The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire: Caroline Kennedy Touts Obama in New Ad.
When a Kennedy endorses a candidate, they pull out all the stops. Caroline Kennedy penned an op-ed in the New York Times endorsing Sen. Barack Obama, and appeared with him two days later at a campaign rally in Washington D.C. Now, she’s being featured in a new ad, aptly entitled “Caroline,” touting his candidacy.
“Once we had a president who made people feel hopeful about America and brought us together to do great things,” she says in the ad as images of her father, former President John F. Kennedy are shown on the screen. “Today Barack Obama gives us that same chance.” Further aligning Obama with Kennedy, she states, “People always tell me how my father inspired them. I feel that same excitement now. Barack Obama can lift America and make us one nation again.”
The ad will air in urban markets including New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, as well as on national cable, the campaign said.
A big thanks to the readers of Free Republic’s daily cartoon thread for voting this one of their top ten favorites of 2007 (out of over thirteen thousand cartoons posted last year).
Chris Muir deservedly took first place with this Day By Day cartoon from April. The top 40 place finishers can be viewed here.
Telegraph: Republicans Winning New Citizens For 2008 Vote.
Minutes after taking the Pledge of Allegiance, new American citizens are urged to register as voters by Democratic activists who see them as natural party supporters who could hold the key to the 2008 election.
But with increasing illegal immigration threatening the economy and security of the United States, many legal immigrants anxious to uphold the laws of their adopted country are moving towards the more hard-line immigration stance of Republicans.
Even in California’s Democratic-controlled San Diego, sizeable numbers of America’s newly-minted potential voters said that illegal immigrants should be penalised rather than given an easy route to citizenship as most Democrats advocate.
“For a long time, immigration was OK,” said Sara Wright, 49, a seamstress from Mexico who arrived in the US legally in 1986.
“But now, no more. A lot of really bad people come from Mexico and commit crimes.
“People are coming in and having two, three, four babies and going on welfare. Some are making money here and spending it back in Mexico.
“That’s not right. They should go back to Mexico and get a permit…”
Previously, new citizens could be relied upon to vote Democratic by a ratio of up to 10 to one. But in San Diego this week there were indications that this could be changing.
“I’ve had several people here, Hispanic people, say ‘No, I’m a Republican’,” said Bill De Risa, a Democratic worker eagerly registering voters outside Golden Hall.
His colleague Mary Kennedy said that one woman had told her she wanted to be a Republican because of immigration policy.
“She felt the Democrats were too soft. She wanted higher fences. It’s a very polarising issue.”
(h/t: Neal’s Nuze)
“Any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal has no heart; and any man who is over 30 and not a conservative has no brains.” — Winston Churchill
….
From the Obama ‘08 website:
Las Vegas, NV- Citing Barack Obama’s long record of fighting for social and economic justice for working men and women, Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has endorsed Senator Obama for president. The Culinary Workers Union represents 60,000 members who work at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, downtown Las Vegas and in Reno.
“Barack Obama began his career as a community organizer and has been a tireless fighter for living wages, affordable health care and workers’ rights,” said D. Taylor, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226.
Thomas Sowell: Obama’s Worn-Out Economic Ideas:
Senator Barack Obama recently said, “let’s allow our unions and their organizers to lift up this country’s middle class again.”
Ironically, he said it at a time when Detroit automakers have been laying off unionized workers by the tens of thousands, while Toyota has been hiring tens of thousands of non-union American automobile workers.
Labor unions, like the government, can change prices — in this case, the price of labor — but without changing the underlying reality that prices convey.
Neither unions nor minimum wage laws change the productivity of workers. All they can do is forbid the employer from paying less than what the government or the unions want the employer to pay.
When that is more than the labor in question produces, some workers who are perfectly capable become “unemployable” only because of wages set above the level of their productivity…
Senator Obama is being hailed as the newest and freshest face on the American political scene. But he is advocating some of the oldest fallacies, just as if it was the 1960s again, or as if he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing since then.
He thinks higher teacher pay is the answer to the abysmal failures of our education system, which is already far more expensive than the education provided in countries whose students have for decades consistently outperformed ours on international tests.
Senator Obama is for making college “affordable,” as if he has never considered that government subsidies push up tuition, just as government subsidies push up agricultural prices, the price of medical care and other prices.
He is also for “alternative fuels,” without the slightest thought about the prices of those fuels or the implications of those prices. All this is the old liberal agenda from years past, old wine in new bottles, a new face with old ideas that have been tried and failed repeatedly over the past generation.
….
Michael O’Hanlon from the Wall Street Journal: Obama And Iraq.
Mr. Obama’s problem is not his initial opposition to the war. At this point, that stance strikes many voters as prescient. Even for those of us who believe the main problem in Iraq was shoddy planning by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, Mr. Obama’s position is hard to dismiss.
But there are nonetheless two problems with Mr. Obama’s Iraq views that call into doubt his ability to build a truly inclusive American political movement. First, he seems contemptuous of the motivations of those who supported the war. While showing proper respect for the heroic efforts of our troops, he displays little regard for the views of those many Americans who saw the case for war in the first place — even as he has called for a more civil and respectful political debate.
This is unfortunate. Saddam Hussein was one of the worst and most dangerous dictators of the late 20th century. The basic proposition of unseating him was hardly an unconscionable idea, even if President Bush’s approach to doing so was unilateralist, arrogant and careless. With our last image of Saddam a resigned figure heading for the gallows, it is easy to forget who this monster was…
Mr. Obama’s second Iraq problem is his insistence that, whatever happens there during 2008, he would withdraw all our main combat forces in the first 16 months of his presidency. Such a message may resonate with Americans, and particularly Democrats, right now. However, it is unlikely that centrist voters will support such a policy once they fully consider its likely implications for Iraqi — and American — national security…
Mr. Obama’s other comment Saturday, that Sunni tribes only organized against al Qaeda after Democrats won the 2006 Congressional elections, was also incorrect. The Sunni awakening began earlier, for reasons having little to do with American politics. And it is more likely to be jeopardized than buttressed by promises of hasty American withdrawal: In that event, Sunnis and Shiites will worry more about war against each other, and be less inclined to work with each other or to target extremists within their own midst.
(h/t: Red State Rascals)
Jed Babbin: Islam vs. Free Speech.
Muslims — individually and in pressure groups — are using British libel laws and Canadian “human rights” laws to limit what is said about Islam, terrorists and the people in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere who are funding groups such as al-Queda. The cases of Rachel Ehrenfeld and Mark Steyn prove the point.
Dr. Ehrenfeld is a scholar and author of the book, “Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed, and How to Stop It.” In that book, Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz — a Saudi who is former head of the Saudi National Commercial Bank — and some of his family are described as having funded terrorism directly and indirectly.
Ehrenfeld is American, her book was written and published in America and she has no business or other ties to Britain. Under American law, the Brit courts would have no jurisdiction over her. But about two-dozen copies of her book were sold there through the internet. Bin Mahfouz sued her for libel in the Brit courts where the burden of proof is the opposite of what it is in US courts: the author has to prove that what is written is true, rather than the supposedly defamed person proving it is false.
Think about that for a moment. Under the US Constitution political writing — free speech — is almost unlimited. To gain a libel judgment a politician — or someone suspected of terrorist ties — would have to prove that the story or book was false. If that person were a public figure such as Mahfouz, in order to get a libel judgment he’d not only have to prove that what was written was false, he’d also have to prove it was published maliciously.
Those American laws and standards of proof protect political speech. The First Amendment is intended to protect political speech that people find objectionable. In the landmark 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court overturned an Ohio statute which would have outlawed hate speech by the Ku Klux Klan. That’s why Mahfouz sued in Britain, not here.
Ehrenfeld refused to fight the case, saying the Brit courts have no jurisdiction over her. Mahfouz got a default judgment against her for ₤10,000 (for himself, and in equal amounts for his sons). The judgment also requires that there be no further “defamatory” statements published in England and Wales.
In a letter published in the Spectator on November 21, bin Mahfouz’s lawyers gloated over their victory against Ehrenfeld: “Rather than check her facts, defend her statements in open court, or acknowledge her mistakes, Ehrenfeld hides behind a claim to free speech. Thank goodness, the legal lights remain on in Britain to expose such harmful journalism.”
“Harmful journalism” is what tyrants and despots call free speech, especially political speech that condemns their affronts to freedom. The “legal lights” Mahfouz’s lawyers see is the bonfire they made of the Magna Carta. Thanks to Mahfouz and his ilk, the light of free speech is extinguished in Britain.
More
Rachel Ehrenfeld: Fighting Financial Jihad
HotAir Audio: Bryan Preston’s interview with Dr. Ehrenfeld.
Pajamas Media: Does Sharia Libel Law Now Apply In The U.S.?
NewsBusters: Libel Terrorism
Robert Spencer: Battling Censorship
