Voice of Liberty Podcast Network

Who Let the Prairie Dogs Out?

Doug Hecox — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 06:32:00 GMT

If you aren’t afraid of prairie dogs, you better start.

According to a new report issued this week by WildEarth Guardians, an animal rights group based in New Mexico, five species of North American prairie dogs have lost more than 90 percent of their native habitat due to habitat loss, poisoning and shooting. Translation? They claim man has expanded his living space at the expense of the cuddly little doe-eyed prairie dog.

You know, the little fellow who looks like a gopher and who is rife with fleas? The critter that still transmits bubonic plague to anyone not being careful? A group out there is mad there aren’t more of these little plague factories and they are blaming you, America!

Of all the states listed in the group’s report, most received poor grades – including the federal Bureau of Land Management – due to their failures to protect prairie dogs. Wyoming got a D+ while Kansas, Nebraska and North Dakota earned Fs. Arizona was the only state whose score marked an improvement. Its B- was the highest grade of any state listed, due largely to its reintroduction of 74 black-tailed prairie dogs in the southeast corner of the state.

If prairie dogs continue to wither away as a species, bad things will happen. Admittedly, I’m no scientist but I know that nature abhors a vacuum. This is why the great outdoors is so dirty – it hasn’t been vacuumed in a while. It was Aristotle who first observed this many centuries ago and, for an ancient Greek, he was pretty sharp – so sharp, in fact, that he apparently knew about vacuum cleaners thousands of years before Hoover invented them.

But he’s right. Mother Nature loves balance. When too many trees overcrowd a forest, she sends a lightning bolt to create a wildfire. It thins the trees out, and she restores balance. In this case, with fewer and fewer prairie dogs running around, she will respond with one of two things: either a flood of prairie dogs, or one large super-prairie dog. Either way, the native prairie dog homeland will be reclaimed at Man’s expense.

It’s a little scary when you think about it. We don’t know what prairie dogs like or what they dislike. All they seem to do is stand outside their burrow, on their hind legs doing a bad impersonation of us, chirping away and whistling in an even worse impersonation of us.

In some respects, Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward knew more about those big worms they fought in “Tremors” than we do about prairie dogs. So, with the prospect of wave after wave of prairie dogs sicced on us by a vengeful, balance-seeking Mother Nature, America is flying blind.

President Barack Obama will likely want to open what diplomats call “peaceful dialogue” – to find a way to live peacefully with our small hairy neighbors. Previous administrations only looked down their noses at prairie dog peace talks, so it is to Obama’s credit his team is open to negotiation, no matter how ludicrous the opposing party may be.

As the ancient Greeks also used to say, “Forewarned is forearmed.” This is why Plato and his friends would write crib notes on their forearms before taking tests. We would do well to learn from their example – so write “Save the Prairie Dogs” on your forearms or risk falling victim to Mother Nature’s wrath, shaped like gophers.

Clarity

John McJunkin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:33:00 GMT

Barack Obama has chosen the Arab television network Al-Arabiya to give his first formal interview as president, and has named a special envoy, former senator George J. Mitchell, to travel to the middle east on a mission of “restoration.” His goal is to communicate to Muslims “that the Americans are not your enemy.” He stated that the US has made mistakes in the past, but that he wishes to restore “the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago . . .” Many clear-thinking Americans will see this as a huge mistake – an attempt to extend an olive branch to a group with radical elements who will perceive the move as weakness and react accordingly. I personally think Obama’s decision to go this way is a positive development, at least indirectly.

Truth is I believe that the radicals who have hijacked Islam will perceive Obama’s efforts to present the US as willing to “start listening” and stop “dictating” as a display of appeasement. There were numerous radical Muslim organizations and individuals who vocally supported the election of Obama for exactly this reason. If your jihad is thwarted by a tough administration that refuses to acquiesce, you will certainly be happy to see a new administration that prefers to prostrate itself on the ground in submission. We’ve heard from both radical anti-Americans and their naïve followers for quite some time that if we only play nice with the radical Muslims, they will leave us alone and let us live our lives – no more 9/11 attacks. Now we will finally get a trial of this pacification strategy, and that’s the good news.

Elections have consequences, and this new strategy of conciliation results directly from the election of Obama and a heavily Democrat congress. Now we’ll get to see whether it works. The good news is that when this strategy fails spectacularly, the restless and hoodwinked electorate that elected Obama will regain its bearings and elect responsible adults who recognize the unbending nature of radical Islam. I do not wish harm on anyone at the hands of radical Muslim butchers, and I will weep real tears when more Americans die from a future terror attack. And that’s the point – I never want to see another human die at the hands of Islamists. I fear that Obama’s policy of prostrating America before those who wish us dead will invite more death and destruction. The good that will come of this is that we will finally get a chance to see the terrible results of appeasement, and hopefully we will never again elect an administration that refuses to exercise American exceptionalism.

Waterboarding Too Good for Inaugural Planners

Doug Hecox — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:05:00 GMT

Through the applause-laden cacophony that is the post-inaugural Obama lovefest, you can probably barely hear me. I am the guy with a legitimate beef, struggling in vain to be heard.

When President Obama first sat at the desk in the Oval Office, he became a pen-wielding whirling dervish, signing proclamation after proclamation, promise after promise, pledge after pledge. First among them, he promised to close the detainee camp at Guantanamo Bay, and I can’t disagree more strenuously. We must keep Gitmo open – and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) should back me up on this. Let me explain.

Several weeks ago, I began my hunt for tickets to the Presidential Inauguration. They were scarcer than hen’s teeth, and it took a lot of help from one of the greatest members of Congress I know. I’d name names, but American politics doesn’t need another overinflated ego.

With hard-to-find tickets in hand, a special friend and I made plans to show up early. We were prepared for the long lines we heard about on the news, and for the extremely cold weather that we learned about from various D.C.-area weather reports. With wind chills, the temperatures felt like single digits – and nothing is less fun than standing in such cold gusty weather for hours, but we did it anyway. Such was our commitment to being on hand for the latest chapter in America’s history.

Clearly, we were not alone. When we arrived near the Capitol and looked for the color-coded entrance gate matching our Blue tickets, we were confronted by a flood of our fellow Americans. It was the largest ocean of humanity either of us had ever seen. There were hundreds of thousands of people swarming to and fro, not moving very quickly, and waiting patiently for their turn to go through the Security gate.

The line we stood in was longer than any I’d ever seen and, at points, it seemed to blur with other lines. But, following the rules and being good neighbors, we stood patiently enduring the cold and the utter lack of guidance from the event organizers. Had only one of the legion of Obama volunteers been on hand with bullhorn to direct traffic, so to speak, things would have far better organized. As it was, it was a frozen directionless wasteland. Still, we figured that we would make it to the security gate slowly – and we were there early, so time was on our side.

Three freezing hours later, we had made it to within six feet of the Blue gate when the security personnel – primarily U.S. Capitol Police and Secret Service officers – decided it was time to close the gate. The Blue section – where we would have stood – was filled to capacity already, they said.

The crowd went crazy when the gates began to close. Not throwing-shoes-at-Presidents crazy, but close. If anything, it was very similar to the mob I’ve seen in old news footage of the last American chopper leaving Saigon. We were in a crush of our fellow Americans, frozen and now being turned away from the very event we’d suffered for hours to see. Some attempted to climb the security fence or to block the gate’s closure, but cops fingering their holsters is an attention-getter. Nothing makes a celebration of freedom more ironic than being locked out of a public event and intimidated by gunmen.

Having no other choice, we and thousands of others trudged brokenheartedly home to watch the big event on C-SPAN re-runs. We could warm our hands, but not our spirits. It was extremely disappointing.

This same scene, I have since learned, played itself out in other areas of the Capitol too. The Purple section and the Silver section each turned people away, some of whom had waited in line with tickets since 6 a.m. that day.

Enter Sen. Feinstein, the chief organizer of the Swearing-In ceremony who distributed a memorandum on Thursday to various Administration and Congressional officials, admitting that mistakes were made and that she was going to get to the bottom of it. Well, it’s too late to change things but it’s nice that someone admits that wrongs occurred. One of the chief mistakes, as it turns out, was that the security details were letting people in without tickets. It isn’t rocket science – asking someone to show them a card that is Blue or not is all it took. If that’s what these guys call law enforcement, it is no wonder America’s borders are so porous. No passport, no problem!

To sum up, this is why we cannot afford to close Guantanamo Bay. If we do, we will never be able to adequately punish the ne’er-do-wells who prevented me and thousands of freezing Americans from seeing one of the nation’s great moments. In fact, waterboarding may be too good for them but it would be nice to have it as an option.

Enjoy the Historic Event from Somewhere Warm

Doug Hecox — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:01:00 GMT

My life has been one of consistent luck. I was lucky to get a girl to go to prom with me. I was lucky to graduate from college. I was lucky to have worked for Gov. Mike Sullivan and Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), and I was lucky to have been the first comedian to have performed in Washington, D.C., after Sept. 11, 2001.

This week, my luck continues. I managed to get tickets to the Inauguration of President Barack Obama.

According to the various news reports out there, these tickets are nearly impossible to get. The “fair-market value” that I see for the tickets being sold on eBay and Craigslist suggests that mine are worth around $1,000 apiece. I am not the sort to sell such historic items anyway, so I might as well enjoy them. In fact, by the time you read this, I am probably shivering in Washington’s arctic cold and shuffling along in a line a million-people long, waiting to go through security where steely-eyed police will make sure I am not packing hand-warmers, folding chairs or thermoses filled with coffee. You’ll know if I get hypothermia. I’ll be the guy streaking across the Capitol Grounds thinking I am overheated. Hypothermia is funny that way.

If I survive the exposure to the frigid weather, I will then spend most of the rest of the day restoring my core temperature to 98.6 Fahrenheit and hoping my tuxedo pants still fit. You see, I have tickets to one of the Presidential Inaugural balls, too – black-tie events which are also funny.

For those who have ever wondered about the dignity and grace of a Presidential ball, let me dispel that myth right away. It is little more than prom for grown-up nerds. If you’ve ever had a conversation at the bar with the loudmouth you’ve never met who thinks he knows more about politics than you do, and wants to debate you about Canadian-style health care or why the income tax is voluntary, imagine him in a poorly fitting tux. Then imagine another thousand of him and his begowned wife or lady friend. Some of these couples will be dancing to up-tempo music played too loudly, while others will wait in long lines for the rest room or the cash bar. The Presidential ball, of which there are actually 10, is a wonderland of waiting around with political science nerds – which, apparently, includes me. I’m not proud of it but, at this point in my life, I have to come to grips with certain realities.

At some point in the evening, the new President and Vice President – and their wives – make a brief appearance and dance to one song before waving to the crowd and heading off to the next ball. They will appear at each of the 10 before finally heading to bed after what will surely have been a very long day.

When the dignitaries have shown up, danced and departed, that is the starting gun for the thousand aforementioned political nerds to race to the coat check to pick up their topcoats and to wait in lengthy lines in the cold night air for limousines or taxi cabs to take them to their homes, hotels or maybe to return their tuxedoes and formal gowns. Four years from now, the cycle will begin anew with prospective ticket holders hoping for good weather.

It is historic, to be sure, but there is something to be said for enjoying the moment in the comfort of your heated home. Television offers better views than any had by those standing frozen on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, with shorter lines at the rest room.

To sum up, I am lucky to have the experience to say authoritatively that the inconveniences of Presidential inaugurations put the “sweet” in “Home, Sweet Home.” Enjoy the moment as you watch the swearing-in – but be glad you’re doing it at home.

World Braces for Ex-Vice President Cheney

Doug Hecox — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Packing up a home and moving is never easy. Some equate the emotional toll it wreaks to that of a death in the family. It is exhausting, stressful and tiring in the extreme – which is why it is almost easy to feel sorry for Vice President Dick Cheney putting eight years of memories into carefully labeled cardboard boxes and loading them onto a truck.

As any 8-year-old will tell you, eight years is a lifetime. Shirts and ties will account for a goodly amount of his move, as will crate after crate of back-up batteries and chargers for his defibrillator. Fortunately, old shotguns and used waterboards don’t take up as much room as the memories they created. Ah, memories.

While Cheney has a home in Jackson, Wyo., and another in Texas, he will likely spend the winter of his years in Maryland, about 30 miles east of Washington, where he has yet another house. What time he doesn’t spend fly-fishing will be spent scowling, or hanging out with his new neighbor – former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.

That’s right – Cheney and Rummy will be neighborinos for the foreseeable future in St. Michaels, Md. Rumsfeld moved to the swanky Chesapeake Bay area two years ago, where he is free to defend his property from terrorists, newspaper deliverers, Girl Scouts or whoever wanders within range of his garden hose.

Two septuagenarians spending their days grilling, fishing and scowling – they will be like “Grumpy Old Men” only with more evil, and Sophia Loren will end up in that OTHER exclusive Bay area – Guantanamo. Truly, life imitates art.

Ex-presidents often leave office amid waves either of adulation or rotten tomatoes, depending on the economy. However varied their departures may be, all ex-presidents go on to earn big bucks on the speakers’ circuit, or by joining corporate boards, foundations and trusts. Not so for the ex-Vice Presidents. After serving eight years as America’s Second Banana, George H.W. Bush had to get a government job in Washington, D.C., which he held for only four years before he was asked to leave.

Despite the glamour of being in the former Presidents club, being a member of the former Vice Presidents of the United States club is at least as elite. Currently, there are four living ex-Presidents and four living ex-Vice Presidents – Cheney and Bush, as well as Tennessee’s Al Gore, and Minnesota’s Walter Mondale.

While children in modern schools don’t dream of one day becoming America’s Vice President like they should, let me point out to any former Vice Presidents reading that I appreciate you. We all should appreciate them – if for no other reason than that one of its members now has a nuclear aircraft carrier, and another has guns and an itchy trigger finger.

In some respects, America’s former Vice Presidents are at least as well-armed as Somalian pirates and might consider spending their winter years sailing around the globe fighting terrorists. Rumsfeld could go along as their sidekick, the Robin to their Batmen. After all, who would he have to scowl with if his neighbor is out on the High Seas? The bipartisan vice presidential flotilla could bring freedom to nations where it has been long denied. For military reasons, the elder Bush would be its first captain since he was a Navy officer in World War 2. As a lieutenant, Bush outranks Mondale, a one-time Army corporal, the only other living ex-Vice President with military experience.

Irrespective of the future of the Floating Veep Brigade, Mr. Cheney, I wish you the best of luck. May your life be long and your memories vivid. Lift with your legs as you load the moving truck.

Anti-Semitism Detector

The Mrs. — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:40:00 GMT

I am listening to Michael Medved and he's discussing events in Gaza. As is his MO, he's taking calls from people who are opposed to Israeli bombing of Gaza (or in fact, of them standing up for themselves in any way.) I've heard shows like this before, whether its Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt or Medved and it never fails to amaze me how each of these hosts have what must be an anti-Semitism detector. Clearly you can oppose what Israel is doing and not be an anti-Semite. And at first many of these callers sound like they are disagreeing on debatable geo-political topics. Then at some point in the conversation the host must get a whiff of something more to the story and inevitably they ask a pointed question specifically about Jews and amazingly (to me) these callers don't make any real attempt to side step it. They walk right up, take a swing and reveal themselves completely to be bigoted at best and truly insane at worst.

This time the caller began with claims that Israel's response was unfair and poorly reported by the media. He then segued into saying that Hamas was probably not even responsible for the rockets; instead it was Mossad agents sneaking into Gaza and firing rockets on their own to make it look like Hamas. Then Medved just asks him straight out when he first started having problems with Jews and his response was when he realized that Jews were responsible for the assassination of John Lennon. Just let that sink in for a moment, because it gets better. Have you allowed the crazy to really wrap itself around your brain? Ready for more? When asked why Jews would want John Lennon dead he said it was because they thought John Lennon was the second coming of Christ. Now, I don't claim to be a biblical scholar or expert in Jewish theology, but I'm pretty sure that if Jews thought John Lennon was the son of God, they'd think he was the first one, not the second one.

Mr. Obama and the Case of the Unsolvable Math Problem

Doug Hecox — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:35:00 GMT

Once in a great while, a generation is witness to greatness. From achievements in sports, medicine, even space travel, few are privileged to see true greatness in its natural state. Imagine being Albert Einstein’s first wife, Mileva, who watched as his exceptional mind gave birth to his theory of relativity.

Imagine being the apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton’s head, giving rise to modern physics.

Imagine watching that lunatic Galileo dropping rocks and fruits from the top of that leaning tower in Pisa.

Well, imagine no farther. We need not look to the past for inspiration. Our generation has been given front-row seats to watch greatness emerge again – this time, from President-elect Barack Obama, who faces the greatest puzzler of all time. According to him, he will solve a $10 trillion national debt by increasing government spending and cutting taxes on everyone earning less than $250,000 per year.

Mathematically speaking, this is the Indian rope trick. A rope not only mysteriously stands up with sufficient rigidity that a magician can climb it but, after being pulled up after him, disappears into thin air.

President-elect Obama and his Democratic colleagues believe they can right the mistakes of the previous administration which, due to two wars, a monumental terrorist attack and a worldwide economic crisis, has left the national budget in a shambles. Better yet, they think spending more and earning less can magically create 5 million new jobs.

I’m no math whiz, but the only way I can see coming up with that many new jobs is in paying people to try to decipher the Obama team’s weird new math. In fact, the only mathematician who could possibly make this work died 59 years ago this month. His name was Charles Ponzi, for whom the “Ponzi scheme” is named.

History is littered with examples of governments relying on hare-brained financial innovations to solve their problems. Even now, after thousands of years, ancient Egypt remains littered with pyramid schemes.

Let the record show I am a team player. If America needs help, who am I to stand in the President-elect’s way? When the nation needs me, I will always stand and deliver.

Our top priority must be to create jobs. A working man is a happy man, and history shows that all the rabble-rousers and seditionists were unemployed and not happy about it. So, I would like to think President-elect Obama will consider having the government take over Amway, and let unemployed folks sell soap. It sounds unorthodox, I’ll grant you – but all they really need to do is convince you and two of your friends to sell soap for them, and so on, and so on. Pretty soon, we’re all fat and happy and smelling like soap. From sea to shining sea, Americans will never have been so clean. It will be America’s finest hour.

On the other hand, to reduce the gargantuan national debt, we must consider radical solutions. I recommend selling North Dakota to Canada. No one really uses it anyway, and I’m pretty sure no one even lives there. In many ways, North Dakota is America’s attic – and, thanks to the exchange rate, we’ll get a better bang for our buck selling to Canada than if we were to sell it to some European nation. It helps that Canadians speak our language, making their transition to our way of life a little easier. Welcome to the U.S., eh!

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and my suggestions are proof that tough times breed greatness. I look forward to helping the new President-elect solve the nation’s problems, and I hope you do too.

If you have no ideas, don’t worry. You can be in charge of the soap.

Politics and Religion: Christians and the GOP 2008

Ken Marrero — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 23:38:00 GMT

Despite serious problems with the position, there remain people for whom it is true Evangelicals and other “Christians” cost the GOP the election in 2008. The question must be asked why, when no data supports such an opinion, do people continue to hold it? To be sure, some dislike that Christians believe in Creation and not Evolution and that homosexuality should be sinful and not celebrated. But where is the political division in such views?

If Christians hurt the GOP this cycle, then in prior elections: A) the GOP was primarily a haven for FisCons who are now being driven out by SoCons and their issues; key issues were more secular than religious or values based, and ; C) revulsion for Christians arose, basically overnight and with no warning, driving FisCon swing voters out of the GOP. Let’s consider these points.

A - Fiscal Conservatism is, indeed, a draw to the GOP due to fiscally conservative planks in its platform. Some FisCons are socially Moderate or Liberal and, thus, disagree with Socially Conservative FisCons. This duality has existed for years. If Fiscally Conservative yet Socially Moderate or Liberal voters abandoned the GOP in 2008, they did so because the GOP abandoned Conservative fiscal ideology as evidenced by budget items like Medicare and Bailout spending, not because a longstanding “live and let live” agreement with SoCons suddenly flared into a civil war.

B - Consider the terms “Values Voters”, “Moral Majority” and “Religious Right”. They support the view of a strong contribution from Christians to the political process, past and present. One can still debate the matter, of course, but however the question of SoCon political significance is answered, it refutes the premise Christians harmed the GOP in 2008. If they were not influential from 1980 through 2004, where did they gain the power to derail the GOP in just 4 years? If momentum is now in their direction, why alienate them? Wouldn’t prudence dictate courting them? If they were influential in 2004 and before, then “A” above applies and the origin of any rift is elsewhere. Either way SoCons didn’t drive FisCons out of the party in contempt for ignorant, religious cousins.

C - Is there then a Republican rift so serious it may have cost the GOP the election? There is, but not in the way it is being spun. It does not exist between Conservative Republicans and Christians. For the most part they share fiscal and social positions. The rift is between Liberal Republicans and Conservative Republicans, including Christians. It is Liberal GOPers proclaiming Christians as the culprit. The strategy is to use religion within the GOP to divide secular Conservatives and religious Conservatives leaving secular Liberals to divide and conquer all Conservatives.

Secular Liberals hope to change the basis for coalition from fiscal issues to social issues. They prefer the cornerstone be Social Liberalism with a welcome to Fiscal Conservatives than Fiscal Conservatism and a welcome to Social Moderates and Liberals. That they do so using religion as the wedge is a classic implementation of the pragmatic philosophy emodied in the adage, “My brother and I against my cousin. My cousin and I against my enemy!” Secular Conservatives should be wary of this olive branch and wonder when Secular Liberals will come for them with no one left to object.

The question I’ve pondered is, “Why this wedge and why now?” I found my answer in the biblical description of God as “the Lord God Almighty, Who was, and is, and is to come.” Those pushing Christians out of the Party are comfortable with the God Who “was”. That God is a fairy tale good for morality plays but with no claim on current morality. Likewise, the God Who “is to come” is a fairy tale valuable as a threat. Gone for years and not expected back today, He can be used to club the faithful and to strip their allies from them.

What is problematic, however, is the God “Who is”. If Christianity exists in a positive light, people will ask about the God “Who is”. They’ll find the backstory of the God “Who was”. They’ll find the happy ending of the God “Who is to come!” The authority of the God “Who is” threatens Liberals, GOP Liberals included. Rejecting God’s authority, the only remaining authority to acknowledge is their own. This must be protected from all usurpers, real and perceived. If that means religious people get thrown under a political bus, it’s a small price to pay.

This Christmas season, we’ve heard talk about Christ - His birth, life and death. Most of it has been positive. But never forget Caiphas said, of this same Christ, “You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Pharaoh and Herod also believed destroying God’s Deliverer was the path to political power, security and longevity. History records the legacies of these men and their schemes. Secular Liberals, injecting that same ant-Christian vein into today’s “politics that is”, won’t fare any better. In fact, biblical accounts of this behavior in the “politics that was” should serve as a warning for modern practitioners. The “politics which is to come” don’t always turn out as you expect if you remove the God Who is.

Without doubt, there are other factors at work, as well. But to those ridiculing Christians for believing God speaks to them in their hearts; to those who can’t understand how that could happen - try reading the headlines with what the Book calls “an ear to hear”. You never know what you might hear if you are listening for it.

Blue Collar Muse

Caroline Kennedy: The Don Quixote Without a Windmill

Doug Hecox — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:08:00 GMT

Good news, America – the Kennedys are back! Sort of.

When Caroline Kennedy, the closest today’s generation has to Novocain incarnate, announced she wanted Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) seat, I confess that my first thought was “Look again, because she has a big seat.” I have to make jokes like that because, when Clinton is Secretary of State, they won’t make themselves.

In a way, Kennedy running for office is a testament to the pioneering, never-say-die, anything-is-possible American dream. Her quest underscores the ages-old belief that, in this country, anyone can rise to the highest levels of power by simply attending cocktail parties and making speeches, as infrequent as they are passionless.

It’s sad but true. Even today, her father – the late president – has more charisma when he speaks than she does, and he hasn’t said a word in 45 years.

Democrat insiders admit she hasn’t spent years out on the road, working hard for the common man like her uncle Bobby, saved sailors like her father or managed a business like her brother John John. She hasn’t even driven a car into Chappaquiddick like her uncle Teddy. Who does she think she is?

She’s a New Yorker, that’s who. There is a different standard for public servants in the Empire State. A standard where any carpetbagger is welcome, provided they are famous enough. Sen. Bobby Kennedy moved there only shortly before announcing his candidacy for its empty U.S. Senate seat in 1964. Similarly, Clinton moved to New York in 2000, just long enough to file for her Senate run and to move back to D.C.

Unlike places like Wyoming or Arizona, where one can’t be elected to much of anything without claiming to be a fifth-generation descendant of homesteaders, New Yorkers seem to favor anyone who is famous. For this reason, Caroline Kennedy – who has spent most of her adult life hosting fundraisers while living on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and summering on Martha’s Vineyard – has deeper roots than many of New York’s political elite. Also, she is the reason Neil Diamond – another New Yorker – wrote “Sweet Caroline.” Who doesn’t like Neil Diamond?

Whatever else one can say about her, Caroline Kennedy – sometimes known as Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg – would fit right in the Senate. She has no ideas and even less charisma, and makes Ethel Kennedy seem like Robin Williams. She’s like a female version of Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.). With her apparent desire to run for the U.S. Senate, despite a lack of experience, agenda or speaking skills, she is Don Quixote without a horse, a windmill or even a Sancho Panza.

She is beautiful, poised and – dare I say – regal-looking in every way. Until she starts talking, and then I start focusing on what tie to wear tomorrow or whether I’ve checked the battery in my smoke alarm. She is the human equivalent of white noise – a dim humming sound that allows one to focus on everything else.

In that respect, maybe she would be an asset to the Senate. If helping our friends in the upper chamber focus is wrong, I don’t want to be right. But I’m betting she loses distantly to the many others who also seek the seat. As she’ll soon learn, the Kennedy name doesn’t have the cachet it once did.

Defending The American Dream Summit

John McJunkin — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:41:00 GMT

I will be speaking on podcasting and new media at the Defending The American Dream Summit, sponsored by Americans For Prosperity - come out and say hello! See the tentative speakers list here, and bring the kids along for a ride in the "Global Warming Hot Air" balloon. This will be a great event. I'll be speaking on the new media panel with Rachel Alexander of Intellectual Conservative, Greg Patterson of Espresso Pundit, and Shane Wikfors of The Sonoran Alliance. If you're in the Phoenix, Arizona area, come out and join us!

Silver-Haired Generation Enters Golden Age

Doug Hecox — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:10:00 GMT

As the graying of America continues to pick up speed and a newly elected President claiming that health care reform is the center of his White House, health and wellness are in vogue like never before. Preventive medicines, then, are at the heart of modern wellness and, sadly, too few use them.

Despite an abundance of medical advice freely given on every TV channel, too many aging Americans exercise only their couch-potato muscles. Too much snacking, too many processed foods and too little walking around spells trouble for millions.

Goaded into good behavior by an industry built on guilt and shame, new parents shovel pills by the handful down their children’s throats – vitamins, anti-allergy medications and so on, chased by glassfuls of milk and Pediasure. To make the vitamins more fun, the medical industry learned long ago that the way to make kids want to take them is to make the product taste look and taste like candy, and to package them that way. Hence, Chewables and Gummies shaped like the Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and even Spider-Man are among the pediatric wellness industry’s giants and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The Ely Lillies, Pfizers and Glaxo-SmithWellcoms of the world should embrace similar methods to get aging Americans to take their medicines too. Who wants to eat anything with unappealing names like Boniva, Pepcid or Flonase? No one, that’s who.

Women entering menopause would likely enjoy taking pills shaped like characters from “Sex on the City” or “Desperate Housewives.” By a stroke of irony, chewables shaped like Ty Pennington from “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” could help stave off hot flashes. Much like tequila offers a worm at the bottom, each bottle of Premarin could guarantee at least one tablet shaped like Pennington without his shirt on. It might not help with hot flashes, but still.

HydroxyCut and other weight-loss pills could easily be shaped like Kirstie Alley. Fortunately, most such pills already are.

For older men, challenges to prostates and bladders could be fought with pills shaped like anything from the History Channel. What better way to show Hitler who is boss than by chewing him up every morning to quiet your irritable bowel syndrome? Letting Der Fuhrer goosestep up and down your innards is the thinking patriot’s approach to wellness. Similarly, laxatives shaped like England’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain seems very apropos. Your pipes will unclog as easily as he gave away Europe to the Nazis. It’s a history lesson in every flush!

Brace yourself – the 21st century may be paved with hair-loss pills shaped like Bigfoot, cholesterol-fighting statins shaped like Vice President Dick Cheney and erectile dysfunction pills shaped like Pamela Anderson. If you suffer the special problem they mention in the ads – you know, the one that could last more than four hours – no problem. Pills shaped like Rosie O’Donnell will make short work of it.

Silver linings in pill form? The Greatest Generation deserves nothing less. Better yet, thanks to President-elect Obama and the Democratic never-met-an-expensive-idea-they-didn’t-like Congress, Medicare will pay for each and every one of them. With preventive medicine, the silver-haired generation is helping America enter a golden age.

Because He Reminds Me . . .

John McJunkin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:23:00 GMT

. . . of my own 18-month-old, who looks just like him when he cries . . .

please read about Moshe Holtzberg

A Politically Preposterous Presidential Proclamation

Ken Marrero — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:50:00 GMT

What should the President do if he finds himself in the midst of wrapping up a war that has claimed the lives of many and divided a country; presiding over an Economy that has generally prospered despite the war and finds himself at odds with international partners because of the war?

If you are Abraham Lincoln you issue a proclamation of Thanksgiving. Let me be clear. You issue a proclamation of Thanksgiving not merely for the blessings you enjoy, but you pointedly name and offer homage to the Source of that blessing, "... The Most High God ... our beneficent Father ..." Whose " ... Almighty hand ... works in human history to accomplish ... the Divine purposes ...." If you are Abraham Lincoln you gratefully acknowledge God's gifts while beseeching Him for His mercy for "... our sins ... [and] ... for our national perversenenss and disobedience ...."

But of course, as is widely recognized by many of today's Republican intelligentsia, such public displays of religion and Christianity should be returned to the privacy of one's heart where they speak to no one; they should be avoided because of the damage such expressions of faith do to the Party's efforts to be about The People's business; they cannot help but push thinking and rational people away from the Party and towards the other side which has sensibly removed God from every last public place. A Party and a President who does such a thing deserves to be in the minority and will be seen by history as presiding over the destruction of the Party and its principles.

For the rest of Lincoln's proclamation which, as some historians have discovered, contributed to the healing of a nation; the unifying of a nation and the ascending of a Party to power and prominence, read on. Or you can just go back to your Turkey and dressing and shake your head at those Right Wing Religious nuts and their silly ideas about human dignity and worth, the nature of man, the struggle between Good and Evil and other interesting but irrelevant things ...

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Thank you to Bobbie Patray of the Tennessee Eagle Forum for reminding me of all of this, and ...

From my family to yours,

A Blessed and Joyous Thanksgiving ...

Blue Collar Muse

How to Stave Off Global Warming Legislation

The Mrs. — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:40:00 GMT

So, I hear that Henry Waxman (D-Calif) has won the prized committee chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, thereby unseating the Congressional institution that is John Dingle (D-Mich). The CW is that Dingle's hometown-based resistance (read: Detroit automakers) to global warming legislation is a major factor for why no meaningful global warming legislation has come to pass. With the wackadoodle Waxman at the helm, this resistance is gone. So, all signs point to global warming legislation coming once TPE (the President-Elect) becomes POTUS.

Here may be one reason to seriously consider a bailout of the big three. Follow me for a minute. If the US bails out the big three, it could be structured like it was for the S&L bailout of the 1990's where the US owned all or a portion of the rescued companies. In the case of the S&Ls, the US was compensated for the bailout by selling seized assets at a profit. So, if the US "invests" in the big three, it could never recoup its investment if global warming legislation is implemented, right? Right. Voilà, reduced incentive for the government to pass such legislation.

Naaa. With our luck, we'd bailout the automakers and get global warming legislation as a bonus. This is what happens to the party in the minority. You are left with trading bad option A for bad option B. This is why elections and majorities matter.

Obama - Committed to Recycling

Doug Hecox — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

President-elect Barack Obama was swept into the most powerful office on Earth on a tidal wave of Americans wanting change. Can we change America? “Yes we can,” came the chorus, a symphony of unity resonating in a hundred million throats sung from sea to shining sea. Yes we can.

Obama dutifully made nice with former competitor Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), soaked up a few moments of glory and fame after a hard-fought but well-run campaign, and then went to work. First item on this outsider’s agenda of change?

Hire back the old Clinton team.

To recap -- Attorney General-pick Eric Holder? Deputy Attorney General under Clinton.
Commerce Secretary pick Gov. Bill Richardson? He was Energy Secretary AND Ambassador to the United Nations under Clinton. Federal Reserve Board Chairman possibility Larry Summers served as Deputy Treasury Secretary under Clinton. White House counsel-to-be Greg Craig was most famously Clinton’s impeachment attorney. Even John Podesta, the man managing Obama’s transition team, was Clinton’s chief of staff.

Diminutive Robert Reich has been talked about as a possible Labor Secretary, the same post he held under Clinton and, lest we forget, Secretary of State-in-waiting Hillary Clinton served as the former President’s first lady. It should be noted that I applaud Obama appointing her to be Secretary of State – anything that not only takes her out of the race for President in 2012 but also regularly sends her to the far ends of the globe deserves a standing ovation. Can we say this is a win-win? Yes we can.

And say what you will about re-hiring legions of former Clinton appointees, but it says much about Obama’s commitment to recycling. Can we say this makes him America’s first green president? Yes we can.

So committed to recycling, he is even said to be considering asking President Dubya’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stick around and finish what they started, and Brent Scowcroft – who worked for the first President Bush – to possibly advise on national security issues. Democratic purists will claim the new President should do a better job of keeping his political recyclables separate. Can we say Obama’s “change” agenda means he simply wants to change things back to the way things were in 2000? Yes we can.

Second, the President-elect started surrounding himself with scores of Chicagoans, notably Rahm Emanuel and Valeri Jarrett – a Chicago cabinet, of sorts. Even Hillary is from Chicago. Presidents surrounding themselves with a hometown entourage is not without precedent. President George W. Bush surrounded himself with a whole bunch of Texans, and look how well that worked out. Birds of a feather suffer groupthink together.

Third, promise Americans the moon but be vague about it. Out-of-work citizens from Detroit to Wall Street are hungry for jobs, and Obama promises to fix the economy and create scores of new jobs at some point in the next four years. He will extend health insurance coverage to everyone who needs it, and spend trillions in new spending to improve the American way of life – though he also wants to cut taxes. Increasing spending without increasing taxes is one of the great mathematical mysteries of the universe. Not even Sir Isaac Newton, who invented calculus, could untangle that knot. Can we question the probability of Obama’s success? Yes we can.

Can we count on the next four years being among the most interesting in American political history? Yes we can.

Americans With No Abilities Act

John McJunkin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:40:00 GMT

Linked with only one comment - get ready to laugh yourself silly.

Enjoy!

Gun Sales Boom In Obama's First Weeks

Doug Hecox — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:38:00 GMT

Jewelers want American men to believe an engagement ring should be worth three months’ salary. For this reason, a genius quits his job before buying the ring to keep costs down.

In this same way, wise-thinking citizens realize they have two months to go out and spend their money so they have nothing left to redistribute. Thousands of Americans are investing in guns and ammunition.

The pessimist believes it is the natural response to the dozens of anti-gun laws Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the new Democratic Congress will pass – but the optimist believes that legions of Americans stocking up on guns is the stimulus plan President-elect Barack Obama talked about in his campaign’s online economic plan. You know, the one he posted on his website a la Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) but that no one actually read?

Unintentionally or not, it is ironic that Obama’s economic plan is based on the “guns and butter” philosophy – illegalize guns and subsidize butter.

Preferring to see life as sunny-side up, I’d like to chalk this up as a success for the Obama Administration. It doesn’t really matter why Americans are stocking up on weapons. So long as they are spending, jobs are created and the economy grows stronger.

As he said several times on the campaign trail, the new President will begin to withdraw American forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. However, until America’s economy gets stronger and jobs more plentiful, our troops are – financially speaking – better off in uniform!

Obama’s financial advisors may urge the new President to keep the war going a little longer – just until the economy settles down. The military is always hiring, meaning that for someone willing to pull a trigger, there is always a job plus three hots and a cot. In this economy, general infantry beats General Motors any day of the week. Some lucky troops may actually get to ride through the desert sands in a vehicle they made working in an assembly plant back home. Truly, life is a circle.

President-elect Obama has a number of other issues on which he is making great headway. The problem of illegal immigration, for example, is one that went largely unnoticed in the last six months of the presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and incumbent President George W. Bush are both from border states yet immigration got nary a blip on the campaign radar screen. Chalk up another win for the Obama camp. With the Wall Street meltdown, Mexico is building the 400-mile-long fence to keep newly impoverished stockbrokers out.

President-elect Obama is expected to embrace Canadian-style health care as well, which involved our gun-toting fellow citizens going to Toronto and invading their emergency rooms.

Any way you slice it – from increased economic activity to stronger border protections to improved health care – the Obama Administration has done quite a bit already to encourage Americans to take up arms. Pretty impressive, really.

It's The Jobs, Stupid!

Michael Stull — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 05:50:00 GMT

Throughout this recently concluded campaign season I listened in wonderment as both presidential candidates repeatedly addressed the issue of “jobs going overseas.” Normally this comment was quickly followed by a string of tough-talk platitudes outlining in the vaguest of terms how the candidate intended to “get tough” on companies deciding to relocate their manufacturing assets to some distant shore.

Beyond this bloviating, I cannot specifically recall either candidate engaging in an in-depth discussion of why companies are leaving the United States for the “greener pastures” of foreign lands, or what they would specifically do to alter or reverse this trend. Perhaps speaking the truth would enrage their base. Perhaps there simply is not enough time to discuss this issue in the 15-second news sound bites squeezed between the endless parades of pathetic reality shows polluting America’s airwaves. Regardless of the reason, the truth as to why companies are fleeing the United States has been shirked for far too long.

Why is it important to understand the answer to this question? I contend that until the underpinnings of this problem are truthfully addressed we, as a county, will continue to see a slow erosion of our manufacturing base and material wealth, eventually leading to the collapse of our country’s economic engine and overall standard of living.

So what is causing the erosion of America’s business base and how can it be fixed? Quite simply the majority of the blame rests with only a few organizations (discussed below). Alter the behavior of these groups and you positively change America’s business climate and move a long way towards reinvigorating her manufacturing base.

Unions. These dinosaurs of a past era have far outlived their usefulness and need to be purged from the bowel of American industry. The jack boot they place on the neck of American business in the form of materialistic extortion, organized crime, the instilment of low productivity habits and the strategic use of coordinated violence is literally destroying America’s ability to compete internationally. Unions and their Democrat allies contend they are necessary to ensure the “working man” is protected. I adamantly disagree. Gone are the days of unchecked “slave labor,” most commonly identified as long hours, low pay and dangerous and unhealthy working conditions with few, if any, financial benefits flowing to the average worker. In its place a jungle of labor laws, rules and regulations allows union workers to hit the litigation lottery if a supervisor merely looks in the wrong direction. Add to this strikes and other strong-arm tactics, the countless perks and benefits – such as doctorial-level salaries for unskilled laborers – full life-long healthcare and pension and generous “negotiated” 401(k) matches and it quickly becomes obvious why companies have no problem choosing foreign locations for new manufacturing operations.

Trial Lawyers. Largely the poster child of greed and debauchery, the legal profession, once a vocation of honor and credibility, has largely been co-opted by a mass army of liberal litigating ambulance chasing thugs serving as the handmaidens of the Democrat party and other radical social activists. These liberal litigation legions routinely launch attacks against American business using a host of labor, environmental and equal protection laws developed and enacted by their Democrat congressional and bureaucratic brethren to purposefully extort as much wealth as possible from American business. Complement a woman on the dress she is wearing or accidentally touch a coworker and the business better get ready to open its wallet. Quite simply, rather than choosing to spend a sizable portion of its operating budget fending off a sea of idiotic litigation business is instead building operations on foreign shores sporting business-friendly law, rules and regulations and a bar composed of barristers still sporting a functioning moral compass.

Local Government. At some point in the past local government began using its building, permitting and utility departments as revenue sources to feed constantly-growing, largely inefficient and outright lazy bureaucracies. Fees have continued to increase while the level of customer service has continued to decline, and rarely, if ever, do locally elected officials or the City’s economic development bureaucrat visit the local business office to ask what assistance can be rendered to make it easier to conduct business. Only when the business is loading up the moving trucks do local officials take notice, and rather than learn from the experience they are more apt to accuse the departing company of not “fitting in” or of not being committed to the community. When a business is welcomed to a foreign shore by local officials showing interest in the business’ continued health and vitality, there simply is no doubt why the business would choose to relocate.

Confiscatory Federal Taxation. America has the second highest corporate tax rate on the planet, period. Our founders are spinning in their graves wondering why they fought and many died to escape extortive taxation, only to see such a sadistic process reemployed by Americans upon Americans less than 150-years after our founding. Given the government’s lust for money needed to feed its endless army of federal bureaucrats and it is completely understandable why American business would choose to locate operations in the dozens of other countries throughout the world that sport friendly tax policies.

Environmental Extremism. The environmental movement has little to do with “saving the planet,” and quite a lot to do with controlling industry and imposing Marxist-leaning government will upon the American citizenry. In nearly every argument environmental extremists counter that opposition to such laws proves one’s love for industry and pollution over their love for Mother Earth. What they conveniently choose to ignore is that the majority of environmental regulations are developed and implemented in order to achieve expensive and largely unattainable results. In many cases compliance requirements are even greater than would be found in natural untouched settings where no industry exists at all. When the ability to attain compliance is unreasonably expensive, and the law of diminishing returns is simply not applied in a common sense fashion, the law has the purposefully applied effect of stymieing business growth and driving it to other countries.

The Fine Art of Hitting Gretzky

Doug Hecox — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:54:00 GMT

Get ready, America. Everything you used to embrace as free speech by an attentive public about the President is now considered either racially tinged or political sour grapes. Or both.

For most of the Golden Age of Reagan – the Roaring ‘80s – Wayne Gretzky, known universally as the “Great One” of the National Hockey League, was said to have been protected from major injury by an unspoken, unwritten agreement known to players throughout the league: don’t hit Gretzky. As the NHL struggled to gain widespread acceptance, disabling its star attraction was thought to be a death sentence to the nascent league. Gretzky and others claim there never was such a rule, but police officers also claim there is no police brutality. People say a lot of things.

With President-elect Obama, there is a troubling corollary. Those who seek to criticize his actions, decisions or mettle will invite a shaming from the public the likes of which have never been seen. For this reason, Obama can expect velvet-glove treatment – not only from a media already infatuated with him and a Democratic majority in Congress, but also from a Republican party still unsure of itself after the drubbing on Election Day 2008.

The GOP has lost an identity and, to his credit, Obama didn’t lose it for them. Blind allegiance to a varied assortment of Reaganisms, and a political litmus test that more closely resembled a checklist – Anti-abortion? Check. Anti-big government? Check. Anti-taxation? Check – has eroded the innovative spirit that ensured massive Republican gains for most of the last 50 years. The party is tired and, on Election Day, it had the fight knocked out of it.

So while the Party of Lincoln is on one-knee, trying to catch its breath, the Democrats will have virtual free reign for the next year and possibly longer. Any criticism by conservative media, pundits, or even members of the Congressional minority will be met with skepticism by those frolicking barefooted and free-spirited at Obamafest 2009.

For those who don’t know, Obamafest is like Woodstock, only with more government handouts and loads of indignation at those who dare to have a different opinion. Also, the cover charge gets bigger every April 15.

Anyone questioning America’s first African-American President will be thought, at least, a spoilsport for trying to ruin an otherwise pivotal moment in American history or, at worst, a racist. This is, for lack of anything better to call it, the political equivalent of the Gretzky rule. Don’t hit Obama – it will hurt America’s chances for redemption in the eyes of the world.

Those who see the double-standard will also be accused of being cynical, or of having Republican sour grapes. Those who don’t will be condemned to a future full of socialized health care, socialized auto-making, socialized Wall Street and socializing with those who voted for him.

I have no problem with criticism, and look forward to hitting the Democrats’ new Great One. Who’s with me?

Ready For More Nationalization?

John McJunkin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:49:00 GMT

Bailout-bailout-bailout! It's not just what fighter pilots shout after their wings are shot off anymore. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met with auto company and union officials and then sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging him to carve money out of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP - that $700B pain you felt in your wallet just recently) and direct it to help bail out the foundering US auto industry

TARP was a mistake, but now that mistake is being compounded by bailouts of even more corporations and industries that have failed, over-reached, or otherwise made bad business decisions. Capitalism requires failure - smart decisions are rewarded with profits, and dumb decisions are rewarded with losses. And before you claim that sometimes the failures are due to forces beyond the control of business, I will simply quote my mother, who oft reminded me as a youngster, "that's the way the cookie crumbles."

Aside from the philosophical rationale for opposing the bailouts, we also have the more practical reason as well. IT'S GOING TO COST TAXPAYERS BILLIONS IF NOT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!! Was I clear about that? We're lurching leftward here, folks.

The Don't Go Movement has established a petition to be sent to Secretary Paulson and Congress (who granted Paulson the power to allocate funds this way.) If you'd like to see the US continue on as a capitalist democracy, and if you'd like to hang on to the money for which you work so hard, I strongly urge you to sign the petition.

UPDATE - Mark Tapscott at the DC Examiner is on top of this now - the word is spreading . . .

Major News

John McJunkin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:50:00 GMT

I was all ready to post about the Don't Go movement, and I discovered that Ken Marrero beat me to the punch! Please scroll down and read the next post in it's entirety. Ken said it all very well, but I would add a couple of things. Over on the left, MoveOn.org has had a profound impact in support of the Democrats, and conservatives have never really answered in kind. Not any more. Don't Go's goal is to become the Move On of the right, and then some. Conservatives, by definition, are slow to adopt new technologies and leverage them to their benefit. Don't Go has taken on the task of helping Republican leaders use the internet to its fullest capacity to help in the cause. And our principal focus will be to work independently of the party and the politicians to support ideals in line with free-market capitalism, maximum personal liberties, and an America that is strong economically and militarily.

And when I say "we" I should explain (Ken is too modest to say it, so I will.) Ken has been named the Southeast Regional Coordinator for Don't Go, and I will be the Southwest Regional Coordinator. Ken's region includes FL, LA, MS, AL, AR, TN, GA, SC, NC, KY, VA, and WV. My region includes OK, TX, CO, NM, UT, AZ, NV, and CA. I have more purple or blue states than Ken, so I'll have to work harder! See the Don't Go directory here.

We've already been mentioned in a number of major media outlets:

New York Times

CNN

Reason Magazine

Politico

Examiner (and Mary Katharine Ham wrote this really comprehensive piece)

Please help us spread the word about Don't Go. It has to be a grassroots network in order to work, so tell EVERYBODY! I'm deeply honored to be chosen as the Southwest Regional Coordinator. We're going to do big things, and we are going to have a big impact in future elections. Frankly, we have to do this to help ensure the survival of the republic as a capitalist democracy.

If you blog, please link to the Don't Go media room, where we have a press release about our launch. If you don't blog, please e-mail the link to every right-leaning person you know. We're going to start a grass fire and save our country from the left. Join the revolution and help out. We're going to make a big difference by working together.

#dontgo Movement Offers GrassRoots Power to the Right

Ken Marrero — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:42:00 GMT

For millions of Americans, the results on November 4th were sad but not surprising. They signaled the failure of an ideology which held power for years, promised much and delivered little.

To some, the failure was due to problems inherent in Free Markets, Capitalism, Limited Government, Social Conservatism and the rest of the foundations of Conservative thought. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Barack Obama's message was electing John McCain meant "4 more years" of George Bush. He was right. Unsaid was that electing him would be worse! Apart from the War on Terror and SCOTUS picks, what Bush accomplishments would Obama have problems with?

Bush has grown Government with a GOP controlled Congress for 6 of his 8 years. Obama is unhappy about that? Congress passed the Medicaid spending increase. Obama is unhappy about that? Congress passed Kennedy's Education Bill. Obama is unhappy about that? Social Security Privatization failed. Obama is unhappy about that? Immigration? The Bailout? Obama is even talking about Welfare disguised as Tax Cuts for heaven's sake! One could go on and on.

On too many issues and at too many levels, Conservative principles did not fail, Conservative principles failed to be upheld!

There were bright spots. The defeats of Harriet Meiers' nomination, the Immigration Reform bill and the Dubai Port Deal come to mind. Common to these successes was the grassroots involvement of everyday Americans refusing to allow Government to take the nation in the wrong direction. We did it then, we can do it again.

This morning, the #dontgo Movement gives us that opportunity! #dontgo was founded by Eric Odom and Allen Fuller on a Friday in August when Nancy Pelosi and Democrats turned off the lights in the People's House and went home. Big Government and Democrats didn't have time for you. But many GOP House members believed different! They stayed and told Democrats, "Don't Go! Come back and finish the People's business!" With no cameras or microphones, those voices went basically unheard.

Until Odom and Fuller put up a Twitter hashtag - #dontgo. The word started trickling out. Until Odom and Fuller put up a website #dontgomovement.com so cellphone video, pictures and blog posts could get out. Until the MSM picked up what grassroots, New Media activists were doing and for the next month, the message "Don't Go!" followed Nancy Pelosi from book signing to book signing! Better, tens of thousands of people rallied to one of the most successful grassroots efforts on the Right in years.

That was 2 months ago. While the issue birthing #dontgo is no longer a rally point, people are still looking for a voice to speak to Big Government to foster change! Good news. Odom and #dontgo didn't stop working and growing when the microphones moved on to the next issue. This morning brings us this:

“Center Right Movement Heats up the Internet”
Conservative Bloggers See Netroots As Key To Advancing Policy

On Monday, November 10th www.dontgomovement.com will host an e-launch party to celebrate its fully-functional website and new online radio show devoted to advancing conservative netroots activism.

#dontgo originally began as a simple internet tag that the founders would put on their blog posts while tracking the energy debate by the US Congress on August 1st, quickly it became used by hundreds of activists including members of Congress not just to track the energy bill, but to energize and push conservative values. Soon thereafter the site was created and to date has 30,000 opt-in email subscribers.

The #dontgo Revolution takes web-based strategies and tactics that Democrats used in the last election cycle to advance conservative views and values. The mission is to develop a fifty state strategy of blogs and internet social networks that would get more conservatives active in their communities leading into the 2010 elections.

Communications Director Juliana Johnson states, “As we witnessed in the 2008 elections web-based strategies are imperative. Conservatives have time and time again failed to use the internet to attract voters and get more people active. We hope that with the launch of this website we will be able to effectively wage the battle of ideas with the left in cyberspace.”

Monday’s radio show (online) will air at 5pm CST. In order to listen please go to www.dontgomovement.com and on the right there is a button “listen to #dontgo radio”.

CONTACT: Juliana Johnson, Director of Communications
(312) 575-9500 (office)
(847) 691-9278 (cell)
julianatjohnson@gmail.com

If you're a an eActivist - a blogger, vlogger, podcaster, internet radio host or wiki editor - head to dontgomovement.com and sign up. If you're a traditional activist - a door knocker, phone caller, envelope stuffer, poll watcher or election day driver - head to dontgomovement.com and get involved. You'll be building the state-by-state, city-by-city, block-by-block structure needed to rein in Liberals regardless of Party. And you'll enable the election of politicians who won't just campaign to the Right, they'll govern that way, too!

This is not just a hope! We've seen people work together, they can bring real change. Your passion has moved you in the past. #dontgo gives that passion an effective outlet. Come join us!

Blue Collar Muse

The South's McCain Voters are Racists

Ken Marrero — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:50:00 GMT

They are also uneducated, out of step with the rest of the country, to be pitied, isolated, suffering in the area of “jobs, education and development”, ideologically aligned with the old Confederacy, at odds with the values of the rest of the country, and are getting what they deserve because they won’t “… get with the right program.” Hat tip to Dan Cleary for making sure I was aware of this.

Or you could ask Dwight Lewis at The Tennessean. Lewis learned all this in a phone interview with “… David A. Bositis, senior political analyst for the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies …” He felt it true and significant enough to share it with all of us. The Tennessean evidently agreed with him. Why publish his lunacy otherwise?

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is a misleading name for the group. Per Lewis, the politics and economy the JCPES finds worthy of studying are those “… of concern to African-Americans and other people of color …” The picture at their site includes pictures of Asians and Hispanics. However, reading through the headlines on their site, the only people of color mentioned are either Blacks or African Americans. There is one vague reference to “America’s minorities.”

This is the environment in which Bositis’ claims must be evaluated. And what is Bositis’ basis for making such outrageous claims? It’s his analysis of who voted for John McCain and who voted for Barack Obama. He has lots of high sounding analysis. I’ll save you some time. Anyone who voted for John McCain is all of those things in the opening paragraph. Anyone who voted for Barack Obama is not.

No word on the character of Barr, Baldwin and Nader voters. Words fail to describe how offensive Bositis’ words are, or should be, to every man or woman who supported a candidate OBO, “Other than Barack Obama.” Obviously, however, Lewis, Bositis and presumably some of their readers and supporters believe this tripe. I would point out the position of Lewis and Bositis are, on their face, far more racist and divisive than that of any of John McCain’s supporters of any color. Except, I must be wrong. It’s not possible for Blacks to be racist. Jesse Jackson himself told us so.

When people criticize me for declaring Barack Obama is not my President, I’ll take comfort in knowing that he is not mine, although he is Mr. Lewis’ President and he is Mr. Bositis’ President. To all you who want to claim Barack as your own, enjoy their company. Barack forged a coalition he greatly desired to get him elected. It contains a great many fine people who mistakenly believe in the untested, unproven promise of Barack. It also contains a great many craven, twisted racists such as Mr. Lewis and Mr. Bositis. Their bile and ignorance, passed off as lofty and intellectual analysis, is rubbish if for no other reason than it fails to address the rationale for McCain voters elsewhere. That such thinking might be indicative of the actual change and hope we’ll see as opposed the empty rhetoric Obama offered ought to terrify Americans.

Men like Lewis and Bositis are destroying Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of integration. They are callously dividing our nation along racial lines for purposes I cannot fathom. How any sane and educated individual in 2008 can believe, let alone put into print in what should be respectable publications, the notion that millions of Americans may legitimately be labled racist and backward based solely on the vote they cast is beyond outrageous.

I’ve read it in a score of places in the last 48 hours. I cannot help but repeat it here. It’s going to be a long 4 years …

Blue Collar Muse

The Gag Rule

John McJunkin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:58:00 GMT

Many on the right are talking about the various “silver linings” that come with the grey clouds of the new liberal regime that takes office in January, and I will even have my own optimistic take on that topic in the next day or so, but today I write this lengthy post not with optimism, but with genuine concern and anxiety.

Radical "community organizer" Saul Alinsky was a hero to many on the left, including our new president-elect, Barack Obama. This passage, from his 1971 Rules For Radicals, clearly spells out his vision and strategy [emphasis mine]:

"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families - more than seventy million people - whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hardhat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default."

Plug in the dollar amounts that are proportionate to 2008, and you have a picture of what has just happened in our election. Americans have bought into Obama’s vision of “change” because they did feel “frustrated . . . defeated . . . lost . . . futureless” as a result of the “compassionate conservatism” of the White House and the big-government soft liberalism of congress for the past eight years.

Among the various tactics that will be employed by the Obama administration to incrementally move America into a socialistic future (comprehensively and chillingly spelled out by Quin Hillyer here – and please read this disconcerting piece before you continue on with this post) is a piece of legislation known as the “Fairness” Doctrine. I very deliberately use sneer quotes in this case, because this policy is anything but. It was originally enacted in 1949, and compelled broadcast licensees to present controversial issues in a balanced way. The FCC abolished the doctrine unanimously in August 1987, stating “the intrusion by government into the content of programming occasioned by the enforcement of [the Fairness Doctrine] restricts the journalistic freedom of broadcasters . . .” The FCC also suggested that the doctrine be deemed unconstitutional, rightly so, as any reasonable examination of the First Amendment upholds this position.

Perhaps the initial impetus for the Fairness Doctrine was well founded, but at the current time, liberals have recognized the policy as a tool with which they can quash dissent in the broadcast domain. Shortly after the doctrine was abolished in 1987, talk shows promoting the political right began to succeed on AM radio, among them a show hosted by a gentleman named Rush Limbaugh. As of today, Rush Limbaugh has garnered the largest audience in the history of talk radio, and has been credited with single-handedly reviving AM radio and saving it from extinction. For many of us on the right, Limbaugh has been a bastion of conservative principle and an articulate promoter of conservative thought. A growing chorus of conservative voices – Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, et al, has joined him in recent years. These commentators, led by Limbaugh, have strongly influenced Americans and have unquestionably contributed to Republican successes at the ballot box. Consider that the American left continues to dominate virtually every other public medium – newspapers, magazines, television, and the internet – and conservatism’s domination of the single medium of talk radio emerges as a victory that could be described as a bucket of cool, fresh water tossed into the briny ocean.

In their ongoing efforts to deprive the right of even one effective medium, the left experimented with talk radio in the failed form of Air America. With very little positive to say and a steady stream of right-bashing, the network simply could never amass a large enough listenership to attract ad revenue sufficient to sustain it, and it filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, 2006, after just over two years on the air. It still operates, but has a miniscule impact on American politics compared with right-wing talk radio. The reasons for this are debatable, but the fact is not - right wing radio kicks left wing radio's tail.

Talk radio remains as the one medium dominated by the right, and Obama’s Alinsky-inspired vision of the future cannot and will not allow any dissenting voices. Jonah Goldberg, in his seminal work, Liberal Fascism (hear my interview with him here,) confirms that fascism, and its attendant suppression of free speech, is indeed a phenomenon predominantly of the left, in spite of the incessant and largely successful efforts to paint it as a right-wing construct. The left is currently planning a fascistic reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine, but this time it will be different.

The new Fairness Doctrine will go much further than simply addressing radio. I promise you that the left will comprehensively include every possible medium in this new policy, so as to completely and finally eliminate any dissenting speech whatsoever. Moreover, having had a “practice run” with the original 1949-1987 Fairness Doctrine, they will know how to close the loopholes and not only make the new policy much more effective in its aims, but to also find clever new ways to sell it to Americans, perhaps this time arriving at an even better and more Orwellian name for the edict than “Fairness Doctrine,” maybe something along the lines of “The American Free Speech Act of 2009.”

I propose that we freedom-loving Americans who wish to continue living under the dictates of our Constitution recognize this threat for what it is, and fight against it wholeheartedly and with a vitality proportionate to a fight for the very heart of our republic, for that is what is at stake. I further propose that regardless of what Orwellian title is applied to this restriction of free speech, we refer to it as “The Gag Rule,” a title rich with meaning. In the traditional sense, “gag” refers to a mechanism that somehow prevents speech, but in a more colloquial sense, it refers to a reflex that hopefully most Americans will demonstrate in reaction to this proposal. I know it sickens me. Hopefully it does you as well.

MY President or Just THE President

Ken Marrero — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:06:00 GMT

Tuesday night, Barack Obama spoke to a waiting country and a wondering world. Found in his words are a myriad reasons to reject what he stands for. The election is over and Obama is President. Some say the healing must now begin and we must unite behind Barack. Obama himself appealed "...to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn -- I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too."

I say, Obama will be the President; but he will never be my President. Obama wants what he is unwilling to give. To get the job, Obama divided us. Now on the job, he yearns for unity's strength. But leopards don't change their spots. As he ran, so will he govern. I will not be a party to that.

Obama's speech text is here. The video is here. Please read it before reading my comments.

When Obama "wonders if the dream of our founders is alive", I remember what those Founders wrote. They were "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Obama believes some men are more equal than others. When advocating for nonexisent rights or for granting more rights to some than to me, he will be the President, but not my President.

When Obama says he wants to "... renew this nation's promise ... to restore prosperity ... to reclaim the American Dream ..."; when he speaks of "remaking this nation" I must ask, when was the promise broken and by whom; who stole our prosperity; who moved the American Dream out of reach of everyday Americans and who pulled down our nation that it needs to be remade? For a century, it has been the ideological allies of Barack Obama who have done so. When raising our taxes, curtailing our liberty, weakening the defense of our country and bankrupting our businesses and Economy - Obama will be the President, but not my President.

When Obama says his Presidency was launched in "the living rooms of Concord" and financed "by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give ... to this cause" I marvel at his deception. When he enters the Oval Office it will complete a journey begun in the living room of William Ayers' and which traveled a path financed by thousands of people Obama will not identify, many of whom are not even Americans. He will enter the office of the President, but not my President.

When Obama says "... the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime ..." and references our military and families worried about tomorrow, I recoil in horror from the cavalier exploitation of those about whom he is ignorant. My son is in the military he will command and I have four more children at home to care for. When he sends my son into harm's way but threatens not to support him while there; when he takes money for which I labor and which I need to support my family to give to families he decides need it more he will be the President, but not my President.

When Obama calls for "a new spirit of patriotism", I struggle to find something wrong with the old one. When Obama gives away our sovereignty and national interests to our enemies and those who would weaken us he will be the President, but not my President.

When Obama calls for us to "look after not only ourselves, but each other" and to believe "that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers" I marvel at his hypocrisy. Under the old spirit of "service and responsibility" he would replace, Americans were the most generous and industrious people on earth. When Obama decides who it is I must sacrifice for and brings suffering to Main Street via higher taxes for the Wall Street Bailout he will be the President, but not my President.

Obama’s words are empty. His promise is hollow. His dreams are nightmares. To be my President, he must deny everything he confesses to believe in. He must repudiate his stated policies. He must realize the paradise he seeks is found in the principles and promises of others. As the President, he may invoke the imagery of Lincoln, King and Kennedy but his appeal to their memory defiles their legacy.

He says he will be my President. But he will not because he cannot. To expect me to believe otherwise insults me. And that, too, is something my President would not do.

Blue Collar Muse

Election 2008 Live Blog

John McJunkin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Election Live Blogging

John McJunkin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:24:00 GMT

Voice of Liberty Podcast will be liveblogging the election on Tuesday evening - starting between 6 and 7PM MST (sorry for the imprecision - I'm on a live internet talk show at 5PM, and not sure what time I'll be breaking free from that.) The liveblogging duties will be shared by me (John McJunkin) and Michael Stull. Please tune in as we report and comment on the election returns, both nationwide and also here in Arizona.

Also, I will be on Adam Graham's "Truth & Hope Report" show at 5PM MST, and Adam gets some great guests and it's a fun show - feel free to tune in at this link.

The Next Steps for Conservatives

Ken Marrero — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:06:00 GMT

While I’m unwilling to concede just yet that Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States, it would be foolish to deny that possibility. Even if John McCain wins, the status of Conservatism in the GOP and politics generally is troubling at best.

Politicians and The People, with few exceptions, seem determined to abandon sound, proven truths for the warm, fuzzy rhetoric of the Economic and Social policies of “Hope!” and “Change!” It’s difficult to blame The People. They gave the GOP a shot at letting Conservative ideology work it’s magic on the country for years. Turns out the Pols weren’t as Conservative as advertised.

The years after the Reagan era are defined by a GOP wanting more to breed and less to lead. GOP strategy was “What must we do to increase our power and get re-elected?” instead of “What must we do to serve the people and earn our re-election?”

The nominations of Bob Dole, W and now John McCain coupled with the strategy of many GOP House and Senate candidates has reinforced that approach. A notable exception, AZ Representative John Shadegg, says even at the height of 1994’s Republican Revolution the GOP’s advice was his most important job wasn’t to represent his district or promote his constituents’ values; it was to get re-elected.

This approach has tainted Conservatism in the minds of the people. It has become identical to, or at least wed to the GOP. Thus the sins of the Party become the sins of the Principled. Even if Conservatives object, pointing out they never countenanced bad behavior by the GOP (The Bailout, No Child Left Behind, Medicare Reform) The People still see them as part of the problem and not the solution. How else to understand what happened to Rick Santorum, George Allen and others?

Such losses make the Democrats’ job easier. Each defeated Conservative frees up time, energy and money to defeat those remaining. Squishy GOP members voted with Democrats enough to permit them to establish portions of their agenda and to regain solid Congressional majorities. Two things will follow: those who believe the Left can be reasoned with and appeased will be rudely awakened and the country will suffer. To date, only the second is happening.

GOP snubbing of Conservatives has produced much soul searching. The choices are stay in the GOP and work internally for change or leave to found or join a third party. I’m not advocating either choice. But enabling the status quo is not an option. We each must decide what the best use is of our time and talents. To decide, regardless of who wins the White House, a few things should be influential.

Christopher Arledge at Red County has written ‘The End of American Conservatism?’ and at The Minority Report, Civil Truth has penned ‘A Time for Choosing: Even Truer 44 Years Later’. They are as good a starting place as any for Conservatives asking where they go from here. I commend them to you. If you find, or if you have written, posts with similar themes, let me know and I’ll aggregate them here as a resource.

It is impossible to predict the consequences of next week’s election. It is, however, quite possible to predict what will happen if Conservatives do nothing. Surrender and chains being unacceptable options, regrouping and fighting on will have to do for now …

Blue Collar Muse

Surrender Is An Option

Michael Stull — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:40:00 GMT

I am not one who normally likes to wade among the liberal brie and croissant crowd, but recently I was overcome by the need to attend a jazz concert at our local botanical garden. The weather was pleasant and the crowd large, restricting the number of available seats and making it difficult to immediately secure the necessary wine and assortment of cheese, crackers and other snacks that naturally accompany and enhance the whole sorted jazz experience.

While standing in line for the majority of an hour awaiting my chance to place our order I began to engage in the sports of conversation listening and people watching. Soon I found myself passively listening to the on-and-off conversation originating from a party of two couples in line directly behind me. Normally, I would not give such conversations a second thought, but something one of the women was discussing piqued my attention.

The conversation had commenced like many other similar liberal conversations concerning the battle for Iraq witnessed over the years and, true to form, the anti-war talking points flowed like the wine being dispensed only a few yards away. The conversation was amusing and like many others of similar topic, the orator lacked a basic understanding of the war’s overall strategy resulting in the contextual corruption of her opinion’s underlying logic.

Then she said something I had not heard directly uttered by any liberal friend or other anti-war liberal in my company; surrender in Iraq is a viable option that should be considered. She argued her opinion to be “justified” based on a book that a professor friend had written discussing the history of surrender. She stated that surrender was honorable and by applying the book’s approaches it would surely mean that the United States would be able to repair its tattered relationship with the many fundamental Islamic countries spread throughout the Middle East and that it was the only way to fully restore America’s reputation throughout the world.

The conversation continued, and while I had not turned around to look directly at this woman and her accompanying guests, I was overtaken by the urge to construct a mental image. What immediately came to mind was another typical aging boomer sporting a weathered face that rarely, if ever, had experienced the application of makeup, dressed in a free-flowing hippy sarong. As I reached the front of the line I was finally overcome by my curiosity.

With life’s experience it truly is amazing how one can draw upon past knowledge to anticipate future events, for as I turned my mental image was almost as I had envisioned, save one major oversight. Attached to this woman’s flowing sarong was a large “Obama for President” pin.

Yes, if Mr. Obama is elected the next four years promise to be ones of “change.” I just hope for our County’s sake the “change” I am picturing in my mind proves to be inaccurate.

The Comprehensive Argument Against Barack Obama

John McJunkin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:09:00 GMT

I think I've made myself pretty clear lately that I have very little hope that Senator McCain can prevail in the election, and many times previously that I'm no fan of McCain, but I also wish to make it clear that I would absolutely prefer a Republican win on November 4th. This would facilitate greater restraint of the otherwise unfettered liberal lurch that would ensue after an Obama victory, which would have some pretty grim consequences for those who love liberty, capitalism, and security in an increasingly frightening world (see Michael Medved's column for a glimpse of an Obama future.)

I had thought about compiling a comprehensive list of rationale for voting Republican, but as a result of time constraints I simply haven't. Luckily, I was beaten to the punch by some very sharp people. My old friend Ed Morrissey edited and contributed to The Comprehensive Argument Against Barack Obama, which was compiled by another acquaintance of mine, Mary Katharine Ham, and Guy Benson - who are both very intelligent people. With a minimum of hyperbole or even speculation, they simply lay out dozens and dozens of hard, cold facts about Obama, backed by Obama's own words in many cases - lots of video - lots of links - VERY comprehensive. I would ask anyone who is considering voting for Barack Obama to spend an hour going through this before they proceed. It's difficult for me to imagine anyone reaching a pro-Obama conclusion after honestly spending time examining this comprehensive work. I'm not so naive as to believe for a moment that many pro-Obama people will examine this, but if you can get one pro-Obama voter in your life to do so, it may make the difference.

Colin Powell is Still a Republican?

Ken Marrero — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:11:00 GMT

Sitting in airports most of yesterday, I got an earful of CNN's coverage of Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama.

It effectively undercut two of the most damning truths about Obama. Particularly galling was the interview with Claire McCaskill. Grinning like the Cheshire cat, she gushed Obama must be the best choice since Powell, a military man, would never support someone unqualified to serve as CinC or who trafficked with terrorists. This despite the fact Powell's endorsement included nothing addressing the validity of those two points. Even afterward, General Powell did not address with specificity his rationale for endorsing Obama.

By far, however, the most disappointing aspect of Powell's endorsement was his contention that, despite his decision, he still considers himself a Republican. I do not know the General nor have I ever spoken to him. I believe he is a good man and his skilled service to our country as a military man is beyond exemplary. But I cannot accept his contention that he is a Republican. It is not because he endorsed the nominee from the other side. It is his stated reasons for doing so.

Over the last 8 years, three prominent Democrats endorsed the GOP nominee; Zell Miller, Democratic Senator from Georgia; Ed Koch, former Democratic Mayor of NYC and Joe Lieberman, former Democratic Senator from CT and 2000 Democratic VP nominee. When these Democrats endorsed the GOP nominee, they did so deliberately and with specificity. They did so while remaining Democrats. With the exception of Zell Miller, they did so while disagreeing with Republicans on almost every other point except the War on Terror. Concluding aggression against the US was the greatest threat to the nation and that Democrats could not or would not see that, these men broke with their party to support a GOP nominee. Miller's endorsement followed in the well established DixieCrat tradition of Conservative southern Democrats. There was nothing that demanded these men be excluded from the Democratic Party.

There was a fair amount of criticism from the Left directed at these men for their decision. Like Powell, however, they maintained they were still Democrats while breaking with the party on the war. That break cost them. While Miller retired shortly after his endorsement, he was villified by Leftists. Lieberman was actively opposed by the Democratic Party in his bid for reelection to the Senate. These men remain Democrats in all things except for their endorsements. Ed Koch is supporting Obama and thinks Palin is scary. Joe Lieberman still caucuses with Democrats and votes with them on virtually all matters not related to the war. It is clear, whether or not you agree with their assessment of the war, that was the reason they supported the nominee from the GOP.

Colin Powell's rationale isn't even close to as specific. It's filled with nebulous and meaningless platitudes. Obama brings a fresh set of eyes to the problem. Well, so does Sarah Palin. Obama is inclusive. This is simply laughable as there is literally zero evidence for that. If inclusiveness is the criteria by which we are to judge, McCain is the hands down winner. Powell is uncomfortable with the rhetoric coming out of the McCain camp regarding Obama's association with terrorists, both foreign and domestic. Evidently he is OK with the rhetoric coming from the camps of terrorists, both foreign and domestic, that support the Illinois Senator.

In short, Powell's objections to McCain aren't policy based. They aren't ideologically based. They seem to be based in personality. That is not to say personality has nothing to do with how to evaluate a candidate. But it ought to be last on the list and certainly not a basis for abandoning party policy and ideology. Unless, of course, your policy and ideology is more akin to the other guy's than to the one you are generally associated with.

Colin Powell, when asked if he was still a Republican, responded that he was. With all respect to the General, I must disagree. There is little evidence from his speech that he is. His endorsement of Obama ignores that Obama is for bigger Government, higher Taxes, decreased personal Liberty, weaker national Defense and a host of other anti-GOP notions. Powell does not list a single issue or policy with which Obama is at odds with the GOP and which he considers paramount beyond all considerations for the safety and security of our nation. Instead, he gives a general and sweeping endorsement of the man and his policies which are unquestionably Left of center.

If you can explain to me how this is a Republican view, I'm willing to listen. But from here it sounds like a Democrat in GOP clothing standing up for what he believes in. I have no issue with the good General if he wants to hold Democratic views. I would appreciate, however, the intellectual honesty to admit the same and make the announcement that he cannot, in good conscience, remain in the GOP any longer and that he was endorsing the Democratic agenda.

That's an endorsement I could respect.

Blue Collar Muse

ACORN's 19 State Victim Strategy

Ken Marrero — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:43:00 GMT

Tuesday, my post ‘ACORN’s 15 State Strategy for Voter Fraud’ provoked a great deal of response across the Interwebz. I don’t believe it alone was responsible for the Left’s development of talking points but said points were clearly in evidence. Discussion at The Next Right was most brisk with Leftist memes posted in abundance.

The short version? ACORN is the victim, not the criminal, so it can’t be involved in vote fraud! ACORN has never been convicted of vote fraud so it can’t be involved! ACORN reported its own fraudulent registrations so it can’t be involved! ACORN cooperated with the investigations so it can’t be involved! Real vote fraud only happens while casting a vote at the polls so ACORN can’t be involved. Statements to the contrary are based on isolated incidents so ACORN can’t be involved! ACORN isn’t responsible for the actions of a few bad eggs who make them look bad so it can’t be involved. It’s the start of a multi-state victim strategy.

Of course this only works if the protests are legitimate. Let’s take a look.

“Vote fraud can only happen at the polls!” would seem the most exonerating objection. But this is a straw man. After all, ACORN is an organization, not a person, so it cannot vote at all, fraudulently or otherwise. Yet ACORN is being investigated for vote fraud. How can that be? Because the law does not confine vote fraud to merely voting behavior.

While I’ve not spoken with all of them, I called election officials for the 13 states from Tuesday’s post asking about vote fraud definitions. Those I spoke with agreed “vote fraud” was best seen as a single, general term covering several, specific crimes. Actually voting fraudulently is vote fraud as are any number of actions, including fraudulently registering voters, fraudulently registering to vote and more. Investigations of such behavior by ACORN, its employees or agents are vote fraud investigations.

Ditto for convictions. One ACORN apologist, Timothy, has continually asked me to produce a single conviction of ACORN for vote fraud. The Wall Street Journal says it happened in Wisconsin and Colorado. Timothy says he followed my links. Perhaps he missed the one for Washington state. Rotten Acorn notes in this case, “Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged, in the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history.” ACORN settled the case. The settlement agreement is here. It’s all about what ACORN agrees to in order to avoid getting hammered.

ACORN’s agreement addresses the next objection: ACORN isn’t the bad guy; their self-policing makes them a good guy!. As with any such claim, the devil’s in the details. King County gave ACORN a pass if they self-reported problem registrations within 14 days. Self-reporting from 15-30 days earned them a $250 fine per incident. Over 30 days brought a $1,000 per incident fine. The question isn’t so much does ACORN self police as when. The WSJ’s John Fund has some insight into the answer out of Kansas City.

Finally, in the King County settlement ACORN agreed (as did all the election officials I asked about this) they can be held liable for the actions of their employees. No longer can they hide, as they have before, behind the excuse a few bad eggs ruined their reputation. Prosecutors may, for reasons of their own, choose not to prosecute the organization, but it’s a real option.

Washington state found ACORN’s personnel oversight to be “virtually nonexistant.” Their training seemed little better. King County demanded the same solution to the problem I suggested; change your business practices! Train and supervise your employees well. Tell them what breaking election law can mean. The King County case was last year, 2007. Why, then, is ACORN still having problems if all they are really committed to is, as Timothy says, conducting “… a very successful effort to register voters.”

There are major elections every two years and scores of lesser ones every year. With all that’s at stake, there will always be charges of fraud. But when one group routinely attracts accusations of wrongdoing, perhaps it’s time to look at them. Regarding ACORN, I say, “Democrats, perhaps it’s time to wash your hands of them.” No voter registration organization has a track record even remotely close to ACORN’s. And a rotten acorn can’t produce a healthy tree.

It really is as serious as I make it out to be. Including the 13 states with ACORN problems this year, since 1998, the following states have had problems with ACORN. Beyond their 15 state vote fraud strategy, ACORN now has a 19 state victim strategy. And ACORN only operates in 38 states. This is big and getting bigger. If mighty oaks truly grow from little acorns, there’s no surer proof than this. I think a call to the arborist is in order!

Arkansas / Colorado / Connecticut / Florida / Indiana / Louisiana / Michigan / Minnesota / Missouri / Nevada / New Mexico / North Carolina / Ohio / Pennsylvania / Texas / Virginia / Washington / Wisconsin.

Blue Collar Muse

Be Prepared

John McJunkin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:34:00 GMT

In just a short while, Senator McCain will face Senator Obama in the final debate before the November 2008 presidential election. Many pundits are sounding the alarms that “this is McCain’s last chance” to make up for lost time and to somehow reverse the tide. In reality, it’s already over. It’s been over for a couple of weeks now. The McCain-Palin ticket actually had a real chance to win the election right up until the moment that the markets started to tank. While greedy Wall Street types were complicit in the events leading up to this economic crisis, a substantial chunk of the blame can be laid at the doorstep of congressional Democrats (not to mention Bill Clinton,) as a result of liberal policies that paved the way for financial institutions to lend money to people who had no chance of ever repaying the loans. Even if McCain had attempted to articulate this simple notion, the Obama-adoring press would keep his message out of their contrived agenda. In other words, there was never a chance of any kind for McCain to rebound from this blindside, even if he’d perfectly executed a perfectly developed plan.

Very few Americans have the education or expertise to understand anything beyond the most fundamental realities of financial markets and the global economy, myself notwithstanding. This lack of understanding precludes a logical or rational response, so Americans turn to the gut instinct, and there are two strikes against the Republicans in this case. First, the Democrats have long been regarded as the party that helps out the “little guy” when economic bad times prevail, largely due to the mythological notion that FDR’s socialist New Deal ended the Great Depression (it actually extended the depression.) Second, Politics 101 tells us that the incumbent party is held accountable for everything that has gone wrong. In this case, I would submit that the big-government “compassionate conservatives” currently in Washington are indeed substantially to blame for our predicament. Either way, Americans are simultaneously repelled by the incumbent party and attracted by the leftist alternative offered by the opposition, and the misfortunate timing of the market collapse will result in unprecedentedly radical leftists having complete control of the White House and congress. The only question remaining at this time is whether the Dems can pull off a 60-seat supermajority in the Senate.

I was a Boy Scout as a young man (as is my seven-year-old boy currently, and my 16-month-old boy eventually.) I lacked the motivation to become an Eagle Scout, but I’ve always admired my brother Patrick for having achieved that extraordinary distinction. One thing I did take away from Scouting, however, is the notion stated in the Boy Scout motto – “Be Prepared.” Time after time in my life, I have seen failures when preparation was ignored, and successes when preparation happens. Right now, I feel a very strong urge to start preparing for a future that is unpredictable at best, a frightening nightmare at worst. I predict that President Obama will make good on his promises to increase taxes to “spread the wealth around.” I believe that the Democrats will quickly exploit their unchallenged majority position to open the immigration floodgates in order to create a completely new and very loyal welfare class that will unfailingly vote leftwardly in election after election. I believe that the Democrats will also quickly implement a re-worked “Fairness” Doctrine that precludes the opponents of radical leftism from any voice whatsoever, eliminating talk radio, blogging, podcasting – whatever’s necessary to eliminate dissent.

These are not wild-eyed rantings of a partisan lunatic. These are actions that the left has told us they’re going to take. A world-wide economic crisis landed at just the right moment to fertilize the ground for this radical leftward shift. A free-market economy is history now, and it’s even possible that our representative democracy is at risk. The leaders of the Marx-admiring world will certainly rejoice that a resource-laden economic powerhouse like the US will be much more receptive to their leftist overtures. The Islamo-fascist leaders of the world will see the US a bit differently – a broken giant primed for the caliphate. In the coming weeks and months, I’m going to go out and start getting prepared for the post-capitalist, post-democratic US that may await us. My stern warning to everyone who loves liberty is . . . be prepared.

The Approaching Storm

Michael Stull — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:32:00 GMT

Do you feel like you live in pre-Katrina 2005 New Orleans? I do. Prior to Katrina, dire warnings that a hurricane would breach the sea walls protecting New Orleans were commonplace. Indeed, “experts” routinely warned that it was “not a matter of if, but when, catastrophe would strike.” Regardless, few residence of New Orleans or Louisiana ever gave these warnings a second thought; federal bureaucrats took little or no action to strengthen these protective ramparts, and those in Louisiana state and local government where too busy diverting federal pork barrel monies to their own “worthy” personal causes to pay attention to such trivial and unsexy topics. When the hurricane eventually arrived local and state officials, in almost grotesque reflexive fashion, immediately pointed their crooked fingers at Washington and blamed the President for their misfortune rather than asking what they might have done differently to avoid such a calamity.

Much has changed since Katrina; or has it? For years the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans have warned America that a pending financial disaster has been building as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac marched in lock-step fashion encouraging the financial sector to issue as many sub-prime real estate loans as the global financial market could tolerate. Unfortunately, each and every attempt to reform or regulate Fannie and Freddie activities were procedurally blocked by Congressional Democrats, and many times advocates of such action were deemed “racist” for attempting to deprive the poor of home ownership.

But has this whole $3+ trillion Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacle been the major financial hurricane that has left our County’s financial ramparts decimated and unstoppable financial flood waters rushing in to reclaim our county’s great economic city? For good reason, I think not. This latest economic “storm” has left America’s economic underpinnings heavily damaged but not beyond repair.

Unfortunately, before the current storm has even fully passed the wisps of clouds from the forward bands of a catastrophic $50+ trillion financial storm are approaching, leaving us little time for repairs and preparation. These clouds have not gone unnoticed. Shortly after taking office in 2001, President Bush called for sweeping reforms to the Social Security system. These changes were not unlike previous charges that had been, in bi-partisan fashion, championed by Senator Alan Simpson nearly five years prior to Bush’s inauguration. Indeed, Simpson’s chief Social Security expert, Dr. Charles Blahous, was intricately involved in planning the Bush Administration’s blueprint for rescuing the Social Security system and in-turn guaranteeing the long-term viability of the American economy. In the end the plan gained no serious traction. Congressional Democrats demonized Bush as attempting to ”steal” social security benefits, and Congressional Republicans were simply too terrified to stand up against the rhetoric and defend a complex matter that the normal American’s 15-second attention span could not fully grasp.

The sobering and simplistic moral of this little story that each and every American must understand is that the longer Congress waits to shore up our protective financial buttresses by reforming Social Security and seriously curtaining spending the more likely our great economic city will suffer almost certain irreparable damage from this approaching storm.

My fellow Americans, there’s a catastrophic financial monster storm lurking out there and it’s coming to visit. When it arrives will we choose to stand in economic ruin and point our fingers at Washington politicians, or will we instead look with pride at the work we preemptively completed that has enabled our Country’s financial breastworks to sustain this terrible onslaught?

What Change Means in Kenya

The Mrs. — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:08:00 GMT

All of Obama's despicable associations that we know about (Rev. Wright, Ayers, ACORN) have one thing in common. They all contributed to his meteoric rise in politics. In fact, I have even wondered if he was actually a man without an ideology and instead a politiopath (yes, I made that word up) where ambition and power were the goal and he would adopt any guise to achieve his goal. There is a new association that completely undermines my conjecture.

Check out this in the Washington Times (H/T Mark Levin @ The Corner). You must read the whole thing but here are the important parts:

Mr. Odinga had the backing of Kenya's Muslim community heading into the election. For months he denied any ties to Muslim leaders, but fell silent when Sheik Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, appeared on Kenya television displaying a memorandum of understanding signed on Aug. 29, 2007, by Mr. Odinga and the Muslim leader. Mr. Odinga then denied his denials.

The details of the MOU were shocking. In return for Muslim backing, Mr. Odinga promised to impose a number of measures favored by Muslims if he were elected president. Among these were recognition of "Islam as the only true religion," Islamic leaders would have an "oversight role to monitor activities of ALL other religions [emphasis in original]," installation of Shariah courts in every jurisdiction, a ban on Christian preaching, replacement of the police commissioner who "allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists," adoption of a women's dress code, and bans on alcohol and pork.

...

Mr. Odinga and Mr. Obama were nearly inseparable throughout Mr. Obama's six-day stay. The two traveled together throughout Kenya and Mr. Obama spoke on behalf of Mr. Odinga at numerous rallies. In contrast, Mr. Obama had only criticism for Kibaki. He lashed out against the Kenyan government shortly after meeting with the president on Aug. 25 [2006]. "The [Kenyan] people have to suffer over corruption perpetrated by government officials," Mr. Obama announced.

"Kenyans are now yearning for change," he declared. The intent of Mr. Obama's remarks and actions was transparent to Kenyans - he was firmly behind Mr. Odinga.

So, the change Kenyans are yearning for seems to be Shariah law and a dress code for women in what was previously one of Africa's most stable democracies. This is scary for a multitude of reasons, but the primary among them is that I can't see what Obama gained politically from supporting this candidate. It didn't raise his foreign policy street cred because no one knows about the trip and it won't gain him a vote in this election. That leaves us with the conclusion that he supported Mr. Odinga because he agreed with a candidate who was willing to sign a secret agreement with Muslim extremists in order to win an election.

There's more in there, such as how Mr. Odinga's supporters conducted a genocidal killing spree focusing on Christians after he lost the election. A killing spree that was only ended once the winning candidate offered to make Mr. Odinga the nation's Prime Minister. Tragic and shameful. Has Obama issued the standard "That's not the Mr. Odinga I knew" statement? I bet his PR guy has that statement as a fill-in PDF to speed things along.