Excerpted from The Obama Temptation:
Charles Gibson and Katie Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama. But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization. Obama's entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created.
Liberalism is the yin to conservatism’s yang. We need each other and can’t make America a better place without the constant tug and pull of conflict between the two ideologies. What in many countries is a source of revolution, our war of ideas with liberalism and theirs with conservatism makes us both better. It forces us to come up with new approaches to solving problems in order to compete in the marketplace of ideas. This is a free market that Obama, no matter what his proclivities, cannot shut down.
Ok, that's the setup. Now for the dénouement:Turns out, according to sources we have in Texas, that Nick Lampson's wife is not even registered to vote in Texas 22.
She lives in Beaumont, TX - at an address well outside of the district - and this is where she is registered. She's in the 2nd District, and is represented by Republican Ted Poe. The address is on Collier Road in Beaumont.
Why does this matter? Well, two weeks ago, Democrat Congressman Nick Lampson's cronies accused Pete Olson of voter fraud. They claimed he had voted improperly in a Connecticut Special Election while he was working for Texas in Washington, D.C.
Even the most basic research shut down this wacky theory. It turned out that on the day of the supposed vote, Pete Olson was traveling from Capitol Hill to Texas on Senate business in his role as Chief of Staff for Texas Senator John Cornyn. He has the airline receipt to prove it.
And as you might expect, it also turned out that Connecticut does not require a photo ID or signature from anyone casting a vote. Of course, the idea that Olson would somehow go from 1998-2005, voting like clockwork in nine different elections (according to the Democrats' own records), and interrupt it to drive up to Connecticut to participate in an unimportant special election just doesn't pass the smell test. Well, for anyone but crazy liberals who happen to be supporting Nick Lampson, like Matt Glazer and others.
Pete Olson's experience shows us why you should be required to show a government issued photo ID before voting. But let's hope Nick Lampson wasn't counting on his wife's vote - if he gets it this year, something's wrong.
Triangulum, aka M33, is the second closest major galaxy - after the Andromeda Galaxy - at a mere three million light years. It's also generally considered the most distant object, though M81 (twkeve million light years away) has been observed by a few experienced observers, and of course there was an event earlier this year, which for a short time was a naked eye object at 7.5 billion light years. M33 is a good sized galaxy - third largest in the Local Group, which, of course, also include Andromeda and the Milky Way.
Not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws.
Mukasey's remarks "appear premature based on the facts and evidence that congressional investigators and the inspector general have uncovered so far"
