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Financial Crisis | Taxes | Iraq | Defense | Background | Judges & Courts | Energy

FINANCIAL CRISIS

• Democrats created the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to give loans to people who couldn't afford them.
• In 2006, McCain sponsored a bill to fix the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Barney Frank and other Democrats successfully opposed it.
• Obama was one of the highest recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac donations in Congress.

Related Editorials

» Why The Mortgage Crisis Happened
» What Caused The Loan Crisis?
» Barney Frank's Bankrupt Ideas
» Pin Tail On Donkey
» If Bailout Plan Is Too Socialistic, Just Wait For Obama Leviathan
 

TAXES

• Under Obama's tax plan, the percentage of tax filers who pay zero federal income tax would rise from 33% to 44%, leaving the bill to the remaining 56%.  Already, 5% of earners pay 60% of all taxes.
• Obama proposes a 33% increase in the capital gains tax as a matter of "fairness", despite historical evidence that raising this tax decreases revenue. McCain has proposed cutting the capital gains tax in half to spur growth.
• Obama wants to increase corporate taxes by 25%, although U.S. businesses already pay the second-highest marginal tax rates in the industrialized world.

Related Editorials

» Capital Punishment
» Obama Tax Plan: Back To Welfare?
» Unsure Voters Surely Against Dem Tax Plan
» Investors Flee From 'Change' Obama Hypes
» A Record Tax Hike

 

IRAQ

• When the U.S. was on the verge of losing in Iraq, McCain chose to stand and fight.  Obama chose retreat.
• Even after the surge succeeded, Obama told ABC's Terry Moran he would still oppose it if he had the chance to do it all over again.

Related Editorials

» Obama's Bad Case Of Iraqnophobia
» Victory In Anbar
 

DEFENSE

• Obama has promised to significantly cut defense spending, including saying "I will slow our development of future combat systems."
• John McCain has vowed: "We must continue to deploy a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, robust missile defenses and superior conventional forces that are capable of defending the United States and our allies."

Related Editorials

» Obama And Frank: A Farewell To Arms
» McCain Won't Need Training Wheels

Obama Video: Watch Now

BACKGROUND & CHARACTER

• Obama voted "present" 135 times as a state senator, and according to David Ignatius of the Washington Post, "gained a reputation for skipping tough votes."
• McCain has taken stances unpopular with his own party and/or the public on controversial issues, including immigration, campaign finance reform, judicial nominations, the Iraq War and more.

Related Editorials

» Obama's Fox Trot
» The Audacity Of Socialism
» Tough Truths About Obama's Character
» Obama Merely Changes The Subject

 

JUDGES & COURTS

• In a 2001 interview, Obama said he regretted that the Supreme Court "didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution."
• In the same interview, Obama criticized the Supreme Court because it "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society."
• Obama has focused on empathy, rather than legal reasoning and restraint, as his basis for appointing judges, saying, "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy...to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old."
• McCain opposes judicial activism, saying, "my nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power."

Related Editorials

» Constitutional Crisis
» Judging McCain


Obama 2001 Interview: Listen Now

ENERGY

• McCain has proposed building 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 and is in favor of drilling in sectors of the Outer Continental Shelf.
• Obama has refused to take a stand, saying only "we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix" and he will "look at" drilling offshore.

Related Editorials

» McCain: The Energy Candidate
» McCain On Nukes: Yes We Can
» Breaking The Back Of High Oil

Tell the LA Times What You Think by e-mailing the paper's "readers' representative," Jamie Gold, at readers.rep@latimes.com or click here to fill out a feedback form. Or call to leave a message with Gold at (877) 554-4000. 

The Pennsylvania Democrat who has sued Sen. Barack Obama demanding he prove his American citizenship – and therefore qualification to run for  president – has confirmed he has a recording of a telephone call from the senator's paternal grandmother confirming his birth in Kenya.

The issue of Obama's birthplace, which he states is Honolulu in 1961, has been raised enough times that his campaign website has posted an image purporting to be of his "Certification of Live Birth" from Hawaii.

But Philip J. Berg, a former deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, told the Michael Savage talk radio program tonight that the document is forged and that he has a tape recording he will soon release.

"This has been a real sham he's pulled off for the last 20 months," Berg told Savage. "I'll release it [the tape] in a day or two, affidavits from her talking to a certain person. I heard the tape. She was speaking [to someone] here in the United States."

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He said the telephone call was from Obama's paternal grandmother affirming she "was in the delivery room in Kenya when he was born Aug. 4, 1961."

Berg said he's pursuing the issue because of "the most important document in the United States," the U.S. Constitution.

"Nothing is more important than enforcing the Constitution," he said. "The Constitution's provisions are very small for qualifying for president. One, be over 35, and he is. Two, be in the country 14 years, and he has been. Three, be a natural-born citizen. He is not."

Obama campaign officials acknowledged the dispute by posting the image purporting to be a copy of his certification of live birth earlier this year. But they've declined to return WND requests for comment on the issues.

WND reported earlier this week Berg's claim that Obama has legally "admitted" the accusations included in his lawsuit, including that he was born in Mombosa, Kenya, by not responding to the allegations.

Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court in August alleging Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus ineligible to serve as president of the United States.

His lawsuit is demanding that the courts verify Obama's original birth certificate.

Berg has cited Rule 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which states that unless the accused party provides written answer or objection to charges within 30 days, the accused legally admits the matter.

Since Obama filed only motions to dismiss the case and did not actually answer the claims, according to Rule 36, Obama has legally admitted he is not a natural-born citizen., asserted Berg, who has taken his information public through his website.

Berg addressed the existence of a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper, featured on the Atlasshrugs2000 website, that suggests Obama was born in the city Aug. 4, 1961.

But Berg explained to Savage he believes Obama's mother was near the end of her pregnancy and unable to travel by plane, so Obama was born in Kenya. The family then traveled to Hawaii and registered the birth and submitted the newspaper announcement.

Besides Berg's lawsuit, several other court challenges also have been filed, including one in Washington state where petitioners are seeking to have the Washington secretary of state "verify Obama's eligibility" to serve prior to the election.

The claim states, "The 'certificate' that Mr. Obama has posted on his official Website is a 'Certification of Live Birth,' and not a 'Birth Certificate' from Hawaii. There is no indication on even this certificate as to specifically where the birth took place."

Berg also told Savage there is no information available on which hospital Obama's mother used in Hawaii.

The Washington state case also alleges, "Wayne Madsen, Journalist with Online Journal as a contributing writer and published an article on June 9, 2008, stating that a research team went to Mombassa, Kenya, and located a Certificate Registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr. at a Kenya Maternity Hospital, to his father, a Kenyan citizen and his mother, a U.S. citizen.

When Jerome Corsi, senior WND investigator reporter, recently traveled to Kenya to investigate several questions about the candidate, he was told the records were sealed and would not be made available.

Though it hasn't given Berg the evidence he seeks, the Obama campaign has publicly answered allegations that the candidate was born in Kenya and faked his Hawaii birth certificate.

"Smears claiming Barack Obama doesn't have a birth certificate aren't actually about that piece of paper," says the "Fight the Smears" section of Obama's website, "they're about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen.

"The truth is, Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States of America," the campaign website states. It also includes images of the Hawaii certificate bearing the name Barack Hussein Obama II.

The Washington claim states, "If in fact Obama was born in Kenya, the laws on the books in the United States at the time of his birth stated if a child is born abroad and one parent was a U.S. Citizen, which would have been his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama's mother would have had to live ten (10) years in the United States, five (5) of which were after the age of fourteen (14). At the time of Obama's birth, his mother was only eighteen (18) and therefore did not meet the residency requirements under the law to give her son (Obama) U.S. Citizenship much less the status of 'natural born.'"

Berg said he believed it also was a complication that Obama's mother divorced his father, married and moved to Indonesia for several years and Obama attended school there at a time when, Berg said, only Indonesia citizens were allowed in schools. Records that are available from Indonesia revealed Obama was registered in school as Barry Soetoro, and his religion was listed as Islam.

When Obama later returned to Hawaii, within the United States, there should have been a government document affirming his citizenship, but that also cannot be found. If that was not processed properly, Berg said, Obama would be in a situation even worse than not being a natural-born citizen.

"If he didn't go through immigration, he now is illegal and has been an illegal alien. He couldn't even hold the position of senator for Illinois," Berg said.

Further, Berg said he suspected Obama's college records may indicate he received aid as a foreigner, and that's why those records have been withheld by the campaign.

"I really think it's because it probably indicates he's from Kenya, or Indonesia, or received foreign aid," Berg said.

"I feel very confident saying these things," Berg told Savage.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, October 21, 2008 4:20 PM PT

National Security: Biden's warning that Obama's lack of experience will prompt tyrants and terrorists to "test" him within the first six months can only be seen one way — as a confirmation of our worst fears.

IBD Series: Obama vs. McCain — The Great Divide

"We're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy," Biden said. "He's gonna need help. We're gonna need you to stand with him."

In other words, Americans are supposed to be patient and supportive while an obviously unqualified president learns on the job. He's so inexperienced in military and world affairs, in fact, that his presidency is guaranteed to invite conflict from America's enemies.

Biden's candid remarks merely prove that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief.

Obama's No. 2 seems to be admitting that his 47-year-old boss wouldn't really know what to do if Iran struck Israel or if Russia invaded the Ukraine. He's admitting that he might make mistakes responding to a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. But we ought to vote for him anyway.

There is one thing Obama is certain of, however, and that's the need to gut the military and dismantle our nuclear arsenal.

Last year he promised a left-wing pacifist group in Iowa that he would waste little time slashing both conventional and nuclear weapons as president.

"I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems," Obama said. "I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending."

He also vowed to set a goal for a "world without nuclear weapons." To seek that goal, "I will not develop nuclear weapons," he said. "I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material. And I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal."

His plan, needless to say, is frighteningly irresponsible given the world threats. And music to the ears of everyone from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Vladimir Putin.

Proposing "deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal" amounts to unilateral disarmament, and it's suicidal given China's, and now Russia's, aggressive military buildup.

Meanwhile, Iran and North Korea threaten nuclear madness, and Osama bin Laden dreams of unleashing a nuclear 9/11 on America.

In contrast, John McCain has vowed: "We must continue to deploy a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, robust missile defenses and superior conventional forces that are capable of defending the United States and our allies."

We've been down this road before. Bin Laden tested Clinton with terrorist attacks in 1993, 1996, 1998 and 2000, and each time he flinched. Obama, working with perhaps a filibuster-proof Congress, would set back the war on terror to those feckless Clinton days.

Delivering on promises made to his pals Reps. John Conyers and Keith Ellison, he would loosen immigration from high-risk Muslim countries, dismantle key parts of the Patriot Act and criminalize profiling at airports all within his first 100 days in office.

Somali warlords also took advantage of Clinton's lack of experience. Like Clinton, Obama believes "real" national security is "humanitarian foreign aid" — essentially using our troops as international meals-on-wheels in Africa and other trouble spots.

Nobody dared test Ronald Reagan. Nobody. And McCain, a war hero who has actually spent time with troops on the ground in hot spots around the world, as well as met with world leaders, would inspire the same kind of respect.

We can avoid dangerous testing and mischief on the part of our enemies by electing him commander in chief, rather than a tyro requiring foreign-policy training wheels during at least the first six months in office.

By BRAD O'LEARY | Posted Wednesday, October 15, 2008 4:30 PM PT

Two weeks ago on this page, I revealed the stark difference in opinion between the 30% of American voters who are not required to pay any federal income tax and the 70% who are required to pay.

Nontaxpaying voters overwhelmingly favor Barack Obama over John McCain for president. A clear majority of them also support Obama's plans to raise taxes on high-income earners and businesses, and to provide universal health coverage.

In the same piece, I also questioned how Barack Obama can claim to give 95% of Americans a tax cut under his plan, when only 70% of Americans pay federal income taxes. This created quite a stir.

Rush Limbaugh read my article over the air to his millions of listeners, and I was inundated with questions from Americans who want to know what likely voters think about Obama's tax plan. So in conjunction with Zogby International, I polled likely voters with a simple question:

"Barack Obama says 95% of Americans will get a tax cut under his tax plan, yet 30% of Americans pay no income taxes. What do you think of Obama's plan?"

Unsurprisingly, likely voters who are either supporting John McCain or Barack Obama have fallen firmly in line behind their candidates. A majority Obama supporters think his plan is either a "good idea" (44%) or "an attempt to help those with less money" (34%).

On the other side, a majority of McCain supporters think Obama's plan is a "political gimmick" (36%) or just another attempt to "redistribute wealth in America" (28%).

The response from undecided voters, however, is quite surprising.

Though undecided voters may not know who they're voting for on Nov. 4, they are hardly indecisive about Obama's tax plan. It seems that even the politically unsure know something fishy when they smell it.

The largest percentage of undecided voters (36%) think the Obama tax cut plan is nothing more than a "political gimmick." A good number (28%) think it's just another attempt at wealth redistribution, and 13% (these folks win the gold star) think it's impossible for him to give 95% of Americans a tax cut when only 70% of us pay taxes in the first place.

Incredibly, only 0.7% of undecided voters think that Obama's tax plan is a "good idea." You read that correctly. Less than 1% of undecided voters are sold on Obama's promise to cut taxes for 95% of Americans. (Those interested in viewing these poll results, and others, in their entirety can go to www.BarackObamaTest.com.)

The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates that under Obama's tax plan, 63 million Americans (44% of all income tax filers) would be absolved of their income tax liability, and most of this 44% would receive a gravy check from the federal government.

Under a President Obama, we would move quickly to a scenario where nearly half of all Americans ride for free. It is hard to imagine a more reckless tax plan.

As of today, there are an estimated 20% of likely voters who still have not decided who to vote for in just a few weeks. In light of the current economic crisis, we know that the health of our economy is first and foremost in many of their minds.

It does not bode well for Obama when undecided voters — at least those who are forced to carefully consider his pie-in-the-sky tax cut plan — overwhelmingly reject the plan as hogwash.

This presidential race has shown that voters are clearly hungry for "change," and certainly a bad economy will only intensify this appetite. However, when forced to consider the unworkable reality of Obama's tax cut plan, undecided voters, at this moment at least, are pushing away their plates.

O'Leary is president of Associated Television News and the author of "The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values."

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, October 13, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: Barack Obama lies about his ACORN past while agreeing to let the group shape the policies of his administration. He hopes his community organizer pals will help him make America "less mean-spirited."

Read More: Election 2008

As far back as Harvard Law School, Obama dreamed of transforming America in the image of community organizations such as ACORN with whom and for whom he trained.

In the May 3, 1990, edition of Chicago's Daily Herald newspaper, there's an article in which Obama, while attending Harvard Law School, gives his skewed view of American society and his plans for it. "I'm interested in organizations, not movements," the young Obama said, "because movements dissipate but organizations don't."

Through these organizations, Obama hoped that "more and more people will begin to feel their story is somehow part of this larger story of how we're going to reshape America in a way that is less mean-spirited and more generous."

Less mean-spirited? Apparently wife Michelle isn't the only one who thinks America is mean and should be more generous with other people's money. "I hope to be part of a transformation of this country," Obama also said in 1990.

Of course, Obama denies being a trainer for ACORN and its staff of community rabble-rousers now engaged in massive countrywide vote fraud to elect the man who helped lead their effort to force banks to issue loans to people who could not afford them.

Obama's Web site proclaims, "Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity." Then how is it that Chicago ACORN leader Toni Foulkes sang Obama's praises for his work for ACORN in his article, "Case Study: Chicago — The Barack Obama Campaign," which appeared in Social Policy magazine in 2004?

Foulkes said ACORN first recognized Obama's talents as a community organizer when he was organizing on Chicago's far south side with the Developing Communities Project.

Foulkes wrote: "When he returned from law school, we asked him to help us with a lawsuit to challenge the state of Illinois' refusal to abide by the National Voting Rights Act . . . . Obama took the case, known as ACORN vs. Edgar . . . and we won."

Then Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar balked at implementing the new federal "Motor Voter" law out of concern that allowing people to register via postcard and blocking the state from pruning voter rolls might invite vote fraud. We wonder where he got that idea.

Foulkes says that "Obama then went on to run a voter registration project with Project VOTE in 1992 that made it possible for Carol Mosely Braun to win the Senate that year. Project Vote delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them)."

ACORN was so impressed with Obama's work with and for ACORN that, according to Foulkes, "Since then, we have invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office."

Last November, Obama told the group, "I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran (the) Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work."

Obama appreciates ACORN's work so much, and vice versa, that Obama last December promised to implement ACORN's agenda as president. On Dec. 1, 2007, Obama spoke at the Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum organized by Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. When asked if Obama would sit down with community organizers in the first 100 days of his presidency, Obama said, "Yes, but let me even say before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we'll be calling all of you (community organizers) in to help us shape the agenda."

Obama pledged before leaders of community organizing groups including Gamaliel and ACORN: "We're gonna be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next presidency of the United States of America."

That's what we were afraid of.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, October 08, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election Fraud: A radical group Barack Obama used to work for is committing voter-registration fraud in several states, ahead of the election. What does Obama know about this scam?

Read More: Election 2008

It's a legitimate question to raise now that the FBI has raided the offices of the nonprofit Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in Nevada and North Carolina, two states where Obama and John McCain are running neck-and-neck. ACORN has registered bogus voters in both states.

The group's voter-registration fraud is rampant, and authorities plan a nationwide sweep of ACORN offices to collect records.

In Nevada, state officials say the fraudulent registrations included forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team, including quarterback Tony Romo.

"Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada," Secretary of State Ross Miller said, "and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won't be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4."

While those names will be flagged on Election Day, felonious voters may have better luck using other cutouts. Nevada, along with several other key battleground states, requires no ID to vote.

In North Carolina, where Obama has been running nonstop ads, ACORN has registered a record number of new voters, many of them suspicious. Statewide, Democrats are doing better than the GOP in new converts — even in traditionally Republican counties.

There have been 218,749 newly registered Democrats in North Carolina since January — more than five times the 38,337 new Republicans, state records show.

The numbers show a startlingly close political battle even in Republican-dominated Union County, with 4,233 new voters registering as Democrats and 4,362 as Republicans. In previous election years, new Republicans have outnumbered Democrats 2-to-1 in the fast-growing Charlotte-area county.

In Missouri, one ACORN registrant named Monica Rays showed up on no less than eight forms, all bearing the same signature.

Suspicious election officials sent letters to some 5,000 ACORN registrants in St. Louis, asking the letter recipients to contact them.

Fewer than 40 reponded.

In Kansas City, 15,000 registrations have been questioned, and last year four ACORN employees were indicted for fraud.

In addition, ACORN officials have also been indicted in Wisconsin and Colorado. Investigations against others are active in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

ACORN has also been registering convicted felons — including inmates — in Florida and other battleground states. ACORN boasts registering a record 1.5 million new voters so far this election.

What does all this have to do with Obama, besides the fact that he'd be the beneficiary of most, if not all, of these new votes?

For starters, Obama paid ACORN, which has endorsed him for president, $800,000 to register new voters, payments his campaign failed to accurately report. (They were disguised in his FEC disclosure as payments to a front group called Citizen Services Inc. for "advance work.")

What's more, Obama worked as executive director of ACORN's voter-registration arm, Project Vote, in 1992. Joined by two other community organizers on Chicago's South Side, Obama conducted the voter-registration drive that helped elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the Senate that year.

The next year, 1993, Obama joined the civil-rights law firm Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, where he sued the state of Illinois on behalf of ACORN to implement the federal "Motor Voter" law, which the GOP governor at the time refused to do. Then-Gov. Jim Edgar argued, presciently, that the Clinton law would invite voter fraud.

Obama downplays his ties to ACORN, and his campaign denies coordinating with ACORN to register voters.

Meantime, New Orleans-based ACORN maintains that it has no control over volunteers who are falsifying application forms, that they're like employees who steal from the store.

But the fraud is widespread and not isolated. It also turns out that some ACORN execs allegedly are involved in a $1 million embezzlement cover-up at their headquarters. Representing them in the case is none other than Michelle Obama's old law firm in Chicago.

ACORN's corruption is not just out in the field, as they claim. There's a pattern of corruption from the top down.

McCain would be wise to start preparing a challenge to voter registration rolls should he lose the race in a close contest. He'd be crazy not to contest the results in light of these events.

Yet another Obama affiliation who's motto is hate, lie, beg, cheat, smear and break the law in order to prosper. 

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, October 06, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Media Bias: It's worth noting when someone as distinguished as actor Jon Voight directly warned media Saturday to quit lying in this election, if only for the sake of democracy. But lying is exactly what's been stepped up.

Read More: Election 2008 | Media & Culture

The latest manifestation of media bias was a bizarre Associated Press "analysis" claiming racism in Sarah Palin's warning over the weekend about Barack Obama's long association with Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground terror organization.

AP reporter Douglass K. Daniels claimed that Palin's questioning of Obama's association with the white radical child of privilege was "racially tinged." The verbal stink bomb keyed off Palin's statement that Obama "is not a man who sees America like you and I see America. We see it as a force of good in this world." To Daniels, this was the same as saying Obama is "not like us."

It was the latest instance of increasingly undisguised media efforts to act as an unofficial branch of the Obama campaign.

Actor Jon Voight, who was at the Palin rally in Southern California Saturday, pointed this out as the media clamored to interview him ahead of the event.

"What I would like to see is the press put partisanship aside," Voight said. "This is crucial, because it otherwise does not allow people to make informed voting decisions. Somebody's got to be able to report things properly. Every slander and every rumor ever produced, they report like news!"

Palin, of course, knows all about this. Obama-linked blogs like the Daily Kos invent charges out of whole cloth, like the time one claimed Palin wasn't the mother of her own baby. The media reported that as news.

Meanwhile, ad agency personnel linked to the Obama campaign faked charges in videos that Palin belonged to an Alaska secessionist group. The media picked that up too.

How did the AP's "racial" analysis come up? It may have been based on the event itself. Palin noted the "diversity" in the crowd of about 15,000, and we did too — even if media reports didn't.

We noticed thousands of Mexican-American, Asian-American, and, yes, African-Americans waving Palin signs and cheering. This could be seen as a threat to the Obama campaign, which claims to have a hammerlock on these votes.

Was the "racial tinge" given to Palin's remarks a warning to the new Republican voters to get back to the Democratic fold? Or was it a way to silence discussion about Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist whose reemergence in the news is panicking the Obama camp?

In contrast to the cheering at Saturday's event, reporters in the two press sections grumbled about hating Palin and assured one another they were only there only by assignment. Just being professional, some may argue, but we saw plenty of cheering from the press at the Democratic Convention in Denver.

Voight told them to quit spreading rumors and go back to reporting facts. "Nobody's vetting Obama's past, this fellow of strange associations," the actor said. "Nobody's talking about his effort to radicalize Chicago schools."

Though the media got the face time they wanted with the Academy Award-winner, not many put Voight's pointed warnings to them about their coverage on the nightly news.

But there's no sign of it going away, even in small ways. The San Francisco Chronicle claimed Palin spent more time fundraising in well-heeled Costa Mesa than addressing the crowd of well wishers at the Home Depot Center in working-class Carson.

It's a small thing, we suppose. But Palin spent much more time signing autographs in Carson than the 15 minutes the Chronicle reported. We were there, and saw Palin smiling and shaking hands for at least a half hour, long enough to get lots of camera-angle photos, until her aides hustled her out shortly before 5 p.m.

The more we observe media bias in action, the more we're amazed by its new ways of distorting and concealing news. When it takes a Hollywood actor to call them on it, we know there's a problem.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, October 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: At an education forum in Venezuela, Bill Ayers showed the real issue is not his terrorist past. It's the socialist revolutionary agenda that he and Barack Obama want to impose on the nation's schools.

Read More: Election 2008

Still more evidence of how the media are in the tank for Obama was evident in Tom Brokaw's description of Ayers on Sunday's "Meet The Press."

"School reformer" is how Brokaw identified the co-founder of the Weather Underground, the radical organization that, among other activities, bombed government buildings, banks, police departments and military bases in the early 1970s.

Yeah, right: Ayers is a school reformer in the same sense, as City Journal's Sol Stern put it, as Joe Stalin was an agricultural reformer.

An idea of what Ayers has in mind for America's schools was provided in his own words not 40 years ago when Obama was eight years old, but less than two years ago in November 2006 at the World Education Forum in Caracas hosted by dictator Hugo Chavez.

With Chavez at his side, Ayers voiced his support for "the political educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how . . . all of you continue to overcome the failures of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane."

Ayers told the great humanitarian Chavez: "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion." It is that form of socialist revolution that Ayers, and Obama, have worked to bring to America.

Ayers, now a tenured Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

As Stern points out, "Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children in the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive."

If Ayers was just another nutty professor, we'd be lucky. But he wields great influence in academic circles and has had Obama's ear. He's the author or editor of 15 books. Chicago's current mayor, Richard M. Daley, has employed Ayers as a teacher trainer for Chicago's public schools and consulted him on the city's education-reform plans.

Just last month, Ayers was elected vice-president for curriculum for the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association. AERA is the nation's largest organization of education-school professors and researchers.

In a recent interview on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," Obama upgraded Ayers' status from "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" to "somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know."

Actually, Obama knew him quite well, having worked together on a school "reform" project called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

In the 1990s, Ayers was instrumental in starting the Annenberg Challenge, securing a $50 million grant to reform the Chicago Public Schools, part of a national initiative funded by the late Ambassador Walter Annenberg.

Obama was given the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office. He ran the fiscal arm that distributed grants to schools and raised matching funds.

Ayers participated in a second entity known as the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, the operational arm that worked with grant recipients.

During Obama's tenure as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers' own education projects received substantial funding.

One of Ayers' descriptions for a course called "Improving Learning Environments" says a prospective K-12 teacher needs to "be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation."

John McCain needs to repeatedly point out the stealth socialism of Ayers' education agenda and Obama's complicity in it. Otherwise, we may one day see Ayers as Obama's secretary of education.

http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/ww/news/2008/03
/27/vogue-full.jpg

NEW YORK - When Vogue announced its April cover starring LeBron James and Gisele Bundchen, the magazine noted with some fanfare that James was the first black man to grace its cover.

 But the image is stirring up controversy, with some commentators decrying the photo as perpetuating racial stereotypes. James strikes what some see as a gorilla-like pose, baring his teeth, with one hand dribbling a ball and the other around Bundchen’s tiny waist.

It’s an image some have likened to “King Kong” and Fay Wray.

“It conjures up this idea of a dangerous black man,” said Tamara Walker, 29, of Philadelphia.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz shot the 6-foot-9 NBA star and the 5-foot-11 Brazilian model for the cover and an inside spread. Vogue spokesman Patrick O’Connell said the magazine “sought to celebrate two superstars at the top of their game” for the magazine’s annual issue devoted to size and shape.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  ISN'T THIS EXTREME?

On this day 45 years ago, Alcatraz Prison closed. 

Alcatraz Island was formerly home to a military prison turned maximum-security federal prison during the high crime days of the depression.  Due to deteriorating conditions, diminishing security measures, high costs & government budget cuts, The Rock closed after nearly three decades of controversy.

Could have posted under Politics with focus on the prison being a reminder of the days when this country was not so politically correct .  Torture and grueling work were daily activities.  A quick study into the daily operations of Alcatraz is truly fascinating and worth the read.  I found myself constantly asking myself if these practices were just or inhumane.  Tell me what you think.

Could have posted under Entertainment regarding the multitude of movies made about the prison (Escape from Alcatraz, Birdman of Alcatraz, Murder in The First, etc.) or it's infamous prisoners (Al Capone, Doc Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, Birdman, etc).  Might have even focused on the fact that it is one of the top tourist spots in this country.  What's your favorite movie, most fascinating inmate?  Have you visited?

Could have posted under Weather considering that the elements on this island only contributed to it being such a miserable place and the frigid water being a nice barrier to an attempt at freedom.  Anything to add about Alcatrz weather?  Chris, Glen, Dave and other weather fanatics?

Could have posted under Faith/Religion because I'm sure a lot of people found it there. 

Anyway, I hope to visit some day.