Obama is an associate of the Chicago branch of the
Democratic Socialists of America
year
event
issue
Barack Obama was born
of Communist activists, mentored by a communist writer and activist,
spent his college days hanging around radical activists, worked as a
radical community organizer learning the radical tactics of Alinsky,
kept contact with radicals through the years, attends a radical church,
and today lends his political skill to the international goals of
radical activists, and has radicals working on his campaign.
Marxism
1972
to
1979
Accuracy in Media has an in-depth
profile
of a leftist who influenced Obama during his high school years. In an
article entitled, "Obama's Communist Mentor," Cliff Kincaid identifies a
member of the Communist Party USA, who has been influential in Obama's
life and education, Frank Marshall Davis, who was a communist -- and
born in Kansas.
Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly
identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The
record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some
point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son,
with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career
path. But Obama, in his book, "Dreams From My Father," refers to
him repeatedly as just "Frank." Frank is the black communist
writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence
as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker.
Davis moved to Honolulu from Chicago in 1948 with his second wife Helen
Canfield, a white socialite, at the suggestion of his friend the actor
Paul Robeson, who advised them that there would be more tolerance of a
mixed race couple in Hawaii than on the American mainland.
Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served
as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis
had known Robeson from his time in Chicago.
The 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the
Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of
involvement in several communist-front organizations.
In his book, Obama writes about "a poet named Frank," who visited his
family in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of "hard-earned knowledge"
and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had "some
modest notoriety once," was "a contemporary of Richard Wright and
Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago..." but was now "pushing
eighty." He writes about "Frank and his old Black Power dashiki
self" giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at
the age of 18.
Obama quoted him as saying: "Leaving your race at the door.
Leaving your people behind. Understand something, boy.
You’re not going to college to get educated. You’re going there to
get trained."
He added, "they’ll tank on your chain and let you know that you may be a
well-trained, well-paid nigger, but you’re a nigger just the same."
Is it possible that Obama did not know who Davis was when he wrote his
book? That's not plausible, since Obama refers to him as a
contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and says he saw a
book of his black poetry.
But why? What does Obama have to say about this curious omission?
Could it have something to do with the fact that, by the time Obama
wrote his book, he knew that Davis was a Communist? And that he
deliberately covered this up? Or did he know it earlier?
This is the key question: What did Obama know and when did he know it?
Which of course raises the disturbing questions that must be asked:
Did Davis recruit Obama?
Professor Gerald Horne, a history professor at the University of
Houston, noted that Davis, came into contact with Barack Obama and his
family and became the young man's mentor, influencing Obama's sense of
identity and career moves.
As Horne describes it, Davis, who wrote the memoir, "Living the Blues,"
had "befriended" a "Euro-American family" that
had "migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family
eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who
goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the steps of Davis
eventually decamped to Chicago."
Dr. Kathryn Takara, a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the
University of Hawaii at Manoa who also confirms that Davis is the
"Frank" in Obama’s book, did her dissertation on Davis and spent much
time with him between 1972 until he passed away in 1987.
In an analysis posted online, she notes that Davis, who was a columnist
for the Honolulu Record, brought "an acute sense of race relations and
class struggle throughout America and the world" and that he openly
discussed subjects such as American imperialism, colonialism and
exploitation. She described him as a "socialist realist" who attacked
the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Davis, in his own writings, had said that Robeson and Harry Bridges, the
head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and a
secret member of the CPUSA, had suggested that he take a job as a
columnist with the Honolulu Record "and see if I could do something for
them." The ILWU was organizing workers there and Robeson’s contacts were
"passed on" to Davis, Takara writes.
Takara says that Davis "espoused freedom, radicalism, solidarity, labor
unions, due process, peace, affirmative action, civil rights, Negro
History week, and true Democracy to fight imperialism, colonialism, and
white supremacy. He urged coalition politics."
Poems from Davis are in the book "Black Moods" which was edited by John
Tidwell, a University of Kansas professor and expert on Davis' writings.
He
confirmed to Kincaid that Davis joined the Communist Party but that
he publicly tried to deny his affiliations.
Asked why Takara thought Obama didn't identify Frank in his book by his
full name, she replied, "Maybe, he didn't want people delving into it."
Stanley Dunham, Obama's grandfather, was
friends with Davis, a bohemian libertine who drank heavily and loved
jazz -- both had roots reaching back to Kansas and had
families of mixed races -- and the black writer took an interest in
Obama.
"Our grandfather ... thought (Frank) was a point of connection, a bridge
if you will, to the larger African-American experience for my brother,"
Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half-sister, said during a recent interview.
For Obama, Davis was an intriguing figure, "with his books and whiskey
breath and the hint of hard-earned knowledge behind the hooded eyes."
Dunham and his grandson would spend evenings at Davis's dilapidated home
in Waikiki, Honolulu's main tourist district. Davis, who had
raised a family with a white wife, would read his poetry and share
whiskey with Dunham, Obama recalled.
Dawna Weatherly-Williams, a friend of Davis' who also lives in Honolulu,
said Dunham wanted Obama to know that there were other children like him
who were part black and part white, she said.
"Stan was real proud of that," she said, adding that it was rare to see
black men with white women at the time.
"He
knew Stan real well. They’d play Scrabble and drink and crack
jokes and argue. Frank always won and he was always very
braggadocio about it too. It was all jocular. They didn’t
get polluted drunk. And Frank never really did drugs, though he
and Stan would smoke pot together."
"Stan had been promising to bring Barry by because we all had that in
common. Frank’s kids were half-white, Stan’s grandson was
half-black and my son was half-black. We all had that in common
and we all really enjoyed it. We got a real kick out of reality."
Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half-sister, told the Associated Press recently
that her grandfather had seen Davis was "a point of connection, a bridge
if you will, to the larger African-American experience for my brother"
According to Miss Weatherly-Williams, Davis lost touch with Dunham some
time in the 1980s.
Obama describes driving to Davis' home in Waikiki after learning that
his white grandmother was so afraid of a black panhandler she did not
want to take the bus to work. Davis told the teenager that his
grandmother was correct to feel scared because she understood
African-Americans "have a reason to hate."
Davis said Obama's grandfather would never understand people like him
because they hadn't experienced the humiliations he had, according to
Obama's memoir. As he left Davis's house that night, Obama wrote, he
knew he was completely alone for the first time in his life.
Davis appears again later in the book, when Obama recalls meeting the
writer shortly before leaving for college on the mainland. At that
meeting, Davis scolded Obama for his listless attitude toward college
and warned him not to leave his race behind, which he called "the real
price of admission" to higher education. Davis went on to tell Obama
that no matter how well he did in college, his race would be a glass
ceiling.
Obama entered Occidental College in
California in 1979.
In his first memoir,
"Dreams," Obama included a
description of black student life at
Occidental College in Los Angeles.
"There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it
came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying
close together, traveling in packs," he wrote. "It remained
necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the
black masses, to strike out and name names."
He added: "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends
carefully. The more politically active black students. The
foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and
structural feminists."
You are know by your friends and
associates -- and Obama's are the hard-core leftists.
Marxism
1981
A recurrent theme in Obama’s career is Power to the People
gestures and Ivy League results.
Obama transferred to Columbia and majored in
political science with a specialization in international relations
-- and swaps drugs for Marxism.
Marxism
1982
He regularly attended the Marxist-Socialist conferences at
Cooper Union and African cultural
fairs in Brooklyn and started lecturing his relatives until they worried
he'd become "one of
those freaks you see on the streets around here."
Marxism
1985
Obama answered a help-wanted ad for a position as a community organizer
for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community
Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Obama was 24 years
old, unmarried, and according to his memoir, searching for a genuine
African-American community.
Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community
agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to "rub raw the sores of
discontent," in Alinsky's words.
One of Obama's early mentors in the Alinsky method was Mike Kruglik, who
had
this to say to an interviewer of The New Republic, about Obama:
"He was a natural, the undisputed master of
agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a
rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not
living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be
aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal
questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing
down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they
could make things better."
The agitator's job, according to Alinsky, is first to bring folks to the
"realization" that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the
fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them
to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an
almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations
will see imminent "self-interest" in granting whatever it is that will
cause the harassment to cease.
In these methods, euphemistically labeled "community organizing," Obama
had a four-year education, which he often says was the best education he
ever got anywhere.
Alinsky
1985
Obama goes
to work at a Chicago housing project, Altgeld Gardens, where he refines
his skills.
Here, Obama worked as an
ethnic activist, helping the
impoverished black community wring more money and services from the
government. That government money was wrecking the morals of the
housing-project residents seems obvious from his book, but Obama never
comes out and says it. Numerous white moderates assume that a man
of Obama’s superlative intelligence must be kidding when he espouses his
cast-iron liberalism on race-related policies, but they don’t understand
the emotional imperative of racial loyalty to him.
His mentor during this period was the veteran local agitator, Hazel
Johnson, who who
disputes the version of events at
Altgeld Gardens that Obama wrote of in his book and tells audiences at
his political gatherings.
While working as a community organizer, Obama was repeatedly asked to
join Christian congregations but
begged off.
"I remained a reluctant skeptic, doubtful of my own motives ..." he
wrote.
Alinsky
1989
Obama's law school friends say he did not want anyone to assume they knew his mind and because of
that, even those close to him did not always know exactly where he stood.
"He then and now is
very hard to pin down," said Kenneth Mack, a
classmate and now a professor at the law school, referring to the senator’s
on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand style.
Mack added, "Obama stood out from the beginning.
He seemed more mature. Everyone understood he was a liberal.
He didn't hide that."
Progressivism
1989
In a page-one footnote of what may be the zaniest-titled
article ever
published by the Harvard Law Review: "The Curvature of Constitutional
Space: What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics," authored by noted
legal scholar Laurence Tribe.
The 39-page densely argued treatise argues that constitutional
jurisprudence should be updated in a similar way that Einstein's theory
of relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics, a view that would release
judges from the original intent of the Founders of America.
Published in 1989, with help of the much younger and politically greener
Mr. Obama, the long-ago article could indicate his views on the
Constitution, which, if he is elected, could come into play in such
matters as his choice of nominees to the Supreme Court.
If Mr. Obama captures the White House, he might not curve space but may
settle for setting aside a high-altitude seat on the Supreme Court for
his former teacher, Mr. Tribe, who is the Carl M. Loeb University
Professor at Harvard.
Supreme Court
1991
Obama moves back to Chicago where he
takes a job with the civil rights law firm, Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland.
1993
Over the next several years, Obama
represents victims of housing and employment discrimination and works on
voting-rights legislation for a small public-interest firm.
He also began
teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, although he declined to pursue
a tenure-track post, hoping to save time for politics.
Progressivism
1996
Obama received the endorsement of the
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for the Illinois state senate
seat. Obama is an associate of the Chicago branch of the DSA.
A close examination of Obama's
first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his
political career. The man now running for president on a message
of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by
leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.
Socialism
1996
Obama, who has no
military service record, is elected to the
Illinois State Senate as a
Democrat.
Defense
1996
to
2000
His
political history in Illinois shows that Obama has proven himself to be a nearly perfect
Progressive-Democrat.
Progressivism
2002
In October, Obama gives a speech at an antiwar rally in Chicago
opposing the invasion of Iraq, saying, "I am not opposed to all wars. I
am opposed to dumb wars."
Defense
2005
When the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice of the Supreme
Court came up in the Senate in 2005,
Obama argued that the role of a justice is to favor the "weak" over
the "strong."
When the nomination of Sam Alito as an associate justice came up in
January 2006, he made the same argument.
Obama does not want a Supreme Court that preserves the rule of law, he
wants a Supreme Court that wages class war under color of law.
So, in Obama's vision, who are the "weak" and who are the "strong"?
Who deserves to win the "hearts" of Supreme Court justices? Who
does not?
In contrast to his soaring campaign rhetoric about bringing America
together, Obama's Senate speeches against Justices Roberts and Alito
revealed a polarizing vision of America. Minorities, women,
employees and criminal defendants were among the weak; majorities, men,
employers and prosecutors among the strong.
Courts
2006
Here is a video
of Obama enthusiastically campaigning for openly socialist Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders, who won his seat in 2006,
called Obama "one of the great leaders of the United States Senate,"
even though Obama had only been in the body for less than two years.
Socialism
2006
In October, Obama publishes "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on
Reclaiming the American Dream," which details his views of politics and
his vision for the future of
the U.S. government and its people.
"Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different," Obama
wrote. "His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt
poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new
and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through
sheer force of will."
He added: "Malcolm’s discovery toward the end of his life, that
some whites might live beside him as
brothers in Islam, seemed to offer some hope of eventual
reconciliation."
Some whites? -- if they are Muslims? -- all whites
have to do is to submit to Islam? -- this guy still thinks like a
Muslim.
Race
2007
An
analysis of "lifetime voting records,"
shows Obama as the most liberal Democrat in Congress, with a score of
84.3 after two full years in the Senate. The most liberal score possible
was 99.
The study, released in March by the National Journal, a respected
inside-the-Beltway research report, places Obama even in front of Dennis
Kucinich, with a lifetime score of 79.4.
Progressivism
2007
'We don't care about the world as it is, we imagine
the world
as it might be. We want to write
a new chapter,'" Obama told the crowd. "That is the moment that we
are in right now."
Socialism
2007
Obama endorses "comparable worth," a truly bad idea.
In case you don't know what comparable worth is, it's an idea concocted
by feminists in the 1970s or early 1980s. They said that jobs typically
held by women pay less than jobs typically held by men.
To eliminate this inequity, somebody–the courts, maybe, or some
administrative agency, presumably with appeals to the courts–should
decide what those jobs were really worth, based on some sort of
convoluted criteria. So that it could be possible to prove that
secretaries were of comparable worth to truck drivers and should be paid
the same wages.
Comparable worth would subject the private-sector economy to the
equivalent of the federal civil service system. Bureaucrats would have
to classify every job, with their classifications subject to
administrative and judicial review.
Marxism
2007
Seeking to add heft to his presidential bid,
Democrat Barack Obama is offering a sweeping plan that would require
every American to have
health coverage and calls on government, businesses and consumers to
share the costs of the program.
It's not surprising that a socialist would push for socialized medicine.
Socialism
2007
On July 18th, ABC News' Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson
reported that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood
that sex education for kindergarteners is "the right thing to do."
(Video at link).
Homosexual Agenda
2007
His "solutions"
will sound familiar to those who listened to Lyndon Johnson's poverty
gurus and their fellow travelers under Jimmy Carter who promised massive
government assistance:
"When I'm President, I will raise the minimum wage and make it a
living wage by making sure that it rises every time the cost of living
does. I'll start letting our unions do what they do best again –
organize our workers and lift up our middle-class. And I'll finally make
sure every American has affordable health care that stays with you no
matter what happens by passing my plan to provide universal coverage and
cut the cost of health care by up to $2500 per family."
"The philosophy behind the project is simple – if poverty is a disease
that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and
violence; failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat
those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And
we have to focus on what actually works."
It was federal government policies and programs that caused most of the
problems of the inner city today. The fact that Obama wants to try more
of the same only shows that absolute dearth of ideas emanating from the
left regarding urban policy. They just can't help themselves. And Obama
can no longer disguise his far left policies by advocating them using
soothing, non-threatening rhetoric.
If it walks like one, talks like a one and spends like
a one, it must be a socialist.
Socialism
2007
Obama, sharing
his vision of America as welfare state with the annual meeting of
the National Council of La Raza, compared last year's massive
immigration rallies, led by Hispanics, to the civil-rights marches of
African-Americans in the 1960's.
To the Harvard-trained lawyer, the illegal immigrants are just
"undocumented immigrants" who just haven't had a chance to get the
paperwork done.
It certainly is new for someone, campaigning for our nation's highest
office, to see representation of the millions who are here illegally, as
part of those responsibilities.
Can it be that Obama thinks he is running for secretary-general of
the United Nations and not president of the United States?
Illegal Immigration
2007
On Thursday,
November 1st, Obama made this startling comment, "We've got to make
sure that people who have more money help the people who have less
money."
Obama agrees with Karl Marx on income redistribution.
Marxism
2007
At the Apollo Theater fundraiser, Obama was introduced by the radical Marxist professor and self-styled rapper, Cornell West, as "my comrade."
What does this tell you about Obama, when he chooses to
be introduced by one of the most radical Marxists in America as, "my
comrade?"
Watch this video -- Cornell doesn't trust Obama -- Why the
change in attitude?
What promises did Obama make to cause this 180◦?
Marxism
2008
In California, in order to garner support from Hispanics, Obama
announces his support for granting driver's licenses to illegal
immigrants.
"Barack Obama has not backed down" on driver's licenses for illegal
immigrants, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton administration Cabinet
member and Denver mayor now supporting Obama. "I think when the
Latino community hears Barack's position on such an important and
controversial issue, they'll understand that his heart and his intellect
is with Latino community."
Obama supports driver's license for illegals.
This fact alone disqualifies him.
Illegal Immigration
2008
The National Journal identifies Barack Obama, D-Ill., as
the most liberal
senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote
ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to
the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the
16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.
Progressivism
2008
Also on the 31st, Obama
said he would pay for his proposed new programs, including mandatory
health insurance, by imposing higher taxes on "the wealthy" and raising
the tax on Social Security wages. He added, "What we have had
right now is a situation where we've cut taxes for people who don't need
them."
According to recent Gallup data, "The wealthiest 1 percent of the
population earn 19 percent of the income, but pay 37 percent of the
income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab.
Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent -- those below the median income level
-- now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the
taxes.
Should government determine how much money people "need"?
This is Marxism: "from each according to his ability; to each according
to his need."
Socialized Medicine
2008
A health care mandate is not the only new regulation that
Obama wants to impose. For example, he would require businesses to
pay an undefined "living wage." He would require paid "family and
medical leave." He would regulate mortgages and credit card interest
rates. He would impose a host of environmental and labor restrictions.
The net cost of this regulatory burden almost certainly will be higher
unemployment and greater poverty.
And it's not just businesses that would feel the regulatory hand of an
Obama presidency. Consumers too will have to pay, as he imposes new
costs on products ranging from homes to automobiles and appliances. In
almost everything we do, Obama sees a need for the government to
intervene.
A President Obama would mean a much bigger, more intrusive, and costlier
government. Indeed, when considering his policies, one searches in vain
for any break with liberal orthodoxy. Personal accounts for Social
Security? Entitlement reform? School choice? Obama rejects them all,
calling such proposals, "Social Darwinism."
Regulation
2008
Obama's
grand theme is to spread America's wealth to the world's poor, as
the onetime community organizer from the streets of South Chicago goes
global.
He says to his followers, "It's not too late to claim the American
dream," and they cheer wildly, and some even cry.
Don't they know that the American dream isn't a wish granted by a
politician, or an entitlement from the government? Do they need a
political seer to tell them what to hope for, and dream of, because they
are unable to find it for themselves?
In his
most recent victory speech, delivered in Madison, Wisconsin on
February 13, Obama named some of those guilty of creating America's
victims. They included:
Exxon, turning record profits from high pump prices
Wall Street, whose agenda smothers Main Street
NAFTA, where the American worker has no voice at the negotiating table
Lobbyists, who drown out the peoples' voice.
Taxes
2008
February 16th -- Obama unveiled much of his
economic strategy in Wisconsin this week: He wants to spend $150
billion on a green-energy plan. He wants to establish an
infrastructure investment bank to the tune of $60 billion. He
wants to expand health insurance by roughly $65 billion. He wants
to "reopen" trade deals, which is another way of saying he wants to
raise the barriers to free trade.
He intends to regulate the profits for drug companies, health insurers,
and energy firms. He wants to establish a mortgage-interest tax
credit. He wants to double the number of workers receiving the
earned income tax credit, the EITC, and triple the EITC benefit for
minimum-wage workers. The Obama spend-o-meter is now up around
$800 billion. And tax hikes on the rich won’t pay for it.
It’s the middle class that will ultimately shoulder this fiscal burden
in terms of higher taxes and lower growth.
This isn’t free enterprise. It’s old-fashioned-liberal tax, and
spend, and regulate. It’s plain ol’ big government. The only
people who will benefit are the central planners in Washington.
The Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore has done the math on Mr. Obama’s
tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6% personal income tax, a
52.2% combined income and payroll tax, a 28% capital-gains tax, a 39.6%
dividends tax, and a 55% estate tax.
Not only is Mr. Obama the big-spending candidate, he’s also the
very-high-tax candidate. And what he wants to tax is capital.
Obama doesn't understand the vital role of capital formation in creating
businesses and jobs. He doesn't understand that without capital,
businesses can’t expand their operations and hire more workers?
Taxes
2008
February 17th -- Sen. Barack Obama, giving America a preview of his
priorities, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan
that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to
reduce poverty in other nations.
The nice-sounding bill, called the "Global
Poverty Act," sponsored by Obama, is up for a Senate vote on
Thursday and could result in the imposition of a $845 billion global tax
on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal
religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient
to the dictates of the United Nations.
The U.N.'s "Millennium Project," says that the U.N. plan to force the
U.S. to pay 0.7 percent of its GNP in increased foreign aid spending
would add $65 billion a year to what the U.S. already spends. Over a
13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.'s Financing for Development
conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S. is
expected to meet the "Millennium Development Goals," this amounts to
$845 billion. And the only way to raise that kind of money is through a
global tax, preferably on carbon-emitting fossil fuels.
"To require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive
strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of
promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme
global poverty, and the achievement of the [U.N.] Millennium Development
Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between
1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."
In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits
nations to banning "small arms and light weapons" and ratifying a series
of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the
Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological
Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child.
The Millennium Declaration also affirms the U.N. as "the indispensable
common house of the entire human family, through which we will seek to
realize our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and
development."
Here's how Senator Obama's website
frames
the bill:
"With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world,
global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the
international community faces," said Senator Obama. "It must be a
priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme
poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking
water. As we strive to rebuild America's standing in the world, this
important bill will demonstrate our promise and commitment to those in
the developing world. Our commitment to the global economy must extend
beyond trade agreements that are more about increasing corporate profits
than about helping workers and small farmers everywhere."
Will somebody tell this idiot that it's not the job of the United States
to cut global poverty by taxing its citizens and giving those monies to
the corrupt United Nations.
Welfare doesn't work in America and its sure not going to work anywhere
else. It's just more billions and trillions down the toilet.
Taxes
2008
March 4th, Obama offers a
policy of dialogue and accommodation. He has opposed listing
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and
proposed a grand bargain with Syria's rulers. He is even prepared
to ignore two UN Security Council resolutions that require Iran to stop
its uranium-enrichment program as a precondition for talks at the
highest level. He has campaigned for a formal congressional move
to prevent Bush from taking any military action against Tehran.
In an important symbolic move designed to signal an end of the special
relationship between Israel and America, Obama has become the first
major presidential candidate in 25 years not to commit himself to
transferring the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Last but not least, Obama has promised to withdraw from Iraq in his
first year in office -- meeting a key demand of all radical Islamist
forces, Sunni and Shiite.
The message is clear: Obama wants a new relationship with radical forces
in the Islamic world while distancing America from its traditional
regional allies. In other words, he proposes to reverse policies
that have taken shape over more than six decades under 12 successive
American presidents.
Defense
Foreign Relations
2008
March 24th -- Are you an
authentic white
person? For the answer to that, we need to go to the current
authentic black community. They are the ones who define who is and
who is not an authentic member of their race. Be they black or
white. (Since Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc., have not yet
amassed political clout, they're excluded from being categorized by
their skin color.)
The reigning Black elite have decided that authentic "typical white
people" are inherently racist. As Obama so blithely stated, this
prejudice is inbred and rears its ugly head every time a white
encounters a black. For those whites who believe reparations to
date, in the form of trillions of dollars, affirmative action, special
dispensations and a color-coded justice system, have adequately
addressed the shame of their ancestors' sin of slavery, well, it hasn't.
We are informed that racial prejudice is still rampant in American
society. If you don't see it, its because it has taken the more
insidious form of "institutional racism."
Not to worry, Obama assures us we can change. Phew! Just
elect him President, and by virtue of the moral authority inherent in
his skin color, he will kindly inform and advise his fellow Americans,
excuse me, his fellow white Americans, on the proper obeisance and
reparations due all black people. Oops, I meant, all "authentic"
black people. Uncle Toms like Condoleeza Rice, Clarence Thomas,
and other successful black people who succeeded on their own merit are
not "authentic," and most decidedly not representative of the oppressed
black community.
Race
2008
March 28th -- It's All a Distraction! (Posted: Brian Faughnan on March 28, 2008 02:25 PM)
Obama on Jeremiah Wright:
Part of what I hope to do in this campaign and as president is to get
us beyond these divisions that distract us from our common
challenges and our common opportunities and move the country forward.
On going to war in Iraq:
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove
to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the
poverty rate, a drop in the median income -- to distract us from
corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the
worst month since the Great Depression.
Obama on attacks by Hillary:
We knew that the closer we got to the change we seek, the more we'd
see of the politics we're trying to end -- the attacks and distortions
that try to distract us from the issues that matter to people's
lives, the stunts and the tactics that ask us to fear instead of hope.
On gay marriage:
The heightened focus on marriage is a distraction from other,
attainable measures to prevent discrimination and gays and lesbians.
Obama on race, gay marriage, abortion, and illegal immigration:
We get distracted from solving problems such as health care,
employment or the environment because of these divisions. It
happens in every election, and it's not just race. It's
immigration, gay people or abortion. There's always one of these
issues that crops up and prevents us from focusing on vital issues that
this country's long-term well-being depends on us solving.
It's not all that original to note that much of Obama's rhetoric is
pretty vague -- often vapid. But I've begun to notice how many
things Obama regards as distractions. When he labels a given issue
a 'distraction,' he's saying that someone is whipping up a an issue from
whole cloth simply for political gain.
So who does he think is being insincere: gays who want to marry, or
people of faith who think marriage is for a man and a woman? How
about in the competition between border enforcement advocates and those
who want amnesty for illegal aliens? Or between those who favor
abortion on demand, and those who believe life begins at conception?
All of these are important public policy questions, with divisions among
Americans that prevent easy solutions. Obama shouldn't denigrate
broad swaths of the population just because it would be difficult to
address their concerns.
Distraction
2008
March 31st -- Economic conservatives have a special love for cutting capital gains
taxes. Not only do they feel it is one of the most destructive taxes
that exists, but it was the 1978 capital gains tax cut -- along with
Proposition 13 the same year in California -- that really launched the
supply-side tax revolution. Now Obama says he wants to nearly
double the capital gains tax rate. Here is what
he told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo last week:
"Well, you know, I haven't given a firm number. Here's my belief,
that we can't go back to some of the, you know, confiscatory rates that
existed in the past that distorted sound economics. And I
certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was
28 percent. I would -- and my guess would be it would be
significantly lower than that. I think that we can have a capital
gains rate that is higher than 15 percent. If it -- and if it, you
know -- when I talk to people like Warren Buffett or others and I ask
them, you know, what's -- how much of a difference is it going to be if
it's 20 or 25 percent, they say, look, if it's within that range, then
it's not going to distort, I think, economic decision making."
My take: Obama got it wrong. The capital gains rate during the
Clinton administration fell from 28 percent at the beginning to 20
percent with the signing of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 in August of
that year. Interestingly, the economy managed only two years of
growth of 4 percent or more in the decade previous to the 1997 cap gains
cut -- but notched three straight years of such growth in 1997, 1998,
and 1999.
Taxes
2008
April 3rd -- Obama is
embracinganti-gun policies in the run-up to a Democratic
presidential debate scheduled on the one-year anniversary of the
Virginia Tech shootings.
"I am not in favor of concealed weapons," Obama told the Pittsburgh
Tribune. "I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more
innocent people could (get shot during) altercations."
These remarks break from Obama’s previous moderate rhetoric on gun
control.
While campaigning in Idaho in February, Obama promised, "I have no
intention of taking away folks’ guns."
2nd
Amendment
2008
April 9th -- Obama has surrounded himself with racists, socialists, Marxists,
communists, domestic terrorists and accused felons, yet has an uncanny
ability to mesmerize the mainstream media into believing the people with
whom he associates in the long term do not reflect upon him personally.
"It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I
had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and
smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they
were relieved -- such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young
black man who didn’t seem angry all the time."
That is a quote from Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father. He has
learned to play the game well. Regardless of the company he keeps,
his smiling well mannered persona has indeed been an effective shield
into the psyche of Barack Obama.
Marxism
2008
April 10th -- The Democratic presidential front-runner favors
repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy , which was
instituted during the Clinton administration.
"But I think there's increasing recognition within the Armed Forces that
this is a counterproductive strategy," he said. "We're spending
large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our
military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language
capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn't make us more
safe."
"The gay press may feel like I'm not giving them enough love, but
basically all press feels that way at all times," Obama told The
Advocate. He said he's frequently spoken out against homophobia
and in support of gay rights.
Asked what he could reasonably accomplish for the gay community as
president, Obama said he can "reasonably see" repeal of the "don't ask,
don't tell" policy as well as signing legislation to ban workplace
discrimination against gays. He said he'd like transgendered
people to be covered by the law, but thinks it would be tough to get
such legislation through Congress.
Obama also said he's interested in ensuring that same-sex couples in
civil unions get federal benefits.
Homosexual
Agenda
2008
April 12th -- Obama came
under fire today for saying small-town Pennsylvania residents were
"bitter" and "cling to guns or religion," in comments his rivals said
showed an elitist view of the middle class.
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a
lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25
years and nothing's replaced them." Obama said.
"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to
guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or
anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain
their frustrations." he said.
What makes this so
breathtaking is the mindless, casual way in which Obama reveals his
snobbishness and elitism. We saw hints of this from
Michelle Obama, in her assertions about never being proud of her country
until her husband ran for President. We had not seen it from Obama
himself in such a blatant and unmistakable manner. The
matter-of-fact style in which he spoke this shows the unthinking
contempt he has for people he has never engaged -- an acceptance of
stereotypes without questioning them that shows his own bigotry, not to
mention foolishness and poor judgment.
Elitism
2008
April 12th -- Obama explains that
simple rural folks and other proletarians would abandon their unpleasant
devotion to firearms and religion if only the Executive Branch of the
Federal Government would preserve their factory jobs. If Obama
sounds familiar here, he should. His comments have a proud pedigree.
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It
is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as
the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real
happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their
condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires
illusions."
That is Karl Marx in Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843.
Obama is saying exactly the same thing as Marx. They each argue
religion exists because the life of a proletarian worker is frustrating
and unsatisfying. Both Obama and Marx argue that the proletarians
cling to religion, not for its own sake, but because the economic system
is not satisfying their social needs. To Marx’s evaluation of
religion, Obama adds firearms and other aspects of rural life in America
that progressives don’t approve of.
This isn’t a mistake. This isn’t a misquote. This is another
insight into how Obama thinks. The comments that he and his wife
make reveal their "progressive" world view. It is socialist, it is
fascist and it is obvious. All you have to do is listen.
Marxism
2008
April 12th -- Let’s break
the statement into its component insults:
"[T]hey cling to guns…" Cling to guns? Americans have "clung" to
guns since the founding of the Republic. It’s such a core value to
this nation that its founders placed it second on the Bill of Rights,
right after freedom of speech and religion. Speaking of which …
"or [they cling to] religion …" People don’t become religious
because the economy hits a few bumps in the road. Obama may have
chosen his religion based on politics, but most people follow a religion
out of a deeper sense of spirituality. I can’t think of a more
condescending and contemptuous analysis of religious dedication than
this statement.
"or [they cling to] antipathy to people who aren’t like them or
anti-immigrant sentiment…" Small-town voters are bigots and
xenophobes; there’s no other way to read the first part of this
statement. The second part, about them being "anti-immigrant," is
a non-sequitur. They may be anti-illegal immigrant, but that’s a
far different issue. Obama offers no proof that small-town voters
are xenophobes, but the Frisco audience didn’t demand any, either.
It’s part of their own bigotry that makes them see middle America in
those terms.
"or [they cling to] anti-trade sentiment …" And this is just jaw-droppingly
hypocritical. This comes from the same candidate who opposes the
Colombian free-trade agreement and wants to throw NAFTA out the window.
Who’s clinging to anti-trade sentiment? Obama, Hillary Clinton,
and Big Labor.
It would be difficult to be any more condescending or insulting in so
many ways to so many voters in a single sentence. It reveals a
deeply elitist and shockingly callow candidate. It’s the "Let them
eat cake" of 2008.
Elitism
2008
April 12th -- In order to stop the "bitter" bleeding, Obama responded to the Pennsylvania
gaff with the following video:
I found this video very illuminating, as it demonstrates Obama employing the
Alinsky agitation technique of "rubbing raw the sores of discontent." (Alinsky's
words)
Watch as Obama sets up a list of grievances, gets everyone angry and then
leads the choir in an emotional response to Washington's failures -- "they
(Americans) can't count on Washington" -- and ends strong -- he's the answer
to everything he says is wrong with America.
The entire exercise was to change the discussion. Obama never addressed
his condescending remarks. Instead, he got his audience mad at Washington
-- he changed the subject.
Note the
difference between what Obama said in his unguarded moment at San
Francisco's "Billionair's Row," and the cleaned-up version he tried to sell
tonight.
At the Getty Mansion (see picture below -- 4/6/2008):
"So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or
religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment
or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
With "the folks" in Indiana:
"So people end up voting on issues like guns and are they going to have the
right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in
their faith and their community, and their family, and the things they can count
on."
Elitism
2008
April 12th -- At North Carolina's Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C., Clinton
campaign North Carolina chieftain Tom Hendrickson, a former state party
chair,
made much hay out of the "small town" comments made by Sen. Barack
Obama, D-Ill.
"I normally just come and talk about President Clinton and Senator
Clinton at these, but today Senator Obama was out at a fundraiser at I
guess a brie and chardonnay crowd in San Francisco," Hendrickson said.
"But his quote talking about small towns in Pennsylvania -- and which
applies to small towns across eastern North Carolina -- which is why it
is relevant to this tour we are doing today. And his quote is 'and
it is not surprising that they cling to guns and religion or antipathy
to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant or anti-trade as a way
to explain their frustration.'"
"I listened to that quote and I got mad," Hendrickson said, "and
I wanted to reach out to Senator Obama and say senator, we are from the
rural part of eastern North Carolina. We are very proud of our
heritage, we are proud of who we are. We are not frustrated.
We are not bitter. We turn to our faith because we believe, and we
hunt and fish because it is part of our culture and we enjoy it."
Elitism
2008
April 17th -- Obama is quoted as saying
this during last night's debate:
"I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear
arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that
the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that
right."
Here's a few examples -- make up your own:
"Just because you have an individual right [to free speech] does not
mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of
that right."
"Just because you have an individual right [not to be searched
unreasonably] does not mean that the state or local government can't
constrain the exercise of that right."
"Just because you have an individual right [to freely exercise religion]
does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the
exercise of that right."
"Just because you have an individual right [to an abortion] does not
mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of
that right."
"Just because you have an individual right [to bear arms] does not mean
that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that
right."
Does anyone else find this disturbing?
2nd
Amendment
2008
April 18th --
Weather Underground leader turned-academic William Ayers is now so
docile that it never really "bothered anyone in Chicago," that Sen.
Barack Obama had any connection to him, wrote Chicago Sun-Times reporter
Lynn Sweet in the April 18 paper. Along those same lines the
Washington Post's Peter Slevin argued that the '60s radical was now
"considered so mainstream" in Chicago "that [Mayor Richard] Daley issued
a statement on Thursday praising him as a 'distinguished professor of
education' and a 'valued member of the Chicago community.'"
But while he may have forsaken violence long ago, as his blog attests,
Ayers's politics are far from mainstream, and go far beyond the standard
Democratic arguments to withdraw from Iraq. For example, Ayers
wants to pay reparations in Iraq AND Afghanistan and practically
withdraw the U.S. military from the entirety of the Middle East, even in
countries that have longstanding security arrangements with the U.S.
Terrorism
2008
April 19th -- Obama’s presidential campaign
has worked to assure uneasy gun owners that he believes the
Constitution protects their rights and that he doesn’t want to take away
their guns.
But before he became a national political figure, he sat on the board of
the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based foundation that doled out at least
nine grants totaling nearly $2.7 million to groups that advocated the
opposite positions.
The foundation funded legal scholarship advancing the theory that the
Second Amendment does not protect individual gun owners’ rights, as well
as two groups that advocated handgun bans. And it paid to
support a book called "Every Handgun Is Aimed at You:
The Case
for Banning Handguns."
2nd
Amendment
2008
April 21st -- On Sunday, Obama took the
low road in defending his relationship with the terrorist, Bill
Ayers. Obama invoked some bizarre kind of moral equivalence
between Ayers' explosive past and that of a Senate colleague, Tom Coburn
of Oklahoma.
During the debate, Obama had said, "I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn,
one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate,
who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply
the death penalty to those who carried out abortions. Do I need to
apologize for Coburn's statements?"
No, Sen. Obama, just your own, including this latest round. Coburn
may be pro-life, but -- unlike Ayers -- he never acted violently on his
beliefs. Coburn, a doctor who has delivered more than 4,000
babies, never bombed an abortion clinic. The Oklahoman made his
remark in the context of abortion being made illegal, which it isn't.
As someone once said of another famous senator: Sen. Obama, have you no
shame?
John McCain found Obama's remarks offensive, saying "Coburn was a great
humanitarian," and "to compare him (Ayers) with Dr. Coburn, who spends
so much of his life bringing babies into this world, that in my view is
really -- borders on the outrageous. He became friends with him
and spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his
activities as a member of a terrorist organization, the Weatherman.
Does he condemn them? Would he condemn someone who says they're
unrepentant and wished they had bombed more?"
Terrorism
2008
April 25th -- FBI files from 1976, recently made public under the Freedom of
Information Act,
confirm the connections between the Weatherman, Havana, and
Moscow. Weatherman leaders like Mark Rudd traveled illegally
to Havana in 1968 to engage in terrorist training. There, camps
set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine were educating Westerners
both in Marxist philosophy and urban warfare.
At a 1969 "War Council" in Flint, Michigan, Weatherman leader and Obama
buddy, Bernardine Dohrn, (currently a law professor at Northwestern
University and a Board member of the ACLU) praised the serial murderer
Charles Manson and his accomplices: "Dig it. First they killed those
pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even
shoved a fork into the victim's stomach. Wild."
She then proclaimed that the time had come to launch a war against "Amerikkka"
(Weatherman always spelled "America" this way, to convey the group's
belief that the nation was ineradicably racist to its core).
Toward this end, Dohrn advocated the formation of an even more radical
"Weather Underground" cult to carry out covert terrorist activities
rather than public acts of protest. By early 1970, her wish would
be realized.
The Weather Underground went on to claim credit for some 25 bombings
over the next several years, detonating explosives at the rebuilt
Haymarket statue, a bathroom at the Pentagon, the Capitol barber shop,
the New York City police headquarters, and a variety of other targets.
Dohrn and her husband Bill Ayers remain unrepentant. On 9/11, the
NY Times ran an interview in which
Ayers regrets
not having set more bombs, and (presumably) killed more Americans.
Terrorism
2008
On April 28th, Barack Obama
defended his commitment to patriotic ideals this afternoon, telling
a town hall meeting in North Carolina that "I always have the flag in my
heart."
He just won't wear one on his lapel or salute
it during the National Anthem.
Patriotism
2008
April 29th, -- George Will posed thirteen questions for Obama.
The first -- "Senator, concerning the criteria by which you will nominate
judges, you said: 'We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to
recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to
understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or
disabled, or old.' Such sensitivities might serve an admirable
legislator, but what have they to do with judging? Should a judge
side with whichever party in a controversy stirs his or her empathy?
Is such personalization of the judicial function inimical to the rule of
law?"
And there's twelve more critical questions at
this link -- worth a
visit.
Courts
2008
April 29th -- Obama says, "I
still believe in affirmative action as a means of overcoming
both historic and potentially current discrimination ..."
And what is "potentially current
discrimination?"
Quotas
2008
Obama's
proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies could cost $15
billion a year at last year's profit levels, a campaign adviser said.
The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing
each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on
the proposal. The tax would help pay for a $1,000 tax cut for
working families, an expansion of the earned-income tax credit and
assistance for people who can't afford their energy bills.
And the oil companies would pass that on to the
consumer -- great idea!
Taxes
2008
May 5th --
Obama's terrorist
buddy, Bill Ayers, shows where he STANDS on things.
The photo was taken to promote Ayers’s book, "Fugitive Days" and
published by Chicago Mag in their August 2001 issue.
This guy is still a hard-core communist as he proudly announces on his
red communist star-headed
website.
Patriotism
5/5/08
May 5th -- Kinda brings this to mind.
Two damned peas in a pod!
Patriotsim
5/6/08
Asked to explain this
totally weird comparison -- 20 years of hearing his pastor’s racist
rants vs. his grandmother’s one-time confession -- Obama replied that
his grandmother was a "typical white person."
Conclusion: Obama defends the indefensible, embraces those who say the
indefensible, and trashes the people who love him.
Why? Because the indefensible crowd speaks for him! It is
not in Obama’s nature to be aggressive and confrontational, insulting or
hurtful, vicious or adversarial. But all of these traits are
clearly in his heart and soul and psyche! Why else would he defend
them?
Obama is a typical passive-aggressive personality who pretends to be a
nice guy by using fuzzy language and a let’s-all-get-together mantra to
seduce his acolytes, but who relies on his surrogates -- wifey,
minister, terrorist endorsements, et al -- to express his real agenda,
i.e., getting back! But getting back at whom?
My theory is that Obama wants to "get back" at all those evil
capitalists and racist entities that robbed his Marxist mother, father,
and stepfather of the respect he thought they deserved. According
to the writer Spengler in a riveting L.A. Times article, both his wife
and mother "reveal his secret: he hates America."
Marxism
5/7/08
Scott at
PowerLine blog noted that Senator Obama's victory speech last night
turned impressively to the general election campaign. He all but
clinched the Democratic nomination last night. His speech sounded
very much like a nomination acceptance speech. I expect that the
themes he sounded in his speech last night will reappear in his speech
this summer in Denver.
I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but
wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like
Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.
Maguire comments:
Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led
the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was
unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and
Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they
did exchange correspondence before the war).
So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with
Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies," although of course we
were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at
that point. Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama
and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation? Puzzling.
And the United States has been talking with Iran right along in any
event. It's not for lack of communication that Iran has been
conducting its war on the United States.
When Obama invoked past Democratic presidents in his speech last night,
he started with Roosevelt but omitted Johnson, Carter, and Clinton.
Moving on from the Clinton era is part of the thesis of Obama's
candidacy, so the omission is understandable. Of past Democratic
presidents, none has set a better example of the pitfalls of "talking to
our enemies" than Jimmy Carter, both in his presidency and his travels
since (though Carter probably would not acknowledge that his
interlocutors are our enemies).
Obama may not be knowledgeable enough to know he doesn't want to emulate
Roosevelt at Yalta. Perhaps he believes that Roosevelt's name
sanctions whatever action he can attach to it. But Obama is smart
enough to know that he doesn't want to profess a desire to emulate Jimmy
Carter, if only on political grounds. In substance, however, it
seems to me that the president Obama most closely resembles on this
point is Carter.
Foreign
Relations
5/8/08
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flatly promised to
raise taxes in a television interview Thursday afternoon.
"I will raise CEO taxes," Obama told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on "The
Situation Room."
"If you’re a CEO in this country you’ll probably pay more taxes," Obama
said. Obama speculated his CEO tax rates "won’t be prohibitively high,
you’ll pay roughly what you did in the 90’s when they were doing fine."
Obama replied, "You know, I think the definitions are always a little
bit rough" and said "if you’re making $100,000 a year or less, then
you’re pretty solidly middle class… On the other hand, if you’re making
more than $100,000 and certainly if you’re making more than $200,000 or
$250,000, you’re doing pretty well."
Taxes
5/9/08
Today's Wall Street Journal
publishes a column by former principal deputy commissioner of the
Social Security Administration Andrew Biggs on "Obama's
faulty tax argument."
Like his
improbable history, Obama's argument in favor of higher taxes is
both straightforward and misleading. If Obama is elected
president, we can count on at least two things: bad economic policy and
bad foreign policy. And we won't be able to say we weren't warned.
Taxes
5/12/08
In an
interview with Jeffrey Goldberg for The Atlantic, Barack Obama
presents himself as the best friend Israel ever had.
Then he proceeds to call Israel a "constant sore" that "infects all of
our foreign policy:" Obama on Zionism and Hamas.
JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?
BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this
constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.
Foreign
Relations
5/16/08
Gingrich on appeasers and appeasement (01:10)
Foreign
Relations
5/16/08
On the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (01:28)
2nd
Amendment
5/17/08
"Frankly, I can be wrong, but I do not think that America can carry
to the presidency a candidate as on the left as Barack Obama."
During a rally in Roseburg, Oregon, on Saturday, Obama presented
himself as the front-runner almost without question -- then had this to
say:
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes
on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries
are going to say OK," Obama said.
Do you remember any other time in this nation’s
history when we were told by our elected leaders to tighten our belts in
order to gain the approval of other countries around the world?
Marxism
5/22/08
Barack Obama
on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights.
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes:
In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest
category of hate crime reported. Obama co-sponsored legislation to
expand federal hate crimes law to include crimes perpetrated because of
sexual orientation or gender identity.
Fight Workplace Discrimination and Promote Rights:
Obama believes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act should be expanded
to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Obama sponsored
legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples:
Obama also believes we need to fully repeal the Defense of Marriage Act
and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal
rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status
are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally
recognized unions.
Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage:
Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have
defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial
extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried
couples.
Repeal Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell:
Obama believes we need to repeal the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy. The
key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and
a willingness to serve. Obama will work with military leaders to repeal
the current policy and ensure we accomplish our national defense goals.
Fight AIDS Worldwide:
Obama has been a global leader in the fight
against AIDS. He traveled to Kenya and took a public HIV test to
encourage testing and reduce the stigma of the disease. Obama worked to
reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act, one of the largest sources of
federal funds for primary health care and support services for HIV/AIDS
patients.
Homosexual
Agenda
5/23/08
Old Spin:
In a Democratic presidential debate last summer, Obama was asked if he'd
meet the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea
without precondition and during his first year in office.
Since then he has frequently reiterated his belief that no preconditions
should be set.
"When you say preconditions, what you're really saying is, 'I'm not
going to talk to you until you agree to do exactly what I want you to
do,'" Obama said. "Well, that's not how negotiations take place."
New Spin:
Obama objected on CNN this week to "this obsession with Ahmadinejad" and
explained guardedly: "I would be willing to meet with Iranian leaders if
we had done sufficient preparations for that meeting.
"Whether Ahmadinejad is the right person to meet with right now, we
don't even know how much power he is going to have a year from now,"
Obama added. "He is not the most powerful person in Iran."
He said he would expect "to meet with those people who can actually make
decisions" in Iran on its nuclear program, its aid to terrorists and
destabilization in Iraq.
He did not explain how he would get around Iran's president to other
people of influence.
Foreign
Relations
5/23/08
Calling for a new direction when it comes to Cuba, Obama today said
as president he would allow unlimited family travel and remittances to
the island.
"It's time for more than tough talk that never yields
results. It’s time for a new strategy," he said. "It's time to let
Cuban Americans see their mothers and fathers, their sisters and
brothers. It’s time to let Cuban American money make their
families less dependent upon the Castro regime."
Obama on Cuba (01:37
Foreign
Relations
5/24/08
Barry Rubin,
writing for the Global Research in Information Center website,
comments on this statement by Obama:
"Iran, they spend one one-hundredth of what we spend on the military.
I mean if Iran tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn't stand
a chance. And, we should use that position of strength that we
have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn't mean
we agree with them on everything. That doesn't, we might not
compromise with them on any issues. But, at least we should find
out, are there areas of potential common interest and we can reduce some
of the tension that have caused us so many problems around the world."
One cannot pretend away the implications of this paragraph. Let's
list them:
1. Obama doesn't understand that Iran follows strategies designed
to circumvent that problem of unequal power, including terrorism,
guerrilla war, deniable attacks, long wars of attrition, the use of
surrogates, and so on.
2. The only way Obama sees the U. S. of using its "position of
strength" is to listen to their grievances, as if we are not familiar
with them. In short, the only thing you can do when you are
stronger is to get weaker. Presumably the same applies when you
are the weaker party.
3. Why is Obama so totally unaware that dialogue has been tried?
A decade with the PLO, longer with Hezbollah by other Lebanese, four
straight years of European engagement with Tehran over the nuclear
issue, multiple U.S. delegations to talk with the Syrians, and so on.
Was nothing learned from this experience?
4. And what happens afterward, if Obama's dialogue doesn't work?
What cards would he have left? What readiness to try another
course? Perhaps by then the Iranians will have nuclear weapons and
other gains negating that "position of strength" so fecklessly frittered
away.
5. What possible issues can the United States find to compromise
with Iran? Let's say: give them Lebanon (oh, we already did that);
ignore their sponsorship of terrorism; give them Iraq; give them Israel;
withdraw U.S. forces from the region, accept their having nuclear arms.
What?
6. Why should the United States be able to reduce tensions through
negotiations when Iran wants tensions? There is an important hint
here: if the United States makes concessions, it might buy off tensions.
Since Iran and the others know about Obama's all-carrots-no-sticks
worldview, they will make him pay a lot to get the illusion of peace and
quiet.
7. There is no hint, not the slightest, of his understanding the
option of using power to intimidate or defeat Iran, or as a way to
muster allies. If Obama had the most minimal comprehension of
these issues, he would fake it with some blah-blah about how America
would combine toughness with flexibility, deterrence with compromise,
steadfastness in order to gain more from the other side in negotiations.
A critical element in peace-keeping, peace-making, and negotiations is
to act tough and be strong in order to have leverage. Even in
responding to criticisms, Obama has only talked about whether
negotiations are conditional or unconditional and at what level they
should be conducted. He is oblivious to the fact that the chief
executive does things other than negotiations.
If this is Obama's strategy while Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons what
would he do in dealing with a Tehran owning them?
Make no mistake, Obama is channeling Neville Chamberlain -- precisely
because what he says shows his parallel thinking. Many people may
get a chill listening to Obama but it certainly isn't a Churchill.
Apologists, sympathizers, and wishful-thinkers keep endowing this
would-be emperor with beautiful suits of clothes. He doesn't have
any.
Foreign
Relations
5/23/08
One of Iran’s top foreign policy
goals is a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
One of Obama’s top foreign policy goals is a precipitous U.S. withdrawal
from Iraq.
Why should Iran or other rogue states alter their behavior if Obama
gives them what they want, without preconditions?
Foreign
Relations
5/30/08
What if Barack Obama’s
most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all
along?
Stanley Kurtz provides an in-depth report, showing Obama's intimate and
long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations
for Reform Now (ACORN), the largest radical group in America.
If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d
know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as
these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn
works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile
is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does
Barack Obama.
To understand the nature and extent of Acorn’s radicalism, an excellent
place to begin is Sol Stern’s 2003 City Journal article, "ACORN’s
Nutty Regime for Cities" or for a shorter but helpful piece, try
Steven Malanga’s "Acorn
Squash."
Marxism
6/7/08
Obama actively
sought and received the stamp of approval of a Marxist third party
that operated briefly in Chicago between 1992 and 1998. The group
was called the "New Party" and was started in 1992 by Daniel Cantor (a
former staffer for Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign) and Joel
Rogers (a sociology and law professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison).
The New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to
endorse and elect leftist public officials -- most often Democrats.
The New Party’s short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party
leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist
third party.
Most New Party members hailed from the Democratic Socialists of America
(Obama was an associate of the Chicago branch), and the militant
organization ACORN. The party’s Chicago chapter also included a
large contingent from the Committees of Correspondence, a Marxist
coalition of former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA
members.
Marxism
6/9/08
Obama's proposal to
ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school.
"Barack Obama supported a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a
school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in
America." is more than just a little exaggeration.
2nd
Amendment
6/9/08
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would raise taxes on
the rich, but as an investor, he seems eager
to cut his own.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to raises taxes on
the wealthy, but as a member of that social class, he isn't eager to
fall victim himself. He has invested at least $1 million in a fund that
yields tax-free income.
The Illinois senator's latest campaign-finance disclosure shows that his
investments have nearly tripled in the past two years to as much as $7.4
million, and his income in 2007 surged past $4 million, not counting his
government salary.
Obama reported accounts with Morgan Chase Private Client Asset
Management, an elite firm that deals only with the rich, as well as a
host of retirement accounts, some in the name of his wife, Michelle.
Taxes
6/10/08
On the first day of what is to be a two-week economic tour around
the country, Barack Obama said Monday that lawmakers should inject
another $50 billion immediately into the sluggish U.S. economy.
"Such relief can't wait until the next president takes office. ...
That's why I've called for another round of fiscal stimulus,
an immediate $50 billion to help those who've been hit hardest by
this economic downturn," Obama told a crowd in Raleigh, N.C.
And he's going to take it from you to give it
to them -- it's what socialists do.
Taxes
6/11/08
Barack Obama, measured by his chosen life experiences, closest
associations, voting record, and pre-presidential campaign utterances,
is, in personality and experience, the least qualified, and, in
philosophy and program, most radically left candidate ever offered for
the presidency by the Democratic Party. By comparison, George
McGovern, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Al Gore and John Kerry seem
the very embodiment of presidential readiness and political
