Is the 'Pledge to America' a worthy successor to the 'Contract With America'?

Frank I. Luntz  "Ultimately, of course, the success of the Pledge will be determined not by the results on Election Day, but by what happens afterward. Still, there's a simple lesson for both parties: The American people aren't just mad as hell. This time, they're truly not going to take it anymore. They'll keep changing their government until their government really changes. So credit Republicans for putting their Pledge on paper. Now, they will be held accountable to the standard they've set for themselves -- and it's a good one."

DISASTROUS DECADE?

Neal Boortz  "Obama seems to believe that George Bush's presidency was so bad that he called it "a disastrous decade we cannot afford to relive." Yet consider these comparisons from Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters...

•In January 2007 before the Democrats took over Congress, unemployment was 4.6 percent; now it's 9.6 percent.
•In January 2007 there were 7.1 million unemployed people in America; now there are 14.9 million.
•In January 2007 the median home price was $210,600; today it's $179,300.
•In January 2007 the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 12,500; today it's at 10,840.
•In January 2007 the gross federal debt was $9 trillion; today it's $13.5 trillion.
•The poverty rate in 2006 was 12.3 percent; now it's 14.3 percent
•In the final budget created by a GOP-controlled Congress, the deficit was $160 billion; now it's $1.6 trillion.

LET THE CLASS WAR BEGIN?  "Some people pursue knowledge, work hard and pay attention to decision-making. They become wealthy. Others squander their education, work 40 hours a week and no more, and make stupid decision. They don't become wealthy. The people who have failed to do what it takes to become wealthy look at those who have succeeded and adopt an attitude something like this:"...

SO HERE COMES THE WEALTH ENVY CAMPAIGN  "Maybe the Republicans ought to counter with an ad of their own:

"The Democrats are trying to create an "us vs. them" election. It's America's working middle class against the evil rich. Maybe it's time for you to ask yourself a few questions. Is your boss --- the owner of your company --- rich? Do you wish he was poorer? Would you like him to have more or less? The chances are you work for a small privately owned business. Do you think the company you're working for would be better off if the owners had less money? If you think that would be a good thing ... vote Democrat."

The President’s UN Iraq gaffe: why doesn’t Obama show pride in America?

UK Telegraph  "To compare a Baathist dictatorship with the most powerful democracy in the world is an astonishing gaffe for a US president to make in a speech, not least one watched by tens of millions of people across the world. It is like a post-war US president drawing an analogy between Nazi rule and the Allied occupation of post-war Germany.
"This should have been a powerful moment to honor and pay tribute to the huge sacrifice made by over 4,000 American servicemen and women who laid down their lives in Iraq, but the president simply could not bring himself to do it."

Also from the Telegraph:  Why the US conservative revolution could save the Special Relationship
"As I wrote back in July 2008 on the pages of The Sunday Telegraph:

Britain’s chattering classes should be careful what they wish for. Senator Obama promises change and a bold new course for the United States. The end result may be an America that looks away from Britain and erects higher barriers to trade and investment.

The special relationship has lasted over 60 years as the most powerful and successful partnership of modern times. Unfortunately it might not survive the next presidential election."

Nile Gardiner is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator.

White House Amateur Hour Again "The American media won't tell ever tell the public, but many overseas leaders of important countries regard the Obama administration as a joke. His lack of preparation for the job of president is patently obvious, his lack of a work ethic is demonstrated for all to see by his frequent vacations and hectic schedule of parties at the White House, and his naiveté in dealing with foreign tyrants like the madman Ahmedinejad is frightening."

Democrats, Axelrod Say Obama Tax Plan to Pass After Election

Bloomberg  "Congressional Democrats and a top White House official said Congress will extend soon-to-expire tax cuts for low- and middle-income Americans after the Nov. 2 election. Republicans said the delay and the threat of higher taxes for top earners will hurt the economy. "

The Heritage Pledge

Heritage  "Our Solutions for America is an overarching blueprint for governing. It’s designed to replace the failed policies of the liberal establishment with solid conservative solutions that will shrink government, reduce debt, keep taxes low, put Americans back to work and keep us safe.
"Solutions for America identifies the nature and scope of our most pressing problems in 23 policy areas and recommends 128 specific policy solutions to guide the new Congress. Here are some of our ideas:"...
Edwin J. Feulner's leadership as President of The Heritage Foundation has transformed the think tank from a small policy shop into America's powerhouse of conservative ideas.

Venezuela Elections: Chavez Faces a Determined Democratic Opposition (From our irony file)

Heritage  "The Venezuelan state has become a vast patronage machine. Nationalizations have gobbled up the private sector. Government voters are recipients of Chavez’s largess. The national electoral council is in Chavez’s hip pocket. He has increasingly restricted media freedoms and uses unregulated media access to sell himself and his candidates. Voters face a wide range of obstacles that include, after a 2009 electoral law, electoral districts heavily favorable to Chavez’s party. There will be no meaningful international observers and limited domestic observation. The potential for significant fraud cannot be discarded."
 But here in the US, we have an unbiased and fair press, private enterprise with freedom to innovate and academic freedom-all our bulwark against socialism.

Has Israel 'attacked' the Iranian nuclear program already? (Updated)

Wikipedia

New post: Cyber War on Iran: the Siemens Connection  "Siemens had many factories in and around notorious concentration camps to build electric switches for military uses. In one example, almost 100,000 men and women from Auschwitz worked in a Siemens factory inside the camp, supplying the electricity to the camp.
"With that history, what was Siemens doing making deals with the Holocaust-denying Iranian regime? Good question."

Iran Fights Malware Attacking Computers   "Stuxnet, which was first publicly identified several months ago, is aimed solely at industrial equipment made by Siemens that controls oil pipelines, electric utilities, nuclear facilities and other large industrial sites. While it is not clear that Iran was the main target — the infection has also been reported in Indonesia, Pakistan, India and elsewhere — a disproportionate number of computers inside Iran appear to have been struck, according to reports by computer security monitors. "  NY Times

Ralph Alter  "Since at least 2001, speculation in the Western media has focused on the possibility of an Israeli or combined American/Israeli attack on the burgeoning Iranian nuclear program. A report in the Eurasia Review suggests that the attack has already taken place, albeit in cyberspace:"...

Bushehr "On August 13, 2010, the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) announced that the first reactor at the Bushehr NPP would be loaded with nuclear fuel on August 21, 2010 and would henceforth make the Bushehr facility qualified as an operational nuclear power plant. The process for transferring the fuel to the pool located near the heart of reactor was estimated to take seven to eight days."

Is Obama up to the Task?  "After more than eighteen months of outreach by the Obama administration, Iran is rapidly nearing a nuclear weapons capability.  The greatest opportunity for reform in Iran in years went out with a whimper last year after the president remained silent as the regime gunned down peaceful protesters in the streets.  Iran continues to kill Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And now the Iranian leader has come to New York and made the president and his top advisors look dangerously naive."

Citizen groups unmasking Dem voter fraud

George Soros

Ed Lasky  "We do the job because the government and media lackeys will not. Massive alleged voter fraud is uncovered by a group of concerned citizens down in Texas. The culprit? The Democrats and Barack Obama's favorite "union" - the thugs at the Service Employees International Union. "

J Street Exposed  "So as Obama is off crusading against the imagined threat of conservative foreign-funded third-party groups, here’s J Street, with its close ties to the administration, caught red-handed."

Dems: We Will Hammer The Poor

Thanks, Mr. Soros

Kevin McCullough  "They did so, though they have been warned that in doing so they would deliver a crushing blow to small businesses in America. It is important to admit and to be as transparent as possible: when you hurt small business in America, you hurt the working men and women of America."
Kevin McCullough is the nationally syndicated host of "Baldwin/McCullough Radio and columnist based in New York

The Tax Hikes Cometh  "In a little more than 90 days, taxes on incomes, capital gains, dividends, and estates are going to rise. Not just for some families. For every family. And the Democrats haven’t lifted a finger to stop it. They haven’t even written a bill. They have not found the time, in the twenty months they’ve controlled Congress, ever actually to try to block the tax hikes. It’s amazing: The Democrats have no problem passing unpopular legislation. But when they are charged with doing something that the public actually wants, such as preventing the coming tax hike, they turn to jelly." Emphasis added.

When Blacks Attack Barack

 Doug Giles   "I am forbidden to critique BHO and his boys on anything they say or do. Yes, if I do utter anything derogatory regarding his holiness it is immediately dismissed because of four primary reasons. Herewith are the raisons d'être of why I cannot decry señor Hussein."...
 Doug’s talk show and video blog can be seen and heard at www.ClashRadio.com.

The 10 measures to watch

Paul Jacob  "Direct policy change is available to voters, however, in the 37 states where they’ll decide the fate of 175 ballot measures. As Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, points out, “One big difference between initiatives and elected representatives is that initiatives do not change their minds once you vote them in.” "  Paul Jacob is President of Citizens in Charge Foundation and Citizens in Charge. His daily Common Sense commentary appears on the Web and via e-mail.

Our Non-War Over Islam

Steve Chapman  "Unlike the alienated Muslim populations of Europe, American Muslims do not feel estranged from society. "Most say their communities are excellent or good places to live," Pew discovered. Most also believe women are better off in the United States than in Muslim countries.
"Their overall satisfaction with the state of the country is no different, according to Pew, from the overall satisfaction of everyone else. They don't sound like a violent cult plotting to impose Taliban-style Shariah law on the infidels who surround them. They sound strangely like ... Americans."
According to this article, Muslims are better Americans than movie actors, college academics and all leftists who dress up in funny outfits. I think one would concur.