Wal-Mart and Exxon: Profiting Off Recession

Speaking of Oil- The Arabs are a large supplier- and Guess who, is in Bed with the Aabs! The Liberal Democrat-

Arabs: Obama ‘One of Us’

While Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama “has tried to push his origins into the background, his ‘Islamic roots’ have won him a place in many Arabs’ hearts.”

That’s the observation of Iranian-born commentator Amir Taheri, whose column in Tuesday’s New York Post notes that many Arabs and other Muslims see Obama as “one of them.”

They see that Obama has Arabic-Islamic first and middle names: Barack means “blessed” and Hussein means “beautiful.” His last name is Swahili, an East African language based on Arabic, Taheri writes. His sister is named Oumah, Arabic for “the community of the faithful;” his daughter Malia bears the name of a daughter of the noted Caliph Othman; and his father and stepfather were both Muslims.

Although Taheri did not note it, Obama was raised partially as a Muslim when he lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather. While there, he studied at two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim student.

As such he received Islamic religious instruction, studied the Koran, and prayed with other students. He did attend mosque, albeit infrequently, with his stepfather.

Obama’s religious upbringing after Indonesia is somewhat of a mystery until his late 20s. At that point, Obama says he converted to Christianity after meeting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in Chicago.

Still, Obama has maintained strong support from American Muslims, including Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam movement. Farrakhan has endorsed Obama and has called him the “messiah.”

These factors have made Obama a big hit in the Arab world, where he has received wide praise, including:

The Syrian regime has indicated its preference for Obama. Buthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, has written: “The change suggested by Obama is essential not only for the U.S. but for the entire human family.”

Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi called Obama “a Muslim” and said: “All the people in the Arab and Muslim world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcome him and prayed for his success,” although Qaddafi also expressed criticism of Obama’s comments on the future of Jerusalem.

Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said this year: “We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election.”

Hezbollah’s second in command, Sheik Naim al-Kassim, urged Americans to vote for Obama as a step toward peace with Islam, and pro-Hezbollah columnist Amal Saad-Ghorayeb said there is “no doubt Arabs should welcome an Obama presidency,” according to Taheri.

In Saudi Arabia, commentator Hussein Shobokshi wrote that an Obama presidency “would mark an important moral transformation in the superpower and is a healthy indicator of the long-awaited improvement in the international arena.”
Some columnists also have noted Obama’s close ties to several Palestinian radicals, including Columbia University Prof. Rashid Khalidi — former communications director for the Palestinian Liberation Organization — and another Palestinian political activist, the late Edward Said.

The “Arab street” also favors Obama. Recent surveys found that he is the preferred candidate in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Like the Bush Family, McCain had his Hand in the BCCI and S&L;Scandals

McCain claims that his involvement in the Keating S&L;scandal wasn’t really much to worry ourselves about. He was all but exonerated by his Senate colleagues, he says, let off with the political equivalent of a warning at a traffic stop. In fact, the Senate Ethics Committee was rather lenient with all five caught up in the scandal. But, that says more about the nature of the Senate than it does about the actual damage done to the American public by the financial crimes that led to the S&L;collapse, itself.

The S&L;crisis was all about oil, junk bonds, and deregulation that allowed the two to mix. That volatile brew is still actively bubbling over,and taxpayers are still paying $30 billion annual installments toward the trillion dollar bailout.

Here’s how you got stuck paying the bill, courtesy of the Bush family and John McCain.

In the mid-1980s, world oil prices plunged which set off a long series of bankruptcies and financial takeovers when overvalued Texas and southwestern land prices collapsed. The financial panic of 1988 also followed the “reform” of federal banking rules that had allowed bank managers to trade in risky new derivatives and junk bonds.

This tidal wave of bankruptcies in the oil patch created a huge buying opportunity for anyone with ready cash. The problem was, these were hard times on Wall Street after the sudden panic sell-off on October 1987. But, someone did step in once prices were sufficiently discounted. Huge bank holding companies scooped up looted banks and S&Ls;(along with their land deeds and oil rights), bought out for pennies on the dollar after they went belly-up. The federal government even subsidized many of these purchases. The American taxpayer was left with an estimated $1 trillion bailout cost. The epicenters of this late 20th Century white collar crime wave were in Houston and Phoenix, home base for two highly ambitious GOP politicians. One was named George H.W. Bush, and the other John McCain, III.

The Saudi-Manchurian Candidate-John McCain

The Senator’s patented role as All-American influence peddler to the world now includes the latest flap over his national campaign finance co-chair’s lucrative deals as a Saudi lobbyist and revelations about possible violations of federal campaign laws.

Tom Loeffler, McCain’s finance co-chair received $15 million from Saudi clients since 2002, is just part of a long conduit in the petrodollar pipeline from Riyadh to the Senator from Arizona. The Loeffler Group, which he founded, has also represented the People’s Republic of China.

Under Loeffler, the campaign has brought in more than $50 million for McCain so far this year, far more than was raised during all of 2007 when the GOP candidate faced a weak field of primary competitors. OpenSecrets.com shows that Loeffler and his wife, Nancy, have made a total of fifteen $2,300 maximum personal contributions to McCain during the past year.

The latest revelation of McCain’s connection to Arab oil money, and corruption within his campaign, came after the May 17 issue of NEWSWEEK reported: http://www.newsweek.com/id/137522

Loeffler last month told a reporter “at no time have I discussed my clients with John McCain.” But lobbying disclosure records reviewed by NEWSWEEK show that on May 17, 2006, Loeffler listed meeting McCain along with the Saudi ambassador to “discuss US-Kingdom of Saudi Arabia relations.”

McCain is, indeed, in good favor among the Saudi and Gulf elites. Bloomberg reports: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206…

Saudis are privately rooting for the presumptive Republican nominee, discounting some of his rhetoric because he’s the only candidate to promise to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. “The royal family and other elites would like to see McCain,’’ Mai Yamani, a visiting scholar with the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said yesterday in a telephone interview from London.

``He would keep the troops in Iraq, and that is their main worry, that the U.S. may withdraw or minimize its presence,’’ said Yamani, whose father, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, was the kingdom’s oil minister from 1962 to 1986. ~~~~~~~democratic underground~~~~~~~~~~~~

McCain Was Strong Supporter Of Group Accused Of Terrorist Activities October 31, 2008 02:57 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During the closing weeks of the election, Sen. John McCain has gone to great lengths to present his opponent, Barack Obama, as someone too willing to coddle to groups that have ties to terrorists or terrorist activity.

It is important to understand which individuals and organizations Obama has been associated with, the refrain usually goes, as it is reflective of his foreign policy as a whole.

But if that is indeed the standard by which voters are to judge the candidates, than McCain has some questions of his OWN.

During the late 1990s, the Senator supported and reportedly helped arm an organization that was accused of terrorist activities and allegedly had ties to al Qaeda.

During the late stages of the Balkan War, the Kosovo Liberation Army [KLA]was known for committing incredible atrocities in its efforts to facilitate Kosovo’s independence from Yugoslavia. The guerrilla group often was responding to acts of violence committed against its own people. But its tactics were, nevertheless, viewed as condemnable: abductions and murders, systematic burning and looting of homes, and harassment and intimidation of Yugoslav officials.

President Clinton’s special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, described the KLA in 1998 as, “without any questions, a terrorist group.”

And yet, John McCain, the current Republican standard-bearer, was one of the KLA’s most outspoken supporters. Back in May 1999, when it seemed as if NATO air raids would prove ineffective in stopping the violence, and calls were being made to send in ground troops, McCain suggested that the U.S. simply fund the KLA instead.

“It wouldn’t bother me if you arm the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] forces,” he said.

Moreover, this past February, former Rep. Joe DioGuardi, a prominent Albanian lobbyist, was quoted as saying that McCain even help get arms for KLA forces.

“Even in 1998 when we had problems with Milosevic, McCain did everything that we asked of him to the benefit of the Albanian people, including arming the KLA,” he said.
DioGuardi, a bundler for McCain, did not immediately return requests for comment.

The Senator’s support for the KLA, however, puts him near one of the far ends of his party’s mainstream during that conflict. It also represents another blemish on a foreign policy record that McCain has held up as “virtuous.” Earlier it was reported that the Arizona Republican had a served on the board of a far-right conservative organization that had supplied arms to paramilitary organizations in Latin America-McCain’s involvement in the U.S. Council for World Freedom became problematic for his candidacy because of that group’s past ties to anti-Semitic figures and its efforts to circumvent U.S. law and fund militant anti-communists.

But McCain’s support for the KLA was far less clandestine than his service on the U.S. Council for World Freedom board. But it is similarly telling of his world policy views.

Part of it had to do with alleged ties to al Qaeda—the Washington Times reported in May 1999 that several members of the KLA were trained in terrorist camps run by Osama bin Laden himself, charges that Abrahams says have never been proven. But much of the criticism had to do with the KLA’s brutal tactics. According to a 2001 report by Human Rights Watch:

The KLA was responsible for serious abuses… including abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state. Elements of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals… widespread and systematic burning and looting of homes belonging to Serbs, Roma, and other minorities and the destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries~~~~~~~~~~Sam Stein ,Huff Po

We’ve all heard the term Neo-conservative, guys like Cheney and Rumsfeld, who believe it’s our ‘manifest destiny’ to rule the world for fun and profit.

I heard a term for the first time referring to Pat Buchanan but I think it also applies to Larry - Paleo-Conservative! Ideological dinosaurs, both.

What’s good for Wal-Mart is BAD for America!

PALINEO Conservative,perhaps. She believes the world is only four thousand years old.( THIS from a woman who deals with oil company geologists in Alaska ,whose data and strata prove the world is millions of years old.)

Palin Claimed Dinosaurs And People Coexisted
Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago—about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct—the teacher said.

After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.

Palin told him that “dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time,” Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said “she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks,” recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage.
The idea of a “young Earth”—that God created the Earth about 6,000 years ago, and dinosaurs and humans coexisted early on—is a popular strain of creationism.

Though in her race for governor she called for faith-based “intelligent design” to be taught along with evolution in Alaska’s schools, Gov. Palin has not sought to require it, state educators say.

In a widely-circulated interview, Matt Damon said of Palin, “I need to know if she really think that dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago. I want to know that, I really do. Because she’s gonna have the nuclear codes."~~~~~~~~~~~~~Rachel Weiner, Huff Po

ddrb,

“She believes the world is only four thousand years old.”

According to the Bible (SDV’s main source), the earth is 6,000 years old, do you dispute The Bible?

“Palin Claimed Dinosaurs And People Coexisted”

If you believe the Adam and Eve, (Genesis) Bible History, then it only follows, that people and dinosaurs MUST have coexisted!!  And the majority of people in the U.S., say they believe the Bible is the absolute truth!!  And, if you believe in GOD, then you have to believe in the Bible!!  You can’t have it both ways, either the earth is 6,000 years old and the Bible is right or it is millions of years old and the Bible is wrong!!  When you dispute Palin’s view, you dispute the religious view!!

“if you believe in GOD, then you have to believe in the Bible!! You can’t have it both ways, either the earth is 6,000 years old and the Bible is right or it is millions of years old and the Bible is wrong!!  When you dispute Palin’s view, you dispute the religious view!!”

-RDS

You are out of your fu**ing mind

“You are out of your fu**ing mind”

Okay, then explain how it can be BOTH ways!!  If Adam was created BEFORE ALL the animals, and Eve shortly after that, and Dinosaurs existed (an were animals), then humans and Dinosaurs must have co-existed!!  Unless the Bible version is not correct!!  But, remember, the Bible is the ABSOLUTE TRUTH!!

...and Eve shortly after that...

Don’t forget about Lilith. Mmmmm, Lilith!

Live Better In Cheap Underwear

Ken V; Lilith, the ORIGINAL Maverick-or is it Maverickette?

RDS-

I think you missed the point.

To make the bold statement that if one believes in god, then one MUST believe in the bible is ignorant and offensive to the majority of the world, who aren’t Christian.  Many Christians also read the bible for it’s messages and metaphors; God didn’t write the bible, dude.

It is interesting that you have taken a passing interest in the Bible RDS, albeit for unsound reasons. What this is about is the human measurement of time against perceived physical reality. People make all kinds of claims in the millions and billions of years scale and that is from calculation based on what is acceptable to them. The problems are vast…

Geologist that previously declared that the Grand Canyon was 10s of millions of years old won’t touch that theory any more. Why? Because after the Mt. Saint Helen’s explosion and natural catastrophic event, geologists realized that layering and massive reordering of the landscape and strata formations could take place in a matter of days and weeks, not even years. The catastrophic event scenario gained more and more acceptance as evidence piled up that the earth was subjected to massive cataclysmic events that properly describe earth surface geology. The flood of Noah was brought into view as the worldwide event described in many cultures around the world and as a massive event that left the Great Salt Lake in Utah as the remaining residue of a catastrophic event that drained away huge amounts of water leaving the Grand Canyon flood basin as evidence and now estimated as approx. 4,700 years ago.

The problem with theories of evolution are that genetic surveys of all species tell us that there are no ‘terminator genes’ within the code structure of existing life on this planet. Therefore if one species evolved into another then massive inter-specie evidence and mutation would needed currently to be everywhere. It is not and not at all. What we see is variation within a specie, for example there are many kinds of dogs, but dogs do not become horses and there would need to be thousands of inter-specie mutations and developments in the record and currently to show any connection between the two different species. But of the huge required inter-specie living evidence to show this currently taking place as a non terminated genetic evolutionary process, none exist and it would need to exist between all species under most claimed theories of evolution.

Evolution of a single cell life form from the elements would require a 14 step process in the exact order of time and conditions. Of those conditions, one step requires the presence of ultraviolet light and another cannot have it. The odds calculate for this 14 step process to produced one living cell is 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. It takes by far greater faith to believe in the cruelty of random chance than it does to believe in the God of all creation. The intellectual argument against the existence of God has never found real merit. But a closed human heart and a mind exercised in deception can easily lead a bitter and pride ridden soul to deny the existence of God. 

What we do see is that life has limited span and Genesis 6:3 ( a Hebrew text undisputed as at least 3,400 years old ) has God declaring human life on the earth to extend no further than 120 years. But Genesis also records their fathers as living well over 900 years as in Methuselah (969 years) and Noah (950 years) and then diminishing radically. A Jewish solar year was measured to 354 days. The downward trend from the 120 year limit has never basically reversed until the 20th century. This is evidence of life under the law of entropy.

“Our ability to sense reality is limited.” Billy Graham on Angelic existence.

From 2 Peter 3-

3Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

4And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

5For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

6Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

7But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Back on the suppositories again SDV? Figures!
The only thing about evolution you really know is that YOU evolved from a pile of DUNG. Now put your tail back between your legs and crawl back under your YELLOW rock

Note for the communist supporting Larry in USN WWII (Ret),

WalMart is the largest private funding for Chinese communism.

I’m sure the pro-communist economic activity of WalMart is of no greater moral or patriotic interest to you then their hostility against America’s workforce.

Bon appetit anti-American WalMart sucker!!

The Obama-Biden Democrats have other plans on how to spend your money and protect our country.

Barack Obama has called for higher income taxes, higher Social Security taxes, higher investment taxes, higher taxes on small businesses, as well as massive new domestic spending totaling over $800 billion.  In fact, even before the election has taken place, Obama has talked with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi about passing $150 billion in new spending.  And the Obama-Biden Democrats have made clear they will wave the white flag of surrender in Iraq.

The Obama-Biden Democrats’ liberal policies would be devastating to our economy and our security.

SDV you use a lot of French- Shows YOUR NOT an American! Your views are Anti-American
Sure your not ddrb’s bastard son? Or Related to Bill Ayers?
The French were and still are the biggest loud mouth COWARDS on the Planet!
Their mouths usually overrun their asses, until it came time to stand and fight then the COWARDS RAN and the American G.I. saved their worthless carcasses!

This explains why you blog on here with all the different cowardly monikers!

Your another waste of skin, hiding behind the freedoms someone with guts & balls provided for you!

SDV,

You try to make a good arguement, but, you are mixing science with Biblical verse!!  As for the Noah flood, science now theorises the the flood was limited to an area of the planet in the Mid-East and not the whole planet, therefore, it could not have affected the Great Salt Lake and Grand Canyon, as you claim!!

“What we do see is that life has limited span and Genesis 6:3 ( a Hebrew text undisputed as at least 3,400 years old ) has God declaring human life on the earth to extend no further than 120 years. But Genesis also records their fathers as living well over 900 years as in Methuselah (969 years) and Noah (950 years) and then diminishing radically.”

And, you see no confusion with that?  If life was limited to 120 years, how could those mentioned live 900+ years?

“It takes by far greater faith to believe in the cruelty of random chance than it does to believe in the God of all creation.”

Why, when we see RANDOM CHANCE happening all the time!!  You mention the word CRUELTY, which means that you thinking we got here by the creation of a ‘loving’ God, makes you feel better than evolving by the ‘cruelty’ of random chance, thus saying that, “If God created me, it was ‘good’, but if I got here by random chance, it would be ‘bad’”, either way, you are here!!  It actually takes less faith to believe in genetic changes, because you can see it happening all around you, if you take the time to look, then it takes to believe in some supernatural entity shaping the entire universe for some unknown purpose!!  Then, to kick in some anti-entity, in constant battle for the souls of mankind, for some other unknown purpoe, with an end result being explained in Revelation, makes our lives sound like some kind of GAME, in which we are the game pieces, being used by two entities trying to win the game, with little respect for US, the game pieces!!

You only think it is harder to have faith in evolution, because you choose to have the kind of faith that YOU believe is the easier of the two, a faith in the unknown and unprovable!!  Probably because it is easier to be a ‘believer’ (taking things for granted as you are told), than a ‘free thinker’ (who needs to be shown), just like it is easier to be ‘against’ things than to be ‘for’ them, because if you are ‘against’, you can NEVER be asked to prove what the opposite would have been!!

SDV,

If you are so AGAINST communism, why are you so FOR making America communistic?

As a Christhater and a fool RDS you should come up with more of your lame unstudied answers.

While I’m not a communist like either you or Larry and your WalMart/China communist funding worship and delirium songs…

It is of course the only answer you will understand, that when in kindergarten I must have shared my toys with the other children.

Congratulations RDS!! Like Larry you meet the near criminal standard definition for being a psychopath. Typical for WalMart worship types.

The Obama-Biden Democrats’ liberal policies would be devastating to our economy and our security.

Umm, in case you haven’t noticed, Larry, our economy is already devastated and our armed forces haven’t been this weak in decades! Four more years of McBush and the whole country will be a vacant lot.

RDS, you have what is known as tortured logic.

If there has been one uninterrupted trend of the past century, it has been the steady socialization of risk—especially financial risk. ~ Wall Street Journal

SDV,

“As a Christhater and a fool RDS”

I am not a Christianhater, some of my best friends are Christians, I just don’t like people who think because they believe a certain way, they are the only ones who understand things!!  YOU are the true fool, because you tend to use the Bible to put others down, which is NOT what it is all about!!

“While I’m not a communist like either you or Larry”

Where did you see Larry or myself advocate Nationalization of Healthcare, government control of business through regulation, government interferring with businesses private property or ‘spreading the wealth” ( what I call RobinHoodism, ‘take from the rich and give to the poor’)?  These are the things YOU advocate!!

“It is of course the only answer you will understand, that when in kindergarten I must have shared my toys with the other children.”

Sharing is one thing, but, you expected to get them back, not for them to KEEP them, to say “Sharing the wealth”, is the liberals way making it sound acceptable to take from one and give it to another!!

“Congratulations RDS!! Like Larry you meet the near criminal standard definition for being a psychopath.”

And, when did it become a CRIME to expect people to be ‘responsible’ for their lives?  And, when did NOT advocating distruction of a businesses reputation, become psychopathic?  Hating a BUSINESS and using the Bible to defend your position, sounds more psychopathic!!

“Typical for WalMart worship types.”

And, what is the term for a Costco worshiper?

Ken V,

“RDS, you have what is known as tortured logic.”

And, you have what is known as a ‘closed minded, one track’ logic!!

It’s over, RDS. You might as well accept it. The days of free-wheeling, greed is good, Ayn Rand/Adam Smith-On-Crack School of Economics are over! It was a bust.

You Investor class folks have socialized your risk at the expense of the Working class. There will have to be some… adjustments.

You pays your money and you takes your chances!

“The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America.” Senator Jim Bunning, (R) Kentucky

Did you know?
McCain consistently opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment, voting against the proposal in both 2004 and 2006.
http://gays4mccain.com/

SDV,

Think your side is winning?  Check this out:

In the last year, your beloved COSTCO’s stock price has FALLEN by almost $12 a share, while WAL-MART’s stock has RISEN by over $12 a share!!  And analysts just RAISED their outlook for Wal-Mart!!

Yep, the days of Wal-Mart are numbered and Costco is a rising star, RIGHT!!!!

RIGHT!!!!

Four? Four exclamation points! That may be a new RDS record.

No one is arguing with you, RDS, Wal-Mart is the number one bottomfeeder. Soon many more people will be too poor to shop anywhere else. As for the people too poor to shop at Wal-Mart? Let them eat cake!

What’s good for Wal-Mart is BAD for America!

P.S.

I hate to be a stickler, Luke, but shouldn’t it be…

FROM RECESSION and not OFF?

“There is no perceived risk in attacking Wal-Mart anymore. They have gone from being a business success story to being a cultural villain.” ~ Eric Dezenhall

Yes it should. Thank you, Ken.

The Massive Wealth Redistribution that Doesn’t Bother John McCain

By Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati, AlterNet. Posted November 1, 2008.

Upward wealth redistribution has taken billions of dollars out of the pockets of average Americans. Thank you, John McCain, for shoving the issue of “redistributing wealth” back into political primetime. Just two problems. You’re only a quarter-century or so late—and you have everything backwards.

Senator McCain, you’re attacking Senator Obama for trying to “redistribute” our nation’s wealth with his plan to raise taxes on America’s rich. But America’s wealth is already being redistributed. Over recent decades, in fact, we’ve seen here in the United States the most massive redistribution of wealth in world history—and you haven’t said a word to complain.

This redistribution has been taking dollars out of the pockets of average Americans and stuffing them into the pockets of the power-suits and wheeler-dealers who sit in America’s corporate executive suites and play money games on Wall Street.

Just how massive has this redistribution—up the income ladder—actually been?

In 2006, the most recent year with IRS figures available, 90 percent of American families took home less than $104,000. Families in this bottom 90 percent made, on average, $30,659. That’s 2 percent less than the bottom 90 percent of American families averaged, after adjusting for inflation, back in 1973.

Meanwhile, since 1973, the wallets of Americans at the top of the income ladder have been swelling monumentally. The top 1 percent in our country, analyses of IRS data by University of California economist Emmanuel Saez indicate, have seen their incomes more than TRIPLE. The incomes of the top tenth of 1 percent—taxpayers who averaged $6.3 million in income in 2006—have more than QUINtupled.

Let’s look at this whopping redistribution from another angle. Let’s assume that NONE of this redistribution had ever taken place. Let’s assume that we had the SAME exact distribution of income in the United States today as we had back in 1973.
[cont.]

IF that were the case, WHERE would average Americans be? The simple answer: MUCH better off than they currently are.

IF the redistribution upwards since 1973 had not taken place, IF the average American family in the bottom 90 percent were today getting the same share of the nation’s income as the average bottom 90 percent family received in 1973, this average family would NOW be taking home in income over $10,000 more per year.

John McCain, so far as we know, has NEVER criticized this colossal redistribution of wealth we have as a nation been experiencing. That may be because this redistribution—to the rich—really STARTED revving up when his hero, Ronald Reagan, became President in 1981.

The rich were paying taxes on their income over $400,000 at a 70 percent rate when Reagan entered the White House. Right now, on that income, they pay taxes at NO MORE than 35 percent.

And that’s BEFORE loopholes. After exploiting loopholes, our richest pay taxes at about HALF that rate. In 2005, for instance, the top 400 income-earners in the United States took home an average $214 million. They paid ONLY 18.5 percent of that in federal income tax.

Barack Obama wants to hike the top tax rate on income in the highest tax bracket up to 39.6 percent. For proposing this MODEST increase, he’s now getting blasted by the McCain campaign as someone will be “taking your money and giving it to someone else.” Obama, McCain charges, wants to “penalize success.”

Penalize success? Don’t America’s workers CONTRIBUTE to the success of the American economy? Just since 2000 alone, the productivity of workers in the United States has increased a hefty 18 percent, notes the Economic Policy Institute. Yet INCOMES for working Americans AREN’T now even KEEPING UP with inflation.

That’s the real penalty for success in the U.S. economy today. But if you’re sitting way at the top of America’s economic ladder looking down, this penalty can be awfully hard to see. John McCain, sad to say, just doesn’t see it~~~

Notice to All Employees

As of November 5, 2008, if President Obama is officially elected into office, our company will instill a few new policies which are in keeping with his new, inspiring issues of change and fairness:

1.  All salespeople will be pooling their sales and bonuses into a common pool that will be divided equally between all of you.  This will serve to give those of you who are underachieving a “fair shake.”

2.  All low level workers will be pooling their wages, includi ng overtime, into a common pool, dividing it equally amongst yourselves.  This will help those who are “too busy for overtime” to reap the rewards from those who have more spare time and can work extra hours.

3.  All top management will now be referred to as “the government.” We will not participate in this “pooling” experience because the law doesn’t apply to us.

4.  The “government” will give eloquent speeches to all employees every week, encouraging it’s workers to continue to work hard “for the good of all.”

5.  The employees will be thrilled with these new policies because it’s “good to spread the wealth.” Those of you who have underachieved will finally get an opportunity; those of you who have worked hard and had success will feel more “patriotic.”

6.  The last few people who were hired should clean out their desks.  Don’t feel bad, though, because President Obama will give you free healthcare, free handouts, free oil for heating your home, free foodstamps, and he’ll let you stay in your home for as long as you want even if you can’t pay your mortgage.  If you appeal directly to our Democratic Congress, you might even get a free flatscreen TV and a coupon for free haircuts (shouldn’t all Americans be entitled to nice looking hair?) !!!

If for any reason you are not happy with the new policies, you may want to rethink your vote on November 4th.

Obama-Farrakhan Ties Are Close, Ex-Farrakhan Aide Says

Saturday, November 1, 2008

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman

A former top deputy to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan tells Newsmax that Barack Obama’s ties to the black nationalist movement in Chicago run deep, and that for many years the two men have had “an open line between them” to discuss policy and strategy, either directly or through intermediaries.

“Remember that for years, if you were a politician in Chicago, you had to have some type of relationship with Louis Farrakhan. You had to. If you didn’t, you would be ostracized out of black Chicago,” said Dr. Vibert White Jr., who spent most of his adult life as a member and ultimately top officer of the Nation of Islam.

White broke with the group in 1995 and is now a professor of African-American history at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

White said Obama was “part of the Chicago scene” where Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and radicals would go to each other’s events and support each other’s causes.

“Even though Chicago is the third-largest city in the country, within the black community, the political and militant nationalist community is very small. So it wouldn’t be uncommon for [Obama and Farrakhan] to show up at events together, or at least be there and communicate with each other,” White told Newsmax.

The Anti-Defamation League has denounced Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam as a “hate group.”

Farrakhan has called Jews “bloodsuckers,” “satanic” and accused them of running the slave trade. He has labeled gays as “degenerates.” In a 2006 speech, the ADL again condemned Farrakhan when he said: “These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength. … It’s the wicked Jews the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It’s wicked Jews, false Jews that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic!”

Obama was careful to “denounce” Farrakhan’s comments – but not the man—during the Democratic primary season earlier this year, but only after Hillary Clinton called him out for benefiting from Farrakhan’s support.

Farrakhan endorsed Obama in a videotaped speech to his followers at Mosque Miryam in Chicago in February. “You are the instruments that God is gonna use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth,” Farrakhan said.

He told the crowd that Obama was the new “messiah.” See Video: Farrakhan Endorses Obama, Calls Him Messiah.

Once the news media and the Clinton campaign got hold of those comments from Farrakhan, demands mounted from all sides that Obama “renounce” Farrakhan.

But as he has done repeatedly throughout this campaign, Obama was careful to parse his words.

“You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments,” he said during one appearance on “Meet the Press.” “I think that they are unacceptable and reprehensible.”

Obama hastened to point out that Farrakhan had been praising him as “an African-American who seems to be bringing the country together. I obviously can’t censor him, but it is not support that I sought. And we’re not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with Minister Farrakhan.”

But Obama, once again, was less than candid.

In 1995, according to a profile of Obama that appeared in the Chicago Reader newspaper, Obama “took time off from attending campaign coffees to attend October’s Million Man March in Washington, D.C.”

At the time, Obama was running for the Illinois Senate from Chicago’s South Side, a seat he won after getting surrogates to challenge the signatures on nominating petitions for his chief rival, the incumbent Alice Palmer.

The march, which fell far short of attracting the million men it advertised, was organized by Farrakhan and by Obama’s then-pastor, the anti-white black nationalist Wright.

Obama spoke at length with the Chicago Reader upon his return from the Million Man March. “What I saw was a powerful demonstration of an impulse and need for African-American men to come together to recognize each other and affirm our rightful place in the society,” he said.

“These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a ‘lock ’em up, take no prisoners’ mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress,” Obama said

cont.

Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn’t care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing.”

“Black nationalism” is a current of thought and political action in the African-American community that has been championed by the likes of Farrakhan, Wright, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and Khalid al-Mansour. Obama discussed his attraction to black nationalism at length in his 1995 memoir “Dreams of My Father.”

Obama further parsed his words in a Feb. 25, 2008, presentation to a Jewish community meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, where he insisted that Wright “does not have a close relationship with Louis Farrakhan.”

And yet, just months earlier, Wright’s Trumpet magazine gave Farrakhan its Lifetime Achievement Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award, saying that Farrakhan “truly epitomized greatness.”

That award was the fruit of a long and deep relationship between the two men, White told Newsmax. In 1984, Wright accompanied Farrakhan on his much-criticized trip to meet Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, at a time when Gadhafi was considered an enemy of the United States.

Wright also accompanied Farrakhan and Jackson to Syria in 1986, where they successfully negotiated with Syrian strongman for the release of downed American pilot Robert O. Goodman.

Obama’s Speaking Style

In addition to the ideological affinity Obama expressed for the black nationalist movement, White believes that Obama owes much of his success as a public orator to speaking techniques that Farrakhan developed over the years, and exploited for years to great success.

“If you listen to the rhetoric and you take away Obama’s political jargon, you hear a religious tenor to it that is very much Nation of Islam-like. I don’t know if anyone has ever touched on it, but Obama’s speaking style is very Malcolm-like, very Farrakhan-like,” White said.

Any American who has listened to early radio or television interviews of Obama can hear how dramatically Obama’s speaking style has changed since he became a United States senator.

In clips dating from 2001 and even early 2004, Obama speaks haltingly and in long, rambling sentences packed with legalese and dense pseudo-academic rhetoric. But not today.

“As a former minister of the Nation of Islam, I know how they speak,” White told Newsmax. “I don’t know who was training Obama. But that style is not a ministerial style like in the Christian church. It’s a Nation of Islam style.”

White began in the late 1970s as a foot soldier in the Fruit of Islam, the military branch of Farrakhan’s Black Muslim group, then rose to become a minister of the Nation of Islam and a top deputy to Farrakhan himself.

Known initially as Brother Vibert L.X., and later as Minister V.L. Muhammad, he parted ways with Farrakhan not long after the Million Man March, after nearly 25 years within the organization.

White’s 2002 book “Inside the Nation of Islam” prompted death threats by Farrakhan loyalists, so he left Illinois and moved to Florida to teach at the University of Central Florida.

He told Newsmax that Obama’s remarkable speaking style, even his manner of standing at a podium to appear larger than life, is directly copied from Farrakhan.

“If the Nation of Islam can’t do anything else, it can train people how to speak. And nobody can outspeak a Muslim minister,” he said.

Earlier this year, a pro-Clinton blog run by former CIA officer Larry Johnson unearthed a 2004 photograph showing Michelle Obama and Farrakahn’s wife, Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, at an event hosted by Jackson’s Citizenship Education Foundation.

Newsmax queried Obama’s U.S. Senate office, his Chicago office and his campaign press office about his ties to Farrakhan, but did not receive a reply.

Ever since he appeared before the annual policy conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee in June, Obama has attempted to convince the Jewish community that he is pro-Israel.

But his longstanding ties to Farrakhan, Wright and Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi, among others, have disturbed many Jewish community leaders.

Sen. John McCain publicly chastised The Los Angeles Times on Thursday for not releasing a videotape the newspaper said it possessed of a 2003 dinner for Khalidi, where Obama reportedly accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide” against the Palestinians.

McCain Was Strong Supporter Of Group Accused Of Terrorist Activities October 31, 2008

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During the closing weeks of the election, Sen. John McCain has gone to great lengths to present his opponent, Barack Obama, as someone too willing to coddle to groups that have ties to terrorists or terrorist activity.

It is important to understand which individuals and organizations Obama has been associated with, the refrain usually goes, as it is reflective of his foreign policy as a whole.

But if that is indeed the standard by which voters are to judge the candidates, than McCain has some questions of his OWN.

During the late 1990s, the Senator SUPPORTED and reportedly HELPED ARM an organization that was accused of terrorist activities and allegedly had TIES to al Qaeda.

During the late stages of the Balkan War, the Kosovo Liberation Army [KLA]was known for committing incredible atrocities in its efforts to facilitate Kosovo’s independence from Yugoslavia. The guerrilla group often was responding to acts of violence committed against its own people. But its tactics were, nevertheless, viewed as condemnable: abductions and murders, systematic burning and looting of homes, and harassment and intimidation of Yugoslav officials.

President Clinton’s special envoy to the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, described the KLA in 1998 as, “without any questions, a terrorist group.”

And yet, John McCain, the current Republican standard-bearer, was one of the KLA’s MOST OUTSPOKEN SUPPORTERS. Back in May 1999, when it seemed as if NATO air raids would prove ineffective in stopping the violence, and calls were being made to send in ground troops, McCain suggested that the U.S. simply fund the KLA instead.

“It wouldn’t bother me if you arm the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] forces,”McCain said.

Moreover, this past February, former Rep. Joe DioGuardi, a prominent Albanian lobbyist, was quoted as saying that McCain even help get arms for KLA forces.

“Even in 1998 when we had problems with Milosevic, McCain did everything that we asked of him to the benefit of the Albanian people, including arming the KLA,” he said.
DioGuardi, a bundler for McCain, did not immediately return requests for comment.

The Senator’s support for the KLA, however, puts him near one of the far ends of his party’s mainstream during that conflict. It also represents another blemish on a foreign policy record that McCain has held up as “virtuous.” Earlier it was reported that the Arizona Republican had a served on the board of a far-right conservative organization that had supplied arms to paramilitary organizations in Latin America-McCain’s involvement in the U.S. Council for World Freedom became problematic for his candidacy because of that group’s past TIES to ANTI-Semitic figures and its efforts to circumvent U.S. law and FUND militant anti-communists.

But McCain’s support for the KLA was far less clandestine than his service on the U.S. Council for World Freedom board. But it is similarly telling of his WORLD POLICY views.

Part of it had to do with alleged ties to al Qaeda—the Washington Times reported in May 1999 that several members of the KLA were trained in terrorist camps RUN BY Osama bin Laden himself, charges that Abrahams says have never been proven. But much of the criticism had to do with the KLA’s brutal tactics. According to a 2001 report by Human Rights Watch:

The KLA was responsible for serious abuses… including abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state. Elements of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals… widespread and systematic burning and looting of homes belonging to Serbs, Roma, and other minorities and the destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries~~~~~~~~~~Sam Stein ,Huff Po

“When the government fears the people, there is liberty; when the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” -Thomas Jefferson

ddrb,

Seems that a lot of people FEAR the IRS, when will we get around to changing that FEAR?  Many people FEAR a knock at the door and someone who says, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”!! Get ready to bend over!!

Get ready to bend over!!

I knew you would come around RDS!!

http://gays4mccain.com/

On McCain’s loss,no doubt some one is singing the blues.Reminds me of the American classic,Am I Blue?

Am I blue
Am I blue
Aint these tears, in these eyes telling you
How can you ask me am I blue
Why, wouldnt you be too
If each plan
With your man[McCain]
Done fell through

There was a time
When he was the only one
But now im
The sad and lonely one...lonely

Was I gay
Untill today
Now hes gone, and what’s to do
Am I blue~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Harry akst / grant clarke