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June 19, 2008

Exclusive: Thursday, June 19

Presidential Watch

View a profile of Barack Obama's teachers & mentors CLICK RIGHT HERE.

Compare where McCain & Obama stand on the issues - HERE.

Obama should understand Appalachia

Frank Kilgore, Roanoke.com

Kilgore, is a lifelong advocate for better health care, natural resource conservation and improved educational opportunities in Central Appalachia. He practices law in St. Paul and is the founding chair of the University of Appalachia. His views do not reflect those of the university.

The snobbish national media have made a great deal out of the fabled oddities and presumed racism of the Appalachian people during the recent Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses.

First of all, exit polling showed that race was a significant factor in how votes were cast in several non-Appalachian states, regions and cities. More importantly, who can deny that race was an issue when Obama pulled 90 percent of the black vote as his nomination gained steam? And this overwhelming one-sided support came at the expense of Hillary Clinton, whose husband has been touted as America's "first" black president. He was also, in many ways, seen as the Appalachian president, just as Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy struck a chord here in much tougher times.

The recent lop-sided primary votes tallied in the deeper portions of Appalachia were not particularly anti-Obama; they were loyalty votes to the Clintons and a protest of what many rural Americans see as an ultra-liberal and anti-gun political record on the part of Obama. That is not to say that the hills are devoid of racism -- it is everywhere in the world and flourishes among all races -- but we have made many great strides to overcome it in America and the mountains.

Just as Appalachians mostly favored anti-slavery and pro-Union policies leading up to and during the Civil War, loyalty and the independence to exercise it is intense. Doug Wilder, the nation's first black governor, did very well in the Appalachian portion of Virginia two decades ago, but his policies and positions were moderate for the times and would be conservative by Barack Obama standards; therein is the rub. Read article.

Paying Fathers to be Fathers?

Bobby Eberle, GOP USA.com

I realize that Democrats want government to rule our lives -- to be in every aspect of our daily routine -- at the expense of our hard-earned tax dollars. They believe that "government" is some sort of separate being that should "care" for us, but they forget that government has no money of its own. Nothing is free, and when the government does something to "help," that money is coming from our pockets.

Now, ultra liberal Barack Obama wants the government to pay fathers for being fathers. That's right, instead of expecting fathers to have common sense to do the right thing in raising families, Obama wants the government to give the father a payment. As the father of two, and the son of a single parent, I find this proposal to be outrageous. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. I have no desire whatsoever to pay even more taxes just to get some 18-year-old punk to act like a father.

In a Father's Day speech, Obama said the following:

We should reward fathers who pay that child support with job training and job opportunities and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit that can help them pay the bills. Read article.

Barack Obama: The Most Radical, Unqualified Presidential Candidate Ever

David Karki, Northstar Writers.com

It appears that Sen. Hillary Clinton has finally been driven from the Democratic scene, for this election cycle at least. I say appears, because these are the Clintons we're talking about. To paraphrase Richard Dreyfuss in the movie What About Bob?, "They're not gone! They're never gone!"

It's virtually impossible for me to think that we've actually seen the last of those whose lust for and sense of entitlement to power has no limit. To use another movie reference, I have to believe Hillary will at some point rise out of the bottom of the bathtub like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, no matter how sure we are she's drowned and dead. It may well prove as fruitless - Close's character went from being drowned to shot - but it'll happen. She didn't put up with all those bimbo eruptions to get only a lousy eight years as co-president.

That said, the Democrats accomplished something I thought even less possible than Hillary's complete and final dismissal from the political scene: Finding someone even worse than her as their candidate, and by no small margin.

Sen. Barack Obama is simply the most extreme left candidate in presidential history. He is also one of the least experienced and least qualified candidates in history. Read article.

The Lobbyist Wars

Kimberley A. Strassel, Online WSJ.com

Enough with the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama. Let's talk about what they have in common. And let's start with their unique ability to create problems where none ought to exist. In this case, the Lobbyist Wars.

Foreign policy, health care, taxes, who cares? What's any of that compared with the riveting question of who employs what lobbyist, in what capacity, and just how heinous was that lobbyist's crime? The nominees devoted their first full general-election week to trading accusations over who retained a worse breed of humanity. Mr. McCain's vice-presidential vetter is a former lobbyist! The co-chairman for the Democrats' presidential convention is a current lobbyist! The Arizonan senator's campaign manager is a lobbyist on leave! The Illinois senator's chief strategist is as good as a lobbyist!

This gotcha game will have no winners, and the candidates can blame themselves. Mr. Goody and Mr. Two Shoes both set the bar early by railing indiscriminately against "special interests" and Washington "insiders," which led naturally to the question of why they'd employ such people. The honest answer is that those who know the most about running and funding campaigns have been around and inside Washington a bit. Some even happen to be decent individuals. But don't expect the candidates to defend them.

What's remarkable is that we've been here before. Think of today's lobbyist wars as the latest incarnation of the campaign-finance fights. Read article.

The Devil Doesn't Necessarily Live on K Street: In defense of lobbyists.

Michael Barone, NRO.com

Barack Obama has long said that his campaign will not accept contributions from lobbyists, and now that he is the presumptive nominee, the Democratic National Committee won't accept them, either.

John McCain says that his campaign won't employ lobbyists, and volunteers are now queried about possible lobbying activity in the past. It's only a matter of time until someone calls for a law requiring every lobbyist to paint a big, red "L" on his forehead.

Behind this stigmatization of lobbyists is the notion that the failure to produce legislation in the public interest stems from the existence of lobbyists. Which is obviously nonsense. We couldn't abolish lobbying without repealing the First Amendment, which gives all of us, even those who are paid to do it, the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." And the government could not sensibly do business without lobbyists - as Hillary Clinton recognized at the YearlyKos convention last August.

While Obama and John Edwards were lambasting lobbyists, Clinton said: "You know, a lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do. They represent nurses. They represent, you know, social workers. They represent ... yes, they represent corporations. They employ a lot of people."

Lobbying is as American as apple pie, going back to colonial times. Read article.

Friends of Barack

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

Barack Obama may have come up with a creative way to solve the housing recession: Let everyone buy property at a discount the way he did from Tony Rezko, and give everyone in America a discount mortgage the way Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide did for Fannie Mae's Jim Johnson. Team Obama's real estate and mortgage transactions are certainly a change from business as usual. They suggest old-fashioned back-scratching below even current Beltway standards.

A former CEO of mortgage financing giant Fannie Mae, Mr. Johnson is now vetting Vice Presidential candidates for Mr. Obama. But he is also a textbook case for poor disclosure as regulators sifted through the wreckage of Fannie's $10 billion accounting scandal. Despite an exhaustive federal inquiry, Mr. Johnson managed to avoid disclosing one very special perk: below-market interest-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial, arranged by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Journal reporters Glenn Simpson and James Hagerty broke the story this weekend.

Fannie Mae tells us that Mr. Johnson did not inform the company's board of these sweetheart mortgage deals, nor did his CEO successor Franklin Raines, who also received such loans. Read article.

From Hope and Change to Doubts and Fears

Peter Wehner, NRO.com

It can't be said often enough: the conceit of the Obama campaign is that its candidate is the antithesis of politics as it has been practiced for decades, if not for centuries. He is, we are told, the agent of change, the great turner of the page, a man unstained by politics and who will alter the way it has been practiced. He is bi-partisan and post-partisan and beyond political labeling. He will not unfairly portray the views of his opponent or engage in petty distractions. According to his wife Michelle, he will heal the broken souls of America. And according to Obama himself, he will begin to heal the planet.

The bar has been set enormously high - and it has been set there by Obama, his wife, and his campaign.

If voters begin to believe that the Obama Phenomenon is really an Obama Myth - that he is just another conventional politician, but in this instance one who emerged out of the largely polluted waters of Chicago politics - then Obama is reduced to being a one-term senator with very few achievements in his life that commend him to be president. He also happens to be the most liberal candidate for president since George McGovern. We are now in the early phase of that transformation; it remains to be seen if it continues or if Obama can find a way to arrest or even reverse it. Read article.

Obama won't agree to 10 town halls with McCain. Why?

Mort Kondracke, JWR.com

Sen. John McCain recently received an answer from Sen. Barack Obama on his proposal for 10 town hall-style debates: not going to happen. That's too bad - and, the fewer there are, the more Obama should suffer for it politically.

McCain has challenged Obama to 10 joint appearances to take place before the national conventions. Obviously, McCain thinks they're to his advantage because Obama is such a better orator and McCain performs well in informal settings.

Moreover, McCain - with less money to spend than Obama - wants the free national exposure that the town halls would provide. Obama is ahead in the polls and probably doesn't want to risk his advantage on possibly risky joint appearances.

There ought to be two or more debates on foreign policy - one on Iraq, one or more on the rest of the world. Question for Obama: Suppose the United States had followed your policy and hadn't done the surge in Iraq - wouldn't Al Qaeda now be in charge of Sunni areas, radical militias of Shiite areas, and wouldn't the United States have suffered a strategic defeat it might now avoid? That is, wasn't Sen. McCain right?

To both candidates: If diplomacy can't stop Iran's nuclear program, are you going to bomb? Read article.

Obama Not Taking the Bait

John M. Curtis, Online Columnist.com

Newly minted Democratic Party nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.) rejected the clever offer of GOP presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to hold 10 town-hall-style meetings, a comfortable format for the 72-year, four-term Arizona lawmaker.

McCain's campaign hopes to call the shots, putting pressure on the 46-year-old junior senator from Illinois. Barack just finished a series of 22 grueling debates with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

McCain has a biting wit and sardonic sense of humor, sometimes throwing opponents for a loop. Barack, on the other hand, is far more the straight arrow, more comfortable in a formalized debate scenario. Calling Obama's reaction "a very disappointing response," McCain's campaign was put off by Barack's cool reception to letting McCain determine the format. With McCain's fund raising lagging, his campaign saw multiple town hall meetings as good exposure for the occasionally awkward lawmaker. Read article.

John McCain's Hot Flash

Tammy Bruce, Fox Forum Blogs.com

Why are Independent Conservatives still extremely wary of John McCain? Every day he has a chance to retreat from proving to Democrats he's worthy of their vote and instead remember what gave Ronald Reagan the biggest electoral victory in the history of the United States-Authentic Conservatism.

Instead, McCain's current pandering to liberals (for example, the importance of giving the climate a hug) gives us something that would make the "Teds" (Senators Stevens and Kennedy) beam with pride-an International Bridge to Nowhere, replete with a fully taxed carbon footprint. But you know what the really pathetic thing is? Barack Obama is even worse.

With the economy understandably topping the list of issues of concern to the American people, we Independent Conservatives don't trust McCain because, at his core, he's a liberal.

McCain's desire to prove his Democrat bona fides trumps not only his oft-stated commitment to smaller government, but exposes his lack of a basic understanding of Mother Nature herself. Not knowing how to say Ahmadinejad's name is one thing; believing nature is subservient to mankind is silly and more importantly, debunked.

His most blatant liberal pirouette on the issue was tucked into his speech two weeks go about nuclear security. Read article.

Obama's Thinly Veiled Truculence

David Limbaugh, Townhall.com

I was watching television the other night, and someone was interviewing people on the street about the presidential election. More than one respondent stated that they would be supporting Obama because "he can bring us together." You have to hand it to Obama for being a grand master at pulling off this unity sophistry.

Indeed, Obama is so good at this scam that he has John McCain believing it -- or afraid to state otherwise for fear he'll alienate this presumed longing of the people for unity, harmony, bipartisanship, civility, hope and utopia itself.

So as a small public service, I figure I ought to do my part to debunk this myth, mostly pointing to Obama's own words and actions. Does he really pass his own test for ushering in an era of harmonious ecstasy?

While McCain is busy excoriating North Carolina Republicans for pointing to Obama's dubious relationships, Obama is wasting no time proving that he will reciprocate with no such courtesies.

Anytime someone criticizes Obama, he responds with outrage at the mere suggestion that he is subject to criticism. He has intimidated John McCain into bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight, while he's arming himself with rhetorical grenades and rocket launchers. Read article.

A familiar scold wants to chart a path out of ruinous debt

David S. Broder, Seattle Times.com

Sixteen years after he shook up American politics by launching an impromptu campaign for president, Ross Perot is about to dip a toe back into the public debates. And, yes, he's bringing his charts with him to make his point.

Beginning Sunday, people who go to www.perotcharts.com will find the Dallas billionaire waiting to challenge them on one of his favorite subjects - the "ruin" he says America is courting with its spendthrift ways.

"We are right at the edge of the cliff," the voice with the unmistakable Texas twang informed me, when I called him the other day to find out about this latest venture. "We can't go on spending money we don't have."

That is not a new theme for Perot. It was his core message when he did his on-again, off-again, then back-on-again race against George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992. He led the field in the early months and, even after the confusing signals sent by his dropping out and coming back, won more than 19.7 million votes - almost 20 percent of the total. Read article.

Global Warming Legislative Possibilities

Paul Weyrich, Townhall.com

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) pulled down the Warner-Lieberman Global Warming Bill as Republicans filibustered and there were too few Democrats voting for cloture to require an up-or-down vote. Immediately after the bill went off the Senate Calendar, Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) told the Washington press corps that this defeat didn't mean anything because the bill will pass by a substantial margin in the next Congress. Democrats believe they will win a minimum of eight Senate seats, perhaps as many as eleven seats.

Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Solutions reports that the Warner Lieberman legislation if enacted would increase petroleum prices by 5.9% by 2015. There are other studies, which suggest that prices would be raised even higher.

The survey indicates that 71% of the American people reject higher spending for electricity while an additional 16% object to paying more than 12% for electricity. The American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers have a study which contends that Warner-Lieberman would raise electricity costs between 13% and 14%. When taken together 90% of Americans oppose Warner-Lieberman's costs for both gasoline and electricity.

David A. Ridenour, Vice President of the Center, says that while 90% opposition is unbelievably high, that number may be higher because the bill would considerably increase the price of food and consumer goods. That, in turn, would cause a loss of domestic jobs. Warner-Lieberman includes what is called a cap-and-trade provision. The bill would impose strict caps upon emissions from power plants, manufacturing plants, fuel refiners and producers and chemical manufacturers.

If Senator Kerry accurately predicts swift passage of the bill in the next Congress we could be facing $5 a gallon for gasoline and $7 for diesel fuel. Read article.

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