The fact is, the birth certificate controversy is only the beginning of the presidential mystery. There is so much we don’t know for certain about President Obama. Inexplicably but intriguigingly, he has failed to produce his bona fides, while the media (and the White House media in particular), who could ask for them, don’t care, or don’t want to care. Diana West.

1. The original, long-form 1961 Hawaiian birth certificate….
2. Marriage license between Obama’s father (Barak Sr.) and mother (Stanley Ann Dunham) — not found, not released
3. Obama’s baptism records — sealed
4. Obama’s adoption records — sealed
5. Records of Obama’s and his mother’s reptriation as US citizens on return from Indonesia — not found, not released
6. Name change (Barry Sotero to Barack Hussein Obama) records — not found, not released
7. Noelani Elementary School (Hawaii) — not released
8. Punahou School financial aid or school records — not released
9. Occidental College financial aid records — not released. (These records were, however, subpoenaed but Obama lawyers succeeded in quashing the subpoena in court. No other Occi records have been released.)
10. Columbia College records — not released
11. Columbia senior thesis — not released
12. Harvard Law School records (not mentioned below, but not released)
13. Obama’s law client list — sealed
14. Obama’s files from career as an Illinois State Senator — sealed
15. Obama’s record with Illinois State Bar Association — sealed
16. Obama’s medical records — not released
17. Obama’s passport records — not released

For 25 even more compelling questions read Diana West’s column here.

But there is one group in this story that not only isn’t painted with a broad brush, it’s whited out: homosexuals.  Claim that the abuse was homosexual in nature and you’ll hear accusations of intolerance, bigotry and backwardness.  “Don’t be ignorant,” say the apologists, “Haven’t you heard about psychology and the ‘determination’ that homosexuality and pedophilia are completely different things?”  Well, I will ask if they’ve heard about word definitions. Read more…

JAMES SIMPSON:

It is astonishing that they have the gall to accuse anyone of anything. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. But then we remember that the smear and the lie is all they have. As a post at Powerline relates, “It is liberals, not conservatives, who rely on ad hominem attacks, outrageous allegations and violent imagery.” The accusations of racism and threats of violence put forth by Congressional Democrats since Saturday are straight out of the Alinsky playbook. They probaby made the calls themselves.

Thank God for talk radio and the internet. Thanks to the New Media, they can no longer do these things with impunity. As Andrew Breitbart says, “The emperor has no clothes.” The Left is being exposed for the empty fraud of a movement it is, and as that happens, they are getting increasingly desperate. Yes we do have to worry about violence. From the Left. But this is nothing new either.

Powerline describes the 2008 Republican convention in Minneapolis, where Leftist protesters:

threw bricks through the windows of buses, sending elderly convention delegates to the hospital. They dropped bags of sand off highway overpasses onto vehicles below. Fortunately, no one was killed.

As Noel Sheppard relates, the Media were AWOL. Here is a list of typical Leftist stuff:

• Air America exhorts listeners to assassinate Bush.
• Five campaign workers for Kerry arrested for slashing tires on 25 cars rented by GOP campaign workers. One of the five was the Milwaukee Mayor’s son, the other, son of a Democrat U.S. Congresswoman.
• Republican combat wounded Vietnam vet house spray-painted with the words BUSHNAZIS, American flags shredded, truck keyed.
• Leftist lawyer caught keying Marine Iraq War vet’s BMW just prior to his second deployment. (This one is priceless. You should read the outcome.)
• Senator Mary Landrieu threatens to punch President Bush (a felony.) Where was the press on that one?
• Alan Grayson says we need to “get rid of Republicans entirely.”
• Alec Baldwin screams that Rep. Henry Hyde and family should be stoned to death.

For Jim’s complete rundown on this story read his entire article at the Examiner.com

He started by claiming that Obama came into office facing a $1.2 trillion budget. Obama makes the same claim. Actually, the deficit for 2008, Bush’s last year in office, was $459 billion. Bush does share responsibility for TARP though, so you could say that Obama was only partially responsible for 2009’s deficit, even though his proposals added $787 billion in new spending through the failed “Stimulus,” which was not supported by Republicans.

I know, I know. It was all Bush’s fault, so Obama can’t be blamed even if he had to shell out $800 billion of our dollars to save his Wall Street and union friends. In fact, Bush and the Republicans do share some of the blame for the financial crisis, but it was a sin of omission, not commission. The truth is that the financial crisis was the direct result of a half-century of Democrat meddling with the housing market. Bush and the Republicans failed in that they did not push hard enough for needed reform.

But however you want to argue it for 2009, Obama owns the 2010 and 2011 budgets all alone. FY 2010 included the largest regular budgetary increase in recent history, a whopping 15 percent higher than Bush’s 2009 proposal. According to Obama’s 2011 budget, deficits for 2010 and 2011 are projected to be $1.6 trillion and $1.3 trillion respectively. And while Obama continues to call for health care reform, no spending for it is included in the 2011 budget.

The 2011 budget does, however, include an assumed $150 billion in deficit reduction from passage of healthcare reform. Who is he kidding? This is the same smoke and mirrors game the Senate played in claiming “savings” from overhauling healthcare. Don’t believe it! The true cost will be in the trillions.

At this weekend’s Republican retreat, Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling claimed that Obama and the Democrats’ monthly deficits now equal what Republicans used to run every year. What he had in mind was the House Republicans’ twelve year history of budgets while they controlled Congress, from 1994 to 2006. Measured that way, the average budget deficit was $106.9 billion per year after correcting for inflation. If you compare this to Obama budgets for 2009, 2010 and the 2011 budget proposal, Obama’s monthly deficits are indeed $105 billion per month; virtually identical to annual Republican deficits for twelve years.

Sanchez attempted to refute that statement by comparing the 2009 $1.2 trillion deficit (actually it is $1.4 trillion in current dollars) with Obama’s monthly deficits, implying that Republicans ran $1.2 trillion deficits throughout the Bush years. It was a pretty incredible misuse of statistics, even for CNN.

I know what you are going to say! 2009 was Bush’s fault!! Okay then, it doesn’t look much better if you remove 2009 from the equation. 2010 and 2011 deficits are projected to average about $104 billion per month. If you include the years Democrats have controlled Congress (i.e. 2007-2010), the monthly average deficit is still $67 billion.

In March of last year, the Heritage Foundation put together a brief analysis comparing spending during the Bush years to Obama’s spending based on spending proposals for his first year alone. Here is what they came up with:

• President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
• President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
• President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund.
• President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it.
• President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent.
• President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.
• President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.

CNN has never been credible. Bolshevik Ted Turner always had an angle, but Sanchez’s bald-faced dishonesty was blatant even for CNN. As for Obama’s gross misstatements, we’re used to him by now.

Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst. His writings have been published in American Thinker, Washington Times, WorldnetDaily, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others.

CHAPPAQUIDDICK, MA

The Drowning. While vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard Ted Kennedy attended a party. He left the party early with a young girl, Mary Jo Kopechne, a staff member who served on his brother Robert’s 1968 presidential campaign. Kennedy took the unusual step of taking the car keys from his chauffeur, leaving his driver to fend for himself. Kennedy, driving back home with Mary Jo, left a paved road and made an abrupt turn onto a bumpy dirt road leading to a secluded beach. It was a dark night, with less than 1/4 moon for light. Kenney drove a considerable distance until he inadvertently drove off a bridge over what amounted to a drainage ditch for Poucha Pond. The car capsized and Kennedy escaped while Kopechne drowned.

I visited Chappaquiddick not long after the accident back in the summer of 1969. As an eye witness to the conditions of the roads at the time, I can personally testify that there is no way that Kennedy was “lost” or made a bad turn. The road was very bumpy (a condition not reported by anyone as far as I know). This road was barely a one lane dirt track. It was such a contrast from the 2 lane paved road that no one could have made the mistake of following that route and thinking it was leading back to the ferry for Edgartown.

Kennedy drove some distance on the dirt road before reaching the bridge, a distance long enough that both he and Mary Jo would have realized that they were on “the wrong road.” It took Kennedy to a beach that, even on the sunny day when I was there, was very secluded. That midnight Kennedy knew it would be deserted.

The Attempted Cover-up. After the drowning, instead of heading to the nearest house 150 yards away and calling for help, Kennedy’s thoughts appeared to revolve around how he could cover it up. After escaping from the flooding car, Kennedy hiked a considerable distance and swam across the dangerous 500 foot channel between Chappaquiddick and Edgartown to return to his room at the Harborside Inn. The next morning Kennedy appeared for breakfast, strolling casually, chatting about the previous day’s sailing race, acting like nothing was amiss.

From the NIP’s perspective Kennedy was prevaricating about every aspect of the incident, from his wrong turn, his failure to call for help, his failure to report, and his acting role the following morning. He at the time saw himself as a presidential contender and did not want to be known as a married man taking a young woman out to a secluded beach for some hanky-panky, getting her killed in the process.

Although 1969 was well into the sexual revolution, when Kennedy climbed out of the ditch at Poucha Pond he knew immediately that America would not like to waken the next morning hearing about his sexual exploits. We will never know what plans were hatched during that night to cover up the drowning, nor what derailed their plans, but it is fair to assume that the next morning Kennedy thought he was going to get away with covering up his involvement in Kopechne’s death.

The Real Cover-up. We of course think that Senator Kennedy has paid the price for this tragic incident. It was an accident, after all. Had he actually called for help would it have even helped? John Farrar, the diver who pulled her out thought she could have been saved. If true, one wonders if Kennedy actually has paid the price. Our point is that Kennedy should have called for help, and in all likelihood would have, had he been thinking of Mary Jo’s life instead of his own career.

Forget Kennedy’s attempt at covering it up. Instead, call your attention to the real cover-up. Back then, and for 40 years since, the press, the influential, and those on the left, have all conveniently whitewashed or totally ignored Kennedy’s attempt at covering up his involvement in the drowning. After all, Ted Kennedy had so much to offer, and his agenda was so important.

America’s politicians and the influential seem to think the rules apply to the rest of us, but not to them. Congress writes laws mandating how we must live while specifically exempting themselves. This pattern of condescending behavior continues today. Pelosi knows that America is overwhelmingly against her healthcare bill, but her thirst for power over one-sixth of the American economy cannot be quenched. Pelosi vows to pass it even in light of Brown’s victory in Massachusetts.

Had Senator Kennedy sought help that dark midnight, had he come clean, things might have been different for him. If today’s Congress would come clean and quit their pattern of deceit, things might be different for us.

ST. BARTS & KAILUA:

Apparently we can add Microsoft founder Paul Allen to the list of starry-eyed admirers as he was seen partying last week with Beyonce and Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s son Hannibal:

Popstar Beyonce Knowles reportedly performed at a party thrown by Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi’s son Hannibal, notorious for violence against women, for almost an hour on New Year’s Eve, New York Post reported.

The 28-year-old singer performed five songs in a sexy black leotard at the Nikki Beach club on St. Barts in front of a crowd that included her husband Jay-Z, Usher, Microsoft founder Paul Allen and Lindsay Lohan…

Just a week earlier, on Christmas Day, Hannibal, 33 — also known as Moutassim — allegedly attacked his wife, Aline Skaf, in his suite at Claridge’s in London. Three of his security staff were arrested for obstructing police. Skaf was reportedly hospitalized with a broken nose while Hannibal was whisked away in a diplomatic car.  New York Post

Hannibal (well-named) gets whisked away with diplomatic immunity while his wife is hospitalized. Then a few days later he jets to St. Barts and parties with Paul Allen, Beyonce, and other celebrities.  Despotic rulers love their glamour and their luxury and celebrities love to party with them.

While we’re at it why not compare George W. Bush’s Christmas holidays at his own home with Obama’s Christmas holidays? For the last two Christmases Obama has vacationed at a $4,000 a night villa in Hawaii while he also rents two adjacent villas for his family and friends. Let’s not forget the transportation costs to and from Hawaii for his entourage, and housing for his security staff. Kailua is known as the most beautiful beach in Hawaii and a traditional vacationing spot for royalty. What a better spot for our own royalty to soak away their stress while we are being subjected to attempted suicide bombers? Surely none of his loyal subjects complained when he didn’t even bother to make a statement about the bombing for three days.

The left’s appetite for luxury is never satiated, along with their demand that the rest of us fund them in their extravagance.

You know how you know you are going to win if you pass anything [regarding healthcare reform]? The Republicans will know they have lost…Let them keep score and it’s easy. It’s complicated when liberals get to keep score. We`re always arguing. Well, I’m a liberal, too. Noel Sheppard, Newsbusters

How very brave of him to come out as a liberal! Now in the prevarication business this is news. It used to be that journalists (what’s journalism?) used to pride themselves on objective reporting. Now apparently Matthews has come out of the closet. No objectivity here, just out and out agenda-advancement and propaganda-pushing.

Now Saul Alinsky was no Mao, but Matthews is a lot like Anita Dunn who loved to quote Mao. Alinsky is considered the founder of American rabble-rousing, a radical seeking to bring down our Constitutional government. And if Matthews helps him do it, we guess that will put the tingle up Chris’s other leg.

Yeah, this is real Hardball all right…

BETHLEHEM

Most Christians around the world are oblivious to the stark contrast this particular Christmas offers with Islam. This year Christmas runs headlong into Shiite Islam’s most mournful ceremony, Ashura. The Day of Ashura is observed on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar. Muharram is one of the four sacred months of the year in which fighting is prohibited. Apparently this only means a holiday from fighting among Muslims themselves, as it appears it is always open season on Christians:

The deadly Christmas Eve ambush of a Christian bus driver in Iraq Thursday and a bombing earlier this week targeting a 1,200-year-old church are driving Iraq’s few remaining Christians quietly underground in the hours before the holy day begins.

Christmas has bumped into Shiite Islam’s most mournful ceremony this year, forcing Iraqi Christians to shutter their homes and hide the signs of their celebration…

Unidentified gunmen ambushed a Christian man in Mosul on Thursday, shooting him after pulling him from the bus he was driving, police said…

That shooting came on the heels of a deadlier attack Wednesday, when a bomb hidden in sacks of flour exploded outside a historic church in Mosul, killing two people and wounding five.

“Instead of performing Christmas Mass in this church, we will be busy removing rubble and debris,” said Hazim Ragheed, a priest at the Mar Toma Church. Fox News

Butchering innocent Christians seems to be the dessert in a multi-course meal of slaughter between warring factions of Muslims themselves. This fighting is nothing new. In fact Ashura itself commemorates the killing of the Prophet Muhammed’s grandson, Husayn ibn Ali in 680 AD. He was not killed by an infidel, but by one of his Muslim brothers, all done in the name of Islam. This occurred during a battle that forever sealed the split between Shiites and Sunnis. Today Muslims observe this day by fasting, mourning, and self-flagellation. Here we are over 1300 years later and the Shiites and Sunnis are still killing each other, and both are still murdering Christians.

Now here is where Moral Equivalence comes in. There are many who equivocate all religions. Others blame all the ills in the world on religion. Many say it doesn’t make a difference what you believe, as long as you let others believe what they may. Others say there is no universal truth. Even President George W. Bush proclaimed that “Islam is a religion of peace” on a number of occasions.

Our mission here at the NIP is to stand for honesty in public discourse and to expose prevarication of all forms. This mission is based upon the supposition that there is such a thing as truth. If this were not so then what would it matter if a man lied? Who would care? (This may explain the abundance of prevarication we see in today’s world, i.e. a basic lack of belief in the principle of truth.)

This Christmas we celebrate one who lived among us who taught, “by their fruits ye shall know them,” and “if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.”

If you apply these teachings you can decide for yourself what fruits are worth gathering. Do you choose the fruits of murder, mayhem, and mutilation that have abounded for thousands of years? Or do you chose the peace and prosperity that prevail when following the teachings of the babe born in Bethlehem? Or do you side with the moral equivalency crowd where everything goes and nothing really matters?

As long as there is freedom, you can be the judge. Were Islam to prevail you would not be so lucky.

We here at the NIP have made our choice. Truth, reason, freedom, and the intrinsic worth of the human soul are central to the meaning of Christmas. This should be our message all year long.

Merry Christmas.

Editors Note: This article was published early AM before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab took off for Detroit in an attempted bombing attack. Evidently al Qaeda read it and wanted to underscore our point. Visit this trackback from Serr8d’s Cutting Edge for photos of Ashura’s holy celebration.

All Hail Caesar Obama

Brooklyn, NY: Chris Matthews, move over. We now have an even more devoted follower of The One. We’re speaking of Rocco Landesman, the new Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Speaking at a NEA conference on October 21, 2009 Rocco Landesman brings clarity and focus to the contributions of our new President.

This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.

We guess pandering to the Chief Executive is what qualifies one to rise to the chairmanship of the NEA. Since Obama has the biggest checkbook, it probably makes sense. But we here at the NIP who operate on an infinitesimal budget compared to the NEA think we do better on a lot less money than the NEA, at least in the critical thinking department. Let’s take a look at it.

Let’s consider Barack Hussein Obama’s two literary contributions. First, Dreams from My Father, written with pride about a subject Obama loves better than anyone: himself. His second opus is The Audacity of Hope, “a common political tract, not to be confused with literature even by the most fawning Obama sycophant.” (Mark Whittington, AssociatedContent.com.) Now lets look at the competition.

Let’s first discount all books written by former presidents. Right off the bat you are going to irritate Jimmy Carter whose Peace Not Apartheid is number one on Al Jazeera Best-Sellers. “What am I, chopped liver?” the former president and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize recipient was heard to exclaim bitterly at a recent book signing in Cairo. After all by 2002 Carter had actually done something, so on paper he did appear a better Nobel candidate.

What about Reagan in His Own Hand, a book Ronald Reagan actually wrote, in longhand on legal paper? What was that, Mr. Landesman, about Obama being “the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt?”

Let’s then skip over the writings of all other presidents, Lincoln, Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and while we are at it, all other leaders of all countries in all of western history, lets go right back to Julius Caesar with whom Landesman compares Obama.

[Full disclosure: This writer spent 3 years in high school Latin, a large portion of which was spent translating the works of Julius Caesar. I didn't suffer through the embarrassment of my pitiful attempts at reading Latin to not speak up for the Emperor.]

Caesar was THE most powerful military and political ruler of the Roman empire which stretched throughout most of the known world at the time. Aquaducts built by the Romans still carry water in Europe. Tour de France cyclists ride today over roads paved by Caesar. The Roman impact is still felt all over the world, its language survives in 25 languages that devolved from Latin.

That being said there are some common threads here to which Landesman must be referring: Caesar seized control of the government. (That sounds familiar.) He carried out extensive reforms of Roman society. (That too.) Caesar centralized Roman bureaucracy. (The more czars the better.) He was eventually proclaimed dictator perpetuo. (He and his “brother” Chavez are working on that one.) Caesar conquered most of the known world. (And we thought the left didn’t like Imperialism!)

If you are not familiar with Julius Caesar a quick brush up can be found at Wikipedia. Check it out and if you still think Obama is in the same league, let us know. By the way, it didn’t end so well for Caesar, or for the Roman Empire, for that matter.