Sunday, March 30, 2008
"White Folks' Greed Runs the World"
Obama's pastor has real issues, and this will continue to harm Obama. Primarily because Obama answers seem less than forthright or consistent.
Obama's pastor has real issues, and this will continue to harm Obama. Primarily because Obama answers seem less than forthright or consistent.
Labels: barack obama
Friday, March 21, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Buried in Eloquence, Obama Contradictions About Pastor
Not to mention throwing Grandmom under the bus. You got to hand it to Obama. Equating a pastor saying the US government is intentionally spreading the HIV virus in the black community to 5000 church members with a grandmom saying she was scared by a black man...that's definitely a new kind of politics.
And people are starting to point out how he handled the Imus situation. It appears hypocritically.
This isn't nearly the worst political gaffe ever. But if you portray or allow others to portray you in glowing other-worldly Messianic terms, this is a problem.
Not to mention throwing Grandmom under the bus. You got to hand it to Obama. Equating a pastor saying the US government is intentionally spreading the HIV virus in the black community to 5000 church members with a grandmom saying she was scared by a black man...that's definitely a new kind of politics.
And people are starting to point out how he handled the Imus situation. It appears hypocritically.
This isn't nearly the worst political gaffe ever. But if you portray or allow others to portray you in glowing other-worldly Messianic terms, this is a problem.
Labels: barack obama
Friday, March 14, 2008
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Philly Beer Week
If you are near Philadelphia and love good beer, this is a great time to be alive. For those not in the know, there are beer events happening all over the place celebrating this area's wonderful beer culture. Go here.
And the news just gets better and better. The General Lafayette is opening up a tied house in Center City.
If a brewpub opens in South Jersey, I'm going to faint.
If you are near Philadelphia and love good beer, this is a great time to be alive. For those not in the know, there are beer events happening all over the place celebrating this area's wonderful beer culture. Go here.
And the news just gets better and better. The General Lafayette is opening up a tied house in Center City.
If a brewpub opens in South Jersey, I'm going to faint.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Highlight of Barry Bonds Grand Jury Testimony
While the entire Bonds transcript is worth a read, we particularly enjoyed his answer to a question posed by one juror about Greg Anderson, the athlete's beleaguered friend and trainer. "With all the money you make, have you ever thought of maybe building him a mansion or something?" Bonds replied, "One, I'm black. And I'm keeping my money. And there's not too many rich black people in this world. And I'm keeping my money. There's more wealthy Asian people and Caucasian and white. There ain't that many rich black people. And I ain't giving my money up. That's why."
Labels: barry bonds
Saturday, March 01, 2008
What's the Problem with NAFTA?
The article linked above talks about how the current Democratic candidates are trying to throw NAFTA under the bus. One of the better things to come out of the Clinton administration was the bipartisan understanding that free trade is beneficial for the country as a whole. It is a shame that this understanding doesn't appear to be accepted by the population as a whole.
Here is how Obama talks about NAFTA:
But here is the key line: "The manufacturing sector has lost jobs, but it is producing more goods than it was in 1993."
Manufacturing jobs may be down, but manufacturing activity is not.
The article linked above talks about how the current Democratic candidates are trying to throw NAFTA under the bus. One of the better things to come out of the Clinton administration was the bipartisan understanding that free trade is beneficial for the country as a whole. It is a shame that this understanding doesn't appear to be accepted by the population as a whole.
Here is how Obama talks about NAFTA:
His rhetoric is increasingly heated. In a "major economic address" in Janesville, Wisconsin, on February 13, Obama said that "decades of trade deals like NAFTA" included "protections for corporations and their profits," but none for "our workers," who have "seen factories shut their doors and millions of jobs disappear." In Youngstown, Ohio, on February 18, Obama said "NAFTA didn't put food on the table." On February 24, in Lorain, Ohio, he said "one million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs" in the Buckeye State.
That "one million jobs" figure should not be overlooked. It has become Obama's mantra. It is, upon close inspection, the most specific piece of evidence to which he can point when he claims that NAFTA has been "devastating." And it is almost certainly bunkum.
The figure comes from the folks at the left-wing Economic Policy Institute. In a 2006 "briefing paper" entitled "Revisiting NAFTA: Still Not Working for North America's Workers," the institute's director of international programs, economist Robert Scott, wrote that "growing trade deficits with Mexico and Canada have displaced production" that would have supported "1.0 million (total) U.S. jobs since the agreement took effect in 1994." The jobs number is a hypothetical, in other words. And a silly one at that. Scott assumed that the trade deficit between the United States, Canada, and Mexico would have remained frozen at 1993 levels had it not been for NAFTA. In Scott's view NAFTA is solely responsible for the trade deficit between the three countries. And the trade deficit has been solely responsible for job loss. Nothing else has mattered.
Economists call this a "partial equilibrium" analysis. By assuming that everything else stays the same except for imports, you can plug numbers into U.S. Commerce Department models and see how many jobs those imports--had they been produced in domestic factories--might have sustained. Whatever its uses as an analytical tool, however, it is not a good picture of the real economy. Most economists agree that other factors--the business cycle, productivity gains, monetary policy--affect unemployment much more than trade. And most economists point to several other studies that show NAFTA contributing small but real job gains to the United States.
But here is the key line: "The manufacturing sector has lost jobs, but it is producing more goods than it was in 1993."
Manufacturing jobs may be down, but manufacturing activity is not.
Labels: free trade, NAFTA
Elephant in the Room: Obama a Harsh Idealogue Hidden by a Feel-Good Image
American voters will choose between two candidates this election year.
One inspires hope for a brighter, better tomorrow. His rhetoric makes us feel we are, indeed, one nation indivisible - indivisible by ideology or religion, indivisible by race or creed. It is rhetoric of hope and change and possibility. It's inspiring. This candidate can make you just plain feel good to be American.
The other candidate, by contrast, is one of the Senate's fiercest partisans. This senator reflexively sides with the party's extreme wing. There's no record of working with the other side of the aisle. None. It's basically been my way or the highway, combined with a sanctimoniousness that breeds contempt among those on the other side of any issue.
Which of these two candidates should be our next president? The choice is clear, right?
Wrong, because they're both the same man - Barack Obama.
...
[C]onsider his position on an issue that passed both houses of Congress unanimously in 2002.
That bill was the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. During the partial-birth abortion debate, Congress heard testimony about babies that had survived attempted late-term abortions. Nurses testified that these preterm living, breathing babies were being thrown into medical waste bins to die or being "terminated" outside the womb. With the baby now completely separated from the mother, it was impossible to argue that the health or life of the mother was in jeopardy by giving her baby appropriate medical treatment.
The act simply prohibited the killing of a baby born alive. To address the concerns of pro-choice lawmakers, the bill included language that said nothing "shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right" of the baby. In other words, the bill wasn't intruding on Roe v. Wade.
Who would oppose a bill that said you couldn't kill a baby who was born? Not Kennedy, Boxer or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not even the hard-core National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Obama, however, is another story. The year after the Born Alive Infants Protection Act became federal law in 2002, identical language was considered in a committee of the Illinois Senate. It was defeated with the committee's chairman, Obama, leading the opposition.
Let's be clear about what Obama did, once in 2003 and twice before that. He effectively voted for infanticide. He voted to allow doctors to deny medically appropriate treatment or, worse yet, actively kill a completely delivered living baby. Infanticide - I wonder if he'll add this to the list of changes in his next victory speech and if the crowd will roar: "Yes, we can."
Labels: abortion, barack obama
