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George's Classic Links
This page includes links to items that I believe deserve separate inclusion for reasons such as the historical record or repudiating long-standing misrepresentations. Scroll down or click here for classic headline links with synoptic quotes or click the links directly to Web items, generally without synoptic quotes according to subject in the table below.
Classic Headline Links with Synoptic Quotes 7/10/10 Is Obama intentionally out to destroy America’s Economy? George Edwards and Sam Shanely, Giac2002.org "Let’s list some of the examples of the actions he [Obama] has sponsored, blocked or dawdled with that have filtered past the media people responsible for covering up for him and whom we should likewise be outraged with. In my opinion, any reasonably intelligent person looking at them could come to only one of two conclusions: he is either the dumbest most ineffective person that this planet has ever seen or so thoroughly misguided that he wants to completely destroy the America that most of us loved. Unfortunately, I believe the last is the only rational conclusion. "While huge numbers of Americans continue to be unemployed Obama and his fellow travelers have ignored their plight for the first one and a half years of his Presidency, put their all behind a Trillion dollar health care plan the majority did not want and now will not allow the so-called stimulus proceeds to be touched to extend unemployment benefits—insisting it only will be done with further spending or not at all. "Now that his health care plan has passed, Obama is placing amnesty for twelve to twenty million illegal aliens ahead of our unemployed. That would only more thoroughly wreck the U.S. economy. "He continues to press 'cap and trade' which, by his own words, he fully knows will push energy prices out of sight although the so-called crisis of “global warming” has been discredited. Raising energy prices in addition to reducing purchasing power raises all prices as well because of the increased costs to transport goods. "The failures to act and bureacratic obstacles raised by Obama’s troops in the Gulf cleanup has been breathtaking. The damage to not only the Gulf state’s economy but the entire nation’s that this has and will result in is overwhelming. In case you haven’t been following the frequent reports, see the footnote below.* "Include with this, Obama’s executive order shutting down all oil well drilling activity in the gulf that is estimated to cause 20,000 to 60,000 people in the region to lose their jobs. This will also cause owners of the massively expensive, slow-to-construct drilling rigs to move never to return or at best further destroy the economy of at least three Gulf States for years and further harm the entire economy of The United States. "Surely, when all these are added together, we must ask the question: 'Is Obama intentionally out to destroy America’s financial underpinning and thereby our Constitutional Republic by forcing the indebted states, the unemployed and bankrupt businesses to turn to his Federal Government for bail outs in return for every individual and every entity trading in their freedoms for a Socialistic form of government ? ' Unfortunately I see no reasonable alternative conclusion."
7/20/10 Voting System and Fraud Prevention Tradeoffs --By George Edwards and Joe Dugan, GIAC2002.org
4/15/10 Tea Party Protesters Descend on D.C. With New 'Contract From America' FOXNews.com "WASHINGTON -- Thousands of protesters descended on the nation's Capitol for April 15 tax deadline protests as activists offered up a new 'Contract From America' aimed at using the winning formula of the 1994 Republican revolution while also developing a direction for the burgeoning movement. . . . "'After garnering nearly half a million votes in less than two months, the Contract from America has now been finalized into a blueprint that will serve notice to public officials about what the people want for their future,' reads a press release from the contract's organizers "When the votes of more than 443,000 were cast, the top ten planks were: (1) Require each bill to identify its constitutional authorization (2) Defund, repeal, and replace government-run health care (3) Demand a balanced budget (4) End runaway government spending by imposing a statutory cap limiting growth in federal spending (5) Enact fundamental reform to simplify and lower taxes (6)Create a Blue Ribbon task force that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs (7) Reject cap-and-trade (8) Pass an “all of the above” energy policy (9) Stop the 2011 tax hikes (10) Stop the pork. . . . Tax day protests did occur nationwide, with the D.C. rally marking the end of a 23-state Tea Party Express tour targeting vulnerable Democratic Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Arlen Specter or Pennsylvania as well as nine House members who voted for health care reform. "Anti-Tea Party counter-protesters carried a huge banner that read 'The Other 95 percent. Say thanks for your tax cuts Obama.' They walked around the crowd but represented only a miniscule percentage of the ralliers. "Speaking from the podium, Kingston welcomed the counter-protesters. 'Welcome. I'm hoping that you'll learn something.' "Tea Party activists have been on the lookout for infiltrators. In recent weeks, Web sites such as crashtheteaparty.org have urged people to "act on behalf of the Tea Party in ways which exaggerate their least appealing qualities (misspelled protest signs, wild claims in TV interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them." "Armey offered a message to any would-be infiltrators. "'My daddy told me when I was boy, it's better to be persecuted than ignored. We must be meaning something to these folks or they wouldn't be attacking us.' "However, Armey did express concern about the havoc infiltrators could wreak on the movement. "'Why don't you have the decency to be proud to be you for crying out loud? Just don't come in here like a bunch of juvenile delinquents on a lark and try to sabotage our event. We have a right to present ourselves to the American people without mischaracterization. It's hard enough for the conventional press in America to get it, who we are and what are the lessons of liberty that we are so committed to, without you confounding the picture with your antics.'"
3/26/10 Remember in November--2010, 2012 and 2014 George Edwards, giac2002.org "Don’t vote to re-elect ANY Democratic Senator or Independent. They ALL voted for the Senate Health Care Bill. Don’t vote to reelect ANY House member who voted for the original House Health Care Bill, HR3962, OR the subsequent overhaul bill. . . . "Click here to view a listing of the states and names of the senators up for re-election in 2010 who voted for the Senate health care bill in defiance of the people. . . .Neither South Carolina senator voted for this bill. "Click here to view a listing of the states and names of the House members who voted for the House’s original 2009 health care bill, HR3962, OR its overhaul, in defiance of the people. The congressmen include Democrats John Spratt of South Carolina District 5 and James Clyburn of South Carolina District 6. Anh Cao of Louisiana was the Sole Republican House member voting for the bill." . 3/26/10 RESPONDING TO OBAMACARE: RESTORE, DEFEAT, DEFUND, REPEAL
12/24/09 In Other Words... by Ann Coulter, HumanEvents.com [The clearest exposé of the so called 'health care' bill that I have seen anywhere]
"Until
10
minutes
ago, the
liberal
argument
for
national
health
care was
that it
wasn't
fair
that
some
people
-- 'the
rich' --
have
access
to
better
health
care
than
others. "You can say -- mistakenly -- that the liberals' plan is more compassionate. You can say -- also incorrectly -- that it will be fairer. On no set of facts can you say it will be cheaper.
"Democrats
keep
citing
the
Congressional
Budget
Office's
'scoring'
of their
bills as
if that
means
something.
11/29/09 People Said it Didn't Matter . . . -- received in an e-mail "A coup has occurred in America. Our Republic has been overthrown without firing a shot. "We have a small window of time to possibly reverse this and save our Constitutional Republic from permanent 'transformation.'” [The unfortunate thing is that all the particulars here are, in my belief, absolutely true. This is absolutely fantastic in the amount of highly pertinent facts it gets into one place.] 11/30/09 The Down Low on GITMO by "President Obama is now bringing terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO), the American military base in Cuba, to the USA for trial. He is risking our safety by bringing these terrorists to the USA; he is also setting an ugly legal precedent, one where terrorists who are not even American citizens, are given the same legal rights as the citizens some of these same terrorists have harmed or killed. "What is behind the decision to bring terrorists to the USA for trial and then place them in American prisons? It appears that the Democrats in Congress believe the Bush administration was somehow abusive to the terrorists held at GITMO. . . . "Just a few years ago, when President Bush was in office, the American media were abuzz concerning the alleged abuse of terrorists and enemy combatants being held at GITMO. Well, here we are some years later and the hard evidence of abuse occurring at GITMO has yet to surface. If anything, the hard evidence demonstrates the American news media engaged in nothing more than a modern day witch hunt against the Bush administration. "The American media were hoping to throw enough mud at the Bush administration that something would stick. It never did. As it turns out, the most pressing issue of concern, as it pertains to GITMO, was the admission by the Bush Administration that several members of the American military 'might have' mishandled a Koran. . . . Well, as it turns out, no such Koran flushing incident occurred. Newsweek retracted its story and the cat was finally out of the bag. The American media were exposed as mudslinging reactionaries, as were the Democrat leaders in Congress, who tried and failed to capitalize on the perceived abuse of GITMO prisoners. . . . "There was no abuse at GITMO. The Red Cross even said so after inspecting GITMO several times. So why do the Democrats in Congress and Obama continue to sell the lie? "One reason is the Democrats want to exploit the GITMO issue for the upcoming 2010 races. If the terrorists go to trial in the USA, instead of a military trial, then the Democrats can use the trials for constant drama -- drama that further demonizes Bush and the Republicans in hopes of winning over more voters. It is nothing more than political grandstanding. . . . "[T]he charges of abuse at GITMO, aimed against the Bush administration, are outrageous to say the least. Even more outrageous are the claims that GITMO prisoners are denied their Constitutional rights. Those imprisoned at GITMO are not even American citizens. They have no Constitutional rights. Therefore, their Constitutional rights can't be violated. "Secondly, those imprisoned at GITMO are terrorists who fit the legal category of 'enemy combatants.' Even when it was unclear if enemy combatants were entitled to the protection and rights of the Geneva Convention, the Bush Administration afforded these terrorists the protection rights agreed upon at the Geneva Convention anyway. That's right, the Bush administration actually treated the enemy combatants -- some of who were caught in the very act of attacking American military personnel in Iraq -- better than the terrorists deserve to be treated. "Now let's consider the conditions at GITMO. "The conditions at GITMO are far superior to the conditions these terrorists were accustomed to in their own countries of origin. Some of these terrorists used toilets, drank clean water and ate three square meals a day for the first time in their very lives. The enemy combatants at GITMO were treated to Muslim diets daily -- diets that met their strict religious standards. "GITMO terrorists were given the Koran (paid for by American tax dollars), along with ample time to pray 5 times per day. All while our nation's military was under investigation for alleged, "Christian proselytizing" at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. "You may find it interesting to know that after breaking up Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network in Afghanistan, our nation's military forces came upon the Al Qaeda training manual. In the manual were instructions for a member of Al Qaeda to cry 'abuse' if captured by the American armed forces. The manual went on to say that forces within America would be sympathetic to the terrorists' cause if they only cried, "abuse." "Judging by the behavior of the American media and the Democrat Party of recent years, it is easy to figure out who is more sympathetic to terrorists."
11/26/09 Fundamental Governmental Health Care Bill Objections By George Edwards, giac2002.org "The congressional health care bills have many bad parts but a central issue is that we can't afford them. This with the $12 Trillion of debt, so far and more to come if Obamaites get their way, they may totally collapse our economy and with it our American system of freedom and free enterprise. . . . "The current congressional health care plan costs are fraudulent in that, among other things, they are based on the first ten year cost estimates that do not provide benefits in the early years. Most importantly, they add to individual and company costs that they were supposed to lessen, they further financially burden the government that has no money except that they print (counterfeit), and they further impinge on the liberties and the opportunities of the people to avoid bankruptcies caused by previous governmental actions." "Click Health Care Plan Comparisons for more information and some suggestions that might actually help."
10/11/09 Ship of Fools: Obama's Intimates and Advisors By Mac Fuller, American Thinker [Extremely insightful. You may want to save.] "The following thumbnails describe a very small sampling of the locust horde of Leftist bureaucrats President Barack Hussein Obama has deliberately chosen to help him grasp the helm of America's ship of state, strip it from the American people, and steer it hard to port. "The Obama Administration is plainly subverting democracy in America, wildly careening our previous 230-year history of democracy so dangerously Leftward that after a mere nine months we are in terrible danger of sinking.
"In these thumbnails,
three dominant themes of the Obama Administration emerge - fanatically
uncompromising anti-capitalism, dangerous and blatant anti-Semitism, and the
societal inculcation of dogmatic Leftist, Socialist "faith" through
indoctrination of American school children beginning with the earliest ages
- a practice instituted by Lenin in Communist Russia and now pounding its
way into the American academic mainstream through the prolific efforts and
influence of self-proclaimed Communist, Obama friend, and likely
'autobiography' ghost writer, William Ayers, as well as Obama appointees
like Charles Freeman and Kevin Jennings.
"Make no mistake. These
people are about Socialism, and they are about power. Their power."
[Please continue scrolling down past the list of names and read the
thumbnail bios -- extremely important and illuminating. Consider saving.]
9/4/09 Wake up America! By George Edwards, GIAC2002.org [As always, click the above headline link to read the article. It reflects my belief that Obama and his fellow travelers are a "clear and present danger" to our economy, freedom and the American way of life. They have, using quotes from our Declaration of Independence, engaged in: "a long train of abuses and usurpations, . . . [that] evinces a design to reduce" us "under absolute Despotism." It then lists more than two dozen grievances. So I felt it appropriate and desirable to include a list of grievances in the linked to Obama-ite article before suggesting a possible "out."]
7/7/09 a.m. Believed Uncontested facts: Barack Hussein Obama’s Presidency and Background as of July 7, 2009 By George Edwards, GIAC2002.org
7/7/09 p.m. I Still Hate You, Sarah Palin By David Kahane National Review Online
"This
ain’t
John
McCain’s
logrolling
senatorial
club any
more.
This is
a deadly
serious
attempt
to
realize
the
vision
of the
1960s
and to
fundamentally
transform
the
United
States
of
America.
This is
the
fusion
of
Communist
dogma,
high
ideals,
gangster
tactics,
and a
stunning
amount
of
self-loathing.
For the
first
time in
history,
the
patrician
class is
deliberately
selling
its own
country
down the
river
just to
prove a
point:
that,
yes, we
can!
This
country
stinks
and we
won’t be
happy
until
we’ve
forced
you to
admit
it.
"If you
had any
sense,
you
would
start
using
our
tactics
against
us.
After
all, you
have a
few
lawyers
on your
side.
Sue us.
File
frivolous
ethics
complaints
against
all our
elected
officials
until,
like
Sarah,
they go
broke
from
defending
themselves.
(David
Paterson
would be
a good
place to
start.)
Challenge
the
constitutionality
of BO2’s
legion
of
fill-in-the-blank
czars —
none of
whom
have to
be
confirmed,
or even
pass a
security
check.
(Come to
think of
it,
neither
did
Barry.)
Let slip
your own
journalistic
dogs of
war,
assuming
you have
any, to
find
Barry’s
birth
certificate,
his
college
transcripts,
whether
he
applied
to
Occidental
as a
foreign
student,
and on
which
passport
he
traveled
in 1981
to
Pakistan
with his
friend
Wahid
Hamid,
for
starters.
. . .
6/9/09 Discoverthenetworks.org A guide to the political left. "ACORN is a private corporation, it does not divulge its finances. Complicating any effort to calculate ACORN's income is the fact that the organization operates an enormous number of front groups, many of which conceal their relationship to ACORN. As of October 2008, there were at least 294 front groups, [click preceding to see the list] nonprofits, and businesses related to ACORN, the vast majority of which listed their headquarters as: 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana -- the site of a now-defunct funeral home. The Discoverthenetworks.org Home Page also includes links to comprehensive information you may not be aware of on George Soros, Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Saul Alinsky.
6/8/09 a.m. Obama's Enemies List Grows By Mark Hyman, The American Spectator [Pardon the extensive quotations from this one article; it's critical that everyone be fully aware of the instances it sums up.] "Just having the appearance of someone who might possibly vote for an opponent of Barack Obama could land them on the President's enemies list where proxies do the dirty work. Political appointees in the Justice Department killed a six-month investigation by career DOJ lawyers into the most blatant voter intimidation case in 40 years. Last November, jack-booted, uniformed, baton-wielding thugs from the New Black Panther Party calling themselves 'security' obstructed a Philadelphia polling location and behaved in an intimidating manner toward white voters. "Days after dismissing charges against the menacing thugs, the Justice Department moved in the opposite direction by blocking responsible steps to stem voter fraud. The DOJ barred the administrative procedures Georgia authorities put into place . . . "A de facto Obama enemies list and dirty political machine have been expanding since last year. Obama has established several embarrassing presidential firsts including targeting private individuals by names, assigning a well-known 'partisan dirt-digger' and non-lawyer to the White House Counsel's Office to likely gain access to Bush Administration documents protected under attorney-client privilege, and moving the senior political advisor into the West Wing. These are heretofore unseen partisan practices. . . . "Attempting to build-up the Obama Administration by criticizing that of his predecessor has become a near-daily exercise. Obama has personally led efforts to demonize George W. Bush. . . . "Interrogation techniques used on tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen and women for more than two decades were suddenly considered criminal acts and Bush officials in the review and approval chain have been smeared as criminals. . . . "Obama's lawyers are attempting to financially ruin individuals party to the most absurd soap opera involving the 44th president. There is unabated controversy regarding his birth, citizenship and foreign travel. Obama could immediately silence his critics by authorizing the release of his original birth certificate and passport. . . . "The targeting of perceived political enemies by the Obama Administration has grown from mere individuals to entire groups. Evidence emerged that a common thread among the list of 789 Chrysler dealerships ordered closed by the White House is that the owners donated to GOP candidates, Republican-leaning causes or donated to Hillary Clinton or John Edwards during the Democratic presidential primaries. "Auto industry observers and others report that apparently successful franchises (such as Chrysler's highest-rated 5-star dealerships) were ordered closed in favor of less successful car lots and the consistent discriminator was which political party the owners supported. . . . "Representatives of three secured creditors that did not receive any government bailout money reported they were threatened if they did not agree to White House demands in Chrysler's restructuring. . . . "Thomas Lauria, a lawyer for financial firm Perella Weinberg Partners, reported the car czar threatened that 'the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its [Perella Weinberg's] reputation' unless the firm agreed to Obama administration demands in Chrysler's bankruptcy. The failure by the White House press corps to repudiate Rattner's threat speaks volumes and underscores their role as an ally of the Obama Administration."
8/19/09 List of Obama's Czars Glenn Beck 5/18/09 p.m. The Great Ethanol Scam By Ed Wallace, Business Week Not only is ethanol proving to be a dud as a fuel substitute but there is increasing evidence that it is destroying engines in large numbers"First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA's own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA). "Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it. "Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle's fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA's fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy. "Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline. Just these issues should have kept ethanol from being brought back for its fourth run in American history. . . . "Last July was bad enough for motorists on a budget—gasoline prices had shot up to more than $4 a gallon. But for some the pain in the pocketbook was about to get worse. At City Garage in Euless, Tex., for example, the first of numerous future customers brought in an automobile whose fuel pump was shot. A quick diagnosis determined that that particular car had close to 18% ethanol in the fuel. For that unlucky owner, the repairs came to nearly $900. The ethanol fun was just beginning. "City Garage manager Eric Greathouse has found that adding ethanol to the nation's gasoline supply may be a foolish government mandate, but it has an upside he'd rather not deal with. It's supplying his shop with a slow but steady stream of customers whose plastic fuel intakes have been dissolved by the blending of ethanol into our gasoline, or their fuel pumps destroyed. The average cost of repairs is just shy of $1,000. . . . "Most individuals who have had to repair their fuel systems in recent years never had the gasoline tested to see if the ethanol percentage might be the problem. Today most repair shops and new-car dealers are still not testing for ethanol blends. They're simply repairing the vehicles and sending their unhappy and less wealthy customers on their way. But, where dealer and repair shops are testing the gasoline, ethanol is becoming one of the leading culprits for the damage. "Sadly, when a truly bad idea is exposed today, Washington's answer is to double-down on the bet, mandate more of the same, and make the problem worse. Only this time around motorists will be able to gauge the real cost of ethanol when it comes time to fix their personal cars."
5/6/09 Economic Truth By George Economically, it is apparent to me that people will, as a whole, do more than just survive only if their effort will improve their or their family’s lot. The so-called free enterprise system enables individual effort to improve an individual’s lot so that everyone’s lot is improved. From Investor Words.com: "Free Enterprise – Business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy. also called free market.” From Wikipedia: "Capitalism - 'Free enterprise’ redirects here. “Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are privately owned.[1][2] Through capitalism, the land, labor, and capital are owned, operated, and traded, without force or fraud, by private individuals either singly or jointly,[3][4] and investments, distribution, income, production, pricing and supply of goods, commodities and services are determined by voluntary private decision in a market economy.[5][6] A distinguishing feature of capitalism is that each person owns his or her own labor and therefore is allowed to sell the use of it to employers.[3][7] In a "capitalist state", private rights and property relations are protected by the rule of law of a limited regulatory framework.[8][9] In the modern capitalist state, legislative action is confined to defining and enforcing the basic rules of the market,[8][9] though the state may provide some public goods and infrastructure.[10] . . . “Adam Smith's attack on mercantilism and his reasoning for 'the system of natural liberty' in The Wealth of Nations (1776) are usually taken as the beginning of classical [capitalist] political economy. Smith devised a set of concepts that remain strongly associated with capitalism today, particularly his theory of the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, through which the pursuit of individual self-interest unintentionally produces a collective good for society.” When I went to school, we were taught that in 1607 Jamestown after a winter of famine under a failed socialist system of “from each according to their capability, to each according to their need,” Captain John Smith ordered: "He that will not worke, shall not eate." More recently the communist central planning economy of the U.S.S.R. failed while China upon adopting a free market system, if not general freedom, is prospering economically. Unfortunately, U.S. government schools apparently no longer teach the effectiveness of the free market system, instead lauding failed or failing socialistic economic systems. And the idea of free choice in publicly supported education is supplanted by central government controlled public schools, although free choice via a voucher system has proven very successful. Their use in Washington D.C. at half the cost per student as compared to public schools has yielded significantly superior scholastic results. Nevertheless, the Obama government has moved to stop that successful program that allows economically disadvantaged children an education in the schools that Obama and senator’s children attend.
5/1/09 1993 World Trade Prosecutor Calls Out Eric Holder
"'This
letter
is
respectfully
submitted
to
inform
you that
I must
decline
the
invitation
to
participate
in the
May 4
roundtable
meeting
the
President’s
Task
Force on
Detention
Policy
is
convening
with
current
and
former
prosecutors
involved
in
international
terrorism
cases.
An
invitation
was
extended
to me by
trial
lawyers
from the
Counterterrorism
Section,
who are
members
of the
Task
Force,
which
you are
leading.
1990s.
The
other
calls
for a
military
justice
approach
of
combatant
detention
and
war-crimes
prosecutions
by
military
commission.
Because
each
theory
has its
downsides,
many
commentators,
myself
included,
have
proposed
a third
way: a
hybrid
system,
designed
for the
realities
of
modern
international
terrorism—a
new
system
that
would
address
the
needs to
protect
our
classified
defense
secrets
and to
assure
Americans,
as well
as our
allies,
that we
are
detaining
the
right
people.
"'Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.'"
3/31/09 Record fine for Soros 'illegal manipulation of financial markets'
3/7/09 Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis By James Simpson "[Obama] can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s -- The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis. . . . "The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:
2/11/09 Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics By PETER FERRARA The current president wants higher taxes, more regulation, more spending and loose money."In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." Or as administration spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in January, the touchstone is, "What will have the biggest and most immediate impact on creating private sector jobs and strengthening the middle class? We're guided by what works, not by any ideology or special interests." "Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not true. Mr. Obama's economic policy is following not what has been proven to work but liberal ideology. "The best way to understand this is to compare what's being proposed now with what Ronald Reagan accomplished. In 1980, amid a seriously dysfunctional economy, Reagan campaigned for president on an economic recovery program with four specific components. . . . "We know such policies work because they turned around in just two years an economy far worse than today's. We were suffering from multiyear, double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates, declining incomes, and rising poverty. In fact, what we suffer with today is not the worst economy since the Great Depression, but the worst economy since Jimmy Carter -- the last time liberals were dominant politically and intellectually. . . . "The Obama administration's economic policies do not include any of the four Reagan components. In fact, the stimulus plan is the greatest increase in government spending in the history of the planet. Meanwhile, the Fed is furiously reinflating, sowing more havoc down the line. Mr. Obama is still promising future increases in tax rates by letting the Bush tax cuts lapse, because for ideological reasons he thinks even current rates are too low. And instead of deregulating for more energy production, he is still promising massive increases in regulatory barriers -- through global warming cap-and-trade legislation -- to increased production from proven energy sources to serve an extreme environmentalist ideology." By George: Obama's approach has never worked. Japan tried for years to rescue its economy by pouring government money into it. It did not help. I am repeating the 1/20/09 GIAC entry (re-dated: the lesson is timeless) below to show how it failed when FDR tried it.
2/11/09 Get Over It: New Deal Didn't Do the Job “'We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.' . . .
"How
about
this: "It was May 9, 1939, [more than 6 years into the New Deal] and Morgenthau was appearing before powerful Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee. . . ."
Scare Tactics and Wheelbarrow-full-of-money-for-a-loaf-of-bread-hyper-inflation -- next two items:
2/7/09 Obama radio address: OK with stimulus scrutiny - but hurry up and pass it! By Jimmy Orr "In today’s weekly radio address, there were immediate clues that the topic would be the economic stimulus package. "It only took Obama four words before he said 'devastating.' And 11 words before he said 'crisis.' "But a full 193 words before 'catastrophe' was spoken. (Armageddon and annihilation were not mentioned)." By George: Let me use my own scare tactics: "This may cause a wheelbarrow-full-of-money-for-a-loaf-of-bread-hyper-inflation as was said to occur during the Weimer Republic's hyper-inflation described in the item below. Those on a fixed income may starve."
2/7/09 The German Hyperinflation, 1923 Excerpt from Paper Money by "Adam Smith," (George J.W. Goodman), pp. 57-62. "Before World War I Germany was a prosperous country, with a gold-backed currency, expanding industry, and world leadership in optics, chemicals, and machinery. The German Mark, the British shilling, the French franc, and the Italian lira all had about equal value, and all were exchanged four or five to the dollar. That was in 1914. In 1923, at the most fevered moment of the German hyperinflation, the exchange rate between the dollar and the Mark was one trillion Marks to one dollar, and a wheelbarrow full of money would not even buy a newspaper. . . . "[T]he printing presses ran, and once they began to run, they were hard to stop. The price increases began to be dizzying. Menus in cafes could not be revised quickly enough. A student at Freiburg University ordered a cup of coffee at a cafe. The price on the menu was 5,000 Marks. He had two cups. When the bill came, it was for 14,000 Marks. 'If you want to save money,' he was told, 'and you want two cups of coffee, you should order them both at the same time.' . . . "A factory worker described payday, which was every day at 11:00 a.m.: 'At 11:00 in the morning a siren sounded, and everybody gathered in the factory forecourt, where a five-ton lorry was drawn up loaded brimful with paper money. The chief cashier and his assistants climbed up on top. They read out names and just threw out bundles of notes. As soon as you had caught one you made a dash for the nearest shop and bought just anything that was going.' Teachers, paid at 10:00 a.m., brought their money to the playground, where relatives took the bundles and hurried off with them." By George: I hope I have your attention. The current massive "stimulus" package will effectively print a historically unprecedented number of American dollars. I urge you to contact Pennsylvania Senator Specter and Maine Senators Snowe and Collins and any of their state constituents that you may know seeking for these senators to insist on far more spending cutbacks in the "stimulus" bill than they have agreed to in exchange for their needed votes to reach the 60 senatorial votes required for the bill's passage. All U.S. Senators have phone numbers starting with 1-202-224. For Specter follow those numbers with 4254, Collins with 2523 and Snowe with 5344. Their e-mail addresses are senator_specter@specter.senate.gov, senator@collins.senate.gov and In the longer term, we should continue to keep on the U.S. Congress as long as it takes and it is possible for it to correct this situation. Below is a more extensive list of links to contact information for congressional members:
2/7/09 Obama's Leninism "In time, 'Democratic Centralism' came to mean what everything eventually meant in Lenin’s universe: my way or the highway. 'Bipartisanship' for example meant discussing different viewpoints within the party as long as they didn’t reflect 'bourgeois consciousness.' In short, Lenin, like President Obama it seems, claimed 'I won' and would only entertain a certain 'politically correct' form of bipartisanship. . . . "The Founding Fathers divided the American government against itself so that, according to James Madison, 'ambition is made to check ambition.' The purpose was to preserve our freedom and make it impossible for leaders to frighten and manipulate the citizens into accepting rash and precipitous proposals. The cost may be a certain clumsiness in reacting to pressing social issues, but the benefit is twofold: a healthy debate from each branch of government, and the knowledge that the Constitution remains the final arbiter, not fallible men who claim 'I won.'
2/7/09 Obama's era of hope winds down Charles Krauthammer
11/07/08 The Decency of George W. Bush "I have seen President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a deeper decency -- a decency that is privately engaging and publicly consequential."
11/28/08 Bush on His Legacy: I 'Liberated' Iraqis "In a personal and wide-ranging interview conducted by his sister about his legacy, his faith and the influence of his father, President George W. Bush said he hopes to be remembered as a liberator of the Iraqi people. 'I'd like to be a president [known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace' . . . "'I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process' . . . "'I came to Washington with a set of values, and I'm leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn't going to sacrifice those values; that I was a president that had to make tough choices and was willing to make them,' . . . "'I surrounded myself with good people," Bush said. "I carefully considered the advice of smart, capable people and made tough decisions.' . . . "'I think the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the significant achievements of my administration' . . . "'It's certainly been very rewarding to look at Afghanistan and both know that the president and the United States military liberated women there; that women and girls can be in school now; that women can walk outside their doors without a male escort,' the first lady said . . . "'[T]he greatness of America -- it really is -- is that you can worship or not worship and be equally American. And it doesn't matter how you choose to worship; you're equally American. And it's very important for any President to jealously protect, guard, and strengthen that freedom.'"
Consider these Facts and Check them out! 2008 Presidential Candidate Comparison Talking Points
10/1/08 Time for McCain to Name Names"The good news for McCain, should he decide to grasp it, is that the party against which he is (supposed to be) running can easily be pegged with the lion's share of the blame regarding our economic meltdown. There is no doubt that liberal policies on energy and housing have combined to put the country in this situation, and only unwinding these policies will lead the nation out of this problem. Naming names properly will name a whole lot of folks with "D" beside their names. "Congress, of course, is now led by the very people who put us into this mess to begin with. If McCain thinks he can thread the needle in a bi-partisan fashion here, he is sadly mistaken. If he does not point out the facts, then his party will take the blame for and he will not win the election. It cannot happen."
10/16/08 Bush Proposed Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac Supervision In 2003 [ A 2003 NYT article shows President Bush proposed “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago:” An agency within the Treasury Department to supervise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The proposal was blocked by many Democrats atop the list of Fannie/Freddie money recipients. "A September 11, 2003 New York Times article shows that President Bush proposed “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” "A report by outside investigators in July [2003] concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors . . . "”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. . . "The proposal worked its way around Congress for a couple of years. Efforts at reform of the kind proposed by President Bush were shot down by Democrats each time. . . . "In 2005, Republican Mike Oxley, then chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, brought up a reform bill (H.R. 1461), and Fannie and Freddie’s lobbyists set out to weaken it. . . "According to OpenSecrets.org, between 1988 and 2008 Dodd received $133,900, Kerry $111,000, Clinton $75,550, and Obama — in only 143 days in the Senate — received a whopping $105,849 from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. . . . "And, in case you were wondering, John McCain co-sponsored a bill requiring greater Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac regulation in 2005. It was also blocked procedurally by Democrats. . . . "UPDATE: 2004 video posted to YouTube shows Republicans arguing for, and Democrats arguing against, regulations that would have saved us from the current crisis. [Video on linked site] "Even former President Clinton knows where to place the blame for the mortgage crisis. [Video on linked site] "UPDATE: Democrat Congressman Artur Davis admits Democrats dropped the ball on the mortgage crisis. "How Obama’s radical friends in ACORN community organized us right into a credit crisis. The following link to videos showing how the U.S. got into its current financial crisis and where the bulk of the blame lies: SAVING OUR ECONOMY 1 OF 6 SAVING OUR ECONOMY 2 OF 6 SAVING OUR ECONOMY 3 OF 6 SAVING OUR ECONOMY 4 OF 6 SAVING OUR ECONOMY 5 OF 6 SAVING OUR ECONOMY 6 OF 6
10/24/08 Bailout Politics by Thomas Sowell "Nothing could more painfully demonstrate what is wrong with Congress than the current financial crisis. "Among the Congressional "leaders" invited to the White House to devise a bailout "solution" are the very people who have for years created the risks that have now come home to roost. . . . "Neither do the voters deserve to be deceived on the eve of an election by the notion that this is a failure of free markets that should be replaced by political micro-managing. "If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were free market institutions they could not have gotten away with their risky financial practices because no one would have bought their securities without the implicit assumption that the politicians would bail them out. "It would be better if no such government-supported enterprises had been created in the first place and mortgages were in fact left to the free market. This bailout creates the expectation of future bailouts. "Phasing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would make much more sense than letting politicians play politics with them again, with the risk and expense being again loaded onto the taxpayers." (This excellent Article is dated 10/1/08. Dating on George's Information and Comments is for occasional readers convenience.)
10/23/08 Obama's Amazing Fannie Contributions Getting to the bottom of Congress's role, slowly. "Mr. Waxman has apparently decided it's safe to hold a hearing after those inconveniently partisan things called elections are over. He will call several ex-CEOs of the mortgage lenders, including Mr. Raines. Republicans are already making a list of all of the inconvenient facts that won't be aired until it's too late to influence voters at the ballot box. For one, who knew that Senator Barack Obama was the largest single recipient of Fannie Mae campaign contributions over the last 20 years, save for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd? More amazing still, Mr. Obama pulled off this feat even though he had only been in the Senate for four of those 20 years."
10/7/08
Planting
Seeds
of
Disaster
"‘You’ve
got
only
a
couple
thousand
bucks
in
the
bank.
Your
job
pays
you
dog-food
wages.
Your
credit
history
has
been
bent,
stapled,
and
mutilated.
You
declared
bankruptcy
in
1989.
Don’t
despair:
You
can
still
buy
a
house.”
So
began
an
April
1995
article
in
the
Chicago
Sun-Times
that
went
on
to
direct
prospective
home-buyers
fitting
this
profile
to a
group
of
far-left
'community
organizers'
called
ACORN,
for
assistance.
In
retrospect,
of
course,
encouraging
customers
like
this
to
buy
homes
seems
little
short
of
madness.
"I’ve
already
told
the
story
of
Obama’s
close
ties
to
ACORN
leader
Madeline
Talbott,
who
personally
led
Chicago
ACORN’s
campaign
to
intimidate
banks
into
making
high-risk
loans
to
low-credit
customers.
Using
provisions
of a
1977
law
called
the
Community
Reinvestment
Act
(CRA),
Chicago
ACORN
was
able
to
delay
and
halt
the
efforts
of
banks
to
merge
or
expand
until
they
had
agreed
to
lower
their
credit
standards
—
and
to
fill
ACORN’s
coffers
to
finance
'counseling'
operations
like
the
one
touted
in
that
Sun-Times
article.
This
much
we’ve
known.
Yet
these
local,
CRA-based
pressure-campaigns
fit
into
a
broader,
more
disturbing,
and
still
under-appreciated
national
picture.
Far
more
than
we’ve
recognized,
ACORN’s
local,
CRA-enabled
pressure
tactics
served
to
entangle
the
financial
system
as a
whole
in
the
subprime
mess.
ACORN
was
no
side-show.
On
the
contrary,
using
CRA
and
ties
to
sympathetic
congressional
Democrats,
ACORN
succeeded
in
drawing
Fannie
Mae
and
Freddie
Mac
into
the
very
policies
that
led
to
the
current
disaster.
Barack Obama's Pattern of False Statements on Bill Ayers There is too much here to reasonably synopsize. It includes convincing public information of Obama's false statements on his association and alliances with ACORN, Jerimiah Wright and "two other self-professed spiritual leaders, Father Michael Pfleger and Rev. James Meeks." The article also points out how FactCheck.org and other so-called fact-checkers have painted over the reality.
10/8/08 Does Obama Read His Hometown Paper? "As discussed quite a bit around here, David Axelrod says Obama didn't know about Ayers' past when Obama first started allying himself with the former terrorist. Ayers was "just a guy in the neighborhood" — which, if true, says something just plain awful about that neighborhood if you ask me. But anyway, just out of curiosity, I decided to see if the Chicago Tribune had written anything about Ayers and his terrorist past during the period of Obama's plasible deniability. The Tribune is basically the paper of record in Chicago and also probably a good bellweather of other media coverage in the region (i.e. local TV news, the Sun-Times etc). And, yep, it turns out the Trib ran quite a few pieces on Ayers and his work as a founder of the Weather Underground, including a few before Obama's fundraiser at Ayers' home and a great many during Obama's tenure on the Woods Foundation board. Indeed, Ayers' memoir came out during that period and received national coverage, including a big story in the NYT. . . . "I don't know Chicago well. But my sense of the place is that they take politics pretty seriously there. Young, very smart and hyper ambitious politicians like Obama tend to read the local paper (never mind the New York Times, which ran a couple dozen stories mentioning Ayers and his terrorist ties between 1990 and 2004). The political class in Chicago knows who everybody is, where they came from, what they believe. They tend to learn about people who give them jobs, money and political opportunities. And, people like Ayers don't exactly keep their views or radical past a closely guarded secret, particularly when they remain unrepentant. "In short, I think it's a lie — and a pretty stupid one — to say that Obama didn't know about any of this. The obvious answer is he just didn't care."
10/6/08
The
Ayers
Question
vs. the
Keating
Scandal
"Very
soon
after
she was
picked
to be
McCain’s
running
mate,
Sarah
Palin
was
attacked
by Obama
campaign
spokesmen
and a
Democratic
member
of
Congress
for once
being
seen
wearing
a Pat
Buchanan
button.
She had
an
answer
and the
campaign
offered
it. Yet
now we
are
asked to
believe
that
it’s
somehow
inappropriate
to
inquire
why
Barack
Obama’s
political
career
began in
the home
of an
admitted
and
unrepentant
domestic
terrorist
of the
radical
left?
“Who is Barack
Obama?”
is not
an
irrelevant
question
given
the job
Obama is
seeking,
and it’s
a
question
he has
sought
mightily
to avoid
answering.
The veil
of
secrecy
he has
thrown
over his
past
(journalists
have
been
denied
access
to his
state
legislative
office
records,
documents
about
state
earmarks
he
distributed
in
Illinois,
a list
of his
legal
clients,
his
state
bar
application,
billing
records
related
to Tony
Rezko,
medical
records,
academic
records
— all of
which
are the
sort of
documents
candidates
routinely
make
public)
forces
the
question
all the
more.
"The
Obama
campaign’s
response
to the
[Ayers]
question
appears
to be to
raise
John
McCain’s
connection
to the
Keating
Five
scandal.
It is by
no means
out of
bounds
to raise
the
issue.
McCain
received
campaign
funds
from
Keating,
his
wife’s
company
had been
involved
in
investment
ventures
with
him, and
he once
met with
federal
regulators
about
Keating’s
bank —
though
the
Senate
Ethics
Committee
found
that
unlike
three
other
senators
involved
in the
scandal,
'Senator
McCain’s
actions
were not
improper.'
The
committee
said
only
that he
had
exercised
bad
judgment
by being
involved
with
Keating
at all
and not
seeing
what
others
were
doing.
In fact,
Bob
Bennett,
who was
the
Democratic
lawyer
selected
by the
committee
to
investigate
the
Keating
Five,
says in
his
book
that he
recommended
that
McCain’s
name be
dropped
from the
investigation
because
there
was no
evidence
against
him but,
for
political
reasons
(the
other
Senators
were all
Democrats),
McCain’s
name was
left on
the
list."
10/18/08 Record Versus Rhetoric "Sarah Palin's record is on the record, while whole years of Barack Obama's life are engulfed in fog, and he has had to explain away one after another of the astounding and vile people he has not merely "associated" with but has had political alliances with, and to whom he has directed the taxpayers' money and other money. "Sarah Palin has had executive experience-- and the White House is the executive branch of government. We don't have to judge her by her rhetoric because she has a record. "We don't know what Barack Obama will actually do because he has actually done very little for which he was personally accountable. . . . "Senator Biden's "experience" has been a long history of being on the wrong side of issue after issue in foreign policy. He was one of those Senators who voted to pull the plug on financial aid to South Vietnam, which was still defending itself from Communist invaders after the pullout of American troops. "Biden opposed Ronald Reagan's military buildup that helped win the Cold War. He opposed the surge in Iraq last year. "Sarah Palin will not be ready to become President of the United States on the first day that she and John McCain take office. Nobody is. "But being Vice President is a job that can allow a lot of time for studying, and everything about Governor Palin's career says that she is a bright gal with her head on straight. The country needs that far more than it needs people with glib answers to media "gotcha" questions. "Whatever the shortcomings of John McCain and Sarah Palin, they are people whose values are the values of this nation, whose loyalty and dedication to this country's fundamental institutions are beyond question because they have not spent decades working with people who hate America. Nor are they people whose judgments have been proved wrong consistently during decades of Beltway 'experience.'"
Combat
Veterans
Grade
Senators
on Iraq
War
Votes
"The
Vets for
Freedom
group,
or VFF,
examined
the key
votes
that
affected
the war
in Iraq,
Afghanistan,
and
other
counter-terrorism
efforts
by the
100
members
of the
Senate.
The
group
then
issued a
report
card
based on
the
percentage
of times
a
particular
senator
voted in
accordance
with the
organization’s
position.
McCain
and
the
Fact-Checking
Fallacy "This has been the campaign of the fact-checker. After presidential debates, campaign commercials, or even off-hand statements from the candidates, newspapers, networks, and websites come out with seemingly objective analyses of the specific claims involved. Putting analysis under the heading of “fact-checking” sends the message that it has an added measure of accuracy, that what readers and viewers are about to read or see is no spin, just facts. . . . "Let’s assume that FactCheck’s analysis is correct. Why shouldn’t McCain and Palin use the new, supposedly more accurate, numbers? When Palin said in St. Louis last week that Obama 'had 94 opportunities to side on the people’s side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction' — well, why not change it to 'had 54 opportunities to side on the people’s side and reduce taxes and 54 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction'? Wouldn’t that still be a damning critique of Obama’s stance on taxes? . . "The point of all this is that factchecking reports begin with an analysis of details but end with the factchecker’s opinion of what an ad or speech 'implies' or what 'impression' it leaves. And that takes the fact-checkers away from the realm of fact."
3 Ways to Lower Gas Prices I strongly recommend your viewing this You Tube talk as well as the item just below.
Facts about ANWR This file has been inadvertently deleted from this site. Synopsis follows:
Our view on energy policy: Alaska drilling is no quick fix, but it needs to happen "It wouldn't bring relief from today's high prices, as President Bush implied Monday. And it wouldn't make the United States energy independent. "So does that mean, as critics suggest, that it's not worth doing? Not at all. Drilling in ANWR and offshore is an important piece of any long-term strategy to make the nation less vulnerable to oil-producing nations and supply disruptions. It is one of many imperfect steps needed to both increase the supply of oil and curb the demand for it, while seeking energy alternatives. "It's true that any serious oil production from ANWR would take about 10 years. But dealing with the energy situation requires an ability to look beyond quick fixes. The fact is, ANWR oil would be flowing now if President Clinton hadn't vetoed a drilling bill in 1995. "Environmentalists charge that drilling would despoil a pristine area in northern Alaska that is about the size of South Carolina and is a critical habitat for caribou, musk oxen, bears and birds. In fact, exploration in the 19 million-acre refuge would be confined to 1.5 million acres, and drilling to just 2,000 acres, an area less than half that of Atlanta's airport. "Oil production would inevitably affect the refuge. But studies at Prudhoe Bay to the west, where oil has been produced since 1977 in an area more than twice the size of the one planned for ANWR, show that the effects can be minimized and wildlife protected, particularly with today's newer exploration technology."
"WMD: Hear about the 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium found in Iraq? No? Why should you? It doesn't fit the media's neat story line that Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed no nuclear threat when we invaded in 2003."
President Bush was Right, As Evidenced by This Month’s Sale of Saddam’s Uranium and More
Efforts to discredit Bush distort the truth and hurt our country "To believe — as the Center for Public Integrity recently charged — that President Bush and members of his administration, including Colin Powell, a natural born hero of the left, lied more than 900 times to promote and prolong the Iraq war is to concede that each and every member of Congress, along with assorted members of the Clinton administration, were complicit in that lie. Every dog in this hunt believed the intelligence. Bush didn't get there alone. Not by a long shot. . . ."
Wash Post Columnist: 'Bush Lied' Argument Doesn't Match Facts "[D]ive into [Sen. Jay] Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find. "On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates." "On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information." "On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information." "On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? 'Generally substantiated by intelligence information.' Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? 'Generally substantiated by available intelligence.' Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? 'Generally substantiated by intelligence information." "As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism. "But statements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda 'were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,' and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda 'were substantiated by intelligence information.' The report is left to complain about 'implications' and statements that 'left the impression' that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation."
2/20/08 Big News from Baghdad "If you're looking for one measure of the impact of last year's troop surge in Iraq, look at Gen. David Petraeus as he walks through a Baghdad neighborhood, with no body armor, and no helmet. . . . We are now seeing extraordinary security gains from the last year translate into both political reconciliation and legislative progress. Within the last week the Iraqi parliament passed key laws having to do with provincial elections (the law devolves power to the local level in a decentralization system that is groundbreaking for the region), the distribution of resources, and amnesty. And those laws follow ones passed in recent months having to do with pensions, investment, and de-Ba’athification. . . . Having strongly opposed the surge, Obama and Clinton have been forced by events to concede that security progress has been made. But until now they have insisted that the surge is a failure because we're not seeing political progress. That claim is now shattered. Soon Obama and Clinton will have no argument left to justify their position on Iraq. It will become increasingly clear that they are committed to leaving Iraq simply because they are committed to leaving Iraq, regardless of the awful consequence that would follow."
Web of Deceit This link has been dropped because the target Web site requires registration.
"'Bush
lied,
people
died,'
has been
the
loopy
left's
mantra
since
2003:
The
president
fabricated
evidence
about
Saddam
Hussein's
weapons
of mass
destruction
and
al-Qaida's
ties to
Iraq to
inflame
support
for
invading
Iraq.
Reminder: Bush Won in Florida Recounts Conducted by the Media "Sunday and Monday night at 9 PM EDT/PDT) sure to rekindle claims that Al Gore would have won if only the U.S. Supreme Court had not 'stopped the counting,' a reminder that both recounts conducted by major media outlets in 2001 determined George W. Bush would have won anyway. Two stars of the film have fueled the re-writing of history with actor Kevin Spacey, who plays Gore operative Ron Klain, charging that 'the Bush people were trying to stop votes from being counted and the Gore people were just trying to get votes counted' while Laura Dern, who plays Katherine Harris, recalled that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling left her 'devastated because there were uncounted votes.'
Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab
12/2/08 The First Aid: Iceman May Have Dressed His Own Wounds
By Alexis Madriga
[an arrow
wound]
[A] study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used a different technique to pin down the diet of Peruvians who lived 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. The examination of starch grains scraped from dirty teeth recovered from an archaeological site revealed that agriculture was in full swing in the region during that time."
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