Redstate

Posted at 4:22pm on Jun. 27, 2008 Obama's Real Record: Public Housing

Obama helps rich friends but hurts communities

By Kevin Holtsberry

Need proof that Obama's Hope and Change rhetoric is all symbolism and no substance? Look no farther than this devastating Boston Globe investigation:

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

Shockingly it all comes back to friends and money. Read on.

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Barack Obama | Obamafiles — Comments (17)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:06pm on Jun. 26, 2008 Obama's sham Christianity

By Kevin Holtsberry

Must read article at the American Spectator from George Neumayr on Obama's appeal to religious rhetoric. Like almost everything surrounding Obama's campaign it is deceptive and dishonest. It is not about real faith and real dialog but about winning:

It is often on display in his oh-so-thoughtful, post-partisan musings about the "connection between religion and politics." Sort through all the sophistries and quasi-religious uplift, however, and the only connection that emerges is strategic: How can Democrats use the language of religion to win, then solidify the gains of secularism? Religion in public life, under Obama's thinking, exists not to purify the party's extreme secularism but to advance it.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | People of Faith | secularism — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:12am on Jun. 20, 2008 Hope and Change More Like Same Old, Same Old

Cuban Americans in Florida see through Obama's Rhetoric

By Kevin Holtsberry

It will not come as news to RS readers, but Barack Obama, the supposed candidate of Hope and Change, has an awful lot of connections to the same old failed personalities and policies of the past. Jim Johnson went under the bus because his history clashed with Obama's self-righteous denunciations on the mortgage crisis. But there are a number of suspect characters still left advising the presumptive Democratic nominee. Eric Holder and Greg Craig for example.

And it seems the Cuban American community in Florida doesn't appreciate it:

Summoning a time of political upheaval in Miami, a great-uncle of Elián González plans Friday to publicly denounce two Barack Obama campaign advisors who helped send the boy back to his father in Cuba eight years ago.

One day before the expected Democratic nominee addresses a conference of mayors in Miami, Delfín González will hold a 1 p.m. news conference outside the Little Havana home where Elián lived with relatives for several months in 2000.

[. . .]

At issue are foreign-policy advisor Greg Craig, who represented Elián's father in the custody battle with the Miami relatives, and legal advisor Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice-presidential search committee who was deputy attorney general when the 6-year-old boy was seized by federal agents and returned to Cuba.

''We're going to express opposition to Barack Obama's visit to Miami, and explain how we're opposed to him having individuals on his campaign who were associated with Elián's seizure in 2000,'' González said. ``Some wounds are so deep that they do not heal over time, such as taking a child and sealing his fate to a communist dictatorship.''

Craig isn't afraid of taking on controversial cases:

He defended John Hinkley, Jr. after the latter’s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. He defended former Bolivian Defense Minister Carlos Sanchez-Berzain, a human rights violator accused of 67 deaths. He was a “personal attorney” for Kofi Annan in the UN Oil for Food scandal and he provided “special counsel” to Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial. Currently, high powered attorney Greg Craig of the DC-based Williams and Connolly law firm, is defending Pedro Miguel Gonzales, President of the Panamanian legislature, accused of murdering U.S. Army Sgt. Zak Hernandez.

And of course, Holder played a key role in the pardon of Marc Rich, among others, in addition to his work in sending Elian back to Cuba

For more read on.

Posted in 2008 — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:24pm on Jun. 19, 2008 Culture of Corruption Alert

Is the media interested in Democrats pay-to-play schemes?

By Kevin Holtsberry

Is it just me, or is the Democratic Party developing a "culture of corruption" based on nefarious "pay-to-play" schemes?

As evidence I would like to offer the developing scandal surrounding Countrywide Financial and the sweetheart loans for politicians. If you haven't been following the issue, Tim Carney adds some detail and connects the dots:

"We call it the 'Bank of America bill on steroids.'" A House staffer told me that, demanding anonymity, but speaking on behalf of aides to GOP members of the House Financial Services Committee.

He was talking about the bill whose Senate version has been brought to the floor this week by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CN, and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL. Dodd-Shelby would let mortgage lenders off the hook for bad loans, shifting the burden ultimately to taxpayers. Dodd has received approximately $70,000 in campaign contributions from Bank of America in the last year-and-a-half.

Dodd-Shelby hit the Senate floor this week amid controversy over sweetheart loan deals Dodd and other powerful politicians received from Countrywide Financial, the lender with the most exposure to subprime mortgages at risk of default.

So let me understand this: Dodd got a sweetheart deal that saved him $75k, Bank of America has given him $70k in campaign contributions in the last 18 months, all while Countrywide and Bank of American stand to benefit from a bailout and he is not only the Chairman of the relevant committee but the sponsor of a bill that is up for a vote?

For more read on.

Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | Corrupt Democrat Watch | Countrywide Financial | Sen. Chris Dodd — Comments (10)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:23am on Jun. 17, 2008 Obama promises that this time it will work

The magical power of Hope and Change

By Kevin Holtsberry

Obama continues to insist that his plans to use government to solve our energy challenges will work despite a long history of failure. Bill Clinton tried and failed but Obama won't because things are different:

The overall Obama economic approach echoes the 1992 presidential platform of Bill Clinton, who also launched his bid for the White House seeking a big expansion in infrastructure spending. But those plans were quickly shelved once he reached the White House. Congress rejected a proposal to steeply increase energy taxes, which could have been used to pay for the spending.

Clinton deficit hawks, especially then-White House economic adviser Robert Rubin, successfully argued that slashing the deficit would have a bigger impact on growth than boosting spending because markets would react favorably to a shrinking deficit. "Rubinomics" became the reigning Clinton economic strategy, and many labor leaders backing Sen. Obama worry that the 46-year-old senator ultimately will turn to Mr. Rubin, as Mr. Clinton did.

Sen. Obama waved off that concern. "I've got Bob Rubin on one hand [as an adviser] and [former Labor Secretary] Bob Reich on the other....I tend to be eclectic." Mr. Reich, has long championed infrastructure spending to boost jobs and the economy, and is a favorite of labor. He frequently and famously feuded with Mr. Rubin early in Mr. Clinton's term over the administration's ideological direction.

The chances of pushing through an infrastructure spending program are greater now than they were in 1992, Sen. Obama said, because of new concern about energy prices. Many alternative-energy projects -- clean-coal technology, wind-power generators and the like -- could be packaged as infrastructure. "The difference I would suggest is that there is a strong recognition in the public mind that we can't continue on our current energy path," he said. That means "there's a bigger opening to bring about change."

Its the magic of Change, you see. Obama is for it and so is the public. Presto! Outdated industrial policy magically works!

What's that you say? Haven't we tried this before? Yes, in fact we have. For more on that read on.

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Barack Obama | Bill Clinton | Energy Policy | Jimmy | Obamafiles — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:58am on Jun. 10, 2008 Obama's costly primary

By Kevin Holtsberry

This New York Daily News column on the high price of Hillary's losing run for the Democratic nomination received a lot of linkage and commentary yesterday. And understandably so. Many folks, myself included, are enjoying the end of the Clinton era.

Celeste Katz points out that all that Clinton money and name recognition went for naught:

Posted in 2008 Democratic Primary | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Archived | Barack Obama | Hillary Clinton — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:38pm on Jun. 9, 2008 Policy on the margins matters

Not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good

By Kevin Holtsberry

Everyday seems to bring another article on how McCain has not unified the base; how conservatives haven't warmed to his campaign. Conservative leaders and disgruntled activists alike seem intent on feeding this media story line. And I have heard many conservatives speak as if this election offers no real choice; that both candidates are liberals so a pox on them both.

Now, I don't have a problem with intelligent criticism or defending conservative ideas and policies in the public square. But much of this animus against McCain is shortsighted and counter productive. I want to stress that much of it is well intentioned. That there are a lot of honorable and intelligent people who have major issues with McCain and often for good reason.

But in a cycle where the game is tilted so far to the left, and where the GOP has been beat to a pulp in the media, now is not the time to forget that policy is often made on the margins and that center-right is better than far left.

A Wall Street Journal article on energy policy highlights this point. To see how read below.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Energy Policy | John McCain — Comments (24)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:32am on Jun. 6, 2008 Obama, Bill Clinton, and the Race Card

Was Bill Clinton right?

By Kevin Holtsberry

Now that the Democratic Primary is finally over and Hillary has admitted defeat - or at least agreed to a phased withdrawal or whatever - allow me to throw something out there that I have been thinking about lately.

Was Bill Clinton right when he claimed that the Obama campaign played the race card on him? The conventional wisdom has always been that the former president used race to try and diminish Obama in South Carolina and it backfired. Then when asked about it he ridiculously claimed that the infamous race card had been played against him. But I am coming around to Bill's side of things.

This new perspective comes from having read A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win by Shelby Steele. Steele's book is well worth your time for its insights into the issue of race in America and into the unique position of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate.

For an explanation of why Obama had to play the race card, read on.

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Democratic Primary | Barack Obama | Bill Clinton | Race In America — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:58pm on Jun. 3, 2008 The Obama Juggernaut Illusion

By Kevin Holtsberry

As the media worships Obama tonight - on his way to clinching the Democratic nomination - it is worth keeping in mind that if it were not for the bizarre rules of the Democratic Primary process Obama would never have had a chance to win this thing. You don't have to be a Hillary shill - and I don't think anyone can accuse me of that - to recognize the simple fact that had the primary process been anywhere near winner take all Hillary wins.

Yes, Obama built a strong campaign organization. He raised a lot of money. And he did a better job of understanding the rules and organizing to win under those rules. But so much of his momentum was a result of the rules which prevented anyone from really winning. Hillary could beat him by hundreds of thousands of votes in critical state after critical state and gain little advantage. He was the underdog who just kept hanging around and eventually Hillary's own stupid mistakes proved fatal. That and his overwhelming support from African Americans was enough to push him over the top.

What the media seems unable to recognize is that Obama didn't decisively beat Hillary but rather eked out a slim lead and then convinced Democratic superdelegates to give him the nomination. But primaries are always about perception and Obama is the master of winning perception. His cool calm demeanor and his rhetorical skills have clearly won over the media. I think this and anti-Clinton sentiment made a huge difference. Democrats feel this is their year and they were willing to risk an inexperienced candidate because they wanted to put both the Clinton and the Bush years behind them. And they wanted a full-throated liberal even if he was untested.

The question is whether this makes Obama seem like a much stronger candidate than he really is at this point. If Hillary can beat him to the degree that she has what does that mean for the general election? If I was an Obama fan, I would be worried.

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Democratic Primary | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Barack Obama | Hillary Clinton — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »