Nancy Razik's Questions about Barack Obama

Nancy Razik raises some questions about Barak Obama in an e-mail that parallels Candace de Russy's recent NR article. Nancy picked up the following from a friend's e-mail:

"Obama's radical Palestinian ties used to influence Jewish voters

"A telephone campaign in Florida and Pennsylvania is trying to convince Jewish voters in those states to drop their support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over his ties to and endorsement by Palestinian terrorist elements.
The Associated Press reported that the telephone calls are made under the guise of being a legitimate campaign poll, but really have only one purpose: to convince Jewish voters that Obama will sell out Israel to its enemies.

"Jewish voters who receive the calls are asked by the pollsters if Obama's providing funds to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), his endorsement by Hamas, or his decision to hire advisors known for their anti-Israel bias would influence their vote.

"It is now well known that Hamas, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other radical elements in the Middle East are rooting for Obama to win in November. What is less known is his past affiliation with groups that advocate and work for the violent downfall of the Jewish state.

"From 1999 to 2002, Obama served as a paid director for a Chicago-based non-profit organization called the Woods Fund. In 2001 and then again in 2002, the Woods Fund provided grants totaling $75,000 to the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a radical organization with firm ties to the PLO that laments Israel's existence as a "catastrophe."

"AAAN co-founder, Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University, has openly supported terrorism against Israeli Jews and even took an active role in PLO operations when Yasser Arafat's group was still considered a terrorist organization by the West.

"After learning that Obama was running for president, Khalidi embarked on a serious fundraising effort. The Obama campaign has gladly accepted the money raised by that effort.

"Also of note is the fact that Obama served on the Woods Fund board with admitted and unrepentant US domestic terrorist William Ayers."

New York Jews Favor McCain 54-32

Larwyn just forwarded a Sigmund,Carl,and Alfred blog of John Podhoretz's Commentary blog. Sigmund et al. state of New York's Siena poll:

"...John McCain is now only 5 points behind Barack Obama, 46-41 – not shocking because polls have narrowed to similar margins in New Jersey. (It should be noted, however, that according to a Rasmussen poll released yesterday, Obama is leading in New York by 55-42.)

"No, the shocking detail has to do with a wild, 35-point swing toward McCain among Jewish voters. Obama led among them by a margin of 50-37 in August. This month, McCain is actually leading Obama by a margin of 54 percent to 32 percent."

Has Barack Obama Gone Laissez-Faire?

Call me crazy but I was in the health club of the Emerson Inn and Spa this afternoon and saw a headline that said that Barack Obama has called the AIG subsidy "crony capitalism". Bravo. I sincerely hope that Senator Obama is going laissez-faire, although I can't help but wonder what those contributions from the Pritzkers and from George Soros are all about? Has Wall Street gone laissez-faire too? I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Really.

Gold, Stocks and The Dollar, Oh My!

The past month has been rather confusing on the investment front. I had been in gold stocks and they plummeted like the dickens into Hades. Presumably gold went down because the dollar went up and oil went down. Now mostly in cash, I watch gold shoot up as the S&P 500, the Nasdaq and the Dow take their own ride into perdition. What new torments await investors in the first rung of hell? Does the Dow decline further and gold continue upward? Has the dollar ended its six-week ascent? Are foreign central banks and the Fed playing games with the dollar? Why would the dollar ascend and gold and oil decline weeks before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the subsidy of AIG and Freddie Mac? Do we have a free market, or a pretense of one, with the Wicked Wizard of the East making sport of it? With the Dow down better than 700 points this week, is it good idea for the Wizard to remain behind the curtain, pulling strings?