Tuesday, September 30, 2008

NObama Blogburst Tuesday!


Blog Burst: Nobama08

An informed voter is not only a wise voter, he or she is probably also a good American. In this regard, the press has always been the cornerstone in the foundation of American democracy … that is, until the press became such an advocate of socialism and liberal politics that it can no longer be relied upon to convey “fair and balanced” information.

For this reason, PaleoCon Command Center joins with several others in a Noobama08 blog burst each Tuesday of the week until Election Day. If we cannot obtain the truth about our politicians from an unencumbered press, then we’ll form a cooperative to distribute information independently.

Stanley Kurtz is a journalist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Mr. Kurtz’ article in the 
Wall Street Journal explains why Barack Obama is untrustworthy for the office of the President of the United States. He lacks integrity … and if it is one thing we do not need in the White House, it is yet another dishonest politician.

Mr. Kurtz writes: [BEGIN QUOTE]

Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.

The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers's home.

The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I've recently spent days looking through them.

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago's public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation's other key body, the "Collaborative," which shaped education policy.

The CAC's basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda.

One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's "recruitment" to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval.

The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto.

In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC.

CAC translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice. Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with "external partners," which actually got the money. Proposals from groups focused on math/science achievement were turned down. Instead, CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn).

Mr. Obama once conducted "leadership training" seminars with Acorn, and Acorn members also served as volunteers in Mr. Obama's early campaigns. External partners like the South Shore African Village Collaborative and the Dual Language Exchange focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity, and bilingualism than traditional education. CAC's in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement.

CAC also funded programs designed to promote "leadership" among parents. Ostensibly this was to enable parents to advocate on behalf of their children's education. In practice, it meant funding Mr. Obama's alma mater, the Developing Communities Project, to recruit parents to its overall political agenda. CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents "organized" by community groups might be viewed by school principals "as a political threat." Mr. Obama arranged meetings with the Collaborative to smooth out Mr. Weber's objections.

The Daley documents show that Mr. Ayers sat as an ex-officio member of the board Mr. Obama chaired through CAC's first year. He also served on the board's governance committee with Mr. Obama, and worked with him to craft CAC bylaws. Mr. Ayers made presentations to board meetings chaired by Mr. Obama. Mr. Ayers spoke for the Collaborative before the board. Likewise, Mr. Obama periodically spoke for the board at meetings of the Collaborative.

The Obama campaign notes that Mr. Ayers attended only six board meetings, and stresses that the Collaborative lost its "operational role" at CAC after the first year. Yet the Collaborative was demoted to a strictly advisory role largely because of ethical concerns, since the projects of Collaborative members were receiving grants. CAC's own evaluators noted that project accountability was hampered by the board's reluctance to break away from grant decisions made in 1995. So even after Mr. Ayers's formal sway declined, the board largely adhered to the grant program he had put in place.

Mr. Ayers's defenders claim that he has redeemed himself with public-spirited education work. That claim is hard to swallow if you understand that he views his education work as an effort to stoke resistance to an oppressive American system. He likes to stress that he learned of his first teaching job while in jail for a draft-board sit-in. For Mr. Ayers, teaching and his 1960s radicalism are two sides of the same coin.

Mr. Ayers is the founder of the "small schools" movement (heavily funded by CAC), in which individual schools built around specific political themes push students to "confront issues of inequity, war, and violence." He believes teacher education programs should serve as "sites of resistance" to an oppressive system. (His teacher-training programs were also CAC funded.) The point, says Mr. Ayers in his "Teaching Toward Freedom," is to "teach against oppression," against America's history of evil and racism, thereby forcing social transformation.

The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming "guilt by association." Yet the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.
[END QUOTE]

To say Mr. Obama is not ready for the presidency is a gross understatement. It is not simply that he lacks experience … it is also that he repudiates traditional American values and culture by embracing Marxist ideology, has been an acolyte of black racist theology, cuddled up with the anarchist activism of Saul Alinsky, and even worse … the man is simply and irrevocably dishonest. There is nothing about Barack Obama that may cause us to think he honors American tradition, or shares with us our time-honored values. Significantly, a man who works to undermine our education system through socialist engineering is a man who seeks to destroy America.

If the American people elect this man to the presidency, he will certainly destroy the cultural and political fabric of the United States, and when he has finished his work, none of us will recognize what he has left behind:The People’s Socialist Republic of the United States.

Cross posted at: 
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Monday, September 29, 2008

Another Successful Ramadan:

From The Religion of Peace:



OT...I guess it's haram to flirt with female VP candidates during Ramadan: 

(RTTNews) -  Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's "You're gorgeous" compliment to U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in Washington last Thursday landed him in trouble, with the prayer leader of the extremist Lal Masjid mosque in the heart of Islamabad issuing a fatwa against him, media reports said.

Maulana Abdul Ghafar said the act was un-Islamic and unbecoming of a head of state of a Muslim country, adding that he shamed the entire Pakistani nation by publicly making indecent gestures, filthy remarks and repeated praise of a non-Muslim female wearing a short skirt.

He termed the manner in which Zardari shook hands with Palin and expressing his deep desire to hug her, as intolerable and shameful.


A Muslim man that doesn't hate women, infidel or not? Well, he clearly needs his head cut off.

Amen, Brother:

Friday, September 26, 2008

Mickey Gets a Stay of Execution


Good news, kids: Mickey Mouse is not an emissary of Satan:

CAIRO (AFP) — An Egyptian Muslim scholar has called for an end to risible religious edicts after a Saudi cleric said Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan who should die, local media reported on Wednesday.

Sheikh Mohamed al-Munajid, a cleric who often appears on Saudi television and who is also a former Saudi diplomat in the United States, said last week that mice were "agents of Satan" and should be killed.

Psst...Sheikh... Mickey is fictional, you asshat.

"Sharia (Islamic law) calls for the extermination of all mice. That includes the rodents as well as 'the famous cartoon mouse'," he said.

I wonder what he thinks about Farfour

He blamed Mickey Mouse for causing people to become soft on mice.

Huh? Soft on mice? I guess we should be waterboarding the little bastards before we kill them?

However, Suad Saleh, a woman preacher who hosts a popular television programme on fatwas, or religious edicts, told the English-language daily Egyptian Gazette that Munajid's ruling "tarnishes Islam's image."

Um, no... The whole terrorist murdering of us infidels and the pedophile prophet that wrote the Koran is what "tarnishes Islam's image."

"An edict should be based on knowledge, logic and reason," she said. "Yes, mice should be killed when seen according to Islam's teachings. But it is illogical to deal with a cartoon character as a live mouse and kill it."

Har! This is something that needs to be explained? 

In 2005, the former dean of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the world's oldest Islamic seat of learning, said in a widely criticised ruling that nudity during sex annuls a couple's marriage.

Man, that's a bummer. I wonder if the virgins in the sky brother are allowed to be naked?

Saleh said Muslim clerics should learn to become more media savvy.

Yeah, it makes the taqiyya go over more smoothly.

Earlier this month, another Saudi cleric said owners of satellite television channels that broadcast "immoral" content deserved to die.




Thursday, September 25, 2008

Now That They've Fixed the Economy...



...Let's give 'em universal health care! 

Bush's speech last night was a sugar-coated line of B.S. He looked scared to death, unkempt, and tired. 

I'm no economic expert, but at several points I found myself thinking, "Just say DEPRESSION! STOP sugar-coating!"

I sure hope McCain knows what he's doing... If this nightmare bailout somehow works out, he'll get to take credit. If not, he's done.

If it does work out, Obama is going to be screwed by his refusal to do anything.

Also, since Congress adjourns for the year, Obama's refusal to delay the debate by just a few days makes him look like an ass. He'll look even worse if he shows up to the debate hall by himself while McCain is working.

Your thoughts, please? 

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dhimmitude in '12.


From this source: 

LONDON (AP) -Olympic organizers issued detailed design rules for the 2012 London games Wednesday, including a mandate that at least some toilets in the Olympic park do not face the holy Islamic city of Mecca.

--------------------

Silly Muslims. If you joined the modern age, you'd realize that the Earth is round and technically EVERY direction faces Mecca.

---------------------

Muslims face Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, when they pray and generally do not believe they should do the same when using the toilet.

Yeah, 'cause Allah hates it when you take a shit on him...

I wonder what direction the toilets in Mecca face? Maybe you're just not allowed to do your business when you're there? Hmm... 


Time to Compare Notes?

There's no pandering going on in the Obama campaign...Heh.

Obama on energy:

"As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. "

Obama made this statement at the DNC. 


Biden on energy:


Yeah. These two are all about change. About every two seconds.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Double-Header Tuesday

I found a couple of topics this morning that I wanted to post about. I just couldn't decide which, so today is... Double-Header Tuesday!

First on the plate is a story of academic not-so-excellence:


Pittsburgh Public Schools officials say they want to give struggling children a chance, but the district is raising eyebrows with a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work.

-------------------------------

While some districts use "F" as a failing grade, the city uses an "E."

"The 'E' is to be recorded no lower than a 50 percent, regardless of the actual percent earned. For example, if the student earns a 20 percent on a class assignment, the grade is recorded as a 50 percent," said the memo from Jerri Lippert, the district's executive director of curriculum, instruction and professional development, and Mary VanHorn, a PFT vice president.

--------------------------------

"A failing grade is a failing grade," district spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said.

At the same time, they said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, Ms. Pugh said, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester.

"We want to create situations where students can recover and not give up," she said, adding a sense of helplessness can lead to behavior and attendance problems.

"It's not grade inflation. We're not saying, 'Give people passing grades,' " Ms. Pugh said.

But the policy strikes some teachers and parents as rewarding bad work and at odds with the district's "Excellence for All" improvement campaign.

"Clearly, some people will not be pleased with this policy," Mr. Tarka said. But he added, "We stand by that decision."

Judy Leonardi, a Stanton Heights resident and retired district home economics teacher, said she objected to the notion that a student could "walk in the door, breathe the air and get 50 percent for that."

"I don't think it sets kids up properly for college, for competition in life," she said.

To Ms. Leonardi, a 20 percent score means a student isn't trying or needs more help with the material. Automatically putting 50 percent in the grade book, she said, doesn't help the student in either case.

"To me, it's morally wrong," she said.

Ms. Leonardi worries that the policy could cause high-performing students to goof off from time to time, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't have to bounce back from anything lower than a 50 percent.

And she said one teacher she knows already worries about how awkward it will look when a student correctly answers three of 10 questions on a math quiz -- and gets a 50 percent.

---------------------------------------

Well, what do you know? Taxpayer subsidies for failing grades... Just like the banks! Is it any wonder no one expects to reap the consequences of failure anymore? They've been taught from grade K that the government will come in and mop up the bottom line! 


Next, Dementia sufferers have a "duty to die":

The veteran Government adviser [Baroness Warnock] said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.

------------------------------------------------

"Put down." LIKE AN ANIMAL.

------------------------------------------------

Last year the Mental Capacity Act came into effect that gives legal force to "living wills", so patients can appoint an "attorney" to tell doctors when their hospital food and water should be removed.

-----------------------------------------------

Right. So your lawyer can tell the court when you should be dehydrated and starved to death.

-----------------------------------------------

Recent figures show there are 700,000 people with degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's in Britain. By 2026 experts predict there will be one million dementia sufferers in the country, costing the NHS an estimated £35billion a year.

Lady Warnock said: "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service.

------------------------------------------------

The lack of regard for human life coming from this disgusting creature is appalling! 

----------------------------------------------

Neil Hunt, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "I am shocked and amazed that Baroness Warnock could disregard the value of the lives of people with dementia so callously.

"With the right care, a person can have good quality of life very late in to dementia. To suggest that people with dementia shouldn't be entitled to that quality of life or that they should feel that they have some sort of duty to kill themselves is nothing short of barbaric."

------------------------------------------------

"Because of her previous experiences and well-known standing on contentious moral issues, Baroness Warnock automatically gives moral authority to what are entirely immoral view points."

Phyllis Bowman, executive director of the campaign group Right to Life, added: "It sends a message to dementia sufferers that certain people think they don't count, and that they are a burden on their families. It's a pretty uncivilised society where that is the primary consideration. I worry that she will sway people who would like to get rid of the elderly."

----------------------------------------------

At what point are you too old? Who decides whether you're a 'burden' or not? 


RUN, Runner!!!

Monday, September 22, 2008

'Cause I Missed it in the Blackout...

... OK, I know it's a bit of old comedy, but I missed a lot being without power for a week.

And this is funny: 


Saturday, September 20, 2008

Obama's Email Hacked!!!


Those evil conservatives have made a horrific invasion into the messiah's privacy. For posterity's sake, I will post a screen shot of Obama's private email taken by a hacker:


For the full-size image, click here. 

Friday, September 19, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Vote Cute?

Looks like Michelle has 'woman problems', too:


CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Michelle Obama asked voters Thursday to make their choice on the issues, not because, "I like that guy" or, "she's cute."

Might she be talking about Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin?

"I'm talking about me," she said with a smile.


I guess Obama figures misogyny goes down a little easier when it comes from a female. Sad.


Sunday, September 14, 2008

Obama's Woman Troubles:


An interesting read from Savage: 



Obama on the Couch: How Bad
Is His "Woman Problem"?


Barack Obama compared Sarah Palin to a pig with lipstick. This is the beginning of the end of Obama’s campaign. But what exactly is Obama's problem with women? Why have women abandoned his campaign in droves? To find the answer we must return to Obama's childhood and examine his relationship with his mother.

In 1961, Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, married Obama’s father, a man from Kenya. He abandoned the family. Within three years, they were divorced. In 1967, his mother married another man, this time an Indonesian. A few years later she was divorced again. Through all this time, Obama's mother went globetrotting; from Hawaii, to Indonesia, to Pakistan. Sometimes she took her young son. Sometimes she left him behind. 

What appears to have happened to Obama as a result is he developed symptoms of what psychologists refer to as an Oedipal Complex. In an Oedipal Complex, a male child is fixated on his mother and competes with his father for maternal attention. In such cases, a critical point of awakening occurs where the child realizes that the mother has affections for others besides himself. In this case, Obama had to compete with multiple paternal stand-ins and was never fully able to bond with his mother. The result seems to have been a resentment towards women that he has never been able to get beyond.

Furthermore, excessive separation within an Oedipal Complex leads to a sense of helplessness that can in turn lead to patterns of idealized control and self-sufficiency (which shines through in his often arrogant smile.)

Obama’s mother sent him to live away from her when he was 10 and again when he was 14. It seems clear that this excessive separation, in the absence of a father, has led to a pattern of idealized control that Obama has not only imposed on himself, but now wants to impose on the United States of America.

Obama’s mother was a free spirit who traipsed around the world following her own self-interests. And while there’s nothing wrong with that in itself, you can't ignore the effects that such narcissism has had on her children. Especially when one of those children wants to be president.

It seems Obama has a woman problem. He both wants to win their approval and control them at the same time. Unfortunately for him, Sarah Palin is not the kind of woman who responds well to control. Millions of women like Sarah may be traditional in their love for men, but they are feminists in terms of self-reliance. Attacking such strong women to control them has never worked and will not work for Obama.

  • Do you think Obama has a woman problem?


  • Does he have an Oedipal Complex?


  • If you agree that he does, how bad, on a scale of 1 to 10 do you think Obama’s Oedipal Complex is?



Friday, September 12, 2008

Did Obama Admit He's a Muslim?

This will put the debate to rest once and for all:

Thursday, September 11, 2008

It's Official...

... Obama is the messiah, and Palin is like the guy that killed him:



9-11: Seven Years Later

It's been seven years. There's still a disgusting hole in the ground in New York. 

How about pulling the original WTC blueprints out of mothballs, dust them off, update them for code, and put them back up?





For audio from 9-11, click here.

The world is still full of asshats... 


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, there is no
 consensus outside the United States that Islamist militants from al Qaeda were responsible, according to an international poll published Wednesday.

The survey of 16,063 people in 17 nations found majorities in only nine countries believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001.

U.S. officials squarely blame al Qaeda, whose leader Osama bin Laden has boasted of organizing the suicide attacks by his followers using hijacked commercial airliners.

On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator.

 One in four people said they did not know who was behind the attacks.

The poll was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative project of research centers in various countries managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland in the United States.

In Europe, al Qaeda was cited by 56 percent of Britons and Italians, 63 percent of French and 64 percent of Germans. The U.S. government was to blame, according to 23 percent of Germans and 15 percent of Italians.

Respondents in the Middle East were especially likely to name a perpetrator other than al Qaeda, the poll found.

Israel was behind the attacks, said 43 percent of people in Egypt, 31 percent in Jordan and 19 percent in the Palestinian Territories. The U.S. government was blamed by 36 percent of Turks and 27 percent of Palestinians.

In Mexico, 30 percent cited the U.S. government and 33 percent named al Qaeda.

The only countries with overwhelming majorities blaming al Qaeda were Kenya with 77 percent and Nigeria with 71 percent.

But good people also came out of that tragedy. Tuesday's Children meet the needs of children who were robbed of a parent on 9-11.

We should never forget. We should remember that day, our feelings, our hurt and our resolve.


Why is it that some just cannot face up to that memory? They cannot accept the ugliness that is reality at times.

This is what Olberman just couldn't handle:


Well, Keith, it may not be pretty. You may not like it. That doesn't change the fact that some people out there want you and me dead. They are Islamists who want you, the infidel, to die.

Here is that reality. Face it, deal with it. Remember it: 


Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Pretty Up That Pig.


Obama goes further, saying this at the end of the above clip:

Obama added that "it is not going to be easy ... John McCain has a compelling biography, you know Sarah Palin is an interesting story."

The crowd booed.

"No, she’s new!" Obama said. "She hasn’t been on the scene, you know, she’s got five kids and my hat goes off to anybody who’s looking after five. I’ve got two and they tire Michelle and me out!"


Well, what a tough little lady Palin is! Doesn't she know it would be easier if she'd just get her ass back in the kitchen? 


Tammy Bruce has some excellent commentary on the misogynist Obama: 

Outrageous. Actually, without devolving into too much body language issues here, even Obama is uncomfortable with what he's about to do. Notice he puts his hand up to ostensibly scratch his face, but is actually covering it. And remember also, we've learned he uses teleprompters at these events, so that slur was not off-the-cuff, it was written and planned and he delivered it, consciously.

Here's a Newsflash for Barry and his mob--anyone who is going to laugh at that wasn't going to vote for McCain anyway. And anyone who is on the fence and leaning toward the McCain/Palin ticket will be as offended by those remarks as I am. Women are abandoning Obama because they don't like what they've seen and heard for the past 18 months. They especially don't like the arrogant, sexist mockery Obama provides which doesn't even remotely pass as a discussion of the "issues." Perhaps he was hoping Hillary would smear Gov. Palin. Now it's left for The One himself to continue the slur and burn approach which is losing him this election.

UPDATE:

McCain camp demands an apology. In the meantime, NBC reports a 23-point swing towards McCain among all women, 18-49. Gee, I wonder why?

If we take Obama at his word that he was just using a colloquialism and didn't mean any insult to Palin, it is still quite noteworthy that he would make such an easily misconstrued statement. Obama MUST know that he is on thin ice with women... What would possess him to put his foot so far down his throat.

One must consider that it is fortunate that he would make such a mistake now, with Sarah Palin, rather than after January, sitting across the table from Ahmadinejad or Medvedev. 




Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Let Them Eat Cake... Again.

(Hey, Nanc... You mentioned Weekend at Bernie's?)

This is a photo of  Charlie Rangel lounging at his villa in the Dominican Republic (What, no nice places here in the States, Charlie), which he also rents out at a profit of about $75,000 per year.

The problem is, the head of the Ways and Means Committee, which is the committee that writes the onerous tax laws that you and I must avoid, claims he just didn't know he was supposed to be paying interest. 

I wonder if the gov't would be so understanding if you or I used such an excuse.

From this source, emphasis mine: 

The Democratic chairman of the Ways and Means tax-writing committee has come under scrutiny for his vacation property and apartments he rents in his home district of Harlem.

[These are rent-controlled apartments, subsidized by the taxpayers.]

Davis [Rangel's lawyer] said Rangel failed to report rental income from the resort property on his taxes, but didn't realize it was necessary because of the way the deal was structured.

Davis said it is unlikely the congressman owes any back taxes under the federal tax code, although he may owe a small amount to New York State, on unreported rental income of about $75,000.

"It is my understanding that over the 20-year time period there is not likely to be federal tax liability by Mr. Rangel because of offsetting depreciation expenses and tax credits. Therefore, whatever amendments might be necessary do not involve the federal tax code," said Davis.

Republicans call Rangel ethically challenged and have sought to censure the 78-year-old lawmaker. Even an unintentional tax error is highly embarrassing for Rangel, since he chairs the committee charged with updating the nation's complicated tax code.

[Yeah, the frickin' tax code is so huge and tangled that not even the Chair that dumps more into it each year can understand it. Um, Fair Tax, anyone?]

News of Rangel's no-interest mortgage comes on the heels of damaging reports that two other powerful figures in Congress, Senators Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., got preferential mortgages with lower interest rates through a "VIP" program for friends of former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Dodd heads the Senate Banking Committee.

[I'm sure all that was an accident, too. It must be, since no one is in jail. You know, like how quickly one of us plebes would be behind pig iron?]

Rangel bought the beach house 20 years ago for about $80,000, with a down payment of $28,000. Instead of making payments himself for the property, Rangel used his share of collective rental money generated by the resort to pay down the mortgage, according to his lawyer.

Rental income from the property was used directly to pay the mortgage, so Rangel never made any mortgage payments himself, Davis said. Only once, in 2001, did Rangel receive money directly, when the company mistakenly wired him $2,000 in rental income rather than applying that, as it had before and after, to the mortgage.

The mortgage debt of slightly more than $50,000 was paid off fully in 2003, Davis said, and rental income was also used later to pay for a $22,000 home improvement project. That second loan did include interest payments totaling about $1,100, the lawyer said.

The congressman's personal finances have come under scrutiny and spawned a House ethics committee inquiry, leading to a showdown last month on the House floor between Rangel and Republicans.



Monday, September 8, 2008

Is Kimmie Gone?

Is Kim Jong Il dead? 

One Japanese professor thinks so. 

From this source

Speculation has recently grown again that Kim, who is 66 and has not been seen in public for more than three weeks, is unwell. Some media have long thought that Kim, a former smoker and heavy drinker, was ill but Seoul intelligence officials say they believe he has diabetes and heart problems, but those are not serious enough to affect his job.

But a book by Japan's Professor Toshimitsu Shigemura at Japan's respected Waseda University says Kim died in the autumn of 2003 and a series of stand-ins have since taken his place at official state event.

Prof Shigemura says Kim was not seen in public for the 42 days after September 10, 2003, and in his book "The True Character of Kim Jong Il" claims the man that North Koreans refer to as the "Dear Leader" died of diabetes.

"In the years before he died, Kim took some really big decisions on North Korea's relationships with the outside world," says the professor, pointing to the historic June 2000 summit with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, a visit from Russian leader Vladimir Putin the following month and then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in October 2000.

The following January he was in China, met Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2002 - and admitted that Pyongyang had abducted Japanese nationals to train its spies - and August 2003 saw the opening of six-way talks on halting North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes.

Then, suddenly, Kim disappeared, says Shigemura, and there was chaos in the upper echelons of the country's leadership. "I have been working on the book for four years," said Shigemura, a former journalist for the Mainichi newspaper who was posted to Seoul for six years from 1979 and then served for another five years in Washington D.C. A North Korean agent told him in 1995 that he had met one of Kim's doubles - there have been as many as four - and that he used them to stand in at outside ceremonies because he was fearful of a coup.

After Kim's death, a group of four very senior officials in the regime decided to protect their own positions by making the stand-in more permanent. Whenever anyone meets the North Korean leader, Shigemura says one of the four is alongside him "like a puppet-master."

Friday, September 5, 2008

Toby Keith Loves Obama?

Red State Update's take on this development: 


LOL!

What Liberals Hear: