~~ Ronald Reagan ~~
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
More on ACORN You Should Know Before You Vote #2
More on ACORN You Should Know Before You Vote
Hillarious! Thanks Iowahawk for the Laugh
New McCain Ad: Strong
Another good ad today.
Can John McCain Seize the Moment and Transcend the Campaign?
Victor Davis Hanson writes:
Barack Obama is again voting present, clueless while trying to act cool, waiting for calls, and issuing hourly contradictory statements adjusted to perceived CNN punditry and Drudge headlines.
Somewhere, somehow the American people need a steady voice of experience to rise above politics, stop the bickering, calm the country, get the proper guarantees passed, promise the needed reform — and so lead and inspire.
Can John McCain seize the moment and transcend the campaign?
Yes, John McCain can seize the moment by doing one very bold move. He can appoint the one man the public trusts as a tried and proved miracle worker when it comes to turning around a bad situation and that man is Mitt Romney. McCain should immediately appoint Mitt Romney his point man on economic issues and, in particular, the economic crisis.
Via Wiki:
Romney served as president and CEO of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games held in Salt Lake City. In 1999, before Romney was hired, the event was running $379 million short of its revenue benchmarks. Plans were being made to scale back the games in order to compensate for the fiscal crisis. The Games were also damaged by allegations of bribery involving top officials, including then Salt Lake Olympic Committee (SLOC) President and CEO Frank Joklik. Joklik and SLOC vice president Dave Johnson were forced to resign.
On February 11, 1999, Romney was hired as the new president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Romney revamped the organization’s leadership and policies, reduced budgets and boosted fund raising. He also worked to ensure the safety of the Games following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by coordinating a $300 million security budget. Despite the initial fiscal shortfall, the Games ended up clearing a profit of $100 million, not counting the $224.5 million in security costs contributed by outside sources.
Romney contributed $1 million to the Olympics, and donated the $825,000 salary he earned as President and CEO to charity. He wrote a book about his experience titled Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games.
As the Concord Monitor said: Romney embraced Olympics challenge
Statue or no, Romney turned around an Olympics that was headed for disaster in 2002 - a feat that put him squarely in the national spotlight. Before his work on the Olympics, Romney had been a successful Boston businessman, and he used the skills of persuasion he learned in the high-stakes world of private equity to rescue an organization marred by bribery allegations and financial mismanagement.
Romney oversaw a budget overhaul and sponsorship push that put the Games back in the black and even turned a profit. He pushed the notion of “turnaround,” captivating the public to the point that his face adorned some of the Games’ commemorative buttons. He also reassured a nation still jittery after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that security would be sufficient.
“He far exceeded my expectations,” said Bill Hybl, then-president of the U.S. Olympic Committee. “And I must say, I’ve been to 13 Games, and those were the best Winter Games that I’ve been to.”
Romney brought his full suite of management tools to the Olympics. Now, in the closing days of the New Hampshire primary campaign, he’s emphasizing his executive experience in Boston and Salt Lake City, touting himself as a man with a record of solving intractable problems.
[...]
“People needed to be there to see how dark it was,” said Fraser Bullock, whom Romney brought on as his deputy. “I was there. The sponsors were fleeing. The morale was horrible. We had a huge mountain to climb. So that’s a fact from my perspective. And I was there.”
New McCain Ad: Rein
Effective, I think.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Economic Rescue Plan Rejected by the House of Representatives -Stocks Plunge
Final tally, 205 Yeas, 228 Nays.
Democratic 140 (Yea) 95 (Nay)
Republican 65 (Yea) 133 (Nay)
From McCain campaign:
“From the minute John McCain suspended his campaign and arrived in Washington to address this crisis, he was attacked by the Democratic leadership: Senators Obama and Reid, Speaker Pelosi and others. Their partisan attacks were an effort to gain political advantage during a national economic crisis. By doing so, they put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families.
“Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain, and refused to even say if he supported the final bill.
“Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome.
“This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.”
—McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin
The White House:
“Very dissappointed at the rejection of bailout by the House.”
Pelosi blaming Republicans even though she lost 95 of her own to a Nay vote.
Talk about bad judgment. Minutes before the vote Pelosi got up to slam the republicans and Bush for being reckless, fiscally irresponsible and not regulating. Then she ends with, “How did it sneak up so suddendly on little cat feet?” Totally ignoring facts and six years of republican efforts to stem the FRE/FNM monsters. Bipartisan indeed.
And she wonders why Members gave her the proverbial finger.
Stock market down ranging from minus 500 to 700 pts. Market closes DOWN -777.68
And when you start hearing Republicans get blamed, please remember what you see in this video.
McCain-Palin Rally - Columbus, OH (Video)
Monday Morning Link Roundup
With the debate on Friday night and the financial crisis and negotiations in Congress dominating the news all weekend, we’ve accumulated articles that never made it into a blog post. Here is a link roundup to catch up.
First on the subject of stem cells is what looks like the most promising breakthrough yet.
Harvard researchers have improved a technique for converting adult cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Pluripotent stem cells can become all other cell types in the body.
[...]
“This is certainly a major stem cell milestone,” said Advanced Cell Technologies chief scientific officer Bob Lanza, who was not involved in the research. “It’s the first ray of light that iPS cells could soon be used to treat patients.”
These iPS cells—short for induced pluripotent stem cell—debuted less than a year ago: By using viruses to insert key developmental genes, researchers coaxed human skin cells into an embryonic state, capable of growing into almost any other type of tissue.
You are going to be hearing more and more about the group known as ACORN. ACORN is primarily known for the number of voter fraud cases brought against them, but did you know that Barack Obama was their attorney?
Today we find out that not only did Obama train ACORN workers in his past, but he represented the scandal-plagued socialist organization in court:
In 1995, former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar refused to implement the federal “Motor Voter” law, which Republicans argued could invite fraud and which some Republicans feared could swell the ranks of Democratic voters.
The law mandated people be allowed to register to vote in government offices such as driver’s license renewal centers.Obama sued on behalf of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The League of Women Voters and other public-interest groups joined in.
“He and his client were the ones who filed the original case—they blazed the trail,” said Paul Mollica, who represented the League.Transcripts show that at court hearings, Obama identified himself, then let Mollica begin speaking. Maria Valdez of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund sometimes spoke.
ACORN has a long, long history of voter fraud and scandal.
Obama also worked against banks who denied mortgage loans to minorities:
In today’s New York Post Stanley Kurtz explains what community organizers do, and what Barack Obama did. Kurtz delves into Obama’s work with Chicago ACORN. Every paragraph of Kurtz’s article is important information, it is hard to pick and choose, so please go read the whole thing.
WHAT exactly does a “community organizer” do? Barack Obama’s rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here’s a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.
[...]
In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.
In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.
THE seeds of today’s financial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.
Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA - and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.
In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America’s financial institutions.
[...]
IT would be tough to find an “on the ground” community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.
When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago, Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.
He returned to Chicago in the early ‘90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. Chicago ACORN sought out Obama’s legal services for a “motor voter” case and partnered with him on his 1992 “Project VOTE” registration drive.
In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN’s up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott’s drive against Chicago’s banks.
More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago’s Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation’s board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.
That committee’s report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama’s organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott’s ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.
MORE, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report acknowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.
Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public’s eye. The Woods Fund’s claim to be “nonideological,” it says, has “enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government ‘establishments’ without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship.”
Hmm. Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological. Sound familiar?
The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN’s Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.
And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott’s way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN’s overall efforts.
In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama’s first campaign for state Senate, saying, “We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer.”
Boomers have revolutionized every area of society by virtue of the size of the group, so why their influence on “senior centers” should come as a surprise to anyone is strange. This article, at least, makes it sound like some in the industry are preparing.
Changing food preferences are among many adjustments that senior center directors nationwide, including Lather, expect to make in the next decade as they balance the wishes of their elderly stalwarts with those of baby boomer newcomers.
Some even have taken “senior” out of their names, christening the facilities “community centers.” It’s a nod to boomers who acknowledge they are aging but bristle at the term “senior” and the stereotypes of fragility or dependency.
The first of the 78 million boomers started receiving Social Security retirement benefits this year, and the Census Bureau estimates almost 8,000 of them are turning 60 every day.
“The boomers are going to have the same impact in senior centers that they had as babies when they were born, in schools, in the work force and in society in general,” said Jay Morgan, manager of the Office on Aging in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“You really can’t underestimate that impact,” he said.
Morgan moderates a National Council on Aging online discussion group for senior center directors and said they voice common concerns about serving boomers.
Some examples: offering programs to fit the schedules of boomers working well into their 60s and making them diverse and intellectually appealing, and ensuring that longtime older visitors aren’t alienated by the changes.
None expect it to be easy. Even those who’ve planned in advance say baby boomers will be unlike any generation that has ever passed through senior centers.
In Enfield, traditional activities - bingo and cribbage, blood pressure clinics, bereavement support - are now joined by high-energy Zumba exercise classes, Nintendo Wii video game tournaments and investment clubs.
Lather said she may even launch a motorcycle club for the many “young” seniors arriving at the northern Connecticut center on two wheels. ... More
I find this study not only offensive and insulting, but downright dumb. It starts with the false premise that aging adults were all racists to begin with so as their brains become “diseased” they revert to preconditioning. It is just one more excuse to explain an Obama loss and try to lay it at the feet head of racism rather than the true reason that America doesn’t want a far left radical socialist in the White House, especially one who is an empty suit. The whole study is offensive and extremely insulting. Everything is always about race/racism with the left, it is the excuse to cover every sin.
Chicago Tribune correspondent, Howard Witt, seems to have found the villain to blame in case Barack Obama loses in November: elderly prejudiced white people. However, such “prejudice” is not their fault, Witt “generously” allows, since they suffer from atrophied frontal brain lobes. Witt’s article claims that such people will be more likely to vote against Obama due to the prejudice induced by these diseased frontal lobes (emphasis mine):
The personality is familiar to us all: the sweet old aunt, the loving grandfather or the generous widow down the street, each of them unfailingly kind toward friends and family but given to flights of shocking prejudice when the conversation turns toward ethnic groups to which they don’t belong.
Often the response is a nervous laugh, a wan smile or a hasty effort to change the subject. We assume that old people are the products of less-enlightened times, they’re unlikely to change and their comments, however ugly, are largely innocuous.
Now, though, in the midst of the nation’s first presidential campaign between a black candidate and a white one, a convergence of new political and scientific research suggests that prejudice and stereotyping among elderly white Americans in particular may not be so innocuous after all.
Older white voters heavily favored Sen. Hillary Clinton over Sen. Barack Obama during the Democratic primary season, and national polls indicate that group now leans toward Sen. John McCain by 10 percentage points or more.
Pollsters and political scientists cannot pinpoint how much of that anti-Obama sentiment may be related to racial prejudice. But sociologists say their research indicates that implicit racial biases influence the voting decisions of many Americans of all ages—and that, for very basic physiological reasons related to the aging of their brains, many older citizens may be unable to suppress their prejudicial impulses, whether at the family dinner table or in the privacy of a voting booth.
In other words, Grandma’s biased outbursts may not be her fault. And Obama’s election strategists may want to schedule more campaign stops at nursing homes.
Obama’s ideas are so early last century. They’ve been tried and found wanting. Ask the old Soviets or the Cubans. Communism/socialism does not work, yet Obama has repackaged these obsolete ideas and presents them as if they represent hope and change. Don’t be fooled.
The conventional wisdom is that Obama is the man of the future. It’s argued that he represents what the younger generation desires. But what if, on the contrary, Obama actually represented the last gasp of the past? When Thomas Sowell writes about Obama’s “worn-out economic ideas” can he really be serious? Michael Ledeen argues in dead earnest that BHO’s ideas are mostly obsolete.
“Paradoxically, Obama is in some ways more a victim of age than McCain, although of a different sort. Obama is an advocate of ideas that have aged to the point of dementia. He’s an old-fashioned radical, and the leftist ideas that inspire him are no longer relevant to our world. As Hegel used to say, the world changes, and the ideas that once described reality, and could be used to effectively change it when necessary, no longer apply to the changed world. Obama’s political ideas have aged, which is why they have no policy saliency. They’re just words, fossilized remnants of a civilization that no longer exists.”
… More
To me this is one of the most disturbing things about Obama and his campaign.
No words better sum up the fashion by which Barack Obama’s campaign handles criticism than “the politics of personal destruction.” Although popularized by Bill Clinton, the phrase embodies the political left’s timeless approach to securing victory in elections. Destroy your foe and hope that his ideas never become the issue, as ideological debate is not something at which they excel. Yet this year was supposed to be different. The junior senator from Illinois promised an end to divisiveness, partisanship, and “politics as usual.” Recent events illustrate the emptiness of these platitudes. Since August, Team Obama has fought a covert war against their opposition and muzzled them by any means available.
Legal methods appear to be their response of choice. When a commercial from the American Issues Project linked Obama to former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, the campaign filed a complaint with the Department of Justice requesting that the 527 be criminally investigated. Simultaneously, they contacted “stations running American Issues Project’s ad in an unsuccessful attempt to compel them to pull the spot.” The same tactic was used in the primaries in regard to Hillary Clinton. Luckily, the Department of Justice does not — as of yet — deem the free expression of speech a felony or a misdemeanor. ... More
In another act of intimidation, the Obama camp is threatening the NRA for telling the truth and wants ads like these banned:
“The Obama camp has been threatening television and radio stations to keep them from airing anti-Obama ads. The latest target is the NRA and stations in Pennsylvania.
Earlier this week, the National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund released a series of radio and television spots to educate gun owners and sportsmen about Barack Obama’s longstanding anti-gun record. In response to the NRA-PVF ads, a clearly panicked Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are doing everything they can to hide Obama’s real record by mounting a coordinated assault on the First Amendment.
They have gone to desperate and outrageous lengths to try to silence your NRA by bullying media outlets with threats of lawsuits if they run NRA-PVF’s ads. The Obama camp is particularly angry with an NRA ad entitled “Hunter” which lays out Obama’s record on gun control.
The NRA charged that “Obama and the DNC have been using strong-arm tactics reminiscent of Chicago machine politics to try and cover up the truth and silence NRA by forcing the stations to assist them in hiding Obama’s radical anti-gun record.” ... The NRA has set up a web site detailing its position on Obama at http://www.gunbanobama.com.
The right to food, housing, education, etc.
Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery.
--- Rocco ---
Posted by Sara
on 09/29/2008 at 07:11 AM in Legal - Seasoned Citizens - Civil Rights - PACs - Obama -
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Sunday, September 28, 2008
What Exactly is ACORN and Why Should You Care?
Here is at least a starting point:
Posted by Sara
on 09/28/2008 at 08:55 PM in Legal - Moonbats - PACs - Voter Fraud - Obama -
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New Palin Video: “Sarah Palin Better Than Barack Obama”
The New Sarah Palin ad by Our Country Deserves Better
Draft Bail Out Bill
The 110 page .pdf draft bailout bill.
The WSJ has an article summarizing the talks
Another location for getting the bailout draft, plus includes a section by section analysis by N.Z.Bear.
2008 Presidential Debate #1 (Full Video)
A Message to Obama Supporters
Philosblog, in two posts, lays it all out in simple language that even the most naive among us should understand.
… We are about to elect a man with no achievements on his resume, a Chicago Machine politician posing as a reformer. We will not elect the man who called the Surge right all along and who authored legislation to clean up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about four years ago, along with other GOP. It doesn’t occur to you that this legislation was blocked by Obama and other Democrats. Obama sued banks (see 9/27/08) to make them give people mortgages who could not afford them. “As a young attorney in the 1990s, Barack Obama represented ACORN in Washington in their successful efforts to expand Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) authority.” He looks in your eye and blames the crisis on the Republican’s philosophy of liberty. CRA and ACORN caused the bad mortgages, but you will put him in the White House.
McCain whom you will not elect also is widely knowledgeable about national and international affairs. There is no sign of his competitor’s being in his league on that score, but you thought he looked smooth enough, even if oddly angry, at a debate with McCain, so you count them even on knowledge.You believe that the GOP caused the current financial crisis by causing Wall Street “greed.” It doesn’t appear relevant to you that that the Democrats’ Community Reinvestment Act and their Fannie and Freddy caused the $2T in bad mortgages and the resultant housing bubble that would pop, exposing the rot.
Now that you’ve read the full text of the above, here is a bullet list of:
[...]
4. He told voters in a TV ad that John McCain was an anti-Mexican racist. With no evidence. In Spanish. Obama also claimed that his opponents would urge voters not to vote for him because he is black. Politicians simply don’t come any lower than the level of the race pimp. Perhaps Obama learned this trade during his decades at the knee of his sociopathic preacher Jeremiah Wright.
5. Under the mentorship of sociopathic terrorist Bill Ayers Obama wasted $100 million of a foundation’s money on stupid lefty pedagogy and other wasteful education industry nonsense for Chicago schools. No wonder this, his only executive experience, is left out of his bio; it’s a disgrace.
6. Obama didn’t have the backbone to say this week, “My party is chiefly to blame for the financial illness threatening to ruin the American economy today. Democrats pushed Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to make bad loans. We stopped Senator McCain and President Bush in their effort to clean the mess up three years ago.” Instead, Obama claimed that McCain’s philosophy of small government was at fault. This is a man who can’t take responsibility for his failures. In fact, Obama sued (see 9/27/08) to cause banks to make the bad loans.
[...]
9. He said that he would raise taxes on the rich even if this would decrease tax revenue. His reason was that he wants to make the rich pay more. So, Obama would increase the deficit in order to make rich people pay more, even though they already pay the overwhelming majority of the income taxes. This is unforgivably stupid and immoral.
Let Palin be Palin
This seems to be the new mantra. The press and their cohorts wouldn’t like Gov. Palin being herself and you/they know it. When she is being herself, she makes all of them look like the clawing, out of touch elitists that they are, but try to hide. She exposes all of them and she must be punished for making them look at just how empty and shallow their own pathetic lives are.
Where is Macsmind blog?
The Obama Campaign has been busy trying to silence the right and especially the right-leaning blogs. Macsmind has been a victim of their tactics.
Email received this morning:
Hi All,
This is MacRanger of Macsmind. As you know I was hacked by operatives of the Obama Campaign last month. Well, it happened again. Basically they flooded the site with “sql bombs” according to the host that caused the shared server to stop running. Subsequently we had to disable the site. This had to do with running the “Obama wants to Disarm America” post which more than 2 million people viewed on the site. Just like the goons in Missouri, the Obama truthers can’t let the truth be known.
I’ve now moved the blog back to blogspot at macsmind.blogspot.com at least temporally. Because of the hacking job I had to move to another host but unfortunately they haven’t got the server up yet to redirect the traffic to blogspot. I would appreciate a mention to your readers. I’m getting a couple of hundred emails about “what happened”, but as you can imagine it hard to get the word out by reply.
Thanks,
MacRanger
Jack Moss
Macsmind.com
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Hallelujah! They Think They Have A Deal - Updated
House and Senate negotiators have reached tentative agreement on a financial rescue plan after a marathon Capitol negotiating session that started Saturday afternoon and stretched into early Sunday morning.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the deal still had to be “committed to paper,” a process that will continue throughout the night.
Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the chief Republican negotiator, said he was “looking forward to what we’re going to see on paper” but said he was optimistic that it would be something House Republicans could support.
Said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson: “We’ve been working very hard on this and we’ve made great progress toward a deal which will work and will be effective in the marketplace and effective for all Americans . . . .We’ve still got a lot to do to finalize it, but I think we’re there.”
The Washington Post adds that the deal has been cleaned of ACORN. In my mind, without the elimination of the $20 billion for ACORN, the deal had no chance. ACORN, of course, is more than just an “affordable housing fund.” They are behind the majority of voter fraud and work strictly for democrats. Google ACORN voter fraud to learn more.
Democrats also made a number of concessions, abandoning demands that bankruptcy judges be empowered to modify home mortgages on primary residences for people in foreclosure. They also agreed not to dedicate a portion of any profits from the bailout program to an affordable housing fund that Republicans claimed would primarily assist social service organizations that support the Democratic Party, the official said. [That would be ACORN and La Raza
UPDATE:
What is the deal? Here is a side by side comparison for your evaluation of the original Paulson proposal, the porked up Democrat/Frank/Dodd version, and the final bill.
House Republican Whip Roy Blunt’s office provides this side-by-side comparison of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s original Wall Street bailout proposal with the final compromise agreed to over the weekend by congressional and Treasury negotiators:
New Obama Ad: Bad News
I’m not sure exactly why this is supposed to be bad news, the ad never says. You be the judge, but I think someone at the Obama Campaign didn’t think this one all the way through.
Missouri Governor Matt Blunt Goes Ballistic on the “Truth Squads”
In our post Outrageous! the other day, we gave you the details about the Missouri Truth Squads. See the link for the details. The Governor of Missouri, Matt Blunt, reacts in the strongest possible terms:
Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, September 27, 2008
JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.
“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.
“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.
“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.
“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”
Posted by Sara
on 09/27/2008 at 03:17 PM in Legal - Moonbats - Civil Rights - PACs - Obama -
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I Want One!
Thanks Glenn Reynolds for bringing this little gadget to my attention.
New McCain Ad: Promise
Brockopinocchio
If he will lie about something this vitally important — and obvious, he will lie about anything.
The Real Bitter Clingers in All Their (cough cough) “Glory”
Via the Jawa Report:
It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to lattes or faux populism or antipathy towards people who aren’t like them… as a way to explain their frustrations.
Don’t be angry with them, they’re just victims of their circumstances and are in, no doubt, desperate need of your tax dollars.
It Wasn’t Broke
An amazing video.
The Great Paul Newman Dead at 83
I woke to hear this announcement and immediately burst into tears.
When I was a teenager, my two “idols” were Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, but Paul Newman was really my true heartthrob. Since Elizabeth Taylor was my favorite actress at the same time, I think I’d say “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” was one of my favorite Newman films, but “Exodus” would be a near tie. “Somebody Up There Likes Me” also and “The Long Hot Summer.” Coming in for ties at third would be “The Hustler” and “Hud” and then “Cool Hand Luke.”
My sadness at his passing today is as much a sadness for the loss of that dewey-eyed pre-teen/teen girl who pinned pictures of Paul Newman around her room the way kids do today of their favorite rock stars. My room was papered with Paul Newman with those steely blue eyes watching over me and, of course, Elvis.
May he go with God, rest in peace, and be remembered as one of the greats.
(CNN) —Paul Newman, the legendary actor whose steely blue eyes, good-humored charm and advocacy of worthy causes made him one of the most renowned figures in American arts, has died of cancer at his home in Westport, Connecticut. He was 83.
Newman attained stardom in the 1950s and never lost the movie-star aura, appearing in such classic films as “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Exodus,” “The Hustler,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Sting” and “The Verdict.”
He finally won an Oscar in 1986—on his eighth try—for “The Color of Money,” a sequel to “The Hustler.” He later received two more Oscar nominations. Among his other awards was the Motion Picture Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Newman was a Method-trained actor who blazed his own career trail and didn’t shy away from risky roles—inside and outside films.
A portrayal as a race-car driver in 1969’s “Winning” led to his actual competition in races; at 70, he participated in the 24 Hours of Daytona and he was still racing at age 80.
He stumped for liberal causes, including Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential candidacy, and earned a spot on Richard Nixon’s enemies list—“the highest single honor I’ve ever received,” he said.
In 1982, Newman and his friend A.E. Hotchner founded Newman’s Own, a food company that produced food ranging from pasta sauces to salad dressing to chocolate chip cookies.
“The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films,” Newman once wryly noted.
To date, the company—which donates all profits to charities such as Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang camp—has given away more than $200 million. Newman established the camp to benefit gravely ill children.
[...]
Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. His father owned a successful sporting goods store, but young Paul was taken with his mother’s and uncle’s interest in the arts and started acting while still in grade school.
“I wasn’t running toward the theater but running away from the sporting goods store,” he said later.
After being kicked out of Ohio University for unruly behavior, he joined the Navy and served for three years during World War II. After the war he attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where his unruly ways led him to theater.
Newman continued studying acting at Yale and at New York’s Actors’ Studio, earning jobs in the growing medium of television.
He made his Broadway debut in William Inge’s 1953 play “Picnic,” opposite Kim Stanley, one of the most successful stage actresses of her time. The next year he made his first Hollywood film, “The Silver Chalice,” a bomb that he mocked for the rest of his life. He even took out a newspaper ad apologizing for his performance.
But success as boxer Rocky Graziano in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” (1956) made him a star, and more hits followed: “The Long, Hot Summer” (1958) opposite his soon-to-be wife, Woodward; “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) with Elizabeth Taylor; and “The Young Philadelphians” (1959).
But the 1960s were to be Newman’s decade, a perfect match for his ironic, anti-establishment attitude.
He began the decade with “Exodus” (1960), an epic about Israel’s founding directed by Otto Preminger, and succeeded it with “The Hustler” (1961) as pool shark Fast Eddie Felson; “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962), another Tennessee Williams work; and “Hud” (1963), “Harper” (1966) and “Hombre” (1967), continuing a good-luck streak of films beginning with “H.”
After “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), in which he played the egg-eating malcontented title character, he turned to directing, earning raves for his behind-the-camera work on “Rachel, Rachel” (1968), starring his wife.
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) and “The Sting” (1973) teamed Newman with co-star Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill. The trio proved to be box-office gold: They were two of the highest-grossing films of their time, winning a slew of awards—including a best picture Oscar for the latter, a tale of con men in 1930s Chicago.
Newman finally teamed up with Steve McQueen, who had been scheduled to be his co-star in “Butch Cassidy,” in 1974’s “The Towering Inferno.” Though the Irwin Allen-produced disaster film earned mixed critical notices, it, too, was one of the most successful box-office films of the era.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Sarah Palin: Miss Alaska Pageant Swimsuit Competition
Okay, much against my better judgment, here is the swimsuit video.
New McCain Ad: Post Debate “McCain is Right” and My Take on the Debate
LOL. I love it.
On the debate, I thought McCain won it handily. He had Obama on defense the entire night. Obama kept interrupting, making him look rather childish, he got visibly angry at one point, he stuttered frequently, and on most questions he never answered the question and changed the subject or just meandered all over the place. It was difficult to watch him come apart at the seams when under pressure. No, I don’t think he is ready to lead, he just wasn’t at all presidential.
Obama said “I agree with McCain” at least 8 times; McCain said Obama “didn’t understand” at least 7 times.
And the biggest lie of the night is when Barack Obama said he never said anything about attacking Pakistan. I about fell out of my chair when I heard him say that because it is a big fat lie.
Aug. 1, 2007 - WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.
The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.
“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”
Obama asserted that Henry Kissinger, one of McCain’s advisers, now favors meeting Iran without pre-conditions.
Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.
Ooooh look, I have a bracelet too. I don’t know whose name is on it, but I’ve got a bracelet too. This was one of Obama’s more stumbling and childish parts.
If you missed the debate, you can watch the entire debate video here.
Tom Maguire hits a few more debate highlights or is it lowlights?
Barack’s ended his debate with a smug America-bashing rant.
And this flip flop makes me sick.
Warning! Obama Campaign Sending Edited Video of Roy Blunt
Via Political Punch:
The Obama campaign is circulating a YouTube clip of Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.—the No. 2 House Republican—talking about the role of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., at the disastrous White House meeting, on MSNBC today.
In the Obama campaign clip, Blunt says of McCain: “Clearly, yesterday, his position on that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from finalizing.”
Smarmy Bill Burton, Obama Campaign Spokesperson said:
Bill Burton: “Congressman Blunt just confirmed what’s been clear since John McCain rode into Washington at the eleventh hour -– Sen. McCain’s political theatrics succeeded only in stopping a bipartisan deal. During the most serious economic crisis of our time, we don’t need erratic posturing, we need steady leadership to protect American taxpayers and put our economy back on track.”
If you listen to the real video of Blunt’s remarks, you will hear that Blunt actually said:
REP. ROY BLUNT: I do think that John McCain was very helpful in what he did. I saw him this morning, we’ve been talking with his staff. Clearly, yesterday, his position on that discussion yesterday was one that stopped a deal from finalizing that no House Republican in my view would have been for, which means it wouldn’t have probably passed the House. Now, Democrats are in the majority. They can pass anything they want to without a singe Republican vote, but they don’t seem to be willing to do that. I’m please we can have negotiations now that get us back towards things that we think can protect the taxpayers better, create more options, and frankly be better understood in the country than the plan—the path we were on a couple of days ago.
Here is the legitimate video:
What Was McCain’s Role? (Video)
Carl Cameron explains, especially after point 3:00 in the video.
Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) on Friday suggested Democratic leaders did not solicit enough input from House Republicans on the financial rescue package…
Asked whether House GOP lawmakers are right to believe they were slighted, Kanjorski replied, “I don’t know that we included them in enough, and that’s always a dangerous thing in politics. Remember, you’re dealing with egomaniacs. We’re all egomaniacs down here.”
Kanjorski, who faces a difficult reelection race, is a key player on the bailout package. He is chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government-Sponsored Enterprises.
Kanjorski said, “Now, what we have to do is open that door for the House Republicans, bring them on in and say, ‘Guys, you know, we can’t cast your idea aside.’ Let’s listen to it … I think we have to allow them to talk their idea out. We have to be willing to listen.”
Random Remarks on the Financial Crisis and Congressional Negotiations
The single-biggest mistake in the Paulson bank-rescue-plan marketing effort has been the failure to explain clearly how taxpayers are going to recoup $700 billion used to buy toxic assets at auction in order to unfreeze the banking system. In other words, folks don’t understand how taxpayers will be paid back, and may actually make profits, which will enable the new government debt to be erased after the Treasury bank-rescue is completed.
Here’s the key point: Any loan package bought by the Treasury will be 100 percent taxpayer owned. Period.
Let’s walk through this hypothetical for a moment. Through a market-driven auction, the Treasury will purchase some dollar amount — say $100 billion — of loans that banks will sell. The Treasury will then buy those loans at the prices that fill the auction, starting with the lowest prices and working up. Now, the Treasury will hold those bonds either to maturity or for a sale in the open market if rising prices in the market make that sale attractive. In other words, suppose the Treasury buys a bond package at 20 cents on the dollar. They hold it for a while, and if market conditions improve, they sell it for 50 cents on the dollar to some buyer (e.g., an investment fund, a private-equity fund, a hedgie). The Treasury will make the sale at the higher price in order to gain a profit for taxpayers.
In the meantime, as the Treasury holds the loans, the government will get monthly cash-flows coming in on the mortgages, or on any other loans that it owns. So it is win-win for taxpayers. First, taxpayers get the cash flow generated by the assets. (Something like a 10 percent interest rate.) Second, if the loan is sold for profit, the taxpayers will own that profit. And the new law must of course stipulate that all the cash flows and/or profits go for debt-reduction to protect taxpayers.
I don’t think a lot of folks understand this win-win scenario. Let me repeat: The taxpayers own the bonds the Treasury buys; the taxpayers own the cash flows generated by the bonds; the taxpayers own the profits when the bonds are sold; and the taxpayers benefit when the profits and cash flows are used to pay-down government debt.
Actually, for taxpayers, it’s a win-win-win-win.
[...]
Another point: Republican leader Eric Cantor has an excellent idea for a federal bond insurance guarantee for straight mortgage-backed paper, financed by private-sector insurance premiums. That will improve investor confidence in mortgage bonds and will make those bonds highly marketable. Importantly, senior Treasury officials have told me that Mr. Paulson will accept the insurance idea as an option in the final bill, alongside the ability of the Treasury to purchase distressed assets.
Sources also tell me that other conditions will be necessary to bring the House GOP along. First, the ACORN slush fund must be removed. Second, the so-called union proxy to run a slate of corporate directors is a big problem. Third, all profits from the Treasury rescue mission must be used to reduce the national debt — 100 percent. Fourth, Republican members are opposed to bankruptcy judges setting mortgage terms and interest rates (Sen. Obama also is opposed). Fifth, the so-called government equity ownership of banks is distasteful because it effectively creates a corporate tax increase on banks at a time when they are struggling. And last, the Treasury secretary’s request for $700 billion is regarded as way too high.
Essentially, House Republican leaders want a slimmer, cleaner Paulson plan supplemented by Mr. Cantor’s mortgage-bond insurance program. I think it’s a good package that would be great news for stock and bond markets that are now ailing badly. It would set the stage for a gradual return to normalcy on the part of bank lenders, including loans to small businesses, consumers, and homeowners. It would be a pro-growth package at a time when the economy desperately needs a prosperity tonic.
WASHINGTON — President Bush tried to calm financial markets and American citizens on Friday, saying he expects lawmakers to have plenty of opinions, but Congress will pass a rescue plan for Wall Street.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said if negotiators can agree to principles of agreement for a bailout, a deal could be done by midnight.
Bush spoke as markets opened more than 100 points down upon news that late-night talks got lawmakers no closer to passing a $700 billion plan to help corporations overburdened with bad mortgage securities. On top of that, federal officials announced that JP Morgan would be buying up Washington Mutual after it suffered the largest failure in U.S. banking history.
“There is no disagreement that something substantial must be done. The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we are going to get a package passed,” he said in a brief statement after a long night of difficult negotiations. “We will rise to the occasion.”
“My administration continues to work with the Congress on a rescue plan and we need a rescue plan. This is hard work. Our proposal is a big proposal and the reason it’s big and substantial is because we have got a big problem,” he said.
I got together this afternoon for a short interview with Jim DeMint, the man who could fairly be called the conservative leader of the Senate, to hear what he has to say about the bailout. What follows is the slightly edited transcript of our conversation.
Did Congress help create this problem and if so, how?
...Congress passed a law back in the late seventies that required banks to make subprime loans to…
The Community Reinvestment Act?
Yes. It required the banks to make loans to people who couldn’t afford them as part of our social programming. Congress also created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy mortgages from banks all over the country. Since these were, in effect, guaranteed by the federal government, they didn’t pay much attention to the credit worthiness of the borrower or the value of the asset.
What happened over the years is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together processed over 5 trillion dollars worth of loans and sold them as securities all over the world. This easy credit inflated the cost of homes and created over-building and an over-supply of homes until we finally hit a wall. The values of people’s homes started to go down, which means the mortgages were over-priced. Now these banks want to unload these securities in order to have money to loan.... but they can’t sell them for what they got them for.
The biggest creditor is China and that’s a big part of this equation that’s not being talked about. If America was not in such deep debt, we could deal with this problem much more effectively—but China has essentially told the U.S. that we make good on all the debt that they’re holding, which is nearly a trillion dollars, or they’re going to stop lending us money. To show that they’re serious, they’ve already stopped lending us money and if we can’t borrow money every day, literally hundreds of billions of dollars, we default on the loans that are coming due.
So, this is a house of cards that the government has created and my biggest frustration with this whole mess is that it is being blamed on free enterprise, capitalism, and corporate greed—when in fact, this is a good example of what happens when the government gets involved in the private sector. It created a huge mess.
