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Saturday, September 8, 2012

Romney: Clinton did ‘elevate’ Democratic convention

Oped: Jack
Here we go folks just as I predicted Mitt Romney has doubled down on John McCain's approach to be defeated by the Obama Machine...if Mitt Romney doesn't find his Cahunas soon...we will see another 4 years of Obama and the total destruction of the US Constitution!
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By Yahoo News
 
                                                                           I’m hearing a lot of speculation in politics circles these days that there’s a running mate switch in... sub Hillary for Paul Ryan...hmmmm speculation!


Mitt Romney says Bill Clinton's speech to the Democratic National Convention "really did elevate" that gathering and that the former two-term president might even be able to win another four years in the White House "if the Constitution weren't in his way." Romney's comments, in an excerpt of an interview with Meet the Press, came as Clinton prepared to campaign for President Barack Obama in key swing states.
So could Clinton win another term?
"If the Constitution weren't in his way, perhaps. I don't know the answer to that," Romney says in the snippet of the exchange, to be broadcast in full on Sunday.
"But he did stand out in contrast with the other speakers. I think he really did elevate the Democrat convention in a lot of ways," the Republican presidential hopeful says. "And frankly the contrast may not have been as attractive as Barack Obama might have preferred if he were choosing who'd go before him and who'd go after."
If Obama had any second thoughts about Clinton's speech, one of the best-received addresses at the convention, he hasn't shown them during a three-day tour through New Hampshire, Iowa and Florida — quite the opposite. Obama has peppered his stump speech with Clinton quotes and joked that he might name the former president "secretary of explaining stuff."
Clinton is also scheduled to campaign for Obama in Florida on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Romney also knocked Republican congressional leaders for making "a big mistake" by agreeing to the so-called "sequester" -- automatic spending cuts to social programs and the military set to kick in at year's end, the price of failure to reach a sweeping deficit-cutting deal.
"The American people need to understand how it is that our defense is going to be so badly cut," he said. (Romney's running mate, Republican Representative Paul Ryan, voted for the legislation that created the sequester).
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Romney Slams GOP Leaders - Including His Own VP Nominee - for 2011 Budget Deal


 
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as chair of the House Budget Committee, was part of the team that signed off on the budget deal with the White House, mandating immediate spending cuts, creating a "Super-committee" tasked to finding $1.5 trillion in further deficit rediction, and raising a self-imposed sword of Damocles - $1.2 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon and domestic spending that few in Congress wanted - if the Super-committee failed.
Writing at the National Review Online at the time, Ryan said the bill was a "reasonable, responsible effort to cut government spending, avoid a default, and help create a better environment for job creation."
But today Mitt Romney said Ryan, the man he picked as his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket, and other House GOP leaders made a "big mistake" in agreeing to that deal, which was part of the summer 2011 negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.
Romney said the $1.2 in mandated cuts was "an extraordinary miscalculation in the wrong direction."
"Republican leaders agreed to that deal to the extend the debt ceiling," NBC's David Gregory reminded Romney.
"And that's a big mistake," Romney said. "I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it. I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it."
- Jake Tapper

Iran threatens to bring war to U.S. shores

 OpEd:Jack
Regardless of the Generals Threats... one factor remains..if Iran did launch a Weapon of Mass Destruction against Israel or the United States... there would be no safe place in Iran for the General or the Imams/Mullahs to hide...they may send martyrs to do their dirty work....but they have no death wish themselves...surely much if not all  of the military complex of Iran would be turned into a glass factory...where would Allah arrive for the second so called coming?
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by Reza Kahlili 
 
The deputy chief commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned this past week that any aggression against Iran will expand warfare onto the turf of its enemies.
“Our nation is ready to rub the enemies’ snout into dust and send thousands of coffins to their cities,” Gen. Hossein Salami told Fars News Agency.
“Any aggression against Iran will expand the war into the borders of the enemies,” he warned. “They know our power, and we won’t allow any aggression against our land.”
The general cited two reasons for what he called the greatness of the Islamic regime: “One is that the supreme leader, who is the deputy of the Hidden Imam [the Shiites' 12th Imam], rules with power, knowledge, penetrating the hearts; the other is the martyrs who shed their blood for the greatness of the country.”

In praising those martyrs, he said, “God states in the Quran that martyrs are alive and not to consider them as dead, as they had the art to exchange death to life and reach eternal life.”
Salami likened the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to a sun shining on the Islamic world, and that despite all the international sanctions and threats, Iran is progressing on all fronts.
Fars News Agency also reported a stern warning by Gen. Hassan Firoozabadi, head of the Army’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Although he accused the U.S. and European nations of supporting al-Qaida and “terrorists” in Syria, he warned that America and the European countries should expect major attacks by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in their homelands.

As reported earlier this year, terror cells have been placed on high alert to attack targets in the U.S. and Europe should Iran be attacked. Hundreds of terror cells have infiltrated America and, in collaboration with Hezbollah, are awaiting orders to strike American targets.
Thousands of cells have also been placed in Latin America.
“The Quds Force has established a command and control center in both Bolivia and Venezuela,” a former Iranian official with knowledge of the regime’s terror network recently revealed. “Though it has presence in Europe and other parts of the world, it has focused on Latin America. Thousands of such cells have been placed in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Venezuela.”
A recent report from within Nicaragua indicated that Iran has established a training base in the northern part of that country, where operatives, including Hezbollah terrorists, are being readied for an attack on U.S. and Israeli interests should a war break out with Iran.

Hassan Abassi, a former Guard commander and a current strategist, has stated that many of the cells are of Latin American origin, including from Mexico, and that several hundred targets have been identified in the U.S. for a possible attack.
“If America dares to destabilize the Islamic Republic of Iran, it should have no doubt that we will destabilize America,” Abassi said.
Another senior commander of the Islamic regime, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, recently warned America, “In the face of any attack, we will have a crushing response. In that case, we will not only act in the boundaries of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf; no place in America will be safe from our attacks.”
Khamenei has also warned America that any conflict will expand beyond the region. That same warning was issued days ago by Hassan Nasrallah, the general secretary of the terrorist group Hezbollah.
The response by Iran in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities will be “very great,” Nazrallah said.
Thousands of Revolutionary Guards and paramilitary forces of the Basij are set to conduct exercises in the coming weeks within Iranian cities on the occasion of the week of holy defense, an annual event commemorating the Iran-Iraq war. According to a source within the Guards intelligence division who has defected to Europe, the exercise is a practice to use force against the Iranian population and to militarize and take control of major cities because the regime expects another uprising over deteriorating economic conditions and major resentment by the majority of Iranians against the Islamic regime.

Leader of the Pack..Mitt Romney..?

Well folks after careful consideration in this election cycle I see Mitt Romney following in John McCains path...and we all know how that ended...Mitt needs to get serious and take off the gloves...before Barry Barack drops a heavy weight upon his head..I would continue with this diatribe...however I will reduce to sound bites,music and pictures so all get the drift..:)

http://youtu.be/E74v6acqHUI 



Iran Frees Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani


 Via: Jihad Watch 
 
 
International pressure works even on hardened Islamic supremacists. But this doesn't mean that Iran is discarding its apostasy law, or that they won't murder people for apostasy when the world media is not looking. "Christian pastor jailed in Iran for 3 years is freed, watchdog group says," by Perry Chiaramonte for FoxNews.com, September 8 (thanks to Anne Crockett):
Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was originally sentenced to death in his native country for his Christian faith, was acquitted of apostasy charges and released from custody. Nadarkhani, 32, was imprisoned for three years and waiting execution for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. His charges were lowered to evangelizing to Muslims, which carried a three-year sentence. He was released with time served, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington-based watchdog group that had been campaigning for the pastor's release.
"Today our sources in Iran reported that Pastor Youcef was acquitted of apostasy and released from prison. After languishing in prison for almost three years, he has been reunited with his family," Jordan Sekulow, executive director of ACLJ said in a statement to FoxNews.com.
"While we are working on confirming the exact details of his release, some sources report that the court alternatively convicted Pastor Youcef of evangelizing to Muslims, sentencing him to three years and granting him time served. Pastor Youcef’s story is an example of how the world can join together to ensure that justice is served and freedom preserved."
Nadarkhani was originally called to Saturday's hearing to answer to "charges brought against him," leading to speculation that the new charges from the Iranian Supreme Court could be for a security-based crime, a charge often handed down to cover-up prisoners being held and sentenced on faith-based charges.
"While we praise the release of Pastor Youcef, we must recognize that Iran felt obligated to save face among its people and continue its pattern of suppressing religious freedom with intimidation tactics," Tiffany Barrans, a legal director for ACLJ said to FoxNews.com.
"International attention to this matter saved this man's life, but we must not forget the human right of freedom of religion includes the right to freedom of expression."
Nadarkhani's attorney, who also has been jailed, maintained that the married father of two faced execution because he refused to renounce his religion. An Iranian diplomat told a United Nations panel earlier this year that Nadarkhani would not be executed.
According to Sharia law, an apostate has three days to recant. The pastor refused to do so and sources close to the matter say executions in Iran can happen at any time, often without notice. The court is reportedly seeking the opinion of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic republic's spiritual leader and highest authority, according to AFP....

Friday, September 7, 2012

Accused genocidal warlord named to Human Rights Council

WND Exclusive
Bashir
An African warlord once sought as an international criminal on genocide allegations will soon be contributing his judgments on human rights issues worldwide as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, a development that is sparking outrage in Congress.
Sudan, led by Omar al-Bashir, has been awarded a seat on the international tribunal starting in 2013, and U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said it’s just gone too far.

“Allowing this genocidal dictatorship, which has killed thousands of its citizens, to serve on such a body is beyond hypocrisy, it is callous, dangerous, and tragic,” she said in a statement issued as the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“The U.N. has surrendered to despots and rogue regimes as it allows the likes of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Venzuela’s Chavez, and now Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir to corrupt the system and use it to further their own oppressive and despotic schemes.”
She said, “It is beyond apparent that the U.N. is broken. It is time to stop this hostile takeover and implement real change. As the Obama administration has failed to act, I call on Congress and responsible nations to support true U.N. reform and stop supporting this corrupt system.”
She’s authored the United Nations Transparency, Accountability and Reform Act, which would require the U.N. to be funded by voluntary contributions from nations only, instead of assessments which the U.S. now funds.
The coming rise to power from Sudan’s al-Bashir on the Human Rights Council earned a featured spot in Judicial Watch’s Corruption Chronicles, where it outlines questionable national and international government actions.

“The famously corrupt United Nations has hit a new low, awarding a genocidal warlord indicted by an international court for crimes against humanity a seat on its laughable human rights council,” the commentary said. “The worst part is that this madness is funded by Americans to the tune of $7 billion plus a year. The American cash keeps pouring in even though the U.N. is [a] pillar of corruption, fraud and mismanagement. Its so-called human rights council is a huge joke with members that are famous for oppressing their citizens and, in many cases, committing atrocious human rights violations.
“Cuba, Iran and Venzuela are among the offenders.”
The organization said al-Bashir is “the last person on earth you would go to for anything related to human rights.”
He was charged by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur “and is responsible for killing thousands of his own citizens,” the report said. A Geneva-based human rights group described his coming
ascent to the panel like putting “Jack the Ripper in charge of a women’s shelter.”

A Fox News report earlier this year reported that al-Bashir had been accused of “murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring” civilians in his own country.
According to the U.N., he’ll soon be expected to uphold “the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.”
At that time, U.S. officials were outraged.
“Sudan, a consistent human rights violator, does not meet the council’s own standards for membership,” Kurtis Cooper, deputy spokesman at the time for the U.S. mission, said. “It would be inappropriate for Sudan to have a seat on the council while the Sudanese head of state is under International Criminal Court indictment for war crimes in Darfur and the government of Sudan continues to use violence to inflame tensions along its border with South Sudan.”
Several years earlier, Time magazine documented that al-Bashir came to power in 1989 when he toppled the prime minister in Sudan. He was accused of the violence that left an estimated 300,000 people dead.
The membership of the council right now includes nations considered human rights violators including China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Uganda.
“The al-Bashir regime mistreats and tortures detainees and censors the media, the group, Human Rights Watch, writes in its assessment of the north African country. Additionally, Sudan’s indiscriminate bombing in civilian-populated areas has displaced hundreds of thousands of people,” Judicial Watch wrote.

Mideast showdown looms over New York skyline

by Stewart Stogel 

un_gen_assembly
UNITED NATIONS – A critical showdown is looming over the skyline of New York City, as the leaders of Israel and Iran both will be attending the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
President Obama also is expected to be on hand.
Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which has put Tehran at odds with the U.N. Security Council, is sure to be a prime topic on the agenda of the 2012 meetings, diplomats confirm. Western nations believe the program is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

Obama, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu are scheduled to attend the meetings that start Sept. 23. In addition, French President Francois Hollande and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron also will attend the U.N. forum.
All the principals have been invited to a high-powered lunch hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
In addition to Ahmadinejad, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to use the 2012 General Assembly to advance his campaign for unilateral statehood, a move Washington insists must be negotiated with the Israelis and not used as a political football inside the United Nations.
All of it comes less than six weeks before U.S. Election Day.
Obama has been quiet regarding what he intends to discuss before the U.N. diplomats during his three-day stay.
Most diplomats believe the U.S. president will be forced to negotiate a political minefield during his trip to New York.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, has made it clear that Iran and its expanding nuclear “research” program will be the prime focus of his four-day visit, which comes amid increasing talk of a military strike to thwart Tehran’s march to perfect a nuclear weapon.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Netanyahu was frank on the dangers Iran poses.
“I intend to tell the nations of the world (at the General Assembly) in a clear voice the truth about the terror regime of Iran,” he said.
Earlier, speaking in Tehran, Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei labeled Netanyahu and his government ministers “a pack of Zionist wolves.”
After his New York visit, Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington for an additional meeting with Obama at the White House.
Just last week, Iran and Russia announced that Tehran’s new nuclear power station near the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr had become fully operational.
The Russian-built complex had been beset by cost overruns, computer viruses and assorted construction delays, making it more than five years late and almost $1 billion over budget.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. atomic watchdog, Bushehr is among the top 20 largest nuclear power stations in the world.
A second reactor at the site is expected to be completed in late 2013.
The Iranians have publicly stated that a third reactor may also be built.

Published reports claim that the complex is not only guarded by Iranian military personnel but also by Russian and Chinese forces on “loan” to Tehran.
All of which comes as Iran’s nuclear chief, Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, told state television that Iran is prepared to increase its uranium enrichment to 20 percent.
“We have no reason to retreat from producing the 20 percent enrichment, because we need just as much to meet our needs,” he said.
Such a development, according to IAEA sources, would move the Islamic government significantly closer to producing bomb-grade nuclear fuel.
The 20 percent enrichment, if confirmed, could prompt new actions by Washington and Jerusalem.
Israel, in the past, has drawn a line in the sand at the 20-percent enrichment mark. Anything beyond that is generally recognized as only having military intentions.
As such, the Security Council, say Russian diplomats, is likely to call a special ministerial meeting during the General Assembly to put increasing pressure on both Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to heed earlier council warnings.
U.N. officials have been quiet regarding what to expect at the upcoming assembly as Ban Ki-moon has called a private meeting of senior staff worldwide to a secluded retreat in Turin, Italy, which runs through the weekend.

Firing of Bible-toting teacher under review

by Bob Unruh 

open_bible
The Ohio Department of Education already has rescinded a “letter of admonishment” issued to a Christian fired for encouraging students to think critically about the origin of life, and now a legal team is asking the state Supreme Court to restore John Freshwater to his classroom.
Freshwater, who has taught for 24 years, was suspended in 2008 by the Mount Vernon School District in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He formally was dismissed in 2011.

But the Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to a request by the Rutherford Institute to hear his case. Freshwater contends the district violated his academic freedom rights and those of his science curriculum students.
The school board accused Freshwater of improperly injecting religion into the classroom by giving students “reason to doubt the accuracy and/or veracity of scientists, science textbooks and/or science in general.”
The board also claimed that Freshwater failed to remove “all religious articles” from his classroom, including a Bible.
“Academic freedom was once the bedrock of American education. That is no longer the state of affairs, as this case makes clear,” said Rutherford Institute President John W. Whitehead. “What we need today are more teachers and school administrators who understand that young people don’t need to be indoctrinated. Rather, they need to be taught how to think for themselves.”
The board’s concern over Freshwater’s teaching materials regarding evolution arose from a complaint that as part of a demonstration of a Tesla coil, a cross was burned into a student’s arm.
The alleged mark was presented in the shape of an “x,” or, in the perspective of the accusing family, a cross.

“No one but the reporting family observed the alleged mark, as the family took a picture of the student’s arm instead of taking the child to a physician or showing the arm to any other potentially interested adult,” Rutherford reported.
A short time later, school officials ordered Freshwater to remove “all religious items,” including the Bible on his desk, from the room.
He met their demands to remove everything except his Bible, and students organized a rally in his support, wearing T-shirts displaying crosses and carrying their own Bibles to class.
Freshwater’s termination was appealed on First and 14th Amendment grounds but a panel of judges in the 5th District Court of Appeals affirmed his dismissal without considering the constitutional claims.
Rutherford pointed out that all available evidence demonstrates that Freshwater’s teaching career was conspicuously marked by excellence. On average, his students performed at or above the state requirements, and their state test scores often exceeded the scores of other eighth-grade science students.

A referee found that Freshwater has taught adequately, but by encouraging students to analyze the theories of evolution and creation, he was injecting “his personal religious beliefs” into the instruction.
His actions, contended the referee, violated board policies requiring “unbiased instruction.”
Freshwater’s faults, the board determined, were that he “allowed his students to examine evidence both for and against evolution,” and he “developed a method of allowing students to point out passages in printed materials that could be questioned or debated.”


The board also based its decision on the finding that Freshwater told his students “the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin, so anyone who chooses to be a homosexual is a sinner.” However, there is evidence that the person who made that allegation, Jim Stockdale, was not in the classroom at the time the statement was reported to have been made. Freshwater insists he didn’t make that statement.
The institute’s brief to the state Supreme Court says Freshwater was doing nothing more than what a good teacher should do.
“As an eighth-grade science teacher, Freshwater sought to encourage his students to
differentiate between facts and theories or hypotheses, to question and test theories and hypotheses, and to identify and discuss instances where textbook statements were subject to intellectual and scientific debate. This teaching methodology – fostering critical thinking and the challenging and evaluation of a variety of postulated theories – is particularly appropriate in a science classroom,” the brief states.
“Freshwater cannot fairly be said to have advanced or inhibited ‘any particular religion’ by merely discussing a widely known origins of life theory for purposes of exploring its scientific value as opposed to its religious or anti-religious implications.”
The argument explains the school actually is exercising censorship when it forbids students and teachers to be critical of any ideas contained in classroom curriculum.

“The Supreme Court has demonstrated commitment to the concept of academic freedom since at least as early as 1967, when it held in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967), that state regulations prohibiting employment of ‘subversive’ teachers violated the First Amendment,” the institute said. “The Court explained: ‘Our nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom. ‘The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.’ The classroom is peculiarly the ‘marketplace of ideas.’ The nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth ‘out of a multitude of tongues, (rather) than through any kind of authoritative selection.’”

Retired Judge Calls on Congress to Remove ‘Gender Reassignment’ Judge

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Is Obama Losing His Mass Appeal?

by  

Filed under 2012 Election
Empty Chairs
When Obama gave his acceptance speech in 2008, some 84,000 people showed up. It was, after all, a historic occasion. Whether you like the man as a person or as a president, try to pretend you’re a leftist for a second (in other words, stop thinking and turn on your heart drip), and imagine the heady propsect: You are about to be a part of something historic… an iconic milestone in American history! Someone black might become president! You know how hippies can get that far-off stare and talk about how they were there at Woodstock ’69? Obama’s acceptance speech was kind of like that. And a huge number of people wanted to be a part of it. Black people voted for him overwhelmingly because they didn’t want to miss the opportunity to put a “black” man in the White House. And a huge number of white people oppressed by a vague and baseless guilt felt that this one act could repair hundreds of years of racial tension. Who cares what the man believes… do you know how much white guilt I will purge from my soul if this man becomes president?

Well, he had his moment, and everyone had a tear or fifteen and felt their hearts strangely warmed and all that. But for four years, his supporters have watched as the glittering veneer of the icon has peeled in the harsh sun of reality to reveal a rather dull and featureless wooden interior. People are realizing that they voted in an idea, but that idea never had substance. His election was symbolic. His presidency has been catastrophic. And they are not impressed anymore. How do I know?

The DNC claims that they changed the venue of his nomination acceptance speech because of the possibility of rain. They had originally booked Bank of America Stadium, an outdoor venue that could seat 74,000. Apparently due to severe weather, they have decided to move Obama’s speech to the same lowly stage that all the other DNC speakers have already tread upon (in a venue that seats 20,000 max)… Oh, how the gold has become dim.

I don’t buy the severe weather excuse for a number of reasons. The highest percentage chance of rain according to forecasts is 40% (with 20% looking more accurate), and an Obama aide had already said Obama would be there: “Bank of America stadium. Rain or shine.” Right. And why wouldn’t they get a somewhat comparably sized indoor venue as a replacement? Are they really going to shut out 50,000 eager ticket holders because of a slight chance of rain? It’s obvious the real reason for the move is that they didn’t get the kind of response they were hoping for. A convention worker let slip the ugly truth:

It looks like a done deal to me. The decision’s apparently been taken and it’s just a matter of spinning it as being forced on us by the weather.
Oops. They are not going to be happy with that person (who wisely remained anonymous).
Obama’s largest crowd in 2012 has been 14,000. I think even his fans have lost that lovin’ feelin’. And if that’s the case, they’re not going to be as motivated to get out there and vote in November. Sure, 2008 was one thing. That was a once-in-a-lifetime chance in their eyes: I could really be a part of something big, you know… But now? How will voting for Obama make me feel better about myself now? I mean, he’s already been the president. Yawn. Maybe I’ll just stay home and watch re-runs of Jersey Shore instead of voting.


Democrat Election Fraud in Arkansas is Tip of the Iceberg

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Eastwood says his convention appearance was 'mission accomplished'

by: PAUL MILLER 
The Carmel Pine Cone 


AFTER A week as topic No. 1 in American politics, former Carmel Mayor Clint Eastwood said the outpouring of criticism from left-wing reporters and liberal politicians after his appearance at the Republican National Convention last Thursday night, followed by an avalanche of support on Twitter and in the blogosphere, is all the proof anybody needs that his 12-minute discourse achieved exactly what he intended it to.

“President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”


Breaking his silence

For five days after he thrilled or horrified the nation by talking to an empty chair representing Obama on the night Mitt Romney accepted the Republican nomination for president, Eastwood remained silent while pundits and critics debated whether his remarks, and the rambling way he made them, had helped or hurt Romney’s chances of winning in November.

But in a wide-ranging interview with The Pine Cone Tuesday from his home in Pebble Beach, he said he had conveyed the messages he wanted to convey, and that the spontaneous nature of his presentation was intentional, too.

“I had three points I wanted to make,” Eastwood said. “That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.”

Eastwood’s appearance at the convention came after a personal request from Romney in August, soon after Eastwood endorsed the former Massachusetts governor at a fundraiser in Sun Valley, Idaho. But it was finalized only in the last week before the convention, along with an agreement to build suspense by keeping it secret until the last moment.

Meanwhile, Romney’s campaign aides asked for details about what Eastwood would say to the convention.

“They vet most of the people, but I told them, ‘You can’t do that with me, because I don’t know what I’m going to say,’” Eastwood recalled.

And while the Hollywood superstar has plenty of experience being adored by crowds, he said he hasn’t given a lot of speeches and admitted that, “I really don’t know how to.” He also hates using a teleprompter, so it was settled in his mind that when he spoke to the 10,000 people in the convention hall, and the millions more watching on television, he would do it extemporaneously.

“It was supposed to be a contrast with all the scripted speeches, because I’m Joe Citizen,” Eastwood said. “I’m a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.”

Eastwood is a liberal on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, but he has strongly conservative opinions about the colossal national debt that has accumulated while Obama has been president, his failure to get unemployment below 6 percent, and a host of other economic issues.

“Even people on the liberal side are starting to worry about going off a fiscal cliff,” Eastwood said.

Last minute decisions

But what — exactly — would he say to the Republican delegates about the $16 trillion national debt and 8.3 percent unemployment rate?

Friends and associates weren’t as much help as he had hoped.

“Everybody had advice for me, except the janitor,” Eastwood said.

Early Thursday morning, when Eastwood left San Jose Airport on a private jet headed for Florida, he was still making up his mind. And even with his appearance just a few hours away, all Eastwood could tell Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, and his aides, was “to reassure them that everything I would say would be nice about Mitt Romney.”

It was only after a quick nap in his hotel room a few blocks from the convention site, Eastwood said, that he mapped out his remarks — starting with his observation about politics in Hollywood, then challenging the president about the failure of his economic policies, and wrapping up by telling the public “they don’t have to worship politicians, like they were royalty or something.”

But even then, with just an hour before he appeared on stage, it still hadn’t occurred to Eastwood to use an empty chair as a stand-in for the president.


“I got to the convention site just 15 or 20 minutes before I was scheduled to go on,” he said. “That was fine, because everything was very well organized.”

After a quick trip through airport-style security, he was taken to a Green Room, where Archbishop Dolan of New York sought him out to say hello. Then he was taken backstage to wait for his cue. And that was when inspiration struck.

“There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down,” Eastwood said. “When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.”

He asked a stagehand to take it out to the lectern while he was being announced.

“The guy said, ‘You mean you want it at the podium?’ and I said, ‘No, just put it right there next to it.’”
Then, with the theme song from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” as a musical introduction, and a huge picture of him as Josey Wales as the backdrop, Eastwood walked out to tremendous applause.

“The audience was super enthusiastic, and it’s always great when they’re with you instead of against you,” he said.

‘Enjoying themselves’

Speaking without any notes, Eastwood recalled the good feelings the whole nation had when Obama was elected, but said they had been dashed as the economy stayed in the doldrums despite massive stimulus spending. He decried the “stupid idea” of closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and putting terrorists on trial in New York City, joked about Vice President Joe Biden’s intellect and quizzed empty-chair Obama about what he says to people about his failed economic policies. He pretended Obama told Romney to do something “physically impossible” to himself, said it’s time to elect a “stellar businessman” as president instead of a lawyer, and, as a final point, told the people, “You own this country.”

When an elected official doesn’t “do the job, we’ve got to let ‘em go,” he said, and the crowd ate it up.

“They really seemed to be enjoying themselves,” Eastwood said.

Originally, he was told he could speak for six or seven minutes, and right before he went on, he was asked to keep it to five, but he said, “When people are applauding so much, it takes you 10 minutes to say five minutes’ worth.”

Also, there were no signals or cues of any kind, so “when you’re out there, it’s kind of hard to tell how much time is going by.”

He also said he was aware he hesitated and stumbled a bit, but said “that’s what happens when you don’t have a written-out speech.”

As he wrapped up his remarks, he was aware his presentation was “very unorthodox,” but that was his intent from the beginning, even if some people weren’t on board.

“They’ve got this crazy actor who’s 82 years old up there in a suit,” he said. “I was a mayor, and they’re probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.”

Backstage, it was all congratulations and glad-handing, he said. And then he returned to the Green Room, where he listened to speeches by Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney. It wasn’t possible for him to watch the media coverage of his presentation.

But the country was listening as the television reporters and commentators covering his speech reacted to it. And they hated it.

“I have to say, as a fan, a movie fan, this was exceedingly strange. It just seemed like a very strange, unscripted moment,” said a shocked Andrea Mitchell on NBC.

“That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention in my entire life,” said Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, barely concealing the condescension in her voice.

Bob Schieffer of CBS said it was “a big mistake to put Clint Eastwood on before Mitt Romney.”

On the Washington Post website, reporter Chris Cillizza wrote that “‘awkward’ may be the kindest term we can think of” to describe Eastwood’s speech.

“He hemmed. He hawed. He mumbled. He rambled,” Cillizza wrote.

And on CNN, Piers Morgan said Eastwood was “going bonkers” on the stage and said his presentation “looked like complete chaos.” He pressured his guests with questions like, “Weren’t you in pain while he was up there?”

But Eastwood wasn’t aware of any of it, and after the speeches were over, Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, came backstage to thank him.

“They were very enthusiastic, and we were all laughing,” Eastwood said.

When he went outside to his car, a large crowd cheered and chanted lines from his speech.

An overnight rebellion

Back at his hotel, Eastwood had a room service dinner and went to bed. The next morning, he got up early and went straight to the airport, still unaware that his appearance was the No. 1 political topic in the nation.

“I read the Tampa newspaper, and every article said something negative about the convention, but there wasn’t much about me,” Eastwood said.

He had no idea that overnight, a rebellion had erupted online against the media’s condemnation of him, with thousands of bloggers, Twitterers and commentators calling him, “a genius,” “1,000 times more brilliant than the media,” and saying he’s “only gotten better with age.”

They also started posting their own versions of Eastwood’s empty chair in droves (“eastwooding”), and, on YouTube, replays of his remarks at the convention were being viewed millions of times.

Even into his 80s, Eastwood has an unprecedented record of success in Hollywood, and is still making two movies a year. He’s currently starring in “Trouble with the Curve,” and is about to direct a remake of “A Star is Born” — things he obviously couldn’t do if he were a befuddled senior citizen. To locals who know him, the idea that he is uninformed or senile is laughable.

Nevertheless, the bitter criticism has continued.

On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, called Eastwood “the perfect icon of the Republican tea party: an angry old white man spewing incoherent nonsense.”

Eastwood said people, including reporters, who were shocked by his remarks “are obviously on the left,” and he maintained that, while many Americans didn’t like the way he handled his convention appearance, millions more have something else on their minds.

“A lot of people are realizing they had the wool pulled over their eyes by Obama,” Eastwood said.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Democrat Nazi Template: Who’s Closer to the Nazi Party Platform?

by: Gary DeMar
Big Society_cropped
If you use the word “Chicago,” you’re a racist. If you criticize the president about anything, you’re a racist. For the longest time, “racist” was a debate stopper. Unfortunately for the Democrats, calling everybody a racist doesn’t work anymore.
With this in mind, Democrats have upped the ante by identifying Republicans with Nazis. This attribution goes back a long way, but it’s been ramped up lately as Democrats are getting desperate as they see their electoral advantage nearly disappear.

So it’s not too surprising the some Democrats are pulling the Nazi card. The latest Nazi hunter is South Carolina Democratic chairman Dick Harpootlian. He compared his own governor, Republican Nikki Haley, to Hitler’s mistress, Eva Braun at a breakfast in Charlotte, North Carolina. South Carolina’s newspaper The State reported deep down in the story the following with no disapproval:
“S.C. Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian, never a loss for a quick quip, tossed a few stinging one-liners at the Wednesday delegation breakfast.
“On Gov. Nikki Haley participating in daily news briefings in a basement studio at the NASCAR Hall of Fame: ‘She was down in the bunker a la Eva Braun.’”
Braun, if you don’t know, was Adolf Hitler mistress. She and the Fuehrer committed suicide in a bunker as World War II was ending.

When asked about the Eva Braun remark, because he’s a Democrat, he dismissed the obvious Nazi reference by feigning ignorance:
“I wasn’t saying she is Eva Braun or is like Eva Braun. I was saying she is hiding out. … She is reclusive. She is not transparent,” he said. “I wasn’t comparing her to Eva Braun other than she was in a bunker. I don’t even know much about Eva Braun, just that she hung out in a bunker.”

Right.
But, hey, Harpootlian is a Democrat speaking to Democrats, and it’s a good chance he’s right since most Democrat voters probably didn’t catch the Eva Braun reference.

Pat Lehman of the Kansas Democratic delegation was a bit more specific in how she described the Republicans:
“It’s like Hitler said, if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you,”

Not to be outdone, California Democratic John Burton, chairman of the California Democratic Party, compared Republican convention remarks to the tactics of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
“They lie and they don’t care if people think they lie … Joseph Goebbels — the big lie, you keep repeating it,” Burton said. “That was Goebbels, the big lie.”
Are these guys serious? Are we to believe that everything a Democrat says is the truth? We’re not that stupid, but too many Democrat voters are.
Here’s the real big lie: the Nazi Party was a political movement of the Right. The Nazis were Socialists, thus the name, Nazi: “National Socialists“! They were all about government intervention and social spending.
Hitler remarks in Mein Kampf that he studied German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck’s “socialist legislation in its intention, struggle and success.” Hitler was not alone in his admiration of Bismarck and what he was able to accomplish through the power of government.
FDR borrowed Bismarck’s socialist agenda like Hitler did and created what is now known as the Social Security System. Bismarck said that “the State must take the matter in hand, since the State can most easily supply the requisite funds. It must provide them not as alms but in fulfillment of the workers’ right to look to the State where their own good will can achieve nothing more.”
Sound familiar? Change the names and dates, and you have today’s Democrat Party.

Obama: the real radical

George Will 
 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Four years ago, Barack Obama was America’s Rorschach test upon whom voters could project their disparate yearnings. To govern, however, is to choose, and now his choices have clarified him. He is a conviction politician determined to complete the progressive project of emancipating government from the Founders’ constraining premises, a project Woodrow Wilson embarked on 100 Novembers ago.
As such, Obama has earned what he now receives, the tribute of a serious intellectual exegesis by a distinguished political philosopher. In “I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism,” Charles Kesler of Claremont McKenna College rightly says Obama is “playing a long, high-stakes game.” Concerning the stakes, Obama practices prudent reticence, not specifying America’s displeasing features that are fundamental. Shortly before the 2008 election, he said only: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming” America. Tonight, consider Obama’s acceptance speech in the context that Kesler gives it in the American political tradition.

Progress, as progressives understand it, means advancing away from, up from, something. But from what?
From the Constitution’s constricting anachronisms. In 1912, Wilson said, “The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of governmental power.” But as Kesler notes, Wilson never said the future of liberty consisted of such limitation.
Instead, he said, “every means … by which society may be perfected through the instrumentality of government” should be used so that “individual rights can be fitly adjusted and harmonized with public duties.” Rights “adjusted and harmonized” by government necessarily are defined and apportioned by it. Wilson, the first transformative progressive, called this the “New Freedom.” The old kind was the Founders’ kind — government existing to “secure” natural rights (see the Declaration) that pre-exist government. Wilson thought this had become an impediment to progress. The pedigree of Obama’s thought runs straight to Wilson.
And through the second transformative progressive, Franklin Roosevelt, who counseled against the Founders’ sober practicality and fear of government power: “We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal” and are making government “an instrument of unimagined power” for social improvement. The only thing we have to fear is fear of a government of unimagined power:
“Government is a relation of give and take.” The “rulers” — FDR’s word — take power from the people, who in turn are given “certain rights.”

This, says Kesler, is “the First Law of Big Government: the more power we give the government, the more rights it will give us.” It also is the ultimate American radicalism, striking at the roots of the American regime, the doctrine of natural rights. Remember this when next — perhaps tonight — Obama discourses on the radicalism of Paul Ryan.
As Kesler says, the logic of progressivism is: “Since our rights are dependent on government, why shouldn’t we be?” This is the real meaning of Obama’s most characteristic rhetorical trope, his incessant warning that Americans should be terrified of being “on your own.”
Obama, the fourth transformative progressive, had a chief of staff who said “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” More than a century before that, a man who would become the first such progressive said a crisis is a terrible thing not to create. Crises, said Wilson, are periods of “unusual opportunity” for gaining “a controlling and guiding influence.” So, he said, leaders should maintain a crisis atmosphere “at all times.”
Campaigning in 1964, Lyndon Johnson, the third consequential progressive, exclaimed through a bull horn: “I just want to tell you this — we’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” He learned this progressive vernacular from his patron, FDR, who envisioned “an unlimited civilization capable of infinite progress.” Poet Archibald MacLeish, FDR’s choice for librarian of Congress, exemplified progressives’ autointoxication: America has “the abundant means” to create “whatever world we have the courage to desire,” and the ability to “take this country down” and “build it again as we please,” to “take our cities apart and put them together,” to lead our “rivers where we please to lead them,” etc.

In 2012, Americans want from government not such flights of fancy but sobriety; not ecstatic evocations of dreamlike tomorrows but a tolerably functioning today; not fantasies about a world without scarcities and therefore without choices among our desires and appetites but a mature understanding of the limits to government’s proper scope and actual competence. Tonight’s speech is Obama’s last chance to take a first step toward accommodation with a country increasingly concerned about his unmasked determination to “transform” what the Founders considered “fundamentals.”
 

Democrat Delegate Says She Would Like to Kill Romney if She Sees Him

by: Gary DeMar
Puerto Rican Woman_cropped
As I was driving back from my morning 2-mile walk, I was tuned into the Neal Boortz Show. Neal’s show is nationally syndicated. He leans libertarian. He’s retiring in January and Herman Cain is going to take his place.
Anyway, Neal played an interview with a delegate from the Democratic National Convention. She is originally from Puerto Rico but is now living in New York. The interviewer asked her if she was better off four years ago than she is under Obama, and the tirade began.

Here’s what she said:
“Romney will destroy this country completely! If I see him, I would like to kill him!”
 I heard this with my own two ears. You can watch it here.

Will the establishment media report on it? I doubt it. It’s all about protecting President Obama and the Democrat Party.
Most people in the media have no concern about Republicans being compared to Nazis, so why should they care if someone makes a threat against a presidential candidate that’s affiliated with Nazis?

There’s at least one exception that I’ve found — someone actually chastising the Democrats for the Nazi comparison. Listen to this interview with Vice Chair of the California Democratic Party Alexandra Gallardo Rooker and how she dismisses the Republicans-as-Nazis narrative.
The next time some liberal tells you that the Republican Party is all about hate, have this story handy and play the audio of the Democrat who would like to kill Mitt Romney if she ever sees him.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Ax falls on conservative radio hosts

OpEd :Jack
 Oh my goodness...I suppose they want to follow the lead set by 'Air America' and join the Chapter 11 crowd...Yes indeed Liberalism is definetly a mental disease...!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WND Exclusive
radio-microphone-headphones
North Carolina is a must-win for President Obama, and he’s getting a lot of help from supporters – in Boston.
In the run-up to the Democratic National Convention, Boston-based Greater Media Inc. neutralized the conservative line-up of talk radio show hosts it inherited when it bought top-rated Charlotte station WBT-AM (1110) four years ago.

First it ousted Rush Limbaugh sub Jason Lewis from the prime afternoon drive-time slot. Then it jettisoned popular local conservative Vince Coakley, replacing him with a liberal duo who routinely lampoon GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and even Rush Limbaugh, who precedes them in the noon-to-3 p.m. slot.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled Limbaugh,” Coakley told WND, perhaps even before the election. He called the moves baffling in light of WBT’s overwhelmingly conservative audience.
Most recently, management unceremoniously told popular morning personality Keith Larson, a limited-government libertarian, that his contract would not be renewed.
Local bloggers and longtime listeners smell a conspiracy.
“Great timing, drawing back from (conservative) politics and all, right when the DNC is slated to hit town,” said Mark Pellin of PunditHouse.com, a conservative blog for Charlotte news and politics.
He says it looks like “a calculated move on the station’s part to curry favor with the left.”

Added Charlotte resident Marty Allen, who’s been listening to WBT since 1988: “They (are) trying to be ‘politically correct’ for the DNC.”
Greater Media bought WBT, which has long held the No. 1 position for news and talk in Charlotte, from Lincoln Financial Media in January 2008.
The new station owners say they are simply trying to get away from straight politics – the station’s bread-and-butter for years – and move to something “a lot more fun.” They explain that the lighter fare will “appeal to a wider audience.”
However, bringing in Brad Krantz, the more liberal half of “The Brad & Britt Show,” is hardly an apolitical move.
Krantz routinely parrots Democrat talking points. His parodies of  Limbaugh – including tasteless references to the talk radio king’s past addiction to pain-killers – have offended many listeners, who have called into the station to complain. So far during the convention, Krantz has made appearances with union workers and other Democrat activists. There appears to be more to the story than Greater Media is telling.

WND has learned that before the recent purge, Greater Media CEO Peter Smyth met with Obama administration officials in the White House to discuss “policy ideas.” The meeting, which lasted five hours, took place in March.
“I was invited to the White House,” Smyth said. “I was honored to be asked to participate in one small part of the policy-making process.”
Smyth, who federal records show gives more to Democrats than Republicans, says he agrees with the president’s agenda to “reinvent our country.”
WND has also learned that a key player in Greater Media operations – vice president Ellen J. Rubin – is a major Democrat activist who supports the leftist group Moveon.org and the Democratic National Committee, which is running the convention in Charlotte.
What’s more, Rubin, a Berkeley alumna, has contributed a total of more than $5,650 to Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

Hillary's UN Gun Ban....Must read and stop!

 

Dear fellow Patriot,

Dudley has prepared an urgent video message regarding Hillary's UN Gun Ban.

As you know, the wannabe dictators at the UN are plotting RIGHT NOW to gut the Second Amendment.

And we only have until this Friday, September 7th to prepare for battle.

Please click here to see Dudley's urgent message on the UN Gun Ban.

Hillary Clinton is doing everything in her power to force through the UN Gun Ban while the rest of the country is distracted with the Democrat convention.

Don't be fooled, she is working tirelessly to get her gun ban before election day.

After you listen, be sure to sign the survey putting yourself squarely on record AGAINST this radical gun ban.

Thank you,


Christine H
National Association for Gun Rights

It’s Not $16 Trillion — It’s $222 Trillion

by: Gary DeMar
 222-trillion_cropped

No matter who becomes president in November, he’s going to be confronted with a huge fiscal storm that no levee or dam will be able to hold back the flood waters of an insurmountable and unfathomable debt.
In his review of Dinesh D’Souza’s film 2016: Obama’s America, Dr. Gary North notes that there are at least three important topics that the film does not address. One of them is the real deficit that no one wants to talk about.
First, the deficit is vastly worse than the movie portrays. The movie sticks with the non-issue: the on-budget debt of $15 trillion [now $16 trillion], which is chump change, while never mentioning the central problem: the $222 trillion present value of the unfunded liabilities of the off-budget deficit, meaning the deficits of politically sacrosanct Social Security and Medicare. This is the heart of the federal government’s highly entertaining Punch and Judy show over the deficit, with Paul Ryan as Punch and Obama cross-dressing as Judy. 

The off-budget deficit problem is not new. Every four years, the newly elected president and Congress kick the fiscal can down the road. They don’t want to be stuck with the can. In the not too distant future, the road’s going to end with a brick wall.
While presidents bear some responsibility for the deficit crisis, spending bills originate in Congress. The President proposes, but the Congress disposes. Congress could say no to every spending bill proposed by the President, but it (mostly) chooses not to. Every congressman knows that spending bills buy votes. Bought votes keep them in office.
Some future generation will get the bill. Congress hopes that they can stay in office just long enough so they won’t get blamed for the fiscal crisis that is inevitable.

Dr. North goes to argue that there is a third player in the monetary shell game that almost never comes under scrutiny — the privately owned Federal Reserve:
Ron Paul always was right for 36 years in not pointing to the President as the main economic problem, but rather the Federal Reserve System. So, any documentary that does not go after the Federal Reserve when it talks about economic problems, but blames the President instead, and also ignores Congress, is doing the general public an enormous disservice. It keeps the Federal Reserve in the background in the thinking of the viewers, when the Federal Reserve ought to be in the foreground, with the presidency in the background. This is basic economics. D’Souza does not know what he is talking about with respect to economics.

The Democrats scream that trimming spending by $2 trillion over ten years is “draconian.” Republicans imply that a $200 billion cut each year for ten years will get us back on track. They’re both wrong since the interest alone for the ten-year period will be in the trillions in addition to proposals for new spending and automatic increases.
Democrats want to convince voters that taxing the rich will fix the deficit problem. It won’t make a dent in it. All it will do is plunge us further into recession. Establishment Republicans are fearful in telling the truth about the deficit and the systemic changes that are needed because they will be voted out of office.
It’s going to take strong leadership and a willing public to take the needed medicine.




Jeremiah Wright is the Key to Understanding Barack Obama

by  

JeremiahWright4_Cropped
It’s been said that a person is known by the company he keeps unless he’s a Democrat. I added the Democrat part. But it’s true.
How many times did Democrats stand behind Robert C. Byrd (1917–2010), the longtime Senator from West Virginia, even though he was a member in good standing in the Ku Klux Klan? At Sen. Byrd’s funeral, former President Bill Clinton said the following in defense of the senator’s past as a KKK Kleagle (an organizer and recruiter):

“He was a country boy from the hills and hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected.”
 In attempting to “humanize” the former Klansman, Clinton said that Byrd’s KKK past “makes him more interesting.”
Compare Byrd’s past with the KKK with an alleged one-time hair-cutting incident that Mitt Romney was said to be involved in when he was in high school, and event that took place 50 years ago. The media turned this singular event into a major story.

Clinton went on to say that Byrd spent the rest of his life doing good things, and it was these good things that erased Byrd’s past KKK affiliation. But this only true if you’re a Democrat. For a Republican, no amount of contrition or time can erase a past indiscretion.
Now let’s take a look at the company that Barack Obama kept for 20 years. Dr. Gary
North notes that it’s not Barack Obama’s anti-colonialism views that should concern us (that would be a good thing); it’s the fact that he drank deeply from the radical sermonic waters of Jeremiah Wright:

“If a man goes to church every week, and he sits under the same pastor for 20 years, then we can assume that he agrees with the pastor. For me, the fundamental verifiable historical fact of Obama is that he put up with Jeremiah Wright for 20 years. If you subject yourself to somebody’s preaching for a long period of time, you probably think the way he thinks. When he is a screaming preacher, as Wright is, you leave if you do not like what he is preaching. If you don’t like it, then you don’t think much about church, because you’re listening to something you can’t stand, week after week, for 20 years. I don’t think people do that. So, if you are going to try to figure out what Obama is really all about, you probably ought to listen to a few dozen sermons by Jeremiah Wright. His sermons are racist to the core. It is liberation theology from start to finish. It is left-wing to the core.”
It’s no wonder that the press failed to cover the Jeremiah Wright-influence story. It’s the key to who Barack Obama is. Mix Jeremiah Wright with Saul Alinsky, whose disciples trained Obama when he was a community organizer in Chicago in the mid-to-late 1980s, and Bill Ayers, and the result is a volatile mix of political and social radicalism that’s second to none.



Fact Check: First Lady's False Fairy Tale of Struggle




First Lady Michelle Obama’s pitch to voters last night relied on the premise that she and her husband understand what it is to struggle to make ends meet. She spoke movingly about their early years--about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was “rusted out" and found his furniture “in a dumpster,” how they both came from families that had to “scrape by.” Her fairy tale--however well-delivered--was one great, big, colorful lie. 

Both Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama began their adult lives with a leg up on the rest of America. They attended elite schools: Michelle went to Whitney Young, the public magnet school for Chicago’s upper class, while Barack attended Punahou, the private prep school for the top stratum of Hawaiian society. They were accepted to Ivy League schools despite undistinguished credentials, and both attended Harvard Law School.
“[B]elieve it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage,” Michelle said. That sounds like a raw deal--but in fact reflects their fortunate circumstances. They had both just graduated from a very expensive law school, and their combined income from cushy law firm jobs dwarfed the repayments. Barack also soon enjoyed a second salary from the University of Chicago.
They had expensive tastes, reflected in the $277,500 two-bedroom condo they bought in 1993--a high price even by today’s standards. Several years later, they moved into their $1.65 million mansion in Hyde Park--with the help of fraudster Tony Rezko. Barack often told a story of hardship on the campaign trail in 2008 about having his credit card declined--once. The fact that he thought this counted as real hardship speaks volumes.

As her husband moved onto the national political stage, Michelle Obama began to enjoy a lavish lifestyle at taxpayer expense, directly and indirectly. When Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, he obtained a $1 million earmark for the University of Chicago Hospital--and his wife’s salary as Vice President for Community Affairs jumped from $121,910 to $316,962. Her job: pushing poor, uninsured patients to other hospitals.
As First Lady, Michelle Obama has lived high on the hog while the rest of the country has suffered through an extraordinary recession. In 2010, she and her entourage decamped to Spain for a lavish vacation. That summer, the Obamas encouraged Americans to visit the Gulf coast after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which threatened tourism in the region. They promptly jetted off to Maine for their own summer holiday.

This summer, the Obamas skipped their usual summer trip to the wealthy playground of Martha’s Vineyard--months after Michelle and her daughters had enjoyed an expensive winter skiing trip in Aspen. And, of course, there are the frequent pilgrimages to Hawaii,  Some of their family’s comfort, of course, comes from private income, principally Barack Obama’s book sales--yet even that wealth is a spin-off of Obama’s political career.
If, as the Democrats eagerly pointing out, Mitt Romney enjoyed the privilege of private wealth, the Obamas have enjoyed privilege funded by public money and public life. And until entering the national spotlight, they gave little to charity, contributing instead to a church that preached racial grievance. “[T]ruth matters,” Michelle Obama told the nation last night. That, too, is a lie--because so far, she has evaded it without consequence.