Thomas Sowell writes today about the danger of removing the security systems now in place which have kept Americans safe for seven years, as Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have indicated that they intend to do. Here is an extract. Read the whole thing here. 

How many Americans are willing to see New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all disappear in nuclear mushroom clouds, rather than surrender to whatever outrageous demands the terrorists make?

Neither Barack Obama nor those with whom he will be surrounded in Washington show any signs of being serious about forestalling such a terrible choice by taking any action with any realistic chance of preventing a nuclear Iran.

Once suicidal fanatics have nuclear bombs, that is the point of no return. We, our children and our grandchildren will live at the mercy of the merciless, who have a track record of sadism.

There are no concessions we can make that will buy off hate-filled terrorists. What they want– what they must have for their own self-respect, in a world where they suffer the humiliation of being visibly centuries behind the West in so many ways– is our being brought down in humiliation, including self-humiliation.

Even killing us will not be enough, just as killing Jews was not enough for the Nazis, who first had to subject them to soul-scarring humiliations and dehumanization in their death camps.

This kind of hatred may not be familiar to most Americans but what happened on 9/11 should give us a clue– and a warning.

The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center buildings could not have been bought off by any concessions, not even the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in bailout money today.

They want our soul– and if they are willing to die and we are not, they will get it.

 

 Now that a Chicago politician has been elected to the presidency of the United States, and only now, the sewer that is Chicago politics is being investigated. 

The Chicago Sun-Times carries the story.

Was the President-elect involved in the corrupt  politics of Illinois?  He was not just casually acquainted with Tony Rezko. He had dealings with him which smell pretty bad. See this report in the Washington Times. Tony Rezko is in prison, where he belongs. Obama is heading for the White House.

From the Washington Post:

Rezko was a key supporter and donor throughout Mr. Obama’s political career, with the Illinois Democrat estimating that Rezko raised $250,000 for his various political campaigns, though not for his presidential bid. The two were friends [!] who talked frequently about politics and occasionally dined out together with their wives.

Rezko was convicted this summer on federal charges of using his clout with state government to squeeze kickbacks out of firms wanting to do business with the state. The charges did not involve Mr. Obama. [???] Rezko is now cooperating with federal prosecutors in a continuing probe of corruption in Illinois government.

Mr. Obama consulted Rezko, a real estate developer, before buying his home in 2005. [See the whole report to judge if this adequately sums up what happened.] 

As a state senator, Mr. Obama wrote letters endorsing government support of a Rezko housing project for senior citizens.

Obama aides say he was simply supporting a project that would help residents of his district, not doing a favor for a friend.[???]

 Those conservatives who think that when Obama’s screwed up – which he will do, of course –  the GOP will make a big come-back;  America will have learnt its lesson and never again elect a Marxist leader;  the values which made America great will be embraced again by a sorry nation; and  every trace of the harm that four or eight years of Obama-Pelosi-Reid government will have done can be kicked over, should consider what Mark Steyn has to say:

“The contrast” today is not between America and Europe, but between the slightly-more-than-half of America at ease with the prospect of a Europeanized future and the considerably-less-than-half of America for whom our differences with Europe – the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, non-confiscatory taxation, a society that prizes individual opportunity over state protection – were a big part of the American success story.

If you’re a relaxed conservative, this is 1976. Let Obama & Co have their head and screw up, and we’ll be back in two or four years. But in two or four years there’ll be even more Acorn registrations, even more foreign campaign contributions, large numbers of amnestied illegals with de facto if not quite de jure voting rights, a new Unfairness Doctrine that consolidates Democrat dominance of the dinosaur media and banishes much of the rest. If the 2012 election is a rerun of, say, 2004 – an attempt to restore the big fat red-state “L” sweeping down the Rockies and east to the Atlantic that comes down to a few thousand votes in Ohio – Republicans will lose. If it’s a 50/50 nation, the Dems will have the edge when it comes to pushing up to 50.1 – as (at the time of writing) the Al Franken machine (of all unlikely phrases) is doing so cheerfully in Minnesota.

And beyond the operational upper hand is the psychological advantage: The push to socialized health care, the “spreading” of wealth that turns responsible citizens into grateful beneficiaries of government largesse, the remorseless propagandization of a school system all but entirely hostile to the heroic national narrative, a cumulative ratchet effect that “enervates both soul and body” and that the Republican leadership finds easier to accommodate than resist. Conservatives need a bigger picture than GOTV. This is not 1976, but 1932 – at minimum.

Read it all here. 

 David Limbaugh writes:

I just wonder what some of the people now rushing to applaud Obama as a centrist will say if and when he tries to: implement nationalized health care; drastically disarm our nuclear capacity – unilaterally; sign into law card-check legislation, which would permit unions to undo secret balloting; appoint very left-wing activist judges; close Gitmo and relax our tough interrogation techniques; further open our borders to illegals; inaugurate a gargantuan "new" New Deal upward of $1 trillion in forced government spending, euphemized as a stimulus package; impose Draconian measures against our economy and liberties under the pretense of ameliorating man-made global warming; or radically alter the tax code to punish the "wealthy."

 Tom Fitton at Front Page Magazine lists just some of the ‘reprehensible acts’ (we’d say vile, immoral acts) of Hillary Clinton over the last 15 years, and goes on to say:

With specific relevance to her new job as Secretary of State, there are also the serious conflicts of interest involving Bill Clinton, who has become something of an international sensation since leaving the White House, brokering international business deals and reaping huge fees for foreign speaking engagements.  Even the liberal CNN reported that Bill Clinton’s “complicated global business interests could present future conflicts of interest that result in unneeded headaches for the incoming commander-in-chief.”

The question is what promises will Bill Clinton make to his international business associates with respect to U.S. State Department Policy that his wife will have to keep? 

Hillary Clinton is ethically challenged. Her husband is ethically challenged. Has any other Secretary of State nominee been the subject of a grand jury criminal investigation? From their days in the White House to the present day, they have consistently abused their public office for personal and political gain. Hillary and Bill (not to mention their siblings) are scandals waiting to happen. She has neither the temperament nor ethics to be in such a sensitive office.

I believe Obama made a deal with the devil to avoid a floor flight at the convention. It may have served him politically, but the public shouldn’t suffer the consequences. If the Senate is serious about ethics in government, Hillary’s nomination would be rejected. In putting forward Hillary, Obama now owns the Clinton scandals. Her nomination is another weak personnel decision that will harm his presidency.

Will the Obama administration exercise due diligence and keep a watchful eye on the Clintons?  My guess is that if Obama is willing to hire Hillary given her dismal record, he’ll be willing to turn a blind eye to her likely corrupt behavior at the State Department. 

The vetting of Hillary seems to have been run by John Podesta (her husband’s former Chief of Staff) and Cheryl Mills (the ethically-challenged lawyer who served as Clinton White House lawyer).  Surprise, surprise.  She passed.

Will the names of those at home and abroad who gave the Clinton machine millions over the years be released? 

 Power Line aptly comments:

Eric Holder has come in for considerable criticism from conservatives for his role in the pardon scandal at the end of Bill Clinton’s second term. And properly so. But conservatives have had little to say about substantial allegations of corruption on the part of Hillary Clinton throughout the Clinton presidency.

All but our youngest readers will recall the particulars – Whitewater (which led to the appointment of an independent counsel), cattle futures, and the White House travel office scandal. In fact, Clinton was nearly indicted by Ken Starr’s office for giving testimony inconsistent with what the prosecutors had learned from other key witnesses and that the prosecutors were convinced was false.

Hillary Clinton was also involved with the pardon scandals that may come back to haunt Holder. Her brother Hugh Rodhamreceived $400,000 for working on two pardons, one of which was granted and the other of which resulted in commutation of the sentence. (Hillary claimed that she was unaware of the transaction, and Rodman apparently returned the money). Tony Rodham, another brother, also received financial consideration in connection with another of the Clinton pardons.

Bill Clinton also pardoned the FALN terrorists, pardons that have led to criticism of Holder because federal guidelines were circumvented. But the impetus for the pardons seems to have been Hillary’s race for the Senate, a number of prominent Hispanic politicians from New York having pushed on behalf of the terrorists. Absent such political calculation, it is almost impossible to understand why Bill Clinton would have pardoned this lot, the members of which apparently had not even asked to be pardoned (two of the terrorists refused their pardons). Hillary backed away from the pardons at the last minute, but her fingerprints are on them nonetheless.

Why are we hearing so much criticism of Holder and so little of Clinton? One explanation might be that Holder has been nominated to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and Hillary has not. But this is hardly a satisfactory basis for giving Clinton a pass; having a corrupt Secretary of State is no small matter.

It’s also possible that conservatives are holding their fire because they are reasonably happy with the Clinton nomination for substantive reasons, considering the alternatives. But Clinton is hardly the only mainstream liberal Democrat Obama could have selected, and it’s become clear that Obama has no interest in offering high profile positions like Secretary of State to someone from the far left wing of the party.

In any event, it’s not as if conservatives can block the nomination of Clinton (or, for that matter, of Holder in all likelihood). The point in both cases should be to raise legitimate questions, and the questions about Clinton seem at least as legitimate as those about Holder. 

 At The Daily Beast, Arthur Laffer (‘Reagan’s economist’) writes: 

Why the proposed $700 billion stimulus plan could drive the country to economic ruin.

As you read this, our government is committing enormous sums of money above and beyond normal spending, solely to stimulate the economy and prop up failing companies and markets. These additional sums are huge by any reasonable measure, with estimates as high as $3 trillion in an economy with a GDP of about $15 trillion.

Here’s the bottom line: Instead of making things better, increased spending will only drive our economy further into the ground.

And there is still a lot more spending to come. First it was a $170 billion stimulus package in February of 2008, then material add-ons to both the housing and agricultural bills, followed by Federal Reserve asset swaps with Bear Stearns and a bailout of AIG (which, by the way, isn’t over yet) and then came the debt guarantees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

There is no tooth fairy. Every dollar given to someone comes from someone else.

Shortly after that, the administration anted up $700 billion in a bailout package, and now Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Bernanke want another stimulus package of $300 billion. Just this week the powers that be are debating bailouts for Michigan’s auto industry. With the slowdown in the economy, tax receipts are now projected to fall sharply. The logic here is totally upside down, and each new measure, far from helping the economy, does enormous damage.

It is true, as the proponents of these stimulus packages argue, that recipients of government checks will spend more than they otherwise would have spent. And, that increased spending will have a multiplier effect increasing spending even further. But this is only part of the story.

The government can only transfer resources; it can’t create resources. There is no tooth fairy. Every dollar given to someone comes from someone else. The government can’t bail some people out of trouble without putting other people into trouble, plus a hefty “toll for the troll.”

In the case of last February’s stimulus package, the government literally borrowed an extra $170 billion and at the same time sent out checks to the transfer recipients totaling $170 billion. The result was a $170 billion increase in the amount of bonds held by the public, accompanied by a $170 billion increase in the current value of future taxes to pay interest and principle on the additional debt.

From the standpoint of accounting, the government is $170 billion further in the red, and taxpayers are liable for an additional $170 billion worth of taxes. Therefore, for every dollar of transfer payment there’s at least an equivalent dollar of future tax liabilities. Those people with the increased tax liabilities will spend less, thereby dis-employing people who had been supplying them with goods they’ll no longer buy. And the reduction in spending of those with higher tax liabilities will lead to a multiplied reduction in total spending equal to and fully offsetting the increase in total spending from the recipients of government checks. There is no stimulus from the stimulus programs!

 For those who think that Paulson’s ‘bailout’ is good for the country, or that smooth-talking Obama is the right choice for President with his campaign promises to enlarge the welfare state with a national health service and by ‘spreading the wealth around’, here is a cautionary quotation, used as an epigraph  to their book Free To Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman.

It was spoken from the bench by Judge Louis Brandeis in 1928.

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. 

 ‘Conscience,’ Hamlet says, ‘does make cowards of us all.’

Or does cowardice claim the name of conscience – steal its identity – in order to excuse itself? 

Conscience should drive us, as individuals, to do what we believe to be morally right. But it may be a self-flattering word we use to explain why we do certain things that we actually do out of craven cowardice itself, or the sort of moral vanity that makes us want to appear virtuous rather than to act virtuously.

Governments, nations, and crowds also cover their actions with the same deceptive claim, attributing to conscience what they really do out of weakness, fear, stupidity,  hypocrisy and ideological romanticism.  

False conscience calls itself by many other names, among them these: political correctness; respect for multiculturalism or ‘diversity’; a striving for ‘social justice’ or economic equality or ‘fairness’;  remorse for (largely imaginary) historical sins. Under such names all kinds of idiotic, unjust, destructive and evil things are done.    

Exempli gratia from the real world: 

In the US millions of voters elect an unqualified candidate to political office because he is black.

Navies refrain from capturing pirates, or (even better) summarily killing them, because ‘they have human rights’.

Liberal democratic welfare states keep and protect alien Islamic preachers of terrorism and sedition, lavishly house, feed, educate and medically treat them (and their pluralities of wives and families) at the expense of their intended victims, the indigenous population, because if they’re returned to their own countries they may be tortured or executed – or even because some witness at their possible trials might be tortured.

Western governments abrogate freedom because citizens use it to criticize Muslims and their beliefs. 

European police refrain from enforcing the law against Muslim offenders.  

In Britain the rule of a single Law of the Land, the very thing that makes it possible for people of different provenance to live together in harmony, is arbitrarily abandoned by the acceptance of Sharia as a second system of law, although it is incompatible with and contradictory to the enchorial system. 

Western nations reduce their defensive power to the point of ineffectiveness while vicious tyrannical regimes, inimical to the West and motivated by a declared intention of aggression, acquire arsenals of nuclear weapons. 

Governments interfere in markets and impoverish the people.  

Jillian Becker  November 21, 2008

(This news and commentary was first posted on October 26 – before the election. As it was accidentally removed, we are re-posting it here.)

Gateway Pundit reports:

The LA Times is holding a video that shows Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians who are openly hostile towards Israel. Barack Obama even gives a toast to a former PLO operative at this celebration. 

If the American public saw this  side of Barack Obama he would never be elected president.

But, the media refuses to release this video.

LA Times writer Peter Wallsten [apparently basing his story on research carried out by Debbie Schlussel – JB] wrote about Barack Obama’s close association with former Palestinian operative Rashid Khalidi back in April.
Wallsten discussed a dinner held back in 2003 in honor of Khalidi, a critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights.
Barack Obama has denied his close association with Khalidi, too.

According to Wallsten the evening not surprisingly turned into a classic Jew-bash: 

"During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."

One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."

Barack Obama also praised the former PLO operative during the event.
And, Obama confessed that his family often shared dinner with the Khalidis:

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases… It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation – a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table," but around "this entire world."

…The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

Khalidi and the Obamas were great friends in Chicago and often shared meals together.
By the way, Khalidi was also best friends with Bill Ayers.