Who is Barack Obama?

And WHY can't McCain frame the issue?

Why should we care that Obama sat in Reverend Wright's church for 20 years?

Why should we care that Obama worked closely with Bill Ayres on several projects and launched his political career in Ayres' living room?

Why should we care that Obama gave $800,000 to Acorn to assist his campaign in THIS 2008 election?

Why should we care that Obama has had a close association with Father Michael Pfleger?

Why should we care that Obama's wife said she "never felt proud of her country?"

Why should we care that Obama refused to put his hand on his heart during the National Anthem?

Why should we care that liberal leaders like Jessee Jackson and Jeremiah Wright are so sure that Obama will lead our country in the most liberal paths it has ever been taken?

Why should we care that Obama did not honor his word in using Federal matching funds in this 2008 campaign?

Why should we care that Obama got a huge financial benefit from a real estate transaction withTony Rezco?

Why should we care that Obama voted "present" 129 times in the Illinois State Legislature, mostly it seems on controversial legislative matters?

Why should we care that Obama has the MOST liberal voting record in the US Senate?

Senator Obama has a slick answer for each of these issues, but does NOT deny them. Each one he slyly explains away, dismissing them as unimportant. BUT, IT IS THE COMBINATION OF THESE QUESTIONABLE ASSOCIATIONS AND ACTIONS THAT SHOULD GIVE VOTERS GREAT CAUSE FOR CONCERN COME ELECTION DAY.

WHO IS BARACK OBAMA?

Prop 8 - YES to Preserve Marriage

OK. Putting aside the hateful rhetoric, lets look at WHY we should vote YES on Proposition 8 in California:

1. YES on 8 also defends Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. The "tolerance" that is being demanded by the proponents of same sex marriage is a total LACK of tolerance for anyone who disagrees with them. They have ALREADY attacked churches in states that allowed same sex marriage which proves their intentions for us. They had the tax exempt status of the Lutheran Church revoked in a New Jersey community and forcing Catholic Charities to close their doors on their adoptions services in Massachusetts because they refused to place children in same sex couple homes. Without a YES on 8, speaking against same sex marriage can and probably eventually will be considered as hate speech.

2. YES on 8 protects children from being exposed in ELEMENTARY school to discussions and instruction regarding same sex marriage. California law REQUIRES school teachers to teach about marriage and families and provide "age appropriate" instruction. FURTHER, as children enter middle and high school, sex education curriculum will sooner or later include instruction regarding homosexual and lesbian relationships.

3. YES on 8 does not take away ANY rights of same sex couples. California's Domestic Partnership act parallels in EVERY respect California law on marriage. YES on 8 does NOT change that. Reports that same sex partners cannot visit their partners in the hospital, have joint wills or trusts or have dual property rights is simply FALSE.

4. YES on 8 defends the traditional backbone of society. Jennifer A. Marshall oversees research in areas that determine the character of our culture: education, marriage, family, religion, and civil society as Director of Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Ms. Marshall points out that non-traditional families are more likely to have children with problems and the state should not be attempting to institutionalize same sex unions when the data is too scarce to determine whether such relationships are harmful to children.

McCain's Mortgage Rescue

I enthusiastically AGREE with Senator McCain that we need to lower the interest rate on shaky loans to keep folks in their homes as that is the MOST likely way that they will pay off their mortgages.

I DISAGREE with his approach.

All the Congress needs to do is pass a law that lowers ALL adjustable rate mortgages made prior to [date] to a fixed/capped rate of 5% on any remaining balance AND add any amounts in default or arrears on such loans AS OF the effective date of the legislation to the END of the loan.

JOB DONE WITH NO TAXPAYER MONEY.

(I have a fixed rate at 5.25%)

Obama's Protests Are Nuts

Senator Barack Obama has denied or minimized any connections he has with ACORN. But his protests are NOT truthful.What the heck is ACORN? Well it is more than a nutty seed that's for sure. ACORN is an acronym that stands for "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now" and is reported to be a very radical left wing organization that was attempting to get a LARGE portion of the financial bailout money AND is reported to have ties to Obama. Three articles that are helpful in understanding ACORN are "Inside Obama’s Acorn," By Stanley Kurtz. Sol Stern’s 2003 City Journal article, “ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities.” and Steven Malanga’s “Acorn Squash.”

ACORN has been tied to several investigations of voter fraud in several states and is currently under investigation. Just last night it was reported on the news that ACORN offices were raided by law enforcement in Nevada regarding voter registration fraud charges.

The story gets a little complicated here, so hang in there with me because Obama is banking on your attention span being too short to tie the pieces together.

Obama sites his "experience" as a community organizer on his presidential resume. This "experience" included working hand in hand with ACORN and as a staff trainer for ACORN.

Obama also stresses his board membership on two "charitable" foundations, the Woods Fund (where he served with Bill Ayres) and the Joyce Foundation. During his board tenure, both of these foundations are reported to have given substantial sums of money to ACORN.

After training ACORN personnel, representing ACORN as an attorney, and diverting substantial sums of money to ACORN through charitable foundations, is it any surprise that ACORN has been an enthusiastic supporter of Obama?

ACORN leader, Tony Foulkes, takes credit for Obama's 2004 Senate victory. "And while many reports speak of Obama’s post-law school role organizing “Project VOTE” in 1992, Foulkes makes it clear that this project was undertaken in direct partnership with Acorn. Foulkes then stresses Obama’s yearly service as a key figure in Acorn’s leadership-training seminars. . . Obama’s long service with Acorn led many members to serve as the volunteer shock troops of Obama’s early political campaigns — his initial 1996 State Senate campaign, and his failed bid for Congress in 2000 (Foulkes confuses the dates of these two campaigns.) With Obama having personally helped train a new cadre of Chicago Acorn leaders, by the time of Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama and Acorn were “old friends,” says Foulkes." (Stanley Kurtz, Inside Obama's Acorn).

Why Vote for John McCain?

1. John McCain GETS IT. He understands that Islamic Jihad is the greatest threat to freedom ever, and he has the guts to tackle the problem. Why is it more of a threat than Hitler or Lennin? Because they were a small number of power hungry men, Islamic Jihad is a GRASS ROOTS movement.

2. John McCain GETS IT. He will NOT appoint another Ginsburg or Souter to the US Supreme Court (who Obama says are the Justices he admires). Why is this important? Let me give you an example from THIS year:

"COURT UPHOLDS PART OF CHILD PORN LAW
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld criminal penalties Monday for promoting child pornography. The court, in a 7-2 decision, brushed aside concerns that the law could apply to mainstream movies that depict adolescent sex, classic literature or innocent e-mails that describe pictures of grandchildren."

Ok, that’s the GOOD part of the story. No one I know would think that was a bad decision... BUT wait... it was a 7 to 2 decision! Why wasn’t upholding the conviction of a child pornographer a 9-0 decision?? BECAUSE dissenting opinions were filed by Justices Souter and Ginsberg – Obama’s examples of who he would appoint to the US Supreme Court!

Ask yourself, “Do I want the MOST liberal Senator in the US Senate to pick the next Supreme Court Justice?”

Not a "bailout" -- "An Asset Purchase"

So you think that EVERY home owner is going to default on their mortgage? That the homes that are the collateral for these loans are totally worthless?

Make no mistake, I think EVERY head of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Bros, AIG, et al., including members of congress who were "in the know" should be stripped of all their assets and their US citizenship and ridden out of the country on a rail.

Having said THAT... The 700 Bil will buy hard assets (hopefully at a nice discount) and if congress is smart enough to lower the interest rates on these shakey loans, the home owners will continue to make their payments and in time not only do I expect all the money to come back, but if properly handled (yeah I know, can we trust them...) the taxpayer's should make a profit on the deal.

The root cause of the current financial crises lies in the desire to make home ownership available to people in lower income brackets. This idea was (to my recollection) first put forth by Jack Kemp who was the Secretary of Health and Human Services under Ronald Regan. The belief was that home ownership would help them to be more stable.

After that time, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae began buying loans from lending institutions who loaned money to home buyers with lower credit scores.

The next big event was when Bill Clinton signed legislation that allowed Banks and Financial Institutions to cross lines and offer products that since the Great Depression had been limited to one or the other. Suddenly Banks could sell securities and Financial Institutions could make home loans.

During the Clinton administration, Freddie Mac and .Fannie Mae were encouraged by a Republican controlled congress to continually lower their standards for buying lower credit scored loans. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Fed warned against this practice as did many others who saw and understood the depth of the problem. Which continued to grow year by year as the banks and financial institutions developed their new co-operative product "Mortgage Backed Securities" which were sold to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and then to investors and between financial institutions.

FIVE years ago, the Bush Administration actually drafted legislation for congress to limit and cut back on these practices. However congress, led by Democrat Charles Rangel in the House, would not allow the bill to come to a vote.

The "gold rush" of the housing market, between 2003 and 2006 exacerbated the problem to the extreme. Now, lower income people were reaching higher than ever before with the hope and dream of finally hitting it big, wealth through real estate. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were the catalyst for this frenzy, buying ANYTHING that the banks or financial instutions offered them, giving the banks and financial instituions NO ACCOUNTABILITY for the bad loans.

Do we need reform? YES.

Do we need to bail out these foolish financial instituions? YES. If we do not, WE THE PEOPLE will be hurt the most. Our investments and our retirement plans will deteriorate. We will not be able to borrow money, we will loose our jobs and our businesses. It is a distasteful thing to have to do, but we have to do it for our OWN sakes.

Do we need to install stricter regulations to prevent this from happening again? YES.

Do we have responsibility? YES - WE THE PEOPLE are the borrowers, we had responsibility to not over extend ourselves. WE THE PEOPLE are the lenders, we had the responsibility to act in a prudent manner. WE THE PEOPLE elected the politicians who created Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to interfere in financial and real estate markets.

Will we get our money back? Probably. Most of these loans will not default. They will be purchased by the government for less than full value and so the ones that do not default, will make up for some or all that do.

NOT Obama Part 1

THINGS THAT CONCERN ME ABOUT BARACK OBAMMA. These bother me more because they are not isolated, they are taken together to make me concerned about what is really going on in his head:

His failure to give any credit as role models to his WHITE grandparents, while he idealized his father who had abandoned him, his sister and his mother. (I am also troubled by his failure to include his sister when he talks about how he was the center of his mother's life).

His relationship with William (Billy) Ayres (a convicted terrorist bomber) with whom Obama served with the Woods Fund, hosted "meet the candidate dinners for Obama in the 90's, etc.

His 20 years at the Trinity Church with Jeremiah Wright and then saying he did not know about Wright's hate America speeches, and had not in 20 years heard them. DVD's obtained from the churches own bookstore show that this was not a recent turn for him, but had been a regluar topic for some years.

The fact that he has been reported to have the #1 most liberal voting record in the Senate (left of Hillary, left of Kennedy).

Michelle Obama's public statement in February 2008, told a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, crowd, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country."William (Billy) Ayres
Source: Wikipedia.com (Heavily footnoted)

The Obama–Ayers controversy arose during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign by Hillary Clinton regarding Presidential candidate Barack Obama's contact with Bill Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a former leader of the Weather Underground communist terrorist organization. His position as a professor led to him serving on two nonprofit boards with Barack Obama, who lived in the same neighborhood. Ayers and Obama made several joint appearances and Ayers was an early contributor and supporter of Obama’s political career.

Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972, as he noted in his 2001 book, "Fugitive Days."

In an interview he gave to the New York Times (2001) on the occasion of the memoir's publication. The reporter quoted him as saying "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all again" as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility." Ayers has not denied the quotes.

Ayers was asked in a January 2004 interview, "How do you feel about what you did? Would you do it again under similar circumstances?" He replied: "I’ve thought about this a lot. Being almost 60, it’s impossible to not have lots and lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do something that was horrendous, awful? ... I don’t think so. I think what we did was to respond to a situation that was unconscionable."

In an interview published in 1995, (when he was first supporting and promoting Obama) Ayers characterized his political beliefs at that time and in the 1960s and 1970s: "I am a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist ... [Laughs] Maybe I'm the last communist who is willing to admit it. [Laughs] We have always been small 'c' communists in the sense that we were never in the [Communist] party and never Stalinists. The ethics of Communism still appeal to me. I don't like Lenin as much as the early Marx."

In 1970 Ayers was called "a national leader" of the Weatherman organization and "one of the chief theoreticians of the Weathermen". The Weathermen were initially part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) within the SDS, splitting from the RYM's Maoists by claiming there was no time to build a vanguard party and that revolutionary war against the United States government and the capitalist system should begin immediately. Their founding document called for the establishment of a "white fighting force" to be allied with the "Black Liberation Movement" and other "anti-colonial" movements to achieve "the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism." In June 1974, the Weather Underground released a 151-page volume titled Prairie Fire, which stated: "We are a guerrilla organization [...] We are communist women and men underground in the United States

Both Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, hosted Alice Palmer's meet-and-greet for Obama at their home in 1995 in the Hyde Park section of Chicago, where the Ayers and the Obamas lived. (The meeting has also been called a fundraising event.) It was at this meeting that then State Senator Alice Palmer introduced Barack Obama as her chosen candidate for the 1996 Democratic primary. Although the exact date of the meeting is not known, it was sometime in the second half of 1995, according to Ben Smith, a reporter for The Politico. Chicagoan Maria Warren wrote in 2005 on her Musings & Migraines blog: "When I first met Barack Obama, he was giving a standard, innocuous little talk in the livingroom of those two legends-in-their-own-minds, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. They were launching him — introducing him to the Hyde Park community as the best thing since sliced bread."

Obama served as president of the board of directors for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a large education-related nonprofit organization that Ayers was instrumental in starting. The board disbursed grants to schools and raised private matching funds while Ayers worked with the operational arm of the effort. Both attended some board meetings in common starting in 1995,retreats, and at least one news conference together as the education program started. They continued to attend meetings together during the 1995-2001 period when the program was operating.

Obama and Ayers served together for three years on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty foundation established in 1941. Obama had joined the nine-member board in 1993, and had attended a dozen of the quarterly meetings together with Ayers in the three years up to 2002, when Obama left his position on the board, which Ayers chaired for two years. Laura S. Washington, chairwoman of the Woods Fund, said the small board had a collegial "friendly but businesslike" atmosphere, and met four times a year for a half-day, mostly to approve grants. The two also appeared together on academic panel discussions, including a 1997 University of Chicago discussion on juvenile justice. They again appeared in 2002 at an academic panel co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library. One panel discussion in which they both appeared was organized by Obama's wife, Michelle. Ayers donated $200 to Obama's 2001 state senate campaign.

At the Democratic Party primary debate in Philadelphia on April 16, 2008, moderator George Stephanopoulos questioned Obama about his association with Ayers, asking the candidate: "Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Obama responded as follows:

"This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George"

WE NEVER GET THE FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS:

What do you mean, "on a regular basis?"

But, Senator Obama, it is NOT a matter of simply knowing him, he was a supporter of you, he contributed to your early campaigns, he promoted you, it appears that he had influence in having you appointed to charitable boards to serve side by side with him AND you made joint appearances with him, one organized by your wife. AND it is not just a matter of "engaging in detestable acts when you were 8 years old" he has not repented, recanted or expressed regrets, he continues as a self proclaimed communist who TO THIS DAY does not regret his "detestable acts."

Senator Obama, if such a man is an enthusiastic supporter and promoter of YOU, how does that reflect on YOUR beliefs, politics and how you will govern as President of the United States?