Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run

Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark the Second American Civil War. Blood Will Run in the Streets'
by Jason Horowitz

Getty Images
Erica Jong, 1976.It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an "obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night." She also says that her friends Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolf are extremely worried that Obama will be sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks, and that if an Obama loss indeed comes to pass, the result will be a second American Civil War.

Here's a translation of Jong's more spirited quotes to the Milan-based Corriere, as selected by Rocca.

"The record shows that voting machines in America are rigged."

 

"My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can't cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves."

"My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium."

"After having stolen the last two elections, the Republican Mafia..."

"If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it's not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets."

"Bush has transformed America into a police state, from torture to the imprisonment of reporters, to the Patriot Act."

 

She also laments that not all of America's men of letters share her devotion to Obama.

 

"Tom Wolfe and John Updike are men of the right and Philip Roth is at this point a hermit who leads a monastic life in Connecticut, far from everything and everybody."

Luckily, she said there is her and Michael Chabon, who, she says, have "taken the place of Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer respectively."

They have the same political sensibilities, she said, but a better "sense of humor."
Source>>>

Read More

Our First French President,,Barack Obama

If he's elected next week, Barack Obama won't be our first black president: Toni Morrison labeled Bill Clinton our "first black president" in October 1998. (We have seen no reports that she retracted that label as a result of the South Carolina primary campaign).

And never mind all the nonsense floating around the internet. Barack Obama wasn't born in Indonesia, or Kenya or wherever. He was born in Hawaii.

Race isn't an issue for conservatives, but cultural indentity is. And that's a problem because if he's elected, Barack Obama will be our first French president.

 

The man who would lead the most productive, hard-working, achievement-oriented society in history told on his campaign website to take the day off to vote at our ease and make sure all our relatives and friends do the same. He tells students to ask their professors to let them out of class to canvass neighborhoods and drive people to the polls.

Take the day off to vote? Us? We're the American workaholics: we thrive in the can't-wait-to-dial-push-to-talk society. People in Washington get carpal tunnel syndrome from thumbing their Blackberrys. Stakhanovites all, we dedicate ourselves to our work, identify ourselves by our jobs, and compete with everyone within range. That's how we succeed.

In America's heartland, many families have a mom and a dad who each work two jobs to put the kids through college. Lots of people work Saturdays or Sundays or both. We take Christmas and Thanksgiving and July 4th off and -- if we're lucky -- we save up to take a week's trip somewhere in driving distance.

And this guy wants to stop the world just to make sure he gets elected?

Just think about this: if every American voter took the day off on Tuesday, it would cost our economy a big chunk of cash. How much?

In 2004, there were about 123 million voters. The best estimate says there are about 181 million registered voters today. One economist did a computation for me, using that probable voter base. If they all work for the average wage and all take an unpaid day off, the cost would be about $22.3 billion in lost wages for the first Obamaday.

How much would the stock market fall just because the earth stood so that we could elect Obama?

In France, they care little about such things. That's why they have -- by law -- a 35-hour workweek that's interrupted by strikes and five-week vacations.

Last summer, the French made a half-hearted attempt to repeal the 35-hour work week, but only managed to succeed in reducing the minimum number of vacation days. Unless a President Obama wants to limit our workweek, we'll stay ahead of France in economic power.

All over America, we go to work, we go to school and some time during the day -- before we go to work or after we get home, on a long break from school or when classes are over that day -- we manage to vote. We accomplish our duties, meet our responsibilities, and manage to perform our patriotic duty to vote all on the same day.

Much of this happens in the suburbs and this is the candidate who's not interested in how that works. Remember? He said, "I'm not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me." Of course they do: that's where all those gun-and-bible-clinging people live.

This election is the most important in living memory, and the Democrats' candidate is proving that -- underneath the trim American exterior -- a Frenchman lurks.

We have, as others have noted, been learning more about Obama in the past two weeks than we have in the past two years. As a hyperliberal politician, Obama has been doing his best to conceal his liberalism and the press has been all too eager to leave the "progressive" cloak in place. But we are, in the last weeks of the campaign, getting a better view.

It started with Joe the Plumber asking a better question than all the reporters and debate moderators who preceded him. And the answer Mr. Wurzelberger got -- that Obama wants to spread the wealth around -- revealed Obama's cultural commonality with European socialists.

"I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody." Spread the wealth like Robin Hood? No, like robbing you. And if you read the Obama economic plans -- including about $800 billion more in spending on health care, college subsidies and climate controls -- his methods for spreading the wealth are the same ones the European redistributionists use.

Read More

Virginia Military Absentee Ballots Must be Counted

Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell has issued a formal opinion concluding that federal absentee ballots from overseas military voters lacking the printed name and address of a witness must be counted.

In the formal opinion the Attorney General finds, "It is.... my opinion that the applicable provision of Virginia law, § 24.2-702.1(B), interpreted to require an overseas military voter submitting only a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot to include the printed name and address of the person who signs the witness statement is preempted by the provisions of the (federal) Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. Finally, it is my opinion that general registrars may not reject a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot submitted by overseas military voters for the November 4, 2008 federal election that does not include a printed name and address for the person who signs the witness statement..."

This directive was delivered to all of Virginia's State Boards of Elections on Monday.

 

The controversy began last week when Fairfax County voter registrar Rokey Suleman set aside hundreds of military ballots for rejection based on his conclusion that the Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot, or FWAB, should have a witness address accompanying the signature. The state of Virginia did not instruct Virginia soldiers to provide this witness address nor does the federal form provide space for it.

Concerns over partisanship were raised as Suleman founded a Young Democrat group in Ohio and unsuccessfully ran for office as a Democrat earlier this year. His insistence on rejecting military ballots on a hyper-technicality -- ballots that trend Republican -- coupled with his voter drive in the county jails this year -- votes that trend toward Democrats -- Suleman recently raised the ire of this Northern Virginia community with his blatant rejection of hundreds of military ballots.

Sam Wright, retired Naval Jag officer and director of the National Defense Committee's efforts to protect our military's votes, got involved in this effort and was very grateful for the decision. "Thank you, Attorney General McDonnell, for going to bat for the brave young men and women who are away from home and willing to lay down their lives for our rights including our right to vote," Wright said.

Read More

Our children are dying, help us

Over 70 000 people, including 30 000 children, have been left homeless in quake-hit southwest Pakistan, Unicef said on Friday, as health workers warned that deadly diseases were spreading.

The UN children's agency said they and Pakistani government officials assessed the situation in the worst-hit districts of mountainous Baluchistan province and were "concerned about the urgent needs of children and women".

Up to 300 people are thought to have been killed in the 6.4-magnitude quake, which struck before dawn on Wednesday, flattening mud-brick houses and killing or injuring people as they slept.

"With winter closing in, the most urgent needs of the survivors are shelter, safe drinking water, food, warm clothing and emergency medical assistance," the world body said in a statement.

Clean water was a "priority" and Unicef teams had started providing water and sanitation services, and food supplements for pregnant women and young children, it said.

"Children are especially vulnerable to diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera," it added.

"Most of the water sources in the affected districts have been damaged by the earthquake. Approximately 12 000 people in Ziarat lack safe water and are dependent on supplies from water trucks."

The district health officer of the stricken hill town of Ziarat, Ayub Kakar, told AFP that children were already suffering after two nights in the open in sub-zero temperatures.

"Due to the cold hundreds of children are being treated for pneumonia, abdominal diseases, diarrhoea and chest problems," he said.

"We fear the death toll will rise. Such diseases, if not treated in time, are life-threatening," Kakar said.

Relief kits

Tents, blankets, clothes, medicine and antibiotics were still in short supply, he said. Many people in outlying villages have expressed concern that they have gone without help more than two days after the disaster.

"Our children are dying, help us," cried Mohammad Khan, in the village of Khanozai high in the mountains.

Kakar said children formed the majority of the population in the quake-affected area and many of them were psychologically affected by the tremors, and violent aftershocks that continue to pound the region.

Women were also not getting medical treatment because of deeply conservative traditions and the fact that hospitals were also hit.

Pakistan's military says it had provided tents, blankets and food to 25 000 affected people in the devastated villages of Wam, Tungi and Gogi, with another 15 000 set to get relief goods later on Friday.

"Nobody will be without tents, blankets and food rations today," Major Khan Mohammed of the paramilitary Frontier Corps told AFP.

Colonel Shahzada Khan said the International Committee of the Red Cross - one of a number of international NGOs in the relief effort, including the World Food Programme and World Health Organisation - had sent 5 000 relief kits.

Each kit consists of one tent and 15 days' rations for a family of five.

"An aerial survey is still being conducted by helicopters in far-flung areas to locate the affected people," said Shahzada, also from the Corps. source>>>

Read More

Photo of hot items on eBay leads police to stolen goods

The seller indicated he lived in Dallas, but the background of a photo of the goods he was offering on eBay looked suspiciously familiar to a Detroit lawman.

Sgt. Jeffrey Wenturine's familiarity with the Motor City led to a raid in which the man was arrested and surveying equipment valued at $25,000 was recovered from his home.

Sgt. Jeffrey Wenturine was browsing the eBay online auction site as part of his investigation of the theft. Sgt. Eren Stephens Bell says he spotted the equipment in a photo with a unique white picket fence in the background.

The Detroit Free Press says Wenturine cruised East Outer Drive until he located the fence, setting the stage for the Thursday afternoon raid. Police also seized about eight guns. source>>>

Read More

Teacher of the year charged with selling school textbooks on eBay

-- An Irrigon teacher and former educator of the year was indicted on theft and 43 counts of official misconduct Monday after having allegedly stolen $1,000 in textbooks and selling them on eBay.

In September, the Morrow County School District placed Forrest Dean McKinnis, 31, on administrative leave after reportedly discovering that textbooks stored in a closet were being sold on the Web site.

Morrow County Sheriff's Office arrested McKinnis later that month. He was released on his own recognizance.

According to the indictment McKinnis "unlawfully and knowingly commit(ted) theft ... The State further alleges that the property stolen had a value of $1,000 or more." The indictment states McKinnis, sold the books between July 27 and Sept. 15, which was an "unauthorized exercise of his official duties."

The 43 counts of official misconduct are for the books that McKinnis allegedly sold.

Mark Burrows, the superintendent of the Morrow County School District, said he could not comment on McKinnis' employment status.

McKinnis was a program director at Morrow Education Center, coached boys' basketball at Heppner High School for five years and was scheduled to coach the Riverside High School girls' basketball team. source>>>

Read More

Christian Voters Need to Reorient, not Disengage

In the spirit of honest and civil dialogue, I would like to both affirm and respectfully disagree with a few points made by Shane Claiborne in his piece, "Voting as Damage Control." As I read his post, I cannot help but ponder its incongruity with an action alert I just received from Color of Change.org. Color of Change.org, an organization dedicated to strengthening Black America's political voice, urges its constituents to not be deterred by those who would suppress their votes because of their racial/ethnic identities or socio-economic status. While we discuss the moral implications of casting a ballot, many of the marginalized in our society fear being turned away from their local polling places on Nov. 4.

I agree, as Shane suggests, "...white folks in this election might be asking people of color who have suffered so much historically whether we should vote or who we should vote for." Let's just hope that our friends receive the same treatment that we have been advantaged to expect. I agree that the debate about voting and Christian political engagement is a necessary one. However, please understand it is a debate most often between privileged parties.

I am most concerned though by what Shane's post implies -- if voting is barely tolerable as "damage control," what should we make of prophetic advocacy? As someone who lives in an intentional community in a "forgotten place of the Empire," I see the New Monastic movement as spirit-led movement, a gift to the church and witness to a broken world. However, the strength of this movement is not so much a prophetic call to do justice as it is a prophetic warning about the idolatry of our national and political identities. This was an extremely important vocation of the biblical prophets. The prophet Isaiah's call to be a "house of prayer for all nations" was not so much an affront to Israel's religious sensibilities as a challenge to their nationalist identity (Isaiah 56:7).

The call to do justice must begin with the conviction that our allegiances have been stolen and we must return to the priorities of God and recognize God's absolute sovereignty. We must not -- no never -- subvert or ignore this prophetic vocation. Shane reminds us that idolatry is a corporate act and not only a personal sin. I am deeply appreciative of Shane and the New Monastics for pointing our way back to Jesus, our president, our Lord. However, the call to liberate ourselves from the powers of this world is the foundation for a discipleship that re-engages these systems as prophetic agents of God's kingdom. We are equipped to do justice and named "ambassadors" of the Good News. Ambassadors are sent to people with a foreign agenda, to engage at the highest levels of power.

Read More

Politics divides families, friends

John Kusic is a die-hard Democrat who talks politics nonstop, even at the office where Republicans and Democrats are always willing to fight it out. Recently, however, he and his wife attended a dinner party with limitations.

"The husband and wife were staunch Republicans, and they had a rule that they didn't want to talk politics," he said. "My wife looked at me and said, 'Don't you dare try to weasel into' " a political discussion.

Aside from the random dig, people stuck to the rule.

"No one wanted to offend the host and hostess," he said.

This refusal to talk politics -- or the inability to stop arguing about it -- illustrates the increasing polarization of the American electorate. The campaigns of Barack Obama

and John McCain are streaming rhetoric with just four days to go before the election. And the deep divide is mangling social networks from hair salons to coffee clubs.

Studies from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press shows a widening abyss. Over 20 years, researchers have asked the same questions of Republicans and Democrats and discovered a growing divide over everything from national security to social values.

A 2007 study found that three-quarters of Americans said they liked political leaders who were willing to compromise. But when it comes to hot-button issues -- such as abortion or the war in Iraq -- people wanted their side to win.

Take the gathering of Latina lawyers who've met weekly for 20 years. Most, passionate Democrats, were stunned last week when a new woman showed up to express her excitement about Sarah Palin.

"It was an incredibly hot debate," said Teresa Casilla, who plans to call the woman and apologize. "I had to stand up and walk around, I was so upset."

Different people have different strategies.

"We walk the line," said Michael Schaffer, owner of the Red Room, the lunch-hour hot- spot for statehouse politicos.

"People walk in and say, 'Who're you voting
Carolyn and Geoff Blue strike a pose in their front yard, where Democrat Carolyn's political signs are lined up on the left and Republican Geoff's on the right. From coffee shops to front lawns, the election has accentuated the political divide in America. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post )
for?' I tell them that it's my personal choice."

Any answer would upset half his clientele.

The political divide is nowhere more evident than the yard of Geoff and Carolyn Blue. The left side of their lawn sports her Democratic yard signs while the right side is dominated by his Republican signs.

In their largely Democratic neighborhood, Geoff -- a former president of the Denver Metro Young Republicans -- is in the minority.

"People are fairly respectful about it," he said.

In larger circles, however, the Republican is ready for what has become a predictable discussion.

"The question I get all the time from hard- core Democrats is, 'You don't like Sarah Palin, do you?' "

When he says "yes," sometimes people want more detail.

Read More

Christian aid groups fear catastrophe in Congos North Kivu province

[Ecumenical News International, Geneva] Christian emergency response organizations have expressed alarm at a deteriorating situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province and about brutalities innocent civilians are facing in a potential humanitarian catastrophe.

The Geneva-based ACT International (Action by Churches Together) said in a statement on October 30 that it had accounts from aid workers of looted shops and dead bodies on the pavements in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

"It has been a night of horror, but Goma is quiet now," ACT International quoted one of its aid workers as saying. Emergency work became paralysed after aid workers themselves were withdrawn from the field for security reasons, while thousands of people have sought refuge as rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda has moved towards the city.

In Manila, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on October 30 appealed for an end to the fighting in the DRC saying, "Unfortunately, the situation in Goma is worrisome. There were some attacks even against the United Nations mission by civilian people."

Emile Mpanya, ACT representative in Kisangani, the most northerly navigable point on the River Congo, said that the U.N. security service has asked the emergency agencies to withdraw international staff from the area.

Mpanya said he had received eyewitness accounts of armed groups shooting and engaging in overnight looting. Many shops have been pillaged and houses broken into. A family of nine, including a breastfeeding baby, was killed in the Katindo area. Several corpses were found in the streets on the morning of October 30.

The ACT International statement said, "The population in Goma is confused. They can hardly find out who is in charge in town and what soldiers they see walking in the streets. Thousands have fled to Goma in panic. Others are on the run out of town, mostly families of the retreating Congolese soldiers."

Mpanya, who works for the Lutheran World Service, a member of ACT International, said that people also have moved to Lubero, 93 miles north of Goma town. Many of them are wounded soldiers and civilians.

Read More

intended release of Michelle Obama tapes stirs trouble in many circles

The Obama camp is not saying anything publicly now, but have chosen to work behind the scenes in their efforts to influence the release of Michelle Obama tape. The impact the tape is expected to have on National Security when finally released will be huge.

Peaceful approach to have the tapes not to be released has now turned into direct threats directed against API. The threats being unleashed against API comes after API Chief Editor's unwillingness to accept the offer of a bribe by Obama Camp's Campaign Manager was turned down.

The next few hours will be very crucial for API. The news organization is now putting the facts surrounding the bribe attempt together and will take a decision today to request the police to file charges against the Campaign Manager.

API on the other hand does not want to surrender to the pressure being mounted, even though faced with danger for ignoring the warnings not to allow the release of the tape. API is being bombarded with death threats from people who say have been hired to silence API and those involved in the plan to have the tapes released.

The US embassy in Norway together with the Norwegian Security Service has been duly informed of the situation and has promised to give the matter the priority it deserves.

Due to the situation that has arisen, and security considerations, API reprentative's trip to New York today to participate in a planned live interview will be temporarily delayed for some hours while the Embassy looks into the matter.

Now that the situation has become so dangerous because some people are afraid to let the American people know the truth about Michelle Obama's stand exhibited by her in the tape, API will thread carefully and will classify details on what is going on, especially details on when the API representative will fly to New York, which flight and where he will be housed while in the US. This will be done to avoid exposing him to any danger while on US soil

API will not rest until the tape is aired so that the American people may judge for themselves whether the contents of the tape is of relevance to the elections taking place November the 4th.

Read More

Guessing the politics of college football coaches

I missed the Barack Obama infomercial on Wednesday night, which is too bad. I'm told the segment with Suzanne Somers, where she instructs him on proper Thighmaster techniques, is must-see TV. I'm over it, though. At T-minus four days and counting till Nov. 4, I'm approaching full political saturation.

Traveling in Pennsylvania and Ohio last week, I felt as if I were being stalked by the candidates, all four of whom are positively haunting these swing states during the final fortnight of the campaign. In fact, there was Obama, greeting me in Jay Paterno's office when I called on the Nittany Lions co-offensive coordinator two Tuesdays ago.

Obama was actually posing with Jay on the coach's screensaver. Jay was kind enough to share extensive background on the evolution of Penn State's Spread HD offense, very little of which made it out of my notebook following the team's 13-6 squeaker in Columbus. (Sorry about that, Jay. Surely those notes will come in handy in ... Miami?)

It turns out Jay is a fervent Obama supporter. Before the candidate visited campus last March, one of his people called Jay. They wanted to pay obeisance to the legend. "We know Joe can't endorse him," went the message, "but we wanted to reach out, as a sign of respect." Jay got his father on the phone with the Senator.

JoePa couldn't endorse Obama because he's a staunch Republican. Remember that Paterno actually gave a speech for his good friend, George H. W. Bush, at the 1988 Republican National Convention.

While Paterno pere wears his allegiance on his sleeve, what of his peers? When it comes to politics, college football's most high profile deciders seem to be determinedly agnostic -- determined to either have no strong feelings one way or the other, or to keep those feelings at home, locked in a 33-gallon Clear Tote from the Container Store.

Fine. Be that way, guys. I will divine your politics by reading the tea leaves of your public utterances; studying the sheep's entrails of your methods and philosophies.

And no matter how wrong I am, I'll take comfort in still having a better record than Lee Corso.

Read More

Christian Anti-Defamation Commission Challenges Obama Christianity Claims

Christian Group Reviews Obama History, Writings, and Interviews to Expose Presidential Candidate's Disingenuous Religious Proclamations

Contact: Sharaya Cass, The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission (CADC), 760-630-2232

MEDIA ADVISORY, October 30 /Christian Newswire/ -- Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president of the United States, has repeatedly claimed to be a Christian, but there is more evidence disputing that declaration than affirming it according to Dr. Gary Cass, Chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.

Dr. Cass observes, "From his speeches and his writings, even his personal history--despite protestations to the contrary--it appears that Obama's 'Christianity' is carefully constructed to appease traditional American voters."

Americans expect their leaders to embody Judeo-Christian ideals and beliefs, so it is important for Obama to be perceived as a practicing Christian. Every one of the forty-three United States presidents, regardless of political party, has mentioned God in his inaugural address. George Washington, the hero of the American Revolution, the first president of the United States, and often referred to as the 'Father of Our Country' stated: "It is impossible to properly govern without God and the Bible."

Dr. Cass summarizes: "Here's a man, Obama, who desperately needs to convince half the voters in the United States that he believes in something that he doesn't truly understand...even two decades after his alleged conversion to Christianity."

Unfortunately for Obama, it is not his political opponents who expose this fiction, it is his own words, as well as those of his friends and family.

Obama's Muslim Roots

Dr. Cass explains, "The most glaring misstatement of fact in the packaging of Obama for the presidency is assertion that--in his words--he is rooted in Christian tradition. The claim is unsubstantiated. His mother was, at best, an agnostic. His biological father was a Muslim. His stepfather was from a devout Muslim family. Throughout his formative years, Obama lived in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim society where--according to a passage in his first memoir, Dreams from My Father--he studied the Koran. He lived his teen years with his maternal grandparents who, by his own description, were Universalists, not Christians."

In a 2007 New York Times interview, entitled Obama, A man of the World, Obama fondly recalled the Islamic evening call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset." According to the article, "Obama went on to recite its opening lines with a perfect Arabic accent: "Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! I witness that there is no god but Allah! I witness that there is no god but Allah! I witness that Muhammad is his prophet!"

"A devoted follower of Jesus Christ would never say 'Allah is supreme and there is no god but Allah,'" argues Dr. Cass. "Sitting in a pew from time to time doesn't make someone a Christian. If anything, Obama is rooted in Islamic tradition."

Obama On "My Muslim Faith"

On September 5th, 2008, in an ABC television network on-air conversation with former Clinton advisor turned political pundit, George Stephanopoulos, Obama uttered the line, "You're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith." Stephanopoulos quickly saved Obama from political disaster by reminding him that he meant to say his "Christian" faith.

"I have never met a Christian, especially one who claims to have been a Christian for twenty years, mistakenly confuse Islam with Christianity when referring to his or her personal faith," notes Dr. Cass. "Perhaps this was Obama's only candid public comment on his belief system since people started keeping track of the things he has said."

Libyan Strongman Identifies Obama as Muslim

On June 11th, 2008, Libyan leader Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi was videotaped and broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV at a gathering as he referred to: "A black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim who studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama. All of the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and his success and they have been involved in a legitimate contribution campaign to win the American presidency."

Dr. Cass observes, "Clearly one of the world's most vocal anti-American Arab leaders is convinced that Obama is a Muslim and is cheering the possibility of having a brother Muslim named the leader of the free world. Just as troubling is the candid admission that Muslims in Arab countries and in Africa are making financial contributions to the Obama campaign. It is against U.S. election laws for foreign nationals to give money to any candidate for federal office, but that is apparently not a deterrent to Obama or to Qadhafi."

Marketing Obama In America

At a time when the United States is at war with Islamic fundamentalists, it has been vital that the candidate obliterate any connection to his Muslim roots. For the American public to buy the Obama brand, it was pivotal that the candidate convince voters that he was a bona fide Christian.

As Dr. Cass observes, "Once he decided to run for president, Obama and his surrogates started attacking anyone who questioned his Christianity. So, for an accurate insight into his duplicity, we need to look at an interview he gave to Chicago Sun-Times religion columnist, Cathleen Falsani, on March 24th, 2004, a few days after he was nominated to run for the U.S. Sentate from the state of Illinois and three years before he was considered a presidential candidate."

During the exhaustive interview with Falsani, Obama showed himself to be profoundly uninformed about the basic tenets of the Christian faith. Falsani, who currently also writes a blog for the pro-Obama website, The Huffington Post, authored the book, The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, a collection of spiritual profiles. (Published in 2006 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.)

Obama's Statement of "Faith"

To Falsani's question, "What do you believe?" Obama answered: "I am a Christian. So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith." Then he qualifies that statement by saying, "On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences. I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10. My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim. And I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith."

Obama continued to distance himself from the teachings of Jesus when he finished his answer saying, "I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people."

Read More

Three things the Obamedia will do to depress Republican turnout and help Obama

Three things the Obamedia will do to depress Republican turnout and help Obama

This is really intended for Republicans who did not follow the primaries on the Democrats' side this year (because, well, we guess you took a nice long Atlantis cruise to Mars, in which case, color us jealous).

The same pattern that unfolded during our primaries is happening again, because the media has just one tattered old used playbook (written by David Axelrod, of course), and they have not deviated from it yet. What the media and Obama campaign did, in concert, to Hillary Clinton before every major primary is what they are doing to McCain/Palin now. Here are the top three media/Obama head tricks to watch out for in the last days before the election.

If you, collectively, can keep Republicans and other McCain voters from falling for these, we believe there's nothing Obama can do to win this election. The ONLY way McCain loses is if you Eeyores allow the media to keep you from the polls.
Head Games Coming Your Way:

(1) Calls for McCain to just give up and quit, because the race is over. This one is a favorite of the trolls who lurk on pro-McCain sites. We get them here, despite all the spraying and fumigating we do, but notice how we ignore these trolls. We've identified two paid Obama staffers who have been assigned to HillBuzz. We picked them up around the same time people from Ace and LGF started picking up some of our stuff -- so our guess is they were assigned to us by whoever was monitoring those sites. They're different trolls than the ones assigned to us during the primaries (we only had one back then, so evidently we've gotten more on the radar now). One of them starts posting "her" concern troll remarks here at 8am. The other one starts "his" remarks around 5pm or so. It appears there are two shifts for the trolls -- and from what we can see, they share the same computer and IP address. And it's an address right here in Chicago. Imagine that. We wonder if we've ever run into these people at Houlihan's on Michigan Avenue after one of their shifts, as that's where a lot of Obama staffers like to go for a drink, and where we often hang out to see what we can overhear while pretending to read a book over a little dinner. Since we're going to be in Ohio the rest of the time before the election, we're okay with letting you in on that little bit, as we won't be able to eavesdrop on you anymore. But the information these Obama staffers inadvertantly provided was really helpful on a lot of things. A great way to see how the race was going was to listen for how "audacious" these people felt that day. That's their internal lingo: "Are you feelin' it? Are you feelin' audacious today?". "Nope, not feelin' the audacity today, 'cause we know those PA polls are bogus and BO's not gonna take the state". Word to the wise: these staffers were never as "audacious" as the media and skewed polls have insisted they should be.

It's so funny, but when you work on these campaigns every day and give up all of your free time and all other activities for this, you just know when the media's lying and reading from an Axelrod script. The coerographed calls for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race before New Hampshire, before Super Tuesday, before Ohio and Texas, before Pennsylvania, before West Virgina, before Kentucky, before Indiana, and before South Dakota were completely ridiculous to us -- and yet, Eeyores always listened, and lost enthusiasm and drive because 'the TV said Hillary needs to just quit". We know this kept some Eeyores from going out to vote, because they thought, "Why bother? The TV told me she's gonna lose!". Well, the TV lies. And the toaster says you're fat. Unfortunately, the toaster's telling the truth. The microwave tells you to set fires - and that just means you're nuts, because why would it do that?

Read More

Obama accepted a bribe as a state senator

NOTE: The article below is from last year. It's a story that was never picked up by the media (since when have they ever picked up anything about Obama?) and the Clinton campaign did not know what to do with this -- people we've spoken to said that, in retrospect, they realize what a mistake this was because what Obama did here is actually a prosecutable crime. We were told, specifically, that the bribe Obama took as a state senator is the thing David Axelrod has lived in terror of this whole campaign -- he has been praying this does not get out.

One reason this never came back to bite Obama is that the article below is overly long -- and the part about the bribe is buried in the middle -- it's no coincidence this story appeared in the LA Times. The article's author, Dan Morain, tried to bring this bribe up in the primaries, but never had any support in the media to go anywhere with it.

One of the greatest advantages Obama has is that he's surrounded by so many crooked deals, kooks, loons, and criminals that it's hard for the public to understand most of what's going on. Here in Chicago, Team Hillary kept trying to bring up Obama's connections to Tony Rezko and the land deal for Obama's Mansion -- but people couldn't understand what the Rezko dealings were all about. They still don't understand it. And they won't read a long article like the one below about the rest of Obama's dirty dealings.

Read More

Confession of an Obama Blogger - by Sarah P (as posted to this site)

sarah p Says:
October 27, 2008 at 5:04 am

Ok, I want to clear my conscious a little. Hopefully you could make a blog post to help some fellow clinton supporters out.

I work for a campaign and can't wait for this week to be over.

I was doing it for a job. I was not a fan of any candidate but over time grew to love HRC.

The internal campaign idea is to twist, distort, humiliate and finally dispirit you.

We pay people and organize people to go to all the online sites and "play the part of a clinton or mccain supporter who just switched our support for obama"

We do this to stifle your motivation and to destroy your confidence.

We did this the whole primary and it worked.

Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.

This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.

Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.

People makes posts to the effect that the world has "gone mad"

Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.

We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn't control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.

see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become "sheeple"

The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.

Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and "fair and balanced" and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.

This is why nothing sticks.

The operation is massive, the goal is to paint a picture that is that of a winner, regardless of the results.

There is no true inauguration draft or true grant park construction going on. There will be a party, but we are boasting beyond the truth to make it seem like the election is wrapped up.

Our goal is to continue to make you lose your moral. We worked hard at persuasion and paying off and timing and playing the right political numbers to get key republican endorsements to make it seem even more like it was over and the world was coming to an end for you all.

There is a huge staff of people working around the clock, watching every site, blogs, etc. We flood these sites. We have had a goal to overwhelm.

The truth is here. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

I am saying this because I know HRC was better for the country, and now realize this. I was too late by the time I connected to her. To me Barack was just a cool young dude that seemed like a star. I didn't know him or his policies, but now I understand more than I care to and I realize his interests are more for him, and the DNC and all working like puppets with dean. I always thought a president wanted the better good for the country. The end result I see is everyone dependent on the government, this means more and more people voting for the DNC. This means the future is forever altered. I don't see this as america, so I am now supporting John Mccain.

Sarah Palin is a huge threat, and our campaign has feared her like you can't imagine. If it seems unfair how she has been treated, well its because she has had a team working round the clock to make her look like a fool.

this is a big conspiracy and I am so shocked that its not realized.

We released a little blurb the other day that the Obama campaign was already working on reelection and now putting our efforts towards 2012. This was to make it seem like it was above us to continue caring about 2008. Trust me, its a lie. David is very smart, but its a sticky ugly not very truthful kind of intelligence.

Its not over yet, but I think the machine is working. And its a hill to climb.

I will be quitting my post on nov 5th and my vote will be for John Mccain. Fortunately, my position has been a marketing position and I don't feel I had any part of anything I would feel guilty for. But I look forward to getting out of this as the negativity and environment upsets me.

I wish you all well, and goodluck.

PS my name is not really sarah. but I am a female and I understand your plight. Source>>>

Read More

Obama Plane Pitches Reporters From McCain-Endorsing Papers

Obama Plane Pitches Reporters From McCain-Endorsing Papers
The Barack Obama campaign has reportedly booted from its campaign plane reporters from three newspapers that endorsed John McCain.

FOXNews.com

Friday, 2008-31-305

Journalists from three major newspapers -- each having endorsed John McCain -- reportedly have been booted from the Barack Obama campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential campaign.

The Washington Times reported Friday that they were notified of the Obama campaign's decision Thursday evening -- even though the paper has covered Obama from the start.

"I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn't using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign," Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon said in the article

The New York Post and Dallas Morning News also have been kicked off Obama's plane, according to the Web site The Drudge Report.

The Washington Times has protested the campaign's decision.

Representatives from the Post and Morning News could not be reached immediately for comment.

Read More

The book that Barack Obama and his cheerleaders in the media don't want you to read

The book that Barack Obama and his cheerleaders in the media don't want you to read

How could a man with the farthest-left voting record in the U.S. Senate ... who has vowed to raise taxes and increase government spending ... who has promised unilateral retreat from the War on Terror ... who has had close relationships with a former terrorist, a hate-spewing racist minister, and the corrupt operators of Chicago machine politics ...

How could such a man be on the brink of becoming the next President of the United States? It's because the liberal media has presented Obama as a kind of political savior who will infuse us with "hope" by delivering "change." So few Americans have the slightest idea who Barack Obama really is, what he really stands for ... or how he really got where he is today.

Well, that's about to change - thanks to a new book called The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate. In this shocking exposé, crack investigative reporter David Freddoso demonstrates that despite the hype, Barack Obama doesn't represent "change" or new thinking in American politics at all. In reality, he is a far-left liberal politician in the mold of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Mike Dukakis, and Walter Mondale -- but with charm and political savvy that rivals that of Bill Clinton.

It is imprudent in the extreme -- and dangerous for our survival as a nation -- for Americans to entertain false hopes about what Obama stands for and what he can accomplish in the way of changing history and American attitudes. That's what makes The Case Against Barack Obama so important. Here is the book that moves beyond the rhetoric, giving you the sobering truth about the real Barack Obama.

Click Here to get your FREE Copy
of The Case Against Barack Obama

Read More

Concert , Sports and Family Tickets Onsale today 10/31/08

For the complete list of 542 show visit TicketsOnsaleToday.com

Lisa LampanelliByham Theater Pittsburgh 10/31/2008 9:00:00 AM EST
2008 Christmas Choral Extravaganza St Martin of Tours Louisville 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
A Ledisi Christmas The Fillmore Detroit Detroit 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Acdc's Back In Black House of Blues Orlando Orlando 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Acid Mothers Temple, Sonic Suicide Squad Middle East Cambridge 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Arlo Guthrie Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead Homestead 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Arnez J and Earthquake Florida Theatre Jacksonville Jacksonville 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Badfish, Uncle Billy's Smokehouse Middle East Cambridge 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Banks & Shane Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre ATLANTA 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
BJ Novak Clowes Memorial Hall Indianapolis 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Blue Oyster Cult House of Blues Cleveland Cleveland 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Buddy Guy Palace Theatre Greensburg 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Candlebox Landmark Theatre Syracuse 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Candlebox BLONDIES Detroit 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Contagious~Riot Squad Wild Bills Duluth 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Countdown to 2009 Peabody's Virginia Beach 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Crystal Gayle Turning Stone Resort & Casino Showroom Verona 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Exodus Peabody's Downunder Cleveland 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Exodus Rex Theatre Pittsburgh 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Flaw Masquerade Atlanta 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Get Back! The Cast of Beatlemania The Palace of Auburn Hills Auburn Hills 10/31/2008 10:00:00
Get the Led Out, Led Zeppelin Tribute Turning Stone Resort & Casino Showroom Verona
Gretchen Wilson Wild Bills Duluth 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Gretchen Wilson Coca-Cola Pavilion at Destination Daytona Ormond Beach 10/31/2008 10:00:00
Hinder Bogarts Cincinnati 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Hollywood Undead Bogarts Cincinnati 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Horna Bloodfire Dusk BLONDIES Detroit 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Jack Ingram House of Blues Houston Houston 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Jagermeister Music Tour feat. Hinder with Trapt and Revelation Theory Pepsi Coliseum Indianapolis 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Jim Norton State Theatre Falls Church 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Jukebox the Ghost Middle East Cambridge 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Kreator Bluebird Theater Denver 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Kreator SONAR AND TALKING HEAD CLUB AT SONAR Baltimore 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Lou Gramm House of Blues Dallas Dallas 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Mustard Plug Agora Theatre & Ballroom Cleveland 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
New Year's Eve Celebration Atlanta Civic Center Atlanta 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Nonpoint, 12 Stones, a New Revolution, Midnight To Twelve Crocodile Rock Allentown 10/31/2008
One Sweet World, Dave Matthews Tribute Turning Stone Resort & Casino Showroom Verona
Paul Wall Hayloft Mt. Clemens 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Paul Wall Crocodile Rock Allentown 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Paul Wall SONAR AND TALKING HEAD CLUB AT SONAR Baltimore 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM
Pharoahe Monch SONAR AND TALKING HEAD CLUB AT SONAR Baltimore 10/31/2008 10:00:00
Radar Bros Middle East Cambridge 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Rick Springfield Wild Bills Duluth 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
RODNEY ATKINS The National Richmond 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Soilwork Rex Theatre Pittsburgh 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Stephen Dubner Vanderbilt University Student Life Center Nashville 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
T.I. Hammerstein Ballroom New York 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Tarja The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza New York 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
The Black Lips Variety Playhouse Atlanta 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
The Breakfast Middle East Cambridge 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
The Cham-Peons Middle East Cambridge 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
The Machine Pink Floyd Ultimate Tribute Band Penn's Peak Jim Thorpe 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM
The Ultimate Tribute Seriers Tour Featuring Back In Black (AC/DC) & Appetitie for Destruction (Guns & Roses) House of Blues Orlando Lake Buena Vista 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Theory of a Deadman Madison Theater Covington 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Theory of a Deadman House of Blues Cleveland Cleveland 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Theory of a Deadman Masquerade Atlanta 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Wilco Lyric Opera House Baltimore 10/31/2008 10:00:00 AM EST
Anthony Hamilton House of Blues Houston Houston 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Anthony Hamilton MUSIC CITY GREENSBORO 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Anthony Hamilton House of Blues Dallas Dallas 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Appetite for Destruction House of Blues Chicago Chicago 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Appetite for Destruction & Back In Black House of Blues Dallas Dallas 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM
Back In Black and Appetite for Destruction House of Blues New Orleans New Orleans 10/31/2008
Chief Illiniwek : the Next Dance Assembly Hall Champaign 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Chief Xcel Durty Nellies Palatine 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Colbie Caillat House of Blues Dallas Dallas 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Gary Allan River Center Davenport 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
House of Blues Tribute Series Tour presents Back In Black House of Blues New Orleans New Orleans 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Jesse McCartney Eagles Club/The Rave/Eagles Ballroom Milwaukee 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM
Kreator w/ Exodus, and Belphegor House of Blues Chicago Chicago 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Michael W. Smith Alerus Center Grand Forks 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Movimiento Sonidero : Carrow Show y Fruko Aragon Ballroom Chicago 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM
No Limit Hold Em Poker Tournament Club Regent Casino Winnipeg, MB 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM
Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular Verizon Wireless Theater Houston 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Platinum Package Admission Platinum Package Waukegan 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Ron Kelly's Blues Cafe Feat: Marvin Sease, Rude and Denise LaSalle Baton Rouge River Center Arena Baton Rouge 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Stoney Larue Cowboys Dancehall San Antonio 10/31/2008 11:00:00 AM EST
Amebix Bowery Ballroom NEW YORK 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Amos Lee with Delta Spirit Bluebird Nightclub Bloomington 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Appetite for Destruction Theatre of Living Arts Philadelphia 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Ashford & Simpson Birchmere Alexandria 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Black Market Empire / Goodbye Champion Bluebird Theater Denver 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Brian Culbertson's a Soulful Christmas Birchmere Alexandria 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Cowboy Junkies Birchmere Alexandria 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Del McCoury Band Birchmere Alexandria 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Derek Trucks Tampa Theatre Tampa 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Funeral for a Friend Theatre of Living Arts Philadelphia 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Girl Talk JAKES Bloomington 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Joan Osborne Birchmere Alexandria 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Kevin Costner & Modern West Birchmere Alexandria 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
King's X Blender Theater at Gramercy New York 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Knockout Drops Mercury Lounge New York 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Monster Jam Sun Bowl Stadium El Paso 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra Birchmere Alexandria 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST
Rob Riggle Theatre of Living Arts Philadelphia 10/31/2008 12:00:00 PM EST

Read More

This is what happens when govt gets involved - more mortgage mess

Mortgage Plan May Aid Many and Irk Others

Article Tools Sponsored By
By DAVID STREITFELD
Published: October 30, 2008

As the Treasury Department prepares a $40 billion program to help delinquent homeowners avoid foreclosure, it confronts a difficult challenge: not making the plan too tempting to people like Todd Lawrence.

An airline pilot who lives outside Norwich, Conn., Mr. Lawrence has a traditional 30-year mortgage that he has no trouble paying every month. But, thanks to the plunging real estate market, he owes more on his house than it is worth, like millions of other people.

If the banks, which frequently lent irresponsibly, and many homeowners, who often borrowed irresponsibly, are getting government assistance, Mr. Lawrence says he believes sober souls like himself are also due a break.

"Why am I being punished for having bought a house I could afford?" he asked. "I am beginning to think I would have rocks in my head if I keep paying my mortgage."

The plan, still under development by Treasury, is part of the economic rescue package passed by Congress earlier this month. It is aimed at aiding up to three million beleaguered homeowners by reducing their monthly payments.

Read More

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

Read More

THE PARTY'S OVER

By Linda Monk

The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.
The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America .

The 'Omni power' and 'Indispensable Nation' we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.

Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.

This is nonsense.

What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ('Greed Is Good!') capitalism.

What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.

A true conservative (Rep or Dem) cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic.

He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.

Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess -- that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?

'Government must save us!' cries the left, as ever.

Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government -- the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned.

We save nothing.

Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels.

Read More

Ebay Reveals Best, Worst Gifts For Holiday Season

Immediate family members tend to give the worst gifts and neckties are the least wanted items this holiday season, according to a recent survey.

eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) released results of a recent Opinion Research Corporation gift-giving survey of 3,307 adults online during the first two weeks of October. Twenty-four percent of respondents said neckties are the most dreaded gift. The survey, released Wednesday, also found that spouses, siblings, parents and children are often worse gift-givers than mothers-in-law.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said they prefer gift cards to other items. (Of course, eBay offers gift cards.) Consumer electronics proved popular as well, with men saying they would like larger items, like HDTV (20%), LCD TV (10%), and Blu-ray DVD players (7%). Twenty-six percent of women said they favor digital or video cameras, while 9% want an iPod.

Twenty-six percent of those who want personal electronics said they wish for a laptop. Of those who want gaming systems, 22% prefer Nintendo and 33% wantSony (NYSE: SNE) systems. Guitar Hero is most popular among those who want video games (14%), while Wii Fit comes in second at 13%. Eight percent of those who prefer games want Rock Band. Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party II is not so hot among respondents. Only 2% of those who want games cited it as a preference.

The iPhone is the hottest smart phone choice with 35% of those seeking smart phones stating a preference for the Apple touch-screen device. Forty-seven percent of women who want smart phones prefer a Blackberry, compared to 11% of men.

Forty-eight percent of respondents said they would like to receive clothing. Among men, jeans are the most popular item. Next to the dreaded necktie, flowers, and candles rounded out the list of least-desired gifts. source>>>

Read More

Politics is unfair. And in 2008, politics has been more unfair than usual

Politics is unfair. And in 2008, politics has been more unfair than usual. The least deserving candidate, based on actual accomplishments, is on the brink of winning the presidency. That's Barack Obama. Political leaders with far more impressive records and resumes and more believable talking points have either been vanquished by Obama (Hillary Clinton) or likely will be on Nov. 4 (John McCain). How fair is that?

American politics has always worked this way. Young upstarts, like Bill Clinton in 1992 and Obama today, have a special appeal to voters. Presidential candidates with minimal experience in national affairs have frequently been elected. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush come to mind. Candidates with serious involvement in domestic and foreign policy often lose, as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Bob Dole did.

McCain fits the Washington veteran mold. But his saga has had many twists and turns, including a moment recently when it appeared he would rise above adverse political trends and win the presidency. Then outside events intervened--matters utterly beyond his or his campaign's control--and McCain's prospects fell sharply. How unfair!

It was his experience that once put McCain in the frontrunner's spot in the presidential race. Having run a strong but losing campaign for the Republican nomination in 2000, McCain was regarded as odds-on to capture the nomination this year. He was next in line, with President Bush leaving office, and Republicans usually pick that person. Reagan was next in line in 1980. Dole was in 1996.

But the McCain effort sputtered in the summer of 2007. He was out of money, cratering in the polls and left with an organization on the ground in only a single state, New Hampshire. Staffers fled his campaign.

The McCain candidacy wasn't dead. And it was his rise from the political ashes that makes his recent crash due to the outside events so painful and, well, unfair.

To revive his campaign last year, McCain seized on the issue of the troop surge in Iraq, a strategy he'd been promoting for years. McCain mounted what he called a "no-surrender tour" and it worked. His poll numbers crawled upward. And when he won the New Hampshire primary in January, he was on his way to the nomination.

But Obama turned out to be more formidable than McCain's Republican opponents had been. In August, on the eve of the party conventions, McCain trailed Obama by roughly 10 points in most polls. He looked like a loser again.

But his unconventional TV ads depicting Obama as a mere celebrity and a political empty suit clicked. They captured the most vulnerable aspect of Obama's profile: His lofty speeches masked a thin record of accomplishments. The McCain campaign began to pick up momentum.

Obama's acceptance speech in a football stadium with fake Roman columns behind him was dramatic. The media loved it. But McCain got a bigger boost from the Republican convention than Obama did from the Democratic convention. The chief reason was his surprise selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

Read More

Obama & Crowds,, The masses greeting the candidate on the trail are a sign of great unease.

There is something odd -- and dare I say novel -- in American politics about the crowds that have been greeting Barack Obama on his campaign trail. Hitherto, crowds have not been a prominent feature of American politics. We associate them with the temper of Third World societies. We think of places like Argentina and Egypt and Iran, of multitudes brought together by their zeal for a Peron or a Nasser or a Khomeini. In these kinds of societies, the crowd comes forth to affirm its faith in a redeemer: a man who would set the world right.
[Commentary] Martin Kozlowski

As the late Nobel laureate Elias Canetti observes in his great book, "Crowds and Power" (first published in 1960), the crowd is based on an illusion of equality: Its quest is for that moment when "distinctions are thrown off and all become equal. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd." These crowds, in the tens of thousands, who have been turning out for the Democratic standard-bearer in St. Louis and Denver and Portland, are a measure of American distress.

On the face of it, there is nothing overwhelmingly stirring about Sen. Obama. There is a cerebral quality to him, and an air of detachment. He has eloquence, but within bounds. After nearly two years on the trail, the audience can pretty much anticipate and recite his lines. The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest -- African-Americans and affluent white liberals -- has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking -- Canetti's feeling of equality within the crowd. The day after, the crowd will of course discover its own fissures. The affluent will have to pay for the programs promised the poor. The redistribution agenda that runs through Mr. Obama's vision is anathema to the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the hedge-fund managers now smitten with him. Their ethos is one of competition and the justice of the rewards that come with risk and effort. All this is shelved, as the devotees sustain the candidacy of a man whose public career has been a steady advocacy of reining in the market and organizing those who believe in entitlement and redistribution.

A creature of universities and churches and nonprofit institutions, the Illinois senator, with the blessing and acquiescence of his upscale supporters, has glided past these hard distinctions. On the face of it, it must be surmised that his affluent devotees are ready to foot the bill for the new order, or are convinced that after victory the old ways will endure, and that Mr. Obama will govern from the center. Ambiguity has been a powerful weapon of this gifted candidate: He has been different things to different people, and he was under no obligation to tell this coalition of a thousand discontents, and a thousand visions, the details of his political programs: redistribution for the poor, postracial absolution and "modernity" for the upper end of the scale.

It was no accident that the white working class was the last segment of the population to sign up for the Obama journey. Their hesitancy was not about race. They were men and women of practicality; they distrusted oratory, they could see through the falseness of the solidarity offered by this campaign. They did not have much, but believed in the legitimacy of what little they had acquired. They valued work and its rewards. They knew and heard of staggering wealth made by the Masters of the Universe, but held onto their faith in the outcomes that economic life decreed. The economic hurricane that struck America some weeks ago shook them to the core. They now seek protection, the shelter of the state, and the promise of social repair. The bonuses of the wizards who ran the great corporate entities had not bothered them. It was the spectacle of the work of the wizards melting before our eyes that unsettled them.

Read More

I'm Voting for Those Not Yet Born Chuck Norris says!

My, how the landscape of elections has changed. Remember when the issue of abortion used to matter to conservatives in political races? Today presidential nominees can get away with murder, literally. They can smoke, toke and hang out with terrorists who do. What were once considered legitimate leadership litmus tests are now regarded as off-limit character assassinations and hate language. Recently, some nonprofit organizations have been threatened with the withdrawal of their tax-exempt statuses because their leaders merely voiced opposition to what they consider a moral issue: abortion.

Some people think after 35 years of ceaseless controversy since the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade that abortion is an "old" issue better dropped. I disagree. I do believe the economy is an important issue in this election, but it's certainly not the only issue. We can't just be concerned about our finances. We also must be concerned about America's future and those who will occupy it. Our posterity matters. Their rights matter. And that includes their "unalienable Rights," with which they have been "endowed by their Creator," and among them are the quintessential rights: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Abortion is not about a woman's "right to choose"; it is about a more fundamental "right to life," which is one of three specifically identified unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence (and the Constitution, through Article VII and the Bill of Rights). And it is a violation of government's primary purpose: to protect innocent life.

 

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1809, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government." He was not, of course, writing about the America of today, with state-sanctioned and even subsidized abortion and a movement to promote the killing of the elderly through euthanasia. But he could have been. His belief in what should be "the first and only legitimate object of good government" still should stand. Like Jefferson, our next president needs to uphold those same concerns, not say that such arenas are "above his paygrade." If he and his administration won't protect the rights of the living (even in the womb), then who will? A left-leaning Congress?

The truth is if Obama is elected, we will place a man in the highest office in the land who has the most liberal views and voting record on abortion of any president in American history. As a state senator in Illinois, he led opposition three years in a row (2001-2003) to a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of babies unintentionally left alive by abortions. He also opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion and strongly disapproved of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the partial-birth ban. He also voted to block a bill that would have required a doctor to notify at least one parent before performing an abortion on a minor from another state. He does not support the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortion through Medicaid. Before a Planned Parenthood Action Fund last year, Obama promised to give first priority as president to the signing of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would make partial-birth abortion legal again. Strangely, Obama even once said he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" caused by an unwanted pregnancy. With the next president likely adding two justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is clear that as president, Obama would appoint and support the most liberal judges and legal eagles, resulting in a pro-abortion advantage in our courts that would push abortion liberties to every extent of the law and land.

Read More

If Obama Wins, One Thing is Certain for your Investments

If Barack Obama wins this election, one thing is certain... he will preside over the largest expansion of the government's role in the economy since the 1930s.

This "New New Deal," as some Democrats are already calling it, may well have the same result as the original one: to turn a sharp, painful recession into a long Depression.

Will that set the stage for a GOP president in 2012 -- the way '70s stagflation under Jimmy Carter set the stage for Ronald Reagan? I doubt it. More likely, Obama will be able to parlay the hard economic times into a second term.

How? The same way FDR did... by blaming everything that happens on his watch on his predecessors. The worse things get, the more the Obamacrats will blame it on "eight years of Republican deregulation, tax cuts and greed," calling for even more government intervention as the solution.

And the media, of course, will back them up.

But believe it or not, I'm not writing to you today to warn of the dangers of an Obama presidency -- I suspect you know them all too well. What I am writing to you about is how to protect your own financial well-being during the hard times to come.

It's crucial to understand: Hard times for America does not necessarily mean hard times for you. As a very wise investment expert of my acquaintance, Nicholas Vardy, likes to say, "No matter what the state of financial markets, there is always a strategy out there that can make you money."

The key, Vardy explains, is to recognize opportunities wherever they may be and, more importantly, detach yourself from old themes that are no longer working.

Vardy himself, an American based in London, is a master at crafting such cutting-edge investment strategies -- which he then passes on to subscribers to his Global Stock Investor investment newsletter.

So, for instance, back in mid-2007 Vardy was months ahead of the curve in spotting the coming boom in "soft" (agricultural) commodities -- recommending stocks like Canadian fertilizer giant Potash, which shot up quickly in price before coming back down to earth, by which time his subscribers had safely banked profits of 82% in just over three months time.

And that's nothing compared to the magic Vardy performed for his subscribers during the week of October 6-10, now on record as the worst in Wall Street history.

Consider this: During that five-day trading period, which wiped out some $2.4 trillion in shareholder wealth, Vardy's Global Stock Investor portfolio finished the week in the black.

Compared to the -17% decline in the Dow, that's incredible.

How does Nicholas Vardy do it? If I knew, I'd be in his business, not mine. But I'm sure those countless hours he spends sharing investment ideas with Europe's top money managers has something to do with it -- not to mention his graduate degrees from Stanford and Harvard.

Don't get me wrong: Nicholas Vardy is no elitist snob. Though he makes his "real" money managing money for a few wealthy clients, he also likes to "spread the wealth" -- not through higher taxes (sorry, Obama), but by helping people like you and me make profitable investments.

Full disclosure: I receive a percentage of each subscription sold, but even if I didn't, I'd want you to know about this amazing service. Nicholas' advice is rock solid. You'll thank me later.

Let's face it, the next few years will be tough ones for America, no matter who wins the presidency. But, to repeat, they don't have to be tough ones for you -- if you follow the brilliant investment strategies in Nicholas Vardy's Global Stock Investor. I urge you to give it a try. source>>> Dick Morris

Read More