"Political discussions, the kind that at Occidental had once seemed so intense and purposeful, came to take on the flavor of the socialist conferences that I sometimes attended at Cooper Union or the African cultural fairs that took place in Harlem or Brooklyn during the summers-a few of the many diversions that New York had to offer, like going to a foreign film or ice-skating at the Rockefeller Center."

Most damning is this extensive article at No Quarter:

"Conclusion:
Barack Obama has a long-term and sustained relationship with the Chicago DSA, an affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America, and with the Chicago New Party. He participated in multiple membership meetings and in DSA-sponsored events, repeatedly sought their endorsement. This does not answer all questions about Barack Obama’s past relationships with multiple socialist groups."

He is already acknowledged to be the U.S. Senate's most liberal senator, and that alone, considering how far left the "most liberal" would make him, practically anoints him as the Senate's Socialist. Listening to his speeches he is all about the government running EVERYTHING. He states it explicitly in his proposed programs and he also uses nice code words like "contributions" when talking about taxes and his whole health care proposal is nothing but socialized medicine. His programs, the ones he openly talks about, will cost a trillion dollars. Where do you think that cash is coming from? It sure as hell isn't coming from a "middle class tax cut". And by the way, how many damn times are you going to hear about a middle class tax cut, never get it, and continue to send these looters to Washington?

Unfortunately, an Obama victory probably will only accelerate what has already happened this year. Is there anything either Obama, McCain or the current crop of looters in Washington won't bailout, nationalize, or directly subsidize? And the damn Republicans couldn't keep their paws out of the til either.

Ron Paul...

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. 
 
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. 
 
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
 
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank. 
 
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. 
 
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?

She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. 
 
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
 
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. 
 
If the Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way. 
 
There are no insoluble government problems. 
 
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do. 
 
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power. 
 
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. 
 
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! 
 
 

He finally won an Oscar in 1986 -- on his eighth try -- for "The Color of Money,". One of the good guys.

"Gov. Sarah Palin may eventually have said "no thanks" to a federally funded Bridge to Nowhere.
But a bridge to her hometown of Wasilla, that's a different story.

A $600 million bridge and highway project to link Alaska's largest city to Palin's town of 7,000 residents is moving full speed ahead, despite concerns the bridge could worsen some commuting and threaten a population of beluga whales." [oh my God!! Not the whales! wail! wail! wail!]

You have to get to paragraph 5 before you get this:

"A Democratic council member in Anchorage will try Tuesday to spike the city's sponsorship of the project, which Palin supports with some reservations." [emphasis added].

And you finally get this at paragraphs 12 & 13:

"Palin still supports the second bridge, officially named Don Young's Way in honor of the congressman. She called for a review of the bridge's financing plans and raised concerns about its financial risks for the state. [emphasis added] Still, the planning process is marching forward.

"Governor Palin's demand for accountability and transparency around this project is exactly what she has called for across the board to ensure taxpayers' dollars are being used wisely," spokeswoman Maria Comella said."

It seems to me a very prudent person, a reformer, running for vice president even, like Palin, would call for a review of the damn thing if there were questions - exactly what she has done.

Once again, a headline written to make her look bad and the actual facts buried in the story. Standard operating procedure for The One's media minions.

Now, the link regarding an analysis of this story on Powerline is here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/09/021535.php

The Powerline article, complete with 3 maps, shows that this story is just a pack of lies designed to continue the attack on Gov. Palin, and thus hurt the McCain/Palin ticket. The idea that a major contributor to newspapers around the world would write an article this full of bullshit still boggles my mind, even after the last 20 years or so of watching the media do exactly that. Just as mind-boggling are those people who continue to believe them. And THAT is almost as mind-boggling as anybody wanting The Obamanation to happen.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party has continued to distance itself from radicalism, from libertarian principle, from a comprehensive platform of fundamental change. It has moved rightward and stateward, while Ron Paul has moved many conservatives, liberals, independents and others toward the libertarian plumbline."

Neither major party, its candidates, nor its supporters are willing to tackle this stuff. I don't get it, how this stuff doesn't resonate with voters who will tell pollsters that they do not like the direction the country is going in. The direction is towards European-style socialism and one-world United Nations-ism. But they continue to vote for business as usual, and in spite of Mrs. Palin and the Maverick going to Washington nothing's going to change. I like her, and will vote for her (plus, anything to keep the disaster that the socialist Obamanation represents), but my - and libertarians everywhere - issues are not going to get any attention or action.

While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree. This is no surprise. The libs for years have looked at the Supremes as the way to circumvent those parts of the Constitution that they don't like because they can't get a Constitutional amendment through. Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge’s sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree. Despite the fact that amendments are the process to change the doc, the other problem with ruling on a sense of fairness is: who gets to define fairness? Bill Clinton? It depends on what your definition of "is" is? Right...

In terms of how the Supreme Court currently makes decisions, just 42% think the justices rule from what is in the Constitution, which is the main criticism of the court from the right and the Ron Paul supporters.

The latest Rasmussen survey found that just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. This is probably the worse rating for Congress in history. Congress, since 2006, has been run by Pelosi and Reid, socialists and idiots. More on Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer here.

“She's a real women, she's a real feminist but she's not strident—she's like us,” said Hauswirth, a middle-aged mother who didn’t offer her age. “She’s strong, powerful and opinionated, all the things a women should be while still retaining her femininity, her womanhood.”

The whole point about Palin is that she is what feminism should have been about, not how it has been hijacked by the ultra-left, all abortion all the time, shrill, bitchy, Hillary worshipers, and the hypocrisy they represent. After all Bill put Hillary through, and all that she smiled and took, how IS she their star? She did everything opposite of what she was supposed to according to the feminist template, but she's pro-abortion, so nothing else matters. Well, they're getting a dose of the other 95% of feminists in town these days with Sarah as the new model.

Well, why not?

Palin came into the governor's office and found a mess on her desk. The oil deal struck by defeated Republican governor Frank Murkowski wasn't working. Through creative accounting by big oil and ambiguous reporting standards, the Murkowski plan just wasn't giving the State of Alaska the pay-off that was expected. So the former mayor of Wasilla (population 9,000, as the MSM always points out) demanded that the agreement be renegotiated and the terms be nailed down. They laughed when she sat down to negotiate, but in the end she had a new deal that delivered 50 percent of the oil revenues to the Alaska Permanent Fund, and enabled Palin to send a check for $1,200 to every qualified Alaskan citizen. [emphasis added]

Now one of the major companies involved was BP, a.k.a. British Petroleum, before that, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. It was Anglo-Iranian, at that time a British parastatal (70 percent owned by the British government and the Bank of England) that started the Middle East conflict in 1953. Anglo-Iranian was using creative accounting and payments to dummy corporations to pretend to the Iranian government that there was virtually no profit. They demanded that the Iranian government uphold the original contract made decades before. Prime Minister Mohammed Mossedegh threatened to nationalize Anglo-Iranian. The British responded with a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

The Americans stepped in to help. U.S. Ambassador George McGehee, an experienced former petroleum engineer, and Gen. Richard Walters, the linguistic wizard, huddled with Mossedegh in sessions in Washington and New York. They got him to agree to accept a 50-50 split, a reasonable proposal by the then international standard, similar to the contract that U.S.-owned Aramco had renegotiated with Saudi Arabia. But the British refused. Instead they plotted a coup against the Iranian government, and then prevailed upon on the incoming Eisenhower administration to implement it with the assistance of British agents on the ground. Iranian production was taken over by an international coalition that agreed to the 50-50 split. There was plenty enough blame to go around on all sides, but one of the first acts of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 was to toss out all foreign oil companies and confiscate their assets.

Today BP, the former Anglo-Iranian, is the third largest global energy corporation. It now claims to be privatized, and it is estimated that 70 percent of the shares are owned by British investors. At one time the Kuwait Investment Office held over 21 percent of the shares. It tried, and failed, to merge the two companies, but was blocked by a British government inquiry. Under Prime Minister Thatcher, the company went private and on a spending spree. BP bought up Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio), Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco) and Atlantic Richfield (Arco). BP became a major player in the U.S. petroleum industry, including Prudhoe Bay and the Alaska Pipeline. And despite its advertising campaign trying to suggest that BP means "Beyond Petroleum," the company has one of the worst environmental records in the United States with its refineries blowing up and its pipelines bursting, the result -- as testimony showed -- of parsimonious budgets for maintenance. It is a formidable corporation.

So enter the PTA community organizer from Wasilla. Without preconditions she took on a company that has a market cap of $205 billion and annual revenues of $291 billion in worldwide operations. Its budget is larger than that those of most sovereign countries, yet she won on her terms. If she can outsmart BP, the company that started the Middle East conflict, she can easily outsmart Ahmadinejad, if need be.

Then to follow up that act, she got the Alaskan Legislature to approve development of the TransCanada gas pipeline, a $40 billion deal that will go 1,715 miles from the treatment plant at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to the Alberta hub in Canada, from which it will be transferred to the United States. This project had been sitting around for 30 years on hold because the big energy companies didn't think it would be profitable, and their corrupt cronies in the legislature obediently kept it on the shelf. Crusading against corruption and negotiating across the aisle, Palin not only got it passed in record time, but opened up the bidding when the U.S. companies were reluctant to jump in. So she went ahead and awarded the contract to low-bidder TransCanada Alaska, a firm that has already built 36,000 miles of pipelines in North America. As a final fillip, the Governor signed the bill at the Alaska AFL-CIO biennial convention. While Barack Obama's solution to the energy problem is to urge us to check the air in our tires, Palin's solution is to start building a $40 billion gas pipeline, without Federal government assistance.

SO HOW DOES the experience of Sarah Palin stack up against the experience of Joe Biden? There are some people who confuse seniority in the Senate with experience. In the Senate you get to be Chairman of something or other if you sit around long enough until all those with higher seniority pass out of the picture. Merit has nothing to do with it. That's how Biden got to be chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Most people don't realize that the SFRC is one of the dustier corners of the Senate, largely populated with snoozing Rhodes Scholars, UN-firsters, and people who intuitively know how to pronounce the name of Kyrgyzstan and how to use it in a sentence. Occasionally someone gets on the committee who is more interested in American relations with other countries, rather than their foreign relations with us, and that wakes up the committee. Usually, ambitious politicians go elsewhere. The committee's main business is to pass the Foreign Relations act, which authorizes money for the State Department and its overseas operations. Occasionally, a treaty wanders by. Sometimes the SFRC doesn't have the clout to get its bills to the Senate Floor, so it gets ignored while all of its functions are packaged into the appropriations bills, without new authorization.

No Senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has authority under the U.S. Constitution to conduct foreign relations or to negotiate treaties. That's why Biden has no experience in foreign relations, and Palin does. He just talks about foreign policy, and talks...and talks. Biden's long tenure on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is not necessarily a red badge of courage. He thinks he has experience, but most of his experience is wrong. We can look at a few examples of the results of his experience, and ask What Would Sara Palin Do?

If Sarah Palin were campaigning for President, she probably would not have made the centerpiece of that campaign a cockamamie plan to divide Iraq into three autonomous regions.

Sarah Palin probably would not have told General Petraeus that he was "dead flat wrong" on the surge.

Sarah Palin probably would not have voted against the first Gulf War.

Sarah Palin probably would not have opposed the United States designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.

Sarah Palin probably would not have told top Israeli officials, as reported in the Israeli press, that Israel would just have to learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

Sarah Palin probably would not have assumed that the answer to failed diplomatic negotiations with Iran was more diplomatic negotiations with Iran.

The word "probably" must be used because we can only speculate on the basis of her barracuda-like instincts.

But there is one thing of which we can be sure: If Sarah Palin had been in the Senate in 1973, she would not have been one of the five Senators opposing the Alaska Pipeline Bill.

Thanks to Atlas Shrugged.