Israel responds to Hamas rockets

Israel was once again forced to lauch attacks against Hamas targets in Gaza yesterday, and the international reaction is predictable.  Calls from around the globe for Israel to stop its “aggression” are the typical response of the international anti-Semitic coalition.

The same people, nations, and groups who so loudly decry Israel’s military response are those who sat idly by as Hamas militants fired rocket after rocket, mortar after mortar into Israel.  These one-way pacifists see nothing wrong with Palestinian (or other Arabs) killing Israeli civilians, but consider every Palestinian death an outrage.

President Bush has rightly stated that Israel has the right to defend itself against attacks by the terrorist organization that runs the Gaza Strip.  Unfortunately, among world leaders only Britain and Germany have joined Bush in recognizing Hamas’ role in initiating military action.  President-elect Barack Hussein Obama has yet to comment on the current conflict, and that leaves many wondering how he will address the issue once he occupies the White House later this month.

Israel has doubts about soon-to-be President Obama’s administration, even though he emphatically stated he’ll continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself.  With former President Carter consistently spewing anti-Israeli rhetoric and former President Clinton’s willingness to trade Israeli security for “peace”, it’s no wonder.

The fact is, until militant Palestinian factions and other Arab nations accept Israel’s existence as a reality, there will be no peace.  Nor should there be.

My suggestion for Obama’s extra $30 million

Here’s the AP article describing the difficult decision facing Obama…

---

Obama campaign mulls what to do with $30M surplus
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Democrats carrying significant campaign debt after winning a string of House and Senate races are grumbling about President-elect Barack Obama’s financial reserves, saying the party’s leader is sitting on a pile of cash while Democratic leaders are broke.

Obama’s organization retains some $30 million after his successful presidential bid, but it’s unclear how the Democratic president-in-waiting might use the money. Members of his party are doing their best to appeal for the funds without appearing greedy, ungrateful or hostile to their new leader.

“If I was a top adviser to the president elect, I wouldn’t necessarily be advocating saving those dollars,” said Raymond Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “It was critically important that we not repeat what happened in ’93, ’94,” when President Bill Clinton held the purse strings and Democrats lost 54 U.S. House seats and eight senators during midterm elections.

“We need the resources to build the national grass roots network for the Obama agenda. We need to make sure the president is successful and that the administration fulfills his promises,” Buckley said.

The Democratic National Committee is carrying about $5 million in debt, with almost $12 million cash on hand. DNC officials say they expect to have the debt paid by the end of the year. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee carries some $19 million in debt and less than $3 million on hand. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is nearly $13 million in debt.

Obama raised more than $745 million during his marathon campaign, more than twice the amount obtained by his rival, Republican John McCain. In his latest finance report, Obama reported raising $104 million in more than five weeks immediately before and after Election Day.

“This is the first presidential candidate and president who has not been publicly financed in the general election,” said Ken Gross, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer. “Every other president since Jimmy Carter has not had excess funds.”

Obama opted not to participate in public funding system. In exchange, he was able to continue raising money, while McCain accepted $84 million in taxpayer money, and the spending restrictions that went with it, through the public financing system.

“The only example that comes to mind is John Kerry,” Gross said. “He finished his primary campaign with a $15 million surplus. That created some grumbling, since he lost.”

Democrats blamed Kerry’s loss, in part, on a campaign hierarchy that didn’t spend wisely or aggressively. Kerry’s own campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, called it “gross incompetence to hoard that money when the race was bound to be so close.”

Obama aides are aware of the stigma and don’t want to appear inelegant or selfish. They are weighing whether to keep the money to build a massive grass roots program to support his agenda, or to cycle that money to the party apparatus. Both ideas have strong advocates, but it’s unclear to those involved which way Obama will go.

“We aren’t in a position to announce what the next steps for our organization are today, but are continuing a dialogue with our supporters about their vision for how we move forward,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Party officials around the country say the campaign leaders have signaled they shouldn’t expect the money to come to them directly, if at all. Instead, many party officials expect Obama to use his funds to advance his own priorities, to support his massive Internet-based organization and to have cache for special causes. With almost 4 million donors, Obama’s fundraising list could prove golden for future Obama-backed drives.

“Right now, it looks like the sky is the limit,” Gross said.

Obama aides emphasize the campaign expects to continue having expenses, along with tax obligations and political operations. They also say Obama has little interest in bankrolling state committees or individual candidates. Those involved say the logical option is the Democratic National Committee, although no one is pressing for a quick transfer.

On Wednesday, Obama send a fundraising e-mail to his supporters asking them to help retire that debt by buying coffee mugs or fleece sweat shirts. Obama and Democratic aides alike say they would use similar efforts going forward, but were aware that asking too often could dilute the effectiveness of the list.

Legally, Obama can donate the extra money to charity, transfer it to another political campaign, or dole it out in $2,000 increments to local candidates, Gross said.
“That’s not too attractive, but it’s something,” Gross said.

---

My suggestion: If he wants the auto companies bailed out so bad, why not hand the $30 million over to them? He’s flush with a bundle of cash while his supporters face job losses and financial ruin. But, does he want to donate this money (that he doesn’t need) to help them out?

No! He wants you and I to donate our money to them. Think about that and ask yourself if the Democrats are really looking out for you, or for themselves.

Coincidence? Or not?

Apparently, someone doesn’t welcome blogs that might be critical of the incoming Obama administration. In this post, I explained that this blog had been immediately identified as a potential spam blog and locked after the first post was published. This action requires anyone wanting to read here to view a warning page. This is likely to dissuade anyone who just happens to stop by from continuing on.

At the time, I followed the steps and was informed my blog would be reviewed and unlocked shortly (the help pages say within 2 business days.) For the next several days I received a message when logging into Blogger that they had received my request to unblock it and the issue should soon be resolved. Then…one day the original message reappeared and all reference to my previous request was gone. I thought it was a a simple mistake and again requested an unblock. Again, for several days the message I received said they had received the request and this blog would be unlocked.

Today I’m back to receiving the original message. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence any longer. It seems apparent that criticism of our President-elect is either not welcome at Blogger or some overzealous liberal blog reader is flagging this blog when it becomes unblocked. Below is a screenshot of the message I receive to check the status of my request to unlock this blog.

You can see that I most recently requested the unblock on 11/21/2008. I’m going to post these changes from now on to document this attempt by liberals to silence those who disagree or might speak unfavorably about their chosen one.

If you know anyone who might like to read this blog, please let them know about it. If the page rank gets high enough, we might finally put a stop to it.

Say it isn’t so!

As I stated in my first post on this blog, I hope I’m wrong about Obama and his desired “changes.” However, after that first post going up last night I wake this morning to see my new blog has been identified to Google as a potential spam blog. Anyone trying to view this site must currently view a warning that it may have been created by a spam robot.

The Democratic Party constantly preaches tolerance but seems to be completely intolerant of anyone with a viewpoint that differs from their own! This attempt at censorship will fail–I’ve already sent the request that Google review it–but how screwed up is it that some supporter of our supposed Messiah is already attempting to silence, to censor, the 47% of Americans who didn’t support Obama? Isn’t it the Republicans they always accuse of violating civil rights?

It seems Obama supporters only value the 1st Amendment when it applies to their own kind!