Obama AZ speech - theme from 2008 campaign site

If those who received a memorial t-shirt will look at the bottom, they will see a "tag" from the DNC: "Rocking America and Rocking the Vote" ..... more evidence that what many suspected to be more like a campaign speech than a memorial and tribute to those who were either heroic, wounded and killed in Tucson last week.

Instead -- we get "Together We Thrive" text and themes from a post at Obama's 2008 Campaign site "Organizing for America" at this 2008 site.

While the site may now be difficult to load (it is occasionally "jumbled" -- which may be intentional), I and others have screen shots.

The first screen shot is HERE.

Here is also the investigative report by CFP's Judi McCleod:

The “Together We Thrive” T-shirts that starred at Wednesday’s Arizona
`Memorial’ originated from Organizing for America (here), a sad fact unearthed by The Drumbeat of Liberty Preservation of Freedom editor and Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Robert
Rohlfing.

In the controversy of the pep rally/rock concert style Memorial for those
who lost their lives in Saturday’s Arizona tragedy, the mainstream media
reported that the “Together We Thrive: Tucson & America” T-shirt given to
mourners as they entered McKate Center was the idea of University of Arizona
brass, not the Obama administration.

Yet the “Together We Thrive” slogan dates back to a post to Obama’s own
Organizing for America in a Feb. 11, 2008 post by self-described “globalist”
John Berry IV.

More than passing strange that the Obama campaign message of civility was
the same on Feb. 11, 2008 as it was in his Wednesday Memorial speech, and the
same one, too carried by the mainstream media in coverage of the
Memorial.


“For too long Americans have been set one against the other. It
is a side affect of a free market society,” Berry IV posted. “How can
profits be maximized, how can I get the work down for the lowest possible
costs. This continually sets one group against the other, especially in
the blue collar sectors of America. It has become part of the American
Business model, whether it was indentured servants, slaves picking cotton,
sharecroppers, the industrious people that built the railroads or today’s
migrant workers. As long as we remain divided, fighting for the scraps
that America has to offer it will be one group against the other.

“What I see in Obama is a chance for revolution. (Italics CFP’s). A
chance for every group to be heard; A chance to live the American dream that has
been denied to so many…

“In a previous career, I was the global leader of Diversity for a global
fortune 500 corporation. I have studied the affects of diverse groups
working together and the results can not be denied. Together we
Thrive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

University of Arizona brass did not originate the “Together We Thrive”
T-shirt. They merely recycled it for Obama—and recycled it in time for
what should have been a dignified Memorial for the dead.

If you were a mourner who took home a “Together We Thrive” T-shirt have a
look at the bottom of your shirt. “Rocking America and Rocking the Vote”
is a common theme of the DNC, and it’s right there on your Memorial
T-shirt memento.

Welcome to the era of Obama, where cheering and standing ovations, for the
first time in history, became part of the Requiem for the Dead.

Not referenced in the article above were the boos which greeted the current AZ Governor when she spoke or the "WE LOVE YOU, OBAMA" chants that disrupted speakers. Where else BUT a campaign setting would you hear boos and chants???? Certainly not at a memorial service or a tribute to survivors.

Remember the Obama of old -- same tricks rising ....

-- From American Thinker, 2008:

America waits with bated breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.


Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama's connections to his radical mentors -- Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama's radical connections since the beginning.


Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama's life comprise a who's who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.


But even this doesn't fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.


The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis


In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?


Why?


One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.


I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.


The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:

"Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org)

Newsmax rounds out the picture:

Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth.

In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of "crisis" they were trying to create:

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:

1. The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
2. The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
3. The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.

Capitalizing on the racial unrest of the 1960s, Cloward and Piven saw the welfare system as their first target. They enlisted radical black activist George Wiley, who created the National Welfare Reform Organization (NWRO) to implement the strategy. Wiley hired militant foot soldiers to storm welfare offices around the country, violently demanding their "rights." According to a City Journal article by Sol Stern, welfare rolls increased from 4.3 million to 10.8 million by the mid-1970s as a result, and in New York City, where the strategy had been particularly successful, "one person was on the welfare rolls... for every two working in the city's private economy."


According to another City Journal article titled "Compassion Gone Mad":

The movement's impact on New York City was jolting: welfare caseloads, already climbing 12 percent a year in the early sixties, rose by 50 percent during Lindsay's first two years; spending doubled... The city had 150,000 welfare cases in 1960; a decade later it had 1.5 million.

The vast expansion of welfare in New York City that came of the NWRO's Cloward-Piven tactics sent the city into bankruptcy in 1975. Rudy Giuliani cited Cloward and Piven by name as being responsible for "an effort at economic sabotage." He also credited Cloward-Piven with changing the cultural attitude toward welfare from that of a temporary expedient to a lifetime entitlement, an attitude which in-and-of-itself has caused perhaps the greatest damage of all.


Cloward and Piven looked at this strategy as a gold mine of opportunity. Within the newly organized groups, each offensive would find an ample pool of foot soldier recruits willing to advance its radical agenda at little or no pay, and expand its base of reliable voters, legal or otherwise. The radicals' threatening tactics also would accrue an intimidating reputation, providing a wealth of opportunities for extorting monetary and other concessions from the target organizations. In the meantime, successful offensives would create an ever increasing drag on society. As they gleefully observed:

Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the drain on local resources persists indefinitely.

The next time you drive through one of the many blighted neighborhoods in our cities, or read of the astronomical crime, drug addiction, and out-of-wedlock birth rates, or consider the failed schools, strapped police and fire resources of every major city, remember Cloward and Piven's thrill that "...the drain on local resources persists indefinitely."


ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear


In 1970, one of George Wiley's protégés, Wade Rathke -- like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) -- was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn't accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke's group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income "rights." Shortly thereafter they changed "Arkansas" to "Association of" and ACORN went nationwide.


Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing, voting rights, illegal immigration and other issues. According to ACORN's website: "ACORN is the nation's largest grassroots community organization of low-and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country," It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts.


Voting


On voting rights, ACORN and its voter mobilization subsidiary, Project Vote, have been involved nationwide in efforts to grant felons the vote and lobbied heavily for the Motor Voter Act of 1993, a law allowing people to register at motor vehicle departments, schools, libraries and other public places. That law had been sought by Cloward and Piven since the early1980s and they were present, standing behind President Clinton at the signing ceremony.


ACORN's voter rights tactics follow the Cloward-Piven Strategy:

• 1. Register as many Democrat voters as possible, legal or otherwise and help them vote, multiple times if possible.
• 2. Overwhelm the system with fraudulent registrations using multiple entries of the same name, names of deceased, random names from the phone book, even contrived names.
• 3. Make the system difficult to police by lobbying for minimal identification standards.

In this effort, ACORN sets up registration sites all over the country and has been frequently cited for turning in fraudulent registrations, as well as destroying republican applications. In the 2004-2006 election cycles alone, ACORN was accused of widespread voter fraud in 12 states. It may have swung the election for one state governor.


ACORN's website brags: "Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote." Project vote boasts 4 million. I wonder how many of them are dead? For the 2008 cycle, ACORN and Project Vote have pulled out all the stops. Given their furious nationwide effort, it is not inconceivable that this presidential race could be decided by fraudulent votes alone.


Barack Obama ran ACORN's Project Vote in Chicago and his highly successful voter registration drive was credited with getting the disgraced former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun elected. Newsmax reiterates Cloward and Piven's aspirations for ACORN's voter registration efforts:

By advocating massive, no-holds-barred voter registration campaigns, they [Cloward & Piven] sought a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C. that would re-distribute the nation's wealth and lead to a totalitarian socialist state.

Illegal Immigration


As I have written elsewhere, the Radical Left's offensive to promote illegal immigration is "Cloward-Piven on steroids." ACORN is at the forefront of this movement as well, and was a leading organization among a broad coalition of radical groups, including Soros' Open Society Institute, the Service Employees International Union (ACORN founder Wade Rathke also runs a SEIU chapter), and others, that became the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. CCIR fortunately failed to gain passage for the 2007 illegal immigrant amnesty bill, but its goals have not changed.


The burden of illegal immigration on our already overstressed welfare system has been widely documented. Some towns in California have even been taken over by illegal immigrant drug cartels. The disease, crime and overcrowding brought by illegal immigrants places a heavy burden on every segment of society and every level of government, threatening to split this country apart at the seams. In the meantime, radical leftist efforts to grant illegal immigrants citizenship guarantee a huge pool of new democrat voters. With little border control, terrorists can also filter in.


Obama aided ACORN as their lead attorney in a successful suit he brought against the Illinois state government to implement the Motor Voter law there. The law had been resisted by Republican Governor Jim Edgars, who feared the law was an opening to widespread vote fraud.


His fears were warranted as the Motor Voter law has since been cited as a major opportunity for vote fraud, especially for illegal immigrants, even terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal: "After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote..."


ACORN's dual offensives on voting and illegal immigration are handy complements. Both swell the voter rolls with reliable democrats while assaulting the country ACORN seeks to destroy with overwhelming new problems.


Mortgage Crisis


And now we have the mortgage crisis, which has sent a shock wave through Wall Street and panicked world financial markets like no other since the stock market crash of 1929. But this is a problem created in Washington long ago. It originated with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), signed into law in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. The CRA was Carter's answer to a grassroots activist movement started in Chicago, and forced banks to make loans to low income, high risk customers. PhD economist and former Texas Senator Phil Gramm has called it: "a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks."


ACORN aggressively sought to expand loans to low income groups using the CRA as a whip. Economist Stan Leibowitz wrote in the New York Post:

In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining"-claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation.

In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications-but the overwhelming reason wasn't racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.


ACORN showed its colors again in 1991, by taking over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the CRA. Obama represented ACORN in the Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank, 1994 suit against redlining. Most significant of all, ACORN was the driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton Administration that greatly expanded the CRA and laid the groundwork for the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac borne financial crisis we now confront. Barack Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort. With this new authority, ACORN used its subsidiary, ACORN Housing, to promote subprime loans more aggressively.


As a New York Post article describes it:

A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.


Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department.

Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with "100 percent financing . . . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . . . even if you don't report it on your tax returns." Credit counseling is required, of course.


Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed "the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted." That lender's $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003.


The lender they were speaking of was Countrywide, which specialized in subprime lending and had a working relationship with ACORN.


Investor's Business Daily added:

The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical "housing rights" groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama. (Emphasis, mine.)

Since these loans were to be underwritten by the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the implicit government guarantee of those loans absolved lenders, mortgage bundlers and investors of any concern over the obvious risk. As Bloomberg reported: "It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit."


And if you think Washington policy makers cared about ACORN's negative influence, think again. Before this whole mess came down, a Democrat-sponsored bill on the table would have created an "Affordable Housing Trust Fund," granting ACORN access to approximately $500 million in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revenues with little or no oversight.


Even now, unbelievably -- on the brink of national disaster -- Democrats have insisted ACORN benefit from bailout negotiations! Senator Lindsay Graham reported last night (9/25/08) in an interview with Greta Van Susteren of On the Record that Democrats want 20 percent of the bailout money to go to ACORN!


This entire fiasco represents perhaps the pinnacle of ACORN's efforts to advance the Cloward-Piven Strategy and is a stark demonstration of the power they wield in Washington.


Enter Barack Obama


In attempting to capture the significance of Barack Obama's Radical Left connections and his relation to the Cloward Piven strategy, I constructed following flow chart. It is by no means complete. There are simply too many radical individuals and organizations to include them all here. But these are perhaps the most significant.

(See chart at original site)


The chart puts Barack Obama at the epicenter of an incestuous stew of American radical leftism. Not only are his connections significant, they practically define who he is. Taken together, they constitute a who's who of the American radical left, and guiding all is the Cloward-Piven strategy.

Conspicuous in their absence are any connections at all with any other group, moderate, or even mildly leftist. They are all radicals, firmly bedded in the anti-American, communist, socialist, radical leftist mesh.


Saul Alinsky


Most people are unaware that Barack Obama received his training in "community organizing" from Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. But he did. In and of itself that marks his heritage and training as that of a radical activist. One really needs go no further. But we have.


Bill Ayers


Obama objects to being associated with SDS bomber Bill Ayers, claiming he is being smeared with "guilt by association." But they worked together at the Woods Fund. The Wall Street Journal added substantially to our knowledge by describing in great detail Obama's work over five years with SDS bomber Bill Ayers on the board of a non-profit, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, to push a radical agenda on public school children. As Stanley Kurtz states:

"...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."

Also included in the mix is Theresa Heinz Kerry's favorite charity, the Tides Foundation. A partial list of Tides grants tells you all you need to know: ACLU, ACORN, Center for American Progress, Center for Constitutional Rights (a communist front,) CAIR, Earth Justice, Institute for Policy Studies (KGB spy nest), National Lawyers Guild (oldest communist front in U.S.), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and practically every other radical group there is. ACORN's Wade Rathke runs a Tides subsidiary, the Tides Center.


Carl Davidson and the New Party


We have heard about Bomber Bill, but we hear little about fellow SDS member Carl Davidson. According to Discover the Networks, Davidson was an early supporter of Barack Obama and a prominent member of Chicago's New Party, a synthesis of CPUSA members, Socialists, ACORN veterans and other radicals. Obama sought and received the New Party's endorsement, and they assisted with his campaign. The New Party also developed a strong relationship with ACORN. As an excellent article on the New Party observes: "Barack Obama knew what he was getting into and remains an ideal New Party candidate."


George Soros


The chart also suggests the reason for George Soros' fervent support of Obama. The President of his Open Society Institute is Aryeh Neier, founder of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As mentioned above, three other former SDS members had extensive contact with Obama: Bill Ayers, Carl Davidson and Wade Rathke. Surely Aryeh Neier would have heard from his former colleagues of the promising new politician. More to the point, Neier is firmly committed to supporting the hugely successful radical organization, ACORN, and would be certain back their favored candidate, Barack Obama.


ACORN


Obama has spent a large portion of his professional life working for ACORN or its subsidiaries, representing ACORN as a lawyer on some of its most critical issues, and training ACORN leaders. Stanley Kurtz's excellent National Review article, "Inside Obama's Acorn." also describes Obama's ACORN connection in detail. But I can't improve on Obama's own words:

I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career (emphasis added). Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work. - Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007 (Courtesy Newsmax.)

In another excellent article on Obama's ACORN connections, Newsmax asks a nagging question:

It would be telling to know if Obama, during his years at Columbia, had occasion to meet Cloward and study the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

I ask you, is it possible ACORN would train Obama to take leadership positions within ACORN without telling him what he was training for? Is it possible ACORN would put Obama in leadership positions without clueing him into what his purpose was?? Is it possible that this most radical of organizations would put someone in charge of training its trainers, without him knowing what it was he was training them for?


As a community activist for ACORN; as a leadership trainer for ACORN; as a lead organizer for ACORN's Project Vote; as an attorney representing ACORN's successful efforts to impose Motor Voter regulations in Illinois; as ACORN's representative in lobbying for the expansion of high risk housing loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to the current crisis; as a recipient of their assistance in his political campaigns -- both with money and campaign workers; it is doubtful that he was unaware of ACORN's true goals. It is doubtful he was unaware of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.


Fast-forward to 2005 when an obsequious, servile and scraping Daniel Mudd, CEO of Fannie Mae spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus swearing in ceremony for newly-elected Illinois Senator, Barack Obama. Mudd called, the Congressional Black Caucus "our family" and "the conscience of Fannie Mae."


In 2005, Republicans sought to rein in Fannie and Freddie. Senator John McCain was at the forefront of that effort. But it failed due to an intense lobbying effort put forward by Fannie and Freddie.


In his few years as a U.S. senator, Obama has received campaign contributions of $126,349, from Fannie and Freddie, second only to the $165,400 received by Senator Chris Dodd, who has been getting donations from them since 1988. What makes Obama so special?


His closest advisers are a dirty laundry list of individuals at the heart of the financial crisis: former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson; Former Fannie Mae CEO and former Clinton Budget Director Frank Raines; and billionaire failed Superior Bank of Chicago Board Chair Penny Pritzker.


Johnson had to step down as adviser on Obama's V.P. search after this gem came out:


An Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) report^[1] from September 2004 found that, during Johnson's tenure as CEO, Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses. This enabled top executives, including Johnson and his successor, Franklin Raines, to receive substantial bonuses in 1998.^[2] A 2006 OFHEO report^[3] found that Fannie Mae had substantially under-reported Johnson's compensation. Originally reported as $6-7 million, Johnson actually received approximately $21 million.


Obama denies ties to Raines but the Washington Post calls him a member of "Obama's political circle." Raines and Johnson were fined $3 million by the Office of Federal Housing Oversight for their manipulation of Fannie books. The fine is small change however, compared to the $50 million Raines was able to obtain in improper bonuses as a result of juggling the books.


Most significantly, Penny Pritzker, the current Finance Chairperson of Obama's presidential campaign helped develop the complicated investment bundling of subprime securities at the heart of the meltdown. She did so in her position as shareholder and board chair of Superior Bank. The Bank failed in 2001, one of the largest in recent history, wiping out $50 million in uninsured life savings of approximately 1,400 customers. She was named in a RICO class action law suit but doesn't seem to have come out of it too badly.


As a young attorney in the 1990s, Barack Obama represented ACORN in Washington in their successful efforts to expand Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) authority. In addition to making it easier for ACORN groups to force banks into making risky loans, this also paved the way for banks like Superior to package mortgages as investments, and for the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite them. These changes created the conditions that ultimately lead to the current financial crisis.


Did they not know this would occur? Were these smart people, led by a Harvard graduate, unaware of the Econ 101 concept of moral hazard that would result from the government making implicit guarantees to underwrite private sector financial risk? They should have known that freeing the high-risk mortgage market of risk, calamity was sure to ensue. I think they did.


Barack Obama, the Cloward-Piven candidate, no matter how he describes himself, has been a radical activist for most of his political career. That activism has been in support of organizations and initiatives that at their heart seek to tear the pillars of this nation asunder in order to replace them with their demented socialist vision. Their influence has spread so far and so wide that despite their blatant culpability in the current financial crisis, they are able to manipulate Capital Hill politicians to cut them into $140 billion of the bailout pie!


God grant those few responsible yet remaining in Washington, DC the strength to prevent this massive fraud from occurring. God grant them the courage to stand up in the face of this Marxist tidal wave.

Unless you're part of the Obamanation, there are few things more sacred to Americans than the Constitution. Look who's defying it now. Nothing is sacred when the Obamatrons are concerned!!!

from Over the Hill Oracles:

The answer to the census question may be decided by the Supreme Court, but watch Obama’s clandestine maneuvers to assign “responsibility” for the census from the Secretary of Commerce to the White House.

Here’s the law:

The Congress, by law directed that:

“The Secretary [of Commerce] shall perform the functions and duties imposed upon him by this title, may issue such rules and regulations as he deems necessary to carry out such functions and duties, and may delegate the performance of such functions and duties and the authority to issue such rules and regulations to such officers and employees of the Department of Commerce as he may designate.”

Credit those folks over at Samizdata ….

As I read it, the Director of the Census must, by law, be within the Department of Commerce and under the direction of the (Senate approved) Secretary of Commerce who then reports to the president. Am I missing something?
Correction: From reading through Title 13, Chapter 1 it appears obvious to me that the POTUS has no role in the census whatsoever beyond, with Senate approval, selecting the Secretary of Commerce and, also with Senate approval, selecting the Director of the Census who ” shall perform such duties as may be imposed upon him by law, regulations, or orders of the Secretary.” Hhmmm… No president mentioned.

The Secretary of Commerce is the only authority the law recognizes. Since as commenter Laird points out, the Constitution did not place the census function in Article II - the Executive branch but in Article I - the Legislative branch, it is not at all within the President’s reach unless the legislature places it there.

And watch for Obama to still try and put ACORN in charge of the census ….

Any question about WHY there are so many Obama-watch sites on the web???

More blurbs from the blogs:

– Stimulus Plan (Porkarama) updates are here ….

Biden: Ignore the voters

HERE’S a good question: why doesn’t Obama tell us specifically HOW this money will resolve his “now or never” crisis? We won’t see any jobs outta this political payback package for years.

– Obama has again voted “present” on this bogus stimulus plan. How to hype a crisis in two steps …. So where exactly is the change we (?) hoped for??? Forget it. It’s the same ole way with a Chicago twist ….

– BREAKING: Obama tells Gates to “stand down” on the troop surge in Afghanistan …..

Is he looking for ‘out‘ in Afghanistan???

– World opinion on Obama is fading ….

From London to America: What have you done?

Pakistan to the US: Show us the money!!!

Russia forms Alliance with six central Asian nations: Take THAT, America.

Ecuador expels US Embassy official: South America rejects the “Chicago way” …

– USS Cole mom is disgusted with Obama …. article and video

Pending: More and more parents and (retired) naval personnel are speaking out about the way the killers of their loved ones are being released ….

more pending …..

.

ACORN to do census? Out of Afghanistan???

from Over the Hill Oracles:

The answer to the census question may be decided by the Supreme Court, but watch Obama’s clandestine maneuvers to assign “responsibility” for the census from the Secretary of Commerce to the White House.

Here’s the law:

The Congress, by law directed that:

“The Secretary [of Commerce] shall perform the functions and duties imposed upon him by this title, may issue such rules and regulations as he deems necessary to carry out such functions and duties, and may delegate the performance of such functions and duties and the authority to issue such rules and regulations to such officers and employees of the Department of Commerce as he may designate.”

Credit those folks over at Samizdata ….

As I read it, the Director of the Census must, by law, be within the Department of Commerce and under the direction of the (Senate approved) Secretary of Commerce who then reports to the president. Am I missing something?
Correction: From reading through Title 13, Chapter 1 it appears obvious to me that the POTUS has no role in the census whatsoever beyond, with Senate approval, selecting the Secretary of Commerce and, also with Senate approval, selecting the Director of the Census who ” shall perform such duties as may be imposed upon him by law, regulations, or orders of the Secretary.” Hhmmm… No president mentioned.

The Secretary of Commerce is the only authority the law recognizes. Since as commenter Laird points out, the Constitution did not place the census function in Article II - the Executive branch but in Article I - the Legislative branch, it is not at all within the President’s reach unless the legislature places it there.

And watch for Obama to still try and put ACORN in charge of the census ….

Any question about WHY there are so many Obama-watch sites on the web???

More blurbs from the blogs:

– Stimulus Plan (Porkarama) updates are here ….

Biden: Ignore the voters

HERE’S a good question: why doesn’t Obama tell us specifically HOW this money will resolve his “now or never” crisis? We won’t see any jobs outta this political payback package for years.

– Obama has again voted “present” on this bogus stimulus plan. How to hype a crisis in two steps …. So where exactly is the change we (?) hoped for??? Forget it. It’s the same ole way with a Chicago twist ….

– BREAKING: Obama tells Gates to “stand down” on the troop surge in Afghanistan …..

Is he looking for ‘out‘ in Afghanistan???

– World opinion on Obama is fading ….

From London to America: What have you done?

Pakistan to the US: Show us the money!!!

Russia forms Alliance with six central Asian nations: Take THAT, America.

Ecuador expels US Embassy official: South America rejects the “Chicago way” …

– USS Cole mom is disgusted with Obama …. article and video

Pending: More and more parents and (retired) naval personnel are speaking out about the way the killers of their loved ones are being released ….

more pending …..

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Obama's character SHOULD count --

Character, integrity and credibility are relevant in a leader. Especially in a person who aspires to the highest office in the world.

Charles Krauthammer agrees.

Obama: 9/11 was "a failure of empathy"

Eight days after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Obama -- the man who would be Commander in Chief -- blamed the terrorist attacks on "a failure of empathy."

The July 20 issue of the New Yorker magazine got a lot of attention for its cover, which carried a "satirical" cartoon depicting Michelle and Barack Obama that Obama supporters found tasteless and offensive. Buried inside that issue's feature story, however, was a reaction by Obama to 9/11 that all voters should find even more tasteless and offensive.

The article reprised a piece published in Chicago's Hyde Park Herald on Sept. 19, 2001, and written by a then-unknown and otherwise undistinguished state senator from Illinois. The senator, a former community organizer, wrote that after tightening security at our airports and repairing our intelligence networks, we "must also engage . . . in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness."

According to Barack Obama, the madness that drove terrorists to turn passenger jets into manned cruise missiles aimed at our centers of finance, government and military power "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."

As if the answer to the attacks should have been food stamps for al-Qaida.

Sen. Obama advised caution and warned of overreacting. "We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad," he wrote. "We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent."

We should also be just as concerned, he felt, with American anger and bigotry as we were about al-Qaida.

In an opinion piece in Commentary magazine, writer Abe Greenwald commented on Obama's belief that the 9/11 attacks were rooted in poverty and despair. "Strange," he called it, "considering our attackers were wealthy and educated, connected and ecstatic."

As Greenwald put it, Obama "could have asked (terrorist and colleague) Bill Ayers, 'Bill, did your 'failure of empathy' stem from your impoverished upbringing as the son of the CEO of Commonwealth Edison?" Did poverty and despair also cause the Weather Underground member and host of Obama's first fundraiser to bomb government buildings?

Fact is, the roster of terrorists and their handlers reads like a list of of Ivy Leaguers:

Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi billionaire, studied engineering. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, architect of 9/11 and other major attacks, has a degree in mechanical engineering. Mohammed Atta, who flew a jet into the World Trade Center, is the son of a lawyer and earned a master's degree in urban planning at Hamburg University. Ayman al-Zawahri is an eye surgeon. Seven doctors were involved in the London-Glasgow bomb plots.

You get the idea, even if Barack Obama doesn't.

In a speech before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 20, 2001, President Bush pointed out the real reasons Islamofascists hate us: "They hate what they see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

Bush aptly called the 9/11 terrorists and their ilk "the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century."

"By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism," he said.

Knowing the nature of your enemy is the key to victory. On the seventh anniversary of 9/11, we should all thank President Bush for keeping America safe. Along the way, he brought freedom and democracy to the Middle East, draining the terrorist swamp.

Bush gets it. So does John McCain. This is one thing we shouldn't want to change.

I have no idea how Obama's comments have failed to resonate with the American people. Hopefully, those words will resonate before it's too late.

Credit: Gull

NoBlahma -- Oh Bama -- n' Obama

Huh?




Go ahead, speak o' toothless wonder ......

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Mitt Romney: Leadership for Tomorrow --

Today.

Now more than ever.

The Repub Debate: Piling on Romney

Mitt Romney took the shots they gave him with class and unruffled demeanor. More will come tomorrow night --- be strong and resolved, Mitt.

From Gull:

Make no bones about it. Mitt Romney is facing the battle of his political
life. Not just in New Hampshire. Not just in Iowa. In every
state. In the headlines of newspapers, in the lead stories in alleged
"news" reports and on the Internet via allegedly unbiased bloggers.

With the MSM (including Fox news) portraying Mitt's "comparison" ads as negative -- while ignoring the personal attack ads by the Huckster and John McCain -- it's going to be a fight to the finish. Keep up the campaign, Mitt. America
needs you .....

Read it all.

The Real John McCain --

From Perish the Thought:


I've always held the Vietnam vet in high esteem. I was with them -- literally and figuratively -- and experienced first-hand the harassment and spite they have endured. That being said -- I have historically distrusted John McCain for how he has used his military service (particularly as a POW) as a crutch to further his political career.

His political career always has that subliminal disclaimer: "...yeah, but he was a military hero ..." As if he's "entitled" to forgiveness when straying from his conservative roots.

My contention is that, had his father not been an admiral, his lack-luster record (including the loss of at least 2 airplanes) would have gotten him thrown out of the military or notably demoted. For whatever he didn't accomplish -- it was not until his POW status that he gained any esteem.

Is this relevant to his run for an office to which he has always aspired?

I think so. There are too many correlations and incidents of self-service, entitlements and compromise in his background to qualify him as a reliable conservative candidate for POTUS. Much less as commander-in-chief in a volatile time.

If you choose to disagree -- fine. But when you do, keep in mind his voting record, his defense of amnesty, his history of sanctions by his peers, his emotional instability, his flip-flops and inconsistencies in promoting basic conservative tenets.
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From Pat Murphy:

Those who've known John McCain since he began his Arizona political career two decades ago made two mistakes. First, we underestimated the Washington media's gullibility for a political schmooze job. Second, we underestimated McCain's mastery in reincarnating himself as a lovable maverick glowing with political virtue and amiable charm while camouflaging his bullyboy and deceitful ways.

If McCain were to become president, Americans would wake up to more than a commander-in-chief with a prickly temperament and a low boiling point. McCain is a man who carries get-even grudges. He cannot endure criticism. He threatens. He controls by fear. He's consumed with self-importance. He shifts blame. McCain's thin skin and demand to have it his way have been obvious since infancy, when he held his breath until he was unconscious, and later in Washington, where he has resorted to pushing and shoving colleagues when irritated.

McCain is a man obsessed with political ambitions but plagued by self-destructive petty impulses. It was vintage McCain who exploded when the Arizona Republic questioned whether the man dubbed "Senator Hothead" in Washington is fit to be entrusted with presidential powers. Instead of conceding what's common knowledge about his volcanic personality, McCain exploded in denial, blaming a newspaper vendetta and George W. Bush for "orchestrating" the criticism. When his claims drew snickers, McCain shifted to another explanation: He explodes when he sees "injustice."

But this sort of blame-fixing works where it counts--with reporters who've come to blindly lionize McCain as a high-minded champion of political virtue fighting demons of political corruption. Perhaps McCain's master stroke in inoculating himself from serious media
scrutiny was his early fusillade of confessions--his adultery ruined his first marriage, the Keating Five scandal was a blemish on his reputation, he indulged in wild and reckless misbehavior as an Annapolis midshipman. He finally endeared himself to the media with
his Quixotic promise to reform campaign financing and by holding court with reporters aboard his "Straight Talk Express" bus.

The new journalism of dwelling on personalities rather than tedious investigative digging gives McCain a free ride from the national media. Swooning media ensure McCain special treatment in the right places: 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace cooed on the air that he likes McCain so much, he might leave TV to become his press secretary. Salon's Jake Tapper dubbed him "basically just a cool dude." Newsmen of another generation note that reporters covering McCain also are reluctant to seem tough on a man with McCain's painful experience as a prisoner of war.

One who hasn't been so quick to fall in line is Washington Post columnist David Broder, who warned on NBC's Meet the Press that "after the experience we all had with President Clinton [ignoring Arkansas reports of his misdeeds], I'm not inclined to discount the view of home-state reporters and journalists who have covered a candidate over the years." A few enterprising non-Arizona journalists have peeled back the McCain veneer. Boston Globe reporter Walter Robinson spent several weeks digging into McCain's Arizona behavior and reporting his dark side. Ditto Ted Rose of Brill's Content. And the acknowledged Arizona media expert on
McCain, reporter Amy Silverman of the Phoenix New Times (more on her later), gave readers of Playboy a McCain portrait not found elsewhere. ABC's Sam Donaldson came close to giving millions of viewers a clearer picture in a taped interview with Silverman for 20/20. But
the segment was canceled the night before airing, fueling speculation that McCain's oversight of broadcasters as Senate Commerce Committee chairman makes the networks wary of offending him. Several years ago, when NBC refused to support his TV-rating system, McCain wrote a letter to NBC President Robert Wright, threatening to ask the FCC to review licenses of the network's locally owned stations.

I'm among the swelling ranks of onetime McCain acquaintances ostracized for not being slavishly loyal. After McCain settled in Arizona with his young second wife, a millionaire, he asked me at dinner for help with a political career. As editorial page editor (and later publisher) of the Arizona Republic, I declined to be his political coach. However, we socialized, including dinners at his home. We even discussed writing a book. The relationship ended, however, when our newspaper exposed McCain as a liar who used an underhanded political trick.

Here is what happened: McCain boasted to my wife and me over lunch in Washington that he had planted complex questions with the Senate Interior Committee chairman to sabotage the testimony of Arizona Gov. Rose Mofford, a Democrat, about the Central Arizona Project, the multibillion-dollar Colorado River water delivery system for Arizona urban areas. When I protested to McCain that the project had enjoyed bipartisan support for nearly 50 years, from conservative Barry Goldwater to liberal Morris Udall, McCain retorted: "I'm duty bound to embarrass a Democrat whenever I can."

When reporters later asked McCain about planted questions, he feigned insult and injury and denied any such ploy. Editors in Phoenix were informed of McCain's deceit. After a news story and editorial appeared, McCain went into meltdown, shrieking on the phone: "I know you're out to get me!" (Several years later, McCain admitted the dirty trick and apologized to Mofford, who was then out of office.)

When Barbara Barrett, wife of Intel CEO Craig Barrett, ran against McCain's protégé, Gov. Fife Symington, McCain offered to buy her out of the 1994 GOP primary. She refused. Furious, McCain threatened revenge. Barrett lost, but Symington later was forced out of office after being convicted of seven counts of fraud (his conviction was overturned and is under appeal). McCain's wife was a front-row regular at Symington's criminal trial in Phoenix. McCain still calls Symington "my friend."

While Barrett, a successful attorney, emerged mostly unscathed, others weren't so lucky. Maricopa County (Phoenix) schools superintendent Sandra Dowling, a Republican, refused McCain's demand to abandon support of Barrett. Dowling told Morley Safer during a 60 Minutes interview about Arizona politics (which never aired) that McCain exploded and threatened to "destroy" her. Thereafter, her son lost his appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, where McCain sits as an ex officio member of the Board of Visitors. McCain denied any connection. Even former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, McCain's onetime senior aide who considered succeeding him in Congress, was purged from the senator's circle for investigating Symington and refusing to seek McCain's advice as a loyal understudy.

More of McCain's style:

McCain indulges in hypocrisy with a flair. He attacks tobacco but ignores alcohol. Why? His wife's millions flow from the family beer and wine distributorship, Arizona's largest.

The affable, candid, gregarious candidate, who mingles with reporters and yuks it up in the back of the bus, is no friend of free speech, and merely tolerates and uses the press as part of his political strategy. In Arizona, McCain tries to subdue reporters by threatening to have them fired when he's displeased with their pieces. Upset about critical reporting in the Phoenix New Times by Amy Silverman, McCain complained to her father, Richard, general manager of the Salt River Project, an Arizona hydroelectric utility. McCain's intent seemed clear: muscling the federally chartered SRP in hopes Silverman would pressure his daughter to back off.

One of my Arizona neighbors, Dianne Smith, wrote McCain protesting his criticism of Anita Hill in confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. A widow then in her sixties, Smith was flabbergasted when McCain telephoned her, shouting at her for "questioning my integrity."

McCain promised Arizona voters, "I've never tried to exploit my Vietnam service to my country because it would be totally inappropriate." But his presidential campaign is festooned with reminders of his POW years, from campaign videos to speeches to best-selling books, trying to capture the veterans vote.

Even as he moralizes about corrupt corporate money, McCain rakes in hundreds of thousands of dollars from Washington lobbyists and asks corporations for use of their jets for campaigning. Last year, the Washington Post documented thousands of dollars of donations to McCain's political war chest from K Street lobbyists who do business before the Senate Commerce Committee.

McCain himself has acknowledged that he intervenes before regulatory agencies with letters on behalf of campaign donors, but claims he's merely performing a "constituent service"--the same explanation he used when initially defending himself in the Keating Five scandal. As a peevish lobbyist told Newsweek: "He sees no connection between twisting our arms for money and then talking about how corrupt the system is."

The John McCain glamorized by the national media is a total stranger to Arizonans who are painfully familiar with a far coarser and more foreboding man. His victory in the New Hampshire primary may bring greater scrutiny. Instead of treating him as a lovable maverick and quotable long shot, the national media that have been fawning over him are certain to begin digging seriously into the McCain background that has turned so many of his home-state Republicans against him.

I Was with MLK and George Romney

... in Grosse Pointe and I'm with Mitt Romney on the issues.

It amazes me that the fear-Mitt crowd continues to harp on whether Mitt's father had joined MLK in a march through a Michigan community. Why?

There is no denial that George Romney was a visionary leader in the civil rights movement. Why the issue on whether or when he marched with MLK?

The answer: to discredit his son, Mitt Romney.

Find another issue, you idiots.

You're shadow boxing a flash from the past. For every written account and witness that say "yes, I marched with them," there will always be another "witness" to refute their claims.

Like one of those gotcha questions.

We deserve better from our media.

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Get Back on the Raft, Huck!

We're paddling upstream and you're slowing us down!

Speaking as a moderate conservative, I find Mike Huckabee a drag against the current, a cumbersome anchor of resistence to progress and prosperity.

The other things I think about him are discussed in depth at PTT. If you prefer to weather another eight years of Bill and Hill in the White House, then jump in with the Huckster.

Otherwise, paddle like hell, 'cause we going to need all hands on deck to withstand the "perfect storm."

Mitt. Mitt Romney. We need a true leader at the helm.

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Mitt on Experience

... and he's right. The Presidency of the United States is NOT an internship ....



Direct link.

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Return of the Chinese Crookie Monster!!!

Funny. HaHa funny. Hirrary Crinton in the kitchen again, eh?

Fortune Crookies.
The whole sheet of them.
Crookies.

Return of the Chinese Crookie-Monsters! EEEEEEKS!!!!

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Saying NO to Bill Clinton ----

Make that a resounding NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

America neither needs nor wants a disbarred lawyer, liar, rapist and womanizer filandering around the globe at taxpayer expense. Again.

Here's what Billy-Bob told the Guardian:

If Hillary Clinton wins the US presidency, Bill Clinton will be given the
job of repairing America's damaged international reputation, the former
president tells the Guardian in an interview today.

Mr Clinton, 61, reveals that his wife has said she would ask him to "go out
and immediately restore America's standing, go out and tell people America was open for business and cooperation again" after eight years marked by unilateralist policies that have "enrage[d] the world".

America WILL be open for "business and cooperation" again, Billy-boy.

But not the type of business and cooperation your reputation implies.

credit: Perish the Thought

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The REAL Protest Message

THIS is the message that protesters wanted to convey this weekend in Washington.

Message received.

Now, take your Soros-funded anti-America protest-for-hire money and return to the rock you crawled out from under.

God bless our troops and their families.

Thanks to the thousands of Eagles and GOE III participants who confronted the cowards in Washington this weekend.

hat tip to Gull.

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Beyond Murphy: Laws of Life

Next time you say, "There oughta be a law ...." stop and consider there may already be one. Especially one that goes wayyyyyy beyond Murphy's:

Law of Mechanical Repair
After your hands become coated with grease, Your nose will begin to itch or you'll have to pee.

Law of the Workshop
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Law of Probability
The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the Stupidity of your act.

Law of the Telephone
If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal.

Law of the Alibi
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, The very next morning you will have a flat tire.

Variation Law
If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will start To move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

Law of the Bath
When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Law of Close Encounters
The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically When you are with someone you don't want to be seen with.

Law of the Result
When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will.

Law of Biomechanics
The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

Law of the Theater
At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle arrive last.

Law of Coffee
As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

Murphy's Law of Lockers
If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

Law of the Dance
If there are only two people on the dance floor, they will run into each other.

Law of Rugs/Carpets
The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor covering are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet/rug.

Law of Location
No matter where you go, there you are.

Law of Logical Argument
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

Brown's Law
If the shoe fits, it's ugly.

Oliver's Law
A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Wilson's Law
As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

Doctors' Law
If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, By the time you get there you'll feel better. Don't make an appointment and you'll stay sick.

Yeah. I agree. There oughta be a law against laws.

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Algore vs. Belching Cows and Farting Mooses?

While cow's breath (the odor -- not the flower) is not one of my favorite fragrances (I never could figure out how "sour" grass could be converted to "sweet" milk), Algore may have met his match as a hot air blow-hard.

Take that anyway you choose. I do, however, recommend NOT lighting any matches for the rest of this post.

The Algore environmental crowd are sniffing out bovine gastrointestional odors as another cause of global warming. They're now blaming cows and moose for melting snow caps and homeless polar bears.

And speaking of belching and farting -- Algore obviously never met my Dad.

Dad's belches would rattle the neighbor's windows; his farts brought tears to the eyes of anyone within 50 feet.

Funny thing is, I always figured algore as a "pull-my-finger" sorta guy.

But I digress.


So read the article.

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