Obama’s Political Past

Todd Spivak was a budding journalist living in the Chicago area at the same time that Barrack Obama was a budding politician in the same area. Spivak began to report on Obama’s career and, in those days, had his phone number on speed dial. Spivak is a liberal and supports Obama. Much of what is below comes from his Feb. 28, 2008 cover story of the Houston Press, a very liberal publication. What Spivak wrote was not a puff piece.

Although the average Obama supporter could not name a single thing which Obama has ever accomplished (apart from being a Black man running for president); his name is actually on an usually large number of significant pieces of legislation during his short stint in the state legislature in Illinois, and, amazingly enough, all from one year. Ask him, and he will rattle off that he expanded children's health insurance; made the state Earned Income Tax Credit refundable for low-income families; required public bodies to tape closed-door meetings to make government more transparent; and required police to videotape interrogations of homicide suspects. 26 bills in all. Now, this should strike you odd that a freshman Senator could have his name on so many pieces of legislation, all during his 7^th and final year in the legislature, but there is an explanation for it. Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr. decided that Barack would be a US Senator, and therefore, saw to it that Barack got his name on these 26 bills, even though many of these bills were actually originated by other state senators, and really deserved the credit, but Barack takes it. The bills which Barack himself put forth were tied to the news of the day, e.g., a football player died from ingesting the diet drug ephedra, and Obama sponsored a bill to ban the use of ephedra. This way, the news of the day was often tied directly to Obama. Tragedy strikes, and Obama introduces legislation which passes to deal with the tragedy. Topical issues garner attention and quick legislation gains all kinds of attention (remember hate crimes legislation?).

Does Obama remember his friends on the way up? Of course. Obama has released a list of his earmarks for the fiscal year 2008, and there were $300 million dollars for Illinois projects, and tens of millions of dollars going to Jones’ district.

Obama touts his political career beginning as a community organizer. Once he achieved high office, what did he do for his community? The city of Chicago seized Gerri’s Palm Tavern under eminent domain, and, there was community outrage, including demonstrations. Gerri’s Palm Tavern was a 70 year old institution which had regularly hosted such names as Duke Wellington, Billie Holiday, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King. Obama, the great community activist, did nothing. The city did the same thing to the Checkerboard Lounge, which had one owner for 30 years. Obama: no comment. These are real local issues where Obama lived as a state congressman. He apparently saw no reason to get involved.

Well, at least he is a man of political honor, right? Not necessarily. He ran unopposed for his state senate seat in 1996. There were 4 potential candidates, but Obama hired Harvard Law alumni and election law expert Thomas Johnson, who managed to examine the candidate petition sheets and got all of the candidates eliminated from the ballot.

Interestingly enough, in his US Senate bid, his 2 most formidable opponents, one in the primary election (Blair Hull) and the other in the general election (Jack Ryan), both had been divorced. During the election process, each of them had their previously-sealed divorce records made public, which records made both men look pretty bad. Obama won the primary and then the general election. No idea how this came about, but this was quite fortuitous for Mr. Obama.

Now, do politicians ignore their own communities for political expediency? All the time. Do they get propelled by other politicians and then repay the favor? All the time. Do they use legal tactics which are questionable from an ethical standpoint? All the time. Obama is just another politician; he sounds good and he looks good; and behind the scenes, he is no different than any other politician. He’s not the Messiah; he is not a man of the people; and he is not even a squeaky clean politician with unquestionable ethics. But, what he does, is legal and legitimate, and it also seems to advance his political career in the process.

Source:

http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/

Look for Rush and others to discuss this story next week.

Conservative Review Scoops the Boston Globe!

Much of this material comes from:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/26/what_to_do_when_compact_fluorescents_crack/

Back in Conservative Review #2 (Dec. 2, 2007), I told you about the risks and dangers of compact flourescent bulbs. Perhaps you thought I was over-exaggerating the risk. This is a Boston Globe story dealing with these risks, printed February 26, 2008. Some of the precautions recommended are:

●            Keep people and pets away. Open windows, and leave the area for 15 minutes before beginning the cleanup.

●            Do not use a vacuum cleaner, even on a carpet. This will spread the mercury vapor and dust and potentially contaminate the vacuum.

●            Wear rubber gloves.

●            Carefully remove the larger pieces and place them in a secure closed container, preferably a glass jar with a metal screw top lid and seal like a canning jar.

●            Next, scoop up the smaller pieces and dust using two stiff pieces of paper such as index cards or playing cards.

●            Pick up fine particles with duct tape, packing tape, or masking tape, and then use a wet wipe or damp paper towel.

●            Continue ventilating the room for several hours.

●            Wash your hands and face.

●            As a precaution, consider discarding throw rugs or the area of carpet where the breakage occurred, particularly if the rug is in an area frequented by infants, small children or pregnant women. Otherwise, open windows during the next several times you vacuum the carpet to provide good ventilation.

Bear in mind, we will be required by law to use these compact fluorescent bulbs exclusively. The federal regulations have already been passed. Do you understand why Democracts with power can be extremely dangerous? Do you see why we do not need gobs of legislation designed to protect us and supposedly to protect the environment?

However, there is nothing to worry about. The Boston Globe assures us that these risks will probably be outweighed by the benefits.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2008/02/26/mercury_leaks_found_as_new_bulbs_break/

Let me quote from this reassuring article:

For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken - and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted - levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times. [Emphasis mine]

Now, if you can only buy these compact fluorescent bulbs by Congressional mandate, can you imagine how much mercury we are going to introduce in our homes and landfills?

Clinton and Obama are Destroying our Economy

Our economy has expanded over the past 25 quarters and unemployment during the presidency of George Bush has been at record and near-record lows. If we enjoy virtual full-employment, the idea of jobs being shipped overseas is a non-issue. If we have millions of people surreptitiously moving into the United States in order to fulfill our workforce, losing jobs to outside markets is a meaningless issue.

However, part of what powers our economy is consumer confidence. If the news and Clinton and Obama pummel the national consciousness that our economy is bad and that it has been bad for years, that is going to seep so far into our consciousness that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What’s more is, the news media and Clinton and Obama, who all purport to care, don’t. They want power and they want your vote. Since the war in Iraq is going so well, you have the beat the drums on the economy. What they are doing is just politics as usual, except that, it is and it will have a detrimental affect on our economy.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/02/27/la-times-owner-blames-us-economic-problems-clinton-obama

Medicare—Were you Aware of This?

In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee June 21, 2007, the Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag said spending on Medicare and Medicaid will represent one-fifth of the gross domestic product in 2050 if it continues to grow at the same rate it has during the last four decades. That's "roughly the share of the economy now accounted for by the entire federal budget."

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=8255&type=0&sequence=0 and

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/121019.html

So will it continue to grow at the same rate? Not a chance. We babyboomers are beginning to retire, and will do so in greater and greater numbers of the next few decades. Medicare and Medicaid growth is going to skyrocket.

By the way, here are some of the budget breakdowns from the year 2006:

    * Social Security - $544 billion

    * Medicare - $325 billion

    * Medicaid - $186 billion

    * All other mandatory programs - $357 billion. These programs include Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Child Nutrition, Child Tax Credits, Supplemental Security for the blind and disabled, Student Loans, and Retirement / Disability programs for Civil Servants, the Coast Guard and the Military

http://useconomy.about.com/od/fy2008budget/p/2008_Mandatory.htm

Now, if we cannot afford Medicare and Medicaid in the near future, just how do you think we can pay for universal health care? Or, if the government decides to offer some sort of an alternate/additional system, run by bureaucrats, do you recognize just how impossible it will be to pay for this? Does this make sense to vote for someone who claims they can deliver something that will either break the bank or simply cannot be done?

By the way, repealing Bush's tax cuts for the rich will not even cover the removal of the Alternate Minimum Tax. Stopping the war in Iraq does not mean additional income for social programs. This is borrowed money all the way.

Bio-fuels

From what I have heard, right now bio-fuels account for about 2% of either our energy consumption or gas consumption. My understanding is, that if we maximize this, this can be bumped up to 3–5%.

When you turn food into fuel, do you have any idea how this is going to affect food prices? This short-sighted, ecological feel-good program is going to result in millions of people starving due to the skyrocketing price of food. Are liberals so cold and unfeeling that this does not matter to them?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/405e4028-e31e-11dc-803f-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cfe4dab4-e3d6-11dc-8799-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=a955630e-3603-11dc-ad42-0000779fd2ac.html

And don’t miss this one, about how ethanol may add to global warming:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gG6RDP96uZ_A1auof7LysRqbgDxAD8ULPD0G0

Speaking of Global Warming

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

Another Great Article on Global Warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm

Man-made global warming is one of the great hoaxes of this generation, and I suspect that its adherents will slowly but surely fall away, without a word or admission that they were hoodwinked.

William F. Buckley

I was raised a liberal, and knew very little about the honor and common sense of conservativism. However, I saw some of William F. Buckley’s debates and heard him speak now and again on television, and I must admit that he seemed like an intelligent, reasonable man to me, even as a liberal.

All that he has said can be found here:

http://cumulus.hillsdale.edu:8080/buckley/Standard/index.html

I Love Mary Katherine Ham

Latest vid; you have to watch a 30 second commercial first:

http://www.townhall.com/video/HamNation/1450_022208mud

Bo Snerdley Criticizes Obama

Bo Snerdley answers the phone for Rush Limbaugh and determines who gets on the show. Since Bo is a proud Black man, and since people seem hesitant to criticize Obama because he is Black, Bo has taken it upon himself to give Obama a little grief now and again. One of the recent news flaps was, Obama was dressed in some native garb and the Clinton machine has been circulating the photograph. Barack has responded as though this is some great slam against him; so Bo Snerdley lays it on the line with Obama:

SNERDLEY: This is Bo Snerdley, Official EIB Barack Criticizer, African-American, certified black guy, black enough to criticize. I have a statement: "Senator Obama, your reaction to the release of the picture showing you in native garb with your extended family in Africa was...regretful. While the motives of the Clinton camp in disseminating the image are clear, your response was baffling. Instead of acting wounded, whining, and like you're ashamed of the photo in the first place; it would have been wiser for you to take pride in the photo. Explain that world leaders, such as yourself, often wear the traditional garb when you visit foreign lands -- especially if you're visiting your family! You could have also dug up the pictures of both Bill and Hillary Clinton attired in similar African garb while they were pretending to be the black president and first lady. Bad form, Mr. Obama. You need to develop a much thicker skin, and not fall for Clinton tricks."

Now, the translation for EIB brothers and sisters in the hood. "Yo, oh! What's up with you acting dissed when they only rolled out a shot of you with your African garb. Yo! You were in the mother land with the peeps. That was lame, yo! These are your peeps. You were stylin'. Instead of acting dissed, you shoulda rolled out large and told Clinton and everybody else what was up. This is what the big dogs do, yo, not like Bill faking it, putting on some kente cloth when he goes to Africa, then forgetting all about the home boys when he comes back home. Like that. You shoulda also told Hillary: 'Yo, baby, maybe if you dress up in some costumes and get out of that bumblebee outfit, you might keep your man at home for a change.' Okay? You feel me? Don't fall for Clinton 'trickinology,' bro."

Here is Obama’s reaction to the photo:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/obama-pushback.html

Bo Snerdley is Criticized

MSNBC would not let Snerdley’s astute analysis stand without casting aspersions upon such attacks:

Rush: Mr. Snerdley, you were roundly criticized on MSNBC's Hardball last night. Richard Wolffe of Newsweek magazine was on with Chris Matthews, and they were talking about you, our Official Obama Criticizer. Now, for those who didn't hear this yesterday, Mr. Snerdley was very critical of Obama's whining and moaning reaction to the picture that the Clinton camp put out there with him dressed up like Ayman al-Zawahiri. So Mr. Snerdley did his standard criticism, and then, as Mr. Snerdley's penchant is, he did a translation for our EIB brothers and sisters in the hood. Now, apparently, that's all that Mr. Wolffe at Newsweek heard. I actually suspect he heard the whole thing, but he wants to focus only on your translation for our EIB brothers and sisters in the hood. So Matthews says to Richard Wolffe, "Look, it's the silly season with that guy, Bill Cunningham in Cincinnati." They were talking about Cunningham and his warm-up act for McCain.

WOLFFE: I was listening to Rush Limbaugh this afternoon, and he had his Barack Obama critic, an African-American guy who spoke quote, ghetto, about Barack Obama. This is going to be an incredible election, and a lot of it's going to be pretty distasteful just like Cunningham was earlier.

RUSH: All right, so Mr. Snerdley, you and I have now just been proclaimed -- well, you, wasn't me, it was you -- you have just been proclaimed "distasteful." The Official Obama Criticizer of the EIB Network, Bo Snerdley, has now been called distasteful.

Dems Raise Record Funds During Bad Economy

RUSH: I just saw this story on Politico.com, and I'm really curious about this. "Hillary Clinton's campaign is set to announce later today that she's on track to raise roughly $35 million in the month of February, a huge month by any standard measure of political fundraising and her best of the campaign." Now, "Obama raised $36 million in January, and appears to be on track to surpass that figure this month." So $35 million for Hillary; over $36 million for Obama. We're looking here at $72 million! Where in the hell is this money coming from? We've got a story here that economic growth came to a screeching halt in the first quarter. Was it the first quarter, or adjusted fourth? What did I do with the damn story? It's 0.6%, whatever it is. The economy has come to a screeching halt. It's time to slit our wrists! We're headed to a recession. The point is, whether it's true or not, the American people think we're headed to a recession. We had poll data from Quinnipiac yesterday that documents this.

The American people are feeling very pessimistic about the overall economy, even though they're robustly optimistic about themselves. I know it's a disconnect. The attitude's the attitude. Now, where in the hell is this money coming from? We got gasoline heading to four bucks a gallon; it's already there in some places. We have people who can't pay their mortgages and are being foreclosed on. We got people now can't afford food because of biofuels and the cost of wheat and the cost of corn. How in the world are people giving $70 million in one month to two Democrats? Where is this money coming from and how come these Democrats out there raising all this money aren't saying, "Don't give the money to me! Keep it for yourself because we're in a recession and you're going to need it to buy gasoline and food, and you're going to need it to pay your mortgage." Why aren't they saying that? They're begging people for their money, in the midst of all this malaise, supposedly. But I still want to know where it's coming from, because they say it's being raised on the Internet.

This is awfully curious to me. You mean to tell me that in the midst of what people think is a failing economy, that they're still running out to give money to Hillary and Barack? Well, they may be. You might have the janitors or the dishwashers in Chinatown. They might be flourishing. That's my point. Where is this coming from?

Here’s the link:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Clinton_raises_35_million_in_February.html

Rush on Health Care

Rush: In less than 30 seconds, I can explain health care in a nutshell. No employer, no insurance company, no politician or government bureaucrat knows better than you about your family's health needs. You should have the right to purchase health care and health insurance as you see fit without governmental restrictions or penalties, and you should not be of the mind that your neighbors have to buy it for you. Less than 30 seconds I've just explained the concept of fixing health care. It is not complicated. It is very simple. We get liberalism out of it; we get socialism out of it; we disabuse people of the notion that liberals have impressed them with that it is a right. I'm starting to hear a lot of this, "We can't say that we're going to lose the election. We can't say that. We can't say his middle name. We can't call him a liberal. We can't be critical of health care as a right." Pretty soon our own people are going to succeed in shutting enough of us up that liberalism is going to win without having to say a damn thing.

Rush later continues: Health care is not a right, it is a privilege. It's a choice. However, the accumulation of wealth, the accumulation of wealth is a right. That is, you have a right to freely earn an income and dispose of it as you wish: purchase food, purchase shelter, if you want to purchase health care, whatever else. And that right comes from God as enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. You know how it goes. You know the drill, the pursuit of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. The right to accumulate wealth exists for all of us, but health care is an expenditure, therefore it is not a right. Besides that, folks, we have Medicaid for the poor. We have the S-CHIP program for poor children and, if the Democrats get their way, children up to 25 who come from wealthy families. We have Medicare for seasoned citizens.

What we also have in this country are some people who don't want to use their own assets to pay for their own health care. They want someone else to do it. And that brings in a very happy and compliant Democrat Party. It is a matter of individual priorities. Let me say it to you as Mr. Buckley might have said it. Moral obligations, should one choose to assume moral obligations, are actually higher on the list of things than rights. That's why we set up systems to take care of the indigent, because we are a moral people. It is why we have Medicare; it is why we have Medicaid; it is why we have S-CHIP. At least it's why we started them. It's why good people support them. We can get into an argument here of whether these programs are more of the same liberal drivel to create as many dependents as possible, but I think we are a compassionate country, and we are a country that understands our moral obligations to people who can't provide for themselves because of certain things, and those people nobody will argue with, being taken care of and helped. That is precisely why we set up systems to take care of the indigent. It is why we take care of our neighbors. It is why we have our churches engage in the various community actions that they do and, not to mention, there's all kinds of other community organizations that exist for the express purpose of bringing things to poor, indigent people that they don't have and can't have on their own.

This is a country of high moral obligation, and we meet those moral obligations at all times. That is why, because we have such a moral obligation, and because we are such a compassionate people, and because we are such a generous people, this is why we try to lower costs and increase competition so that more people can be taken care of well, so that people are not left to fall through the cracks. Now, this doesn't mean that any of this is a right. It is our moral obligation as a society that has us take care of people who otherwise could not afford this. But what has happened is that people who very well could afford it, just as they could afford a plasma TV or a car or what have you, can afford health care and choose not to, they choose in fact for others, their neighbors, fellow citizens, to pay for it, precisely because they have been led to believe that it is their right to have health care. And I would submit to you that the whole notion of having your neighbor pay for what your responsibilities are can be very addictive, once it starts. In a real sense, rights are universal and cannot be created once we have enough wealth to have some people want something else. Rights are the lowest claim and therefore command universal respect.

We have to bring back the meaning of words. Privileges and moral obligations are higher than basic human rights, not dragged around by them. That is something that Mr. Buckley would say to you. Privileges and more obligations are higher than basic human rights. They're not dragged around by them. Human rights do not dictate moral obligations; it's just the exact opposite. Moral obligations manifest themselves in the form of human rights, and so when our moral obligations and our morality is being torn down and the whole concept of doing things for the right reason becomes doing things for the wrong reason, and when people opt out of their own personal responsibility to acquire that which they want with their own assets and shove that on all the rest of us, then we're in trouble, and that's where we are in health care, precisely because we have allowed enough people to believe that health care is their right, not their responsibility.