‘Barack Obama motherf***er!’

Having spent a nice couple of hours with my son at our church Halloween function, I came home and gave him a warm bath and went over some phonetics lessons with him.

After putting him down to sleep in his nice bed, we were startled by a loud noise outside and a male voice yelling “Barack Obama motherfucker!”

I went on to the porch to see a gaggle of 8-12 black youths crossing in front of my house, from the side where a 3′x6′ John McCain banner has been on my fence for about a month. The youths continued to yell at me “Barack Obama motherfucker!” until I pulled out my cell phone, at which time one of them yelled “He’s got a gun” and they took off running down the street.

I called the police who responded to my residence. The young men across the street stated that the youth’s yelled at them when they told them they didn’t have any candy and would not, in fact, be giving them one of the cold beers they were drinking.

The neighbors stated the youths then came across the street and ripped down my large McCain banner.

I don’t care for self-fulfilling prophecies, but if my Republican private property can’t be protected from roving gangs of Obama Democrats after Nov. 4 then something is definitely wrong with this picture.

Filed under: National, North Carolina , anger rising, Barack Obama, malicious injury to personal property

Real hate

William Ayers dedicated his 1974 revolutionary manifesto “Prarie Fire” in part to Sirhan Sirhan, man who crushed the hopes of a nation when he murdered Robert F. Kennedy 40 years ago.

Barack Obama launched his first political campaign in the living room of his neighbor, William Ayers.

Until Democrats can start to repudiate this relationship and the hate Ayers stands for, Obama will have no credibility as president.

Filed under: National , anger rising, angry left, Barack Obama, prarie fire, sirhan sirhan, William Ayers

Faith in the Awaited One

A beautiful essay by Fouad Ajmi about the power of the crowd and the center of its attention:

On the face of it, there is nothing overwhelmingly stirring about Sen. Obama. There is a cerebral quality to him, and an air of detachment. He has eloquence, but within bounds. After nearly two years on the trail, the audience can pretty much anticipate and recite his lines. The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest — African-Americans and affluent white liberals — has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking — Canetti’s feeling of equality within the crowd. The day after, the crowd will of course discover its own fissures. The affluent will have to pay for the programs promised the poor. The redistribution agenda that runs through Mr. Obama’s vision is anathema to the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the hedge-fund managers now smitten with him. Their ethos is one of competition and the justice of the rewards that come with risk and effort. All this is shelved, as the devotees sustain the candidacy of a man whose public career has been a steady advocacy of reining in the market and organizing those who believe in entitlement and redistribution.

Filed under: National , Barack Obama, Fouad Ajmi

NC Democrats and the $332 caviar cocktail

Nothing like being a North Carolina Democrat and living high on the hog:

State Auditor Les Merritt said this morning that trips to France, Russia and Estonia by First Lady Mary Easley and others included “unreasonable and excessive expenses,” including a taxpayer-funded $332 lunchtime caviar cocktail.

Taxpayers picked up hundreds of dollars in alcohol purchases, against state policy. They paid for ballet tickets, and an executive assistant to Easley billed the state $227 dollars for a linen jacket.

Merritt found that the trips to France and Russia — which cost a total of $110,000 — were of questionable value to taxpayers.

Filed under: North Carolina , Leslie Merritt, Mary Easley, NC Democratic corruption, NC Democratic hypocrisy

Obama lies to the American people?

Say it ain’t so:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama’s assertion that “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond” the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by “eliminating programs that don’t work” masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are—beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Filed under: National , Barack Obama

Dole in Wentworth

Elizabeth Dole rally in Wentworth covered by local media and attended by about 100 people.

I don’t know if any athiests were there, but Dorothy was joined by the Tin Man.

Filed under: North Carolina , Elizabeth Dole, Wentworth

Obama unconstrained

Finally the pushback seems to be starting:

When Barack Obama envisions a government finally set free from the “essential constraints” the Founders wrote into the Constitution, he envisions a government wholly unconstrained, empowered to enslave one segment of the population, forcing it to work on behalf of another segment — to “spread the wealth around.”

The U.S. Constitution exists for one reason. To protect us from men like Barack Obama, who is perilously close to being handed the power to begin undoing that protection.

New Hampshire Union Leader

Related: A prescient comment:

You left wing, big tax, big government folks never learn. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and spent many years in upstate NY during and after college, paying outrageous taxes and fees. When my wife, kids, and I got an invitation from our local city government to come by the fire house to pick up a free brick of cheese and a ham, because we met “income eligibility,” I decided I’d had enough. We did what millions of other thinking Americans have done: we moved south, where the taxes are low and where the rust belt jobs had gone. We love it here!

Now liberals want to do to America what they’ve done to New England and the Great Lakes. Tax, spend, and ultimately, chase jobs and productivity offshore. Won’t it be a delight when all of America looks like the blighted cities of Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, the rest of the Niagara Frontier and upstate NY? Congratulations, at least it will be fair: everybody will be equally miserable.
- Phillip Sims, Atlanta, GA

Filed under: National , Barack Obama, reparations, The Constitution

Peas in a pod

Stevens should step down. And that guy from Idaho too.

Filed under: National , GOP, Larry Craig, Ted Stevens

Painting the opposition

I’m not feeling so lonely anymore:

Our political tradition sets great store by the generalized symbol of evil.  This is the wrongdoer whose wrongdoing will be taken by the public to be the secret propensity of a whole community or class. We search avidly for such people, not so much because we wish to see them exposed and punished as individuals, but because we cherish the resulting political discomfort of their friends. To uncover an evil man among the friends of one’s foes had long been a recognized method of advancing one’s political fortunes. However, in recent times the technique has been greatly improved and refined by the added firmness with which the evil of the evildoer is now attributed to friends, acquaintances, and all who share his way of life.

John Kenneth Galbraith (The Great Crash, pgs.154-155)

Filed under: Concepts , John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, political discourse, historical quotes, evil

A question of perception

Brooks on wish fulfillment:

If you start thinking about our faulty perceptions, the first thing you realize is that markets are not perfectly efficient, people are not always good guardians of their own self-interest and there might be limited circumstances when government could usefully slant the decision-making architecture (see “Nudge” by Thaler and Cass Sunstein for proposals). But the second thing you realize is that government officials are probably going to be even worse perceivers of reality than private business types. Their information feedback mechanism is more limited, and, being deeply politicized, they’re even more likely to filter inconvenient facts.

Filed under: National , behavioral revolution, perception, Wall Street bailout

When less is more

Let me get this straight. Barack Obama spends $600 million to polish his image and sell himself to the American people, but the left is criticizing the GOP because it spent $150,000 to do the same for Sarah Palin?

I must be back in Absurdia.

Filed under: National , Barack Obama, liberal elitism, liberal snark, Sarah Palin

Not really an emergency

Before we go creating a nationalized health care industry, maybe we should take a look at the element of personal responsibility that is bogging down the system:

A 35-year-old woman walks into the emergency room with a low-grade fever and a cough that is producing green phlegm. She’s a pack-a-day smoker, divorced and recently lost her job. She has no insurance.

Dr. Jack Allison, of Asheville, an emergency physician for more than 30 years and former president of the N.C. College of Emergency Physicians, says this patient puts him in a bind.

Filed under: National , health care, health care reform, universal health care

Why groupthink is more dangerous than angry individuals

The overwhelming impulse to do verbal combat with people who don’t agree with me has been a driving force in my life. Outside of the joy I get from hearing myself talk or watching words fill a blank screen, I have developed an intense proclivity for pushing the edge of argumentation and watching the reaction of the crowd.

One of the earliest examples of this is when I was in Baptist school in the 8th grade. The Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef” commercials were at the height of their popularity at that time. I wasn’t real happy with being sent to Baptist school in the seventh grade and had made a pact with myself that I would get expelled so I could go back to public school.

Filed under: Concepts , Barack Obama, failure, GOP, groupthink, John McCain, liberal snark, Sarah Palin

The End of Victimology?

If a black man becomes President of the United State of America, and he and his wife lay their heads down to sleep in the White House, does that mean racism as an excuse for personal failure can forever be banished to the ash heap of history?

Filed under: National , Barack Obama, racism

The Axis of Taxes

Pelosi – Obama – Reid: The Axis of Taxes

Saw this in the comments of this post.

Not that it matters much for this election, but I thought it was witty.

Filed under: National , Axis of Taxes, Barack Obama, federal tax policy, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi

Bill Daughtridge for state treasurer

Down ballot there are a couple of important candidates that are the clear choice for particular state offices.

One of those is Bill Daughtridge for state treasurer.

For anyone considering a straight Democratic Party ticket, I ask that you at least read his bio and take a look at his qualifications.

Bill Daughtridge is a Morehead Scholar from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received his BS and MBA degrees. He worked as a financial analyst at Continental Oil Company in Houston, Texas. There he learned how to manage million dollar budgets and lead teams that faced complex, large-scale financial decisions. He traveled across the country recruiting from the top MBA programs in the nation. He assimilated and oversaw the training of new MBA employees.

In 1979, Bill returned to North Carolina to join the family-operated business his grandfather founded in 1929. By emphasizing customer service and innovation over the past two and half decades, Bill has significantly grown the family business, completed successful acquisitions, and started new companies. His twenty-eight year track record of running a successful North Carolina business has taught him the need for responsibility and reliability in the Treasurer’s Office.

Voters understand and connect with an independent businessman. Bill is an entrepreneur who builds coalitions to solve problems to govern modern-day North Carolina.

Filed under: North Carolina , Bill Daughtridge

Bad economics

Hey, what’s another $300 billion among friends?

Some 14 months ago, the projected deficit for the 2008 fiscal year was about 0.6% of GDP. With the $170 billion stimulus package last March, the add-ons to housing and agriculture bills, and the slowdown in tax receipts, the deficit for 2008 actually came in at 3.2% of GDP, with the 2009 deficit projected at 3.8% of GDP. And this is just the beginning.

The net national debt in 2001 was at a 20-year low of about 35% of GDP, and today it stands at 50% of GDP. But this 50% number makes no allowance for anything resulting from the over $5.2 trillion guarantee of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac assets, or the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Nor does the 50% number include any of the asset swaps done by the Federal Reserve when they bailed out Bear Stearns, AIG and others.

Filed under: National , national debt, The End of Prosperity

Are these today’s Socrates?

This is something I’ve been thinking for a while now:

A survey by the Pew Center for the People and the Press in 2004 found that 61 percent of people under the age of 30 got some of their political “news” from late-night comedy shows.

So what is wrong with this? Plenty, says Russell Peterson, a former stand-up comic and political cartoonist turned political scientist at the University of Iowa.

The effect of endless jokes lampooning our political leaders is “implicitly anti-democratic,” Peterson says. It plays to the deeply ingrained American belief that our political leaders are jokes and that the democratic system is “an irredeemable sham.”

Filed under: Concepts , late-nite tv, political discourse

Invective reduex (or the coming groupthink)

Liberal writer for the Atlantic admints she “hates the Republican Party.”

Who’da thunk it …

She does hit Obama/Biden on financial deregulation:

“I am willing to say the media is giving Obama a pass on a bunch of stuff that they shouldn’t be … It’s ridiculous that no one is bringing up every time – every time Obama says anything about financial deregulation, Joe Biden’s history should be trotted out and it’s not and I’m not sure why.”

Filed under: National , groupthink, liberal elitism, liberal snark, liberalism, Megan McArdle, The Atlantic

Charter school question needs more attention

Despite popular appeal among the citizenry, Democrats and education unions want to limit charter schools in North Carolina. With nearly one-third of our students dropping out of high school, I can’t understand why entrenched special interest want to limit the choices North Carolina parents have for educating their children:

Despite legislative resistance to more charters, a tide seems to be developing in favor of lifting the limit. Earlier this year, a commission of legislators, business people, charter school principals and others appointed by the State Board of Education praised the schools because they offer choice.

The commission recommended the education board ask for legislative authority to add six new charters a year, and exclude from the limits the best charter schools and the first charter school established in a county. It also recommended quickly closing charter schools where students aren’t learning as they should.

Filed under: North Carolina , Beverly Perdue, charter schools, Democratic education policy, education vouchers, Mike Munger, Pat McCrory, school choice

Invective (or pro-Obama ad claims McCain “a crazy man”)

“I am worried John McCain will bomb my goats. He is a crazy man.”

“Coming up, how long ’till we nuke Iran. Experts say it could be as early as Saturday around lunchtime.”

This one is for real. A moveon.org ad claims McCain “is a crazy man” and implies he will bomb Iran within his first week as president.

This is the type of invective that I find disturbing. We can’t point to the fact that Barack Obama launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist without being labeled as racist, but the other side can make mindless promo’s claiming McCain is crazy.

That’s crazy. I guess I’ll do like Emily’s List says and vote a straight Democratic ticket like all the other cool kids.

Filed under: National , Barack Obama, John McCain, Moveon.org

Where reason fails to prosper

I really don’t watch a lot of television, but one thing has really struck me today. I voted for John McCain today because of the man who’s biography I know so well.

But in the last month, I haven’t seen that guy on television or talked about in the print and online media. Sure, I’ve heard about Ayers and socialism and Sarah Palin, but I haven’t heard or seen John McCain that much.

It could be that the media’s dismissive stance toward him in the face of its embrace of Obama cast him aside as old, tired and not relevant. Add into that the gullibility of the average American and their reaction to the threat of Obama as outsider (Muslim, black, socialist) and the swift reaction of the left is predictable (racism, ignorance, HATE!).

In that crossfire no reason can prosper.

I tried very hard last summer and fall to explain to people that Obama was not a Muslim and that folks should give him a chance to express his ideas before they closed their mind to his potential.

I was, somewhere inside, still considering voting for him up until this August, when a fundraiser for Obama called me and asked for another donation. (I did give Obama $75 last year because I felt he was needed to at least challenge Hillary.)

When I told her that I would be voting for McCain, she became argumentative and went on this long spiel about how McCain was like Hitler and full of secret hate and would bring about a second holocaust, this time against blacks.

I was really stunned. At that point I knew this all was coming. The vitriol, the hyperbole, the utter lack of any meaningful discussion.

I knew that Obama would remain aloof and cool himself, while his surrogates stoked the worst fears of racism in the background.

And how could or should an elder statesman like McCain react to any of that? What choices did he have?

McCain has been a fine servant of the people. But in facing a perfect storm of voter rage at the incumbent party, a god-like opponent who seemed to spring from the head of Minerva and that opponent’s machine-like campaign precision, any missteps were critical, if not fatal, and they have come in droves.

I have a soft spot in my heart for old men. Most likely it comes from losing my grandfathers during the same period of my childhood as Ronald Reagan’s rise to prominence.

McCain has represented tradition and an older perspective in America that is gone but not forgotten.

In our people’s rush to embrace change and hope (whatever that means) I hope we don’t sacrifice too much of our history to the coming cult of personality.

Filed under: National , Barack Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin

Could it get any worse?

I’ve never seen a campaign go this bad for the GOP. Fighting a rock star is hard enough without constantly stoking the other side’s noise machine:

Police interviewed Todd after she contacted police Wednesday night and again on Thursday, Bryant said. They asked her to come back Friday, ostensibly to help police put together a sketch of the man. Instead, detectives began interviewing her.

“They just started talking to her and she just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth,” Bryant said.

Bryant said it doesn’t appear that anyone else put the woman up to the false report.

Police suspected all along that Todd might not be telling the truth, starting with the fact that the “B” was backward, Bryant said.

“We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don’t generally mutilate someone’s face like that,” Bryant said. “They just take the money and run.”

Filed under: National , GOP, John McCain

Imperial presidency and memories of ‘76

It just occurred to me that this year’s election is a lot like 1976 in that the GOP through inept and/or corrupt leadership has so pissed off the country that they are willing to elect a politician with no experience who talks a good game.

Also the idea of the imperial presidency, and its rejection by the people, is at play.

I’m finishing a book now and will start Bacevich’s “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism” soon.

The GOP needs to learn its lessons.

Filed under: Concepts , GOP, The Limits of Power

Hyperbole (an apology), plus a forward looking statement

Over the course of the past week I have made several inflammatory posts regarding the actions of Obama Democrats and the impending collapse of American democracy and the Constitution. These posts were all hyperbolic and in jest. I made them in an effort to ridicule the noise coming from the left regarding McCain/Palin supporters being Nazi Neanderthals who would bring about the collapse of American democracy and the Constitution.

I’m done with that now because it is silly and becoming increasingly clear that it is lost on people.

I’ve been disappointed with the campaign. I had hopes that Obama would be able to live up to his rhetoric of unity, etc., but once the veneer was stripped away and his background and lack of legislative record exposed (and summarily dismissed by the left as “irrelevant”) it became clear that his campaign would maintain the high ground of oratory while the attack dogs of the angry left did the dirty work of vilifying the opposition.

That the angry left’s talking point memos became the mantra of the main stream press was surprising in its depth and rapidity.

McCain/Palin responded in kind with direct assaults upon their attackers, which only fueled more noise and attacks from the left flank as the debate boiled down to socialist versus fascist as if we were in Wiemar Germany.

The striking thing is that we may not be far off from that long ago place.

Filed under: Concepts, National , anger rising, angry left, Barack Obama, conservatism, GOP, John McCain, right wing, Sarah Palin, Us and them