Democrat racism

Donald Douglas exposes the hypocritical attitude of the Democrat party for all to see:

Just contemplate the loaded racism in that passage: Essentially, folks see Kwame Kilpatrick as a big, black threatening "nigga" (used here non-pejoratively, in the hip-hop sense, but perhaps differently by the working-class whites identified in the Politico).

I swear, one has to be a contortionist to make sense of Democratic Party racial politics.

I mean, think about it: What's the difference between Kwame Kilpatrick and Barack Obama?

Kilpatrick's headed for jail, sure, but besides Obama's interracial background, they're both dishonest big-city Democratic Party politicians who took advantage of insider connections and hardball mob-methods to climb the rungs of power. Of course, Obama's smarter, more attractive, and he's hasn't been caught in flagrant extramarital affairs (or drug-induced homesexual romps with two-bit political groupies). Other than that, Antoin Rezko, Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and the spiritural guidance of Reverend "God Damn America" Jeremiah Wright ought to rate up there - at least in surreptitious subterranean sleaze - with Kilpatrick's one-party urban Democratic machine corruption and criminal prosecution.

This is much of today's Democratic Party, not to mention the bigoted rednecks, and they're all headed to the White House upon a possible Obama win on November 4th.

Also, Jammie-Wearing Fool:

So refreshing to see the Democrats openly admit they're racist scumbags.

Yes, because it's OK for them to be racist, so long as they project their racism upon Republicans with their incessant cries of racism. Naturally, it's fine if 105% of blacks (with ACORN's help, naturally) vote for Obama. We can't call that racist, because we'd be racist for pointing that out.

Experts at the racial, racist double standard, as always.

The jihadist vote

A must-read expose by Frank Gaffney of the Washington Times, taking a hard look at Barack Obama's radical Islamist/terrorist connections, and the money they are pouring into his campaign.

Last week, Barack Obama's campaign was burned yet again for its dalliance with Islamists - those who embrace Islam's repressive theo-political-legal code known as Shariah and who are working for its triumph in the West in general and the United States in particular. The episode is but the latest indication that the Democratic candidate hopes to win the White House by relying, in part, on the Jihadist vote.

NBC reported Thursday that the Obama campaign's latest radical "Muslim outreach coordinator," Mouha Husaini, met last month in one of Washington's Northern Virginia suburbs - the heart of what has been dubbed the "Wahhabi Corridor" - with her predecessor, Mazen Asbahi (who had to resign this summer due to his own associations with Shariah). Even more problematic was the presence at the Springfield event of two prominent Muslim Brotherhood operatives: Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society (MAS) and Nihad Awad of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

As I pointed out in a debate on Tuesday (for a transcript, go to http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1447/pub_detail.asp) with a man associated with both organizations and arguably the Bush administration's senior Muslim official, Suhail Khan, the Brotherhood is an instrument the Islamists have been using to foster a Fifth Column in America. Its stated purpose in this country is to "destroy Western civilization from within."

Read the whole thing. He does not specifically mention the Sedky -> bin Mahfouz -> Wambu -> Vera Baker channel - the article is, sadly, short on specific insights of this nature - but may provide a "broader" overview of the Obama fundraising machine. Gaffney claims that $30-100 million may have come from areas of heavy Islamist activity. I don't know what sources he is using for his article, but I suspect that - when you include "off the books" financing to ACORN and other front groups - the true figure is higher by at least a factor of 5.

Obama, terror, and the banking crisis, part 2 - the money trail, and reasons why

PREFACE: It appears that the FBI is investigating ACORN. If they are willing to follow the money trail, we may soon have definitive answers where right now we have only tantalizing hints. If not - if they only investigate ACORN's ongoing vote fraud schemes, and fail to pursue the networks that finance them, it will be like tearing up a weed at the stem, while leaving the root system in place. You will not see it, as it lies beneath the surface, but it will soon generate new leaves and flowers, and move once more to choke the Garden of our Democracy.

Read Part 1: The Players.

Yesterday, I sketched the major players in this ongoing, and highly effective plan, to influence the American election with foreign money. Continuing the weed analogy, what we are looking at here is merely one root of the entire system - there are potentially more international money men feeding the system, and potentially more channels by which the money is brought into the US. The one here may be the biggest, as it is always easiest to see the biggest root, and pulling it up and exposing it may be enough to kill the weed completely, or to expose the larger web of tendrils below.

How does this plan work?

Simply, this is how it is believed to work: Cherif Sedky, using the blanket protection of attorney-client privilege, is the liaison between representatives of the Obama campaign and the wealthy Saudi financier Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz. This is the channel through which requests are made: as bin Mahfouz is under close watch by US and allied governments, no money is ever passed through this channel. "Khalid Ganzal", real name "Charlie" Wambu, served as the contact between bin Mahfouz and the front company Baker-Wambu & Associates, which is composed of two women: Muthoni Wambu, a confident of the Biden campaign (current role in the Obama/Biden campaign undetermined), and Vera Baker, former Finance Director of the Obama Senate campaign, now stationed in Martinique, a Caribbean island amid a plethora of tax havens and grey market offshore banking concerns. The money flows from bin Mahfouz, likely using "Charlie" Wambu as a courier, to Vera Baker in the Caribbean, where the money is laundered to the Obama campaign. The pre-existing Baker/Wambu partnership likely explains Obama's choice of Joe Biden over the considerably more popular Hillary Clinton - one can imagine Clinton's rage were she to discover the methods that Obama used to stop her primary campaign. Biden, through Wambu, has likely been aware of this, if not actively involved, for some time.

How is the money brought into the US?

There are several methods. Current campaign finance law does not require contributions under $100 to be registered with the FEC; therefore, it would be simple for a person to send a series of small donations, routed through a hundred parallel dummy bank accounts, directly to the Obama campaign. This is how the "official" campaign coffers are kept full.

There are also "off the books" methods, by which a substantial sum of money can be sent to an organization working in concert with, but not officially affiliated with, the Obama campaign. One organization which fits this bill is ACORN. Nine years ago, ACORN was, supposedly without the knowledge of its board of directors, quietly funneling $1 million of "charity" into private accounts. This was, like the endless stream of proven voter fraud cases we have seen over the last 2 election cycles, dismissed as the work of a rogue "bad apple", but a tree which gives so many "bad apples" clearly has gone rotten to its core. ACORN can use money to pay its oh-so upstanding "volunteers", to quietly pay off people who may get too close to exposing their misdeeds, to pass quietly to other "grassroots" Leftist organizations, or for any other purpose imaginable. After years of practice, and using methods pioneered by Islamic terrorist groups, they are very, very good at making money vanish.

The following gloss is my own interpretation of what it means.
What is the purpose? (Besides winning the election, of course)?

People have done great work exposing the formative connections between Bill Ayers and the young Barack Obama. This is useful in demonstrating who Obama considers a "fellow traveler", but I believe it would be a mistake to think he has any particular connection to the ambitious, and now extremely powerful, Senator Obama. Ayers was a minor player in Chicago regional politics, a distinctly second-rate theorist, and, as an "activist" terrorist with the Weather Underground, an admitted failure. No longer useful, never especially gifted, and without any concrete political accomplishments - it is likely that Obama, steeped in the far more rigorous theory of "community organizing" Machiavelli Saul Alinsky, as well as the intellectual/academic Marxist tradition of the past century, views Ayers with contempt. Similarly, I would speculate, Rev. Wright - once useful as a player on the, insular, small stage of Chicago, now an embarrassment, and worse - an uninteresting embarrassment.

To an true acolyte of Alinsky, nothing matters except results, and the goal is to bring about a post-national, socialist "utopia" - a protean one important scholar has dubbed, quite aptly, Transnational Progressivism. A true acolyte of Marx and Engels understands that the first step in a class revolution is to "win the battle of democracy", for that will start the inexorable historical processes which will cause capitalism, and then the nation-state itself, to "whither away". Progressives, Left-liberals, and Leftists may not be able to understand what these brilliant, yet profoundly alienated and immoral, thinkers were proposing - one learns to appreciate early on the limited learning and mental capacity of the Leftist foot soldier. Yet they, whatever their particular, possibly modest, political program, are entranced by this vision. Imagine no possessions ... Imagine there's no country ... They will follow One who leads.

How to bring them, and others even less aware, fully to your side? Crisis. To "heighten the contradictions" is the revolutionary's goal, and make no mistake, this is a revolution. In the 90's, during ACORN's formative years, this was codified as the "Cloward-Piven Strategy", bringing the system into crisis by flooding the welfare roles, and then swooping in with a Socialist/Communist "solution". In the midst of the current financial crisis (brought about, intentionally or otherwise, by government intervention in the free market to flood the market with worthless, especially minority and immigrant, mortgages, with the help of ACORN), to a "Progressive Shock Doctrine". An excellent overview is here.

Tomorrow - part 3: Errata: sources and methods, loose ends tied up, and work needed in the coming weeks. There is precious little time. Comments welcome, as always.

Obama, terror, and the banking crisis, part 1 - the players

Based on information from a reliable source in the news media, I will be devoting the next several days to a story - bad for Obama, possibly very bad - which her management decided, for reasons they declined to share, not to run on the air. I apologize for the piecemeal way this story is coming together, but I am going to take the time to verify this information as much as I can. I'd rather do it right than do quickly and have it get nit-picked by the Obamazombies. This is potentially a campaign-ending (and prison starting!) story for Obama, although there are some pieces of the puzzle - some documentary evidence - still missing. The story involves a scheme by the Obama campaign to launder unknown amounts of cash through front companies and untraceable foreign channels. Let's meet the cast of characters, starting at the beginning, with Cherif Sedky.

===========================================

Who is Cherif Sedky?

A relatively recent entrant into the Obama inner circle - indeed, a relatively recent entrant into Democrat party politics. Until this year, in fact when he stopped donating to Republican candidates, and began donating to Barack Obama - in the primary and general election - as well as the liberal PAC MoveOn.org. After maxing out his contributions to Obama's primary campaign, he has not officially donated to the campaign since March, stopping at $500. His campaign contribution forms list him as a "Self employed/Private Investor". His day job is representing, in court and in the media, Saudi terrorist financier Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz.

Who is Khalid Bin Mahfouz?

Khalid Bin Mahfouz is one of the "main individual sponsors of terrorism", a major player in the BCCI scandal which brought high finance into terrorist financing, the sale of nuclear technology to rouge regimes, and illegal immigration. He is also one of the 250 richest men in the world. He is rich enough that, despite having a wife and 3 children, he can still keep a 20-something male lover situated in a lavish apartment block in downtown London. The homosexual lover of the terrorist financier goes by the name Khalid Ganzal.

Who is Khalid Ganzal?

Up until this point, everything I have told you is easily verifiable by a trip to your public library or a few hours on the internet. There are no officialrecords of a "Khalid Ganzal" living in the London area. So here the trail runs dry - or would, but for some good old-fashioned investigative journalism. According to multiple sources, the person identified as "Khalid Ganzal" in news reports is not named Khalid Ganzal, and is not even of Arab ancestry. His real name is Chinua "Charley" Wambu, a US citizen of mixed-race ancestry, a former male prostitute, and the half-brother of Muthoni Wambu, a lawyer well-connected with the Biden campaign, and a founder of Baker-Wambu & Associates, a Democratic fundraising firm with no web presence and a non-existent address. The Baker in Baker-Wambu is one Vera Baker.

Who is Vera Baker?

I'll let Hillbuzz answer that question:

Some people in Chicago claim she was Obama’s Finance Director for his 2004 Senate campaign. FEC Senate campaign records show she was paid a pretty penny as “Finance Director”.

However, people familiar with Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign say Claire Serdiuk was Obama’s Finance Director. Looking through everything we can see online for that 2004 campaign, Claire Serdiuk is consistently listed as the Finance Director - because that’s what she was.

There’s no mention of Vera Baker…but Vera Baker was paid as the “Finance Director” too.

And then, suddenly, Vera Baker was relocated to New York.

Right around the time Michelle Obama got incredibly angry about something. We know it was hard to tell, because Michelle’s angry about something on a good day…but this was EXTRA angry.

And then, even more suddenly, Vera Baker was relocated to the island of Martinique, where she remains.

Martinique is becoming a popular place for Americans, Europeans, and now Middle Easterners to do banking away from the watchful eyes of law enforcement. Lots of people have speculated about a possible affair between Barack Obama and Vera Baker as the cause of Michelle's ire, but the truth is considerably more sordid. Baker, it is strongly suspected (alas, not proven: here we have some third-hand reports, but no documents) was laundering donations from foreign nationals too close to the Obama campaign, and she needed to be moved away from the watchful eyes of the FEC and Obama's political opponents. His 2004 race was a blow-out, so there was little scrutiny of these moves, but already Barry and Michele were developing channels for bringing unprecedented, unregulated foreign money into a national Presidential campaign.

======================================

OK, I need to make some more phone calls. If anybody has any information which might be relevant here, let me know. Tomorrow - following the money: the path through ACORN.

Man of Letters

An email sent to Jonah Goldberg, author of the fascinating "Liberal Fascism":

Sir,

I've just finished your book, "Liberal Fascism", as part of a rather gluttonous burst of reading, and I must say that LF is the most absorbing and challenging read I've had in a year or more. I'm still struggling with it somewhat - my feeling is that your strengths lie in your scholarship and your penetrating and unconventional analysis, and that your (understandable) urge to engage in playful polemic creates a tension in the text that is often left unresolved in a way that is often unsatisfying. That said, I think I need to reread it at least once more before I make any final judgments, and I think that the substance of your argument more than makes up for any stylistic quibbles I might have.

Your book brings to mind a number of other works - what I found most stimulating about your argument was your ability to place novel insights (novel to me, at least!) within a framework of familiar and canonical Western thought, illuminating threads in other works which I had not previously suspected to be there. Hume comes to mind repeatedly, particularly his "Of Superstition and Enthusiasm", which may as well have been written yesterday for its applicability to the modern Left-liberal attitude towards scepticism of PC orthodoxy, or indeed any other form of free conservative inquiry. In a similar vein, LF returned - albeit obliquely - to arguments put forward by Arthur Herman (who, if I am not mistaken, also writes occasionally for National Review) in his magisterial "The Idea of Decline in Western History", which follows the romantic/apocalyptic motif along a path which intersects repeatedly with the foundational ideas and figures of both fascism and modern Left-liberalism. It is obviously not a coincidence: fascism is a notoriously protean idea, capable of taking all sorts of guises, but one essential animating idea we always find is the notion of modern decadence, and decline from an earlier Golden Age. If you have not read it, do yourself that favor; if you have, I am sure you agree.

I bring this up in order to pass along this passage from Herman's book, about the radical "black nationalist" liberal idol Marcus Garvey, which I think helps to place his heirs - especially a certain Rev. Wright, intimate of candidate Obama, currently keeping an unusually low profile:

Garvey told a reporter that he represented the future of black nationalism, while [Garvey's rival, W. E. B.] Du Bois represented the past. That future, he believed, hinged on what he was convinced would be the future of twentieth-century politics: mass politics, mass propaganda, and the power of the disciplined and mobilized nation. That conviction drew him to the figure of Benito Mussolini. Garvey expressed great admiration for the Italian dictator until he invaded Ethiopia in 1936. He even claimed that far from his movement's being patterned after Mussolini's Blackshirts, the influence flowed the other way around: "When we had 100,000 men and were training children, Mussolini was still unknown." [...]

He reserved the same admiration for Adolf Hitler. For Garvey, Jews were the symbol of the "lying, wheedling" West, and Jewish international finance was a power that "can destroy men, organizations, and nations." [...] Anti-Semitism and the appeal of modern mass movements also led him to seek a partner in an unusual quarter: the Klu Klux Klan. To the stunned outrage of Du Bois, the NAACP, and virtually every other Negro leader, Garvey arranged a meeting with the KKK's Grand Dragon. Both agreed that a black exodus from the United States would protect the purity of both races. In short, racial pessimism formed a bridge between these two forms of radical nationalism, one black and the other white. -- Herman, pp. 213-214

Today, Obamaphiles fervently hope that he has the spirit of Garvey with him (e.g.: http://hnn.us/articles/47818.html , countless others). I quite suspect they are right about that, as evinced by the company he keeps. Anyway, your book is a delicious read, and I thank you for your time, and would be more than honored if you choose to quote this email at whatever length you wish. Enough out of me: I need to re-read "Liberal Fascism", and you need to get busy on the sequel. Please.

Yours,
"Willmoore Kendall"
http://conaffredux.blogspot.com/

Taking off the gloves

The kind of bile we are up against:





And much, much more here. This is the filth being peddled by the Obama campaign and its water-carrying surrogates, and this is the filth which will soon be fed to the unwitting public by the uniformly pro-Obama MSM. However, the only person the MSM deems to be 'ugly' is Sarah Palin, for daring to broach the subject of Barack Obama's long and intimate association with terrorists and anti-American clerics. We are on the precipice.

In this climate, it becomes all the more critical that people who love their country, and hold true to conservative values, not make an enemy of moral clarity. I see too many conservatives - I restrain myself to not naming names - deluding themselves into believing that we are winning this fight. We are not. It is almost certain that Republicans will lose further seats in the House and Senate, and it is more likely than not that Barack Obama will be our next President.

I believe these people delude themselves in order to deflect from themselves the responsibility to speak the unpleasant truth. Barack Obama and the Democrat base - academia, Hollywood, and the rest of the elite self-declared Leftist bien pessant - are in league with terrorists, and the MSM has all but joined them. We do not have time to be coy or indirect in our charges, or to observe the precious social conventions which the MSM insists that conservatives - and conservatives alone - observe. The American people must understand the clear choice before them: between those who hold and will defend American values and freedoms, and those who have sympathy for the terrorists.

There will be those who seek to obscure this choice out of malice. I hope that conservatives will not do the same out of cowardice.

Barack Obama is a terrorist

The steadfast William Kristol talks to Governor Extraordinaire Palin:

Palin also made clear that she was eager for the McCain-Palin campaign to be more aggressive in helping the American people understand “who the real Barack Obama is.” Part of who Obama is, she said, has to do with his past associations, such as with the former bomber Bill Ayers. Palin had raised the topic of Ayers Saturday on the campaign trail, and she maintained to me that Obama, who’s minimized his relationship with Ayers, “hasn’t been wholly truthful” about this.

I pointed out that Obama surely had a closer connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than to Ayers — and so, I asked, if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright?

She didn’t hesitate: “To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”

I guess so. And I guess we’ll soon know McCain’s call on whether he wants to bring Wright up — perhaps at his debate with Obama Tuesday night.

I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ”

To this, let me add only: let the gloves come all the way off. There is no time for half-measures, and no time for the mewling complaints of "dirty politics", and the attendant cries of "racism", which will no doubt come from the soft and colicky liberal elites. What does that amount to? Nothing, inconsequence. The purpose of politics is to put your case, fully and forthrightly, to the American people. And your case is: Barack Obama, by long and intimate association with terrorists, has revealed himself to be a terrorist.

Take a moment. Now, consider this logically: what is the difference - what difference can one honestly admit - between al Qaeda and the Taliban government which supported and protected it? Mullah Omar did not organize the attacks on the United States and her interests - it was al Qaeda, emboldened by the softness of the Clinton regime, who did. And yet, in that too-brief era of clarity which grimly dawned on September 11th, 2001, our nation and our hearts rallied to this:

Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

This was a challenge made to the nations of the world, but - as we have known from at least the time of Plato's Republic - the struggles and obligations of nations are our individual struggles and obligations writ large. Either YOU are with us, or YOU are with the terrorists.

"Professor" Ayers is an admitted and unashamed terrorist; Barack Obama has stood publicly, and certainly continues to stand in secret, with him; there can be no distinction between Ayers and Obama.

Barack Obama IS a terrorist.

"Reverend" Wright is an admitted and unashamed anti-American Mullah (I mean "pastor", of course), Barack Obama has stood publicly, and certainly continues to stand in secret, with him; there can be no distinction between Wright and Obama.

Barack Obama IS a terrorist.

I believe I have labored this point enough. Those who wish to prove the equivalence between the candidate which the Democrat party feels best represents their interests and values, and the other avowed enemies of our nation with whom we are openly at war, may do so as a take-home assignment. But that proof is just as trivial, if you believe truly and reason clearly. Let us again remember the words which rallied us in the grim dawn:

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

And, perhaps, the words of another who rallied us against darkness and lies:

He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.

If you believe we are in the midst of a struggle for Western Civilization against its enemies, you must act accordingly. (If you do not believe this, I confess you have left me at a loss for words.) In a world where evil exists, there can be no compromise, no meeting halfway, and no high-minded refusal to choose. Choose the Truth, and speak it plainly.

Joe Biden's crocodile tears

Liberals, and no doubt their willing accomplices in the MSM, are making much of Joe Biden's "spontaneous" outburst of emotion at the end of the debate, and Gov. Palin's SUPPOSED gaffe in not reacting to it:



Very moving. I liked it even better when he "spontaneously" choked up about it on the campaign trail LAST WEEK:



Well, it's a hard thing to get over, no doubt. Those of us who have had tragedies in our lives can relate to how fresh the pain can feel, even after many years. Tragedies like BEING NOMINATED VICE PRESIDENT BY BARACK OBAMA:



He does seem to get "choked up" in front of television cameras a lot. It's almost as if he's doing it on purpose. Almost as if it's an act to garner sympathy. Almost as if he used the deaths of his wife and children as a pretext to turn on the waterworks, so everybody feels sorry for him and gets distracted from the fact that he is another empty suit Democrat with nothing to offer but the same watered-down socialism and peacenik rhetoric that the American public has reject time and time again.

Almost EXACTLY like that, as a matter of fact.

And Sarah Palin saw right through it.

President Palin

What can I say? A home run, from the woman who should lead the Republican party into the decades ahead. A masterful, brilliant performance. Key points:

1. Her embrace of the current Vice-President, while not a popular position, is a principled one, and one that encourages those of us who wish to see VP Palin taking a very active role in the McCain administration. Excellent answer.

2. A direct attack, by name, on the MSM. This was a message she needed to get out, and - as "Sarah being Sarah" was so different from the distorted picture painted by the media - is one that will resonate with people. The pro-Obama bias of the media is obvious to everyone, inside the media and out. Again, a home run.

And Joe Biden - oh, was he there, too? He looked old and defeated to this observer, clearly expecting the silly media caricature to show up rather than the intelligent and powerful Sarah Palin. What better symbol for the Democrat "retreat to defeat" posture in the War on Terror, and in everything. Powerful, unapologetic conservatism - as represented by the first 5-6 years of the Bush administration - represents the best hope to restore America, not dour, defeatist Democrats.

Conservatives aren't born ... they're made

When I tell people I am a conservative, and then I tell them the jobs I have had, they are usually surprised. I worked for 15 years in print journalism in Ohio and Michigan, and then spent 5 years as a part-timer in "academia", before finally finding a way out of the working grind. These are not typically "conservative" professions, and I will admit that I was not as forthrightly conservative when I started this journey as I am now. I consider my conservatism hard-won, and I'm all the prouder for it.

I say this as an introduction to this email, from a former colleague now working for a national broadcast (TV, not cable) news network. She is about 10 years younger than me and, although we were at very different points in our lives when we met, we worked well together and kept in touch ever since. She's not what you'd call a conservative, but neither was I when I was in the newsroom. But it is interesting, as we watch from the outside as the newscycle become "progressively" and openly more pro-Obama, anti-McCain and especially anti-Palin, to see how it looks to those laboring away on the inside. For reasons you will understand I will not give her name, or the name of the network she works for. She has agreed to let me reprint some of her email, with identifying names removed (and some spelling mistakes corrected. Once a copyeditor, always a copyeditor). I hope you will find it an interesting read:

[snip]

It can be frustrating. [The network] obtained some documents which could have led to some good reporting - but v. bad for Obama. I worked this assignment for a week, brought my report to the 8AM, and NOTHING. Nobody raised any objections or asked any questions, they just WERE NOT INTERESTED. They ran some anti-Palin story that night.

[snip]

It is strange. I've never heard anyone say that 'we are not interested in bad news for Obama' but everybody gets the message. The [Obama] campaign is aggressive, but that's not unusual. It's just something in the culture of the newsroom. I think some of them dislike McCain because of things that were said, but that can't be all of it. I work on good stories, and, if they don't fit in with the rest of what the network is producing, they are just abandoned for no good reason. ... I'm not the only one who has noticed. There are a group of us who are becoming very frustrated. If we are going to work in advertising, they should pay us accordingly.

I thought it was interesting, in light of what I've read here and other rumors I've heard. I also thought it was interesting that, for the first time in 12 years, she says she will be voting Republican. The liberal media creates another conservative.

Lou Dobbs tells the truth about the bailout and ACORN

Voter fraud ... PC financial policy ... "community organizers". The Progressive Shock Doctrine. Put the pieces together. Even CNN gets it. Why can't mainstream "conservatives"?

James Simpson can see

Excellent stuff from James Simpson in The American Thinker - a site I was not previously aware of - which explains the entirely unconcealed Marxist-Democrat strategy of "shock progressivism":

America waits with bated breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.

Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama's connections to his radical mentors -- Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama's radical connections since the beginning.

Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama's life comprise a who's who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.

But even this doesn't fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.

The whole article is excellent, and is utterly obvious to anyone paying any attention to the Obama movement, and today's "progressivist" Marxism. The coming "bailout" nationalization is only the beginning.



Figure 1: The ACORN Network, by James Simpson

"There truly are none so blind as those who refuse to see"

Continuing discussion from the post below, "Willless" appears baffled by the thought that Democrats don't like the free market. I respond:

Willess, of course over-regulation led to this crisis. Pull your head out of the NY Times. Here's a secret: Democrats do not like free markets. Free markets prove Marxism is a lie. They seek to undermine them. They do this through regulation. They seek to eliminate them. They do this through nationalization. This isn't some theory I made up. This is exactly what they are planning to do, out in the open, while conservatives argue amongst themselves and agree with Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, and the farthest-left wing of the Democratic party. They intend to use the crisis to enact a socialist/communist agenda while the populace is in "shock" from the economic effects caused by their failed socialist program. Here is one of an endless number of examples:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_liberal_shock_doctrine

The liberal blogosphere, liberal political magazines, and the liberal policy class are ablaze with this kind of talk, but most people can't even be bothered to notice. The Democrats do not want to save Wall Street, they want to devour it. So-called "conservatives", like yourself, find this too scary, so they ignore it, and pretend it makes no sense, despite the fact that it could not be simpler or more apparent. How could this possibly be simpler? How could they make it any more obvious for you? The point of Democrat economics is render capitalism non-functional, and eliminate it entirely, to absorb the economy into the State, which they will control. People who dare to look at things as they are, and who are interested in what the governing philosophy of the Obama/Ayers administration will aspire to should read Thomas Sowell's "Marxism: Philosophy and Economics", which is a very readable and illuminating treatment of the fountain from which Obama, his 60's radical friends, and the ascendant Leftist power structure of the Democrat party draw their ideas. Fake conservatives like the aptly-named Willless should continue to express open-mouthed astonishment at the proposition that the Sun will rise tomorrow morning.

Perhaps a bit harsh, but the blindness - the willful blindness - which has taken over so much of the conservative movement elite, and has even seeped down to weaken the usually stalwart base. We need a leader like Reagan to raise us to meet this challenge. We have ... John McCain, king of RINOs. We also have Sarah Palin, Reagan's likely heir, but the McCain campaign is afraid to put her out there, for fear of upsetting his secularist, liberal, champagne socialist "friends" in the MSM. We need faith and hope to feed our strength at this crucial, historical moment, but we are tested Lord. Lord, we are tested sorely.

... Folks who are honestly confused as to how Democrat over-regulation caused this mess should watch this video:



(The video I linked to earlier, which is substantially the same, was pulled from Youtube "due to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group". Warner has also forced the McCain campaign to pull many of its videos. Coincidence, or in the tank? That's one crowded tank.)

Although some have suggested it, I personally doubt that the Democrats planned this wwhole thing out. (I mean, if they were that smart, why would they be Democrats?) But they are cunning and devious enough to use every failure to their advantage, and the Republicans - and especially McCain and the sleepwalking Bush - are lost and confused. You can't trust them to do the smart thing, and you can't trust the MSM to tell you the truth. Educate yourselves, for your country's sake.

Willmoore Kendall, out and about

A (too-long) comment I left at the Confederate Yankee's blog:

Unfortunately, I fear that the defeat of this bill plays into the hands of the radical Leftist wing of the Democrat party, a wing which has grown larger, angrier, and more radical over the past 8 years of their humiliation. Now, as they blame "free market failures" for the catastrophe wrought by *their own failed multi-culti/socialist policies*, they seek to expand and deepen these mistakes, regardless of the damage they do to the country. Today's record drop on Wall Street, blamed entirely on Republicans by the MSM - is hardly the limit of what they are willing to do. (Much more, for the interested, on my blog.

Does anyone honestly think that the Democrat plan is really just to give money to save private enterprises? Come on. Listen to what they say, openly, even now. Marx said that the first step towards Communism "is to raise the proletariat [modern Leftist translation: the elite Leftist bien pessant] to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy." First you take the elections - under cover, and, with ACORN and the NAACP's help: by any means necessary - then you tear down the "imperialist" free market economy. They have the House and the Senate, and the White House is nearly in the grasp of the closet radical Obama, and his openly anti-American, pro-Communist supporters. Already, supposedly mainstream "liberal" economists are discussing nationalizing the entire financial sector. Why bother raising taxes when you can just take over all the banks?

Ninety-plus of the most extreme Leftist Democrats in Congress voted against this bill. Now they have the upper hand. Any bill still has to get through the Senate, and the President (who sometimes remembers he is a Republican), slo we won't see the worst for a few months yet. But if Ayers' great comrade Obama takes the White House, the Socialist, or even - this seems extreme, but I use this word advisedly - Communist program of the "moderate" Democrats will be pushed far, far beyond anything which timid, establishment conservatives dare to imagine.

Sorry for the long post - I'm normally not so wordy - but it is terribly important for we conservatives to understand the big picture here. These people have been seething from their defeats when Bush and the Republicans were strong, and have grown terribly bitter, radical, and unhinged. I've been watching politics, and involved in politics, for well over 20 years, and I've seen a lot of moonbat Leftist nonsense in my day. But I can't recall anytime when so many people, so radical, so angry, and completely without principle, have been so close to the highest power in the land. The MSM is oblivious, by choice, but it seems that far, far too many conservatives are unable or unwilling to see what is happening right in front of them. We've only got a few weeks to head off this catastrophe. we can't do it with our heads in the sand.

It is frustrating reading conservative blogs and newspapers, and listening to conservative radio, these days. They have all the pieces, but they can't put the puzzle together. We have lost our sense of purpose, and we can't see the stakes of the game we are in. America, as we know it, is at risk. Our most dangerous enemy is not in the Middle East - those people are hopelessly backwards and content to blow each other up, and can never truly challenge our military, economic, spiritual, or cultural superiority. Our deadliest enemy is right here at home. "As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide," said Abraham Lincoln. If we hand the White House to Obama in 2008, we will have helped to murder the free market and personal responsibility and freedom bequeathed to us by our forefathers.

On the bright side, while McCain is the ultimate unprincipled MSM-lapdog RINO, Sarah Palin may be the most perfect conservative candidate since Ronald Reagan. (And, no offense to the Gipper, but she's easier on the eyes, too!) I must believe she can rally us to victory. Nothing is over until we are dead, but the damage Obama and the Democrats plan to do on every front could take generations to undo. We must be strong. We must fight.

It's a plan

Jeff G. sees what is going on:

Did Pelosi intentionally sabotage the vote so that the media, already in the bag for Obama, would have cover to blame the Republicans for the bill’s failure?

And if so, is there any more transparent ploy to put power over the welfare of the country — if in fact the Democrats truly believe that we need this bail out?

Congress has a 10% approval rate. Time for the McCain camp and the rest of the GOP to put out ads that lambaste the Dems for their craven ploys. Otherwise, we may as well kiss classical liberalism goodbye.

That is the plan. I'd say it's a "secret plan", but it's all out in the open. Do conservatives - and the Republicans who still have jobs - have what it takes to stop them? Or are we going to go the safe "McCain" route, selling out our principles so Leftists and Media Elites will pat us on our heads?

Where is our Reagan?

Jeff Jacoby is a true conservative

Even in the Boston Globe, he will not weaken:

'THE PRIVATE SECTOR got us into this mess. The government has to get us out of it."

That's Barney Frank's story, and he's sticking to it. As the Massachusetts Democrat has explained it in recent days, the current financial crisis is the spawn of the free market run amok, with the political class guilty only of failing to rein the capitalists in. The Wall Street meltdown was caused by "bad decisions that were made by people in the private sector," Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." And that philosophy goes "back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, 'Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.' "

In fact, that isn't what Reagan said. His actual words were: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Were he president today, he would be saying much the same thing.

Never trust a Leftist quoting Reagan. Really, never trust a Leftist anyway. Because what are Leftists saying today? Former Clintonite, current quasi-Communist, Brad DeLong:

Bring Congress Back into Session After the Election...

...and go for the Swedish plan: nationalize the insolvent large financial institutions: dare Bush to veto that after the election.

Socialist Sweden, which is poorer than Mississippi, is what they hope to get past a Republican president. Please try to imagine what they will go for if Obama wins for them "the battle of democracy". Please do not wait until after the election to ponder.

Bainbridge embarrasses conservatives

Prof. Bainbridge tries to play "reasonable conservative" so that elite liberals like Matt Yglesias will pat him on the head. Lonewacko shows him where he is wrong.

The financial crisis is being portrayed as a "free market failure" by closet Marxists like Yglesias, Krugman and DeLong, but it is anything BUT. The failures are failures of do-gooder closet Marxist legislation - including, but not limited to, race-based "affirmative action" aka "reverse racism" - of the sort that have been imposed by Democrats since Carter, and which Democrats now propose as the solution to the problem THEY CREATED.



Conservatives need to stand up for their principles, not stand up and beg for liberals to pat them on the head. As bad as the Democrat-crafted bailout bill is, it is nothing compared to what they'll do if they get the White House. And when it all unravels, they'll blame it on "free market failures." Remember the true Marxist's credo: "Marxism can never fail, it can only be failed."

A religion of peace

My favorite liberal, Marty Peretz, thinking about Somali pirates, offers an observation one just can't offer too often:

Isn't there some real sense that Arab countries and Arab societies provide the world with too much of its news? [emphasis mine.]

Like today's: 17 people were killed in Damascus in a car bomb attack. A state-run news service, Cham Press, said it didn't "blame anyone else for this satanic attack apart from Israel."

You can't observe it too often because it never, ever stops. Everything is the fault of the US and Israel. Everything. A thousand years of cultural decay and nothing of substance or value created, and that's all Israel's fault, too. They are so satanic that they can ruin things centuries before they existed, those devious Yanqui imperialists and Jooooooos.

And we're supposed to wonder "why they hate us". Anyone wonder why I hate them?

Rantburg has more on the bombing. Allah really blesses you guys.

Moonbat Economics

"Serious liberal economist" - an oxymoron if ever there was one. Two morons - Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman - endorse nationalizing the entire banking industry. These are two guys who could have serious pull in an Obama administration, and they are openly endorsing the end of the free market system. People think I'm overreacting when I say that the Democrats are planning on skipping over Euro-Socialism and going straight to pure Communism.

I'm not overreacting. I'm just paying attention.

-- And if you think "they can't be Communists! They believe in elections!" Try telling that to Karl Marx:

[T]he first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The abolition of private property is the central goal of the Democrat party. And I don't trust John McCain to stand up to them.

John Mark Reynolds understands our moment

Folks like Rod Dreher and Kathleen Parker want to to throw Sarah Palin - the one vibrant, true conservative we have on the '08 ticket - overboard. John Mark Reynolds does not.

If Palin bows out, millions of Americans will not vote for McCain. Palin is, I believe, more popular in the Republican Party than McCain . . . something that the nature of fund raising emails from the McCain camp (all Palin all the time) indicates astute Republicans know.

If Palin leaves it will be assumed to be involuntary, and McCain will lose.

This was always a hard year for Republicans and Palins’ strengths (some of which Parker listed) made this a race. McCain may lose, but my guess is it is more likely in the long term that Parker will vote for Palin for President than that Palin will sit with Parker on her front porch composing her thoughts.

It is difficult for conservatives in the media, academia, and other generally "liberal" (read: "leftist") professions to stay true to there principles. There is always the temptation to give in to the group consensus, and try to be a team player. But you can't be a team player when they aren't on your team! The goal of a conservative is not to be a team player, it is to be Right, and to stand up for the Right against the Wrong. Sarah Palin is a brilliant and Good woman, and the hysterical, spitting, vulgar fury she provokes in Leftists (and closet Leftists like Andrew Sullivan) is certainly not all the proof of this, but it is all the proof you need. To toss her overboard would be a slap in the face of stallwart conservatives, and one that would not easily be forgiven.

And never forgotten.

I could do without the language, but I do appreciate the sentiment

Right Wing Rocker says what many of us are feeling:

President McCain will not be able to truly win that title if he keeps this sh*t up. This campaign is going to be won by the candidate that does and says the fewest stupid things, and Oblahma is scr*w*ng up royally.

But when the amnesty bells toll, both candidates are on the same page and dead wrong, so why even bring the issue up? This is what I mean, Senator McSh*tbag, when I say you will win this hands down if you just keep your monkey-trap shut and let your opponent make all the mistakes. This was a major blunder on your part.

In all honesty, though, this isn't anywhere near a big enough deal to lose, since everyone already pretty much knows President McCain is pro-amnesty. His position pretty much matches his opponent's, so why not just let Oblahma be the one to remind everyone he's wrong? ...

Would be nice to see both candidates go down in a puff of smoke and have a conservative win, wouldn't you say?

It would be nice. There are a lot of problems with Republicanism and so-called "conservatism" these days, but all these problems have a common root: a willingness to trade principle for the promise of political gain. Ronald Reagan said: "Evil is powerless if the Good are unafraid." Not "... if the Good hide behind the guy who polls best with so-called "independents" and the media elites". I'm pretty well committed to voting for McCain, because the alternative will certainly be socialism, if not outright communism. But the fact that he is the best choice available says something damning about the state of conservatism today.

New home

Life, medical issues, too many books - it leaves no time for blogging! I have forgotten my log on information for the old site, so I have started a new one, which I shall endeavor to post to more frequently than before.

I have also been recalling the lessons of my dear mother, who was always instructing me, if I could find nothing pleasant to say, to say nothing. It has become progressively (pun not intended, but noted) difficult to say something pleasant about the current state of conservative politics, locally or nationally. I'll have to resign myself to saying things which are unpleasant but constructive, and see if Mom will accept that.

It is always darkest before the dawn, they say.

We shall see.