POLIBLOG

POLLIWOG (Tadpole): the early stage of an animal that will eventually become a frog, hoping to be kissed by a princess, turning into a prince! POLIBLOG (Political Blog): the early stage of a center-right political blog that may eventually become a full blown blog of the center-right. Join in if you find any merit in the comments. If you are on the left and disagree, feel free to straighten me out! Who knows, with effort from all of us this blog may turn into a prince!

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Location: San Diego, California, United States

Friday, June 27, 2008

Worried About Civil Liberties?

James Taranto in WSJ's Best of the Web Today (6/27/08) makes the following point:

"The point is this: If you vote for Democrats on the theory that Republicans are a threat to civil liberties, caveat elector. Bill Clinton and his administration incinerated children at Waco, undertook the policy of "extraordinary rendition," used a grand jury investigation to intimidate journalists at The American Spectator, deported Elian Gonzalez to communist Cuba, and signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which restricts the habeas corpus rights of American citizens.

Whatever one may think of these particular measures, they would have generated much more opposition from Democrats had they been instituted by a Republican administration. The Keith Olbermanns of the media world outnumber the Glenn Greenwalds, so when an Obama administration curtails civil liberties (justifiably or not), the outcry will be far more muted than it is now. If civil liberties are your top concern, then, you better vote for John McCain."

I could not agree more! Dems, you may get more than you think!

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Patriot Post and Charles Krauthammer comment on BHO

“Barack Obama, the Different Kind of Presidential Candidate, has begun his metamorphosis into the same old kind of presidential candidate by backing away from his earlier promise to accept public financing. Naturally, he claims it wasn’t a promise at all but just a possibility, depending on whether John McCain would agree to accept public financing, too, which Sen. McCain did, and on various other escape clauses. We all know the drill by now: When caught in an obvious contradiction, obfuscate.” —Paul Greenberg



Hat Tip: Patriot Post Chronicle 08-26



In "The Ever-Malleable Mr. Obama" Mr. Krauthammer explains why my Dem friends should be careful or they may get what they wish for. Read his column:





"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."


-- Obama spokesman Bill Burton, Oct. 24, 2007


That was then: Democratic primaries to be won, netroot lefties to be seduced. With all that (and Hillary Clinton) out of the way, Obama now says he'll vote in favor of the new FISA bill that gives the telecom companies blanket immunity for post-Sept. 11 eavesdropping.


Back then, in the yesteryear of primary season, he thoroughly trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement, pledging to force a renegotiation, take "the hammer" to Canada and Mexico and threaten unilateral abrogation.


Today the hammer is holstered. Obama calls his previous NAFTA rhetoric "overheated" and essentially endorses what one of his senior economic advisers privately told the Canadians: The anti-trade stuff was nothing more than populist posturing.


Nor is there much left of his primary season pledge to meet "without preconditions" with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There will be "preparations," you see, which are being spun by his aides into the functional equivalent of preconditions.


Obama's long march to the center has begun.


And why not? What's the downside? He won't lose the left, or even mainstream Democrats. They won't stay home on Nov. 4. The anti-Bush, anti-Republican sentiment is simply too strong. Election Day is their day of revenge -- for the Florida recount, for Swift-boating, for all the injuries, real and imagined, dealt out by Republicans over the past eight years.


Normally, flip-flopping presidential candidates have to worry about the press. Not Obama. After all, this is a press corps that heard his grandiloquent Philadelphia speech -- designed to rationalize why "I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother" -- then wiped away a tear and hailed him as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. Three months later, with Wright disowned, grandma embraced and the great "race speech" now inoperative, not a word of reconsideration is heard from his media acolytes.
Worry about the press? His FISA flip-flop elicited a few grumbles from lefty bloggers, but hardly a murmur from the mainstream press. Remember his pledge to stick to public financing? Now flush with cash, he is the first general-election candidate since Watergate to opt out. Some goo-goo clean-government types chided him, but the mainstream editorialists who for years had been railing against private financing as hopelessly corrupt and corrupting evinced only the mildest of disappointment.


Indeed, the New York Times expressed a sympathetic understanding of Obama's about-face by buying his preposterous claim that it was a preemptive attack on McCain's 527 independent expenditure groups -- notwithstanding the fact that (a) as Politico's Jonathan Martin notes, "there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group" and (b) the only independent ad of any consequence now running in the entire country is an AFSCME-MoveOn.org co-production savaging McCain.


True, Obama's U-turn on public financing was not done for ideological reasons, it was done for Willie Sutton reasons: That's where the money is. It nonetheless betrayed a principle that so many in the press claimed to hold dear.


As public financing is not a principle dear to me, I am hardly dismayed by Obama's abandonment of it. Nor am I disappointed in the least by his other calculated and cynical repositionings. I have never had any illusions about Obama. I merely note with amazement that his media swooners seem to accept his every policy reversal with an equanimity unseen since the Daily Worker would change the party line overnight -- switching sides in World War II, for example -- whenever the wind from Moscow changed direction.


The truth about Obama is uncomplicated. He is just a politician (though of unusual skill and ambition). The man who dared say it plainly is the man who knows Obama all too well. "He does what politicians do," explained Jeremiah Wright.


When it's time to throw campaign finance reform, telecom accountability, NAFTA renegotiation or Jeremiah Wright overboard, Obama is not sentimental. He does not hesitate. He tosses lustily.


Why, the man even tossed his own grandmother overboard back in Philadelphia -- only to haul her back on deck now that her services are needed. Yesterday, granny was the moral equivalent of the raving Reverend Wright. Today, she is a featured prop in Obama's fuzzy-wuzzy get-to-know-me national TV ad.


Not a flinch. Not a flicker. Not a hint of shame. By the time he's finished, Obama will have made the Clintons look scrupulous. " (Bold my emphasis)

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Monday, June 23, 2008

MoveOn.org misguided!

Bill Kristol explains why in a clear rejection of their recent "Not Alex" anti-McMain ad of which they are so proud.

Let's hope they and Soros keep the blinders on!

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Friday, June 20, 2008

McCain on Obama

John McCain points out the naivete and lack of historical perspective of the Dem's candidate:

John McCain: I Will Deliver Justice

"Senator Obama is obviously confused about what the United States Supreme Court decided and what he is calling for. After enthusiastically embracing the Supreme Court decision granting habeas in U.S. civilian courts to dangerous terrorist detainees, he is now running away from the consequences of that decision and what it would mean if Osama bin Laden were captured. Senator Obama refuses to clarify whether he believes habeas should be granted to Osama bin Laden, and instead cites the precedent of the Nuremburg war trials. Unfortunately, it is clear Senator Obama does not understand what happened at the Nuremburg trials and what procedures were followed. There was no habeas at Nuremburg and there should be no habeas for Osama bin Laden. Senator Obama cannot have it both ways. In one breath he endorses habeas for terrorists like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and in the next he denies its logical conclusion of habeas for Osama bin Laden. By citing a historical precedent that does not include habeas, he sends a signal of confusion and indecision to our allies and adversaries and the American people.

Let me be clear, under my administration Osama bin Laden will either be killed on the battlefield or executed. Senator Obama's failure to comprehend the implication of the Supreme Court decision he embraced and the historical precedent of Nuremberg raise serious questions about judgment and experience and whether Senator Obama is ready to assume the awesome responsibilities of commander in chief."

He seems to be able to have everything "both ways" with his base, but I doubt this will be true with the voting public!

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Thursday, June 19, 2008

"Obama and McCain Spout Economic Nonsense"

Karl Rove points out the weakness in the understanding of basic economics in our two Presidential candidates.

The first and last paragraph summarize well:

"Barack Obama and John McCain are busy demonstrating that in close elections during tough economic times, candidates for president can be economically illiterate and irresponsibly populist.

....

Messrs. Obama and McCain both reveal a disturbing animus toward free markets and success. It is uncalled for and self-defeating for presidential candidates to demonize American companies. It is understandable that Mr. Obama, the most liberal member of the Senate, would endorse reckless policies that are the DNA of the party he leads. But Mr. mcCain, a self-described Reagan Republican, should know better."

Read the whole thing to help your understanding of the pandering! It is important.

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Monday, June 16, 2008

The Difficulty of being a Lefty Columnist!

Nicholas Kristof is caught in an analysis which simply confirms his hatred of George W. Bush. Seems that Rape as a tactic is ok in countries which W decides to invade. Read the below column and come to his defense!

'Pro-Rape'
By JAMES TARANTO
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times had a column yesterday on a horrific subject: the use of "systematic rape" as a "deliberate weapon" of war:

"Rape in war has been going on since time immemorial," said Stephen Lewis, a former Canadian ambassador who was the U.N.'s envoy for AIDS in Africa. "But it has taken a new twist as commanders have used it as a strategy of war."

There are two reasons for this. First, mass rape is very effective militarily. From the viewpoint of a militia, getting into a firefight is risky, so it's preferable to terrorize civilians sympathetic to a rival group and drive them away, depriving the rivals of support.

Second, mass rape attracts less international scrutiny than piles of bodies do, because the issue is indelicate and the victims are usually too ashamed to speak up."

Kristof cites several countries where rape has been employed in this way: Yugoslavia, where in the 1990s "Serbian forces had set up a network of 'rape camps' in which women and girls, some as young as 12, were enslaved"; Sudan, where "the government has turned all of Darfur into a rape camp"; Congo, "where in some areas three-quarters of women have been raped"; and Liberia, where "the civil war is over but rape is still epidemic--and half of all reported rapes involve girls younger than 14."
Kristof is especially exercised about Darfur, a region where he has done extensive reporting. He asks a pointed question about the Sudanese reigme's allies:

"When the governments of South Africa, China, Libya and Indonesia support Sudan's positions in Darfur, do they really mean to adopt a pro-rape foreign policy?"

It's a fair question. We'd like to ask another one. First, some background.

We noticed one glaring omission from Kristof's list of regimes that have practiced systematic rape. The following is a passage from a report by the U.S. State Department's Office of International Women's Issues. It was released in March 2003, just before the U.S. and its allies liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein's regime:

"The Iraqi Government uses rape and sexual assault of women to achieve the following goals: to extract information and forced confessions from detained family members; to intimidate Iraqi oppositionists by sending videotapes showing the rape of female family members; and to blackmail Iraqi men into future cooperation with the regime. Some Iraqi authorities even carry personnel cards identifying their official "activity" as the "violation of women's honor.""

In February 2003, Kristof penned a column in which he urged Washington to deal with Saddam through a policy of "containment"--that is, restraining his extraterritorial ambitions but leaving him in power in Iraq.

When Nick Kristof supported Saddam's position in Iraq, did he really mean to adopt a pro-rape foreign policy? (my emphasis)

Hat Tip: "Best of the Web Today", WSJ

It ain't easy for a lefty to keep his columns straight!

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Monday, June 09, 2008

THE KYOTO PROBLEM!

Do you really believe we can do anything, even if there is a problem, with India and China having this necessary - on their part - attitude? Let us not kid ourselves! Half of the world's population will do nothing. The other half cannot do enough, but they can destroy their economies and much technologicfal development that would help all.

""CURRIED KYOTO: A News Post India story reports: "India will not reduce greenhouse gas emission at the cost of development and poverty alleviation." Marking World Environment Day, India's Minister of State for Environment and Forests, Namo Narain Meena, announced: "India is struggling to bring millions of people out of poverty. We cannot accept binding commitments to cut down greenhouse gas emission.""

Hat Tip: Laura Ingraham's E-Blast, 6/9/08

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