Sarah Palin didn't cause the demise of candidate McCain, but she could have been a stronger spokesman.

In retrospect, Palin should have taken the following tact with CBS reporter Katie Couric in that pivotal interview that made Sarah look like a Klondike kook. In the following "Shoulda' Woulda' " interview, C stands for reporter Couric and P for candidate Palin. Here is how the interview should have gone:
____________________________________________________________________________________
C: What do you read?

P: Everything they put in front of me, but I have an affinity for Abraham Lincoln speeches and writings,  history in general and historical novels. But Katie, I don't recall you asking that of Joe [Biden]. In fact, until you deal with me and Joe equally and fairly and ask him what he reads, I refuse to have you or any of the media zero in on this or any other purely esoteric subject. For the benefits of our viewers, "esoteric subject' means a question designed for just me alone or understood by the specially initiated alone. How does that smack you?
C: I don't know how to respond.

P: Of course not. But until you ask Joe and get what he reads I refuse to be party to this, or to have you or other reporters zero in on me alone on this subject. Oh, I have a large library at home in Wassila, and I have read most of the books. It's known as the public library. Now that we're through with that, what books have you read, Katie?
C: No, this is an interview where I get to ask the questions.

P: No, it isn't. You've set me up, Katie, to look bad but I won't play your game. Until you ask all the candidates what they read--and that includes Senators Obama and Biden--you have no right asking me because it smacks of a direct attack by Katie Couric and CBS against my character, intellect, judgment, understanding, and capability to lead.
C: But what if I promise to ask this question of the others, is that good enough?

P:Yes, I'll take you at your word. But my answer is for you to go to my web site, SarahPalin.com. It has a long list of what I have read, am reading, and will read--together with the articles and essays I have written. Had you been better prepared, you wouldn't be wasting my time and that of our viewers with this.
C: I apologize, but I didn't . . .

P: Course not. You didn't prepare as well as a reporter should.
C: You're embarrassing me in front of the camera and all those people at home.

P: No, you knew full well what you were trying to do to me and my candidacy. Who put you up to this?
C: Why, no one. I prepared the question myself.

P: My writings are available on line, as are McCain's, so voters can read and see exactly how we feel on the issues. There is nothing hidden. Have you read all of Obama's writings?
C: Yes, I have. . .I stay on top. . .

P: No, you haven't. How about those that he wrote in college at Columbia and Harvard?
C: No, They're not available.

P: And why are his writings not available?
C: Obama has sealed them.

P: Why would he do that?
C: I don't know.

P: Do you think that is fair to the American public?
C: I don't know what to say.

P: Is it fair for a presidential candidate to hide his past, or any part thereof, his essays and other writings from the public?
C: No, it isn't, but . . .

P: (Being stern with direct eye-to-eye contact) Two things: This interview is over. You may reschedule when you receive these documents from the Obama campaign and make them available to all news outlets and to the Republican Party, John McCain, and myself--and I mean all of his writings from college, regardless of whether or not anyone believes they leave him in a bad light, plus a list of all the reports and books that he reads or has read. If he wrote it, we deserve to have it.
C: Okay, if you wish. . .

P: I not only wish, Katie, I demand! Let me be very clear bout this, Ms. Couric. I am dead serious about fair treatment in this campaign. And since you brought up the subject, I will hold you directly responsible for getting these documents from Obama, even if you must go on national TV and demand them. A terrible injustice is being perpetrated upon the American taxpayer and voter so long as Obama is not forthcoming. Please let him know how much in earnest we are in this demand.
C: I think this TV report will get his full attention, Governor Palin.

P: Senator Obama wrote a book called The Audacity of Hope. But the biggest audacity comes from Obama, himself, and from the Democratic campaign for asking the American voter to choose Obama, someone they don't fully know. For the record, the word "audacity" means arrogant disregard of normal restraints--like to defy your boss. In this case it means that Obama is terribly bold by trying to defy the voters--his prospective boss--when he fails to be upfront and produce his writings from college which must be quite something, wouldn't you say, Ms. Couric? What on earth do you think he's hiding?
C: I don't know.


Editor's note: An estimated 130 million Americans voted in the recent elections. Unfortunately, some 49 percent of those able to vote did not. Obama took 52% and McCain 48%, meaning Obama won by a 5 million plurality in the largest turnout of U.S. voters in history. That means 67.6 percent of the voters selected Obama without knowing all of his views. We can only surmise that part of it was hidden to purposely confuse and mislead the American electorate. This is damning evidence against Obama who--because of this intelligence gap which could involve national security--will become a somewhat mysterious President Obama on January 20th. It isn't American and it isn't fair not to know one of the candidates for president of the United States before the election. It is possible that the information Obama concealed was crucial to his victory and may become extremely damaging to our country if and when it is later revealed. Yet, Barak Obama is willing to let 300 million Americans pay the price he has foisted upon all of us--this ongoing lie about who he is, what he wants, what voices he will listen to, and which dogma and teachings will inform his day-to-day decisions and, ultimately, which views he will represent.

God help us!

Sarah Palin didn't cause the demise of the McCain candidacy, but she could have been a stronger spokesman.

In retrospect, Palin should have taken the following tact with CBS reporter Katie Couric in that pivotal interview that made Sarah look like a Klondike kook. In the following "Shoulda' Woulda' interview, C stands for reporter Couric and P for candidate Palin.
Here's how the interview should have gone:
___________________________________________________________________
C: What books do you read?
P: Everything they put in front of me, but I have a fond affinity for Abraham Lincoln speeches and writings, and history in general and historical novels.

But, Katie, I don't recall you asking that of Joe [Biden]. In fact, until you deal with me and Joe equally and fairly and ask him what he reads, I refuse to have you or any of the media zero in on this or any other purely esoteric subject. Your viewers may not remember the meaning of that term, "esoteric subject", so I'll define it. It means a question designed for just me alone or understood by the specially initiated alone. How does that smack you?
C: I don't know how to respond.
P: Course not. But until you ask Joe what he reads I refuse to be party to this , or to have you or other reporters zero in on me on this subject. Oh, I have a large library at home in Wassila. And I've read most of the books. It's known as the public library.
Now that we're through with that, what books have you read, Katie?
C: No, this is an interview where I ask the questions.
P: No, it isn't. You have set me up, Katie, to look bad but I won't play your game. Until you ask all the candidates what they read--and that includes Obama and Biden--you have no right asking me because it smacks of a direct attack by Katie Couric and CBS against my character, learning, understanding, and capability to lead.
C: But what if I promise to ask this quesiton of the others, is that good enough?
P: Yes, I'll take you at your word. But my answer is for you to go to my web site, SarahPalin.com. It has a long list of what I have read, am reading, and will read--together with the articles and essays I have written. Had you been better prepared, you wouldn't be wasting my time and that of our viewers with this.
C: I appolize, but I didn't. . .
P: Course not. You didn't prepare as well as a reporter should.
C: You're embarrassing me in front of the camera and all those people at home.
P: No, you knew full well what you were trying to do to me and my candidacy. Who put you up to this?
C: Why, no one. I prepared the question myself.
P: All of my writings are available on line, as are McCain's, so voters can read and see exactly how we feel on the issues. There is nothing hidden. Have you read all of Obama's writings?
C: Yes, I have. . . I stay on top . . .
P: No, you haven't. How about those that he wrote in college at Columbia and Harvard?
C: No, they are not available.
P: And why are his writings not available?
C: Obama has sealed them.
P: Why would he do that?
C: I don't know.
P: Do you think that's fair to the American public?
C: I don't know what to say.
P: Is it fair for a presidential candidate to hide his past, his essays and other writings from the voters?
C: No, it isn't, but . . .
P: (looking sterns with direct eye contact) Just two things. This interview is over. You may reschedule as soon as you receive these documents from the Obama campaign and make them available to all news outlets and to the Republican Party and to me and Mr. McCain--and I mean all of his writings from college, regardless of whether or not they leave him in a good light, plus a list of all of the books and reports that he reads or has read. If he wrote it, we deserve to have it.
C: Okay, if you wish. . .
P: I not only wish, Katie, I demand! Let me be very clear about this, Ms. Couric. I am dead serious about fair treatment in this campaign. And since you brought up the subject, I will hold you directly responsible for getting these documents from Obama, even if you must go on national TV and demand them. A terrible injustice is being perpetrated upon the American taxpayer and voter so long as Obama is not forthcoming. Please let him know how earnest we are regarding this demand.
C: I think this TV report will be enough to get his attention, Governor Palin.
P: Senator Obama wrote a book called The Audacity of Hope. But the biggest audacity comes from Obama, himself, and from the Democratic campaign for asking the American voter to choose Obama, someone they don't even know. For the benefit of viewers, the word audacity means arrogant disregard of normal restraints--like to defy your boss. In this case it means Obama was terribly bold when he defied the electorate--his prospective boss--when he fails to be upfront with his writings from college, which must be quite something, wouldn't you say? What on earth is he hiding?


Editors Note: An estimated 130 million Americans voted in the recent elections. Some 49% of those able to vote did not. Obama took 52% and McCain 48%, meaning Obama won by a 5 million plurality in the largest turnout of voters in the history of the U.S. That means 67.6 million Americans voted for Obama without really knowing his views. It isn't fair and it isn't American not to know your candidate before an election. Because of a mistake made by 67.6 million people, 300 million Americans will pay the price this man has foisted upon all of us--this ongoing lie about who he is, what he wants, and whose views he will represent. God help us all!

In his biography of Barack Obama, David Mendell writes about Obama's life as a "secret smoker" and how he "went to great lengths to conceal the habit." But what about Obama's secret political life? It turns out that Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a communist. Now we know where his communist ideas and sympathies began.

It's no secret that when news hit the wires that Russia had invaded Georgia, Obama’s first remark was, “both sides should show restraint.” He would go on to regret that tepid statement, but his real sentiments showed through as he would repeat it again while John McCain immediately, rightly and strongly, criticized Moscow for invading Georgia, demanding they leave.

McCain made a point of this apparent Obama slip or weakness in the first debate, stating Obama was too naïve, unprepared, and inexperienced about world affairs to be commander in chief.

Was he naïve? Obama observers said he merely misspoke. One such faux pass, yes, but two in the same week on the same subject and in the same words, no. I believe part of him, nine years to be exact, instructs his sympathetic behavior toward Russia, its invasion into sovereign Georgian territory, Vladimir Putin, and even communism.

This is also the reason he was so quick to tell the world he could comfortably meet without preconditions with the world’s worst dictators—they are generally communists and he feels a natural inclination toward them and would be confident around them because he shares most of their beliefs. When the American voter awakens to that fact, Obama's "smokin' " polling numbers will quickly fade. But is there enough time to get the word out?

Obama knows Russia is not a democracy—he said that in the last debate. He knows Russia is not the capitalistic country Vladimir Putin inherited from Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin after perestroika. As Putin nationalized oil and other industries and ruled with an iron hand, Russia reverted back to its former self, a repressive communistic dictatorship.

In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes. But his policies and thought patterns belie that Obama smoke screen.

However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a leader of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in Hawaii. The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."

The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.

Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand-based libertarian activist, researcher and blogger, in a posting of March 2007 noted evidence that "Frank" was Frank Marshall Davis. Obama's communist connection adds to mounting public concern about a candidate who has come out of virtually nowhere, with a brief U.S. Senate legislative record, to become the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. presidency. AIM recently disclosed that Obama has well-documented socialist connections, which help explain why he sponsored a "Global Poverty Act" designed to send hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid to the rest of the world, in order to meet U.N. demands. The bill has passed the House and a Senate committee, and awaits full Senate action.

In Obama's own book, Dreams From My Father, he writes about "a poet named Frank," who visited them in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of "hard-earned knowledge" and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had "some modest notoriety once," was "a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago..." but was now "pushing eighty." He writes about "Frank and his old Black Power dashiki self" giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at age18. Dashiki is a colorful men's garment widely worn in West Africa that covers the top half of the body.

That’s a favorite Biblical statement. It's a truth that fits Barak Obama to a T.  Frank Davis taught him communism as a youth and what do you get more than 20 years later—a candidate for president who sides with the likes of Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, Raul Castro, Hu Jintao, and Kim Il-sung.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ taught him and Michelle how to hate America and Frank Davis taught him to love communism. Is it any wonder that Michelle made those gaffes some time after Obama’s started his presidential campaign. They were about it being the first time she really appreciated being an American? In typical fashion, Obama tried to excuse her by saying she meant her newfound pride was about the political system and was not meant to disparage her country. Barak, what kind of dried ganga leaf you been smokin'?

“What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America,” he said. But Michelle Obama is an experienced attorney and an expert public speaker. I doubt anyone believed that lame excuse. What they believed is that Michelle Obama was preconditioned to say such garbage because of Reverend Wright.

This "Frank" is none other than Frank Marshall Davis, the black communist writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. In the summer/fall 2003 issue of African American Review, James A. Miller of George

Washington University reviews a book by John Edgar Tidwell, a professor at the University of Kansas, about Davis's career, and notes, "In Davis's case, his political commitments led him to join the American Communist Party during the middle of World War I---even though he never publicly admitted his Party membership." Tidwell is an expert on the life and writings of Davis.

One academic who travels in communist circles understands the significance of the Davis-Obama relationship. Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library of New York University. The remarks are posted online under the headline, "Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party."

Cliff Kincaid writes about a Daily Telegraph article by Toby Harnden on Communist Frank Marshall Davis, "a strong influence over a young Barack Obama for nine years of his life, rather than just four, and was a sex pervert and pothead. "Sexual Perversion and Rape and Davis’s alleged sexual perversion adds a dramatic and alarming element to the controversy.

Harnden, the Daily Telegraph's U.S. editor based in Washington D.C reports that Davis’s sexual proclivities were documented in a 1968 pornographic novel, written just two years before Davis became Obama’s mentor, which was titled, Sex Rebel: Black (Memoirs of a Gourmet Gash).

It was in Chicago that Obama became a "community organizer" and came into contact with more far-left political forces, including the Democratic Socialists of America (SDS) which maintains close ties to European socialist groups and parties through the Socialist International (SI), and two former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), William Ayers and Carl Davidson.

The SDS laid siege to college campuses across America in the 1960s, mostly in order to protest the Vietnam War, and spawned the terrorist Weather Underground organization.

Ayers was a member of the terrorist group and turned himself in to authorities in 1981. He is now a college professor and served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago. Davidson is now a figure in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA, and helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War. Come to think of it, Putin and Russia were against our war in Iraq, too. Still are. Coincidence?

The Financial Fish Weren't Biting Sunday
September 15, 2008
New York--We said it yesterday--no one should chase bad money with good.
That seemed to be the consensus of the financial markets over the weekend, as all the possible suitors for Lehman Brothers' $60 billion in tangled and messy real estate holdings dropped by the wayside, leaving the large 158-year-old international investment bank filing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Two thousand New York employees cleaned out their desks and were gone. How do I interpret it? For America as a whole it's a good and logical end to only part of a very sad story, but it had to happen. Observers believe there will be 110 banks fail during the next nine months. Will yours be one of them?

The International Monetary Fund predicted earlier this year that total losses from the credit crisis could reach almost $1 trillion. So far, banks have only taken about $350 billion in losses.

Commercial banks are also starting to feel the pinch. Eleven have closed so far this year, including Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bank, which had $32 billion in assets and $19 billion in deposits. There is talk on the street that Wachovia and Washington Mutual are in deep trouble and now, understandably, they can't attract new accounts from a very worried public.

The problem with these firms isn't necessarily the firms themselves, but the loose supervision of banks by the Fed and other regulators. Some of them got into the practice of running what resemble kiting operations and the regulators looked the other way. Kiting is where you take from Peter to pay Paul and that's illegal.

Reserves are the problem. How much money should a bank have on hand to make a loan? That's decided by the regulators, so if you want to lay some blame on someone look at the regulators and Congress for failing to insist on tighter regs.

Maybe we, the people, should shake up Congress. Fire all the old ones and insist on new blood in Washington.That's basically what I'm going to do this fall--vote out the incumbents who have been there way too long. Look at Joe Biden with his 36 years, Ted Kennedy and Orin Hatch with a like number of years. Even John McCain has been there 24 years and now he wants to be president.

From my vantage point, there is only one candidate who fits the "new" description and her name is Sarah Palin who is the vice presidential candidate on the John McCain ticket. She is currently attracting a lot of American attention and as a result has supercharged McCain's chances.

Back to the banks: Because they could, banks got into the habit of using money from current accounts, especially new ones, to fund questionable loans. Using this method of banking, someday when these banks couldn't get new business the domino effect was sure to occur. That "someday" is now.

The only advice I could offer the average American is to make sure your bank is Federally insured and that you have no more than $100,000 in each account--the amount the FDIC promises to repay if the bank goes under.

Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics, a research firm, predicts that approximately 110 banks with $850 billion in assets could close by next July. That's out of 8,400 federally insured institutions, he said, which together hold $13 trillion in assets.

Bank of America Corp. is buying Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in an $50 billion all-stock transaction.

The world's biggest insurer, American International Group, is also in trouble. It is restructuring, meaning it basically can't operate as it has in the past and must lay down greater reserves for a rainy day. AIG hit hard by deterioration in the credit markets, said Sunday it is reviewing its operations and discussing possible options with outside parties to improve its business after a week when its stock dropped 45 percent amid concerns about the company's financial underpinnings. It was working with New York Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo and a representative of the governor's office through the weekend to craft a solution that protects policyholders, according to Dinallo's spokesman David Neustadt.