Source: http://www.financialweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080723/REG/963192885/0/TOC
July 23, 2008 10:07 AM ET
(Reuters)—The U.S. stock market would fare better in the first year after a victory by Republican presidential candidate John McCain than by his Democratic rival Barack Obama, according to a majority of economists at U.S. banks and research groups polled by Reuters.
But the survey of 29 firms taken alongside a regular Reuters economic poll also found that economists had mixed views on the two candidates’ economic plans.
On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “very good”, 12 economists gave McCain’s proposals higher marks, while nine rated the two candidates equally and eight preferred Obama’s policies, according to the poll released on Wednesday.
The economy has supplanted the Iraq war as the main issue in the November presidential election between Arizona Sen. McCain and Illinois Sen. Obama.
The troubled housing market, tightening credit conditions and rising costs of food and energy have driven U.S. consumer confidence to a 28-year low.
The survey, conducted this week, found that 21 of the economists polled thought Mr. McCain would be better for the stock market in the first year after the election, while six chose Obama and two gave no response.
The sample includes a cross-section of U.S. financial institutions, large and small, including several prominent Wall Street names.
For investors, a key concern this election year is taxes on dividends and capital gains, which Mr. Obama has pledged to increase. He also favors allowing income tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush’s administration to expire, while Mr. McCain wants them made permanent.
“Preserving the capital gains and dividend tax rate (at) 15 percent is in my view very important to investors and therefore very important to Wall Street,” said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Johnson Illington Advisors in Albany, New York, explaining why he thought stocks would fare better under a McCain presidency.
Mr. McCain has said the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve’s steps to shore up troubled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were correct and he hoped Congress would approve them.
Mr. Obama said any action to rescue Fannie and Freddie should be aimed at helping homeowners and not just shareholders, managers and investors.
Mr. Obama has called for a $50 billion economic stimulus package on top of the $152 billion plan passed earlier this year. McCain has proposed low income taxes and incentives for small businesses as ways to boost the economy.
A Reuters/Zogby poll released last week showed that just 10% of Americans gave the Bush administration positive marks for its handling of the economy.
The poll also found that Mr. Obama held a 7-point lead over McCain in the presidential race, and had a small edge on the question of who would best manage the economy.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Economists think McCain would be better for stock market: Obama hurt by pledge to raise tax rates on capital gains and dividends
DNC steps in to silence lawsuit over Obama birth certificate: Democrat suing his own party says it's 'like they're in cahoots' By Drew Zahn
Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76933
October 04, 2008
Philip J. Berg
The man suing Sen. Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee for proof of Obama's American citizenship is outraged that his own party – rather than just providing the birth certificate he seeks – would step in to silence him by filing a motion to dismiss his lawsuit.
As WND reported, prominent Pennsylvania Democrat and attorney Philip J. Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court two months ago claiming Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and therefore not eligible to be elected president. Berg has since challenged Obama publicly that if the candidate will simply produce authorized proof of citizenship, he'll drop the suit.
Berg told WND the longer the DNC tries to ignore his lawsuit or make it go away – instead of just providing the documents – the more convinced he is that his accusations are correct.
Despite assertions by the Washington Post, FactChecker.org and other organizations that Obama has produced a certified Hawaiian birth certificate, Berg told WND he remains "99.99 percent sure" that the certificate is a fake and he wants a court, not a website, to determine its validity.
Earlier last week, lawyers for Obama and the DNC filed a joint motion to dismiss Berg's lawsuit. The fact that the DNC joined in the dismissal request has Berg fuming, believing his party's leaders have ignored his pleas for proof in order to favor their chosen candidate over a rank-and-file constituent.
"I think it's outrageous," Berg said. "The Democratic National Committee should be ensuring the Democratic Party and the public that they have a qualified candidate up there. To file a joint motion is like they're in cahoots.
"Since then, I have asked by way of press release that Howard Dean resign, because (the DNC members) are not fulfilling their duties," Berg said.
"The DNC has a responsibility to all Democrats in this country to make sure that all of their candidates are properly vetted and properly qualified," Berg added. "I think it's really an outrage to the 18-plus million people who voted for Obama and the people who donated more than $425 million to him under false pretenses."
Berg is frustrated, not only with his own party's leadership for allegedly not investigating Obama's background, but also with the major news outlets for failing as well.
"I should also be suing the national media and their disgrace for not properly vetting, inspecting or checking on Barack Obama.
"Look what they're doing to Governor Palin: They're opening up her closet doors, they're going through everything personal, but no one has ever gone after Obama. It doesn't make sense," Berg said.
Obama's website counters Berg's claims with links to articles that affirm the validity of his citizenship and an image of a Hawaiian birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama, born in Honolulu, Aug. 4, 1961. The webpage is part of the Obama campaign website's "Fight the Smears" section, an effort to prevent reports that Obama claims are false from disseminating as damaging rumors.
Berg acknowledges that as long as his lawsuit remains outstanding, the public will talk, and he told WND he wants Obama to quickly prove him wrong or the court to quickly prove him right.
"I've been on about 50 radio shows around the country," Berg said, "and on every one I've put out a challenge: Barack Obama, if I'm wrong, just come forth with certified copies of these documents and I'll close down the case."
Berg told WND, "I've had 19 million hits on my website. …Those people talk to other people, now we're up to 20, 30, 40 million people who are aware of this controversy, and it's going to drastically affect the entire election."
When asked what he would do if the DNC succeeded in getting his case dismissed, Berg said he would "immediately file an appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and if we don't get a fair ruling there, immediately to the U.S. Supreme Court."
"We're dealing with the U.S. Constitution and it must be followed," Berg explained. "I want the Constitution enforced; that's my main reason for doing this.
"The real outrage is that there's nothing in our system that provides that a candidate must provide that his qualifications are true and correct before he or she runs, and that safeguard should be put into our system by law," Berg said.
Obama & Ayers: More Than Just Acquaintances
Crossed Paths
Source: http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/10/04/crossed-paths/
The [1] New York Times looks at the relationship between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers. It concludes that Obama may have downplayed his relationship with Ayers, but believes the relationship between the two was not close.
A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”
[2] Stanley Kurtz, a National Review writer who has extensively researched Barack Obama’s working relationship with Ayers in connection with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational foundation based in Chicago, vehemently disagrees.
Welcome To Camp Obama
Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=307928498550592
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, October 03, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: Voters coast-to-coast are receiving e-mails from the Obama campaign encouraging them to sign up to learn pre-election agitation tactics at "Camp Obama." Red kerchiefs, anyone?
Read More: Election 2008
When readers first alerted us to the camps, we thought it might be another hoax that migrated into inboxes. But it's for real.
The unsolicited pitch goes like this: "Camp Obama attendees will receive real world organizing experience that will have a direct impact on this election. Graduates of Camp Obama will go on to become Deputy Field Organizers who will lead this campaign to victory in crucial battleground states around the country."
The letter continues, "By participating in Camp Obama you'll get the kind of experience that Barack got as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he learned that real change happens from the bottom up."
While the letter neglects to identify the source of that "experience," a slide on a camp blog linked to the Obama Web site offers a clue. Underneath a "Welcome to Camp Obama" banner, a trainer at Obama headquarters in Chicago is seen speaking next to a wipe board with the words "Saul Alinsky" scrawled across it.
Alinsky is the late Chicago socialist and street agitator who is considered the father of community organizing.
Another slide of a camp trainer identified as Mike Kruglik is equally telling. Kruglik happens to be the Alinsky disciple who first taught Obama hardball organizing tactics on the South Side. He was Obama's boss in the '80s. Kruglik now works for the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, which trains and deploys radicals across the country.
Kruglik once declared Obama "the undisputed master of agitation," according to David Freddoso, author of the best-seller "The Case Against Barack Obama."
Obama learned well from the master agitator. Alinsky taught future radicals that bad things are often done for the right reasons, love without power is sentimental mush, power must be taken, and all change comes about as a result of threat and pressure.
Obama calls his Alinskyite experience "the best education I ever had."
Now he's passing it on to his groupies. He recently told supporters in Nevada, a state that will be hotly contested, to sharpen their elbows in the final lap of the race. Confront Republicans, he said, and "get in their faces."
"Be absolutely ruthless," adds Camp Obama director Jocelyn Woodards, who leads the intensive two-day training course for campers in Chicago.
In the Alinsky model, organizing is code for agitating. For revolution. He had no patience for liberals who merely talked of change.
"Liberals protest," he wrote in "Rules for Radicals," while "radicals rebel." Liberals become "indignant," while "radicals become fighting mad and go into action."
"Liberals give and take oral arguments," Alinsky added. "Radicals give and take the hard, dirty, bitter way of life."
Alinsky's paragon of radicalism was Satan, to whom he dedicated the first edition of "Rules": "Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer."
Dirty street fighting is at the heart of Obama's organizing. While he stands above the fray, his minions at ACORN are threatening, intimidating, confronting and even committing voter fraud. This is Alinsky's end-justifies-means morality in action. Whatever it takes to win the revolution.
Obama needs more agitators, so he's set up these camps to train them.
ACORN has the minority communities covered, while the camps are churning out mostly coed organizers. The Chicago program has already trained some 2,000 agitators to go back to their college campuses and reproduce more Obama clones.
No campaign has been successful at mobilizing students to vote en masse. But Obama hired the founder of MTV's Rock the Vote to organize students and train them to use Alinsky tactics on campuses in battleground states.
They have been training these students since the primaries. They in turn are registering fellow students in droves to vote, while creating massive phone banks to help get out the vote on Election Day. Meanwhile, ACORN is registering thousands of minorities to vote in key states.
Such potential new voters don't show up in the national polls of "likely voters," which show a relatively tight race, because they've never voted and don't show on past rolls.
If they turn out at the polls on Nov. 4, it could translate into a landslide for Obama.
If he can garner better than 50% of the popular vote, he can claim a mandate for his radical agenda.
What's more, all these first-time minority and student voters wouldn't vote for just Obama. They'd also more than likely vote down-ballot for other Democrats, padding their majorities in Congress.
If Democrats score supermajorities, filibuster-proofing the Senate, Obama could get most of his agenda rammed through in the first 100 days, surely in the first two years, before Americans could get a chance to check Democrat power in the midterm election of 2010.
How much damage could they do? Well, look at how much damage the Clintonistas did. We're now seeing the financial fruits of their social experiment to apply affirmative action to the lending business. Obama plans to conduct a far more radical social experiment.
Few during this long campaign have wanted to talk about Obama's days as a community organizer or his ties to radicals, because they didn't want to raise the S word. Well, guess what? The avoidance has given him license to apply his organizing skills on a mass scale.
It made the difference in the primaries when he beat the Clinton machine, and it may now make the difference in the general election.
Not calling attention to Alinsky and the other socialists behind the Obama movement has even allowed creation of camps to indoctrinate American youth.
If John McCain hopes to win, he'll have to act as ruthlessly as Obama's campers.
He can start by exposing for voters the socialist underpinnings of community organizing.
Truthless Joe
Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=307927962885677
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, October 03, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: It's hard choosing the worst in last Thursday's vice presidential debate: Sen. Joe Biden's continual untruths, his certitude in delivering them, or the free pass he got all night long.
Read More: Election 2008
In "The Prince of Darkness," his memoir of 50 years as a reporter in Washington, Robert Novak points out that while Jimmy Carter successfully ran for president by acting as "the anti-Washington, anti-government, anti-lawyer candidate telling audiences, 'I'll never lie to you' and setting post-Watergate standards of honesty," behind the smile Carter was actually "a habitual liar who modified the truth to suit his purposes."
But neither Carter nor Bill Clinton, whose twists and turns before a grand jury led to his impeachment, ever stared into the camera and spouted such a string of outright fabrications as if they were gospel truths the way Barack Obama's running mate did last week.
Thankfully, the blogosphere has been having a field day cataloguing Joe's whoppers. First, as InstaPundit's Michael Totten instantly noted after the debate, Biden — the great, seasoned foreign policy expert who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — falsely claimed France and the U.S. "kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon."
Of course, the debate's moderator, Gwen Ifill of PBS' "Washington Week," didn't call Biden on the gaffe; that might not be good for sales of her upcoming book, "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama" (especially if there turns out not to be an Age of Obama).
There was also Biden's accusation that John McCain is soft on regulation, when in fact he tried to beef up regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — an explanation for why he got so little campaign money from Fannie and Freddie over the years — under $22,000 — as opposed to the more than $126,000 Obama received in his short time in the Senate.
Sen. Biden falsely claimed that Obama didn't pledge to meet with Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; he falsely claimed Gov. Sarah Palin supported a windfall profits tax on oil companies; he said he's always been for clean coal in spite of his record of voting against it in the Senate.
Biden said we have to drill for more of our own oil, easily leading viewers to conclude he and Obama are in favor of more domestic drilling, but as the American Thinker blog's Rick Moran noted in a list of "Biden's Big Lies," "Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to 'raping' the Outer Continental Shelf."
Gov. Palin called Biden on his claim that Gen. David McKiernan in Afghanistan said that the surge could not be applied in Afghanistan; in fact, McKiernan has said that some aspects of Gen. David Petraeus' Iraq strategy could be part of our war efforts in Afghanistan.
And Biden was wrong when he claimed that both McCain and Obama opposed troop funding; McCain simply opposed legislation with a withdrawal deadline.
The Delaware Democrat falsely claimed that McCain's health care plan raises taxes, failing to mention his proposal's offsetting tax credit. And he was untruthful in claiming that under an Obama Administration the middle class will "pay no more than they did under Ronald Reagan." Obama, in fact, says he will return income tax rates to the Clinton levels, which were significantly higher than those in effect after tax reform during the Reagan Administration.
National Review's Jim Geraghty noted Biden's claim that "we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country" and concluded Biden was "off by 2,000%."
Geraghty also found that "Katie's Restaurant" in Wilmington, Del., where good old Joe invited anyone to have a beer with him, apparently hasn't been around for decades. Maybe the senator was too busy conferring with imaginary French liberators of Lebanon to visit his constituency.
