The Wages of Pandering….

Let’s get straight to it.  What the hell were Obama’s people thinking when they invited a white openly gay minister to open for his South Carolina gospel concert with Donnie McClurkin?I’ll repeat it once more.

I said, what the hell were Obama’s people thinking when they invited a white openly gay minister to open for his South Carolina gospel concert with Donnie McClurkin?

Is he trying to lose the race?  That’s all I want to know.

So asks Jasmyne Cannick.

The answer of course, is not that he’s trying to lose, but that he’s going to lose by the way he’s trying to win.  Specifically, he’s pandering to everybody.  Eventually, he’s going to get caught.  Eventually, both sides are going to be ticked off at him.

This is what happens when you don’t stand for something.  And here’s a clue; inclusiveness is not a goal.  It’s a slogan.  And not a very good one.  Look up in the upper right hand corner of this page.  What does it say there?

Those who tolerate everything, stand for nothing. What do YOU stand for?

I don’t mean to pick on Obama here, because frankly to0 many people do it… mostly, in my observation those of the leftist persuasion.  They try desperately to include everybody, regardless of what they stand for. THey’re busy collecting all the votes they can, so they’ll tell you what you want to hear… no matter what you think. So it is that they spend the entire election cycles talking out of both sides of their mouth.  Ultimately, the two ends, end up clashing, at a very basic and intrinsic level… a level of nature which value neutral leftists tend to go well out of their way to try to avoid.  It always comes back to bite them, as in this case…. where Obama ran straight into the values of the voters he’s trying to court… and lost.

The lesson to take away from this, of course, is that when they tell you that they stand by you and your values, they really don’t.  While they’re telling you this, there also telling people from the opposite end of the spectrum that they stand with them.

The only thing in the end, that they really stand for, is their own power grab. What you’re seeing, in Jasmyne, and people like her, in her comments, is the slow realization of this; and the somewhat slower realization that they’ve been royally had.

The question now is how many people in seeing this will admit this to themselves? 

I remarked the other day that the best sign that the Democrats were in serious trouble, was that they were fighting amongst themselves.  Maggie Michael at AP, passes along that AlQaida is doing the same:

CAIRO, Egypt -(AP)- Al-Qaida sympathizers have unleashed a torrent of anger against Al-Jazeera television, accusing it of misrepresenting Osama bin Laden‘s latest audiotape by airing excerpts in which he criticizes mistakes by insurgents in Iraq.

Users of a leading Islamic militant Web forum posted thousands of insults against the pan-Arab station for focusing on excerpts in which bin Laden criticizes insurgents, including his followers.

Analysts said the reaction highlighted militants’ surprise at bin Laden’s words, and their dismay at the deep divisions among al-Qaida and other Iraqi militants that he appeared to be trying to heal.

“It’s not about Al-Jazeera, it’s about their shock from bin Laden,” said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on Islamic militant groups. “For the first time, bin Laden, who used to be the spiritual leader who gives guidance, became a critic of al-Qaida and is confessing mistakes. This is unusual.”

Personally, I find this spectacle very satisfying, indeed.  They’re losing.  They know it.  They’re looking around for some place to point the finger of blame.

Right Wing News emailed more than 225 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send us a ranked list 1-5 of the candidates that they would most like to take the Republican nomination for President in 2008 and the 1-5 candidates they’d least like to see as the Republican nominee in 2008. Representatives from the following 52 blogs responded…

Aaron’s CC, The Absurd Report, David All Group, AtlanticBlog, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Bit’s Blog, Bluey Blog, Boi From Troy, Blonde Sagacity, Bookworm Room, The Captain’s Journal, Captain’s Quarters, Keith Burgess-Jackson, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Cold Fury, Conservative Grapevine, Argghhhh!, Eckernet, Election Projection, Musings, Cassy Fiano, Fraters Libertas, Jeff Gannon – A Voice of the New Media, GOPUSA Northeast, GraniteGrok, Guardian Watchblog, Freeman Hunt, Inside Larry’s Head, Liberty Pundit, Likelihood of Success, Moonbattery, mountaineer musings, Newmark’s Door, Newsbeat1, The Nose On Your Face, Damian Penny, Pirate’s Cove, PoliPundit, PrestoPundit, Right Thinking From The Left Coast, Right Wing Rocker, Sane Nation, Matt Sanchez, Ian Schwartz, Don Singleton, Solomonia, Sister Toldjah, Slobokan’s Site Of Schtuff,Stop The ACLU, Don Surber, dcthornton.com, Vox Popoli

The real surprise, here, is how much of the lead in terms of points the leader has in this poll.  Go and RTWT.

Rob over at Say Anything, yesterday, points to facts the left doesn’t want you to know:

Weird…

U.S. combat troop deaths and other violence in Iraq are down significantly in some of the most dangerous places of insurgent activity, including Al Anbar province, military officials in Washington and Baghdad said Wednesday.

Maybe most significant was that last week there was not a single military casualty — Iraqi or U.S. — in Anbar, said Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock, a Joint Chiefs spokesman. It is apparently the first time since March 2003 that could be said. . . .

The numbers might be the most positive sign yet of progress against insurgent activity since January.

Sherlock also listed several other statistics that he said showed terrorist activity is decreasing:

— Violence in and around Baghdad is down 59 percent.

— Car bombs are down 65 percent.

— Casualties from car bombs and roadside bombs are down by 80 percent.

— Casualties from enemy attacks down 77 percent.

— Operations against Iraqi security forces are down 62 percent.

— Assassination attempts for sectarian reasons are down 72 percent.

…it’s almost like we’re winning or something.

Couldn’t be. I mean the Democrats told us we were losing, and all.

I mean…. They’d never lie, right?

Ann Althouse absolutely nails the Barack Obama campaign as run by sexual bigots:

The LGBT Americans “know that their sexual orientation is an innate and treasured part of their being.” They know. That is, they are right. The African American ministers and citizens “believe that their religion prevents them from fully embracing their gay brothers and sisters.” They have a belief. That is, we’d like to be respectful and inclusive and simultaneously signal that they are wrong.

The Obama campaign has equated a person’s sexuality as somehow more inate, truer and more worthy than deeply held relgious beliefs.    Can any person of faith support Obama?

More:  Memorandum.

Garry Gross has an interesting article revealing democrat corruption in the Pennsylvania House:

I’ve written alot about the Pennsylvania House Democratic Office of Legislative Research scandal. Tracie Mauriello is the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter who’s uncovered alot of this information. Here’s Ms. Auriello’s latest article on the subject. It’s the most damaging article yet. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Brett Cott, a high-ranking policy analyst in the state House of Representatives, spent 11 weeks straight in Beaver Falls last year working on former House Democratic Whip Michael Veon’s unsuccessful re-election campaign. Patrick Grill, also a policy analyst, squeezed in at least 10 trips from Harrisburg to Waynesburg to campaign for Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese.Both continued to draw their state salaries while they campaigned, according to records obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Mr. Cott’s annual salary is $87,412 and Mr. Grill’s is $67,552. Altogether, at least 45 House Democratic employees campaigned on weekdays last year but never left the state payroll and still received bonuses as a reward for their state work, the records show.

Mr. Cott received a $25,065 bonus and Mr. Grill received $12,685. They were among 717 House Democratic staffers who received taxpayer-fund bonuses worth $1.9 million.

Bill DeWeese is now the Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He was asked whether the $1.8 million in bonuses to House Democratic staffers was for their work on Democrats’ campaigns. In fact, Rep. DeWeese denied a connection between the bonuses and campaign work:

House Majority Leader H. William DeWeese, D-Greene, has denied any tie between the bonuses and campaign work.

Here’s one of the things that initially set off red flags for me:

Some recipients already were making six-figure salaries and got five-figure onuses on top of that. House Democratic leader Bill DeWeese of Waynesburg urged his bonus recipients not to tell anyone, but unhappy legislative employees, who didn’t get the extra money, leaked word to the Harrisburg Patriot-News and then other newspapers.

Heh… This is nothing short of amazing.  And this is not the first I’ve heard of this; I’ve been hearing for months now that DeWeese is in this butt-deep. not that I think that the democrats are gonna pay anything for this corruption.  As indicated by the method by which we found out about all of this, namely the employees who got ticked and went to the newspaper because they didn’t get paid off, This machine is too large to be in trouble in the short term.

This is, however, just one more example of the kind of corruption going on with the Democrats.  I wonder if we could ever get the mainstream media to investigate some of this stuff?

Nah. I guess I’m asking too much for them to do their job.

1. I do not question Ron Paul’s patriotism.  Rather, I have questioned Paul’s sanity, or lack thereof same.   Lone Star Times,  report Paul is taking campaign contributions from neo-nazis:

A LoneStarTimes.com investigation has conclusively established that a leading figure in the American neo-Nazi / White-Supremacist movement has provided financial support to Ron Paul’s 2008 Presidential campaign.

The individual in question is Don Black, the founder, owner and operator of Stormfront, a “white power” website that both professional journalists and watch-dog groups have identified as the premier English-language racist/hate-site on the Internet.

Paul has to be either insane or a white racist to knowingly accept campaign contributions from a neo-nazi.   Either one further disqualifes Paul as qualified to hold public office. 

More:  Kurt, Flopping Aces; Allah Pundit, Hot Air; Memoradum.

Addendum: (Bit)

I spoke to this the other day at Q&O…. when we saw Stormfront endorsing the man:

MORE than granted, that it’s not his responsibility to deny these whack jobs.

But it does strike me as reasonable to suggest that for him to identify such people as holding views he does not agree with, and rejecting unequivocally their endorsement, might be a net positive. At the least, It seems to me, it would be a principled act.

I suppose, it being a net positive depends on how many of his current supporters are Stormfronters, themselves. This sounds like an accusation, but it’s not; I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. That he does not reject the endorsement, is arguably an indication that he doesn’t know the answer to that question, either. If I thought he had a hope in hell of winning, I think I would find that troublesome.

Or, perhaps he doesn’t reject the endorsement is because he doesn’t substantially disagree with them. That, I know I would find troublesome.

So now, we find him taking not just endorsements, but donations from the same group.  Which would seem to be the reason he didn’t reject the endorsement when I posted the quote above. And yes, I find it troublesome.

There seem only two or three possiblities left to us in making a judgement here:

1. He doesn’t disagree with Stormfront and what it stands for,  in a substantial enough way to make accepting their endorsements and their money a moral issue for him.
2. He’s tone deaf enough not to understand that this is a serious issue for him drawing any voters from outside the Stromfront group.

Or possibly, the guy’s simply looney.

In any of these the party needs to cut off his funding, and show him the door.  He’s not qualified for the position he now holds, much less that of POTUS.

So, Carl Levin is trying to cut the funding for the Iraq war.

Why?

He’s trying to get the President to “change course” in Iraq.

He knows, as do all Americans by now, that real progress is being made there.  And he still wants to change course?

To what? What does he want instead of the progress being made there?

Defeat for America.

Boortz notices the same story this morning, and says:

 Bush is right … the Democrats can’t pass their appropriations bills .. they’re certainly not as important as insuring our defeat overseas. Weakening a Republican president is job number one.

And if America gets defeated on the world stage in the process, well, so much the better for Carl and the Democrats, eh?

Like what you see, America?

You do know that Hillary Clinton has been trying to buy the support of bloggers, don’t you? CNS News:

Call it “Bloggergate” … the subversion of the blogospand here by Democrat money.

To be more precise, Bloggergate is the subsidizing of left-wing bloggers with illegal Democrat campaign contributions, laundered through ostensibly ‘non-partisan’ non-profit groups.

At a convention of left-wing bloggers last summer, Hillary Clinton announced, ‘We are . . . putting together a network in the blogosphere.’

Her remarks became public only three weeks ago, on Oct. 2, when an anonymous person posted a shaky, hand-held videotape of her speech on YouTube. In it, Hillary bragged that she had helped create ‘institutions’ which had produced a left-wing ‘network in the blogosphere’ capable of ‘matching’ the alleged ‘advantage of the other side.’

Hillary’s claim raises troubling questions. On a practical level, just how exactly does a U.S. senator go about exerting her power to stack the blogosphere in her favor?

One obvious method is to buy favorable coverage. Hillary’s boast carries a strong implication that she has subsidized bloggers.

The article goes into extreme detail on these points. I strongly advise you to go and RTWT.

On the other hand, buying bloggers, is nothing new; Who’s paying for the Democratic Underground? Who’s paying for Media Matters? Greenwald? A host of others? If you think you know the answer to these questions, you might want to ask Norman Hsu about how Hilly has developed this knack of money hiding and laundering, in support of her campaigns.

Mike Soraghan at The Hill:

Democrats are losing the battle for voters’ hearts because the party’s message lacks emotional appeal, according to a widely circulated critique of House Democratic communications strategy.

“Our message sounds like an audit report on defense logistics,” wrote Dave Helfert, a former Appropriations spokesman who now works for Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii). “Why are we defending [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program] instead of advocating a ‘Healthy Kids’ plan?”

This tells us two things.

1. The Democrats in the end value emotionalism over reality, as a way to get your vote.  To anyone who’s been watching politics in this country for any length of time, they should come to no surprise at all.  It is a bit of a surprise, however, to get them to admit this so openly.  Particularly, in a policy memo.
2.  In their view, emotionalism, outweighs principle.  This is something that I will touch on this afternoon, using Barrack Obama as the unfortunate example.  In reality, Democrats have no principle, other than attaining and maintaining power.  Everything else, is on the table; there is likely to change positions on a given issue mid-speech, as they are to maintain them…. in the hopes of making everyone ‘feel’ included.  (There’s that emotionalism again…)

Oh; this perhaps tells us something else, as well.  The reason that the Democrats have no emotion behind what they’re trying to sell us, is because they don’t believe it themselves.

The Science and Public Policy Institute, has released a report on Al Gore’s movie, that you will want to read.  It goes into great detail, listing of 35 different lies found in that movie, lies which the institute, in its generosity calls “errors”.

Actually, I guess they don’t use the word lies, because it doesn’t sound very scientific.

Then again, neither is Gore.

Jessica Holzer over at The Hill

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) unveiled a sweeping tax overhaul on Thursday that he hailed as a fairer way to spread tax relief, but Republicans attacked the move as a blunder that could cost Democrats in the next election.

The legislation would rearrange the tax code, granting tax relief to 90 million Americans and cutting the corporate tax rate while shifting the burden onto higher earners, including managers of private equity and hedge funds. It would also permanently shield taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

Heh.  Tax relief, he says.

It’s true; the alternative minimum tax is a completely outdated law which should been struck from the books a long time ago.  But to give us a line about how this is to give people a break who were getting nailed by the AMT, is as disingenuous as Charlie Rangel has ever been.  Make no mistake about this; what he’s proposing is going to hit everybody in the wallet, and I mean everybody.

He’s going to tell you that this is for the “little guy”.  Alternately, he’s going to tell you it’s for the “middle class”.  Well, there’s a small problem with that; there’s a lot less rich, then there are middle class.  Thereby, the middle class ends up paying for just about everything, regardless of what kind of tax rates you put up on the so called “rich”.  So, while this is true :

To pay for the tax relief, Rangel has proposed more than $1.3 trillion in tax increases, including a 4 percent surcharge on individuals and families on income above $150,000 and $200,000, respectively. That surcharge rises to 4.6 percent on individual and family income above $200,000 and $500,000.

Here’s where the line share of the money is coming from:

It also assumes the expiration of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.

Those were tax cuts that directly affected the middle class; meeting you, and I.  Losing those will cost us all real money.

It also kills off American business; you remember… your job?

Even though it would slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30.5 percent, the plan would do away with some widely-used business provisions that reduce companies’ tax bills, such as the lease-in, sale-out accounting method. “Very few” corporations pay the 35 percent rate, Josten said.

Which in the end, will also affect people working on contract.  That’s right; the middle class, again.  I know I have a number of readers who work in the IT industry.  I do myself. This will basically kill off the contract business, if it ever sees the light of day.  And what about manufacturing?  Where’s that going to go?  China?  India?  Mexico?  What little we have will disappear.

And what of small business?  That’s 50% of our business might, right now, is small business.  This increase will hit them, too.  Hard.

Rangel plans to wait until next year to push his tax overhaul.

After, presumably, he figures Hillary Clinton will be in the White House.

Let me be clear about this; we’re talking about the largest single tax increase in the history of this country; it comes out to around a trillion dollars .

Go back and read that again.  Got it?  Good.

Here’s what’s really happening; Charlie Rangel is floating this as a trial balloon.  He knows damned well that this is not going to pass in the current environment.  at the same time he’s what 75.. err… 77 years old. he wants to be around to see this one go through.  He knows the only chance he’s got to get any kind of a tax increase through is if Hillary Clinton gets in the White House.  So here comes Charlie, proposing a tax increase of around a trillion dollars.  Then along comes Hillary Clinton who will propose something less than a trillion, and will say how she’s saving middle class America money and jobs. We used to call this routine, the good cop/bad cop routine. In short, Charlie Rangel is paving the way for Hillary Clinton.

In short, and in majority, then, this tax hike belongs to Bill and Hillary Clinton.  She’s putting their cards on the table; this kind of job destroying, income destroying, nation destroying tax increase is what Hillary Clinton is all about.

The frightening thing is, we’re still a year away from the election; that means she’s not even warmed up yet.

That site that Israel bombed, was apparently correctly identified in the news reports that we all saw last evening.  This is a before and after shot:

As to the official reaction of Syria, Bruce McQuain makes an excellent point:

Seems to me if it was an empty building the Israelis took out, the Syrians would milk it for every bit of propaganda value possible (hopefully more skillfully that Saddam’s “Baby Milk Factory”). Instead we have what looks like a scrubbed site.

Yes…  And instead of the outraged screaming that you would hear if we had bombed an aspirin factory, let’s say , we have dead silence from Syrian authorities.  It’s the best signal I can think of that our intelligence was right on the money.

I did get a chance to look at that site last evening, on Google Earth… and one thing that the pictures here do not show is the lay of the land.  (They also don’t have nearly the resolution that the EARTH version has, for some reason)

The building that you see in one picture and don’t see in the other, is in a bit of a valley.  That valley, gravity drains into the river. It’s also apparently deep enough, to make it a serious problem for anyone trying to do an air strike unless you’re coming at it from the west.  The topo of the neighborhood suggests a drop off of about 150ft. below average terrain.  This would be consistent, to my mind with a nuclear installation, not as I say an aspirin factory. I’m not sure how tall the building was, but it seems reasonable to assume that the site was picked and possibly re-landscaped slightly… so as to hide the roof below the average terrain.

Now the question becomes one of the other two reported sites, of the same North Korean design, also in Syria?

BBCT: Memeorandum which has more links up

Attributed to  Senator Joesph Biden by CNN:

Explaining why schools in Iowa are performing better than those in Washington, D.C., Biden told the Post, “There’s less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”

“When you have children coming from dysfunctional homes, when you have children coming from homes where there’s no books, where the mother from the time they’re born doesn’t talk to them — as opposed to the mother in Iowa who’s sitting out there and talks to them, the kid starts out with a 300 word larger vocabulary at age three. Half this education gap exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom,” the Delaware Democrat added.

The question is not of a black socio-economic disparity.   It exists.  The question is why.   Biden is echoing, the not new, idea of a pathologically defective black culture.    The idea of inferior black culture is shall I say not politically accepted.

So when will Keith Olbermann make Biden his Worst Person in the World?   I shall not hold my breath.

While I consider Biden a pompus ass, I have no beef with what Biden said.

Hat tip:  Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

All we need to do is gather all Ted Rall’s readers into a room, put Rall in there with them… and then… heheheheheh….then…  drop a bunker -buster on the place.

Consider the advantages: The Welfare rolls of the country will be cut by 2/3rds, Democrats will never be elected again, thus helping the economy and our world standing immeasurably, world peace will occur, since our foreign policy will no longer be the liberal-slanted mess it’s been for the last 40 years… and the IQ of the nation will be raised by half, all in one stroke. Pretty neat, huh?

Oh.

Not funny, say you?

So why does he think THIS is?

For that matter… Why do YOU?

Imagine a cartoonist suggesting what I’ve suggested above. Does anyone think that the resulting outcry from the left, and most of the right, would not be earth-shaking? So why is there no outcry from the left against Rall?

Think about it, people.