Obama, Ayers, and the Economy

[BT]

Obama, Ayers, and the Economy   [Peter Kirsanow]


Whether the McCain campaign should stress Obama's judgment/radical associations or the economy isn't an either-or proposition. McCain should do both. And as Stanley Kurtz demonstrates, McCain can do both at the same time.

Stanley distills the connection between the Obama/Ayers relationship and the economy as follows:

Obama and Ayers serve together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge where they funnel tons of cash to finance ACORN ?>

ACORN pressures banks (through, among other things,CRA-related complaints) to extend high risk mortgages to risky customers ?>

ACORN also works with Democrats in Congress and others to pressure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to further loosen credit standards, spreading the contagion of high-risk credit practices to the broader financial markets ?>

Subprime mess?credit markets emergency.

Of course, Stanley isn't contending that Obama?Ayers?ACORN is the cause of the economic collapse, but Obama and Ayers financed and worked with a core player in the subprime lending saga. It's a matter of radical relationships, dreadful judgment, and their impact on the real world.

And then there's ACORN's "voter registration efforts" . . .

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDcyOGUwNDYzOTc3MTYyYmE4NTQwMDk2Y2MyMzBiODU=

[Religious Dick]

Economists Statement on Barack Obama's Risky Economic Proposals

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released the following statement signed by 100 distinguished and experienced economists at major American universities and research organizations, including five Nobel Prize winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith. The economists explain why Barack Obama's proposals, including "misguided tax hikes," would "decrease the number of jobs in America." The prospects of such tax rate increases under Barack Obama are already harming the economy. The economists conclude that "Barack Obama's economic proposals are wrong for the American economy." The proposals "defy both economic reason and economic experience."

The full economists' statement on Barack Obama's economic proposals and a complete list of economists who support it follows:

Barack Obama argues that his proposals to raise tax rates and halt international trade agreements would benefit the American economy. They would do nothing of the sort. Economic analysis and historical experience show that they would do the opposite. They would reduce economic growth and decrease the number of jobs in America. Moreover, with the credit crunch, the housing slump, and high energy prices weakening the U.S. economy, his proposals run a high risk of throwing the economy into a deep recession. It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early 1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

We are very concerned with Barack Obama's opposition to trade agreements such as the pending one with Colombia, the new one with Central America, or the established one with Canada and Mexico. Exports from the United States to other countries create jobs for Americans. Imports make goods available to Americans at lower prices and are a particular benefit to families and individuals with low incomes. International trade is also a powerful source of strength in a weak economy. In the second quarter of this year, for example, increased international trade did far more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the federal government's "stimulus" package.

Ironically, rather than supporting international trade, Barack Obama is now proposing yet another so-called stimulus package, which would do very little to grow the economy. And his proposal to finance the package with higher taxes on oil would raise oil prices directly and by reducing exploration and production.

We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide expensive health insurance.

After hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or 2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.

In sum, Barack Obama's economic proposals are wrong for the American economy. They defy both economic reason and economic experience.

Robert Barro, Harvard University

Gary Becker, University of Chicago

Sanjai Bhagat, University of Colorado

Michael Block, University of Arizona

Brock Blomberg, Claremont-McKenna University

Michael Bordo, Rutgers University

Michael Boskin, Stanford University

Ike Brannon, McCain-Palin 2008

James Buchanan, George Mason University

Todd Buchholtz, Two Oceans Fund

Charles Calomiris, Columbia University

Jim Carter, Vienna VA

Barry Chiswick, University of Illinois at Chicago

John Cogan, Hoover Institution

Kathleen Cooper, Southern Methodist University

Ted Covey, McLean VA

Dan Crippen, former CBO Director

Mario Crucini, Vanderbilt

Steve Davis, University of Chicago

Christopher DeMuth, American Enterprise Institute

William Dewald, Ohio State University

Frank Diebold, University of Pennsylvania

Isaac Ehrlich, State University of New York at Buffalo

Paul Evans, Ohio State University

Dan Feenberg, NBER

Martin Feldstein, Harvard University

Eric Fisher, California Polytechnic State University

Kristin Forbes, MIT

Timothy Fuerst, Bowling Green State University

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Hudson Institute

Paul Gregory, University of Houston

Earl Grinols, Baylor University

Rik Hafer, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Gary Hansen, UCLA

Eric Hanushek, Hoover Institutions

Kevin Hassett, American Enterprise Institute

Arlene Holen, Technology Policy Institute

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain-Palin 2008

Glenn Hubbard, Columbia University

Owen Irvine, Michigan State University

Mike Jensen, Harvard University

Steven Kaplan, University of Chicago

Robert King, Boston University

Meir Kohn, Dartmouth

Marvin Kosters, American Enterprise Institute

Anne Krueger, Johns Hopkins University

Phil Levy, American Enterprise Institute

Larry Lindsey, The Lindsey Group

Paul W. MacAvoy. Yale University

John Makin, American Enterprise Institute

Burton Malkiel, Princeton University

Bennett McCallum, Carnegie-Mellon University

Paul McCracken, University of Michigan

Will Melick, Kenyon College

Allan Meltzer, Carnegie-Mellon University

Enrique Mendoza, University of Maryland

Jim Miller, George Mason University

Michael Moore, George Washington University

Robert Mundell, Columbia University

Tim Muris, George Mason University

Kevin Murphy, University of Chicago

Richard Muth, Emory University

Charles Nelson, University of Washington

Bill Niskanen, Cato Institute

June O'Neill, Baruch College, CUNY

Lydia Ortega, San Jose State University

Steve Parente, University of Minnesota

William Poole, University of Delaware

Michael Porter, Harvard University

Barry Poulson, University of Colorado, Boulder

Edward Prescott, Arizona State University

Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University

Richard Roll, UCLA

Harvey Rosen, Princeton University

Robert Rossana, Wayne State University

Mark Rush, University of Florida

Tom Saving, Texas A&M University

Anna Schwartz, NBER

George Shultz, Stanford University

Chester Spatt, Carnegie-Mellon University

David Spencer, Brigham Young University

Beryl Sprinkle, Former Chair Council of Economic Advisers

Houston Stokes, University of Illinois in Chicago

Robert Tamura, Clemson University

Jack Tatum, Indiana State University

John Taylor, Stanford University

Richard Vedder, Ohio University

William B. Walstad, University of Nebraska

Murray Weidenbaum, Washington University in St. Louis

Arnold Zellner, University of Chicago

###
Paid For By John McCain 2008

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/PressReleases/96557315-1694-4d8f-9b0a-c29f0f0872e6.htm

[BT]

For your consideration:

America's First Socialist President 
By James G. Wiles, For The Bulletin 

This was the week when it finally hit most thinking Americans that the United States may be about to elect its first Marxist president. If you don't like the stock market and the economy now, just wait until this nightmare - the a Marxist president and a Democratic Congress taking power in Washington - comes to pass.

How did we get here? More importantly, how did the party of Harry Truman, FDR, Woodrow Wilson and Jack Kennedy succumb to a Manchurian Candidate?

First, of course, the Obama campaign and its media sycophants fought hard to hide the truth. It has only been through the dogged work of the National Review's Stanley Kurtz and Andy McCarthy (available online at nationalreview.com), David Freddoso "The Case Against Barack Obama" and, this week, Larry Johnson of noquarterusa.net and John Hinderaker at Powerline, that the reality that Barack Obama is not only the product of a Marxist milieu but is a Marxist himself has finally broken through. Consider these facts:

* One of Mr. Obama's childhood mentors in Hawaii was a former organizer for the Communist Party USA

* By his own account, in college, Mr. Obama was drawn to a career as a community organizer by the writings of Saul Alinsky, a known Marxist

* Besides the Gamaliel Foundation, one of the community groups in Chicago that Mr. Obama worked for was ACORN, a Marxist organization targeting voting registration for low-income and minority Americans and which is now under investigation for vote fraud in 11 states

* When Mr. Obama ran for the state Senate from Chicago, he sought and obtained the endorsement of the Chicago New Party, established by the Democratic Socialists of America, including passing a screening for ideological purity

* He attended and spoke at Socialist Party conferences and events

* Mr. Obama's first electoral run was sponsored by Alice Palmer, a regular attendee of meetings of the CPUSA and whose state senate seat Obama ran for in the mid-'90s

* The famous coffee at the home of William Ayres and Bernadette Dohrn to launch Mr. Obama's candidacy was simply a gathering of Marxist activists and politicians at which the CPUSA-affiliated state Sen. Alice Palmer spoke;

* At the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayres together administered a $100 million grant program designed by Mr. Ayres and other Marxists to politicize and radicalize school children.

Against this background, Mr. Obama's opposition to the Vietnam War, his negative view of the United States and his membership in a "black liberation theology" church that preached race hatred and anti-Americanism becomes immediately understandable; and so do Mr. Obama's close ties to anti-Israeli leaders like Louis Farakkhan and Rashid Khalidi or convicted fraudster and Syrian immigrant Tony Rezko.

All of these folks, as Thomas Sowell has written here, were not "associates" of the young Barack Obama. They were his allies, sponsors and mentors. It was this network of alliances that launched and sustained the Manchurian Candidate on his political career.

Not least among the obfuscations are the way Marxists such as Katrina Vandenheuvel of The Nation identify themselves as "progressives." This, of course, recalls how the Marxist supporters of Henry Wallace in 1948 called themselves "Democrats in a hurry."

Second, the filtering devices that the Democratic Party once contained to identify and drive out Communists and Socialists no longer exist. A young Democrat named Ronald Reagan once got his start in politics by leading a successful fight to prevent a Communist takeover of the Screen Actors Guild. That wouldn't happen today. In the GOP, we're alert for Nazis, fascists and white supremacists. On the Democratic side, unfortunately, Americans for Democratic Action and the labor union movement no longer weed out Marxists.

Last, perhaps the ability to spot Marxism on the part of the average American has decayed. The Soviet Union, of course, is gone. China is authoritarian but capitalist. As long as you don't start spouting off about "the workers," "the masses," the "means of production" - in other words, if you take care not to sound like The Nation magazine, you get a pass.

One day in 1992, my then-82 year old father and I were watching a Ross Perot event. "You know, Jim," dad said, "that guy's a fascist." And so he was. But it took someone who had seen fascism to recognize it in American clothes.

The strong probability that Mr. Obama is a Marxist frees anyone voting for Sen. John McCain from a charge of racism. If patriotism and simple love of country aren't a sufficient explanation for your GOP vote, the person you're talking with isn't worth listening to. Somebody should ask Senator Mr. Obama if he's a socialist and, if not, why did the DSA's Chicago New Party claim him as a member in their October, 1996 newsletter.

James G. Wiles is a Philadelphia lawyer. He can be reached at jwiles@thebulletin.us 

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2737&dept_id=576361&newsid=20159194

[Xavier_Onassis]

Let's hear again about how well capitalism works. This includes the fact that it comes with unending bank and market crises and endless wars.

What is bad about China is the authoritarian and undemocratic form of government. There is nothing to suggest anywhere that Obama is in any way authoritarian or undemocratic.

Juniorbush has been in several ways, both, by claiming the right to bug anyone's telephone without a warrant, to torture people, and to ignore the will of the people.

Ronald Reagan was not a defender of his union: he was a traitor to its members and ratted out people who had committed no crimes whatever, destroying their careers.