No Runny Eggs

In a report by the WorldNetDaily.com, a gambling expert at Focus on the Family, claims that the Obama campaign violated 37 state’s and a Federal statute prohibiting internet gambling. The concern is with Obama’s offer to provide a VIP trip to three winners chosen from people who make at least a $5 contribution to his campaign. According to Focus on the Family, the fact that a person needs to make a contribution to enter the drawing makes the drawing “gambling.” Most drawings of this type get around the “money for a prize” issue by using a “mouse typed” option that allows people to get an entry blank by sending in an entry directly or by getting an entry form by requesting one, Obama’s offer had no alternative option.

OK, in the scheme of things, this isn’t going to show on the radar screen of voter’s decisions. It is funny though that a candidate who is a lawyer, a “Constitutional Professor” and has the media agog about the mastery with which his campaign has been managed would get tripped up by such an entry level issue.

The candidate of “Hope and Change” has had a career’s worth of position changing in just the past couple of weeks: gun control, late term abortions, Iraq etc. I can only imagine that with Obama’s finance team thought flip flopping was now acceptable as a “New Politician” and they wanted to support the team by creating their own opportunity for Barack to say “Juuuuuuust kidding!”

In an interview  this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”

Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

Wow! Barack Obama is now running limping to the center even on abortion rights!

Except he’s not.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is a bill (Senate 1173 and House 1964) that Barack Obama has said he would immediately sign if he was President. At a speech to  the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Obama said:

“The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” Obama said in his July speech to abortion advocates worried about the increase of pro-life legislation at the state level.

The specific language of the bill that Obama was addressing is:

(b) Prohibition of Interference- A government may not–

(1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose–
(A) to bear a child;
(B) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or
(C) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; or

(emphasis mine)

Looking at the language and listening to Obama, it seems like he is using a reasonable interpretation of what “health” is, except his definition of “health” is not what the Supreme Court has found in prior decisions. According to: The Supreme Court on Abortion: A Survey
by Mark Tushnet, from Abortion, Medicine, and the Law, Third Edition, 1986, pp. 162

“The final stage of pregnancy under Roe v. Wade occurs after the fetus becomes viable. After viability, the state could regulate or prohibit abortions unless they were “necessary, in appropriate medical judgement”, to preserve the life or health of the woman. This standard must be read, however, in light of the Court’s decision the same day in Doe v. Bolton, that clinical judgement “may be exercised in light of all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient

(again, emphasis mine)

Obama is Co-Sponser  of the Senate version of FOCA, the bill that if unchanged and left to the Supreme Court, will likely allow partial birth abortions for a wide variety of reasons including claims of mental health impacts. Yet Obama claims mental health shouldn’t be a reason. That seems to leave me with only two conclusions about Obama’s interview comments:

1. This is another example of Obama backing off of an earlier commitment

or

2. Barack knows full well the implications of the Supreme Court’s previous decisions and his comments to a Christian magazine were nothing but deceitful pandering.

You decide.

A new poll is out showing that Ralph Nader is still polling about 6% nationally and Bob Barr is polling about 3%.

I wrote after he announced his candidacy, that I believed Nader would have an impact on the 2008 race.   Folks then and now continue to pooh pooh that thinking.   They naysayers kept saying that Nader’s vote would look more like his 2004 performance, about .4% of the total vote, rather than his 2000 total which was closer to 3%.

This latest poll gives me more reason to believe that Nader will have something that looks more like his 2000 performance, perhaps better.   The experts on the poll even now suggest that Nader will likely see his polling at about 3% as the election occurs.

I still believe that Nader could well be the spoiler in this election.

First, take a look at the first chart that I had in my original article.   Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are states where Nader’s % of the vote in 2000 were enough to change possible slim winning margins to losses.   They are also states where current polling suggests that when asked about a Obama/McCain race, McCain to be in either a winning position or within a couple of points.   It’s hard to imagine an Obama victory if each of those 3 states are lost.

Second, I believe the Nader effect may not have seen its peak yet.   Over the past couple of weeks Obama has been making attempts to move to the center.   Obama has flipflopped on gun rights and FISA throwing his furthest left supporters into tizzies.   As Obama continues to attempt moves to convince middle America that he’s “just like them,” I would expect the Left’s margins to do a little peeling and end up in Nader’s court.   I’m not suggesting that Nader will ever be a serious contender.   All he has to do pick up fractions of, or maybe 1% additional in a couple of states and that could spell the difference in what is likely to be a close electoral race.

Yea, Bob Barr is still there and some may argue that he could impact McCain in the same way that Nader impacts Obama.   I really don’t expect that to happen.   My reasoning is that McCain is pretty much McCain.   the Right (far, near or inbetween) already know where McCain stands.   McCain started left of center (at least that’s the perspective of nearly all on the Right who didn’t initially support McCain or maybe Huckabee) so I just don’t see his moves any more annoying than what folks on the Right believe him to already be.

The Nader factor will be one to watch. I can’t imagine the newest poll is helping the Obama people sleep any better at night.

You may have missed this bit of fun between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. It took place last week during a discussion regarding allowing a 10% reduction in payments to medicare physicians. If you haven’t heard it, take a quick listen.

So Harry Reid thinks the Senate should just go along with his desire because the President’s approval rating is low. In Harry’s mind, a low approval rating removes any claim the person has on the ability to think critically and develop good policy.

OK, I’ll play!

The latest poll for Harry shows that his home state approval rating is down to 41%…quite amazing when you consider he’s Senate Majority leader and has represented the state for years. One would expect that on his home turf, Harry would get some sympathy, not the case.

On the other hand, Mitch McConnell’s latest approval rating from Kentucky, put him at 57%. I’d say that’s pretty comfortable for a Senator who is part of a party on the outs.

I guess if Harry’s point is “He who has the highest rating wins,” he loses. The same would be true if we were to look at Congress’s approval rating versus the President’s or any other comparison you’d like to make.

So Harry’s on the south end of approval ratings both at home and nationally…and that was before this:

Last I looked, tourism is Nevada’s largest industry. Tourism, especially Nevada’s, is dependent upon people traveling to do the touring. Harry thinks every time someone starts a car, a plane, a train or pretty much any other mode of transportation that can move you faster than 40 MPH for more than a couple hundred miles in one shot, is just “making us sick.”

I’m guessing that even with the heat wave going through Nevada, Harry could be receiving a very cool reception at any July 4th activities.

Photoshop from Geepers of LGF via lawhawk

Jim Geraghty found an ancient bus-tossing incident in Barack Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope. Quoting from the book:

Increasingly, I found myself spending time with people of means – law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists. As a rule, they were smart,interesting people, knowledgeable about public policy, liberal in their politics, expecting nothing more than a hearing of their opinions in exchange for checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class; the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate. They believed in the free market and an educational meritocracy; they found it hard to imagine that there might be any social ill that could not be cured with a high SAT score. They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome, and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by movements of global capital. Most were adamantly prochoice and were vaguely suspicious of deep religious sentiment…

I know that as a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met, in the very particular sense that I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population – that is, the people I’d entered public life to serve.

While Jim focuses on what Obama thinks of those donors, I’ll point out that they’re using Obama and his friends to keep the numbers of those that can afford the $2,000 (now adjusted for inflation) donations to the absolute minimum. After all, some animals are more equal than others, even though the grease is the same.

The latest proof of the Jim Geraghty Maxim – Obama flip-flops on filibustering any bill that gives the telecoms retroactive immunity.

Folks, remember the words of The Indispensible One – “All Barack Obama statements come with an expiration date. All of them.” It’s just a matter of figuring out when a particular utterance curdles and sours.

Now, who do I give the hat tip to? I’ll go with Allahpundit. It’s a shame I missed out on Photoshopping the Obamination Seal, because it just got itself clubbed under the bus.

Let’s see if my feed has the non Cliff-Notes’ version of the history of the clubbing:

– William Teach jumped the gun just a bit on the 19th with a Pooh pop-gun.
– Matt Lewis broke the news Friday afternoon.
– Ace released the hounds (or more-specifically, Slublog).
– John McCormack wondered if it was illegal.
– William Teach (with not 1, not 2, not even 3, but a 4-post special), Jim Lynch, Jim Hoft, B.C. the Imperial Torturer, and Mondoreb, among others, had a lot of fun.

Just as a reminder to those Photoshop geniuses, lawhawk is still looking for a cover illustration for Bus and Driver.

In yesterday’s tete-a-tete over terrorism policy, Barack Obama was quoted:

"What they are trying to do is what they’ve done every election cycle which is to use terrorism as a club to make the American people afraid, to win elections, that’s what they’re trying to do," Obama told reporters on a flight to Washington D.C.

Barack doesn’t understand the difference between talking candidly about issues and reality and waving the spectre of a boogieman in the dark.

Pot meet thyself!
Take a look at this new Democrat ad put out by Moveon.org:

See, this is waving a boogieman in the dark. Barack and any other “thinking” individual knows exactly what McCain’s comment was on the issue of “100 years in Iraq,” yet they won’t discuss the policy candidly.

Change? Twisting words and libeling your opponent…nope, looks like the same old Chicago politics that we’ve all come to laugh at.

Reuters reports  on yesterday’s back and forth between Obama and McCain regarding the War on Terrorism.

WASHINGTON – A defiant Barack Obama said Tuesday he would take no lectures from Republicans on which candidate would keep the U.S. safer, a sharp rebuke to John McCain’s aides who said the Democrat had a naive, Sept. 10 mind-set toward terrorism.

Well yes, why listen to anyone who isn’t you? Barack doesn’t want to hear about or go to Iraq, he knows those answers. He doesn’t want to hear about drilling for oil, he knows only more taxes will solve the energy problem. Barack doesn’t want to get insight from anyone…unless you happen to be a dictator or terrorism sponsor in some country that he considers “no threat.”

"In part because of their failed strategies, we’ve got bin Laden still sending out audio tapes, so I don’t think they have much standing to suggest that they’ve learned a lot of lessons from 9/11."

Yeah, I guess failure is what you would call the ability to prevent any domestic terror attacks since 9/11. Or that the number of total terrorism victims is down worldwide. Yup, sounds pretty awful!

“Let’s take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that in previous terrorist attacks, for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated,” Obama said in the interview.

“And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world,” he said.

Ummmmm, Barack, You do know that the guys who flew the planes died that day right? You also know that the folks in Guantanamo were captured on foreign soil right? I’m hoping you know that the one person suspected of being involved with 9/11, who was caught on US soil, Zacarias Moussaoui, plead guilty and is spending the rest of his life as a guest of the Federal Prison System? You claim to be a Professor of Constitutional Law…I’m guessing even you should be able to understand (5 small brains on SCOTUS not withstanding) the difference between those situations?

Obama’s “Nay, nay, nay, nay” moment was from CBS:

"What they are trying to do is what they’ve done every election cycle which is to use terrorism as a club to make the American people afraid, to win elections, that’s what they’re trying to do," Obama told reporters on a flight to Washington D.C.

Why Barack, you almost got one right! Yes, we on the Right do intend to use terrorism as separating point in this election. However, I can’t give you full points for your answer. Americans are not afraid to win elections. They are however, afraid of giving elections to people who have a view of the world that is myopic and pollyannish to the point of putting the safety of their families at risk.

In February, Michelle Obama visited a day care center  in Zanesville, Ohio.   While there, she  encouraged Americans to eschew careers in corporate America.   Instead, she encouraged folks to go into “helping” jobs…jobs that obviously wouldn’t pay as well but that made everyone more zen like:

"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do," she tells the women. "Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond."

In essence, Michelle was telling America to give up on “doing your best,” “striving to achieve,” or working to better themselves. Michelle was telling America that settling for less than everything you wanted to be was OK and should be expected.

In May, as he was trying to gain the last few delegates to gain the nomination, Barack told an Oregon audience “to settle” and not expect that the life styles we have in America can continue:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times …

Today, Barack Obama celebrated Father’s Day by giving an address at the Apostolic Church of God. After calling on black father’s to become active in raising their children, Barack gave some additional parenting advice:

He said parents who proudly tell him their child gets great grades, all B’s, should encourage them even more.

“All B’s? Is that the highest grade?” Obama said. “It’s great that you can get a B, but you can get a better grade. It’s great that you’ve got a job, but you can get a better job.”

Let’s see, should I settle or aspire? Should I give in or do my best? Should I just “get by” or is the possibility of the “American Dream” something that we can still pursue in America?

I’m so confused!

Chuck Schumer, the senior Senator from New York, has been a vocal proponent of the windfall profits tax.   In fact, Schumer was co-sponsor of the bill that was defeated this week in the Senate.   Schumer’s rationale for the windfall profits tax was pretty straight forward:

"Oil companies are wracking up obscene profits while American families are stretched to the limit by skyrocketing gas prices," Schumer said. "It’s not asking too much to redirect a portion of these companies’ windfalls to rebuilding our roads, bridges, and tunnels that are in serious need of repair."

Schumer actually believes that some level of profit is unwarranted.

Interestingly, a year earlier, Schumer had a different perspective about obscene profits. In 2007, Schumer stood in the way of a windfall profits tax on investment fund executives who reaped enormous incomes.

From the NY Times:

But there is another way Mr. Schumer has been busy with hedge fund and private equity managers, an important part of his constituency in New York. He has been reassuring them that he will resist an effort led by members of his own party to single out the industry with a plan that would more than double the taxes on the enormous profits reaped by its executives.

Schumer’s hypocrisy is not noteworthy. What is noteworthy is the advice he was giving his Democrat colleagues when they wanted to increase the executive’s taxes:

"Unintended consequences often occur when you do major tax work. And you have to be careful," Mr. Schumer said in the interview, held in his office just off the Senate floor.

Wow, unintended consequences! Obviously Chuckie had figured out all of the consequences of a windfall profit tax on the oil companies…or maybe there was nothing that was unintended?

But wait, the best is this…Schumer had found a way to ensure that the bill would fail. He tied other industries to the tax. Industries he knew no one would possibly look to increase taxes on:

But in his conversations with Wall Street executives about the tax proposals, Mr. Schumer said, he has told them that he would oppose a tax increase as long as it did not also apply to other industries, like energy and real estate.

So let’s recap:
A year ago, it wasn’t fair to impose a windfall profit tax on one industry
A year ago, Schumer thought that energy companies were off limits for increased taxes
In the last year, Schumer has continued to fleece Wall Street execs for contributions to the Democrats

Maybe Schumer should be planning Obama’s campaign strategy. At least Schumer’s hypocritical and self serving change in position over the past year is change we can believe in!