Sanford book, "Rye" sequel quashed

A couple of high profile upcoming releases have just been axed. Sentinel canceled Mark Sanford's book deal in the wake of his scandal, and last week a judge granted a preliminary injunction against an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye.

Limbaugh lauds WND Books author O'Leary

On his #1 rated radio show today, Rush Limbaugh discussed research done by Brad O'Leary, author of The Audacity of Deceit from WND Books. Limbaugh quoted from O'Leary's recent Investor's Business Daily editorial, in which he discusses the polling research that he did with Zogby on the 30% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes. In his editorial (which you can find here), O'Leary notes that this voting block has very different preferences from taxpayers:

I found that 60% of likely voters among nontaxpaying Americans favor Obama for president, whereas only 31% favor John McCain. In addition, a majority of the 30% of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes agree with Obama's $65 billion plan to institute taxpayer-funded, universal health coverage.

On the other side, a majority of the 70% of Americans who pay federal income taxes (i.e., the folks who would have to foot the bill for this boondoggle) are opposed to Obama's health care plan.

Blame game for the financial crisis

David Blake at FT indicts Alan Greenspan's Federal Reserve for creating the housing bubble. While I would disagree with Blake's assertion that the Fed did not keep interest rates artificially low in the early 00's, his fundamental conclusion is sound. Greenspan's activist Fed, in a quest to manage the macro-economy (instead of just fighting inflation), helped create two massive asset bubbles (tech and housing) that subsequently deflated and hit the U.S. economy hard over the past 8 years.

Meanwhile, Kevin Hassert, a McCain economic advisor, blames the Democrats in a Bloomberg op-ed piece. He contends that Fannie and Freddie directly created the sub-prime mortgage market, which contained risks that remained hidden as long as home prices rose. But when prices fell, the systematic risk created by the securitization of this debt walloped the entire financial industry. Hassert blames Senate Democrats for holding up reform bills during 2005-2007, and calls out Obama for receiving $125,000 in campaign contributions from various Fannie and Freddie sources.

Putting aside the partisan blame (and I don't follow Congress enough to comment on the validity of Hassert's charge), these viewpoints seem like two sides of the same coin. We know from history that markets are susceptible to occasional asset bubbles; it can be difficult to establish prices for certain types of assets, especially in the face of new technologies or changing economic conditions. But this susceptibility didn't cause the crisis. Structural flaws in the housing market, created by Fannie and Freddie's efforts to separate the risk of sub-prime lending from the lenders themselves, were the underlying problem. And the Greenspan liquidity bubble fueled this dangerous habit, so much so that these dangerous securities, which were sold as "risk free," flooded the financial markets and created the systematic danger that has engulfed Wall Street in recent weeks.

Wall Street surely deserves some blame in this mess, but from where we now stand, it appears that Greenspan, Congress, Fannie, and Freddie are the culprits who distorted the market and added fuel to the fire.

What's really scary about this financial crisis...

What to say about the unfolding crisis on Wall Street? In the past two weeks, Lehman Brothers has gone bankrupt, and Morgan Stanley is looking for a buyer. But more earth-shaking is the fact that the feds have nationalized the mortgage market (Fannie and Freddie) and the nation's largest insurer (AIG). This quote from an article in Der Spiegel entitled "The World As We Know It Is Going Down" sadly says it all:

"I fear the government has passed the point of no return," financial historian Ron Chernow told the New York Times. "We have the irony of a free-market administration doing things that the most liberal Democratic administration would never have been doing in its wildest dreams."

Murdoch predicts big win for Obama

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch expects Barack Obama to win in a landslide this November, and also gave what appeared to be a presumptive endorsement to the likely Democratic nominee. According to Yahoo Finance: "Murdoch even nonchalantly owned up to influencing the New York Post to back Obama in the New York primary."

So much for claims that Murdoch is an ideologue. Whether this is an opportunistic move on his part to cozy up to the next administration, or a reflection of his own political beliefs, it demonstrates that the mogul is not the arch-conservative many have claimed him to be. Of course, that's not exactly news. Murdoch helped Hillary Clinton fund raise during her 2006 Senate campaign, and he also backed Tony Blair's Labor Party in Britain.

In the video interview accompanying the article, Kara Swisher discusses her interview with Murdoch and puts forward the argument that he should make the WSJ's online content available for free in order to be more relevant. I recall that Murdoch hinted that he might do this before acquiring Dow Jones, but he has yet to take any action along these lines.

Americans oppose mortgage bailouts

A majority of Americans oppose federal assistance to homeowners who borrowed more than they can afford. A Rassmussen Reports survey indicated that 53% disapprove of Washington taking action, while 29% support it. Also, contrary to the liberal stereotype that conservatives favor big business, the poll suggests Republicans are more likely than Democrats (by 68% to 53%) to oppose bailing out the banks who made bad loans.

It will be interesting to see if this skepticism of federal handouts holds up should the mortgage crisis worsen. Over the past week, investment banks have averaged $32.9 billion per day in borrowing from the Federal Reserve's new emergency lending facility. No doubt Hillary and Obama will be ratcheting up their calls for command economy solutions to address the problem, but hopefully the American people will remain skeptical.

Audacity of hate: Obama and his spiritual mentor

WND reports more disturbing news about Barak Obama's spiritual mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr:

The Chicago minister ... said in a January 2006 sermon at his alma mater, Howard University, "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. … We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional killers."

Speaking at the Washington, D.C., school's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Wright said, "We started the AIDS virus. … We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty."

And apparently this is not the only instance in which Wright has blamed the United States for manufacturing the AIDS virus. This comes on the heels of yesterday's revelation that in a 2003 sermon Wright urged his congregation to say "God damn America." Wright has also drawn fire for giving a humanitarian award to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and for saying that America brought the 9-11 terror attacks upon itself.

When asked about Wright's "G-damn" sermon yesterday, Obama rebutted, "...I think it's important to judge me on what I've said in the past and what I believe." Which, of course, is true. Obama's beliefs are what matter. But Obama is a candidate who is trying to remain a tabula rasa upon which American voters should project their own hopes and aspirations; we cannot say for certain what all of his beliefs are. This begs the question: to what degree to Wright and Obama see eye to eye on this issue? Does Obama share his pastor's apparent disdain for the country he now seeks to govern?

Only God knows what is in Obama's heart, but his ties to Wright are worth considering as we attempt to learn more about this political newcomer and presidential front-runner. Rev. Wright has been Obama's pastor and spiritual mentor for two decades. He married Barack and Michelle, and baptized their daughters. Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by Wright, and Obama himself told the Chicago Tribune last year that Wright was his "sounding board." And Wright has a formal role on Obama's campaign. Politico's Ben Smith reports that Wright serves on the campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee.

Without a doubt, Wright is an influential part of Obama's life, both private and public. Even if Obama does not agree with his mentor that the U.S. is "the No. 1 killer in the world," creator of the AIDS virus, and deserving of damnation, he obviously must not consider Wright's worldview to be too offensive. How else can one explain the role he's given Wright in his life? It's not ignorance. It's incomprehensible to assert that glimmers of Wright's worldview were not visible to Obama over the past 20 years. (One doesn't choose a "sounding board" because he stays silent, and the reverend is not exactly hesitant about voicing his politics from the pulpit.) So even if he did not directly hear Wright drop "G-damns" on America, Obama surely heard him voice the beliefs that served as the basis for those condemnations. To assert otherwise, you'd have to assume that Obama is either lying about his ties to Wright, or he has no idea of the beliefs of his advisors.

So Obama must've been at least aware of Wright's extreme and hateful beliefs, yet he did not consider them problematic. And Obama's defense that Wright is like "an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with" rings hollow. If President Bush had ever mused about appointing someone like David Duke to his campaign, surely the outcry would have been rightfully deafening, and it would've been the end of Bush's political career. Or consider a real-life example from earlier this week. Geraldine Ferraro had to quit Hillary Clinton's campaign because of her assertion that Obama's ethnicity benefited him at the polls. No one has made a convincing argument that Ferraro herself is a racist, but the Obama campaign charged that the comment was. The ensuing fracas compelled Ferraro to step down.

Obama may very well conclude that he needs to have Rev. Wright follow Ferraro's lead, but such a public repudiation seemingly would just be for show, given that Obama has sought counsel in private from an extremist for 20 years.

Not that Rev. Wright's opinions sound dissimilar to Michelle Obama's. It was widely reported that last month the candidate's wife proclaimed to a Milwaukee audience that "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback." Later that day she told a Madison crowd, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country … not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change." These repeated statements prompted Peggy Noonan to ask, "Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs? Do they understand America? Are they of it? Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America? Do they confuse patriotism with nationalism, or nativism?"

The questions still stand, Senator Obama. We, the people, await your response.

Sights from CPAC

Here are some photos I took at last week's annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC.

WorldNetDaily CEO and Stop the Presses! author Joseph Farah speaking on the Fairness Doctrine.

Kathleen Willey, author of Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA).

Jerome Corsi autographs copies of his NYT bestseller The Late Great USA.

What do Hillary and the UN have in common?

Time has a new article which asks "Is It Too Late for Hillary?" Besides providing a decent recap of how Team Clinton has surprisingly squandered its front-runner status to Obama, it also contains a Freudian slip of a typo:

Clinton has shaken up a campaign team whose top rung often seemed to function like the permanent membership of the U.N. Insecurity [sic] Council, with each of its often feuding members holding veto power over any move that diverged from his or her plan.

If Obama is an ex-Muslim, will liberals vote for him?

Daniel Pipes writes that Barack Obama was raised as a Muslim and would therefore be considered an apostate under Islamic law. Pipes notes that Obama "is now what Islamic law calls a murtadd (apostate), an ex-Muslim converted to another religion who must be executed. Were he elected president of the United States, this status, clearly, would have large potential implications for his relationship with the Muslim world."

Personally, I do not care. America need not take a poll of the Muslim world when selecting her commander-in-chief. However, the liberals who bemoan the country's standing abroad and Bush's reputation as a "crusader" on the Arab street should be very interested in this point raised by Pipes. By their own logic, Obama should be disqualified because of his conversion from Islam to Christianity.

Hillary's campaign in freefall

Since Barack Obama's surprise victory in Iowa, the wheels seem to have come off of Hillary Clinton's campaign. RealClearPolitics projects Obama with an average 8% lead in New Hampshire, and Rasmussen estimates that her national lead over the Illinois senator has shrunk from 17% down to just 4%. The Drudge Report is even quoting a Clinton campaign insider as saying she may drop out of the race, explaining: "If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn't want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats."

I don't see Hillary pulling out immediately, even if she loses tomorrow's primary. The Clinton brand is synonymous with a lust for power. If you don't believe me, read Kathleen Willey's excellent book Target, which we published in November, and see to what lengths these people would go to crush someone for political gain. Read Thomas Kuiper's quote book I've Always Been a Yankees Fan, and see what kind of profile of this woman emerges from dozens and dozens of sources.

Hillary Clinton will stand down only if it becomes evident that her own party doesn't want the Clintons back in the White House. But before that happens, you better believe that the bag of dirty tricks will be opened and she will go down swinging.

Huckabee reverses course with Bush criticism

Condi Rice fired back at GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's recent jabs against Bush's foreign policy. Last weekend Huckabee made headlines with his characterization of the "Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality." In addition to criticizing tactical mistakes in Iraq (which Bush has begun to correct with the surge), the candidate asserted: "American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out."

I was surprised by Huckabee's comments primarily because the former governor contributed a chapter to an anthology that World Ahead published in 2004 titled Thank You, President Bush. His chapter was called "The Character of the President," and he seemed to endorse Bush's approach. He wrote that it was framed around "American Exceptionalism" and a "God-centered worldview" that "doesn't see everything in shades of gray." For example:

President Bush came into office in January 2001 as a firm believer in the words of British writer G.K. Chesteron, who said, "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed." Other nations find their identity in ethnicity, geography, cultural traditions or partisan ideology. The United States is an exception. It was and is the product of ideas--ideas about social responsibility, human dignity, and freedom. The French politician and historian Alexis de Tocqueville called this "American Exceptionalism." (p. 10)

President Bush also has a God-centered worldview that led him into public service late in life after a highly successful career in the private sector. He also recognizes God's ultimate authority. Since the day he took office, his critics have tried to use that against him. They claim he is a man who sees the world in black and white rather than shades of gray... I'm thankful to have a President who doesn't see everything in shades of gray. (p. 12)

Huckabee also went so far as to compare Bush favorably with Reagan:

But I believe that his adherence to a God-centered worldview is why George W. Bush will go down with Ronald Reagan as one of the most important Presidents of the past 100 years. (pp. 13-14)

Obviously public officials are allowed to change their minds, and they should when new evidence or changing circumstances demand it. A lot has happened in the world over the past 3 years, so perhaps Huckabee's recent criticisms indicate that he no longer believes that Bush's approach is the right one. But I don't perceive the Bush Administration's foreign policy as having gone more towards a bunker mentality during that time. If anything, my sense with Iran (allowing the Europeans to take the lead), North Korea (insisting on six party talks), and the Middle East (encouraging multi-party talks) is that Bush's team has become more multilateral in its approach since 2004. So it is hard to understand why Huckabee's position has changed as it has.

Kathleen Willey discusses Bill and Hillary Clinton's intimidation campaign

Our new book Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton, written by Kathleen Willey, arrives in bookstores this week. The book breaks Kathleen's prolonged silence about not only Bill Clinton's assault of her in the Oval Office, but even more importantly about the terror campaign waged by Hillary and Bill's "secret police" to scare her into silence.

Kathleen gave her first interview yesterday to "Hannity & Colmes," which they have posted on their website in two clips (part one and part two). In other coverage, Art Moore at WND investigates the alleged involvement of a PI in the Clinton intimidation team as recounted in the book, and the Daily Mail speculates about the book's possible impact on Hillary's presidential campaign. And, of course, the predictable Clintonites at Media Matters flailed away, except they really don't have anything to say (except declaring their eternal love for Hillary).


Take a couple of minutes to watch Kathleen's interview. She makes an excellent point that everyone needs to know: "This is not about what happened in the oval office, this isn't about something that happened to me twelve years ago, this is about what’s happening today. This is about what Hillary Clinton is doing to women like me so that she can attain the presidency."

Media's political bias quantified by new study

A new study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center finds that the mainstream media overwhelmingly favors Democrats. This graphic from an excellent Investor's Business Daily editorial on the subject neatly summarizes the results:


As IBD wryly notes, Harvard is "hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy," but I'm sure these findings aren't enough to convince leading Dems to abandon calls for a Fairness Doctrine 2.0.

California wildfires rage on, trigger political debate

The sky over Los Angeles is a smokey haze, and the noontime sunlight filtering through it has the orange glow of dusk. World Ahead's offices, located in LA's "South Bay" area, are far from any of the encircling fires, but the smoke from them has covered the entire basin.

As is the case with any natural disaster, it was only a matter of time before politics came into play. Harry Reid blames global warming for the fires. Newsweek lauds the Governator for "avoiding another Katrina." And "Brownie" is taking a shot at the White House for the federal response.

Meanwhile, our local NBC affiliate reports that over 1 million residents have been displaced by the 16 wildfires now burning around the Southland. Please remember to keep these people and our firefighters and National Guard troops in prayer.

Arizona Republic covers controversy over NAU

The Arizona Republic is the latest publication to pick up on the debate started by author Jerome Corsi, whose NYT bestseller The Late Great U.S.A. charges that efforts to initiate an EU-type "North American Union" are afoot. The Republic's article is one of the most comprehensive on the issue to date. It points out that former Mexican President Vicente Fox recently told Larry King that a single American currency was also a goal of the effort.

Hillary proposes 71% death tax to fund 401(k) takeover

Still riding high after her endorsement by jihadists, Hillary Clinton has decided to have the federal government get into the 401(k) business -- all it's going to take is a 71% death tax to bankroll it.

Letting the federal government take a big step towards nationalizing a private sector function that currently contains $2.7 trillion in savings is terrifying. Even more terrifying is the prospect of Uncle Sam robbing American families blind to pay for this scheme. Here's how the AP describes Hillary's new government-funded retirement account plan:

Every citizen could get a 401(k) retirement account and up to $1,000 in annual matching funds from the government... She said that for every $7 million estate that gets taxed, at least 5,000 families would receive the matching funds.

Let's do the math. First, in Washington speak, "up to $1,000" means "$1,000." Next, we plug in the parameters that Hillary is proposing. Then we can see what she means in terms of taxation:

$1,000 "matching funds" x 5,000 families = $5 million outlay = $5 million in taxes
$5 million in taxes / $7 million estate = 71.4% tax rate

That's right, a 71% tax rate upon death. Deathtax.com calculates that inheritance of a family-owned businesses can trigger a tax of up to 47%.

Forget about the cost of living going up under President Hillary. No one will be able to afford to die.

Jihadists endorse Hillary Clinton for President

Schmoozing with Terrorists author Aaron Klein reports that terrorists leaders throughout the West Bank have come out in support of Hillary Clinton's candidacy to become president. Here are a pair of the many endorsements that Klein recorded:

Nasser Abu Aziz, the West Bank deputy commander of the Al Aqsa Brigades, declared it is "very good" there are "voices like Hillary and others who are now attacking the Iraq invasion."

"All Americans must vote Democrat," stated Jihad Jaara, an exiled member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.

There's no word yet if Hillary's campaign will be accepting contributions from Al Aqsa-affiliated donors. But I'd guess that's a Hsu in.

Why liberals should love Blackwater -- but don't

House liberals seem to be targeting private contractor Blackwater as a proxy for criticizing the war in Iraq. Henry Waxman's committee majority is determined to try to smear the security firm as a bunch of "cowboys" who are out of control, and it's also attacking the State Department for using them to protect VIPs. According to the Int'l Herald Tribune:

Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of a House committee that is studying the record of the firm in Iraq, said that companies like Blackwater amounted to an inadequately controlled private military force.

"If we don't have enough troops to do the job, then we need to get more troops," Waxman said at a hearing Tuesday of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Privatizing security services was "causing us problems with the Iraqi people," he said.

Democrats have also been quick to point out that Blackwater has been involved in more combat incidents than the two other private security companies employed by the government to work in Iraq, although it also has over twice as many employees on the ground as the other two combined.

While Blackwater's employees aren't perfect, Waxman's sweeping generalizations are misguided. Contractors have always played an important role in supporting America's military. (Ever heard of Lafayette, Mr. Chairman?) Blackwater's employees in Iraq are facing the same sorts of threats aimed at our soldiers. The AP quotes CEO Erik Prince as making this strong rebuttal to Waxman:

Throughout the hearing, Prince defended his staff as courageously defending U.S. diplomats overseas. He said 30 Blackwater contractors have been killed in action and no Americans have died while in its protection.

"We're the targets of the same ruthless enemies that have killed more than 3,800 American military personnel and thousands of innocent Iraqis," he said, sitting alone at the witness table.

If liberal criticism of the war was really based on concern for our soldiers, then Democrats should rejoice that private citizens employed by Blackwater are willing to take jobs that would otherwise require more servicemen to step into harm's way. Liberals claim that the current volunteer military is unfair to racial minorities and the poor, who enlist at disproportionate rates due to lack of economic opportunities caused by capitalism and societal racism. For example, consider this 2003 statement from Rep. Charles Rangel:

The disproportionately high representation of the poor and minorities in the enlisted ranks is well documented. Minorities comprise 35 percent of the military and Blacks 20 percent, well above their proportion of the general population. They, along with poor and rural Whites do more than their fair share of service in our ground forces.

While Rangel's interpretation of military demographic data has been called into question, his claim does essentially represent liberal orthodoxy on the subject. As a professor from the Univ. of Maryland framed it, "The playing field outside the military is not level. Life structures you into certain choices, and you wind up in the military." This belief was also behind the NAACP's opposition to the Iraq war.

So given the liberal belief that society's poor and downtrodden are forced into the military, why is Waxman saying "we need to get more troops"? By their own logic, liberals should be happy that contractors like Blackwater are willing to fight alongside our brave soldiers.

Has the other Hsu dropped for Hillary?

The guys over at Suitably Flip have tracked down a lot of data detailing Norman Hsu's campaign finance contributions, and -- surprise, surprise! -- much of it winds up in Hillary Clinton's pockets. How much? According to the spreadsheet they compiled, Hillary received $850,000 of the $1.97 million in donations funneled to individual candidates. She received 10 times as much as the second luckiest recipient, Andrew Cuomo.

Of course Hillary insists she knew nothing about Hsu's activities. Is it any wonder that Kathleen Willey's manuscript was stolen, the Clinton Library won't honor FOIA requests, and Hillary was so quick to embrace Fairness Doctrine 2.0?