The FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney Cabal?

The title of the post is not a joke.

Naomi Wolf, a contemporary "progressive" who has written books and articles on "fascists America," has an essay up at the Huffiington Post entitled, "The Battle Plan II: Sarah "Evita" Palin, the Muse of the Coming Police State."

The post is not satire. Wolf is totally serious when she writes:

I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her - not McCain's - speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies - not McCain's - to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners - this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.

Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas --this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters - Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal.

Why all the "not McCains"?

Naturally, Senator McCain going to kick the bucket, and then a "Palinist" cult of personality will envelope the country as the lights go out on the American democracy:

McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future - for a decade perhaps - a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

Which raises a funny question: I thought the lights already went out on the American democracy with the accession of BushCo and the Halliburton neo-Nazi regime?

Just make a note of it, dear readers: This is the face of the mainstream Democratic-left.

These folks will have an open-door to the White House in a Barack Obama administration. As it is, the leftist netroots is Obama's CREEP, looking to use any and all tactics to seize power in their push toward European-style corporatism in a "New New Deal" (although the true radicals hope to hijack the democracy with full-blown neo-Stalinist takeover of the American state).

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UPDATE: Newsbusters agrees with my analysis:

It sounds like the rabid rantings of some poor demented shlub posting at the Democratic Underground. Instead, it is Al Gore's former fashion adviser, Naomi Wolf, indulging in sanity-challenged fantasies on her Huffington Post blog. The target of Wolf's derangement is Sarah Palin and it is so over the top that one might suspect Wolf is an agent provocateur working for conservatives in order to discredit the left. Think I'm kidding? Check out this sampling of Wolf's plunge off the political deep end...

Recall, though, Wolf's not at all atypical.

No Facts in Evidence in Wasilla Rape Kit Allegations

This essay follows up my previous post, "Leftists Smear Palin in Rape-Kit Controversy."

This morning while having coffee, I caught a CNN report on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's alleged billing of rape crime victims for the forensic "rape kit" exams used in the criminal investigations.

The full CNN report is here, but watch the video:

As seen in the clip, then-Representative Croft, the author of the state's legislation, can point to no facts substantiating the claim that Governor Palin authorized billling of rape victims for their exams. Further, as CNN's report indicates:

Interviews and a review of records turned up no evidence that Palin knew that rape victims were being charged in her town. But Croft, the former state representative who sponsored the law changing the practice, says it seems unlikely Palin was not aware of the issue.

Let's reiterate: The review turned up "no evidence" and Croft fully hedges his claims with the double-negative caveat that "it seems unlikely" that Palin was "not aware" of the issue.

In other words, according to Croft's unsubstantiated hunch, Governor Palin must have stuck rape victims with the costs of their exams.

But note further this passage on Wasilla's crime investigation billing procedures from Confederate Yankee, who contacted the Wasilla City Clerk:

The Finance Department searched all financial records on our system for fiscal year 2000, 2001 and 2002. There are no records of billings to or collections from rape victims or their insurance companies in our system. The financial computer system goes back to the beginning of fiscal year 2000, and accounts receivable backup documentation goes back six (6) years per our records retention schedule.

A review of files and case reports within the Wasilla Police Department has found no record of sexual assault victims being billed for forensic exams. State law AS 18.68.040, which was effective August 12, 2000, would have prohibited any such billings after that date.

As one can see, the more one looks into this matter the less evidence implicates Palin with these "incomprehensible" allegations.

Indeed, if anything stands out time and again, it's the comments Police Chief Charlie Fannon, who said that the matter was a budgetary issue.

Finally, as the Yellin report at CNN indicates, it was the State of Alaska's policy to shift the costs of criminal investigations to local governments, which in fact constitutes an unfunded mandate. The report notes, as well, that state funding for women's victims services has gone up under the Palin administration.

Thus, all the hysterical attempts to smear Palin on this issue have gained no traction simply because there's not a shred of credibility to the charges. As Confederate Yankee suggests, this was a "manufactured" scandal, much like those of the Barack Obama "astroturfing" smear-campaign revelations against Palin that are currently being investigated.

Video Hat Tip: Julie Roy

Wall Street Bailout Prevents Deeper Crisis

There's tremendous churning around the blogosphere on the Wall Street rescue plan pending before the Congress.

The Democratic-left is looking for a more aggressive proposal, one that offers financial assistance to homeowners and places limits on executive compensation. On the right, a chorus of commentators is gasping at the price tag of the bailout, and especially the unprecedented grant of authority to a newly empowered treasury czar who will administer the bailout.

Yet, as I noted earlier, the Paulson plan may work. And not only that, as James Pethokoukis argues, the biggest argument in favor of the rescue is that the bailout may save American capitalism itself:

What would be the dollar cost of not bailing out Wall Street? Try a number north of $30 trillion. (The awful math is detailed below.) That's why Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke were so scared last week. And, yes, I think "scared" isn't too strong a word. You don't think they convened an emergency nighttime meeting of congressional leaders and then walked out with something close to a blank check for a trillion bucks because they thought we were headed for an outright recession, even a fairly nasty one?

Nope, I think they believed, and got Congress to believe, that the economy was on the verge of something far worse than the worst downturn in a generation. And that is why they went with the so-called nuclear option: the biggest financial bailout in history. In the words of JPMorgan Chase economist James Glassman, "Thankfully, we and our friends around the world who are watching the economic lights come on will never know where events would have led, if the clock had not stopped [last] Thursday afternoon.... Last week's events made the 1987 stock market crash look like child's play."

As plumbers say about pricey repairs, "Sure, it costs money. It costs money because it saves you money." And plumber in chief Paulson had a pretty big pipe, loaded with toxic debt, to unclog.

Pethokoukis adds this:

Bottom line: Lots of folks have problems with the bailout. Liberals don't like a government bailout of Wall Street (instead of more homeowner help). Conservatives don't like a government bailout of Wall Street (vs. letting the market have its way). In a commentary on the National Review website, Newt Gingrich shows great skepticism toward the Mother of All Bailouts, advising that Congress "had better ask a lot of questions before it shifts this much burden to the taxpayer and shifts this much power to a Washington bureaucracy." He also presents several other actions government could take: 1) suspend the mark-to-market accounting rule; 2) repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley law; 3) eliminate the capital-gains tax; 4) undertake an "all of the above" energy plan to keep at home $500 billion of the $700 billion we currently send overseas for imported energy.

Count me as "all of the above" for Gingrich's ideas. (Toss in a corporate tax cut while you're at it.) But what would have been a smart, free-market plan in August 2007 or March of this year isn't enough for right now. Just as government created the environment for the credit crisis, it failed to enact quick solutions. The situation has gone critical. It's time for shock and awe.

One might quibble with the reform elements mentioned by Gingrich, but it's hard to argue with the need for "shock and awe" in trying to make things right.

That said, just like everything else, the rescue's turning out to be bitterly partisan, and if the lefties get their way, the ultimate shape of the rescue will be diametrically different than Secretary Paulson's plan, with perhaps even the complete and punitive nationalization of the American economy.

Paulson Plan Could Lay Foundations for Recovery

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is leading the news this morning with his $700 billion rescue plan for Wall Street.

The details of the plan are here. The background to the crisis is here. Beyond the price tag, the most compelling criticism of the plan indicates that Paulson's curt 2.5 page proposal grants unchecked power to the Treasury Secretary, creating all-powerful finance czar unaccountable to Congress, the courts, and executive oversight (see here and here).

But will it work?

Well, the plan's not perfect, as the Economist notes, although it "does address the root problem, defaulting mortgages..."

And this morning's Los Angeles Times suggests, the plan may help stablilize the housing market, leading the way to a broader recovery:

The government's $700-billion plan to bail out the banking system may calm panicked financial markets, but its real value may be in buying time to address the root problem: the continuing slide in housing values.

The Treasury Department's rescue plan is far from a done deal, with Democrats saying Sunday that they would push for more relief measures aimed at homeowners facing foreclosure and for stricter oversight of the program that would allow the government to buy up billions of dollars of securities tied to troubled mortgages....

The rescue plan does nothing in itself to shore up the housing market. Rising defaults and foreclosures on home loans, spurred partially by declines in home values, are the cause of the collapse in price and tradeability of the mortgage-backed securities on the books of banks and investors.

But without government action to aid battered banks, financial experts say, mortgages would remain difficult to get and the housing market's recovery would be further delayed.

Appearing yesterday on Meet the Press, Secretary Paulson was upbeat:

We're going to stabilize the financial markets. It won't happen immediately, there're going to be bumps along the road, but we need to do it. And this'll be far less costly to the American taxpayer than the alternative...

Here's the video:

Market Turmoil is Left's Path to Socialist Utopia

I predicted so much last night: The netroots left is seizing the moment during the current financial turmoil to lay the groundwork for the complete nationalization of the American state and society, from banking regulation and mortgage buyouts, to nationalization of the energy sector, to welfare, food stamps, and universal health care.

I mean, seriously, the scope of this program is just breathtaking in its extremity, for example:

Declare a national emergency, with judicial review (unlike Paulson's seizure of ultimate power) and use the authority to review all purchases of banks ... to insitute [sic] oil rationing if necessary ... Expand the safety net such as food stamps, employment insurance, welfare and so on. We know this is going to get worse no matter what we do, so why aren't we taking care of ordinary people?

Note that this is a summary translation of Barack Obama's public call to resist the Paulson bipartisan - repeat, BIPARTISAN - plan on banking stabilization pending before the Congress.

Meanwhile, I'm just amazed at all of the attention being paid on the left to an unattributed letter from a purported Member of Congress, posted by Matt Stoller:

Paulsen and congressional Republicans, or the few that will actually vote for this (most will be unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of their policies), have said that there can't be any "add ons," or addition provisions. F**k that. I don't really want to trigger a world wide depression (that's not hyperbole, that's a distinct possibility), but I'm not voting for a blank check for $700 billion for those mother f**kers.

Nancy said she wanted to include the second "stimulus" package that the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have blocked. I don't want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few fucking bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible.

I'm calling bull on this letter right now.

Stoller probably got the letter from a Daily Kos diarist. I've met a lot of Members of Congress, and they're very cautious people. I find it incredible that representatives would put themselves that far out on a limb in the event of the letter-writer's identity becoming public. I don't care how "progressive-friendly" this so-called congress-person is, the constituents back home - even in a very liberal district - simply don't endorse this kind of vindictive, foul-mouthed partisanship. In my experience in politics, this is just way beyond the pale.

The events of this past week have sent members of the left on a roller coaster of emotion, from uttter glee at the prospects of a total economic crash to the abject horror to the prospects of a competent administration plan to rescue Wall Street. With Barack Obama completely flummoxed on the sidelines of immobility, and with the McCain camp already developing plans for the rollout of a "first 100-day economic plan," the radical left has called for an insurrection against the Bush administration's consolidation of fascism, and now they're laying the groundwork for a Stalinist utopia if they somehow grab the reins of power.

This really is really mindboggling.

Meanwhile, I'll be on the freeways in the morning with the millions of other non-nihilist commuters who actually have to go to work and make the bucks to pay the taxes that this new era of American socialist utopia's going to require.

I'll have more, as usual, but note that the McCain/Palin ticket is ahead in weekend polling in Florida and Ohio - key battleground states - so keep your eyes peeled for more news on the left for the seizure of power through extra-constitutional means.

Feminist Victimology Against Sarah Palin

I've written a lot about the feminist response to Sarah Palin's selection as GOP vice-presidential running mate (here's the tag), but I couldn't resist posting today's article from Phyllis Schlafly, "Feminists Against Palin - Shame On You":

The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president is a big step forward for women, but a long backward step for the movement we have been taught to call feminism.

That is obvious from the anguish, indeed the fury, of feminist commentators. They are so intemperate in their criticism that they are incoherent. Men who are clueless about feminism naively think all women should be cheering. Sarah Palin is a woman who has done it all; she has a successful and even more promising career, five children and a supportive husband.

She crashed through the ultimate layer of the feminist fiction -the "glass ceiling" - and she joined those very few women destined to be known only by their first names. What more could any woman want?

The denunciations of Sarah can't be only because she appears to be a conservative Republican, and the feminists want only liberal Democrats to win. In this era of independent voters and respect for a maverick, surely the milk of bipartisanship should soften feminist angst about Sarah.

But, no. Feminist anger against Sarah has exposed the fact that feminism is not about women's success and achievement. If it were, feminists would have been bragging for years about self-made women who are truly remarkable achievers, such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, or Sen. Elizabeth Dole, or even Margaret Thatcher. Feminists never boast about these women because feminism's basic doctrine is victimology. Feminism preaches that women can never succeed because they are the sorry victims of an oppressive patriarchy. No matter how smart or accomplished a woman may be, she's told that success and happiness are beyond her grasp because institutional sexism and discrimination hold her down.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to get the Democratic nomination for president or vice president, she and her allies rained a torrent of tears all over the media about the injustice of it all, ranting that rampant sexism denied her the nomination she was due. The aging Gloria Steinem opined on CNN that it is "clear that there is profound sexism." She whined that Hillary couldn't crack the "glass ceiling" because there are "still barriers and biases out there."

Oh, the unfairness of it all! Steinem bemoaned that women find it so "difficult to be competent and successful and be liked." Au contraire, Hillary and women like her are not disliked because they are competent and successful, but because they are chip-on-the-shoulder feminists, living in an unhappy world of their own making and spreading their discontent like a virus. Feminists convey a notion of entitlement, as though they deserve special privileges today because of wrongs in past years that no one any longer can remember, such as women not having the right to vote. The bad attitude of victimhood is indoctrinated in students by the bitter feminist faculty in university women's studies courses and even in some law schools. Victimhood is nurtured and exaggerated by feminist organizations using their tactic called "consciousness raising," i.e., retelling horror stories about how badly some women have been treated until small personal annoyances grow into societal grievances. The feminists resent Sarah because she's the exact opposite of Hillary Clinton. When the liberal media sharpened their knives against Sarah, some chivalrous McCainiacs cried foul about media unfairness, but we didn't hear any whining from Sarah. Sarah has been successful because of hard work and perseverance, not because she's a woman, and she's not going to pull any crybaby act now. Sarah didn't need any Equal Rights Amendment, which Hillary is still promoting even though it was declared dead by the Supreme Court 26 years ago.

If you'd like to see a prime example of this victimology, see Christy Hardin Smith's essay, "Thank You, Justice Ginsburg."

FBI Serves Search Warrant on Probama Palin Hacker

A number of sources indicate that the FBI has served a search warrant on David Kernell, the suspect in the Sarah Palin e-mail hacking case. Kernell, the son of Mike Kernell, a state Democratic assemblyman from Memphis, Tennessee, is said to be a supporter of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

The Knoxville Tennessean has the details:

The FBI is stepping up its investigation into the hacking of personal e-mail of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin by a University of Tennessee student.

A person who identified himself as a witness tells WBIR-Knoxville that agents with the FBI served a federal search warrant at the Fort Sanders residence of David Kernell early Sunday morning.

Gateway Pundit adds this:

David is a self-described Obamacrat and his father Mike Kernell is a liberal Tennessee State Representative.

All signs pointed to the young Obama supporter as the Palin hacker.

Ace of Spades describes Kernell as a footsoldier in "Obama's Army of Sociopathic Davids."

I've written previously on the Palin hacking case (and especially on the suspicions surrounding the left-wing anarchist group Anonymous), but see the heated comments from my cross-posted essay at NeoConstant, "Unmasking the “Anonymous” Protest Group."

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UPDATE: Don't miss Terry Frank's post, "Investigating David Kernell," which not only includes screenshots of Kernell's Facebook pages (with references to numerous left-wing groups), but some speculation in the comments that Kernell has direct ties to David Plouffe, Barack Obama's campaign manager.

Paulson Rescue Plan Elicits Cries of Bush Fascist State

Larisa Alexandrovna has a really provocative essay up at Huffington Post, "Welcome to the Final Stages of the Coup..."

She's seriously arguing that President Bush, amid the current economic crisis, has consolidated complete executive power over the federal state, and the Wall Street financial establisment has been fully molded into a corporatist appendage to the alleged fascist program of the administration's so-called wars of imperial aggression.

Alexandrovna offers two amusing bits of history as evidence: The contested 2000 Florida recount culminating in the the Bush v. Gore ruling and the election of George W. Bush, and the purported "Wall Street coup" against the Franklin D. Roosevelt government in the 1930s, with Prescott Bush (G.W. Bush's grandfather) argued to be a central player in the pusch. (Interestingly, Alexandrovna's Wikipedia source on the Wall Street coup cites Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who was a foremost expert on the New Deal, and later an adivsor to President Kennedy, who dismisses the plot as largely hare-brained, concluding "it can hardly be supposed that the Republic was in much danger.")

But it's Alexandrovna's remedies that truly reveal much about the current left-wing zeitgeist (this is the Huffington Post, after all, which is often worse than Daily Kos in its anti-Republican demonology).

First, she suggests that Congress should "immediately begin impeachment proceedings against the members of this latest Business Plot," a plan long proposed by BDS sufferers. But her second suggestion is what's really eye-epening:

The other option, the one I have long prayed we would never need to even consider, is a total revolution. But, If Congress won't act in its own self-defense, in the defense of democracy, in defense of us - the people who have elected them to protect us from this very danger - then what is left for us to do? I don't want to see it come down to this, but I fear that it will. Put your party politics aside right now. We are in a crisis so dangerous that should these people succeed in their coup, your party affiliation will no longer matter, your American flag will be a nice collectible item of something that once was, and your version of God will be worshiped in secrecy because your freedoms will be owned by the few.

You are no longer Republicans, Democrats, or any shade of voter. You do not live in a swing state or a solid colored state. You are simply this: an American. That is the only side that matters. So call your members of Congress and demand, no, declare that unless they do their duty to the Constitution and to us, we will move to the streets - not because we want to, but because our founding fathers demanded this duty of each and every citizen in the face of such a domestic enemy. Demand - as is your right - that this bill be voted against and demand - as is your right - that the people plotting this treachery be held to account. We are either a nation of laws or we are no longer a democracy. Pick a side, because there won't be another time, another moment, another chance to be a patriot.

There's a bit of a blog buzz developing around this already (this is a formal call to insurrection, according to Confederate Yankee and Protein Wisdom), but what strikes me as eminently interesting is Alexandrovna's linking of the left's longstanding claims of Bush adiministration fascism to this week's Wall Street bailout.

While there's considerable political concern over Washington's rescue plan (and especially the $700 billion dollar price tag), there's an emerging consensus not only that federal efforts so far have been successful in preventing an even deeper collapse in the finanical sector, and that the Bush administration's leadership under Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has worked as a "masterstroke" that has sparked a rally in the stock market, easing larger fears on the health of the American economy.

Newsweek's new cover story is calling Paulson "The Captain of the Street," the Bush administration's superhero who "may be the right man at the right time."

As things calm down in the weeks ahead, John McCain may in fact benefit by rolling out more specifics of his comprehensive economic plan for the economy, something like a "first 100-day economic agenda."

This will, of course, rob the Democrats of any political gain they're hoping to score from the crisis, so what's the left to do but argue that the Bush administration's finally consolidated fascism in America? And it's not just Alexandrovna: Ian Welsh at Firedoglake is decrying "Hank Paulson’s Raid on the Treasury."

We still have about six weeks left until the November 4 election. After John McCain annoucement as president-elect, extreme left-wing partisans (amid all the cries of "Rovian" fraud and "racist" disenfranchisment), will be lamenting that the Wall Street collapse came too early,: "If only the market would have crashed on Halloween..."

Obama's Economics

Barack Obama's (non-) response to the economic turmoil over the last week has been well-covered in the mainstream press (see, for example,"Obama, McCain Duel for Economic Credibility," and "McCain and Obama Different on Style as Well as Substance").

Yet, in the near-term, the current crisis in financial markets is being managed not by the White House directly but by the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department. Indeed, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson are economic rock stars right now:

The immediate verdict [of this week's bailout], at least judging by the reaction on Wall Street, was that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and his cohorts had delivered a masterstroke. The Dow Jones industrial average surged 368.75 points, adding to the 410-point gain it notched Thursday as news of the government plan leaked out.

Still, come January, the major direction of fiscal and regulatory policy will be set by the president's budget and bureaucratic discretion, and a Barack Obama administration would not rest with the current Fed/Treasury rescue efforts. A new "Great Society" may be on the agenda - or a "new, New Deal," if some leftists get their way - should a redistributionist Democratic administration take office.

Austin Hill lays out more on Barack Obama's economics:

For the entire nineteen months of his presidential campaign, Barack Obama has been crossing the country, fanning the flames of resentment towards people who are perceived to be financially successful. He has continuously criticized what he call’s the “Bush tax cuts for the rich,” implying that the Bush administration cut taxes for wealthier Americans, while leaving tax rates the same, or even raising them, for less wealthy income earners (this, of course, is not true, but Obama has made it clear that “the rich” don’t ever “deserve” to have their tax rates cut).

Obama has also proposed a “federal crack down” on what he deems “excessive pay” for corporate executives - a great way to garner the support of blue collar and mid-level workers, who believe it is unfair that the President of the company earns “so much more” than the mail room clerk who “works so hard.” He has pledged to tax the “excessive profits” of American oil companies, and return that money to “hard working Americans” in the form of some sort of rebate check. And he has repeatedly lectured about his plan to bring America to “economic justice,” never actually defining what that means, yet clearly implying that the current state of things is inherently unjust, and in need of his repair work.

Much of Obama’s economic rhetoric has been delivered in front of friendly audiences. Yet, in a recent one-on-one interview at the Fox Newschannel, Bill O’Reilly pointed out that the Senator’s proposals amounted to “income redistribution - a basic tenant of socialism.” In response, Obama offered a “gosh Bill, I don’t like paying higher taxes either but you and I can afford it” kind of response, and then sought to change the subject.

But after nineteen months of economic anecdotes wrapped-up in eloquent speeches and passionate oratory, combined with constant reminders from the candidate’s surrogates that Barack is just as American as all the rest of us, Obama’s running mate has now spelled out the real essence of the Democrats’ economic plan in simplistic terms that anybody can understand: “We want to take money and put it in the pockets of the middle class people...”

No reference to whose money it is in the first place, or how wealth is created, or the human toil and sacrifice and anxiety and risk entailed in the creation of the wealth. Obama and Biden simply intend to “take money,” and “put it in the pockets” of people they believe are deserving of it. It IS income redistribution - end of story.

This, of course, is why Obama's got such credibility in among left-wing proponents of a revived regulatory economic system. As we saw this weekend, Obama's vice-presidential nominee thinks it's "patriotic" to raise taxes on the rich.

Barack Hoover Hussein Obama's done absolutely nothing to help Americans out of the current economic crisis (see, "Obama Holds Back Specifics of Crisis Plan"), but should he take office, an Obama administration will tax people making more than $250,000 a year, and after that income cut-offs will keep falling through a number of accounting gimmicks and "revised" budget estimates.

Cartoon Credit: Michael Ramirez

Outrage at Amy Goodman RNC Charges is Leftist Scam

Criminal charges against Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, who was arrested at the Republican National Convention for disturbing the peace, have now been dropped.

Goodman has been described as "a hardcore radical who detests both of the established major U.S. political parties." Democracy Now! is described as a "hard left radio-television talk show starring Amy Goodman" and a "Pravda of the airways." Yet, Goodman apparently receives roughly $1 million annually from Democracy Now!, which means her advocacy of the dictatorship of the proletariat is in fact an opportunistic scam.

The radical leftosphere is up in arms in sancitmonious outrage now that Goodman's charges have been dropped.

Chris Bowers basically flips a lid in describing the case as "thuggery against progressives" by a bunch of "conservative authoritarians." Hullabaloo describes this same "conservative authoritarianism" as "a vicious, fanatical nationalism." And Lyndsay Beyerstein turns up her nose in dismissal of Goodman's case: "The arrests were clearly a tactic of diversion and intimidation to keep journalists from doing their jobs."

Besides the left's utter hypocrisy over the case (the thugs are actually those folks on the street, and in the Anonymous network of anarchist hackers), Goodman herself was resisting police orders at the time of her arrest, and there's some controversy as to whether Goodman was working the demonstration as a journalist or was in fact agitating as an anti-administration protester with all the other street vandals:

Allahpundit addresses the first issue, Goodman's resistance to police authority in St. Paul:

Actually, Goodman’s crime appears to have been obstruction of justice and interfering with police in the performance of their duty ... The video makes this even more clear. They tell her twice to move back, and when she refuses to cooperate, they arrest her. The police did not “violently manhandle” her; they arrested her in the normal manner by ensuring that she was physically secured, for their own protection.

Allah references Democracy Now!'s own press release, which indicates that Goodman was on the scene not as a reporter but as an advocate for Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, who were being detained. Goodman was interfering with the legitimate exercise of police authority.

Kim Tanksley, in a comment board discussing the arrest, provides this analysis of Goodman's blurring the line between journalism and radicalism:

I’m thinking Amy Goodman is wrong. You don’t go into the field where police are trying to bring a situation under control and try and talk to them about someone whom they arrested. You go down to the station and speak to an officer behind a desk. When police are handling a volatile situation they don’t have time to chat and hear your opinion. They are trying to maintain order and not get stoned, shot, beaten, etc. in the process. They have to make sure the candidates, all with targets on their backs, don’t get assassinated. I watched the Youtube video; she was in the way. When they say step back do it. Ms. Goodman’s interview was “a couple of hours” after she was arrested. That’s pretty quick to be processed and released. She is acting like a prima dona. Her statement “we are the only profession protected by the Constitution” ticked me off. Let’s take a look Ms. Goodman… it says, “Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; .. or the right of the people … to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It doesn’t say you can go where you want and do what you want, when you want to do it. Being a reporter does not give you super-citizen powers.

The St. Paul city attorney's office decided not to pursue misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly against Goodman and other activists, but said journalists could still face prosecution for more serious charges.

Putting things in perspective indicates that the Goodman case is a perfect example of leftist deceit, corruption, and hypocrisy. No rights were violated, and the city's going easy on protesters who were clearly looking to provoke a backlash against police brutality (police action which in fact looks more like complete professionalism in the video footage).

Goodman wasn't "raging against the machine," she was angling to boost her own public relations and her Democracy Now! seven-figure gravy-train subsidy.

Hatred of the Military on the Political Left

Earlier this year, I wrote about Kenneth Thiesen of Oakland, a Stalinist anti-military recruiting activist who declared, during the Berkeley protests, that "we need to expose" the troops in the military "to be part of a 'killing machine.'"

Although the war in Iraq has not dominated the news cycle of late, we're of course still seeing a good amount of extreme left-wing opposition to the U.S. military deployments around the world, as well as example of direct hatred of American service personnel as well.

Steve Almond at the Boston Globe, for example, illustrates the left's fundamental rejection of the troops as part of its anti-military ideology (via Anti-Idotarian Rottweiler):

PERHAPS the most insidious byproduct of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been a reflexive sanctification of the military. To put this in bumper stickerese: Support the Troops.

Well, I have an ugly confession to make: I don't support the troops ... When somebody tells me they serve in the military, my first impulse isn't to say, "Thank you for your service!" like those insufferable chickenhawks on talk radio.

My first impulse is to say, "I'm sorry to hear that." Because I am. I'm sorry to know that the person I'm talking to might someday be maimed or killed on the job, or might someday kill someone else. Or refuel a plane that drops bombs on buildings.

I can't see how anyone who calls himself or herself Christian - or human, for that matter - wouldn't be sorry.

I can't express how despicably nihilist the left's culture of anti-militarism is to me. In a world of ever-present challenges to the safety of the nation, without the military American freedom would not survive. But Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler puts it much more clearly than I can:

Hate to break it to you, twinkletoes, but there really are bad people out there and yes, some of them really do want to hurt you. That’s why we need rough men and women ready to do violence for us, and if you’re not happy about somebody else doing it, then we suggest that you do so yourself. Or, alternatively, you could go see how that Kumbaya blather of yours works in real practice. Go sit around out in the open, all alone and unarmed, right in the middle of a war zone and declare your unconditional refusal to defend yourself against harm. Let us know how that worked out for you. Actually, we’ll probably see it on video. On al-Jazeera.

Not all expressions of military hatred on the left are as explicit as Almond's, but they're no less vehement.

It turns out there were a couple of non-hostile shooting deaths in Iraq last Sunday (fratricide), and Cernig at the anti-American Newshoggers blog is extrapolating from this one case (and apparently two others) that the extended strain on the military from the Bush administration's policies in Afghanistan and Iraq has caused these "fratricide incidents" rather than the episode being a case of aberrent interpersonal aggressiveness.

Keep in mind, of course, that the Newshoggers blog generally applauds the killing of American troops in the field, and has, for example, cheered Downs syndrome suicide bombers in Iraq.

Folks like this, with their rabid hatred our military service personnel on the ground, are the shock troops of the leftist fifth column in America.

Conservative Female Abuse on the Political Left

My good friend Gayle from Dragon Lady's Den left an insightful comment at my earlier essay, "Demon Trolling on the Political Left." It's worthy of a post:

What gets me especially is the women's groups. They believe equality is only for liberal women. The rest of us are supposed to stay in our kitchens barefoot and pregnant. But of course we should have abortions, especially if there is any evidence of a defect! The very fact that Sarah carries around, or has one of her daughters carrying around a baby she actually gave birth to knowing he had Down's Syndrome (GASP!) is just too much for them. It is a reminder that many of them have aborted perfectly healthy babies. HOW COULD SHE??? Well, to the liberal women I say "your chickens are about ready to come home to roost, sweeties. Better get used to it!" LOL!

Michelle Malkin indicates that the left's campaign of political violence against Sarah Palin can be identified as "Conservative Female Abuse":

There’s something about outspoken conservative women that drives the Left mad. It’s a peculiar pathology I’ve reported on for more than 15 years, both as a witness and a target. Thus, the onset of Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media, Democrat circles, and the cesspools of the blogosphere came as no surprise. They just can’t help themselves.

Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an “R” by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As Republican officeholders and conservative public figures who are women have grown in number and visibility, the progression of Conservative Female Abuse has worsened. The astonishing vitriol and virulent hatred directed at GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the most severe manifestation to date.

Read the whole thing for Malkin's progression of stages, from infantilization to dehumanization.

It doesn't take long to find women leftists attacking Palin, with as much venom as when she first burst on the scene upon selection as vice-presidential running mate.

Here's Kathy at Commments From Left Field:

Can someone put duct tape over this woman’s mouth? Her ill-considered, ahistorical, utterly ignorant public statements are a threat to national security.

Kathy's engraged at Palin's firm comments on standing up to Iran, comments that came in response to the Democratic Party's effort to muzzle Palin from speaking at a protest against Tehran in New York next week.

Meanwhile, yesterday Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, escalated Iran's bellicose stance toward Israel, announcing that the Israeli people themselves "are combatants at the disposal of Zionist operatives" and are enemies of Muslim states of the world.

That's extremely warlike language. Considering Khamenei called out Israel on the same day Palin issued her warning against Iran's push to launch a "second Holocaust," left-wing attacks on Palin's "lack of foreign policy experience" are looking increasingly naïve, if not malevolently ignorant.

Image Credit: Scooter's Report

Demon Trolling on the Political Left

Noemie Emery has done it again with a penetrating essay on the utter pathology in the left's reaction to Sarah Palin's nomination as vice-presidential running mate.

There are too many juicy passages to quote (and Emery's takedown of NOW's Kate Michelman, who backed John Edwards in the primaries, is pure gold), but this paragraph is lovely:

McCain picked Palin for a number of reasons - youth, pizzazz, energy, appeal to the base and to middle-class women, to the West and to blue-collar voters - but it may turn out that the main contribution she makes to his effort is in goading the Democrats into spasms of self-defeating and entirely lunatic rage. Somehow, every element of her life - the dual offense of being a beauty-queen and hunter; the Down syndrome baby who wasn't aborted; the teenage daughter about to get married, whose baby also wasn't aborted; the non-metrosexual husband working the nightshift; the very fact of five children - touched a nerve on the liberal template, and sent the whole beast into convulsions, opening an intriguing and somewhat frightening window onto the turbulent id of the left.

I keep plugging away on all this stuff in my corner of the blogosphere, of course, paying special attention to the work of the vile contingents of the netroots fever swamps in destroying the Democratic Party's electability this year (and that's not to discount Sandra Bernhard's widely-acclaimed anti-Palin stage performances!).

So, I'm reading D.J. Drummond's essay on the left's trolling demon cult with considerable interest: "How Liberal Trolls Are Working To Get McCain Elected President":

Ahhhhh Brian, you poor deluded troglodyte. I almost chose not to tell you, but it's only fair you should know that you are working, very hard actually, to get John McCain elected President. For those who may have 'troll-screen' featured on their computer, it should be understood that Brian is one of those malicious, venom-fueled malefactors who delight in attacking their betters. To be fair, there are Republican trolls as well as Democrat trolls, and Conservative trolls just as there are Liberal trolls, though it does seem to me that the Liberal variety breed a lot more, and that the Democrats like to encourage the vermin on their side, while Republicans would generally prefer a clean contest. Certainly in the present contest, McCain has tried to shut down the cheap shots from his side, while Obama seems to think his rats are just fine....

What I find so amusing about Brian and those like him, is that he will help get John McCain elected President. Explaining just why that is so will take a little bit, but please bear with me.

Read the rest of the essay here.

Drummond examines an interesting puzzle: If polls show that John McCain picking up the support of moderates and independents, while Obama remains flat in his support from those groups, why would Gallup's recent tracking numbers have Obama leading McCain by a 5-point spread? According to Drummond:

Gallup has significantly increased the proportional weight of Democrat response and reduced the weight of Republican response.

I'll let readers sort through the evidence Drummond offers in making his case.

It is extemely interesting, however, that polls and pundits find an enthusiastic GOP base continuing to boost Republican Party prospects, while the base of the Democratic Party sinks deeper and deeper into subterranean malevolence in seeking to destroy the McCain/Palin ticket.

The Politico, for example, reported yesterday on the comeback of the GOP brand. Meanwhile, Fred Barnes builds on that meme with his new essay, "The GOP Brand: It's Hot Again."

Anyway, it's not over 'till it's over, and we'll continue to see the lefties gleefully working their magic in proving their complete, radical counter-culture oppositionalism.

American Military Success in Iraq

The success of the Bush administration's surge strategy in Iraq is one of the most important military corrections in the history of America's wars.

I noted yesterday that congressional Democrats refused a vote on recognizing the heroic work of U.S. forces in Iraq. A typical response to the surge by war opponents is to deny the efficacy of the troop build-up in securing peace (ethnic cleansing had run its course, so the story goes), and it's common to see nihilist enemy-cheerleaders proclaiming the surge a fraud in its entirety.

But according to Jack Keene, a retired four-star general in the U.S. Army, in an interview at this morning's Wall Street Journal, the success of the new counterinsurgency strategy exceeded even his own expectations:

Gen. Keane wants to make sure people understand why the surge worked. "I have a theory" about the unexpectedly fast turnaround, he says. "Whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, anyone who was being touched by that war after four years was fed up with it. And I think once a solution was being provided, once they saw the Americans were truly willing to take risks and die to protect their women and children and their way of life, they decided one, to protect the Americans, and two, to turn in the enemies that were around them who were intimidating and terrorizing them; that gave them the courage to do it."

He adds that the so-called Sunni Awakening, and the effective surrender of Shia radical Moqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army, depended upon the surge. "I'm not sure [the Sunni Awakening] would have spread to the other provinces without the U.S. [military] presence. We needed forces that we didn't previously have for the Sunnis to be able to rely on us to protect them." Sadr saw his lieutenants killed in the American push, and didn't want to share their fate.

Looking ahead, Gen. Keane still considers a robust American ground force "the secret to success" in Iraq. "It is a myth for people to assert that by pulling away from the Iraqis, by pulling away from the Iraqi political process, that somehow that becomes a catalyst to do things that they would not do because of our presence. That is fundamentally wrong. It is our presence that is helping Iraqis move forward."

Read the whole interview, here. Also, don't miss Keane, Frederick Kagan, and Kimberly Kagan, "The Endgame in Iraq."

Additionally, while our antiwar terrorist boosters here at home continue to deny victory on the ground, even Barack Obama has come around to the majority consensus:

I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated ... It's succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.

I doubt the antiwar crowd will be calling out Obama for his endorsement of the Bush-Petreaus strategic victory.

Democrats Refuse Vote Recognizing Troops in Iraq

On September 10, Senator Joe Lieberman's office released the a joint statement from Senators Lieberman and Lindsay Graham on the proposal for a vote in Congress acknowledging the success of the U.S. military's surge in Iraq:

"It was exactly one year ago today that General David Petraeus returned to Capitol Hill to testify before Congress about the progress of the surge in Iraq. At the time, many members of the Senate argued that the surge -- despite growing evidence of its success -- was not working and should be abandoned. One left-wing group, Moveon.org, even made the despicable and outrageous accusation that General Petraeus would try to 'cook the books' to justify the surge when he appeared before Congress.

"One year later, it is clear: the critics of the surge were wrong.

Read the entire statement, here.

Congressional Democrats refused to support the resolution, and Saturday's lead editorial at the Wall Street Journal explains the political significance of the party's refusal to honor American fighting personnel in Iraq:

Even Barack Obama, who opposed the Iraq troop surge, has finally acknowledged its success. But some of his fellow Democrats in Congress apparently remain unconvinced. Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin teamed up to block a vote on a bipartisan resolution "recognizing the strategic success of the troop surge in Iraq" and thanking our men and women in uniform for their efforts.

By late 2006, Iraq was gripped by sectarian chaos. Insurgents and death squads were killing nearly 3,000 civilians per month, and coalition forces were sustaining more than 1,200 attacks per week. On January 10, 2007, President Bush announced the new counterinsurgency strategy that included deploying five additional Army brigades and two Marine battalions to Iraq.

Under General David Petraeus, who relinquished command of U.S. forces in Iraq on Tuesday, sectarian bloodshed has almost entirely abated, daily attacks have fallen to 25 from a high of 180 in June 2007, and overall violence has declined by more than 70%. In July, U.S. combat deaths were lower than in any month since the beginning of the war. All of the troops sent to Iraq as part of the surge have now returned home and are not being replaced.

Citing General Petraeus by name, the resolution, which is sponsored by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Republican Lindsey Graham, "commends and expresses the gratitude to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces for the service, sacrifices, and heroism that made the success of the troop surge in Iraq possible."

The Senators - allies of John McCain - had hoped to attach the resolution to a defense bill under consideration this week. But Mr. Reid wouldn't allow it. Democrats have often claimed that while they may oppose the war in Iraq, they wholeheartedly support the troops. That's a defensible position, and this resolution honoring our soldiers and Marines for a job well done gave them a chance to back up their rhetoric. Yet they still balked.

Yes, they still balked. It's really no surprise, but the Journal editors have provided a real service in highlighting the actions of top Democrats and their refusal to publicly credit the Bush administration's counterinsurgency build-up for turning around a war that was a near-run thing.

Related: "History Will Vindicate President Bush."

Sandra Bernhard Spews Gang-Rape Taunt on Sarah Palin

********** EXPLICIT LANGUAGE WARNING! **********

If violent profanity upsets you, don't watch this video of Sandra Bernhard attacking Sarah Palin in a Washington, D.C., stage performance:

Althought this clip doesn't show it, in her routine Bernhard is said to declare that Palin would get "gang-raped" in Manhattan by some "big black brothers."

Tim Graham has the text of the available taunts from the clip:

Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the s**t and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat b***h! Don’t you f**kin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls**t! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b***h! Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your f**kin' cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bulls**t moment.

Graham adds this comment:

The average person probably wouldn’t find it the least bit funny. But if you really, really hate Sarah Palin or Christian conservatives, this show is for you.

The D.C. Examiner's theater review basically endorses Bernard's screaming anti-Palin attacks:

Her profanity comes across as a shout to a passive, disengaged world.

Passive?

I'm sure all the the Palin-ogynists on the political left, who have been endlessly and remorseless terrorizing Sarah Palin and her family since she joined the GOP ticket will find Bernhard's conservative female abuse as essentially left-wing kitchen table banter.

I can hear the lefties now: "I do not endorse Sandra Bernard or her actions...", blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, we won't hear a peep against those who have libeled the Alaska Governor as sleeping with John McCain, that she's the grandmother of Trig Palin, that she's a states' rights separatist and John Birch extremist, that she bills rape victims for their CSI forensics - and the list goes on...

Obama's Class War "So Wrong for America"

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, appearing on Campbell Brown's "Election Center" on CNN, offered one of the most trenchant arguments against Barack Obama's presidential campaign I've heard in months.

Forester de Rothschild grew up in middle class New Jersey, and she says the class war Barack Obama would declare is "so wrong for America," via Newsbusters:

Here's the introduction from her Wall Street Journal essay:

If Barack Obama loses the presidential election, it may well be the result of a public perception that he is detached and elitist -- a politician whose expressions of empathy for hard-working Americans stem more from abstract solidarity than a real connection to the lives of millions of citizens.

Suggestions that Sen. Obama has failed to relate to working- and middle-class voters in swing states have dogged his campaign for months. His choice of Sen. Joseph Biden as his running mate only marginally corrects the problem.

While Obama supporters attempt to dismiss the charges about their candidate's perceived hauteur, they confuse privilege and elitism. Elitism is a state of mind, a view of the world that cannot be measured simply by one's net worth, position or number of houses.

GOP Image Improves as Race Tightens to Dead-Heat

The new Pew Research Organization survey finds a significant increase in public perceptions of John McCain and the Republican Party:

The overall image of the Republican Party has improved substantially over the past few months. Half of all registered voters say they have a favorable view of the Republican Party, up from 40% in May. Unfavorable ratings of the Republican Party are down from 55% in May to 46% in the current poll. This is the first time since July 2005 that more voters have rated the Republican Party favorably than unfavorably.

By comparison, ratings of the Democratic Party have remained relatively stable. A majority of voters (55%) offers a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party while 41% have an unfavorable view. In May, 57% had a favorable view and 39% an unfavorable opinion.
As a result, while the Democratic Party's image remains more positive than that of the Republican Party, the gap in favorable ratings has shrunk to only 5 points from a 17-point gap in May.

The turnaround in ratings is particularly significant among independents, and the shift in independent views occurred over the course of the convention period. Independent voters now have equally favorable opinions of both parties (50% for the Republican Party, 49% for the Democratic Party). GOP favorability is up 12 points among independents from 38% in August. In contrast, ratings of the Democratic Party are down seven points among independents from 56%. The 18-point advantage in favorability that Democrats had among independents going into the conventions has now disappeared.

The GOP also does well on the poll's findings for the vice-presidential candidates: "Six-in-ten independent voters say they have a favorable opinion of Palin compared with 47% who express a positive view of Biden.

Pew's numbers on the presidential horse race find Barack Obama holding a 2 percentage-point lead over McCain (46 to 44 percent). But Republican voters edge the Democrats in support for the party nominee (90 to 87 percent), and McCain holds a substantial edge among independents in the head-to-head matchup (45 to 38 percent).

The major caveat with this poll is that interviews were completed on Sunday, just before this week's intense economic turmoil beginning on Monday.

Nevertheless, while Gallup's daily tracking numbers find Obama leading McCain 49 to 44 percent, the new Rusmussen tracking poll finds the race tied at 48 percent for both candidates.

There's a couple of other important points worth mentioning: While voters are leaning toward Obama on the questions of change and economic crisis management, 50 percent in this week's New York Times poll said that the troop surge in Iraq had "made things better," a finding validating McCain's consistent support for the increased deployment.

The overall picture on the post-Labor Day stage of the election is that the dynamics of the race have settled back to a similar point prior to the Democratic convention. Jay Cost suggests McCain's consolidated the GOP base and Obama is currently benefitting from the market upheavals:

Contrary to what one might think if one's only source for information was the political class - there has not been a lot of movement. The movement we have seen seems to have been pretty orderly - with McCain solidifying his Republican base.

We also see a group of undecided voters who have not yet made a choice. They will probably be decisive. In a race with only two salient candidates - the goal is to hit 50%-plus-one. Both McCain and Obama can still do that via the undecided voters, who are becoming the critical voting block.

Nevertheless, the election's basically a dead heat at this point, and it's going to be increasingly important to look at polling trends in the key battleground states. The numbers on the improved GOP brand, therefore, provide a little more optimism for the Republican side.