Announcing "The Liberator Today"

I am starting a new blog, "The Liberator Today." It is named after the influential abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator," founded by William Lloyd Garrison, pictured at left. Although he never held public office, his outspoken and articulate rhetoric against slavery was instrumental in that institution's demise.

Hope you come on over and pay a visit.

Congratulations to President Elect Obama

Congratulations to the new President-elect. His team ran a superior campaign. In his gracious acceptance speech, John McCain asked all Americans to work with the new President to help solve our nations problems. I will certainly make my voice heard and continue my day job, which I believe serves our country, in its small way.

Also, Obama will have the respect that comes from occupying the great office to which he has been elected. All Americans owe him this. I also pray that he will make good decisions that benefit the nation as a whole.

On a programming note, I am going to discontinue this blog, perhaps after some election post-mortems. I am starting a new blog and will make an announcement here and on BwD when it is ready to roll.

Meanwhile, the nation should savor this moment of history, when we have elected a black man to the Presidency. We should be proud, even if we disagreed with his positions, that our country has come so far and so fast in repairing race relations. Certainly we are now an example for all the world to see.

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Shutting Down the Opposition Press

In a move that Hugo Chavez would favor, Obama has kicked reporters from opposition papers who have endorsed McCain from his campaign plane. Let's see how Big Media reacts to this, after the dust up over Maureen Dowd being asked to exit the McCain plane.

Once again, Obama shows his true colors. Even richer is the purported reason for the boot. Supposedly, videographers are making a documentary about the final days of the campaign. Hot Air says it best:

It also looks a little self-indulgent. Obama’s clearing room on the plane for — what? Documentarians who will produce hagiographies about his historic importance. That fits into another pattern we’ve seen for months, one marked with fake presidential seals, The Barackopolis, and infomercials. In the coming Age of Obama, only the worshipers will get front-row seats to history.

If Obama cheats his way to victory, we might want to read more about the Gene Sharp, pictured at right.

H/T HotAir

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Why The Race is Tighter Than You Think

Iowahawk, premier blogger satirist, sent me over to Tidestemmer, a worthwhile trip. In an article titled "Random Error Doesn't Look Like This," Gene Fama argues what I have noticed in over three decades of watching elections; Republicans almost always do better than the polls indicate. People forget how close the 1976 election turned out to be, 50.1% to 48.0%. That was an incredible result given the albatross of Watergate, the Nixon pardon, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe" statement, and the MSM portrayal of Ford as a bumbler. (Hey, is there some sort of theme here?)

Look at this graphic on exit polling discrepancies from 2004 and you will notice the consistent anti-Republican bias in result. Why? (It is not that Republicans cheated in every state.) My theory is that pollsters for the MSM are more comfortable polling in locations where there are like minded people and they somehow are self selecting fellow liberals to do exit polling to a small but measurable degree. This is basic to anyone who has studied the need for double blind testing in psychology, the area of science most closely linked to polling.

Gene also discusses the so-called Bradley effect, but turns it on its head. Perhaps, in an atmosphere supercharged by the constant playing of the race card, people who disagree with Obama on the issues, but who don't want to be called racist are saying they will vote for him as well. Because Obama did not seem to have a Bradley effect going in the primaries (he closed well), I tend to buy Gene's explanation. In the primaries, the Democrats all agreed with one and other on the policy issues, hence no effect.

To re-iterate my point from yesterday, just more reason to keep voting and get your fellow freedom-lovers to vote as well.

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Making the Case Against Obama

Over at Hot Air, Guy Benson and Mary Katharine Ham, have teamed up to put together one of the most comprehensive set of arguments against the candidacy of Barack Obama I have seen. Please at least skim the article for yourself, much of this has been commented here and in BwD, but they have put it all together nicely.

Abortion: Not only his extremism, but his lying in defense of extremism are detailed.

Taxes: Despite his statements that 95% of Americans will not pay more in taxes, we know that his programs will cost and short of confiscatory tax rates, this won't get the kind of cash needed by Obama's socialist plans for health care. Incredibly, Obama has said he wants to raise capital gains taxes, even if it results in less income for the feds. Why, "It's the fair thing to do."

Radicalism: (Read socialism) Obama's political upbringing has been with the most radical elements of the American left as symbolized by Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

Foreign Policy Judgment: Yes, he was against the Iraq war, when he was a state senator from a liberal district, so what. How about, he voted against the surge, which is giving us the scope to start withdrawing with victory. How about meeting Ahmadinejad without preconditions, which he keeps trying to spin as "we should be talking." (A reminder, we are talking to Iran. The question is, should the President of the United States legitimize that fascist fool by meeting without preconditions.) Also, his initial reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia was mealy-mouthed, compared to McCain's immediate condemnation.

Liberal disdain for the Heartland (I like to call it Marxism): Us gun-toting, bible thumping, anti-illegal immigrant rednecks cling to these beliefs out of despair of improving our lives. This is classic Marxist dialectic, arguing that those who don't agree with you are victims of "false consciousness." I'm surprised that the underlying Marxist premise of Obama's remarks doesn't get more play, because it indicates the depth to which he has internalized an Marxist academic thought. (My apologies to any liberals who wondered in here by mistake, for causing the cognitive dissonance of seeing conservatives using big words and understanding your academic overreaching.)

Lack of Accomplishments: Nothing more to say.


We must not be discouraged, every vote counts, not necessarily in determining the outcome, but in shaping the debate. I am not conceding the election, more about why the race is probably tight, tomorrow. But, even if Obama cheats his way to victory or wins outright, it is important that the voices of those who believe in freedom of speech, freedom of markets, limited government, and anti-socialism be heard. This has been a terrible year, capping off a terrible eight years, because we have been betrayed by the party we thought most wedded to the cause of liberty. The sooner we move the country back towards a freedom agenda the better off we will all be. So I urge you to vote, even if you live in the bluest of blue states, to let others know that there are millions ready to fight socialism in America.

H/T E3Gazette

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The Coming Carbon Thugocracy

Jason Grumet, Obama policy advisor on the environment, has a plan to wreck the United States economy. He plans to outlaw the element represented at left. From the WSJ:

In an interview last week with Bloomberg, Mr. Grumet said that come January the Environmental Protection Agency "would initiate those rulemakings" that classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under current clean air laws. That move would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy, something that is usually the purview of Congress. Mr. Grumet warned that "in the absence of Congressional action" 18 months after Mr. Obama's inauguration, the EPA would move ahead with its own unilateral carbon crackdown anyway.

Such an action would clearly be extra-constitutional, because the proposed method of imposing taxes to reduce carbon emissions are the purview of the Congress. Further, the EPA is not supposed to be politicized, but here is Team Barry, ready to seize control of the machinery of state to impose socialism. Amazingly, this plan assumes that Obama won't be able to convince a democrat Congress to do his bidding on global warming. Admittedly, this was not Obama, but an advisor talking, but the stench of state planning and redistribution permeates his campaign.

H/T American Thinker.

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More Thugocracy II

Middle-aged male Obama supporter (pictured at left) beats up frail bespectacled McCain supporter. And yeah, it matters that the attacker was a man. Details here.

If you see or know this New Yorker, ask him why he's such a coward.

H/T Weasel Zippers

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More Thugocracy

Over at BwD, Dean has a great post about the travails of Joe the Plumber, who had the audacity to question The One's plans to confiscate cash from the small businesses.

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Whose Hubris?

After warning his supporters of the dangers of hubris today, Barack Obama vowed to "change the world."

Cowardice on Fannie/Freddie

Peter J. Wallison, of the WSJ, brings to light a couple of important points on the current financial mess. First, contrary to Obama's claims (he's wrong again) this crisis did not happen because of deregulation:

While there has been significant deregulation in the U.S. economy during the last 30 years, none of it has occurred in the financial sector.

Second, Obama himself bears complicity. By his own account, Obama wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury that the subprime loan situation was dangerous. Here is what happenned next:

In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate.

However, Obama was unwilling to confront his own party on this issue, an issue in which he claims to have had "special" knowledge that a crisis was in the offing. This is the most revealing example of political cowardice I can imagine. The job description of Senator is to vote on legislation. Legislation was offered that might have mitigated the current crisis. Obama claims he knew a crisis was brewing. He did nothing. Great leadership.

H/T HotAir.

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Fascism and His Followers

Sorry for the hiatus from blogging. Watching Republicans and Democrats team up to socialize a large portion of the economy put me into a dark place.

Over at BwD, Dean has a post debating whether the use of the N word (settle down, that's the Nazi word, not the other N word) is an appropriate reference when describing Obama's imagery and followers. I respectfully decline to use the Nazi term, but believe the more general term fascism is applicable. Here is a reasonable definition from the wikipedia article:

A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

The cult of personality often looms large in fascistic culture and iconography. Remember Michelle Obama telling us that her husband won't let us go back to our old apathetic ways. This is classic cult fascism, seeking to dominate the mindspace of the citizenry.

Meanwhile, on the "abandons democratic liberties" issue, Michael Barone had this to say about The Coming Liberal Thugocracy:

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Mr. Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

The whole article is an excellent summary of Obama's followers' antipathy to free speech. From truth squads threatening jail in Missouri to flooding Chicago radio stations to prevent anti-Obama facts from being presented to attempts to reimpose the "fairness doctrine" Obama and his followers seem uncomfortable with dissent.

Meanwhile over at Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is calling for a complete crushing of the conservative movement in America. I've heard conservatives call for victory, but stamping out liberalism? Even Rush never says that. Sounds a little fascist too me, how about you?

Debate Update

I watched most of the second debate tonight, and I was struck by how mundane and tired the whole felt like. I was glad to see McCain call out Obama on a number of issues, but their lack of substantive differences on the bail out took the a lot of the drama out of it.

And it was plenty of the same old-same old from Obama. When asked why either party should be trusted with our money, Obama replies in part, because I am going to spend it better. From the transcript:

So here's what I would do. I'm going to spend some money on the key issues that we've got to work on.

It's that old time liberalism, by gum, we've got to spend more of your tax dollars to save ya from yourselves.

Obama called this the worst economic crises since the Great Depression. On what basis? Unemployment, although a lagging indicator, is just over 6%. The stock market is way down along with home prices, but that does not measure the health of the economy. Of course, he starts out by blaming Bush and deregulation. (Where does this come from? I cannot remember any deregulation initiatives during this administration. As a matter of fact a big new regulation, Sarbanes-Oxley was passed. The addition of financial regulations was one of the things that irked me about this administration.) To be fair I quote Obama at length:

And I'll tell you what, the Treasury should demand that money back [$400,000 junket] and those executives should be fired. But that's only step one. The middle-class need a rescue package. And that means tax cuts for the middle-class.

It means help for homeowners so that they can stay in their homes. It means that we are helping state and local governments set up road projects and bridge projects that keep people in their jobs.

And then long-term we've got to fix our health care system, we've got to fix our energy system that is putting such an enormous burden on families. You need somebody working for you and you've got to have somebody in Washington who is thinking about the middle class and not just those who can afford to hire lobbyists.

Notice how no crisis, great or small, doesn't morph into a call for greater government spending hither and yon on everything that might buy some votes, while unrelated to the "greatest fiscal crisis since the Great Depression." BTW, government spending did not end that crisis either.

I think on health care, the differences were most striking. Obama proposes to set up a new bureaucracy to insure those without insurance, and McCain proposes to hand out checks to let people shop around. I don't like either plan, but more health care bureaucracy isn't going to get it done. Also, Obama says, no one will be turned away for a pre-existing condition. This is madness. This will just encourage businesses to tighten up their eligibility rules to remove high risk workers from the rolls. This is where Obama's unspecified fines come in. It just has the stench of fascism.

McCain used one of his responses to bait Obama into asking the moderator to change the rules so that he could respond to McCain's final attack. That looked pretty weak, Brokaw pointed out that both sides had agreed to the format. But when the outcome wasn't to his liking, Obama whined. Brokaw got him off the hook by pointing out that since the next question was sort of related he could use that answer for rebuttal. But again, it shows a guy who does not think well on his feet. In debates such as these, both sides often ignore the question so Obama's protest made him look petulant. Judge for yourself. [After McCain nails him on his tax plans, you realize how effective that was by Obama's response.]

Brokaw: Sen. Obama, we have another question from the Internet.

Obama: Tom, can I respond to this briefly? Because...

Brokaw: Well, look, guys, the rules were established by the two campaigns, we worked very hard on this. This will address, I think, the next question.

Obama: The tax issue, because I think it's very important. Go ahead.

Brokaw: There are lots of issues that we are going to be dealing with here tonight. And we have a question from Langdon (ph) in Ballston Spa, New York, and that's about huge unfunded obligations for Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs that will soon eat up all of the revenue that's in place and then go into a deficit position.

Since the rules are pretty loose here, I'm going to add my own to this one. Instead of having a discussion, let me ask you as a coda to that. Would you give Congress a date certain to reform Social Security and Medicare within two years after you take office? Because in a bipartisan way, everyone agrees, that's a big ticking time bomb that will eat us up maybe even more than the mortgage crisis.

And Barry doesn't even thank him for the assist. Actually, I thought Brokaw was pretty fair over all, but I welcome your thoughts on that matter.

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Cheatin' Update

Apparently, the RNC has been reading the blogs. Story here in the Washington Post that a lawyer for the RNC will be filing a complaint with the FEC that Team Barry hasn't been weeding out suspicious donations, including possibly illegal foreign ones. Newseek has picked up on Mr. Good Will in an article titled, "Good Will Hunting." Very clever title indeed. And even Reuters has picked up the story, although in typical liberal context, their headline adds, "GOP says." But hey, at least this is getting some play.

I think that Obama is ethically challenged. His campaign never responds fully to inquiries when a half-truth or obfuscation will do. (Small example, when asked about articles he might have authored for the Harvard Law Review, Team Barry responded that as editor, Obama did not author columns. Turns out he had indeed written for the Review, before he became editor. Why the obfuscation?) It is not surprising that this has happenned.

My bold prediction, Team Barry will find one or two of McCain's donations that are suspect (unlike the thousands of Obama's that are suspect) and declare some sort of moral equivalence.

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His Emptiness

I first read about Barack Obama in June 2005 in an article by Peggy Noonan. I think I missed his 2004 Democratic convention speech. Obama, then a first term senator with all of a year and a half in office, compared himself to Abraham Linclon as follows:

This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

As Sarah Palin pointed out, Senator Obama has had time to write two memoirs but no major piece of legislation. But he clearly believes he is The One, comparing himself to Lincoln being only the most egregious examples. Were he not in politics he might be diagnosed with a disorder.

Yet, he proposes to lead our nation despite lacking any significant accomplishments. How can this be? Over at American Thinker, Bookworm theorizes that a goodly portion of the electorate is acting like the classic abused woman, who theorizes that her boyfriend will shape up once he is married. He makes all the promises, even one's she knows he can't keep. (I won't raise your taxes, but you will receive free health care. We will stop greenhouse gas emissions but not the economy.) And he tells her that he loves her. After all the trauma she's been through, the sordid Clinton scandals, 2000 election debacle, 9/11, the government's clumsy domestic response and now the S&L debacle, (did I really say that? I was thinking the current Fannie Mae and credit mess), she just desperately wants to BELIEVE. But as Bookworm points out:

Just as marriage to the bad boy won't magically make him better, a presidential inauguration won't transform the anti-American, unaccomplished Barack Obama into an effective statesman imbued with a true love for his country.

So I hope the electorate gets some cold feet soon, because too much is at stake. The best antidote for the last sixteen years would be competent leadership dedicated to real reform in our government. With Barack Obama expect the same old liberalism dressed up in new clothing, but inevitably growing government which will make it even less effective and accountable.

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Cheatin' to Get It Done

Were you amazed by that amazing fund raising machine from all those small donors? Maybe less so when the donors are like Mr. Good Will of Austin, TX who lists his employer as "Loving" and his occupation as "You." Mr. Good Will has given an amazing $17,375 to Team Barry, all in under $25 donations. Now why would a fine upstanding citizen like Mr. Will do that? Turns out that the names of donors giving less than $200 do not have to be reported. (Although John McCain's camp voluntarily does so.) There are legal maximums that people can donate to a campaign, but before we accuse Obama of accepting illegal campaign contributions, I should point out that there may be dozens of Mr. Good Wills living in Austin, so this could all be on the up and up. Ken Timmerman at Newsmax has more:

Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

Federal law does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 during the election cycle. However, it does require that campaigns calculate running totals for each donor and report them once they go beyond the $200 mark.

Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200 threshold.

Another tidbit, the screen shot above is an older version of Obama's web site where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to break U.S. campaign finance law and donate to the campaign. According to Andrew McCarthy at NRO:

The would-be President of the World is raising goo-gobs of money from foreigners outside the United States (a violation of federal law), and matching goo-gobs of money inside the United States from phantoms who are blowing out the individual contribution limits by, among other devices, making up identies and breaking up contributions in amounts less than $200, for which reporting requirements are less rigorous.

Of course, the MSM is so in the tank for Obama that none of this will get an airing from them. I look forward to seeing the independent prosecutor revived to investigate all this after the Republicans regain the House and Senate in 2010.

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Obama 3:16 Video Embed Fixed

Dean here checking in from BwD. Just a head’s up to all you independants, undecideds and even some of you McCain hold-outs clinging to your shrinking electoral chances out there. Instead of "trick or treaters" at Halloween you’re getting this. And when Obama wins and they find out you didn’t believe, they’ll be back for Christmas, er, Holiday caroling.

It’s like Up With People meets Children of the Damned…. only more disturbing. These indoctrinated skulls full of mush will be footin’ the bill for all the non-sense that has been accumulating for years now so we hope they really do enjoy their multi-cultrual tableau campfire sing-a-long.


He’s gonna change it, he’s gonna rearrange it. She’s got B. Hussein Obama eyes.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, they've taken down the Obama Youth video a couple of times now in the past 24 hours responding to complaints from viewers of ruptured eardrums and bleeding eyes. Seriously, I'll try to have it back up but in the mean time, here is a video from some mysterious land overseas from which Obama Youth copied the template.

UPDATE 2: B-Daddy reposted youtube embed, should work now.

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All Hail Obama For Your Intervention in Passing the Bail Out Bill

I thought I would write about His Oneness' role in helping Nancy Pelosi get the $700 billion bail out bill passed earlier today.

Speaking in Colorado, picture at left, he is telling people to stay calm.

And that's a wrap.

On a side note, is he looking angrier and angrier, everyday? Seems like the better his poll numbers the more partisan he sounds and the angrier he looks.

I think McCain wasted a great opportunity to present a principled alternative approach. Too bad. Dick Morris agrees with me, or maybe the other way around.

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Reviewing the Bidding

Although Obama paints himself as a moderate who will "heal the nation," a review of his record and statements a pattern of partisanship and positions that most voters would find objectionable.

Denying workers the right to vote on whether they want a union. Fact check here.

Increased taxes. Obama would raise capital gains taxes, even if it meant less revenue for the government, "as a matter of fairness." He has said he would let the Bush tax cuts expire, but push through his plans to cut taxes for those making under $75,000 per year, more class warfare. Obama would increase social security taxes on those making over $250,000, from his web site, which I refuse to link.

Vast expansion of the role of government in health care. Not much debated yet, but Obama proposes bringing Medicare-like system to the uninsured under 65. But Medicare is rampant with fraud, nice recent examples here and here. The annual cost of Medicare fraud is estimated at $10 billion. Fact check here.

Fixed timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. In spite of the surge's admitted success, Obama still says he wouldn't have voted for it. Why, because he says it distracts from the "real war on terror." But for terrorists themselves, Iraq is the central front.

Naivete on foreign policy: Willing to have Presidential meetings with the world's loonies, like Ahmadinejad, without preconditions. Debate discussion at Gateway Pundit. As I commented on that article, Preconditions are necessary for THE PRESIDENT to meet with these rogues. Obama tries to conflate lower level meetings, which need not have preconditions with the presidential one, which must. Lacking this basic understanding of diplomacy, how can he be trusted to lead? Obama's own words on YouTube here.

Instinctive opposition to all restrictions on abortion, extending to survivors of abortion. Plus, I just have to ask this of any supporters of unrestricted abortion rights that might stumble in here. Under what moral code is it justifiable to abort (i.e. kill) a baby at 8 months into the pregnancy while in the womb, but if that same baby were delivered prematurely, it is a crime to kill it after birth?

Just a reminder on the importance of this election.

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Root Cause of Current Crisis

If you don't have time to view this whole video clip, I will summarize. The root cause of the current crisis is the spread of bad mortgage debt through the financial system. This debt flowed because Fannie Mae securitised high risk mortgages and sold them to Wall Street and banks. Fraud in the valuation of these securities also played a role, resulting in the sacking of the Harold Raines, the head of Fannie Mae. The political push that allowed this to happen was the Community Reinvestment Act which turned every mortgage institution in the country into a predatory lender. Obama has much closer ties to the problem than John McCain who made early attempts to correct the problem. This all sounds very dry, but the video is highly entertaining.

H/T Drudge.

Programming Alert

No blogging on Obama tonight, I chose to spend my time masochistically watching USC come unraveled in Corvallis. My post on that event will publish on BwD, a little after midnight PDT. On the theme of masochism, I also had a little Calculus tutoring to do.

Wrong-footed...Again

Team Barry appears to have been caught off guard by John McCain's announcement today that he was suspending his campaign to work on solving the financial crisis. Meanwhile, Harry Reid has painted Obama's campaign into a tough position. According to Roger Hedgecock, yesterday, Harry Reid was calling on John McCain to return to Washington to ensure that enough Republican votes get delivered to pass the administration's bail out package. I couldn't find the link to the direct quote, but here is Harry making this clear through surrogates. Now, Harry is backtracking with statements like "We need leadership, not a campaign photo op."

The problem for Obama is that McCain has again grabbed the headlines and taken a leadership role. I am praying for McCain to come to his senses and offer a package that breaks sharply with Bush socialism and embodies free market principles. That would be both best for the nation, see yesterday's post and burnish his credentials as the "maverick" and better able to bring real change. Also, it would put Obama in the tough position of being on the side of Bush on an important issue.

Meanwhile Obama looks churlish for saying the debates must go on. Further, his statements that Presidents must be able to work on more than one thing at a time looks out of touch. Both candidates are senators, and the action right now is in Congress, so to suggest that the campaign and debates must go on, plays to Obama's weakness, that he is all talk and no action. This is also a tough sell after Biden's comments that Bush should emulate Roosevelt and get on TV to talk about the 1929 stock market crash. (But Joe is in a lot of trouble with Suit already, or maybe not; there is a theory that he gaffes so often, it's not newsworthy or damaging to Obama.)

Meanwhile, we have normally sensible Republicans like KT, pushing for passage of this bail out on the theory that there is no other way out and it won't really cost that much. Some action is needed, after all the government created this problem in the first place through low interest rates, Fannie Mae's practices, and the push to give home loans to the unqualified. But the massiveness of the intervention and the nationalization of an entire industry are incompatible with finding long term solutions.

I finally found the quote I was looking for. Here is Obama answering a question on the debates and the crisis sans teleprompter:

QUESTION: Do you plan on attending the debate on Friday? And is Senator McCain playing politics with this by saying (OFF-MIKE) not go to this debate?

OBAMA: Well, let me say this. Just to go through the chronology today, I called him this morning with the intent of issuing a joint statement. I got called back around 2:30. We had a conversation. I made the suggestion to him. He agreed to that suggestion.

He then suggested, in addition, that we need to have a meeting in Washington with the congressional leaders and potentially the president. And what I told him is, well, why don't we get the joint statement out first to enunciate the principles that both of us agree to and to send a clear signal to the members of Congress that this, in fact, is something that should not be bogged down by partisan politics?

And, now, when I got back to the hotel, he had gone on television to announce what he intended to do. I believe that our staffs are still working on this joint statement.

I -- I think the important principle at this point is to send a clear signal to members of Congress, as well as the country, that this is a serious problem that has to be solved and not -- should not be subject to the usual partisan politics.

With respect to the debates, it's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is -- it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once.

I think there's no reason why we can't be constructive in helping to solve this problem, and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand and where we want to take the country. So, in my mind, actually, it's more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people and try to describe where we want to take the country and where we want to take the economy, as well as dealing with some of the issues of foreign policy that were initially the subject of the debate.

What the heck did he just say? I listened to it first, now I see it in writing, it's scary. Tell us your position, say something intelligible, convince us you're not an empty suit. Also hat tip to Roger Hedgecock, who points out that neither McCain nor Obama will be President in 40 days.

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Why I Was a Teenage Libertarian - Updated

Here are some statements from Barack Obama and John McCain on the proposed $700 billion bail out of financial firms.

As he has said before, [Candidate X] said five principles must be included: greater accountability and independent oversight; a path for taxpayers to recoup the money; transparency in decisions on which companies to help; a cap on the executive pay of those companies that take part and no earmarks in the plan for any specific businesses.

Adding some specificity to proposals he has already made, [Candidate Y], the [Republican or Democratic] presidential nominee, called for a payback plan for taxpayers if the bailout succeeds; a bipartisan board to oversee the bailout; limits on any federal money going to compensate Wall Street executives; and aid to homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgages.

So it's crunch time, the first test of leadership, both candidates are campaigning on their vision of change and we get THIS? You can decipher which candidate is which by clicking the embedded links. And even if you guess right, so what, what's the difference? As I disclosed earlier, this year I changed party registration from Libertarian to Republican, but b.s. like this makes me wonder why.

KT will scold me, saying something has to be done. And I am sympathetic to avoiding a total meltdown. But a big fat giveaway? Come on. How about using this country's existing bankruptcy laws to let these firms keep operating while they shed debt and overpaid CEOs. Maybe an emergency review of those laws, rather a government give away would prevent the taxpayers from getting soaked. And for a long term reform, we need some transparency about the value of assets on the books in our accounting standards. Nobody knows the value of credit default derivatives. People don't even know who owns their mortgages.

At least Joe Biden is making things entertaining with his inability to know when to stop, as KT predicted he would. Newsweek's Andrew Romano gets credit for the week's best headline, "Biden Fires Up The Gaffe-O-Matic."


Update #1:

Ron Paul does a great job of explaining this mess. His key points are that prolonged, artificially low interest rates combined with government intervention into the housing market created a real estate bubble that is now bursting. Continuing to prop up the market only prolongs the pain and increases moral hazard. Ron Paul is at his cogent best, calmly and rationally explaining this issue in terms that I believe will even resonate with KT.

I liked John McCain's initial gut reaction that AIG should not be bailed out. I trust his gut instincts and wish he would go with them more often.

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Obama Lies About His Abortion Record

A new ad from Team Barry calls the claim that he tried to thwart the Born Alive Infants Protection Act a "despicable lie." Unfortunately, it is Obama who is lying. The woman pictured at right, Gianna Jessen, survived an abortion in the 1970's. She appears in an ad chastising Senator Obama for voting in a way that would have left her for dead. More details here. In fact, when he was an Illinois State Senator, Obama actively opposed the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act." Obama claims his opposition was due to the act not protecting doctors and nurses practicing abortions. But that is a lie, as the act included the same language that is now in the similarly named federal bill.

Obama is also trying to hide his support for abortions in general, including federal funding. His defenders in the New York Times have decried an issues ad aimed at his record of supporting taxpayer funding of abortions and overturning state restrictions on abortions, calling it Swift Boat campaigning. You can debate the merits of campaign finance law, but not the truth of Obama's extreme pro-abortion positions. Over at "Between Two Worlds" you can see a video of Obama promising to pass the "Freedom of Choice Act." If you read the proposed bill you might reasonably ask, "Where is the taxpayer funding of abortions in there?" In two places. First, the bill calls abortion a "matter of reproductive health." If enacted, such language would require all providers of Medicaid, Medi-Cal or other taxpayer funded health care for the poor to also provide abortions, as a matter of non-discrimination. Second, the bill makes abortion a fundamental right codified into law. When someone gets rights like these (such as the right to a lawyer for the accused), we all know who foots the bill. That's right boys and girls, the taxpayers. Also, the language of the bill explicitly overrides every state law restricting abortion and makes them subordinate to this proposed federal law.

Whenever his record is brought to light, Obama plays hardball on the abortion issue. He wouldn't be counter-attacking with such vehemence if his team didn't think his record on this issue wasn't such a lose. I think he could lose Pennsylvania on this issue, for example, and that might be game over.

Finally, your heart has to go out to Gianna Jessen, who sufferes from cerebral palsey as a result of the botched attempt on her life. I would like to leave you with her response to Obama's counterattack on her:

Jessen responded to the ad and told LifeNews.com: "Obama is clearly blinded by political ambition given his attack on me this week."

"All I asked of him was to do the right thing: support medical care and protection for babies who survive abortion – as I did 31 years ago," she said. "He voted against such protection and care four times even though the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of a bill identical to the one Obama opposed."

"In the words of his own false and misleading ad, his position is downright vile," Jessen continued."Obama said at the recent Saddleback Forum that the question of when babies should get human rights was above his pay grade. Such vacillation and cowardice would have left me to die if his policies were in place when I was born. Thank God they were not," she said.

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Demagoguery and Seizing on Current Fears

Obama put out a bald faced lie today in Florida:

“If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week,”

This is demagoguery of the worst sort, for two reasons. First, neither John McCain nor George Bush ever proposed putting all Social Security contributions into the stock market, only a portion. Second, even if someone had done been allowed to invest their Social Security taxes in the stock market over the past 30 years, they would still be receiving superior returns to those the government provides. Some facts:

At the beginning of 1975 the S&P 500 Index was at 68.56. Since that time the S&P 500 Index has experienced an impressive growth rate to its current level around 1500. During that time the S&P 500 Index has had 25 years of positive gains and 7 years of negative returns.

The S&P 500 closed at 1255 on Friday, despite a week of panic, so the historic rate of return from 1975 is 8.8%. (That article must have been written early this year.) This is what a diversified portfolio of stocks can be expected to earn over many years. It is scandalous that Obama is peddling the myth that this is somehow risky, the greater risk for most workers not near retirement would to not be in the market. Meanwhile Social Security is offering a rate of return of less than 2%.

Further, Social Security obligations can not be sustained without change. Obama has joined Pelosi and Reid in opposing any change to a system that we can state to a certainty is on a path to bankruptcy. From David Ignatius in the WaPo

Pelosi describes with relish her strategy for trouncing Bush's plan to privatize Social Security -- which was to blast it mercilessly, without offering an alternative. The implicit message is that negotiation and compromise are for losers. The reality that Social Security is facing bankruptcy seems not to interest either Pelosi or Reid.

Nor Obama for that matter. So much for hope and change. This is relevant to the current crisis; do we really need four or eight years of failing to deal with impending crises? Because the current financial mess, bad as it may seem, pales in comparison to the $44 trillion in unfunded liabilities in the Social Security system over the next 75 years. And for some reason, young people are the ones supporting The One. I guess there is some irony there, as they will be the ones to pay the bill.


P.S. If you want to determine the historical rate of return for the S&P 500 (or any other index) for any period of your choosing, use R=(ln(final value/initial value))/T, where R is the rate of return as a decimal (you need to multiply by 100 to get per cent) and T is the period of time in years that you are examining. I challenge the reader to find a 30 year period where the rate of return is less than the best we can expect of Social Security (2%).

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Bringing Us Together - By Stoking Racial Tensions

Rush Limbaugh has ripped Obama for stoking racial tensions with a Spanish language ad that accuses of McCain being a racist just like Limbaugh with identical views on immigration. [Pause for Rush fans to pick themselves up off the floor and stop laughing.] Rush is fully capable of defending himself and does very well in his WSJ opinion piece. I had to give a couple great quotes from Rush:

"...Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before."

"Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society."

However, I noticed another angle in the transcript of this ad (from Hot Air):

“Don’t forget that John McCain abandoned us rather than confront the leaders of the Republican Party. Many of us were born here, and others came to work and achieve a better life for their families — not to commit crimes or drain the system like many of John McCain’s friends claim. Let’s not be fooled by political tricks from John McCain and the Republicans. Vote so they respect us. Vote for a change.”

Notice how the ad conflates those, presumably of Mexican origin, who were born here with those who "came to work and achieve" after BREAKING THE LAW. (Props to Dean at BwD for repeatedly pointing out media idiocy on this meme.) Then, with these two groups rhetorically one happy family, the punch line is "Let's not be fooled... Vote for a change." Obama's campaign is knowingly encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for him. Further, he is condoning illegal immigration. If Team McCain could get some message discipline going, they could hammer Obama for almost a week for this crap. Bilbray won that special election in 2006 after Francine Busby got caught on tape apparently saying to an immigrant without papers, "You can all help--you don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help." This turned what was thought to be a close election into a blow out (and not for Busby).

Also, Obama aspires to hold the highest office in the land, whose oath of office requires not just respect for, but active defense of the constitution. That same constitution calls on the Executive Branch to enforce the laws of this nation passed by the Congress. But words only mean what The One wants them to mean.

H/T: Hot Air

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McCain and AIG

John McCain missed a great opportunity to distance himself from the Bush administration on the AIG bail out. He had initially said that we cannot allow the taxpayers bail out AIG or anyone else. Later, he appeared to change his mind. By doing so he also missed the opportunity to separate himself from Obama on this issue and show leadership. I am very unhappy. I expect more from this great American, which is one reason I started this blog. I don't think it is a coincidence that he is drifting down in the polls. His initial instincts were good, just like his instincts on nominating Palin. I hope he gets back his mojo soon, because electing the most liberal member of the Senate to the Presidency won't help. If that happens, we can count on an even deeper financial hole for our government.

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More Regulation - There's a Winning Formula

I mistakenly turned on the start of Keith Olbermann's program this evening. In his typical O-booster style, the Keithster stated that Obama was offering a six point plan for healing the economy while McCain could only complain about alphabet soup.... That's when I hit the remote. Figuring Olbermann to always be exagerating for his guy, I thought I would check up on this six point plan. It's proving tougher than I thought. While many web sites allude to Obama having such a plan, for the life of me I can't find the details. Why am I not surprised?

However, what little I could find:

Obama laid out a six-point regulatory plan. It would subject all financial institutions that can borrow from the government to more oversight, crack down on trading practices he said border on market manipulation and create a financial advisory group to discuss potential problems with the president.

Obama also said he would push a $50 billion emergency economic plan to repair infrastructure and schools, offer a 10 percent tax credit on mortgage costs to middle-class homeowners and change bankruptcy laws to make it easier for people in financial trouble to stay in their homes.

So clearly more regulation is the answer? How about we stop creating these messes when the Congress establishes crony-capitalist enterprises like Fannie and Freddie with implicit guarantees from the taxpayers. How about we let some banks fail and let some real pain hit Wall Street. Protect the depositors by all means through the FDIC. But without the pain of failure and loss of their wealth, the Wall Street types will continue to take risks that are too large for the potential gain.

Secondly, how the heck is $50 billion for infrastructure and schools related to this crisis. Obama's instincts to throw my money at problems are truly frightening. Also, memo to Suit, it already is almost impossible to lose your home in bankruptcy proceedings. so please get a clue. So after throwing $200 billion at Fannie and Freddie and another $85 billion at AIG, Obama says what the heck, let's throw down a side bet on infrastructure for another $50 billion. Meanwhile the federal deficit is approaching $500 billion this year before the costs of bail outs. Wait, the Fannie/Freddie bail out won't cost anything, the geniuses in the Bush administration have decided that liability shouldn't be on the government's balance sheet. (Bush must REALLY hate McCain.)

And about that alphabet soup comment. McCain is in fact correct, the overlap in jurisdiction creates uncertainty, but also opportunity for the unscrupulous who use the confusion to their advantage. More effective and accountable regulation, not new regulation might be a better prescription to go with not creating the messes in the first place.

Inspiration or Irritation?

More on the Pop Quiz theme. With Wall Street tanking today and more big banks in trouble, I looked for a side by side comparison of what Obama and McCain talked about. Just to be fair, I even used the New York Times as my source.

So how do our candidates fare? Not surprisingly, Suit goes negative. McCain is the continuation of Bush, votes for tax breaks for corporations, votes against the minimum wage. But not a peep about what he would do and not a single word of encouragement.

McCain is now the "happy warrior" with the "sunshine on his face." He says today's crisis is not the fault of American workers, and touts their skills and ability to compete in the global economy. He calls for reform on Wall Street, which only seems sensible at this juncture.

Over on Obama's web site, which I refuse to link, (you can find it on your own) Obama twists McCain's words. Here is McCain's actual quote:

My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals of the American worker, their innovation and entrepreneurship, the innovation of small businesses, those are the fundamentals of America, and I think they are strong.

Obama slanders McCain by claiming he said the economy's fundamentals themselves are strong, when that is clearly not the case. You stay classy Suit. Speaking of class, the reason I won't link his site is that you can't enter it without turning down his request for a donation, as if he's some wino, defending his turf over the subway grate.

Bottom line, with huge economic uncertainty facing the nation and a potential banking crisis looming, Obama seeks to scare, but only irritates, and McCain seeks to inspire. This is all you need to know about these candidates.

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Biden's "New" Message: McCain is Bush III... Yawn

According to Victoria McGrane, in today's Politico, Joe Biden hit John McCain HARD, showing the country how he is just like Bush. News flash to Team Barry, the man at left is not running for President. Also, isn't this what you've been doing for three months?

Stop the presses. I must be suffering from "déjà vu all over again."

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Obama's "New" Message: McCain is Bush III... Yawn

According to Michael Goodwin, in today's New York Daily News, Barack Obama is about to hit John McCain HARD, showing the country how he is just like Bush. News flash to Team Barry, the man at left is not running for President. Also, isn't this what you've been doing for three months?

I've been away from the blogging for a few days, my apologies to those who checked in looking for new posts. Aside from some personal reasons to take a break, I could not, for the life of me, find anything new Obama had to say lately. It seemed all Palin, all the time. Obama is just not breaking into the news cycle. Ever since his standard Lib-Dem convention speech, he seems to have vanished from the news cycle.

Looking around for clues, I found this article at the Detroit Free Press asserting that both candidates are avoiding hot button issues. It then gives a run down on their stand on various issues. Here is the money quote:

Obama, on the other hand, generally follows the standard liberal line. But he does so in a carefully modulated way that shows -- or attempts to -- his respect for opinions different than his.

Obama is a liberal who tries to be nice when he talks about the issues. Even though he claims to want a debate on the issues, I think he senses he is on the losing side of most arguments about guns, late term abortions, affirmative action, and taxes. The one issue where opinion polls seem to favor his position is "universal health care." But even though the polls seem to favor his approach, it starts to unravel when the actual cost of imposing the taxes, regulation and restrictions necessary are really understood by the voters.

Back to Goodwin's article:

The decision to stick with a mostly-nasty approach should finally end the myth that the Obama campaign is a flawless machine. It had an extraordinarily appealing candidate, a message of change to an unhappy nation and made brilliant tactical decisions that defeated the Clintons.

I see Obama pulling a Romney. Obama had a lot of time as the front runner to really define himself with more details than just "hope and change," but like Romney he chose to go negative rather than use his lead to give his brand name a specific identity. He has ceded that task to his opponent. His meteoric drop amongst the odds-makers to be the next President is the result.

Post-script: A quick note about the "horse race" aspect of the election. Over at RealClearPolitics.com they have an electoral map with no toss up states. It is instructive to see that if polls are to be believed, Obama would lose the popular vote but still be elected President were the election to be held today. Although I don't really believe that, it is instructive to see that the electoral map has shifted very little from 2000 or 2004. It will come down to Ohio, Colorado, Michigan or some other swing state, in all likelihood. The bad news is that McCain is probably going to be outspent. The good news is that Obama seems to have wasted a good deal of cash on a "50 state" strategy, when in fact less than 10 states are really going to matter.

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Well Done

From the AP:

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama made ground zero their common ground for one rare day, free of politics and infused with memory. Putting their partisan contest on a respectful hold, they walked together Thursday into the great pit where the World Trade Center once stood and, as one, honored the dead from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

We will put aside partisanship today as well.

God Bless the United States of America.

Obama and the Bubble Boys

KT, over at the Scratching Post, has written the article I wish I had. He makes the excellent point about the cocoon (or bubble if you will) in which Obama lives, along with the MSM. It has deprived him of the intellectual battle needed to sharpen his wit, leaving him mentally soft for the fight ahead. Now, he's not ready for the big leagues.

Peggy Noonan also talks about the bubble journalists live in:

Let me say of myself and almost everyone I know in the press, all the chattering classes and political strategists and inside dopesters of the Amtrak Acela Line:
We live in a bubble and have around us bubble people. We are Bubbleheads. We know this and try to compensate for it by taking road trips through the continent -- we're on one now, in Minneapolis -- where we talk to normal people. But we soon forget the pithy, knowing thing the garage mechanic said in the diner, and anyway we weren't there long enough in the continent to KNOW, to absorb. We view through a prism of hyper-sophistication, and judge by the rules of Chevy Chase and Greenwich, of Cleveland Park and McLean, of Bronxville and Manhattan.

I think this gives Republicans an advantage; they are less likely to be in that mindset or lifestyle. When they had power for too long, it went to their heads and they started to act like arrogant Democrats, and look what happened to them in 2006.

Clive Crook at the Financial Times also makes a similar point about the Democrats (and by extension, the media) discussing their reaction to Sarah Palin's selection:

If only the Democrats could contain their sense of entitlement to govern in a rational world, and their consequent distaste for wide swathes of the US Electorate, they might gain the unshakeable grip on power they feel they deserve. Winning elections would certainly be easier – and Republicans would have to address themselves more seriously to economic insecurity. But the fathomless cultural complacency of the metropolitan liberal rules this out.

Maybe Obama will still win the election, but the country will be the worse off for the lack of challenge to his liberal orthodoxy.

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Supporting Obama Campaign Pins

Over at Democraticstuff.com you can get the exact campaign pin you need to show your support for Obama. My shipment came in over the weekend. I had to modify one, but the other was ready to wear right away.

My youngsters went for the Emo for Obama and Hipsters for Obama pins. It seemed funny to them, but don't ask me what it means.

H/T MyDD

Standing Up for Community Organizers

Those of you who follow Iowahawk know that David Burge is also running for President. Unlike Obama, he is capable of delivering a smack down to Sarah Palin over her community organizer comments. Just to give Obama his due (second time today for me) I have plagiarized Burge's description of the duties of community organizers.

• reach out and work with communities in various ways.
• liaison with, and for, community agencies for service within affected areas.
• fight to make a difference.
• raise awareness.
• deal with community issues.
• raise awareness in the community of how we are making differences about undealt-with issues .
• when necessary, refer inquiries to outreach coordinators.
• Help coordination agency administrators identify and address outreach opportunities.
• model timetables and conceptualize benchmarks.
• issue guidelines for poster contests and interpretive dance festivals.
• Gather voter registrations, win valuable prizes.

Are we clear now?

POP QUIZ! (For the Candidates, Updated)

Today, Treasury Secretary Paulson announced that the federal government was seizing control of the mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This provides us with an opportunity to see both candidates reactions and judge their judgment side-by-side. After all, Obama himself said that this election is all about good judgment. First the quotes:

From Obama:

"Given the substantial role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in our housing system, I believe that some form of intervention is necessary to prevent a larger and deeper crisis throughout our entire economy," Obama said in a statement.

From McCain

Republican McCain supports the federal takeover of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but wants eventual privatization, his advisors said.

"The long-term reforms are to scale down Fannie and Freddie so their size is no longer a threat. And then privatize them. Get them off the taxpayer's books entirely," said McCain's chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin.

Obama's statement is fine, as far is it goes, but note, PLEASE note that McCain says the truly courageous thing, that these quasi-governmental agencies need to be privatized to reduce the risk to you the taxpayer. BTW, how do you like sharing the estimated $200 billion bill with your fellow citizens. You probably can guess my preferences, but we want to hear from you the readers. Please take our poll and comment.

UPDATE #1:

John McCain and Sarah Palin have posted their full response in the WSJ. I really like it.

No Hope that HE will Change the Dems

Note the sleeves rolled up a little higher on Mr. Suit, pictured at right, campaigning in Indiana. According to Politico reporter Carrie Brown's article, he looks and sounds like a candidate who realizes time is running out. Well, we here at TILoBO certainly hope so. So here is Obama's biting criticism of Governor Palin:

“I know the governor of Alaska has been, you know, saying she is change,” Obama said at a town hall here. “But when you [have] been taking all these earmarks when it is convenient and then suddenly you are the champion anti-earmark person. That is not change, come on. I mean, words mean something. You can’t just make stuff up.”

We certainly agree, at least with the part that words mean something and that one shouldn't make things up. But our position is that Obama is the one making things up. (BTW, he again appears to be sans teleprompter.) He is The One proposing change and bipartisanship but has never crossed his party leadership and has one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate. Further, his acceptance speech sounded like the standard Kerry, Edwards, Gore populist Dem stump speech... "Americans are doing poorly, only the rich are better off, only more government under my leadership can save the middle class. Blah, blah, blah." Indeed his new stump speech is more of the same, bemoaning how bad everything is. So much for any Hope that He would Change the Democrat party.

Unanswered Questions for Mr. Suit

I'm not commenting on John McCain's excellent acceptance speech, because I missed key portions of it. In the past week's hubbub, you may have overlooked John Fund's excellent article in last week's WSJ, asking the Obama camp to answer a few questions. I have some of my own as well. (That is Bill Ayers pictured at left, and Tony Rezko at right.)
From Fund's article:
Why is his campaign so secretive and defensive in general about his life's story?
Why are Obama's people harassing Stanley Kurtz for wanting to look at Univ of Illinois records involving Obama's connection with William Ayers?
Where are his appointment records from the Illinois Senate?
My favorites I will quote directly:

Rezko's trial raised a host of questions. Was Mr. Obama able to save $300,000 on the asking price of his house because Rezko's wife paid full price for the adjoining lot? How did Mrs. Rezko make a $125,000 down payment and obtain a $500,000 mortgage when financial records shown at the Rezko trial indicate she had a salary of only $37,000 and assets of $35,000? Records show her husband also had few assets at the time.

BTW, the Obama camp has released a mound of papers with regard to this house purchase, except... the settlement statement, which should show the source of funds for the purchase. KT, you can chime in here if you want.

My questions:
How did you get into Pakistan in college unless you used an Indonesian passport? Why did you not mention this trip in your memoirs?

Why did you really vote against the "Born Alive Infants Protection Act?"

Why can't you admit you were wrong on the surge?

If you are waiting for answers from Team Obama, don't be doing this: