May 21, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH September 8, 2008
Hear Sarah Palin's Energy Policy - GO HERE.
Visit the POLITICAL DASHBOARD - HERE.
Palin Punditry and Prose You Won’t See in the Papers or on the TV News - SEE IT HERE.
How Obama managed to lose the election
Spengler, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred.com
Senator Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city’s Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like think smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.
The speech itself dragged on for three-quarters of an hour. As David S Broder wrote in the Washington Post: “[Obama's] recital of a long list of domestic promises could have been delivered by any Democratic nominee from Walter Mondale to John Kerry.
On television, Obama’s spectacle might have looked like The Ten Commandments, but inside the stadium it felt like Night of the Living Dead. The longer the candidate spoke, and the more money he promised to spend on alternative energy, preschool education, universal health care, and other components of the Democratic pinata, the lower the party professionals slouched into their seats.
As I wrote last February:
It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama … Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama’s father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals.
By all rights, the Democrats should win this election. They will lose, I predict, because of the flawed character of their candidate. Read article.
Why They Hate Her -Sarah Palin is a smart missile aimed at the heart of the left.
Jeffrey Bell, Weekly Standard.com
For months John McCain has apparently been hoping to use his selection of a running mate to shake up the presidential race. By picking Alaska governor Sarah Palin, McCain has accomplished that--and very likely a lot more than that, more than he or anyone else could have imagined.
I'm not talking about the widely remarked fact that if Palin performs well, and regardless of whether McCain wins or loses, she becomes a future Republican presidential prospect. Given the end of the remarkable 28-year run of the Bush family--present on six of the last seven GOP national tickets, a record that could stand forever--and McCain's own status as a pre-baby boomer, this was baked in the cake no matter what younger Republican politician McCain chose to elevate.
But even apart from its political implications, the rollout of the Sarah Palin vice presidential candidacy may be regarded decades from now as a nationally shared Rorschach test of enormous cultural significance.
From the instant of Palin's designation on Friday, August 29, the American left went into a collective mass seizure from which it shows no sign of emerging. Read article.
Sneering power-women and the foul whiff of aristocratic disdain.
Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com
There is something ignoble about these elite, affluent, and well-connected observers in smug fashion savaging Palin, when — especially in the case of the sneering power-women — we should all at least grant that Palin is intrinsically bright, energetic, savvy, and independent to have come this far at all, given the slanted and insider rules of the game she’s in.
When we consider, in contrast, the latticed background of careers of successful contemporary female role-model politicians, such as a Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Mary Landrieu, or Hillary Clinton — or pundits like Sally Quinn, Eleanor Clift, Andrea Mitchell, Campbell Brown, Gail Collins (the list is depressingly endless, in which marriage or lineage provides either the necessary capital, contacts, or insider influence — or sometimes all three) — then surely, whatever one’s politics, there should be some concession that what outsider Palin has accomplished, given where she began, is nothing short of remarkable.
In short, Sarah Palin is the emblem of what feminism was supposed to be all about: an unafraid, independent, audacious woman, who soared on her own merits without the aid of a patriarchal jumpstart, high-brow matrimonial tutelage and capital, and old-boy liaisons and networking.
Instead this entire sorry episode of personal invective against, and jealousy toward, Sarah Palin is surreal. Given the rising backlash, Palin Derangement Syndrome may prove to be the one thing, fairly or not, that sinks Barack Obama. Read article.
Obama: "That's Just How White Folks Will Do You"
Riehl World View.com
A 1995 piece in the liberal Chicago Reader basically refutes Obama's statements that he never heard Pastor Jeremiah Wright invoke his racist rants and also provides some additional insight into Obama's early years in politics.
"That's just how white folks will do you," Obama writes. "It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn."
Obama on the rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright this year:
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign.
In the Chicago Reader it seems Obama was well aware of rhetoric like Wright's and most likely others, as well. How else to explain this? Or did he simply assume this was going on, never having heard it himself?
He says he's tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum and from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because there's no agenda, no concrete program for change.
Gee, he couldn't have possibly meant Wright here . right? He wasn't against what Wright was doing; he wanted to prolong the energy inspired by it. Read article.
Saul Alinsky’s son: “Obama learned his lesson well”
Judi McLeod, Canada Free Press.com
In Artful Dodger style, Barack Obama, plays down his mentorship with Communist author Saul Alinsky. But Alinsky’s son, L. David Alinsky, credits Obama for “learning his lesson well” from the Communist guru.
Indeed, Alinsky Jr. who credits his late father for the success of last week’s Democratic National Convention, may have done something that Obama’s detractors couldn’t: blown the cover on the presidential hopeful’s communist leanings.
No one can blame Alinsky for the pretentiousness of the Ancient Greek Temple from which Obama addressed plebes, or for the tacky neon colours on display at the Pepsi Centre, but it was Alinsky who wrote Rules for Radicals, the bible of the far left.
Says Alinsky’s son L. David Alinsky of his father’s influence at the Dem Convention: “ALL the elements were present: the individual stories told by real people of their situation and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd’s chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people.”
“The Democratic National Convention had all the elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style, the Communist guru’s son wrote in a letter published yesterday in the Boston Globe. Read article.
Meet Obama’s Other anti-Israel, NOI-friendly Supporter
No Quarter USA.net Blog
Obama’s breathtakingly bad judgment in choosing friends seems to know no end. First it was the crude, anti-white Jeremiah Wright. Next came Obama’s benefactor, the corrupt Tony Rezko. Then it was America’s favorite terrorists couple, Ayers and Dohrn.Now Obama is listing on his Web page as a “testimonial” of “People of Faith” a woman who is a friend and ally of the rabidly anti-semitic, anti-white leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan.
The person in question is Rev. Willie Barrow, now a superdelegate and co-chairperson of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition-Operation Push. But Willie Barrow is not just a friend of Louis Farrakhan. In what’s becoming a disturbing pattern — including Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan traveling to Libya together in 1984 and meeting with Mouammar Kadhafi — Barrow is a known supporter of the PLO, in addition to being a friend and ally of Farrakhan. In 1988, in a gesture towards Jesse Jackson and his supporters, Michael Dukakis appointed Barrow and two others to the Democratic National Committee. Read article.
Does Obama Regularly Say Surge Succeeded 'Beyond Our Wildest Dreams'?
Tim Graham, NewsBusters.org
In the first segment of his interview with Barack Obama, FNC’s Bill O’Reilly complimented Obama for being mentally keen, even "perspicacious" in his original decision to oppose the war in his state Senate days, but "desperately wrong on the surge." Voting no on the war and yes on the surge would be an interesting legislative record. In response, Obama claimed, I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody has anticipated, by the way, including President Bush and the other supporters." He added, "what I’ve said is it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."
Obama’s answer invited two questions. If "nobody anticipated" the surge would work, why would they propose it, especially once Democrats took over Congress in 2007? Clearly, someone anticipated success. Then: has Obama really said before now that the surge has succeeded beyond our "wildest dreams"? Would he say that as he campaigned against Hillary? Or McCain? Will the media follow up on that?
Taking a while searching the "Transcripts" file in Nexis for the last twelve months, there’s no place where Obama’s said such a thing. (History-wise, you’ll also have a hard time finding Bill saying Iraq was the "wrong battlefield" before the war.) Read article.
The Central, Defining Issue is Judgment
Joel Rosenberg, Joel Rosenberg's Weblog.com
Understanding how to protect American lives and American interests from serious threats in Iran, Iraq and Russia and helping the U.S. establish real energy independence in the years ahead are among the defining issues of this presidential campaign. Senator Obama and his chief advisors all but concede he has almost no foreign policy experience. He was, after all, a community organizer and has spent most of his time in the Senate running for President. But to a man, the Obama camp says experience is not that important. The central and defining issue, they argue, is a candidate’s judgment. This is why Sen. Obama himself said in his
acceptance speech in Denver: “If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”
It is indeed a debate worth having. The problem is, Senator Obama has shown disastrous judgment on Iran, Iraq, Russia and energy independence, as Governor Palin and Rudy Guiliani noted so effectively on Wednesday night.
Consider a few examples: Read article.
Obama's Years at Columbia Are a Mystery: He Graduated Without Honors
Ross Goldberg, NY Sun.com
Senator Obama's life story, from his humble roots, to his rise to Harvard Law School, to his passion as a community organizer in Chicago, has been at the center of his presidential campaign. But one chapter of the tale remains a blank — his education at Columbia College, a place he rarely speaks about and where few people seem to remember him.
Contributing to the mystery is the fact that nobody knows just how well Mr. Obama, unlike Senator McCain and most other major candidates for the past two elections, performed as a student.
The Obama campaign has refused to release his college transcript, despite an academic career that led him to Harvard Law School and, later, to a lecturing position at the University of Chicago. The shroud surrounding his experience at Columbia contrasts with that of other major party nominees since 2000, all whom have eventually released information about their college performance or seen it leaked to the public.
The Obama campaign declined to comment for this article and did not offer an explanation for why his transcript has not been released. But observers speculated that one reason might be the racially charged nature of the election. Mr. Obama has acknowledged benefiting from affirmative action in the past, and details about his academic performance might open him up to critics eager to accuse him, probably unfairly, of receiving a free ride. Read article.
Obama Should Come Clean On Ayers, Rezko And the Iraqi Billionaire
John H. Fund. JWR/cp,
Obama aides believe John Kerry lost in 2004 because he failed to respond to the "Swift Boat" ads attacking him, and they are lashing out. Sometimes the Obama objections have merit, as when they exposed errors in Jerome Corsi's sensationalized Obama biography. But sometimes they are designed to shut down legitimate questions.
"They're terrified of people poking around Obama's life," one reporter told Gabriel Sherman at the New Republic. "The whole Obama narrative is built around the narrative that Obama and [campaign strategist] David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it's not entirely true." The stakes are high. If the full story of Mr. Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright had been revealed before the Iowa caucus, he wouldn't have won.
Chasing the rest of Mr. Obama's paper trail is often an exercise in frustration. Mr. Obama says his state senate records "could have been thrown out" and he didn't keep a schedule in office. No one appears to have kept a copy of his application for the Illinois Bar. He has released only a single page of medical records, versus 1,000 pages for John McCain.
Then there's the house that Mr. Obama bought in 2005 in cooperation with Tony Rezko, his friend and campaign fund-raiser — a move the candidate concedes was "boneheaded." Rezko was convicted in June of 16 counts of corruption. (Mr. Obama was not implicated in Rezko's crimes.)
Rezko's trial raised a host of questions. Was Mr. Obama able to save $300,000 on the asking price of his house because Rezko's wife paid full price for the adjoining lot? How did Mrs. Rezko make a $125,000 down payment and obtain a $500,000 mortgage when financial records shown at the Rezko trial indicate she had a salary of only $37,000 and assets of $35,000? Records show her husband also had few assets at the time. Read article.
Biden Has Experience But No Expertise In Foreign Policy
Joe Bell, Opinion Editorials.com
After Senator Barack Obama chose Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate the media gushed over what a tremendous choice it was and how it strengthened the Democrat's ticket. Biden, the public was told, is an expert in foreign relations. It would have been accurate to say Biden has dealt with foreign policy issues. However, the policies he has championed reveals he is no expert. In fact, on the great issues that have faced the nation since he entered office Biden has generally been wrong. Experience is useless if the decisions you have made while gaining that experience have been incorrect. Yes, Biden has experience but he has demonstrated consistently poor judgment.
In December 2001, President Bush announced the United States would withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It was the right decision for a variety of reasons. First, the U.S. had signed the document with a nation (the Soviet Union) that no longer existed. Second, the threats facing America had changed between 1972 and 2001. As far back as May 1999, former CIA director James Woolsey testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was “a reasonable position.”
Woolsey cited reasons to view the treaty differently: The possibility of an accidental or unauthorized missile launch from Russia; the increase of a nuclear threat from rogue nations; China’s increasingly bellicose position with respect to Taiwan and its missile threat against the United States.
Despite the solid reasons to abandon a treaty that had outlived its purpose, as well as one of its signers, Biden wanted the U.S. to remain tethered to the Cold War relic.
During the Reagan years Biden opposed the president’s proposal to place intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe to counter Soviet missiles. The plan was for the U.S. to introduce missiles into the theater while negotiating for a mutual reduction with Moscow. Senator Joe ‘The Expert’ Biden considered Reagan’s plan a greater threat to peace than the Soviet Union, which had violated the status quo by placing its missiles in Europe. Read article.
The Dems’ Legal Eagles: Want real change? Quit nominating lawyers!
Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com
The 2008 presidential campaign is supposed to be a referendum on “change” — who brings it and who doesn’t.
Real change, however, hasn’t yet proven to mean new politics.
The “hope and change” Barack Obama sounds like a traditional Northern liberal who always wants to raise taxes on the upper classes and businesses, expand government services, and provide more state assistance to the middle class and poor.
It’s certainly true that either the next president or next vice president will not be a white male. But does that mean de facto that the country will be run any differently?
There is, however, one area where we might have seen real change. The Democrats could have not nominated another lawyer. This may partly explain why former military officer John McCain and working-mom Sarah Palin are polling near even with Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, in a year that otherwise favors the Democrats. Read article.
Scrutiny on the Trail: Who talks about change? Who implements it?
David Freddoso, NRO.com
The media is now applying an appropriate level of scrutiny to the political career of Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee. It remains an open question why they have not done the same thing to Barack Obama, who is, after all, a candidate for president.
Much of Palin’s record, as outlined in a 2006 opposition-research document from the campaign of her Democratic opponent for governor (obtained by Politico), is positive and impressive. As mayor, she fought against laws to shorten bar hours in Wasilla, and against unnecessary and arbitrary statewide laws limiting the hours of alcohol sales. She called for spending reductions and a hiring freeze in state government. She helped keep crisis-pregnancy centers — which provide support for women who might otherwise feel forced into having abortions — open by providing very modest city funding.
The most impressive part of Palin’s resumé, and the sharpest contrast with Obama’s, is how she has taken on Alaska Republicans, fighting against political corruption in her own party and taking on some of the biggest names in the state. She may not have as much time in elected office as Obama, but Palin at least has a reform resumé, something that Obama cannot legitimately claim.
Facing an environment much like Chicago — corrupt, one-party rule, dominated by long-entrenched incumbents and special interests — Palin has rocked the boat. This year, the powerful 18-term Republican congressman Don Young has been under investigation for gifts he may have taken from VECO, a corrupt and now-defunct oil services firm whose CEO had bribed several state legislators. Palin did not just endorse Young’s primary challenger, but she actually surprised and delighted attendees of the state party convention by announcing the challenge there for the first time. Read article.
Sarah Palin's Pioneering Streak
Maggie Gallagher, Townhall.com
Forget about Gov. Sarah Palin.
Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin is better qualified than Barack Obama to be president of the United States in at least one respect: Figuring out when a baby gets human rights is apparently not above her pay grade.
For better or for worse, John McCain's gutsy appointment of Sarah Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five signals a new era for women in America and perhaps the world.
Being a powerful woman poses special difficulties: Americans may pretend to enjoy (or aspire to) racial blindness, but not gender blindness. Women leaders must forge personal strategies for combining "feminine" with "powerful" even while living in a society like ours that pays lip service to the idea that gender doesn't matter anymore.
Newsflash: Of course it does. Sex is one of the more consistently powerful forces in the human psyche, and both men and women notice whether someone is female or male.
Generally, powerful female politicians fall into one of two archetypes: They are either Margaret Thatchers or Indira Gandhis. Read article.
Now This is Woman's Work –(2006 Newsweek article praising Palin!)
Karen Breslau, Newsweek.com
In Alaska, Palin is challenging the dominant, sometimes corrupting, role of oil companies in the state's political culture. "The public has put a lot of faith in us," says Palin during a meeting with lawmakers in her downtown Anchorage office, where—as if to drive the point home—the giant letters on the side of the ConocoPhillips skyscraper fill an entire wall of windows.
"They're saying, 'Here's your shot, clean it up'." For Palin, that has meant tackling the cozy relationship between the state's political elite and the energy industry that provides 85 percent of Alaska's tax revenues—and distancing herself from fellow Republicans, including the state's senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, whose home was recently searched by FBI agents looking for evidence in an ongoing corruption investigation. (Stevens has denied any wrongdoing.) But even as she tackles Big Oil's power, Palin has transformed her own family's connections to the industry into a political advantage. Her husband, Todd, is a longtime employee of BP, but, as Palin points out, the "First Dude" is a blue-collar "sloper," a fieldworker on the North Slope, a cherished occupation in the state. "He's not in London making the decisions whether to build a gas line."
But even as she tackles Big Oil's power, Palin has transformed her own family's connections to the industry into a political advantage. Her husband, Todd, is a longtime employee of BP, but, as Palin points out, the "First Dude" is a blue-collar "sloper," a fieldworker on the North Slope, a cherished occupation in the state. "He's not in London making the decisions whether to build a gas line." Read article.
Family Security Matters does not endorse any candidate for any public office. Our Contributing Editors’ opinions are their own, and do not reflect those of FSM.
Archives Pre-May 8, 2008: Please click here
Join FSM and stay informed. Get your daily Security Update delivered each day to your e-mail.
Occupy Chicago freakout: The LRAD is coming, the LRAD is coming!
May 21, 2012 00:57 AM
Here is an LRAD. It’s a Long Range Acoustic Device better known as a sound cannon and it’s used to disperse unruly crowds. Here is an Occupy Chicago freakout over the LRAD (led by the same livestreamer who freaked out last night over a brief police stop): Two #LRAD s spotted heading to march.— Tim [...]
Michael Moore spreads hysterical, anti-police fable from his Occupy comrades
May 21, 2012 00:37 AM
The crockumentary film-maker should have read Twitchy first. As we told you Saturday night, the trio of Occupy Chicago livestreamers who freaked out over a brief, Chicago police pullover didn’t have their apartment raided, didn’t have any of their equipment damaged, were not “held at gunpoint,” and had none of their high-priced cameras, phones, and [...]
It will rain: Awww, Occupy Chicago's all wet; finally, free showers for all!
May 20, 2012 11:09 PM
Mother Nature is Chicago law enforcement’s best friend. Tonight, the rabble-rousers’ plans for anarchy got spoiled by rain. Twitter had fun as the Occupiers and their fearless livestream crews ran for cover, while a few of the mobsters hung around to harass officers on duty and break out in senseless chants: Fkin Streamers afraid of [...]
Marion Barry has change of heart after being saved by Filipino hospital staff
May 20, 2012 10:00 PM
In what reads like a bad Hollywood movie script Marion Barry has changed his mind about Filipino nurses. Just a few weeks after complaining about how many Filipino nurses work in Washington DC Barry's life was saved by Filipino nurses. That's right, the same people he wanted to push our of DC hospitals ended up treating his potentially life threatening blood clot.
May 20, 2012 06:15 PM
Violence erupts at the end of the NATO Summit protests. Earlier today, members of Black Bloc were arrested for plotting to attack police stations, Mayor Emanuel's home and President Obama's campaign headquarters. Their violence then turned to the protest; police in riot gear move in, wearing gas masks. Protesters are throwing things at police according to video, live photos and reports from on the ground in Chicago.
FSM Archives
FEATURED
blog comments powered by Disqus