Archive for October, 2008

Obama wants judges to decide cases with emotion

Posted by Brendan in Barack Obama on October 29, 2008

Northwestern University law professor Steven Calabresi points out in today’s Wall Street Journal, that the election of Barack Obama to the presidency will be disastrous for the rule of law in this country. As a left-wing academic, Obama has a very radical view of the role of the court to “redistribute economic justice.”

Here is what professor Calabresi says:

Speaking in July 2007 at a conference of Planned Parenthood, he said: “[W]e need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”

So, forget about selecting judges that seek to interpret the law and apply the law to cases. Instead, Obama wants activist judges that will use emotion to decide cases. This is the end of the rule of law in America. Get ready.

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Obama used foundations to fund ACORN, communists and Trinity United

Posted by Brendan in Barack Obama on October 28, 2008

Barack Obama directed tens of thousands of dollars to radical groups when he sat on the board of the Woods Fund in Chicago with terrorist Bill Ayers. As this report indicates, he gave $75,000 to ACORN, $6000 to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United church and $60,000 to a Northwestern University project run by terrorist Bernardine Dohrn and her husband, Bill Ayers.

Other controversial donations that year included $50,000 to the Small Schools Network — which was founded by Ayers and run by Michael Klonsky, a friend of Ayers’ and the former chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), an offshoot of the 1960s radical group Students for a Democratic Society — and $40,000 to the Arab American Action Network, which critics have accused of being anti-Semitic.

This revelation is more evidence that Barack Obama has a real relationship with terrorists Ayers and Dohrn, and that he tolerates extremist views and even funds those that hold such views. The article goes on to describe how Obama funneled millions of dollars to these radical groups when he was working for the Annenberg Challenge.

When Obama co-chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which calls itself “a public-private partnership improving education for 1.5 million urban and rural public school students,” it gave to some of the same groups — partnering with ACORN to manage funding for schools and giving over $1 million to the Small Schools Network.

Klonsky, who was a hardcore communist, met with the Chinese communist party chairman in 1977. He and Ayers ran the Small Schools Network together.

It is clear that Obama lied about his relationship with Bill Ayers. And he has not been asked about his relationship with Michael Klonsky. Obama and Ayers seem to have had the goal of taking control of foundations with tons of cash and re-directing the money to far-left organizations, which were led by former terrorists (Ayers and Dohrn), communists (Klonsky) and racist, black supremacists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright.) Never underestimate the creativity of the left when it comes to political power.

Obama, Ayers and Klonsky have figured out how they can use millions of dollars in foundation money to promote their far left agenda under the radar. Obama is a stealth radical leftist who is running as a post-partisan candidate. But it’s clear from the friends he keeps that his true goal is to obtain the most powerful office in the world and push through a radical, socialist agenda that forever “changes” America.

The republic as we know it could be fundamentally changed, or even destroyed from within. These next few years will be trying times, indeed.

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Obama: Supreme Court should redistribute wealth

Posted by Brendan in Barack Obama on October 27, 2008

In a 2001 interview with Chicago Public Radio, Barack Obama argued that the Supreme Court should have redistributed wealth as part of Civil Rights reforms. He laments the fact that the founding fathers placed restraints on the courts to advance “economic justice.” Obama doesn’t think the Warren Court was radical enough, and says “redistributive change” would have to be accomplished through legislative means.

This bombshell audio tape has just been posted on the Drudge Report.

Hot Air has the full transcript of the comments on Chicago Public Radio in 2001.

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.

To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Barack Obama’s words are frightening. Bill Whittle over at National Review has it right:

We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

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Obama on race and taxes

Posted by Brendan in Barack Obama on October 24, 2008

Hat tip to Red State and Gateway Pundit for digging up this video of Obama talking about “white people” and taxes.

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Financial crisis sends wrong message

Posted by Brendan in Economics on October 24, 2008

It seems that the wrong narrative is being written about the current financial situation in this country. Politicians like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd benefited from a housing system with too much government meddling. Now, these same politicians are pointing their fingers at the free market, claiming that it is the true cause of the housing problems that led to broader financial troubles.

Barney Frank

This is the wrong lesson to be learned. The housing market was not a free market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were so-called “government sponsored enterprises” or GSE’s. Such a hybrid was doomed to fail eventually, especially given the perverse incentives for politicians and lobbyists to abuse and exploit the situation.

Chris Dodd’s sweetheart loan from Countrywide as part of the “friends of Angelo” program, as well as his huge campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie, were just the tip of the iceberg. The government’s collusion with corrupt CEO’s like Franklin Raines (who was a big Obama adviser until recently) led to the downfall and subsequent taxpayer bailout of Fannie and Freddie. Now, liberal politicians are clamoring that there needs to be more regulation, and that our financial troubles are due to an over-reliance on the market.

I hope that the American people see through the rhetoric. While many Republicans, like John McCain, were calling for greater oversight over the GSE’s, most Democrats were outraged by the suggestion. But this matter is larger than partisan bickering. I fear that too many people will see our current financial situation as a product of a failure of free markets, while the truth is that the housing market was not really free to begin with.

In the future, let’s hope that the American people remember the last time the government stuck its nose into the business of allocating scarce resources, like housing. I am somewhat doubtful that the lesson will be learned. As Thomas Sowell points out in his book Basic Economics the same foolish economic policies seem to be repeated by politicians over and over again.

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Obama a natural-born citizen of The United States?

Posted by Brendan in Barack Obama on October 21, 2008

This video says that Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen, and therefore ineligible to be president. There is a pending lawsuit here in Washington about this issue. Watch the video, which makes a compelling case that Obama is not cooperating with the court, which requires his birth certificate.

I tend to be skeptical that something of this magnitude would not have already been used against him by the Clinton or McCain campaigns. But, I don’t think it is completely impossible for Obama to have been born in Kenya, especially since that is what his Kenyan grandmother has said.

Obama’s website “Fight the Smears” addresses the issue, but not to the satisfaction of the lifelong Democrat lawyer who has filed the lawsuit. He argues that the Obama campaign has released a “certification of live birth” which is different from a more complete “birth certificate” released by the hospital that delivers someone. The document from Hawaii posted on the Obama website is not his birth certificate, according Phil Berg, the lawyer who filed the suit.

The most interesting part of the story is that the Obama website admits that Barack Obama had Kenyan citizenship until 1982. Weird.

For a different take on the question of Obama’s citizenship, check out FactCheck.org, which believes the “certification of live birth” to be sufficient to prove that Obama was born in Hawaii. The document they received from the campaign satisfies them that Obama is a natural born citizen of the U.S.

One final point on all of this. Obama went to Indonesia and attended school under the name Barry Soetoro. As a fellow blogger points out,

Indonesia, at the time Obama lived there and was deemed an Indonesian citizen, did not recognize dual citizenship, and neither did the US recognize dual citizenship with Indonesia.

Thus, whether he held dual citizenship with the US and Kenya, whether he was born in the US or Kenya, is irrelevant as the ONLY legitimate citizenship he held once his adopted father moved him to Indonesia was Indonesian. His US Citizenship would be forfeit.

Soetoro was his adopted father, and registered young Barry at the local school. He listed his faith as “Islam” and his nationality as “Indonesian.”

Before you liberals have a heart attack over this fact, please read this story in The Washington Post that says the same thing.

Obama’s mother, divorced from Obama’s father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended the Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather.

I’d be interested to find out more about this before the election in a couple of weeks. I’m sure millions of Americans would also be interested to find out whether or not Obama lost his U.S. citizenship while in Indonesia, wherever he was born.

The bottom line here is that Obama has not been truthful on questions of his citizenship, faith and background, until pressed by reporters, bloggers or even lawsuits. There is still a lot we don’t know about Barack Obama, and I doubt CNN or MSNBC will be asking any questions this close to the election.

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Democrats want to stifle speech with ‘fairness doctrine’

Posted by Brendan in Elections on October 20, 2008

As City Journal’s Brian C. Anderson points out in The New York Post, liberals are ready to go after conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. By imposing the ‘fairness doctrine’ on talk radio, they will effectively silence many conservative radio hosts. Liberal talk radio hosts can’t compete in the marketplace, so the left wants to use the power of the government to force liberal opinion to be heard on the radio.

Anderson writes,

“When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.

If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham’s, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don’t do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.

The American people are about to vote on November 4th, and the repercussions of that election could have far-reaching implications, not just for the economy, or war and peace, but for the fundamental freedoms that we enjoy when it comes to the first amendment.

Get ready for socialism and a major reduction in individual liberty…

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A Liberal Supermajority

Posted by Brendan in Elections on October 17, 2008

The Wall Street Journal describes what we are in for if Barack Obama is elected president, and the left builds its majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven’t since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.

I really believe that we are entering another age of liberalism, where our taxes will rise, spending will explode and socialism becomes a cancer that begins to eat away at our republic.

I hate to sound so fatalistic, but I just do not hold out much hope that we will be able to reverse these trends for a decade or more. The conservative movement is going into the wilderness for a while. Let’s hope that one day we will emerge again and be able to save our faltering republic.

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McCain vs. Obama, Round 3 LiveBlog

Posted by Brendan in Election on October 15, 2008

McCain is coming out strong, hitting Obama hard on taxes on small businesses and pointing out that Obama wants to “spread the wealth around.”

Obama says he wishes we didn’t have to pay taxes. McCain says, “Then don’t raise taxes on anyone.”

McCain wants to get a hatchet out for the federal government. Opposes tariffs on sugar ethanol and subsidies for domestic corn-based ethanol. Now he is hitting Obama on pork barrel spending projects.

Obama looks calm, McCain looks combative. Good.

McCain hits Obama on taxes and spending, again. Points out that Obama supported higher taxes on the middle class.

Obama disputes the latter point, and says McCain is proposing 8 more years of Bush economic policy.

McCain give a laundry list of ways he differs from his political party.

McCain says Obama has run more negative ads than any other candidate in presidential history. Then, he hits Obama on not taking public financing for his campaign.

Next topic: nasty ads and fringe elements at rallies.

Finally, McCain brings up Ayers, ACORN voter fraud and Obama’s shady connections. McCain should mention that Ayers gave Obama money for his campaigns and launched his political career in Chicago in the nineties. Please, Senator McCain!

McCain just did it! Nice.

He needs to keep the pressure on.

McCain goes after Obama on spending again. Hits him on his plans for new spending to the tune of 800 billion dollars.

McCain mocks Obama’s desire to renegotiate NAFTA. McCain wants to build dozens of new nuclear power plants and lessen our dependence on oil from Venezuela and the Middle East. Obama says it will take ten years to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He says we need to expand domestic production, but only on places where oil companies have leases currently.

Obama: “We can’t drill our way out of the problem.” Wants higher fuel efficiency standards for domestic auto industry. Doesn’t mention that this would mean smaller, more dangerous cars.

Obama: “I believe in free trade.” Ya, right. That is why he opposes nearly all trades agreement before Congress now.

McCain: “We have to drill now.” He then hits Obama on opposing the Colombia free trade agreement.
He got kind of in Obama’s face, telling him to travel down there and see for himself. Obama responds that there aren’t enough protections for unions in Colombia.

McCain says Obama doesn’t want trade with Colombia, but wants to sit down with Hugo Chavez. Ouch.

On to health care. Costs vs. coverage.

Obama: “We have to do both.” Tells a story about workers who were fired and lost their health care coverage. Describes his socialized medicine scheme to viewers. Wants more money to go into preventive care. Concedes that this will cost lots of money on the front end.

McCain: Focuses on the cost of health care. Repeats the misleading number of “47 million uninsured Americans.” See www.freemarketcure.com for more info on that one. McCain is talking to Joe the Plumber again. Tells him that Obama will fine Joe if he doesn’t provide health insurance for his employees.

McCain breaks it down to differing philosophies. He says it is about government deciding vs. people deciding. Notes that spending is out of control and that government would increase under Obama and the Democrat Congress.

On to abortion and judges. McCain says he doesn’t have a litmus test for judges. Calls himself a federalist. Notes his work on the Gang of 7, and his support for liberal, activist judges. Says judges should be selected based on qualifications for the job.

Obama says that “we shouldn’t use a strict litmus test.” Nice parsing, Barack. Says that “Roe hangs in the balance.” Women should have the right to choose, he says. Finds a mysterious “right to privacy” in the constitution. McCain nails him to the wall on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and partial-birth abortion. Notes his views are “extreme” on this issue.

See Robert George’s brilliant piece from today on this topic.

The last question of the night is about education. Hopefully McCain will talk about school choice.

Obama: Education has a national security implication. Says we need more money and reform. Wants “early childhood education” which means higher federal government spending. Wants higher pay for teachers and higher standards. Supports a $4000 tuition credit for community service. Closes by saying parents need to be more responsible. No argument from me there.

McCain: “Education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century.” Talks about choice and competition, and gives examples of charter schools in New Orleans and New York. Says throwing money at the problem is not the answer. Wants to do away with ridiculous teacher certifications. Nice!

Obama adds that the federal government should do more on education. Criticizes unfunded mandates of No Child Left Behind. Says the funding was left behind. Agrees with McCain on charter schools. Says bad teachers should be dismissed.

McCain points out that the voucher system has helped DC families escape a failing government run school system. After their closing statements, the debate ends.

I think McCain won the debate, or at least helped his cause tonight. Not sure if this will move voters but it was McCain’s best performance yet.

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Obama: “I want to spread the wealth around”

Posted by Brendan in Barack Obama on October 15, 2008

Watch this interesting exchange between Barack Obama and a small business owner that questions him about his tax plan. Obama’s collectivist instincts are in full display in this short video.

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