Right Pundits

Barack Obama has asked Tom Daschle to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Daschle has accepted.

According to multiple news sources, Thomas Andrews Daschle will be the new Secretary of Health and Human Services under Barack Obama’s administration. With the appointments of Eric Holder as Attorney General, Gregory Craig as White House Counsel, Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, and Hillary Clinton’s impending appointment as Secretary of State (which we reported here), it appears that Obama’s new staff resembles Clinton II: The Return of the Establishment Liberals. What happened to “Change we can believe in”? So far, in his appointments, Obama seems to be following the established Democratic party line.

As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Daschle will play in integral role in implementing one of Obama’s most ambitious campaign promises: national health care. I remember how well that went under Clinton I. Let’s see how it goes under Clinton II.

Read Tom Daschle’s Biography

November 19th marks the 145th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address during the darkest days of the Civil War. See the historical photos, speech transcript and a video here. One year earlier Lincoln freed the slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Gettysburg Address

This is a great day to celebrate the achievement of Barack Obama, our nation’s first black president made possible indirectly by the ascension of Lincoln to the White House. Obama often compares himself to Lincoln, although such rhetorical flourishes probably best wait until he accomplishes something for Americans beyond his own personal achievement.

One obvious difference is that Lincoln had the gift of brevity. The speech was delivered in just two minutes. Interestingly it was not even the keynote speech of the day, which was a series of presentations during the dedication of a cemetery, the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

He was invited by David Wills, the brain behind the Gettysburg cemetery idea, to deliver a “few remarks” which is exactly what Lincoln did. The answer to a trivia question is that Edward Everett delivered the long oration that day in 13,000 words, after Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg address.

The text and a video reenactment of the Gettysburg address are below.

Read the rest of this entry »

al-Zawahr Insults Obama as ‘House Slave’ - Issues Warning.

The number two man in Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, called Barack Obama a ‘House Negro’ in a newly released video tape. See the video.

(click to view thumbnails)





Al Qaeda Will Test Obama

In the video, which labels Americans as criminals, Obama is compared with one of Al-Qaeda’s heroic Americans, Malcolm X, using footage from his radical statements. The 60’s revolutionary used the term to explain that black people needed to stand up to white people using violent means. The ironic thing is that Obama himself praised Malcolm X and borrowed from his speeches.

The Arabic term that he uses is “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates into “house slave” in English. But the subtitles displayed in the video communicate the intended meaning as “house negro.”

One of the images in the video is Obama wearing a Jewish cap while meeting with Jewish leaders at the Wailing Wall. At the beginning of the primary season, Barack Obama came across as anti-Jewish in some of his statements. As that became a campaign issue, he seized opportunities to embrace Israel to make Jewish-American voters comfortable with his candidacy. See the full transcript here.

The video contains an ominous warning as al-Qaeda becomes the latest foreign threat to seize upon the Obama victory. As Russia, Venezuela and Iran have all signaled tests of the new American president, al-Qaeda warns Obama to brace for more attacks soon.

Historians will remember the last inexperienced president to be elected to office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was quickly tested by the Soviet Union in the Cuban missile crisis, a challenge which almost resulted in the mutual annihilation of both powers. We can expect Obama to face similar challenges in a more dangerous world the next four years.

The Al-Qaeda Obama video is below.

Video

Meet the world famous Pygmy Tarsier, a tiny furry creature thought to be extinct. See their photos and amazing video here. The little devils were rediscovered after 80 years of hiding on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, high on a misty mountaintop. To many, they resemble “Furbys” in the old Gremlins movies.

Pygmy Tarsier

These new foes of mankind are brutally vicious. One bit a researcher right in the hand, Dr. Sharon Gursky-Doyen, making her the only person living to ever get bit by a Pygmy Tarsier. She also broke her fibula while just walking around, making this a dangerous scientific expedition. And no, she was not heavily drinking.

It dawns on us that with new Obama relatives popping up all over the world, the Furby-like resemblance is uncanny to the new American president. Everyone wants a piece of the pie now, and these gremlins are no exception to the welfare line. Welcome Tarsius pumilus to the recession.

Rather than the usual places of Kenya, Malaysia, or Boston housing projects, the buggers were discovered high on Mount Rore Katimbo in Lore Lindu National Park, located in central Sulawesi Island.

The Pygmy Tarsier is about 4 inches in length, from nose to tail. They have a long tail and weigh about 2 ounces. They are nocturnal and do not vocalize much, which makes them extremely tough to find. For food, they are strictly carnivorous, dining on insects primarily but also known to eat birds, small rodents and snakes.

Three of them were trapped by the good scientists and collared to track their movements with a GPS system.

More pictures and a cool video are below.

Photos

The State of Indiana’s Court of Appeals issued a ruling Monday affirming that Indiana’s “In God We Trust” plates are constitutional. This, to the irritation of the annoying ACLU, who had filed the original lawsuit against the Hoosier state. You can read more about it below, see photos and watch a fun video.

Indiana’s ‘In God We Trust’ License Plates

The above plates are everywhere on the roads in Indiana. They were actually issued in January 2007 and today 1-in-3 cars have them. But of course the plates mention ‘God’ so were targeted for a lawsuit by the bloodsucking ACLU.

Thankfully, the appeals court upheld an earlier trial court judgment against the ACLU of Indiana, which claimed that motorists who ask for the ‘God’ plates get special treatment because they don’t have to pay a $15 administrative fee charged for specialty plates.

Seeing that as patently ridiculous (as are most of the cases the ACLU brings forward), the appeals court affirmed that Indiana offers two alternatives to standard license plates and that the fee structure for those plates is “uniformly applicable to all similarly situated license plates.”

The court’s ruling was 2-part: that the “In God We Trust” plate (seen in the above photo), along with another, “Lincoln’s Boyhood Home,” are simply alternatives to the standard plate and; that the fact that motorists who choose them aren’t subject to the additional fee is not arbitrary. These specialty license plates require the $15 administrative fee, under state statute.

“The display of our material motto, ‘In God We Trust,’ on state license plates has found deep support among our fellow citizens,” said Attorney General Steve Carter in a statement released Monday. “So often when there is a reference to a supreme being in the public arena, objections are made. With the court’s ruling, those objections have failed and the Legislature’s will has been sustained.”

The state of Indiana is not specifying any one religion by it’s license plate. Yet the ACLU, with way too much time on its hands and ample discretionary funds to wage these kinds of legal battles, tries to once again stomp on state governance and the will of the people who live there.

Photos and Video

NGOs (Non-Governmental Units) in India may be taking tactics right out of the Obama play book by appealing to youth. Jaagore.com or Jagore.com offers youthful voters the opportunity to register to vote online. It is a call to get more of the 1 billion population of India to participate more in their elections. The Jaago Re campaign aims to “wake up” campaign voters, which is what the name means. See the video below.

So far, almost 70,000 Indian citizens have taken advantage of registering through this system. You are able to keep track of your registration status online. This movement is now covering 35 cities in India. There are upcoming assembly elections in six states, though the movement hopes to make a bigger impact in the general election a year away. Indian people are looking for change too. They want their democracy to have a greater impact on their lives.

Perhaps we could take a tactic out of their play book by allowing on-line voter registration to encourage more participation. Though it is not at all certain how much that would really change voter turn out. Obama did create excitement and a shift in voter turn out. But overall voter turn out wasn’t much different than the last election here in America.

Jaagore Video

Meet Mark Begich. He is the Democratic mayor of Anchorage, Alaska. He has declared victory over long-time Senator and convicted felon, Ted Stevens. Read his biography below and see photos and a video.

Mark Begich

It appears that Alaska has a new senator. Two weeks after the actual election, Mayor Mark Begich has 150,728 votes to 147,004 for six-term Senator Ted Stevens, according to Gail Fenumiai, director of the state division of elections. There are about 2,500 uncounted ballots mostly from military families overseas yet to be counted, not enough to overcome Begich’s 3,724-vote lead, she said.

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican, lost on his 85th birthday. He will be replaced in Alaska’s three-member congressional delegation by Begich, a 46-year-old mayor of Anchorage whose father once served in Congress with Stevens.

Senator Stevens has yet to concede the contest and could request a recount.

Mark P. Begich was born on March 31, 1962 in Anchorage, Alaska so his age is 46. He is the son of U.S. Representative Nick Begich, who disappeared in a plane over Alaska with U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs in 1972. He has 5 brothers and sisters and his grandfather was and immigrant from Croatia in 1911.

Mark Begich will be the only U.S. Senator without a college degree.

Begich was elected to the Anchorage Assembly in 1988, at age 26, and he served on the Anchorage Assembly for ten years before being elected mayor in 2003.

In the 2003 mayoral race he narrowly defeated his opponents by earning only 11 votes over the number needed to win because of a law allowing a mayor to be elected without a majority vote. He was re-elected in April 2006.

Mark Begish is now the junior United States Senator-elect from Alaska.

He is married to Deborah Bonito, a former chair of the Alaska Democratic Party and the current owner of several small businesses throughout Anchorage. They have a son named Jacob.

Photos and Video

Chris Dodd, Joe Lieberman, Barney Frank, Chuck Hagel, and Harry Reid are all listening close as Professor Morici testifies about a proposed bailout of the big three. Right now, the number being called for is $25 Billion. See photo, a video, and more about Morici below.

Executives from the big three are testifying on behalf of the bailout. Morici, an economics professor from the University of Maryland is speaking out against it. He says the automakers will be better off if they go through with a bankruptcy. He suggests that a bail out will just delay the inevitable.

General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler would all benefit from the restructuring that a bankruptcy would afford. By doing so, they would receive a clean slate from past debt, union contracts, and past failures. Starting over will have its pains, certainly resulting in job losses and factory shut down. But the sooner this happens, the sooner they can retool themselves and start making a profit. In the long run, more jobs will be saved if they go this route, according to Morici.

Morini Video