Investor’s Business daily carries an editorial today about the radical Communist  ideologist who taught Obama all he knows.

Barack Obama’s "Change We Can Believe In" is simply socialism — imposed by stratagem because Americans have never believed in Marxist economics. Saul Alinsky understood this, and his ghost is alive and well — and threatening to haunt the White House. 

Read it all here.

 Power Line pertinently questions Barack Obama’s defense ‘credo’:

With events in Georgia over the past week, it is time to revisit Barack Obama’s stated views on America’s defense needs … 

I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems…

 …I will not weaponize space…

…I will slow development of future combat systems…

…and I will institute a "Defense Priorities Board" to ensure the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending…

…I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons…

…and to seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons…

…I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material…

…and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert…

…and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals…

Isn’t it time for someone who covers politics for a living to ask Obama about this credo?

 

 Fred Thompson has an interesting article in Townhall today, the main point of which is that McCain has the necessary experience, understanding and strength of will to be the leader of the Free World over the next few dangerous years, and Obama has not.  MacCain’s first-hand knowledge of Georgia and quick grasp of what Russia intends by invading the small Western-allied democracy is a vivid illustration of his contention.  The whole thing is worth reading. But one part of the information it contains strikes us as puzzling and shocking.  He says:

Former Soviet provinces have faced all forms of intimidation, from thuggish trade shakedowns to cyber attacks that shut down communications with the outside world. And whether a former satellite like Poland or a longtime western ally like Germany, Russia has made overt threats over plans to bring eastern European countries into NATO or to deploy a U.S.-provided missile defense system.

Russia is not above using anything at its disposal to make its point. It is a wealthy nation, built on a petro-economy that provides oil and gas to dependent European nations, which are petrified of having their energy supplies disrupted and are now in their own economic doldrums.

Given all this, Russia’s incursion into Georgia is a logical extension of Putin’s autocratic words and deeds and Russia’s regional ambitions, which must be leaving those nations closest to Russia’s borders – the Baltic states and Ukraine – nervous about a bitter and uneasy winter.

All the while, in Eastern Europe some of America’s staunchest friends are watching to see what the reaction of the U.S. and the west will be to Russia’s latest gambit. The U.S. and others use the word “unacceptable,” undoubtedly with the same effect that we get when we use it with the Iranians. So do we threaten Russia with denial of the membership in the World Trade Organization that it so covets? Do we expedite Georgia and the Ukraine’s entry into NATO? Do we cut off the tens of millions that we send into Russia to – hopefully – provide for security of nuclear materials? Everything should be on the table.

‘Russia is a wealthy nation’ – okay. Then why is the US sending ‘tens of millions’  to Russia? How does this ‘provide  for security of nuclear materials’?  Is this a form of extortion? Who in the US was responsible for the descision to do this? When? Answers are urgently required. 

 From an article in the Jerusalem Post:

Russia’s move into Georgia will have ramifications far beyond the Caucasus. It will send a shiver down the spines of decision-makers in countries such as Poland, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, all of whom might now think twice before deepening their romances with the West.

And if allowed to go unanswered, the attack on Georgia will strengthen Russia’s resolve to further undercut key Western interests.

THAT IS where Iran comes into play. The ayatollahs are glued to their television screens, waiting to see how the West responds. After all, in recent years Moscow has stood by Iran’s side in the face of mounting Western pressure. Russia has been supplying Iran with materials for its nuclear program. And the Kremlin is planning to ship advanced anti-aircraft systems to the Iranians that are aimed at making it harder for Israel or the US to take out their nuclear installations.

While Moscow has thus far voted in favor of three UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Teheran, it has only done so after it succeeded in watering them down and delaying their implementation.

But a newly emboldened Russia will prove to be even more troublesome when it comes time to confront Iran and stop its drive toward nuclear weapons.

If Putin sees that the West is a paper tiger and allows Georgia to be trampled, then he likely will not hesitate to block additional Western efforts to strip Iran of its nuclear ambitions. An atomic Iran, Putin realizes, would further expose the powerlessness of the West, as well as heighten its sense of vulnerability. Consequently, he may be tempted to defy the West yet again, on an issue even closer to its heart, in an effort to push the envelope.

The ayatollahs know this all too well, and will be encouraged to continue their mad drive for atomic power, confident in the knowledge that they have little to fear.

It is therefore essential that strong and immediate measures be taken to punish Russia for its Georgian adventure and strip it of any illusions it may have about a lack of Western resolve. These might include moving quickly to bring Georgia formally into NATO, suspending Russia’s membership in the "Group of 8" leading industrialized nations and freezing talks recently launched with the European Union on a new EU-Russia agreement.

Whatever course is decided upon, Moscow must be made to pay a heavy economic, political and diplomatic price for its actions, lest it persist in causing still greater harm.

 

 What should the presidential election be about? 

Tony Blankley answers (in Townhall):

Our presidential election ought to be about: how to strengthen our blessed land – with overawing military strength, a bountiful and independent energy supply, and a strong and prosperous free market.

We concur.

Read his whole article here. 

 Why did Nancy Pelosi refuse to allow a vote that could have resulted in the bringing of more US oil to the US market and a consequent lowering of the price of gas? 

Michelle Malkin supplies the answer:

As reported on dontgomovement.com, Speaker Pelosi bought between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in [T. Boone] Pickens’ CLNE Corp. in May 2007 on the day of the initial public offering:

"She, and other investors, stand to gain a substantial return on their investment if gasoline prices stay high, and municipal, state and even the Federal governments start using natural gas as their primary fuel source. If gasoline prices fall? Alternative fuels and the cost to convert fleets over to them become less and less attractive."

CLNE also happens to be the sponsor of Proposition 10, a ballot initiative in Pelosi’s home state of California to dole out a combined $10 billion in state and federal funds for renewable energy incentives – namely, natural gas and wind.

Follow the money. Or, to put it in economist’s terms as energy analyst Kenneth Medlock III did in an interview with The Dallas Morning News about the Pickens multibillion dollar wind farm investment: "A lot of what he’s trying to do is add value to a stranded asset he’s obviously got millions of dollars on the line."

And so, potentially, does the Democratic Speaker of the House – all the while wagging her finger at the financial motivation of others.

 While he has his own children educated in private schools, Obama wants all other children to have collectivist education. Especially in the joys of collectivism as propounded by his terrorist associate, William Ayres?

This from the Investor’s Business Daily:

 

When Barack Obama collected the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers, he told the teachers that support for alternatives to the education monopoly amounted to "tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice."

He recently told an interviewer that he opposes school choice because "although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you’re going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom."

Not being left behind are Obama’s daughters, who attend the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. There, tuition ranges from $15,528 for kindergarten to $20,445 for high school. When asked about it during last year’s YouTube debate, Sen. Obama responded that it was "the best option" for his children. They had a choice Obama would deny others.

Obama has been completely silent about the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The D.C. School Choice Act of 2003 established the federally funded voucher program that provides vouchers of up to $7,500 for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. It lets students attend one of 60 participating nonpublic schools.

But it was funded only through the 2008-09 school year. Democrats such as D.C.’s delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, want to kill the successful program, which shows that money is not the root of a good education.

Norton and Obama seem oblivious to the fact that District school spending is at $13,400 per student — third-highest in the nation. Yet in 2007, D.C. public schools ranked last in math scores and second-to-last in reading scores for all urban public school systems in the U.S., according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Norton is leading the charge to block a mere $18 million in funding for the 2009-10 school year. This demonstration program serves some 1,900 students. A recent Education Department report found that nearly 90% of Opportunity scholarship students had higher reading scores than peers who didn’t receive a scholarship.

Not surprisingly, there are five applicants for every opening.

April Cole-Walton’s daughter attends St. Peter’s Interparish School thanks to an Opportunity Scholarship. "If I could talk to Sen. Obama," she says, "I would say, ‘Give me a choice and give my daughter a chance.’ "

Fat chance. Obama instead offers support for things like universal preschool, based on the idea that the earlier the government gets its hands on our children, the better off they will be. The nanny state will spend more money and pay for more teachers.

Obama also wants to create something called the American Opportunity Tax Credit to provide a "free" college education by ensuring that the first $4,000 of college tuition is covered for students from lower-income families. Each student will be required to put in 100 hours of "voluntary" national service a year to get the money.

Obama’s buddy, former Weatherman terrorist William Ayers, has plans for the same captive student audiences Obama wants to keep captive. Now a tenured Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Ayers works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

One of Ayers’ descriptions for a course called "Improving Learning Environments" says a prospective K-12 teacher needs to "be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and … be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation."

For his course "Urban Education," Ayers writes: "In a truly just society, there would be a greater sharing of the burden, a fairer distribution of material and human resources."

All of this sounds like Obama’s plans for "economic justice" and redistribution of the nation’s wealth.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has employed Ayers as a teacher trainer for the city’s public schools. On his Web site, Obama describes Ayers as a "tenured professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a ‘respected advisor to Mayor Daley on school reform.’ "

And a future secretary of education, perhaps?

 

 

 

 

 Communist tyrannies typically use people as pixels in vast and spectacular displays of perfectly rehearsed co-ordination. The opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Beijing was the latest example. 

Writing chiefly about the Russian invasion of Georgia, George Will comments in Townhall:

What is it about August? The First World War began in August 1914. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact effectively announced the Second World War in August 1939. Iraq, a fragment of the collapse of empires precipitated by August 1914, invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

This year’s August upheaval coincides, probably not coincidentally, with the world’s preoccupation with that charade of international comity, the Olympics. For only the third time in 72 years (Berlin 1936, Moscow 1980), the games are being hosted by a tyrannical regime, the mind of which was displayed in the opening ceremony featuring thousands of drummers, each face contorted with the same grotesquely frozen grin. It was a tableau of the miniaturization of the individual and the subordination of individuality to the collective. Not since the Nazi’s 1934 Nuremberg rally, which Leni Riefenstahl turned into the film "Triumph of the Will," has tyranny been so brazenly tarted up as art.

A worldwide audience of billions swooned over the Beijing ceremony. Who remembers 1934? Or anything.

 

 From the Financial Times:

It was Mr McCain who set the initial tone with a strong statement last Friday several hours before official word from the administration – and then again on Monday morning with a shopping list of tough policy responses for Mr Bush. These included shoring up support for Ukraine, which hosts Russia’s Crimean fleet, and steps to protect the Caspian pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia – all allies of the US.

“Russia’s aggression against Georgia is both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance to the United States,” said Mr McCain. “The implications go beyond their threat to a democratic Georgia. Russia is using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbours such as Ukraine, for choosing to associate with the West.”

In this time of crisis McCain is the only intelligent choice for President.  

 From Little Green Footballs – as usual, bang on the nail:

An astoundingly bone-headed statement from Barack Obama today, as he calls for the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Georgia.

Memo to the Obama campaign: Russia has veto power in the United Nations Security Council.

Oops!