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Applying the Obama Test to Healthcare - Jan. 27
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Does It Work? Applying the Obama Test to Healthcare

by Newt Gingrich (more by this author)
Posted 01/27/2009 ET

Does it work?

That is the test President Barack Obama set out in his inaugural address for evaluating government programs. When programs work, Obama said, we will “move forward.” But when they don’t, he promised these programs “will end.”

Last week I asked readers to put aside their natural skepticism that any government program, no matter how dysfunctional, will “end” under the Obama Administration.

And this week I’m taking a dose of my own medicine. At the National Press Club yesterday, I joined with a group of physicians and healthcare experts to take the Obama challenge and apply it to healthcare. We looked at Medicare, Medicaid, healthcare information technology and the range of healthcare programs and asked “do they work?”
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Pelosi: Fewer Babies Means Stronger Economy! - Jan. 17
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stirred up a hornet's nest by promoting the idea of spending of millions of dollars on birth control and abortion as part of the economic stimulus package.

"Contraception," argued Pelosi, "will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government." Her comments came on ABC's This Week when asked by host George Stephanopoulos how expanding "family-planning services" to the tune of millions of dollars will stimulate the economy. OneNewsNow sought reaction from Susan Fani, director of communications for the Catholic League.
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Obama's Wounded Treasury Man--NRO - Jan. 27
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Obama’s Wounded Treasury Man

As a bleeding Tim Geithner is confirmed by the Senate, prosperity-killing threats loom large.

By Larry Kudlow

Over a third of the Senate voted against Tim Geithner’s confirmation as Treasury secretary, though he did pass the test by 60 to 34 early Monday evening. That is the closest post-WWII margin for a Treasury secretary. According to Bloomberg, seven of the last 23 Treasury-secretary nominees — under which actual Senate roll-call votes were taken — were confirmed by an average vote margin of 95 to one. (The others were confirmed without an official vote count.)

Interestingly, three Democrats voted against: Tom Harkin of Iowa, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Independent Bernie Sanders also voted no. Noteworthy on the Republican side, Susan Collins of Maine voted against Geithner, accusing him of “inexcusable negligence” in his non-payment of taxes ($43,000) during his IMF days.
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Obama Gives First TV Interview to Arab Network - Jan. 27
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama gave his first formal television interview as president to an Arabic cable TV network, telling Al-Arabiya that when it comes to Middle East matters "all too often the United States starts by dictating."

Obama taped the interview with the Dubai-based network Monday as his envoy to the Middle East, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, set out for an eight-day trip to the region and elsewhere. The interview complemented the new administration's first efforts to reach out to Arab leaders in the region, who have been wary at best of U.S. efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

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A Different Middle East Awaits Mitchell - Jan. 27
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different Middle East awaits Mitchell this time

Barbara Ferguson I Arab News —

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s vow on his first day in office to “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” has already been activated.

Former Sen. George Mitchell had hardly been appointed before he was ordered to the region to ensure a “durable” and “sustainable” cease-fire in Gaza after Israel’s deadly 22-day assault earlier this month.

In his first week on the job, Washington’s newly appointed US envoy to the Middle East will head to the region, an indication of the urgency with which Obama intends to tackle the decades-old conflict.

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Bankers Braced for Regulation - Jan. 27
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DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Two years ago anyone uttering the words "state" and "regulation" in the same sentence would have been sneered at in high-powered banking circles gathered by the ski slopes of Davos.

Now, more than 18 months into the biggest financial upheaval in the last eighty years, those bank executives that still have jobs are preparing to swallow large doses of regulatory medicine to help cure a crisis they are accused of causing.
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Netanyahu Won't Rule Out Palestinian State - Jan. 27
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Bibi won't rule out Palestinian state

Jan. 27, 2009

Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST

Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and three quarters of the Likud's candidates declined to sign a loyalty oath ruling out a Palestinian state that was distributed to all the parties on the Right.

The oath, distributed by the Matot Arim organization, included a vow not to lend a hand to the formation of a Palestinian state.

The National Union, Habayit Hayehudi, Israel Beiteinu and Shas signed the document.

Shas chairman Eli Yishai signed the document on behalf of his party. Meir Porush was the only United Torah Judaism MK who made the pledge.

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Obama's EPA Move to Spur Fight - Jan. 27
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WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama opened the door to state-level regulation of greenhouse gases, kicking off the first round of what promises to be a lengthy fight between major industries and his administration over how to combat global warming. View Full Article

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Obama's Blank Screen - Jan. 27
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BLANKLEY: Obama's 'blank screen'
Tony Blankley
OP-ED:

President Obama is a beguiling but confounding figure. As he has said of himself: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” (”The Audacity of Hope.”) It is indeed audacious that he should proclaim this consciously disingenuous attribute. And, as one reads his inaugural address, it is hard not to conclude that it was shrewdly crafted to perpetuate such confusion.

Run-of-the-mill politicians try to hide their duplicity. Only the most gifted of that profession brag that they intend to confound and confuse the public. Such an effort is beyond ingenious - it is brazenly ingenuous.

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A Dangerous Step on Interrogations - Jan. 27
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EDITORIAL: A dangerous step on interrogations

Ironically, President Obama's executive order last week protecting terrorist suspects from waterboarding - the practice of making someone fearful he is about to drown in an effort to induce him to cooperate with interrogators - will spare foreign cutthroats from the very practice that the U.S. military has used on its own men thousands of times as a way of training for deployments in war zones when they might be captured and subjected to such things as waterboarding.

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White House Puts Bulls-Eye on Talk Shows--WND - Jan. 27
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White House plan puts bull's-eye on talk shows

Posted agenda issues warning about new 'obligation' review

By Bob Unruh

WorldNetDaily

The White House is promising new reviews of the "obligations" to the government by broadcasters who "occupy the nation's spectrum" just as the president has targeted conservative talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh for a public attack, raising concerns over the possible restoration of the "Fairness Doctrine," a policy that failed as unneeded and unconstitutional two decades ago.

Paul Ibrahim of NorthStarWriters.com cited Obama's warning to congressional Republicans that "you can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done" in suggesting the president has become the "driving force" because a new "systematic" plan to "intimidate and demonize Obama's opponents."
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Reviving the Economy and Ourselves--Cal Thomas - Jan. 27
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Reviving the economy and ourselves

By Cal Thomas

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | President Obama's campaign theme of ending politics as usual and creating a new bipartisanship that will get things done for the American people is about to be tested now that he has the power — or at least some of the power — to make it happen.

The president has commendably met with Republican congressional leaders during the early stages of his push for an economic "stimulus" plan, but now comes the hard part. There remain two distinct and possibly irreconcilable differences between traditional Republicans and traditional Democrats. Republicans once believed and encouraged doing for one's self and approaching government — if at all — as a last resort. Democrats see government as a first resource and people as an expanding pool of victims who are incapable of independently bettering their lives (and if they do, they are to be taxed to subsidize those who don't).

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Defending Freedom's Defenders - Jan. 27
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Defending freedom's defenders

By Caroline B. Glick

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Last week, the Israel Defense Forces issued an unprecedented directive. All Israeli media outlets must obscure the faces of soldiers and commanders who fought in Operation Cast Lead. Henceforth, the identities of all IDF soldiers and officers who participated in the operation against the Hamas terror regime in Gaza are classified information.

The IDF acted as it did in an effort to protect Israeli soldiers and officers from possible prosecutions for alleged war crimes in Europe. The army's chief concern is England.
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Decoding the Stimulus Bill - Jan. 27
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Decoding the Stimulus Bill

by Brittany Smith (more by this author)
Posted 01/27/2009 ET

Nobody -- members of Congress or citizens around the nation – knows what is in the enormous “economic stimulus” bill the Democrats are trying to ram through this week. But a new website – ReadTheStimulus.org – gives people a critical tool to help find out.
The site presents the legislation in a searchable PDF format and is updated as soon as new information is released. As of now the site provides at least 1,588 pages of the legislation. You can search the documents by topics that interest you and can comment on what you read.
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Obama's Politically-Correct Guide to War-Fighting - Jan. 27
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Obama’s Politically Correct Guide to War-Fighting

by A.W.R. Hawkins (more by this author)
Posted 01/27/2009 ET

Political correctness is a scourge upon the earth and the intellect; it is a tyrant’s best friend and one of the greatest enemies free men face. In the hands of ideologues-become-professors, it has destroyed our institutions of higher learning, and in the hands of our ideologue-become-president, it threatens to destroy our ability to win the War on Terror.

Throughout the presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised “to end torture” if elected. Then, on January 22, 2009, President Obama signed an executive order closing CIA “black sites” and requiring the CIA to abide by the rules of the Army Field Manual when interrogating captured terrorists. (“Black sites” were top-secret locations around the world where the CIA interrogated some terrorists during George W. Bush’s administration.)
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Who Devalued the American Dream? - Jan. 27
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Who Devalued the American Dream?

by Dr. Arthur Robinson (more by this author)
Posted 01/27/2009 ET

A half century ago, the United States was an industrial colossus -- a great monument to the productive potential of a free people. Moreover, with the advent of safe, abundant, and astonishingly inexpensive nuclear energy coupled with initial rapid advances in micro science and engineering, America was poised for another, even more spectacular era of advance. If this advance had been allowed to take place, Americans could have led all of the world's people into a wonderful period of progress and prosperity, orders of magnitude beyond anything the world has ever known -- and, as things stand now, may ever know.
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Stop this Man--Human Events - Jan. 27
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Stop This Man

by Ted Nugent (more by this author)
Posted 01/27/2009 ET

One sector of the American economy that is booming is the absolute orgy of guns and
ammunition sales. I am pretty certain President Obama will not say anything positive about this economic news.

I have read more than one report that shows how the surge of civilian firepower sales began back when it appeared that Obama was likely to be elected. The already-brisk guns and ammo market blew up another 25% once he was elected. Reason: freedom lovers do not trust liberal President Obama. His nomination for Attorney General, Mr. Eric Holder, proves that distrust is justified.
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The Way Back in 2010 - Jan. 27
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The Way Back in 2010

By Bill Steigerwald
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/27/2009

Not many political commentators on the nightly cable channels can boast of being proficient in Spanish, French and Greek, but Andrea Tantaros can. A regular on the Fox News Channel, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, Tantaros is a communications specialist and Republican strategist whose extensive experience includes working in the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and serving as deputy press secretary to former Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Toomey.

To find out what she thinks her fellow conservative Republicans must do to recover from their battering in November, I spoke to her by telephone on Wednesday, Jan. 21, from her office in New York City:
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Friends of Terror - Jan. 27
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Friends of Terror

By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/27/2009

Both the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) present themselves as mainstream Muslim organizations, yet in reality they are part of a radical Muslim movement which exists for the purpose of doing harm to America and Western interests abroad. Part of their success lies in getting people and organizations to endorse them and their operatives, thus providing them with a veil of legitimacy. Among their ‘validators’ are one of the most popular and influential evangelical preachers and the President himself. View Full Article

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The Religious Left's Recession Cure - Jan. 27
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The Religious Left’s Recession Cure

By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/27/2009

With their usual flair for bad timing and political haplessness, Religious Left prelates are pushing a novel solution to the economic slow-down: raise the minimum wage!

“As leaders of our faith communities, we call on the 111th Congress to raise the minimum wage and join us in bringing needed economic security to our families, our communities and our country,” a recent letter to all members of Congress intoned. “An adequate minimum wage is a bedrock moral value for our nation. Where the Congress sets the minimum wage reflects whether our society truly believes that workers are human beings with inherent dignity, inalienable rights and basic needs such as food, shelter and healthcare.”
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The High Cost of Recovery - Jan 27
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The High Cost of Recovery

By Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/27/2009

In the first sweep of his Presidential pen, President Barack H. Obama proclaimed Jan. 20 a “National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation” to hearten Americans in a “season of trial” and discord. Obama asked citizens to shoulder the “glorious burden” of U.S. democracy with service to a “common purpose,” that is, “remaking this Nation for our new century.” (And that, ironically, the same day Rev. Joseph Lowery insulted all Americans by implying that heretofore whites always embraced what is wrong.)

Renewal sounds great in theory. But Obama apparently proposes to remake the U.S. economy into the “fixer-upper” bought by two hopeful newlyweds in the popular 1986 comedy, The Money Pit. They poured their love and life's savings into the house. In the end, the structure literally crashed down around them, and their marriage nearly went with it. Obama may now be on his honeymoon with most U.S. voters, but America doesn't need this remake.

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2009: The Year to Defend Free Speech--NRO - Jan. 26
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2009: A year to defend free speech

Or lose it.

By Geert Wilders & Robert Spencer

Wednesday, January 21, was a black day for freedom, and the beginning of an all-out assault on free speech in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam Court of Appeals ordered the prosecution of Geert Wilders (one of this article’s co-authors) for his statements about Islam. To participate in public debate is now a dangerous activity. This is the Netherlands today—and it could be the entire Western world tomorrow.

The prosecution of Wilders was unexpected, though in retrospect one can see that something like it has been in the offing for a while. The year 2008 marked 60 years since the United Nations first promulgated its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet instead of celebrating this notable anniversary by reaffirming human rights, the world in 2008 saw certain fundamentally important human rights nearly disappear under intense pressure from Islamic countries that oppose freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the equality of all people before the law. Islamic efforts to create exceptional privileges for Muslims in the area of human rights have been advancing for quite some time, and they made great strides in 2008. Now, with the Amsterdam court’s judgment, we see the outcome of such efforts.

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9/11 Families Upset Over Gitmo - Jan. 26
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NEW YORK - Three families of firefighters killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, want to meet with President Barack Obama to urge him to reverse his decision to suspend the trial of five detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who admit roles in the terror attacks.

In a meeting with reporters at their attorney's office on Sunday, the families deplored what they called "delays and confusion'' in the former Bush administration's effort to prosecute suspects in the 2001 attacks, which killed about 3,000 people, saying they want "a firm commitment'' that the same process won't continue under Obama.

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A Saudi Prince's Threat to the Obama Administration--Pipes - Jan. 26
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His Royal Highness Prince Turki al-Faisal is a leading Saudi powerbroker.

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal threatens the U.S. government.

Born in 1945 in Mecca to the future King Faisal, his official biography informs us Turki studied at the Ta'if Model Elementary and Intermediate School, the Lawrenceville School, and Georgetown University. His career began in 1973 as an advisor in the Royal Court. He served as director general of the kingdom's main foreign intelligence service for nearly a quarter-century, from 1977 to 2001, leaving that office just before 9/11. Between 2002 and 2007, he represented his government as ambassador to London and Washington. In retirement, he is chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh and co-chair of the C100 Group, an affiliate of the World Economic Forum.

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The Real Reason for the Big Bailouts--WND - Jan. 26
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Real reasons for big bailouts

Exclusive: Roger Hedgecock explains why financial rescue plans will fail

Posted: January 26, 2009

By Roger Hedgecock

George Bush let Treasury Secretary Paulson talk him into believing that he had to destroy capitalism in order to save it. The plan was to borrow massively against future American generations' paychecks to solve problems caused by previous massive borrowing.

Last fall's $700 billion TARP bailout (assembled secretly in panic by Ted Geithner and others) was sold as crucial to save the economy from a cascade of bank failures and the elimination of credit. The original idea was to back up debt securities that were failing because of the real estate bust – debt securities that were largely owned by foreigners with a big chunk owned by the Chinese.

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Is the "Same Old" Really Change? - Jan. 26
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One of his first missions must be to push this country beyond grievance politics. Unfortunately, the closing of his inauguration ceremony suggested a regression more than it did forward motion.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery "prayed" (it struck me a little more like entertaining a cold, tired crowd): "Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back ... when brown can stick around ... when white will embrace what is right." It goes on from there. One heard, of course, many cries of amen. But there was also a sense of offense and disappointment: Obama, who invited Lowery, sold himself as something new, but he is nothing of the sort, is he?
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Obama's Evangelicals: The Liberals' New Useful Idiots--Townhall - Jan. 26
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In less than a week after Obama’s swearing in, our nuevo POTUS unfurled his radically liberal abortion and family plans together with his juicy pro-homosexual agenda.

Good job, all evangelicals who voted for Obama, as these aforementioned ditties—from a biblical perspective—are about as sanctified as the Antichrist French kissing a crack whore in Bret Michaels’ hot tub.

Yep, I wanna give a special shout out to all the “major” ministers who fawned and swooned over Barack and swayed their congregations to vote for him in spite of his anti-scriptural stances on life, marriage and sexuality.

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The Stimu-less Package--Wash Times - Jan 26
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The Stimu-Less Package

By Donald Lambro
Washington Times | 1/26/2009

It will take a lot longer than almost anyone thinks for the Obama administration to get the $825 billion stimulus money into the economy. Don't believe me? Read the Congressional Budget Office's recent analysis of the Democrats' plan.

President Obama has said he intends to give the economy "a jolt" by quickly injecting stimulus funds into the nation's economic arteries in the hopes of creating more than 3 million jobs. But according to the nonpartisan CBO, which crunches budget numbers for Congress, only a small fraction of the proposed $274 billion in infrastructure spending to jump-start the economy will be spent by the end of this fiscal year and the rest won't be disbursed until 2010 or later.

I've written in previous columns that the critical flaw in pump-priming spending programs is the length of time it takes to get money through the bureaucracy and into the pipelines at the state and local levels - often after the recession is over. But the outlook seems grimmer than that.

Among CBO's findings:
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America's Foreign Policy Starts with Our Guilt? - Jan. 26
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“Unwarranted Self-Abasement”

By Bruce Thornton
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/26/2009

George Bush’s vigorous defense of our national security and vocal pride in our values and goodness went a long way to getting rid of the “kick me” sign liberal America has hung on our collective back. You know, that reflex of guilt and shame about our society and history, that eager rush to apologize for our presumed sins, that willingness to blame ourselves for the world’s ills and take seriously the self-interested slanders of states whose record of dysfunction and crime outstrips ours by miles. But now here comes Barack Obama, who for all his obligatory praise of America––most of it predicated on the fact that he was elected––so far seems eager to don once again the hair shirt of American sin.

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Smiling at Socialism and Scorning the Bible
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BERIT KJOS

"[Obama] can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It's a great opportunity, it isn't just a crisis.'[1] Henry Kissinger

“Hitler’s aim was first to move the masses and then, having pried them loose from their traditional loyalties and moralities, to impose upon them (with the hypnotized consent of the majority) a new authoritarian order of his own devising."[2] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958

"Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society [Socialist International], which calls for 'global governance' and says rich countries must shrink their economies...."[3]
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