As the ‘mainstream media’ refused to publish facts about Barack Obama that might dissuade voters from voting for him, it  was up to the McCain Campaign to make them known. But apparently no one running the McCain Campaign thought of doing it until Sarah Palin came along and brought up the name of William Ayers in a speech that simply could not be ignored.

At last one of the clues to who and what Obama is, what the political opinions are of the man standing for the presidency of the United States actually are, was reaching the multitudes who knew nothing of him but his gift of the gab. That clue should have been followed by the rest. They’re all there, easy to find. His Kenyan father was a radical leftist. His mother, the 60s hippie, was a New Lefty. His grandfather got an ardent Communist named Frank Marshall Davis to mould the mind of young Barack, who went on eagerly to drink down the red ideology of Saul Alinsky. He sought a launch-pad for his political career among revolutionary leftists and America-haters (Ayers and Dohrn) in Chicago. When he attained the power to do so, he channeled funds to promote the activities and causes of the revolutionary left. He joined a church where revolutionary anti-American ideology was consistently preached. When he needed funds for his campaign in Illinois, they were raised for him in turn by his revolutionary leftist comrades. He trained ACORN staff in techniques of extortion, and ACORN is a radical red organization (see our posts on it) at the very root of the sub-prime meltdown.  

The old saying, ‘if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you can bet it is a duck’  applies here. Obama grew up with red radicals, learnt from red radicals, mixed with red radicals, worked with red radicals, churched with red radicals, strives to achieve the objectives of red radicalism, so what is he?

But even now that one of the clues has been outed with the name of William Ayers, Obama escapes being identified by the company he keeps. He says he just happens to live in the same neighborhood as this terrorist guy. He pretends to be hurt by unfair  ‘guilt by association’. Or if you won’t swallow the ‘just a neighbor’ line, then okay, at worst he  happened to have been washed up by coincidence on the same committees – which just happened to promote the indoctrination of the young with red revolutionary ideology. 

And the McCain people are letting him get away with it!

When they are asked: ‘What does it say about Obama that he associated with the terrorist William Ayers?’  – ‘It shows he has bad judgment,’ comes the reply.

No, it doesn’t. It shows that birds of a red revolutionary feather flock together.

It isn’t only that William Ayers was a terrorist; it’s what he was using terrorism for that needs to be taken notice of.  What was he trying to achieve with it? What was – and is – his ideology?  (Clues: He’s pally with Hugo Chavez; he admires Fidel Castro.)  

So it isn’t just that Barack Obama associates with red revolutionary radicals. Red revolutionary radicalism is his provenance. It’s where he comes from. It’s where he chose to put down his political roots.  It’s what formed his mind. It’s what lies behind his redistributionist, collectivist policies. 

Is it really possible that Americans could vote into power a red revolutionary radical without realizing what they’re doing?  It looks all too possible now, with Obama way ahead in the polls.

How many Americans would knowingly vote for a red revolutionary radical?  How can they be warned in time that that is what Obama is?

The only source of such information is the McCain Campaign, since the MSM – whose job it is – have iniquitously decided to conceal it.

But the McCain Campaign doesn’t seem to get it!

Hello over there! Anybody in the McCain Campaign doing any thinking?

It’s a poor choice for America between a man who thinks like a red revolutionary and a man who doesn’t seem to think at all. 

But – Oh dear! – better the boring guy who’s not too smart than the smart guy who will take America down the long hard slope into the socialist ditch where Europe now lies dying.   

It seems likely that the man who wins the presidential race gets the booby-prize. The new president’s task would daunt Hercules.

The difficulty of guiding and protecting America, leading the West, and keeping guard over the whole seething world at this point in human affairs should be too formidable for any man or woman of normal intelligence to think of tackling it.

Either both candidates have a measure of self-confidence in their capabilities amounting to almost lunatic self-delusion, or both are astonishingly blind to what they’d be undertaking.

America is in the grip of an economic crisis that no man and his dogs can save it from. Only time and free economic activity can eventually restore confidence and prosperity. But both candidates propose regulation: one of them full-blown socialism. Their remedies can only make the crisis worse. The winner will be blamed and damned for that, but even if he should decide not to regulate, blame and cursing is what he’ll get.

The world is threatened by the dark regressive force of militant Islam; by proliferating nuclear arms in the hands of evil men; by an aggressive Russia and the rising power of Communist China; and by the slow but steady pre-emptive capitulation of an ignominious Western Europe to all these threats. One candidate seems not to grasp the reality of the dangers, and might even have sympathy with the ideologies behind them. Neither candidate could bring himself to warn Islam, or the evil despots, or Vladimir Putin, or the Chinese potentates, that America is willing to use its military might to force them to change their ways. Without that threat and a manifest resolution to carry it out, nothing will stop them.

While we fall ever deeper into debt with China; while Russian warships cruise the Caribbean and Russian arms and technology strengthen our enemies in South America and the Middle East; while every day Islam advances further until it can overwhelm us; our Don Quixote in the White House will go to war against the weather. Some will praise him for that, no doubt, until real disaster ruins him and them.

In the light of all this, competing for the presidency looks very like competing for the captaincy of the Titanic.

If one of the candidates should suddenly see clearly what he will be confronted by if he wins, he might do everything he can to hand the victory and the burden to the other. Perhaps John McCain is doing just that. It’s the only plausible explanation for his failure to use the potent ammunition he’s got against Barack Obama, to defeat him in the contest for the dreadful job of leading us to shipwreck.

Jillian Becker

October 2008

 The moment of decision has arrived.

Crunch time.

Is the economic crisis to be solved by a capitalist free-market solution, or made worse by a socialist ‘solution’?

Make no mistake about it – it was caused by socialism: by political correctness, by multiculturalism, by government interference in the market.

It was NOT caused by the Bush administration, by the Republican Party, by capitalism, as the Democrats who did cause it are now alleging to cover their guilt.

Among the most guilty men are Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid.   

Jimmy Carter.  1977. The Community Reinvestment Act. Banks must make loans to high-risk borrowers.  Opened door for ACORN (see earlier posts) to force banks to make sub-prime loans to uncreditworthy borrowers.

Barack Obama.  Trained staff for Madeline Talbott, ‘key pioneer of ACORN’s subprime racket’ as Stanley Kurtz calls her, to run her ‘subprime-loan shakedown racket’.  ACORN employed him as its lawyer. And he funded it through the Woods Fund and indirectly through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. In three years in the Senate, Obama received more contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than anyone else save Dodd, who got his contributions from them over eleven years.   He appointed two Fannie Mae CEOs as advisors to his campaign.  

Bill Clinton, devotee of multiculturalism, pressed for more home-ownership by those who could not afford it, minorities and in effect even illegal immigrants, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded, buying up hundreds of billions of dollars of the bad loans and sellng them on the world markets. 

Harry Reid. In 2005 when John McCain sponsored a Fannie-Freddie reform bill,  he led the  Democrats in crushing it.  Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats and Democrats are most responsible for their failure.

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who ran Congress’s banking panels, vigorously and persistently opposed Republican Party efforts to regulate Fannie and Freddie.

McCain has repeatedly called for reforming Fannie and Freddie. President Bush – whose administration is being blamed for the crisis by Frank, Dodd, Reid etc – urged their reform 17  times this year. The irony of Bush and the Republicans being blamed now for the catastrophe the Democrats’  so insistently brought about!   

The cure now is not more socialism, not more government control of the market, not the election of the most socialist-minded candidate for the presidency ever – Barack Obama. 

If America elects Obama, it will be choosing socialism, and socialism has failed wherever it has been tried.

America needs to choose capitalism at this moment in history, to save itself and to give hope to the wider world. Otherwise this crisis will be turned into an American and world-wide disaster from which there may be no foreseeable return. 

 Neal Boortz confirms that the economic crisis was caused by socialist politicians, like Barack Obama, not by an ‘unregulated’ free market.

Political correctness won the day. Washington made it clear to banks and other lending institutions that if they did not do something .. and fast .. to bring more minorities and low-income Americans into the world of home ownership there would be a heavy price to pay. Congress set up processes (Research the Community Redevelopment Act) whereby community activist groups and organizers could effectively stop a bank’s efforts to grow if that bank didn’t make loans to unqualified borrowers. Enter, stage left, the “subprime” mortgage. These lenders knew that a very high percentage of these loans would turn to garbage – but it was a price that had to be paid if the bank was to expand and grow. We should note that among the community groups browbeating banks into making these bad loans was an outfit called ACORN. There is one certain presidential candidate that did a lot of community organizing for ACORN. I won’t mention his name so as to avoid politicizing this column.

These garbage loans to unqualified borrowers were then bundled up and sold. The expectation was that the loans would be eventually paid off when rising home values led some borrowers to access their equity through re-financing and others to sell and move on up the ladder. Oops.

Right now this crisis is being sold to the American public by the left as evidence the failure of the free market and capitalism. Not so. What we’re seeing is the inevitable result of political interference in free market economics. Acme bank didn’t want to loan money to Joe Homebuyer because Joe had a spotty job history, owed too much money on his credit cards, and wasn’t all that good at making payments on time. The politicians told Acme Bank to figure out a way to make that loan, because, after all, Joe is a bona-fide minority-American, or forget about opening that new branch office on the Southside. The loan was made under politicial pressure; the loan, with millions like it, failed – and now we are left to enjoy today’s headlines.

So … why aren’t you reading the whole story in the mainstream media? Come on, are you kidding me? Do you really expect the media to blame this mess on deadbeat borrowers and political interference in the free market when it is so easy to put the blame on greedy lenders and evil capitalists? Remember … there’s an election going on. One candidate is decidedly anti-capitalist. Do the math.

 … may be in our sights. Gender should not matter in public service, any more than race, but to many it does. 

Sarah Palin, running mate of John McCain, came across in her speech today as strong and competent. 

Her record is one of integrity, probity, energy, common sense, and real accomplishment. 

The only fault I could find with her speech was that she said – or seemed to say – ‘nucular’  (like Homer Simpson) instead of ‘nuclear’. I hope I’m wrong about this, but in any case it’s not a significant flaw.

 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 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.  

 Obama will never be ready to be president. He is not the man for the job. 

Power Line shares and substantiates this opinion:

McCain has strongly and unequivocally come out in support of our ally Georgia, while placing the onus for the war squarely where it belongs, on Russia. In this, he has aligned himself with our most loyal European allies. Obama, on the other hand, issued the sort of vapid statement that would ingratiate him with the State Department while not requiring any distraction from his Hawaii vacation. An interesting point, by the way: McCain is supposed to be the old guy, but Obama is the one who needs a vacation.

Here is the latest from the McCain campaign:

This afternoon I spoke, for the second time since the crisis began, with Georgian President Saakashvili. It is clear the situation is dire. Russian aggression against Georgia continues, with attacks occurring far beyond the Georgian region of South Ossetia. As casualties continue to mount, the international community must do all it can to avert further escalations. Tensions and hostilities between Georgians and Ossetians are in no way justification for Russian troops crossing an internationally recognized border. I again call on the Government of Russia to immediately and unconditionally withdraw its forces from the territory of Georgia.

Given this threat to Euro-Atlantic security, I am pleased to see the United States, the European Union, and NATO acting together by sending a delegation to the region, in an effort to broker a cease fire. This is an important first step.

The United Nations has been prevented from taking any meaningful action by Russian objections. In view of this, I welcome the statements of democratic nations defending the sovereignty of Georgia and condemning Russian actions.

I strongly support the declaration issued by the Presidents of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and their commitment that ‘aggression against a small country in Europe will not be passed over in silence or with meaningless statements equating the victims with the victimizers.’

 

I doubt that the Europeans were thinking of Obama when they wrote this, but who knows? Maybe they had seen this "meaningless statement equating the victims with the victimizers" from the Obama campaign:

It’s both sides’ fault — both have been somewhat provocative with each other.

McCain’s statement continues:

I share their regret that NATO’s decision to withhold from Georgia a Membership Action Plan may have been viewed as a green light for aggression in the region. As they propose, a new international peacekeeping force should be created, in light of – as they observe – the ‘obvious bankruptcy of Russian "peacekeeping operations" in its immediate neighborhood.’ In addition, Finnish Foreign Minister Stubb, the Chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, has said there can be no return to the status quo in South Ossetia and that Russia cannot serve as a mediator in the South Ossetian conflict. Each of these leaders represents a country that has undergone what Georgia is now experiencing.

That last is a key point, but one that is no doubt lost on Obama and his advisers. It is often said that Obama is not ready to be President, but I don’t think this is exactly right. It seems pretty obvious that Obama, given his temperament, his self-regard, his blithe ignorance of history and of the material conditions of life on this planet, will never be ready to be President. He is not unready: he is unsuited for, and inadequate to, the office.

Three obvious battle-cries for the McCain campaign:

LOWER TAXES

DRILL FOR OIL 

VICTORY IN IRAQ

They’re short and sweet. They need to be called out loud and clear and often. 

And they are winners. 

 At last someone dares to utter the truth about who our enemy is. Robert Spencer writes in Front Page Magazine:

Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. are outraged over remarks made last Friday by Bud Day, a key supporter of John McCain. Day, a much-decorated Air Force Colonel and Medal of Honor recipient who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam with McCain, said during a conference call organized by the Florida Republican Party that “the Muslims have said either we kneel, or they’re going to kill us.” Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel, and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

The reaction was swift. Saif Ishoof, president of the Center for Voter Advocacy, said that Day’s remarks were “perpetuating a form of Islamophobia.” Khaled Saffuri, the Executive Director of the Islamic Institute (which he co-founded with Grover Norquist), was also deeply offended. “‘This is as close to racist as it gets,” he declared. “These are cheap street tactics. Even if this is called a mistake or a slip of the tongue, it shows a bigger problem with racism. McCain and the Republican party should denounce this.” (Keith Olbermann also termed Day’s words “racism and religious hatred,” although neither he nor Saffuri explained what race Islam is.)

Please don’t apologize, retract, or in any way qualify what you said, Bud Day!