From politics (moderates who lean to the right) to Pogo (drools during poker stare) to rants (Whatcha expect from savvy, sassy sexagenarians?) to raves (Have you had your kudo today?) -- we never take ourselves too seriously.
We do, however, reserve the right to slaughter an occasional sacred cow. And in case we fail to mention it -- we will never forget....
Before he has my vote for the Presidency of the United States, Barack H. Obama must answer many questions.
Not only does Barack Obama have the support of main stream media, he has a vast network of community "get out the vote" organizers (working as non-profit groups which he himself has funded) and he has a league of online minions to plaster message boards and blogs with his talking points.
Below is a list of "exceptions" and major issues dealing with the candidacy of Barack Obama.
This list will be updated regularly as information is obtained from across the net .... please feel free to use/dissiminate this information and to add links with additional information in the comments section.
Dreams from My Father: a son's odyssey to fulfill his father's political ambitions ....
If there is a mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father, one thing is not left a mystery, the fact that Barack Obama organized his life on the ideals given to him by his Kenyan father.
Obama tells us, "All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own." (p. 220)
And what was that image? It was "the father of my dreams, the man in
my mother's stories, full of high-blown ideals .." (p. 278)
What is more, Obama tells us that, "It was into my father's image .. that
I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself."
And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing. (p. 230)
Barack Obama's father, a Harvard trained economist, attacked the economic proposals of pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya from the socialist left, siding with communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga, in a paper Barack Obama's father worte for the East Africa Journal.
As Odhiambo and Cohen write, "The debates [over economic policy] pitted .. Mboya against .. Oginga Odinga and radical economists Dharam Ghai and Barrack Obama, who critiqued the document for being neither African nor socialist enough."
The social and economic policies proposed by Barack Obama the son -- candidate for the Presidency of the United States -- reflect the influence of his father's radical and socialist aspirations.
A paper written by Barack Obama's father, titled "Problems Facing Our Socialism" (published July, 1965 in the East African Journal, pp. 26-33), expressed the father's positions on socialism and planning in Kenya:
1. Obama advocated the communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land, as part of a forced "development plan", an important element of his attack on the government's advocacy of private ownership, land titles, and property registration. (p. 29)
2. Obama advocated the nationalization of "European" and "Asian" owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the "indigenous" black population. (pp. 32 -33)
3. Obama advocated dramatically increasing taxation on "the rich" even up to the 100% level, arguing that, "there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay" (p. 30) and that, "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed." (p. 31)
4. Obama contrasted the ill-defined and weak-tea notion of "African Socialism" negatively with the well-defined ideology of "scientific socialism", i.e. communism. Obama views "African Socialism" pioneers like Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Toure as having diverted only "a little" from the capitalist system. (p. 26)
5. Obama advocated an "active" rather than a "passive" program to achieve a classless society through the removal of economic disparities between black Africans and Asian and Europeans. (p. 28) "While we welcome the idea of a prevention [of class problems], we should try to cure what has slipped in .. we .. need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now .. so long as we maintain free enterprise one cannot deny that some will accumulate more than others .. " (pp. 29-30)
6. Obama advocated price controls on hotels and the tourist industry, so that the middle class and not only the rich can afford to come to Kenya as tourists. (p. 33)
7. Obama advocated government owned and operated "model farms" as a means of teaching modern farming techniques to farmers. (p. 33)
8. Obama strongly supported the governments assertion of a "non-aligned" status in the contest between Western nations and communist nations aligned with the Soviet Union and China. (p. 26)
NOTE: Please read the comments section for the above resource and the referenced Yahoo article.
Zbigniew Brzezinski is an advocate of socialist world government, a goal he has promoted as a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and as a speaker at former Soviet Premier and Communist Mikhail Gorbachev's first World Forum. Brzezinski is an architect of creating regions of global governance from independent nations to achieve world government. At the World Forum Brzezenski described the global regions that are now being put into place under Condi Rice: Israel and the Palestinians (now MEFTA, Middle East Free Trade Association), Iran as part of a Central Asian region, and China as part of a Far Eastern region. As a member of CSIS Brzezinski has guided their efforts to publish the North American Integration Monitor (2002) that calls for the loss of US sovereignty to a North American Union (NAU) as one of the regional global government blocks.
Beware the Global Poverty Tax (to be contributed to and distributed by the U.N. -- Obama will deduct it from the new energy tax before giving us our "energy rebate" which is discussed under taxes and economics) ....
The proposals for global taxes by Obama have come with the recommendations of Zbigniew Brzezinski to pay for globalization and world government. Obama has proposed a global poverty tax in a US Senate bill. The Climate Change Control Bill strongly supported by Obama calls for an international governing regime to monitor and regulate carbon dioxide and "carbon footprints" from discovery, to production, to consumption at a cost of $50 trillion globally and at a cost of $8 trillion for US taxpayers, all to be paid for by a global tax, whose monies will be used to establish a world government body.
To hear Obama describe his policy in a stump speech, it's difficult to realize that his economic and energy policies are little more than conduits to his view of "one world order" -- a socialistic governance similar to the EU .....
Voting Record: Obama occasionally supported higher taxes, joining other Democrats in pushing to raise more than 300 taxes and fees on businesses in 2004 to help solve a budget deficit. The increases passed the Senate 30-28. Obama regularly supported gun-control measures, including a ban on semiautomatic "assault weapons" and a limit on handgun purchases to one a month.
He also opposed letting people use a self-defense argument if charged with violating local handgun bans by using weapons in their homes. The bill was a reaction to a Chicago-area man who, after shooting an intruder, was charged with a handgun violation.
Supporters framed the issue as a fundamental question of whether homeowners have the right to protect themselves. He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive. He supported allowing retired police officers to carry concealed weapons, but opposed allowing people to use banned handguns to defend against intruders in their homes.
He helped reform the state death penalty system and create tax breaks for the poor. He worked on legislation requiring police to videotape interrogations in murder cases. He helped pass legislation overhauling Illinois' troubled capital punishment system and worked with a statewide study of traffic stops to look for signs of racial profiling.
Votes:
BUDGET & TAXES:
Voted to raise the minimum wage in Illinois from $5.15 an hour to $6.50 an hour over two years. (2003)
Helped pass a 5 percent earned-income tax credit for low-income working families in 2000; made the credit permanent in 2003.
Voted to end $300 million worth of tax breaks for businesses. (2004)
Voted against making permanent the repeal of the state's 5 percent sales tax on gasoline. (2000)
HEALTH CARE:
Voted for having Illinois endorse embryonic stem cell research. (2004)
Successfully sponsored the Health Care Justice Act, a study of ways to implement a universal health care system statewide. (2004)
Voted against restrictions on public funding of abortion. (2000)
Successfully co-sponsored a prescription drug discount buying club program for seniors and the disabled. (2003)
CRIME & GUN CONTROL:
Voted against letting people argue self-defense in court if charged with violating local weapons bans by using a gun in their home. (2004)
Voted to let retired police and military police carry concealed weapons. (2004)
Successfully sponsored requirement that law enforcement videotape interrogations of suspects in some serious crimes. (2003)
Successfully sponsored law enforcement study of the race of people pulled over for traffic tickets. (2003)
Helped pass an overhaul of the state's troubled death penalty system. (2003)
Unsuccessfully sponsored measure to expunge some criminal records and create an employment grant program for ex-criminals. (2002)
Unsuccessfully sponsored limit of one handgun purchase per month. (2000)
Voted against making gang members eligible for the death penalty if they kill someone to help their gang. (2001)
MISCELLANEOUS:
Unsuccessfully co-sponsored ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation. The measure became law after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate. (2003)
Successfully sponsored move to shield Illinois workers from federal rules that threatened overtime pay for some employees.
Successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform called the Gift Ban Act. (1998)
Voted against giving tax credits to parents who send their children to private school. (1999)
What happened to the $1.1 million allotted for this project?
Obama's Sex Education Bill: "[T]he bill's intention was to mandate sex education, especially concerning contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases, for children before the sixth grade and as early as kindergarten. Obama's defenders may howl, but the bill is what it is."
Ethics Bill: Obama didn't write it, introduce it, change it, or create it. It took just 14 days from start to finish and was passed unanimously.
Obama's Nuclear Bill was rejected by his own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation - influenced by his Nuclear donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod (his campaign manager) came.
Obama's Economics Bill was defeated 99-0; Obama voted against his own bill.
Commission vs Advisory Council: Today, Senator Obama said: "Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book: you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here's the thing: this isn't 9-11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out."
Apparently, then, we can dismiss Senator Obama's call for commissions on Social Security (11/2007), torture (9/2007), war crimes (8/2008), and financial oversight for Wall Street (4/2008) as "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."
Taxes/Economic Plans
REMINDER: under the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the sole power to tax and appropriate funds, not the president.
During his Tuesday morning speech, I found it amusing that Obama called McCain to task for "using the oldest trick in the political book" in calling for a 'Commission' to examine the current economic crisis. No less than five minutes later Obama then called for an "Advisory Group" to meet with the president regarding the current economic scenario.
You say tomato, I say tomahto.
Obama's campaign finance chair knows all about bank failures:
For those who do not know, "billionaire business mogul" Penny Pritzker was named in January 2007 as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)'s national finance chairman. She was also on the finance committee for Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate. In August 2001, Penny, Thomas, and Nicholas Pritzker were described as "struggling with a complicated legacy""a vast real estate and Hyatt hotel empire"left to them by its founder, Jay Pritzker, the New York Times reported. In 2005, Forbescounted Penny Pritzer among The 100 Most Powerful Women, as well as a member of the Forbes 400.
The New York Timesreported December 11, 2001, that the Pritzkers had agreed to pay a "record $460 million" spread out over 15 years to the federal government to avoid being punished" for Superior Bank's failure. It was "the largest settlement ever in the failure of a banking institution. The failure itself is one of the largest in the last decade, one that some estimate could cost the government up to $1 billion."
"Regulators said Superior had collapsed because of poor lending practices and sloppy bookkeeping," Time wrote. "The bank specialized in loans to people with poor credit histories, a practice called subprime lending."
Time also reported that the Pritzkers, who "have a long and troubled history in the S.& L. business" and "once battled the Internal Revenue Service over estate taxes, also agreed to cede 90 percent of any money they might recover in separate litigation with the government."
What we know about Obama's record is that he talks a good game, but has a history of raising taxes and spending the money on government programs, most of them sponsored and/or controlled by his associates. Otherwise, we're looking more at a pig-in-a-poke than at a proven finance manager.
If Mr. Obama is beholden to taxpayer-funded, government-designed highway and energy pork projects, he has gone hog wild over "refundable tax credits," which is the polite description of taxpayer-financed cash payments to people who pay no income taxes. Mr. Obama promises a $4,000 refundable tax credit to finance college tuition for students who spend 100 hours performing community service. There will be a refundable 10 percent mortgage-interest tax credit for married couples who take the $10,900 standard deduction because their itemizable deductions (including mortgage interest) fall below that level. Couples will also receive a refundable $1,000 tax credit to offset payroll taxes even if their refundable earned-income tax credit (EITC) has already eliminated their payroll-tax burden. Taxpayers will also finance a $500 refundable tax credit to augment a $1,000 savings-account deposit made by families earning up to $75,000.
Mr. Obama also promises to "triple the [EITC] benefit for minimum-wage workers." Let's do the math. For a married couple with two children working full-time and earning the minimum wage ($5.85 per hour, $24,336 per year), their refundable EITC would rise from $3,225 to $9,675. They already qualify for refundable child tax credits totaling about $1,850. Mr. Obama would increase their refundable child-care tax credit to $3,000. Don't forget his refundable $1,000 tax credit to partly offset their $1,500 Social Security taxes, which had already been more than offset by their nearly $10,000 refundable EITC. If they put that $1,000 in the bank, they would get another refundable tax credit of $500.
Oink Oink: On the spending side of the ledger, Mr. Obama proposed a 10-year, $60 billion "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank," which is a highfalutin name for a scheme to fund dubious pork-barrel projects that can't pass muster in our pork-addicted Congress. The $60 billion is just a down payment; it will be used to leverage "almost half a trillion of additional infrastructure spending." Guess who's going to pay for all that. Not to worry because the whole scheme will "generate nearly 2 million new jobs." Mr. Obama has also proposed a 10-year, $150 billion program "to establish a green energy sector that will create up to 5 million new jobs." His nearly universal health care plan, which he implausibly asserts will reduce the average family's insurance premium by $2,500 per year, is projected to cost between $50 billion and $65 billion per year.
Based on a comparison of state initiatives and the tax base -- Obama's economic policies would do nothing to improve joblessness and the development of small businesses ....
You'll hear him talk about businesses, companies, and corporations. You'll hear him talk about how business must work smarter, and must reduce their emissions. What you won't hear him say is that the largest part of US greenhouse gas emissions come from you and me driving to and from work, and keeping our homes cool. Because if he said that, the whole 83% reduction thing would begin to strike too closely to home.
So he distracts us from it. He says he will take money from the corporations, then use some of it (15 billion) to advance energy policy ( more about that soon) and give the rest to us. The problem with that plan is twofold. First, any money he pulls from corporations will be replaced by money they pull from us. If you make it more expensive for a company to manufacture and provide a product, they will charge more for it. That's simple math. The second problem is that he wants to basically bribe us with our own money. It goes from us, through the corporations, to the Federal government through the emissions auction and back to us.
ISSUES and HOT TOPICS
WALL STREET:
"... it's embarrassing to have a candidate for President (A) not understand a problem, (B) gloat over its arrival, and (C) not know how to fix it." source
Fannie and Freddie's Friends:(John Gibson from Fox News)
"...Obama's ads and stump speeches attack McCain and Republican policies for the current financial turmoil. It is demonstrably not Republican policy and worse, it appears the man attacking McCain, Senator Obama, was at the head of the line when the piggies lined up at the Fannie and Freddie trough for campaign bucks. Senator Barack Obama, number two on the Fannie/Freddie list of favored politicians after just four short years in the Senate. Next time you see that ad, you might notice he fails to mention that part of the Fannie and Freddie problem."
The NAFTA Lie: In speeches to unemployed auto and manufacturing workers, Obama pledged to review NAFTA to bring American jobs back home ..... While saying this -- Team Obama sent a memo to Canadian officials advising them to "ignore the rhetoric" of his speeches. When confronted by this lie, Obama denied he or his staff had contacted officials in Canada. The memo sent to Canadian officials.
"[T]he bill's intention was to mandate sex education, especially concerning contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases, for children before the sixth grade and as early as kindergarten. Obama's defenders may howl, but the bill is what it is."
The Environment: Protesters doing what they're trained to do (video)
Guns, the Constitution .. and things like that: (from HH)
"The bottom line is this. If you've got a rifle, you've got a shotgun, you've got a gun in your house, I'm not taking it away. Alright? So they can keep on talking about it but this is just not true. And by the way, here's another thing you've got to understand. Even if I wanted to take it away, I couldn't get it done. I don't have the votes in Congress."
The idea that Second Amendment rights depend on Congressional inaction due to a lack of votes is the give-away here. First Amendment rights cannot be curtailed by Congressional Action. Fourth Amendment rights are not subject to majority vote. Gun owners and and originalists wonder why Obama is conceding that majorities in House and Senate can take guns away.
TERRORISM and the War In Iraq
OBAMA ASKS IRAQI LEADERS TO DELAY US TROOP WITHDRAWALS UNTIL HE IS PRESIDENT .....
Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, [a staff spokeswoman said. In the face of resistance from Bush, the Democrat has long said that any such agreement must be reviewed by the US Congress as it would tie a future administration's hands on Iraq. Source
Obama pledges to be tough on terrorism, but missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism; his associate Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel.
In a Chicago speech after 9/11, he described the terrorists as "lacking empathy ... who came from a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair" .... Obama wqs wrong in this assessment: the terrorists came from wealthy, educated backgrounds -- similar to that of his American terrorist friend Bill Ayers.
Another Obama associate, el Hadi (sp?), was stopped by the Federal Government from collecting and sending donations to the terrorist group Hamas ... he is currently raising money for Obama and lists Michelle Obama as a supporter.
Questionable relationships: What do William Ayers, former Weather Underground, Frank Davis and Rashid Khalidi, the professor at Columbia University who arranged the Ahmedinejad visit and has direct ties to the PLO, and Barack Obama have in common?
The reason Oblahma doesn't want us to know what he actually did as a community organizer?
He would have to admit that he was involved in training protestors; he would have to admit his affiliation with anti-American interests/persons and how he taught others (via ACORN and it's affiliate Get Out the Vote -- which he also funded as a legislator and candidate) to infiltrate communities to garner votes ....
And by the way --- one of his most famous 2 million $$ projects in Chicago (including a $100,000 gazebo sitting in a field of crack needles and trash) still hasn't explained what happened to the money --- go figure.
Even more troubling is how the Democrat Party/Obama plan would siphon away untold millions or billions of public tax dollars into the Soros empire without taxpayer recourse. Obama promises "accountability" measures to ensure the money is spent wisely. But who would assess effectiveness of the spending? Why, experts in the social entrepreneurship community, of course. Fox, meet henhouse.
Soros has donated some $5 billion of his fortune to left-wing non-profit groups through the Open Society Institute which is committed to Soros's militant ideology of toppling the "fascist" tyranny of the United States, which he says must undergo "de-Nazification" in favor of "justice." The mob at Obama-endorsing MoveOn, purveyors of the "General Betray Us" smear against Commanding General, MNF-I, David Petraeus, is the most notorious Soros-backed political arm. But scores of other activist non-profits have received Soros funding under the guise of doing non-partisan "community" or "social justice" work and it is exactly such leftist activist groups that would be first in line for the Democrat Party/Obama's "social investment" seed money.
Point in case: ACORN. As I've reported before, Obama's old friends at the Chicago-based non-profit now take in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers. They have raked in tens of millions in federal anti-poverty grants while their operatives preside over massive voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, and mortgage scams across the country. Soros has donated at least $150,000 to the group, according to Investor's Business Daily, and "heads a secretive rich-man's club called 'Democracy Alliance' that has doled out $20 million to activist groups like ACORN."
The Annenburg Papers ... A trail of O's work with Ayers in distributing millions to activist organizations -- under the guise of "education"