ConservativeINC

The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games.

Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages - politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.

On Wednesday - two weeks after its most recent proclamation of an uncensored Internet during the Summer Games - the International Olympic Committee quietly agreed to some of the limitations, according to Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC press commission, Reuters reported.

The Federal Reserve announced earlier today a series of measures to enhance and improve the current set of tools it uses to deal with the unique liquidity problems which have threatened financial stability since about this time last year.They have extended the Primary Dealer Lending Facility and the term Security Lending Facility through January 2009.

They will introduce auctions of options on $50 billion of draws on the TSLF.

They will introduce an 84 day TAF to complement the 28 day TAF.

They will increase their swap lines with the ECB to $55 billion from $50 billion.

The US dollar’s rally against major currencies from Tuesday, as a result of better-than-forecast US consumer confidence, was carried over to Wednesday, albeit at a slower pace. EUR/USD dipped to another 1-month low of 1.5520 today while USD/CHF rose to a 6-week high of 1.0520 after the release of an unexpectedly positive jobs report from ADP which showed that private employers added 6000 jobs last month, versus an average forecast cut of 60,000 jobs.

This surprising outcome is leading many to think that maybe, just maybe, this Friday’s release of the government NFP report won’t be as bad as forecast. The estimate is for a cut of 75,000 jobs in July, following a decline of 62,000 in June. The dollar later gave up some of its gains when oil shot up $5 after US DOE oil inventories data showed crude inventories fell unexpectedly. Nymex crude oil closed at $126.77 after falling to $120.42 on Tuesday, the lowest level since May 6.

Another factor that could have capped dollar’s gains for the moment has been a Fed announcement Wednesday that it will extend its emergency credit facilities, established in March, through January 30.

a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as “liberal,” let alone socialist.

A careful reading of Obama’s first memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as “Frank” — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his “subversive,” “un-American activities.”

As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis’ feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.

“They’ll train you so good,” he said, “you’ll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**.”

After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences “for inspiration,” Obama followed in Davis’ footsteps, becoming a “community organizer” in Chicago.

His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman’s a disciple of the late Saul “The Red” Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the “Rules for Radicals” and agitated for social revolution in America.

The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama’s early political supporters.

After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to “bring about real change” — on a large scale.

While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky’s “agitation” tactics.

(A video-streamed bio on Obama’s Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words “Power Analysis” and “Relationships Built on Self Interest” — terms right out of Alinsky’s rule book.)

You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he’s the most liberal member in Congress.

But could he really be “more left,” as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?

Obama’s voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.