We Knew, So What? Don’t Blame Us. It’s Bush’s fault. Democrats: CIA is out to get us

Pat Dollard's.

 

Another Political hack

Democrats charged Tuesday that the CIA has released documents about congressional briefings on harsh interrogation techniques in order to deflect attention and blame away from itself.

“I think there is so much embarrassment in some quarters [of the CIA] that people are going to try to shift some of the responsibility to others — that’s what I think,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was briefed on interrogation techniques five times between 2006 and 2007.

Read the rest at Politico.

Pelosi a Liar? So what else is new?

GOP's torture strategy: Pelosi

Politico: 

For Democrats pushing an investigation into potential criminal wrongdoing in the war on terrorism, the GOP now has a two-word response: Nancy Pelosi.

Republicans say new revelations about a CIA briefing Pelosi received in 2002 have given them their best shot yet at blocking a sprawling probe into Bush administration interrogation techniques by allowing them to insist that its targets would include the speaker of the House.

“If someone is going to schedule hearings, I believe that the first witness should be Nancy Pelosi,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the ranking member on the House intelligence committee, told POLITICO. “Clearly, she was involved in policy formulation.”

According to records released last week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Pelosi and other congressional officials were told in 2002 that enhanced interrogation techniques had been used on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah. The report appeared to contradict Pelosi’s claims — made earlier and again after the report was released — that she had been told only that such techniques might be used in the future, not that they had already been used.

According to a 2005 Justice Department memo released this year by the Obama administration, Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times by the time Pelosi was briefed in 2002.

In light of the intelligence report, Republicans say that any probe into torture should be broadened to include what Pelosi knew and how much influence she had in shaping the Bush administration’s controversial policies.

The GOP’s goal, according to congressional Republicans, is to dissuade Democrats from pursuing an inquiry that could lead to the prosecution of Bush administration officials by making it clear to Democrats that Pelosi and other lawmakers would have to testify, too.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview that if Pelosi failed to object to the techniques at the time, she was “an enabler” and “an accomplice” if any crimes were committed. If an investigation goes forward, King said, Pelosi should be forced to divulge what she knew.

In a statement Friday, Pelosi said she had been advised at the 2002 briefing about techniques the Bush administration was “considering using in the future” — and that she’d been assured they were legal. Pelosi also pointed to a letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta saying that the memo’s description of the briefings “may not be accurate.”

Still, Republicans believe they now have Pelosi caught in a jam: To satisfy her liberal base, she’s got to keep pressing for an investigation into potential crimes by the Bush administration. But if Republicans can score points with the “what did she know and when did she know it?” question, Pelosi also may have an interest in putting this issue aside.

“I’ll be very curious to see how she deals with it,” said a senior House GOP aide. “Does she stop talking about it and piss off her left?”

Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for the speaker, said Saturday that Republicans are “trying to politicize intelligence with irresponsible actions” and that Pelosi still supports an inquiry into the use of the interrogation techniques. The House and Senate intelligence committees have launched internal reviews, but it’s unclear whether they will expand beyond classified inquiries.

“Dashed Hopes”: Economy Tanking Worse Than Expected

H/T Pat Dollard.

*No picture of Dufus 1 and Dufus 2* You want to see a picture of the two heroes go to Dollard's.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy shrank at a worse-than-expected 6.1 percent pace at the start of this year as sharp cutbacks by businesses and the biggest drop in U.S. exports in 40 years overwhelmed a rebound in consumer spending.

The Commerce Department’s report, released Wednesday, dashed hopes that the recession’s grip on the country loosened in the first quarter. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a 5 percent annualized decline.

Instead, the economy ended up performing nearly as bad as it had in the final three months of last year when it logged the worst slide in a quarter-century, contracting at a 6.3 percent pace. Nervous consumers played a prominent role in that dismal showing as they ratcheted back spending in the face of rising unemployment, falling home values and shrinking nest eggs.

In the January-March quarter consumers came back to life, boosting their spending after two straight quarters of reductions. The 2.2 percent growth rate was the strongest in two years.

Still, the consumer rebound was swamped by heavy spending cuts in virtually every other area.

Businesses cut spending on home building, commercial construction, equipment and software, and inventories of goods. Sales of U.S. goods to foreign buyers plunged as they retrenched in the face of economic troubles in their own countries. Even the government trimmed spending. It was the first time that happened since the end of 2005.

The sharp cuts underscore the toll the housing, credit and financial crises — the worst since the 1930s — are having on the country. The recession, which began in December 2007, has taken a big bite out of national economic activity and snatched 5.1 million jobs.

To cushion the impact of the downturn, the Federal Reserve has slashed a key bank lending rate to a record low near zero and rolled out a string of radical programs to spur lending. The Fed at the end of its two-day meeting Wednesday is expected to keep its key rate near zero and probably hold it there well into next year.

President Barack Obama is counting on his $787 billion stimulus of tax cuts and increased government spending on big public works projects to help bolster economic activity later this year. The administration also has put forward programs to rescue banks and curb home foreclosures — big negative forces weighing on the economy.

Even in the face of Wednesday’s weaker-than-expected report, some analysts stuck to predictions that the economy would shrink less in the current April-June period — at a pace of 1 to 2.5 percent — as Obama’s stimulus begins to take hold. Those analysts also continue to hope the economy would start to grow again in the final quarter of this year.

“The recession was bad in the first quarter but won’t be as bad going forward,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. “I don’t think this lessens the expected pattern that the economy will be entering a recovery by the end of this year.”

However, the recent outbreak of the swine flu, which started out in Mexico and has spread to the United States and elsewhere, poses a new potential danger. If the flu stifles trade and forces consumers to cut back further, those negative forces would worsen the recession.

Before the flu outbreak, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the recession could end this year if the government succeeds in stabilizing the shaky financial system and getting banks to lend again.

In recent weeks, Bernanke and his colleagues had cited “tentative signs” of the recession easing in some consumer spending, home building and other reports. Finance officials from the U.S. and other top economic powers meeting here last week also saw some hopeful signs for the global economy.

Fresh glimmers of hope emerged in the U.S. Tuesday. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose far more than expected in April, jumping more than 12 points to 39.2, the highest level since November. And a housing index showed that home prices dropped sharply in February, but for the first time in 25 months the decline was not a record.

However, in the first quarter there was much weakness in those areas and others.

Spending on home building fell at a 38 percent annualized rate, the most since the second quarter of 1980. Businesses cut spending on equipment and software at a 33.8 percent pace, the most since the first quarter of 1958. Inventory reductions shaved 2.79 percentage points off overall first-quarter economic activity.

U.S. exports plunged at a rate of 30 percent, the biggest drop since the first quarter of 1969, reflecting the crimped appetite of struggling foreign buyers. The government also cut spending 3.9 percent, the most since the end of 1995.

Even if the recession were to end this year, the economy will remain feeble and unemployment will keep climbing, government officials and analysts say.

The jobless rate is now at a quarter-century high of 8.5 percent and is expected to hit 10 percent by the end of this year. It will probably rise a bit higher in early 2010 before starting to slowly drift downward. Still, the Fed predicts unemployment will stay elevated into 2011, and economists don’t think it will return to normal — around a 5 percent jobless rate — until 2013.

More layoffs were announced this week. General Motors Corp. laid out a massive restructuring plan that includes cutting 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year. Clear Channel Communications Inc., the largest owner of U.S. radio stations, said it’s cutting 590 jobs in its second round of mass layoffs this year amid pressure from the recession and evaporating advertising budgets. And bearings and specialty steels maker Timken Co. indicated it will cut about 4,000 more jobs by the end of this year after earlier suggesting about 3,000 jobs already had been targeted.

Elsewhere, construction equipment maker Bobcat Co. told nearly 250 workers at its two North Dakota plants they will be laid off indefinitely, executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc. announced plans to cut more jobs and reduce bonuses and salaries, and Lockheed Martin Corp. said it’s cutting 225 jobs at a plant in upstate New York.

Related from a comment at Dollard's; http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-90.htm

Ponta Negra is marketed out of the office of Paradigm Global – a fund of hedge funds OWNED & CONTROLLED by HUNTER BIDEN and JAMES BIDEN (son & brother of VP JOE BIDEN respectively).

What Did Pelosi Know And When Did She Know It?

H/T Pat Dollard.

*picture removed*

Fox News:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she was never told during a congressional briefing in 2002 that waterboarding or other “enhanced” interrogation techniques were being used on terrorism suspects.

But in a story published in the Washington Post in December 2007, two officials were quoted saying that the California Democrat and three other lawmakers had received an hour-long secret briefing on the interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, and that they raised no objections at the time.

The clash of accounts has stirred Republican claims that Democrats have selective and politically motivated amnesia when it comes to who knew what, and when, about the Bush-era interrogation programs.

“I saw a partial list of the number of members of the House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, who were briefed on these interrogation methods, and not a word was raised at the time, not one word,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said Thursday.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., is seeking a detailed list of all lawmakers who were briefed on the tactics.

Republicans are drawing attention to the briefings to challenge Democrats who now say they are open to investigating, and possibly prosecuting, officials and lawyers involved in the drafting of the harsh interrogation techniques.

Pelosi is among those lawmakers who want an independent commission established to probe the evolution of the policies — but it’s still unclear what she knew early on in the Bush administration.

Asked about the briefings on Thursday, Pelosi said: “We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.”

But she also did not explicitly say that waterboarding was not part of the conversation. She indicated instead that any discussion they may have had was hypothetical.

“What they did tell us is that they had some legislative counsel … opinions, that they could be used, but not that they would,” she said.

Pelosi indicated the briefings could have been incomplete, saying: “We only know what they choose to tell us, and the manner and timing which they tell us.”

The Post article noted that strict rules during the secret briefings prohibit lawmakers from taking notes or consulting with legal experts, hindering the lawmakers’ ability to challenge what they are being told — in this case, about interrogation tactics.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t ask critical questions.

Pelosi indicated Thursday she’s being hamstrung from fully addressing the briefing, and publicly questioning the tactics described in it, because it was secret.

“It’s very interesting that people are talking so freely,” Pelosi said.

Nancy Pelosi is a liar.  

PoliticalCorrectness, Part 2

H/T Pat Dollard.

Political Correctness is a poison being handed out daily and in toxic doses by its proliferators.

“Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional illogical liberal minority & rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous liberal press which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

Libtards are positioned so far Left they would rather argue that they posses two Left Arms than admit to having anything resembling or categorized as right. The damage to all societies caused by the relentless and irresponsible spread of the PC doctrine will continue unchecked as long as WE tolerate it. PC has been around as long a Political Passivity and was present in the earliest writings of the communist parties strongmen like Mao and Lenin.

The Pacifist/Liberal movements have been tumors in the colon of society since humans have been organizing governments, and the Toxin known as Political Correctness will continue until we wipe it from the face of the earth.

For the conservative, to possess knowledge of the Frankfurt School, is to possess Excalibur.

Shady Deals Are A Prerequisite To Being A Democratic Congressman

Cross posted from Pat Dollards.
By Eric Wong

HARTFORD, Conn. - Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd said Monday he will refinance two personal home mortgages from a troubled national lender that are being investigated by a Senate ethics panel.
Dodd said he sought no special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp., when he refinanced his Washington and East Haddam, Conn., homes in 2003. Dodd has acknowledged participating in a VIP program at Countrywide, which he thought referred to upgraded customer service, not reduced rates.

“Knowing what I know now, I regret having ever done business with Countrywide,” Dodd said.
The bank, a leading subprime lender at the center of the mortgage meltdown, was sold to Bank of America Corp. last year and has been the focus of allegations that it gave favorable loan terms to lawmakers.
Dodd, a five-term Democrat, said he’s switching the loans to a new bank because he was wrongfully labeled a friend of Countrywide’s former CEO, Angelo Mozilo.

“Let me be very clear. We are not friends of Angelo Mozilo and we have never been a friend of his,” said Dodd, who was accompanied by his wife, Jackie, at a news conference. “The first we ever heard of the ‘friends of Angelo’ list was through press reports last summer.”

Dodd, whose committee has oversight over the mortgage and banking industries, faced heavy criticism in his home state for not releasing details of his mortgages when the controversy erupted last year.
Dodd said Monday he received a $275,000 30-year, adjustable rate loan at 4.5 percent interest for his East Haddam home. The Washington home was financed with a 30-year adjustable loan of $506,000 with a 4.25 percent rate.

The terms of the mortgages are under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. Dodd said he has turned over documents and answered written questions, but the committee has not called him to testify.

“I just wanted to put this behind us,” Dodd said in his Hartford office.

He said a third party will be involved in choosing the bank for the new loans.

Dodd played a key role in crafting the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan, which allows the government to spend billions of dollars to buy bad mortgage-related securities and other devalued assets from troubled financial institutions. (AP)

The Democrat Party of Thieves And Crooks Have Found More Votes For Franken

Cross posted from Pat Dollards.

Politico:

As we reported last night, Al Franken’s campaign is optimistic about its chances of winning the recount.

And for the first time, Franken has taken the lead over Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) — currently by 78 votes. This wasn’t unexpected: Franken has been steadily gaining votes as the state’s Canvassing Board continues to rule on Coleman’s challenges.

The count doesn’t include the approximately 5,000 challenges that were withdrawn from both campaigns, which means the lead could still change hands. Franken withdrew about 400 more challenges than Coleman, and those aren’t reflected in the count.

But Franken’s campaign has had more success with its challenges so far, which is helping him in the recount. Coleman has only netted 24 votes from his 564 challenges (4 percent success rate), while Franken gained 68 votes from his 414 challenges (16 percent success rate).

ALSO: With the recount expected to last into next year, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) is looking into whether he will need to appoint a senator to temporarily fill the seat, according to CNN. The Senate swears in members of the upcoming Congress on Jan. 6, and the winner may not be determined by then.



FOX:

Franken Takes Lead in Minnesota Recount for the First Time

Democrat Al Franken has taken the lead over Sen. Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race recount, but that could change as a board reviews challenges.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Democrat Al Franken edged ahead of Republican incumbent Norm Coleman on Friday for the first time in Minnesota’s long-running U.S. Senate recount.

Franken opened up a slight lead on the fourth day of a state Canvassing Board meeting to decide the fate of hundreds of disputed ballots.

The change was notable because Coleman led Franken in election night returns and also held a 188-vote lead before the board took up challenged ballots. But its significance was limited, with the possibility the lead could change again before the long recount ends.

The board had several hundred remaining challenges to resolve, with a goal of doing so by Friday. Both Coleman and Franken are also waiting to see how much they gain from some 5,000 challenges that they withdrew, and the board won’t allocate those until Monday.

The outcome of the recount also depends on an estimated 1,600 absentee ballots that were improperly rejected. The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that those ballots must be counted, and set a Dec. 31 deadline for counties to work with the candidates to identify and count them.

The high court ruling virtually guaranteed that the recount would sprawl into the new year. With Congress set to convene Jan. 6, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said his staff was researching the possibility of a temporary appointment.

But Pawlenty said it was unlikely he would do so because he expected the recount would be resolved by then.

The ballot that put Franken in the lead came from Rochester, where a voter’s mark for Franken filled not just his oval but a good chunk of territory next to it. A challenge from the Coleman campaign was rejected.

Before the five-member canvassing board began reviewing challenges Friday, it rejected a request from the Coleman campaign to disqualify hundreds of ballots that the campaign argued were duplicates and had been counted twice.

G. Barry Anderson, a Supreme Court justice serving on the board, said the issue was not the board’s to decide.

“While I think there is a serious issue here, the location, extent and remedy lie elsewhere,” Anderson said.


And while this is going on, CONgress thieves have voted themselves a pay raise. WARNING: Graphic pictures and language. Also at Pat Dollards.

So America. Had enough yet????

The Media's Top 10 Worst Economic Myths of 2008

Note: This contains more Bush Derangement Syndrome nonsense, reference "The Attack of The Killer Tomatoes."
I have no doubt that Bush is responsible for the blown tire on my motorcycle in 1986 and likely responsible for the broken thumb I suffered in 1977 as well.
Dean

BMI's collection of outrageous economic bias for the entire year: From the salmonella outbreak to the media's call for a new, New Deal.

By Julia A. Seymour and Paul Detrick
Business Media Institute
12/11/2008

Each year the Business Media Institute looks back on the year's news and selects the top 10 worst economic myths. Here is our 2008 list:

10. Capitalism is dead or dying.

9. Gas at $4-a-gallon, blame the oil companies.

8. Fannie’s failure

7. Barack Obama sends stocks soaring, but not sinking.

6. Alternative energy: All gain, no pain

5. The economy has a fever and the only prescription is more bailouts.

4. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

3. Oil prices will skyrocket to $200 a barrel, gas to $15.

2. Welcome to 1929: Great Depression II

1. America needs a new, New Deal.

Read the details here.

The Bush Derangement Syndrome And Other Liberal Nonsense

By Dean

From a recent email;

1977: President. Jimmy Carter signs into Law the Community Reinvestment Act the foundation and cornerstone for the impending disaster.. The law pressured financial institutions to extend home loans to those who would otherwise not qualify .

The publicized premise: Home ownership would improve poor and crime-ridden communities and neighborhoods in terms of crime, investment, jobs, etc.

The Results: Statistics bear out that it did not help.

How did the government get so deeply involved in the housing market?

Answer: Bill Clinton wanted it that way.

1992: Republican representative Jim Leach (IO) warned of the danger that Fannie and Freddie were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the principals and the stock-holding few.

1993: Clinton extensively rewrote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rules turning the quasi-private mortgage-funding firms into semi -nationalized monopolies dispensing cash and loans to large Democratic voting blocks and handing favors, jobs and contributions to political allies . This potent mix led inevitably to corruption and now the collapse of Freddie and Fannie.

1994: Despite warnings, Clinton unveiled his National Home-Ownership Strategy, which broadened the CRA in ways congress never intended.

1995: Congress, about to change from a Democrat majority to Republican. Clinton orders Robert Rubin's Treasury Dept to rewrite the rules. Robert. Rubin's Treasury reworked rules, forcing banks to satisfy quotas for sub-prime and minority loans to get a satisfactory CRA rating. The rating was key to expansion or mergers for banks. Loans began to be made on the basis of race and little else.

1997 - 1999: Clinton, bypassing Republicans in Congress, enlisted Andrew Cuomo, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development elopement, allowing Freddie and Fannie to get into the sub-prime market in a BIG way. Led by Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, congress doubled down on the risk by easing capital limits and allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments vs. 10% for banks Since they could borrow at lower rates than banks their enterprises boomed.

With incentives in place, banks poured billions in loans into poor communities, often "no doc", "no income", requiring no money down and no verification of income. Worse still was the cronyism: Fannie and Freddie became home to out-of work-politicians, mostly Clinton Democrats. 384 politicians got big campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie. Over $200 million had been spent on lobbying and political activities. During the 1990's Fannie and Freddie enjoyed a subsidy of as much as $182 Billion , most of it going to principals and shareholders, not poor borrowers as claimed.

Did it work? Minorities made up 49% of the 12.5 million new homeowners but many of those loans have gone bad and the minority home ownership rates are shrinking fast.

1999: New Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, became alarmed at Fannie and Freddie's excesses. Congress held hearings the ensuing year but nothing was done because Fannie and Freddie had donated millions to key congressmen and radical groups, ensuring no meaningful changes would take place. "We manage our political risk with the same intensity that we manage our credit and interest rate risks," Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a former Clinton official and current Barack Obama advisor, bragged to investors in 1999.

2000: Secretary Summers sent Undersecretary Gary Gensler to Congress seeking an end to the "special status". Democrats raised a ruckus as did Fannie and Freddie, headed by politically connected CEO's who knew how to reward and punish. "We think that the statements evidence a contempt for the nation's housing and mortgage markets" Freddie spokesperson Sharon McHale said. It was the last chance during the Clinton era for reform.

2001: Republicans try repeatedly to bring fiscal sanity to Fannie and Freddie but Democrats blocked any attempt at reform; especially Rep. Barney Frank and Sen.Chris Dodd who now run key banking committees and were huge beneficiaries of campaign contributions from the mortgage giants.

2003: Bush proposes what the NY Times called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago". Even after discovering a scheme by Fannie and Freddie to overstate earnings by $10.6 billion to boost their bonuses, the Democrats killed reform.

2005: Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan warns Congress: "We are placing the total financial system at substantial risk". Sen. McCain, with two others, sponsored a Fannie/Freddie reform bill and said, "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". Sen. Harry Reid accused the GOP ;of trying to "cripple the ability of Fannie and Freddie to carry out their mission of expanding home ownership" The bill went nowhere.

2007: By now Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee over HALF of the $12 trillion US mortgage market. The mortgage giants, whose executive suites were top-heavy with former Democratic officials, had been working with Wall St. to repackage the bad loans and sell them to investors. As the housing market fell in '07, subprime mortgage portfolios suffered major losses. The crisis was on , though it was 15 years in the making.

2008: McCain has repeatedly called for reforming the behemoths, Bush urged reform 17 times . Still the media have repeated Democrats' talking points about this being a "Republican" disaster. A few Republicans are complicit but Fannie and Freddie were created by Democrats, regulated by Democrats, largely run by Democrats and protected by Democrats. That's why taxpayers are now being asked for $700 billion!!

If you doubt any of this, just click the links below and listen to your lawmakers' own words. They are condemning!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68D9XrqyrWo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgqfM5C8lY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9juJr8CSY4&feature=related

Postscript: ACORN is one of the principle beneficiaries of Fannie/ Freddie's slush funds. They are currently under indictment or investigation in many states. Barack Obama served as their legal counsel, defending their activities for several years.

The financial crisis we are currently witnessing was manufactured and supported by Democrats. Fabricated by Democrats to do what? Think about it and remember my words.

Old news you say? Perhaps, but it bears repeating until this "ship of fools" we are on gets it.

A post by Lynn Stuter worth a read;

THAT DÉJÀ VU FEELING

December 2, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

An estimated 67,000,000 Americans, we are told, voted for Barack Hussein Obama on November 4, 2008. A landslide we are told; a mandate for change we are told.

The total population of the United States, according to the 2008 U.S. Census bureau estimates, is approximately 306,000,000. When we compare the number of votes for Obama to the total population, the percent who voted for Obama is 21.9%; hardly a mandate for change; certainly not a mandate for change of the type Comrade Obama has in mind.

[Note: When I wrote this article, I made an error which has been brought to my attention. While the total population is 306,000,000, this figure includes everyone, of all ages. This, of course, overstates the voting population. Using this document put out by the US Census Bureau, averaging the % increase in voting population over the past five election years, 1998 through 2006, the estimated population eligible to vote in 2008 would be approximately 226,300,000 people. This would change the percent who voted for Obama from 21.9% to 29.6%; still hardly a mandate for change.]

In total, an estimated 130,000,000 Americans voted; 42.5% of the total population; more an indication of the apathy that leads to the loss of freedom and destruction of any nation.

Barack Hussein Obama is now, at every opportunity, appearing before the cameras from behind a podium on which appears a sign, “The Office of President-Elect.”

Never heard of the Office of President-Elect before; must be something new. The truth is that this is just another ploy to make Americans believe the election is over. It is far from over.

Barack Hussein Obama does not become President-Elect Obama until the Electoral College meets and votes on December 15, 2008.

More and more Americans are becoming concerned by the fact that Barack Hussein Obama may not be eligible to the office of president. More and more articles are appearing on internet sites concerning this issue. While the mainstream media continually and erroneously refers to the fraudulent document released by the Obama camp as a “birth certificate” and tries to play down the growing concerns with fluff pieces like the one done by Pete Williams of NBC, the fact still remains that Obama has yet to prove his eligibility. Causing further concern is a Hawaiian law that allows for the issuing of birth certificates to individuals who are foreign nationals:

[§338-17.8] Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.

On October 31, 2008, Dr Chiyome Fukino, Department of Health, Hawaii, issued a press release in which she stated, in part:

Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

On October 31, 2008, the Associated Press reported the following:

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

Notice that neither the actual press release nor the Associated Press article state that Obama was born in Hawaii or that he is an American by birth; both items were left to the reader to assume: if there is a birth certificate on file with the State of Hawaii then Obama must be a natural born citizen. That, however, is not an assumption that should be made, considering §338-17.8 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.

After my last article, I received a couple of responses that bear mention. One response stated the FBI has a file on Barack Obama that proves he is not an American citizen; the other stated that an individual employed by the Hawaii Department of Health came forward, after the “non-answer” press release of Dr Chiyome Fukino, and stated that there were two pieces of paper in the file holding Obama’s birth certificate; that the second piece of paper states Obama was born in Kenya. It is doubtful the FBI would be willing to turn over their file on Obama; and thus far the State of Hawaii has steadfastly refused to give audience to Obama’s vault copy Hawaii birth certificate. Thus neither claim can be substantiated.

Continue reading here

48 Liberal Lies Being Taught To Kids In American History Class

While MSM Continues To Suppress Story, Pravda Runs Editorial Laughing At U.S. For Not Verifying If Obama Is A Citizen

Cross posted from Pat Dollard's.

“Obama sold the dream of hope and change so desperately wanted by the Americans. He pushed the greed button by promising to take from the rich to give to the poor. Every con man walking free or in jail is an articulate speaker. Who would give their trust to a man who could not use the right words to convince his targets to trust him? Articulate speaking is no way to judge or rate the integrity of a person.”

World Net Daily:

Questions about Obama’s citizenship status are spreading like wildfire on the Internet, and some media outlets are beginning to run stories on the issue.

Even the Russian online newspaper Pravda featured a column about “the man with no visible past.”

“Barry Sotero, AKA Barack Obama, along with the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission have successfully ignored a Federal Lawsuit asking him to produce a valid Birth Certificate,” the piece by Mark McGrew states. “When the time to respond to that lawsuit expired, under Federal Court Rules, they all admitted that he was not a citizen of The United States of America and deemed to have committed fraud. A normal man would have been found to have admitted he was not a U.S. citizen.”

While McGrew acknowledges Obama is praised for his way with words, he warns, “Every con man walking free or in jail is an articulate speaker. Who would give their trust to a man who could not use the right words to convince his targets to trust him? Articulate speaking is no way to judge or rate the integrity of a person.”

The writer said every con man sells a “dream,” pushes a “greed button,” stresses “urgency” – and it claims Americans fell for a con man.

“Obama sold the dream of hope and change so desperately wanted by the Americans. He pushed the greed button by promising to take from the rich to give to the poor. And he stressed urgency by himself and his wife telling voters to vote early.”

McGrew explains that Obama’s “certificate of birth” is not a birth certificate, but a certification of live birth that any foreigner can acquire by applying for one in the state’s vital records department, regardless of where the baby was born.

Join more than 158,000 others in signing WND’s online petition calling for release of Barack Obama’s birth certificate and verifying beyond any shadow of a doubt his constitutional eligibility for office.

The column said Obama can easily put the issue to rest by producing the document, rather than spending thousands of dollars on attorneys to defy federal and state lawsuits.

“Barack Obama may just win his place in history as the greatest con man of all time,” the author said. “A hundred million people believed him and spent 600 million dollars to get him ‘elected’ to the highest office in America, without ever knowing if he is or is not eligible to even run as an American citizen. It is either amazing that he will pull it off or it is amazing that so many millions of people believed him.”

So far, major television networks and most mainstream newspapers are continuing to be silent on the matter. Some media outlets have begun reporting on the issue.

The Chicago Tribune published a news article about Robert L. Schultz, chairman of the We The People Foundation, after he ran a full-page ad in the newspaper demanding Obama produce documents proving he is eligible for office. However, the writer attempted to debunk Schultz’s claims paragraph by paragraph.

A Chicago Sun-Times columnist accused the We The People Foundation of having “money to throw away” for posting an “inflammatory ad” in the Chicago Tribune.

NBC Chicago’s website led its story with the following statement: “Critics continue to invest in ads to convince Americans that he is not one of theirs.”

Also, the Kansas City Star featured a news article claiming “legions of anti-Obama bloggers” have filed lawsuits claiming Obama is constitutionally ineligible to be president.

The Star’s story said “skeptics” believe there are several “co-conspirators” in the “tangled web of conspiracy and silence,” including election officials who put candidates’ name on ballots, judges who throw out lawsuits, mainstream media, Obama’s family and Hawaiian authorities.

Even AOL News’ blog featured a “Q&A with Obama birth certificate doubters,” while another entry accused the We The People Foundation of being part of “the cult of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.”

However, amid skeptical reports, the New American reported, “This story has gained credence, separating it from Internet rumors, because Obama has reputedly hired three law firms (firms, not lawyers) to make sure that no one gets access to his birth records in Hawaii or his college transcripts from Occidental College and Harvard.”

ACORN's chief organizer lies about ACORN

Cross posted from The Next Right.

By Soren Dayton, October 25, 2008

OpenLeft, a must read of lefty blogs and infrastructure, somewhat uncharacteristically invites Bertha Lewis, who runs a clearly opaque and un-Open organization, ACORN to defend her organization.

Lewis's statement is simply full of lies, many of which are refutable with recent statements by ACORN officials and recent media reports from right-wing hit-job press like the New York Times.

She starts the substance of her piece with:

Let’s be clear about one very important thing. The reason ACORN is the focal point of the combined national efforts of the Republicans is because we recently completed the largest non-partisan voter registration drive in U.S. history. We helped 1.3 million low-income people, people of color, and young people complete voter registration applications.

No. They filed 1.3 million forms. The New York Times gets the breakdown right, according to an ACORN official:

On Oct. 6, the community organizing group Acorn and an affiliated charity called Project Vote announced with jubilation that they had registered 1.3 million new voters. But it turns out the claim was a wild exaggeration, and the real number of newly registered voters nationwide is closer to 450,000, Project Vote’s executive director, Michael Slater, said in an interview.

Don't let the "Project Vote" name fool you. They are essentially the same organization. A NYT story from two days before noted that Mr. Slater's predecessor would have reported directly to ... ACORN's Chief Organizer: 

She wrote that the same people appeared to be deciding which regions to focus on for increased voter engagement for Acorn and Project Vote. Zach Pollett, for instance, was Project Vote’s executive director and Acorn’s political director, until July, when he relinquished the former title. Mr. Pollett continues to work as a consultant for Project Vote through another Acorn affiliate.

 Back to Bertha... She argues that they have good integrity checks: 

The attacks on ACORN are spurious to say the least. Here a few key facts that our accusers aren’t telling you.

 ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.

ACORN flags in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.

Again... Not so much. That's not what ACORN told the Cuyahoga County, Ohio Board of Elections. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Local representatives of the organization told Cuyahoga board members that they don't have the resources to identify fraudulent cards turned in by paid canvassers who are told to register low- and moderate-income voters. [...]
"This is not something you can catch with your internal controls, apparently," said board member Sandy McNair at the meeting.
"Not perfectly, no," replied Mari Engelhardt, ACORN political director for Ohio.

That's ACORN. They lie about their numbers. They lie about their processes. According to their own attorney's they even lie publicly about embezzlement that they knew occurred:

The June 18 report, written by Elizabeth Kingsley, a Washington lawyer, spells out her concerns about potentially improper use of charitable dollars for political purposes; money transfers among the affiliates; and potential conflicts created by employees working for multiple affiliates, among other things.

It also offers a different account of the embezzlement of almost $1 million by the brother of Acorn’s founder, Wade Rathke, than the one the organization gave in July, when word of the theft became public.

This is a criminal organization. Bertha Lewis is the chief of the organization. And OpenLeft is providing a forum for defenses that are simply saturated with lies about the most basic facts that are already disproven by statements by their own organization.

Obama and Acorn: Community organizers, phony voters, and your tax dollars.

From the Wall Street Journal.
October 14, 2008

At the recent Emmy Awards, historian Laura Linney averred that America's Founders had been "community organizers" -- like Barack Obama. Too bad they aren't like that any more. Mr. Obama's kind of organizers work at Acorn, the militant advocacy group that is turning up in reports about voter fraud across the country.

Acorn -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- has been around since 1970 and boasts 350,000 members. We've written about them for years, but Acorn is now getting more attention as John McCain's campaign makes an issue of the fraud reports and Acorn's ties to Mr. Obama. It's about time someone exposed this shady outfit that uses government dollars to lobby for larger government.

Acorn uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards.

But the organization's real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn's American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an "affordable housing" provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.

All this money gives Acorn the ability to pursue its other great hobby: electing liberals. Acorn is spending $16 million this year to register new Democrats and is already boasting it has put 1.3 million new voters on the rolls. The big question is how many of these registrations are real.

The Michigan Secretary of State told the press in September that Acorn had submitted "a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications." Earlier this month, Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller requested a raid on Acorn's offices, following complaints of false names and fictional addresses (including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys). Nevada's Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said he saw rampant fraud in 2,000 to 3,000 applications Acorn submitted weekly.

Officials in Ohio are investigating voter fraud connected with Acorn, and Florida's Seminole County is withholding Acorn registrations that appear fraudulent. New Mexico, North Carolina and Missouri are looking into hundreds of dubious Acorn registrations. Wisconsin is investigating Acorn employees for, according to an election official, "making people up or registering people that were still in prison."

Then there's Lake County, Indiana, which has already found more than 2,100 bogus applications among the 5,000 Acorn dumped right before the deadline. "All the signatures looked exactly the same," said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county election board. Bridgeport, Connecticut estimates about 20% of Acorn's registrations were faulty. As of July, the city of Houston had rejected or put on hold about 40% of the 27,000 registration cards submitted by Acorn.

That's just this year. In 2004, four Acorn employees were indicted in Ohio for submitting false voter registrations. In 2005, two Colorado Acorn workers were found to have submitted false registrations. Four Acorn Missouri employees were indicted in 2006; five were found guilty in Washington state in 2007 for filling out registration forms with names from a phone book.

Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who got his start as a Chicago "community organizer" at Acorn's side. In 1992 he led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn. This past November, he lauded Acorn's leaders for being "smack dab in the middle" of that effort. Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls.

During his tenure on the board of Chicago's Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn. More recently, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to an Acorn affiliate. The campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for "staging, sound, lighting." It later admitted the cash was to get out the vote.
 
The Obama campaign is now distancing itself from Acorn, claiming Mr. Obama never organized with it and has nothing to do with illegal voter registration. Yet it's disingenuous to channel cash into an operation with a history of fraud and then claim you're shocked to discover reports of fraud. As with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, Mr. Obama was happy to associate with Acorn when it suited his purposes. But now that he's on the brink of the Presidency, he wants to disavow his ties.

The Justice Department needs to treat these fraud reports as something larger than a few local violators. The question is whether Acorn is systematically subverting U.S. election law -- on the taxpayer's dime.

'Fair' Warning to Palin

Received in email;

By Robert Knight, Director, Culture and Media Institute.
September 30, 2008 | Volume 2, Issue 39

Well, don't say she hasn't been warned.

Sarah Palin cannot make even one mistake in Thursday's debate or she

will be cooked.

George Stephanopoulos said so Monday on ABC's Good Morning America:

Picking up on what Kevin Madden said in David Wright's piece: Number one for Sarah Palin, she cannot make a mistake. A major mistake particularly on foreign policy would be absolutely fatal to her

candidacy.

Good Morning America, like NBC's Today Show and CBS' The Early Show, played clips of Tina Fey doing her mocking impersonation of Palin on Saturday Night Live. 

When did comic impersonations become news?

And what about Palin's opponent, Joe Biden? 

What if he makes a gaffe, as he is wont to do? Last week, Biden said in a speech that, "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television" to calm the nation. The stock market crashed in 1929, before TV and before Roosevelt was president.

No problem. The liberal media have Joe's back and won't make a big deal of it. Palin made no notable errors last week, yet she was still the one to be savaged. It's a pity Saturday Night Live can't remove their ideological blinders. What a great skit Biden might have inspired! Imagine Bill Murray coming back to portray Biden: "It's just like when George Washington climbed up on a tank to rally the troops at Gettysburg…"

Back to reality. During Thursday's debate, the press will be listening so hard for a Palin version of "macaca" that they probably won't even hear what Joe has to say.

"Macaca" was the word that helped sink the re-election campaign of Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen in 2006. He had used the word, which means "monkey" in some African nations, jokingly to describe a Democratic operative tracking his campaign events. Allen said his mother used to call him that when he messed up, the equivalent of "rascal."

No matter. The media decided that because the Democratic staffer was of Indian ancestry, macaca was an openly racist term, just the thing a sitting U.S. Senator would say in a racially diverse state like Virginia. The Washington Post in particular beat up Allen with macaca for the next month, using the term dozens of times. Allen never recovered and Jim Webb narrowly won his Senate seat.

Here's the rule of thumb: When a liberal misspeaks, it's a slip of the tongue. We all make mistakes. If you are a conservative, however, you commit an unforgivable sin that must be revisited a thousand times until you are out of Purgatory – or office, whichever comes first.

On Friday, Barack Obama made two mistakes that the media would have used to crucify McCain had he made similar errors.

First, Obama misstated that Henry Kissinger would support meeting enemies like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Even when McCain corrected him, Obama repeated the point. Immediately after the

debate, Kissinger issued a statement that rebutted Obama in no uncertain terms. Gotcha! The media's reaction? Snore. Bury that sucker in reams of copy.

Another suitable moment for carving into a media bat came after John McCain showed his metal bracelet worn in memory of Cpl. Matthew Stanley, who was killed in Iraq. Obama noted that he, too, wore a bracelet for a fallen soldier. Then he forgot the name of Sgt. Ryan David Jopek and had to look down and read it.

It's not awful, and could happen to anybody, but can anyone honestly imagine that the media would have ignored this had McCain been the forgetful one? Another wrinkle: Jopek's mother, an Obama supporter who

had given him the bracelet, had e-mailed the Obama campaign and asked Obama not to use her son's name in either speeches or debates. As Newsbusters' Warner Todd Huston reported, the AP said Sunday that she

had, indeed, asked him not to do this, but had been okay with how Obama presented it during the televised debate. Again, imagine what the media would have done had McCain been asked by a parent not to

invoke a deceased son's name and then done so?

CMI just released a new special report, 'Character' the Most Important Issue in the Presidential Primary Debates. One striking finding was that the media asked the Democrats nearly twice as many "softball"

questions as they asked Republicans. Republicans got 25 percent softballs, Democrats 48 percent.

Being a liberal in a political campaign is a bit like being a cornerback in a fixed football game. He can take cheap shots at receivers all day, knowing the referees will never call him on it. Or the favored quarterback can throw all the bombs he wants, knowing that if one is picked off, the refs will find a way to nullify the play.

Sarah Palin had better be on her game Thursday, because the scribes are sharpening their poison pens and polishing their gun sights, otherwise known as cameras. They'll be ready to draw more blood than a bite from an Alaskan mosquito.

As for Joe, he can take comfort in the knowledge that his next gaffe won't have a long shelf life, and that he can sit back, Biden his time.

Obama, ACORN, and the Current Crisis

H/T to America Needs Sarah Palin.

Posted by Mary Katharine Ham on September 29, 2008 at the Weekly Standard.

The extent to which Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama himself are avoiding blame for this crisis despite symbiotic relationships with those who caused it is truly amazing.

The nerve with which they hold forth about "unbridled capitalism" and "deregulation" while conveniently forgetting their culpability in government interference in the market, which first pressured banks (via Community Reinvestment Act) and then incentivized banks (via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to make risky loans to people with troubled credit history.

Obama has been heavily involved with a certain group of community organizers that encouraged such behavior since the very beginning of his career— ACORN. I'm going to pull out a little bit of Stanley Kurtz's piece on this connection, but read the whole thing. The details are devastating, even if you know the basic outline already:

[Prominent Chicago ACORN activist Madeline Talbott] continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks "kicking and screaming" into high-risk loans. A September 1993 story in The Chicago Sun-Times presents her as the leader of an initiative in which five area financial institutions (including two of her former targets, now plainly cowed - Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings) were "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories."

What made this program different from others, the paper added, was the participation of Fannie Mae - which had agreed to buy up the loans. "If this pilot program works," crowed Talbott, "it will send a message to the lending community that it's OK to make these kind of loans."

Well, the pilot program "worked," and Fannie Mae's message that risky loans to minorities were "OK" was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history.

IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

As for Frank and Co., watch them deny, deny, deny the crisis in 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten up Fannie/Freddie oversight, so they could keep the gravy train moving. Republicans are not blameless in this by any means, as they still had a majority when reforms were suggested, but the brazenness with which Democrats are blaming today's crisis on the market they manipulated for their own gain should not be overlooked. Spread this video.