Obama Notes

A Newsmax survey of key Obama aspects of Obama’s public and private life continued to be shielded from the public. Among the examples: Obama has released just one brief document detailing his personal health. McCain, on the other hands, released what he said was his complete medical file totaling more than 1500 pages. After criticism on the matter, last week the Obama campaign also released some routine lab-test results and electrocardiograms for Obama. All test results appeared normal, but many details about his health remain a mystery. Obama has refused to offer his official papers as a state legislator in Illinois, and has been unable to produce correspondence, such as letters from lobbyists and other correspondence from his days in the Illinois state senate. There are also no appointment calendars available of his official activities. “It could have been thrown out,” Obama said while on the campaign trail during the Democratic primary. “I haven’t been in the state Senate now for quite some time.” Obama has not released his client list as an attorney or his billing records. Obama has maintained that he only performed a few hours of legal work for a nonprofit organization with ties to Tony Rezko, the Chicago businessman convicted of fraud in June. But he has not released billing records that would prove this assertion. Obama won’t release his college records from Occidental College where he studied for two years before transferring to Columbia. Obama’s campaign refuses to give Columbia University, where he earned an undergraduate degree in political science, permission to release his transcripts. Such transcripts would list the courses Obama took, and his grades. President George W. Bush, and presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry, all released their college transcripts. (McCain has refused to release his Naval Academy transcript.) Obama’s college dissertation has simply disappeared from Columbia Universities archives. In July, in response to a flurry of requests to review Obama’s senior thesis at the Ivy League school, reportedly titled “Soviet Nuclear Disarmament,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told NBC News “We do not have a copy of the course paper you requested and neither does Columbia University.” The senator has not agreed to the release of his application to the Illinois state bar, which would clear up intermittent allegations that his application to the bar may have been inaccurate. Jim Geraghty of the National Review has written extensively about Obama’s unwillingness to release records related to clients he represented while he was an attorney with the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill, and Gallard. Obama was required to list his clients during his years in the Illinois senate. “Obama listed every client of the firm,” Geraghty reported, making it impossible to discern which clients he represented. Obama has never released records from his time at Harvard Law School. Obama also has not disclosed the names of small donors giving $200 or less to his campaign. An exception to the finance-reporting laws exempts the campaign from reporting those who donate less than $200, but that law never envisioned the more than $300 million that has been raised by Obama in small amounts. The Republican National Committee has released its small donors, as well as McCain’s, on a public database. This fresh information thanks to Newsmax.com. Thanks for visiting. - Bob - toujours en vedette

Cautions and MoneySaving Tips

The reason I make an article out of these subjects is that I know that they are for real - the cautions are being perpetrated; and the tips are valid and are being offered.

Cautions

1. Two scams in one: A phony job offer plus a check-cashing scam are being used to target job seekers. Scammers place an ad for the often heard of "Secret or Mystery Shopper" opportunity. These are supposedly people who are paid to go shopping in their free time to evaluate services or products. They are promised pay plus free clothing, hotel stays and restaurant meals.

People who answer the ad receive materials by mail, including a check that they are told to deposit as paid training money. They cash the check, keep the predetermined pay for themselves and wire the rest of the money back to the company address.

Reality: The checks are forgeries. Weeks after depositing them, victims learn that the checks are phony and that they must repay the bank the amount they sent to the scammers. Scammers can make $1,000 or more per victim. (BBB, Louisville, KY)

2. You have either heard of this next one, or unwittingly participated, or received their mailings. Beware of investment salespeople who label themselves "senior specialists" at seminars in hotels and restaurants. These people, who may call themselves "Retirement Counselors" or "Senior Counselors" may have little or no investment training. They may urge attendees to sell off their investments and put the proceeds into other products, including some that have high commissions and early withdrawal penalties.

Before consenting to or giving money to anyone claiming special expertise in investments for seniors, read the SEC article Check Out Brokers and Investment Advisors, available at www.sec.gov/investor/brokers.htm

(SEC, Washington, DC)

Money Saving Tips

1. I spied this one Oct 15, 2008 (to let you know it's current) in one of my incoming publications. You are invited to go to: www.MoneySavingGuide.com for advice on saving money and spending wisely on travel, entertainment, groceries, utilities, banking and more. The site features articles, blog posts and other tools and resources on the Web, as well as suggestions from readers and a FREE monthly

E-mail newsletter.

2. I have just concluded attending to my eye needs. This tip came to me after the fact, but perhaps you may find it can save you some precious dollars. The advice is: "Shop around for eyeglasses." This is sound advice because you would be surprised that the same pair of glasses priced recently at $178 to $390 depended on where it was bought. Really! There is price variation in lenses and in frames.

Doctors and independent optical shops tend to charge more but provide more personal service. Chain stores often make glasses in about an hour and may offer discounts for members of AARP, AAA and other groups. Warehouse clubs offer low prices and, in some cases, do not require membership for eyeglass purchases. But get this: Internet merchants may offer the lowest prices of all. "One, Zenni Optical, offers eyeglasses (frames and lenses) starting as low as $8."

Eyeglasses and frames, like jewelry, have a tremendous markup in price when, in fact, the materials' cost itself is not hefty. To save money it always pays to do your homework before stepping out to shop.

Thanks for visiting. - Bob "Always on the look-out"

Selective Reporting by the Media

Isn't it amazing how swiftly the media can investigate and report on an unknown such as "Joe the Plumber" and withhold pertinent information about Barak H. Obama from the public because of their biased agenda? From this simple happening a few days ago, you ought to learn that YOU will need to do your own research for the truth of anything nowadays. Just because it's in print, you can no longer assume that it is the truth; just because it isn't in print, you can no longer assume that you have had the entire truth reported - that's BIAS. No two ways about it. And, believe it or not, bias reporting has been going on for about 45 years, shaping the way people think - if they think at all any more. With newspapers losing ground to computers, and computers available in most, if not all, libraries, there's no way you need to feel "ignorant" about issues and what is going on in this world. Of course if truth is not important to you, none of this means anything. On the other hand, if truth IS important to you, you will need to accept the responsibility for searching truth out. There are FIVE BIG MEN available to help you. They're invaluable questions leading to truth of a matter. I refer to: WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? HOW? Oftimes adding WHY? can be surprisingly helpful. If the media wants to treat you like a simpleton or an ignorant fool by giving you only what they want you to know, you don't need to cooperate. When you find yourself reading something (even your local newspaper), invoke the FIVE BIG MEN to see if you're reading a full story. If you agree that you're receiving faulty reporting, which, unfortunately, is likely, do yourself a favor and abandon that source of reporting. Belonging to an on-line activist organization may bring you full, current news of what's going on here, there, everywhere, and what's being done by WHO, WHEN, AND WHERE. There's no substitute to accurate reporting (once proudly called Journalism). The next time you pick up something to read, you now know what to do to determine whether it deserves your time. Joe the Plumber was interesting but not worthy of our time; it just proved the unjust activity of a bias media biding time and ignoring what is truly important - the countdown to casting our privileged Vote for the next president of the United States. If you want your vote to be taken seriously (and you definitely should), why are there not reports of what is being done about the highly questionable goings on, such as fraud at the Ballot Boxes involving 100's of thousands of ballots already cast - in at least 11 states - that, because of its association with Barak Obama, it's not being accurately reported? We can know all about Joe the Plumber in swift time, why not report about what has been and is going on that seriously threatens our individual vote? After all, it's just a matter of days before the critical hour! Reporters have all the help they need with the FBI supposedly investigating, so they ought to be able to jump on it - if they weren't biased. Thanks for visiting. - Bob carpe diem

Liberals Shifting the Blame

Truth cannot be hidden and will always be known and revealed

For years, liberals in Congress pushed government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to achieve their policy ends even as they avoided fixing the organizations' abuses. Now that the financial markets are unsteady, they want to pin the blame not on these government-sponsored enterprises but on free enterprise. The Left is looking to spin the economic crisis to their own advantage, Heritage Foundation expert Ernest Istook argues on Human Events Online. They know "that whoever shapes public understanding of what caused today's economic crisis can shape America's politics -- and its future -- for a great many years to come. Thus, they're pushing the notion that too little government regulation was at fault.' In fact, lack of regulation is only part of the story. It wasn't too little regulation of private financial firms that's to blame—if anything, laws like the Community Reinvestment Act went too far, Istook says—but too little regulation of government-sponsored companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Despite early and prescient warnings from experts including Heritage's Ron Utt, liberals collaborated with Fannie and Freddie to avoid taking responsibility for their failure. Heritage president Ed Feulner explains how they achieved this: Fannie and Freddie evaded attempts to regulate them. A big reason is that they cultivated powerful friends in Congress, such as Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. As chair of the Senate banking committee, he pocketed more than $165,000 in campaign contributions from people associated with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Over in the House, the GSEs also enjoyed vocal support. "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis," Rep. Barney Frank, now head of the House Banking Committee, said in 2003. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." Today, these same liberals who for so long resisted doing anything about Fannie and Freddie are now crying out for a Congressional investigation. "Clearly, these gentlemen cannot credibly lead an investigation into the collapse of the very companies they championed," Feulner argues. To get at the real root of the financial crisis, Feulner proposes a "Financial Crisis Commission," independent of the Congress. And what might this commission find? Feulner says that "a fair and complete investigation seems likely to confirm that wisdom by revealing that many of today's problems were triggered by our elected officials -- not by a failure of the free market." (The above is courtesy of The Heritage Foundation of which I am a proud member.) Thanks for visiting. - Bob II Tim 4:2

Bravo! Encore!

With all the stress of the day, you know, bail out and all that is connected with it, a wee bit of lightheartedness is called for. So consider this situation and, if you care to, circulate it.

A Moving Speech

Eleven people - 10 men and a woman - were lifted to apparent safety from the roof of a burning building by grabbing a rope dropped by a rescue helicopter. There was a problem. As the chopper labored to gain altitude, it quickly became clear that the rope they were holding wasn't quite strong enough to carry 11 people. The solution was clear, they realized one of them had to let go or they'd all perish.

Unable to decide on who'd make the ultimate sacrifice by letting go - and there were no volunteers, an unselfish decision had to be made, and quickly.

Finally, with everyone clinging tightly to the rope, the woman gave a touching speech when she said: "I'll let go because, as a woman, I'm used to giving up everything for my husband and kids, or for men in general, and for always making sacrifices with little in return."

As soon as she finished, all the men began clapping their hands.

Thanks for visiting. -Bob toujours en vedette