McCain Takes Lead in Zoby Poll

Crossposted from Stop the ACLU

Its a shocker for sure, but Drudge says Zogby puts McCain one point ahead.

ZOGBY SATURDAY: McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday poll. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all...

Who knows if it means anything, since Gallup gives a gain to Obama with an eight point lead, but it is nice to see for a change. I'm afraid to announce it, cuz I'm sure it is somehow racist.

Lisa Schiffren wonders...What if it's really close?

Related: Rush's Gut talks
10 Reasons McCain Might Win

'Persuadables' At 14 Percent

Just days before the presidential election and we see there are a large number of what is considered "persuadables", which are people that either have not decided or lean one way or another but can still be "persuaded" toward one of the two presidential candidates.

With the sand in the 2008 campaign hourglass about depleted, Campbell is part of a stubborn wedge of people who, somehow, are still making up their minds about who should be president. One in seven, or 14 percent, can't decide or back a candidate but might switch, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll of likely voters released Friday.

Who are they? They look a lot like the voters who've already locked onto a candidate, though they're more likely to be white and less likely to be liberal. And they disproportionately backed Hillary Rodham Clinton's failed run for the Democratic nomination.

For now, their indecision remains intact despite the fortunes that have been spent to tug people toward either McCain, the Republican, or the Democrat Obama. Fueling their uncertainty is a combination of disliking something about both candidates and frustration with this campaign and politics in general.

Those who have already made up their minds for either John McCain or Barack Obama are not the target audience in the last days before the election. The target audience are the 14 percent that can still be persuaded to get out to vote for one candidate or another.

This is the reason it is still very important to get all the information out there, pound it home, hammer the points we find to be key to helping those undecided voters decide.

Two pieces in Washington Post today bring that to bear, speaking to those that have not decided yet with their arguments of why they believe those "persuadables" should vote for John McCain on Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

The first titled "In Final Stretch, McCain to Pour Money Into TV Ads," shows that McCain is going to make a final 72 hour push targeting those folks and the second is Charles Krauthammer's piece called "McCain for President, Part II."

Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee will unleash a barrage of spending on television advertising that will allow him to keep pace with Sen. Barack Obama's ad blitz during the campaign's final days, but the expenditures will impact McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts, according to Republican strategists.

Charles Krauthammer's piece deals with economics and kitchen-table items.

The only people really listening to the candidates speeches and arguments right now, paying attention to help them decide instead of simply looking for one or the other to make a major gaffe, are those that have not yet determined who they will vote for in a manner where their minds cannot be changed.

Those are the target right now.

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Iraqi's For McCain

They cannot vote in our elections, but since we continue hearing idiocy from the left about how the Iraqi's hate us, we are invaders, yadda, yadda, yadda, it is interesting to see the truth get reported and very surprising that it is the AFP reporting honestly about this.

AFP, via Breitbart:

For five years Ali and Mohammed have lived alongside US soldiers in their Baghdad neighbourhood near Rasheed Street, a prominent commercial artery running through the heart of the Iraqi capital.

During that time American culture and politics have become familiar to them, and they say that if they could, they would vote for Republican candidate John McCain in next week's US presidential election.

So, while they cannot vote in our elections, it is interesting to see who they would vote for if they could. After all, their future rests heavily on our actions, therefore they have a vested interest, even though they can do nothing themselves about it.

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Woman Buys Foreclosed Home and Gives it Back to Owner

And a Samantha Rant!

Tracy Orr attended an auction of foreclosed homes, hers was one on the block for bid. She had bought her home in 2008 and just a month after purchasing it for $80,000 she lost her job. Orr fell behind on her payments and then went into foreclosure.A teary eyed Orr struck up a conversation with a stranger about her heartbreak, that stranger happened to be a God Send.

Marylin Mock was attending the auction to help her 27 year old son to purchase a house. After hearing Orr's dilemma she decided to buy the foreclosed home on a whim. She purchased the house for $30,000 then told Orr she could stay at her home and pay her instead of the bank.

What Marylin Mock did is a dream to many people in foreclosure who are facing homelessness and uncertainty. Just think about this. The house was worth $80,000, but was sold at a $50,000 loss for only $30,000. Why did this house have to go to auction and the bank lose money? Why didn't they work with Tracy who was struggling? What is so damn hard about giving an economic deferral to not only be a help to a client, but ensure a home loan?At $80,000 with about a 6.9% interest rate, Tracy's house payment is about $800 a month including escrow and possibly PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance). Keep in mind I am not a mortgage genious calculator or anything. So that means the bank will most likely be getting about $500 of that a month on a 30 year loan. That is $180,000 at the end of the loan. $100,000 profit! And not to mention the bank is paid first before much goes into the principle balance. So the bank gave up $100,000 profit to sell it at action for $30,000?! That is a $150,000 loss. That is just horrible business practice, let alone immoral to be kicking someone out of their home when you are willing to take it at such a loss. I bet Tracy could have easily afforded the payments of a $30,000 loan after she found a new job.

Folks this happening in the market is not a moral capitalism. This is an immoral action that in the end has effectively screwed over the entire nation. If people pulled their heads out of their behinds and actually looked at the numbers they would make wiser decisions. Because of this meltdown people are gun shy when it comes to capitalism. Look at the poll numbers, people are voting in a socialist. Now if that is what people want, whatever. I happened to disagree and feel there is more opportunity for success in a true capitalism. But even capitalism is out dated, we need economism, where people use their brains. What better way to ensure profit than to make sure people can afford your product? That means people need jobs, homes, and fair prices. In this way everyone who is willing will succeed.

Courtesy of Daughter of America

Reporters From McCain Endorsing Papers Booted From Obama Plane

Thursday night reporters from papers that have endorsed John McCain, such as New York Post, Dallas Morning News and Washington Times, after having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Barack Obama, were informed there would be no more room for them on the Obama plane in the last three days of the general election campaign.

Drudge reported originally on this and it has been confirmed by the Washington Times with their own article.

The Obama campaign informed the newspaper Thursday evening of its decision, which came two days after The Times editorial page endorsed Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama. The Times editorial page runs completely independent of the news department.

"This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama's campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter's pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign," said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon.

"I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn't using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign."

The Times formally protested the decision, noting that it has one of the top 20 largest newspaper Web sites in the country, distributes its print edition in the key battleground state of Virginia, and has had its stories repeatedly cited by Mr. Obama and other Democrats throughout the campaign.

Fox News reports that the reasoning was "lack of seats" and the reporters tossed would be replaced with "network bigwigs and reporters from two black magazines."

This definitely fits with the theme we have seen in recent weeks where Joe Biden and the Obama campaign have banned access and interviews with stations that dared ask Biden some hard questions instead of softballs, which was reported on here and here.

The Moderate Voice also points out that Morning Joe today on MSNBC spoke generally about the coverage of Obama since 2007:

“All through this campaign, Barack Obama was the story the media wanted to tell. And if you ran against Obama, whether you were [Hillary] Clinton or John McCain, they were going to tear you to pieces.“

I guess if they didn't kowtow to Obama we now know what the campaign would do...just refuse to allow their reporters access and or refuse interviews with those particular stations or papers.

[Update] New York Post writes their article about this. Their reaction is "We are happy to be on the outside looking in. It's what makes The New York Post special. We are not in the news business to be liked."

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Weathermen Violence: Someone Remembers

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

I received a comment from the daughter of police officer who lost his friend and fellow officer in a Black Liberation Army murder, known as the Brinks robbery of 1981, in Nyack, New York. Bill Ayers' fellow Weather Underground bomber, Kathy Boudin, as well as other Weathermen, was involved in the Nyack shootings. I've asked for permission to add the comment here, so let's begin with this from Christine:

The first time I ever saw my Father cry was the day his friend Officer Brown was shot in the line of duty by the Weather Underground, in my hometown of Nyack NY.

Later, Dad was asked to serve as a sharpshooter on the courthouse roof at the arraignment of the survivors (several of them died too at the shootout over a Brinks truck they were trying to steal).

Dad refused that job, he didn't trust himself to be just to the Greenwich Village protesters who'd traveled up from the city to hurl racial slurs at our dead in support of the criminals.

Officer Brown's fiancee worked at Nyack hospital with my Mom. The whole hospital was convulsed as they had to care for the wounded killers as well as their neighbors.

How ironic that a movement supposedly in favor of lifting up African Americans did their work by shooting an African American man well known for mentoring young men in our town.

Has Ayers repented from his works, or merely implemented them in a respectable place? I was in 6th grade when I saw where his ideas lead.

Christine has further clarified to me that it was not the Weather Underground but the Black Liberation Army that caused the deaths, but as I told her, there is a definite connection between the two.

William Ayers continues to say that the Weathermen ALWAYS notified their bomb targets that a bomb would be exploding within minutes. Hofstra University Professor Alan Singer, a spokesman for a recent petition in support of Bill Ayers' "character," a petition with some-3200 signatures, recently said in an interview that Ayers' actions placed no one's life was in jeopardy. We know that is not true.

Here is how Christine's story is related to Bill Ayers?

After the Weather Underground's extensive and successful bombings of U.S. Federal buildings, the group's bomb makers huddled in a New York townhouse basement, building a bomb to blow up a military dance at Fort Dix, NJ. The bomb blew early...killing three Weathermen - one of which was Bill Ayers' love interest, and sending one occupant who was taking a shower at the time of the explosion, into the streets, naked and bleeding. Her name is Kathy Boudin and she is a Weather Undergrounder. The townhouse owner, and also a Weatherman, Cathy Wilkerson, also survived.

The Townhouse
No lives at jeopardy?

Meanwhile, the fire consumed the townhouse as gas lines exploded and windows shattered into the street. But firefighters were able to get hoses on the inferno quickly and soon, it was brought under control. In the early evening, a man's body was found in the basement and a short time later, a woman's torso was discovered on the first floor. Police also found several handbags with personal identifications that were stolen from college students over the previous few months. Late that same night, cops located at least 60 sticks of dynamite, a live military antitank shell, blasting caps and several large metal pipes packed solid with explosives. Neighbors, including actor Dustin Hoffman, who lived next door, began leaving in droves. Read here.

Boudin and the Weather Underground were now forever tied with the first domestic terrorism building bombing in New York City. Eleven years after the self-detonation of the bomb makers in the townhouse, Boudin came out of hiding and for whatever reasons, and joined the Black Liberation Army.

In Nyack, New York the plan was to hold up a Brinks security truck. Boudin was slated to drive the getaway vehicle, and David Gilbert (at times identified as Boudin's husband) was there also. The heavily armed and trigger-happy Black Liberation Army quickly shot one security guard dead and critically wounded a second, took the money, and jumped in the back of Boudin's getaway truck.

Kathy Boudin

They sped away with the BLA in the back of the truck. In the resulting chaos, Gilbert was at the wheel and Boudin in the passenger seat. Two police officers stopped the getaway truck. Members of the Black Liberation Army broke from the back of the truck and mowed down the officers in cold blood. The dead were Sergeant Edward O'Grady, and Officer Waverly Brown.


Officer Brown was Christine's father's friend and fellow officer. He was an Air Force veteran of the Korean War. He was the first Black American member of Nyack's police department, and had served his community as a policeman for 15 years at the time of his murder. His friends called him "Chipper."

Later, Dad was asked to serve as a sharpshooter on the courthouse roof at the arraignment of the survivors (several of them died too at the shootout over a Brinks truck they were trying to steal).

Dad refused that job, he didn't trust himself to be "just" to the Greenwich Village protesters who'd traveled up from the city to hurl racial slurs at our dead in support of the criminals.

Officer Brown's fiancee worked at Nyack hospital with my Mom. The whole hospital was convulsed as they had to care for the wounded killers as well as their neighbors.

How ironic that a movement supposedly in favor of lifting up African Americans [BLA] did their work by shooting an African American man well known for mentoring young men in our town.

Has Ayers repented from his works, or merely implemented them in a respectable place? I was in 6th grade when I saw where his ideas lead.

Kathy Boudin said she was just a "white decoy" in the whole affair. She had a 14 month old son at the time of the Black Liberation Army murders. Boudin spent 22 years of a 20 years-to-life sentence. She was paroled in Fall of 2003 to loud protests. Her son, Chesa Boudin, was raised by Weather Undergrounders, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

From Outlaws of America, by Dan Berger,

In a communique, Weather urged people to support the BLA as one of many righteous expressions of Black anger at racism.

Notes:
Sgt. Edward O'Grady II was the other Nyack policeman shot to death that day. He was a former U.S. Marine, he served two tours in Vietnam, he worked as a volunteer fire fighter, and he was the youngest member of the police force to achieve the rank of Sergeant. His son went on to graduate the U.S. Naval Academy.

The Black Liberation Army armed robbers were:
Mutulu Shakur, Duwasi Balagoon, Sekou Odinga, Cecilio Fergusan, Solomon Bouines

Former Weather Undergrounders and May 19th Communist Organization involved:
David Gilbert, Samuel Brown, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, Marilyn Buck

Related Research:
Guardian Observer
Ambush: The Brinks Robbery of 1981
Officer Down Memorial Page - Officer Waverly L. Brown
Officer Down Memorial Page - Sergeant Edwar J. O'Grady, Jr.
Megyn Kelly Levels Hofstra Professor

al-Qaeda For Democrats

Chuckle worthy to say the least.

After the left tried so hard to connect al-Qaeda to some type of McCain endorsement, Reuters spoils the "meme."

An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be "humiliated," without endorsing any party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to a video posted on the Internet.

Notice the wording here from Reuters.

Al-Qaeda is not endorsing anyone but they are stating who they want to lose the election.

HMMMMMMMM, how hard is that to see through?

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Protest Outside LA Times About Hidden Video

LA Times, Shame on You is the chant the protesters are yelling as they protest the LA Times for refusing to release a video they "claim" they have of Barack Obama at a farewell party for Rashid Khalidi, more on that in my piece yesterday suggesting we all contact the Times and demand they release the tape and let voters decide for themselves what they think of it.

YouTube Video below is of the protest and more photos of the protest can be found at Mere Rhetoric.



H/T MM

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First Exit Poll Of Actual American Votes Shows Huge Win For McCain

Coutesy of Naomi Ragen
From National Review Online
From journalist Tom Gross
Thursday, October 30, 2008, 08.53 AM

Within the last hour, the first exit poll of 817 Americans in Israel, who attended U.S. election voting events in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Tuesdayevening to vote by absentee ballot, has been released. A startling 76 percent of those polled said that they had voted for John McCain. This contrasts sharply with pre-election polls of American Jews in the U.S., which indicate a strong preference for Obama. The exit poll findings of American voters in Israel are all the more surprising because less than one in four were registered Republicans, and 46% of registered Democrats living in Israel said they had crossed party lines to vote McCain. By contrast, the Republican crossover to Obama wasminimal - just 2%. The votes are significant as almost half of the 42,000 registered U.S.voters living in Israel come from key swing states including Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.In the 2000 and 2004 elections, Israel had the third-largest group of American voters abroad, after Canada and Britain.

The exit poll was commissioned by Votefromisrael.org, an independent,non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting voter registration and participation amongst American citizens living in Israel.

SARKOZY: OBAMA'S STANCE ON IRAN IS "UTTERLY IMMATURE"

More than half of the respondents listed foreign policy (including Israel and Iran policy) as the most important factor influencing their vote.Separately, in a poll for the country's largest newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, most Israelis in general (not just Americans living in Israel) said they would prefer McCain because they are concerned about the anti-Israeli positions of many of the people Barack Obama has appointed to advise him onforeign policy, and because - in the words of French President Nicolas Sarkozy as quoted in Tuesday's Ha'aretz newspaper - Obama's stance on Iranis "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content." In most countries, according to opinion polls, if the local populations had a vote in next week's American elections, they would choose Obama over McCain. Among the exceptions (where McCain would win) are Israel, Iraq, Georgia and the Philippines (all countries that have had to cope with terrorism).

Obama's Promises Versus Reality

CBS News takes an in depth look into Barack Obama's promises versus the reality of the situations and Obama comes up short on what he needs to keep his promises.

Without question, the Barack Obama infomercial served as a very slick and powerful recitation of the biggest promises he's made as a presidential candidate. But the very bigness of his ideas is the problem: he seems blind to the concept his numbers don't add up.

They list five different facts showing that Obama cannot keep his promises to his supporters or the American people and they end by making the following point:

If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq, raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he's promised to do "line by line," he still doesn't pay for his list. If he's elected, the first fact hitting his desk will be the figure projecting how much less of a budget he has to work with - thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he's facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House.

Go read the whole thing, the reality that Obama supporters close their eyes and ignore, because they cannot dispute it, is the basic simple fact that 2 + 2 equals 4, except in ObamaWorld.

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Wealth Redistribution

Obama said "spread the wealth" so, H/T to Wizbang, I thought this was a riot.

(Click to enlarge)

HEH.

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Huffington Post Writer Commits Suicide After Stabbing Lover 222 Times

(Carol Anne Burger)
The type of anger, bitterness and mental sickness that makes a person stab her former female lover 222 times is something that is hard to understand but it certainly qualifies under the header of "violent" and "rage".

Huffington Post writer, Carol Anne Burger, murdered her former lover, Jessica Kalish, by stabbing her 222 times with a Phillips-head screwdriver, around the back of her head and across her back, arms and face, according to police.

At a news conference Wednesday, police laid out what they'd learned during a week of investigation. They said the evidence pointed to one conclusion: Burger killed Kalish, a 56-year-old software executive whom friends described as worldly and intelligent, and then tried to throw investigators off her trail.

Burger and Kalish were married in Massachusetts in 2005, broke off the relationship last year but for financial reasons they continued to live in the same house.

All in all, the former couple seemed to be doing the best they could as their lawyer drew up plans to sell the house and divide the money. But secretly, police said, something was building up in Burger that would explode in a sudden, sustained burst of rage.

Minutes after someone called their home and said he had found Kalish's wallet and keys near 548 E. Gateway Boulevard, Burger reported Kalish missing Thursday afternoon. She told police Kalish left for a workout Wednesday night and never came home.

As investigators studied the case, several telltale signs, including the ferocity and personal nature of the attack, pointed to Burger, they said.

But before they could question her, Burger walked out into her back yard, pressed a gun up under her chin and pulled the trigger, police said. Detectives found her body there last Thursday but couldn't locate a suicide note.

Because there was no suicide note, police have had to use clues to put together the timelines of what had occurred in the days before the suicide.

In the days that followed, detectives and crime scene investigators put together this theory:

On Wednesday night, Kalish exercised at LA Fitness at 2290 N. Congress Ave. and was home by 9:30 p.m. A confrontation ensued, and she probably was dead by midnight.

After stabbing Kalish, Burger put her in the BMW and drove her to the Congress Avenue site. She walked home, a distance of about 2 1/2 miles.

Burger cleaned up the garage and used the washing machine and bathroom sink, where traces of Kalish's blood were later detected. She got into her Toyota Celica, drove to Gateway Boulevard and tossed out Kalish's keys and wallet.

On Tuesday night, detectives proved their theory, said Lt. Gary Chapman, who heads the department's major crimes squad.

Using Luminol, a chemical agent that causes blood traces to fluoresce under ultraviolet light, they found a "tremendous amount of blood" splattered throughout the garage, where the attack must have taken place, Chapman said. The Luminol also revealed Burger's glowing sneaker prints on the garage floor, mapping her steps after she walked through her old flame's blood.

"We believe the process of killing Jessica was pretty lengthy, in and out of the car," Chapman said. "She obviously was out of her mind."

Tragedy and unimagined horror for both families and while I didn't agree with Burger's writing, nor her specific political philosophies, the situation is heartbreaking on a simply human level.

Our sympathies to family and friends of both.

You can find Carol Burger's bio and Huffington Post blog entries here, as long as they leave the page active.

(Note- If you cannot manage to show some compassion for these two women's families and comment appropriately, I ask you show the respect and decency to not comment at all then.)

P.S.- My regular readers know me and I do not have a problem with speaking my mind about liberals, but this is not a liberal or conservative thing, this was an act of sickness, violence and rage and it goes beyond party lines and political sniping.

Tragedy has no political affiliations.

RIP

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Obama's Spread The Wealth Comment Finally Resonating

You would have to have been living under a rock to not have heard of Joe the Plumber aka Joe Wurzelbacher, who asked Barack Obama a question about Obama's tax plan to which Obama said the words heard across the country stating that he would "spread the wealth" aka wealth redistribution.

That was a long story, very short, but it seems that since that moment, people across the country have started identifying with Joe, coming to rallies holding signs saying XXX the school teacher, XXX the construction worker and so on.

Joe Wurzelbacher has even been on the campaign trail with John McCain and it looks like people have started paying attention to that "spread the wealth" comment because in the most recent Rasmussen poll, we see a huge change and as of today, John McCain is trusted more than Barack Obama on taxes and Economy.

It is a small lead, within the margin of error, but considering two weeks ago Obama was ahead in that very same question, by one, and a month ago, Obama was ahead by three....we see a net gain for McCain of 5 points in one month on the issue of the economy and taxes.

After several weeks of John McCain’s campaign attacks on Barack Obama’s tax plan and idea of “spreading the wealth around”, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds voters trust McCain more than Obama on taxes, 47% to 45%.

Two weeks ago, Obama had a one point-advantage on the issue of taxes and a month ago, he had a three-point edge. The last time McCain had the advantage on this issue was September 14, just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers started the meltdown on Wall Street

(Cartoon by Eric Allie, via Townhall)

All previous WUA pieces about Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher found here.

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Please - do this for Abbey

Today, one of our own needs you all to become pro-active. Last week Robert Stokely sent an email out to the blogosphere. Many of us know and love the Stokely family. The Stokely family has already given much to America. Robert and Retta have already lived every parent's worse nightmare. Please read Robert's email below. I need you all to make a few simple phone calls. That - and pray. Please, do this - for Abbey. Thank you.

The Stokely's need your help as does many many others around the country to get Congress to act - please see the links below to versions of the U.S. House and Senate bills for Lyme Disease Research below:

Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Education, and Research Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)[H.R.741.IH]

Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Education, and Research Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)[S.1708.IS]

Abbey Stokely was bitten by a tick about 20 months ago. We have been to doctors - the best we can find and she is very sick to this day and I fear she may even die. Yesterday, as a home health nurse came to treat her under the orders of an infectious disease doctor, she suddenly collapsed, stopped breathing and then responded again. I buried a son, SGT Mike Stokley KIA 16 AUG Yusufiyah Iraq and that nearly did it for me. I don't think I can bury a daughter, much less I know my wife Retta can't, for like Mike and I were best friends, Retta and Abbey are the closet mother / daughter I have ever known, and on top of that, they have the closet friendship I have ever seen in my life.

The other day, Abbey became so ill and fatigued at school that a friend had to bring her home from school. We, like many other families, are desparate. We nearly lost Abbey in a car wreck five months after Mike died when she and I were struck in her door, sheering it away, by another car running a stop sign. We rolled and then flipped end over end for 180 feet. We spent 18 months gettng Abbey well from that wreck.

It was during that recovery time that Abbey was bitten by the tick. Since then she has had to endure something no emerging teenager wants - to have your life taken away and unable to be with your friends. Going to church is a struggle, yet her faith and committment to God leads her to save up her strength to go to church for an hour. She went to school half days, not even going other days. Amazingly, she maintained the high straight A average she has had everyday of her entire school career, and moved from 15th in her class to 4th (and she is in a very competetive 2010 class).

We understood and accepted what we were in for when Mike went to Iraq. Yet, his death continues to be a heart break to us every day. While other thirteen year old girls might have attended their first funeral to bury a grandparent, Abbey attended her first to bury a treasured and loved brother in a most public setting, TV cameras and Reporters in her face at the State Capitol prayer service, and then again as over a thousand attended Mike's funeral. Instead of a simple graveside service and prayer to get through for a grandparent, Abbey said goodbye to her brother to the report of a 21 gun salute, watching the flag draping his casket be folded, and then the playing of taps.

There are a lot of unknowns about Lyme Disease and a lot of "blowing off" of patients like Abbey and our family by the medical community. Some doctors have even had their license taken away or suspended because traditioanl medical community views tend to discount Lyme even exists in many states or that the regimen of treatment is two weeks of an anitbiotic and the patient is cured, and if not, they are depressed and need a psychiatrist.

If what I describe above is not enough for Abbey to go through from age 13 - to 16, she has had to endure going through every known medical test and being told we don't know what you have, but it is not Lyme Disease because Lyme does not exist in GA and you are just depressed because of what has happened in your life. Such is how it goes for many others like Abbey Stokely - they are blamed for not getting better and told there is nothing wrong with them.

Abbey Stokely wants to get better, she wants to live a full life, and she wants to be happy. Yet, in the face of the the physical setback of Lyme Disease and only able to go to school half days, some days not at all, she carried a full advanced placement high school load, elected to be the President of her Student Government, doing homework on weekends when her friends are out having fun so she can maintain her lifelong high straight A average. She is in a very competetive academic class of 2010 at her high school and has managed to achieve being ranked 4th in her class. She continues a strong faith in God even given what has befallen her, continuing to read and study her bible and carry on a committed prayer life. She is respectful and considerate of the needs of others even to the point the other day when she was rear-ended by another driver, and hurt again, she was more worried about how they were than her own self, and now worries if the other driver will get in much trouble with their parents and insurance company. She is chaste and would not dare consider a drink or illegal drug. She saves her allowance for college and dreams of being a doctor or doing something to contribute to the betterment of life for others. She was trying to walk several miles a day and build up strength to walk in the three day breast cancer walk and had raised considerable money to donate to the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation by making crafts to sell and holding late night dinners for the staff at her mom's hospital. Does that sound like someone who is depressed and needs a psychiatrist?

Abbey Stokely is sick and could die from Lyme Disease. Now, we as a family need your help.

Congress has two bills pending - one in the House and one in the Senate - links above and for a tenth straight year will die if not passed out of Congress in December. We need to look at this disease and study it with an open mind and not take the hasty and closed minded positions as those with a conflict of interest due to ties in the research and pharmacuetical field have. A video "Under Our Skin" which is gripping and compelling to ask questions why not study and learn more rather than misdiagnois or outright ignore the problem. A legitimate question exists why the medical community, including CDC, is not responding and families like us, and people like Abbey, are being left with no answers, even being shunned and blamed with "the problem". Please help us and the many many others like us around our country.

I am not one who shows fear but I am really scarred for my daughter. Please guard your family from ticks, for Lyme Disease, while recognized as a disease in some states on the eastern seaboard from Maryland north, there are many states it exists in great numbers like Georgia but is ignored by health authorities. Remember, thirty years ago no one had heard of Lyme Disease until it was discovered by a doctor who studied the unusual onset of child hood arthritis in large numbrs of children in Lyme Conneticut. While the medical community blames the patient in many cases today, or misdiagnosis the patient altogether, we are very likely to look back one day and ask ourselves as a nation who we could have ignored it for so long and let so many suffer needlessly.

Thank you my friends for any contacts you can make and please share this with your friends if you like.

Robert Stokely
proud dad SGT Mike Stokely KIA 16 Aug 05 near Yusufiyah Iraq
and proud but very concerned dad of Abbey Stokely, suffering from Lyme Disease

My signature on SA says: Every soldier is one of our own. Every soldier's family is one of our own.

One of our own needs you to take the few minutes and call. Thank you.

Quote of the Day

From Family Security Matters here:

October 30, 2008

"What the Middle East fanatics want is not just our resources or even our lives, but our humiliation first, in whatever sadistic ways they can think of. Their lust for humiliation has already been repeatedly demonstrated in their videotaped beheadings that find such an eager market in the Middle East. None of this can be prevented by glib talk, but only by character, courage and decisive actions – none of which Barack Obama has ever demonstrated."

Thomas Sowell
Columnist

Since I cannot vote (no, really I can't...lol) in the upcoming election - and am therefore officially non-partisan - I am asking all of you to think about what is above here. THEN vote!

Is The 'Old Media' Against Barack Obama?

Ok, stop laughing.

I know, it sounds funny, hysterical even huh?

No smirking, quit giggling and pay attention ok?

Sheeesh.

I was going through a few pieces as I usually do, just browsing around and I ran across a piece in the Conservative Edge and while I do not totally agree with their reasoning here, I also cannot discount it because I have no verification one way or another.

So, we will stick to the facts and you can go read their view of these facts for yourself.

FACT: Six negative articles written about Barack Obama or the his campaign since the beginning of the week:

There has been an interesting development in the coverage of the Presidential campaign since the first of the week. The Washington Post has published a damaging story about Barak Obama's illegal campaign fundraising. Time Magazine has published an unflattering story about Lyin' Joe Biden being muzzled. The Atlantic Magazine has an editorialcriticizing the LA Times for failing to release the tape of Obama at a party for Rashid Khalidi. The AP has a story about Palestinians actively campaigning for Obama. Campbell Brown of CNN has a video and story critical of Barak Obama's broken campaign promise to take public funding of his general election race. And to top it all off, Howard Fineman of Newsweek says the race is not over.

Those links go to the stories the blogger wrote about each of these negative stories in the traditional media about Obama.

Those original media articles are:

The Washington Post today with "Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations." (We discussed this earlier ourselves right here)

TIME partners with CNN, with "Hidin' Biden: Reining In a Voluble No. 2"

The Atlantic with "What is the L.A. Times Hiding?"

Yahoo News, "Mideast Conflict"

CNN with "Obama breaks promise on campaign finance"

NewsWeek with "Why It Is Still A Race"

You can go over to Conservative Edge to get their take on why some media outlets are finally starting to report truthfully about Obama, which they think is the "Clinton" old media asserting itself.

Told you to stop laughing! Be good.

I have found a few more examples though of something in the air, evidenced by CNN's refusal to air the Obama 30 minute campaign commercial and issuing a memo explaining why:

Unlike the broadcast networks CBS, NBC, FOX -- and MSNBC and other cable networks -- CNN declined to accept the Obama program length commercial. In response to press inquiries this is the CNN statement that was given. And so this can be used as well on our air and websites when reporting about tonight's Obama program. We were approached by the Obama campaign and declined their request. We did not want to preempt our programming lineup with a 30-minute paid commercial program. We would rather use our air to continue to cover the campaign, candidates and issues like we always do from all points of view with the best political team on television.

MidWest Voices at voices Kansas City.com, with "Obama's cheap-shot attack on Sarah Palin"

There are more, but you get the hint. The media has done everything possible to avoid writing negative pieces about Barack Obama, and studies have been done showing how many more negative pieces they write about McCain than they do Obama, proving it without a doubt and yet since the beginning of the week, there has been considerably more percentage wise than in the previous months.

Fifty-seven percent of the print and broadcast stories about the Republican nominee were decidedly negative, the Project for Excellence in Journalism says in a report out today, while 14 percent were positive. The McCain campaign has repeatedly complained that the mainstream media are biased toward the senator from Illinois.

Obama's coverage was more balanced during the six-week period from Sept. 8 through last Thursday, with 36 percent of the stories clearly positive, 35 percent neutral or mixed and 29 percent negative.

McCain has struggled during this period and slipped in the polls, which is one of the reasons for the more negative assessments by the 48 news outlets studied by the Washington-based group. But the imbalance is striking nonetheless.

Whats up with that?

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HOW THE NETWORK NEWS HAS DEFAMED GOVERNOR PALIN

The Media Research Center has undertaken an investigation the coverage of Governor Palin by the Mainstream Media. The results, while not surprising show a vicious pattern of unfair and disguising coverage by the news media:

Apart from politicians embroiled in scandals, rarely have the public perceptions of a candidate soured so quickly. According to Pew Research Center polls from September and October, the percentage of the public that sees Republican vicepresidential nominee Sarah Palin unfavorably shot up from 32 percent to 49 percent in just one month.

Why have so many Americans turned against Palin, who made such a strong impression on the public when John McCain introduced her as his running mate at the Republican convention in September? Most likely, it’s because the few good reports they’ve heard about the Alaska governor have been overwhelmed by a blizzard of bad reports. ABC, NBC and CBS news shows are covering Palin intensively, and they are running 18 negative stories for every positive one

CMI reviewed network news coverage of Palin for the two weeks beginning September 29 and ending October 12, the period before and after the October 2 vice-presidential debate. We found that ABC, NBC and CBS have been stridently critical of Palin.

Before the debate, the networks characterized her as a dunce whose shortcomings were dividing the GOP. After Palin laid to rest concerns about her competence by performing well in the debate, the network narrative changed: Palin became a demon, victimizing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with unfair criticism.

• Major network news shows ran 69 stories about Sarah Palin between September 29 and October 12. 37 stories were negative, just 2 were positive, and 30 were neutral. Not a single evening news show ran a positive story about Palin.
  

• Overall, 21 network stories portrayed Palin as unintelligent and unqualified. 8 of these stories played a total of 11 clips of Saturday Night Live ridiculing Palin. 14 segments featured the most embarrassing clips from Palin’s interview with Katie Couric.
  

• 9 stories emphasized attacks on Palin by conservative columnists.

• 14 stories demonized Palin as little more than John McCain’s attack dog.

• ABC was hardest on Palin, with 9 negative stories (60%), 6 neutral (40%) and no positive stories. NBC ran 15 negative stories (54%), 13 neutral (46%) and no positive stories. CBS ran 14 negative stories (54%), 10 neutral (38%) and 2 positive (8%).
  

Conclusions
Network coverage of Sarah Palin has been so distorted and out of balance that the public cannot trust what they’re hearing from ABC, NBC and CBS about the GOP vice-presidential nominee. The networks have been so intent on assassinating Palin’s character that they have turned for added ammunition to sources they normally ignore – conservative columnists and comedians.

If you are not sick yet..read the rest of the report CLICK HERE

Contact LA Times- Ask Them To Release Obama/Rashid Khalidi Video

Contact Information for LA Times at the bottom of this piece.

The headline comes from the content of a piece the LA Times' newspaper wrote months ago titled "Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama."

In that piece the LA Times described a farewell to PLO terrorist Rashid Khalidi, in which according to LA Times, Barack Obama spoke to the attending crowd and "reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking."

The Times also claimed in that article (page 2) that they had a video tape of the event, using that as their "proof" that their story was accurate.

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

The LA Times did not produce a direct transcript of that video, nor did they release the tape.

There is your background.

The John McCain campaign has demanded that the LA Times release that tape so people can see for themselves exactly what type of complimentary things Obama was saying about the PLO terrorist Rashid Khalidi.

"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb, citing Obama's friendship with Khalidi, who is now a professor at Columbia University.

He said the video could, among other things, show how Obama responded to a poem recited at the party accusing Israel of "terrorism" and warning of consequences for U.S. support for Israel, which Goldfarb described as "hate speech."

"The election is one week away, and it's unfortunate that the press so obviously favors Barack Obama that this campaign must publicly request that the Los Angeles Times do its job — make information public," he said.

The LA Times has responded, claiming they promised their source who gave them the video, that they would not release it.

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

Jamie Gold, the newspaper's readers' representative, said in a statement: "More than six months ago the Los Angeles Times published a detailed account of the events shown on the videotape. The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite -- the L.A. Times brought the matter to light."

The original article said that Obama's friendships with Palestinian Americans in Chicago and his presence at Palestinian community events had led some to think he was sympathetic to the Palestinian viewpoint on Middle East politics. Obama publicly expresses a pro-Israel viewpoint that pleases many Jewish leaders.

So, the Times reports "portions" of what is on a video tape they "claim" to have and they also "allege" they promised the tape would not be released, but they do not provide a transcript of exactly what is on the tape either.

WOW... any doubt if this was a tape of McCain or Palin that they would have released it instead of continue to hide it?

If so, I have some kool-aid for you to drink.

Doug Ross has a Red Alert out from a source of his, which tells him a couple of the comments that Obama made, to which helps explain why the Times, who endorsed Barack Obama, is refusing to release the tape.

However, I received a tip from a person who has provided useful, accurate and unique data from LA before (e.g., "All six of CNN's 'undecided voters' were Democratic operatives"). Take it for what it's worth, but I believe this person is on target.

Saw a clip from the tape. Reason we can't release it is because statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying "Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine" plus there's been "genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis."

It would be really controversial if it got out. Tha's why they will not even let a transcript get out.

Hat Tip to Michelle Malkin, we see that this has grown to the point where now there is a number of rewards being offered for that tape.

see Newt Gingrich; Ace; Dirty Harry; and JWR.

And another reward offer: $150,000.

The LA Times has started a mini war now, by claiming to have something, offering it as proof but only if readers will take their word that they have it without them having to prove they have it.

The LA Times is not even trying to pretend they are not biased at this point, because by hiding a potentially explosive tape of Obama himself speaking fondly of a PLO terrorist....the story itself is questionable enough, but to have his voice blasted across the world so people can hear it for themselves.... that could be the explosion heard around the world.

Do you think they should release the video and let the people decide for themselves whether or not Obama's words about Khalidi are relevant to them and how they decide to vote?

If you do think it should be released, here is the LA Times contact page.

Chop Chop....

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Rashid Khalidi is ONLY ONE of MANY OBAMA ANTI-ISRAEL ISLAMOFACIST FRIENDS

With the controversy surrounding Senator Obama's friendship with Rashid Khalidi, and the tape being suppressed by the LA Times people are forgetting that Khalidi is just ONE of many terrorist-connected characters that Obama has allied himself with.

• Cynthia K. Miller, treasurer of his senate campaign is a Member of a member Farrakhan's Nation of Islam

• Jennifer Mason, Obama's Director of Constituent Services is also a member of the Nation of Islam.

• When a former associate raised objections to Nation of Islam staffers, he says Mr. Obama's position was that he saw nothing wrong with the Nation of Islam and didn't think it was a problem. If true--and the fact that Ms. Mason still holds her prominent Obama Senate staff position bears that out--Obama's condemnation of Farrakhan, this month, is phony.Nation of Islam members, including consultant Shakir Muhammad, held important roles in the Obama state senate campaign.

• When Obama first ran for the U.S. Senate, he gave militant responses to the Chicago Jewish News about Israel. Obama denounced Israel's fence--which he called a "wall" and "barrier to peace." He favored working with Yasser Arafat. When members of the Chicago Jewish community circulated his responses, Obama said that the answers were not his positions, but the work of a low-level intern. He submitted new answers. But that was a lie, the insider says. In fact, they were the work of Obama's Policy Director, Audra Wilson. Moreover, Obama told the insider that he blamed the Mideast conflict on the Jews:Barack told me that he felt that Jewish community was too inflexible, and that was why the situation in the Mideast could not be resolved.Source: Debbie Schussel

There are so many unsavory Obama Islamofacist Pals. Click here to read the rest of the post

The End is Nigh?

From Pam at Iraq War Today. (And yes, I DO know Pam...lol)

My Two Cents: The End is Nigh?

So here we are, less than a week from an election that could quite literally mean the end of the United States of America as we know her. Paranoia? Perhaps. I never would have believed that my nation could truly be on the verge of voting itself out of existence. But here we are.

The golden child of this presidential election has deep, obvious cracks in his hallowed facade. There are signs that few could miss if they actually look - signs that indicate severe issues. Besides his associations with radicals and terrorists, there are scores of trouble markers.

He appears not to care who supports him. His website does not utilize credit card matching for donations; a test using the names Osama bin Laden, John Galt, and Saddam Hussein to make donations with the same credit card revealed that all the donations went through. In fact, a lot of interesting people have been donating to Obama; and foreign credit are also being accepted. Donations have come from Palestine. Good Will, Loving, and Dela Ware have also made donations. Obama also accepts donations from largely untraceable pre-paid credit cards. His campaign’s response to questions was that “no campaign can fully insulate itself” from these types of issues. John McCain and Hillary Clinton used computer matching (ABS) and citizenship checks for their donations. Obama checks neither....

And you know there is more - much more. Go read this well-articulated piece NOW here!

*cross-posted from Assoluta Tranquillita*

Barack Obama Takes Online Donation From Adolfe Hitler- Then Thanks Him!!

Not the real Adolfe Hitler, probably not even a person using a real name, but representative of the type of problems being seen and finally reported by the mainstream news outlets about Barack Obama online donors.

Let us start with the Hitler donation and move on from there to the Washington Post article today showing how the Obama campaign deliberately did not implement security measures which allow Adolfe Hitler and others to get away with donating money using things like pre-paid credit cards and avoiding the limits set to what a campaign can accept.

Meanwhile, last week a reader made a donation to the Obama campaign under the name "Adolfe Hitler" (Don't ask me why the "e") of "#1 Reichstag Building, Berlin, Germany", charging it to his Mastercard and is now getting welcome-to-the-big-change emails:

Dear Adolfe,

Thanks for joining this movement. It will take all of us working together to bring change to this country, and we wanted to make sure you know about all the opportunities to get involved in your community and online.

Check out the resources below — learn how you can connect with fellow supporters, organize in your neighborhood, build our national grassroots organization, and stay informed with the very latest campaign news.

The WAPO piece shows exactly how some of these donations come to be accepted by the Obama campaign in a piece they titled "Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations."

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

There is your teaser from the top paragraph, go read the rest to see how huge this problem is.

The bottom line here is that all campaigns end up having to return monies donated after reviewing the donations but Obama's campaign relied on over two-thirds of their donations coming from the Internet.

The Obama campaign has shattered presidential fundraising records, in part by capitalizing on the ease of online giving. Of the $150 million the senator from Illinois raised in September, nearly $100 million came in over the Internet.

Here is the kicker:

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

There is your bottom line... sure all campaigns end up having to return monies that make it past their security measures, and yes John McCain has also had to return monies deemed unacceptable from donors deemed unacceptable, but Obama and his campaign have deliberately chosen to not implement the basic security measures that would catch a large portion of dummy donations.

They also explain the problems with the pre-paid cards:

The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.

"They have opened the floodgates to all this money coming in," said Sean Cairncross, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. "I think they've made the determination that whatever money they have to refund on the back end doesn't outweigh the benefit of taking all this money upfront."

The Corner points to another example which shows exactly how huge this problem really is:

Which brings us to the case of Mary T Biskup of Manchester, Mo, who discovered there were scores of small online donations made to the Obama campaign in her name, even though she hasn't given him a dime. They added up to $174,800, which is a wee bit over the $2,300 limit. This very generous donation was not billed to her own card, but to someone else's - meaning (as the Post says) "someone appropriated her name".

Ah, but who? And, if just one unwitting front is responsible for 175 grand of the Obama take, how many other Mary T Biskups are there out there?

Public financing a general election campaign was put into place and candidates for decades have been using it in the name of fairness, yet this election cycle, despite pledging to use the system, Barack Obama went back on that pledge and opted out of it because of his ability to collect online donations and the fact that he believed it would give him an advantage and he could attempt to "buy" the election by outspending the $84+ million that John McCain received by keeping his pledge to use public financing.

Obama opened the door to this type of fraud, then took all the security measures away that would stop Adolfe from donating without proper checks to make sure Adolfe existed, to stop someone from using Mary's name from donating $172,500 more than the contribution limits allowed and allowed people from other countries to donate illegally.

PowerLine has been all over this story and tracking people that have been testing Obama's security measures and has another recent example:

This morning we received word from reader Kurtis F. of his contribution under the name Crazy Eight:

Crazy Eight from Swindler Lane just made a $25 dollar donation to Obama for America. It went right through to my credit card after a two day delay.

No security code. No address check. No name verification. Nothing. Unbelievable.

At PBTS, John Ronning reports "How foreign liberals (and jihadis for the matter) can contribute illegally to the Obama campaign." They can do it the same way Crazy Eight and so many others have done.

Bill Dyer at Hugh Hewitt’s blog gets right to the heart of the issue by stating:

"Fully $100 million of the record-breaking $150 million that the Obama campaign collected in September alone came over the internet via credit card donations."

The Raw Story points out an Obama Lawyer, Robert Bauer, lies in order to try to justify their lack of security protocol:

Obama's campaign laws say they have scrubbed contributions that appear dubious. One lawyer, Robert Bauer, attacked the premise, saying, "I have not seen the McCain compliance staff ascending to heaven on a cloud."

Campaign aides justified their practice of vetting donations once they'd been received, saying that matching credit cards with people's name is not a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card processing industry.

That claim appears untrue. A senior technology adviser for Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign said it is possible to require donor's names and addresses match.

Any grocery store clerk can tell you that credit cards transactions are rejected all the time if an address, name or zip code does not match, so one would expect a lawyer working for a presidential candidate to be aware of the fact that those type of security measures do exist.

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Obama Advisor Praises Iran

OBAMA ADVISOR PRAISES IRAN

A note from Radarsite: "Welcome to the future of our foreign relations under Barack Obama. Much like his campaign, it involves dreams and fantasy." This from Ed Lasky in his superb editorial response to The Boston Globe. Now more than ever, in these last few days before this fateful election, it is vitally important to thoroughly understand what is at stake here, and to remember that what is happening in America right now has happened before.

One of the biggest misconceptions about Germany's infamous Third Reich is that Adolf Hitler somehow seized power and that the worst excesses of Nazism were later unleashed on the unsuspecting German people after he had assumed the reins of government. (Note: Before letting out that exasperated sigh and saying, Oh no, not another Hitler parallel, please read on). Thus the German Volk have been disingenuously portrayed as innocent victims rather than the complicit participants they most certainly were. The truth of the matter is a little less attractive. The overt murderous racism, the horrors of the Holocaust, the ruthless military aggressions, the almost complete suppression of civil rights, the ultimate invasion of Russia -- all of these fateful and ultimately catastrophic realizations of the goals of the Third Reich were clearly spelled out for all to see long before January 1933 when Hitler finally assumed the Chancellorship of Germany.

Throughout the pages of Mein Kampf, and in all of the Nazi manifestos, and in their hundreds of widely-publicised speeches their intentions were made crystal clear. And, far from seizing power, Hitler and the Nazis were legally voted into office. Subsequently, through a whole series of votes and referendums, all of Hitler's wildest ambitions were easily ratified and given the force of law.
Why? A wildly popular and charismatic leader had promised change. And the German people desperately wanted change. And they most certainly got it.

Here once again we are being seduced by the siren song of yet another popular charismatic leader who is promising us change. And in his Twenty-First century version of Mein Kampf, and in all of his party's manifestos, and in all of his innumerable speeches, his wildly ambitious and ultimately disastrous agenda is laid out openly for all to see. This article is just one more example of what we can expect from an Obama government. This will be our impotent answer to the existential threats posed by the mad mullahs. This will be our future.

If Barack Obama wins this election this coming Tuesday, no matter how horrific the consequences of an Obama presidency might be, we cannot pretend that we didn't know what was coming, and that a majority of Americans didn't enthusiastically embrace it.

Please God give us the courage and the wisdom the steer the right course through these perilous waters. - rg
----------------------------------------------------------

Cross posted from PA Pundits

h/t to Tony from Oz at Real Clear Politics
October 28, 2008
Ed Lasky

Well, is it that hard to believe in this day and age that a major American newspaper offers up an op-ed filled with praise for Iran? This would be Friday’s Boston Globe in an op-ed written by Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley, both of whom work for the liberal minded Center for American Progress.

By the way, the fact that Korb has been identified as a key foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama is completely unmentioned - a major journalistic lapse but not a surprising one by the New York Times-owned Boston Globe.

Korb and Conley look upon Iranian efforts to help topple the Taliban as proof of the potential for Iran to work with America in bringing about some sort of Pax Persia in the region. This is a fallacy. Iran opposed the Taliban because the Taliban - a Sunni extremist group - hated the Shiite Persians that were on its border and hated the Shiites within Afghanistan. The Taliban murdered Iranian regime officials. The downfall of the Taliban was in the interest of the regime and their help when America sought to oust the Taliban was based strictly on self-interest. In the diplomatic realm, nations don’t have permanent friends, they have permanent interests. The interests of the Iranian regime is regional hegemony and the acquisition of nuclear bombs.

Korb and Conley blame Bush for failure to reach out to the Iranians. This argument falls flat. In fact, various Bush officials have sought to reach out to the regime (as even the op-ed mentions in passing) but have been rebuffed - as have a long line of other Presidents who have tried to establish relations with the Iranians. This is a fact that the op-ed ignores.

The op-ed also seems to blame Bush for the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. This is absurd. The program did not start under Bush (and was actually temporarily put on hold in the wake of our invasion of Iraq) but had its origins going back to the 1980s. The program has progressed apace - under Democrat and Republican Presidents. We have sought, along with the United Nations and our European allies, to work with the Iranians to curb their nuclear program in return for various “carrots” offered to them. The result? Rebuff after rebuff, as the centrifuges spin away.

What is especially striking in this op-ed is the complete silence regarding the nature of the Iranian regime. One would hope that a foreign policy expert close to Barack Obama would at least recognize how important it is to consider the nature of a regime when advocating diplomatic outreach. Where is the recognition that the regime is - and has long been - designated as the number one terror-sponsoring nation in the world (as Bill Clinton so designated Iran)? Where is the recognition that Iran has been helping kill Americans in Iraq and has done so in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, or the awareness that Iranian proxies have killed innocent Argentineans, Lebanese, Israelis and for that matter Iranians (a regime that hangs children and gays and brutalizes women wins praise from Korb and Conley?).
That little matter of denying the Holocaust while openly boasting of plans to bring about another one? The theological and apocalyptic musings of its leaders (not just President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the talk of halos and apocalypse spoken by Ahmadinejad from the podium of the United Nations to bring about the return of the missing Imam? Sheer piffle, not worth mentioning. We will see more of these efforts to burnish Iran in the days ahead. The Iran lobby is stepping up efforts in Washington. The Persian red carpet is being rolled out.

Welcome to the future of our foreign relations under Barack Obama. Much like his campaign, it involves dreams and fantasy.

Ed Lasky is the news editor for American Thinker.

Just in case

Canada's Preparedness & Readiness Plan

-November/December 2008-

My friend Sylvia sent me this. She is American.;)

It gave me a giggle in the midst of the current madness!

Thanks Sylvia - and to all of my American friends? COME ON UUUUUUUUUUUP!

Don't Believe The Hype

(Cross-posted from America Needs Me)

If you are a McCain-Palin supporter these days any exposure to the media can be disheartening. Guess what kids? It's only going to get worse.

You are going to be under a barrage of negative news telling you that your candidate is doomed and your life sucks because you didn't fall under the Obama spell. "Hey, don't even get out of bed loser."

I think we have established by now that the MSM is not just in the tank for Beloved Leader Obama, they're naked and spooning with him at this point. They want you to be discouraged and stay home. So when you turn on the TV you'll hear all about The One's coronation plans. When you log into your Yahoo! mail you'll see poll numbers that will make you want to head to Mexico for some cheap Zoloft. The number one show in America this week will be "Barack Obama and the Mantle of Inevitability".

Just remember this, when I went to lunch on the West coast on Election Day 2004 all the exit polls were telling me that John Kerry was going to be the next POTUS.

This is hardly the time to go underground and hope we don't all get assigned to ACORN sponsored reeducation camps.

Rasmussen shows Pennsylvania tightening and Ace of Spades HQ has some ideas for working in the home stretch.

The angry, well-organized and deadly serious PUMAS offer some even more encouraging news.

Tonight we spoke with a friend from Hillary Clinton’s campaign who is now working for McCain/Palin — and is specifically working with Democrats for McCain in Pennsylvania. We worked with her in Texas, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania for Hillary and have spent many LONG hours with her in the trenches in all of those states. She’s smart, doesn’t BS, and never lies.

She says the same thing we do: John McCain will win Pennsylvania.

Nothing anywhere or at any time is a given, of course. But that includes an Obama victory. If you're a sports nut then remember how many experts picked the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. The game still has to be played.

If you can't get to a swing state and knock on doors, you can make phone calls to the state of your choice all you want between now and then.

Yes, it would be better if McCain was up in the polls right now but he's not. But we don't need to hang our heads, cry and get marched right over because we listened to the very MSM that we're always saying is biased.

One last note:

Extra beer might help.