Thursday - November 13, 2008

Uncle Ted goes RINO Hunting

Rino Season Is Now Open
by Ted Nugent

Like any entity that abandons basic quality control, political parties rot from within. It happened to the Democrats long ago, and now has become the case with the Republican Party, which has strayed from its conservative underpinnings.

There are really only four things I have a strong aversion to: unloaded guns, dull knives, banjos, and Republicans in Name Only (RINOs).

The Nugent family simply doesn’t allow any of those things in our lives.

Read the Rest

Palin * Nugent
2008

   Tuesday - November 11, 2008

Requiem for the GOP

PJ O’Rourke looks back from the end of the road, and points out lots of bumps, crashes, and wrong turns along the way. I don’t read him very often, so I can’t really put a label on him. But it strikes me that a lot of what he is saying is worth listening to. It’s all in this week’s Weekly Standard.

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that’s headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble.

The South Side of Chicago is what everyplace in America will be once the Democratic administration and filibuster-resistant Democratic Congress have tackled global warming, sustainability, green alternatives to coal and oil, subprime mortgage foreclosures, consumer protection, business oversight, financial regulation, health care reform, taxes on the “rich,” and urban sprawl. The Democrats will have plenty of time to do all this because conservatism, if it is ever reborn, will not come again in the lifetime of anyone old enough to be rounded up by ACORN and shipped to the polling booths.

None of this is the fault of the left. After the events of the 20th century--national socialism, international socialism, inter-species socialism from Earth First--anyone who is still on the left is obviously insane and not responsible for his or her actions. No, we on the right did it.

We’ve had nearly three decades to educate the electorate about freedom, responsibility, and the evils of collectivism, and we responded by creating a big-city-public-school-system of a learning environment.

There was no need to piss off the entire black population of America to get Dixie’s electoral votes. And despising cracker trash who have a laundry hamper full of bedsheets with eye-holes cut in them does not make a man a liberal.

Blacks used to poll Republican. They did so right up until Mrs. Roosevelt made some sympathetic noises in 1932. And her husband didn’t even deliver on Eleanor’s promises. It’s not hard to move a voting bloc. And it should be especially easy to move voters to the right. Sensible adults are conservative in most aspects of their private lives.

Our impeachment of President Clinton was another example of placing the wrong political emphasis on personal matters. We impeached Clinton for lying to the government. To our surprise the electorate gave us cold comfort. Lying to the government: It’s called April 15th. And we accused Clinton of lying about sex, which all men spend their lives doing, starting at 15 bragging about things we haven’t done yet, then on to fibbing about things we are doing, and winding up with prevarications about things we no longer can do.

The left has no idea what’s going on in the financial crisis. And I honor their confusion. Jim Jerk down the road from me, with all the cars up on blocks in his front yard, falls behind in his mortgage payments, and the economy of Iceland implodes. I’m missing a few pieces of this puzzle myself.

Under constant political pressure, which went almost unresisted by conservatives, a lot of lousy mortgages that would never be repaid were handed out to Jim Jerk and his drinking buddies and all the ex-wives and single mothers with whom Jim and his pals have littered the nation.

Wall Street looked at the worthless paper and thought, “How can we make a buck off this?” The answer was to wrap it in a bow.
...
Or, put another way, Wall Street was pulling the “room full of horse s--” trick. Brokerages were saying, “We’re going to sell you a room full of horse s--. And with that much horse s--, you just know there’s a pony in there somewhere.”

There is a lot more than this. On a number of subjects. It’s worth a read even if you disagree, because I guarantee you a lot of people will agree with him. We had it all, and we let it slip away. Maybe we should open our eyes and minds and figure out why, and how we might be able to get it back. Because I’d rather not wait an entire lifetime before getting the country back on the proper track, and that’s what O’Rouke thinks is going to happen.

   Monday - November 03, 2008

Barack Obama victory will hurt US firms - and world economy. (PLEASE READ ALL OF IT PPL)

This is I know a wordy but worthy editorial and I would urge you all to PLEASE read all of it.  See the link and read some of the comments as well.

I don’t want to make this long and so will post something later that NEEDS sharing with you.

Barack Obama victory will hurt US firms - and world economy

By Janet Daley
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 03/11/2008

Read comments: 

(by all means folks, do read some of the comments that follow the editorial in the Telegraph. Amazing that so many ppl who really know so damn little about us, now think they can advise us on how and why we NEED to vote Obama. I guess I’m a bit thin skinned when foreigners tell me who to vote for. But there are some very good comments as well. Perhaps not always seeing our side it, but at least thought out and well expressed without always being nasty.)

Well, it’s nearly over - this presidential election campaign that has gone on for so long I can scarcely remember what life was like before it started. So long has it been running that the world has actually gone through two tumultuous transformations of political reality during its span.

First there was the emergence of Russia as a threat to international stability in a form that should not have, but nevertheless did, come as a startling revelation to a complacent free world: a phenomenon which, in cynical partisan terms, played heavily in John McCain’s favour. But that was followed, and almost totally eclipsed, by the economic implosion that brought every earlier assumption about the electorate crashing down with it.

So, in one of those bizarre jokes that history sometimes plays, the United States is apparently about to choose as president the most inexperienced, untried and virtually unknowable (because there is so little to know) candidate who has ever run for that office at a time of unquantifiable international risk and unprecedented economic instability: a candidate who, as Bill Clinton revealed in a wonderfully back-handed “tribute”, responded to the banking collapse by ringing every expert he could find (including Bill) to ask them what he should be saying.

And not only does it seem likely that Barack Obama will be elected president, but that he will arrive in office accompanied by a legion of new Democratic senators and congressmen which will give his party a lock on both the executive and legislative branches of government, thus permitting it to do precisely anything it wants.

A week ago in New York, I talked to senior Republicans who were dividing their time between conference calls to the White House to discuss the economic crisis and exasperated confrontations with the McCain campaign team over the ineffectiveness of its strategy. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the state of dissension and dissatisfaction within the higher ranks of the Republican Party - which is why the Obama claim that a McCain White House would simply be George Bush by other means is so ludicrous and disingenuous.

In truth, McCain’s status as an outlaw within his own party ("maverick" is much too mild a word) has meant that he has had only the most ambivalent relationship with what was once a very professional Republican campaigning machine. Those members of the Bush team who have been involved with the McCain-Palin ticket have been accused of being so out of sympathy with its message and tone as to be positively counter-productive.

Combine this with the fact that McCain has been running against not just a super-financed Obama machine but the most monolithically hostile media barrage in electoral history, which forced him to spend most of his time and energy on defensive fire-fighting, and you get a sense of why the Republican effort has so often seemed at cross-purposes with itself.

This media phenomenon may yet prove double-edged. There is just a possibility (maybe I am clutching at straws here, but we shall see) that the relentless onslaught from the mainstream press and television networks has made support for McCain unsayable rather than impossible and that this is producing seriously skewed opinion-polling results. This could mean, to put it in British historical terms, that this election will be 1992 (complete with premature victory celebrations) rather than 1997. Interestingly, in the 1992 election it was the issue of tax that brought about Labour’s defeat in the face of resounding leads in the polls. And it is tax policy that is Obama’s most dangerous ground. It must be surprising to British observers that his proposal to cut taxes for the 95 per cent of people who earn less than $200,000 a year (down, incidentally, from his initial figure of $250,000) has not straightforwardly won the day in the American national debate.

In Britain, such a promise (if believed) would be an electoral free pass to Downing Street. But in the US, voters are aware that the largest category of people who would be hit by Obama’s higher tax would be those who own small businesses, as Joe the Plumber famously aspired to do and as many, many of his countrymen already do. Ordinary working-class people in America do not automatically expect to be low earners, or even employees, all of their lives: they believe that through hard work and resourcefulness, they are as likely as anyone to rise in the world. And so they do not necessarily take kindly to someone who wants to penalise them as soon as they break through an income ceiling in order, as Obama fatally put it, to “spread the wealth around”.

But there is another facet of Obama taxation with even more serious consequences for the US. In order to pay for his tax cut for 95 per cent of the population (half of whom do not pay income tax and whose “cut” would be in the form of a cash rebate), President Obama and his Democratic Congress would raise the US rate of corporation tax - already the second highest in the world - from 15 to 20 per cent. They also plan to punish through taxation companies that employ people overseas rather than “creating American jobs”. These measures would have the almost immediate effect of driving companies and capital out of the US.

In the same “help the little guy” spirit, Obama proposes to raise capital gains tax, thus penalising those whose investment is desperately needed for market recovery. As my economist friends always tell me when I advocate tax cuts for the low-paid: it may seem a morally and politically attractive policy but it doesn’t do a damn thing for economic growth. The tiny amounts that the lower-paid receive in such wide-ranging cuts make little difference as a stimulus and if they are balanced by penalties on business and on the investing classes, they are worse than useless.

So what will happen? For what it is worth, I think it will be a close presidential race with the favourite, Obama, winning by a squeak (which is what happened in 1960 when the then favourite, John Kennedy, was the voice of the “future"). Whoever gets the White House, America will eventually return to being what it must be: the economic engine of the world and the greatest testimony to the power of human initiative in history. On both of those counts, it will once again be resented. But it will take a while longer to reach that point under Barack Obama.

http://tinyurl.com/5cz8uk

   Saturday - November 01, 2008

13 months of Sarah

Hometown photographer trying to make a few bucks. Ride those coattails!

via TeamSarah.org

Sarah Palin Calendar!






available here, $15.95



If you haven’t been out to visit TeamSarah, give it a shot. You need to register, but there is good stuff there, and you can get involved in some last minute grassroots efforts.

   Wednesday - October 29, 2008

Barack Obama is the Busby Berkeley of modern America.  (All show and mirrors)

I felt BMEWS would want to see this and no comments from me. Well, maybe not.

Barack Obama is the Busby Berkeley of modern America

By Simon Heffer in New York
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 28/10/2008

One can find two kinds of voters in this great city in the week before the presidential election; those Democrats who can see no possibility of defeat for Barack Obama next Tuesday, and those who wake with a jolt at 4am imagining he has lost, and feeling in their bowels the fear that something might happen in the next few days to stop the saviour of the United States from fulfilling his mission. I have yet to find a Republican, despite this being the city that returned Rudy Giuliani twice as mayor. But then it is hard to find anyone in the city that gave Hillary Clinton a big victory in February in the New York state primary who will now not admit to being a dyed-in-the-wool Obamamaniac. The fat lady has yet to sing, but, as far as New Yorkers are concerned, the show is over already.

They may well be right. The McCain camp says that its private polls show the race is far closer than those published by media organisations: but then it would, wouldn’t it? There is much anecdotal evidence that, at the grass roots in states where John McCain is not now campaigning (and even in one or two where he is), the fight has more or less stopped. After a good convention eight weeks ago in St Paul, the Republicans have lost the initiative at every turn. They had a bad financial crisis. Neither Mr McCain nor his running-mate, Sarah Palin, was able to land a killer blow in the televised debates. Things have reached the pass where Mrs Palin is having to protest that the haute couture on which $150,000 was spent to enhance her glamour belongs not to her, but to the Republican National Committee: and that she will now revert to shopping in the factory outlets of Alaska. After one has paused to consider just who on the RNC will be wearing Mrs Palin’s clothes next, one realises just how much this pathetic squabble signals that the game is almost certainly up.

Visiting from Britain, one senses just how like the spring of 1997 it is. Obama supporters often bridle at comparisons with Tony Blair, though why they should mind being lumped with a man who won three elections handsomely, inflicted serious change (for better or worse) on the country he governed, and put his opponents off the map for at least a dozen years is beyond me. Perhaps they are sensitive to the triumph of Mr Obama’s image over his content, to the accusations that his media management, with its brutal threats to journalists who cut up rough, belies the image of integrity that they seek to disseminate, and to the unspoken difficulty that, when and if Mr Obama gets into the White House, the magnificence of his rhetoric and the vast extent of his oratorical skills will do little to help him tackle an economy in the tank and a precarious international situation.

However, the Obama camp need not worry about any of this, because it appears most of the electorate don’t. The voters’ decision appears to have been simple: that George W. Bush, when he becomes history in January, should for the time being take the Republican party with him. Mr McCain has been at pains to distance himself from Mr Bush since before he won the nomination, and has had the facts mostly on his side in doing so.

However, that has failed to penetrate the souls of many voters. Polls in states that returned Mr Bush in 2004 now show Mr Obama far in front. Mr McCain is even at risk of losing Virginia, which is a little like the Tory party being wiped out in Surrey. The evidence that American voters have had enough is becoming more abundant. Mr Obama can capitalise on a lethal cocktail of economic hardship and, among the more outward-looking of his fellow citizens, a deep and pervasive embarrassment at how America is now seen around the world.

(okay wait a minute. how many Americans do know and if they do, give a flip what foreigners who aren’t paying our bills think?)

There is, though, no euphoria about what most of America feels to be his imminent election. It is, rather, a sense of relief at their being about to be shot of a discredited administration and a dismal president. Again, it should remind us of 1997, when Mr Blair surged to power not so much on a national wave of faith in him, but because so many Conservatives stayed at home and declined to shore up his inadequate opponent, the incumbent.

Here, the incumbent party is run ragged, too. It is fashionable to blame Mrs Palin for this, but the truth is that she is by far the more impressive of the two candidates on her ticket. She speaks directly to her audience, has conviction and charisma and is not trying to be something she isn’t. Ever since the convention John McCain has pretended not to be John McCain, and it just hasn’t worked.

In the circumstances of such a poor campaign by the Republicans, Mr Obama has not been pressed to outline how he would govern. All that has mattered is that he is not what has come before, or like what has come before. In these past days there have been attempts by his opponents, and especially by conservatives, to paint him as a socialist because of his talk of “spreading the wealth”. His opponents are correct: he is, by the lights of all his rhetoric, an orthodox Leftist with an ill-formed notion of redistribution of income.

But it no longer matters. The mood here is to get the people who have run America for the past eight years out, and get in someone completely different. The time to discuss what, in their turn, they would do would come once they are there. This is far from ideal, for that is what election campaigns are supposed to be for. But in the unusual predicament of an America that feels weakened, embarrassed and angry, it has become nearly inevitable.

The last time the American economy was on the ropes to the extent it is now a whole industry of escapism grew up, and produced such gems as Gold Diggers of 1933. You might remember that the plot of that charming film was a millionaire putting on a musical that saved countless Broadway hoofers from the soup-kitchen during the Great Depression.

Barack Obama is the Busby Berkeley of modern America. He is ordained as the great choreographer who will spirit America out of its misery, using not his own millions but the billions of the taxpayer to put the country back on course. Having listened all year to his message of “change”, and being entirely unclear what it means, perhaps at last we have the answer. It is The Great Cause Of Cheering Us All Up.

The reverence with which Mr Obama is regarded by most of the American media, and by much of the American elite, is such that, when I see him on television, I look — so far in vain — for the stigmata on his hands. This feeling is entirely appropriate, for what America seems to be preparing to embark upon is the most massive act of faith. Not since 1960, and the election of Jack Kennedy, has so much disbelief been suspended by so many in such a massive cause. If it does indeed translate into an Obama victory on Tuesday, further prayer may well be in order. Not long after Gold Diggers of 1933, I seem to remember, came The Grapes of Wrath.

http://tinyurl.com/6ywjzh

   Monday - October 27, 2008

McCain on Fire!

Horry Clap, McCain’s on fire. Catch his speech from Ohio today; I’m sure Fox will have it as well as McCain.org and JohnMcCain.com, etc. He’s all over today’s viral video of Obama’s 2001 radio interview video. The old man is up on the podium, actually raising his voice! He’s energized! He’s shouting! He’s against big government! He’s against out of control spending! He’s against Socialism (but he doesn’t call a spade a spade and he doesn’t identify the obvious). He’s not lying down and giving up. It’s like a rally! It’s almost sounds like he’s a Republican!

The before the speech transcript from the NY Times is pretty close to what he actually said.

Stand Up! Stand up and fight for America!

It’s been a long campaign and we’ve heard a lot of words, and great campaign trail eloquence. The amazing thing is that we’ve learned more about Senator Obama’s real goals for our country over the last two weeks than we learned over the past two years. It is amazing that even at this late hour, we are still learning more about Senator Obama and his agenda. He told Joe the plumber right here in Ohio he wants to quote “spread the wealth around.” It’s always more interesting to hear what people have to say in these unscripted moments, and today we heard another moment like this from Senator Obama.

In a radio interview revealed today, he said that one of the quote—“tragedies” of the civil rights movement is that it didn’t bring about a redistribution of wealth in our society. He said, and I quote, “One of the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.”

That is what change means for Barack the Redistributor: It means taking your money and giving it to someone else. He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs. He is more interested in controlling wealth than in creating it, in redistributing money instead of spreading opportunity. I am going to create wealth for all Americans, by creating opportunity for all Americans.

...

Let me give you the state of the race today. There’s eight days to go. We’re a few points down. The pundits have written us off, just like they’ve done before. My opponent is working out the details with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid of their plans to raise your taxes, increase spending, and concede defeat in Iraq. He’s measuring the drapes, and he’s planned his first address to the nation for before the election. I guess I’m old fashioned about these things I prefer to let the voters weigh in before presuming the outcome.

What America needs now is someone who will finish the race before the starting the victory lap ... someone who will fight to the end, and not for himself but for his country.

I have fought for you most of my life, and in places where defeat meant more than returning to the Senate. There are other ways to love this country, but I’ve never been the kind to back down when the stakes are high.

I know you’re worried. America is a great country, but we are at a moment of national crisis that will determine our future.

Will we continue to lead the world’s economies or will we be overtaken? Will the world become safer or more dangerous? Will our military remain the strongest in the world? Will our children and grandchildren’s future be brighter than ours?

My answer to you is yes. Yes, we will lead. Yes, we will prosper. Yes, we will be safer. Yes, we will pass on to our children a stronger, better country. But we must be prepared to act swiftly, boldly, with courage and wisdom.

I’m an American. And I choose to fight. Don’t give up hope. Be strong. Have courage. And fight.

Fight for a new direction for our country. Fight for what’s right for America.

Fight to clean up the mess of corruption, infighting and selfishness in Washington.

Fight to get our economy out of the ditch and back in the lead.

Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.

Fight for our children’s future.

Fight for justice and opportunity for all.

Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. America is worth fighting for. Nothing is inevitable here. We never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Now, let’s go win this election and get this country moving again.

WWRD?

Selected excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s 1964 speech in support of Barry Goldwater. Originally titled “A Time for Healing” it is better known as his “Rendezvous With Destiny” speech.

All this was said in 1964. 44 years ago. Some things simply do not change. An earlier post here today points out how John McCain’s camp is upset that Sarah Palin is going off on her own and past his limits. But they don’t seem to realize that that is exactly what she has to do. She’s an actual Conservative. And he’s a Democrat. Her words seem to echo back to an earlier time ...

Not too long ago two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are! I had someplace to escape to.” In that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down--up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as “meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government.” Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me--the free man and woman of this country--as “the masses.” This is a term we haven’t applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, “the full power of centralized government"--this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don’t control things. A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me--the free man and woman of this country--as “the masses.” This is a term we haven’t applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, “the full power of centralized government"--this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don’t control things. A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they are going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer and they’ve had almost 30 years of it, shouldn’t we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
...
... anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we are denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we are always “against” things, never “for” anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so. We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.

But we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those who depend on them for livelihood.
...
Back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his party was taking the part of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his party, and he never returned to the day he died, because to this day, the leadership of that party has been taking that party, that honorable party, down the road in the image of the labor socialist party of England. Now it doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men...that we are to choose just between two personalities.
...
We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in doing so lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well, I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
...
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness?

McCain and Palin aides at war.  (oh great. so we’re fighting among ourselves now?)

Just what I bloody well need to start the day, on top of everything else going on around here.
And in a foreign paper too.  Good. Show everyone how divided we are among our own kind.  Gee people, when the heck did the enemy become US?
Does Democrat/Liberal/Obama/Supreme Court/Taxes and heaven know what else, does any of that ring any bells?  Jeesh!

Have any of you seen Mrs. Palin in blue jeans?  Gosh she looks good in everything. I’m glad she answered her clothing critics and now we need to move on and stop the political death wish that seems to be encroaching our ranks.

PALIN IN 2012!  Y E S !

McCain and Palin aides at war
Aides to John McCain and Sarah Palin have exchanged bitter barbs over the handling of the campaign.

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 12:39AM GMT 27 Oct 2008

One adviser to Mr McCain was reported to have called the Republican nominee’s running mate a “diva” after her allies complained bitterly that she was too tightly controlled by Mr McCain’s aides.

The Alaska governor’s supporters said that she was so frustrated by her role in the campaign that she threatened to “go rogue” more often and do things her own way.

With Mr McCain already struggling to stay in the race with Mr Obama ahead in the polls, the row over his vice-presidential nominee is threatening to drain energy from the uphill challenge of beating his Democratic rival. Despite the strains in his campaign, and an average poll lead for Mr Obama of 7.8 percentage points, Mr McCain maintained a plucky outlook, declaring that he was still capable of a squeaking a narrow victory on Nov 4. “I believe that I’m going to win it. It’s going to be tight, and we’re going to be up late, but we’re going to win,” Mr McCain told NBC’s Meet the Press.

For encouragement he clung to the example of a new Reuters-Zogby poll that put his rival’s advantage at five points, compared to others placing it at 11 points. “The polls are all over the map,” he said, asserting that American voters were growing wary of Mr Obama’s plans for tax increases.

Yet again, he was forced to defend Mrs Palin, whose favourability ratings have slipped to 40 per cent from a high of 64 per cent shortly after her nomination two months ago.

Asked about the $150,000 (£93,000) spent on designer clothes for Mrs Palin and her family by the Republicans, Mr McCain insisted: “She lives a frugal life.”

However his backroom staff appear to be at war with Mrs Palin’s aides. As mutual hostilities rose within the Republican campaign at the weekend, an ally of the Alaska governor cited the bad publicity over the shopping spree as an example of how poor treatment by McCain staffers had tarnished her image and turned her into the butt of late-night comedians.

A senior Republican complained to Politico.com that “she never even set foot in these stores”, and had no idea of the cost. He blamed the fiasco on “completely out-of-control operatives”.

Adding that she had “lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” referring to the staff who accompany her, he said she wanted to “go rogue” more often.

“These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves,” said the insider, referring to Mr McCain’s chief strategist Steve Schmidt and to Nicolle Wallace, the former communications director for George W Bush who has overseen Mrs Palin’s media strategy.

An opponent of Mrs Palin within the McCain camp however lambasted her for branching out on her own and for criticising tactical decisions made by the senator and his advisers.

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” a McCain adviser told CNN. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

(A McCain adviser?  Really nice quote from someone who’s supposed to be ON OUR SIDE.)

Over the weekend Mrs Palin once again took a campaign message further than her senior partner. For days both have warned that Mr Obama’s tax policies are tantamount to “socialism”. But speaking in Des Moines, she warned that the Democrat would create the kind of country “where the people are not free”, raising the spectre of a communist state.

http://tinyurl.com/6r3m2h

Just out of curiosity.  Are you folks seeing this at home?  This report I mean. With days to go till election, this can’t look very smart. 

   Thursday - October 23, 2008

John McCain should realise: it’s the taxes, stupid.  (OK, back to the USA for this)

Not too much too say.
Have lost musician friend of 30 years and will soon post.
But this stuff is very much alive and of interest to us all. 
But it ain’t over yet. Not till the last ballot is accounted for on election day.

Catch the rest of Kim’s take on things: => http://www.theothersideofkim.com/index.php/tos/

“I would feel better about electing a President in times of economic uncertainty if either candidate had the slightest familiarity with economic issues.” Kim du Toit

John McCain should realise: it’s the taxes, stupid
By Frank Luntz
Last Updated: 11:01pm BST 22/10/2008

Barack Obama will be the next President. For a pollster and message consultant to declare the outcome with 10 days to go is risky. But John McCain’s campaign has shown no capability to capitalise on events, and the Obama campaign just doesn’t make mistakes.

Republicans eye Palin for 2012 presidential campaign

It didn’t have to be this way.

McCain could have stood up and said no to the $700 billion “taxpayer-funded Wall Street bail-out”.

McCain could have been a hero for the middle-class
Sure, it’s now called an “economic rescue plan” by the White House, but the Bush Administration’s rebranding came too little and too late. He could have declared that “Main Street should not have to pay for the sins of Wall Street”, that it’s “time for the corporate con-men to do some time for costing us some dime”.

That decision alone would have made him a hero to tens of millions of hard-working middle-class voters who resent seeing their tax dollars handed over to fund the retirement packages of the Billionaire Boys Club. But he didn’t.

McCain also could have personalised the taxes that every American pays. He could have leapt from his seat in the so-called “town hall” debate, his second televised clash with Obama, walked over to each person in the audience, and gone through the litany of taxes they all have to pay.

“When you wake up and have your first cup of coffee, you pay a sales tax. Go to your garage, pay an automobile tax. Drive to work, pay a gas tax. At work, you have an income tax. Come home, pay a property tax. Turn on your television, there’s a cable tax. Have a beer, pay an alcohol tax. Even when you die, you pay a death tax.” But he didn’t.

As for Obama, he could have done what the Left-wing blogs wanted him to do and ripped into his opponent the way John Kerry did to George W. Bush in 2004. Instead, he chose a conciliatory path, often agreeing with - and even praising - McCain for his positions on some issues and only occasionally going on the attack.

Voters awarded him victory for that strategy after all three debates. And in a survey of non-partisan “independent” voters released yesterday by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, Obama has opened up a double-digit lead among the voters who will decide the outcome.

The only time in the past 50 years where a candidate came from this far behind to overtake his opponent was Ronald Reagan in 1980. But that race featured a debate just five days before the election - and everything was melting down around Jimmy Carter.

There are no more debates - and McCain is hardly the Great Communicator. Everything is melting down around the Republican Party. With stock markets still plummeting, unemployment still rising and the entire global economic system in chaos, it’s tough to see how someone of the same party as the most unpopular president in modern times could possibly overcome such obvious barriers.

And when a lifetime’s worth of savings is now worth 30 per cent less than it was 100 days ago, it’s very difficult to listen to the candidates tear each other apart. The candidate who offers hope becomes a lot more appealing than the candidate on the attack.

In fact, the real untold story of 2008 is what is happening at state and local level. Republicans are in danger of losing the Senate seats they need to be able to block Obama’s legislation - and the House of Representatives looks even worse. This election is starting to look more like Britain in 1997 than anything America has seen in decades.

On election night, the polls in Virginia and Indiana close at 7pm, and both states could end up in the Democratic column for the first time in decades. It will be a long night for John McCain. If the current trends continue, it will be an even longer four years for the Republican Party.

Frank Luntz is a pollster and communications consultant

http://tinyurl.com/6l9an8

   Thursday - October 09, 2008

Barack Obama looks the part .  (I HATE to post this but, as it’s seen from here.)

This is the editorial that appeared in today’s paper over here.  I’m hearing this from American friends who are conservative, and frankly I am worried.
Not that there’s anything I can do about it.  Maybe I’ll go live in Lyndon’s house in Canada. Claim it as a human right.  Why am I joking about this?
Taint funny McGee!  Cause if I don’t laugh I might cry. 

Should O. carry it off and win, I guess the most consv. can do is try and block supreme nominations of the left.  What a mess.

Singapore’s lookin pretty good right now.

Barack Obama looks the part

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 09/10/2008

There will be many victims of the financial crisis, and one of the most prominent could be John McCain. However much he tries to distance himself from the Bush administration, the Republican candidate in America’s presidential election is finding it increasingly hard to make up ground on Barack Obama, his Democrat opponent.

But it was less their policies for dealing with economic calamity than their demeanour that provided the most noticeable difference between the two men during their second televised debate on Tuesday night. Mr Obama appeared calm and confident; Mr McCain seemed uncertain, tired and tetchy.

It felt, admittedly from afar, like the modern-day equivalent of the famous clash between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, when those who listened to the debate on the radio believed Nixon had won while those watching on television felt that the more youthful and assured Kennedy triumphed.

With just 27 days to the election, Mr McCain must make his experience and more astute grasp of foreign policy tell, though even on this, his supposed strong suit, he found Mr Obama able to brush off the charge of being wet behind the ears. Polls taken after the debate in Tennessee handed a clear win to Mr Obama, who is now forging ahead in the so-called ‘’battleground” states that will determine who will occupy the White House.

This was supposed to resemble an old-fashioned town hall meeting, of the sort we used to have in this country; and while there was something almost comical about the exercise as the two men prowled around the stage, the cut and thrust of American politics is refreshing to those who lament the absence of similar clashes between party leaders during general elections here.

http://tinyurl.com/3l3vdu

   Monday - October 06, 2008

OK, EVEN IF YOU DON’T AGREE WITH EVERYTHING, THIS IS A MUST WATCH AND LISTEN VIDEO.

Just before getting ready to shut down for the night, I paid a visit to Vilmar’s site where I stole this.
I don’t think he’ll mind me doing that.

Now then, please, please stay with this fellow even if it is a mite hard to watch because he’s jumps a lot.
This really does have a large WOW factor.

One of the things I’ve always liked about Vilmar, is his take no prisoners attitude and kick the hell out of the left when ya have em down.

Well, while this young man might not be Vilmar he sure does score some points and doesn’t seem to worry much about prisoners either.

NOW THEN ... WANNA TALK ABOUT TAKE NO PRISONERS?

HE GOES ON AGAIN HERE.  THIS YOUNG FELLA IS ON A ROLL. 

Thanks Vilmar.  http://antzinpantz.com/kns/ and thanks as well to Sndrak, which is where V got it.  http://tinyurl.com/48qoj8

McCain resorts to attacks on Obama’s character as aids fear campain is over.  (what?)

This doesn’t look too good for our side folks. 

Your thoughts?

John McCain attacks Barack Obama’s character in bid to rescue campaign
John McCain will try to revive his flagging presidential prospects by launching an all-out character assassination on Barack Obama, branding his Democratic rival an untrustworthy political extremist who is “too risky for Americans”.

By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 2:10PM BST 04 Oct 2008

The move comes amid growing signs that Mr McCain’s closest aides do not believe he can win the race for the White House in a “fair fight”.

The Sunday Telegraph knows of at least three occasions in the last month where members of his inner circle have voiced fears that he is doomed to defeat.

Voters have flocked to Mr Obama during the current economic crisis, and Mr McCain has lost the lead in several key swing states he must win if he is to have any chance of victory in November.

A former McCain strategist familiar with the senator’s tactical discussions told The Sunday Telegraph that he would pursue the “nuclear option” targeting Mr Obama personally in the final month leading up to November’s vote.

Republicans have leapt on a New York Times story which accused Mr Obama of having played down his relationship with the former terrorist turned education professor William Ayres, whose Weather Underground group bombed the Pentagon in the 1960s and with whom Mr Obama worked on community projects in the mid-1990s.

(this terrorist creep bombs the Pentagon and he’s not only allowed to continue his pointless breathing, he becomes a professor.  and he teaches what exactly? bomb making 101?  why oh why has this bastard not been shot dead by some patriot by now? jeez. rcob,)

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee urged Mr McCain to make it a campaign issue. It ought to matter to voters,” he said. “If you hang out with somebody who has never apologised for bombing the Pentagon and the United States Capitol and is proud of something he should have been ashamed of, then it calls into question your judgment.

“I think a person who wants to be president should be appalled that anyone would ever lead this level of anarchy against the government of the United States.

In the second presidential debate on Tuesday, Mr McCain will seek to brand Mr Obama as an old fashioned tax-and-spend liberal.

At the same time, his campaign will launch coded attacks on Mr Obama’s patriotism. On Friday Mr McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin accused the Democratic candidate of disparaging American troops, a toxic charge in US politics. “Some of his comments about Afghanistan and what we are doing there supposedly, just air raiding villages and killing civilians, that’s reckless,” she said.

Greg Strimple, a senior adviser to Mr McCain confirmed the change of direction. “We’re looking for a very aggressive last 30 days,” he said. “We’re turning the page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr Obama’s liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans.”

While the McCain campaign will not charge directly that Mr Obama’s views are un-American, that case is now being made by conservative pressure groups.

A group called the Judicial Confirmation Network has begun a $1m ad buy hinting that Mr Obama cannot be trusted to pick new justices for the Supreme Court. The basis for their charge is that he might select people like his incendiary pastor Jeremiah Wright, “who has blamed America for the 9/11 attacks”, or the aforementioned William Ayers. They also point out that he chose as one of his first financial backers Tony Rezko, a slumlord now convicted on 16 counts of corruption.

The former McCain strategist said: “We were doing well when this election was all about Obama. The last two weeks have been more about John and we need to shift the focus back.

“There are real questions for Obama to answer. Also, it’s the only way we win. It’s the nuclear option but votes are firming up. It’s now or never.” Mr Obama now enjoys a six point national poll lead and has moved ahead in states like Ohio , Virginia , Florida , Colorado , North Carolina and Missouri, all of which were won by George W. Bush in 2004.

Mr Strimple said: “We have just started advertising there heavily and I believe that every one of those states will snap back heavily in our favour.” But behind the scenes a mood of grim pessimism has gripped McCain staff. Even in the aftermath of Sarah Palin’s triumphant speech at the Republican convention, one of Mr McCain’s closest aides told The Sunday Telegraph that he expected Mrs Palin and her state of Alaska to disappear from public view within six weeks, a tacit admission that he expects to lose the election.

On Thursday, the campaign announced it was pulling out of Michigan , once a state Mr McCain hoped to steal from the Democrats, but where Mr Obama now enjoys a 13 point cushion.

Mrs Palin’s perky debate performance was the one bright spot of Mr McCain’s week but polls show her folksy charm did little to win over floating voters.

The strategist said: “Everyone’s saying she stopped the bleeding. She did, but you’ve got to do more than stop the bleeding when you’re leg’s already fallen off.”

McCain biographer Matt Welch told The Sunday Telegraph that McCain owes his current plight to his lifelong habit of fighting elections on his temperamental character rather than policy.

“In the last two weeks his responses to the financial crisis have been classic McCain,” he said. “He has no idea what he is talking about.

He has changed his mind on a daily basis.”

“When he said he was going to stop campaigning and solve the crisis in Washington, that was a moment when Americans said: ‘I don’t believe this guy any more.’

“What we see from McCain is anger and incoherence and publicity stunts and it’s not working.”

But he counselled against writing Mr McCain’s political obituary just yet. “Never count him out. If he’s five points down a week before the election, psychologically, that’s where he wants to be. He wants to feel like he’s fighting as the underdog. He will come up with something surprising.”

http://tinyurl.com/4bavr6

   Thursday - September 25, 2008

Barack Obama today rejected a call from rival John McCain to call off tomorrow’s televised debate.

okay folks, what’s this all about?  Yeah I can read alright.  But don’t understand this.  It looks like McC is looking for a way to avoid a debate.  ???
That can’t be right, can it?

Since neither of these guys have yet to be elected, I honestly do not see what good would come of McCain’s suggestion to hold off the debate in the national interest.  Or, is it in his own interest?

I would think the debate might be in a national interest as are not many ppl interested to see how they do and what topics are covered?

I should also mention to American friends that the reports here are that rama-lama ding-dong is now enjoying a nine point lead in polls (if they mean anything) due to the banking disaster.  So I’m at a loss to understand.

Also ... if McC doesn’t wanna debate or is frightened for some odd reason, why can’t he sic the Sarahcuda on what’s his name?

Obama and McCain face off over holding televised debate as Republicans suspend campaign to focus on economy

By David Gardner and Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:50 AM on 25th September 2008

Barack Obama today rejected a call from rival John McCain to call off tomorrow’s televised presidential debate so they can tackle America’s crippling financial problems.

Mr McCain has suspended his election campaign to return to the US capital until a proposed government bail-out plan has been approved. He asked Mr Obama to postpone the crucial TV debate - an offer that was flatly rejected.

Mr Obama said it was “more important than ever” that the country hear from its next president and continued with his preparations for the prime-time debate at the University of Mississippi.

It was unclear last night if the debate would go ahead or not. Mr McCain said he would attend only if Congress reaches accord on a financial bailout package before then, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Mr Obama said he plans to be at the debate Friday, declining to take up the challenge. “Sen. McCain is running his campaign, I’m running mine,” he said.

The Commission on Presidential Debates released a statement saying it was going ahead with the debate, which pundits believe will help propel the winner firmly towards the White House.

Speaking in Florida, Mr Obama explained why he wanted to go ahead with the highly anticipated confrontation. His handling of the economic problems have helped propel him into a nine-point lead over Mr McCain, according to the latest polls.

The Illinois senator said he had no plans to suspend his campaign, while Mr McCain said he would stop all advertising, fundraising and other campaign events to return to Washington and work for a bipartisan solution.

http://tinyurl.com/3wsje9

It is also my understanding as reported here, that President Bush has put the GOP in a bind of sorts because his package (or Paulson’s) that the pres. agreed to, is seen to put 700 billion in place to bail out banks with no thought to all the ppl that will lose their homes.
So the donks are saying they won’t pass any bill unless the “little folks” are seen to. So it make them look good.
It’s seen as bailing out Wall Street (their friends in Wall St.) while giving no protection to the average person who willlose homes through foreclosure.

btw ... these are not the ppl who gambled or invested that are being referred to as losing their homes.

So ,,,, that’s what the reportage here is saying.  It’ll be the ppl’s taxes that will do the bailing, without the same benefits that the fat cats will get.

Caution ... do not shoot messenger as he’s reporting what he is hearing and some of what’s read.

   Monday - September 15, 2008

ISTAKEN FROM A VERY GOOD PRO PALIN SITE. IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT.

This was taken from palinforvp blog site. Here’s the link. http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/
I like this fellow.  He’s quickly to the point and doesn’t waste words.  I like his site and you might too. There are some good links there as well. I’m not even certain how I found it, but I’m happy that I did.

Gibson and Fey

UPDATE: This should be essential reading. The Mark Levin Show has posted ABC’s UNEDITED trnascript of the Palin interview.  http://tinyurl.com/3od2nx All of the best quotes from Gov. Palin, especially on foreign policy, were edited out!

-----
Well, a lot has happened in the past few days, notably Gov. Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson and the debut of the Saturday Night Live version of Sarah Palin (played by Tina Fey). Both of these are important developments that I want to talk about.

First, let’s talk about the Charlie Gibson interview. I’ve heard a lot of debate over whether Mr. Gibson’s line of questioning was fair, and I personally don’t think it was. It was definitely a good idea for him to ask tough questions on foreign policy (I specifically likes the questions about Georgia and NATO), but I do think that the question about the “Bush Doctrine” was out of line. Here’s why: there is no set definition of the “Bush Doctrine”, a term which has been applied to any number of different policies and which Charlie Gibson clearly has not studied. I would highly recommend Charles Krauthammer’s column on the subject, which clearly outlined a number of different definitions which have been applied to the term “Bush Doctrine”. Here’s what I thought to be the “money quote” from that article:  http://tinyurl.com/46l3xv

Yes, Palin didn’t know what it is. But neither does Gibson. And at least she didn’t pretend to know—while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain.”

Krauthammer also brings me to my second point, which is that Mr. Gibson spent the entire interview LITERALLY staring staring down his nose at the next Vice President of the United States. He seemed to have no interest in what she had to say, and premised all of his questions (on everything from the “bridge to nowhere” to “Troopergate") on the idea that she was lying to him. If he didn’t get the answer he wanted, he simply got angry rather than trying to understand what was being said. All in all, I think that Gov. Palin did a good job, especially considering the biased line of questioning.

Now, on to Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live.  While SNL may not be horribly relevant, it is widely watched and fun to discuss. Personally, I had been wondering for quite some time who would play Gov. Palin if we succeeded. Fey was certainly the natural choice, but I didn’t actually expect SNL to bring her back to the program just for the purpose of portraying Sarah Palin. I’m glad that I was wrong, and for my two cents, I thought that her Palin was fantastic. As someone who has had to watch every TV appearance by Gov. Palin for the last year and a half, I laughed my head off at all of the little quirks that Tina Fey managed to pick up (licking her teeth, the way she waved, facial expressions, everything). And on a side note, it creeped me out that I knew so much about the minutia of Gov. Palin’s facial gestures. Oh, well.

Next time, I’ll be taking on the experience issue by comparing the credentials of Sarah Palin with the pre-Presidency resumes of two heroes of the Democratic Party: Bill Clinton and Woodrow Wilson.

Posted by Adam Brickley, aka “ElephantMan” at 9/14/2008

http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/

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