Independence Day (not the movie)

“Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony “that these united Colonies, are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, and as such, they have, and of Right ought to have full Power to make War, conclude Peace, establish Commerce, and to do all the other Acts and Things, which other States may rightfully do.

“You will see in a few days a Declaration setting forth the Causes, which have impell’d Us to this mighty Revolution, and the Reasons which will justify it, in the Sight of God and Man. A Plan of Confederation will be taken up in a few days. On July 2, 1776 the Association known as United Colonies of America officially became the United States of America….

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

“You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

- John Adams to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776

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“Know this.  If I am taken captive or killed by these Arab savages, I shall never disgrace myself or my nation by groveling in the fashion of many hostages and their families.  There shall be no special entreaties on my behalf.  I shall condone no disgusting and disloyal attempt by weepy relatives to ‘distinguish’ me from my nation or its brave president, as in ‘Actually, our whole family opposed the war.’ If I am taken, and the animales (sic) will not let me talk on camera, tell the world I renounced any disloyal relatives and that my last words were: ‘God Bless America, God Bless President  Bush.”

- U.S. Soldier in Iraq

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What July Fourth Means to Me

By Ronald Reagan

Editor’s note: When he was president, Ronald Reagan wrote the following piece for Independence Day in 1981. Aide Michael Deaver later wrote: “This 4th of July message is the President’s own words and written initially in his own hand.”

…There is a legend about the day of our nation’s birth in the little hall in Philadelphia , a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words “treason, the gallows, the headsman’s axe,” and the issue remained in doubt.

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, “They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever.”

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.

It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.

Happy Fourth of July.

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”

- The Declaration of Independence, In Congress, July 4th, 1776

Just the Facts, Ma’am

So, it’s just after 6AM here in Manitou Springs, CO, and thanks to congestion and a sugar headache, I am wide awake.  So I thought I would write a short note about some of the comments I have been reading concerning the recent murder of Dr. Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider.  In particular, an article written by Ellen Goodman for the Boston Globe last week.

Let me start off by saying that though I see the economical advantage of littering a news story with gut-wrenching and emotional rhetoric, it would be nice if these feelings were coupled with sound reasoning and logic.

Goodman’s finest mistake is her hasty generalization of the pro-life community.  She claims that “they [the pro-life community] forgot to disavow” pro-life fringe groups in the wake of anti-abortion violence.  The examples of “fringe groups” she provides are Operation Rescue (a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending abortion through legal means; they publicly denounced Tiller’s murder), Scott Roeder (the man convicted of murdering Tiller), and the Defensive Action Statement (her only legitamate example; they praise Tiller’s murderer and condone violence against abortionists).  So, out of the three, only one seems plausible as a fringe group.  But still, this doesn’t excuse Goodman from making the outrageous claim that the majority of pro-life supporters in the United States do not denounce such an anti-moral and heinous position!

In the very next paragraph, Goodman continues her tirade by demanding that the pro-life community be “shocked by the everyday mainstream rhetoric that casually refers to abortion as murder”.  Excuse me for maybe stating the obvious, but isn’t the platform of the pro-life community the fact that abortion is the termination of an innocent life, and therefore murder?  Also, as a side note, I would love to see some stats on how “mainstream” the terms murder and abortion are in everyday rhetoric – probably not as much as they should.

Goodman returns to pulling names out of a hat by stating that the “stars” of pro-life leaders “seemed less than mournful” about Tiller’s murder.  She quotes Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue as saying that Tiller was ‘”a mass murderer” who did something that “was literally demonic”‘, yet she fails to continue the quote to the next sentence when Terry clarifies that “even Mr. Tiller – like other murderers – deserved a trial of his peers, and a legal execution, not vigilante justice…”.

I could continue, but I think it is pretty clear that Goodman’s purpose was to yank on some gullible heartstrings rather than inform.

One more general comment I would like to make is that even though there exist pro-life extreme fringe groups (which I do not deny; nor do I deny the existence of pro-CHOICE extremists) with members who are willing to break the moral law in the name of “serving God”, there is a reason they are called fringe groups.  This same argument imployed by Goodman is used against Christianity as well.  Dissenters claim that since the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials happened, Christianity must be wrong.  The existence of extremists who twist and warp the truth does not invalidate that truth.  In one sense, people like Goodman are practicing a form of intolerance.  We see Islamic extremists and Jihadists attacking and cursing our country, yet are told that they do not represent the true message of Islam.  Can the pro-life community not get the same respect?

A Touch of History

During our “down-week” at Summit (yay, Tamiflu…), Doc Noebel took the time to give us a little current events talk and to run through introductions with the staff, since he was unable to hang with us last Saturday.  One of the first things he read to us was a poem by Rudyard Kipling entitled “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”.  This poem is included in the front of all the student’s notebooks, but Doc rarely has time to include it in his opening remarks, as witnessed by my complete lack of familiarity with these stanzas.  I wanted to post it here and encourage you all to read it slowly and aloud, either to yourself or to others.  There are so many references to historical events, worldviews, and even proverbs that for me this peom quickly moved into the realm of utter brilliance.  If you are unfamiliar with what is a copybook heading, please read this beforehand…otherwise this poem will make absolutely no sense to you and you will be forced out of your own ignorance to call me and Kipling both blathering idiots.  The Gods of the Market Place does not refer to the Free Market (sorry, libs), but rather different governments and worldviews that lean more towards socialism interventionism, secular humanism, and other godless institutions.  I will leave it to you, the reader, to discover Kipling’s intent of the Gods of the Copybook Headings.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Earth Day Perspective

I have plenty of my own thoughts on the ignorance and insolence of Earth Day, but for right now here is a blog posted by Melinda Penner over at Stand To Reason that makes a good observation concerning a disconnect between the secular world and this celebrated event.

Has anyone else but me noticed an inherent contradiction in the underlying convictions that drive annual “Earth Day” celebrations? The vast majority of those who attend such fetes are Darwinists who believe humans have a moral obligation to protect the environment? My question is: Why?

For millions of years “Mother Nature” has spewed noxious fumes and poisonous gasses into the atmosphere and littered the landscape with ash and lava. Indeed, the most “natural” condition in the universe is death. As far as we know, Earth is completely unique; death reigns everywhere else.

Species have passed into extinction at a steady rate from the beginning of time, the strong supplanting the weak. Why shouldn’t they? Each is in a struggle-to-the-death for survival. It is a dance of destruction that fuels the evolutionary process as every creature exploits every other creature for its own benefit. That’s evolution.

No locust swarm stops short of denuding a field because it ought to “leave a bit for the crickets. After all, we all have a right to be here.” The logic of naturalism and the rules of evolution dictate human beings rape our environment, just as everything else does, not protect it.

The moral obligations underpinning Earth Week activities simply do not follow from the naturalistic world view that embraces Darwinism. It follows, rather, from a theistic world view in which God has created man as unique and given him responsibility over the Earth to care for it. Earth Week makes sense for Christians, not for Darwinists.

Suggested STR resource on evolution: Why I’m Not an Evolutionist

[Source: http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2009/04/earth-day-for-evolutionists.html]

R.I.P. Ron Silver – Actor & Conservative Activist

more about “RIP Ron Silver“, posted with vodpod

I must admit, I had never heard of Ron Silver before, but after reading this article by Ann Coulter, I thought that he was the kind of man who deserved to be honored after his death.

Lead by Example?

Despite the Obama administration’s expressed outrage over AIG’s use of federal bail-out funds as bonuses, it is yet to be seen whether the four top recipients of AIG campaign cash will return the money.

1. Barack Hussein Obama – $130,000

2. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn – $103,100

3. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., $59,499

Other notable recipients include now VP Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Dick Durbin.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7110145&page=1

http://blogs.courant.com/stan_simpson/2009/03/chris-doddspoll-numbers-and-po.html

Red Envelope Day

“A man who is laden with the guilt of human blood will be a fugitive until death; let no one support him.”

Proverbs 28:17

Election Series – Chapter X

Obama Citizenship (October Surprise)

- IlluminatiTV, Episode 6

**

“U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick on Friday night rejected the suit by attorney Philip J. Berg, who alleged that Obama was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible for the presidency. Berg claimed that Obama is either a citizen of his father’s native Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia after he moved there as a boy.”

- Breitbart.com (AP), “Judge tosses lawsuit challenging Obama citzenship”

**

1995 Obama Race Baiting Interview

- NakedEmperorNews, Video

**

“WFTV-Channel 9’s Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. A friend says it’s some of the best entertainment he’s seen recently. What do you think?

West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama’s comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn’t being a Marxist with the ’spreading the wealth’ comment.

‘Are you joking?’ said Biden, who is Obama’s running mate. ‘No,’ West said.

West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America’s days as the world’s leading power were over.

‘I don’t know who’s writing your questions,’ Biden shot back.

Biden so disliked West’s line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate’s wife.

‘This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,’ wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.”

- Orlando Sentinel, “Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interivew with Joe Biden by Hal Boedeker”

Link to Full Interview: “Barbara West Interviews Joe Biden”

**

“Speaking in Tampa, Fla., on Sunday, Palin sharply criticized Obama for acting as if he’s already won the election.

Palin mentioned reports that the Democratic presidential nominee, who is leading in the polls, has already written his inaugural speech. That drew boos from the crowd of more than 5,000 gathered for a rally at the Tampa convention center.

Palin said Obama’s campaign ‘thinks this whole election thing is just a formality.’”

- Breitbart.com (AP), “Palin: Election isn’t over till it’s over”

**

“The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who’s been cramming on these issues for the past year, who’s never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of “a world that stands as one”), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as ‘the tragedy of 9/11,’ a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

There’s just no comparison. “

- Washington Post, “McCain For President” by Charles Krauthammer

Election Series – Chapter IX

Some people say that most African-Americans will vote for Obama only because he is black. Others say that it is racist To conclude that blacks would vote for skin color alone.

Howard Stern’s Man-On-The-Street takes a walk up Harlem To test this theory. Listen to this audio and decide for yourself.
Howard Stern\’s Man-On-The-Street

**

“McCain recalled being ready to launch a bombing run during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which Biden said over the weekend tested a new President John F. Kennedy and was the template for the kind of “generated crisis” the 47-year-old Obama would face within six months of taking office.

‘I was on board the USS Enterprise,’ McCain, a former naval aviator, said in the capital city of Harrisburg. ‘I sat in the cockpit, on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise, off of Cuba. I had a target. My friends, you know how close we came to a nuclear war.’

As the crowd of several thousand began to swell with cheers and applause, he added with dramatic effect: ‘America will not have a president who needs to be tested. I’ve been tested, my friends.’”

- MyWay AP News, “McCain reminds Biden he’s been tested in crisis”

**

“Safavi said a small, experienced group of officials is lobbying for a preemptive strike against Israel. ‘The recent Israeli declarations and harsh rhetoric on a strike against Iran put ammunition in these individuals’ hands,’ he said.

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said in June that Israel would be forced to strike the Iranian nuclear reactor if Tehran continues to pursue its uranium enrichment program.

Safavi said Tehran recently drafted a new policy for responding to an Israeli or American attack on its nuclear facilities. While the previous policy called for attacks against Israel and American interests in the Middle East and beyond, the new policy is to target Israel alone.

He added that many Revolutionary Guard leaders want to respond to a U.S. attack on Iranian soil by striking Israel, as they believe Israel would be partner to any U.S. action.”

- Haaretz, “Top Iran officials recommend preemptive strike against Israel”

**

Great glimpse into the proud and strong American spirit that is Sarah Palin.

- Time, “More from the Palins’ Interview With PEOPLE”

**

“Bruce Heiden, professor of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University, makes the fascinating claim in his website “The Postliberal” that Barack Obama agrees with my assertion that he did not actually write his own memoir, Dreams From My Father. Heiden finds his evidence in the 1995 Introduction to the book.. Says Heiden:
According to Obama, he did some writing on another book, not a memoir but ‘an essay on the limits of civil rights litigation in bringing about racial equality’ (xiii; all citations refer to the 2004 paperback edition). This book was never finished, and it doesn’t exist. Obama says that his work on the ‘civil rights litigation’ project was aborted by personal memories that forced themselves upon him: ‘I found my mind pulled…’ (xiv). But he doesn’t say how these memories turned into the book Dreams from My Father. In particular, he doesn’t say he wrote the book. He says that Dreams ‘found its way onto these pages’ (xvi).”

- American Thinker, “Ohio State Prof: Obama Denies Writing Dreams From My Father”

Election Series – Chapter VIII

**

“‘To be honest with you, that infuriates me,’ plumber Joe Wurzelbacher told Nightline’s Terry Moran. ‘It’s not right for someone to decide you made too much—that you’ve done too good and now we’re going to take some of it back.’

‘That’s just completely wrong,’ he added…

During his telephone interview with ABC News, the Ohio plumber argued that the government should not tax some Americans at a higher percentage than others and argued that this principle should extend not only to taxpayers at his income-level but also to the world’s richest man.

‘I don’t like it,’ said Wurzelbacher. ‘You know, me or — you know, Bill Gates, I don’t care who you are. If you worked for it, if it was your idea, and you implemented it, it’s not right for someone to decide you made too much.’”

- ABC News, “Joe the Plumber: Obama Tax Plan ‘Infuriates Me’”

**

“‘A plumber is the guy he’s fighting for,’ Obama sneered. The word ‘plumber’ was delivered as if he were saying ‘crap’ or some similar adjective. The crowd hoots and jeers.

Then Obama lies when he intimates that Joe is making $250,000 a year.

‘How many plumbers you know making a quarter million dollars a year?’ Obama asked.

Well, of course Joe never said he made $250,000 a year but rather that he wanted to buy a company for $250-$280 thousand.

Barack Obama: Change we can sneer at.”

- American Thinker, “Obama mocks, then lies about Joe the Plumber”

**

“Wisconsin Republican Party executive director Mark Jefferson accused the Racine district of being a ‘satellite campaign office’ for Obama. Deciding to use the textbook was at best very poor judgment and at worst intentional indoctrination of students in Democratic politics, he said.

‘That offends a lot of people in our party and justifiably so,’ Jefferson said. ‘‘You don’t have to look very far outside of the Democratic presidential nominee to come up with other stories of inspiration as well.’

Phil Walzak, spokesman for Obama’s campaign in Wisconsin, declined immediate comment.”

-Chicago Sun Times, “8th grade textbok has Obama chapter”

**

“An internal email from the Michigan Department of Corrections in August describes a request from the campaign to enter jails to register those inmates set to be released before Election Day.

An Obama spokesman in Michigan acknowledged that a new organizer made the request, but supervisors nixed the idea as soon as they found out about it. The campaign denied all association with a second request to the Department of Corrections. The emails say that a Theresa Collins, identified as the national coordinator of ‘Inmates to Support Barack Obama,’ asked the prison to post information about how prisoners could make campaign contributions to Obama. That group doesn’t appear to have any Web site.”

- The Wall Street Journal, “Obama Organizer Targets the Big House”

**

“Obama-mania has reached the last mile – Mississippi’s Death Row.

Dale Leo Bishop’s final words before his execution Wednesday night included a pitch for the Democratic presidential candidate, the Jackson Clarion Ledger reported.

‘For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice,’ Bishop, 34, said shortly before he was given a lethal injection for his role in a murder.

Obama actually says he supports the death penalty for ‘the most heinous crimes.’

Bishop’s very last words – after the endorsement – were: ‘God bless America. It has been great living here. That’s all.’”

- NY Daily News, “Barack Obama has a fan on Death Row in Mississippi”

**

“Evidence continues to mount that Barack Obama had substantial help from Bill Ayers in the creation of his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, a book that Time Magazine has called ‘the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.’ The evidence falls into five general categories, here summarized.

> The discovery of new matching nautical metaphors from both Ayers and Obama that almost assuredly came from the same source: Ayers, a former merchant seaman.
> The discovery of a Bill Ayers’ essay on memoir writing, whose postmodern themes and phrases are echoed throughout Dreams.
> A newly discovered book chapter from 1990 that shows clearly and painfully the limits of Obama’s prose style the year he received a contract to write Dreams.
> The revelation by radical Islamicist Rashid Khalidi that Ayers made his ‘dining room table’ available for neighborhood writers who needed help.
> A refined timeline that shows Ayers had the means, the motive and the time to help Obama when he needed it most.”

- American Thinker, “Evidence Mounts: Ayers Co-Wrote Obama’s Dreams”