New Right Thinking Web Poll

Here are the results of the last Right Thinking web poll. The question was "Is the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol an issue that will affect the campaign?"

The results are as follows:

Yes, it will hurt McCain/Palin. (4) 17%
Yes, it will help McCain/Palin. (5) 22%
No, it will not affect the campaign either way. (14) 61%

Make sure to vote in our new poll which asks about the Obama-Bill Ayers relationship. If you are not aware of the Obama-Ayers relationship, you can read about it here. It might shock you!

Liberal Economic Policy = Nobody Wins

Certainly democrats want to blame the current financial crisis on Republicans, and I suspect that there's enough blame for both parties to share. That being said, however, if we really want to find a root cause of the crisis, we need to look all the way back to the 1990s.

Yesterday, The Peter Heck Show called attention to the September 30, 1999 edition of The New York Times, which reported on a new program by Fannie Mae. The program was designed to help subprime borrowers, those whose incomes, credit ratings, and savings are not good enough to qualify for a conventional loan, to own a home.

Franklin D. Raines, who was at the time Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer, explained, "Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements, yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market." In other words, reducing down payment requirements was not enough. Fannie Mae also decided to reduce credit requirements.

It wasn't as though nobody recognized that this was risky business. Peter Wallison, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said this: "From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us. If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry."

Sounds almost prophetic, doesn't it? Actually, it was not. It was just common sense. If you give loans to people who are not qualified to get them, you are liable to lose your money. It's just not good business sense.

So why would Fannie Mae make such a poor business decision? According to the article, "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people..."

This is the liberal philosophy that everyone deserves what everyone else has, whether they deserve it or not. It's the myth that, under liberalism, everybody wins. It's the reality that, under liberalism, nobody wins, as evidenced by the results we see today of the relaxed loan requirements started it the 1990's.

I wonder if we'll soon hear Barack Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright preaching that "the Clinton administration’s economic policies are coming home to roost."

Barack Obama's Ties to a Terrorist

If the media focused on Barack Obama's relationship with William Ayers as much as it does on Sarah Palin's firing of her former public safety commissioner, the 2008 presidential election would be over.

Being a news junkie, I didn't realize until recently how few people even know who William Ayers is, and how even fewer know about his relationship to Senator Obama. I first began this realization a couple of days ago when I mentioned the Obama-Ayers relationship to my wife, only to find out that she had no idea who William Ayers is.

The next day at work, I asked a well-respected colleague, one who I know tries to keep up on current events and issues, if he knew who Ayers is. Again, he did not. A little later, another colleague, who happens to be a history teacher, began talking to me about Obama. When I mentioned the Ayers relationship, he got a confused look on his face. I then asked him if he knew who William Ayers is, and he said, "Yeah, I know who he is, but I didn't know that he had a relationship with Obama."

So for those who don't know, William Ayers is an unrepentant domestic terrorist. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a leader of a group known as the Weathermen, or the Weather Underground. This militant left-wing organization of self-described revolutionary Communists carried out more than 20 bombings between 1970 and 1975.

One bomb, intended for American soldiers attending a dance at Fort Dix, N.J., accidentally detonated prematurely, killing three of the Weather Underground's own members. Successful bombings included the 1970 bombing of the New York City Police headquarters, the bombing of the U.S. Capitol in 1971, and the bombing of the Pentagon in 1972. Ayers later wrote about the Pentagon bombing, “It turns out that we blew up a bathroom and, quite by accident, water plunged below and knocked out their computers for a time, disrupting the air war [in Vietnam] and sending me into deepening shades of delight.”

A fugitive wanted by the FBI for ten years, Ayers eventually gave himself up, only to be set free on a legal technicality. After his release, Ayers taunted authorities by announcing, "Guilty as sin, free as a bird -- what a country, America."

Ayers remains unrepentant, saying in a September 11, 2001 New York Times interview, “I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough.”

After ending his career as a domestic terrorist, but without regretting what he did, Ayers started a second career and is now a "Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago," which tells us something about our public university system.

So where is the Obama connection?

In an Obama/Clinton debate in April, George Stephanopoulos asked Obama if he could explain his relationship with William Ayers for the voters. Obama attempted to give the impression that there is no relationship with Ayers beyond just a casual acquaintance as a result of living in the same neighborhood.

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

Here's what Obama did not say about the relationship.

On April 2, 2001, William Ayers made a $200 campaign contribution to the "Friends of Barack Obama" State Senate campaign fund. OK, I'll be fair. Thousands of contributions were made to that campaign, and Mr. Obama cannot be held responsible for knowing about every one of them. However, he certainly did know about all of the following:

*Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn, another former Weather Underground member who was once on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted List, helped to launch Obama's political career by hosting a fundraiser for him in Ayers' home in 1995.

*Also in 1995, Ayers co-founded a non-profit organization for school reform in Chicago known as the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) and made Obama the first chairman of the board of the organization

*While Obama was chairman of the CAC, Ayers himself was co-chair of the CAC's operative and strategic body, the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which reviewed proposals for CAC grants and made recommendations to the board.

One of the first grants the CAC awarded went to a project called the Small Schools Workshop, headed by an early associate of Bill Ayers named Mike Klonsky. Klonsky was chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) from 1977 to 1981. After Klonsky traveled to China in 1977 the CPML was recognized by the Chinese Communist Party as its official sister party in America.

Years later, in 1991, Ayers called on Klonsky to head up the newly formed Small Schools Workshop, and when the CAC was formed in 1995, under the chairmanship of Obama and Ayers, the organization gave Klonsky's Workshop a grant of $175,000.

*Obama served on the "Leadership Council" of the Chicago Public Schools Education Fund, the successor to the CAC, alongside Ayers' father in 2001 and 2002 and with Ayers' brother from 2001 through 2004.

*Obama served on the board of another non-profit, the Woods Fund of Chicago, from 1993 to 2001; the last three of those years (1999, 2000, 2001) he served along side William Ayers.

In 2001, the last year that Obama and Ayers served together on the board, the Woods Fund grants included the following:

*$6,000 to Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, headed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright
*$75,000 to ACORN, a left wing voter registration group with a history of election fraud.
*$40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, a group co-founded by Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, a harsh critic of Israel who just happens to have held a political fundraiser for Barack Obama in 2000.

Does it sound to anybody that Barack Obama's relationship with terrorist William Ayers is nothing more than just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood"? It sounds to me like Barack Obama wants to hide his real relationship with Ayers, and I can't blame him.

As I said before, if this information were widely known, this election would be over. Unfortunately, we barely hear a mention of any of this in the mainstream media.

It's up to us to get this information to as many people as possible. We cannot allow Barack Obama to become President of the United States. I would encourage everyone who agrees with me to do everything you can to do what the mainstream media will not do: spread the truth about Barack Obama.

Charles Rangel Calls Palin "Disabled"

Congressman Charles Rangel, D-NY, who is under investigation for failing to report over $75,000 in rental income, was asked on Friday why the Democrats are so afraid of Palin. His answer: "You got to be kind to the disabled."

Later that day, he tried to cover himself by saying that what he
meant to say was that Palin "entered the campaign with a                Charles Rangel, D-NY                  disadvantage in the area of foreign policy."

Yeah, Charlie, I believe that's what you meant to say. I'm sure you meant to say that Democrats are afraid of Palin because she's at a disadvantage. That doesn't even make sense.

You said disabled; you meant disabled, and when you were called on it, this is the best spin you can come up with? Maybe you were at a disadvantage, you know, being distracted and all by the investigation into your tax evasion.

How Stupid Do Democrats Think We Are?

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat Party have long prevented any vote on offshore drilling, and as the price of energy rose to record levels, they began to feel the pressure of the American people. Not wanting to be known as the party that prevents Americans from drilling for their own oil, Pelosi has now allowed a drilling bill to be voted upon. The problem is that it's a useless bill.

The bill allows drilling only 50 miles or more off of America's shores; however, the Interior Department estimates that 88 percent of the potential 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil is less than 50 miles from shore.

Republican leaders wanted to allow drilling as close as 12 miles from shore; however, they were silenced by Democrats' refusal to allow any amendments to the bill.

The scam that Pelosi's democrats are trying to pull on the American people is an outrage. They know that President Bush will veto this useless bill. They want to be able to say that "Hey, democrats passed a drilling bill, and the republican President vetoed it."

Democrats are counting on the American people being so ignorant and gullible that we fall for this sham.

Let's make sure that doesn't happen!

Obama Supports Censorship

So you think the Democrats are the anti-censorship party of free speech? Tell that to their chosen leader Barack Obama.

It seems that Mr. Obama is upset with Chicago radio station WGN for giving airtime to David Freddoso, author of The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate.

Prior to Freddoso's scheduled appearance on WGN, the Obama campaign sent the following "Obama Action Wire" e-mail alert to supporters:

The author of the latest anti-Barack hit book is appearing on WGN Radio in the Chicagoland market tonight, and your help is urgently needed to make sure his baseless lies don't gain credibility.

David Freddoso has made a career off dishonest, extreme hate mongering, and WGN apparently thinks this card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine needs a bigger platform for his lies and smears about Barack Obama -- on the public airwaves.

So just who is this "card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine" who Obama thinks needs to be silenced? He's a 1999 graduate of the University of Notre Dame who went on to study at Columbia's Pulitzer School of Journalism. He was a reporter for "Human Events" for three years and a senior political reporter for Robert Novak's "Evans-Novak Political Report" for three years. He is a commentator for National Review Online's blog "The Corner."

Freddoso is a conservative journalist to be sure, and according to Barack Obama, that makes him an extreme hate monger who needs to be censored.

Another Reason to Vote for McCain/Palin: Lindsay Lohan Doesn’t Want You To

Still not sure who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election? Here’s an easy way to decide. Find out who the brilliant intellectual giant, 22 year old Lindsay Lohan, wants elected; then vote for the other ticket.

Lohan doesn't think that Sarah Palin has the experience to be vice-president. "I find it quite interesting that a woman who now is running to be second in command of the United States (I think she meant of the United States military), only 4 years ago had aspirations to be a television anchor, which is probably all she is qualified to be."

I wonder if Lohan finds it "quite interesting" that the man who is now running to be first in command of the United States (again, of the United States military) had only 143 days of work experience in the U.S. Senate before he decided he was ready to be President.

Lohan also criticized Palin by implying that she’s acting more like a celebrity than like a serious candidate for office. "Oh, and... Hint Hint Pali Pal - Don't pose for anymore tabloid covers, you're not a celebrity, you're running for office to represent our, your, my COUNTRY!"

Are you kidding me? A supporter of Barrack Obama criticizing another candidate for acting like a celebrity? Give me a break!

Finally, Lohan criticized Palin’s conservative views on social issues. "Is it a sin to be gay? Should it be a sin to be straight? Or to use birth control? Or to have sex before marriage? Or even to have a child out of wedlock?"

Lindsay Lohan might be surprise to learn that a lot of Americans would answer “yes” to some of those questions.

Lohan's view of Sarah Palin was summed up with this question: "Is our country so divided that the Republicans best hope is a narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe?"

So there you have it. Lindsay Lohan is supporting the Obama/Biden ticket. Just one more reason to feel good about voting McCain/Palin.

Charles Gibson Blatantly Misrepresents Palin's Words

It doesn't get much more disingenuous than this.

Charles Gibson, who was granted the first full-length interview with Sarah Palin since she was chosen by John McCain to be his vice-presidential running mate, blatantly misrepresented Palin by using one of the oldest tricks in the book: the partial quote.

In the interview, Gibson said to Palin, "You said recently in, in your old church, 'Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.'" He then asked, "Are we fighting a holy war?"

Palin began her reply by saying, "You know I don't know if that was my exact quote..."

Gibson interrupted her: "That's exact words."

Were those Palin's exact words as Gibson claimed? Yep. The problem is that it's only a partial quote, clipped out of the whole quote and taken out of context to make it appear as though Palin said something entirely different in meaning from what she actually said.

Here is the entire quote.

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right, also for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God.

Palin then went on to explain that she was expressing the essence of a quote that is widely attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that we should not pray that God is on our side, but that we are on God’s side. When you look at the entire quote, that is exactly what she was saying, and that's completely different from saying, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God."

I do not believe that Charles Gibson is a stupid man. I believe that he had to know that there is a huge difference between what Sarah Palin actually said when you look at the entire quote, and what it sounds like she said when he clips only the last part of the quote. Therefore, I can come to only one conclusion: Charles Gibson intentionally misrepresented Sarah Palin's words in a purposeful attempt to present her to the nation as some sort of a religious extremist.

And the elite media wonders why the nation no longer trusts them to be unbiased in their reporting of the news.

Biden Second-guessing Biden as VP Choice?

Barack Obama might have made a poor decision when he chose Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee. Who says so? Joe Biden says so.

Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Biden had this to say:

Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me.

This can't inspire confidence in Obama/Biden. Could this a precursor to a possible change in the Democrat ticket?

Absurdity of Leftist Argument for Abortion Exposed

There is no way that anyone can morally justify abortion if he or she believes that the being inside the mother is a human life. Once it is accepted that what we’re talking about is a human life, no amount of justification can get around the fact that abortion ends that human life. That’s why nearly every pro-abortion argument starts with the premise that the fetus, or the clump of cells, or whatever you want to call it, is not a human being; it’s not a human life.

That premise does not stand up against the scrutiny of logical argument, but that’s an argument for another time. For this post, I want to talk about an even greater absurdity: the idea that the being within the mother is a human life, yet that human life does not deserve the protection of law. That’s the absurdity that Joe Biden expressed Sunday on Meet the Press.

During the interview, Tom Brokaw asked Biden, “If Senator Obama comes to you and says, ‘When does life begin? Help me out here, Joe,’ as a Roman Catholic, what would you say to him?” In his response, Biden admitted, “I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception.”

When Brokaw started to ask a follow-up question, Biden interrupted him with this rhetorical sleight of hand:

MR. BROKAW: But if you, you believe that life begins at conception, and you've also voted for abortion rights...

SEN. BIDEN: No, what a [sic] voted against curtailing the right, criminalizing abortion.

Now it seems to me that voting “against curtailing the right” and voting “for abortion rights” are the same thing. However, for the sake of argument, let me momentarily accept Biden’s argument that there’s some difference in the two. That being said, the question is still, how can someone believe that life begins at conception, yet be against law protecting that life?

I know the answer that leftists give. It’s the answer that Biden gave Brokaw. He personally believes that the being inside the womb is a human life from conception (he said that he believes it’s a life; I assume that he would agree that it is a human life since it certainly isn’t plant or any other species of animal), and that it is wrong to kill innocent human life (he didn’t actually say that, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he believes it’s wrong to kill innocent human life); however, he says that he doesn’t have the right to impose his views on anyone else. Therefore, he opposes any law outlawing abortion.

That argument is the same as a person during the 1850s arguing that he personally believes that blacks are human beings, and that it’s wrong to own human beings as slaves. However, he doesn’t have the right to impose that belief on anyone else; therefore, he opposes any law outlawing slavery.

Before you tell me that this analogy is ridiculous because everyone knows that blacks are human beings, remember that during the days of American slavery, a common justification of slavery was that blacks were not really fully human; therefore, slavery was ok.

It’s interesting that the Republican Party was started in the early 1850's by anti-slavery activists and individuals who opposed the pro-slavery Democrat Party.

The 1856 Republican Party platform said this about slavery:

Resolved: That, with our Republican fathers, we hold it to be a self-evident truth, that all men are endowed with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons under its exclusive jurisdiction …

Resolved: That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign powers over the Territories of the United States for their government; and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism--Polygamy, and Slavery.

In other words, the Republicans of 1856 believed that, as was stated in the Declaration of Independence, all people had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; furthermore, they believed that Congress had the right and, in fact, the duty to protect those rights and to prohibit slavery.

In the same year, the Democratic Party Platform had this to say concerning slavery:

That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences...

So the Democrats of 1856 believed that Congress had no power or right to outlaw slavery, and that any attempt to do so would be interference. They believed that each state had the right to decide for itself whether or not slavery would be legal in that state. The right to liberty of black Americans was completely ignored by the Democratic Party Platform of 1856.

Now, compare the Republican and Democratic Platforms of 1856 to their platforms of 2008.

The 2008 Republican Party Platform says this about abortion:

Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

Notice that, just like the Republicans of 1856, who supported the idea that the purpose of government is to secure the basic inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness of “all persons under its exclusive jurisdiction,” and who, therefore, believed that Congress had the duty to protect the rights of black Americans, the Republicans of 2008 believe, for the same reasons, that the Constitution should protect the rights of unborn children.

Now look at this from the 2008 Democratic Party Platform:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

Just like the Democrats of 1856, who opposed any and all federal law against slavery, the Democrats of 2008 oppose any and all law against abortion. Just like the right to liberty of black Americans was completely ignored by the Democratic Party Platform of 1856, the right to life of unborn Americans is completely ignored by the Democratic Party Platform of 2008.

If you want to argue that the being within the mother’s womb is not a human life, that’s one thing. As I said before, that argument will not stand up to logical reasoning, but at least you’re trying to argue the pro-abortion case in a logical way. However, if you’re going to say that the being within the mother’s womb is, indeed, a human life, but you still don’t believe that our laws should protect that human life, well, that’s far another kind of argument. That's an argument that defies logic, is absurd, and borders on evil.

McCain Surging

It's been a good week for John McCain. All of the following polls were taken from September 5 through September 7.

RCP Average: McCain +3.0
CBS News: McCain +2
CNN: Tie
USA Today/Gallup: McCain +10
Rasmussen Tracking: McCain +1
Hotline/FD Tracking: Tie
Gallup Tracking: McCain +5

Now you know.

Ever wonder why conservatives refer to these people as "tree huggers" or "environmentalist wackos"? It's not because conservatives don't care about the environment. It's just that these people are, well, wackos. Take a look.

Wow! McCain Speech Gets Higher TV Ratings Than Obama!

How is this possible? He makes his followers faint when they hear him speak. He gives Chris Matthews a thrill going up his leg. He can slow the rise of the oceans, and he can heal the planet. He's the Obamessiah.

Yet preliminary reports from the Nielsen Media Research show that John McCain attracted more TV viewers for his acceptance speech last night than Obama did one week earlier.

Does anyone feel the winds of change in the direction of this campaign?

A Big Thank-you to the Mainstream Media

OK, I'll admit it. I was seething. I was furious at the treatment that Sarah Palin was getting in the MSM. Yes, I've seen the left-leaning bias for years. Yes, it has angered me before. But this was different. This was someone about whom conservatives could finally be excited. This was someone who shared our values. This was someone whom I decided two months ago that I hoped John McCain would choose as his VP running mate, though I didn't think he would. This was our candidate on the Republican ticket, and the MSM was doing its level best to rip her to shreds.

For five days we heard nothing but "lack of experience," "pregnant teenage daughter," "wasn't properly vetted," "small-town mayor," "should be dropped from the ticket," blah, blah, blah. I admit, I was furious.

My mistake. I should have been thrilled. The media managed to do only one thing: 37.2 million viewers for Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. 37.2 million viewers, tuning in to find out who this women was. 37.2 million viewers who found out that she's charming, and tough as nails; small-town values, and big-city sophistication; the new girl on the block, and fully prepared. 37.2 million viewers who saw what many have called the greatest acceptance speech by a vice-presidential candidate ever.

Without the MSM's relentless attempt to destroy Sarah Palin, there's no way that 37.2 million viewers would have tuned in, and that would have been a shame. They would not have known what a fantastic candidate Sarah Palin is and what a great choice John McCain made.

A big thank-you goes out to the mainstream media!

Bounce? What bounce?

For all the hype surrounding last weeks Democratic National Convention, Senator Obama doesn't seem to have gotten much of a bounce in the polls.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, conducted after both the conclusion of the Democratic convention and the announcement of McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, shows Obama/Biden leading McCain/Palin by just one point, 49% to 48%, a statistical tie.

The latest Zogby Poll, also conducted after both the conclusion of the Democratic convention and the Palin selection, shows McCain/Palin ahead of Obama/Biden 47% to 45%

The Gallup Poll, begun on Thursday, before the end of the convention and the Palin selection, and then continued for two days after those two events, has Obama up by six points over McCain, 48% to 42%.

The latest Rasmussen Reports shows Obama with a three-point lead, 47% to 44%.

I doubt if a very slight lead in three of these four polls and trailing slightly in the other one is where Barack Obama hoped to be three days after the Democrat convention.