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Thursday, August 7, 2008

More Evidence That Obama Is A Phony And Socialist



From The Bulletin

By Herb Denenberg

S
enator Barack Obama is the gift that just keeps on giving
when it comes to those who want to expose him for the phony, socialist and race hustler, that he is at his very core. He now plays like a centrist, but he is in fact a radical, left-wing extremist who campaigns in the center but would govern to the loony left. He pretends to be a reformer, but is a Chicago machine politician who has always gone along with whatever it takes to win, including working with everyone from crooks to the terrorists. There isn't a drop of reform or bipartisanship in his record. I documented this trend most recently in a three-part series on Obama: "Presidential Catastrophe for America," "More Reasons Not to Vote for Obama," and "The Final Six Reasons Not to Vote for Obama," three columns that can be found on The Bulletin's Web site at www.thebulletin.us, along with about 35 more of my columns about what the mainstream media are failing to report on the greatest presidential fraud in history.


Obama The Phony

As we've pointed out many times, Sen. Obama's rhetoric is the opposite of his reality. He talks about bringing everyone together but his record and his proposals are far-left and divisive as are his associates including Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the racist and America hater; William Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn, the terrorists; his adviser Professor Cornell West, who calls himself a "progressive socialist" and is a close associate and admirer of tyrant Hugo Chavez; his "moral compass" and campaign adviser, Father Michael "hate whitey" Pfleger; adviser Robert Malley who resigned after it was reporting he was meeting with the terrorist group Hamas; and fundraiser Jodie Evans, another admirer of Chavez, who asked, "Why is being a communist anti-American?" Sen. Obama was greatly influenced by radical community organizer, Saul Alinsky, for whom "change" met radical socialism and the redistribution of wealth, and who preached the end justifies the means and ethics shouldn't get in the way of effective community organization. Obama early on went for Marxist professors when in college and even before that one of his mentors was a communist poet and journalist, Frank Marshall Davis.


The latest chapter in the hypocritical views of Senator Phony came in regard to education. Sen. John McCain pointed out that Sen. Obama opposes school choice, but sends his own children to private schools. As is his custom, Sen. Obama recommends one rule for himself and another rule for everyone else.


Sen. McCain notes he sent his own children to private schools. But he recommends school choice for himself and for everyone else. Sen. McCain also explained why Sen. Obama must oppose school choice. He is enslaved by the teachers' unions and will not dissent from their positions. McCain told the National Urban League, "My opponent talks a great deal about hope and change, and education is as good a test as any of his seriousness. If Sen. Obama continues to defer to the teachers' unions instead of committing to real reform, then he should start looking for new slogans."


The Obama position hurts the low-income and underprivileged the most. Those with high incomes - such as Sen. Obama - simply buy themselves out of failing public schools and send their children to private schools. But those without those resources are trapped in a failing public school system, and will only be rescued by school vouchers and a system based on choice. Sen. Obama, sad to say, would rather lose a generation of children to lousy education than lose the support of the teachers' unions.


Obama The Socialist


Whatever the problem, from energy to poverty, Sen. Obama's reflex reaction is income redistribution - take from those who have more money and give it to those favored by Sen. Obama's latest hare-brained idea.


Dick Morris has pointed out his "soak the rich" philosophy would mean that those not paying taxes would be in the majority, and more and more burdens would be heaped on the rest of the population, who already pay more than there share under the present steeply progressive tax system. The Tax Foundation in their latest summary of federal individual income tax date reports that the top 1 percent of tax returns paid "about the same amount of federal individual incomes taxes as the bottom 95 percent of tax returns." That isn't good enough for Sen. Obama who wants to soak the wealth, the incentive, and the entrepreneurship out of the wealthy to carry out his social income redistribution schemes.


Take his approach to energy issues as his standard answer to all problems. He doesn't want to do the obvious, such as drill in the Atlantic, Pacific, in the Gulf, and in Alaska and he doesn't want to take advantage of the oil in Rocky Mountain shale. He doesn't want to try nuclear and coal. No, he wants to tax the oil companies. He wants a windfall profits tax on the oil companies to fund a $1,000 emergency checks to consumers who are being hit by skyrocketing energy bills. The Obama campaign stated, "Obama simply asks that big oil companies contribute a reasonable share of the windfall profits they receive from high oil prices over the next five years by enacting a windfall profits tax on big oil companies."


Sen. Obama doesn't take into account that a windfall profits tax will not produce an extra gallon of oil or gas. It will simply mean less oil and gas, as there will be less incentive to explore for it and produce it. It will mean failure, as excess profits tax have a history of failure and a history of killing incentives and killing productivity. It will also mean failure as it is a temporary fix that doesn't get to the basic problem increasing supply or decreasing demand.

His latest scheme is to take oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move that would imperil our national security. That reserve is intended for true emergencies when national survival may be at stake. And his views on solutions are irrational when subjected to analysis. For example, he just said that offshore drilling would not help solve our short-term or long-term energy problem. Think about that, and it is obvious that it is silly to say that tapping hundreds of millions of barrels and more won't help solve our energy problems. He has more substantial measures in mind ... such as everyone checking their tire pressure. I would think this political Messiah would have more than a tire gauge in hand when he comes to perform his miracles.


Remember if Obama gets the White House he will have a rubber-stamping Congress headed by Sen. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. With a veto-proof Congress and the White House, there will be no end to the liberal lunacy that the Democrats will inflict on America. The political temperament of this leadership is demonstrated by Ms. Pelosi, who won't even allow a vote on offshore drilling, and nothing will happen without that vote. She says she is saving the planet, but says there can be no vote on drilling, a measure supported by a majority of the Congress and the American people. Yet Sen. Obama does not use his leadership position and prestige as presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party to urge Pelosi to take a vote on the matter. Yes, Obama talks of compromise, even flipping on drilling, but he's all talk and no real bipartisanship. He's all hat and no cattle as his failed leadership on the energy issue demonstrates. He talks reform, change, and hope but walks the path of left-wing partisanship and political expediency.


Obama keeps going back to the socialist idea of redistributing income from oil companies, from the "rich" and from any one else that might become a future target. He has also indicated that health-care profits are too high. That would include the HMOs, insurance companies, and drug companies. He will be trying to confiscate the profits of health-care to pay for his socialization of medicine. Under an Obama administration, anyone making high profits will be penalized by some sort of windfall profits tax usually tied to the endless redistribute-the-wealth schemes he is so in love with. He thinks the oil companies made too much money last year, so they have to disgorge some of it. I think he made too much on his semi-fiction autobiographies, and he therefore ought to disgorge part of his profits. Once you go down that path of confiscating profits and income, there's no end.

He is not satisfied with taking from the "rich" to giving to the "poor" in America. He has already proposed a massive redistribution of wealth to pay for all global poverty. One of his Senate proposals is Senate Bill 2433, the Global Poverty Act [which should be called the Global Poverty Tax and Spend Act]. After he redistributes wealth from oil companies, via income taxes, and all the rest, he wants the taxpayers to finance the poor of the world. The Global Poverty Act would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product on foreign aid to end global poverty. That's for a total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends on foreign aid. Obama's move is in keeping with U.N. plans to end global poverty


So Sen. Obama would end global poverty by taking from the American taxpayer and making gifts to the poor of the world, without any attention to improving productivity for the long run or without accountability. He proposes an international welfare system at taxpayer expense.


Conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly, whose work appears in The Bulletin, sees Obama's Global Poverty Bill as a U.N. approved tax with no concern that "U.S. handouts go into hands of corrupt dictators who hate us and vote against us in the U.N., and that only 30 percent of American foreign aid ever reaches the poor." Ms. Schlafly sees the Obama Global Poverty Act as "a giant step toward ... global governance and international taxes on America." Obama seems more interested in being a "citizen of the world" than a citizen of the U.S. He takes the European view with contempt for national borders and national sovereignty, and a preference for international controls that would destroy constitutional democracy, as we know it, which has historically survived only in the nation state.

Jerome R. Corsi, of Swift Boat fame, discusses this Act in his important new book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality: "America's middle-class voters, already feeling the economic squeeze from globalization and outsourcing of U.S. jobs to India and China, would probably not appreciate Obama's plan to increase taxes on U.S. citizens to pay for world poverty through the United nations. Their resentment could be expected to grow after realizing Obama himself liberally takes campaign contributions from the very investment bankers and law firms benefiting from globalization and outsourcing. In this context, Obama's railing against the rich appears little more than a leftist resentment traceable to his days in Hawaii and in college, smoking marijuana and drinking liquor while listening to the likes of aging communist poet Frank Marshall Davis rail against capitalism."


When all of Obama's leftist taxes are implemented and all of his social programs are put into effect, the only certainty is that would wreck the economy, and the health care delivery system as well. But he's always been a tax and spend liberal by default, and only his campaign language has changed.


Obama The Race Hustler


The post-racial candidate proved he is on par with the other race baiters and race hustlers of our time, by portraying himself as a victim of racial discrimination, and resorting to politics at its sleaziest and slimiest. In fact, Sen. Obama clearly and deliberately interjected race into the campaign by his own comments. Obama did that in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by claiming McCain and the Republicans were trying to scare voters by pointing out that Obama has a "funny name" and by noting that "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills." He repeated that line not once but three times during the course of the day's campaigning.

As usual, his campaign spokesman offered the usual irrational explanation of the comment by saying Obama meant he doesn't have the same background, the same Washington connections, as the usual president on American currency. An Obama spokesman, Robert Gibbs said, "What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after spending decades in Washington. There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene. He was referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race." But that's nonsense, as you don't see a president's background and how "new" he is to the political scene by looking at his picture on a dollar bill. You would think that the a former head of the Harvard Law Review would be able to say what he means without having to resort to a parade of often inconsistent explanations and double talking.

Obama's exact words were as follows: "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."


The intent of these comments is clear in the context of Obama's other references to his "funny name" and the fact that he is black. He often notes he has a "funny name." And he has specifically said, "they" will try to scare you by noting that funny name and noting he is black. At a fundraiser in Springfield, he recently said, "It's a leap, electing a 46-year-old black guy named Barack Obama." If that's not playing the race card, then nothing is.


Obama also clearly played the race card when he said at a Jacksonville fundraiser last month what he thinks the McCain campaign is and will say: "He's [i.e., Obama] young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black."


This sleazy tactic has a quadruple-barreled intent: First, to paint Obama as a victim of racial discrimination. Second, to try to demean McCain as a racist, a vicious slander coming from a man who promised to avoid the old politics. Third, Obama wants to suggest that some will vote against Obama because of racial prejudice. And fourth, by raising the specter of racial prejudice, Obama wants to inoculate himself from criticism.


That's all nonsense. The American people have already demonstrated that race will not make a difference if the candidate if fit to be president. That was demonstrated by the polling of General Colin Powell in the fall of 1995. The polls had Powell running ahead of Bill Clinton. What's more, Michael Barone has pointed out that many Americans are anxious to show that a black man can be elected president, so they are giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. This kind of support, Barone argues, more than offsets any who will vote against him solely because of his race. In other words, Obama is not a victim but a beneficiary when it comes to the race issue.


In addition, McCain is not a racist and has leaned over backwards to keep race and ethnicity out of the campaign. A while back when one of his loyal supporters called Obama by his middle name, Hussein, McCain severely reprimanded him and disassociated himself from those remarks. He also - mistakenly in my view - criticized a commercial linking Obama to Rev. Wright, the racist, bigot, anti-American that was a close associate of Sen. Obama for 20 years.

This all suggests that Obama, the empty-suit, the candidate of all style and no substance, is the opposite of the post-partisan, post-racial candidate he claims to be, is phony to the core, and is willing to use any sleazy and slimy tactics, including race hustling and race baiting to win. The only faintly presidential qualities he exhibits are oratory and boundless ambition, but he lacks the crucial presidential qualities -experience, character, integrity, and judgment. The most urgent matter of our time is simply giving the American voter the facts on Obama so they can make an informed decision. And it is clear that the mainstream media will only deliver Obama campaign propaganda, in the worst traditions of the dishonest, biased and fraudulent mainstream media.



Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences.


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