OBAMA'S TRUTH DEFICIT
When John Murtagh was 9 years old, Bill Ayers' friends tried to kill him.
"I remember my mother's pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn't leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside," wrote Murtagh in the April 2008 issue of the City Journal.
It wasn't personal. John's dad was a judge presiding over a trial of the Black Panthers. The next morning, after the bombs exploded, John still remembers the red graffiti on the sidewalk: "FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS."
To the best of John's recollection, Bernardine Dohrn, who is now Bill Ayers' wife, first claimed credit for bombing John's home -- along with other targets -- in November of 1970.
Today John Murtagh is a lawyer and Yonkers' city councilman who is running for the New York state Senate on the GOP ticket this November. I reached him this week through his state Senate campaign.
It wasn't hard.
Has Barack Obama ever tried?
Barack Obama was only 8 years old when Murtagh's house was bombed. Obama has nothing to do with the terror and the trauma John Murtagh and his family went through.
"It's a sensitive issue for us. My mom is still alive -- she's 83. She literally had to snatch her children out of the house in the middle of the night because her house was on fire," John told me.
But Barack Obama was not a child -- he was a grown man -- when he decided his personal path to power and influence lay through Bill Ayers' connections.
In the Chicago establishment, which unfortunately embraced former domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers and his wife, Barack Obama was encouraged to look beyond the obvious -- John Murtagh, his family, their terror, the lawlessness, the attacks on policemen, judges, army outposts -- to embrace larger goals.
What were these goals? How does Barack Obama come to continue to associate with a man who cannot bring himself to say to John Murtagh or to John's mother or any other kin of the attacked: "I'm sorry. I was wrong. It was a terrible thing to do."
Obama's campaign is busy fudging. That's a polite word for "lying." Barack Obama's top political adviser is claiming Obama simply didn't know Ayers' history when they first met. Bomber? What bomber?
Right.
"If that's true, Obama has to be the dumbest man who ever graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School," snorts Murtagh. "I don't buy that at all."
Murtagh believes the relationships between Barack, his wife, Michelle, Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine, goes back 30 years, to Michelle's time at Sidley Austin, the famous Washington, D.C., law firm that also employed Bernardine Dohrn.
Murtagh doesn't blame Obama for what Bill Ayers and his friends did and supported. He blames Obama for picking a man like Ayers as a friend and mentor -- and then covering up the friendship.
In politics things get complicated. Truth becomes hard to find.
But when you are about to elect someone commander in chief, it would be good to know he can lay his hands on some of the stuff, in case he ever needs it.
"The night they attacked our home, they also firebombed an army recruiting station out in Brooklyn and police patrol cars outside of Greenwich Village," notes Murtagh. "Three weeks later they accidentally blew themselves up. They intended to attack the officer's club at Fort Dix."
Lay your cards on the table, Murtagh wants to tell the man who would be president. "Obama's free to associate with Dohrn and Ayers; that's his right," he tells me. "But don't hide the relationship, and be forthcoming and let people decide the significance of it for themselves."
"I remember my mother's pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn't leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside," wrote Murtagh in the April 2008 issue of the City Journal.
It wasn't personal. John's dad was a judge presiding over a trial of the Black Panthers. The next morning, after the bombs exploded, John still remembers the red graffiti on the sidewalk: "FREE THE PANTHER 21; THE VIET CONG HAVE WON; KILL THE PIGS."
To the best of John's recollection, Bernardine Dohrn, who is now Bill Ayers' wife, first claimed credit for bombing John's home -- along with other targets -- in November of 1970.
Today John Murtagh is a lawyer and Yonkers' city councilman who is running for the New York state Senate on the GOP ticket this November. I reached him this week through his state Senate campaign.
It wasn't hard.
Has Barack Obama ever tried?
Barack Obama was only 8 years old when Murtagh's house was bombed. Obama has nothing to do with the terror and the trauma John Murtagh and his family went through.
"It's a sensitive issue for us. My mom is still alive -- she's 83. She literally had to snatch her children out of the house in the middle of the night because her house was on fire," John told me.
But Barack Obama was not a child -- he was a grown man -- when he decided his personal path to power and influence lay through Bill Ayers' connections.
In the Chicago establishment, which unfortunately embraced former domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers and his wife, Barack Obama was encouraged to look beyond the obvious -- John Murtagh, his family, their terror, the lawlessness, the attacks on policemen, judges, army outposts -- to embrace larger goals.
What were these goals? How does Barack Obama come to continue to associate with a man who cannot bring himself to say to John Murtagh or to John's mother or any other kin of the attacked: "I'm sorry. I was wrong. It was a terrible thing to do."
Obama's campaign is busy fudging. That's a polite word for "lying." Barack Obama's top political adviser is claiming Obama simply didn't know Ayers' history when they first met. Bomber? What bomber?
Right.
"If that's true, Obama has to be the dumbest man who ever graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School," snorts Murtagh. "I don't buy that at all."
Murtagh believes the relationships between Barack, his wife, Michelle, Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine, goes back 30 years, to Michelle's time at Sidley Austin, the famous Washington, D.C., law firm that also employed Bernardine Dohrn.
Murtagh doesn't blame Obama for what Bill Ayers and his friends did and supported. He blames Obama for picking a man like Ayers as a friend and mentor -- and then covering up the friendship.
In politics things get complicated. Truth becomes hard to find.
But when you are about to elect someone commander in chief, it would be good to know he can lay his hands on some of the stuff, in case he ever needs it.
"The night they attacked our home, they also firebombed an army recruiting station out in Brooklyn and police patrol cars outside of Greenwich Village," notes Murtagh. "Three weeks later they accidentally blew themselves up. They intended to attack the officer's club at Fort Dix."
Lay your cards on the table, Murtagh wants to tell the man who would be president. "Obama's free to associate with Dohrn and Ayers; that's his right," he tells me. "But don't hide the relationship, and be forthcoming and let people decide the significance of it for themselves."
OBAMA VS OBAMA
Now that the conventions are over, it is evident that the battle of John McCain is over (McCain won) and the battle of Barack Obama will determine the outcome of the election.
Now that McCain has definitively, and I suspect irreversibly, separated himself from Bush, he has become an acceptable alternative to Obama for voters seeking change. The question now is whether Obama’s extra quotient of change — or the different direction that change will take — is worth the risk of electing him.
Obama was wrong to invest so much in the Bush-McCain linkage. Any candidate can define himself at his convention. And if McCain chose, as he did, to use the gathering to distance himself from Washington and from the Bush administration, there was really nothing that Obama could do to stop him. He should have focused very specifically on McCain himself and taken shots at specific votes and bills that he introduced.
Now, after the massive exposure McCain got at his convention and the demonstrable commitment to change embodied in the selection of Sarah Palin, it is too late.
The Obama campaign doesn’t seem to get that it is running against McCain, not Sarah Palin. They spent the entire Republican convention and the week since attacking the vice presidential candidate. That’s like stabbing the capillaries instead of the arteries. Nobody is going to vote for or against McCain because they want Sarah Palin to be vice president of the United States, or don’t. But Palin has served, and will serve, a key purpose in illustrating and demonstrating what kind of a man John McCain is. She stands as a tribute to his desire to bring change, his willingness to cut loose from the past, and his courage in attempting innovation. No amount of criticism of Palin is going to stop that process. Obama needs to remember who his opponent is.
Now the election will hinge on a referendum on Obama. Is the extra healthcare coverage he would pass worth the huge tax increases he will impose? Nobody buys his claim that he will only increase taxes on a few rich people and give the rest of us tax cuts. Voters can add, and they realize that his spending plans and tax-cut promises come to a trillion dollars and that his tax increases represent only one-tenth as much. They know that everyone who pays taxes will end up paying more if Obama is elected. The question will be: Is it worth it?
Is his commitment to income redistribution and increasing tax “fairness” worth the risk his tax plans pose for the economy?
Is his plan to pull out of Iraq and his commitment to multilateralism in foreign policy worth the risk of putting someone with virtually no foreign policy experience in charge of our international relations in the middle of a war? Is his promise to respect the Constitution and ratchet back the intrusions of the Bush homeland security measures worth the extra risk of terror attack?
A reminder of what is going on electoral wise. McCains is now winning!
Now that McCain has definitively, and I suspect irreversibly, separated himself from Bush, he has become an acceptable alternative to Obama for voters seeking change. The question now is whether Obama’s extra quotient of change — or the different direction that change will take — is worth the risk of electing him.
Obama was wrong to invest so much in the Bush-McCain linkage. Any candidate can define himself at his convention. And if McCain chose, as he did, to use the gathering to distance himself from Washington and from the Bush administration, there was really nothing that Obama could do to stop him. He should have focused very specifically on McCain himself and taken shots at specific votes and bills that he introduced.
Now, after the massive exposure McCain got at his convention and the demonstrable commitment to change embodied in the selection of Sarah Palin, it is too late.
The Obama campaign doesn’t seem to get that it is running against McCain, not Sarah Palin. They spent the entire Republican convention and the week since attacking the vice presidential candidate. That’s like stabbing the capillaries instead of the arteries. Nobody is going to vote for or against McCain because they want Sarah Palin to be vice president of the United States, or don’t. But Palin has served, and will serve, a key purpose in illustrating and demonstrating what kind of a man John McCain is. She stands as a tribute to his desire to bring change, his willingness to cut loose from the past, and his courage in attempting innovation. No amount of criticism of Palin is going to stop that process. Obama needs to remember who his opponent is.
Now the election will hinge on a referendum on Obama. Is the extra healthcare coverage he would pass worth the huge tax increases he will impose? Nobody buys his claim that he will only increase taxes on a few rich people and give the rest of us tax cuts. Voters can add, and they realize that his spending plans and tax-cut promises come to a trillion dollars and that his tax increases represent only one-tenth as much. They know that everyone who pays taxes will end up paying more if Obama is elected. The question will be: Is it worth it?
Is his commitment to income redistribution and increasing tax “fairness” worth the risk his tax plans pose for the economy?
Is his plan to pull out of Iraq and his commitment to multilateralism in foreign policy worth the risk of putting someone with virtually no foreign policy experience in charge of our international relations in the middle of a war? Is his promise to respect the Constitution and ratchet back the intrusions of the Bush homeland security measures worth the extra risk of terror attack?
A reminder of what is going on electoral wise. McCains is now winning!
Smears about Palin Set Straight!
False Internet claims and rumors fly about McCain’s running mate. SummaryWe’ve been flooded for the past few days with queries about dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain’s running mate, Gov. Palin. We find that many are completely false, or misleading.
Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.
She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a “What if?” question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin’s first term.
She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a “courtesy” when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska’s schools. She has said that students should be allowed to “debate both sides” of the evolution question, but she also said creationism “doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”
We’ll be looking into other charges in an e-mail by a woman named Anne Kilkenny for a future story. For more explanation of the bullet points above, please read the Analysis.
Could Clinton have Palin-proofed Dems?
WE HAVE BEEN UNDERESTIMATED FOR TOO LONG!
Article below on the subject:
Obama people have got to be kicking themselves for not putting choosing Clinton as his No. 2.
Republican Rep. Candice S. Miller says Barack Obama had only one shot at Palin-proofing the Democratic ticket — and he missed it when he passed over Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate. “Every woman in America knows what Barack Obama did to Hillary Clinton: He looked at her and thought, ‘There’s no way I’m doing that,’” said Miller. “If Hillary was on the ticket, he’d be in a much better position to win women voters.” Sarah Palin’s presence — coupled with Clinton’s absence — may be altering one of the great verities of American politics: that women voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week showed white women swinging hard AGAINST the Democratic ticket. Obama left Denver with an 8-point lead among white women; by the time John McCain pulled out of St. Paul, Minn., with Palin at his side, he had taken a 12-point lead. That is a 20 point turnaround.
Former Clinton strategist and pollster Mark Penn on Tuesday said that it’s too soon to know where women will wind up in November, and he declined to engage in any “woulda, coulda, shoulda” speculation about how things might be different if Clinton were on the Democratic ticket. But another former Clinton adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the “Obama people have got to be kicking themselves” for not putting choosing Clinton as his No. 2. Julia Piscitelli of the American University’s Women and Politics Institute agreed. “I don’t think Palin would be seeing these kind of gains if Hillary was on the ticket,” she said. “When Obama picked Biden, it gave Republicans an opening, and they are taking full advantage of it.
The question is: How long will it last?” The Obama campaign has denied that it has a serious problem with female voters. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is locked in a tough race of her own, says several women — former Clinton supporters — have come up to her in Maine to say Palin gives them a reason to back McCain. “I have never seen such excitement in the Republican Party as we’re seeing in response to Sarah Palin,” Collins said. “I’ve had a lot of Democrats and independent women in Maine who say they’re happy to see a woman on the ticket. Many of them saw an Obama-Clinton ticket as unbeatable.
That is significant and remarkable.” Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Assistant Director Peter A. Brown said the Obama campaign is fooling itself if it discounts the importance of the problem. “This isn’t about Hillary; it’s about Obama’s problem with white women voters,” he said. “Hillary won about 10 million votes from women voters in the Democratic primaries — there are 52 million women voting in the general election.” Clinton has said she’ll hit the road for Obama, but her team says she refuses to be an anti-Palin “attack dog.” Further complicating matters for Obama, Hillaryland fundraiser Susie Tompkins Buell is leading a group that will fight media sexism against the Alaska governor.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080910/pl_politico/13317
US campaign sharpens as McCain takes poll lead
The US presidential election moved into high gear Monday as two new opinion polls showed Republican John McCain taking the lead over Democratic rival Barack Obama.
McCain, a decorated war hero who based much of his early campaign on the strength of his experience, wrestled last week for Obama's mantle of change with the help of his surprise vice presidential pick Sarah Palin.
A USA Today/Gallup survey showed McCain ahead of Obama 50 percent to 46 percent among registered voters, a turnaround from a previous poll taken by the newspaper just before last week's Republican National Convention.
That poll had McCain trailing Obama by seven percentage points.
Twenty-nine percent of the respondents said selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee had made them more likely to vote for McCain on November 4, and 21 percent said their vote in support of the Republican ticket was now less likely.
US Vice President Dick Cheney called Palin's nomination and her convention speech "superb."
A separate Gallup daily tracking poll found McCain had moved into a 48 to 45 percent lead ahead of the November 4 election -- his best performance since May.
Experts attributed the McCain rebound to his party's convention and the surprise naming of Alaska governor Palin.
"He's in a far better position than his people imagined he would be in at this point," political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia was quoted by USA Today as saying.
McCain and Palin vowed to use their history of fighting corruption to shake up Washington at a series of campaign stops after the Republican National Convention.
"In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change," Palin told cheering crowds in Wisconsin.
"We're going to win this election and let me offer a little advance warning to the old big spending, do-nothing me-first country second Washington crowd: change is coming. Change is coming," McCain said the next day in Colorado.
Obama ridiculed McCain's promise of change and hammered the Arizona senator on the limping US economy, saying the Republican represented no change from Bush.
"John McCain, who is a good man and has a compelling biography, has embraced and adopted the George Bush economic platform," Obama said on ABC television.
The Illinois senator argued that voters would realize that the election was a choice between a new direction and discredited Republican policies.
"If they like what they've had over the last eight years, then they'll go with McCain. And if they don't like it, hopefully they'll go with me," he said.
Obama's running mate Senator Joseph Biden called McCain's commitment to change "malarkey."
"Tell me one single thing they're going to do on the economy, foreign policy, taxes, that is going to be change," Biden said on NBC.
The Democrats have had a hard time targeting Palin, who is popular among conservatives and has garnered public sympathy in the wake of the media's response to news that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant and planned to keep the baby.
Senator Hillary Clinton, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary and was incredibly popular among white women, has refused to criticize Palin even though the McCain campaign has actively targeted her disgruntled supporters.
Clinton, who has kept a low profile since she dramatically ceded to Obama at the Democratic National Convention in August, is expected to attack McCain at three events in Florida Monday.
McCain has been sharp in his criticism of Obama, warning Sunday that his rival did not have good "judgment" or a record of challenging his own party's dogma.
"He never took on his party on a single major issue, I have taken them on a lot," McCain said on CBS.
"I think I can make a strong case that whatever the issue, he doesn't have the judgment."
Neither headliners held rallies Sunday although McCain and Palin introduced themselves to voters at a Mexican restaurant in New Mexico and a barbecue joint in Missouri and Biden spoke at a Montana high school.
The Republican candidates had a rally planned in Missouri and a fundraising dinner in Obama's hometown of Chicago on Monday. Obama had two rallies planned in Michigan on Monday and another in Virginia on Tuesday. Biden was due to be in Wisconsin and Iowa on Monday.
Obama is shocked, by Hamas op-ed in his church's. Yeah right!!
Sen. Barack Obama says that a pro-Hamas op-ed printed in his church's bulletin was "outrageously wrong." In an issue dated July 22, 2007, in a section titled "Pastor's Page," the Trinity United Church in Chicago reprinted an article by Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzook. The article, which originally appeared as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, justifies the Palestinian terrorist group's denial of Israel's right to exist.
In slamming the Hamas piece, Obama noted again that he strongly rejects some of his longtime pastor's views. "I have already condemned my former pastor's views on Israel in the strongest possible terms, and I certainly wasn't in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin," Obama said in a statement e-mailed to JTA late Thursday.
"Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel's destruction, as evidenced by their bombarding of Sderot in recent months. I support requiring Hamas to meet the international community's conditions of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and abiding by past agreements before they are treated as a legitimate actor."
Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman, issued a news release condemning Wright and calling on Obama to sever his pastor and his church. The New York lawmaker, who was in Sderot for Purim, urged Obama to visit the town "to see what support for Hamas terror looks like, and he will see why he must sever his ties to Wright and his church."
In addition to his statement on the Hamas article, Obama issued a separate statement timed for Purim - a holiday rarely commented on by candidates or congressmen. It seems to reflect his efforts to go out of his way to reach out to Jews after his recent difficulties explaining the anti-Israel remarks of his foreign pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, including the comment that Israel was a "dirty word."
Perhaps hoping to blunt the effect of the man he has described as "uncle," Obama's statement spoke of "the story of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai saving the Jews of ancient Persia from destruction."
"Even as the parties are held, the songs are sung, and the noisemakers are rattled, the history of a people that has had to fight for its survival, remains at the heart of the Purim story," the statement said. "In our day, the celebration is mingled with a determination to ensure that Israel remains safe and strong, that we fight anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, and that the American Jewish community continues to play such an active and vital role in the life of our nation."
And just to show its own fighting spirit, the Obama campaign circulated a photograph of former president Bill Clinton shaking hands with Wright at a September 1998 event for religious clerics, which was held the same day the Starr Report on Monica Lewinsky was made public. No comment on whether Monica was the modern day equivalent of Queen Esther to Clinton's King Ahasuerus. Nor was it implied that Hillary was equivalent to Vashti.
In slamming the Hamas piece, Obama noted again that he strongly rejects some of his longtime pastor's views. "I have already condemned my former pastor's views on Israel in the strongest possible terms, and I certainly wasn't in church when that outrageously wrong Los Angeles Times piece was re-printed in the bulletin," Obama said in a statement e-mailed to JTA late Thursday.
"Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel's destruction, as evidenced by their bombarding of Sderot in recent months. I support requiring Hamas to meet the international community's conditions of recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and abiding by past agreements before they are treated as a legitimate actor."
Dov Hikind, a New York state assemblyman, issued a news release condemning Wright and calling on Obama to sever his pastor and his church. The New York lawmaker, who was in Sderot for Purim, urged Obama to visit the town "to see what support for Hamas terror looks like, and he will see why he must sever his ties to Wright and his church."
In addition to his statement on the Hamas article, Obama issued a separate statement timed for Purim - a holiday rarely commented on by candidates or congressmen. It seems to reflect his efforts to go out of his way to reach out to Jews after his recent difficulties explaining the anti-Israel remarks of his foreign pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, including the comment that Israel was a "dirty word."
Perhaps hoping to blunt the effect of the man he has described as "uncle," Obama's statement spoke of "the story of Queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai saving the Jews of ancient Persia from destruction."
"Even as the parties are held, the songs are sung, and the noisemakers are rattled, the history of a people that has had to fight for its survival, remains at the heart of the Purim story," the statement said. "In our day, the celebration is mingled with a determination to ensure that Israel remains safe and strong, that we fight anti-Semitism wherever it occurs, and that the American Jewish community continues to play such an active and vital role in the life of our nation."
And just to show its own fighting spirit, the Obama campaign circulated a photograph of former president Bill Clinton shaking hands with Wright at a September 1998 event for religious clerics, which was held the same day the Starr Report on Monica Lewinsky was made public. No comment on whether Monica was the modern day equivalent of Queen Esther to Clinton's King Ahasuerus. Nor was it implied that Hillary was equivalent to Vashti.
Alaskans suffer nation's highest gasoline prices
Think you're feeling pain at the gas pump? Consider the residents of Lime Village, Alaska, an isolated Denaina Athabascan Indian community where gasoline prices have hit $8.55 a gallon.
The price is severely curtailing movement around the interior Alaska village, where four-wheelers are sitting idle.
Alaska, despite its status as a major crude oil producer, has the highest average gasoline prices of all U.S. states, according to the American Automobile Association. Alaska prices averaged $4.65 a gallon for regular gasoline on Friday, compared with a national average of $4.10, according to AAA.
Neal Fried, an economist with the Alaska department of labor, said the ironic situation reflects the hard reality that the state's small population hinders economies of scale and market competition.
High oil prices have helped the state government, which relies on oil taxes, royalties and fees for at least 80 percent of its general operating revenue. Alaska reaped more than $10 billion in oil revenue in the just-completed fiscal year, double the oil revenue of the previous fiscal year.
Fried noted that North Slope oil development is bustling, which would not be the case if oil were $30 a barrel.
But high fuel prices pinch individual Alaskans, especially in rural areas with no outside road access, where shipments of petroleum products require extraordinary and costly efforts.
DOG SLEDS
Fuel that goes to Lime Village is sent 1,800 miles by barge from Anchorage to the southwestern Alaska hub of Bethel, transferred to another barge for a trip up then Kuskokwim River and then flown by small plane to its final destination. Of a representative sample of Alaska communities, Lime Village had the highest fuel prices, according to a recent University of Alaska Anchorage study.
Gov. Sarah Palin has proposed using some of Alaska's fat budget surplus to send one-time $1,200 energy-relief checks to all state residents, to suspend the state's 8 cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and other measures for immediate assistance.
The legislature is considering her request in an ongoing special session.
Meanwhile, in Lime Village, boat trips on the Stony River are fewer and more carefully planned. Villagers combine tasks such as checking fish nets and collecting firewood.
One man even moved his fish camp, smokehouse and all, from an outer area to the midst of the village so that he could avoid the boat trip entirely.
Residents like the idea of a $1,200 payment from the state, Graham said. But long-term solutions remain elusive.
Some alaskans say going back to dog teams is an option. It's kind of a joke, but not a joke.
Barack Obama’s Hateful Connections
http://husaria.wordpress.com/2007/05/09/barack-obamas-hateful...
Barack Obama’s Hateful Connections
Long ago, Aesop told us that birds of a feather tend to flock together. While one must always be wary of McCarthyite “guilt by association†accusations–e.g. accusing someone of being a Communist because he was once photographed in the incidental company of one–it is reasonable to make certain conclusions about individuals who knowingly and willfully associate with racists, anti-Semites, and America-haters. Barack Obama’s eager association with at least four such entities cannot be written off as merely coincidental.
Barack Obama’s friend Al Sharpton, with whom he appears arm in arm at a meeting of the National Action Network, is a known racist and anti-Semite. The National Action Network is a hate organization that is no better than the Ku Klux Klan or White Aryan Resistance (noting its behavior prior to the arson of a Jewish-owned store in Harlem).
Barack Obama’s financial sponsor George Soros hates Israel (and also the United States). Soros has called the United States “a danger to world peace†that needs “de-Nazification,†while blaming Israel for causing anti-Semitism.
Barack Obama’s friends at MoveOn.org have not only knowingly and willfully sponsored anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic hate speech at their Action Forum, they have published an official pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel bulletins that promote Gush Shalom and Electronic Intifada. Another bulletin accuses “Zionists†of having “divided loyalties.â€
Barack Obama’s spiritual guide, Jeremiah Wright, has made racist statements and has indicated hatred of Israel.
Barack Obama appeared at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network: a racist and anti-Semitic hate organization (as shown by its conduct leading up to the arson of Freddy’s Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned store in Harlem).
Fred Siegel’s outstanding Democrats Embrace ‘Impresario of Hatred’
It would have taken no great effort for the reporters covering the Apollo debate to have walked across 125th Street from the theater to visit Freddy’s Fashion Mart, where in 1995 eight people died in a murderous rampage inspired by Mr. Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton is best-known for the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which he insisted that a 15-year-old black girl had been abducted and raped by a band of white men practicing Irish Republican Army rituals. In fact she had made up the story to protect herself from her violent stepfather. But at Freddy’s, Mr. Sharpton was even more malevolent. He turned a landlord-tenant dispute between the Jewish owner of Freddy’s and a black subtenant into a theater of hatred. Picketers from Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network, sometimes joined by “the Rev.†himself, marched daily outside the store, screaming about “bloodsucking Jews†and “Jew bastards†and threatening to burn the building down. After weeks of increasingly violent rhetoric, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, took Mr. Sharpton’s words about ousting the “white interloper†to heart. He ran into the store shouting, “It’s on!†He shot and wounded three whites and a Pakistani, whom he apparently mistook for a Jew. Then he set the fire, which killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese and one African-American–a security guard whom protesters had taunted as a “cracker lover.†Smith then fatally shot himself.
http://www.nationalreview.com/20Mar00/nordlinger032000.html adds, There was more, of course-always more. In the spring of 1989, the Central Park “wilding†occurred. That was the monstrous rape and beating of a young white woman, known to most of the world as “the jogger.†The hatred heaped on her by Sharpton and his claque is almost impossible to fathom, and wrenching to review. …Outside the courthouse, they [Sharpton and his entourage] chanted, “The boyfriend did it! The boyfriend did it!†They denounced the victim as “Whore!†They screamed her name, over and over (because most publications refused to print it, though several black-owned ones did). Sharpton brought Tawana Brawley to the trial one day, to show her, he said, the difference between white justice and black justice. He arranged for her to meet the jogger’s attackers, whom she greeted with comradely warmth. In another of his publicity stunts, he appealed for a psychiatrist to examine the victim. “It doesn’t even have to be a black psychiatrist,†he said, generously. He added: “We’re not endorsing the damage to the girl — if there was this damage.†…But the torching, so to speak, continued. In 1995-four years into the putative New Sharpton-there was another, fatal case in which Sharpton had a guilty hand: Freddy’s Fashion Mart. In Harlem, a white store owner — no, worse: a Jewish one — was accused of driving a black store owner out of business. At one of the many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away [can anyone say, "burning crosses meant to scare the Negro owner away?"], Sharpton charged that “there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear . . . that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.†Sharpton’s colleague, Morris Powell, said of the Jewish owner — Sharpton’s “white interloper†— “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it.â€
Barack Obama’s Hateful Connections
Long ago, Aesop told us that birds of a feather tend to flock together. While one must always be wary of McCarthyite “guilt by association†accusations–e.g. accusing someone of being a Communist because he was once photographed in the incidental company of one–it is reasonable to make certain conclusions about individuals who knowingly and willfully associate with racists, anti-Semites, and America-haters. Barack Obama’s eager association with at least four such entities cannot be written off as merely coincidental.
Barack Obama’s friend Al Sharpton, with whom he appears arm in arm at a meeting of the National Action Network, is a known racist and anti-Semite. The National Action Network is a hate organization that is no better than the Ku Klux Klan or White Aryan Resistance (noting its behavior prior to the arson of a Jewish-owned store in Harlem).
Barack Obama’s financial sponsor George Soros hates Israel (and also the United States). Soros has called the United States “a danger to world peace†that needs “de-Nazification,†while blaming Israel for causing anti-Semitism.
Barack Obama’s friends at MoveOn.org have not only knowingly and willfully sponsored anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic hate speech at their Action Forum, they have published an official pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel bulletins that promote Gush Shalom and Electronic Intifada. Another bulletin accuses “Zionists†of having “divided loyalties.â€
Barack Obama’s spiritual guide, Jeremiah Wright, has made racist statements and has indicated hatred of Israel.
Barack Obama appeared at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network: a racist and anti-Semitic hate organization (as shown by its conduct leading up to the arson of Freddy’s Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned store in Harlem).
Fred Siegel’s outstanding Democrats Embrace ‘Impresario of Hatred’
It would have taken no great effort for the reporters covering the Apollo debate to have walked across 125th Street from the theater to visit Freddy’s Fashion Mart, where in 1995 eight people died in a murderous rampage inspired by Mr. Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton is best-known for the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which he insisted that a 15-year-old black girl had been abducted and raped by a band of white men practicing Irish Republican Army rituals. In fact she had made up the story to protect herself from her violent stepfather. But at Freddy’s, Mr. Sharpton was even more malevolent. He turned a landlord-tenant dispute between the Jewish owner of Freddy’s and a black subtenant into a theater of hatred. Picketers from Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network, sometimes joined by “the Rev.†himself, marched daily outside the store, screaming about “bloodsucking Jews†and “Jew bastards†and threatening to burn the building down. After weeks of increasingly violent rhetoric, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, took Mr. Sharpton’s words about ousting the “white interloper†to heart. He ran into the store shouting, “It’s on!†He shot and wounded three whites and a Pakistani, whom he apparently mistook for a Jew. Then he set the fire, which killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese and one African-American–a security guard whom protesters had taunted as a “cracker lover.†Smith then fatally shot himself.
http://www.nationalreview.com/20Mar00/nordlinger032000.html adds, There was more, of course-always more. In the spring of 1989, the Central Park “wilding†occurred. That was the monstrous rape and beating of a young white woman, known to most of the world as “the jogger.†The hatred heaped on her by Sharpton and his claque is almost impossible to fathom, and wrenching to review. …Outside the courthouse, they [Sharpton and his entourage] chanted, “The boyfriend did it! The boyfriend did it!†They denounced the victim as “Whore!†They screamed her name, over and over (because most publications refused to print it, though several black-owned ones did). Sharpton brought Tawana Brawley to the trial one day, to show her, he said, the difference between white justice and black justice. He arranged for her to meet the jogger’s attackers, whom she greeted with comradely warmth. In another of his publicity stunts, he appealed for a psychiatrist to examine the victim. “It doesn’t even have to be a black psychiatrist,†he said, generously. He added: “We’re not endorsing the damage to the girl — if there was this damage.†…But the torching, so to speak, continued. In 1995-four years into the putative New Sharpton-there was another, fatal case in which Sharpton had a guilty hand: Freddy’s Fashion Mart. In Harlem, a white store owner — no, worse: a Jewish one — was accused of driving a black store owner out of business. At one of the many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away [can anyone say, "burning crosses meant to scare the Negro owner away?"], Sharpton charged that “there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear . . . that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.†Sharpton’s colleague, Morris Powell, said of the Jewish owner — Sharpton’s “white interloper†— “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it.â€
Arab-American Activist Says Obama Hiding Anti-Israel Stance
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125656
(IsraelNN.com) Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama is currently hiding his anti-Israel views in order to get elected, according to a well-known anti-Israel activist. The activist, Ali Abunimah, claimed to know Obama well and to have met him on numerous occasions at pro-Palestinian events in Chicago.
In an article he penned for the anti-Israeli website Electronic Intifada, Abunimah wrote:
"The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.
As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, & Hey, Im sorry I havent said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race.
I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front. He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy [and said:Keep up the good work!
Barack, Michelle, Edward and Mariam
Abunimahs report included a photo of Obama with his wife Michelle seated at a table with virulently anti-Israeli Professor Edward Said and his wife Mariam, in what Abunimah said was a May 1998 Arab community event in Chicago at which Said gave the keynote speech.
In an interview earlier this year for the leftist radio show & Democracy Now! A daily TV and radio news program hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Abunimah said he knew Obama for many years as his state senator & when he used to attend events in the Palestinian community in Chicago all the time.
I remember personally introducing him onstage in 1999, when we had a major community fundraiser for the community center in Deheisha refugee camp in the occupied West Bank,& he recounted. And that's just one example of how Barack Obama used to be very comfortable speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation."
About face 'to get elected'
Abunimah's report included a photo of Obama with his wife Michelle seated at a table with virulently anti-Israeli Professor Edward Said and his wife Mariam.
The Arab-American activist went on to say: "In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
"Obama's about-face is not surprising," Abunimah wrote. "He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power."
When Obama first ran for the Senate in 2004, the Chicago Jewish News interviewed him on his stance regarding Israel's security fence. He accused the Bush administration of neglecting the "Israeli-Palestinian" situation and criticized the security fence built by Israel to prevent terror attacks: "The creation of a wall dividing the two nations is yet another example of the neglect of this Administration in brokering peace," Obama was quoted as saying.
The REAL Truth About the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
WHAT THE DEMOCRATS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!
FIRST… do you know what ANWR is?
ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Now… A comparison to how big Alaska and the ANWR is:
And some perspective…
NOTE WHERE THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AREA IS…
(it's in the 'ANWR Coastal Plain')
THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRATS, LIBERALS AND 'GREENS' SHOW YOU WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT ANWR
…and they are right… these ARE photographs of ANWR
ISN'T ANWR BEAUTIFUL? WHY SHOULD WE DRILL HERE (AND DESTROY) THIS BEAUTIFUL PLACE?
WELL… THAT'S NOT EXACTLY THE TRUTH
Do you remember the map?
The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal Plain
Do those photographs look like a coastal plain to you?
WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE…
THAT IS NOT WHERE THEY ARE WANTING TO DRILL!
THIS IS WHAT THE PROPOSED EXPLORATION AREA ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN THE WINTER.
AND THIS IS WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN THE SUMMER.
AS YOU CAN SEE, THE AREA WHERE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT DRILLING IS A BARREN WASTELAND.
OH… AND THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE EFFECT ON THE LOCAL WILDLIFE…
HERE IS A PHOTO (SHOT DURING THE SUMMER) OF THE
'DEPLETED WILDLIFE' SITUATION CREATED BY DRILLING AROUND PRUDHOE BAY *…
DON'T YOU THINK THAT THE CARIBOU REALLY HATE THAT DRILLING?
HERE'S THAT SAME SPOT DURING THE WINTER.
HEY, THIS BEAR SEEMS TO REALLY HATE THE PIPELINE NEAR PRUDHOE BAY *…
*The Prudhoe bay area accounts for 17% of U.S. domestic oil production
NOW, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE LYING ABOUT ANWR?
REMEMBER WHEN AL GORE SAID THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD WORK TO ARTIFICIALLY RAISE GAS PRICES TO $5.00 A GALLON?
WELL…
AL GORE AND HIS FELLOW DEMOCRATS HAVE ALMOST REACHED THEIR GOAL!
NOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN LYING,WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
FIRST… do you know what ANWR is?
ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Now… A comparison to how big Alaska and the ANWR is:
And some perspective…
NOTE WHERE THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AREA IS…
(it's in the 'ANWR Coastal Plain')
THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRATS, LIBERALS AND 'GREENS' SHOW YOU WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT ANWR
…and they are right… these ARE photographs of ANWR
ISN'T ANWR BEAUTIFUL? WHY SHOULD WE DRILL HERE (AND DESTROY) THIS BEAUTIFUL PLACE?
WELL… THAT'S NOT EXACTLY THE TRUTH
Do you remember the map?
The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal Plain
Do those photographs look like a coastal plain to you?
WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE…
THAT IS NOT WHERE THEY ARE WANTING TO DRILL!
THIS IS WHAT THE PROPOSED EXPLORATION AREA ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN THE WINTER.
AND THIS IS WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN THE SUMMER.
AS YOU CAN SEE, THE AREA WHERE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT DRILLING IS A BARREN WASTELAND.
OH… AND THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE EFFECT ON THE LOCAL WILDLIFE…
HERE IS A PHOTO (SHOT DURING THE SUMMER) OF THE
'DEPLETED WILDLIFE' SITUATION CREATED BY DRILLING AROUND PRUDHOE BAY *…
DON'T YOU THINK THAT THE CARIBOU REALLY HATE THAT DRILLING?
HERE'S THAT SAME SPOT DURING THE WINTER.
HEY, THIS BEAR SEEMS TO REALLY HATE THE PIPELINE NEAR PRUDHOE BAY *…
*The Prudhoe bay area accounts for 17% of U.S. domestic oil production
NOW, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE LYING ABOUT ANWR?
REMEMBER WHEN AL GORE SAID THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD WORK TO ARTIFICIALLY RAISE GAS PRICES TO $5.00 A GALLON?
WELL…
AL GORE AND HIS FELLOW DEMOCRATS HAVE ALMOST REACHED THEIR GOAL!
NOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN LYING,WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
