cynics and skeptics

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

HARRISBURG — A former staffer for an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now testified today that the organization was provided a “donor list” from the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in late 2007 for fundraising efforts.

Anita Moncrief, a former Washington, D.C. staffer for Project Vote, which she described as a sister organization of ACORN, said her supervisor told her the list of campaign contributors came from the Obama campaign. Moncrief said she has a copy of a “development plan” that outlines how Obama contributors who had “maxed out” under federal contribution limits would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that it was her job to identify such contributors.

An Obama campaign spokeswoman last week had said the campaign has “no ties” to ACORN.

Moncrief, 29, who now lives in Virginia, also said that she had taken a call from an Obama campaign worker inquiring whether it was the same organization Obama had worked with in the 1990’s.

Moncrief said she had received repeated warnings to “back off” from testifying today by people she knows at ACORN.

from Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution-

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States; and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend, the Constitution of the United States.”

So even swearing him in would require him to lie.

ADN

One of the nation’s best-known retired Army generals, Colin Powell, described Sen. Ted Stevens in court today as a “trusted individual” and a man with a “sterling” reputation.

“He was someone whose word you could rely on,” said Powell, secretary of state in President Bush’s first term, who self-deprecatingly described himself as someone who retired as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then “dabbled a bit in diplomacy.”

<snip>

When asked outside of the courtroom after his testimony whether Stevens asked him personally to testify to his character, Powell said he couldn’t recall if it was the senator or one of his lawyers. But he didn’t think twice about testifying, Powell said.

“Not at all,” he said, snapping his fingers to signify it was a snap decision.

WSJ

Stevens Convicted of All Charges

When engaged in a smackdown with an Obamaniac acquaintance, at some point he/she will claim that Obama was once a “Constitutional Scholar” usually immediately before the claim of “Community Organizer” but about three minutes before “well, you are just a racist.”

Maybe he really did study the US Constitution. He sure didn’t appreciate the most remarkable document written in the modern era. Unremarkably, neither do his supporters.

Barry H. Obama, 2001

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay.

But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.

Rasmussen September, 2008

While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the (Supreme Court)justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree. 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.

Bill Whittle Today, NRO

The United States of America — five percent of the world’s population — leads the world economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally — and by a spectacular margin. Any one of these achievements, taken alone, would be cause for enormous pride. To dominate as we do in all four arenas has no historical precedent. That we have achieved so much in so many areas is due — due entirely — to the structure of our society as outlined in the Constitution of the United States.

The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population.

Mr Whittle delivers a few groin kicks in this excellent article.

That the USSR was populated with persons of African descent. Why didn’t they call vodka and Kahlua “Just Plain Russian”?

Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black

The “socialist” label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.

UPDATE: From the comments at Jules Crittenden’s blog-

streetwiseprofessor.com Says:

Silly me. I always thought it was a code word for “Jew.” I guess I need a new, updated, politically correct decoder ring.

h/t Jim Treacher