Obama A History of Socialist Policies/Beliefs

From Fox News - Obama, in 2001 Interview, Lamented Failure of Civil Rights Movement to Redistribute Wealth

A 7-year-old radio interview in which Barack Obama discussed the failure of the Supreme Court to rule on redistributing wealth in its civil rights rulings has given fresh ammunition to critics who say the Democratic presidential candidate has a socialist agenda.

The interview -- conducted by Chicago Public Radio in 2001, while Obama was an Illinois state senator and a law professor at the University of Chicago -- delves into whether the civil rights movement should have gone further than it did, so that when "dispossessed peoples" appealed to the high court on the right to sit at the lunch counter, they should have also appealed for the right to have someone else pay for the meal.

In the interview, Obama said the civil rights movement was victorious in some regards, but failed to create a "redistributive change" in its appeals to the Supreme Court, led at the time by Chief Justice Earl Warren. He suggested that such change should occur at the state legislature level, since the courts did not interpret the U.S. Constitution to permit such change.

"The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society, and to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical," Obama said in the interview, a recording of which surfaced on the Internet over the weekend.

"It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted.

"And the Warren court interpreted it generally in the same way -- that the Constitution is a document of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted.

"And I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that," Obama said.

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Obama A History of Socialist Policies/Beliefs

IBD: Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism

Investor's Business Daily's article Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism is definitely worth a read. An exerpt follows...

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

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IBD: Barack Obama's Stealth SocialismIBD: Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism

McCain the King of the Comeback

As the media tries to call this race over, it's worth noting that not only is this not the first time that the media has declared the McCain campaign dead. It is also worth noting that Senator McCain's underdog role is nothing new to him, and he has a pentiant for pulling off upsets just as he's being counted out. In fact his odds in this race are remarkably good compared to other challenges he has faced in his life...

Now, as he presses against the strongest political headwinds in many, many years, he’s trying to follow his own advice. Looking back to the early days of the campaign, John Weaver told me that McCain, politically, was “facing a Category 1 hurricane” when he began his race. Now, Weaver says, “it’s a Category 5.”

Despite it all, McCain pushes on, propelled by a drive most people just don’t have. I remember traveling to Iowa in the fall of 2007, after McCain’s campaign meltdown had left him in dreadful financial straits. We were going to the farthest reaches of northwest Iowa, near the Minnesota border. McCain was staying in a Holiday Inn Express in the middle of nowhere — when you walked out the door, the smell of fertilizer got your attention pretty quickly — and he was traveling around in a minivan because his bus had broken down. He spent his days talking to small groups — sometimes really small groups — in diners and pizza joints.

He was 71 years old at the time, wealthy, with a safe and senior spot in the Senate and a career that few, if any, public servants could match. On top of that, his campaign had blown up in an explosion of mismanagement and bad feelings that had many political insiders and journalists writing its obituary. And yet there he was, plugging away, every day, animated by something that is unique to his character.

And why shouldn’t he feel that he can overcome just about anything? This is a man who has dodged death — real death, not political death — many times. There’s more to the story than his enduring five and a half years as a prisoner of war — just look at the fuzzy old black-and-white film of McCain on July 29, 1967, leaping off the refueling probe of his jet after it had been struck by a missile on the deck of the USS Forrestal. It was one of the worst disasters in Navy history, killing 132 men. McCain, miraculously, walked away from it. On one of those trips around Iowa, sitting in the back of his bus — after his campaign found one that worked — McCain described the days after the Forrestal fire. He was at a meeting in which the commanding officer asked if anyone would like to volunteer to transfer to another carrier, the USS Oriskany, which had itself undergone a fire, although a less serious one. Describing himself as if he had been an outside observer, McCain said that he saw his hand go up to volunteer when he could have sought out a less dangerous assignment; on that day in Iowa, 40 years later, he still seemed a little surprised by what he had done. But off he went, and it was from the Oriskany that he took off on the mission that led to his capture and imprisonment, events that would inform so much of his subsequent political career.

The lesson is that McCain is always searching for something new to overcome. Of course he would rather not be facing quite so many political adversities at once, but he is a man who, if he makes it out of one scrape, puts himself in position for another.

And now, he’s doing it again. “How many times, my friends, have the pundits written off the McCain campaign?” he asked a crowd in Wisconsin on October 10. “We’re gonna fool ‘em again. We’re gonna fool ‘em one more time.” A few days later, in Virginia, McCain described the forces arrayed against him and declared, “My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.” People in the audience laughed. But in some sense, deep inside, McCain meant it.

From National Review John McCain Against the Wind

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McCain the King of the Comeback

Obama A History of Socialist Policies/Beliefs

From Fox News - Obama, in 2001 Interview, Lamented Failure of Civil Rights Movement to Redistribute Wealth

A 7-year-old radio interview in which Barack Obama discussed the failure of the Supreme Court to rule on redistributing wealth in its civil rights rulings has given fresh ammunition to critics who say the Democratic presidential candidate has a socialist agenda.

The interview -- conducted by Chicago Public Radio in 2001, while Obama was an Illinois state senator and a law professor at the University of Chicago -- delves into whether the civil rights movement should have gone further than it did, so that when "dispossessed peoples" appealed to the high court on the right to sit at the lunch counter, they should have also appealed for the right to have someone else pay for the meal.

In the interview, Obama said the civil rights movement was victorious in some regards, but failed to create a "redistributive change" in its appeals to the Supreme Court, led at the time by Chief Justice Earl Warren. He suggested that such change should occur at the state legislature level, since the courts did not interpret the U.S. Constitution to permit such change.

"The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society, and to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical," Obama said in the interview, a recording of which surfaced on the Internet over the weekend.

"It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted.

"And the Warren court interpreted it generally in the same way -- that the Constitution is a document of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted.

"And I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still suffer from that," Obama said.

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Obama A History of Socialist Policies/Beliefs

McCain Good for Business and Good for the Economy

Often times pro business even pro small business policies are looked upon with disdain as can be seen in Senator Obama recently comments criticizing Senator McCain for caring more about Wall Street than Main Street. However, this is a myopic view of the economy. Pro business policies create jobs, pro business policies help grow the economy. Putting the breaks on an already sagging economy with increased taxes does nothing for the American worker exept make life harder. CNBC notes that small business owners recognize that McCain Understands Small Business Owners

The following is a statement from American Small Business League (ASBL) President Lloyd Chapman: One look at Senator John McCain's website will tell you, this is a man that knows and cares about America's 27 million small businesses. He knows 56 percent of all Americans work for small businesses. John McCain is a small business guy through and through.

Time also reported on the 300+ professional economists that back McCain. Conversely the Union Leader disusses how Senator Obama's tax plan does not add up in their article It doesn't compute: Obama's tax plan a ruse.

Numerous organizations, including the Associated Press, have noted that Obama's proposals spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than his tax hikes raise. What is less well known is that Obama's tax plan itself sends out of Washington far more than it brings in. Obama's campaign twice admits that in the wording of the tax plan.

According to the plan, "his tax relief for middle-class families is larger than the revenue raised by his tax changes for families over $250,000." That sounds like he's giving a net tax cut. But much of what he calls "tax cuts" are actually cash payments to low- and middle-income Americans. Ultimately, he sends out of Washington hundreds of billions of dollars more than it takes in.

In other words, Obama promises more in benefits to low- and middle-income Americans than his plan can finance with his tax hikes on "families" making more than $250,000 a year. And note the word, "families." Even though Obama says that no "family" making less than $250,000 a year will see a tax increase, in fact his plan raises taxes on individuals making $200,000 a year or more.

The bottom line is that Obama is not being honest about his tax and spending plans. It is impossible -- impossible! -- for him to finance his giveaways by taxing only those making $250,000 or more. He will have to raise taxes substantially on people making much, much less than that.

Senator Obama's plans to "spread the wealth" are anti-growth measures done in the name of fairness. However, there is nothing fair about halting economic growth. There is also nothing fair about punishing success.

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McCain Good for Business and Good for the Economy

Biden Says Obama Will Be Tested With A ‘Major International Crisis’

Barack Obama will need help in a crisis, says Joe Biden from Times Online UK...

Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, has told Americans to expect a “major international crisis” that will present an early test of a Barack Obama administration.

His comments were seized upon by the Republican campaign yesterday to raise fresh doubts about the prepared-ness of Mr Obama to be commander-in-chief.

Speaking at a fundraiser in Seattle on Sunday night, Mr Biden said: “Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here . . . we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

He cited Russia and the Middle East as possible places that may cause problems, as well as the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan – “crawling with al-Qaeda” – as being of particular concern.

Mr Obama would need help and support, Mr Biden suggested, “because it’s not gonna be apparent, initially, that we’re right.” He then spotted the media in the room, “I probably shouldn’t have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here.”

Now why would anyone vote for Barack Obama when his own VP states that a vote for Obama is a vote for an international crisis? Why would anyone want to be a part of a ticket that one believes will lead the country to crisis? What an unbelievable statement. The only time a time camera falls on Senator Biden at this point is when he is trying to pull his foot out of his mouth. However, this is beyond a gaffe; this is disturbing. It appears Senator Biden sees Senator Obama as weak. It appears that Senator Biden, is not confident in Senator Obama's ability to handle a crisis, and it appears that Senator Biden would prefer a "major international crisis" that a Republican president.

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Biden Says Obama Will Be Tested With A ‘Major International Crisis’

Obama's Plan to Spread the Wealth

Despite the Obama campaign's and media's attempt to discredit 'Joe the Plumber', a fellow who simply asked Senator Obama a question at a campaign event, his question remains valid, and Obama's response proves insightful. Obama's $250,000 a year tax increase provides a barrier to success for the middle class, particularly for entrepreneurs and small business owners. For these people on the bubble there is a penalty for growth. Consequently, this puts the brakes on the growth of many small businesses, which are responsible for a large percentage of new jobs. Raising taxes in a struggling economy on any economic bracket is a terrible idea. Tax increases slow economic growth, and that hurts people across the board. If jobs dry up, it's not the $250,000 plus crowd that will be hurt the most, it will be the middle class.

Senator Obama's response to Joe is interesting. 'Spreading the wealth' is a principle of socialism. This combined with Senator Obama's plan to reduce taxes for 95% of the people, when 30-40% of the people don't pay federal income tax has all the hallmarks of a socialist policy. Senator Obama has never addressed whether people who don't pay taxes would receive a government check. Either his numbers are off or he is creating a welfare class is his plan. Subsidizing low income is the perfect way of encouraging people not to achieve. Why work harder if the government will pay you not to. Why start a new business if the government will penalize you for your success. This is the perfect plan to deaden the economy; penalize success, reward mediocrity, and limit the growth of new/small businesses.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KXRq2bErVc]
Obama's Plan to Spread the Wealth