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Monday, October 20. 2008

Monday morning links

Why do I think the support of people like Powell and Warren Buffet is helpful to Obama? It's helpful because these sober establishment folks are saying that he's not a bomb-throwing radical. Me? I doubt that any Repub would have an easy time defeating any Dem this year, and I think Hillary would be doing even better than Obama in the polls. It's the economy combined with Bush fatigue, even without the Obama Cult of Personality. Still, I dread the effects of an Obama-Reid-Pelosi triumvirate on America (and on my personal plans and goals). But that's because

Undecided? Then you're a racist, says Joe Biden. Or just a moron, says a Princeton prof. "Sticks and stones..."

The San Diego Union-Trib's endorsement of McCain

Taxing the uninsured. Mankiw

The world's oldest operating bank.

A Harvard trial lawyer for McCain. Am Thinker

Sarah Palin has the highest National Security rating of all 4 candidates

Gaping holes in Obama's record. But who cares?

Phony Joe the Plumber robocalls. These people are playing for keeps.

Eric at Classical Values:

If Team Obama happened to drive down my street, I probably wouldn't want to get caught asking Barack Obama any tough questions because of the consequences.

Well then, suppose I were to ask a question about my inability to ask a question? Something like this:

Senator Obama, if I were to ask you a tough question, why would my personal lifestyle be considered more worthy of investigation than yours?

Nah, I'd better not ask.

Wouldn't want to be subject to an investigation.

Related: Who hired detectives to attack Cindy McCain? As far as I know, nobody tried to track down Obama's coke and pot dealers.

Look at this Obama rally in St. Louis. Good grief. Even Sarah can't draw like that. This is rock star stuff. Reality will set in sooner or later.

Obama's Brave New Deal

Ayers and Obama: Destroyers of schools. Dr. Sanity

The Dems' plan to bring back the Fairness Doctrine

The takers in society will never be happy. By definition, they will always want more from their neighbor.

Kling on the banking crisis. A quote:

The claim that this crisis was caused by "deregulation" is a claim that government needs to exercise more power. Right now, that is the conventional wisdom of the establishment. There is no mainstream newspaper or politician raising any doubts about the wisdom of increasing government power. The free market is now a fringe phenomenon, and those of us who support it are irrelevant.

Capitalism is moral. Communism is not. Cafe Hayek

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:13 | Comments (18) | Trackbacks (0)

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Some of us Brits see a bit of an image problem with the Republicans this time around, it's difficult to take them seriously.
#1 Curly (Link) on 2008-10-20 07:01 (Reply)
Some of us Republicans will carry our weak but don't give a whit for the Brits.
#1.1 Leag on 2008-10-21 12:39 (Reply)
I AM BELDAR, KNIGHT OF THE CROSSED EWES. I refuse to drink Kool-Aid, like the people in St Louis. I'm stickin with Jim, and Jack, plus my happy pills.I'm confident that they won't be my daily companions after Nov 4. Now where is that sumo wrestler, I'm going to bite his blubber pecs right off him!
#2 jappy on 2008-10-20 07:40 (Reply)
Fido Mc Cokehead I tried coke once. I had a hard time gettin that coke bottle up my nose. I then tried doing lines of coke, did nothing but burn the bejesus out of my nostrils. I could never get high off that stuff. Glad that you can.!
#2.1 jappy on 2008-10-20 07:47 (Reply)
We are all plumbers now and the elitism being shown stinks. That open disdain for the common man is disgusting in the extrme...

Apparently you can't go by your middle name... although I know a number of people who do...

You can't practice a profession without a license... which would have been a strange thing to say to those of us who have done things without professional help. Papers, please!

You can't have a tax lien against you, unless you are a Treasury official of a campaign, and then it is overlooked. Or take sweetheart loans or make deals with mafioso on getting a break on the cost of one's own home.

You can't have the dream of figuring out what it would cost to run your own business, without having that called a 'fantasy' and then decried as a lie when it is misstated as his income and yet he clearly stated that was not the case.

I've had it with the 'compassionate conservative' form of socialism and detest the liberal elite form of it too: two sides of the same coin. And it can only be spent on the road to Hell during a Cold Civil War.
#3 ajacksonian (Link) on 2008-10-20 07:58 (Reply)
Biden--Does he have any redeeming value?
#4 Thalpy on 2008-10-20 08:53 (Reply)
Great essay on how poll fixing and the overwhelming support of MSM may backfire on Obama.

http://www.zombietime.com/lefts_big_blunder/
#5 sean on 2008-10-20 10:56 (Reply)
Lets do some simple math.

If McCain cannot pull this off it means a few things. Not the least of which is: 1st amendment supporters + 2nd amendment supporters + supporters of unborn babies + Republicans + Independents =
#6 Phil on 2008-10-20 11:47 (Reply)
(dang thing cut my comment in half)

as I was saying:
...LESS THAN 50% of voters.

With a mandate to broom the first two amendments, just how much of the constitution will be left after 4 years?

Unlawful search and seizure? Not if you are a gun owner being raided. What was the article about "you can't be president if you are not born here"? Well, that one will be unenforceable and thereby invalid as well.

Save your Constitutions boys! The US is going to rise again!
#6.1 Phil on 2008-10-20 11:53 (Reply)
Be sure to read the Dr Sanity post which excerpts from Sol Stern in re Ayers. Stern drives the point home that I have not heard in the debates or in the tv ads: Obama can deny all he wants about his relationship with Ayers but the fact is that he embraces Ayers' educational outlook and philosophy which above all expresses a hatred of America and her institutions. Couple that with Ayers stated goal of indoctrinating innocent Chicago schoolchildren writ large, and you can see we are headed for big trouble and large scale rebellion. So, Obama expects us to believe that through all of the years he associated with Ayers he was not aware of Ayers' hatred of America and his plan to use the public schools as his indoctrination program? He continued to associate with Ayers in spite of this nefarious plot to undermine America from within? That is the fact about the Obama-Ayers relationship that needs to be hammered home NOW.
#7 greenmtnpunter on 2008-10-20 14:20 (Reply)
Every talking-head who comes on TV to argue Obama's talking points says "So what?" when the subject of Ayers or Wright comes up. You just spelled out the "what". Associations matter when it comes to character. Character is the issue here more so than what Obama might try in our schools. There will be large scale rebellion when little kids bring home books filled with liberalspeak; but we'll have to deal with Obama's character on everything.... just everything. Trust will vaporize from our collective conscience because of this man's character - or lack of it.
`
#7.1 Meta on 2008-10-20 14:46 (Reply)
It's not just Ayers. It is Wright, Pfleger, Rezko, ACORN and so on.

Obama is either a liar, believes and has sympathy for these radical ideas or is tone deaf. Whether is is one or a mix of these, he is unfit to hold office period - that includes POTUS.
#7.2 Barrett on 2008-10-20 22:00 (Reply)
Reading the "gaping holes in Obama's record" post on Pajamas Media, and Obama's cleverly couched answers to direct questions about his past, it suddenly occurred to me who Obama reminds me of: Alger Hiss. Right, I know, I must be a racist. But for starters, examine how vociferously Hiss was defended by essentially the same people who now advocate- and defend- Obama.

Go back and read Whittaker Chambers "Witness", the more recent bio of Chambers, and the several excellent books on the Hiss-Chambers affair. You could substitute the description of Hiss' demeanor before HUAC and on the witness stand at his trials to that of Obama's when questioned in a public forum such as the recent debates.

And the reaction of most of the intellectuals and their allies in the MSM not wanting to dig too deep into Hiss' background mirrors Obama's treatment today. This is what has really infuriated many in this campaign and as a result makes us all the more suspicious and forced to pose the question: "What is this guy trying so desperately to hide?"

Our frustration with Obama's answers mirrors Nixon's frustration with Hiss before HUAC 60 years ago, i.e., "something doesn't ring true". And just as Nixon was hated thereafter for outing Hiss, and his impeachment was just the compassionate liberals "getting even" part for revealing the truth, so we "mean conservatives" are being scorned by the MSM for trying to ferret out the truth about Obama.

The more I thought about this comparison, the more similarities I see. I don't believe you can directly compare one era of history to another but you can find certain patterns of human behavior which are similar and thereby gain insight. So far, though, perhaps we just haven't had a latter day Nixon to properly frame the questions to Obama?
#8 greenmtnpunter on 2008-10-20 14:54 (Reply)
Having recently read both the article and 25-20 posts on the return of the Fairness Doctrine. And having recently read the Obama platform and responses to it , the one striking thing is that nobody talks of revolution.

Is it that there exists such faith in a Marxist President and government bureaucracy that no one feels anything will change? Is it that as a people we have become so illiterate in history that we have forgotten what come with Marxist rule?

I am truly in wonderment over the lack of discussion of the trouble this country faces with the degree of radicalism we are about to face with two, perhaps all three of the branches of government. I assure you all you have to do is read Russian history from 1917 onward to get a taste of what we are moving rapidly toward.

I fully expect “community organizers” to begin very quickly taking names of those who pose a threat to the state.

Is this not a synopsis of what Obama has in store?

The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society. Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement of this kind; and towards such an enslavement many recent measures, and still more the measures advocated, are carrying us."

That my friends is the direction we will forced into taking,….

“and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society.”

Herbert Spencer in Man versus the State
#9 Habu on 2008-10-20 14:55 (Reply)
Free advice...take it for what it's worth.

Obama has made $100,000,000 million in promises to America. Prudence dictates it will cost more, I just got off the phone with her.

IF you have any savings you're going to get taxed on it Right now if you’re in the stock marker you've already thought of hemlock, unless you're 22 and then it's like "oh boy" what bargains. But if you're a Boomer or close get your money out of the USA or at least under your mattress. Right now inflation is tame, deflation the boogie man. But you're gonna get taxed like it was the Soviet Union when Obama and the Dems take over.

But if they don't know you have it they can't check it and tax it...
I now hold $25,000 gold $20,000 silver and the remainder of almost seven figures out of the banks...I went to Vegas , ya know, had a bit of bad luck, 'ya know. Lost it all ya know.

Now the trap here is that when you see inflation begin to rise and you’re retired YOU MUST at least keep up with inflation …..look at TIPS (google it) . Yes you’ll be back on the tax radar but you don’t have to go all in with your investment. Inflation is measured in over 250, maybe more categories, and the tables are available. You know your lifestyle so look on the table and see where the big increases are. If it’s food, just quite eating for a few months, healthcare…let that mole get bigger …bad heart, hey, we don’t live forever.

BTW Argentina is doing quite well.

Bottom line..for awhile the mattress is as good a place as any……we’re in a secular bear market (Wiki up) with the last few days do’in ok but it’s a head fake. Secular bear markets last decades. They can even have large run ups within them but are you a good enough market timer? Hmmm
#10 Habu on 2008-10-20 16:36 (Reply)
Habu,

I heard Cavuto talking about a secular bear market. My first thought was it was the kind of bear market that was so bad people gave up praying over it.

Did you take out principle? No taxes?.... in order to invest in the mattress? I have a stack of monthly statements, unopened, sitting unfiled on the floor. Too much bad news for me, alas.
#10.1 Meta on 2008-10-20 21:01 (Reply)
Obama's rules: first kill off the free enterprise system. Then everything will be hunky-dory.

The free market is a brilliant concept that, without coercion, serves to channel each person’s basic instincts toward the creation of a functional, stable, and successful society that provides for and protects each citizen. It has worked in America for more than 200 years and has kept us a free and happy people. We don’t need economic traffic cops telling us what to do.

Karl Marx’s slogan defining Communism, “From each according to his ability to each according to his need,” fooled a lot of people for a while. But it is a fundamentally flawed concept doomed by human frailty to abuse and failure. Inevitably, it has led to the breakdown of societies that have naively embraced it. Coercion and misery have been the sad lot for everyone but those in charge.

Because the “invisible hand” that Adam Smith described as the guiding force behind free markets cannot be readily discerned, do-gooders wanting to make it all better cannot resist the urge to “tweak” the free market, to make it a little less free, a little more controlled, a little more subject to direction from the intellectual elite. They're just sure they know better than we do, and we must just yield up our independence and self-determination and everything will be hunky-dory. All you and I have to do is to give up our freedom, ignore our basic instincts, and follow orders. We won’t have to like it; we will just have to do it.

That’s it in a nutshell; you bring the nut.

Marianne
#11 Marianne Matthews on 2008-10-20 23:13 (Reply)
So how does the invisible hand deal with cheating?
#11.1 commander clopfelter (Link) on 2008-10-22 13:54 (Reply)

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