Obama Worries
Here are some things rarely discussed that worry me about Obama:
Class Strife.
By exempting millions from any income tax at all, he is going to institutionalize, in the fashion of Rome, two classes: the growing angry number on the receiving end of bread and circuses—and the shrinking few who will pay all the income taxes.
The former will not show gratitude, but always think a greedy class of parasites on top constantly pays them too little and has an endless supply of capital for others’ needs. Gone will be the old American notion that when we see a nice car in the parking lot (I drive an older Honda with 100,000 miles on it), we walk around it in fascination—replaced by a European desire to kick in the fenders in resentment.
Business.
Listen sometime to Obama’s references to business—90% of the time they occur in a pejorative context. And when he is not overtly critical, his curiosity is a sort of naïve, wow admiration of the hip zillionaire like a Buffet or Jobs who has made so many hundreds of millions that in their golden years they suddenly don’t care much about income tax rates, death taxes, etc.—at least not in comparison with the notion that they are seen as magnanimous liberals and proof that a choice few can be both rich and generous.
Never-never land.
Obama is counter-intuitive and seems to come up with exegeses opposite to what facts suggest. The surge is working in remarkable fashion. Nonetheless, as in 2007, he continues to insist that it has failed or is of only marginal significance—even as troops prepare to hand over entire provinces to the Iraqis and more and more are scheduled for withdrawal.
Any fool knows that wind and solar, even on hot, windy days, will not furnish more than 10% of our power needs for the immediate future. Why then would he omit other sources of much needed short-term energy, when we founded the nuclear industry, have the world’s largest supply of coal, have 3-4 million more barrels of oil per day recoverable off our coasts and in Alaska, and vast amounts of tar sands and shale? If electric cars are the answer (one per household?), then nuclear power seems essential so we can plug into the grid as we sleep. All this is simply omitted. What does “millions of new jobs in green industries” mean—especially in the foreseeable future of $5 a gallon gas?
Even Al Gore’s jet burns fossil fuels, as does John Edwards’ playroom, as do John Kerry’s mansions, as does Rev. Wright’s 10,000 sq. ft palace. Why trash the industry that allows us to live in the concrete while praising in the abstract industries that cannot help us much in the present?
One-sided history.
There is a constant refrain in his historical exempla that take a one-sided view of Americana as largely pathological. Obama always seems to reference slavery, the Underground Railroad, the Civil Rights marches, and women’s suffrage. Not a word in balance about the Founding Fathers, Andrew Jackson, Shiloh, the Way West, the Gold Rush, the age of American invention and discovery, World War I, World War II (the victories like the Bulge or Iwo, not just Hiroshima, Rosie the Riveter, and the Japanese Internment). I have no problem with evocation of past reform and needed change, just the notion that there wasn’t much else apparently good.
Less than flip-flopping
Obama seems to assume that his charisma will explain every inconsistency. Trash NAFTA to the yokels—but send backchannel assurances to elites that he is a free-trader. Waffle on Rev. Wright and adjust hourly so that the black base accepts you were “forced” to pay lip service to the “establishment”, while gaining laurels from suburban whites for your racial transcendence. In fact, talk of transcending race in the manner that a Gen. Powell or Sec. Rice had done it, while warning that your enemies will use your race and middle name against you. Praise for months public financing, and then when you don’t need it, trash both the law and your opponent who is using it.
Obamanics
I think few understand the full effect of Obama’s tax hikes—payroll, income, estate, capital gains, etc—on the so-called “rich.” I know plenty of couples who live in Bay Area and for all their income are not entitled. They make together about $200-250,000. That at first glance seems like plentitude.
But not so fast. A tiny 1200 sq. foot home in Palo Alto or Menlo Park can go for a million (a friend just bought a cottage for $800,000 [two bedrooms]). Mostly Hispanic Redwood City rarely sees a modest home for less than $700,000. Gas is right about $4.80 a gallon. State taxes hit hard with nearly a 10% take. If they send a child to a private school like Santa Clara it can cost $50,000 a year in tuition, room, board, books, and expenses. These are not all CEO jetting to Hedge Fund Retreats.
His proposed estate taxes will kill an upper-middle class California coast couple for whom a $1 million-plus house, and 401K nest eggs were a lifetime effort. Depending on the caps Obama chooses, such estates may be taxed at death a second time at 45%.
Remember two facts: the additional revenue (if it is additional, since many will hide their income or rest on their laurels given the tax bite) won’t go for deficit reduction, given whopping new entitlements. Second, those who pay 100K more a year in FICA, income, and capital gains taxes will still be the greedy rich whose income was ill-gotten anyway.
Weddings
I put on a wedding for my daughter this Saturday at 6PM at the farmhouse for about 180 guests. At 5PM it seemed like an utter disaster. The temperature in the garden was 109 and it was unbearable. Last minute runs into town to get umbrellas, fans, misters, and ice water didn’t seem like they would do much. At 5:30 suddenly a hot Valley-type wind came up—the sort of tropical blasts that often come in unexpectedly when the temperature soars over 105.
At first it provided relief, then in minutes it blew table cloths into the wind, blasted off all the table place settings, and whipped up lighting cables. Suddenly a dirt storm was more the danger than heat prostration.
But then as if by magic, at 6:00 PM, five minutes before the ceremony began, suddenly the wind died down after doing its best to cool temperatures, and the wedding went off without a hitch, followed by a lovely nighttime dinner with pleasant breezes.
In the space of 30 minutes, one guest said, “I’m dying. See what happens when you try to have a outside wedding in late June in the Valley,” followed by one that smiled, “This was a great idea to eat out here in this pleasant breeze.”
All the other wedding problems—like blown circuit breakers taking out fans and lights just before the wedding music started—were the normal minor glitches compared to the weather. My daughter got married in the same house where her grandmother had in 1947, and her great-grandmother had in 1911—and was the sixth continuous generation to live in the same bedroom.
McCain in Fresno
I attended McCain’s lunch yesterday in Fresno. It was notable for a couple of reasons. First he told a largely ag-industry audience that farm subsidies and ethanol programs were mistakes, and he still won over the crowd, most of which had been Thompson or Romney supporters. He seems to like the role of underdog, and keeps hammering away at Obama on his flip-flopping, or as I put in the NRO corner:
Time usually has been crucial in many past campaigns. In 1968 Humphrey might have won in another week; while Jerry Ford could have overtaken Carter in another 10 days. Obama is already playing a sort of 4th-quarter defense. He knows that the more town-halls, and impromptu speeches and interviews, the more likely, given his inexperience and doctrinaire liberalism, he is going to say something that comes off quirky, whether the off-the-cuff rants at fund-raisers like the clingers speech or the latest about “them” going after his middle name and race, or Cartesque lectures about over-eating Americans in SUVs and the apparent utility of high-priced gas, or the flip-flopping on Nafta, the war, campaign financing, Rev. Wright, et al. McCain is the proverbial steady tortoise, Obama the flashy racing hare — the key question being how far exactly are they respectively along the course to the finish line in November?
World War II Again
When the Wehrmacht entered the Soviet Union in 1941 and swept through during much of 1941 and 1942, thousands of Jews were murdered by special corps of Nazi executioners. To say that somehow the war prompted these deaths that otherwise would not have occurred had Hitler been left alone raises two questions: one, had Britain and France kept out of the war, and had Hitler broken his pact with Stalin and invaded Russia, would German soldiers not have killed Jews en masse? And two, if the Holocaust was only an artifact of the war, how was it that there were legions of German killers who rounded up Jews at almost the first moment they entered Russian soil? Was this all ad hoc? No prior discussion or prep? All this a sudden change of character once the shooting war started? A 1939 Hitler was reasonable,but in 1941 he experienced a sudden personality change that led to monstrous policies brought on by conditions imposed by bellicose enemies? Mein Kampf a mere thought exercise? Himmler et al simply a little over the top? The SS a bit player of the late 1930s?
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33 Comments
TLM:VDH,
Tortoise and Hare - good analogy. More like a snapping turtle though. I caught a large one in my driveway recently. Squat ugly, strong and mean. Wouldn’t eat arugula. Put him in the bushes by the flag pole and he seemed perfectly happy. My dogs leave him alone for some reason. Congrats on the wedding.
P.S. They supposedly live forever too.
Jun 24, 2008 - 1:22 pm ET:First of all, congratulations on your daughter’s wedding! It’s nice to hear some good news in the face of so much bad, particularly when one listens to Obama’s specific proposals.
It’s mystifying why the press, which so eagerly devoured every conceivable error or transgression of George Bush’s policies, is comatose in the face of Obama’s frantic obfuscations. There seems to be an unspoken promise to never ask any question that can be perceived as difficult for Obama, perhaps for fear of being seen as “Racist”, or even more likely, because reporters simply want Obama to win.
I am still a bit young to remember the Carter years clearly, but there appears to be a depressing similarity between those days and the vision of Mr. Obama, a blend of wealth-resentment, qualified anti-capitalism, class warfare, sky-high taxation, and pipe-dream “New Technologies” that will supposedly deliver us from our sinful “Addiction to oil”, all the while offering olive branches to hostile regimes overseas in the naive belief that, just as his aides keep telling him, he is so brilliantly unique, that he alone will be able to talk lions and tigers out of their aggressive natures.
As we learn growing up, voting is often a choice between the lesser of two evils, and it’s now abundantly clear, whatever the faults of John McCain may be, which lever needs the pull more in November.
Jun 24, 2008 - 2:02 pm StevenH:I knew there was a quote that explains the Obama-mania, HL Mencken (need I quote more?):
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
In this case, we have an empty suit, with no experience, representing “hope” and “change.” Of course, he never explains what this hope and change is.
What we have are two bad candidates, prone to misspeak. It only remains to see who makes the more fatal mistake at the worse time.
In the past, I have had to hold my nose and vote. This time, I think I will have to bring in a respirator.
BTW, the most “enjoyable” historical book I have ever read was “The Soul of Battle.” I never realized the true greatness of GS Patton and WT Sherman. Where are these men now that we really need them?
Jun 24, 2008 - 3:14 pm Ron Kean:Google Barack Obama’s resume. There’s not much there. Yikes!
J. Wright hasn’t backed down an inch. Crazy as he is, at least he’s got integrity. At least more than Obama. He said Obama will say what Obama has to say to get elected. What does that mean? Lie? At least Wright is truthful about what he believes and doesn’t HAVE to say anything.
From what I’ve read, Bush had a unbelievably great European trip. I read something complementary about him online from a British newspaper. Then Brooks came out with something today in the NY Times of all places that wasn’t bad. It seems that people may, just may be starting to appreciate what he’s been all about.
Dear Professor,
Congrats on your little girl. I wish her and her husband much happiness and success. I wish that they will always bring you great happiness.
:- )
Jun 24, 2008 - 5:03 pm TLM:Joel Klein’s article on the surge today (at ) elevates political vitriol to a new level for a major news weekly. I’m not familiar with all of his writings, but find this one despicable for the TIME magazine essayist. Indirectly, he raises the question of Jewish neoconservatives in the Bush Administration promoting the Iraq War to benefit Israel. He acknowledges he was wrong about the surge, then calls it “whipped cream on a pile of fertilizer”. And being wrong on a major transition point in this war doesn’t dissuade him from predicting doom and gloom going forward, for “a regional policy unprecedented in its stupidity and squalor”. What gives?
TIME Inc must be reading the handwriting on the wall, not for Iraq but for themselves. The future of the free world is not in jeopardy, but the future of print journalism is. All those young Obamaphiles are the next generation of TIME readers, and they like their opinions in black and white, stated loudly without equivocation. Subtlety and sober assessment are passe. Well, don’t let facts get in your way Mr Klein. You can now join George Bush in the pantheon of the Unreasonably Stubborn. Hopefully you will be as successful as he with this strategy.
Jun 24, 2008 - 7:00 pm TLM:Joel Klein http://www.realclearpolitics.com 6/24/08
Jun 24, 2008 - 7:03 pm Jaybee:Do you think Obama dumped public financing to have the ability raise more cash and buy Clinton’s support? Clinton would like that $30 million back.
Jun 24, 2008 - 7:57 pm Nick B:It’s good to write about positive, non-political things once in a while. In the meantime, as Obama says: “Let’s hope we can believe in dreams about change. Because if we don’t dare to dream about our beliefs, they won’t change our hopes. We have to believe in that.” Follow me?
Jun 24, 2008 - 9:09 pm Jimmy J.:A nice roundup of the week’s events vis a vis Obama versus McCain.
One of the maddening things to me is that the energy problem is never analysed by the pols in its component parts. Sound bites do not solutions make.
First there is energy needed for transportation. Petroleum products are the main driver here. Even if a practical, rechargeable, battery powered car was available starting in 2009, it would take 20 years, maybe more, for it to become established as the vehicle of choice. But even then we will still have to have some way of powering airplanes and container ships. Petroleum products for transportation will be needed for many years. Hydrogen power, if it is feasible, is farther down the road and still might not work for airplanes and ships.
So, we will still need petroleum products for many years. We can get them from aggressive new drilling, tar sands, coal liquefication, and oil shale. What is stopping us is the environmental lobby, which supports Obama.
The second component is the energy to produce our electricity. We are using coal, nuclear, hydro, wind and solar now. To achieve more clean power we need to continue with the renewables - including hydro, and ramp up nuclear while hoping to find a practical, clean way of using coal. The environmental lobby is also the main stumbling block going forward on nuclear, clean coal, and hydro.
The third category is energy to heat our buildings. Natural gas is the preferred source today, but is getting more expensive and will eventually be too scarce to use for heat. Passive solar can be a partial answer in some climates, but active solar panels are still too expensive and too climate constrained to be a huge help in the overall problem. Geo-thermal heat pumps are the cleanest, most efficient means of heating buildings but are still too expensive and hard to retrofit. We need to find a new clean energy that is cheap enough to heat buildings on a large scale.
Conservation, energy efficient houses, appliances, and electronics can do a lot, but are not the total answer either. We are going to have to produce a lot of new energy and find clean, sustainable replacements for the energy sources that are no longer cheap and easily available.
It is a huge field with some knotty problems but needs to be separated into its components to find the best new/different solutions to each component. I hope McCain will start getting advice from some real experts in the field. This issue could be key in the race.
We also need to remember that we will always prize petroleum for the plastics, fabrics, medicines, and chemicals that we derive from it. (Thank God for oil shale!)
Congratulations on the success of your daughter’s wedding. And some say there is no Divine Providence!
Jun 24, 2008 - 9:27 pm RuleTopia:McCain says he wants to run a respectful campaign. Fair enough. Then he needs to have the courage to respect the intelligence of the American people. In this regard, I do think McCain (and every other Republican) could learn one lesson from Ross Perot’s failed efforts in 1992. Perot did 30-minute TV presentations, complete with graphs. McCain should do the same thing. A 30-minute, national presentation on energy. Another one on the problems with government involvement in our healthcare system. Another still on the conflict with Islamic totalitarianism.
Perot was a nutbag but his communications techniques were riveting and caused him to shoot up in the polls like a meteor and nearly achieve the impossible. Imagine what such tactics could do for a man of substance like John McCain.
Jun 24, 2008 - 11:02 pm RuleTopia:With Obama’s massive tax hikes and expansion of government, we’ll get change all right, chump change.
Jun 24, 2008 - 11:03 pm Michael Lonie:The Nazis started killing Jews from the moment the war began in 1939. The SS formed special groups to follow the Wehrmacht into Poland. The groups had lists of whole classes of people to be killed, including Jews, Polish intellectuals, army officers, and priests. This is discussed in “Hitler Strikes Poland” by Alexander B. Rossino. Two interesting facts stuck in my mind from this book. The first was that in order to gain promotion to high rank in the SS all the commanders and senior officers of the groups had to renounce their religion, whatever it was, Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist. The other was that among the classes of people to be murdered was members of the Boy Scouts.
Jun 24, 2008 - 11:33 pm steve:Prof Hanson,
Jun 25, 2008 - 2:04 am Snake Eyes 15:Congrats on the wedding. I still have three left to pay for.
Obama’s economic policies are straight out of the European play book. I live in Spain and daily experience “how well” these policies work:
- Yesterday the govt. announced their expectation of less than 2% GDP growth. This pretty much assures the figure will be negative as they have steadily decreased their estimate every month.
- The govt. announced today that they estimate 11% unemployment in 2009 - which assures the result will be at least a couple points higher.
- A freind of mine just had his foot repaired, after hobbling for 10 months while waiting his turn for tests and treatment in the National Health Care system.
- people are furious as they live up to their income, depending on the state for retirement (which given the demographic trends may not be there). The 16% YTD fuel increases + 4.6% and climbing inflation + significant increases to their variable rate mortgages are hugely downgrading the every day life style.
- I am unaware of any business sector that is going well: retail, industrial, real estate/construction are all suffering with no end in sight.
I could go on and on but essentially it is an economic mess. Why the USA would possibly want to emulate the European model defies any kind of logic that I can understand.
I also can not understand why Republicans are so ineffective in pointing this out to the electorate.
VDH.
Jun 25, 2008 - 3:51 am John:First, great congratulations on your daughters wedding. My oldest got married last year. It is a GREAT day for fathers. Trust me. I will write more later as I have had MANY adventures since we last corresponded. I feel that Obama is a fool but Senator Present will be the next President. I also feel that you get exactly the kind of government you deserve. SIGH!
Last,
Take care of your health. As a OLD and valued friend put it, “If you think your life’s work is done, and your still alive, it aint!”
He is Norski from Thief River and my old flying mate from my Navy days.
You’re still alive, VDH.
Like Borgnine, fight!
vdh,
Congratulations on your daughter’s wedding, I’m delighted to hear that went well. I wish much happiness and success for them both. Being the father of 2 boys, I’m also delighted to know I’ll not have to worry about such things. Since their mother and I have seemingly raised them both to be lifelong bachelor’s, I guess they at least won’t be putting some poor girl’s father in the poorhouse with a wedding.
Regards the Obama saga, the more I see unfolding before me, the more I just shake my head in amazement. Does anyone really think the majority of the American populace is that stupid?
Jun 25, 2008 - 4:41 am jhr:When will McCAin get tough against BHO? Thats what I want to know. BHO is clearly anti carbon anything, except maybe windmills made of plastic.
Can there be anyone more foolish who really thinks that oil, shale, gas isnt gojng to be the way we propel and warm ourselfs for the next 20 years?
Im in transportation folks, be prepared for staple shortages if oil contiunes on its trend line. There will be less and less trucks to transport food to your market.
Maybe thats what the dem’s really want - for everybody to start growing their own backyard organic fruit and veggies. Course Im not really sure what will do for meat. Oh wait I forgot, we’ll become vegans then. Victory for all - vote BHO!
C’mon John take off the gloves. Now.
Jun 25, 2008 - 10:13 am John Bailey:Today at about 12:15 in the afternoon Central time, the following headline was copied word for word from the news page of AOL:
“Queen Honors Controversial Author
Some Critics Want to See Writer Dead”
Is there no rational observation of facts left? Why would we expect coverage of Obama to be any more accurate?
Jun 25, 2008 - 10:25 am John:@jhr
“Who me?”
jhr,,, I have so much stored for the liberal liftoid moonbats it is not a good idea to turn me loose in mixed company,,, thanks anyway.
Jun 25, 2008 - 1:00 pm A McBain:Re Obama - Thank you for the compelling outline of Obama’s positions. His theatrics are grand theater but his idealistic positions are not even close to being worthy of a national leader in my view. He is simply too untrained, untried, unclear, and sadly, un-American to be trusted for the Presidency of our great country. How did America, the first nation founded on Enlightenment principles grow so many “True Believers” since the 1960’s?
Jun 25, 2008 - 1:09 pm Ron Kean:I have a feeling that things are changing.
Let McCain be McCain warts and all.
People are seeing the immaturity and mendacity of the Democratic nominee.
His campaign is childish. But he embraces extreme people. Like many of our oil rich Arab friends, unexpected wealth may be breeding a self satisfied smugness that can be perceived.
I’m waiting for a free fall in his popularity. It would be so much fun.
Call me anything you want. But google Obama’s resume and see what’s there. I didn’t see much.
Jun 25, 2008 - 6:52 pm Dan:A} Dump the Honda! I just got a new Mercury Milan, {V6, Premiere, AWD}, it’s great, 225 horsepower, you’d love it, and zipping around is fun.
B} The messiah figure isn’t real deal, he’s a false messiah, promising the sun, the moon and the stars, and an earthly redemption through his weird green quasi-religion.
C} I’m real glad that nature forewent torturing you, your daughter and the guests, but that made for some hilarious reading. That sounds like it was the early stages of a skit for SNL. Best of luck, best of everything to the newlyweds!
D} When are you coming around to the East Coast?
Jun 25, 2008 - 8:12 pm Olivia:Congrats on the wedding. Garden parties have a habit of being chaotic until the very last minute. That’s nature for ya.
Jun 25, 2008 - 9:47 pm John:I think Ann Coulter came up with an idea for a wood chip powered airplane. Yeah, right… That ought to be up and running soon.
What I find amusing is the fact that the greenies don’t seem to have a good grasp of the physical laws behind what goes on behind the scene when they flip the light switch to the “ON” position. You can see their eyes glaze over when you begin to discuss the amount of caloric energy stored per cubic foot in a potential heat source. For them it’s all just magic.
I suppose we could build wood fired electrical generation plants, (trees are a renewable resource, ya know), but then you’d have every tree hugger in the country up in arms about cutting down all those trees needed to keep the boilers hot.
You just can’t win with these people. Sometimes it doesn’t even pay to get up and go to the fight.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:55 am Christopher:Dittoes on Dan’s question - it’d be great to see you speak, but I’m not sure I can afford either a trip to California or the NRO post-election cruise.
I think McCain can easily win PA(my home state) and the Midwest with a little effort if he gets his campaign together - Obama has few fans besides the blacks and academia. Most of the blue collar legacy Democrats I talk to will end up going for the Republican rather than the out-of-touch amateur in this election.
Jun 26, 2008 - 7:57 am Dave Begley - Omaha:I. Fresno State wins the College World Series. Probably the biggest upset ever in NCAA sports for a championship. Lowest seed to win the title.
II. The Obama agenda: What we know for sure.
1. Raise your taxes.
2. Do nothing to increase the domestic supply of oil.
3. Surrender in Iraq.
4. Help his pals shakedown the telecoms for millions.
VDH’s line is a classic, “No serious country would elect him President.”
Jun 26, 2008 - 8:22 am J.E. Dyer:Must add my congratulations on your daughter’s wedding. As a fellow Californian living just south of the nether end of the Central Valley, I had to laugh at the idea of the outdoor wedding in last week’s heat wave. But the cooldown reached you in the nick of time. I wish your daughter and her husband very happy.
I too have noticed Obama’s relentless negativism about, basically, the sum total of American history up until the day he is sworn in as president. His persistent implication is that nothing can be laudable or even just good when Obama has not yet presided over the Oval Office.
Plus, he comes off, for me, as a guy who imagines himself to be performing a reality-TV “intervention” on American voting constituencies. Everything about him seems to echo the artificial hype of popular culture.
Gonna be a very long campaign. Still so many miles to go.
Jun 26, 2008 - 10:09 am David:A bit off-topic, but I found to be very forceful your “The Can’t Do Society” article over at NRO. Your allusion to indecisive Hamlet in describing BHO & the Progressives was spot on…..paralyzed and beguiled by ever more intricate moral nuance, unable to take action for fear of tainting their demand for perfection, they (potentially taking us with them) are sucked into decadence and irrelevance in a world only too happy to shove us all aside.
I think today of the Spanish so self-congratulating in defending the natural rights of apes while unable & unwilling to defend themselves from murderous aggression.
Anyway, your allusion brought a rueful smile.
As a life-long resident near Modesto, I share your far happier smile over your daughter’s wedding and wish you all joy.
Jun 26, 2008 - 12:04 pm Ron Kean:Damn trial lawyers.
Shakespere said something about the lawyers and it wasn’t pretty.
I like Karl Rove, Dennis Miller, Charles Kruthammer, Thomas Sowell, Mark Steyn, Charles Johnson, the guys on NRO, Powerline,and The American Thinker. But VDH is the best.
Do you think the heat was bad in CA? Here on the Mississippi it rains a lot. I mean a lot.
Jun 26, 2008 - 6:43 pm Brian:Dr. Hansen, all you say is true, that that alone would be enough to convince me to vote for McCain.
But for others, it is not.
And to these good folks, if they are reading, and in light of the Kelo (land grab from private citizen to private company for tax community tax benefits) decision; the Boumediene (Constitutional habeus corpus for aliens) decision; the Kennedy (child rape) decision; and the close Heller (individual right to keep and bear arms) decision . . . I beseech you: please reconsider.
The last thing we need is Barak Obama appointing judges, supreme or other. I beg you — hold your nose and vote for McCain.
Jun 26, 2008 - 8:06 pm The Sigalows of Florida:Congratulations on the wedding of your daughter. All the best wishes to you and your family.
Jun 27, 2008 - 11:44 am Ron Kean:The leaders of Israel want to keep giving away something for nothing. Our leaders think ANWR is something more than it is and won’t back down. Ireland stiffed the EU. There’s a big disconnect going on.
12 point lead. 15 point lead for Obama. I’m not buying it. I think the media thinks we’re morons. We’ve stiffed Hollywood. We can stiff the media.
In the 80’s, our gentile friends condescended assurance when we said that people want to kill Jews. Moslems are at it in Paris again. I’ve been told that more and more French is heard spoken in Jerusalem. It used to be just Russian, English, and Hebrew.
Should a Jew assassinate Obama, God forbid, that would be terrible. If Israel attacked Iran and oil prices shot up and plunged the global market into chaos or free fall, God forbid, that would be terrible also.
I feel like a powder keg is just below us…again.
The only good news is that McCain has a sense of humor. That’s a quality that the world really needs now. We need a kidder. He should get Jacky Mason to write for him. He should go on Saturday Night Live as much as he can.
He should appoint Rudy Guliani, Fred Thompson, or even Mich Romney for vice-President and let them get out there.
Somebody is going to be in the oval office in February. It’s crunch time.
Jun 27, 2008 - 5:43 pm Al Reasin:As to energy, neither the major media nor the presidential candidates have reported on the new oil rush (see http://westhawk.blogspot.com/2008/06/bakken-oil-formation-and-national.html) at the Bakken oil field in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. New technology has made this 50 year old oil field now a potential bonanza with an estimated 400 billion plus barrels of oil; almost twice the reserves supposedly confirmed in Saudi Arabia. Even if the estimate is incorrectly high, the oil would still serve as a bridge until offshore and alternative fuels are readily available. It is in easily accessed terrain, there are fairly close pipelines and the NIMBY factor is negligible. So why is this “find” being ignored?
Jun 28, 2008 - 6:58 pm Mark Wilson:One sided history????…..
http://www.barackobama.com/tv/speeches.php?bcpid=900718856&bclid=900554575&bctid=1576242293
Jul 1, 2008 - 7:21 am