Sunday, September 07, 2008

Painting in Pennsylvania church proves Obama was right


Barack Obama may have been right when he said:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

I think Obama was right. Check out the painting we discovered in a small-town Pennsylvania church.

Jesus guards a Rio Grande border crossing.

Hat tip: Pass the Ammo.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

The weirdest place on Earth


Dark Roasted Blend has some stunning pictures of Socotra Island, which is located off the African Coast near Somalia.


Click on either pic to visit.

The ultimate list of Palin rumors... debunked


Alaskan Charles Martin has collected and analyzed each of the Palin rumors flying throughout the left side of the blogosphere. Here's a taste.

Cripes, this has gotten ridiculous. Folks, look, let’s just run through a list here. (Updated.)

  1. Yes, she is Governor of Alaska. No, she’s not the Lieutenant Governor. No, she’s not currently Mayor of Wasilla. Yes, she was Mayor of Wasilla, some years ago.

  2. Yes, there are people in Alaska who think she’s too liberal.

  3. Yes, she did giggle when someone called Lyda Green a “bitch.” Yes, it was the same Lyda Green who tried to force a scheduling conflict that would make Palin miss her son’s high school graduation. Yes, this would also be the Lyda Green who complained no one had asked her about Palin during the vetting process.

  4. Yes, she did push for and approve the Wasilla Sports Center. Yes, it did cost a lot of money. (People keep saying $20 million, that article says $14.5 million, but then they also added a $1.2 million dollar food service/kitchen piece. This year, since Palin was out of office as Mayor.) Yes, the city went into debt to do it (how did you buy your house, bunkie?) and raised the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent to pay for it. Yes, the city is paying it off early.

Yep. RTWT.

Looks like The Atlantic changed its format


Ace has the details.

Hawt


Sent in by Chris, who is really starting to worry me.

The vaunted, part-time experience of Barack "Present" Obama


Do 150 days in the U.S. Senate -- most of which were spent campaigning -- really count as a qualification for the Presidency?

How about experience as a state senator? According to the New York Times, Barack Obama said that the state job was a "part-time position".

He wasn't kidding. In examining the tax returns of Chicago's Annenberg Challenge, I discovered that Obama maintained two offices for several years. One was his state senate office; the other was in the law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

In short, progressives enjoying mocking Sarah Palin's experience (running an $11 billion enterprise with 15,000 employees as governor and, prior to that, helping run a multi-billion enterprise on the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission). But it turns out that her management experience towers over that of Barack Obama.

His tenure in the U.S. Senate? He has introduced no new laws and instead spent the majority of his time campaigning.

His role in the state senate? Aside from voting "present" 130 times -- presumably to avoid taking controversial positions -- he maintained a completely separate office in his law firm.

I'm guessing my daughter's part-time job at the neighborhood dry-cleaner has given her as much management experience as Sen. Obama gleaned from his magical mystery tour.

Line o' the day: Podhoretz suggests a McCain retort on change


Via Powerline, John Podhoretz suggests a response to Sen. Obama's question where have you been for 26 years?:

Here’s where I have been. I changed campaign-finance law. I changed telecommunications law. I took on the tobacco companies when other Republicans wouldn’t. I took on the cable companies when they wouldn’t let people choose what channels they might want to watch. I saw a standoff in the Senate on confirming judges and I changed a standoff into a bipartisan agreement. I took on the earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere and the breaks for oil companies you, Obama, voted for in 2005. And I helped change the war in Iraq from a defeat into what appears to be a victory. Where have you been for 26 years?

Errr... community organizing?

Rangel found floating in Pelosi's swamp


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi swept into power with a promise to "drain the swamp" and combat a "culture of corruption."

It turns out that the swamp has in fact not been drained; it instead continues to rise and new floaters seem to surface every day.

Yesterday Bloomberg reported on the latest turd to pop to the surface of the cesspool.

He goes by the name of Charlie Rangel.

Oh, and there are some income tax violations as well.

New York Representative Charles Rangel received an interest-free loan from the developer of his Dominican Republic vacation villa, a resort official said.

...The assertion that Rangel didn't know about the interest- free loan is one of several unusual aspects of his financial and real estate dealings. He said yesterday he failed to report more than $75,000 in rental income from the villa on his federal or state tax returns. The units rent for $500 to $1,000 a night, according to the New York Times.

The revelations come on the heels of a report that Rangel occupies four different rent-controlled apartments -- including one as a campaign office -- and has violated New York City regulations in doing so.

It turns out Rangel just hit the ethics investigation trifecta; his use of congressional stationary to solicit donors for a university center that would carry the Rangel name is also under review.

With that, Rangel joins other Pelosi floaters including:

William "Freezer-burn" Jefferson (D-LA), who was found with $90,000 in marked bills stuck in his freezer at home. Federal agents told a judge the money was part of a $100,000 payoff delivered to Jefferson by an informant in a bribery probe. That probe has already led to guilty pleas by a Kentucky businessman and a former Jefferson aide. The Justice Department been investigating Jefferson's relationship to various international telecommunications agreements.


Allan "Jed Clampett" Mollohan (D-WV), who is a former chair of the House Ethics Committee under federal investigation after the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with the department regarding a bizarre increase in Mollohan's net worth. For 2005, Mollohan and his wife reported assets worth $6.8 million to $25.7 million, up from $116,000 to $315,000 in 1999. His financial disclosure restatements came only after the group's complaint.


John "Porky" Murtha (D-PA), the famed chair of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee; a charity founded by a longtime Murtha aide has become a "funnel for money" to his campaigns from defense contractors and lobbyists who directly benefit from his decisions. A Taxpayers for Common Sense spokesman noted, "It's a real tangled web between the congressman, the nonprofit, the defense contractors and the lobbyists."


Harry "Land Deal" Reid (D-NV), the Senate Democratic Leader who collected a $1.1 million windfall profit on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't owned the property for at least three years. Reid also did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company. The AP learned of the land deal from a former Reid aide concerned that the deal had been "hidden from Congress."

Linked by: One Big Dog. Thanks!

Community Organizers Trade Union launches Palin Protest


Yesterday Community Organizers International Trade Union Staff (COITUS) launched its official protest over Sarah Palin's "demeaning, defactual rhetoric regarding our proud profession."

Spokesman and part-time presidential candidate David Burge stated, "When America's communities need organizing, who will be there to organize them, if not us? Who will fight to make a difference by reaching out and working with communities to raise awareness of the importance of dealing with community issues by referring inquiries to outreach coordinators and making posters advertising interpretive dance and face-painting festivals while ensuring that each and every voter has the right to vote for their Democratic Party candidates who were once community organizers themselves?"

"That's right. COITUS will!"

"We've been fighting these perceptions ever since the 1970's, when right-wing neo-conservative author Tom Wolfe wrote his pro-war tome Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers:

Everybody but the most hopeless lames knew that the only job you wanted out of the poverty program was a job in the program itself. Get on the payroll, that was the idea. Never mind getting some job counseling. You be the job counselor. You be the "neighborhood organizer." As a job counselor or a neighborhood organizer you stood to make six or seven hundred dollars a month, and you were still your own man. Like if you were a "neighborhood organizer," all you had to do was go out and get the names and addresses of people in the ghetto who wanted to relate to the services of the poverty center. That was a very flexible arrangement. You were still on the street, and you got paid for it.

In its statement, COITUS also noted that even proud alumnus Barack Obama had once maligned the proud community organizing profession.

Organizing is always a lost cause... community organizing will never allow me to make major changes in poverty or discrimination... you either have to be an elected official or be influential with elected officials.

Burge noted that Obama had since changed his mind: "It's not just council-members and mayors who are in control of our towns and cities, it's the proud back-bone provided by members of COITUS who are the pulsating organs of change in an otherwise flaccid environment."

Hat tip: Larwyn. Linked by: American Digest and Buzztracker. Thanks!

Sigh. Obama rolls out the race card. Again.


Yesterday Barack Obama once again attempted to dismiss his failed, nine-figure Annenberg handout with buddy-slash-terrorist-slash-communist Bill Ayers by playing the race card.

And I know that the temptation is to say, 'You know what? …The guy hasn’t been there that long in Washington.,' You know, 'he’s got funny name,' You know, 'we’re not sure about him... And that’s what the Republicans, when they say, 'This isn’t about issues, it’s about personalities,' what they’re really saying is, 'We’re going to try to scare people about Barack. So we’re going to say that you know, maybe he’s got Muslim connections or we’re going to say that, you know, he hangs out with radicals or he’s not patriotic.'

Most folks would be satisfied with Obama simply describing his six years of work with the Annenberg Challenge, for starters. His only real executive experience, which is curiously missing from his official biography.

Update: Hot Air's Ed Morrissey:

Once again, Obama has resorted to a smear campaign against the McCain campaign. They have never –never — even hinted that Obama has “Muslim connections”. They have never made even a slight attempt to make his race an issue, despite this fourth repeat of this particular smear...

"The Obama campaign was clearly on the defensive today, acknowledging how appealing Palin came across, and sending out surrogates hitting their talking points that Republicans have spent their time on attacks rather than substance."

Says the man who keeps calling John McCain the same as George Bush...

What do you expect of a man who promised hope and change... and then gave us Joe Biden?

Update II: For a campaign that wants to make it about substance and issues, Obama's folks sure do like to bring up Palin's parenting skills.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Todd Palin speaks for the first time since his wife's nomination


Two words: Awe. Some.

Click the pic to watch the video.

McCain collateral, version 2.0



Via: McCain Store.

Best. Vanity. Plate. Ever.



Via: S. Weasel.

Lines o' the day: Steyn, Giuliani, Romney


The real anointed one (Mark Steyn), writing at The Corner:

I would like to thank the US media for doing such a grand job this last week of lowering expectations by portraying Governor Palin - whoops, I mean Hick-Burg Mayor Palin - as a hillbilly know-nothing permapregnant ditz, half of whose 27 kids are the spawn of a stump-toothed uncle who hasn't worked since he was an extra in Deliverance.

How's that narrative holding up, geniuses? Almost as good as your "devoted husband John Edwards" routine?

And from the RNC speeches, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney:

GIULIANI: [Obama] ran for the state legislature, and he got elected, and nearly 130 times he couldn't make a decision. He couldn't figure out whether to vote yes or no. It was too tough. He voted, he voted "present"! I didn't know about this vote "present" when I was mayor of New York City. Sarah Palin didn't have this vote "present" when she was mayor or governor. You don't get "present." It doesn't work in an executive job. For president of the United States, it's not good enough to be present.

ROMNEY: Is a Supreme Court decision liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with constitutional rights? It's liberal! Is a government liberal or conservative that puts the interests of the teachers union ahead of the needs of our children? It's liberal. Is the Congress liberal or conservative that stops nuclear power plants and offshore drilling, making us more and more dependent on Middle Eastern tyrants? It's liberal! Is government spending putting aside inflation, liberal or conservative, if it doubles since 1980? It's liberal! We need change all right. Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

The threat represented by Gov. Palin: actual change in Washington


The Senate, October 20, 2005

Powerful senators gather on the floor including Ted Stevens, Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Delaware Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).

Tom Coburn adds a Senate Appropriations amendment that would remove funds for Stevens' $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere." Coburn wants to send the money to New Orleans, in order to rebuild the Interstate 10 bridge, which was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

An angry Stevens threatens to resign if he doesn't get his way.

Senator John McCain, an opponent of Stevens and the Bridge to Nowhere, is not in the Senate the day Coburn raises his amendment. But McCain is on record as opposing the construction of the Alaskan bridge. McCain wants to help the victims of Katrina by rebuilding the I-10 bridge.

And his relationship with Stevens on the subject of earmarks has also been fiery.

Most of the Senate is intimidated by the power of Stevens, who is the Appropriations Chairman, and the body votes 82-15 to proceed with Stevens' $223 earmark.

Senators Obama and Biden both vote with Stevens -- both vote for the Bridge to Nowhere.

* * *

Alaska, 2006

Stevens ally, former Senate colleague and current Republican Governor Frank Murkowski is challenged in his re-election bid by a young Alaska mother, former mayor of a small town and ex-chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

That mother, Sarah Palin, had resigned as chair over a "lack of ethics" by another commission member and state GOP chairman. She filed formal complaints against both the GOP chair and the state's attorney general. Both men are forced to resign.

Disgusted over the endemic corruption, Palin challenges Stevens' friend Murkowski and wins the governorship.

* * *

Consider these two stories.

And then ask yourself: Who represents change? Who represents a high standard of ethics and cleaning up government? And who represents the status quo?

Based upon: The Palin Threat: Real Change, by Jeffrey Lord. Via: Jerry.

Wingin' it: Palin's teleprompter pulled a Howard Dean


Today we discover that Sarah Palin's teleprompter screeched to a halt during her RNC acceptance speech and she was forced to wing it.

Here is word from Redstate.com that McCain Campaign sources say that during Sarah Palin’s speech last night the teleprompter stopped working properly, leaving her to speak without its help! Drudge is linking to the Redstate article...

She did not miss a beat! So much for the, “She can read a telemprompter well” attack! Priceless!

On the other hand if it were Obama in that situation losing touch with his oh so necessary teleprompter.

“Buhdeeba-buhdeeba-duh-that’s all, folks.

For instance… Let’s count the ‘uh’s’ in this quote.

BO: Well, you know, my understanding is that, uh, Governor Palin’s town of Wasilly [sic] has, uh, 50 employees, uh, uh, we’ve got 2500, uh, in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. Uh, uh, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. Uh, so I think that, uh, our ability to manage large systems, uh, and to, uh, execute, uh, I think has been made clear over the last couple of years. Uh, and certainly, in terms of, uh, the legislation that I’ve passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina, uh, of how we handle emergency management. The fact that, uh, many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place, uh, as we speak indicates to extent to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect.

SEVENTEEN!

Gee, perhaps that's why the Anointed One™ refused to participate in unscripted "town hall" meetings with John McCain.

Image adapted from photo by: Tod Heisler/New York Times.

Too good to be believed: Dems lob the ultimate softball


The brain surgeons at Democrats.org have a news flash.

...Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack's experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed... Let's clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

Do tell. For the last 77 years, Democrats have controlled Chicago. It's called the "Chicago Democratic Machine", for those keeping score at home.

The current Democratic mayor, Richard Daley, doesn't think there is a "Chicago Democratic Machine", however.

Mayor Richard Daley said Thursday he laughed off former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s description of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as a product of Chicago’s machine politics... "I don’t know where we get this, I mean, this idea that there is a big Democratic machine going on. Chicago and the metropolitan area is very Democratic and the state is."

Problem is, Daley also thinks -- because Chicago outlawed the possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens -- that the city's murder-rate dropped.

123 people shot dead in Chicago this summer: An estimated 123 people were shot and killed over the summer. That's nearly double the number of soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period... an estimated 245 people were shot and wounded in the city...

...The South Side's Englewood District, which includes the Englewood and West Englewood neighborhoods on the city's South Side, fared the worst over the summer. A total of 14 people were shot dead there, and 48 were shot and wounded.

You may recognize the neighborhood of Englewood.


It's the district State Senator Obama represented for eight years after his stint as a "community organizer". It's filled with decaying, uninhabitable housing units "refurbished" by his friend Tony Rezko and others who greased the skids of the Chicago non-machine.

Community organizing: how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies (i.e., today's Democratic Party in urban America).

THWACK!!!!!!!!! ...ZBONK!!!... zbonk!!!

And that was me hitting Democrat.org's pathetic hanging curve out of the park, into the parking lot, off the hood of Obama's Lexus, and into the door of Jeremiah Wright's Mercedes-Benz.

ZWEEEEEEEEE... ZWEEEEEEEEE... ZWEEEEEEEEE...

Oh, and those are the car alarms going off.

Linked by: Memeorandum. Thanks!

Obligatory Palin on a Harley Photo


Via Palmer Elks.

As Palin's speech begins, CNN zooms in to...


The first spectator CNN chooses to zoom to... twice...




Yep, it's the soon-to-be father of Sarah Palin's granddaughter.

These old media dinosaurs just can't help themselves, can they?.

And, put in simple terms so the "progressives" can understand, She hit it out of the park.