Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Down Memory Lane... Tonettes


Does anyone else remember these from grade school...?


Tonette
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tonette is a small, end-blown flute made of plastic, which was once popular in American elementary music education. It has largely been superseded by the recorder. The range of the instrument is from C4 (middle C) to D5. It is also known as a song flute.

The Tonette was introduced in 1938. Designed as a pre-band instrument, the tonette was nearly unbreakable, chromatic, and tunable. It was easy to blow and the fingering was simple. By 1941 over half of the grammar schools in the United States had adopted the Tonette as standard pre-band equipment. The Tonette's pleasant flute-like sound was also used for special novelty effects in radio, television and film.

In World War II the armed services found the Tonette to be an inexpensive and entertaining way for idle troops to pass the time.

Peter Schickele has described the tonette as "a cheap, synthetic recorder with amusing pretensions"; it is one of the instruments featured in the Gross Concerto by P. D. Q. Bach.








Monday, October 27, 2008

One More Thing To Be Concerned About...

Watchdog Group Presses for Obama Donor List

Monday, October 27, 2008 10:59 AM
By: Dave Eberhart

Judicial Watch contends that the Obama campaign continues to stonewall on listing its many donors, a step that would go a long way toward clearing up whether the Democratic presidential candidate is accepting unlawful contributions from overseas.

Sen. Barack Obama has raised about $3.3 million from contributors who did not list a home state or who designated their state with an abbreviation that did not match one of the 50 states or U.S. territories, The Associated Press reported, citing records from the Federal Election Commission.

The $3.3 million total does not include donors who have given less than $200 and whose contributions do not have to be itemized. Some of that money also could have come from overseas. About half of Obama's $455 million in contributions so far are un-itemized.

The campaign does not identify those donors, the AP report said.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, “While the evidence suggests illegal foreign contributions are flooding into Obama's campaign coffers, we have no idea as to the extent of the problem because Senator Obama refuses to divulge the names of all of his donors.”

Fitton said that, when Obama campaign spokesman David Axelrod was asked about the decision to keep these donor names secret, he replied, “We’re probably more forthcoming about disclosure than anyone.”

But the president of the watchdog group countered: “Not true. While John McCain has had problems of his own for allegedly accepting foreign donations, to his credit, Senator McCain does publish the names of all donors to his presidential campaign on his Internet site, regardless of the size of the contribution.”

Fitton said he believes that the Obama campaign appears to be playing fast and loose with campaign finance laws, and he said it has to stop.

The FEC should investigate these allegations immediately, and the Obama campaign should publicly list the source of every single campaign contribution, Fitton said.

“Frankly, it is suspicious that these names have not already been made public,” he said. “There is something deeply unsettling about the fact that foreign nationals can so easily corrupt our presidential election through illegal contributions, while American service men and women stationed overseas may be deprived of the opportunity to even vote.”


VOTERS BEWARE!

Concern Over Voter Fraud

I have been concerned about voter fraud, especially with all that has been uncovered... particularly what has been proven in Ohio. Individuals have registered AND VOTED illegally. Those so-called measures to screen and stop events like this from happening have proven to be ineffective. This article below only deepens the fear of what many of us believe to be happening.


Hillary Backers Decry Massive Obama Vote Fraud

Monday, October 27, 2008 10:45 AM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman


With accusations of voter registration fraud swirling as early voting begins in many states, some Hillary Clinton supporters are saying: “I told you so.”

Already in Iowa, the Obama campaign was breaking the rules, busing in supporters from neighboring states to vote illegally in the first contest in the primaries and physically intimidating Hillary supporters, they say.

Obama’s surprisingly strong win in Iowa, which defied all the polls, propelled his upstart candidacy to front-runner status. But Lynette Long, a Hillary supporter from Bethesda, Md., who has a long and respected academic career, believes Obama’s victory in Iowa and in 12 other caucus states was no miracle. “It was fraud,” she told Newsmax.

Long has spent several months studying the caucus and primary results.

“After studying the procedures and results from all 14 caucus states, interviewing dozens of witnesses, and reviewing hundreds of personal stories, my conclusion is that the Obama campaign willfully and intentionally defrauded the American public by systematically undermining the caucus process,” she said.

In Hawaii, for example, the caucus organizers ran out of ballots, so Obama operatives created more from Post-its and scraps of paper and dumped them into ice cream buckets. “The caucuses ended up with more ballots than participants, a sure sign of voter fraud,” Long said.

In Nevada, Obama supporters upturned a wheelchair-bound woman who wanted to caucus for Hillary, flushed Clinton ballots down the toilets, and told union members they could vote only if their names were on the list of Obama supporters.

In Texas, more than 2,000 Clinton and Edwards supporters filed complaints with the state Democratic Party because of the massive fraud. The party acknowledged that the Obama campaign’s actions “amount to criminal violations” and ordered them to be reported to state and federal law enforcement, but nothing happened.

In caucus after caucus, Obama bused in supporters from out of state, intimidated elderly voters and women, and stole election packets so Hillary supporters couldn’t vote. Thanks to these and other strong-arm tactics, Obama won victories in all but one of the caucuses, even in states such as Maine where Hillary had been leading by double digits in the polls.

Obama’s win in the caucuses, which were smaller events than the primaries and were run by the party, not the states, gave him the margin of victory he needed to win a razor-thin majority in the delegate count going into the Democratic National Convention.

Without these caucus wins, which Long and others claim were based on fraud, Clinton would be the Democrats’ nominee running against John McCain.

Citing a detailed report on the voting results and delegate accounts by accountant Piniel Cronin, “there were only four pledged delegates between Hillary and Obama once you discount caucus fraud,” Long said.

Long has compiled many of these eyewitness reports from the 14 caucus states in a 98-page, single-spaced report and in an interactive Web site: www.caucusanalysis.org.

ACORN involvement

The Obama campaign recently admitted that it paid an affiliate of ACORN, the controversial community organizer that Obama represented in Chicago, more than $832,000 for “voter turnout” work during the primaries. The campaign initially claimed the money had been spent on “staging, sound and light” and “advance work.”

State and federal law enforcement in 11 states are investigating allegations of voter registration fraud against the Obama campaign. ACORN workers repeatedly registered voters in the name of “Mickey Mouse,” and registered the entire starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys twice: once in Nevada, and again in Minnesota.

A group that has worked with ACORN in the past registered a dead goldfish under the name “Princess Nudelman” in Illinois. When reporters informed Beth Nudelman, a Democrat, that her former pet was a registered voter, she said, “This person is a dead fish."

ACORN was known for its “intimidation tactics,” said independent scholar Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., who has researched Obama’s long-standing ties to the group.

Fully 30 percent of 1.3 million new voters ACORN claims to have registered this year are believed to be illegitimate.

Long shared with Newsmax some of the emails and sworn affidavits she received from Hillary supporters who witnessed first-hand the thuggish tactics employed by Obama campaign operatives in Iowa and elsewhere.

Jeff, a precinct captain for Clinton from Davenport, Iowa, thought his caucus was in the bag for his candidate, until just minutes before the voting actually began.

“From 6-6:30 p.m., it appeared as I had expected. Young, old males, females, Hispanics, whites, gay and lesbian friends arriving. Very heavily for Ms. Clinton, a fair amount for Edwards and some stragglers for Obama,” he said.

That makeup corresponded to what he had witnessed from many precinct walks he had made through local neighborhoods.

“My mind began to feel victory for my lady,’ he said. “THEN: at 6:50 p.m., over 75 people of African-American descent came walking in, passed the tables and sat in the Obama section. I knew one of them from my canvassing. I knew another one who did not live in this precinct. And aside from four or five families that live on Hillandale Road, there are no other black people in this unusually white precinct. And one of those black couples were in my Hillary section,” he said.

Thanks to the last-minute influx of unknown Obama supporters, Obama won twice the number of delegates from the precinct as Hillary Clinton.

After it was over, “a very large bus was seen in the parking lot afterwards carrying these folks back” to Illinois, Jeff said.

Obama’s flagrant busing of out-of-state caucus participants from Illinois was so obvious that even Joe Biden — today his running mate, then his rival — pointed it out at the time.

At a campaign stop before the Jan. 3 caucus at the JJ Diner in Des Moines, Biden “said what we were all thinking when he got on stage and said, ‘Hello Iowa!’ and then turned to Barack’s crowd and shouted, ‘and Hello Chicago!’” another precinct captain for Hillary told Long.

Thanks to Illinois campaign workers bused across the border into Iowa, all the precincts in eastern Iowa went for Obama, guaranteeing his win in the caucuses, Long said.

Obama supporters were also bused into northeast Iowa from Omaha, Nebraska, where Obama campaign workers were seen handing out “i-pods and free stuff: T-shirts, clothes, shoes, and free meals” to students and people in homeless shelters,” according to eyewitness reports Long collected.

In Iowa City, red and white chartered buses with Illinois license plates arrived from Illinois packed with boisterous African-American high school students, who came to caucus for Obama in Iowa after being recruited by Obama campaign workers.

2,000 complaints in Texas

In a change in the Democratic National Committee rules for this year’s election season, four states had caucuses and primaries: Washington, Nebraska, Idaho, and Texas. “But Texas is the only one that counted both the caucus result and the primary result,” Long told Newsmax. “The others didn’t count the primary at all, calling it a ‘beauty contest.’”

Because caucuses are more informal, and can last hours, they tend to favor candidates with a strong ground operation or whose supporters use strong-arm tactics to intimidate their rivals.

“There is inherent voter disenfranchisement in the caucuses,” Long said. “Women are less likely to go to caucuses than men, because they don’t like the public nature of the caucus. The elderly are less likely to go to a caucus. People who work shifts can’t go if they work the night shift. And parents with young children can’t go out for four hours on a week night. All these people are traditionally Clinton supporters,” she said.

But Obama’s victories in the caucuses weren’t the result of better organization, Long insists. “It was fraud.”

In state after state, Hillary was leading Obama in the polls right up until the last minute, when Obama won a landslide victory in the caucuses.

The discrepancies between the polls and the caucus results were stunning, Long told Newsmax. The most flagrant example was Minnesota. A Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute poll just one week before the Feb. 5 caucus gave Hillary a 7-point lead over Obama, 40-33.

But when the Minnesota caucus results were counted, Obama won by a landslide, with 66.39 percent to just 32.23 percent for Hillary, giving him 48 delegates, compared with 24 for Clinton.

“No poll is that far off,” Long told Newsmax.

Similar disparities occurred in 13 of 14 caucus states.

In Colorado and Idaho, Obama had a 2-point edge over Hillary Clinton in the polls, but won by more than 2-1 in the caucuses, sweeping most delegates.

In Kansas, Hillary had a slight edge over Obama in the polls, but Obama won 74 percent of the votes in the caucus and most of the delegates. In nearly every state, he bested the pre-caucus polls by anywhere from 12 percent to more than 30 percent.

This year’s primary rules for the Democrats favored the caucus states over the primary states.

“Caucus states made up only 1.1 million (3 percent) of all Democratic votes, but selected 626 (15 percent) of the delegates,” says Gigi Gaston, a filmmaker who has made a documentary on the caucus fraud.

In Texas alone, she says, there were more than 2,000 complaints from Hillary Clinton and John Edwards supporters of Obama’s strong-arm tactics.

One Hillary supporter, who appears in Gaston’s new film, “We Will Not Be Silenced,” says she received death threats from Obama supporters after they saw her address in an online video she made to document fraud during the Texas caucus. “People called me a whore and a skank,” she said.

John Siegel, El Paso Area Captain for Hillary, said, “Some people saw outright cheating. Other people just saw strong-arm tactics. I saw fraud.”

Another woman, who was not identified in the film, described the sign-in process. “You’re supposed to sign your names on these sheets. The sheets are supposed to be controlled, and passed out — this is kind of how you maintain order. None of that was done. The sheets were just flying all over the place. You could put in your own names. You could add your own sheets or anything. It was just filled with fraud.”

Other witnesses described how Obama supporters went through the crowds at the caucus telling Hillary supporters they could go home because their votes had been counted, when in fact no vote count had yet taken place.

“I couldn’t believe this was happening,” one woman said in the film. “I thought this only happened in Third World countries.”

On election day in Texas, Clinton campaign lawyer Lyn Utrecht issued a news release that the national media widely ignored.

“The campaign legal hot line has been flooded with calls containing specific accusations of irregularities and voter intimidation against the Obama campaign,” she wrote. “This activity is undemocratic, probably illegal, and reflects a wanton disregard for the caucus process.”

She identified 18 separate precincts where Obama operatives had removed voting packets before the Clinton voters could arrive, despite a written warning from the state party not to remove them.

The hot line also received numerous calls during the day that “the Obama campaign has taken over caucus sites and locked the doors, excluding Clinton campaign supporters from participating in the caucus,” she wrote.

“There are numerous instances of Obama supporters filing out precinct convention sign-in sheets during the day and submitting them as completed vote totals at caucus. This is expressly against the rules,” she added.

But no one seemed to care.

Despite Clinton’s three-and-a-half point win in the Texas primary — 50.87 percent to 47.39 percent —Obama beat her in the caucus the same day by 56 to 43.7 percent, giving him a 38-to-29 advantage in delegates.

Linda Hayes investigated the results at the precinct level in three state Senate districts. Under the rules of the Texas Democratic Party, participants in the caucuses had to reside in the precinct where they were caucusing, and had to have voted in the Democratic primary that same day.

When she began to see the results coming in from the precincts that were wildly at variance with the primary results, “I could see that something was wrong,” Hayes said.

Hayes says she found numerous anomalies as she went through the precinct sign-in sheets.

“Many, many, many Obama people either came to the wrong precinct, they did not sign in properly, they did not show ID, or they did not vote that day.” And yet, their votes were counted.
In a letter to Rep. Lois Capps, a Clinton supporter calling himself “Pacific John,” described the fraud he had witnessed during the caucuses.

“On election night in El Paso, it became obvious that the Obama field campaign was designed to steal caucuses. Prior to that, it was impossible for me to imagine the level of attempted fraud and disruption we would see,” he wrote.

“We saw stolen precincts where Obama organizers fabricated counts, made false entries on sign-in sheets, suppressed delegate counts, and suppressed caucus voters. We saw patterns such as missing electronic access code sheets and precinct packets taken before the legal time, like elsewhere in the state. Obama volunteers illegally took convention materials state-wide, with attempts as early as 6:30 am.”

The story of how Obama stole the Democratic Party caucuses — and consequently, the Democratic Party nomination — is important not just because it prefigures potential voter fraud in the Nov. 4 presidential election, which is under way.

It’s important because it fits a pattern that Chicago journalists and a few national and international commentators have noticed in all of the elections Obama has won in his career.

NBC correspondent Martin Fletcher described Obama’s first election victory, for the Illinois state Senate, in a recent commentary that appeared in the London Telegraph.

“Mr. Obama won a seat in the state Senate in 1996 by the unorthodox means of having surrogates successfully challenge the hundreds of nomination signatures that candidates submit. His Democratic rivals, including Alice Palmer, the incumbent, were all disqualified,” Fletcher wrote.

Obama’s election to the U.S. Senate “was even more curious,” conservative columnist Tony Blankley wrote in The Washington Times.

Citing an account that appeared in The Times of London, Blankley described how Obama managed to squeeze out his main Democratic rival, Blair Hull, after divorce papers revealed allegations that Hull had allegedly made a death threat to his former wife.

Then in the general election, “lightning struck again,” Blankley wrote, when his Republican opponent, wealthy businessman Jack Ryan, was forced to withdraw in extremis after his divorce papers revealed details of his sexual life with his former wife.

Just weeks before the election, the Illinois Republican party called on Alan Keyes of Maryland to challenge Obama in the general election. Obama won a landslide victory.

“Mr. Obama’s elections are pregnant with the implications that he has so far gamed every office he has sought by underhanded and sordid means,” Blankley wrote, while “the American media has let these extraordinary events simply pass without significant comment.”

Hillary Clinton supporters, belatedly, now agree.

'Smears' About Obama Largely True

Below is a news article I came across... click on this blog entry's title to go to the actual news story.

Monday, October 20, 2008 9:32 PM
By: Lowell Ponte

The Obama campaign says its candidate is a victim of “smears” — and has even created a Web site to fight such attacks.

But a Newsmax investigation finds many of the so-called smears are largely based in truth — and the Obama campaign uses half-truths, clever language, and ad hominem attacks to spin the facts.

Obama’s www.FightTheSmears.com focuses mainly on anti-Obama messages being repeated on the Internet and talk radio, the only media where Obama's ideological allies are not dominant.

These "smears" and the Obama rebuttals are often framed in lawyerly language that leaves much wiggle room in the candidate’s answers.

FightTheSmears.com also makes no attempt at objectivity, describing Obama’s critics as “pushing misleading research and distorted claims” because they are “ideologues” busy “spreading a ‘pack of lies’ about Barack.”

In a section of the site titled, “Who’s Behind the Smears?” visitors can see a chart naming seven groups and six individuals with lines that suggest multiple, sinister connections between them.

The people and groups named are real and are members of Washington’s small but conservative sphere of power and influence. The Obama conspiracy chart links all of these conservative individuals and groups back to the critics who dogged the “Clinton 1992 Campaign.”

This may come as something as a surprise to Hillary Clinton, as many of the “smears” against Obama first surfaced during her heated primary contest with him.

Newsmax reviewed 10 random claims and related rebuttals posted on Obama’s ever-changing FightTheSmears.com to gauge their veracity. Here’s what we found:

Claim No. 1: Obama's campaign is funded by the rich, big corporations and foreigners.

“Barack Obama was the only major presidential candidate this year to completely reject contributions from The Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have dominated our politics for years,” the Obama site says of the persistent online criticisms of its fundraising.

“Instead, this campaign has been owned by the more than 3.1 million everyday Americans who have donated in small amounts.”

Not so, according to campaign finance records. Nearly half of the $600 million raised by Obama to date has come from wealthy donors and special interests. Obama's allies months ago dropped their ad linking Republican rival “Exxon John” McCain to Big Oil after it came to light that Obama had taken far more money from Exxon-Mobil than McCain.

“The Obama campaign has complied fully with federal election law,” claims the Obama site, “including donor eligibility and contribution disclosure requirements.”

However, one giant loophole the politicians wrote into the law allows contributions in amounts of $200 or less with no donor identification. Obama claims that $300 million in campaign funds was given by these small donors, and he won’t release their names and addresses.

McCain has released his whole donor database, including those who have contributed less than $200.

Critics argue that the other half of Obama’s campaign haul — the part not raised from big corporate donors and special interests — came in a small flood of anonymous donations that might be foreign or corrupt, or both.

Claim No. 2: Obama has had a close, ongoing relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

The Obama site acknowledges that its candidate and Ayers ”served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990s,” but maintains most stories about the links between Obama and Ayers are phony or exaggerated.

It does not mention that Obama and Ayers worked together on the board distributing millions of dollars with the aim of radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren.

Nor does the site acknowledge that Obama kicked off his first political campaign in the living room of Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader. (Obama is currently saying it was not the first event. There is no dispute that one of Obama’s first political events in his first run for public office was held in Ayers’ home.)

There is also no dispute the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon the Capitol, the home of a New York Supreme Court justice, and a police station, among other targets. FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the group, has recounted Ayers teaching him how to make bombs and saying, “In the revolution, some innocent people need to die.”

“Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques . . .” says the Obama Web site.

Actually, McCain and Obama critics are questioning why Obama would continue to associate with a man who, as recently as 2001, said he did not do enough and wished he had bombed more.

Conservatives also note that if Ayers had bombed abortion clinics, the liberal media would brand him a pariah forever. What does it tell us about the liberal media’s and Obama’s judgment and values that they see nothing wrong with embracing unrepentant terrorist Ayers today?

Claim No. 3: Obama takes advice from executives of troubled mortgage backer Fannie Mae.

“John McCain started smearing Obama about non-existent ties to Fannie Mae in some of his deceptive attack ads,” says FightTheSmears.com. The site downplays connections between Obama and two former heads of the giant mortgage-backing institution — James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines — whose corruption played a key role in the current financial crisis.

But an editorial in the Aug. 27, 2008, Washington Post described Johnson and Raines, as “members of Mr. Obama’s political circle.”

Raines advised the Obama campaign on housing matters. Obama chose Johnson to select his vice presidential running mate. But because neither are advising Obama today, this Web site’s present-tense claim that he “doesn’t [not didn’t] take advice from Fannie Mae execs” is technically, if deceptively, true.

Johnson also reportedly helped raise as much as $500,000 for Obama’s campaign.

And despite Obama’s lack of seniority in the U.S. Senate, he pocketed more than $105,000 in political contributions, the third-highest amount given to any lawmaker, directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama’s Web site leaves all this unmentioned.

Claim No. 4: Obama has close ties with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group suspected of massive voter registration fraud.

Obama’s site says the candidate was never an ACORN employee and that ACORN “was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive [Obama] ran in 1992.”

In defending Obama, the site resorts to smearing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell — calling him a “discredited Republican voter-suppression guru” — for daring to fight the vote fraud so often associated with operatives of ACORN, among the largest radical groups in the United States.

As Newsmax has documented in ["Clever Obama Tries To Bury ACORN Past,"] Obama’s Web site is attempting to deceive when it says Obama was never “hired” to work as a trainer for ACORN’s leaders. In fact, he did the work for free from at least 1993 until 2003.

ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg acknowledges in the Oct. 11, 2008, New York Times that Obama trained ACORN leaders. And Obama worked as a lawyer for ACORN.

As to heading up Project Vote in Illinois, Obama said during a speech to ACORN leaders last November, "[When] I ran the Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack-dab in the middle of it.”

Veteran journalist Karen Tumulty described Project Vote in the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of Time magazine as “a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now” after interviewing its national director.

The co-founder of ACORN, former Students for a Democratic Society official Wade Rathke, described Project Vote as one of ACORN’s “family of organizations.”

Over the years, ACORN and its front groups, like the one Obama ran in Illinois, have registered more than 4 million voters. When authorities in Virginia checked ACORN registrations, it found that 83 percent were fraudulent or had problems. This, in theory, could mean ACORN may have created the opportunity for stealing more than 3.3 million votes in this November’s election, a margin far wider than that by which Obama is likely to win.

Claim No. 5: Obama has shown only wavering support for individual gun-ownership rights.

“During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States Senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen,” says Obama’s Web site, “while doing everything he could to protect children — including his own two daughters — from illegal gun violence.”

But the National Rifle Association, it continues, “is distributing a dishonest and cowardly flyer that makes confrontational accusations and runs away from verifying them.”

Actually, the NRA does a meticulous job of laying out documentation, as Newsmax reported in September ["NRA to Fight Obama Over Gun Rights Flip-Flops,"] to show that Obama has supported handgun confiscation; the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.; a virtual ban on high-powered rifle ammunition; and many other draconian restrictions on Second Amendment rights.

If elected, wrote the NRA, Obama “would be the most anti-gun president in American history.”

Claim No. 6: A fervent supporter of abortion rights, Obama supports late-term and partial-birth abortions.

The Obama Web site dismisses such criticism as the work of “radical anti-abortion ideologues running ads against Barack.”

But as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted repeatedly against legislation to protect infants who, during a late-term abortion, were “born alive.” Such protection, he has argued, already exists in Illinois; it does, but is subject to the abortionist’s decision whether such an infant has a good likelihood of survival.

Nurses have reported instances in which surviving aborted babies were left by abortionists to die without water, food, or warmth.

Obama’s Web site notes that even the Republican author of one of these bills, former state Sen. Rick Winkel, has written that “none of those who voted against [his bill] favored infanticide.”

True, but Obama’s site does not quote the rest of Winkel’s statement: “[T]heir zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.”

Obama has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record according to NARAL Pro-Choice America; his rating from the National Right to Life Committee is zero.

How extreme is Obama on this issue? In the U.S. Senate, he has voted against bills that would prohibit minors from crossing state lines for abortion without parental notification.

"Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama has said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

Claim No. 7: Obama showed little interest or support for American combat troops during his overseas visits.

Doubts about Obama’s true support for the military cropped up during a campaign trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Europe.

A widely circulated e-mail, penned by Army Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter, described Obama's visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan: “As the Soldiers lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off . . . He again shunned the opportunity to talk to soldiers to thank them for their service . . . I swear we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from [Obama].”

Porter later recanted, sending a follow-up e-mail that said, in part: “After checking my sources, information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong.” He did not specify which information was wrong, leading Obama skeptics to suspect that this officer has been disciplined by his superiors.

Heading home, Obama touched down in Germany, where he “was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl.” But as The Washington Post reported, Obama “canceled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate” and could not have his visits with hospitalized soldiers videotaped by the media.

Prominent liberal mainstream media reporters such as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend Obama, saying that the press had never planned to cover his visits to military sickbeds. But Obama canceled both visits and used his free time instead to shoot hoops, with the media recording his best shots.

Claim No. 8: Barack Obama is a Muslim.

FightTheSmears.com states bluntly that Obama is a Christian, not a follower of Islam.

In fact, Barack Hussein Obama’s Kenyan father was raised Muslim, though he reportedly was not religious.

His mother divorced and remarried another man, a Muslim from Indonesia. As a youngster in Indonesia, Barack Obama attended two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim. He received religious instruction in both schools as a Muslim, including studying the Quran. According to a childhood friend, Obama occasionally attended services at a local mosque.

Obama’s Muslim upbringing has been detailed in a 2007 Los Angeles Times report (reprinted in The Baltimore Sun) headlined "Islam an Unknown Factor in Obama Bid." Middle East expert Daniel Pipes has studied the question of Obama’s Muslim faith and says he is “lying” when he says he was never a Muslim.

It’s important to note that Obama’s Web site does not say he was never a Muslim. But in the past, Obama’s site and FightTheSmears.com did make the claim Obama was never a Muslim. Since that claim is obviously false, it is no longer used.

Obama says he became a Christian in his late 20s. He now describes himself as Christian. Until recently, he spent two decades as a member of a Chicago United Church of Christ congregation that embraces Black Liberation theology. Somewhat like the Roman Catholic liberation theology of Latin America, the Chicago UCC church preaches elements of neo-Marxist class warfare. It combines these radical socialist elements with black racialism.

Claim No. 9: As president, Obama would raise taxes dramatically for most Americans.

Millions of Americans recognize that Obama is likely to raise taxes. But like a good conjurer, who tricks you into watching his right hand while doing things with his left, the Obama Web site assures readers with a red herring.

The Illinois senator will not tax your water, as claimed in some fringe e-mails, FightTheSmears.com maintains.

What Obama will do, however, is tax businesses and capital gains more heavily, even though America already has the world’s second-highest business taxes.

“Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases” said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax businesses! So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline . . . or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small business, don’t worry. It’s not going to affect you.”

During his campaign, Obama has promised to raise various taxes that will fall on most economic classes, including the dividend tax, the FICA tax cap, the capital gains tax, the estate tax, and new taxes on gasoline.

He also called for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will automatically raise taxes on most Americans. By letting the Bush cuts expire, Obama would produce a $2 trillion tax increase that some economists predict will rumble through the already weakened economy like an earthquake.

Claim No. 10: Obama was born outside the United States and is ineligible for the presidency.

The Obama Web site dismisses the claim that the candidate was born anywhere but in the United States as “completely false” and “groundless.”

As proof, the Obama’s campaign has produced a “certificate of live birth” from Hawaii indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961. Critics, however say the document could have easily been forged and is not a substitute for a certified birth certificate.

No reporter has been allowed to see the original certificate of live birth or its certificate number, which is blacked out on copies of it on the Obama site.

Skeptics note that Obama’s “Father’s Race” is identified on this document as “African,” a geographic and modern politically correct term rather than a 1961 racial designation. The standard term used on American birth certificates until the U.S. Census changed it in 1980 would have been “Negro.”

Former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, Philip J. Berg, a Democrat with mixed credibility (he has supported conspiracy theories involving 9/11), has filed a lawsuit to force Obama to produce a certified copy of his birth certificate. According to Berg, Obama’s paternal grandmother has said she was present at his birth in Kenya, after which his mother promptly returned with her baby to the United States.

If that is true, Obama could be constitutionally ineligible to be president.

Obama's "The Change We Need”


For everyone out there supporting and voting for Obama... I hope you are prepared for the CHANGE you get!





http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/27/obamas-higher-purpose-code-for-wealth-redistribution/


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http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/26/obama-in-2001-how-to-bring-about-redistributive-change/






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House Democrats contemplate abolishing 401(k) tax breaks
Mandatory contributions from workers considered

http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081012/REG/310139971



Thursday, October 23, 2008

McCain vs Obama

"Apparently, as my opponent sees it, there's a strict limit to your earnings and wealth, and it's for politicians to decide. The proper amount of wealth is not what you can earn, but what government will let you keep."

Is this what America is to become... our government saying, "Sorry, you made too much money. I'm taking some of it to give to someone else. It's only fair to them. It's better for the country this way."

NO! It's not! America is about working hard and reaping the benefits of that hard work or risks YOU took to better YOUR financial situation. I want to decide where I want MY money to go! YOU should decide where YOU want YOUR money to go!

I'm not wealthy by any means. I'm struggling. I'm barely getting by. BUT, I'm not giving up, and I'm not sitting back expecting everyone else to carry me by forking over their hard-earned money. I keep plugging along... with the gracious help of my friends and family from time to time.

I would like to think... what I aspire to... is that someday I will be able to better my situation and after all my years of struggle, I should get to keep what I've worked so hard for. I should decide how it gets spent and who I spend it on. Not have it taken from me... Not have the government decide that I've crossed that line and.. oops, earned over my limit.


And while I'm at it....

We get taxed on our income, then that money is taxed again when we use it. What the heck are you people [in government] doing with all our money. It just never seems to be enough for you!

I'm tired of my [tax] money funding things like Planned Parenthood when I believe abortion is murder. I believe homosexuality is a sin, and I don't want my [tax] money funding gay right activism or agendas. I believe the failing liberal public school systems are a joke and I shouldn't have to support it. I believe that is my right and I should have a say about it. Quit spending my hard-earned money for your political agendas!


{Beware, here comes the ranting...}

  • I'd rather have my money spent on such things as investigating welfare and disability fraud and fixing that broken system.
  • Insurance fraud.
  • Do something about lawsuit abuse in this country, frivolous lawsuits are tying up the courts. And why is it that the accused have more rights than the victims?
  • And how the heck doctors and hospitals can get away with charging what they do... $3.00 for an aspirin? (I lost my eyesight at one time and the doctor charged $100. everytime he came in, put a card in my hand and asked me to read it. I'd say I can't see it. He'd leave. He was there for maybe three minutes.) I don't believe in socialized healthcare, but, I think there should be some sort of regulation or caps on some things.
  • What about my rights as a Christian? Anyone can tromp all over my rights without a second thought. (Where's the ACLU in these instances?? - lol - usually defending the people tromping on my rights.)


These are just some of the things that bother me and affect my world.

{End of rant... for now.}

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Chicken Hearts & Gizzards

Thank you for the chicken hearts & gizzards, Laura… I thoroughly enjoyed them last night; prepared with garlic, olive oil and herbs (thyme, sage & rosemary) with a side of Hungry Jack boxed mashed potatoes (flavored w/chicken stock). Mmm, mmm, good! I guess I should ultimately thank Mary (I believe you said Mary sent them). The baby, Lil’ Missy Bug, ate two little hearts… the rest was MINE.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Economic Crisis - Some Facts

Don't let the Democrats deceive you! Don't let Barack Obama continue to deceive you. Their hands are VERY DIRTY in their contributions to this economic meltdown. More information about the economic crisis... two videos from TheMouthPeace


Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?




AND....


House Of Lies: How Congress Failed To Protect Our Economy

Politics & Reality

Sometimes we all get sucked in by drama... with all that has been going on with the election and the economy, it's no wonder we find ourselves distracted from the reality of our world. My mom sent this to me and it snapped me back rather quickly... this is exactly what people need to be reminded of. He is absolutely right. The following is a piece Dave Ramsey wrote concerning his view of the bailout.


YOU Fix You:
What it takes for us all to overcome the crazy economy


By and large, 70% to 90% of you wanted something to be done to calm the economy, but you didn't want $700 billion in new debt to bail out Wall Street. The stock market has had record declines since then. What's going on?

You need to remember that you need to take control of your life.

It's disturbing that people in government totally disregard what their constituents tell them to do. It's disturbing that the market goes down and the media panics about this. It's disturbing that greedy banks made horrible, high-interest loans to people who couldn't afford to repay, and broke people signed up for the loan and cried when they couldn't afford it - like someone did something to them. It's disturbing that arrogant people in Washington ignore their constituents and takes huge strides toward socialism.

All of these things are disturbing, but none will cause this great nation to cease to function. None of these things are the seeds to the beginning of the end. You're okay. We're going to be fine.

But the most disturbing thing is some people's reactions.


Don't react based on fear or panic. Another negative reaction is that you are looking to Washington to fix your problems. Why would you do that? They have never fixed your problems, and you want Obama or McCain to fix things. That's ridiculous; there has never been a president who can fix your problems. They always say they can and they never can.

At what point did Bill Clinton fix any of your problems? At what point did he cause you to prosper? At what point did George Bush end your career or cause you to prosper? When did Ronald Reagan fix your problems?

When you look to Washington to solve your problems, we've got the seeds to destroy this country. It's time for YOU to change YOUR life.

There was a sweet 43-year-old lady making $15,000 a year who called me asking what Congress was going to do to help her. My answer to her was "Nothing. It's not their job. It's your job to read a book or take a class to get better so you can make more. Why have you accepted this as your lot in life? Why are you sitting around waiting on Congress or president to fix your life?"

It's not Washington's job to fix what's going on with you. If you are waiting on Washington to change something, you've got a long freakin' wait! It is YOUR job to take care of you. Don't sit around and watch TV and panic and think you can't do anything. I've made and lost money, and every bit of that had to do with me being smart and diligent or stupid.

Quit blaming Congress or looking to them to fix you. YOU have to fix you! When you wait on the government to fix your life and wait for money to be taken from others and given to you, that's a spirit of envy, and it's wrong. The only system that works is capitalism functioning under moral restraint.

Get some moral restraint, become a capitalist, and go be somebody!


I say, "Amen to that!"

Anyways... thought I'd share.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Unbelievable...

Howard Stern - Harlem Voters





More sheep just following the herd!

We laugh at this stuff, but it's really, really sad. PEOPLE! EDUCATE YOURSELVES!

Housing & Economic Fiasco

Okay... who is really responsible for this mess... Granted, a lot of people have over extended themselves with credit, accepted loans they knew they could not afford and they need to take responsibility for that... but, on whole, who was profiting most, besides the fat cats making the huge bonuses and parachute retirements? Who tried to CHANGE things, fix this situation before it got out of hand?

WAKE UP AMERICA!

Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam





Also...


Clinton administration's "BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" They forced banks to make BAD LOANS and ACORN and Obama's tie to all of it!!!






OBAMA SAYING ACORN AND FRIENDS WILL SHAPE HIS PRESIDENTIAL AGENDA




Do you really want a Democrat President and a Democrat Congress that will start pushing through their socialistic agendas with no one to stop them?

YOU DECIDE!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

What's Up With Me?

Well... so far I still have a job. Thank you Lord! Like alot of folks, I've been financially strapped lately. My property tax was increased... which caused my house payment to go up. Then I found out they made an error on my tax statement. It's actually a little over a hundred dollars more. So if I send it in to my mortgage company, it will cause my house payment to increase even more... so basically I have to suck it up and pay it myself. Great!

I had to let my lawn guy go... I could only afford to get a push mower, so it takes me forever to mow my lawn (I've got a pretty good sized lawn). Thankfully it's pretty flat, just a little too big for me to handle with a push mower. So between trying to do the lawn, get rooms painted, get the guest rooms together, cleaning, laundry, organize my finances and my office area... a two day weekend is just not long enough to accomplish everything I need to do. So now you understand why I have a hard time keeping updated with my blogging.

In addition, I cut my cable back and disconnected my house phone. I was expecting to get rid of the cable completely, but when I called in and explained to the rep my situation she took her time and figured out a way I could keep some of the cable with a promotional plan that I think I can swing. I can always cut it later if I still need to.

I'm trying to get the one guest room done and my house in order because I'm gonna have to get a roommate to help make ends meet. I absolutely hate the thought of bringing a stranger into my home... but I guess you do what you have to in times like these. I'm desperately trying to keep hold of this house. I really don't want to become just another foreclosure statistic. Sometimes life just sucks.

More about the roommate thing later... I've got to get to bed. Tomorrow and Friday I'll be packing up the office for the move on Saturday. I don't want to even think about the fiasco this is going to be. Later.

Oh! And on a lighter note... I came home tonight to find bunny fur on my floor. I started to look around for it. I didn't find a body... but I did find the little things cotten tail! Ugh! I'm just praying Simon took it back outside. I really don't want to end up finding it by smell! Aren't cats grand!

Goodnight all!