May 22, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive: Saturday, August 23
by PRESIDENTIAL WATCH August 23, 2008
Obama campaign ops secretly pressuring big money donors to buy tickets @ $1,000 to his “free” acceptance speech - SEE HERE.
How well do you know Barack Obama? - SEE HERE.
Barack Obama Can't Run from His Three Votes in Favor of Infanticide
Rush Limbaugh, EIBnet.com
RUSH: Now, there is an issue in this campaign that is not going to go away. It is an issue that the Democrats and Obama are not going to be able to sweep aside. It is very simply his thrice support, three times voting to support, killing babies who survived abortions. It ain't going to go away, as much as the Democrats would like for it to. Three different times, Barack Obama has voted -- and, by the way, in voting for this, he has said (summarized), "Ah, look, there wasn't any provision in there to protect the sanctity of Roe vs. Wade, and I'm not going to sign anything here that allows Roe vs. Wade to be chipped away at." Well, finally that exact provision was put in legislation, both federal and in Illinois when he was in the State Senate there, and he still voted against. Read transcript HERE.
The Europeanization of the Democratic Party
William Moloney, Rocky Mountain News.com
In the 19th century Americans took very seriously Washington’s warning against “entangling alliances” which might interfere with the country’s unfolding “Manifest Destiny” of dynamic growth and expansion. A corollary to this belief was that the “Great American Democracy” was a unique-perhaps even divinely inspired-form of political organization vastly superior to the Old World’s tired regimes of aristocratic privilege and downtrodden masses.
In the 20th century America entered upon the world stage powerfully and decisively coming to the aid of embattled European democracies and leading them to victory in two World Wars and the Cold War. Launching these extraordinary interventions were three memorable Democratic presidents- Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
Though American actions in the two centuries were starkly different- isolationism in the 19th, and intervention in the 20th-one compelling theme was constant: American Exceptionalism- a general notion that foreigners were a source of problems and Americans were a source of solutions. This attitude was often naïve, and jingoistic, but it provided a sturdy foundation for American patriotism through most of our history.
This enduring national consensus, however, collapsed during the “Perfect Storm” of the nineteen sixties when a toxic brew of social, military and political convulsions tore gaping holes in the fabric of our national life-self-inflicted wounds that remain unhealed to this day. Read article.
Obama's Tax Plan Is Really a Welfare Plan
Peter Ferrara, Online WSJ.com
Barack Obama's tax plan is the opposite of supply-side economics. He proposes to raise marginal rates for just about every federal tax. He also proposes a raft of tax credits that taxpayers can receive if they engage in various government-specified activities.
Moreover, the tax credits would mostly go to those who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. His trick is to make the tax credits "refundable." Thus, if the tax credit is for $1,000, but the taxpayer would otherwise only pay $200 in taxes, the government would write a check to the taxpayer for $800. If the taxpayer pays nothing in federal income taxes, the government would pay him the whole $1,000.
Such credits are not tax cuts. Indeed, they should be called The New Tax Welfare. In effect, Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand a slew of government spending programs that are disguised as tax credits. The spending on these programs is then subtracted from the total tax burden, in order to make the claim that his tax plan is a net tax cut overall.
On the tax side of the ledger, the details released by his campaign last week confirm what a President Obama has in mind for our most productive citizens. The top individual income tax rate, for example, would be increased by 13%, to 39.6%; the next-highest rate would be raised to 36%. The top rates on capital gains and dividends would rise by a third, to 20%
The Social Security payroll tax would be raised between 16% to 32% for families making over $250,000 a year. Read article.
No Whiners Allowed
Ted Nugent, Human Events.com
The mark of an immature person is one who complains that something isn’t fair because the ball didn’t bounce his or her way. These people remind me of spoiled brats on the grade school playground who didn’t get picked for the team. Tough.
When McCain scored a knockout over Senator Obama the other night at the Saddleback Church in Orange County by answering Reverend Warren’s questions more confidently, clearly and decisively than the stumbling, obfuscating Obama, Obama’s campaign accused the Straight Talk Express of cheating. Whiners.
There is no evidence -- none -- that McCain heard Obama’s rambling and confusing answers prior to taking the stage and answering Reverend Warren’s questions. The evidence is pretty plain: when thrashed soundly by a superior opponent, the Obama camp whined like school girls. Read article.
Woe Is Me, Said the Democrat
Debra J. Saunders, JWR.com
In politics, everyone wants to be seen as a mudslinging virgin — who, like King Lear, is "more sinned against than sinning." Toward that end, Democrats have crafted the conceit that Republicans are attack dogs, while Democratic candidates are not sufficiently ruthless. After years of calling President Bush every name in the book, the left nonetheless manages to see itself as the victim in the smear game.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama knows how to play to that conceit. In a speech before a Veterans of Foreign Wars gathering in Florida on Tuesday, Obama went into woe-is-me mode as he responded to Republican candidate John McCain's criticism of Obama's opposition to the successful U.S. troop surge in Iraq.
Poor baby. To hear his lament, you'd never guess that Obama repeatedly has argued that McCain picks his positions out of ambition. Obama recently told a group, "The price (McCain) paid for his party's nomination has been to reverse himself on position after position."
You've read the stories about McCain's ad mocking Obama as a Paris Hilton-like celebrity. But the media have barely reported on the Obama spot that hits McCain for playing the "same old Washington games." Read article.
Obama Played by Chicago Rules
David Freddoso, Online WSJ.com
Democrats don't like it when you say that Barack Obama won his first election in 1996 by throwing all of his opponents off the ballot on technicalities.
By clearing out the incumbent and the others in his first Democratic primary for state Senate, Mr. Obama did something that was neither illegal nor even uncommon. But Mr. Obama claims to represent something different from old-style politics -- especially old-style Chicago politics. And the senator is embarrassed enough by what he did that he misrepresents it in the prologue of his political memoir, "The Audacity of Hope."
Mr. Obama writes that even if the voters were not impressed by this speech, "enough of them appreciated my earnestness and youthful swagger that I made it to the Illinois legislature."
In real life, it did not matter what Mr. Obama said on the stump or whether South Side voters were impressed. What mattered was that, beginning on Jan. 2, 1996, his campaigners began challenging thousands of petition signatures the other candidates in the race had submitted in order to appear on the ballot. Thus would Mr. Obama win his state Senate seat, months before a single vote was cast. Read article.
The Case For The Case Against Barack Obama: A tale of two books.
Jim Geraghty, NRO.com
If one is going to examine Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, one probably ought to also read David Freddoso’s book on the Democratic nominee, The Case Against Barack Obama.
Freddoso is one of our own, and he thanks me in the acknowledgments. So take that into account as you read the review.
Of the two books, Corsi’s has garnered a lot more attention, and that’s unfortunate. Obama himself has talked about Corsi’s book, saying it “just kind of sprung full bore out of this guy’s head,” at a San Francisco fundraiser. Obama’s campaign put out a 41-page response, and they seem eager to point to it as an example of unfair and inaccurate “smears.”
Even if Freddoso had made as many errors as Corsi (he hasn’t), his book has an advantage: focus. Corsi’s book swerves from topic to topic, with criticisms of the candidate thrown together into an overloaded bouillabaisse. In contrast, Freddoso hones in on one aspect of the Obama message, the idea that Obama is a reformer, and obliterates it in the manner of a professional demolitions crew. Read article.
Obama — the New Jimmy Carter
Morris & McGann, NewsMax.com
Last week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia’s invasion of Georgia.
This two-dimensional portrait of weakness underscores fears that Obama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter.
Consider first the domestic and political. Bill and Hillary Clinton have no leverage over Obama. Hillary can’t win the nomination. She doesn’t control any committees. If she or her supporters tried to disrupt the convention or demonstrate outside, she would pay a huge price among the party faithful.
If Obama lost — after Hillary made a fuss at the convention — they would blame her for all eternity (just like Democrats blame Ted Kennedy for Carter’s defeat). But, without having any leverage or a decent hand to play, the Clintons bluffed Obama into amazing concessions. Read article.
Huckabee in Israel backs united Jerusalem
JTA.org
Mike Huckabee on a visit to Israel called the possible division of Jerusalem "unimaginable."
Huckabee, a former U.S. presidential candidate, was in Israel for 48 hours beginning Monday as a guest of the Ateret Cohanim religious seminary's Jerusalem Reclamation Project, a New York-based foundation that works to move Jews into Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter.
"It is a historic reality that Jerusalem, and the entire land, was originally intended to be a homeland for the Jewish people," Huckabee said while touring eastern Jerusalem. "The Palestinians should in fact have a place and opportunity to settle, but it doesn't have to be in Jerusalem."
Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is also an ordained minister, has been mentioned as a possible running mate for presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Read article.
Don't Tell Me What I Can or Cannot Question
Col Bob Pappas, USMC, Ret
"Let me be clear: I will let no one question my love of this country," said Obama.
Well Senator, get used to it!
If you love this country what is it that you love? If you love this country, why have you gone to great lengths to malign and undermine it? If you love this country, why did you embrace a church and pastor for 20 years that manifestly hates this country? If you love this country, what is it that you are so determined to change?
Anyone with the objectivity to analyze your comment knows that you have never told us what it is that you love about America; they know that you have consistently run the country down from its involvement in Iraq to the economy; they know that you have been party to an America hating pastor, telling Americans that you could no more turn your back on your pastor than you could your own grandmother; they know that your wife at age forty four stated that for the first time in her life she is proud of her country which tells us that she was not proud for the years leading up to that pronouncement; they know that your associates, from Wright to Ayers and undoubtedly others, that the America you love is not the one inhabited by far and away the majority of Bible; they know that when you say you embrace change that what you mean is that you evidently at the very least you are dissatisfied with the country's status as the world's premier economic, social, military and moral power. Read article.
A Real Change To Believe In
Don Bendell, Don Bendell.com
I watched the interviews at Saddleback Church and saw John McCain address his remarks not to the moderator like his opponent did but to the crowd and to America. I saw a leader who was willing to make things right for all Americans, not just his own political party. I also saw humor, honesty, decisiveness, and a real concern for the things that matter most to me. I witnessed the leader this country sorely needs, a Barbwire Bob Kingston who takes charge, a Ronald Reagan who will make us believe in America and remember we are the greatest nation on earth. I saw the real change this nation must have right now; more patriotism, not less.
John McCain has reminded me that the last four letters in American are: “I can,” not “I can’t.” If he is willing to go against the grain and reach across that aisle to put our nation ahead of his political party, I am willing to extend myself to do all I can to get people to see that John McCain is the only choice for President. We have never been a nation of pure-breds. Real Americans have always been Mavericks. The original maverick is named John McCain, a man who will lead us by example with a quiet strength, a warm smile, and class. He will show dignity and respect to the least among us, but everybody in the world will know we have a true leader. Read article.
Still the Greatest Country in the World?
Arnold Ahlert, Political Mavens.com
Today’s liberalism is not about selling reasoned or sensible change for a country that needs “tweaking.” It is about selling the hysteria that we are a nation in need of an “Extreme Makeover.”
Barack Obama’s campaign is based on this premise: “I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. This was the moment - this was the time when we came together to remake this great nation."
Have we never cared for the sick or jobless? Trillions of dollars of wealth transfer for health entitlements, Social Security, job-training and unemployment insurance suggest otherwise. This (is) was the moment? Over the course of almost three hundred years, hundreds of thousands of American troops have paid the ultimate price to “heal” the planet of sicknesses far more deadly and self-evident than global warming. This was (is) the time we came together?
No other nation on earth comes close to matching our historical legacy of assimilation, uniting against a common enemy, righting historical wrongs or creating equal opportunity for all. Read article.
Obama Draws Ire Over Comments on Clarence Thomas
Peter Winn, CNS News.com
Obama, the putative Democratic presidential nominee, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) appeared at a televised forum at the church, at which Saddleback’s pastor, Rick Warren, served as host. Warren, the nation’s most visible pastor and author, interviewed each man separately but asked the same questions to both.
When asked to name a Supreme Court justice he would not have appointed, Obama named Clarence Thomas.
"I don't think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation, setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretations of a lot of the Constitution," Obama said.
Conservative legal experts, who championed Thomas for elevation to the court in 1991, were livid at what they say was a personal attack on one of the top justices on the court. Read article.
Obama's Extremism - His Abortion Record Is No Lie
Rich Lowry, NY Post.com
Barack Obama had a mini Bob Dole moment after the Saddleback presidential forum the other night. Asked on the Christian Broadcasting Network about a controversy over his opposition to legislation in Illinois protecting infants born alive after surviving abortions, an irked Obama replied, "I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying."
Obama's line recalled Dole's plaint on national TV after the first George Bush beat him in New Hampshire in 1988, "Tell him to stop lying about my record." Dole's outburst would live in infamy as evidence of his distemper. Obama's problem isn't his temperament, but the unsustainable exertions necessary to attempt to square his reasonable-sounding rhetoric on abortion with the extremism of his record.
Asked by Pastor Rick Warren when a baby gets rights, Obama said, "I'm absolutely convinced that there is a moral and ethical element to this issue." This is a crashing banality couched as thoughtfulness. If Obama is so sensitive to the moral element of the issue, why does he want to eliminate any existing restrictions on the procedure? Read article.
Obama and Pro-Life 'Liars'
Terence Jeffrey, Townhall.com
In an interview with David Brody of CBN on Saturday, Barack Obama leveled a startling charge at the National Right to Life Committee.
Brody brought up the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, noting "there was some literature put out by the National Right to Life Committee. And they're basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill."
"Let me clarify this right now," said Obama.
"Because it's getting a lot of play," said Brody.
"Well, and because they have not been telling the truth," said Obama. "And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying. Read article.
Democrats and Drilling
Online WSJ.com
It took a few months, and more than a few polls, but Democrats have concluded that they've lost the debate against more oil-and-gas drilling. The surrender became official on Saturday, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that even she was ready to "consider opening portions" of the Outer Continental Shelf to oil exploration.
That's great news, assuming she and her fellow Democrats really mean it. It wasn't too many days ago that the anticarbon Speaker lampooned drilling as "a hoax on the American people," while Barack Obama called it "another Washington gimmick." Now the Democratic Presidential candidate has also said he might be willing to change his mind and tolerate the exploitation of domestic energy resources. The good news for converts like Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Obama is that they have immediate opportunities to quiet Republicans and other skeptics and prove their new pro-drilling bona fides.
They can start with the 2008 Democratic Party platform, the policy outline for the election campaign that delegates will endorse at next week's Denver convention. Let's just say the draft now reads as if it was written before Speaker Pelosi's conversion on the road to ExxonMobil. Read article.
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The 15 best liberal fairy tales
May 22, 2012 09:03 PM
#LiberalFairyTales are all the absurd stories that liberals tell themselves and, sadly, everybody else. Here are the absolute best ones twitterers ever did tweet.
Ky. primary has Barack Obama doing battle with a phantom; Let the mockage begin!
May 22, 2012 07:50 PM
Vote-counting for the Kentucky primary is underway, and Obama is leading among preferred Democratic presidential candidates. But ah, ah, ah … not so fast there, Barack. Looks like not everything’s comin’ up roses in the Bluegrass State. ONE FOR UNDECIDED: Bath County, Kentucky Democrats take "Undecided" over President Obama by 725-715 votes— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) [...]
May 22, 2012 04:29 PM
The South Carolina AFL-CIO president is on video beating an effigy of Governor Nikki Haley with a bat. War on women, indeed, and it comes from the Left as always. To Leftist thugs and union goons, she was asking for it, you see. That "uppity" woman won't keep her mouth shut and all. Scratch a Leftist and you will find not only a misogynist, but a racist.
Media still covering for no Biden access for press, blame Romney
May 22, 2012 03:39 PM
Media bias alert! RT @zekejmiller: Worth noting, given Romney flap last week, press not given rope-line access to Biden event here in NH— Sarah Huisenga (@SarahH_CBSNJ) May 22, 2012 Um. After the “Romney flap?” You mean the “flap” that the media breathlessly and endlessly reported all while ignoring the fact that reporters were shooed off [...]
May 22, 2012 03:08 PM
I'll see your Cory Booker and raise you a Joe Biden.— David Freddoso (@freddoso) May 22, 2012 Rut roh! Shall we add him to “hostage watch?“ Biden: When Bain companies failed, it cost taxpayers money in unemployment insurance, pension costs.— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 22, 2012 Uh. When they are “too big to fail” and [...]
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