The Illustrated Results of Obama's "Community Organizing"

See a gallery of photos at the journal of Doug Ross

If I didn't know better, I'd think this was Beirut in the nineteen seventies. But, in reality, it's the current state of the housing for which Barack Obama claims responsibility as a "community organizer." It turns out the developers enriched by his government-funded subsidies did a heck of a lot better than the folks who once lived here.

Miscounting Obama's Tax Votes -- it's only 54 times, not 94

Republicans claim Obama "voted 94 times for higher taxes." But their count is inflated and misleading.
By Lori Robertson | factcheck.org

It's true that most of the votes the GOP counts would either have increased taxes for some, or set budget targets calling for such increases. But by repeating their inflated 94-vote figure, McCain and the GOP falsely imply that Obama has pushed indiscriminately to raise taxes for nearly everybody. A closer look reveals that he's voted consistently to restore higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers but not on middle- or low-income workers. That's consistent with what he's said he'd do as president, which is to raise taxes only on those making more than $250,000 a year.

Details on Colombia Hostage Operation Right Out of Spy Thriller

Íngrid Betancourt is free!

By Jonathan Winer | Counterterrorism Blog

First accounts on the rescue operation, now being provided by Colombian military officials, while still veiled on some key points, suggest that Colombia carried out a spectacularly successful sting operation in which Colombian commandos pretended to be FARC officials come to take the hostages to a new location for a possible diplomatic negotiated exchange.

According to Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos in his Bogota news conference, Colombia infiltrated FARC's 1st Squad and Secretariat. How that infiltration contributed to the commando operation was not specified, beyond apparently providing the geographic location of the hostages. Whatever the mechanism -- government agents run inside FARC? -- Colombian intelligence tricked the FARC into believing that the hostages, who had been divided in three groups by the FARC, should be brought together in a single group to be handed over to FARC leader Alfonso Cano for a possible diplomatic, negotiated solution to the hostage crisis that would achieve FARC political objectives. As a result, FARC's high command agreed to travel with the hostages as a means of transferring them to Cano on a helicopter that actually belonged to the Colombian military and was actually manned by Colombian intelligence personnel.

According to Minister Santos, not only were all of the hostages safely rescued, but two senior FARC officials and some 15 other FARC soldiers were arrested in the process, also without violence.

Odd note: the Colombian military intelligence officers who were on the helicopter were wearing Che t-shirts.

"Black national anthem" causes stir at Hick speech

By Christopher N. Osher | The Denver Post
As Denver dignitaries gathered Tuesday for Mayor John Hickenlooper's State of the City address, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem.

But that's not what she did.

Instead, Marie performed the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which also is known as the "black national anthem." When she finished, the proceedings moved forward, and the "Star-Spangled Banner" was never performed.

Councilman Charlie Brown took to local talk radio Tuesday afternoon to blast the lack of the nation's anthem at the proceedings.

"There's no replacement for the national anthem," Brown said. "They should have sung it."

Words to the Black National Anthem

Obama Got Discount on Home Loan

Campaign Defends Lower Rate as Lender Competition for Business
By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 2, 2008; Page A03

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

quote

"I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such I am bound to disappoint some, if not all of them."

Senator Barack Obama
(D) Presidential Candidate
From "The Audacity of Hope"

Kos Kids upset that Obama's moving to the right

Rewarding good behavior

Obama will be fine without my contribution, and he may even still get it before this thing is said and done, but it would be at a time when he has done something positive. That's called rewarding good behavior. And if that opportunity fails to arise because Obama goes on a Sister Souljah'ing rampage, then no worries. Chances are good that the DNC would get the money instead. But at this time, I simply have no desire to reward bad behavior. Some of you don't care about his behavior, or don't think it's bad behavior, or whatever. I didn't ask any of you to follow suit, and don't care whether you do or not. I didn't pull him from the Orange to Blue list. I'm not going to start praising Nader or Barr. I'll still vote for him. Yadda, yadda, yadda. At the end of the day, I'm pretty irrelevant in the whole affair. Obama is going to raise a ton of dough and win this thing whether I send him money or not.

Obama's real patriotism problem

He sees an America in which the cup is half-empty. Is his America the same one most Americans think of as they wave flags and celebrate the Fourth of July?

By Jonah Goldberg | USA Today
(Illustration by Suzy Parker, USA TODAY)

Barack Obama has a patriotism problem that even Monday's flag-waving trip to Independence, Mo., can't squelch. And it doesn't have anything to do with his lapel pin.

In part because liberal commentators have such a hard time grasping why patriotism should be an issue at all, and the GOP is so clumsy explaining why it's important, the debate often gets boiled down to symbols. Like so much else about Obama, his position on the lapel flag changes with the needs of the moment. After 9/11, he wore it. During the debates over the Iraq war, he stopped because he saw the flag as a sign of support for President Bush. (He started wearing it again in May.) "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he added in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Read that line again: "What I believe will make this country great."

Not to sound too much like a Jewish mother, but some might respond, "What? It's not great now?"

This sense that America is in need of fixing in order to be a great country points to Obama's real patriotism problem. And it's not Obama's alone.

read the whole thing

Michelle: Texans are Homophobes

Hugh Hewitt plays sound clips from a Michelle Obama speech to the DNC Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council where she paints the picture of Texans as being bigoted and homophobic.

Obama's Katrina

Mickey Kaus of Slate Magazine says this of the Boston Globe's article Obama's Katrina:
"It's the most damaging article about Barack Obama I've read . . ."



Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy

Is there a bigger Petri dish for corrupt incompetence than the "public-private partnership"? (Think cable TV franchises.) But the Globe account does seem to capture what's most likely to be wrong with an Obama administration. After all, Obama's career has been unusually limited for a presidential contender. Housing and "community development" has been a big part of it. If the result has been a disaster in which Obama's friends made lots of money while his poor constituents lived in dangerous squalor, that seems like a big warning sign, no?