Say Anything Blog

Fox News picks up on a bit of deception from Obama’s first campaign ad of the general election which I posted about a week ago.

The campaign of 2008 started on July 1 when Obama launched his first national advertising buy of the season. How McCain responds and whether or not he does, will have a big impact in determining whether Obama can solidify or expand his current lead in the polls. As always, the media fails to cover the significant events of the campaign — but this is one of the most critical.

The Obama ad, which introduces him as someone who worked his way through college, fights for American jobs, and battles for health care also seeks to move him to the center by taking credit for welfare reform in Illinois which, the ad proclaims, reduced the rolls by 80%.

But there’s one problem - Obama opposed the 1996 welfare reform act at the time. The Illinois law for which he takes credit, was merely the local implementing law the state was required to pass, and it did, almost unanimously. Obama’s implication — that he backed “moving people from welfare to work” — is just not true.

With Obama running the ad in all the swing states (Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia), this gross usurpation of credit affords the McCain campaign an incredible opportunity for rebuttal.

This level of deception is what most people call “lying.”

It’s interesting to watch Obama take hit after hit from the liberal left as his campaign pushes to the center for the general election.

We all know that Obama isn’t going to stay in the center once he’s elected.  He’s just trying to look more conservative for the sake of getting elected.

We also know that the liberals are still going to vote for Obama.  He’s their messiah.  He may break their heart now and then, but what are they going to do?  Vote for McCain instead?  Or Ralph Nader again?

What’s perhaps most interesting is that Obama can’t be the New York Times/Daily Kos candidate and expect to win the general election.  What does this tell us?  That the New York Times and Daily Kos and all the other liberals who are upset about Obama’s move to the center don’t represent mainstream American ideals.

Nothing says sincerity like expressing your patriotism with a cut-and-paste job.

Parade magazine asked the candidates to write about what patriotism means to them. Senator’s McCain’s piece is here.

As for Senator Obama, it looks like he simply took parts of his big patriotism speech on Monday and excerpted it for Parade.

What a classy guy.

It’s the 1970’s all over again!

WASHINGTON (AP) — An influential Republican senator suggested Thursday that Congress might want to consider reimposing a national speed limit to save gasoline and possibly ease fuel prices.

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit.

Congress in 1974 set a national 55 mph speed limit because of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo. The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon.

As motorists headed on trips for this Fourth of July weekend, gasoline averaged $4.10 a gallon nationwide with oil hovering around $145 a barrel.

It seems to me that rising fuel prices are going to do a lot more to conserve gasoline nationally than lowered speed limits.  And what happens if lowering the speed limit does conserve gas?  Demand for gas goes down, then prices go down, then people start to drive more than they would have before, demand goes back up and then finally prices go back up.

Meaning the whole “lower the speed limits” thing is futile in terms of saving gas.

Leave speed limits at levels appropriate for public safety and let the free market handle gas supply and prices.

Check out the first line of the New York Times’ article about the death of Jesse Helms:

Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina Senator whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday.

Helms wasn’t always my cup of tea, but it can hardly be said that he opposed civil rights.  He opposed things like affirmative action (see Helms’ famous “Hands” campaign ad), and I hardly think that government programs which mandate preferential treatment based on skin color have anything to do with “civil rights.”

Also, interesting that the Times draws a distinction between “gay rights” and “civil rights.” That’s going to surprise the hell out of gay advocates who are fond of comparing their movement to the civil rights movement headed up by Martin Luther King.

First off, let me say that my hat’s off to the Colombian military, which pulled off one of the best bait and switch schemes to rescue 15 hostages long held by FARC that anyone could imagine.

Pretending to be FARC allies who wanted to move the hostages by helicopter for an interview with an international relief agency, they persuaded the FARC guerrillas to allow them aboard two helicopters along with two FARC guards. When they were airbornes the guards were (I like this part) “overpowered” (I’ll just bet they were) and the hostages were told of the rescuers real identity, and that they were now free.

And FARC, at this very moment, is sitting in a sweltering Colombian jungle having just lost any trump card they thought they had and feeling very, very stupid. They may even be left out of the Terrorist Hall of Fame over this one.

Anyway, today the most high profile of the hostages, former Colombian presidential candidate and French citizen Ingrid Betancourt returned to her native France:

PARIS - “I cry with joy,” Ingrid Betancourt said. And she did. After six years as a hostage in the Colombian jungle, the former Colombian presidential candidate and French citizen flew back to her beloved France to be embraced Friday as an icon by the country that raised her

A hero’s welcome — led by President Nicolas Sarkozy — greeted Betancourt from the moment she descended from the plane at the Villacoublay air base southwest of Paris. A dual French-Colombian citizen, Betancourt was campaigning for Colombia’s presidency when she was kidnapped in 2002.

Merely surviving an ordeal like that is something worth all the accolades she can get. The details of her captivity along with those of the other hostages will be interesting when they’re finally made public.

Maybe, just maybe, the left will realize what kind of animals those “revolutionaries” really are.

In the meantime, happy Fourth of July, Ms. Betancourt. Brings a whole new meaning to “Independence Day”, doesn’t it?

Community activist, part-time savior...of the sparse track record of Barack Hussein Obama, what hath Obama wrought?

CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.

But it’s not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Sounds like the Obameister did well by these constituents, didn’t he? Now he wants to take his show on the road and give the entire country the benefit of his expertise?  /sarcasm

Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama’s former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.

Yes, our policies are failing...because we don’t have enough of them! Full speed ahead! But what do the residents think of what Obama hath wrought?

“No one should have to live like this, and no one did anything about it,” said Cynthia Ashley, who has lived at Grove Parc since 1994.

No hope. No change. Nobama!

Hat tip LGF

Cross Posted at Proof Positive

On this great day a small country was born that was founded on the unique idea that rights are granted by the Lord, not by a King nor a consensus among your peers.  This step led to the greatest country on Earth and a shining example of freedom that inspired much of the world to emulate her. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…

And in the interests of equal time, the Navy gets their shot.  Sorry the video is poor, but it is the 9/11 National Day of Mourning remembered on 9/14/2001. 

I’m going to be busy this holiday down at the lake cabin with my family.  I’ve brought down five guns, roughly 400 rounds of ammo and about $800 worth of fireworks.

Because I know what the true meaning of this holiday is.  Freedom, and I plan on exercising a lot of that this weekend, so obviously posting will be light.

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, signed on this date 232 years ago, which lays out for us in simple terms what our most basic duty as citizens is: Vigilance, and not just for threats posed by foreign tyrants but threats posed by domestic tyrants who would use the power of government to limit rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This part of the Declaration, my favorite part in fact, is particularly of interest now in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling on Washington DC vs. Heller which upheld the right to individual possession of firearms.  Which is a right our founders invested in we citizens so that we could enforce this particular, forcefully-expressed ideal from the Declaration:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Have a fun holiday, and stay safe.

Stupid in North Dakota:

FARGO, North Dakota (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama waded into controversy on Thursday over his plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq, first saying he might “refine” his views but later declaring his stance had remained unchanged for more than a year.

Obama was forced to call reporters back for a second news conference in Fargo, North Dakota, after he initially left open the possibility of revising his 16-month timetable for pulling U.S. combat forces from Iraq.

“Let me be as clear as I can be. I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the joint chiefs of staff in and I will give them a new mission and that is to end this war,” Obama told reporters in his second news conference.

But he added: “I would be a poor commander in chief if I didn’t take facts on the ground into account.”

Obama’s in a tough, tough spot with Iraq.  On one hand he has a long history of beating up political opponents like Hillary Clinton over their support, past or present, of the war in Iraq.  From day one he’s been an “end the war now” candidate, and distancing himself means distancing himself from all the leftist fanatics he’s attracted to his campaign with all that empty-but-nice-sounding stuff about “hope” and “audacity” and “change.”

On the other hand, even liberal rags like The New Yorker are noting that the situation in Iraq is trending more and more toward success and that Obama needs to change his outdated stance on the war.

If Obama continues to placate the far-left liberals - and he can hardly afford not to with big time movers-and-shakers like Markos Moulitsas already threatening to withhold money because of his previous policy flip-flops - he’ll look like an obstinate child with his fingers in his ears going “nah nah nah nah” lest he have to admit that his political opponents were right and he was wrong on Iraq.

Obama is an attractive candidate and a fantastic public speaker, but being good-looking and having a knack for delivering inspirational (if rather empty of meaning) speeches doesn’t cover for you being woefully, publicly wrong about one of the biggest issues of this campaign.

The full text is in the extended entry.

My reaction?  Meh.  Who can believe anything Obama says on the campaign trail these days?

At least he didn’t make any claims about his relatives liberating concentration camps in Europe that were really liberated by the Red Army.

What is the lupara?

So says the North Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity:

Bismarck, N.D. - Lt. Governor Jack Dalrymple has recently made stated the administration’s opinion that the current property tax rebate program should not be renewed during the next legislative session.  The program is statutorily set to expire after the 2008 tax year already.

“We are happy to hear the Governor is looking at better ways to improve the tax climate in North Dakota.  Under current economic conditions, there is plenty of room to reform local property taxes and reduce the long-term income tax burden of individuals and businesses,” state policy director Dustin Gawrylow stated. “ We welcome and look forward to working with the Governor and the legislature on ways to further reduce the tax burdens of North Dakotans, both property owners and non-property owners alike.”

Americans for Prosperity supports true property tax reform over one-time bailouts and short-term rebate plans.  Local property taxes, like the state income tax, require long term rate reductions that project a stable, low tax environment.

“Taxes are not an ‘either/or’ matter.  To insinuate that we can not afford to reduce taxes across the spectrum, regardless of property status, is an example of manufacturing a false dilemma.  Various special interests that would seek to spend the taxpayers’ money on pet projects rather than on issues of general welfare will use this argument.  It should be recognized as the political spin it truly is,” concluded Gawrylow. 

The real problem with spiking local property taxes is local government spending which is also spiking.  If North Dakotans want lower property taxes they’re going to have to take a long, hard look at the sort of spending their local political leaders are doing and then ask themselves if that spending is worth the taxes.

I suggest they start with education spending, which is never a popular topic when it comes to budget cuts, but the spending is out of control in many localities none the less.

It wouldn’t surprise me as Colin Powell has always been close to the Democrat/Republican divide on the ideological spectrum, but the real question is this: Is Powell choosing Obama just because Obama is black like Powell?

And if so, is that any better than Dick Cheney saying he’s going to pick McCain for President because McCain is white?

Obama has flipped and flopped so much, I am wondering if he even knows what he stands for. His campaign is a pretty awesome and well-oiled machine right now, it is only hampered by a candidate who shows himself to be preternaturally incapable of providing any policy leadership whatsoever.

He said he would pull all troops out of Iraq in 16 months regardless of what the generals say. Now he says he will 'refine' his views by listening to the generals, then ignore them and pull all troops out of Iraq in 16 months regardless of what the generals say. [ed. technically, I guess this is an 'evolving' flip flop]

He was for an undivided Jerusalem before he was against it. I love it when Obama wraps a flip-flop around a gaffe.

He thought public campaign financing was going to fix our democracy. But now that it is clear that Obama is the real cure for Democracy, his grassroots fundraising operation has magically become a parallel alternative to public financing, and here's hoping you'll buy that lame excuse and not see this for the craven abandonment of principle that it really is.

He thought that the FISA bill represented such a threat to the Fourth Amendment, a usurpation of power by the executive, and an indication of rising authoritarianism that he changed his mind and voted for it.

He was for gun control until it became a hopelessly untenable political position. Gun control now shares space with the other luggage under the Greyhound, right next to his grandmother and Reverend Wright.

Now he seems to be flip-flopping on abortion, too.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Bold prediction: as gas prices approach $5 a gallon and McCain gains political mileage by advocating drilling, Obama will 'refine' his petroleum views and suddenly the enviros go under the Greyhound as well. You know it's coming.

P.S. I wonder what the Kos Kidz think of Obama's evolving views. I never go to DailyKos unless Charles Johnson posts some anti-semitic rant from there, so I don't know if they realize yet that Obama has become the very thing they hate above all: a DNC DLC democrat. I'd call him 'republican-lite' but that would be a low blow.

Crossposted from Ken McCracken

This kind of thing really irks me. Liberals are famous for rewriting history to their own advantage, and this presidential campaign has already seen quite a bit of that (mostly from the Obama campaign trying to keep up with his gaffes). Here, from Slate, is yet another liberal moaning about how Republicans have cornered the patriotism market, and engages in some ridiculous revisionism along the way:

The attacks on Dukakis—which tapped into nativist fears about his swarthy, beetle-browed looks, his ethnic last name, and his Jewish wife—stand alongside the Willie Horton ads from that year as prime exhibits in one of the sleaziest campaigns in presidential history. And this year we've already heard echoes of it, with the Republicans casting Barack Obama as un-American—an exotic foreigner raised partly in Indonesia with a Muslim middle name, married to a woman who said that only her husband's political achievements have made her "proud" of her country, a cosmopolitan elitist too snooty to wear a flag pin in his lapel or clasp his hand to his breast during the national anthem.

Clever. Liberal writers are desperately hoping that you will forget that the ugliness of the Democratic primary was instigated by . . . Democrats, and are trying to make you think that those emails castigating Obama as a muslim were really sent by Karl Rove. Quite reminiscent of Jay Carney blaming Republicans for rumors about the Michelle Obama 'whitey' video, a video chiefly promoted by Democratic clown blogger Larry Johnson.

This is another of those silly leftist conceits: that Democrats never play smashmouth politics, never lie about their opponents, and never engage in smear tactics. Of course the 2008 presidential primaries showed the world how nasty and savage the Dems' political instincts really are, which is why this revisionist campaign is now underway.

Crossposted from Ken McCracken

This would be a nice change.

Shifting from the liberal political indocrtination camps they’ve become under the guidance of baby boomer, liberal teachers to what they’re supposed to be, that is:

A vast generational change is underway at American universities and colleges that will radically alter the culture over the next decade.

Politically liberal college professors from the baby boomer generation, most of which were hired during the higher education expansion of the ‘60s and ‘70s, are systematically being replaced by younger professors who are less ideologically polarized and more politically moderate, The New York Times reports.

They won’t be missed. And will the students mourn their passing? Don’t count on it:

“I hear from quite a few faculty members and graduate students from around the country. They are not really interested in fighting the battles that have been fought over the last 20 years,” Wood tells the Times.

An interview of nearly 50 educators at colleges and universities across the country shows academic institutions returning back to scholarly endeavors, rather than the political activism breeding grounds they were during the ‘60s, the Times report reveals.

So, the academic worm may be starting to turn. And no, I’m not talking about Ward Churchill. That’s a different worm. It may come as a surprise to those liberal teachers but it seems that the kids would rather learn than be indoctrinated into liberal politics.

Imagine that.

Talk about pathological!  Here’s a story featuring the liberal mainstream press lying about the liberal mainstream press!  And blaming it all on their readers.

LOS ANGELES (AP)—The Los Angeles Times plans to cut 250 positions, including 150 jobs in the print and online news departments, amid a continuing industrywide slump in ad sales, the paper’s editor said Wednesday.

The decline in advertising, fueled by a weak real estate market, has boosted the copy-to-ads ratio above the industry target of 50-50, giving readers more stories than they can digest, while the paper competes for attention with the Internet and TV, editor Russ Stanton said.

So… because ad revenues are down, suddenly the reader can’t handle a higher news-to-advertising ratio?  Only in the warped world of the Left does this even begin to make sense.

There is no indication given that there are more news stories being printed.  Only fewer ads.  And there is no indication given that LA Times’ readers are any more stupid than they used to be…although anyone who believes the stuff Mr. Stanton is shoveling should have their rabies and distemper shots updated.

More to the point is this question:  If the media can’t be trusted to tell the truth about the media, how can we NOT question the veracity of everything else they publish?

Incidentally, the problem of dumb readers inundated with a higher news-to-ad- ratio is not limited to the LA market.  The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel announced a 10% reduction in personnel this week, while Media General’s Tampa Tribune is laying off 205 of its staff.

On the other hand, as has been widely reported, Rush Limbaugh’s Excellence In Broadcasting network has seen a substantial boost in ad revenues lately, a fact reflected in Mr. Limbaugh’s own substantially increased net profit.

Durham, N.C. — Police charged a third person Wednesday in connection with beatings and rape that authorities say were carried out by a satanic cult.

Diana Palmer, 44, of Cottage Woods Court, surrendered to police Wednesday afternoon. She was charged with being an accessory after the fact of assault with a deadly weapon and was being held in the Durham County Jail.

...Palmer is first vice chair of the Durham County Democratic Party. Johnson resigned her positions as third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice-chair of the Young Democrats following her arrest.

Lots of vice going on with those vice chairs!

...The county party’s Web site was disabled Wednesday, but Farmer said that was related to a technical problem and not the allegations against Palmer and Johnson.

Yeah! Right! At the time, I said:

Wouldn’t want to embarrass the rest of the Dems who haven’t gotten caught yet!

I’ll accept those apologies now! Heh.

Hat tip to Jammie Wearing Fool
Cross posted at Proof Positive

With the explicit help of the North Dakota newspapers.

U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, is hoping a multifaceted approach by the government can rein in soaring fuel prices.

Conrad, who’s been touring the state this week touting his plan, said the price of gas is “what is really on the minds of NorthDakotans across the state.”

The official purpose of Conrad’s Wednesday trip was to hold a Senate Budget Committee field hearing on the issue, but he was also looking to unveil his five-point plan.

With his customary charts in the background, Conrad said he would like to see a plan that increases domestic oil production, reins in oil speculation, promotes fuel-efficient vehicles, provides incentives for alternative fuels, and promotes coal-to-liquid techniques.

What has Conrad done while he’s been in the Senate to accomplish this.  Aside from supporting bio fuels (jacking up food prices) he’s been 100% against developing energy sources.  Of course there are promising biofuel technologies, like switchgrass, but they aren’t ready yet.  Sure go ahead and develop them but until then fossil fuels are the way to go.

And when it comes down to economically viable fossil fuels Kent Conrad has been terrible.  That’s because he’s beholden to environmental nuts rather than the North Dakotans he should be worried about.

Kent Conrad has always fought against drilling in ANWR.  In fact when it had been attached to a filibuster proof bill in 2005 Kent Conrad led the parliamentary challenge to it and saw to it that it was defeated.  He’s voted against it every time it’s come up.  If it weren’t for idiots like him we’d have that oil on the market, lowering our trade deficit by a significant amount. 

The energy industries have done a fantastic job of keeping supply up even with all of the obstruction from the Subprime Senator and his ilk.  But sooner or later we were going to have a shortage with a resulting price spike.

And when it does Conrad has the gall to claim he’s for domestic production and the Bismarck Tribune gladly prints that lie.  They should be blasting him for helping to give us four dollar a gallon gas.