General Powell - Some Thoughts

One. We are disappointed that the General would endorse a candidate that espouses 'Reward first, work second' when Powell himself achieved a level in the Army, and later our government, that can only be attained by effort, judgement and achievement. Three things the Democratic candidate lacks.

Two. We lose sleep when old men do things like this. Will we live a life of values and integrity, establishing consistency and predictability in our decisions and motives, only to throw it all away one day?

Three. We are glad we left the Army at Captain. Looking at Powell and W. Clark for example, it appears to go further up the ranks is to compromise principle. (Looking at Generals Franks, Petraus and the many others, we know Powell and Clark are the exceptions.)

Four. Rush Limbaugh asked: "When was the last time Powell endorsed an inexperienced white candidate?"

Five. Bret Stephens provides his list in his Tuesday WSJ article, Powell Catches the Beltway Breeze. (Picture above is from his article). The conclusion of this wonderful article:

The standard view of Mr. Powell's tenure at State is that he had a diplomat's brain but a soldier's heart, and soldiers ultimately do as ordered. Maybe. Another view is that he is a man with an unfailing sense of the political breeze, like a kite. His endorsement of Mr. Obama sends his reputation aloft again, floating high above a record that stands for nothing.

Karl's Weekend Reading

Three great picks from this week's rags:

Laura Hollis at Townhall uses the "C" word!!

I am tired of all the dancing around the subject with respect to Barack Obama’s political, social, and economic views. He’s not a “liberal,” or a “Democrat,” or a “progressive,” or even a “socialist.” Let’s call it what it is, shall we? It’s time to use the “C” word. His policies are communist, pure and simple.
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It’s not that Obama is ignorant, or misguided. He knows – as do his Red backers – that the policies he espouses will cause further economic trauma. This is deliberate. Because the worse things get, the more receptive the public will be to Obama’s & Co.’s honey-tongued assurances that the government will step in and “make it all better.” Look at Hurricane Katrina, and the recent financial crisis: how many people were clamoring for the government to “do something”? And that’s nothing compared to what we’re going to face when Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid collapse.

A well-earned Ushanka Tip to Laura!

Adam Lerrick asks, "What happens when the voter in the exact middle of the earnings spectrum receives more in benefits from Washington than he pays in taxes?" From his Wednesday WSJ article, Obama and the Tax Tipping Point:

In 2006, the latest year for which we have Census data, 220 million Americans were eligible to vote and 89 million -- 40% -- paid no income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute), this will jump to 49% when Mr. Obama's cash credits remove 18 million more voters from the tax rolls. What's more, there are an additional 24 million taxpayers (11% of the electorate) who will pay a minimal amount of income taxes -- less than 5% of their income and less than $1,000 annually.

In all, three out of every five voters will pay little or nothing in income taxes under Mr. Obama's plans and gain when taxes rise on the 40% that already pays 95% of income tax revenues.

Kimberly Strassel at the WSJ shares the circus atmosphere in her article, Obama's Magic:

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he "cut" zero? Abracadabra! It's called a "refundable tax credit." It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as "welfare," but please try not to ruin the show.
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Mr. Obama will now demonstrate how he gives Americans the "choice" of a "voluntary" government health plan, designed in such a way as to crowd out the private market and eliminate all other choice! Don't worry people: You won't have to join, until you do.
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Moving along to a little ventriloquism. Study his mouth carefully, folks: It looks like he's saying "I'll stop the special interests," when in fact the words coming out are "Welcome to Washington, friends!" Wind and solar companies, ethanol makers, tort lawyers, unions, community organizers -- all are welcome to feed at the public trough and to request special favors. From now on "special interests" will only refer to universally despised, if utterly crucial, economic players. Say, oil companies. Hocus Pocus!

Cartoon Overflow

Our Top Ten Election Cartoons is full, yet we discovered these at Townhall this past week. It is nice to see our friend Karl make a reappearance. Now that Karl is back the only question is: has ACORN registered him to vote?

See our Top Ten Election Cartoons - here!

LCABroadside

We found LCABroadside, the videos and the blog, the other day. A late-comer to the game of election-related media, but some great stuff. We like what he's done with the Obama logo...

Kotecki and Fur Hats

Joe the Proletariat

It was not supposed to be like this. A plumber refusing to participate in the dictatorship of the proletariat? Questioning why the American Dream is only valid up to $250k. We're sure Obama's team is sending someone over right now to explain to Joe the economic plan in detail, as there has clearly been a mis-understanding.

Here are the related videos, and the graphic of the 2008 election. U/T: Our comrades at the People's Cube.

A compilation of clips that includes the "Spread the Wealth" statement:

Link to Joe's interview with ABC

Karl's Weekend Reading

We are posting our Weekend Reading list early, as we'll be offline this Thursday and Friday.

The campaign is turning harsh, with the standard Republican accusation that the Democratic Party's nominee is a "Socialist" or "Communist". This drives the political discourse into the mud, especially when the accuser is wearing one of our incredible and furry Commie Obama hats! Get yours today for only $29.99 at CommieObama.com!

Silly conservative, it is not fair to call Obama a communist until AFTER he takes your property away. Remember, it has to be fair.

We saw two excellent articles this past week that expand on this topic:

Author Paul Kengor writes in the American Thinker, Why Obama's Communist Connections Are Not Headlines. He argues our education system has let down its students when it comes to the history of communism. Further, he addresses faculties' revulsion to anti-communist speech:

These professors glare at me as if the ghost of Joe McCarthy has flown into the room and leapt inside of my body. In fact, that's the essence of their criticism: It is not so much that these professors approve of communism as much as they disapprove of -- actually, utterly despise -- anti-communism. They are anti-anti-communist more so than pro-communist. Conservatives need to understand this, so as to avoid broad-brushing and losing credibility. Sure, a lot of professors are Marxists, and many more share the utopian goals of Marxism, but the vast majority are simply leftists.

They aren't communists. They are anti-anti-communists. Or as we say, they are "communist inspired". More Kengor:

What's more, aside from failing to instruct their students in the crass facts about communism's unprecedented destruction -- its purges, mass famines, show trials, killing fields, concentration camps -- these educators are negligent in failing to teach the essential, non-emotional, but crucial Econ 101 basics that contrast capitalism and communism and, thus, that get at the heart of how and why command economies simply do not work. Each semester in my Comparative Politics course at Grove City College, it takes no more than 50 minutes to matter-of-factly lay out the rudimentary differences. Whereas capitalist systems are based on the market forces of supply and demand, which dictate prices and production levels and targets, communist systems are based on central planning, by which a government bureau attempts to manage such things. Capitalism is based on private ownership; communism on public ownership. Capitalism thrives on small government and taxes; communism on large government and taxes, typically progressive income-tax rates and estate taxes -- both advocated explicitly by Marx -- and much more.

This stuff isn't rocket science. It is easy to teach, if the professor desires. The problem is that it isn't being taught. Consequently, Americans today do not know why communism is such a devastating ideology, at both the level of plain economic theory and in actual historical practice. It is a remarkably hateful system, based on literal hatred and targeted annihilation of entire classes and groups of people. (Nazism sought genocide based on ethnicity; communism sought genocide based on class.)

Good stuff. We read his book on Reagan - The Crusader
And we look forward to reading his book, The Judge
, about Reagan advisor William Clark.

James Lewis, also writing in the American Thinker, On Bill Ayers and Small 'c' Communists. He explains the difference between six million (holocaust deaths) and one hundred million (communism), and why those numbers matter. He begins this discussion:

I know goofy liberals who moan about all the good intentions demonstrated by Karl Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky. They're all Obama voters, for some reason. They are the same kinds of people who think Jesus was a communist, and that George W. Bush is Hitler. They are often the kind of people who try desperately to be completely nice in their lives, especially to designated victims. But often they harbor a belly full of rage -- against conservatives, or big corporations, or fundamentalist Christians, or anybody who challenges their belief in their own saintliness.

If you're interested - a related AFP article about the Communist Party USA's anticipation for the coming election.

"We can afford to be less on the defensive for the first time since Ronald Reagan, and we can say our word in rebuilding America on a new basis, rebuilding a better world, instead of one based on the greed of the few."

Go, Commie, Go!

We'll be back online no later than Sunday. Have a nice weekend.

The Socialist Tsunami

An IBD editorial says it all.

The Crash: "Why has the market dropped so much?" everyone asks. What is it about the specter of our first socialist president and the end of capitalism as we know it that they don't understand?

What is that agenda? It starts with a tax system right out of Marx: A massive redistribution of income — from each according to his ability, to each according to his need — all in the name of "neighborliness," "patriotism," "fairness" and "justice."

Read it. Twice.

Karl's Weekend Reading

The other Karl, Karl Rove, comments about the second debate and the remaining challenges for Obama. Thursday's WSJ, Voters Haven't Decided Yet.

Mr. Obama's test is that voters haven't shaken deep concerns about his lack of qualifications. Having accomplished virtually nothing in his three years in the Senate except to win the Democratic nomination, Mr. Obama must show he is up to the job. Voters like him, conditions favor him, yet he has not closed the sale. He may be approaching the finish line with that mixture of lassitude and insouciance he displayed in the spring against Mrs. Clinton.

Dorothy Rabinowitz points out the obvious in her WSJ opinion piece, News Flash: The Media Back Obama.

The single constant in the eternal election remains the media, whose activist role no one will seriously dispute. To point out the prevailing (with honorable exceptions) double standard of reporting so favorable to Mr. Obama by now feels superfluous -- much like talking about the weather. The same holds true for all those reports pointing to Mr. Obama's heroic status outside the United States -- not to mention the cascade of press analyses warning that if he fails to win election, the cause will surely be racism.

Speaking of a biased press, WSJ's James Taranto has buried his fangs into their latest misleading game - the all pure "Fact Check" reporting. In his Thursday Best of the Web, James presents a fact, and how two leading news agencies can draw different conclusions to benefit their bias. He sums it up well:

It is fine, indeed quite useful, for reporters to present relevant facts that voters can use in evaluating candidates' campaign claims. In this "fact check" form, however, journalists play prosecutor, judge and jury, deciding what evidence to present, what evidence to admit, and what it all means (CNN actually calls the conclusion a "verdict"). Why not just report and let the reader decide?

Remember not to question their patriotism when you read American Thinker's piece, Shocking Revelations about Biden in Soviet-Era Documents. Quoting from Hot Air:

According to internal Soviet Union documents from the SALT-2 negotiations in 1979, Joe Biden effectively told Soviet negotiators not to worry about American rhetoric about human-rights concerns. In fact, Biden also told the Soviets that the Senate didn't really care about European security, but only in giving the appearance of caring about it.

WSJ's Mary Anastasia O'Grady suggests tripling the US support to Columbia in response to Chavez's latest posturing, and asks Democrats to answer "whose side they are on", in her Monday article, Democrats Shouldn't Coddle Chavez.

The strongest immediate signal the U.S. could send Mr. Chávez and Latin American democracies is unequivocal support for Colombia. President Bush has tried to do that but the effort is being undermined by Congressional Democrats.
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The FARC also expressed faith in Mrs. Pelosi as someone who "helps" in its effort to undermine Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Mr. McGovern said in a letter to this newspaper that the FARC was engaging in fantasy. But maybe instead the rebels put their faith in Mrs. Pelosi because they perceive a common friend...

Obama & The New Party

We would say "We told you so", but as an avid Ushanka.us reader you were already 'in the know'. Click anywhere - this site's whole purpose for existing is to connect the Democrat dots with the Commie dots. It's just a coincidence that the current Democratic nominee for president is

ONE 

BIG 

DOT!

Our fellow bloggers have run wild with this latest story about Obama's connection with the marxist New Party (NP) and the Democratic Socialists for America (DSA). We have read everything we could find, and are providing you an executive summary on the topic along with links to the blog posts with original content and expert analysis.

Background:

The DSA established the NP to move their socialist principles forward through elected officials.

Membership in the NP was the method for Democrats to convey their leftward intentions, to differentiate from the moderate Democrats.

A tactic of the NP, and other groups, was called "Fusion", which allowed a Democrat to join the New Party and combine the votes from both parties in a primary. This allowed a NP candidate to defeat their moderate opponents who ran only on the Democratic ticket. It appears Obama benefitted from Fusion in his 1996 win. The Supreme Court ruled Fusion unconstitutional in 1998, and the NP dissolved shortly thereafter.

The DSA exists today.

Obama's Links to DSA and NP:

The news that put this topic back on the blogosphere front page: Obama signed a contract with the New Party promising "a visible and active relationship with the NP". The controversy - back in June the Obama campaign, along with the DSA and NP, denied NP or DSA membership. Ever. Blogger Politically Drunk on Power found a deleted, yet archived, NP webpage from October 1996 announcing member Obama's recent primary victory - link.

The same blogger also found recognition in the "Progressive Populist" magazine from November 1996 that states Obama was a NP member - link.

Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker digs deeper and finds evidence of Obama's NP membership from 1995 in the DSA's publication, New Ground 42 - link.

The DSA has endorsed Obama

...DSA believes that the possible election of Senator Obama to the presidency in November represents a potential opening for social and labor movements to generate the critical political momentum necessary to implement a progressive political agenda.

Conclusion:

Obama is a closet commie, and our fellow bloggers are starting to take notice.


Ushanka Tips to the bloggers with original content and analysis:
American Thinker
Doug Ross
Sweetness & Light
Politically Drunk On Power
Yid with a Lid