How many times do you hear that our children are so much smarter these days or that our high school and college age students are so advanced compared to our school days?

I hear it a lot, but frankly, I don't see it. Yes, they know how to use technology, but it seems most young to middle age adults are pretty ignorant when it comes to civics, economics, and history.

If you watched any of the interviews on why voters chose their candidates on Nov. 4th, you will notice how woefully ignorant the masses are when it comes to civics and politics. RedState posted some of these interviews. Most didn't even know who Barney Frank, Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi were!

The Red State interviews confirmed what USA Today concluded in Americans don't know civics: (My emphasis throughout)

From high-school dropouts to college graduates to elected officials, Americans are "alarmingly uninformed"USA's history, founding principals and economy about the — knowledge needed to participate wisely in civic life, says a report scheduled to be released Thursday.

..."Without knowledge of your country's history, key texts and institutions, you don't have a frame of reference to judge the politics and policies of today," says Richard Brake, head of the institute's American Civic Literacy Program.

You can take the same Our Fading Heritage Civics Quiz, and see how you compare to other average Americans. (I took it too--my score is at the bottom of this posting.) 

There was some correlation between age and higher education, but even there, the scores were still abysmal: (My emphasis)

[Across all economic and education levels] 71% earn an F; the average score was 49%. Ages 25 to 34 had an average score of 46%; ages 45 to 64 had a 52% average. Of 164 respondents who say they have held elected office, 44% was average.

Those with bachelor's degrees had an average score of 57% vs. 44% for those with a high-school diploma. The average score for advanced degree-holders inches up to 65%, or a D.

This correlation came as no surprise to me: 

Civic knowledge declines in proportion to time spent using passive media, such as TV. Reading and talking about history and current events, using the Internet and being involved in political activities has a positive effect.

I took it and scored 93.94% or 31 out of 33 correct. Most questions I knew without the multiple choice, a few I only answered correctly because of homeschooling (recently taught high school civics), some were educated guesses.

Neither of my parents went to college, although my mother went to a one year secretarial school. My father had to quit school in the 8th grade to go to work during the great depression. Yet they and others from their generation possessed a core knowledge of these necessary subjects that most younger American adults lack. They studied our nation's "key texts" in school.

Sadly, most people today do not know anything about our government or economy. If we ever want elections to be about substance instead of persona and emotion, we will have to teach the basic civics, history and economics classes again. Of course that is only if we want to ensure we have an electorate that votes intelligently.

 

 

Are you brave enough to take the basic history quiz too? Questions and how students scored in '07

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Vicki Mckenna, Jay Weber, The Right View Wisconsin, Mark Levin, CNS News

Do you ever get the feeling that those who believe in Global Warming don't want to be confused by the facts?

I fully support a person's right to believe what they please. That doesn't mean their beliefs are correct, but they do have the right to believe what they want. We call that free will.

But when their beliefs start infringing on my rights, limit my choices, raise food and energy prices, and cripple our economy, then I draw the line. Yet that is exactly what is happening in our government and President Elect Obama is marching lock step to the global warming drummer.

If you were paying attention, October was a chilly month around the world. Yet the Global Warming devotees stated otherwise. The UK Telegraph gave a startling explanation in The world has never seen such freezing heat: (My emphasis)

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

How do you explain that discrepancy? GISS says last October was "the hottest October on record", yet NOAA reported 63 record snowfalls and 115 lowest temps, and we observe much the same. Plus, aren't scientists supposed to observe and question? If the data says one thing, but world wide weather reports of early snows show something else, wouldn't that make you look closer at the data? Thankfully, some did.

... when expert readers of the two leading warming-skeptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

The GISS admitted that some data was "obtained from another body" and they didn't "have resources to exercise proper quality control" over that data!  Amazing. The GISS figures are used by the UN "to promote its case for global warming." They use GISS because "they consistently show higher temperatures than the others."

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

More and more data shows that brief period of warming in the 1990s has ended, yet Al Gore, the media, and some in government stubbornly hold to their religion of Global Warming.

[Is it] wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

Candidate Obama said he would look at off shore drilling and clean coal. President Elect Obama retreats to his earlier positions of bankrupting our coal fired power plants through Cap and Trade and reinstating the moratorium on offshore oil drilling. These two measures will further cripple an ailing US economy. And why? Because of a stubborn belief in the bad science of Global Warming.

 

 
What would Cap and Trade mean to us? America's Climate Security act "Catastrophic for Wisconsin"  and Cap-and-Trade? Maybe it should be called Cap-and-Raid! 

Across the pond, they have the same problem, Climate Change Bill makes chilling reading:

Declining global temperatures continue to make a mockery of those computer model projections on which the whole global warming scare is based.

As I have asked before, has there ever in history been such a collective flight from reality?

Film-makers taking on our 'global warming hysteria':

A new Irish film claims that climate change guru Al Gore is an alarmist and that those who think they are saving the planet are only hurting the poor.

IF THE ADVANCE publicity is anything to go by, Not Evil Just Wrong will do for Al Gore what Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 did for George W Bush.

 

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Vicki Mckenna, Jay Weber, The Right View Wisconsin, Mark Levin, CNS News

At the last debate, John McCain stated his strong opposition to the horrible procedure, Partial Birth Abortion. Barack Obama, knowing his pro-abortion stance at the Saddleback Forum hurt him, must have decided that in a national venue such as a televised debate, he could not publicly support Partial Birth Abortion. So Obama said he was "completely supportive of a ban on late-term abortions, partial-birth or otherwise, as long as there's an exception for the mother's health and life..." 

Yet he told Planned Parenthood he would make signing the Freedom of Choice Act that would reinstate Partial Birth Abortion, his top priority. "No, kick-starting the economy is not his number one goal and health care won't be top on his list of priorities." Obama said,

On this fundamental issue, I will not yield, and Planned Parenthood will not yield.

What is Partial Birth Abortion? It's a barbaric procedure in which doctors induce a late term pregnant woman to actually give birth. But before the baby is totally delivered, doctors puncture the child's brain to kill it. If any other culture did that we would be outraged. (Whether the mother's life is at risk or not, she still needs to deliver the child. What the doctor does to that child has no effect on the mother's health.)

Partial Birth Abortion was "banned by the Congress and signed by the President in 2003." The Supreme Court upheld the ban in 2007. Even pro-abortion Sen. Daniel Moynihan, Democrat from N.Y. voted to ban partial-birth abortion. He said the practice was "too close to infanticide." 

According to the Family Research Council, here is what the Freedom of Choice Act will do:

All sides in the abortion fight agree, if FOCA were to pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by a pro-abortion President, it would, among other effects, provide for taxpayer-funded abortion on demand even late in pregnancy, grant abortionists immunity from legal action, allow abortionists the discretion to perform abortions on minors without notifying a parent, and deny health care workers the right to refuse to make abortion referrals as a matter of conscience.

The other procedure, Late Term Labor Induced Abortion, occurs in the 2nd trimester, earlier in the pregnancy but still sometimes produces a living child.

These babies were the subject of the bill Obama voted against in the Illinois State Senate. It was the same as the identically worded Federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (which passed the US Senate unanimously). Obama has tried to say the State version was not the same as the Federal version, but this is not true. In August 2008, "His campaign ...acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate..."

Nurse Jill Stanek talked to Bill O'Reilly about her experience with born alive aborted babies at Christ Hospital in Illinois. Her account stunned O'Reilly.

Obama tried to wiggle out of the question, "...at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?" at the Saddleback Forum by saying, "answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

Well, even a janitor (someone below Obama's pay grade) could tell you an aborted, yet alive, infant discarded in a "soiled utility room" was living and entitled to better treatment. 

Click to view the video

Obama is trying to be on both sides of the partial birth abortion issue--against with the public, for with Planned Parenthood. But "No man can serve two masters." Neither can you. Remember that when you vote.

Related info: Catholic Church has made no exception regarding abortion since ancient times, & Priests for Life 

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Vicki Mckenna, Jay Weber, The Right View Wisconsin, Mark Levin, CNS News 

President Bill Clinton was known as the Teflon president. No accusations or even cold, hard facts stuck. Monica Lewinsky was not a fabrication of a vast right-wing conspiracy as Hillary claimed. No, Monica was real. She was an intern with whom the President committed unprecedented indiscretions with right in the Oval Office. But it did not stick. He was Teflon.

President Bush on the other hand, according to the left, is responsible for all the ills of the world. No matter that he has kept us safe for 7 years, he is the fall guy for every ill there is: Hurricane Katrina, the housing crisis, global warming...you get the idea. He isn't responsible for it, but he is Velcro--everything sticks.

Senator Barack Obama, however, takes Teflon to a new level. He is Teflon II. Nothing, and I mean nothing sticks to him. Democrats and the media have given him a free pass. Not his questionable associations with Communists, Socialists, and Terrorists, not his many ties to anti-Semites, and not his blatantly socialistic plans for the economy. Jay Weber made a list of all the things that don't stick to Obama. He called him Teflon Obama.   

A video from USA Wake up sums up how we got to this turning point in history. They call it, The Rise of the United Socialist States*. It not only illustrates the progression in creating a very liberal, radical congress that set the stage for an economic downturn, but it also lists Barack Obama's radical associates and friends. His many socialist tax plans are included too.

It's a good summation of the mess we are in. I do believe Obama is the candidate of CHANGE, and I believe he will change the US, possibly forever. The peasants during the Russian Revolution wanted change too. Unfortunately they got it.

Watch the video, send it to your friends. Clearly, Obama is made of Teflon II !

 

*I watched it a few times. The only stretches I saw were a statement that Obama lied when he "insists that he has never prayed in a mosque and was never a Muslim." Obama did attend a Muslim school in Indonesia for 4 years as a child. Muslims pray several times a day. I can't imagine they let him exercise freedom of religion there! (I've even seen them do it at Fun World in Brookfield in the middle of a children's birthday party.)  It also asks if he was born in Hawaii or Kenya. This one is a stretch too, but since he is so secretive about all of his background information, why was his birth certificate sealed?

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Vicki Mckenna, Jay Weber, The Right View Wisconsin, Mark Levin, CNS News

It amazes me that the question is still out there: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be Vice President or God forbid, President? Considering Senator Barack Obama has so little experience and such questionable ideas and connections, the question is laughable.

In the race for the White House, Governors traditionally are hands down the favorite against Senators or Congressmen. Since Governors must prepare a budget, run their state, and are commanders of their National Guard, it is thought that their executive experience translates more completely to the presidency than experience in other branches of government.

John F. Kennedy was the most recent Senator to win the White House. All elected Presidents since were either former Vice Presidents or Governors. But here is a little known fact: Not all governors are created equal--equal in power that is. 

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece called, Running Alaska. It explained the differences in governing responsibilities between the states. Some states have governors that take on more of a P.R. roll vs. governors who run the whole show. (Mayors are much the same. Some just do ribbon cuttings etc. while the Administrative Director does the real work. I'll let you decide where Mayor Speaker and Director of Administration Dean Marquardt's responsibilities fall.)

The article explained that Thad Beyle, a political scientist at University of North Carolina actually rates each state's governor on "potential length of service, budgetary and appointment authority, veto power and other factors." He has been doing this for 20 years, the article stated.

At one time there was talk of amending the Constitution so that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for president. (He is a citizen but not natural born citizen.)  Now that California is deeply in debt, some might be glad that idea fizzled.

Another former actor and former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, became one of our most beloved presidents. California is a large state. It certainly must rank high on the Beyle scale?  

Nope. On Beyle's scale, 5 being the highest, California ranks 3.2. "California may be the nation's most populous state, but its Governor rates as below-average (3.2) in executive authority. This may account in part for Arnold Schwarzenegger's poor legislative track record." 

How about Howard Dean? He was a front runner in the last go round until he had that whooping up moment. Early on it was thought Dean would win the Democratic nomination. Howard Dean was governor of Vermont. There was no discussion of Dean being unqualified for the White House.

So how does Vermont's governor rate?  The lowest of all of the states, 2.5. In Vermont, the governor is really a "figurehead when compared to [you guessed it] Mrs. Palin."

Only one state rates higher than Alaska and that is Massachusetts. (That would be former Governor Mitt Romney's state.)

And what about Alaska? Well, it's a big state with big responsibilities--"one of the country's most powerful." Alaska ranks 4.1. "The national average is 3.5." Maryland, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia also rank at 4.1.

In Alaska, the Governor has line-item veto power over the budget and can only be overridden by a three-quarter majority of the Legislature.

In 1992, the year Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was elected President, his state budget was $2 billion and among the smallest in the country. Compared to that, Sarah Palin is an executive giant. [Alaska's budget is $12 million with 16,000 full time state employees.]

So can we stop asking the question?

Voter's* will decide on Tuesday and either she will be the Vice President or go back to being Governor of Alaska. In any event, in 2012, she will have 4 more years under her belt. If she decides to run again, it will be difficult to deny that the questioner's bias is showing if the question is asked again.

 

*Some voters have Palin/McCain signs and bumper stickers! 

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Vicki Mckenna, Jay Weber, The Right View Wisconsin, Mark Levin, CNS News

 

 

I am almost afraid to ask, what else don't we know about Barack Obama?

How about another friend,  "Ex-PLO operative" Rashid Khalidi? Obama characterized Khalidi as just someone who sent his children to the same school as the Obama's did. But like William Ayers, it was a little more than that. (Ayers by the way is a friend of Khalidi.) Looking at the April 9th LA Times article about Obama at the 2003 farewell party for Khalidi, Obama himself said there was more,

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

Evidently there is a video of Obama toasting Khalidi, but the LA Times won't release it. The B-Cast talked about this yesterday on their program: The B-Cast: L A Times Refuses to Release Video of Obama Toasting Ex-PLO Operative 

It's rather long but included video clips of why Khalidi's relationship with Obama matters. They also talk about the woman who uncovered that 2001 radio interview of Obama's regarding the redistribution of wealth not pursued by Supreme Court.

Gateway Pundit posted about this too: Confirmed: MSM Holds Video of Barack Obama Attending Jew-Bash & Toasting a Former PLO Operative...Refuse to Release the Video! :

...So, there you have it.
The LA Times has video of Obama toasting a former PLO operative at a Jew-bash but will not release the video.
This is outrageous.
Obviously, this video would do great damage to Obama who struggles with Jewish voters due to his circle of close anti-Semitic friends.
Maybe this is the reason it is not being released?

More on Khalidi---
Not only does Barack Obama's church of 20 years support Hamas and Hezbollah but Barack Obama also has a longtime close friendship and financial association with suspected former PLO operative and Israel hater Rashid Khalidi.
Earlier this month Sean Hannity dared to report on Barack and Michelle Obama's radical associate and friend, Rashid Khalidi:

I guess it is too much to ask of the mainstream media to interrupt their important coverage of Sarah Palin's wardrobe or Joe the Plumber's lack of plumbing license to report on something like this.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna

 

When Dan Rather notes the media is biased in favor of the Obama campaign, how can you continue to deny it? (My emphasis throughout)

Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather says there is a huge double-standard in the media when it comes to coverage the Barack Obama campaign receives, which is clearly made evident in the lack of scrutiny given to comments Obama’s vice presidential running mate Sen. Joe Biden made earlier this week. [Re: international crisis]

...  if Sarah Palin had said this, the newspapers would have jumped all over it, and so would the major television outlets.”

Journalist Michael Malone wrote a great piece about this subject in Media's Presidential Bias and Decline, Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why. It is long, 5 pages, but very much worth the read. Here are a few highlights:

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

Reporting bias, pg 2: 

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth...

Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments... were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.

The Presidential Campaign, pg 3:

But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

...If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Joe the Plumber, pg 4: 

The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man...

...Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes … and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.

So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.

Malone concludes his piece discussing the editor's role in biased media.

Just this week I heard Newt Gingrich refer to the media as being "Pravda like" and Mark Levin characterized the biased media as being "open and brazen" when it comes to the outcome of this election.

I can hear some of you defending the media's coverage of this election, but when even Dan Rather sees the bias, I know it has become too huge a problem to ignore any longer.

The part I can't figure out is why come out with this now? Conservatives and even Hillary Clinton during the primary have been saying this all along. Are they worried that Obama won't close the deal? Or is it just that they want to feel blameless after the damage has been done.
 

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna

 

An interview of Sen. Joe Biden by Barbara West at Florida's WFTV caused quite a stir over the weekend. She asked several very blunt questions about ACORN, the international crisis Biden forecasted if Obama was elected, and is Obama a Marxist? HotAir dubbed West's interview,  Comedy gold: WFTV interviews Biden: (Video link included)

Barbara West began the interview with,

...But aren't you embarrassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past? 

Without missing a beat, Biden replies, (My emphasis)

I am not embarrassed by it. We are not tied to it. We have not paid them [ACORN] one single penny to register a single solitary voter. We have the best get out the vote operation in modern American history. We register the voters ourselves and so there is no relationship... ...I am not embarrassed by our operation...

Maybe he did not read the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending?

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now [ACORN] for services the Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects...

Sen. Joe Biden's denial, "We've not paid them one single penny" reminded me of Pres. Clinton's denial, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." I guess when you are used to denying the truth, you do it with ease.

OK, Obama's campaign hasn't paid ACORN a single penny, but how about 80,000,000 of them! (80,000,000 pennies = $80,000)

Watch the interview. It prompted the ire of the Obama campaign enough to cancel a scheduled interview with Mrs. Biden. Interviews from Barack Obama's past where he states very Marxist ideals are bubbling up to the surface too. As for Biden being proud of his own get out the vote operation, there is a new development there too.  Stay tuned.

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna

 

Joe the plumber sure put a face on the problem with taxing small businessmen and giving it to workers paying little or no Federal income tax at all.

Now we learn that Joe isn't Joe, he isn't a licensed plumber*, and in actuality, is not in such a high tax bracket**.

This Joe's real name is Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher. But whether he goes by Sam or Joe, there are plenty of small businessmen in the same very real tax situation that Joe asked Obama about.

Joe may not exactly be the "Joe the Plumber" we thought he was, but Barack Obama's tax give away answer is very real and sincerely believes in the ideology of spreading the wealth around.

If it were not for "Joe" would Americans have heard from Obama's own lips that, (My emphasis)

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success, too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

There isn't anything really new about Obama's "spread the wealth around" message. It just never got much national coverage. Real Clear Markets spelled it out well back in February:

The Obama spend-o-meter is now up around $800 billion. And tax hikes on the rich won't pay for it. It's the middle class that will ultimately shoulder this fiscal burden in terms of higher taxes and lower growth....

Obama would like voters to believe that he's the second coming of JFK. But with his unbelievable spending and new-government-agency proposals, he's looking more like Jimmy Carter. His is a "Grow the Government Bureaucracy Plan," and it's totally at odds with investment and business.

Obama says he wants U.S. corporations to stop "shipping jobs overseas" and bring their cash back home. But if he really wanted U.S. companies to keep more of their profits in the states, he'd be calling for a reduction in the corporate tax rate. Why isn't he demanding an end to the double-taxation of corporate earnings? It's simple: He wants higher taxes, too.

The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore has done the math on Obama's tax plan. He says it will add up to a 39.6% personal income tax, a 52.2% combined income and payroll tax, a 28% capital-gains tax, a 39.6% dividends tax and a 55% estate tax.

Not only is Obama the big-spending candidate, he's also the very-high-tax candidate. And what he wants to tax is capital.

...

Obama believes he can use government, and not free markets, to drive the economy. But on taxes, trade and regulation, Obama's program is anti-growth. A President Obama would steer us in the social-market direction of Western Europe, which has produced only stagnant economies down through the years.

Joe certainly got his minutes of fame. He was on the Mike Huckabee show and greeted like a hero.  It took Joe the Plumber to put a face on the problem and bring it to the forefront. Why haven't we been talking more about this before?

Thank you, Joe. Sorry your life has become an open book.

 

*Many people in the trades do not have an actual license themselves but work under the license of an owner or boss.

** " Wurzelbacher never claimed to be making $250,000 a year. He told Obama that he might be 'getting ready to buy a company that makes about $250,000, $270,000' a year. His simple point was that Obama's punitive tax proposals would make it more difficult to realize his dream."

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna

 

 

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has used his skin color to his advantage in this election.  Anytime anyone brings up his past associations with Rev. Wright, terrorist William Ayers, Father Flager,  or FannieMae's Franklin Raines, etc., Obama's campaign squawks, that's racist. (Go figure, 2 of those men are white.) Referencing Obama as a community activist/organizer was deemed a code word for black too.

But in just the past few weeks, more disturbing relationships have come to light: Obama's ties and associations with The New Party socialists and Marxists.

From Gateway Pundit, Photo Discovered Of Obama With Fellow Chicago Socialist Party Members:

Bloggers New Zeal and The Big Feed discovered this photo of Barack Obama and other New Party socialists including Danny K Davis (center), from the front page of New Party News, Spring 1996:

Click to Enlarge
Winners! NP-endorsed candidates Patricia Martin (far left), Danny Davis (center), and Barack Obama (far right), celebrate with Chicago New Party members Ted Thomas and Ruth Schools after their victories in the Democratic Primary last month.

From POWERLINE: "We wrote here about Barack Obama's ties to the New Party during the 1990s. The New Party was a far-left organization founded by members of the Democratic Socialists of America and other extremists. It not only endorsed Obama in his 1996 state Senate race, but, when Obama won, wrote that he was an 'NP member.' "

And don't forget Obama's high school mentor, Communist Frank Marshall Davis.

How about the fact that the US Communist Party Endorsed Obama and Fidel Castro Endorses Obama--Again.  Need I say more?

But associations aside, all you have to do is look at Obama's platform to see where his ideology lies. The Obama tax plan is nothing but a redistribution of income, giving checks to workers who don't pay any Federal income taxes! If that doesn't scream socialism, I don't know what does.

If Obama is elected president, it would be a historical first. Not just because he would be the first Black* president in American history, but more significantly, the first Pink one. It is the Pink color that breaks my heart.

 

*Yes, I know the current PC term is African American, but that does not fit into the theme of color. 

Don't miss Another Communist in Obama's Orb, Meet Michel Klonsky, Obama's "social -justice" education expert.  

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna

 

On Tuesday, I listened to Mark Levin. (WISN radio, 9pm) I like Mark Levin, but what he said sickened me.

I challenge you to listen to the podcast from 10/14 The Mark Levin Show. The first half of the broadcast is primarily about how Obama's campaign is straight out of Alinsky's book.

Mark's synopsis of his broadcast, (My emphasis)

On Tuesday’s Mark Levin Show: Mark goes through Saul Alinsky’s book, “Rules for Radicals,” and it is stunning how similar Obama’s beliefs are to what is written in the book. When it comes to Obama, we are supposed to pretend that his relationships with so many un-American and socialist people don’t exist. And if one brings up his relationships, then they are dubbed a racist. But the fact is that the rhetoric that the far left is using in this campaign is frightening. Saul Alinsky is openly telling people how to start a quiet revolution, and it is eerily similar to the semantics and wording that the Democratic party is currently using. In the 2nd hour, author Mark Steyn calls into the show and discusses with Mark why Obama’s relationships with people like William Ayres should be talked about, and also the smear tactics from the Obama campaign. You can pick up his book, “America Alone” now in stores.

Levin goes through the Alinsky strategy for revolution. Create despair so that you can offer hope. The terms HOPE and CHANGE are used endlessly in Rules for Radicals. Destroy the middle class by appealing to it.

Sound familiar?

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna

 

 

Remember the song, Raindrops keep falling on my head? I'm thinking we need a new version: ACORNs keep falling on my head! (Sing along to the original song's last refrain.)

ACORNs keep falling on my head,

And just like the guy who keeps reg-i-st'ring the dead,

No one seems to care,

'Cause, we're never gonna stop the fraud by complainin'

Because they're free-e-e,

No one's checkin' their ID 

I'm sure we could come up with alternative lyrics to the whole song with a different theme for each stanza: multiple registration, fictitious name, underage, felon, non-citizen registrations--you name it, but you get the idea. 

Here are just a few newsworthy rotten ACORNs. 

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.

1 VOTER, 72 REGISTRATIONS: 'ACORN PAID ME IN CASH & CIGS': 

CLEVELAND - A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

Local 2 Investigates Dead Voters: (And Texas has a voter ID law!)

Texas Watchdog compared Harris County's voter registration roll with the Social Security death index and found more than 4,000 matches -- registered voters that, it appears, are already dead.

...Auditors identified 49,049 registered voters state-wide who may have been ineligible to vote. Approximately 23,576 may have been deceased and another 23,114 were possible felons. And they found more than 2,359 duplicate records.

Many convicted felons remain on voter rolls, according to Sun Sentinel investigation. The video clip interviewed one convicted felon who was registered by the Democratic party. (ACORN was not mentioned in this case.)

Since January 2006, more than 1.6 million new voters have registered in Florida. FDLE [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] identified more than 124,000 possible felons.

...Elections workers are now reviewing more than 3,800 possible felon voters but have more than 108,000 others still to be checked. "We've not touched those records yet," Browning said.

Yesterday, the 3rd person [was] charged with election fraud in Wisc.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A third person in Milwaukee faces charges of election fraud after prosecutors say he turned in 54 fake registrations, including one for a man who died 16 years ago.

Frank Walton, 29, submitted the inaccurate voter forms to the city Election Commission, according to a criminal complaint, with errors that also included fake driver's license numbers and Social Security numbers.

Walton faces one count of falsely procuring voter registration and faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison and $10,000 in fines if he's convicted.

And, let's not forget that even Mickey Mouse Tries to Register to Vote, The cartoon character's application, which included a stamped logo of ACORN, was rejected by Florida elections officials over summer. 

Florida elections officials rejected Mickey's application this summer. It is unclear whether Mickey tried to register as a Democrat or a Republican. But the application included a stamped logo of ACORN, the community organizing group that is facing accusations of voter registration fraud.

At least Mickey is a Florida resident! 

There are so many incidents of ACORN and other fraudulent voter registration stories, that it is difficult to keep up with them. There is little that can be done at this point because we have not accurately maintained our voter registration rolls and Democrats are unwilling to help remedy the situation. (Remember how the Wisconsin Democrat Senators wouldn't bring Voter ID to a vote last spring? My Senator, Jim Sullivan*, cast a key vote in keeping that measure from the floor.)

Sickening.

 

*I will help the next conservative Republican State Senate candidate's campaign. How about you? 

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna 

We value education in the United States. Parents often make sacrifices to send their children to good colleges. But do you know who is teaching your child? Do do you know what your young adult is learning at their school?

More and more information is coming out about William Ayers, the self proclaimed terrorist, member of the Weather Underground that bombed the Capitol, Pentagon, and police headquarters, and professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. A terrorist, whose only regret about the bombings was "we didn't do enough," a college professor?

William Ayers has been in the news because of his connection to Barack Obama. I recently learned that Ayers hired Barack Obama to help distribute $50 million to Chicago schools, not to promote test scores or math, but to promote radicalism. 

In Ayers own words, he glorifies rebellion, "What is that spirit that we want to connect to? That spirit of rebellion, that spark of resistance, that spirit of insurgency." (Thanks Fairly Conservative) Don't you wonder what Ayers teaches in his classes?

Depending on the school, major, and class, some students are subjected to non-stop radical ideas and a strong liberal bias. UW-Madison is often referenced as the Communist Mecca of the Midwest or some variation on that theme. (Teachers stuck in the rebelious 70s was even spoofed in An American Carol.)

Often the bias isn't just in the classroom. Republicans at UWM found school policies to be different for them than for the Democrats when it came to voter recruitment. The Union told Republicans they couldn't even hang a poster! (I believe that has been remedied.) Last fall UWM tried to keep the Conservative Union group from bringing in former PLO member from speaking on "Why I Left Jihad."

I have heard students call up conservative talk radio programs such as Sean Hannity asking, what can they do about radical leftist teachers. If the student expresses his true conservative beliefs in an essay or on a test, they are penalized in their grades. Usually Hannity advises them to play along. It is still frustrating for the student.

But what about the student who doesn't even realize he is being proselytized?  

Talk to your college students about their classes--especially if they are taking classes such as sociology, philosophy, or history. You might be shocked at what their teachers are telling them. 

 

P.S. Radical agendas go on in elementary and secondary schools too. A Milwaukee school was reported to have Obama and donkey kicking McCain in the head posters in the halls. A Racine school is using Barack Obama's book in a class. Just this week School Field Trip to Teacher's Lesbian Wedding Sparks Controversy, but I'll save these for another day.  

Please, comment content should relate to the subject of the post. Although I try to respond to many, do not interpret my lack of a response as agreement.

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Brookfield7, Fairly Conservative, Betterbrookfield, Jay Weber, Mark Levin,  Vicki Mckenna

What if I had a cure for Parkinson's, leukemia, diabetes, or paralysis caused by spinal cord injury? All you would have to do is take an infant, remove all of its stem cells (sorry, the infant dies), tweak the cells, and transfer them to the ill patient.

Would you do it?

Most people wouldn't and would consider that murderous act barbaric. Yet those who favor embryonic stem cell research are in effect doing just that in the eyes of those who are pro-life.

If you believe that life begins at conception, then even using an embryo for research purposes is an act of murder.

President Bush has been adamantly opposed to federal funding for embryonic stem cell research for that very reason. (The Bush stance only opposes federal funding--not outlawing private research.)

McCain has voted for existing embryonic stem cell research in the past, but those measures failed. John McCain is opposed to embryonic stem cell research that would encourage growing embryos for the purpose. The Republican platform is against any federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, but THEY ALL, BUSH, McCAIN, and PALIN FAVOR FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ADULT STEM CELL RESEARCH! 

The outrageous Obama radio ad that distorts McCain's position includes a woman talking about her diabetic daughter. She says that John McCain is opposed to stem cell research. It goes on to say that medical research, benefiting millions, shouldn't be held hostage by a few.

So why do the Democrats constantly tell people that McCain and Bush are against stem cell research?

Two reasons: One, they want to portray the Republicans as heartless cretins, too stuck on religious principal to care about the ill. Two, if the Democrats can get people to buy into the necessity for embryonic stem cell research, it will dilute the anti-abortion/sanctity of life position of conservatives.

The issue should become moot in time, according to CNS, which is consistent with