Rachel Alexander – If Obama looked like Ted Kennedy, he would not be doing this well. The reality is, the only „change“ Obama is bringing is that he is African-American, and at age 47 is significantly younger than most U.S. Presidents have been (JFK was elected to President at age 43). Those two distinguishing characteristics are a lot less determinative of what his administration will be like than his record and viewpoints on issues – which are both far to the left.

The reality is, the only „change“ Obama is bringing is that he is African-American, and at age 47 is significantly younger than most U.S. Presidents have been

When Barack Obama picked Joe Biden to be his Vice-Presidential running mate, he demonstrated that he was not in favor of „change,“ but would continue the Democrats‘ conventional policies. Biden, a member of the U.S. Senate since 1973, has become more liberal over the years and now represents the liberal wing of the Democrat Party.

The reality is, the only „change“ Obama is bringing is that he is African-American, and at age 47 is significantly younger than most U.S. Presidents have been (JFK was elected to President at age 43). Those two distinguishing characteristics are a lot less determinative of what his administration will be like than his record and viewpoints on issues – which are both far to the left.

If Barack Obama looked like Ted Kennedy in physical appearance (their political views are almost exactly the same), he would not be doing this well in the race for president. It’s wonderful that society has moved beyond racism, but now it’s gone too far to the other extreme, promoting race to the exclusion of everything else.

Voters aren’t interested in „change“ because the Republicans haven’t done a good job – we’re the wealthiest country in the world with the highest living standards. The primary reason voters are interested in „change“ is superficial and shortsighted; it’s due to natural presidential party fatigue and the Federal Reserve’s meddling in interest rates. Manipulation of interest rates inevitably leads to recessions which lead to voter disillusionment with the party in power. Combine that with Bush’s acquiescence to the Democrats on spending during a time when our federal debt is spiraling, and voters are easily fooled into thinking that Democrats are the cure. In reality, the Fed’s manipulation of interest rates has little to do with the party in control of the presidency, and a Democrat administration will increase spending and taxes faster than any Republican administration would.

So what does Biden bring to an already far left presidential ticket? There are two things that stand out about Biden: his history of plagiarism, which forced him to drop out of a 1988 bid for president, and his liberal voting record.

In law school, he was accused of plagiarizing five pages of a 15 page law review article, receiving an F in the course. When he ran for president in 1988, he was caught plagiarizing several lines from a speech by Neil Kinnock, leader of the British Labor Party at the time. Biden also has a problem with the truth. He has said he graduated in the top half of his law school class, when he really graduated 76th out of 85. He said he received a full scholarship to law school when in reality it was only a partial scholarship. Much of this came to light during his presidential bid, and he withdrew, saying his candidacy had been overrun by „the exaggerated shadow“ of his past mistakes. He ran for president again last year in the Democrat primary; apparently his misgivings about running due to his problem with the truth don’t matter anymore.

The perception that Biden is a moderate Democrat is no longer accurate. Last year, Biden received a 0 rating from the American Conservative Union. The year before, he received a 4. His lifetime rating has been going down, and now stands at a 13.04. Even Obama has a better record, scoring 7 last year and 8 the year before, his only years in the Senate. The AFL-CIO gave Biden a 100% rating. The ACLU ranked him 91% last session; one point lower than John Kerry, six points higher than Ted Kennedy, 11 points higher than Obama, and 16 points higher than Hillary Clinton.

Biden’s accomplishments in the Senate including bragging in 2007 that he he’d brought home $67 million worth of pork for his constituents through Congressional earmarks. One of his biggest pork projects has been funneling extra money to Amtrak. It’s a selfish interest that benefits himself; Biden rides Amtrak to work in Washington, D.C. He hosts a dinner for Amtrak employees every year.

Biden has served on the Judiciary Committee for much of his Senate career. He chaired the judicial confirmation hearings of conservative judicial nominee Robert Bork, ensuring that Bork was not confirmed, even though he’d indicated a year prior that he would approve Bork. Biden is responsible for authoring the 1994 Violence in Women Act (VAWA), which provided billions of dollars to combat gender-crimes and domestic violence. It has been sharply criticized by conservatives as a federal encroachment into an area that should be left up to the states‘ jurisdiction.

Biden’s foreign policy record is dismal. One of his main accomplishments in this area was persuading former President Bill Clinton to use force against the Serbs. Conservatives were hesitant to bomb Kosovo because there were atrocities being committed on all sides, not just by the Serbs. The Republican Policy Committee of the Senate issued a statement expressing concern that Clinton was forming an alliance with the Kosovo Liberation Army, a group of radical Albanians classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

Biden voted against authorization for the Gulf War in 1991. Currently, he believes Iraq should be divided into three separate ethnic enclaves. This has been rejected by Iraq’s political leadership which unified to denounce the plan. Biden is no friend to Israel. In May 2008, he said it was „bullsh**“ for President Bush to give a speech in Israel saying that Democrats were acting similarly to appeasing Hitler before WWII. He later apologized.

Biden is a big supporter of „campaign finance reform,“ which hurts candidates who are able to raise significant amounts of money on their own. He supports it because having made the Senate his lifelong career, he’s never become a millionaire like half the other members in the Senate. Public campaign financing permits career politicians like himself to run for free for office on the taxpayers‘ dime.

Biden’s record on social issues is abysmal. Due to his far left pro-abortion record, Biden has been barred from receiving communion by the bishop in his hometown of Scranton, Pennyslvania.

Last year, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination himself, Biden said Obama was not qualified to be president. „I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.“ Now that Biden has agreed to be Obama’s running mate, one wonders whether Biden says these things because he’s not very smart, or if he’s capitulated because he wants the fame and status. Either reason speaks poorly of Biden, and ultimately he brings just more of the same predictable far left views to the presidential ticket.

Rachel Alexander ist praktizierende Anwältin für die Regierung in Phönix im U.S. Staat Arizona. Als ehemaliges Redaktionsmitglied und Kolumnistin des Arizona Daily Wildcat, gewann sie für ihre journalistischen Arbeiten drei Auszeichnungen und schreibt Kolumnen für IntellectualConservative.com und Nachrichten Heute.

Mary Hershberger – Journalists have had years to vet John McCain’s account of wartime heroism in Vietnam. But no real critique of its veracity has emerged from leading media outlets. Reporters and commentators remain remarkably disinclined to investigate a major underpinning of McCain’s argument that he is qualified to be commander-in-chief. Here, historian Mary Hershberger questions why.

As we approach the end of an astonishing campaign season, one thing grows clear: John McCain’s campaign has suffered a string of disastrous decisions. These mistakes have overwhelmed even the campaign’s trump card—its image of John McCain as war hero. And not just an ordinary war hero but one who was captured by enemies, imprisoned near death, and “resurrected” to return home with visible wounds that marked his sacrifice.

Aside from the patriotic fervor and powerful religious themes this tale evokes in American Christians who believe that redemptive violence lies at the core of their faith, McCain’s campaign correctly counted on the media treating the image of war hero as if it stood outside history, beyond journalistic scrutiny. The “swift boating” of John Kerry four years ago left the media reluctant to engage in legitimate examination of John McCain’s claims.

As a historian who has studied Vietnam War documents, I read McCain’s Faith of My Fathers with growing concern over the troubling inconsistencies and internal contradictions that I found there. When I sought out official reports, news accounts, film footage and other reliable sources to help resolve these contradictions, I consistently found questionable assertions in McCain’s claims. All memoirs are constrained by the limitations of our memory, but McCain’s accounts are unusually problematic, with many stories grossly exaggerated or simply made up.

Given the media scrutiny heaped upon Cindy McCain’s life during this campaign, one might expect the candidate himself would face equal investigation. That has not been true. When I wrote a piece documenting McCain’s less-than-heroic actions following the disastrous fire on the USS Forrestal, mainstream print newspapers and magazines turned it down, including those that printed investigative pieces on his wife and relentlessly dredged up every scrap of information to expose her vulnerabilities. Ask yourself—have you seen investigative reports of McCain’s claims about his military record that match the level of scrutiny given his wife?

McCain’s war record is a legitimate topic of investigation precisely because he cites it as evidence that he should be president, as proof that he is tested and ready to lead from day one. As such, it ought to be more thoroughly examined than anything else. The few investigations that have been carried out are not reassuring.

On the single issue of his plane crashes, for example, the Los Angeles Times has concluded that “though standards were looser and crashes more frequent in the 1960s, McCain’s record stands out.” A pilot whose performance included two plane crashes and a collision with power lines usually underwent official review to determine his fitness to fly. McCain refuses to allow his military records to be released so that the voting public can see whether his record matches his claims.

Much of the mainstream media frequently repeat without question McCain’s assertions about his war record, including his recent claim that he was on track to be promoted to admiral when he left the Navy. It is due to the diligence of writers on the Internet that claims like this have been investigated.

A recent column by John Dean at Findlaw.com, which includes a Q & A with me, looks at other areas in which McCain has made claims at stark odds with official documents or news reports. Dean concludes that the dwindling importance of the mainstream media is related to its reluctance to “sort fact from fiction” in the wake of the Swift Boaters. The result is that the media gives McCain a pass “rather than risk irritating him by digging out the truth of his military background.”

The irony of McCain’s free pass is that newspapers like the New York Times need look no further than their own pages to check his claims. For example, McCain says that when he was shot down on October 26, 1967, the Vietnamese beat him over and over and refused to provide medical treatment for days until, in desperation, he told them that his father was an important military officer. In contrast, the New York Times, on October 28, 1967, quoted Hanoi radio reporting the day before that, “the son of the commander of the United States Naval Forces in Europe was captured in North Vietnam.” At the time, the New York Times reported that the Vietnamese knew about McCain’s family connections as soon as he was captured, not days later. Which story is true?

Likewise, as a Rolling Stone piece recently pointed out, the New York Times reported on November 11, 1967, less than two weeks after McCain was captured, that he had said that Vietnam appeared to be winning the war and the United States appeared isolated. There is a significant conflict between this and McCain’s memoirs, one that has gone unexamined in the Times.

Read all at Womans Media Center

Mary Hershberger is a historian, teacher, and author of Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an Antiwar Icon, and Traveling to Vietnam: American Peace Activists and the War. She has taught at the University of Georgia, Virginia Tech, Eastern Mennonite University, Ohio State University, and at schools in East and Central Africa, including Makerere University in Uganda. Her article in the Journal of American History, „Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle against Indian Removal in the 1830s,“ won the Organization of American Historians Binkley-Stephenson award for best scholarly article. She is currently writing a book on the movement against Indian removal and its impact in shaping movements for abolition and women’s rights.

Dr. Alexander von Paleske – — 25.10. 2008 — Seit Oktober 2001 haben etwa 1,6 Millionen US-Soldaten im Irak und Afghanistan Militärdienst geleistet. Nicht wenige der Heimkehrer, der sogenannten Veterans, haben sichtbare Verletzungen davongetragen, die sie zu Krüppeln gemacht haben, noch mehr leiden als Folge des Einsatzes an einer unsichtbaren Verletzung: dem sogenanntem „Posttraumatic Stress Disorder“, im Jahre 2007 allein 14.000 neue Fälle, gegenüber 9500 im Jahre 2006.

Endstation Obdachlosenheim
Aber damit nicht genug. Obwohl die Kriegsveteranen nur 9% der Gesamtbevölkerung der USA ausmachen, stellen sie 23-30% aller Obdachlosen in den USA.

91% der obdachlosen Veterans haben Alkohol- oder Drogenprobleme, wie die hochangesehene Medizinzeitung LANCET im August berichtet, ebenfalls Folgen des Kriegseinsatzes.

Es gab offenbar keinerlei Planung für die Lösung der sich aus dem Krieg für die Soldaten ergebenden Probleme, deren Familien oft genug an den durch den Krieg unmittelbar bzw. mittelbar erzeugten Folgen zerbrechen und die oftmals nicht in ihren zivilen Job zurückkehren können, weil ihre Arbeitsplätze verlorengegangen sind.

Und so enden viele Soldaten am untersten Ende der Gesellschaft, in Obdachlosenheimen für Kriegsveteranen.
Die Soldaten zahlen somit einen hohen Preis für Kriege, in denen sie als Kanonenfutter dienen und die in der Heimat kaum noch Zustimmung finden.

Diese Probleme dürften sicherlich auch bei nicht wenigen Bundeswehrsoldaten nach der Rückkehr aus Afghanistan relevant werden. Nach der offiziellen Lesart handelt es sich aber dort nicht um einen Krieg, wie Verteidigungsminister Jung kürzlich erklärte, sondern lediglich um einen „Einsatz“ der Bundeswehr im Ausland.

Lügen vor dem Irakkrieg und Vorbereitungen für den Irankrieg
ABRECHNUNG – Sir Richard Dearlove (MI6) gegen Tony Blair
Chefsöldner Tim Spicer erhält Pentagon-Vertragsverlängerung im Irak
Irak: Wenn die regulären Truppen gehen, kommen die Söldner
British Mercenary Simon Mann’s last journey?
Blair drängt auf Söldnernachschub aus Südafrika
Söldner, Gauner, Waffen und Rohstoffe

Rachel Alexander – If he wins the election, the only satisfaction we’ll get is when he fails to give 95% of voters a tax break, and raises taxes on those making as little as $42,000, as McCain has predicted. Then we’ll vote him out of office after one term, just like the voters did with George H.W. Bush for failing to keep his promise regarding not raising taxes.

Obama won on style, but McCain won on substance.

In last night’s third presidential debate, Obama won on style, but McCain won on substance. Obama championed his promise that he would give 95% of working families tax cuts – in addition to an extension of the Bush tax cuts. Currently facing the biggest deficit in history, over half a trillion dollars, and considering that 38% of working families currently pay no income taxes, this promise is a bald-faced lie. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t have the time to do the research to figure this out. A debate format is not a conducive environment for explaining complex economic issues, which tends to hurt Republicans. It’s easy to trump the Democrat platform in a couple of soundbites, „We’re going to give you x,y, and z.“ It takes quite a few more sentences to explain why it’s not possible to play Santa Claus with others‘ money.

Obama has been labeled the most liberal Senator in the U.S. Senate by National Journal. The amount of spending he is promising is going to make Bush look like a fiscal conservative. Obama criticized McCain for voting for four of Bush’s five budgets, and said a McCain administration would give us „eight more years of the same thing.“ It was incredulous to hear him turn this around. Obama voted against those budgets because he wanted budgets that would have spent even more money, not the other way around.

If conservative policies are so bad, then why is Obama touting an astronomical level of tax cuts, a Republican solution? Apparently even the Democrats admit that when liberal policies like runaway spending get us into fiscal crises, it takes conservative policies to get us out.

The winner of the evening was „Joe the plumber,“ a small businessman McCain talked about who had spoken with Obama about how his tax hikes would affect him. Obama could not deny this.

McCain confronted Obama about the wasteful earmarks he had obtained as a Senator. Instead of acknowledging that earmarks contribute to our massive budget debt, Obama minimized them, saying that they only account for a small percentage of the budget.

McCain did a great job of confronting Obama about his association with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama was forced to discuss his relationship with the man who bombed the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon. Obama tried to minimize it, but didn’t deny it.

When McCain asked Obama whether he would punish people who chose not to purchase healthcare insurance, Obama ducked the question, saying that he would exempt small businesses from providing healthcare for their employees. He never answered whether folks in their 20’s who make a conscious decision to avoid buying healthcare insurance while healthy would be exempt. He kept emphasizing that employers are responsible for healthcare, but never explained why. It would be a lot cheaper for everyone if we could choose our healthcare program piece by piece through the private market, just like we choose car insurance or home insurance, instead of forcing us to go with the limited one-size-supposedly-fits-all options our employers offer.

The candidates were asked about how they would reduce dependence on foreign oil. McCain emphasized offshore drilling. Obama said he would give tax breaks to U.S. auto companies in order to keep jobs in the U.S. This didn’t make much sense, considering the economy has become so international, foreign auto companies like Honda have plants in the U.S. and U.S. auto companies similarly have parts made overseas. More symbolism than substance.

The last topic of the debate was abortion. McCain pointed out that Obama is so liberal that he voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion in the Illinois Senate. Even Congress was able to agree and pass a ban on partial-birth abortion. Obama claimed that the bill didn’t have an exception for the health of the mother. McCain retorted that the „health of the mother“ is a ruse that can be used to justify almost anything, it’s broader than „to protect the life of the mother.“ Obama showed his immaturity at losing that argument and swore, which was bleeped out on TV.

The best part of the debate came at the end, when McCain in a Freudian slip referred to Obama as „Senator Government“ instead of Senator Obama.

Because Obama was so slick during the debate, to the average ill-informed voter he probably came across the winner. If he wins the election, the only satisfaction we’ll get is when he fails to give 95% of voters a tax break, and raises taxes on those making as little as $42,000, as McCain has predicted. Then we’ll vote him out of office after one term, just like the voters did with George H.W. Bush for failing to keep his promise regarding not raising taxes.

Rachel Alexander ist praktizierende Anwältin für die Regierung in Phönix im U.S. Staat Arizona. Als ehemaliges Redaktionsmitglied und Kolumnistin des Arizona Daily Wildcat, gewann sie für ihre journalistischen Arbeiten drei Auszeichnungen und schreibt Kolumnen für IntellectualConservative.com und Nachrichten Heute.

Jeff Huber – Those poor kids at the Pentagon. They receive more funding than the rest of the world’s military establishments combined, but it’s just not enough. Pentagon officials have prepared a new defense spending estimate—one they plan to spring on us just before young Mr. Bush slinks out of office—that projects a requirement for $450 billion more over the next five years than previously announced.

Whoa, you might be thinking. We already spend well over a half trillion a year on defense, and what do we get in return? The Pentagon did such a lousy job defending the homeland on 9/11 that we had to buy a whole separate agency to take that job over, and only neocons and other lunatics would say our military is protecting our national interests overseas.

You ignorant bedwetting liberal. Don’t you see? The half trillion plus a year only buys you history’s best equipped, best trained military and a few wars for them to fight in. If you want your armed forces to do what you pay them to do, that will cost extra.

Battle Budget Galactica
It’s hard to tell exactly how much everybody spends on defense. America’s fiscal year 2008 defense budget request was $623 billion. The Chinese, the nearest thing we have to a peer military competitor, say they spend about $25 billion a year on defense, roughly four percent of what we spend. The American warmongery, ever eager to create scary phantasms, claims that China spends a lot more on defense than it admits to. Critics of the Pentagon say they Chinese can’t possibly lie more about their defense spending than we do. Our official defense budget doesn’t include things like defense related spending by other departments, the Homeland Security budget, some veterans‘ care expenses, the ubiquitous „supplemental allotments“ that never make it into the regular budget but always get through Congress, the ultra secret „black“ budget, and other hush-and-slush funding.

Some say the Chinese spend up to three times on defense what they claim to spend. If so, they’re still spending a half-trillion a year less than our official budget. Many claim that we spend twice as much on defense as the official budget total. If that’s true, we’re spending over a trillion dollars a year more than three times what the Chinese say they spend. Either way we’re spending a bunch load more money on defense than the Chinese are. Half a trillion dollars a year will buy you very many $400 toilet seats. A trillion will buy you twice that amount.

Much of what China spends on defense goes to update its arsenal. Admiral Tim Keating, head of U.S. Pacific Command, says the Chinese admit to being „25 years behind us.“ I say that’s another thing the Chinese are fudging facts about. The majority of their combat jets are J-7s and J-8s, fighters copied from the Soviet Mig-21 that first flew more than a half century ago.

However much the Chinese are lying about their defense spending, Russia spends somewhat less than they do, and however much we’re lying, Iran’s defense spending is less than one percent of ours and only about 70 percent of Mexico’s, and those evildoing terrorists could hide their defense budget under a tic egg.

So at this point in the New American Century, whatever two-war strategy we’re arming ourselves to fight must involve simultaneous conflicts with the Klingons and the Borg.

Force Plan 9 From Outer Space
As best we can tell, the 2009 defense budget only carries $520 million for space weapons research, which sounds like a trifling amount until you consider that we’ve signed on to a treaty that prohibit putting weapons in space. Don’t feel too bad for space though; the Pentagon isn’t neglecting it. In fact, the U.S. military is so heavily invested in space that it cannot navigate, communicate or hit a target without it. Without space, esoteric air breathing systems like the ultra stealthy, $2 billion a pop B-2 strategic bomber would be, well, worthless. Read all at Larisa`s At-Largely

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) was operations officer of a naval air wing and an aircraft carrier, and he commanded an E-2C Hawkeye aircraft squadron. His satires and analyses of military and foreign policy affairs have appeared in Proceedings, The Navy, Jane’s Fighting Ships, and other print periodicals. Some of his essays have been required student reading at the U.S. Naval War College, where he received a master’s degree in national security studies in 1995.

Rachel Alexander – Overall, 16.5% of violent crimes in Maricopa County can be linked to illegal immigrants. The average cost for each offense? A whopping $20,000, which includes prosecution, incarceration, and other costs. This study breaks down felonies committed into categories, revealing that contrary to media myths, illegal immigrants commit more crimes in categories completely separate from the crime of illegally crossing the border.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has released a groundbreaking study with the help of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office breaking down the numbers of felonies illegal immigrants in Maricopa County commit. Contrary to media myths, illegal immigrants commit more felonies than the rest of the population on average. Even when crimes that may be related to smuggling are taken out of the equation, illegal immigrants still commit most felonies at higher rates. Illegal immigrants make up 9% of the population in Arizona, but are sentenced to 20.3% of all felony DUIs.

Groundbreaking study with the help of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office

Illegal immigrants are sentenced for 10.3% of sex crimes, 13.1% of auto thefts, and 12.6% of all thefts including shoplifting. In crimes that might be related to illegal entry, illegal immigrants account for 35.8% of sentences for kidnapping, 85.3% of sentences for criminal impersonation/false ID, and 50% of sentences for chop shops.

Overall, 16.5% of violent crimes can be linked to illegal immigrants. The average cost for each offense? A whopping $20,000, which includes prosecution, incarceration, and other costs. 18.5% of property crimes are due to illegal immigrants.

The GAO studied 55,000 illegal immigrants and found that on average, each had been arrested for 13 offenses. 80% of the arrests occurred in California, Arizona, and Texas. It costs $61.74 per day to house a prison inmate in Arizona. Combine that enormous cost with Arizona’s tax and spend governor Janet Napolitano, and it comes as no surprise that Arizona’s economy is suffering and facing a $2 billion dollar deficit.

The reason why illegal immigrants commit more crimes may be because a large portion of them are young males. Young males of any nationality commit crimes at a higher rate than other segments of the population. The findings in this study reinforce the wisdom of shifting public policy to an approach that encourages legal immigration, which spreads out the demographics more evenly, ending unnecessary stigmas towards those south of our border in particular.

For updated news on illegal immigration, including a free weekly newsletter, visit illegalimmigrationjournal.com. For the press release on this report, click here. The full report is here; go to page 6 for the chart breakdown of crimes.

Rachel Alexander ist praktizierende Anwältin für die Regierung in Phönix im U.S. Staat Arizona. Als ehemaliges Redaktionsmitglied und Kolumnistin des Arizona Daily Wildcat, gewann sie für ihre journalistischen Arbeiten drei Auszeichnungen und schreibt Kolumnen für IntellectualConservative.com und Nachrichten Heute.

Bill Van Auken – Zum ersten Mal in der amerikanischen Geschichte stationiert das Militär eine aktive reguläre Armee-Kampfeinheit auf Dauer im Innern der Vereinigten Staaten. Sie soll für Notfälle bereit stehen, unter anderem zur Bekämpfung ziviler Unruhen.

Ab dem 1. Oktober wird die Erste Kampfbrigade der Dritten Division (First Brigade Combat Team) unter dem Kommando der US-Armee-Nord stehen, die zum Northern Command (NorthCom) des Pentagon gehört. Das NorthCom ist nach den Terroranschlägen des 11. September 2001 mit der ausdrücklichen Aufgabe geschaffen worden, das amerikanische Staatsgebiet zu verteidigen und Bundes-, Staats- und kommunale Behörden zu unterstützen.

Die Einheit mit dem Spitznamen „die Raiders“ zählt zu den Armeeeinheiten mit besonderer Kampferfahrung. In den letzten fünf Jahren war sie fast drei Jahre im Irak im Einsatz, wo sie 2003 an der Spitze des Angriffs auf Bagdad stand und den Häuserkampf in Ramadi anführte, um den Widerstand zu unterdrücken. Sie war das erste Brigade Kampfteam, das dreimal in den Irak geschickt wurde.

Aktive Einheiten wurden zwar auch schon bisher vorübergehend im Innern eingesetzt, wie zum Beispiel die kampfmäßig ausgerüsteten Truppen, die nach New Orleans geschickt wurden, als die Stadt nach dem Hurrikan Katrina praktisch unter Kriegsrecht stand. Aber hier hat zum ersten Mal eine Kampfeinheit der Armee einen Stationierungsbefehl erhalten, der ihr amerikanischen Boden als „Kampfzone“ zuweist.

Das Pentagon betont in seinen offiziellen Verlautbarungen die Bedeutung spezialisierter Einheiten für den Fall eines Terrorangriffs in den USA. General George Casey, Generalstabschef der Armee, besuchte letzte Woche eine Einsatzübung von ungefähr 250 Mitgliedern der Einheit in Fort Stewart in Georgia. Nach Angaben des Armee-Pressebüros standen im Zentrum der Übung „Such- und Rettungsflüge, die Bergung Verwundeter und die Dekontaminierung von Menschen nach einem katastrophalen Atomangriff im Herzen des Landes.“

„Wir befinden uns im Krieg mit einem globalen extremistischen Netzwerk, das nicht einfach verschwindet“, sagte Casey den Soldaten. „Ich hoffe, wir werden sie nicht brauchen, aber wir müssen die Fähigkeiten haben.“

Aber die Mission der 4.000 Soldaten des First Brigade Combat Team besteht nicht einfach darin, die Opfer von Terroranschlägen zu retten. Ein Artikel von Anfang des Monats in der Army Times („Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1“), einer Zeitschrift, die sich in der Armee großer Beliebtheit erfreut, zeichnet ein anderes und wesentlich bedrohlicheres Bild. Read all at World Socialist Web Site

Finanzkrise: In den USA bereitet man sich auf mögliche Unruhen vor

onlineredaktion – Ein Ahne von US-Präsidentschaftskandidat Barack Obama stammt ursprünglich vermutlich aus der Region Bern, wie der Archivar der elsässischen Gemeinde Bischwiller erklärt. Der Vorfahre habe Bischwiller 1749 in Richtung Amerika verlassen.

Der Vorfahre der sechsten Generation sei wahrscheinlich ein Einwanderer aus der Schweiz gewesen, sagte Archivar Christian Gunther gegenüber der französischen Nachrichtenagentur AFP. Gunther widerspricht damit einem Bericht der deutschen Wochenzeitung „Die Zeit“, die meldete, der besagte Vorfahre Obamas sei Deutscher gewesen.

Typisch Schweizer: der kommende Präsident Barack Obama

Der betreffende Mann wurde 1722 geboren und hiess Christian Gutknecht. Als er nach Amerika auswanderte, änderte er seinen Namen in Goodnight („gute Nacht“).

In Bischwiller habe Gutknecht mit seinen Eltern in der „Neu Gass“ gewohnt, in einer Strasse, die speziell gebaut worden sei, um Immigranten aus den Regionen Bern und Zürich aufzunehmen. Das Haus existiere heute nicht mehr, und die Strasse sei in „Rue Clémenceau“ umbenannt worden.

Larisa Alexandrovna – I will catch you up on my adventures in DC in a separate entry, because I am so livid I can barely type. My hands are shaking and I am crying because I have never in my life seen so much hate congregated together, so much plotting the unthinkable and so much encouragement of total derangement as though rabid nationalism coupled with lunacy were somehow a good thing.

Onwards then. I went back to the Hinckley last night, which I will explain in more detail in a separate post. Suffice it to stay that I stayed overnight and snuck into the festivities of the KKK cloaked in „values“ convention and all of its obscene pornography of hate. Now, I was not allowed to take pictures of the racist, hateful, misogynistic items on display in the exhibit hall because only „authorized“ people were allowed to take pictures and record a public event in a public hotel. I did manage, however, to purchase one of the best selling products of this confederacy and using my cell phone, took pictures of the box. Forgive me for how blurry the pictures are. The fuzziness is the result of both my shaking hands and my cell phone’s shitty camera.

The first picture below is the front of the waffle box and it is startling in its overt racism. I asked the „chef“ of this ugly version of reality if he was at all concerned that this might be viewed as a white man putting a black man into a frying pan and he laughed and said „I hope so.“

Larisa Alexandrovna is a journalist, essayist, and poet. She has served as the Managing Editor of Investigative News of Raw Story and contributes opinion and columns to online publications such as Alternet. She is also an American blogger, for the Huffington Post and for her own journalism blog, at-Largely. Alexandrovna has had her work referenced in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Newsweek among others.

This article was first published at Largely

Rachel Alexander – Democrat Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s response to a question about the difference between himself and McCain’s Vice-Presidential pick Sarah Palin? “She’s good-looking.” Monday, the New York Times ran an article questioning Palin’s ability to serve as Vice-President because she has five children, including a newborn baby with Down’s Syndrome. The Huffington Post ran an article about her entitled “McCain’s Casting Couch.”

If Palin was a man, we would not be hearing this kind of criticism. The Democrats are hypocrites and willing to throw their own principles under the bus in order to win. Seeing everyone in terms of groups – women, minorities, handicapped, etc. – they have no qualms treating Palin differently because she’s a woman.

Republicans will beat Democrats to having the first woman Vice-President

The reason why they’ve come out so viciously against her is obvious. Her success destroys one of their main accusations against Republicans, that Republicans are sexist. If McCain becomes president, which is looking very likely with Palin on the ticket, Republicans will beat Democrats to having the first woman Vice-President, and most likely the first President, since Palin will have a good chance at being elected President after McCain’s term(s).

The Democrats resent the strength Palin brings to the ticket. Palin’s hunting and fishing background and working class husband appeals to blue collar middle of America voters. Her prolife, socially conservative views and large family appeal to the Republican conservative base. Some of Hillary’s supporters who were leaning towards McCain may now vote for him because he chose a woman VP, unlike Obama who shunned Hillary as VP. And they’re probably pretty intrigued by the fact that Palin’s husband is now a stay-at-home dad while she works. Palin’s youth and Washington outsider status balance out Obama’s message of “change,” particularly considering Obama picked a longtime Washington establishment insider with Biden as his VP.

Although Palin is attacked for having little experience, she has executive experience as a governor and mayor. Obama has nothing but legislative experience. The fact that comparisons are now being made between Palin and Obama’s experience is revealing, considering Palin is only running for VP. Overall, Palin appears to have more experience than the Democrats’ presidential candidate.

The Democrats’ hypocrisy is compounded by their refusal to acknowledge amidst their attacks that Palin’s husband is a stay at home dad. Instead of acknowledging the progressiveness of this situation, and the fact that Palin is adhering to conservative principles by keeping a parent in the home, they lambaste her for choosing to run for Vice-President.

It goes without saying that Democrats are always saying there is nothing wrong with mothers who choose to put their children in daycare, so attacking Palin for running for office just because she has children is the ultimate hypocrisy. They’re also suddenly silent about pointing out that the Vice-Presidential job consists of little more than attending funerals of foreign dignitaries.

Liberal talkshow host Alan Colmes pulled a column he’d written criticizing Palin for prenatal care of her Down Syndrome baby when he realized how hypocritical it was. If she’d just had an abortion, the left wouldn’t have bothered criticizing her.

The attacks on Palin’s daughter for having an out of wedlock child are equally despicable. Democrats insist that women have a right to privacy when it comes to reproductive decisions, yet they are attacking Palin and her daughter for the birth. Although Palin and her family are supporters of abstinence-only education, to attack her over a mistake like this is grossly unfair. Abstinence-only programs work the vast majority of the time. Just because someone falls through the cracks occasionally doesn’t mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Palin’s daughter is following her mother’s prolife views by keeping the baby and marrying the father. She will suffer plenty being known the rest of her life publicly for this incident; preventing her mother from running for Vice-President because of this mistake would be a grossly disproportionate punishment. Who amongst us doesn’t have a child, friend, or relative who has made a mistake much worse than Palin’s daughter, perhaps resulting in an arrest or jail? Relatively speaking, getting pregnant out of wedlock at a young age is sadly a common occurrence today.

Ironically, because of his own upbringing, Obama has said attacking Palin’s children should be off limits. Obama was born when his mother was 17, six months after she married his father, which was reportedly a bigamous marriage. Yet there has been little media attention given to Obama’s similar situation.

Another vicious sexist attack against Palin is the accusation that she’s only on the ticket because of affirmative action, implying that she’s little more than a pretty face. If that’s true, why is her approval rating as governor of Alaska at 80%? Why wasn’t this accusation brought up before, when her name was being vetted as a possible VP choice? Palin is writing her own convention speech, doesn’t sound like something a ditz would attempt. Claiming she is an affirmative action pick is a last-ditch attempt to smear her.

A group of Hillary supporters has become so offended by the sexist attacks against Palin they released a statement denouncing them. Let’s hope they have some effect. Meanwhile, they haven’t been able to stop feminists like Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post from spreading mistruths about Palin, like claiming that Palin is against “stem cell research.” This type of smear is dishonest and shows how low the left has sunk. The truth is, Palin doesn’t support government funding of embryonic stem cell research, as do most conservatives. And like most conservatives, she has no problem with adult stem cell research.

The Democrats’ sexist attacks against Palin will backfire. It would be one thing if there were legitimate reasons to attack her, such as if she had plagiarized numerous speeches as Biden has done. But to attack her because her daughter became pregnant early is hypocritically sexist at a time when the country is ready for a female Vice-President or President.

Rachel Alexander ist praktizierende Anwältin für die Regierung in Phönix im U.S. Staat Arizona. Als ehemaliges Redaktionsmitglied und Kolumnistin des Arizona Daily Wildcat, gewann sie für ihre journalistischen Arbeiten drei Auszeichnungen und schreibt Kolumnen für IntellectualConservative.com und Nachrichten Heute.