Reality therapy for Mangum's handlers

(First posted on 11/1)

The post - Mangum's Last Dance swindle ignores Brodhead - provides context and links related to the reader comment below. You can also get a look at Mangum's handlers in action in this video hosted by WRAL.

The handlers - Michael Denisoff, a publisher, Vincent Clark, Crystal Mangum’s agent who teamed with her on The Last Dance for Grace swindle's text, and Myra Shird, a former professor who wrote the confused, preposterous intro to The Last Dance - appear in the video to be just the kind of people who'd associate themselves with something like The Last Dance.

I feel certain Mangum's handlers will be angered and reject Anon's comment because it exposes what they're actually doing and reminds them of the responsibilities they bear for their actions.

I look forward to you comments.

Anon begins - - -

I wonder if Mangum's "handlers" have considered the magnitude of the task they have undertaken.

They've cleaned up both her person and her story ...and, for a precious few moments, presented the newly prim former Pole Dancer to the world: clean, sober, the brilliant, high achieving Sister Survivor of Durham Legend.

They have vouched for this reality.

But past is prologue, so how do they keep Mangum from being Mangum again for the rest of her sick, sorry life?

Do they believe that she will be suddenly stable, sober and emotionally "dependable" as the head mistress of her own group home for troubled women?

Like she was in the Navy?

Do her "handlers" want to take responsibility for encouraging others to put their troubled children in her care?

Are they giving the most public job reference ever, that I might hire Crystal and not fear new accusations should she enter the stock room one day with other innocent young men?

They have publicly stated she is a woman of highest character now. They are on record for all time.

What responsibility to they have to me, if I believe them and hire her, or rent an apartment to her, or trust her with my child?

Her memoirs are a litany of various accusations. Has this suddenly ended or is this Crystal's operational manual for life?

But the esteemed Professor and the Agent have now most publicly vouched for her in the most positive terms, stood behind her "history."

Shall they be responsible for anyone who is damaged by Crystal in the future because they were taken in by these assurances of her stability by supposedly serious, credible professionals WHO CLAIM THEY KNOW HER SO WELL?

Shall we ask them straight out if they are vouching for her stability, her sobriety, even her sanity?

Their names are attached to hers now: they have become her most public character references. They vouched for her in every possible way, didn't they?

Now the long future lies ahead.

Why not a vote for Pat McCrory?

(First posted on 11/1)

In response to Libertarian Mike Munger for NC Governor and Munger for Governor commenter, another Anon commenter said:

It's a shame you are wasting your vote in such a close race. I'm Libertarian in viewpoint, though I don't care for the party. [Charlotte mayor and Republican candidate Pat] McCrory needs every conservative/libertarian vote he can get. [Lt. Governor and Democratic candidate Beverly] Perdue is a continuation of [Governor Mike] Easley's cronyism.

The last month or so I thought a lot about the commenter’s main point that voting for and endorsing Munger at the blog could take votes from McCrory, someone who, from what I know, has been a very effective mayor and some of whose policies I’m more in agreement with than Munger’s.

From watching her work in Raleigh for more than 20 years, I never considered Perdue.

As between McCrory and Munger, I went for Munger in part because of some first-hand exchanges I’ve had with him at our blogs. Also on radio and TV he’s impressed as an excellent listener who carefully considers what the other person is saying, rather than just responding with canned answers and bromides. (I’ll post linking to our blog exchanges later today. You can also search my archives entering “Munger.”)

That Munger carries the Libertarian label was the biggest factor in my decisions because if Libertarians stand for anything they stand for: the least amount of government using the taxpayer’s money as wisely as possible; and government which leaves to individual citizens as much individual liberty and personal responsibility as possible consistent with a civil, humane society.

In North Carolina and at the federal level, governments are now much too big and irresponsible and both major parties are responsible for that.

Examples: Freddie and Fannie the past 10 years with the problems being not only those agencies' indifference to sound lending, but the collusion in what they were doing by those in government who were supposed to exercise oversight.

I blame the Dems for most of that, but the GOP was a big part of the problem, too.

As for “fixing” the mortgage mess, Sen. McCain’s “solution,” offered in the second debate, is for the government to take on the mortgages that are in default.

As two of the 95+% of mortgagors who are paying our mortgages on time, my wife and I would like to say to McCain: “Thanks, Senator. But you didn’t say how those of us paying our mortgages on time can qualify for your program.”

Folks, have you noticed how many politicians want to “give” us money?

Sen. Obama wants to “give” college students $4,000.00 each; McCain wants to “give” families $5,000.00 per for health insurance.

Americans are now so immersed in a “government give-way and entitlement” mentality that our presidential candidates no longer even bother saying things like: “If elected, I’ll ask the Congress to appropriate from tax revenues . . . ”

If you’ve followed the Duke lacrosse case, you saw flagrant, transparent criminal abuses of the government’s powers to investigate, arrest and prosecute; abuses which took the form of a vicious, elaborate, thirteen-month-long framing of three obviously innocent Duke students.

And you saw much of the country’s media and almost all of the innocent victims’ university leaders and faculty cheer on the framing attempt or remain silent.

Regarding government threats to our individual safety and liberties, if you haven’t already read them, please readBarone: The coming Obama thugacracy and Obama's attack on free speech today.

Bottom line: This year in NC I have a chance to vote for a candidate for governor I respect whose party says it wants to stop the kinds of things I’ve touched on here. So I’m going with Munger.

I can understand why people would disagree with that and vote for McCrory. He’s an impressive candidate with an impressive record.

Thanks to the Anon commenter and all others who've commented on- and off line. They've all been civil and thoughtful.

Munger for Governor Comment

(First posted on 10/31)

A commenter responding to "Libertarian Mike Munger for NC Governor":

I got both of my degrees in political science. For this reason, I have a very strong bias about political scientists who run for office - I tend to fear the prospect of them running things.

However, I like this guy and voted for him after hearing him on NPR this morning. I hope he gets the 2% he needs to keep the Libertarians on the ballot in the future.

For those leery of Libertarians, he is not one of those purists who essentially believe in anarchy. He sees government as having many important functions; he just does not believe the State is God.

Libertarian Mike Munger for NC Governor

(First posted on 10/31)

If you’re a North Carolina voter, I hope Libertarian Mike Munger is your choice for our state’s next Governor.

Some voters who admire Munger say a vote for a third party candidate is “wasted.”

That’s not the case this year in North Carolina.

At least not if you want to send a “STOP” message to both major parties who in recent year have abandoned NC’s traditional “pay as you go” budget policies in favor of policies favoring bloated, “spend now” budgets with some tax increases, but which rely mostly on long-term bond debt the citizens won’t notice.

North Carolina's now taking on long-term debt with as little thought to the future as Freddie and Fannie gave it before they went belly-up and dumped billions in debt on unsuspecting taxpayers.

The Winston Salem Journal recently estimated NC’s budget debt this year as already at $243 million and likely to grow.

Both NC’s major parties are responsible for that.

But the Libertarians, with their emphasis on efficient, accountable government kept as small as possible consistent with the public good are crying “STOP.”

You can add your voice to that cry with a vote for Mike Munger for Governor.

The candidates of both major parties count on splitting 98 or 99 % of the vote between them.

So while they bend a little this way or that way to voter sentiment, it’s mostly business as usual regardless of which major party’s in control in Raleigh.

But what would happen if just 10% of us cast votes this year for Munger for Governor?

Both parties would know they can no longer take those voters for granted.

They’d realize a sizable number of voters were paying attention and wanted something other than just more spending, more tax increases and growing debt.

That’s my short case for the Libertarian Party. You can read more about NC’s Libertarian Party at it’s Web site here.

And that’s where, if you don’t know much about Mike Munger already, you can begin learning about him.

He's a professor and chair of the Political Science Department at Duke University, author, activist citizen, blogger at Kids Prefer Cheese, and a guy with a very good sense of humor (that, IMHO, counts for more than the professorship).

Be sure to visit Mike's campaign Web site, Munger 2008.

I’ll also be posting on him late this evening.

I hope many of you are persuaded to vote for him for Governor.

You’ll be helping send a powerful message to Raleigh.

Word missing in Reuters’ Obama “anger” story

Under the headline - "Rare flash of anger from Obama on Halloween night" – a Reuters story today begins - - -

It wasn't quite a Halloween nightmare on Obama street, but journalists on Friday drew a rare flash of anger from the normally unflappable Democratic presidential nominee.

Barack Obama had taken a break from the campaign trail for a few hours of Halloween fun at home with his family four days before the election, but ended up visibly annoyed when news crews dogged their footsteps in their Chicago neighborhood.

"That's enough. You've got a shot. Leave us alone," Obama told reporters as he walked down the block with his 7-year-old daughter Sasha in her costume on the way to a party at a neighbor's home.

Obama, usually cool in public during a campaign that has turned him into the frontrunner for the White House, did not disguise his irritation when his surprise walk caused news photographers and camera crews to scramble for position on the sidewalk. …

Reuters’ story continues here.

Reuters’ sentence,

“Obama, usually cool in public during a campaign that has turned him into the frontrunner for the White House, did not disguise his irritation when his surprise walk caused news photographers and camera crews to scramble for position on the sidewalk,”

has an important word missing.

The sentence should read,

“Obama, usually cool in public during a media campaign that has turned him into the frontrunner for the White House, did not disguise his irritation when his surprise walk caused news photographers and camera crews to scramble for position on the sidewalk.”

What do you think?

And BTW – have any of you heard from Fr. Pfleger or Tony Rezko lately?

The Churchill Series - Oct. 31, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)


Readers Note: Devils were once said to roam on Halloween, so it seems appropriate to repost today an "oldie" from 2006. Churchill himself tells a tale with a surprising outcome some claimed could only be an instance of satanic influence.

On the night of October 14, 1940 Churchill was dining at 10 Downing Street when a bombing raid began.

A part of the Treasury Building, not fifty yards from Number 10, suffered a direct hit before Churchill and aides could get to a shelter.

Churchill didm't remain long in the shelter. He soon went to the roof of the building that housed the shelter to witness the raid. He later wrote:

The night was clear and there was a wide view of London. It seemed the greater part of Pall Mall was in flames. [There were] fierce fires...in St. James Street and Piccadilly. Farther back over the river in the opposite direction there were many conflagrations. But Pall Mall was the vivid flame-picture

Pall Mall was then as now the location of many of London's private clubs, including the prestigious The Carleton Club, whose membership has traditionally included the leaders and other important members of Churchill's Conservative Party. To this day it refers to itself as "The Conservative Club."

Churchill was given an eye-witness account of the club's destruction by a Member of Parliament:

He was in the club with about two hundred and fifty members and staff. ...

The whole of the facade and the massive coping on the Pall Mall side (fell into) the street obliterating his motor-car. ...

The smoking-room had been full of members, and the whole ceiling had come down upon them. ...

However, by what seemed a miracle, they had all crawled out of the dust, smoke, and rubble, and thought many were injured not a single life was lost.

While to Churchill the survival of his Conservative Party colleagues "seemed a miracle," Laborites had another explanation, which Churchill duly recorded:

(In) Cabinet, our Labour colleagues facetiously remarked, "The Devil looks after his own."

_____________________________________________________
Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour. (pgs. 346-348)

Obama housing his MSM flacks can't hype

You'll get a good look at it in this less than 3 minute video. You'll also see how Sen. Obama and like-mined politicians spent some of your tax money they want more of after the election.

Hat tip: AC

Obama's attack on free speech

If you've followed the campaign closely, you know about Sen. Obama's attempts to silence his critics.

Jack Tapscott at DC Examiner has the latest "silencer" from the Obama campaign as well as an excellent summary of some of the "silence the opposition" actions Obama and his supporters will implement if they get control of the White House.

Tapscott's prediction: In six months we'll have Caracas on the Potomac.

Tapscott begins - - -

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama gave us another preview this week of how he will deal with critics if he is elected to the White House when he kicked three newspapers that endorsed John McCain off of his press plane. Merely terminating access, however,is likely to look tame compared to what Obama has in store for his critics after he takes the oath of office.

PREDICTION: Within six months of moving into the Oval Office, Obama's multiple moves to silence critics in the media and elsewhere will lead to Washington, D.C. becoming the Caracas on the Potomac.

There were multiple signs before The Washington Times, New York Post and Dallas Morning News got the boot.

Hugo Chavez has long used mob intimidation to pressure opposition forces into submission. Obama has made a limited use of the same tactic, as when National Review's Stanley Kurtz began some potentially damaging reporting about the Democratic nominee's long relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist bombers William Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn.

In retaliation, the Obama campaign issued a call-to-censor alert to its supporters, especially against Milt Rosenberg, a long-time and highly respected Chicago radio host who invited Kurtz to discuss his reporting on air.

The Obama campaign declined to provide an official to share the program and rebut Kurtz. Instead, hundreds of callers did what they were instructed to do by the Obama campaign - they jammed the station's phone lines with protest calls demanding that Kurtz be silenced and accusing the show's host of lowering journalism standards.

The Obama campaign had done the same thing a few weeks earlier when Rosenberg had as a guest another Obama critic, book author David Freddoso, whose book, "The Case Against Barack Obama," has been lauded as a solid journalistic effort to uncover the rest of the story left out of the Chicago pol's two autobiographies.

Once he is sworn in, expect Obama to move on multiple fronts to intimidate or silence critics. He has expressed opposition to renewal of the Fairness Doctrine, an action that would all but destroy Talk Radio and cripple the expression of conservative dissent.

But he could accomplish much the same effect by imposing ownership caps and other measures, as Jesse Walker pointed out recently:

"There's a host of other broadcast regulations that Obama has not foresworn. In the worst-case scenario, they suggest a world where the FCC creates intrusive new rules by fiat, meddles more with the content of stations' programs, and uses the pending extensions of broadband access as an opportunity to put its paws on the Internet. At a time when cultural production has been exploding, fueled by increasingly diverse and participatory new media, we would be stepping back toward the days when the broadcast media were a centralized and cozy public-private partnership."

The conservative non-profit and think tank communities will also be targeted. The Clinton administration used IRS investigations of trumped-up charges of tax exemption abuse to force The Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and other other major conservative tanks to spend millions of dollars and countless man-hours defending themselves and their donors.

That diverted millions of dollars worth of resources that could have otherwise been devoted to making the case against Slick Willie's liberal policies.

Expect the same from the IRS under Obama, plus even more aggressive efforts in the form of attempts to impose racial and other quotas on think tanks at their director and management levels, via regulatory changes in tax-exemption administration. Legislation to do this in California at the state level is already progressing in the legislature there, so similar federal efforts are a virtual certainty.

The rest of Tapscott's column's here.

Please read it and remember to vote for McCain-Palin.

Barone on Senate races

An Anon commenter the other day praised Michael Barone’s political astuteness and reminded me to pay more attention to him.

I’ve been a Barone admirer for years, but Anons reminder was welcome, especially now with the election at hand.

Barone posted at his blog last evening: "Election Prediction: Democrats Won't Get a Filibuster-Proof Senate."

He provided thumbnail assessments of each of the senate races considered “in play.”

He concludes his post:

What's my bottom line? If I had to bet $1,000 on each of these races, I would bet on Smith (OR) and Dole (NC) to lose, and Coleman (MN), Chambliss (GA), and McConnell (KY) to win. That, assuming Sununu (NH) doesn't somehow pull it out, would leave the Democrats with 58 seats. (But I could easily be wrong on any or all of these races, and I reserve the right to change my prediction before Tuesday.)

Fifty-eight Democrats would be enough to stop filibusters if they can get a couple of Republicans (and not drop any Democrats) on an issue, but not enough to run the table.

It's a little scary to think that major differences in public policy can be settled by the outcomes in just a few close Senate races. But then, major differences in public policy were settled by George W. Bush's paper-thin victory in 2000.

Our representative democracy gives both parties huge incentives to squeeze just a few more votes out, because they can make a huge difference in the long run.

Here’s Barone’s thumbnail for NC:

In North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole trails Kay Hagan, 46 percent to 44 percent. Hagan made much of the fact that Dole did not spend much time in the state in 2005 and 2006, when she chaired the Senate Republicans' campaign committee, and Dole has not led in any poll since early October. But neither candidate has been ahead by 7 points in any poll since July. This looks like a real nail-biter.

Dole is running very negative ads. When an incumbent does that in the last few days of a campaign, you know it’s a certain sign the candidate’s internal polling is saying she’s in trouble.

Barone's entire post's here.

A few weeks back I posted in response to Barone's column: "The coming Obama thugacracy."

I apologize for being late with this Obama video

I smiled through the whole minute or so of it.

Enjoy.



Hat tip: AC

The Churchill Series - Oct. 30, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

The next few sentences you read may surprise, even shock, some of you. They're found on page 65 of Martin Gilbert’s Churchill and America:

On 10 May 1917, a month after the entry of the United States into the war, the House of Commons went into Secret Session. This procedure enabled Cabinet Ministers and critics of government policy to discuss the war without any newspaper coverage.

Can you believe that? What was the Government thinking? Didn’t it realize there would be many members just itching for the session to end, so they could race out and “spill the beans” to their favorite press contacts?

No, the Government didn’t realize that because they knew that wouldn’t happen. It was considered treasonable in time of war for a member to disclose what went on during a Secret Session of the House. Even in peacetime, a Member who “leaked” from a Secret Session would be considered to have damaged not just the sitting Government, but the House itself.

During WW II Churchill took part in a number of Secret Sessions at which details of strategy and resources were discussed. Information from those sessions would have been invaluable to the Axis nations. But it didn't leak.

We live in a time now when a fair question is: Can any secret vital to America’s national security be kept?

The answer as you all know is: Not if people like the NY Times’ Bill Keller or NBC’s Brian Williams decide it shouldn’t.

Mangum’s Last Dance swindle ignores Brodhead

I’ve just finished reading Duke lacrosse false accuser Crystal Mangum’s latest swindle, The Last Dance for Grace.

Former Chronicle editor David Graham praised its “raw and honest style[.]”

But I agree with Marco at Liestoppers who said:

We cannot recommend reading this book to anyone but the most ardent of the "Something Happened Crowd" because only they would be able to discount the overwhelming amount of exculpatory DNA, medical evidence, and the conclusion of the NC Special Prosecutors, NC State Bar, and even the admission of the former disgraced, disbarred DA Nifong that no sexual assault happened.

I wish I believed The Last Dance for Grace will be the last of the swindles Mangum will foist on the lacrosse players, their families and our community.

But it won’t be.

As The Last Dance for Grace makes so obvious, Mangum’s a swindler who just keeps on swindling.

If you’re determined to expose yourself to The Last Dance, remember that as with any swindle, you need to know what the swindler’s keeping from you in order to understand the swindle.

So, for example, when you come upon Mangum’s repeated presentations of herself as a poor black woman who never received meaningful community support, just say to yourself two words: “Dick Brodhead.”

Mangum doesn’t mention Duke’s President in her swindle, but in Spring 2006 Brodhead was one of her first and arguably her most powerful, persistent and effective enabler with the exception of the Raleigh News & Observer.


It would have been only decent of Mangum to at least have included in The Last Dance some mention of Brodhead, such as the following which I offer in the style of Mangum and with parody intended:

President Brodhead never treated me mean and I was glad that he kept telling those white boys to fess up even after he knew they were cooperating with the police.

And when he issued that apology to me and Kim Roberts after he listened to her phony 911 call, I knew I wanted to meet that man.

But I was due at the Platinum Club and so could only think about him while I danced. That was another big disappointment in my life. But it wasn’t Mr. Brodhead's fault and I know I will heal.

He was so nice when all them Wanted and Vigilante posters were put up at Duke, not like I expected a Duke President to act.

And when he said “whatever they did was bad enough” it really made me feel good because usually only my drivers talk that way.

When I hear people say bad things about Mr. Brodhead throwing the rich white boys under the bus, those things penetrate me and really hurt.

It’s almost as bad as that terrible hurt you feel when 3, 5, maybe 20 lawyers all tell you: “I don’t see how we can collect anything for you.”

Getting back to serious mode.

Folks, you know if Mangum mentioned even some of what Brodhead did to promote the hoax and frame-up attempt, that would've made her latest swindle even more obvious than it is to all of us except editor Graham.

So Mangum made no mention of Brodhead, despite his leading roles in the hoax and frame-up attempt.

More soon about The Last Dance for Grace.

Editor Graham’s Chronicle article’s here; the Liestoppers’ review is here. KC Johnson has also devoted a number of posts to The Last Dance. You can access his summary post here and work back from there.

Palin rally: excitement and exposure of Obama's LA Times

This less than 3 minute video of a Palin rally in Bowling Green, Ohio does a great job of conveying the crowds excitement and Palin's ridicule of the LA Times for its MSM journalism a/k/a protecting our Obama.



Hat tip: AC

Obama supporter OKed Joe the plumber records snoop

Near the end of its story today on the latest government agency snooping on Joe the plumber, the Columbus Dispatch reports:

[Helen] Jones-Kelley[, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services] also has denied any connections between the computer checks on Wurzelbacher and her support for Obama. She donated the maximum $2,500 this year to the Obama campaign.

And, of course, Ohio’s Democratic governor Ted Strickland says there’s no political motivation behind any of the Ohio government snoops into Joe’s confidential records.

Today’s Dispatch story begins - - -

A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on "Joe the Plumber" were more extensive than it first acknowledged.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.

Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said.

If state employees run checks on every person listed in newspaper stories as buying a business, "it must take a lot of people a lot of time to run these checks," he said. "Where do you draw the line?"

The checks were run after the news media reported that Wurzelbacher was considering buying a plumbing business with more than $250,000 in annual income, Jones-Kelley wrote.

"Given our understanding that Mr. Wurzelbacher had publicly indicated that he had the means to purchase a substantial business enterprise, ODJFS, consistent with past departmental practice, checked confidential databases ," she wrote. [ It isn’t true the Joe said he had the means to buy the business. That’s clear from the transcript. - - JinC]

"Not surprisingly, when a person behind in child support payments or receiving public assistance is receiving significant media attention which suggests that the person appears to have available financial resources, the Department risks justifiable criticism if it fails to take note and respond," Jones-Kelley wrote.

The results of the searches were not publicly released and remain confidential, she wrote. Wurzelbacher has said he is not involved in a child-support case and has not purchased any business.

Jones-Kelley wrote that the checks were "well-meaning," but misinterpreted amid the heated final weeks of a presidential election. …

The administration of Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has said the information was not improperly shared and that there were no political motives behind the checks.

The Dispatch has uncovered four uses of state computer systems to access personal information on Wurzelbacher, including the child-support check authorized by Jones-Kelley.

She said on Monday that her department frequently runs checks for any unpaid child support obligations "when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight."

Republican legislators have challenged Jones-Kelley's reason for checking on Wurzelbacher as "frightening" and flimsy. …

The entire Dispatch story’s here.

***********************************************************

Comments:

For more on the Ohio governments abuse of Joe's privacy, see this post from yesterday - More Joe the Plumber "record-checking."

Folks, you know if these government snoops were happening to an Obama supporter and terrorism advocate such as Will Ayers, the liberal/leftist MSM would be screaming bloody murder about invasions of privacy, violations of the Constitution and the “frightening specter of a lawless government.”

But, hey, Joe’s a conservative and a McCain-Palin supporter, so the NYT, WaPo, NPR and the rest treat it as no big deal.

The MSM double standard damages America. Most of our media think partisan advantage when they should think and speak what's right in treating a citizen.

When the Dems get a firmer grip on Congress, things will only get worse.

Obama's Kenyan relatives as people and his props

Sen. Obama sure was generous to his racist, anti-American mentor and pastor of almost 20, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

For instance, just a few years ago Obama and his wife contributed over $20,000.00 to Wright’s church, which turned around and built the pastor a 10,000 sq. ft mansion set at the edge of a beautiful golf course.

That was deemed a fitting retirement gift for Wright who Obama’s fawning press corps tell us spent his pastorate “ministering to Chicago’s South Side poor.”

Speaking of the poor.

Obama, a millionaire himself, has a number of poor relatives he uses as props when telling his carefully shaded, highly selective “life story.”

The following is a post from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. I comment below the star line.

Reynolds’ post - - -

MAYBE SOMEBODY SHOULD SPREAD SOME WEALTH AROUND IN HIS OWN FAMILY: Obama Aunt Found in Rundown Boston Slum.

Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Mr Obama's best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.

A second relative believed to be the long-lost "Uncle Omar" described in the book was beaten by armed robbers with a "sawed-off rifle" while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city. He was later evicted from his one-bedroom flat for failing to pay $2,324.20 (£1,488) arrears, according to the Boston Housing Court.

Funny how you have to go to the British papers -- in this case the London Times -- for this kind of story.

Bob Krumm emails: "The most damning part of the Obama aunt story is that once his campaign found her living in squalor they told her to not talk to the press until after the election, but they didn't try to help her." He has a post here to that effect.

UPDATE: Some thoughts from TigerHawk: " I have finally figured out why somebody who has been as successful as Barack Obama believes that the government must help people who cannot or do not help themselves: He simply does not understand that helping the poor, unlucky, or incompetent is first the responsibility of family."

Plus this: "He has used these people -- his grandmother, his aunt and uncle, and so forth -- as props in his political narrative. He wants us to measure him in part by his relationship to these Kenyans, but -- and here is the harsh part -- only as that relationship is described by him. What if his characterization of that relationship is misleading? What if it turns out that while he is delighted to cite these people as evidence of his humble beginnings -- that is what I mean by using them as props -- he is not so delighted to consider them as part of his family? Is that not at least a potentially useful insight into the character of this man about whom we know so little?"

******************************************************
Comments:

On Aug. 21 I posted “Has Obama helped his brother in Kenya?” Here’s part of it - - -

As National Review’s Jonah Goldberg noted:

When asked what America’s greatest moral failing was, theological Obama said it was our collective failure to “abide by that basic precept in (the Book of) Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

And in today’s Daily Telegraph:

The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender.

"No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month."

According to Italy's Vanity Fair his two metre by three metre shack is decorated with football posters of the Italian football giants AC Milan and Inter, as well as a calendar showing exotic beaches of the world. . . .

The entire post's here.

__________________________________________________

Folks, I’m sure you noticed again that it was British and Italian publications that brought us the news of The One’s shameful neglect of his half-brother.

Obama’s treatment of his family tells us a lot about him. It also tells us a lot about his honesty with us.

As for America’s MSM, who’s surprised our news orgs didn’t break any of the Obama family stories?

The Churchill Series - Oct. 29, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

On June 22, 1922 Sir Henry Wilson, a former Chief of the Imperial General Staff and at the time an MP active in efforts to resolve “the Irish Question,” was assassinated by IRA terrorists outside his London home.

Churchill was then Secretary of State for the Colonies and active in trying to resolve Anglo-Irish differences. Naturally, he was at great risk himself of assassination. His principal bodyguard for many years, Detective Inspective Walter Thompson, tells us:

For some weeks Churchill lived like a prisoner in a fortress. I was the senior officer responsible for his safety, and it was a nerve-wracking time. Plain clothes men patrolled Sussex Square day and night and when we went out, it was in an armoured Rolls-Royce. […]

I was alarmed one day when Mr. Churchill said to me that he proposed to walk across from the Colonial Office to the House of Commons. I pointed out to him the dangers of this procedure, particularly as there was no other competent person available to go with him at the time.

My remarks had no effect at all. Mr. Churchill just shot out his chin in that obstinate way of his, and replied, “Righto, you look after my back, Thompson. I’ll attend to the front.”

We reached the House without mishap, but even now I can feel my hand gripping my revolver all the way.

Churchill’s life was often threatened yet he rarely let the threat of assassination interfere with his activities. On those few occasions when he did alter his activities, he did so only in response to pleadings from Clementine or security officers who told him what he was proposing to do would put their own lives in grave danger.

BTW – Merriam-Webster Online defines “righto” as “used to express cheerful concurrence, assent, or understanding.”

What's a dictator like? Bush? Obama?

Jeff Jacoby today in the Boston Globe - - -

IT HAS BEEN a favorite trope of the Bush-bashers: The 43d president's power-lust is so insatiable, his disdain for constitutional checks and balances so complete, that he has fashioned himself into a dictator. …

"In terms of the power he now claims without significant challenge," Michael Kinsley asserted in 2003, "George W. Bush is now the closest thing in a long time to dictator of the world." …

In a recent piece for the Times of London, Andrew Sullivan informs us that "in war and economic crisis, Bush has insisted that there is no alternative to dictatorial rule." …

Bush as a ruthless autocrat? It would be easier to take the idea seriously if it weren't for the omnipresent clamor of voices denouncing the man. Tyrants have a way of squelching public dissent and intimidating their critics. Whatever else may be said about the Bush administration, it has never cowed its opponents into silence.

If anything, the past eight years have set new records in vilifying a sitting president: "Bush = Hitler" signs at protest rallies; Crude "Buck Fush" bumper stickers; a 2006 movie depicting Bush's assassination; The New Republic's cover story on "The Case for Bush Hatred."

The denunciation has been unending and often unhinged, yet Bush has never tried to censor it.

Will we be able to say the same of his successor?

If opinion polls are right, Barack Obama is cruising to victory. As president, would he show the same forbearance as Bush in allowing his opponents to have their say, unmolested? Or would he attempt to suppress the free speech of those whose views he detested?

It is disturbing to contemplate some of the Obama campaign's recent efforts to stifle criticism.

When the National Rifle Association produced a radio ad last month about Obama's shifting position on gun control, the campaign's lawyers sent letters to radio stations in Ohio and Pennsylvania, urging them not to run it - and warning of trouble with the Federal Communications Commission if they did.

"This advertisement knowingly misleads your viewing audience," Obama's general counsel Bob Bauer wrote. "For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement."

Similar lawyer letters went out in August when the American Issues Project produced a TV spot exploring Obama's strong ties to former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Station managers were warned that running the anti-Obama ad would be a violation of their legal obligation to serve the "public interest."

And in case that wasn't menacing enough, the Obama campaign also urged the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation.

In Missouri, an Obama "truth squad" of prosecutors and other law-enforcement officials vowed to take action against anyone making "character attacks" on the Democratic candidate - a threat, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt later remarked, that had about it the "stench of police state tactics."

Perhaps these efforts to smother political speech are simply the overly aggressive tactics of a campaign in its adrenaline-fueled sprint to the finish. But what if they are the first warning signs of how an Obama administration would deal with its adversaries?

Michael Barone, the esteemed and judicious author of "The Almanac of American Politics," fears the worst. "In this campaign," he writes, "we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy . . . We may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead."

Pray that Barone is wrong. The nation's political life is toxic enough when the president is falsely labeled a dictator. It would be infinitely more poisonous if the label were true.

Jacoby’s entire column’s here.

Comments:

Is there one fact Jacoby gets wrong?

Is there one concern he has that reasonable people don’t share?

If Bush was a dictator, his critics would be in jail or rotting at the bottom of mine shaft.

Instead, they’re propagandizing in front of college classes, spinning the news left, and telling each other assassination jokes in the Hamptons and Hollywood.

And they’re hoping Obama becomes president so they’ll be part of an even more privileged class than they are now.

We’re being warned.

Obama's racist mentor's mansion cum golf course

Archer05 sends along - - -

Michelle Malkin has a photo of Wright’s home with this caption:
Spread the wealth!

There is also a Fox video tour of his actual house with huge pillars.

The video includes Wright’s infamous phrases, which are ridiculous juxtaposed against his words about “Rich white people.”

Seeing is believing if you have time.

Malkin also writes about the video-

Here’s your wealth-spreading, redistributive change in action.
________________________________________________

An Anon sends along the following that left me smiling - - -

Anonymous said...

I can imagine Reverend Wright on his golf course with his Ping putter and bag of Calloway clubs that are worth more than the car I drive.

He steps up to the green, putts, and misses.

He ruminates on how the racists of this country forced him to blow that putt, shakes his Ping at the heavens, and screams "God Damn America."

Obama's "Redistribution" Constitution

Northwestern University professor of law Steven Calabresi says the federal courts are poised for a takeover by the left.

His op-ed in today’s WSJ noted “the most important lower federal court in the country” is the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Calabresi continues - - -

Although two seats on this court are vacant, Bush nominee Peter Keisler has been denied even a committee vote for two years. If Barack Obama wins the presidency, he will almost certainly fill those two vacant seats, the seats of two older Clinton appointees who will retire, and most likely the seats of four older Reagan and George H.W. Bush appointees who may retire as well.

The net result is that the legal left will once again have a majority on the nation's most important regulatory court of appeals.

The balance will shift as well on almost all of the 12 other federal appeals courts. Nine of the 13 will probably swing to the left if Mr. Obama is elected (not counting the Ninth Circuit, which the left solidly controls today).

Circuit majorities are likely at stake in this presidential election for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal. That includes the federal appeals courts for New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and virtually every other major center of finance in the country.

On the Supreme Court, six of the current nine justices will be 70 years old or older on January 20, 2009. There is a widespread expectation that the next president could make four appointments in just his first term, with maybe two more in a second term. Here too we are poised for heavy change.

These numbers ought to raise serious concern because of Mr. Obama's extreme left-wing views about the role of judges. He believes -- and he is quite open about this -- that judges ought to decide cases in light of the empathy they ought to feel for the little guy in any lawsuit.

Speaking in July 2007 at a conference of Planned Parenthood, he said: "[W]e need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

On this view, plaintiffs should usually win against defendants in civil cases; criminals in cases against the police; consumers, employees and stockholders in suits brought against corporations; and citizens in suits brought against the government. Empathy, not justice, ought to be the mission of the federal courts, and the redistribution of wealth should be their mantra.

In a Sept. 6, 2001, interview with Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ-FM, Mr. Obama noted that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society," and "to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical."

He also noted that the Court "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." That is to say, he noted that the U.S. Constitution as written is only a guarantee of negative liberties from government -- and not an entitlement to a right to welfare or economic justice.

This raises the question of whether Mr. Obama can in good faith take the presidential oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" as he must do if he is to take office. Does Mr. Obama support the Constitution as it is written, or does he support amendments to guarantee welfare?

Is his provision of a "tax cut" to millions of Americans who currently pay no taxes merely a foreshadowing of constitutional rights to welfare, health care, Social Security, vacation time and the redistribution of wealth? Perhaps the candidate ought to be asked to answer these questions before the election rather than after.

Every new federal judge has been required by federal law to take an oath of office in which he swears that he will "administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich."

Mr. Obama's emphasis on empathy in essence requires the appointment of judges committed in advance to violating this oath.

To the traditional view of justice as a blindfolded person weighing legal claims fairly on a scale, he wants to tear the blindfold off, so the judge can rule for the party he empathizes with most.

Nothing less than the very idea of liberty and the rule of law are at stake in this election. We should not let Mr. Obama replace justice with empathy in our nation's courtrooms.

Professor Calabrasi’s entire op-ed's here.

Comments:

Here in Durham NC supporters of the young black woman whose false accusations of gang rape and other crimes against white members of the Duke lacrosse team led to the Duke/Durham frame-up attempt believe she was denied “her day in court” by a white dominated judicial system.

They're hearetened by Sen. Obama’s pledge to appoint judges who’ll take into account the gender preference, race, income status, etc. of parties who’ll come before them.

They’re confident Obama-appointed judges who do that when rendering opinions will, as many members of Duke University’s faculty did in response to the woman’s charges, render more "empathic" judgments than, for example, the one rendered by NC Attorney General Roy Cooper.

In declaring the falsely accused and wrongly indicted lacrosse players innocent, Cooper followed Constitutional precepts of justice. He therefore didn't take the race, gender or class of the accuser or any of the accused into account when weighing the evidence.

Conclusion: Professor Calabresi’s op-ed and the Duke/Durham frame-up attempt are warnings to all of us who value justice.

Public editor slimes Swift Boat Vets, hurts N&O

This past Sunday Raleigh News & Observer public editor Ted Vaden, “the readers advocate,” tried his best to justify the N&O’s outrageously biased “anything for Obama” campaign “reporting.”

That’s to be expected. Vaden isn’t really “the readers advocate.” He’s an N&O organization man paid to minimize, rationalize, and in other ways obscure the N&O’s most biased and sometimes outright false reporting, while hyping anything decent the paper does.

So I wasn’t surprised Vaden’s column tried to minimize and fog over the N&O’s Obama bias.

But like other readers I was disgusted when Vaden went out of his way to use a false claim to take a cheap shot at a group of veterans who served America with courage and honor.

According to Vaden:

[Political] coverage . . . balancing positive and negative [stories] produces false balances that don't reflect truth -- as when the press gave "balanced" attention to the Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry in 2004.

Vaden’s repeating the standard MSM lie that the Swift Boat veterans smeared Sen. John Kerry.

The truth is what the Swiftees said that could be verified was almost entirely confirmed. For instance, even Kerry today no longer claims he spent that Christmas in Cambodia.

Some things the Swiftees said couldn’t be confirmed because Kerry then as now won’t sign a simple form allowing public access to all his military records, something he’d promised to do well before the campaign began.

The following is from Bruce Kesler at Democracy Project:

The Left created a new verb, “swiftboating,” to represent false political charges that are, again a term endlessly repeated in the media, “unsubstantiated” in reference to the case presented by the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth against John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign.

The Swift Boat veterans presented much corroborated evidence and witness reports, and other researchers confirmed many elements. Largely due to the unwillingness of John Kerry to come clean about his record, however, there are elements that have not been firmly tied down. The major media, then till now, have mostly failed to investigate the charges or press Kerry for his claims or records, and some major venues collaborated with Kerry to squelch the charges.

So, that works to leave those still defending John Kerry’s record with leeway and ink to quibble or to besmirch the Swift Boat veterans. But, Kerry dares not to reveal his full records or go into court. Instead, he relies upon allies in the media to evade, obfuscate and to smear. ...

Ted Vaden is no advocate for those who want the N&O to be a paper that provides reliable news reporting as free of bias and falsehoods as possible, and is quick to recognize, admit and correct bias and error when they do occur.

A lot of what Vaden writes makes things harder for those at the N&O trying to stop the steady drift of readers (and advertisers) away from the liberal/leftist N&O to more trustworthy news and commentary sources.

I’ll end this post with a comment by SpocksBrain on the thread of Vaden’s column:

Vaden said "The N&O endorsed Obama last Sunday. Editorial endorsements are made separately from the news coverage, and news reporters and editors don't know in advance whom the paper will endorse."

LOL! Come on, Ted! Everybody in North Carolina knew six months ago who the N&O would endorse for president.

See this is why your circulation keeps going down the toilet. You people actually believe your readers are stupid.

In the same vein, you imply that reporting on Swift Boat "attack" ads was a misguided attempt at fairness. Why is reporting on fact based ads wrong?

Remember, no one has ever collected the $1 million reward for disproving any facts in those ads.