Timothy Birdnow

I would like to wish all of our Jewish readers a warm and blessed New Year!

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By Tom Joseph
 
Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate.  Yet, in the middle of the worst national financial crisis our country has seen since the Great Depression, he called in to the Senate sick from his candidacy first disease.  Senator Barack Obama, it was his job to be in the Senate working on a solution.  It is what he is being paid to do.  If he is not willing to act responsibly and perform his duties, he should be honorable enough to resign.
 
Starting last Thursday, the American people were subjected to an intense propaganda campaign of deceit by the Democratic Party and its media supporters.  When Senator McCain announced he would suspend his campaign and return to Washington to work on a solution to our fiscal crisis, the Democrats and their media allies told the public a deal had already been reached, and later, when the deal that never was a deal didn't come together, they tried to blame it on McCain.  Nevertheless, Senator McCain tried to work out a compromise between the Democrats and Republicans in the House.  Obama did not return to Washington until the President asked him directly.
 
By Sunday, when it looked like a compromise had been reached, the Democratic Party and their media allies were now telling the public that Obama's telephone calls to Washington had been instrumental in reaching an agreement.  95 Democrats and 133 Republicans ended Obama's so-called agreement Monday.  Obviously, he didn't phone the right people.  Will he take responsibility for this?  Will he take responsibility for not returning to the Senate?  Will Barack Obama accept responsibility for anything he does that goes wrong?    
 
During this crisis, Senator Obama did not answer his call to duty in the Senate.  If it's 3:00 AM and the phone rings in the White House, can America count on him to answer then? 
 
tom joseph
athinkingdemocrat

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By Tom Joseph

(An Update to <a href=http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/watching_the_1st_presidential_debate_at_home>"Watching the 1st Presidential Debate at Home"</a>  9-28-08)
 
The debate was Friday.  Saturday, none of the AP or Reuters articles on Yahoo News mentioned any polls about who won the debate.  Knowing the media's fondness for using polls, this seemed very strange.
 
Sunday morning, I watched the political fun-dips on the network news programs.  There was so much spinning and respinning going on that it made me dry enough to drink two bottles of spring water just to cool off.  Somewhere between all the flipping channels, someone mentioned a CBS poll of 500 uncommitted voters that gave Obama a debate victory.
 
In a nation of 300 million people where more than 50 million will vote in the coming election, CBS uses a poll of 500 uncommitted voters to score a presidential debate?  There has been no mention of any Gallop, Rasmussen, or Zogby polls taken immediately after the debate.  No polls of the general public.  No polls of registered voters.  No polls of the people most likely to vote.  This puts me a mile or two down the road past skeptical.
 
CBS is where Dunga Dan Rather came up with those documents that "proved President Bush was AWOL" during the Vietnam War.  So, I checked on the poll.  It's a product of Knowledge Networks.  Ever hear of them?  I haven't.  They polled 483 uncommitted voters who were "pre-surveyed" before the debate.  They reported 39% said Obama won, 24% said McCain won, and 37% called the debate a tie.  CBS, by the way, is still looking for the original computerized copies of the Rather documents.  I have no doubt that, when they find them, they'll wait until the ink dries, then hand them over to their typewriter repairman/expert to be validated.
 
Anyone want to guess what the BS in CBS stands for?
 
I've seen polls that say more than 80% of the public do not trust the media.  None of us should trust the media.  If Obama won the 1st debate, the media would have put out the news immediately.  My guess is that McCain won the debate.  What we have seen over the past few days is an effort to keep the truth from the American people.  This is not something new, but it is something that has gotten very old and even more dispicable than before.
 
tom joseph
athinkingdemocrat

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This also from the Wall Street Journal, courtesy of Wil Wirtanen:

Debate Questions for Joe Biden
Softballs for the foreign policy 'expert.'
·         By BRET STEPHENS
 
Gwen Ifill (debate moderator): "Sen. Biden, the following questions go to you.

"Let's begin with your approach to diplomacy. During the primary campaign last year, you criticized Sen. Obama's pledge to meet with the leaders of states such as Iran and Venezuela as 'naive,' particularly if such meetings were held without preconditions.

Joe Biden meets with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Sept. 26.

"You also noted that when you met Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s, you did so on condition 'that no press would be available,' and you added that 'I'd only meet him in his office late at night, and I wouldn't dignify being seen with him.'

"Having said that, senator, do you think that as president, Barack Obama would be 'dignifying' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by meeting him? Or do you agree with Sen. McCain when he argued in last week's debate that 'if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a "stinking corpse," and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments'?"

Ifill: "Senator, you have been a stalwart supporter of Georgia during the recent crisis with Russia, and you've described Georgia as a 'worthy candidate' for NATO membership, along with Ukraine.

"Do you think it is in America's national security interest to extend a military guarantee, via NATO, to Georgia, particularly if it risks direct confrontation with Russia?"

Ifill: "In 1991, you voted against giving the first President Bush authority to use force to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. You argued then that you opposed an 'impetuous and ill-considered rush to war.'

"Eleven years later, however, you supported the resolution to give the current president the authority to invade Iraq. You said, and I quote, that while Iraq did not pose 'an imminent threat,' it did pose 'an inevitable threat,' and, furthermore, that 'we are either going to have to react, if not tomorrow, we will have to in the next five years.'

"Leaving aside how the war was handled or mishandled, do you still believe Saddam posed an 'inevitable' threat to the United States?"

Ifill: "Further on Iraq, senator. In 2006, you were at the forefront of urging the 'soft' partition of Iraq into three de facto independent states. You also opposed President Bush's surge of U.S. forces in Iraq, saying the surge wasn't going to work 'either tactically or strategically.' Given that Barack Obama now says the surge 'succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,' do you stand by your support for partition and your opposition to the surge?"

Ifill: "Please turn to Iran. Sen. Obama and you have promised to conduct direct, presidential-level diplomacy with Iran to try to persuade it to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. You have also promised to 'step up economic pressure and political isolation' if Iran fails to do so.

With experts forecasting that Iran is anywhere between six months and two years from acquiring sufficient quantities of fissile material to build a bomb, the time for either option seems short. Will you set a deadline for giving diplomacy a chance to work? And what kinds of sanctions, beyond those that are already in place, do you think could alter Iran's calculations in a short span of time? Would you favor, for example, a gasoline embargo on Iran?"

Ifill: "Let's talk about energy policy. In Ohio recently, you told a supporter that you and Mr. Obama were 'not supporting clean coal,' and that you would rather have coal plants built in China, if at all, than in the U.S.

"Back in May, however, Mr. Obama was running ads touting his support for 'clean Kentucky coal.' Has his position changed, or do the two of you differ on the issue?

"Also, former Vice President Al Gore has suggested transitioning to '100% zero-carbon electricity in 10 years.' Given that the U.S. gets 50% of its electricity generating power from coal, but only 2.3% from renewable sources such as wind and solar power, is Mr. Gore's timetable plausible or desirable?"

Ifill: "Turning to economic policy, you have supported $25 billion in loans to the auto industry. That's in addition to the $700 billion financial bailout to which Sen. Obama has given at least tentative support. Is there a troubled industry in America that an Obama-Biden administration would not bail out?

Ifill: "Finally, senator, something from the more distant past. In 1981, at the outset of the Reagan administration, you took the lead in cross-examining William 'Judge' Clark for his confirmation hearings for deputy secretary of state. Mr. Clark's job was explicitly intended to be managerial, not policy oriented. Nevertheless, you asked him for the names of the prime ministers of South Africa and Zimbabwe, both of which were second-tier posts in presidential systems.

"In the same spirit, Sen. Biden, and as a longstanding leader of the Foreign Relations Committee, can you give us the names of the prime minister of France and the president of Germany? Just to be clear here, senator, I am not referring to President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel."

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This from Wil Wirtanen:

This WSJ op-ed was quite poignant.  I generally don’t think we have this type of leadership anymore.

 
Wil

 
Debates Don't Always Reveal Character

My father was a model American.

By TAYLOR B. STOCKDALE 

As Sarah Palin and Joe Biden prepare for Thursday's vice presidential debate, I am pulled back to the last time an unknown candidate appeared on the national stage in such a forum. It was 1992, when my father (John McCain's senior officer in Vietnam), Adm. James B. Stockdale, appeared on stage to debate Al Gore and Dan Quayle.

Anyone over 30 will probably remember the spectacle. Messrs. Gore and Quayle were engaged in a bitter battle when, late in the race, my father accepted Ross Perot's invitation to be his running mate. That decision created a rare, three person vice-presidential debate.

In an attempt to introduce himself to the American people, my father began with the philosophical questions "Who am I? Why am I here?" But as the evening wore on, he struggled.

Watching that debate from the front row in Atlanta was a surreal experience. My father, a bona fide war hero, was trying to adapt to a format of discourse utterly foreign to him.

The debate hall was noisy, hot and nasty. My mom took a bad fall just before coming out to sit down. She, the strongest woman I know, broke into tears as she was overcome with emotion. Her four sons tried to console her.

Messrs. Gore and Quayle had arrived with armies of political handlers and were sequestered in large, lavish rooms to prepare for their one night to show each other up. My dad arrived with his family and one coach at the last minute. We were put in an RV just off the stage.

Dad entered the race reluctantly, and only due to the deep gratitude he had for the aid Mr. Perot extended to him and my mom while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

As everyone saw that evening, he was not a politician. He was a fighter-pilot ace, a Medal of Honor recipient, and a wonderful dad and human being. During his eight years as a POW, he slit his scalp and beat his face with a stool to prevent his captors from parading him in the streets for propaganda purposes. He gave starving men his food rations when he himself was starving. And at home, after his release in 1973, he was a respected leader, scholar and writer. He considered himself a philosopher.

He studied the Greeks -- specifically Epictetus, an ancient slave and stoic who espoused the idea that individuals have free will and absolute autonomy over all matters within their control. He believed we must not wallow in self-pity when the chips are down, but rather recognize that we have the power to choose how to respond to everything.

My father adopted this philosophy while a graduate student at Stanford University in the early 1960s. So he never took pity on himself -- ever. Not as a POW when he was tortured, forced to wear leg irons and to live in solitary confinement. And not after the debate. He knew he had put himself into that arena.

And yet on this particular evening in 1992, the country saw someone who looked confused and weak. Without knowing who he was or what he did for his country, most Americans turned off their TV sets and formed an opinion of him based on a 90-minute debate.

So while Mrs. Palin's background and political acumen are completely different from my father's, she and her family are going through an experience I recognize. They are trying to define themselves in a short time-span, within a loaded political context.

From personal experience, I doubt if someone can really be known in this type of atmosphere, and I empathize with her family members who suddenly have to explain things that shouldn't need explanation.

As for my dad, this will mark the first vice presidential debate since he died in 2005. I've wanted to write about it for a long time, but he wouldn't let me. Now I want to set the record straight: He was an example of what this country should be all about.

Mr. Stockdale, the son of Adm. James B. Stockdale, is assistant head of the Webb Schools in Claremont, Calif.
:

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This from Jack Kemp (not the politician):

Where's the outrage? In Obama's famous speech in 2004 at the Democratic Convention, he mentioned Americans participating in Little League coaching. Today you have to show more quality proof of US citizenship for your child to get onto a Little League roster than Obama has shown to run for president.
 
Jack
 
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/09/29/fight-smears-website-admits-obama-was-kenyan-citizen-wheres-msm

'Fight the Smears' Website Admits Obama was Kenyan Citizen: Where's the MSM?
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
September 29, 2008 - 07:18 ET
 
Following the controversy over the authenticity of  Barack Obama's birth certificate can be a bit confusing with all its detailed analysis. Your humble correspondent will leave that up to the experts. However, in response to the charge that Barack Obama is not an American citizen, Obama's Fight the Smears website, quoting FactCheck.Org, has made a bombshell admission...Barack Obama was once a citizen of Kenya. You read that right, Obama had Kenyan citizenship until 1982. Here is the startling admission published in Fight the Smears (emphasis mine):

``When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.

Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4, 1982.

So according to Fight the Smears itself, Obama's Kenyan citizenship expired on Aug. 4, 1982 meaning he held Kenyan citizenship until that point. This is astounding and so far no mainstream media outlet has reported on it. Will some reporter out there be so bold as to ask Obama if he was a Kenyan citizen until his 21st birthday as his own website concedes?

Until reading of this Kenyan citizenship admission, I thought the lawsuit claimng that Obama was born in Kenya filed by Clinton supporter, Phil Berg, in Philadelphia was of minor import. However, by responding to it in the way it did, the Fight the Smears website has just opened up a big can of worms for Obama in its admission that he was a citizen of Kenya until 1982.

Meanwhile, instead of simply producing the original birth certificate in court and put the matter to rest, the Obama campaign seeks to evade that action by attempting to dismiss the lawsuit entirely. Here is the latest report on this lawsuit from the Phoenixville News:

PHILADELPHIA  Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee filed a joint motion in federal court Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Illinois senator to prove he's a citizen of the United States.

On Aug. 21, four days before the Democratic National Convention, Lafayette Hill attorney Philip Berg filed suit in Philadelphia seeking to remove the Democratic candidate from the November ballot claiming he was born in Kenya and not in America.

Berg asked the court for a temporary restraining order "prohibiting Obama from being formally confirmed as the Democratic Party nominee for president," according to court papers.

The Federal Election Commission was also named as a defendant in the legal action.

A day after the suit was filed, a federal judge denied the motion for a temporary restraining order.

When rumors emerged last summer questioning whether Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, his campaign posted a certificate of live birth on its Web site.

In a press statement circulated Wednesday by Berg's law office, the attorney insisted the Democratic candidate was born in Africa and thus ineligible to run for president.

"It is obvious that Obama was born in Kenya and does not meet the 'qualifications' to be president of the United States pursuant to our United States Constitution. Obama cannot produce a certified copy of his 'Vault' (version) Birth Certificate from Hawaii because it does not exist," the press release reads.

The suit seeks to compel the senator to produce the long version of his original birth certificate.

The motion to dismiss filed Wednesday called the suit's allegations "ridiculous and patently false," and argues the court lacks legal standing to challenge a presidential candidate's qualifications.

While Berg argued the case against Obama on constitutional grounds, Obama's attorney claims Berg must show a "specific and individualized injury" to prove standing in the case rather than a hypothetical one.

Earlier this year, a similar suit brought against Republican presidential candidate John McCain's and the Republican National Committee claimed that McCain wasn't "a natural born" citizen, having been born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was serving in the military.

That suit was dismissed in July on grounds the plaintiff lacked standing in the case.

A minor lawsuit that seemed to be just a small irritant has now caused the Obama website to respond by admitting that he was once a Kenyan citizen. Where is the MSM on this? Which brave reporter will quote Obama's own website to him? Until now, there has been absolutely no mention in the mainstream media that we have a presidential candidate that once held citizenship with another country. 

Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4, 1982.

P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.

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Timothy Birdnow

The Gulf Stream is doing fine, despite predictions of doom by Warming Alarmists:

GULF STREAM HERE TO STAY: ANOTHER CLIMATE SCARE BITES THE DUST

Aftenposten, 26 September 2008
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2677486.ece?service=print

The Gulf Stream, that almost mythical flow of warm seas that makes Norway and a few other Nordic countries liveable, isn't about to disappear any time soon. New research contradicts earlier theories that it might.

Cold water is still heading south through the Gulf Stream, climate researchers say.

Climate researchers have re-examined studies that indicated the Gulf Stream was weakening. It's long been a source of warmer seas flowing north through the Atlantic, and it also sends colder waters south.

The Gulf Stream flows roughly from the east coast of South America, around the Gulf of Mexico and across the Atlantic, where it heads north, east of Ireland, over towards Norway and around Iceland, before heading due south again.

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) reports that several observations in recent years suggested the circulation of the Gulf Stream had weakened, possibly because of global warming. Studies, the institute noted, had suggested that the flow of cold water south was down by half.

A group of researchers from Denmark, the Faeroe Islands, Germany and Norway thus started paying closer attention to the Gulf Stream, and now they're releasing conclusions that can leave climate researchers breathing a sigh of relief.

"It hasn't only been possible to show that the currents instead have maintained a surprisingly constant strength during the last 50 years, but we can also point out where earlier signs of weakness were misleading," said Steffen M Olsen of DMI.

The researchers have studied new and historic measures of the Gulf Stream's strength over the undersea ridges between Iceland and Greenland.

Olsen cautioned, however, that changes may still occur. "We can't rule that out," Olsen wrote in an article publishing the group's findings. The risk of a collapse in the warm circulation of the Atlantic just "isn't as probable in the near future as we had feared."

(Hat tip: CCNET)

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Wil Wirtanen forwards this Wall Street Journal piece:

Gore's Rebellion
 
For a while, it was a standard-issue Al Gore jeremiad, with calls for everything from installing solar panels in Darfur (seriously) to legal action against "the carbon lobby" for denying global warming (ditto). But then Mr. Gore really got going and told his disciples to head -- literally -- to the barricades to "stop" coal.

Speaking last Wednesday on a celebrity panel in New York, the Nobel Prize Laureate proclaimed: "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration." He added, "clean coal does not exist."

Mr. Gore didn't explain how far he thinks his young acolytes should go in their rage against the coal-burning machines that provide about 50% of U.S. electricity. Sit-ins? Marches against power plants? How about trashing power lines: What could he mean by "civil disobedience"?

As it happens, Mr. Gore's brand of anticoal radicalism is quickly becoming the liberal consensus. The greens loathe coal because of greenhouse gases -- and have succeeded in making new coal plants nearly impossible to build. More than 60 have been canceled in the last year alone. Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius is waging a high-profile campaign against new coal plants in Kansas, and only last week Joe Biden seemed to endorse a coal ban.

Perhaps James Hansen has also paid Mr. Gore a visit at Walden Pond. The NASA scientist and influential global warming swami recently testified on behalf of the "Kingsnorth Six," Greenpeace activists who caused £30,000 of criminal damage at an English coal utility while attempting to shut it down. Mr. Hansen argued they had a "lawful excuse" because of the imminence of climate doom; they were acquitted. Coming from figures who hold the public trust, such rhetoric is wildly irresponsible, not least for the fanaticism and even violence it could incite.

Mr. Gore's blessing is even more bizarre because it defeats the cause that it claims to champion on its own terms. New U.S. coal plants use modern scrubbing technology, which means less traditional air pollution. They're also far more efficient -- that is, they get more energy out of the same amount of coal (i.e., carbon) compared to older models. Often this results in power companies mothballing parts of a more carbon-intensive fleet.

Take a fracas in North Carolina, where Duke Energy is trying to build a new coal-burning plant. The 800-megawatt Cliffside project has proved hugely controversial; Duke CEO Jim Rogers told us that his home had been vandalized. Yet when regulators approved Cliffside, they noted that the state-of-the-art upgrade will actually reduce environmental costs because four aging, less efficient boilers will be shut down. Overall, sulfur dioxide emissions will fall by 80% a year, nitrogen oxide by 50%, and the entire project is carbon neutral while producing more electricity to meet increasing demand.

Mr. Gore seems to think this is a bad trade. Meanwhile, China is set to build 800,000 megawatts of new coal generation over the next eight years. That's 1,000 Cliffsides -- or more than two-and-a-half times the size of America's total installed coal capacity, with none of our environmental guardrails. Even if every U.S. coal plant were razed to the ground tomorrow, it wouldn't make any difference for global CO2 while China expands.

We look forward to seeing Mr. Gore take his "civil disobedience" against coal to, say, Shanxi province. He'd better bring a lot to read.

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Wil Wirtanen

It is interesting that everyone else has learned the lesson of tax cuts.  The only ones that have not, and I suspect can’t learn, are the Dimocrats.

The interesting stat is in the third paragraph.  50% of the largest companies were started before WWI and only two after 1970.

Wil

This from the Wall Street Journal

The Stockholm Curve
 
With the economy struggling, at least some people are urging a pro-growth tax cut. Too bad they live in Stockholm. As a recent headline in Agence France-Presse put it: "Sweden Announces Income Tax Cuts to Boost Jobs." The government is planning to cut business taxes and the personal income and payroll tax.

"The corporate tax is one of the taxes which large companies really study when they plan to set up business somewhere," says Jan Björklund, leader of the country's Liberal Party, in promoting the tax cut plan. The corporate tax reduction will bring the Swedish rate down to 26.3% from 28%, continuing its fall from a high of 57% in 1987. This means that Swedes will soon have a corporate tax rate one-third lower than the U.S. average of 39.5% (the 35% federal rate plus the state average).

Sweden remains a high-tax country overall, with individual rates well above 50% plus pension and payroll obligations. Maria Rannka, president of the Swedish think tank Timbro, has reported that entrepreneurship had become such an alien concept that more than half of Sweden's 50 largest companies were founded before World War I and only two after 1970 -- the period when taxes and social welfare programs proliferated.

Now, however, Sweden is discovering that it must cut taxes to compete with Ireland, Eastern Europe and fast-growing Asia. Three years ago Sweden eliminated its inheritance tax. The U.S. death tax rate is still 45%. John McCain cited Ireland's low rate in his Friday debate with Barack Obama, who continues to insist that U.S. business is undertaxed.

If Mr. Obama wins in November, maybe his first foreign trip should be to Stockholm. He could use the tax tutorial.

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Timothy Birdnow

Pollster John Zogby shows Obama winning the debate by a hair, and the race for president is within the margin for error.

According to Newsmax:

``The poll shows that 44% believed Obama won the debate, while 41% said McCain did. Another 16% said they watched the debate but were unsure who came out on top.``

It should be pointed out that a pre-debate poll showed that likely voters went into the debate thinking that Obama would win-by a margin of 4 to 3.

Zogby also shows the election numbers too close to call:

``The survey, which went into the field almost immediately after the conclusion of the debate and came out Saturday late afternoon, also showed Obama with a statistically insignificant 47.1% to 45.9% lead overall in a head-to-head `horserace` question.``

This may not be an accurate picture; former Republican turned Libertarian Bob Barr is expected to win 4%, likely taken away from John McCain.

Given the natural bias of polls to favor Democrats this far out (Democrats are home more than their working bretherens), it is likely this is will be a nail biter.

Hat tip: Brian Birdnow

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Tom Joseph:

On the domestic policy portion, McCain put Obama on his heels early and kept him there.  Obama looked and sounded defensive trying to explain his way out of a number of his policies and statements.  There's a difference between excuses and explanations.  

On foreign relations and Iraq, McCain overwhelmed Obama.  A brief description: It was the Man vs. the Boy part of the debate.

There are two things that are interesting and dangerous to the Democrats' election hopes.

Obama said "You're right" to McCain once, then twice and continued to repeat these words even more times.  The first time he said McCain was right, my immediate thought was this is a big mistake.  By the end of the debate, my final thought was, if McCain's right about all these things, what the hell are you doing standing there debating him.

For something less obvious and just as important, Obama mentioned not believing in the market.  The alternative is Centralized Planning by the same government that this year produced the oil crisis and the economic crisis because it interfered in the market.  Unfortunately, it is our government. 

Try naming a type of government where centralized planning led to success. Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Militant Japan, Communist China, and more have tried and failed.  Believe me, you wouldn't like 'The People's Toothpaste" because it will taste like political crap.

Several years ago, I came to the conclusion that there are three philosophical policy positions within the Democratic Party.  They are Marxicrat, Dummycrat, and Demoncrat.  Although the ratios of commitment to each may vary, all Democrats are a mixture of these policies.  Obama is more Marxicrat than Dummycrat or Demoncrat.

This morning, I ran through Yahoo News to read all the AP & Reuters articles.  There's something obviously missing.  The major media is not saying Obama won or even tied McCain in this debate.  True to form, the media would have polled immediately after the debate.  And also true to form, if the media didn't like the result, they would have adjusted either the sample or polled again with different questions constructed to produce a better Obama result.  My guess is that they are silent right now because people who watched the debate have scored it a McCain victory by 2 to 1 or more.  Apparently, there ain't no adjustment big enough to cover Obama's defeat in this debate.
 
Obama did better than I thought he would.  This may be the best he can be.  And it isn't good enough!  The media is not stupid.  They are facing the realization that their guy could crash and take his party with him.
 
tom joseph
athinkingdemocrat

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Timothy Birdnow

During the Presidential debate, John McCain brandished a bracelet given to him by the parents of a KIA soldier, asking him to wear it in memorial for the fallen soldier and to make sure their son`s death was not in vain.  Obama childishly showed his own bracelet, claiming it was given to him by the mother (of the soldier whose name Obama couldn`t remember) and told to not let any more parents lose their children in the war. 

Well...

It turns out that the father of Sergeant Ryan David Jopek asked Senator Obama months ago to stop wearing that bracelet!

According to Newsbusters (courtesy of Gateway Pundit):

``Shockingly, however, Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son's name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family.``
End Excerpt

So, the parents of Ryan Jopek did not want Obama to use their son`s memory to trash what he believed in, and score cheap political points. Obama doesn`t care; the fallen hero is just one more photo-op.

Barack Obama is truly disgraceful.

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Jack Kemp forwards this response by Missouri Governor Matt Blunt to the Obama Brownshirt tactics of using prosecutors and Sheriffs to intimidate and harass his political opponents:

http://governor.mo.gov/cgi-bin/coranto/viewnews.cgi?id=EkkkVFulkpOzXqGMaj&style=Default+News+Style&tmpl=newsitem

Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

``St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.``

``What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.``

``This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights.  The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.``

``Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family.  Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility.  When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.``

End Article

A Note from Tim:

As I`ve pointed out, Obama has all the makings of a tyrant; he wants an American internal police similar to the KGB, he demands that valid criticisms are not made of him, and he seeks to enforce this speech ban with the force of law via arrest and prosecution of his political enemies. This guy makes Capone`s gang look like Libertarians.  Do we want an American Oprichnina? Do we want an internal political army at the disposal of the President? If Chuck Colson went to prison for possessing one file on a Nixon enemy, why are we willing to allow Obama to use the Sheriff`s departments and Prosecutors?  Bill Clinton set the example with his many abuses, (900 F.B.I. Files, etc.) and this is simply the natural progression of Democrat Party Gestapo tactics. 

Don`t believe me? Where is Tom Delay?  This was an early abuse of prosecutorial power for political purposes, and they got away with it. Obama is asking for more power of oppression, that`s all.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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William D. Zeranski

Vladimir Putin's grand dream for his Russia requires recapturing the old days.  That means cooperation with every opponent the US has, and giving nuclear technology to wanna-be dictators as part of the plan: 

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was to meet Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Friday after Russia risked Washington's wrath by offering the fierce US foe help developing nuclear energy.

The two were to meet in the city of Orenburg after hawkish Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Chavez in Moscow on Thursday that Russia was "ready to consider the possibility of cooperation in nuclear energy."

Nuclear energy?  Considering the fact that the Russian military recently sent two bombers to Venezuela and decided that joint naval exercises were in order, lighting neighborhoods and keeping the kids' Nintendo powered up isn't the usual interest Third World nations have in nuclear technology.  But that's Russian cooperation for you. 

Of course, everyone knows Putin's dealings are all about the relationship between Russia and the US.  All sorts of comparisons can be made in regard to Russia's actions, especially the organized crime comparison, but then again, the Russian Mafia is already international and does tend to lend credence to that. 

What's intriguing is the fact that Bush used to see Putin as someone he could work with, after peering into the Russian President's soul.  George Bush did fail to recall the whole KGB thing . . . sort of an eternal night bordering on a twilight journey into hell, but enough about Putin's diabolical relationship with that totalitarian service. 

Russia, with Vlad Putin playing puppet master, is really an evil twin to the US's nice guy.  'Nice guy' as a descriptor may cause some to guffaw, but the US doesn't hand nuclear technology over to Third World dictators wanting to secure their president-for-life status.   Still, irritating the Bush Administration and worrying the American citizenry prior to an election is something that, no doubt, is on the mind of Putin and putting a smug troublemaker's grin on his face.

Like I said, Russia is the Evil Twin.

The Russian economy lives by oil alone, but don't think of that oil as oil but as a stash of cocaine brother Boris has secreted in his hidey-hole.  The Evil Twin makes money mainlining the European energy market its fix.  To keep that cash coming in the other countries in Russia's international neighborhood get verbally abused, threatened and invaded. 

Putin's Russia invaded Georgia.  That invasion was all about oil, and a major effort at keeping that supply in the hands of the Evil Twin.  Of course, how that military play will work out can't be predicted.  It's not over yet.  But all the same, don't some guys just want to be like the Evil Twin.  

Chavez, the wanna-be totalitarian dictator, wants to be like Putin.  Russian assistance of any kind can only help.  Chavez does have something of the today about him, don't you think?

And the girls . . . , don't some girls like the bad boy.  The MSM is like that. They play at disdaining him, and then ogle, giggle and talk, swooning behind their notebooks as the Evil Twin passes by as they all walk down the international hallways.

For all the feigned disdain, girlish eyelash-batting and tough guy admiration, what is forgotten is that the Evil Twin is a dangerous man, driven to defend what he considers his 'sphere of influence'  US warships delivering aid to a beaten and bullied Georgia is, somehow, an affront to that warped view of honor.

But Putin's Evil Twin can't go on forever because the oil demand can't go on forever.  And there's the irony.  As Russia gives nuclear technology to Chavez, the EU has come to face the reality that nuclear and coal burning plants are the only way to escape the manipulations of a dangerous Russian. 

The Russian Evil Twin may not overdose on oil money, but with the loss of oil revenue the withdrawal may just kill him.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp (not the politician) forwards this Newsbusters piece to us:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/terry-trippany/2008/09/27/aol-straw-poll-mccain-63-obama-37

AOL Straw Poll: McCain 63%, Obama 37%
By Terry Trippany (Bio | Archive)
September 27, 2008 - 15:50 ET
 
 
With all the mainstream media emphasis on poll numbers that supposedly show strong leads for Barack Obama I was wondering if there should be any analysis of an AOL straw poll that shows John McCain solidly beating Barack Obama in a random sample of hundreds of thousands of readers. A major difference between the AOL straw poll and that of other polls is that the AOL poll does not consist of people that are chosen by the pollsters.The poll runs over a number of days and is repeated on a weekly basis.

I wrote about this poll on September 14th. It asks one question, vote for your candidate of choice. Two weeks ago the three day poll had amassed 321,168 samples, with 60% of the votes going to John McCain. The poll continues this week. As of September 25th the poll had counted 154,732 votes and McCain picked up 3 percentage points from the week before, leading Barack Obama by a 27 point margin, 63% to 37%.

In June it appears that John McCain's lead was only 8 points after some 200,000 responses according to a Hillary blogger. This is the type of swing that would be relevant to me as it represents a change in AOL readers that bothered to participate. Unfortunately I can't find history on the AOL page.

I am not an expert on polls but it seems to me that the AOL poll is without the kind of bias that can be injected by pollster samples and then touted by the media as an advantage for Obama. The AOL straw poll has been relatively low profile and you must use a captcha to vote. It has been running for a while now and the results have been fairly consistent. The bias it does have would likely come from the demographics of AOL readers. The poll appears to be an outlier and I have no clue how closely a poll of this type tracks real votes. AOL states that it is not a scientific poll. In other words it just captures the votes that readers put in. Simple.

I wouldn't have McCain supporters getting overly excited about this poll just as I wouldn't have them overly worried about polls that oversample democrats or African Americans to artificially hype Barack Obama. 

Criticism of online straw polls actually runs counter to the narrative about democrats and the internet. It is often explained as socioeconomic bias, whereas the rich and wealthy have more access to computers. Of course we are told that Democrats are more likely to use the internet so take it with a grain of salt. In the case of this poll perhaps there is some bias of that nature as I can't believe all states are going to go for McCain. Real Clear Politics tells a much different picture.

Nonetheless we are supposed to suspend reality and believe all the polls the media touts without reservation. Me, I am a little more skeptical. If the AOL poll is of any value it would be in substantiating my skepticism about polls in general. Still, the consistency of this recurring poll is something to ponder.

Terry Trippany is the publisher of Webloggin and holds the post as The Watcher at Watcher of Weasels.

(A NOTE FROM TIM):

On the contrary, AOL is notorious for having a liberal bias in it`s polling, and this may be aberrational, but it is indicative of a problem for the Anointed One. 

Just a point to consider.

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Craig Willms

Dateline Sept 10th 2008

At OPEC's spiffy headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Saudi representatives got up and walked out. They said they would not honor the cartels proposed production cuts. They were also quite tired of Hugo Chavez's ranting and raving about the U.S.

Even as prices have fallen dueto so-called over supply the Saudis do not believe cutting productionis in order with cold weather just around the corner. Demand will rise. ``Saudi Arabia will meet the market’s demand,`` a senior OPEC delegate told the New York Times. ``We will see what the market requires and we will not leave a customer without oil.'`

With Russia, Iran and Venezuela wanting to punish the U.S. and the European Union the Saudis seem to recognize a losing strategy when they see it. Brazil has also recently confirmed another huge oil deposit to add to one it discovered off-shore earlier this year. The first one discovered by Petrobras has the promise of being one of the largest in the world. In the competitive world of big oil driving prices up will only make it easier for Brazil to bring this new crude into the global supply.

The same is true for the possibility of major finds off America's OCS in the next few years. Congressional Democrats have lost their game of chicken with the Republicans in front of this fall's elections. The Democrats will let congressional ban on offshore drilling expire on Oct 1st. With President Bush having lifted the executive ban earlier this year the door is open for more domestic production. Regardless if American oil simply enters the global supply it is still a good thing.

Sois it over for OPEC? Well, it is the Saudis who essentially set theterms of pricing and supply. It is the Saudis who control OPEC's bully pulpit. They need the Saudis to have any credibility. Frankly, withoutthe blessing of its most powerful member OPEC forfeits its leverage.

There has been no announcement about any possibility of OPEC dissolving, but for all intents and purposes the process has already begun. (OK, thisis some wishful thinking, but it couldn't happen to nicer bunch ofguys!)

Craig Willms
http://protohuman.blogspot.com/

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Mark Alexander has a solid essay on the mortgage mess at the Federalist Patriot:

“For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market... If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.” —John McCain arguing for passage of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act (S. 190) which he co-sponsored in 2005.

While Sen. McCain is being pilloried by his opponent, Barack Hussein Obama, for asserting (correctly) last week that the fundamentals of most U.S. economic sectors are sound, clearly, Sen. McCain has understood for years that irresponsible lending practices for U.S. housing posed “enormous risk... to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”

While Obama was out politicking this week, ostensibly itching for a debate that he’d been avoiding all summer, McCain suspended his campaign to work with Republicans in Congress, outlining conditions for an agreement that would both protect the American taxpayer and thwart a meltdown of the U.S. economy. So, “Country First” is not just a campaign slogan...

The enormous risk that Sen. McCain warned of in 2005 has now become a financial crisis of staggering proportions. That crisis can trace its roots to Bill Clinton’s signature on legislation making it easier for minority constituents with bad credit to obtain mortgages. In 1995, he had his Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, rewrite the lending rules for the Community Reinvestment Act, opening the flood gates of mortgage lending to unqualified borrowers.

This legislation, in effect, applied affirmative action to the lending industry, which is to say that the current crisis is NOT a “free market failure” but the result of socially engineered financial policy by the central government. The financial markets welcomed their new customers with open arms, fueling a real estate boom across the board.

These so-called “subprime mortgages,” which were offered at variable interest rates, were widely perceived as good investments. Investors used the high-risk instruments to secure assets in other markets fueling profits for investment banks and mortgage lenders. The subprime market thus expanded rapidly and the mortgage instruments were used by other firms as collateral for investments in stocks, commodities and the like.

Unfortunately, no one questioned the pell-mell regulatory system of oversight for these transactions until large cracks appeared in our economy’s foundation, the first being the collapse of Countrywide, the nation’s largest subprime lender. Then banks and mortgage lenders large and small began downsizing, dumping assets and closing their doors. Bear Stearns filed for bankruptcy. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, holders of trillions of dollars in mortgages, were bailed out with 200 billion taxpayer dollars. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and insurance giant AIG was given an $85-billion taxpayer prop to keep it solvent.

This morning, as Congress is debating whether to implement the Democrat-backed “bailout plan” or the Republican-backed “workout plan,” Washington Mutual Inc. has been seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) after collapsing under the weight of reams of bad mortgages. WaMu, listing $307 billion in assets, becomes the largest bank failure in U.S. history. The FDIC sold WaMu’s assets for $1.9 billion to JPMorgan Chase & Co., which bought Bear Stearns Cos. earlier this year.

(Congressional Republicans might also consider repeal of Sarbox, the Sarbanes-Oxley Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, which has maintained a choke hold on financial institutions and is high on the list of proximate causes for the failure of Countrywide and Bear Stearns.)

The serious economic calamity confronting our nation, and the world, is being labeled a ``credit crisis.`` But we are on the verge of a crisis of cascading confidence in the U.S. economy, which, in the absence of aggressive intervention, could, no, will result in a dramatic recession affecting every sector of the U.S. and, eventually, world economy.

The catastrophe looming just over the horizon is indeed that big, and we must all hope that the solution is big enough to interrupt the domino effect already underway.

The question that must be asked, however, is whether the people’s confidence in their government is sufficient to thwart this cascading effect. Far more often than not, in the inimitable words of Ronald Reagan, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Of course, the only institution big enough to address a problem of this magnitude is the government.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Wil Wirtanen:

Tim,

Here is a great youtube video.  It takes about 10 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH--o

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Timothy Birdnow

Some quick impressions on the debate.

First, I found it largely lackluster, although there were some good moments. McCain proved himself to be the gray moderate we have always known him to be, although he is well to the right of the Messiah, who seemed on the verge of speaking in tongues on several occasions.  Several times, Obama floated a lazy ball high over the plate, and McCain failed to knock it out of the park.  Still, I would give this thing to McCain, although it was no blowout.

First off, this was supposed to be a debate over FOREIGN POLICY, yet the first 50 minutes were spent on economics, and McCain could do little more than flounder about with complaints over earmarks and the like. Obama was terribly vulnerable here, because of the massive amount of money he received from Fannie and Freddie, tying him to the scandal-along with the rest of the Democrats. McCain had several opportunities to hit the long ball here-especially when Obama tried to tie McCain and George Bush (who isn`t running for President) to the mortgage collapse.  Why didn`t McCain explain about the affirmative action mortgages? Why didn`t he mention Franklin Rains, Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson?  Why didn`t he discuss Barney Frank? For that matter, Treasury Secretary Paulson is a devout Democrat and has been advising Barack.  Obama has received more money from Fannie and Freddie than any Senator save Chris Cox, and he`s only been in office three years!  This would have been a powerful slam in response to Obama`s attack on McCain`s proposal to lower business taxes.  Oh, and McCain should have pointed out that businesses do not pay taxes-their customers do!

McCain let Obama grossly mischaracterize the issue.

At any rate, the subject matter did eventually turn to foreign affairs, and we were treated to the usual dissembling by Obama.  Obama claimed he never said he`d meet with Iran`s Ahmadinijad without precondition, he all but admitted he would have to turn foreign affairs over to Joe Biden, and he kept arguing for not going to war in Iraq. Oh, and he said the only goal he would have would be to catch Bin-Laden, who is likely dead but the U.S. is unwilling to call him stiff without a corps, and they don`t want to turn him into a martyr and legend. Better a sick old man hiding in a cave...

But Al-Qaeda is NOT winning in Afghanistan, and yes, Al-Qaeda was in Iraq before the war (ever heard of Al-Zawahiri?) and had connections with Saddam. McCain should have called the Messiah on that score.

Early in the debate, moderator Jim Lehrer demanded that the candidates address each-other, and, being the good little boy he is, Obama obediently eyeballed McCain and called him John despite the fact that McCain tried to avoid a spitting contest with Obama and refered to him by his title of Senator. This galled Obama, who at one point couldn`t resist a ``me too!`` when McCain mentioned a bracelet he received from the family of a KIA soldier. I was struck by the childishness of Obama saying ``I have one too`` and claiming he was told to end the war and bring the kids home-in defeat.

Do we really want someone who does what he is told by a debate moderator fighting with Putin or Ahmadinijad?  Doesn`t Obama have any backbone at all?

Well, he still wants to get Bin-Laden, hoping to catch him in a game of World Hide and Seek. He complained about the need to do better protecting the homeland, and McCain failed to slam him here; the whole point of the Iraqi invasion was to engage the enemy at a time and place of our choosing. Iraq was done to avoid fighting at a time and place of Al-Qaeda`s choosing. Had we spent all our time chasing Bin-Laden (who would have been captured or dead had Bill Clinton acted decisively, by the way) the enemy would have attacked us at our leisure. Oh, and Bin-Lade has never been the operational commander of AQ. McCain should have pointed out that we haven`t been attacked largely because we chose a two-front war.

Another doozie was Obama`s accusations about North Korea. He claimed that N. Korea was advancing on nuclear technology while we refused to talk to them, and have since slowed since the Bush Administration opened direct talks. What McCain failed to point out was that N. Korea obtained the bomb directly under Bill Clinton`s nose, while we were talking directly to Kim Jong-Il and while we were helping them with fuel and food. We had always been willing to talk with them-provided they were multi-lateral talks. N. Korea wanted bi-lateral talks, because they wanted to demand concessions. They knew they wouldn`t get any from South Korea or Japan. I am not at all certain that we are making any progress at present, by the way. North Korea ended bilateral talks with the U.S.

Obama and McCain agreed that Iran could not have nuclear weapons, but neither of them offered any solid way of accomplishing this. McCain argued for a league of nations to oppose Iran, and Obama jabbered jibberish, never actually proposing anything. It is clear that McCain actually realized that pressure can be applied, especially with the threat of the stick. Obama had no idea of what to do.

Winning in Iraq is what we should do; Iran has been supplying arms and militants to fight in Iraq, and a stable Iraq can return the favor. Air strikes, black ops, arms supplies can all be employed-provided we have a secure sanctuary in Iraq. McCain had a great opportunity to wallop the Messiah. Also, Obama talked about Israeli security, but failed to realize that Israel will be a smoking ruin if Iran succeeds in her nuclear ambition. Israel will not allow this, and will strike Iran with her nukes pre-emptively if necessary. We have to act with all dispatch.

The questions about Georgia illustrated that both candidates understood the issue to a degree (Obama kept saying he agreed with McCain) but McCain could have knocked this out of the park; Obama said Russia would have to behave in a civilized manner, but had no idea how to do that. McCain rightly answered that a large part of this invasion was to dominate oil and gas to Europe (remember,they embargoed natural gas to Ukraine) but he missed his opportunity. DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW!!! Obama made the foolish argument that we cannot drill enough oil to meet our needs, completely failing to understand that we cannot and will not need to do so. We aren`t getting off oil in ten years, as the Big O suggests, but we can drive the price of oil worldwide down by threatening to develop large new sources of crude. We have huge supplies offshore, in ANWAR, in the Dakotas. If our competitors realize we are serious about producing more oil, they`ll increase their production to keep us from beating them. More oil means a drop in price, and the Russian oil-always more costly to produce in the frozen wastes of Siberia-will find themselves losing money. They Russian oil industry is already fragile, Putin having kicked Western interests out and having personally taken control of large shares of Russian oil corporations. A serious dip in oil prices will shatter the economic power of the KGB oligarchy. Drill here, drill now is a recipe for Russian hegemonic collapse.

One of the points in this debate that truly frightened me was when Obama spoke of the Russian nuclear arsenal, then dismissed our ABM system, prefering to concentrate on nuclear proliferation. It occured to me that he THINKS that the Russians have the old Soviet arsenal, with bombs rolling around loose. He specifically mentioned suitcase nukes, for example.  I suppose he doesn`t know that the United States paid millions to dismantle the Soviet arsenal, freeing money for Putin to build a whole new one? I suppose he doesn`t know that the U.S. bankrolled the Russian nuclear cities, places where the centrifuges and laser separation equipment produced enriched uranium and plutonium? This was a Clinton-era program that has allowed Russia to build a newer and more advanced nuclear arsenal then possessed by the United States. He isn`t worried about Russian nukes because he thinks they are old, dusty relics!

McCain did point out that Reagan won the Cold War with SDI; good for him!

Speaking of Bill Clinton, he was so disengaged to what was happening in Russia during the `90`s (being engaged in carnal discourse with teenage interns) that the KGB absorbtion of the nascent democracy happened on his watch, with little interest from Madeline Albreit and the other Clinton Cronies. Clinton allowed Russia to fail in any number of ways, including very bad economic policies, a refusal to push for real market reforms, a lazy energy policy, etc. Obama would be likewise occupied, worrying more about ``kitchen table issues`` and less about how to fix the problems inside of the Northern Bear. 

At any rate, I would give this one to McCain, although it was far from a blowout. It still frosts me that they spent so much time of economics, something McCain is weak at, and they took so much time out of foreign affairs-something Obama is weak at.  Media bias?  Personally, I think so.

Obama didn`t get skunked, and that may be what he needed. McCain is going to have to come out hard in the next debate. So is Sarah Palin. Joe Biden is nutty, but he`s sneaky and underhanded, and will likely pull some trick card out of his sleeve.

We`ll have to wait and see.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Timothy Birdnow

U.S. News, in an astounding act of ignorance and media bias, has blasted the Bishop of Scranton for denying Communion to pro-abortion Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden. The rationale? SEPERATION OF CHURCH AND STATE!

In what is perhaps the stupidest argument yet made by liberal media types, US News writer John Mashek tries to make the case that the Church is somehow violating the U.S. Constitution by enforcing Church Doctrine on one of her self-proclaimed members.

According to Mashek:

_{"[Biden] and many other Catholics, including this writer, do not necessarily favor abortion, but we do not feel our religious views should be foisted on others in a nation where church and state are divided," he writes. "That division of church and state has application here."}
end excerpt

This stirred Newsbusters Mark Finklestein`s ire:

_{"Let's make this as simple as possible for Mr. Mashek: the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. It does not prohibit people, including bishops, from practicing theirs," he says.}

_{"To the contrary, it forbids the government from passing laws that would prohibit that bishop from the free exercise of his religion," he explains.}

_{"The bishop has every right under the Constitution to deny communion to anyone he pleases. For that matter, like any other citizen, he has every right to encourage others to vote in a certain manner," Finkelstein adds.}

_{"As a matter of the freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion, a bishop is free to express his political opinion to his parishioners," he says.}
End Excerpt

What can be said of such ignorance?  Let`s cut to the quick here:

``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or PROHIBIT THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF``

What part of that doesn`t Mashek understand? The prohibition is on Congress from regulating religion, not the other way around.

Could somebody please explain to me what a person of such ignorance or bias is doing writing for a major news publication?

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