Mick’s Musings

Joe the Plumber may have called out Barry, but Charlie the Newsanchor fleshed out his socialism during a debate between Barack and Hillary where he makes it clear when it comes to taxes he’s down with OPP (Other People’s Paychecks)

GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, “I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton,” which was 28 percent. It’s now 15 percent. That’s almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.

But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.

So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness

Source: ABC News

See folks Barry isn’t about the health of our economy.  His tax plan has nothing to do with raising revenues to pay down our debt.  He’s not even trying to hide behind that tree.  He wants to be Robinhood, hopefully at least sans the tights.  He’s robbing from the rich to give to the poor.

Barack has already started to back away from his cuts using little hints like “sacrifice” and “pitching in” -

“We will all need to sacrifice, we will all need to pitch in.” –Barack Obama 8 October 2008

Bill Clinton did the same thing when he was elected.  With Obama and Liberal Democrats controlling Congress you can expect a full scale SPRINT away from his campaign promises and the true socialist will be revealed.

Redistributing wealth isn’t American, at least it didn’t used to be, however it does seem the seeds planted by the Liberal Left since the 60’s are starting to sprout.  Nothing will kill our economy faster.  Carter II anyone?

Dean Reynolds compares and contrasts the two campaigns from a Press point of view.

I would love to have someone from Obama’s campaign explain why the entire press corps, the Secret Service, and the local police idled for two hours in a Miami hotel parking lot recently because there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. It was not an isolated case.

The national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans.

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The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps. When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who’ve been following him for thousands of miles around the country. Go figure.

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All this talk about Sarah Palin not talking to reporters when in fact she’s been far more accessible to the media than Zerobama has.

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The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama’s, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.

The other day in Albuquerque, N.M., the reporters were given almost no time to file their reports after McCain spoke. It was an important, aggressive speech, lambasting Obama’s past associations. When we asked for more time to write up his remarks and prepare our reports, the campaign readily agreed to it. They understood.

Similar requests are often denied or ignored by the Obama campaign aides, apparently terrified that the candidate may have to wait 20 minutes to allow reporters to chronicle what he’s just said. It’s made all the more maddening when we are rushed to our buses only to sit and wait for 30 minutes or more because nobody seems to know when Obama is actually on the move.

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When the camera’s are off Obama is unorganized, self righteous and snide.  Ohhh his Presidency is going to be a joy.

BROKAW:Next question for Sen. Obama, it comes from the F section and is from Katie Hamm. Katie?

KATIE HAMM: Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there, or should we ignore their borders and pursue our enemies like we did in Cambodia during the Vietnam War?

OBAMA: Katie, it’s a terrific question and we have a difficult situation in Pakistan. I believe that part of the reason we have a difficult situation is because we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn’t finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda.

So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there.

Reality Check:

Osama Bin Laden escaped into Pakistan during the Tora Bora campaign in December 2001.  The Iraq build up didn’t start until late 2002 and many deployments didn’t actually start until January 2003.  There was no diversion of resources to Iraq at this time.

Not that I expect Barack Obama to be a student of military history, I think he’s told this lie so many times he actually believes it now.

Hackers block Qaeda’s 9/11 terror on tape

Hackers prevented Al Qaeda from releasing a videotape to mark the seventh anniversary of 9/11. Al Qaeda has traditionally issued a video or audiotape by either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri, the terror network’s two leaders, to mark their massive terrorist attack on the US.

As-Sahab, Al Qaeda’s media unit, had indicated earlier this week that it would post such a videotape on September 11. As-Sahab had banner images on the internet showing a silhouetted head with a question mark and the words, “Wait 11 September”.

The US-based intelligence group IntelCenter had speculated the video would be a message from Osama or Zawahiri with a recording of the last will and testament of Mohammed Atta, one of the leaders of the 9/11 attackers.

Sources close to US intelligence said, “Hackers knocked out Al Qaeda’s online means of communication, thus preventing them from posting anything to commemorate the anniversary.”
Western intelligence suspects two hackers who have targeted Islamicist sites before were responsible: Aaron Weisburd from Internet Haganah and Rusty Shackleford from the web group My Pet Jawa.

Both have been active in ongoing Internet battle between Islamicist hackers and their opponents.
Terrorism expert B Raman says, “I received word two days ago that it was possible the tape would not be released because of hackers.” He noted: “As Sahab is having problems. (Al Qaeda spokesperson) Adam Gadan, in charge of the website, has not been heard of for six months. There are reports he may have been killed in Pakistan.” He expects the tape to be issued three or four days from now. “Or they will send it to Al Jazeera.”

This is not the first time hackers have dented the plans of the world’s deadliest terror network. In 2004, a hacker group called TeAmZ USA had knocked out the websites of Abu Musal al-Zarqawi, late head of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, for showing tapes of Westerners being beheaded. The hackers left the image of a gun-toting penguin on the website.

Last year’s Al Qaeda anniversary videotape included a eulogy by Bin Laden to 9/11 attacker Waleed al Shehri and his video will — a recording made by suicide bombers before they carry out their missions. Al Qaeda failed to issue an anniversary tape in 2004 as well, leading to speculation Bin Laden had died. Last year, Washington released the anniversary tape two days before Al Qaeda did. Says Raman, “This was probably to deliberately show the US had hacked the password to Al Qaeda’s website.”

Absolutely Classic. If you don’t get the joke you’ll have to fire up Google.