op ed review 10/16
Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Cain checks in as the first choice of 27 percent of Republican voters in the poll, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 23 percent and Perry at 16 percent.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44881446/ns/politics-decision_2012/#.Tpctpuz4uDk
In another poll, Cain has the support of 30 percent of Republicans, trailed by Mitt Romney at 22 percent, Newt Gingrich at 15 percent, and Rick Perry at 14 percent.
http://www.businessinsider.com/shock-poll-herman-cain-leads-gop-nationally-2011-10
Rassmussen has Romney and Cain tied.
A new poll by the authoritative Evolving Strategies firm finds that Herman Cain, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Mitt Romney would all beat Obama it the election were held today.
New IBD/TIPP survey: by 51%-41%, respondents in October picked "someone new deserves a chance" over Obama "deserves to be re-elected."
Republicans now hold a five-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, October 9.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) says he “loves” Herman Cain’s signature “9-9-9″ tax plan. “We need more bold ideas like this because it is specific and credible.”
http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/13/paul-ryan-loves-herman-cains-9-9-9-tax-plan/
Arthur Laffer, the “Godfather of Supply-Side Economics” supports Cain's '9-9-9' Plan.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46828
There has been much speculation over who is financing the “Occupy Wall Street” protest. One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros, who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans. Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/reuters-soros-money-behind-occupy-wall-street-protests/
Occupy Wall Street has drawn very public support from celebrities who are worth millions of dollars. The top 20 Stars for Occupy Wall Street have a combined net worth of $1,685,500,000.
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/44289
With the Solyndra scandal still swirling, the Obama administration is under pressure to reveal the financial condition of other solar companies that received an additional $4.75 billion in similar federal loan guarantees on the last day of the program.
In September 2009, President Obama wanted to visit Hiroshima to apologize for the US having dropped an atomic bomb on that city. A secret cable published by Wikileaks reveals US Ambassador to Japan John Roos reported back to the Obama administration that the Japanese government did not think it was a good idea.
“Obamacare suffers first major casualty”
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/obama-pulls-plug-part-health-overhaul-law-14743030
Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney’s landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for Obamacare, including recruiting some of Romney’s own health care advisers and experts to help craft the act.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44854320/ns/politics-decision_2012/#.TpSKJez4uDl
Are “Democrats Eyeing 401(k)s and IRAs for Tax Hit?”
One day after NBC's ''Today'' celebrated the ''end of traditional marriage,'' CBS's ''Early Show'' went even further, entertaining the view that marriage is an ''unnatural'' institution and a ''morality cage.'' CBS anchor Erica Hill teased a segment on Oct. 12: ''You know, as much as we all may love a good wedding, more and more women are saying, 'I don't need one!' They're either getting married later in life, or deciding 'I'm not getting married at all.'
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/paul-wilson/2011/10/14/cbs-jumps-anti-marriage-bandwagon
Nancy Pelosi says America must pay for abortions or women will “die on the floor”.
“California now bans people from using tanning beds until they are 18. But minors will continue to be able to have abortions without the permission — or even knowledge — of their parents.”
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/44015
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Robin of Berkley 10/14
Which Republican Can Beat Obama?
I love Michele Bachmann. I'd vote for Sarah Palin in a heartbeat. In fact, I'd pull the lever for any Republican candidate for President, though I'd have to hold my nose for the more moderate ones. But who do I think could actually win against the Obama machine? A strong black man. . as in the brainy, charismatic Herman Cain.
One of the things I've been doing since I woke up from my leftist coma three or so years ago is closely observing Obama. I've been trying to figure out what makes the man tick.
My guess is that Obama had a terrible childhood, worse than we know. I wouldn't be surprised if there was quite a bit of abuse, as well as neglect. We all know about the continual abandonments.
Without much nurturance, but given the illusion of greatness by others, Obama has developed a Messiah Complex. He thinks he walks on water. There are not too many mere mortals who could intimidate him.
Obama made mincemeat of Hillary. While I am a huge Sarah fan, I think he'd do the same to her. The genial and gracious Michele -- he'd descend on her like a vulture. A white male, a Native American man. . . all the same. He and his handlers would chew them up and spit them out. But it would be different with an African American alpha male. I think that someone like Cain could and would put Obama in his place. And though Obama would pounce on Cain, Obama's bark would be worse than his bite.
My guess is that Obama would feel weak around him; Obama would become the beta male he truly is deep inside, though he hides it. It's not a coincidence that Obama chose dominant black men as father figures such as Frank Marshall Davis and Rev. Wright. I predict a more tongue-tied and intimidated Obama if he has to go up against Cain. For one thing, Obama is used to using race to silence white people. How much harder it would be for Obama to bulldoze and menace Herman Cain.
I see many other potential benefits of a qualified, black candidate like Cain. Certainly, Cain's running would neutralize the left's cries of racism. And their attempts to smear Cain as an "Uncle Tom" would reveal for all the world to see the inherent racism in the so-called progressive movement.
Cain as nominee would also draw new people to the Republican Party. Cain's straight-talking personal style and compelling message would attract blacks to the Party for the first time in eons. He would grab the imagination of dissatisfied blacks, particularly traditional families who have been skittish about joining the right. A black man would also have the gravitas to articulate the core values of conservatism in a way that could appeal to minorities. Who knows? Given Cain's down-to-earth manner and his strong character, he has the potential to be another Ronald Reagan.
Is it fair to choose a candidate partly based on race? Two words here: Barack Obama. Only the most hard-core and deluded leftist would argue that Obama's meager resume prepared him to be the Leader of the Free World.
With Obama nominated and installed based almost entirely on his race, choosing based on skin color along with integrity and intelligence is perfectly appropriate. Cain brings plenty of both to the table, along with common sense, business experience, and economic prowess. And, along with the sanity of a Cain presidency, wouldn't it be icing on the cake to have the first fully black president be a conservative?
Will I get my wish? God, I hope so. Anything is possible in this year's GOP horse race. But from what I see, the strongest chance we have to reclaim the White House -- and perhaps to save this nation -- is Herman Cain. I just hope that the head honchos in the Republican Party, as well as the American people, see things the same way.
(Robin is a recovering liberal, and a licensed psychotherapist in Berkeley, California. She has written about 70 articles for the American Thinker.)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/which_republican_can_beat_obama.html
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"One of my favorite economics essays from which I've drawn bottomless inspiration is Leonard Read's 'I, Pencil.' ... Read traces the family tree of the pencil from the Oregon loggers who harvest its cedar wood, to the California millworkers who cut the wood into thin slats, to Mississippi refinery workers, to the Dutch East Indies farmers who produce an oil used to make erasers. ... Read illuminates: 'There is a fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work.' ... Appreciating this voluntary configuration of human energies, Read argued, is key to possessing 'an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.' Indeed. Without that faith, we are susceptible to the force of class-warfare mobs and the arrogance of command-and-control bureaucrats in Washington who believe the role of private American entrepreneurs, producers and wealth generators is to 'grow the economy' and who 'think at some point you have made enough money.' The progressives who want to bring down 'Wall Street' will snipe that [Apple co-founder Steve] Jobs was one of 'theirs,' not 'ours.' He belonged to no one. He was transcendently committed to excellence and beauty and innovation. And yes, he made gobs of money pursuing it all while benefiting hundreds of millions of people around the world whom he never met, but who shed a deep river of tears upon learning of his death [last] week. From 'I, Pencil' to iPhone, such is the profound, everlasting miracle of iCapitalism -- a triumph of individualism over collectivism, freedom over force and markets over master planning. To borrow an old Apple slogan: It just works."
-Michelle Malkin
"Freedom frightens some people. They say if no one is in charge there would be chaos. That is intuitive, but think about a skating rink. Before rinks were invented, if you proposed an amusement in which people strap blades to their feet and skate around on ice at whatever speeds they wish, you'd have been called crazy. There's got to be speed limits, stoplights, turn signals. But we know that people navigate rinks safely on their own. They create their own order, with only minimal rules. Society would work the same way -- and does to a large extent even today. 'Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government,' Thomas Paine, the soul of the American Revolution, wrote. 'It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. ... Common interest (has) a greater influence than the laws of government.'"
-John Stossel
"The fun part of ['Occupy Wall Street'] is the sudden urge on the part of Democrats and liberals to hide behind the occupation forces, touting their cause for at least as long as it takes to beat out the Republicans' brains in 2012. Sure will be a sight when the campaigns start in earnest and the president has to decide for himself how to walk a fine line between hanging bankers and soliciting their campaign contributions."
-William Murchison
"The protests were like a stumbling little fawn trying to find its legs. They'd been in existence for about two weeks, and NBC was already suggesting the 'potential' for what the Tea Party achieved in 2010 -- a massive Democratic wave election in 2012. Journalists are either easily impressed or very energetic practitioners of wishful thinking."
-L. Brent Bozell
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BOOKS
Pat Buchanan’s new book: “SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER: Will America Survive to 2025?" "As the faith that gave birth to the West is dying in the West, peoples of European descent from the steppes of Russia to the coast of California have begun to die out, as the Third World treks north to claim the estate. The last decade provided corroborating if not conclusive proof that we are in the Indian Summer of our civilization." Buchanan, set for maximum controversy, launches all rockets and does not let up for 400-plus pages. "America is disintegrating. The centrifugal forces pulling us apart are growing inexorably. What unites us is dissolving. And this is true of Western Civilization....Meanwhile, the state is failing in its most fundamental duties. It is no longer able to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars." The books reads as if it’s been written to be left behind in the ruins, only to be found by a future civilization.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashpb.htm
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LEFTIST WATCH
So enthused about promoting the far-left protests, ABC anchor Diane Sawyer on Monday night's World News championed “the Occupy Wall Street movement” by ludicrously claiming that “as of tonight, it has spread to more than 250 American cities, more than a thousand countries -- every continent but Antarctica.” Protests against the wealthy in “thousands of countries,” including Cuba, China and every country in Africa? Per the U.S. State Department, however, there are only 195 nation states in the world, so Sawyer imagined five times as many protests as could possibly have occurred
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is asking supporters to sign a petition in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Not to be outdone by the likes of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who claimed there is "horrible repression" of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters or by an Iranian commander who called the demonstrations an "American Spring," Communist Party USA wants in on the "Occupy" protest action….a teleconference call this Tuesday is scheduled for a discussion regarding their organization's "solidarity" with the OWS demonstrators.
The Communist Party USA has helpfully written us a new constitution for use when the current one fails.
http://revcom.us/a/247/two-constitutions-two-futures-en.html
The National Air and Space Museum in Washington had to be closed after anti-war demonstrators swarmed the building to protest a drone exhibit.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/10/09/2011-10-09_pepper_spray_at_museum.html
An AFL-CIO sponsored National Teach In was held on line. All of the speakers were students, save one. The one who was not a student was the infamous Frances Fox Piven. She urged the students to “Occupy everything. It belongs to us.”
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) tells MSNBC regulations create jobs because a business will have to hire people to help them comply with the new requirement.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., issued a report defending the EPA from GOP attacks. Not only do EPA rules protect the environment, the report says, they are an engine of economic growth. After all, somebody has to do the work of complying with the rules, and "industries that provide environmental protection," the report says, have "created more than a million jobs."
There’s a lot of talk about making the Evil Rich pay their “fair share” these days. President Obama wants us to be very angry at the spectacle of billionaires escaping from confiscatory tax rates. For some reason, he never uses the very pertinent example of his good friend, top contributor, and Solyndra crony George Kaiser…It’s too bad Obama never rails against Kaiser, because the well-connected Oklahoma billionaire reported zero taxable income during five years of his rise to the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46849
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ISLAM
Iranian Actress Marzieh Vafamehr has been sentenced to a year in jail and 90 lashes for her role in a film about the limits imposed on artists in the Islamic republic.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.327f17c704be62bbbe8f51190948679a.871&show_article=1
An eighth grade student in Pakistan has been accused of blasphemy after making a spelling mistake on a test, a miscue that has had drastic and life-changing consequences for her whole family. She misspelled a word in Urdu in a poem written to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad. Instead of the word “Naat,” which meant a poem of praise, Bhatti misplaced a letter with a dot and instead wrote the word “Laanat,” which means curse. Her teacher reportedly beat her in front of her class and then referred the case to the school’s principal. Religious clerics demanded that she be expelled. Local government administrators agreed to have Bhatti’s mother transferred from her government job as a nurse and the family evicted from their home.
US agents have foiled what has been called a "significant terrorist act" linked to Iran which called for the assassination of the Saudi US ambassador and other attacks
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.f0c4b67fe834a1df77b56cde7fb0d08b.1b1&show_article=1
“Christian girl, 12, kidnapped, beaten, and raped until she converted to Islam.”
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ACTIVISM
“Last weekend, Home Depot set up a booth at the Atlanta Gay Pride festival and entered a float in the parade. Alongside Home Depot's float were marchers and other floats celebrating sadomasochism and bondage. For example, one group of marchers had large dog collars strapped around their necks and were being led by leather-clad "owners" holding chain leashes and whips...This particular float was just one of many showing the bizarre activities in the parade with which Home Depot connected itself… Home Depot was proud enough to be right in the middle of it. Over one-half million people have signed the pledge to boycott Home Depot until it agrees to remain neutral in the culture war.
http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147512695
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THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
In one of the most remarkable pre-primary seasons in history, political neophyte Herman Cain has shot to the top of the polls……It looks like we are entering a post-racial era. And yet some liberals are treating Herman Cain’s meteoric rise not as a cause for celebration, but as proof that America is more racially divided than ever. Working on the assumption that a black man cannot possibly be a conservative, they assume that Cain is a puppet for racists.
Herman Cain doesn’t fit snugly into the usual narrative about race and American politics. It is not merely that the African-American businessman is coming on so strongly in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. It is that the bedrock of Cain’s support comes from demographic and ideological groups that are sometimes accused — falsely, they would say — of harboring racist tendencies.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/186423-rising-cain-flips-old-narratives-on-politics-and-race
Herman Cain has the support of a man who is proud to be an American — and has a song to prove it. Lee Greenwood, who is best known for his patriotic hit “God Bless the USA,” is part of a group of musicians who offered their support to Cain, a Republican candidate for president, Monday in Nashville.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/10/country-singer-lee-greenwood-endorses-herman-cain/#ixzz1aV1y5j5e
Romney. “Can the GOP stomach a guy who, by some measures, was once more liberal than Ted Kennedy—then flip-flopped?....Before my eyes was an early Rombot model, circa 1994, that we’ve not seen since: emotional, passionate, lively. He sneered derisively at the “Reagan-Bush” years, bragged about being a political independent, and indignantly defended his “consistent” support of abortion rights.”
The Republican presidential nomination may still be up in the air, but political insiders in both parties are pretty sure they know who should be the second name on the GOP ticket. Two-thirds of the strategists surveyed in this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as the strongest choice for the GOP vice presidential nomination.
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/10/insiders-swoon.php
Political strategists and experts on Wednesday cautioned against counting Gov. Rick Perry out of the Republican race for president, saying a fat campaign war chest and a skillful use of advertising can make up for poor debate performances and a dearth of policy specifics that some say have the Texas governor's popularity in free fall. With $15 million in the bank, what his camp insists is a strong campaign organization in early primary states and economic plans he is poised to roll out this week, Perry remains the top conservative alternative.
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Experts-Don-t-count-Perry-out-yet-2216017.php
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie endorses Mitt Romney for president, a week after Christie said he had decided not to run.
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ARTICLES
What the GM bailout has cost taxpayers
Somehow, 16% of likely American voters still believe the country is doing swell. Rescue teams are out looking for them right now. Sixteen percent is not much of a political base for President Obama to build a 2012 reelection campaign on. In fact, the right track number is down two more points just since last week and down 16 points since last October.
The Obama Problem is simple to explain but impossible to solve. The problem is Obama himself, and most people not named Barack or Michelle understand that…. Obama was all hype and no substance. That realization has dawned on voters, resulting in horrendous polling. Richard Nixon was never liked, but he was at least thought competent. Obama was liked but never competent. Now Obama is living proof of the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. He is neither liked nor competent. Even the hapless Jimmy Carter did not attain that status.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/the_obama_problem.html
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Everyone Is Passing Around This Picture Mocking The Anti-Corporate Protests
http://www.businessinsider.com/down-with-email-corporations-2011-10
“An increase in the federal debt requires approval from a majority of the legislatures of the separate States.”
http://www.restoringfreedom.org/
Don’t fly your F-16 through a tree.
http://www.military.com/video/aircraft/jet-fighters/f-16-vs-tree/659640826001/?ESRC=dod.nl
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HUMOR
Leno: Christopher Columbus claimed America for Spain. If the British had never come here, we would all be speaking Spanish -- as opposed to just half of the country speaking Spanish……The Saudi government is upset about this plot to assassinate their ambassador. As you know, Saudi Arabia condemns all acts of terrorism unless, of course, they're sponsoring them……..White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley announced he'll be leaving the White House after the election. I get the feeling a lot of people are going to be leaving the White House after the election.
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WISE WORDS
"The economic welfare of all our people must ultimately stem not from government programs, but from the wealth created by a vigorous private sector."
-Ronald Reagan
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12:58 PM
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