NOVATOWNHALL

Imagine if a year ago, the dimwit in the Whitehouse had listened to Obama and the Democrats and had not conducted the surge? What if Petraeus had not been allowed to conduct his brand of counter-insurgency-warfare? Obama in his own words …

I am not persuaded that Twenty Thousand addition troops in Iraq is gonna solve the sectarian violence there, in fact I think it will do the reverse.

Obama said the above on January 10, 2007. So much for Obama’s vaunted ‘judgement’. Today 15 of 18 of the benchmarks regarding progress in Iraq have been met. When was the last time Congress managed to meet 3 of 18 let alone 15 of 18 benchmarks with respect to anything? Today Iraq is a far safer place; Obama would not be in Iraq shooting hoops with the troops. It would not be ‘nothing but net‘, the guy would be in a bunker expounding on how the situation was all George Bush’s fault and how he (Obama) has better judgment.

Considering how the Obama has spent ~150 days in the U.S. senate, it is easy to say that he has not made any mistakes. That is because he has also not done anything worthy of note either. It appears that Obama was wrong with respect to the surge and what is worse, he is dishonest about it. His campaign has removed all the negative text from its website regarding the surge. How about a confession of his mistakes. It was OK to ask Bush about his mistakes back in 2004. Can the press corps stop fawning long enough to ask, “Why did you get this so wrong?” Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and the press’s credibility is quickly approaching that of the Democrat led congress.

The following is an artist’s illustration what an Obama trip to Iraq would look like today if Bush had listened to the great Messiah of Chicago and his sycophants in Congress.

Now granted we cannot blame Obama completely for missing the boat on this one. He was not alone, and it appears that the poor dear has just been keeping bad company, again. Take the entire leadership of the Democrat party for instance; Pelosi and Reid are on record:

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stated that she, along with the Majority leader, Harry Reid (D-Nev.), “informed the president that they were opposed to increasing troop levels.” Both Pelosi and Reid expressed their disapproval in a letter to Bush on January 5, 2007″

Then there is Murtha, Biden and the rest of the Democrat Congressional leadership on record trying to torpedo the effort. Politics no longer ends at the waters edge in this country. That extra-national politicking is the essence of incredible pride that goes before the fall.

So now Obama, being mobbed by reporters, safe in a country that was written off by the very party he represents and the press corps that carries its water. Are the American people noticing this comical theater, or is this all a ‘willful suspension of disbelief‘?

What a dope:

In his first substantive talk about the magazine’s inflammatory cartoon depicting him and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists, Obama told CNN’s Larry King the image fueled misconceptions and insulted Muslim Americans…

“I’ve seen and heard worse,” Obama said. “[Still], in attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead.”

What he should have said is, “Heh, it’s funny, they do this all the time, right? I’m a public figure.” The best thing he can say without answering “no comment.”

By attempting to defend himself, Obama keeps the issue alive. Like I said, playing defense means he has something to defend against.

This whole issue of Barack Obama’s Muslim, anti-American, pro-terrorist alleged affiliations is blossoming.

It’s only July, folks.

I am guessing by the time September rolls around the Obama campaign will be holding out for nothing more than a single podcast debate with John McCain aired solely over an IRC channel. Barack has, as they say, some “issues.”

John McCain should be chomping at the bit to get this guy in a public forum.

The backlash at the New Yorker is typical.  The left wing’s sacred cow has been defiled and the shrieking, designed to silence and instill fear, has commenced in earnest.

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

The countless cartoons depicting George Bush as an ape are not tasteless?  Or Bush Hitler connection?  The MSM did not rise up on its collective hind legs over this tasteless humor.  But the orthodoxy surrounding the tale of the Chicago Messiah must be protected at all costs.  So in this case a stalwart ally is savaged.   That’s OK, the New Yorker will crawl out from under the bus, and soon a cartoon depicting Obama in the correct ‘lite’ will be proffered as penance.

It appears that since the fear campaign known as Political Correctness, or PC has not managed to shut down the pajamahadeen then the boys at Google decided to do it themselves as reported in the NYT ‘BITS’ section.

Did Google use its network of online services to silence critics of Barack Obama? That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.

The number of sites was seven, not several, but the gray lady has been suffering from journalistic senility the past 20 years, so I chalk it up as remarkable that the water carriers for the Democrat party reported this at all.  The claim that these sites were not targeted is laughable as this kind of thing requires human action.

Seven blogs run by Democrats who oppose Obama’s nomination for the presidency were incorrectly flagged as spam sites by Blogger, the hosting service Google has owned since 2003. Google says it was an automated response from a spam filter.

But the bloggers believe that Web surfers who support Obama took advantage of a loophole in Blogger’s system that allows readers to report spam blogs, the artificial Web sites that abound on the Internet and are used to promote other sites.

“It appears that [Blogger’s] policy can be manipulated by people determined to shut down the free exchange of ideas,” said Carissa Snedeker, whose blog, BlueLyon, was among those that were frozen.

This is classic.  The left wing, typified by the likes of  is shouting ‘censorship’ when they are called on being the windbags like Rosie O’Donnell. The interesting thing is the ongoing censoring of good news from Iraq and Afganistan.  Nothing to see, move along.

More typical of left wing censorship is on going intellectual pogrom on college campuses.  Hate speech is defined as anything that annoys or offends some left wing loon.  The banning of reading of books that have scary words is another pastime of the left wing campus thought police.

Sampson’s troubles began last year when a co-worker complained after seeing him reading a book titled “Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan.”

It appears that study of American history can be more radical than one would imagine.

Sampson, a 58-year-old white janitor and student majoring in communication studies, said he tried to explain that the book was a historical account.

I have an interest in American history,” Sampson said. “I was trying to educate myself

But Sampson says his union official likened the book to bringing pornography to work, and the school’s affirmative action officer in November told Sampson his conduct constituted racial harassment.

You used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your black co-workers,” Lillian Charleston wrote in a letter to Sampson.

I guess its OK to get hysterical over nothing when dealing with a middle age white guy, a.k.a. a redneck.   Harassment of the non-protected class is okey dokey.

If the bloggers who got targeted where Obama supporters the story would have appeared on the NYT’s front page not the BITS section.  If a member of the LBGT community where targeted for reading something, the story would be a lead on the 6 O’clock news.  Because the websites are against the DEMOCRAT presidential candidate and because this guy is some uneducated middle aged white guy (who can’t jump) the media is giving these stories short shrift.  Now, that is not censorship?

You do not have to burn down the building with the printing press or have a bonfire of books to engage in censorship.  The two acts I mentioned where brought to you by the Communists and the National Socialists. All you need to do is silence through intimidation and kangaroo courts, or have a left wing media establishment with an agenda.

Other left wing types who support censorship, like the Communist Chinese, currently still have a state run press.  Chavez, the self appointed Castro of the 21st century, also shut down the free press in his country.  I am not sure why the left feels it cannot win in an open forum.  Still, we have no real worries, its not like it really can happen here.  Ask Nancy Pelosi, she is a champion of free speech.

Barack Obama’s campaign and its roots are going absolutely batsh-t over the new cover of New Yorker magazine, which depicts Barack Obama in Muslim garb, sharing a terrorist fist jab with Michelle Obama who has an assault rifle on her shoulder; Osama bin Laden’s portrait hangs over the mantle in the Oval Office while an American flag burns in the fireplace.

The liberal magazine’s cover is roundly recognized as satire - I have not seen the accompanying story yet but presumably the art is intended to lampoon right wing-caricatures of the Obamas, and possibly poke fun at America’s bitter minority.

But satire is harmless, right? Saturday Night Live portrayed George W. Bush as a lush, and conservative humorists painted John Kerry as a Frenchman, but those caricatures were allowed to stand with little blowback from the respective campaigns. Public figures get that kind of treatment. So why the eruptions over the Obama’s as Muslim, terrorist, America-haters?

Well, let’s see: Muslim? Check. Terrorists? Check. Hate America? Check. These accusations have all been debated fiercely, but it’s easy to see why the bitter minority might get confused.

The reason the New Yorker cover is being castigated so energetically is it strikes way too close to home.

Well, according to E. J. Dionne, Jr., our favorite Black Irishman, Barry H. O’Bama, wants to revamp W’s “Faith-Based Initiative.”  Mr. O’Bama wants to call the office the ”Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.”  Funny he should choose that last word.  You see, the whole problem with W’s Faith-Based Initiative was the ol’ bait-and-switch.  Get the religious charities dependent on federal largess, then force them to hire active homosexuals, adulterers, “alternate lifestylers,” etc.  Then, when Catholic Charities refuses to go hire people who are blatant, unrepentant sinners, the leftists say, “How disgusting — they’re willing to let people go hungry rather than hire a homosexual.”

Obama is not shy about this: “Obama would keep the religious exemption from federal civil rights laws for congregations but apply them to specific programs sponsored by the congregations that accepted federal money.”  (Emphasis mine.)  And how long would that last?  Only until the charities have swollowed the bait, then the leftists will set the hook, and drop the words “specific programs sponsored by.”  The same applies now to any school accepting federal funds — that’s why VMI was forced to accept women.

One root of the problem, again showing that W is not a conservative, is also pointed out in the article: “Under Bush, [O’Bama] said, ‘you took resources from some programs and gave them to others without clear criteria for why the funds were shifted.’”  Exactly.  What makes bureaucrats in the feral government more qualified to say which charities deserve your money than you are?  Nothing.

Another root is the leftist notion, as stated by Dionne, that “support for religious groups can’t be an excuse for government (sic)backing out of its responsibilities.”  Certainly this is true, but what does he think the government’s responsibilities are?  Caring for the poor and downtrodden is our responsibility, not the feral government’s.  (State constitutions, of course, may be different.)  That is why leftists “give less than conservatives in every way imaginable, including volunteer hours and donated blood,” according to Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks:

The book’s basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.

Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone’s tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don’t provide them with enough money.

That’s socialists for you, generous to your last dime, and they know better than you where it should go.

How about this instead: a 50% tax deduction for charitable contributions.

Right now, the lower your income, the less you get to deduct.  If you are in the 10% tax bracket, and donate $100 to your church, you get $10 off your taxes.  Someone in the 33% bracket gets $33 off his taxes.  (Don’t the leftists say our tax code should be more “fair”?)

So, with a 50% deduction, not part of the standard deduction, everyone would get an equal break for charitable contributions, the feral government would essentially be matching one’s donations dollar-for-dollar, and we, not bureaucrats or congresscritters, would decide which charities to support.

Politicians really are a more sinister group.

Yowch, that’s gonna leave a mark.

Referred by Blogger of the Year.

Just in.  On a 5 to 4 vote, the Supremes have upheld that a D.C. gun ban is unconstitutional and been struck down.  As soon as there are more details, I will update this post.  Know this.  It was ruled on the narrowest or margins and we probably know who the dissenting justices were.  This is why it is imperative to vote this election.  The SCOTUS is full of old peoples and the next president will be picking a few when he isn’t picking his nose!

Pretty humorous, yet in an odd sense … so very true.

Although, as already noted here, the nose-holding might not quite be enough.

You’d also need the Jameson’s-pounding, whippet-huffing, and a ten-joint townhall to ensure you make it to the polls in November, followed by an Indiana Jones movie marathon just to keep the ol’ conscience preoccupied.

…how many  legs does a dog have?

Four.  You can call a tail a leg, but that does not make it a leg.

Barack Obama may call himself a Christian, but that does not make him one.

This article by Cal Thomas questions Obama’s belief in the core belief in Christianity:

Mr. Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Mr. Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called “false prophets.”

Be that as it may, what is perhaps more interesting to me is this:

Mr. Obama’s campaign for the conservative Christian vote, which has largely gone to the Republican presidential candidate in recent elections, has been dubbed the “Joshua Generation Project.” Joshua, Moses’ successor, led the Israelites into the Promised Land.

Joshua did more than that.  He led, at God’s command, the nearly complete destruction of everything and everyone in the Promised Land.  “They devoted the city [Jericho] to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.”  (Joshua 6:21)  “When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it.  Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai.  For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in Ai.”  (Joshua 8:24-26)

Only Gibeon was spared, because the Gibeonite messengers tricked Joshua into a treaty by telling him their city was far away.  As for the rest:

 28 That day Joshua took Makkedah. He put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.

29Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it. 30 The LORD also gave that city and its king into Israel’s hand. The city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.

 31Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Libnah to Lachish; he took up positions against it and attacked it. 32The LORD handed Lachish over to Israel, and Joshua took it on the second day. The city and everyone in it he put to the sword, just as he had done to Libnah. 33Meanwhile, Horam king of Gezer had come up to help Lachish, but Joshua defeated him and his army—until no survivors were left.

 34Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Lachish to Eglon; they took up positions against it and attacked it. 35They captured it that same day and put it to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it, just as they had done to Lachish.

 36Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron and attacked it. 37They took the city and put it to the sword, together with its king, its villages and everyone in it. They left no survivors. Just as at Eglon, they totally destroyed it and everyone in it.

 38Then Joshua and all Israel with him turned around and attacked Debir. 39They took the city, its king and its villages, and put them to the sword. Everyone in it they totally destroyed. They left no survivors. They did to Debir and its king as they had done to Libnah and its king and to Hebron.

 40 So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded. 41Joshua subdued them from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the whole region of Goshen to Gibeon. 42 All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.

(Joshua 10)

Is this what Obama wants for those who do not follow him?