Will Obama become America's Hugo Chavez?

Here is one person's version of "What's Next": The Third Term

On the above link, a video will try to play, showing text with someone narrating it. It's very long. If you prefer to read (as I do), simply try to shut the window. When you do, a pop up will ask you if you really want to leave. Don't do anything for a moment; the page will reload, with the full text from the video. Then from the pop-up box you can choose to stay on the page and read.

It's a long ramble, by Porter Stansberry, who is trying to sell his investment newsletter. In the course of that, he predicts that Obama, in his second term, will consolidate and keep his power from an economic boom caused by shale oil and natural gas.

That may sound far-fetched, but he does explain with extensive sources and data to back his prediction. He also makes two very compelling historical comparisons, with Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, who both used similar circumstances to do what Stansberry believes Obama will also do. FDR managed a third term, and Obama could do the same, either by changing the constitution or by having his wife Michelle run as his proxy.

The data he gives for shale oil and natural gas is also fascinating. He uses his record of past accurate predictions, to bolster his predictions for Obama. The extensive references and data he offers to back up his ideas and predictions seems very plausible; it pieces together a lot of things I've heard from various other sources.

I wanted to print some excerpts here, and discuss some of the ideas, but blogger has changed it's publishing software, and I am now finding it very difficult to work with. The new blogger software requires me to do extensive reformatting of excerpted text, which is very time consuming. And even then, it often won't let me publish it (like it did today, after I did all the work!).

Thus, I predict, that I will not be blogging very much anymore. I have a life, and I'm going to start living it more. I may occasionally post interesting links and small amounts of text, but I'm pretty sure my most active blogging days are behind me.

It was fun, it was a learning experience. But now, seeing as Blogger has made this so unnecessarily arduous and time-consuming, methinks it's time to make better use of my time.

After November, Obama will NOT be like Clinton

Some people think Obama will become more "centrist", like Clinton did when Republicans won big in the middle of his first term. But will he? In this interview, Dinesh D'Souza believes the answer is "no":

Dinesh D’Souza on the Anti-Colonial Business
Explaining President Obama, rereading Dreams from My Father.

Dinesh D’Douza’s new book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, has a reputation that precedes it — in large part due to some advance buzz from Newt Gingrich and a piece in Forbes. Now that the book is on shelves, in a conversation with NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez, Dinesh D’Souza seeks to set the record straight about The Roots, and Obama.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What makes you so sure you know how Obama thinks?

DINESH D’SOUZA: It’s really simple: I figure out how Obama thinks by reading what Obama writes and says. My theory about Obama is really derived from Obama himself. It’s quite silly how people are saying things like, well, Obama didn’t really know his absentee father, so he couldn’t have been influenced by him. Go read his book, starting with the title Dreams from My Father. The whole book is about how Obama shaped his values, personality, and identity in the image of his father. So I took Obama at his word on this and then asked the question, “If Obama took his father’s anti-colonial ideology, how does that help to explain his policies?” Not only does it explain Obama’s foreign and domestic policy, it also explains lots of little details about Obama’s actions that no other theory can explain.

[...]

LOPEZ: Much of your argument could have been made during the presidential campaign — based on Barack Obama’s own writings. Why is it new and important now?

D’SOUZA: My argument is relevant now because if we know what motivates Obama, we have his compass. Not only can we explain what he is doing, but we can also predict what he is going to do in the future. For instance, there is a lot of speculation now about whether Obama will be a centrist after the midterm election, like Bill Clinton became after 1994. My theory says that he won’t because he cannot. Clinton was largely a non-ideological guy. If Obama came by his liberalism in the faculty lounge, then sure, he can see it hasn’t worked and he can modify it. But if Obama got his formative ideas when he was very young, and if they are the result of his traumatic relationship with his father, then they are built into his psyche. He’s not going to change because, to his anti-colonial mindset, meeting the Republicans halfway is a form of sellout. He would be untrue to his principles if he were to cut deals with a group that he considers to be the neocolonial party. [...]

Interesting. In any case, we shall see.

More about Obama's anti-colonial mindset:

LOPEZ: What are some clear examples of how this anti-colonialist mindset can be seen in the presidency of Barack Obama?

D’SOUZA: Ramesh Ponnuru and others say Obama is a conventional liberal. But conventional liberals don’t come out for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Conventional liberals don’t return the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Conventional liberals don’t block oil drilling in America while subsidizing oil drilling in Brazil. Conventional liberals don’t try to turn the space agency NASA into a Muslim-outreach program.

My anti-colonial theory beautifully explains all these facts. If Obama views America as the neocolonial occupier of Iraq and Afghanistan, then Muslims fighting against America are anti-colonial resisters and deserve a measure of sympathy; no wonder Obama has no problem with releasing the Lockerbie bomber. Obama hates Churchill because Churchill was the prime minister who cracked down on an anti-colonial uprising in Kenya, one in which Obama’s father and grandfather were both arrested. Obama’s oil-drilling double standard is fully understandable when you see that he wants the neocolonial oppressors to have less and the former colonized countries to have more. If Obama sees NASA as a symbol of American power — not only are we the world’s superpower, but now we are trying to colonize space — then we can see why he might want to convert NASA into a symbol of international achievement, not American greatness. So plug in the anti-colonial theory and you can explain the facts; remove it and Obama’s behavior becomes almost impossibly difficult to account for. [...]

Read the whole interview. It goes on to demonstrate how Obama's views toward socialism follow closely in the footsteps of his father. It explains a lot. It also explains why the media has been attacking D'Souza's book so vorciferously, and why some of his critics are trying to discredit him by claiming he's a "birther"; an accusation he dispells in the interview, by pointing out that in his book he clearly states that he believes that Obama was born in Hawaii.

When leftists can't counter the message, they always start lying about the messenger. It's despicable.


Related Link:

The Roots of Obama's Rage
     

Today's Neosocialists, and their methods

Marx Would Be Impressed

[...] Today's neosocialists are smarter than their ancestors. Instead of outright takeovers, they are achieving much the same goal through rigid regulations. ObamaCare is a prime example. Health insurers will eventually be private in name only, as the details of their policies will be dictated by governmental decrees. About the only thing companies will have any autonomy over--perhaps--will be their corporate logo.

Entitlements go hand in hand with sweeping, overbearing regulations. President Obama wants higher education in this country to be free of charge, which is why his Administration is pushing for a government takeover of student lending. With such powers it will be but a wee stretch to intrude even further into the governance of the nation's colleges and universities--including, ultimately, admissions.

Senator Chris Dodd's (D--Conn.) recently unveiled package of financial regulatory reforms is a neosocialist's dream. It is also destructively stupid. The bill doesn't address the key causes of the recent economic crisis: the Fed's too loose monetary policy, the behavior of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in buying or guaranteeing almost $1.5 trillion in junk mortgages and the failure to properly regulate credit default swaps and other derivatives.

Dodd's punting on swaps is astonishing. Years ago Washington should have mandated that such instruments go through clearinghouses so there'd be full transparency and proper margin requirements. After all, classic derivatives such as soybeans and currency futures have had margin requirements and clearing mechanisms.

In the name of fighting Washington's too-big-to-fail doctrine for major financial institutions, Dodd's bill is a de facto institutionalization of them. Financial outfits that are deemed a threat to financial stability will actually be protected by the government. The bill establishes a $50 billion fund to deal with big failures, but the fact that such a fund exists tells the market that when trouble comes big banks will be saved. Thus these biggies, like Fannie and Freddie, will have lower costs of borrowing--debt is by far the biggest component of their capital--which will put their smaller competition at a crippling disadvantage. [...]

In a recent post I addressed how Fannie and Freddie are being protected while their competitors, who have already paid back money, are being unfairly penalized.

And where is this all leading us? The Big get Bigger, the small disappear:

Moreover, the bill doesn't address the problem small businesses have with the current credit system. Bank examiners are applying a mark-to-market mentality in evaluating bank loans. This is an unfair bias toward bigger-sized borrowers and, of course, the debt-hungry U.S. government. Thus the paradox of today: bargain-basement rates of interest for larger firms and higher costs--or no credit at all--for smaller borrowers.

With favored access to low-cost debt the big will get bigger--and they will be beholden to Washington.

Dodd's scheme would create a new regulatory bureaucracy, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), with sweeping powers for itself (and the Fed). Chief among its tasks would be assessing risk of banks and their products and activities, yet Washington has demonstrated that it is incapable of judging risk. Washington would have vast sway over the operations of the U.S. financial system. In this new world banks would have to get permission from Washington for any innovation. If an institution incurred Washington's displeasure, bureaucrats could order divestitures of businesses or could even put a firm out of business. [...]

Read the whole thing for more details. Government is creating the problems, not solving them.
     

Bipartisianship? Not without genuine liberals

Gerard Alexander: Why are liberals so condescending?

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.

[...]

This condescension is part of a liberal tradition that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, society and the functions of government -- and threatens to do so again today, when dialogue would be more valuable than ever.

[...]

Indeed, when the president met with House Republicans in Baltimore recently, he assured them that he considers their ideas, but he then rejected their motives in virtually the same breath.

"There may be other ideas that you guys have," Obama said. "I am happy to look at them, and I'm happy to embrace them. . . . But the question I think we're going to have to ask ourselves is, as we move forward, are we going to be examining each of these issues based on what's good for the country, what the evidence tells us, or are we going to be trying to position ourselves so that come November, we're able to say, 'The other party, it's their fault'?" [...]

I'm tired of this grandstanding. The article goes into great detail, with many examples, of how the left refuses to listen to anything the right has to say. Yet it also acknowleges some similar resistance on the right, though it claims it's less prevelant.

Liberal isn't a dirty word to me, so I hate the way the word is used in this article. But it gets used like this, because so many people who are calling themselves liberal are really anything but.

A genuine liberal is easygoing, open-minded, and is flexible; not rigidly ideological. I think that description fits a lot of independents and people near the political center: conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. Their voices need to be heard more, because it is they who can bring about genuine bipartisan consensus where it's desperately needed.

All the rest of it is too much fiddling, while Rome burns. Enough already.
     

Far Left Dems: Lie, Sabotage, and Replace...

I've been saying it for years. They want to destroy capitalism and our Constitutional legal system, and replace them with something else. Here's proof. I've copied this from Nealz Nuze:

[START]

HEARD OF PROFESSORS CLOWARD AND PIVEN?

By Neal Boortz

Both were at liberal Columbia University professors in the '60's. (I know, "liberal Columbia University Professor" is redundant). These two professors put forth their Cloward-Piven strategy in an article in The Nation magazine. The issue date was May 2, 1966. David Horowitz summarizes the strategy thusly:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Hmmmmm. Does that sound at all like our current "crisis" in health care? I mean, how many people do you personally know who are in the throes of despair right now because of some needed health care service that is beyond their reach? Oh sure, I know that there are lifeboat cases; there always are, in any society. But do the relatively small percentage of people out there who are facing some sort of unmet medical disaster constitute an entire system in "crisis?" Certainly not. So why the huge push? Why the asinine idea that our economic recovery is dependent on developing some form of national healthcare? Why is this all being painted as a crisis that to be solved right-by-God-now or our entire society is endangered? Well ... Obama and the Democrats, of course, are anxious to get this segment of the economy under their absolute control before next year's mid-term elections. Time is really of the essence for them. Consider also that if you're going to use the Cloward-Pivin Strategy of manufactured crisis, you have to treat it like an actual crisis, and that means dealing with it NOW!

Here's a bit from The Nation article: The essential features of a campaign using the Cloward-Pivin Strategy.

1. The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
2. The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
3. The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.

Needless to say we're going to be discussing my "find" here (thanks to a listener email) in coming days and weeks. But first, perhaps you would like to learn more on your own. Go ahead .. use Google. But here's two links to get you started:

1. Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis, from American Thinker.com
2. The Cloward-Piven Strategy, from Discoverthenetworks.org

What do you think? Could the Democrat-Socialist party be intentionally trying to collapse our system?

[END]

Hell yes. Not all Democrats think like that of course, but the hardcore leftists, and even much of the party leadership, yes. They want our economy and our system of government to fail, so they can replace it with their totalitarian... "vision". They would call it a dream, but many of us would call it a nightmare. Most of them would not admit it publicly, but they don't have to. They know where the road will take us, they just have to prod us all down the path, till it's too late to turn back.

Pat also posted about this:

The Cloward-Piven Strategy
     

Will the US push Honduras over the Edge?

It sure looks like our government is trying to do just that:

Honduras at the Tipping Point
Why is the U.S. not supporting the rule of law?

Good question. We are siding with the dictators of Venezuela and Cuba. Why?
     

CNN's Susan Roesgen; media bias at it's worst

Her "coverage" of Tax Protesters is a good example of many in the Mainstream Media who have contempt for ordinary Americans. And now there is video of what happened after that:

MORE OF THE STORY OF SUSAN ROESGEN'S TEA PARTY MOMENT

I hope that by now, the name Susan Roesgen is a household name. I hope it is a name that is equated with idiocy. I'm sorry, folks. There is no other way to put it. Her little tirade at the tea parties the other day was an embarrassment for CNN.

A blogger has now released footage of what happened after Susan Roesgen decided that her tea party coverage was "no longer suitable for family viewing" .... It seems as though the tea party protestors had their way with her. Gotta love it. Warning: bad words. [...]

Unfortunately, it looks like CNN has yanked the video from Youtube. But not before her little song and dance got exposed for what it was. [I'll update the video link if I find it reposted]

The Boortz article goes on to show how low CNN news is in the ratings. Gee, I wonder if it's because they do crap like this? I hope it costs them advertisers.

I don't believe that ordinary Americans have become "Fringe", although clearly reporters like Roesgen want to make them that way, by any underhanded means they can manage.

Unfortunately, I agree with Pat, that the tea parties started over 5 months too late. Better late than never? I don't know; sometimes too late is too late. We shall see.
     

Europeans go sour on Obama, even as he strives to make America more like Europe

I feel the cover of the latest National Review is right-on. The Democrats feel the economic crisis is an "opportunity" to replace capitalism with their vision of something else. The San Francisco Democrats are rejoicing, because it's their vision that's leading the Democrat party now. They've maintained that we need to become like Europe, and now Obama and the Democrat majority in congress will deliver that to them.

The actual Europeans, though, aren't all that thrilled. Here is an interesting article by Mark Steyn in this issue of National Review. It starts of with an amusing commentary about the shabby way British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was treated on his official visit to the White House.

I actually don't see THAT as such a big deal, for two reasons. Britain hasn't been such a great ally in recent years; and Brown is disliked at home, even in his own party, and about to become toast anyway. More interesting is what comes later in the article, about Europe generally:

The Great Destabilization

[...] The other week Der Spiegel ran a piece called “Why Obamania Isn’t the Answer,” which might more usefully have been published before the Obamessiah held his big Berlin rally. Written by some bigshot with the German Council on Foreign Relations and illustrated by the old four-color hopey-changey posters all scratched up and worn out, the essay conceded that Europe had embraced Obama as a “European American.” Very true. The president is the most European American ever to sit in the Oval Office. And, because of that, he doesn’t need any actual European Europeans getting in the way — just as, at his big victory-night rally in Chicago, the first megastar president didn’t need any megastar megastars from Hollywood clogging up the joint: Movie stars who wanted to fly in were told by his minders that he didn’t want any other celebrities deflecting attention from him. Same with world leaders. If it’s any consolation to Gordon Brown, he’s just not that into any of you.

What Mr. Brown and the rest of the world want is for America, the engine of the global economy, to pull the rest of them out of the quicksand — which isn’t unreasonable. Even though a big chunk of the subprime/securitization/credit-bubble axis originated in the United States and got exported round the planet, the reality is that almost every one of America’s trading partners will wind up getting far harder hit.

And that was before Obama made clear that for him the economy takes a very distant back seat to the massive expansion of government for which it provides cover. That’s why he’s indifferent to the plummeting Dow. The president has made a strategic calculation that, to advance his plans for socialized health care, “green energy,” and a big-government state, it’s to his advantage for things to get worse. And, if things go from bad to worse in America, overseas they’ll go from worse to total societal collapse. We’ve already seen changes of government in Iceland and Latvia, rioting in Greece and Bulgaria. The great destabilization is starting on the fringes of Europe and working its way to the Continent’s center.

We’re seeing not just the first contraction in the global economy since 1945, but also the first crisis of globalization. This was the system America and the other leading economies encouraged everybody else to grab a piece of. But whatever piece you grabbed — exports in Taiwan, services in Ireland, construction in Spain, oligarchic industrial-scale kleptomania in Russia — it’s all crumbling. Ireland and Italy are nation-state versions of Bank of America and General Motors. In Eastern Europe, the countries way out on the end of the globalization chain can’t take a lot of heat without widespread unrest. [...]

I've written recently about the freaky economics of Europe as their meltdown is unfolding. European governments are bracing for riots and Obama Euphoria has soured quickly, as Europeans realize Obama has no interest in supporting them with things like Missile Defense (even though we ought to be pursuing it for reasons of our own). It's a rich irony; because Obama wants to make our country like theirs (big socialized nanny-state government), we no longer have money to spend on their defenses anymore.

During our 2008 election campaign, the Europeans kept insisting that we MUST elect Obama, and that we wouldn't because we were racist. Now that we've done it, they don't like it. Too freak'n bad. They got what they said they wanted, and now they can kiss our President's ass.

Europe's support of Obama was never sincere. They were projecting their own racism onto us. They assumed we would NOT vote him in, and therefore, they supported him, so they could call us racist when he lost. What a surprise they got. I'd gloat about it more, except that our President is taking us down the same economic path as Europe, with, I fear, the same consequences.

The European Union relies on anti-Americanism as a primary justification for their Union's existence; since the end of the Cold War, they have been positioning themselves as the alternative to American power, and have been fostering anti-American sentiment as a cement to unite the European Union and hold it together. They need the American "Threat". Therefore, their plan is to kick us, no matter what we do. And of course still assume that we'll bail them out whenever they get into trouble.

Now they want us to pull their economic wagon out of the mud for them, but it isn't going to happen, because we're using their economic model and going into the mud with them. I hardly know whether to laugh or cry.


Related Links:

Democrat economics VS the creation of wealth

Is Obama compounding Bush's mistakes?
     

Spanish "Art" compared to Sistine Chapel

Who barfed on the ceiling? Here is a good example of how socialists waste taxpayer's money, and their poor taste in "Art":


Europe’s Multiculturalists: Reaching for the Marmalade Skies

[...] In the last few days the European headquarters of the United Nations has unveiled its new ceiling, decorated by Miquel Barceló, and funded to the tune of 20 million Euros by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. It drips with large, boldly colored stalactites, and is the sort of art that one might see in a kindergarten classroom – made of papier-mâché – though it is of course much grander in scale. But aside from the size of the work, it compares poorly with the abstract painting of Mark Rothko or the water lilies of Monet.

[...]

With its omnipresent fluffiness and unreality of color, Barceló asks us not to think, to provoke or be provoked, but to accept – to forego reason and immerse ourselves instead in childish dreaminess. Unlike Guernica, the Sistine Chapel, or the reliefs of the US Supreme Court building, it is a work in which dialectic cannot be discerned, nor from which it is possible to initiate debate. It is a work in which there is no hint of parliamentary opposition, no right versus wrong, no good or evil. It represents the vision of men who have neither gravitas nor substance. If we can discern its provenance, it leads back only so far as the 1960s, to the Beatle’s lyrics of “marmalade skies,” “tangerine trees,” and “nothing is real.” It is an LSD trip, or Futurism extra light.

Barceló’s ceiling is thus the perfect backdrop to Europe’s Prozac politics – the religio-political cult of multiculturalism – in which all difficult questions, all dissent, all real content, can be dissolved not by rational argument, but by the invocation of paint-box clichés.

Ouch! But richly deserved, methinks. The room is described as a "negotiating room". Can you imagine negotiating, while having colorful junk like that (100 TONS of paint) hanging over your head? It would be a bit distracting, I would think. And mentally, kind of chaotic. It reminds me of some chinsey fake cave in one of those amusement park boat rides for little children. 20 million Euros is a lot to pay for a chinsy fake cave.

Spain’s ‘New Way’ of Doing Diplomacy

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has just unveiled Spain’s latest contribution to fostering global peace and security. No, his government will not be sending more troops to help rebuild Afghanistan. And no, Spain will not be providing more vaccines to help needy children in Africa. Instead, the Zapatero government is the proud sponsor of a lavish decorative ceiling at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva.

Miquel Barceló, one of the world’s most highly paid abstract artists, was commissioned by Spain to redecorate “Room XX” and its ellipsoidal dome at the Palais des Nations. He used more than 100 tons of paint to turn the negotiating room into a cave dripping with thousands of 50-kilo multicolored artificial stalactites. [...]

Follow the link for more details, and links to more photos.
     

"Wealth Redistribution" and Obama: the Truth

This is the sort of thing that should have come out in the primaries, not 8 days before the election. Obama's comment to Joe the Plumber was just scratching the surface.

More from Neal Boortz:

REDISTRIBUTE THE WEALTH

Now that brings again to Obama. You've heard, haven't you, that a 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview of then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama has surfaced. In that interview Obama says that it was a tragedy that during the civil rights era the Supreme Court didn't pursue "redistribution of the wealth." Here's the relevant portion of the interview if you care to hear it for yourself.

We've really made some progress here. Well, I guess that the left has really made some progress. We now have a presidential candidate who talks openly of increasing taxes not because the government needs the money, but because the people who do have the money don't actually deserve it and there are other people out there who need it more. Sorry folks, but facts is facts. Redistribution of the wealth is a basic tenant of Communism. To whatever degree you support a forced redistribution of wealth you are a Communist. Simple as that.

The warning signs have always been there. In his book Dreams from my Father Obama writes of a relationship he had in is late teens with someone named "Frank." For some reason Obama doesn't include his last name. Obama refers to Frank as "a poet" who was full of "hard-earned knowledge." He also says that Frank had "some modest notoriety once." Yeah, I'll say. Frank was Frank Marshall Davis was a member of the CPUSA. For those of you who don't like acronyms, that's Communist Party of the United States of America. Frank Marshall Davis ... some mentor, don't you think?

For all of you suburban housewives and country clubbers who think that you are just so, like, enlightened for voting for Obama, it's time for your wake up call ... though I don't know if it will help:

Barack Obama's core belief is that we belong not to ourselves, but to government. We are tools that the government is free to use to bring about what Obama calls "economic justice." The fruits of our labor belong to government ... and government can do with them what it pleases.

Now if this is your philosophy, then vote for this guy. Then every time you draw a paycheck why don't you drop him a line and ask him how much of it you can keep to care for your family and plan for your own future and how much he would like to have to redistribute to someone who sat on their butt while you were busting yours. After all, you voted for him.

AND HOLD ON TO YOUR PENSIONS WHILE YOU'RE AT IT

Some interesting happenings last week. Argentina proposes seizing all private pensions. The purpose? That would be to redistribute all of that money to people who actually need it more. Now I've exhausted my Google capabilities trying to identify this person, I believe it was Barney Frank, but some leading Democrat last week said that the pensions belonging to some evil CEOs would be the first to go. That's just the beginning folks. Mark my words, because I want the "I told you so" on this one, after Obama is sworn in you are going to see an attack on privately held pensions and 401K plans. There's about four or five trillion dollars out there, and the Democrats want their hands on it to further their redistribution schemes.

FINALLY, A REPORTER WITH SOME ONIONS (WELL, FIGURATIVELY ANYWAY)

A TV reporter in Central Florida actually asked Joe Biden questions that we have waited so long for the MSM to ask ... and the Obama-Biden campaign isn't pleased. Last Thursday, Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Joe Biden. You can watch the interview here.

West asked Biden about Obama's "spread the wealth" comment. She quoted Karl Marx and asked Biden whether Obama's comments were Marxist. Biden's response: "Are you joking?" West also asked Biden about his comments that Obama would be tested by an international crisis early in his presidency. His response to that: "I don't know who is writing your questions."

It doesn't matter who is writing the questions, Joe. What matters is that these are the questions that many Americans have been wanted answers to ... but nobody has dared to ask.

In fact, Biden was so upset by the interview, that the Obama campaign canceled an interview with Jill Biden, Joe's wife, because it was unhappy with West's questions.

Here's what the Obama campaign had to say about the interview. Notice how the Obama campaign has reacted to radio and TV stations that run unflattering ads or ask tough questions – ban them, ask the Justice Department to get involved, get a hold of their advertisers. This is just the beginning, folks.

"There's nothing wrong with tough questions, but reporters have the very important job of sharing the truth with the public -- not misleading the American people with false information. Senator Biden handled the interview well; however, the anchor was completely unprofessional. Senator Biden's wife is not running for elected office, and there are many other stations in the Orlando television market that would gladly conduct a respectful and factual interview with her."

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election."

So by asking these questions, West is deemed "unprofessional." How about those reporters who reported on Sarah Palin's children, or her days as a beauty queen? Those reports are not unprofessional, but when you ask a Vice Presidential candidate about tax policy ... THAT is unprofessional.

Help for the undecided: The Summary

Neal Boortz has written a summary of the issues at stake in this election, to help the undecided along. It's long, but shorter than many voter information pamphlets, and more helpful. He's given permission to reprint the whole thing, so long as he's given credit for the writing, so I'm posting it here in it's entirety. You can also see it on his website here.

TO THE UNDECIDED VOTER

By Neal Boortz

© 2008 Neal Boortz

This is long; very long. Hey, I'm a pretty entertaining writer ... so give it a go. If you're an undecided voter in this presidential election the least you owe your country is to try to base your final choice on some substantive facts. No, I don't have all the facts here ... but I have enough of them to perhaps convince you that voting one particular way on November 4th might not be the most brilliant move you've ever made.

This election is my 10th. My 10th presidential election since I became a radio talk show host. My 10th election since I began spending more time than the average American thinking about, researching, reading about and talking about the choices voters face. Look; I mean no arrogance here. It's just that the average American doesn't spend from 15 (then) to 22.5 (now) hours a week over the period of a presidential race talking about the candidates, the issues, the non-issues and the consequences of voter choice.

Never in those ten elections can I remember choices so stark and possible outcomes so perilous. For the record, over those 10 elections I voted for the Republican candidate six times and the Libertarian four. Never have I voted for a Democrat for president. I see no need to vote for a Democrat since I have no plans or desires to become a ward of the government. Somehow I don't think 2008 is going to be the first time.

I've noted that some other "pundits" out there are starting to post, in columns and in their blogs, the reasons they are going to vote the way they are going to vote. I'll make no attempt to refute their (oh-so refutable) arguments here. Instead, I'm just going to put my thoughts and reasoning in writing just to cleanse my mind. If you can make some use of them; whether it is for laughter, talking points or intellectual consideration, have at it. Me? I'm just pulling the handle.

The Race Factor

Are many black voters going to vote for Barack Obama primarily because of race? Of course, many will. Surveys and polling have shown that the figure may reach 20%. I think it's well more than that. Is race a sound reason to cast a vote? Probably not. Is it understandable? Absolutely. I cannot fault a black American for voting for Obama. It may turn out to be a negative vote insofar as their dreams and goals are concerned. It may not work out all that well for their children, especially if they're ambitions and talented. But I don't think many of us can absolutely say that we wouldn't be casting the same vote were we in their shoes.

If you are a white American there is no way in the world you can look at this election through the same eyes as a third or fourth generation black American citizen. Several months ago a caller to my show suggested that Barack Obama's ascendency in the presidential sweepstakes was Black America's biggest accomplishment. I disagreed. Though I can't remember the exact words, I said that, in a general sense, the shining moment for Black America may have been the show of patience and restraint shown by black men when they returned from putting their lives on the line in World War II and in Korea to a country with segregated schools, colored waiting rooms, whites only water fountains, beatings, lynchings, water hoses, police dogs and systematic discrimination pretty much every where they looked. The restraint showed by black Americans during the civil rights struggles of the 50's and 60's, though not universal, was something to behold.

Now .. try, though you won't succeed, to put yourself into the mind of a black American. How can you experience or understand the legacy of segregation, violence and second-class citizenry your ancestors went through and not take pride in a black American on the verge of winning the presidency? How many black American voters do you think are uttering to themselves: "If my grandfather had only lived to see this." It takes a great deal of maturity and a clear understanding of the possible future consequences for someone to put their racial pride aside and swim against the tide on this one. So, there will be no name-calling, at least not here, for people who cast their vote on the basis of race in this election. As I said, It's understandable.

And Then There's the Race Card

This really isn't really a reason to vote for or against Barack Obama, but you do need to know what the next four years are going to be like with an Obama presidency.

During the campaign there have been some rather amazing charges of racism. Let's see if we can remember a few:

• Using the word "skinny" to refer to Obama is racist.
• "Community organizer" is a racist term.
• Any reference to a connection between Obama and Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae is racist ... that would be because Raines is black.
• All references to Jeremiah Wright are racist; that being due to Wright being black.
• Referring to Obama as "eloquent" is racist because it infers that other blacks are not eloquent.
• For goodness' sake, don't say that Obama is "clean."
• This just in from The Kansas City Star: Calling Obama a "socialist" is also racist because "socialist" is just another code word for black.

And so it goes. We've also had several pundits, columnists and opinion-makers flat-out state that if you are white and you don't vote for Barack Obama it can only be because he's black. There is simply no other legitimate reason to deny this wonderful man your vote. Vote for McCain, you're a racist. Simple as that.

Now let's consider the next four years under President Obama. He is certainly going to introduce ideas and pursue policies that are pure poison to many Americans; especially achievement-oriented self-sufficient citizens. Whenever anyone dares to utter a word in opposition to any Obama position or initiative you can be sure that there is going to be someone waiting close by to start screaming "racist!" By the end of Obama's first year in the White House virtually every white American will have been called a racist for one reason or another. So, what else is new?

The Republicans

One thing for sure ... the Republicans deserve exactly what is happening to them in this election. It's just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer the lion's share of the punishment the Republicans so richly deserve. In 1994 the voters were fed up with Clinton and the Republicans swept to control of both houses of congress, largely on the strength of Newt's Contract with America. Do you remember some of the promises? One that sticks in my mind is their promise to dismantle the Department of Education. Republicans – in 1994 – recognized that the quality of American education had been going steadily downhill since this government behemoth was formed. Well, that was then ... this is now. The size of the Education Department, as well as the cost, has doubled. Republicans did this, not Democrats.

As a matter of fact, it's not just the Department of Education; it's our entire federal government. Spending has doubled. Size has doubled. All under the Republican watch inside the beltway. Pork barrel spending is completely out of control, and Republicans are behind the wheel. Education and pork spending aside, we have the Medicare prescription benefit, McCain-Feingold, Sarbanes-Oxley, a tepid response to Kelo vs. New London ... all elements of a well-deserved Republican drubbing. The problem here is that the cure, that being Barack Obama, might well be much worse of than the disease.

The Republicans don't deserve power in Washington just as you don't deserve a boil in the center of your forehead. There are worse things, however. Complete Democrat control or, in the case of your forehead, a nice big melanoma. Pretty much the same things, actually.

It's not that the Republicans did everything wrong. They got the tax cut thing right, and they responded correctly, for the most part, to the radical Islamic attack on our country. They just did so much wrong at the same time. They got drunk with power, and the hangover affects all of us.

Obama's Friends

By "Obama's Friends" we mean the likes of Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko and other assorted miscreants. I could spend a lot of time here detailing the crimes of Obama's friends --- and make no mistake, they were his friends. At this point I don't think that any votes are going to be changed one way or another by detailing the corruption of Rezko, the America-hating of Wright or the unrepentant terrorism of Ayers. Suffice it to say that Obama was close to all of these people ... and these were associations born of mutual interests and philosophies. If you think that it is fair to judge the character of a person by observing the people they surround themselves with, then the judgment of Barack Obama would be a harsh one.

Obama's varied storylines regarding his relationship with Ayers have, to say the least, been interesting. The list is incomplete, but thus far we have:

• He was just a guy who lived in my neighborhood.
• I was only eight years old when he was throwing bombs.
• I didn't know about his history when we started working together
• I thought he had been rehabilitated.

Yeah ... I guess it's OK if you form a close relationship with a bomb-throwing terrorist, as long as he threw the bombs when you were a kid. Works for me. Work for you? In a similar vein, It must be OK if your pastor rails against America, as long as you aren't in church on those particular days. Or maybe we should say as long as nobody remembers actually seeing you in church on those days.

One interesting point: If Barack Obama was applying for a security clearance as a government employee, these associations would disqualify him. We are, my friends, about to have a president who doesn't qualify for a security clearance. Pretty pathetic. If Barack Obama becomes president, he would not even qualify to be his own bodyguard.

Obama's Tax Policies

You may consider this to be horribly old fashioned, but I operate on the principle that governments have the power to tax so that governments can collect the money needed to pursue and pay for the legitimate functions of that government. By "legitimate functions" I'm referring to law enforcement, national defense, a system of courts to adjudicate interstate disputes, national infrastructure and the costs associated with running the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government.

Now we can get into quite an argument over what constitutes a "legitimate" function of government, but let's save it for later. Suffice it to say that Barack Obama has a much different picture of our government's taxing authority than many of us do.

Before we go on, let me remind you of a point that I first heard made by former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne. Government has one unique power that you don't have, and neither do I. This is a power that is denied all private businesses and individuals in this country. That power .. the power unique to government .. is the power to use deadly force to accomplish its goals. If you have a business; a restaurant, for instance; you have to convince people to come to your establishment for a meal. You can advertise for customers, but they make the decision whether or not to give your restaurant a try. When the customers do come in it is up to you to deliver to them a superior product with exemplary service. This is how you get them to come back. Not through force, but through value and service.

Not so the government. You have no choice as to whether or not you are going to be a customer of government. Your patronage is compelled and your payments are extracted at the point of a gun. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." The power to tax in the wrong hands can certainly bring destruction to our economy and even to our country. I submit to you that the power to tax in the hands of Barack Obama is dangerous: Dangerous to you personally, and dangerous to the very fabric of our Republic.

Just take a look at some of the rhetoric Barack Obama uses when he talks of his plans to increase taxes on the evil, hated rich. In a television interview with (I think) Charles Gibson, Obama was asked if he understood that tax increases have often resulted in decreases in government revenue. Obama responded that he was aware of this fact. He was then asked why, then, would he be so eager to raise taxes? Obama responded that, to him, tax increases were simply a matter of "fairness." In other words, Obama didn't wish to use the police power of the state to collect taxes necessary for the legitimate functions of government; he wanted to use his taxing power to promote some vaporous "fairness" in our economy. After all, as Obama put it, the people he wants to tax have more money than they actually need and he wants to give that money to people who really do need it.

Now I ask you, does any of that sound vaguely familiar? Hmmmmm, let's see. I know I've heard something like that somewhere before. Wait! I think I have it. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Some character named Marx made slogan quite popular around 1975 in a writing called "Critique of the Gotha Program." This phrase is one of the most well-known principals of communism. You can yell, scream, spin around on your eyebrows and spit wooden nickels all you want, but what Barack Obama is pushing here, at least insofar as his tax policies are concerned, is communism. This shouldn't come as a surprise considering Obama's self-professed affinity for communist student groups and communist professors during his undergraduate years. Oh, you didn't read that? Maybe that's because you read his second book, not the first one. But what the heck. He's eloquent, isn't he? And he has a good narrative.

As I've indicated, I've been doing talk radio for 39 years now. I was on the air when we were fighting communism in Southeast Asia. I was flapping my jaws when Soviet leaders seriously entertained dreams of world communism. Throughout all of those years I was never one to scream "communism" every time someone came up with an oddball idea on governance, and I never once found a communist under my bed. But now, at least when you consider tax policy, we have a candidate for president who seems very comfortable with some basic communist principals. Too comfortable. But none of this should really bother you ... right? A little communism or socialism never really hurt anyone that you can remember. Besides, Europe is telling us that they'll like us again if we vote for Obama. That pretty much overrules everything, doesn't it?

Does this reflect your philosophy?

Come on! Put the celebrity worship aside for a moment. Put skin color aside. Just think about Obama and his "spread the wealth around" tax policy.

Let's talk heartbeats. Sounds weird, but I'm going somewhere here. A bit of Internet research led me to the fact that the average number of heartbeats in a life time for a human being is about one billion. To make this more understandable, the average human heart beats around 70 times a minute. In one eight-hour work day your heart beats around 33,600 times. This is your heart beating .. every beat subtracted from the one billion .. every beat a part of your life gone, never to be recovered. If you are a moderately successful human being Barack Obama is going to take about 13,000 (39%) of those heartbeats away from you every working day. Put your finger on your wrist and feel your pulse. Feel every heartbeat. Just count up to 100. How much of your life went by as you counted? You can't get those beats back. They're gone, for good. Remember, you only have a finite number of those beats of your heart left ... and Obama wants 13,000 of them every working day of your life. Those heartbeats – your life – being expended creating wealth. Your heartbeats, your wealth. Obama wants them. You don't need them. Someone else does. The police power of the state.

Taxes are a nasty little reality of life. Nobody wants anarchy. Government is a necessity. Government, though, is not supposed to create winners and losers. Government is not, as Obama intends, to be used as an instrument of plunder. Almost all Americans are perfectly willing to surrender an appropriate percentage of their earned wealth to fund the legitimate functions of government. I, for one, don't want to see my wealth confiscated because some bureaucrat has determined I don't "need" it, and then have to watch as that wealth is used to buy votes from someone who is simply too lazy to generate the income they need by themselves ... or, as Obama puts it, "spread around."

What is Obama going to do? How does he determine "need?" What data does he use to determine "fairness?" Maybe he'll set up some bureaucracy staffed with like-minded leftists who will use data collected in the last census and from those pesky American Community Surveys to establish a basic "need" level for people living in different areas. Once it is determined how much of a person's wealth they really don't "need," it will be a simple matter of confiscation and redistribution to those who do need it. After all, that would be "fair," wouldn't it? Come on, it's not exactly like you worked for that money.

Listen to the rhetoric of the left. Those who are in need are called "the less fortunate." This means that their status as needy was due to nothing but bad luck. It stands to reason, then, that those with more than they need were just lucky. The fortunate and the less fortunate. The lucky and the not so lucky. And here comes Barack Obama riding over the rainbow on his Unicorn to set everything right and make it all fair. Isn't that the world you want to live in?

There's a quote that's been floating around since I began my talk radio career. This quote is most often attributed to someone named Alexander Tyler writing in 1787 about the fall of the Athenian Republic. Others have said the guy's name was Tytler. Let's not argue spelling right now ... let's just get to the quote, because the quote goes to the heart of this presidential election:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

Think about this, my friends. Isn't this exactly what we're seeing right now? In fact, hasn't this pretty much been the theme of Democrat Party election politics for nearly as long as you can remember? Here we have Barack Obama promising that he's only going to raise taxes on the evil rich who make over $250,000 a year while 95% of Americans will get tax cuts. Think of this in terms of votes; higher taxes for 5% of the voters, lower taxes for the other 95%. It really doesn't take all that much brainpower to figure out how this is going to work at in an election does it? You take money away from the people whose votes you don't need, and give it to the people whose votes you do need. So very simple. The result is that people have, in fact, discovered that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. Who is promising those wonderful goodies? That would be Barack Obama. Just what percentage of voters out there do you think are going to vote for Obama simply because he is promising them someone else's money? My guess is that the number would be high enough to constitute the margin of victory for The Great Redistributionist.

Somehow I had this idea when I was growing up that if you wanted something bad enough, you would work hard until you got it. That was then. This is now. Now you vote for it. That's change you can believe in.

Those Amazing Vanishing Jobs

Barack Obama repeatedly tells the American people that he is going to cut taxes for 95% of them. Now that's a pretty nifty trick when more than 40% of Americans don't pay income taxes in the first place. Tell me please ... just how do you cut taxes for someone who doesn't pay taxes?

Here's the fancy narrative (Obama supporters just love that word) that the Obama campaign has come up with. Even if you don't pay income taxes, you still pay payroll taxes. So Obama is going to give these people who only pay Social Security and Medicare taxes an offsetting tax credit. At this point Obama's plan becomes almost impossible to explain. It's convoluted, to say the least, but that's out of necessity. When people started reminding him that about one-half of the people he's going to cut taxes for don't pay taxes he had to come up with something. The bottom line is this. Obama says that he is not going to take the cost of his tax credits from the Social Security Trust Fund. That's nice, considering the fact that this so-called Trust Fund exists only on paper anyway. But if that money isn't subtracted from the Trust Fund ... where does it come from? Obama's people explain that at first the deficit will just have to increase while these checks are written. Later they'll just go out there and get the money from those "rich people."

OK ... so there we are. It's tax the rancid rich time so that money can be transferred to the poor. But just who are these evil rich people destined to be beaten down by Obama's taxes? At first Barack Obama defined them as "people making over $250,000 a year." That definition had to change when it became known that the $250,000 a year figure was only for a married couple filing a joint tax return. In a heartbeat Obama changed his rhetoric to note that the tax increase would nail "families," not "people" earning over 250 grand. If you're single, the figure will be somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, depending on who you're talking to. We'll try to let you know when Obama settles on a hard figure.

There's your first lie.

So, what does all of this have to do with jobs? Well the very people that Barack Obama wants to nail with these tax increases are the people who create most of the jobs in our economy; America's small business owners.

The Democrats spend no small amount of time excoriating corporations. To listen to a Democrat candidate corporations and lobbyists are the sole sources of evil in our society. Oh ... and right wing talk show hosts. Well, you can forget these evil, nasty corporations for now. Fact is 70% of all jobs in our economy come from America's small business owners. The Small Business Administration recently reported that 80% of all new jobs are being created by these small business owners. These are people who report all of their business income on their personal income tax returns. As such, they are squarely in the crosshairs for The Chosen One's tax increases.

If you are an American concerned about your job with a small business ... and if you vote for Obama ... then you very well could be cutting your own economic throat. Think about it. If the small business owner(s) who employs you has his taxes increased by Barack Obama he is going to look for a way to replace that money. So where does he go to replace his income lost to Barack's tax increases? The best way would be to cut expenses. Well guess what? You're an expense! Will it be your job that is cut to compensate for the increased taxes? Maybe you'll be lucky and just have to forego your next raise. Maybe there would just be a cut in your pay or a reduction in benefits. Cast your vote and take your chances!

In recent days the McCain campaign has finally started to warn people about the possible consequences of Obama's tax increases on America's small businesses. This has forced the Obama campaign to come up with a response. Initially Barack Obama started saying that he was going to give a break on capital gains taxes to small businesses. This worked for a while until people started figuring out that small businesses don't pay capital gains taxes. Back to the drawing board, and this time they came up with a beauty. It's a con, but it works. Barack Obama is now telling the media and anyone else who will listen that 95% of America's small businesses don't make $250,000 a year, and thus won't be affected by Obama's tax increases.

That's the second lie. A lie of omission.

Obama's statistics may be accurate .. or nearly so. But the statement leaves one very important statistic out. Initially when you hear that "95% of all small businesses" line you probably think that this 95% employ about 95% of all of the people working for small businesses. You could think that, but you would be wrong.

The trick here is that the vast majority of America's small businesses are just that ... small. I owned a title abstract business in the 80's that had one employee. My wife owned a travel agency that had two employees. Neither of these small businesses came anywhere near the $250,000 line.

When you think about it you will understand that the important statistic here is the percentage of small business employees who will be affected, not the percentage of small businesses.

The October 21st edition of The Wall Street Journal addressed this issue in an article entitled "Socking It to Small Businesses." The WSJ reports that Obama is right "that most of the 35 million small businesses in America have a net income of less than $250,000, hire only a few workers, and stay in business for less than four years." There's more to the story though: ".. the point is that it is the most successful small and medium-sized businesses that create most of the new jobs.. And they are precisely the businesses that will be slammed by Mr. Obama's tax increase." The Senate Finance Committee reports that of those who file income taxes in the highest two tax brackets; three out of four are the small business owners Obama wants to tax.

The WSJ reports that the National Federation of Independent Business says that only 10% of small businesses with one to nine employees will be hit by Obama's tax increase. However, almost 20% of the small businesses that employ from 10 to 19 people will get nailed, and 50% of small businesses with over 20 employees get punished.

Again ... it is not the percentage of businesses that will have to pay the increased taxes; it's the percentage of the total of small business employees who work for those businesses. The Obama campaign is counting on you not making that distinction; and they know the media won't make it for you; so Obama's "95% of all small businesses don't make $250,000" line will probably rule the day.

Come on folks. These are your jobs we're talking about here. It's time to take your blinders off and see through some of this Obama rhetoric. The Obama campaign has some wonderful people working for them to tell them just how to parse words to hide intent and meaning. Just because they're trying to fool you doesn't mean that you have to be so easily suckered. When Obama talks about change .. he may well mean that you are going to have to change jobs. Now that's change you can believe in, right?

Pandering to the Unions .. at Your Expense.

Now since we're talking about jobs here, you need to be up to speed on The Messiah's "Employee Free Choice Act." Let me step out on a limb here and say that applying the words "free choice" to Obama's plan to eliminate secret ballots in union elections is like applying the words "fun sex" to an act of rape. Freedom has nothing to do with Obama's plan, and fun has nothing to do with rape.

Going in you need to recognize that union membership has been falling for decades. You only see growth in union membership in government employee unions. This, of course, is troubling to union leaders. It is also troubling to Democrats. Unions, you see, almost exclusively support Democrat candidates, both with money and time. Big money and lots of time ... and it's all behind Obama's candidacy.

To know what Obama is up to here, you need to know how union organizing works under the current law. Union organizers circulate a petition among employees. Employees are asked to sign a card saying that they would like to be represented by a union in their workplace. If a majority of the workers sign the cards the employer has the option of immediately recognizing the union and allowing them to organize the workplace. More often the employer will call for an election – an election using secret ballots. Every employee will be given the opportunity to express their desire to join or not to join a union in secret. Their co-workers will not know how they voted. They can prance around the workplace touting their support of unionization all they want in order to impress or appease their fellow workers, especially those who are trying to organize the union, but then vote "no" on the secret ballot if that's how they truly feel.

How, you might ask, do Democrats feel about the secret ballot in union elections? For a clue let's go to a letter from 16 House Democrats dated August 29, 2001. The letter was written on the letterhead of California Congressman George Miller, a Democrat representing the 7th District of California. That letter reads:

[Letterhead of George Miller, Congress of the United States] Junta Local de Conciliacion y Arbitraje del Estado de Puebla Lic. Armando Poxqui Quintero 7 Norte Numero 1006 Altos Colonia Centro Puebla, Mexico C.P. 7200 Dear members of the Junta Local de Conciliacion y Arbitraje of the state of Puebla. As members of Congress of the United States who are deeply concerned with international labor standards and the role of labor rights in international trade agreements, we are writing to encourage you to use the secret ballot in all union recognition elections. We understand that the secret ballot is allowed for, but not required, by Mexican labor law. However, we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise chose. We respect Mexico as an important neighbor and trading partner, and we feel that the increased use of the secret ballow in union recognition elections will help bring real democracy to the Mexican workplace. Signed: George Miller Bernard Sanders Lane Evans Marcy Kaptur William J. Coyne Bob Filner Martin Olav Sabo Joe Baca Dennis J. Kucinich Fortney Pete Stark James P. McGovern Barney Frank Zoe Lofgren Calvin M. Dooley Barbara Lee Lloyd Doggett

So there you go. These 16 Democrats are on the record as being solidly in favor of using secret ballots in union recognition elections. So far, so good ... because that, as they point out in their letter, is clearly the right stance.

That brings us to piece of legislation – a piece of Obama sponsored legislation --designated as H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. Would you care to guess just what H.R. 800 does? Well, that's simple. It will eliminate the secret ballot in union recognition elections. You got it! Obama has decided to really do something nice for the union bosses that are supporting him in this election, and he is determined to do away with secret ballots in union elections. When H.R. 800 gets passed ... and trust me, with Barack Obama in the White House, this thing will become law ... the union organizers will visit all of the workers, perhaps even visiting some of them in their homes, and "urge" them to sign the card calling for a union. I can hear it now: "Mrs. Johnson, wouldn't you and your children want your husband to be represented by our union at his job?" Now put yourself in the worker's place! Are you going to say no? This organizer is sitting in your living room looking at you and your wife and saying "You do want to be represented by our union in your workplace, don't you?" And you're going to tell him no?

Are you getting the big picture here? This is nothing less than Barack Obama and his Democrat pals legitimizing union intimidation in the workplace. If you don't see that, then there is virtually no hope for you when it comes to understanding basic politics. It's payback the unions time .. pay them back for all of that financial support and all of those volunteer hours. Besides ... the more union members there are the more union dues the union bosses have to spread to Democrats as campaign contributions.

But – we're saved, right? After all, we have those 16 Democrats who signed that letter to Mexico. What was it they said? Oh yeah: " ... we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise chose." So these 16 Democrats will certainly put up a spirited defense of secret ballots in union organizing elections, right?

Well ... um ... maybe not. You see, four of these congressmen (Dooley, Sabo, Evans and Coyne) are no longer in the Congress. One of the signers, Bernie Sanders, is now a Senator. That leaves 11 of the 16 signees still in the house to defend the principal of the secret ballot.

I'm afraid we have a small problem though. It seems that every one of the 11 remaining signees is now a sponsor of H.R. 800. In fact, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act was actually introduced by none other than George Miller – the very California Democrat on whose letterhead that letter to Mexico was written. Bernie Sanders is a sponsor of the same legislation in the Senate along with Barack Obama. No surprise .

On the one hand we have these Democrats writing a letter extolling the virtues of a secret ballot in union organizing elections, and then they sponsor a bill eliminating those very secret ballots! And here's Barack Obama pledging to sign the bill as soon as it comes to his desk! So what changed between 2001 and 2007? What happened that made these 12 Democrats go from believing that a secret ballot in a union election was "absolutely necessary," to introducing a bill eliminating those "absolutely necessary" secret ballots? Control of congress; that's what changed. In 2001 the Republicans ran the show. In 2007 it was the Democrats ... and it was time to return some favors to union bosses. Do you know what you're seeing here? You're seeing just how much power unions have over Barack Obama and the Democrat party. It doesn't matter what kind of letter you wrote, or what stance you took in the past --- when we say "frog" you had better jump.

Let me tell you what is going to happen as soon as Barack Obama is elected. Employers are going to look at the so-called Employee Free Choice Act and they're going to be very afraid. They know what a union can do to their business and their profitability. Just look at our auto industry. So employers are going to immediately start working to minimize the damage. How do you do that? Well, automation is one way. Go ahead and buy that machinery you need to automate much of your workplace. That will allow you to get rid of these employees before they can unionize. You might also want to consider the possibility of moving some of those jobs overseas where union intimidation might not be such a negative factor in your business operations.

When Obama gets his unionization by intimidation thing in place – and he most certainly will – jobs are going to be lost and businesses will fail. This is the price Obama is willing to pay to pay back the unions who have supported him.

Just another reason to vote for The Chosen One, right?

The Supreme Court

This is getting to be a bit long. We're over 6,200 words here. So let's end this message to the undecided voter with a few words about the Supreme Court.

It is quite possible that Barack Obama will get to make one, maybe two Supreme Court appointments before he's through in Washington. It is also possible that he will have a filibuster-proof Senate to help him ram those choices through.

I'm a lawyer, and I've always had this strange idea that the U.S. Supreme Court should base its decisions on the supreme law of our land, our Constitution. Many people think differently these days. A recent and rather shocking survey showed that around 80% of people who support Barack Obama believe that the Supreme Court should base its decisions not on the Constitution, but on what's "fair." Egad! On the other hand, the strong majority of McCain voters believe that the Supremes should look to our Constitution as the final authority.

Let's just make this short and sweet, because I know you want to get out of here. If Barack Obama gets those two nominations, and if the Democrat Senate rubber-stamps them, then we are going to have a Supreme Court making decisions based on their liberal definition of "fairness" with some consideration to foreign court decisions tossed in. This is perhaps Obama's greatest opportunity to do permanent damage to our Republic; permanent and irreparable damage. It's one thing when Barack Obama talks about wealth seizure and redistribution in terms of "fairness." It's quite another when that talk is legitimized by a Supreme Court decision.

So, dear undecided voters ... as Og Mandino (a great American) once said: "Use wisely your power of choice." There's a lot hanging in the balance.

There. I'm done.

What's so non-divisive about Democrats?

Nothing I can see. I keep hearing them accusing Republicans of being "divisive" whenever they disagree with Democrats on any issue. Yet it's Republicans like John McCain and Sarah Palin that I see consistently reaching across the isle and working with Democrats. But what is the Democrat party leadership doing? Claiming that anyone who doesn't vote for their candidate is a racist? Constantly bringing race into the debate, claiming that the Republicans are the ones trying to make race an issue?

How is that going to "unite" the country? How is the Democrat party, which divides everyone up into aggrieved special interest "victim" groups, whips up their discontent and then feeds off the anger, going to "unite" our country? They actually have an investment in keeping their members angry and discontented, because that is the driving force behind the party. How can that create national unity?

I think most Republicans and many Democrats truly love America. But unfortunately there is ample evidence that many Democrat Leftists hate America as we know it, and want to replace it with something else. Follow the link. If these folks love America, is certainly isn't the same America I know and love, regardless of what Senator Biden says.

They also hate ordinary Americans. Look at what they are doing to "Joe the Plumber", an ordinary American who had the audacity to question The Chosen One when the Messiah approached him in his front yard:

Operation Destroy Joe the Plumber

Obamugabe's Brownshirts vs Joe the Plumber

Here is an interesting solution:

Obamugabe's attack on Joe the Plumber was the last straw

Is it time to start dealing with the Media the same way they deal with us? I think what they are doing to Joe gives us the answer to that question.

We have people in both the Republican and Democrat parties who can work together and find agreement on those things we can agree on. Many of us understand what bi-partisanship means; we "get it". We know it's not possible to have 100% agreement on everything, nor is it even desirable. In a healthy free and democratic Republic dissent is tolerated and encouraged. People who claim that disagreeing with them is always "divisive" simply have no tolerance for disagreement. That's called Fascism.

Joe Wurzelbacher the plumber is not running for office. He's an ordinary American who asked a question when he was offered the opportunity by a candidate. I can only hope that the Brownshirt tactics being deployed by the Democrats against Joe backfire on them bigtime. The far Left often have no sense of propriety or limitations, and just unleash themselves and their hatred until they go too far.
     

Obama, ACORN, Wright & Ayers all tie together

There are various arguments as to why Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers are not important and shouldn't be held against Obama. He is also trying to distance himself from ACORN, which he has strong ties with. But what if these are not all isolated associations, but in fact, all related to each other, forming a much larger picture of the Obama Agenda?

Stanly Kurtz at NRO shows us how the pieces fit together:

Wright 101
Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Rev. Wright’s anti-Americanism

It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.

John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign. [...]

Is it any wonder the Obama campaign has tried so hard to block Kurtz's digging, or that Obama's thugs have tried to shut him up?

The rest of the Kurtz article goes into great detail about Obama's associations, and what they mean. The MSM could have reported on this at any time, but chose not to.

John McCain has a lot of material here to use in the debate tonight. But will he?
     

Sharia Law now legal in Great Britain?

Unbelievable. From A. Millar at the Brussels Journal:

From Magna Carta to Sharia Law – Britain’s Decline

[...] It is almost unbelievable that this should occur in a modern, democratic, Western country, and, moreover, under a government that claims to be liberal, and to care about the right of women and homosexuals among others. But, tracing the actions of the pro-Islamic Labour Party, and of modern liberalism more generally, it should have been predictable. Modern liberalism is not a force for human rights and equality (though it still uses these terms where they can be of use in breaking down British tradition); it is a selfish urge for freedom for one’s own self – others be damned. Multiculturalism frees the liberal from the demands of ‘culture.’ Mass immigration frees him from the need to know his history. Invoking the Inquisition of three hundred years ago frees him from having to confront the reality of Islamic fundamentalism. The establishment of sharia law no doubt frees him from holding any position whatsoever.

I have pointed out before, that the Labour government has colluded with extremist Muslims, even employing a Holocaust denier as an advisor on Muslim affairs. Ken Livingstone, the former Left-wing Mayor of London, has also openly embraced Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a man who believes that wives can be beaten into submission, that homosexuals should be executed, and pregnant Israeli women should be murdered. The UK’s Left-wing Respect Coalition Party asserts that opposition to radical Islam is “the new racism,” and this dangerous sentiment is now received wisdom among those closer to the center of the political spectrum. But Islam is neither a race nor ethnicity, but a religion, and one that has Asian, Black, and White followers. A 2006 UK government report entitled ‘Young Muslims and Extremism,’ notes that a significant number of White Britons were being drawn into Islamic terrorism, and we have seen a few example of White Muslim jihadis since then.

The sharia courts operating in Britain, will hear and pass legally binding judgment on cases involving divorce, financial disputes, and even domestic violence. But, it will not end there. According to the Daily Mail, sharia court officials have said, that they hope, “[…] to take over growing numbers of 'smaller' criminal cases in future,” and extremist clerics have already asserted their aims to establish sharia law for everyone in Britain.[...]

The Left has never been interested in the rights of women, gays, or other minorities. They simply foment and exploit discontent wherever they can find it, and use it as a weapon to fight the status quo. They will dump support for the rights of women and gays, the moment it becomes expedient for them to do so.

[...] Conservatives and Christians have criticized the so-called “gay lifestyle,” and liberals have always furiously denounced those conservatives and Christians for saying this. But liberals are those who have remained utterly silent when extremist Muslim clerics have called for the execution of homosexuals or the beating of women. The liberal establishment generally, and the Labour government in particular, has betrayed their professed belief in human rights and equality, and are ushering in extremism and intolerance. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) As if this isn't bad enough, there is a bill pending passage that would give religious minorities additional rights, possibly reinforcing sharia. I recommend reading the whole thing for the details.

Here is a link to a post I did a while back, about the alliance of Western Leftists with Islamic Extremists:

Socialism in Islamic hands: a tool to make the present world order unworkable

Socialism has plenty of dangers inherent to it in it's own right. But what if it were infiltrated and used by a third party, one with no interest in using Socialism as a stepping stone to Communism, but as a stepping stone to an Islamic Sharia-law state? Recent election results in European countries indicate this may be happening on a larger scale than anyone imagined, as Socialist parties there make large gains by running Muslim candidates to gain Islamic votes. [...]

Their plan seems to be working. This is not the first time this tactic has been used. The ayatollah Khomeini was swept to power in Iran on a wave of Leftist power and support. He promised to institute a secular, socialist state. Instead, he instituted a theocratic sharia law state. The Leftist leaders were killed or driven out, and their followers subjugated. There is a lesson in that for the European socialist elites, but they seem blind to it.


Related Links:

The truth about Sharia based societies

Is Islam compatible with a free society?

Islam Fails Muslims by Impeding Democracy and Economic Development

"Honor" killings of Muslim women in Europe

Do we need a "Star Wars" strategy for Islam?

Sharia Law in Minnesota?

     

More reasons for not visiting Portland, OR

I live in rural Oregon, but I'm not at all tempted to visit Portland. The following article by Takuan Seiyo at the Brussel's Journal gives me many reasons to feel that way:



Postcard from Zinnlandia

I am on the MAX Red Line light rail car going from downtown Portland to the Airport. Some things socialists do better. Among them are public transportation, recycling, French poetry readings, yoga, coffee, artisan food and arthouse cinema. Would it that the counterscale were not so much more loaded.

Two hefty women in Birkenstocks and Nordic sweaters sit on the bench in front of me. They are either academics or lesbians or both. Portland is a babe magnet for this kind of babes.

One of them, silver bangles jangling, is showing a souvenir purchase to the other. It’s a garden gnome, complete with a red cap and a Walt Disney tunic stretched taut over a rotund belly. The face, though, is less jovial than one expects on a gnome. An etched inscription on the base reads, “Howard Zinn.”

We are leaving Zinnlandia, after all – that great land of the Pacific Northwest, rich in good wine, including zinfandel, and other bounties of nature. Howard Zinn and his doppelgänger, Noam Chomsky, are to the coastal zones of this blessed land what St. Patrick is to the Emerald Isle. And, like Finlandia, Jutlandia and Hollandia, Zinnlandia too has much Northern European DNA.

Zinnlandia is in Amerikka – that racist, capitalist land of injustice, sexism, specieism, lookism, theism, militarism and homophobia. As a material and cultural Marxist, and skillful propagandist, Zinn – a master of sieving American history for its worst nuggets – is the perfect avatar for the self-flagellating white inhabitant of this land.

A Zinnlandian I met on this trip, a WASP physician endowed with the best education much money can buy, told me that he does not celebrate July 4th because the Declaration of Independence had been written by a slave owner and signed by other slave owners. He was just as hotly critical of the “racism” of Americans in dealing with the growing Muslim immigrant minority. The conversation unfolded over a bottle of Oregon Vino Pinko, with the likeness of a notorious Cuban mass murderer on the label.

Besides the pervasive lefty obtuseness as to the true nature of Che Guevara, there is one central paradox in this Zinnlandian, as there is in all of them. [...]

He goes on to describe his experiences in "Zinnlandia", and the history of crimes committed on the very train he is riding on. They all tie together. In the end, he compares Portland with many other cities he's visited. I enjoy the authors wit, but it's not a pretty picture for a Sunday. I think I need to go work in the garden now... thank God I live in the country.


Related Links:

Attracting a crowd means what exactly?

Anti-American "Art" at Portland Oregon Airport