Palin: counters Biden's statements on what he supported.  [no answer]


17: How would a Biden administration be different from an Obama administration if that were to happen.

Biden: Will continue Obama policies [answer]
Palin: Will continue McCain policies [answer]


18: Governor, you said in July that someone would have to explain to you exactly what it is the vice president does every day. You, senator, said, you would not be vice president under any circumstances. Now maybe this was just what was going on at the time. But tell us now, looking forward, what it is you think the vice presidency is worth now.

Palin: It was a joke, lists constitutional rights of vice president and what she would focus on specifically. [answer]
Biden: Would give advice [answer]


19: (follow up) Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

Palin: There is a lot of flexibility in job description [answer]
Biden: Cheney is dangerous, VP is executive branch [answer]


20: The conventional wisdom, Governor Palin with you, is that your Achilles heel is that you lack experience. Your conventional wisdom against you is that your Achilles heel is that you lack discipline, Senator Biden. What id it really for you, Governor Palin? What is it really for you, Senator Biden? Start with you, governor.

[Ed: I think the question is phrased poorly.  Was she talking about 'what is your real Achilles heel?' or 'do you really have that Achilles heel?']

Palin: I have experience, I also have connection to heartland [answer]
Biden: Another Achilles heel is excessive passion, I also understand the 'common people'  [answer]

(They then attack each other back and forth)


21: (final question) Can you think of a single issue -- and this is to cast light for people who are just trying to get to know you in your final debate, your only debate of this year -- can you think of a single issue, policy issue, in which you were forced to change a long-held view in order to accommodate changed circumstances?

Biden: Appointing judges [answer]
Palin: No, but there were things she wanted to do but couldn't  [answer]


22: (2nd final question) You both want to bring both sides together. You both talk about bipartisanship. Once again, we saw what happened this week in Washington. How do you change the tone, as vice president, as number-two?

Biden: Don't question motives [answer]
Palin: Appoint people regardless of affiliation [answer]


Summary:

This analysis is subjective, and I'm aware that what is unclear to me might be crystal clear to others.  Given that, I found the following:

Biden didn't answer 4 questions, gave one partial answer, and three answers where it was unclear whether he answered or not. 

In summary, there were 8 questions where he didn't give a full answer.

Palin didn't answer 4 questions, gave three partial answers and one answer where it was unclear whether she answered or not.  In several cases Palin answered only after more prompting.  In one case she refused to elaborate further. 

In summary, there were 8 questions where she didn't give a full answer.

Several times the moderator let both sides discuss issues, but I found three times where she asked one candidate to answer another question on the topic based on what the other candidate had said.  In all three cases she turned to Palin to verify what Biden had said.  In one case, Palin refused to answer and elaborate further.

SHIN BET SUPPORTS MILITARY OPTION FOR SHALIT'S RELEASE

Shin Bet gets it:

(IsraelNN.com) According to the London-based Arabic daily A-Sharq al-Awsat, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) has reached the conclusion that Hamas does not intend to release kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit even if its demands are met. The group is using Shalit to reinforce its reputation as a group capable of causing Israel to release terrorist prisoners, ISA sources said, but it does not intend to let Shalit go.

Israel and Hamas have been negotiating Shalit's release in exchange for terrorist prisoners with the help of Egyptian intermediaries. Hamas has repeatedly added new demands, ISA agents said.

In what appears to be an unusual leak from the ISA to an Arab newspaper, the sources said the ISA had created a plan that would put military pressure on Hamas in order to obtain Shalit's release.

Yes, it is kind of unusual for a newspaper like that to file such a report. But it shows that Shin Bet certainly understands the real nature of terrorist organizations like Hamas, and that truly, they don't want to release prisoners whom they consider valuble.

OBAMA AND DODD WERE THE TWO BIGGEST RECIPIENTS OF FANNIE MAE MONEY

HAS OBAMA MENTIONED THIS?
WHY IS HE COVERING IT UP,
IF THERE'S NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF?

OBAMA IS A PHONY CONMAN
AND AS CROOKED A CHICAGO POLITICIAN
AS THERE HAS EVER BEEN.

PART OF WHY THE USA GOT IT UP THE YOU KNOW WHAT: HOMO BARNEY FRANK WAS SLEEPING WITH MALE FANNIE MAE EXEC FOR YEARS

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

HE WAS SCREWING HIM AND US AT THE SAME TIME - RIGHT UP THE YOU KNOW WHAT!

Mandated Philanthropy

The title here, a break from politics, does not refer to the recently enacted bailout bill. Rather this title refers to a court ruling ordering the Washington Redskins to have captions for the hearing impaired available for all the games at FedEx Field. Excerpt from this October 3, 2008 article in the Washington Post:

A federal judge in Greenbelt has ruled that the Redskins must continue to run captioned play-by-play at FedEx Field and begin showing the lyrics of songs played in the stadium to offer deaf and hard-of-hearing fans the full game experience.

The decision mandates that the team do much of what it began doing voluntarily after being sued. The ruling appears to be the first of its kind in the country, and advocates for the deaf and hard-of-hearing said it could lead to challenges at sporting venues around the country....

[...]

The ruling requires that deaf fans also be treated to the lyrics, spelled out on the screens, of such tunes as "Who Let the Dogs Out" in all its repetitive resonance.

U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. ruled Tuesday that under the Americans With Disabilities Act the Redskins captioning was not optional but required. He said the team had made "what appears to be have been reasonable efforts" to accommodate the hearing-impaired but that the additional steps were needed....

[...]

The judge did not say precisely how equal access should be provided at FedEx Field but noted that the plaintiffs would not be aided by the assisted listening devices the stadium has long provided to patrons who request one.

[...]

In an interview, Redskins General Counsel David Donovan said the team would begin looking for ways to address the judge's remaining concern that deaf fans be able to read the lyrics of music used during cheerleader dance routines....

Because my husband is hard of hearing, completely deaf in one ear and substantially compromised in the other, I pay attention to stories related to deafness and accommodations for those hard of hearing. No doubt, compromised hearing does reduce one's ability to function and to enjoy certain activities. Indeed, my husband's handicap automatically precludes his enjoyment of crowded parties. Must the hosts of the parties we attend also provide captioning? Give me a break!

In my view, the Americans With Disabilities Act is being carried too far. The judge's ruling in the above case is but one example of how ludicrous our courts have become.

Is This The Beginning of Global Cooling?

Many scary stories have been written about the dangers of catastrophic global warming, allegedly due to increased atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the combustion of fossil fuels. But is the world really catastrophically warming? NO. And is the warming primarily caused by humans? NO.

Since just January 2007, the world has cooled so much that ALL the global warming over the past three decades has disappeared! This is confirmed by a plot of actual global average temperatures from the best available source, weather satellite data that shows there has been NO net global warming since the satellites were first launched in 1979.



Since there was global cooling from ~1940 to ~1979, this means there has been no net warming since ~1940, in spite of an ~800% increase in human emissions of carbon dioxide. This indicates that the recent warming trend was natural, and CO2 is an insignificant driver of global warming.

Furthermore, the best fit polynomial shows a strong declining trend. Are we seeing the beginning of a natural cooling cycle? YES. Further cooling, with upward and downward variability, is expected because the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has returned to its cool phase, as announced by NASA this year.

Global warming and cooling have closely followed the phases of the PDO. The most significant pattern of PDO behavior is a shift between "warm" and "cool" phases that last 20 to 30 years. In 1905, the PDO shifted to its "warm" phase. In 1946, the PDO changed to its "cool" phase. In 1977, the PDO returned to its "warm" phase and produced the current warming. In 2007-8, the PDO turned cold again, so we can expect several decades of naturally-caused global cooling.

Some scientists are predicting that this cooling will be severe, and is a greater threat to humanity than global warming ever was. Meanwhile, politicians are still obsessing about global warming.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here

Even a British Leftist lady grudgingly finds great virtue in Sarah Palin

Excerpts from a comment in "The Times" about the VP debate. Anything in "The Times" will be widely read

And the joy of Mrs Palin, what endears her to Middle America and fascinates every British woman I know, is her quality that cannot be bottled and sold: authenticity.

It shines out, even through her shopping-channel presentation, the Day-Glo patriotism of her XXL Old Glory lapel pin, her talent for talking while perpetually smiling (which, ask Gordon Brown, is a tough trick to pull off without looking deranged), the cheeseball winks, the local DJ shout-outs to kids at her brother's elementary school, the exaggerated nose wrinkles when uttering something as disgusting as "single-sex relationships" or "redistribution of wealth". She is Nicole Kidman as the driven weather girl in To Die For, Reese Witherspoon, the ruthless high-school candidate in Election. A candy-coated ball of granite.

When she offered "a bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street", Joe Biden had to counter quickly with the word down in Kay's Restaurant and the Home's Depot in Wilmington. When Mrs Palin played her son in Iraq, her special-needs baby, her worries about college fees, Mr Biden had to match it with a soldier boy of his own and raise her with his dead wife and daughter, then an emotionally welling remembrance of struggling to raise two injured sons alone.

And you could detect frustration and pique in Mr Biden's lament that, "just because I'm a man", he doesn't understand the hard decisions made over that mythical American kitchen table. But perhaps in this alone women politicians have an advantage, being the ones most able to convince voters that they have seen the inside of a maternity ward, a supermarket, a classroom, have dried tears and chewed pencils over household budgets....

Authenticity is now at a premium. William Hague, with his soft Yorkshire tones, his tales of delivering fizzy pop to streets like my own, is an asset at this hour. Perhaps he is dragging out his kitchen-table conservatism even now. Even John Prescott, oddly, is a voice for these times, as is Alan Johnson, who raised three kids on a council estate. Peter Mandelson, with his slick suits and slippery mortgage, is the last face voters can bear. But then Gordon Brown has the more clearcut task of steering the ship between the icebergs: Cameron must get with the bodies in the water.

After that debate, those who loathe Mrs Palin will still loathe her; those who cleave to her will find no new reason to be repelled. It is just shtick, she's sticking to the rigid train tracks of her notes, you tell yourself when she says how Saturday soccer parents fret at the touchline over their investments. But then the debate ends, her great messy family spreads out on stage, and Mrs Palin tenderly passes her always-placid Down's baby to her little girl. The sound is off, the scripted babble is over. It is a silent gesture, something compellingly real in a cooked-up world.

More here. It's a pity the lady commenting does not speak Australian. Australian English has a very apposite word for the virtue she sees in Sarah. Sarah is "fair dinkum".

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH (2). Email me (John Ray) here