Why should someone vote for Obama? Because he’ll pay for your gas and mortgage!

This is sadly the rule, not the exception.

Barack Obama reveals more and more about himself the closer he gets to victory. His latest utterance regarding taxes is notable.

“The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich,” Obama said in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday. “I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That’s the America dream, that’s the American way, that’s terrific.

“The point is, though, that — and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class — it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That’s what happened in the 1990s, that’s what we need to restore. And that’s what I’m gonna do as president of the United States of America.

“John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic,” Obama continued. “You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.”

So the choice here is socialism vs. selfishness? What about tyranny vs. liberty? So the idea is that we take money from people who have earned enough to be called “rich” and then give it to the middle class so they can buy a new car or a computer? This helps the economy according to the Dali Bama, but isn’t this also government interference in the free market aka socialism? The “rich” would be taking that money and investing it in businesses themselves without the prodding of the government to do so. It is there capital, what right does the government have to stimulate the commercial spending of the middle class at the expense of the owner of that capital? If that isn’t socialism then there is not such thing.

I don’t want to live in a country where it is “selfish” to want to keep as much of my hard earned money as possible and more importantly, have the decision making power on how to allocate that money for myself. This isn’t just about the money, but about who gets to decide how it is spent. So the choice is: new cars and computers for the middle class paid for by money taken at gun point from those who have it or free individuals deciding for themselves how they will spend, invest, give or save their private property?

“Tito the Builder” completely destroys Alan Colmes and the leftist plans for America.

Writing recently in the Wall Street Journal, Judge Andrew Napolitano (who I had no idea was such a libertarian) bemoaned the lack of respect most presidents have shown the Constitution. This really is a crackerjack piece.

Unfortunately, these presidential attitudes about the Constitution are par for the course. Beginning with John Adams, and proceeding to Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush, Congress has enacted and the president has signed laws that criminalized political speech, suspended habeas corpus, compelled support for war, forbade freedom of contract, allowed the government to spy on Americans without a search warrant, and used taxpayer dollars to shore up failing private banks.

All of this legislation — merely tips of an unconstitutional Big Government iceberg — is so obviously in conflict with the plain words of the Constitution that one wonders how Congress gets away with it.

This really cuts right to the heart of the matter. Almost all of the problems we face today can be traced back directly to our choice as a nation to simply stop following the legal dictates of the Constitution. Our uniqueness, our American way of governance depends upon that document more heavily than anything else, but it has been cast aside by the Democrats and far too many of the GOP. Whatever else it is, the GOP must at its very core have the utmost respect for the Constitution. Without that we are merely another version of the Democrats trying to grope in the dark for the best policies to guide us forward when they are right in front of our face on a 221 year old parchment.

Tom Smith is now an Obamacon. Hat-tip: Instapundit

After some thought which I concede has not been all that deep, I have decided to announce that I support Senator Obama for President. I have been inspired to take this step, which I know some of my readers will find shocking and disappointing, by the several other famous conservatives and/or libertarians who have thrown their backing to the Senator from the Land of Lincoln. Allow me to explain.

Read his hilarious explanation.

One of my favorite conservative politicians out there, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina is hitting back against the tidal wave of the MSM post bailout narrative. I wrote a post on this a while back, how the liberals in government, the media (I repeat myself), and academia are gearing up to frame the financial crisis as the fault of free market principles run amuck and that Bush a was do nothing Hoover who led us over the cliff with his refusal to regulate our cowboy capitalism.

Gov. Sanford notices something odd though:

In watching the Washington and Wall Street drama of the past few weeks it strikes me we are in the process of getting “punked” as a nation. I say this because turning for answers to the people who created the problem is normally the domain of strange thinking or practical jokes.

In times like these, people are genuinely frightened about what comes next, but it is important they not forget Washington was instrumental in getting us here.

Indeed, the very men who created this mess are being looked by a worshipful media establishment for answers on a way out.

Despite what today’s campaigning populists suggest, this was not a simple failure of capitalism. Its opposite, “crony-capitalism,” is what paid over $100 million to the connected few who ran organizations like Fannie Mae in Washington. Politics drove a big part of what has happened, and as a consequence every one of us needs to be vigilant in making sure neither fear, nor the illusion of security, drives us to accept the newest proposals coming out of Washington.

Making the connection between the failure of government meddling in the markets and the subsequent market failure will be the key to seeing that something like this doesn’t happen in the future.

Lest anyone question why the Gov. of South Carolina has anything pertinent to say on this topic, he has an MBA and once worked for Goldman Sachs, though neither of those things enhance the simple wisdom he has described in this article.

According to an email I just got from FredPAC.

Via The Club for Growth, TCS Daily asks What if Steve Forbes had won in 2000?:

Steve Forbes would not have negotiated away the supply side tax cuts in 2001. He would not have let the Democrats insist that only tax cuts for the poor and middle class be implanted immediately. He would not have agreed to defer the tax cuts of the entrepreneurial and investor class into the indefinite future. He would have (and did) recognize that we had already entered a recession before he entered the White House and would have used that fact to push the tax cuts through. The Forbes Boom would have started in 2001, not 2003. Two years of stagnation and jobs loss could have been avoided.

There would not have been a flood of excess money supply in 2003 either. The tax cuts would have made that kind of hyper stimulation through the printing press unthinkable. Even if Greenspan would have been tempted to flood the globe with dollars, Forbes would have put rhetorical (which is perfectly legitimate; the Fed is independent, but not quarantined) pressure on them to do the right thing. No cash flood means no housing bubble.

It also means no collapsing dollar, and no oil price bubble, which means no recession now.

This is all a bit far fetched I think. A better question might be: What if John McCain had been elected in 2000? Not only is this more plausible (I doubt Forbes would have beaten Gore) but it makes one think a bit more about the state of the party…

… a war hero as President on 9/11, a man with serious military experience and expertise leading the war effort, a man less concerned with keeping the establishment hacks in the GOP in power. A President who perhaps occasionally intervened in intra-party fights on behalf of moderates against conservatives … as opposed to Bush, who did it all the time, and who stopped party support to corrupt establishment hacks like Ted Stevens and Conrad Burns.

Watching John McCain in this election, I really wonder what might have been had he been nominated and elected eight years ago.

Tim Griffin:

Yesterday, I spoke extensively with a prominent (understatement) Republican strategist, and he informed me that he believes there is great interest in Sen. Fred Thompson serving as the next Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Fred is a mainstream conservative who made a lot of sense during the Republican debates. Watch for more and more chatter about this because there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with some of the other names who have been floated so far.

More: John Scott, Capitol Briefing. Also, The Mamacoke Think Tank doesn’t think its a good idea.

Even Glenn Reynolds has noticed.

And of course, IMAO (home of Fred Thompson facts) felt the need to weigh in:

Then whenever we have someone wanting to run for office as a Republican, he’d have to go meet with Fred Thompson. And Fred Thompson would ask him, “Are you a true conservative?”

And the guy would squeak, “Yes.”

And Fred Thompson would say, “Really?” And then he’d stare at the guy with his steely gaze.

And the guy would be like, “Aieeee!” because his face started to melt.

And everyone in the room would be like, “Wow! You killed Hagel!”

Ever get the impression that the debates were merely a forum to air yet more redundant talking points? Me too. Hat-tip: Club for Growth

One blogger thinks he knows. According to Doug Ross, a source who has seen the tape told him there is a very good reason why the LAT is withholding it from the public.

Saw a clip from the tape. Reason we can’t release it is because statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine” plus there’s been “genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis.”

It would be really controversial if it got out. Tha’s why they will not even let a transcript get out.

So Obama is a radical supporter of Palestine, who tells PLO representatives what they want hear. Then he lies about it when confronted by the potential for lost Jewish votes in this campaign. Either he was a liar then or he is a liar now, pick one.

PS. One other reason I think the tape is being withheld: both Ayers and Dohrn were at this event, but that wasn’t mentioned by the LAT in their story. So who else was at this event that would make Obama look bad? More PLO higher-ups? A representative from Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood or maybe Hizbollah? Did Ayers or Dohrn speak? Who knows? This tape might just be a treasure trove of Obama goodies.

Perusing CNN.com’s headlines turned up this:  “Five Pirate Attacks Repelled off Somalia”.  Pirates.  Pirates.  Those swashbuckling peglegs.  Anyone want to take a guess at what these ‘Pirates’ really are?

Update-Fairy wings causing windy conditions in the midwest.

The American Conservative has an article on Republicans and race:

… never underestimate the Republican desire to get on the high horse of anti-racism and egalitarianism, to say nothing of the even greater desire to demonstrate that they are in no way racist … The small cottage industry out there cataloguing the “real racism” of liberals represents a genuine conviction in the modern GOP that they are the only true defenders of color-blind equality. The Republican obsession with Jeremiah Wright cannot be understood apart from this “fight the real racists!” mentality. The enthusiastic reception of Palin and the sudden willingness to label any criticism of her as sexism and elitism reflects a similar impulse to out-egalitarian the egalitarians. This is opportunistic insofar as it is aimed at confusing conventional definitions and throwing the opponent off guard (”we’re the real feminists, so there!”), but it is quite serious in that reflects a widely-held Republican belief that their agenda and their party represent “empowerment” for women and minorities.

Which Ross Douthat opines on over at The Atlantic:

Now this is not to say that there aren’t plenty of Republican operatives out there who have a different and rather more cynical view of their party’s relationship to race and racism; nor is it to say that there aren’t plenty of racist Republicans. But as a rule, the more ideological a given conservative (and thus, one might add, the more likely to vote in a GOP primary), the more likely he is to take the view of American politics that Larison describes above - of the GOP as the party of colorblindness, and the Democrats as the party of racialism if not racism. And the more eager, in turn, he will be to cast a vote for someone like Bobby Jindal, the better to vindicate his conception of the party he supports.

Douthat is right. Having worked in Republican politics for the last several years, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered any real racism from serious ideological conservatives. The little racism that I’ve seen, including on one particular campaign in which I worked for a black candidate, largely comes from a few cynical, non-ideological Republicans, who don’t care about egalitarianism, because their political views aren’t really built on any kind of serious intellectual foundation.

Obama seems to know more communists and radicals than any other politician in America, maybe it just seems that way though since his past is only now (this damn close to the election) coming into the light of scrutiny.

Obama is close friends with the PLO terrorist/criminal/hate organization’s former chief spokesman Rashid Khalidi. This man, who was a close associate of men like Yasser Arafat is said to have even babysat the Obama’s kids. Everyone knows about the video the LA Times is withholding from the public, but the true extent of their friendship is startling considering we are at war with these same types of radicals.

The left has made an immediate effort to tie McCain to this same man, Rashid Khalidi through the IRI, which McCain chairs. They claim that McCain is just as guilty of supporting this PLO affiliated man, since the IRI paid roughly half a million dollars to a political organization that Khalidi co-founded to conduct polling in West Bank. Now if you look at the IRI web page you’ll see that as recently as the 15-17 of October, 2008 they conducted more polling in the West Bank and Gaza, this time through AWRAD. Now why the IRI needs to spend your tax dollars to know the opinions of the Palestinians is beyond me, but McCain being tacitly involved in this is nothing compared to Obama’s relationship with yet another terrorist.

Obama also has another communist friend that used to blog as a part of his campaign website, until June when it was taken down. Mike Klonsky, a current hardcore communist has had close ties to Obama, so close Obama has funneled almost $2 million to him to fund his “education initiatives”.

So far we have Ayers, Dohrn, Klonsky, Frank Marshall Davis, Saul Alinsky, ACORN, and the New Party. This isn’t “guilt by association”, this is guilt by choice. Obama chose to make all of these people a part of his life and not just as friends, but as close political and professional confidants. Nothing would shock me about this man.

A former speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton, on why she’s voting for McCain:

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

I live in the 13th here in Georgia. To say it leans left is a huge understatement. Since moving here 5 years ago I resigned myself to limited representation from my Democratic Congressman David Scott. Well things may have changed. The GOP candidate Deborah Honeycutt has pulled to within 5 points. This is shocking because in 2006 Honeycutt lost to Scott 31% to Scott’s 69%.

So why is this even close? Well Scott has some corruption issues for hiring members of his family for his staff. Honeycutt has raised an amazing $4.5 million this go round. Scott called Honeycutt a”b**ch” during an interview with a reporter. Add in that Clayton County Schools (largest county in the district) lost their accreditation this summer, and this district is ripe for change.

For anecdodtl evidence, I was speaking with friends of the Scott’s recently and they relayed that the Scott’s are really concerned that he may lose.

It is simply amazing what comes out of this man’s mouth. The only downside I can see from these videos is that they are coming out now and not when this goober won the primary.

National Republican Trust PAC will spend nearly $3 million to air this Jeremiah Wright spot in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, says Rick Wilson, the Tallahassee-based master of disaster/producer. He says it’s running in Jacksonville and I-4 markets.

The Buzz: Florida Politics

John Murtha is on the ropes, and we need to finish this piece of garbage off.  If you know anyone in the general area of his district, please convince them to hit the ground this weekend to knock on doors and hold signs for his opponent, Capt. William Russell.  Alert anyone who is serving, or has served, in the military.  Remind them of Murtha’s slandering of war veterans and his capitulation to America’s enemies.   You can bet the Obama crooks will be out in force in this district, and that only helps Murtha.  Don’t live near PA?  Throw a few dollars towards Russell.