If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list (which is almost at the maximum anyway).

You have said, “Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it’s never been more important to protect a woman’s right to choose....Throughout my career, I’ve been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARALPro-Choice America.” Do you stand behind this quote unequivocally?

You are being accused of supporting the position that, if a child is born as a result of a botched abortion, that the life of that child may be discarded. Without hemming and hawing, without giving some long, convoluted answer, if a child is born as the result of a botched abortion, do you support all medical means possible to preserve the life of that child; and would you support legislation which protects the life of such a child? How have you voted on this issue in the past?

With reference to Obama’s daughters, you said, “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” If your own daughter had an unplanned pregnancy, would you support her right to terminate the pregnancy? Would you support her right to terminate this pregnancy without consulting with your or your wife?

Charles Krauthammer: “Senator Obama had one full hour to talk about his faith, morality and his relationship to God, when being questioned by Rick Warren, and not once did he mention Jeremiah Wright, the pastor who led him to Christ, married him and Michelle Obama, baptized their two girls; nor does he mention the church where he spent over 20 years attending, a church that he gave over $40,000 to.” (This quote is close, but not exact).

One of the most heated discussions on FoxNews was about Obama’s stance on abortion. My understanding of the situation was, there was a proposed law in Illinois which would protect the life of a baby accidentally born in a botched abortion. Another doctor would be brought in to assess the situation and save the baby if possible. Obama argued against such a bill.

This was the center point of some of the most “spirited” debate that I have ever seen. On one side were Obama supporters, who could not imagine the Republicans stooping so low as to imply that Obama was in favor of killing babies. On the other side was a woman who had cradled an infant born this way, which infant had been thrown away with the waste at a Chicago hospital, alive and breathing. She held the baby for the final 45 minutes of his or her life. She spoke to the Illinois Senate, which included Obama at the time.

Obama personally said that, the people who claimed this were liars. Then an audio of his opposition to such a bill surfaced. Quietly, from what I understand (I did not read this myself), the Obama campaign acknowledged Obama’s vote against this bill (the bill came up twice, if memory serves, and once he voted present and once he voted against it; a present vote is the same as a no vote, essentially).

As soon as this audio surfaced, the big news story was, McCain does not know how many houses he has (actually, to be accurate, he does not know how many houses he and his wife own). The situation is, his wife is a rich business woman, and has made several investments, and this is not something which McCain apparently is closely involved in. However, this has been the big news story (besides who will Obama’s VEEP be—yawn!). Our news services have found it to be much more important that McCain does not know exactly the details of his wife’s finances; and not so important that Obama is probably lying and probably has cast the vote which would allow aborted babies to die, if born alive.

What Obama does, when caught in a difficult position, is change his story, again and again and again, until he strikes the right note, and then the mainstream news mercifully goes on to something else.

Erick Erickson chronicles Obama’s several responses, in order, to this issue, along with most of the material necessary to confirm that these are the facts of the matter.

Since the mainstream media wants Obama to win, this is an issue which they will not report on any more than they have to.

Democrats have done a truly brilliant job with demonizing of the most innocuous things: Big Oil, Wal-mart, SUV’s, lobbyists, and, most recently, not knowing your exact financial assets. We deal with Big Oil every single day of our lives, using dozens, if not hundreds, of petroleum based products, found in every room of our house. When we want to drive somewhere, we hop in our cars, drive to the nearest gas station, fill up, grumble about the price, and then go where we want to go. Big Oil, which is actually thousands, of companies, which provide employment for millions of Americans, does this for us.

A lobbyist simply represents a large concern, often some economic part of our life; there are lobbyists who represent ecological concerns, there are lobbyists who represent the aforementioned Big Oil, there are lobbyists who represent both sides of the gun issue; as well as thousands of other concerns. These are people employed or subsidized by the concerns that they represent. They are not inherently evil, nor is the system that they operate within, inherently evil. Can they be dishonest or underhanded? Of course. Any person in any capacity can be dishonest and underhanded, whether a librarian, a representative of a union, or a lobbyist. Lobbyists know the political system in Washington; they know how to get things done. This is not evil or wrong.

Quite obviously, lobbyists can work with the will of the general public and against the will of the general public. And, the public is fickle, so one day, a lobbyist is on their side, and the next day, the lobbyist is some entity of evil.

Let’s get down to brass tacks here: money is not evil and having a lot of money is not an evil thing. Demonizing someone or some organization for the amount of wealth they have accumulated is a false issue.

For this reason, portions of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act was ill-conceived. Let me give you one example: if Charley Brown has a lot of money, and he wants to finance entirely Lucy’s campaign to aspire to the office of presidency, there is nothing wrong with that. I would like to see full disclosure of such backing, but, other than that, there is nothing wrong with a rich man supporting another man for any level of candidacy. This is, in fact, how we got Ronald Reagan, the greatest of our modern presidents (if memory serves, he was backed by a particularly wealthy individual to run for the governorship of California). McCain-Feingold prevents this from happening again.

Let me give you an example of one of the most corrupt aspects of government which any so-called act of political reform should have covered, but has not. No company, whether private or public or governmental, should be allowed to sponsor any political cause if that company receives money from the government. My tax dollars should not go to FNMA, for instance, some of which, then, get funneled into a number of political campaigns. Two more examples: the A.C.L.U. and Planned Parenthood. These organizations receive all kinds of taxpayer dollars (they should not receive a single dime of taxpayer money), and they are very political organizations, both rating and financially supporting a number of candidates.

Obama, for instance, has received the support of Tony Rezko, Father Phleger and Jeremiah Wright; all of whom, seem to have benefitted in some way financially from the government. This should not be, and hundreds of news organizations have ignored this aspect of Obama’s career.

The key is not the amount of money. The key is, our tax dollars should never go to fund this or that cause, or this or that candidate, no matter which party he belongs to, no matter how good the cause seems.

It is clear that McCain is probably the worst person to deliver a written speech in the history of the presidency. He looks wooden, he looks old, and he smiles in a scary way.

What Bill Kristal or Dick Morris said is, McCain should dispense with the traditional speech, and he should walk out among the people and take unfiltered questions. Let me take this one step further. The Republicans need to gather 50 or 100 representative voters, those who are well-spoken and reasonably polite, who are Obama supporters, McCain supporters and those who are on the fence. McCain should then walk right out there among these people, take questions from them, unrehearsed, off-the-cuff questions, and answer right then and there, live, in real time, at the Republican Convention. So that there is not a big stink about it, these people should be willing to release some biographical information (they will be extensively interviewed by the press after this convention). Something like this would energize the Republican convention like never before.

These people should be pre-interviewed in groups, they should be given the option of revealing their position publically (liberal, conservative, moderate, independent, McCain supporter, on the fence, Obama supporter) before giving their question. Their questions should not be scripted and they should be able to change their minds and offer up whatever question comes to them. The pre-interviews would only insure that these are people who can express themselves.

Not only would this bring great excitement to the Republican Convention, and make it the most watched convention in history, but this is the format where McCain shines and acquits himself as a president of the American people.

It is quite obvious that some of our womenfolk are upset, and they have good reason to be. The so-called Democratic process appears to have favored the Democratic candidate who did not have the greatest number of popular votes (although, given the system of the primary in the Democratic party, this could be debated).

McCain needs to, and he probably will, choose a female vice president (I give this a 33⅓% shot, even with Romney and Pawlenty). However, he ought to choose Mary Matalin, wife of James Carville, famous Clinton aide and Democratic strategist. Matalin is intelligent, conservative, telegenic, and good on her feet. Although she has not run for an elected office, she has a great deal of experience in the real world and in the political world. She has hosted CNN’s acclaimed show, Crossfire. She was a founder of Equal Time on CNBC. She is an author and a book editor. She has served under both Bush and Cheney (which will be her greatest weakness, politically speaking). Her political roots also go back to Illinois, where she was involved in statewide and national campaigns.

If her experience is questioned, she will be able to trot out far more experience than Obama has.

This is the one person that no one has talked about that McCain ought to choose as his VP.

Last week, I mentioned that Bush put American soldiers in Georgia, but never explained why. When we deliver aid to another country, it is always via the U.S. Military. The reasons for this is, military men are taught to improvise. It is wrong (and insulting) to portray our soldiers as men who just unthinkingly wander out wherever obeying whatever orders have been delivered to them. They do follow a strict hierarchy of authority, and it is designed so that, under any circumstances, a man of any rank is ready to lead, if he finds himself to be the man of the highest ranking authority in his unit. However, more importantly, soldiers are given very strict guidelines and responsibilities, which must be adhered to in balance with the orders of their commanding officers. And, even more importantly, soldiers have learned to deal with whatever situation presents itself, whether they have been trained to face this situation before or not. This is the genius of the American military. So, when aid is delivered, our soldiers are the vehicles for this aid. There is a message which we send with these soldiers—the United States is a generous and empathic nation with people who care about the difficulties of others; and the uniform of our country represents the United States and our good will.

However, just as importantly, our soldiers have been dispatched to Georgia to not just bring good will and aid, but to effect a cease fire. If the Russians fire on our soldiers delivering aid to wounded, distressed and dispossessed Georgians, that opens up a whole can of worms which Russia may not be willing to do. The very physical presence of our soldiers in Georgia effects a cease-fire-or-else, particularly under Bush. Even though he is berated by the left for his cowboy diplomacy (how many hundreds of times have you heard this expression?), his reputation combined with our soldiers stands as a warning to the Russians: “We might be delivering aid, but we are the United States military.”

When dealing with some countries, all the diplomacy and bluster in the world is not going to make a bit of difference to them; but when they see the U.S. Military deliver aid and stand in the line of fire, it gives them pause, and often causes them to negociate. So, it may seem as though Bush and Rice and Sarkozy are effecting a diplomatic resolution to this potentially serious situation, but they are able to negociate because the boots of our soldiers stand on Georgian soil.

I mentioned Corsi’s book last issue (Obama Nation), and Corsi does have a few personal issues, admittedly. However, I heard the author, David Freddoso, of the new book, The Case Against Barack Obama, which started its first week as #5 on the NY Times Bestseller list. He seemed quite reasonable and his information appears to be more accurate and more measured than Corsi’s book.

About two months ago, I gave you a background of Obama, thinking that it would be talked about in the near future. I was wrong. No one discussed any of that information until Freddoso’s book. This book covers that information which I gave you, but in much greater detail. It tells how he won his first political race by getting his opponents thrown off the ticket. He went after signatures, and eliminated each and every signature on their petition to run that he could, including one woman who used her married name when signing an opponent’s petition, but was listed to vote by her maiden name. It was legal for Obama to challenge and remove her name. That is simply politics as usual, the same old politics which Obama periodically rails against.

However, worse than this, is how Obama has managed to, in his short career, to channel taxpayer money into campaign funds. This is done quite a bit in politics, and should be a part of his so-called reform approach—but, that is quite unlikely. Some of the most obvious examples are, Planned Parenthood, the A.C.L.U. and even FNMA, all receive federal funding (our money) and then turn around and give money to various political figures. To me, this is one of the most corrupt functions in politics, and no publically funded institution should be allowed to donate any money to political candidates. This has been a part of Obama’s short political career, and this sort of evil, he never rails on and on about.

Our media, early on, picked their president, and have been behind him ever since. Now, some think that this is McCain, but they would be wrong. Now, the media helped McCain, and they did so for three reasons: (1) he is an old man who would, by comparison, not look as good next to Obama; and (2) he was the most moderate of the Republican candidates. (3) His popularity did not seem all that firm with the public. So, a media who wants to get Obama chosen wants to find an easy person for Obama to beat. Hence, McCain.

The Saddleback Church debate can still be seen on the Internet, and I think FoxNews ran it one more time this past weekend. This was the best debate up until this point in time, and you will note that it got very little media hype after the fact. The media figured that Obama would trounce McCain, and, after Obama spoke first, were probably quite secure in this belief. Then McCain came on and gave short, succinct, easy-to-understand answers. We might debate where Obama stands on this or that, based upon what he said. When it comes to McCain, it is clear where he stands on a number of issues. He did not dodge, bob or weave; he did not give nuanced answers, designed not to offend anyone.

What came out of the Saddleback Debate in the news media? Few of the liberal stations would admit to the contrast between the two candidates. In fact, the talking point for the first 24 hours was, McCain must have somehow heard the questions in advance, and therefore, he had an unfair advantage. They said this because, McCain wiped the floor with Obama. Obama was good; McCain was not just better, he was clear, concise, and presidential. Some actually took Rick Warren’s off-the-cuff humorous allusion to the cone of silence seriously (by which, he simply meant, McCain would not be able to hear the questions or watch Obama’s performance). Some to this day actually think that there is some church-designed booth of silence where McCain should have been waiting.

In the two days which followed, what got emphasized? McCain saying, anyone who makes $5 million is rich (which was a joke) and later, McCain’s answer to, how many homes do you and your wife own? These are meaningless topics. The press commentators, who so often castigate politicians for not staying with the issues, were given two hours of issues to discuss, and they did not discuss these issues—they focused, instead, on two meaningless, gotcha topics.

Most of the media is in the bag for Obama, and if you exclusively watch NBC, ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN or read your local paper, or read the AP or routers news services online, then you are getting news services who want Obama to win. They will not investigate his background critically; they will spend little or no time accurately representing Obama’s and McCain’s opposing positions on the issues. They do not want you to make an informed choice. They want you to make their choice.

I don’t care if you are a Democrat, a Republican, or anywhere else on the political spectrum, from Libertarian to full-on socialist; you should expect and care about getting news and opinion which has a reasonable balance to it. The organizations which I have listed have already made up their minds and now they are busy making up your mind for you.

Quite obviously, I am a strong conservative. I am one of the few people who like George Bush (although I do not care for his out-of-control spending nor do I agree with government funds going to faith-based organizations).

FoxNews, quite obviously, does lean right, but not as far right as you would think. 39% of their audience are Republicans; but 33% of their audiences are Democrats, making this one of the most balanced news audiences out there. In sheer numbers, there are more liberals watching FoxNews than MSNBC or CNN. They watch it, in some cases, to know what the other side is thinking; but also to get a more rounded view of the news (Fox will carry stories and opinions that you will not find elsewhere).

On most of their opinion shows, there are liberals (not generally those who rant) and conservatives. Some of these can grate on your nerves (I certainly understand why Hannity can be seen in that way) and some are outstanding in the field of journalism (Britt Hume, Chris Wallace, and Shepherd Smith, to name 3). Some shows deal primarily with political opinions and some deal with straight up news (like Shepherd Smith’s the Fox Report).

There have been examinations made of Fox’s reporting, and, although they do certainly lean to the right, they are far less biased in their reporting than any other television station. If you want to continue being told what to think, then stay with Network news or your local newspaper. If you want some actual differences of opinion to digest and think about, then try FoxNews.

Sherry Jones’s book The Jewel of Medina will not go to press this month as originally planned. This is called an historical romance novel highlighting the relationship between Muhammad and one of his wives, Aisha. The concern is, a certain group of people might go berserk. Apparently, there have been threats of violence, and there is something wrong in America when books like this, which are economically viable, can be censored by blackmail.

National right to life 1 page pdf document on all 3 potential candidates (I am including Clinton here):

This is an excellent site, and it is worth noting that Obama is doing everything he can to cover up his previous votes dealing with abortion:

Tran Trong Duyet, a Morth Vietnamese man who held John McCain Captive, supports McCain’s bid for the presidency. The key is, free trade. McCain supports free trade, which is good for both nations involved; Obama does not. Vietnam is moving more and more towards free enterprise (I know some Vietnamese girls), and international trade has become quite important to them.

For the next president, simply reversing this administration's policies is not the answer.

This is the introduction to an article in the left-leaning Newsweek, which actually says a few things which I agree with. Bear in mind, this is still an anti-Bush article in an anti-Bush magazine; but, they still admit to a few things which are going right.

[This is how Democrats do it—they trot out victim after victim—people who have had some tough times—and the implication is, vote for us, and we will take care of these victims. Most people have periods of time in their lives when they struggle—sometimes, almost all of their lives; bigger government and additional programs are not going to solve this. Remember, Clinton’s idea that everyone ought to own a home, even if they were not credit worthy, is partially to blame for the housing crisis today; high fuel prices, which affect lower class people the most, are a result of Congress blocking or over-regulating nuclear energy, offshore and ANWR drilling, and new oil refineries. Just because the Democrats can find some victims, does not mean that they can or will do anything about it.]

RUSH: I want to expand a little bit on today's Morning Update. The subject of the Morning Update today was the Democrat convention. And this is the party of "change," right? This is the party of "hope." This is the party of the "new future," and they're going to bring out some real, "real" people on one of the nights of their convention to address the convention. Now, stop and think about it: real, real people. That means to the Democrat Party, the real people they talk about are phonies, so they're going to have real, real people. "An Indiana railroader, an Iowa mother and a Michigan truck driver are getting a moment at the Democratic convention to help portray Barack Obama as the people's champion and counter [Republican] characterizations of him as an out-of-touch celebrity.

"The idea is for these 'real people,' as the campaign calls them, to share personal stories about why they are supporting the Democratic presidential candidate and how they think he will help folks like them and the more than 20 million expected to be watching the convention at home," and every damn one of them is going to be miserable! Every damn one of them is going to be just this shy (I've got my fingers about an eighth of an inch apart), each one of them is going to be that far away from utter disaster, bankruptcy, destitution, depression, and...hospitalization. The idea that this is something new? By the way, who knew, ladies and gentlemen, that the elected ones were not real enough for primetime? How come the real, elected Democrats are not enough to carry this message?

How come we gotta go get real, real people? "The stated goal of this convention is to describe Obama's American story, his family roots, and his understanding of real people..." They can't do it without lying 'cause none of that is true. He's a silver spoon in his mouth kind of life. Family roots? Why don't they get the half-brother, George Hussein Onyango Obama from the little shack he's in over there in Nairobi and bring him over here. There's a real guy for you. The attempt to do this at the Democrat convention is to show a select number of real, real people to speak. Here's a list: Mike Fisher, Amtrak machinist from Beach Grove, Indiana. ...

"[H]e worries about job security, with Amtrak facing tough financial times; two of his children are struggling to pay college loans; his son has a new baby and no health insurance..." Sob story! This is just one of these guys. Now, we see this constantly, folks. They parade these kinds of people up before various House and Senate committee hearings. There's nothing new about this tactic! It's right out of the playbook of the Democrat Party written back in the New Deal era. "Pamella Cash-Roper and her husband, of Pittsboro, N.C., are unemployed due to health problems and can't afford gas to leave the house much." That's okay! They can just inflate their tires! It shouldn't be a problem.

Then there is "Xiomara Rodriguez, of Reno, Nev., served in the US Coast Guard and is concerned about veterans affairs. Beth Robinson, of Chesapeake, Va., has multiple sclerosis and, as the wife of a Marine who has served repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is concerned about the housing market's decline... Roy Gross, a truck driver from Taylor, Michigan, a single father to a college-age daughter..." I am sure, ladies and gentlemen, these are all fine people. I'm sure they're actually real, real people. I'm sure they're fine, fine people. I know that there are tough times out there. I'm not immune to people having tough times. We can see evidence of it. But why not highlight people who have overcome things. Why not have a little inspiration? There is not anything new, all this talk of change, nothing new here. This is standard from the Democrat Party playbook.

The Parade of Victims is what this is: a Parade of Victims of eight years of George Bush and Cheney and Blackwater and Halliburton and Limbaugh. In every major Democrat campaign this happens. Soup Line America! This is how they want you to see your country, on the verge of collapse, where indigent citizens are clamoring for a savior to fix their lives, but what would be amazing -- and we never have to worry about them doing this -- it would not be possible because they don't see things this way. It would be great, just one time, to see a political convention with real, real, real people. The real people whose individual responsibility and effort can be showcased as the reason for their success. People who have overcome hardships.

People who face them squarely and didn't show up on a television show with 20 million people watching to complain about it. They actually went out and attacked the problems using the abilities and means that they had at their disposal to overcome these problems, to show that it can be done. Because the experience, the daily snapshot of America's Anchorman America is that people do it every day. They do it all the time, and they don't have to wait for a Democrat convention to go on TV to highlight people about situations they are in so that we all circle our hands and arms and help each other out. They don't do it that way. Real people, who understand that liberty and limited government are the foundation of our incredible standard of living; not a fraudulent candidate portraying himself as a messiah, able to fix all these problems. He's not going to fix one thing in these people's lives!

He's not going to fix one thing in their lives. They are being used -- as these kinds of people always are, by Democrats -- to create an image in the minds of as many viewers as possible that their country sucks, that their country is unjust, that, "uh, the country is not what it once was, the country is not what it could be." Why, look at these poor people suffering needlessly simply because of eight years of Republican rule. How can you look at these people and be proud of your country? That's why we Democrats share with you the fact that we are not proud of our country. How can you look at these people and hear their stories and be proud of it. How can you look at these people and even feed yourself tonight? How can you look at these people and even let your kids go to college tomorrow without feeling overwhelming guilt?

That's the reaction they want you to have. It's just like used to happen during the eighties on Thanksgiving, during the homeless debates, all this razzmatazz by the homeless. Here you had two football games late in the afternoon and halftime they go to the local news in Sacramento, and they'd send a reporterette, some info babe out to the homeless shelter and they'd go inside and they'd show these poor homeless people like they hadn't eaten in a month just stuffing something in their mouth with their hands, and the reporter would look at me, and say, "How can we allow this to happen? Look at this. You're at home by the fire. You're watching football and eating turkey, and look at these people! How dare you?" It's a tactic.

It's a tactic the libs have used, and Obama tries to make everybody think that is a "man of change," that things that have never happened are going to happen before. The real America does not need a politician to help individuals overcome the obstacles in their lives. So the Dems are going to have their poor whining people, sick and tired, who think The Messiah is going to come into DC and save them from gas prices, illness, housing woes, college tuition. You can actually do a lot of that by lowering taxes, but of course we know that the Obama Messiah will not consider anything like that, nor will any other Democrat. So they're going to be used, put on parade, put on display to once again to convey the notion that our country is unjust and immoral -- and then they are going to spread the fallacious lie that the election of Obama and other Democrats will magically wipe all this misery out. It will just cause more misery.

RUSH: I got another idea for the Democrats. If they're going to have this parade of real, real people, if elected Democrats and delegates are not real enough, they gotta go have their real, real people, then let's do another night at the convention, let's call it victim night. They can't call real, real people night victim night. They've already given it a name, but we've got plenty of Democrat victims. In fact, here's who's speaking. You got Jimmy Carter, Algore, and the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, all speaking the same night at the convention. Call it victim night, because they're all victims. Kerry is a victim of fraudulent voting machines in Ohio. Gore is the victim of a fraudulent Supreme Court decision in 2000, and Carter is a victim of something. He's a victim of Richard Nixon's great eulogy that Henry Kissinger gave when Nixon was buried. They think these guys are all victims, just call it victim night.

CALLER: We should counter and put up a real man, like such as myself, a guy who's a union construction worker. I work hard, I run two small businesses, I don't want nothing from the government. I'm happy ExxonMobil makes all the money it makes because I have it in my 401, pension plan, I have stock. I want the government to do nothing for me and I want them out of my life. So we should counter by putting real people up to tell the true story of how great this country is, as opposed to people looking for handouts. I would never go to a political rally and wave at these people. To me they're all corrupt anyway. I just want them out of my life, leave me alone, let me go about taking care of my family, that's what I want.

RUSH: And you I think are representative of a vast majority of the people in this country, and God bless you because people like you are the people that make the country work. Again, these people that are going to show up on the real, real people night at the Democrat convention, I'm sure they're nice people, I'm sure they found 'em and they're going to be used. I think it's a shame to parade these people up as examples of the failings of the United States of America. It's offensive to see these people being used and there's nothing inspirational about it.

RUSH: The Messiah has been all over the world ripping the United States, criticizing his country, we're not what we once were, we're not meeting our potential, we're just in bad shape, and they're going to have this parade of real, real people, victim after victim after victim at their convention. Obama tells a little seven-year-old girl asking him why he wants to be president because the country is not what it once was. He goes up with the eyebrow guy, Tim Kaine in Chester, Virginia, today, and I swear, folks, it was an outdoor town hall meeting, it looked like they had let the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest out of the asylum for the day. Obama starts out trying to talk about how great America is and how great Americans are, and he can do it for about 25 seconds, and then he reverted.

I got to thinking. He's this global citizen of the world, right? Why doesn't Obama design a world flag? I was watching television a couple days ago, the American track and field winners at the Olympics, have you seen it, they're wrapping themselves in the American flag, literally wrapping themselves in the American flag. Now, that is obnoxious. That is typical jingoistic nationalistic patriotism on display at a world citizen event, and furthermore having these athletes shroud themselves in the American flag is confusing our public school students. Why not get a world flag? That would be the cool thing to do, to proclaim yourself a citizen of the world, because when you think of all of America's imperfections, how could an American athlete in good conscience accept an American flag and then wear it? I could see some of the other countries' athletes wearing their flags 'cause they have had to rise above America's oppressive policies under George W. Bush. We make up 3% of the world's population, use 25% of the world's energy. I actually hope that figure is low, by the way, folks. I think Americans should be using closer to 35% of the world's energy. In fact, we ought to be using 50% of the world's energy because we do more with it than any nation on earth, for all people in the world, other than these people and their toilets, but Clarissa Brocklehurst is taking care of that with 2,499 other of her friends in Stockholm. But you know, public school students, they are watching these games, and after everything these young skulls full of mush have been taught in our public schools regarding our country's deeply flawed and shameful past, this flag stuff and all these displays of national pride have gotta be confusing to the little students and their skulls full of mush.

Every time there's another American medal winner, kids see nothing but healthy, happy achievers wrapping themselves in a piece of fabric that symbolizes our greed, imperialism, and arrogance. By the way, 3% of the world's population is winning a majority of Olympic medals. Is that fair? Three percent of the world's population winning a majority of Olympic medals, how is that fair? Anyway, you know, according to Obama and the Democrats -- and you'll see it at their convention next week -- the country sucks, everyone needs to know that, and the Olympics are doing nothing to make this point. The Olympics are creating a false impression of this country. The Olympics are making us look like great, hardworking, high achievers. Lovable, laughing, charismatic people are on our Olympic team. This has gotta be embarrassing to Obama, given his view of the United States.

CALLER: Rush, I just wanted to give you a perspective, my perspective on this horrible country.

CALLER: (laughing) Well, I had it all at one time. I was a high school dropout from India. I cleaned latrines. I dug ditches, planted trees. At the age of 50 after my second successful business, I retired and started to do what I really wanted to do and that's become a sculptor and an artist.

RUSH: And it took you 'til you were 50 to get to start to realizing that? That was like a hobby for you?

CALLER: Yes, sir, and being what many would consider as a man of color in this country, I can tell you: having listened to you, there's never been a day I can say anyone discriminated against me for that. I would not tolerate becoming a victim. I would not allow anybody to treat me differently or as if I was not as good as anybody else. And finally, Rush, I found out why I'm a Republican. I have three air-conditioning units in my house.

[Raj’s Call led to the following report. The key is, government does not fix personal problems; government generally causes more of them]

RUSH: You know, he touches on a point. I've had this story from the AP here today at the top of the one of the stacks, and I haven't found the proper transition to it, and his call, I think, suffices as a means of getting to it. It is one, two, three, four pages long. It is an AP story about, from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech to Barack Obama's acceptance speech, "A Dream Realized?" This is four pages of how nothing has changed. This is four pages of how rotten this country is to America's blacks. This is four pages of how Dr. King would be disappointed -- and he would be, by the way. This, unknowingly -- by Todd Lewin, who wrote this -- is four pages of an indictment of the Democrat Party, liberalism, and the American civil rights coalition, because they have gotten everything they wanted. They wanted a business based on race discrimination; they got it.

That means there can never be an end to discrimination, as far as their charges and allegations are concerned 'cause then they're out of business. We have seen, since the days of Dr. King's speech, the federal welfare system destroy much of the black family by replacing the father. We have seen all of these public housing projects built by concerned and caring liberals -- take a look at them! Take a look at the state of disrepair. Go to some neighborhoods. You can go to parts New York City and Harlem where years ago the neighbors were clean and pristine and everything was fine and dandy and now not so in some places, while the rest of the country has been in an upward tick. How much concerted effort has there been aimed at poor black people by government agencies and programs to help them? It's too much to count. It's too much to tabulate.

So after all of this and all this compassion and all of this money and all of this work to try to bring about the vision of Dr. King, AP tells us after 40 years or more, nothing's changed. Not even if Obama ends up as his party's nominee, nothing's changed. "The 45th anniversary of the civil rights leader's most memorable speech coincides with the day when another African-American, Barack Obama, makes a historic speech of his own -- accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States. Is the convention's timing merely, as Obama's critics might suggest, political choreography at its shiniest, one more seamlessly staged performance by a 'rock star' candidate? Perhaps. And yet, it is also fitting: For if King inspired Americans to confront bigotry or at least dream of a more perfect union, a candidate with Obama's profile surely seems part of that dream's fulfillment. ...

"If the United States has entered a truly 'post-racial' era, why do some real estate agents still steer whites away from integrated neighborhoods, or why are qualified black couples turned down, without explanation, for an apartment rental? Why does the naming of a black chief executive of a leading corporation still raise eyebrows? 'Everything has changed, and nothing has changed,' on matters of race, says the Rev. Joseph Lowery, 86, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King..." So despite progress, where it has happened, they deny it. Where steps backward have taken place, they blame the institution of America for it. It's just amazing. I mean, you get a call from a guy like Raj, who comes here with 12 bucks in his pocket, and starts and succeeds at two businesses and retires at age 50. Yet a certain percentage of this country is told they can't do that, 'cause they're going to be discriminated against and nothing's changed.

RUSH: Now, there is an issue in this campaign that is not going to go away. It is an issue that the Democrats and Obama are not going to be able to sweep aside. It is very simply his thrice support, three times voting to support, killing babies who survived abortions. It ain't going to go away, as much as the Democrats would like for it to. Three different times, Barack Obama has voted -- and, by the way, in voting for this, he has said (summarized), "Ah, look, there wasn't any provision in there to protect the sanctity of Roe v. Wade, and I'm not going to sign anything here that allows Roe v. Wade to be chipped away at." Well, finally that exact provision was put in legislation, both federal and in Illinois when he was in the State Senate there, and he still voted against.

It was called the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. It's the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, and he votes against it three times. The real reason he voted against it is simply to make sure to lay the proper groundwork for a future in politics by not ever going against the left wing on the subject of abortion. You cannot anger, if you have higher aspirations than state senator, the NAGs. You cannot anger the NARAL people. You can't anger any of these leftist activist groups -- and the real reason, ladies and gentlemen, that he opposed this bill had nothing to do with that provision. I don't believe for a minute because even when he got the provision, it didn't change his vote. I don't think that provision mattered. I think the way he was instructed on this, is, "Look, the woman wants an abortion. Okay, so the abortion doctor botches it, and the baby lives. Well, that's not what the woman wants! So we gotta kill the baby." That's the reason he supported it. Pure and simple. His own words give testament. There is audio that has surfaced, and I have a little bit of a clip here. From April of 2002, the Illinois state Senate, this is 17 seconds of Barack Obama debating the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

OBAMA: ...and that, essentially, adding an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion...

RUSH: You understand this, do I need to translate this for anybody? Okay, when he says, "and that, essentially, adding an additional doctor who then has to be called in ... to ... make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion," what he's saying is the abortionist blows it; he doesn't want another doctor brought in, one who is familiar with living babies, because that would "burden the original decision" of the mother. Forget Roe v. Wade for a second. Think infanticide. Think the willingness to kill something that is alive. Barack Obama votes for it three times and then tells people it's 'cause it doesn't have a provision to protect Roe v. Wade. Here's a full transcript of what he said:

"As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure that [the abortion], in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if this fetus, or child -- however way you want to describe it -- is now outside the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's nonviable but there's, let's say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they're not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved." He didn't want any of that to happen, because the original decision was abortion. Now, he's not going to be able to run from this. After all of this, and he has been called on this countless number of times. He then accuses the people who are pointing this out of lying. Last Saturday night, Lake Forest, California, after the Saddlesore Civil Forum, the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody interviewed Obama, and he said: "Real quick, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. They're basically saying you felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill."

OBAMA: [H]ere's a situation where folks are lying. I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported -- which was to say -- that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, uh, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe v. Wade. By the way, we also had a bill, uh, a law already in place in Illinois that insured lifesaving treatment was given to infants. So for people to suggest that I and the Illinois Medical Society, so Illinois doctors were somehow in favor of withholding lifesaving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous.

RUSH: Now, he said this last Saturday night, and he's lying through his teeth about it, and he's been caught, and the campaign has admitted that he lied. After they admitted that he lied, they then went after the critics again for getting so personal and being so mean. So here's Obama at the Rick Warren forum talking about the whole concept of when in your opinion, Senator, does a baby get human rights.

OBAMA: Well (sigh). You know, I -- I, eh, er -- I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or, uh, a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, uhhhh, you know, is above my pay grade. The fact is -- is that, uh, although we've had a president who is opposed to abortion over the last eight years, abortions have not gone down.

RUSH: Yes, they have, but every time I hear this... You know, Chris Matthews talks about the "tingle he gets up his leg" when he listens to Obama? I get a chill up my spine. He cannot give a number, an age, any age at which point a baby gets human rights? That's above his pay grade? Let's listen to him in the Illinois Senate in April 2002. Once again, debating the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

RUSH: Let me translate this for you: Let's trust the guy who just botched the abortion to determine whether or not he actually did botch the abortion, and that's it. If a baby comes out and it's alive, Barack Obama thought it too damn burdensome to have another doctor -- somebody used to dealing with live babies -- check to see if the baby was viable. The transcripts have been found. If you want to read this in great detail, Erick Erickson at RedState.com has put this together in a timeline here that is easily understandable. This is shocking. This is as radical a position on abortion as anybody can take. It's as radical as any candidate for the presidency has ever taken on this issue. There is no remorse from The Messiah; there is only the slashing criticism of his critics for pointing out the truth, which his campaign had to admit that he had lied about. Nobody is lying about Obama when it comes to this.

RUSH: From the Wall Street Journal: "San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution? City Backpedals on a Cycling Plan After Mr. Anderson Goes to Court." That would be Mr. Rob Anderson. "The 65-year-old local gadfly has stymied cycling-support efforts here by arguing that urban bicycle boosting could actually be bad for the environment. That's put the brakes on everything from new bike lanes to bike racks while the city works on an environmental-impact report," on new bike lanes. This gets even crazier. "'We're the ones keeping emissions from the air!' shouted Leah Shahum, executive director of the 10,000-strong San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, at a July 21 protest. Mr. Anderson disagrees. Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, he reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more idling and more pollution. Mr. Anderson says the city has been blinded by political correctness. It's an 'attempt by the anti-car fanatics to screw up our traffic on behalf of the bicycle fantasy,' he wrote..."

Now, I think this guy has a point. I'm telling you, this guy has a point. I have personal experience with this. Let me ask, how many of you people live in a neighborhood where on Saturday or Sunday morning there can be 150 to 400 cyclists on your 30-mile-an-hour street occupying your lane? You can't go around them because the trail of them is too long and they might hit somebody coming at you, and you gotta get off and hit a side street and then try to outrun them, breaking a speed limit on another road that's parallel to the one you're on. How many times? I have always. I have always had a bugaboo about bicyclists and pedestrians getting the right-of-way. You want to know one of the reasons New York traffic is as bad as it is? It's because of pedestrians! The bicyclists there are cool. They can we've in and out of the traffic. They don't stop at anything. Those guys are daredevils. But the pedestrians, I know there's nothing you can do about it, but my gosh! You can't make a left turn, can't make a right turn, and if you try to make right turn through the pedestrians some of them will knock your window out, or try. You roll down the window, and say, "Hey, I'm just trying to get to work. Make way! The street is for my car, doofus!" That's like how you have to treat them in New York. They respect that. They shout back at you, but they respect you.

RUSH: Now, I want to illustrate something else, in this audio sound bite here. Yesterday in Albuquerque at a town meeting, Barack Obama, he met with Boone Pickens, and he picked up some more talking points to robotically repeat. Listen to this.

OBAMA: We are sending $700 billion to foreign nations. It's a huge transfer of our wealth. It oftentimes leads us to funding both sides of the war on terrorism because we're sending a bunch of that money to the Middle East and countries that don't necessarily like us, and it is fundamentally impacting our environment. Climate change is real, and we're starting to see the effects of it, uhh, in -- in profound ways, and it's affecting people's pocketbooks. So the only way that we are going to solve this problem is if we fundamentally change how we use energy.

RUSH: Now, this is not an Obama original. He had a talk with Boone Pickens, and then he goes out and repeats what Boone Pickens is saying: "seven hundred billion dollar transfer of wealth to foreign nations." There is no "transfer of wealth" going on here, and Boone Pickens should know that, too. We're not giving this money away! We are getting something for it. We're getting oil for it. Forget for a moment from where. We're going to buy it from someplace if we're not going to have enough of our own. So whoever gets it, we are exchanging wealth. We're not transferring anything -- and this idiot doesn't even understand that! The principles of market economics are so foreign to this guy, because I'll guarantee, he's never been taught market economics.

He wouldn't be talking about "fairness" in the capital gains tax rate like he talks about fairness in the income tax rate if he understood market economics. Fairness in the capital gains tax rate in terms of the rich and the poor and who pays, this is absurd. Actually it's absurd in the income tax rate as well, but, again, that's liberal doctrinaire dogma. So he goes and talks to Boone Pickens, and Boone Pickens out there with his "$700 billion transfer of wealth," and bam! There's Obama picking it up, after one meeting with Boone Pickens. Illustrating, ladies and gentlemen, exactly what I have said, that Obama learns well whatever he hears that interests him, but in terms of being an original thinker, he's not -- and all this other BS, this "climate change is real," and we're starting to see the effects of global warming.

We just saw last week where the Sahara Desert , an excavating team in there uncovered evidence of a life lived by human beings in lush circumstances. Five thousand years ago the Sahara Desert was fertile and green and moist, and all of a sudden it's desert, and it got to be a desert not because of lightbulbs, automobiles, coal plants, oil being discovered, or what have you. So any chance I get to illustrate the -- and I think it's shallow. I think when you get down to Obama, we're actually talking about shallowness, not depth. Certainly not depth. Now, there's this. In Denver , on Monday, Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke via satellite to announce a new initiative from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the American Automobile Dealers Association called "EcoDriving," and here's a portion of what Arnold said.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Just by following the recommendations in this fantastic website, you can reduce your fuel costs by more than 15% -- and I'm talking about simple things, like proper tire pressure, avoiding rapid starts and stops --

SCHWARZENEGGER: -- keeping your engine tuned. In fact, if all Americans practiced EcoDriving, the reductions in CO2 emissions would be equivalent to heating and powering nearly eight cities the size of Los Angeles. So we don't have to wait for politicians to take action. Each of us has the power to make a difference right now.

RUSH: This is just sad. This is disappointing, and it's just a plain shame. This dates back to the seventies. All this malarkey about avoiding jackrabbit starts and stops and keeping the engine tuned? You don't tune modern engines! Since 1985 you don't tune 'em up, and now we're back to this tire inflation business. I forget the context. Obama originally said that if everybody just inflated their tires, we would save as much oil as we would get with any new drilling. Now, that's something somebody else told him, and he just went out and regurgitated, because on the face of it, it is disqualifyingly absurd and silly and stupid. We are a growing economy. The game here is the creation and the production of new energy. We're going to need it.

RUSH: I know Obama is not responsible for his brother. We all have oddballs in our families. We do, but they're our family. There's something here, even though this guy is living in a hut, long lost brother found in Kenya by Vanity Fair of all places, imagine they beat the National Enquirer to this story, but what is it, Obama's favorite biblical passage, "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me." And Obama's a big believer in the redistribution of wealth. And there's one member of the Obama family that's done quite well, and that would be Barry. But it seems like every time we read of Barry's brothers, they are dirt poor. They are in places that Obama doesn't even know where they are. Now, I'm not making a comment about the brother. I'm not making a comment about families and stuff. I'm just saying that Obama is presenting himself as a new savior who's going to equalize things and rid the world of misery and yet this is the second lost brother. The first one was a half-brother. So the lost half-brother was found in a pretty remote area, too, with economic circumstances far beneath those of The Messiah, and now this guy. This guy's name is George Hussein Onyango Obama. George Hussein Onyango Obama.

Senator Barack Obama's long lost brother tracked down living in a hut on the outskirts of Nairobi in a shantytown. "Mr. Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender. 'No-one knows who I am,' he told the magazine, before claiming: 'I live here on less than a dollar a month.'" I thought it was a day. A dollar a month! This guy doesn't earn $12 a year. George Hussein Onyango Obama. "According to Italy's Vanity Fair his two metre by three metre shack--" (laughing) this is what it says in the story. For those of you in Rio Linda, just think of two yards by three yards, or think of it as six by nine feet. It's probably about the size of your average bathroom in Rio Linda, the size of this shack. "It is decorated with football posters of the Italian football giants AC Milan and Inter, as well as a calendar showing exotic beaches of the world. Vanity Fair also noted that he had a front-page newspaper picture of his famous brother -- born of the same father as him, Barack Hussein Obama, but to a different mother, named only as Jael. He told the magazine: 'I live like a recluse, no-one knows I exist.'" Well, now we do. Senator Barack Obama's brother, George Hussein Onyango Obama, found living in a six by nine shack on the outskirts of Kenya on less than 12 dollars a year.

RUSH: Steve Gilbert, Sweetness & Light blog, asking a very relevant question: "Just how many wives did Obama's father have? So far we've been able to count up three. He was a bigamist. He was married to Obama's mother when he hadn't divorced his first wife." The mother of this George Onyango Obama that they found in a hut in Kenya, J-a-e-l is her name and there's no mention of her in any of Obama's books. So there may be a fourth wife that Barack Obama, Sr. had As Steve Gilbert says, "Obama is making Bill Clinton's life look stable."

RUSH: By the way, I know what Obama could say to explain the discovery of his half-brother, George Hussein Onyango Obama. He could say, (doing Obama impression) "I knew about him. I knew where he was. He's running the pilot program on my new global warming way to stop it. He's my green brother." This guy is living in a six-by-nine-foot shack in the rural hills of Africa. This is exactly what they have in mind for us, folks, with all the global warming rot.

[Obama’s compassion is phoney. He knows about this brother and mentions him in one of his books. Yet, he does nothing about him, even though Obama is a millionaire. Obama’s own personal giving is an abysmally small percentage of his income. One of my biggest problems with liberals is, they expect me to be cool with government reaching into my back pocket for money to fund their pet programs, which are, supposedly, to alleviate a variety of social evils; but they, won’t do the same with their own money. Any liberal can give more money to the government; few do. And, as has been shown, liberals give a lower percentage of their own hard-earned money to churches or charities than do conservatives.]

RUSH: The first half of this year, 2008, was the coolest in at least five years, according to the World Meteorological Organization, the WMO. "The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average." The point is it ain't getting any warmer out there. The Farmers' Almanac is out with their forecast for the winter. They say it's going to be catastrophic.

If health care is a moral issue, then Obama should be banging the drums daily on it. He’s not. Just like global warming...if he really believed the sky was falling, he would speak dramatically of it most every day, rather than just make it a minor addition to his list of issues.

Wright book—not? I have always assume that the October surprise would be a book my Jeremiah Wright; but, apparently I am wrong.

Conservative Review
Issue #39	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	August 24, 2008