Hmmm... Color Me Skeptical
I'm deeply suspicious of any group that includes John McCain and a Bush helping the GOP regain its bearings. Mitt Romney too.
And yes, I believe our Republic and liberty is in danger. Not in a "doomsday tomorrow! run for your lives!" sort of way. The danger lies, rather, in giving up our birthright for a pot of stew and some bread.
Social conservatives tolerated John McCain as the party's nominee, but never trusted him, and he now appears to be facing a serious primary from the right in Arizona next year.Say McBye to McCain!
Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure in the movement to clamp down on illegal immigration, will be announcing tomorrow at an event on the Mexican border that he's resigned from the group to run in the 2010 Senate primary.
From a forthcoming release:
"John McCain has failed miserably in his duty to secure this nation's borders and protect the people of Arizona from the escalating violence and lawlessness," Simcox said. "He has fought real efforts over the years at every turn, opting to hold our nation's border security hostage to his amnesty schemes. Coupled with his votes for reckless bailout spending and big government solutions to our nation's problems, John McCain is out of touch with everyday Arizonans. Enough is enough."
"Joe the Plumber" told conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Tuesday that he felt "dirty" after hitting the campaign trail with Republican presidential nominee John McCain and "seeing some of the things that take place," Politico reported.But he only felt that way about half the ticket. According to Joe, Sarah Palin "is absolutely the real deal..." That doesn't surprise me either. Believe it or not, I actually hate that I was right about McCain, but like Joe I came to feel there was no other choice. Unfortunately.
Joe Wurzelbacher said he was specifically put off by McCain when it came to talk of the $700 billion bailout.
"When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen," Wurzelbacher told Beck. "I asked him some pretty direct questions. Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive they appalled me, absolutely.
Sen. John McCain, whose presidential bid was snuffed out two weeks ago by President-elect Barack Obama, is setting up a political action committee as a first step in running for a fifth term in the Senate.
John McCain (like Bob Dole) was a major Republican misfire -- a candidate of personal honor and heroic sacrifice who was woefully inadequate for the times. McCain's lurching grandstanding during the Wall Street crisis made him look like a ham actor on a bender. In debate, McCain was always pugnacious but too often bland or rambling, and he often missed glaring opportunities to score off Obama's vagueness or contradictions.Ooof! Knee to the groin. Point: Paglia, who also makes a keen observation about Obama's connection with Bill Ayers and how it was used (and not used) by conservatives during the campaign.
If McCain lost because he ran as a conservative, then how come I knew McCain was going to lose before Brooks did? About the same time Brooks was touting McCain's uncanny ability to attract independents, I was writing, accurately: "John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth."Smack! She finishes him off with an iron right hook. Now let's just hope we can keep the party from lurching any more toward Democrat-lite as 2010 approaches.
Using the latest euphemism for "liberal," Brooks complains that "reformist" Republicans like John McCain are forced to run for president as smelly old conservatives: "National candidates who begin with reformist records -- Giuliani, Romney or McCain -- immediately tack right to be acceptable to the power base." (Some "tack" so far to the right they almost adopt the positions in the GOP platform!) [...]
Ironically, McCain was a liberal on virtually every issue except abortion and gay marriage, but he bashed social conservatives to his friends in the press, so they excused his pro-life voting record as a cynical ploy to get votes in Arizona.
So "reformist" evidently means a Republican who is liberal on social issues. My term for that is "Joe Lieberman." Whatever the merit of being liberal on social issues, both Joe Lieberman and the Republican Party's history suggest that the winning formula is the exact opposite combination.
Senator Barrack Obama’s relatives have congregated at Nyangoma Kogelo village and will remain together until after Tuesday’s US presidential elections.This must present quite the conundrum for PETA. I wonder what will be slaughtered if Obama loses?
They have set aside a bull to slaughter in celebration should the Illinois senator whose father was Kenyan win, according to family spokesperson Mr Malik Abongo.
"Governator" Schwarzenegger Mocks "Skinny" Obama
Muscleman-turned-actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger called on Barack Obama to beef up his his policies -- and his body -- at a high-voltage campaign rally for Republican John McCain Friday. [...]Now that's how you PUMP UP a campaign rally. Sheesh! I'd be happy if Arnold could just pump up his conservatism again... Read more...
"Every year in March I come here to organize the Arnold Classic, which is all about building the body and pumping," Schwarzenegger said.
"That's why I want to invite Senator Obama because he needs to do something about those skinny legs. I'm going to make him do some squats.
"And then we're going to make him do some biceps curls to beef up those scrawny little arms. But if he could only do something about putting some meat on his ideas.
"Senator McCain on the other hand is built like a rock. His character and his views are solid."
McCain and Schwarzenegger rolled into the Nationwide Arena Hockey Stadium together on the Republican candidate's "Straight Talk Express", the campaign bus that has ferried him on a two-day blitz of this battleground state.
Obama supporters hail from Russia, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere. One American employee here seemed puzzled that he was being asked whether Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was even a consideration. "Obama was and is unstoppable," the official said. "Please, God, let him win," he added.You know the UN is either delirious or desperate if they're invoking the name of God!
The sign went up Sunday evening, bold black letters against the stark white background of the marquee at the Colony South Hotel & Conference Center in Clinton: "Country First. McCain/Palin."So... Disagreeing with a Democrat is "disrespectful"? Yeah... well get the f-ck over it. We don't get to live in a world where everyone agrees with us, and we don't have a right to not be offended. If you don't like the sign, then don't patronize the hotel. But stop being such whining little bitches.
By daybreak, pandemonium had broken loose all across heavily Democratic Prince George's County. Many local supporters of Democrat Barack Obama, jolted by the message as they headed down Branch Avenue on their Monday morning commutes, grabbed cellphones and BlackBerrys to notify friends. Operators of neighborhood e-mail group lists cried foul to their memberships. The NAACP logged calls. Community leaders demanded boycotts of the hotel, a common venue for Democratic events.
"Businesspeople have to be mindful of the sentiments and sensibilities of their market trading area, and Prince George's County is overwhelmingly for Obama," said community activist Arthur Turner of Kettering, who was among those advocating a boycott. "People I have talked to look at the sign as a slap in the face. They feel it was blatant disrespect. . . . I have heard people say they will no longer patronize Colony South because of that disrespect." [...]
What is it for the first time that actually excited people in the Republican Party about his campaign? It was the selection of Sarah Palin -- and then they hid her for a while. Now, what I hate to see about this... I am not gloating. What I hate to see about this is, this is the exact kind of thing -- this is the exact kind of campaign -- that those of us who had worries about Senator McCain a year ago, six months ago, nine months ago, eight years ago. This is exactly what we saw coming to fruition. But don't forget, there was and there is a battle in the Republican Party for its heart and soul. The country club blue-blood Republican media elites are trying to wrest control of the party from the conservative base that has made the party a dominant (and even landslide victorious) party since the 1980s.As Rush points out, the Democrats think the race is over, and that could still work to our advantage. Over confidence is the Democrats' achilles heel, and they're already "measuring the drapes" as it were. Let's "hope" things "change" in the next three weeks and it bites them in the ass again.
So now exactly what you and I knew would happen, as was advocated by the original support of Senator McCain, now that it's happened they want to fire the campaign! These are the people ought to be so happy with the way this campaign is running, 'cause this is exactly what they wanted. This is the kind of campaign they wanted. They wanted somebody nice. They wanted somebody respectful. They wanted somebody with honor. They didn't want any negative ads. They didn't want any negative this or that. They didn't want any conservatism. They thought conservatism was a loser. They thought conservatism needed to be "redefined." They thought conservatism had worn itself out.
You and I know that conservatism will never go out of style because the fundamental and foundational building block of conservatism is liberty, individual liberty -- and in this country, individual liberty will never go out of style. Now, some of these 20% who think they're the smartest people in the room -- the so-called independent, moderates, undecideds, whatever you want to call them -- who get caught up in specious things to determine how they're going to vote. "Well, this guy sounds smart. He looks nice. He's suave," what have you. They have no idea what's in store for them. Forty percent of the country does have an idea what's in store for them. Our 40% says, "We don't want socialism." The other 40% does, and here are these 20% in the middle who are going to be stunned if they end up voting in a majority way for Obama.
Ooops... Another "Traditional Democrat Constituent" Has Stumbled Off The Plantation
To say Ms. Greenberg's use of this material in this way is "unprofessional" and does the subject (John McCain) and the client (The Atlantic Monthly) a disservice is to vastly understate the case. Not only has Ms. Greenberg exposed The Atlantic to charges of bias it may well have not intended, it turns out she was engaged in dealing with Senator McCain falsely as well. She has, indeed, bragged about it to PDNPulse, a professional photographers' journal. Here, in her own words, are what she did:When The Atlantic called Jill Greenberg, a committed Democrat, to shoot a portrait of John McCain for its October cover, she rubbed her hands with glee...After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.So what we see here is a candidate for President showing up at a photo-session for a cover shot for a magazine he knows is not going to give him an Obama-pass, but still making time for it. Waiting for him is the contracted representative of that magazine, Jill Greenberg, who has literally set a trap for him and then lures him into it. She mocks the McCain staff for not being "very sophisticated" about lighting when, in truth, the lighting used for a professional photo session is very complicated. There are umbrella lights, fill spots, and a raft of others being used at any given time.I imagine that Ms. Greenberg was in full charm mode with Senator McCain at the same time she was executing her little partisan plot. Indeed, I am certain she was nothing other than sweetness and light to him. What she was doing was quite another thing, a vile thing. Simply put, it was betrayal for a cheap political frisson for her.Then Greenberg extended the betrayal to her Client, The Atlantic. She either did not deliver all the images of the shoot to the client or she began to manipulate them for her own uses as seen above. In this digital age, she probably ftp'd the images to The Atlantic, kept the originals on her own system, and then made the cheap and disgusting photoshops seen above.I'm not sure how the art director of The Atlantic, Jason Treat, feels about this, even though I have written him requesting a reply. Still, during the years that I hired and worked with illustrative photographers, product photographers, news photographers, and fashion photographers in London and New York City, my art directors and myself always got all the film to review. Depending on the contract, the film would or would not go back to the photographer. When digital came, it was always understood that the out-takes or images we commissioned and paid for would be kept confidential by the photographer -- as specified in the rights agreement. At the very least, we would have exclusive use of them for a considerable period of time.One thing I do know is that if I, or any other editor or art director, ever caught a photographer using images held back for secondary profit outside of the contract, or using images in a way that would undercut our publication, we would pull that photographer's card out of the assignment rolodex. Not only that we would make it out business to tell other editors and art directors at other publications that such a photographer was never to be trusted again.
"I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven’t been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife – I didn’t put up for that stuff just to come in second."Really, really courageous and selfless of you Barry. You and any random business traveler. But he is right about one thing - we really can't afford for him to come in second, and we definitely can't afford him finishing first. Third would be better. That might stop him from coming back.
John McCain’s presidential campaign prepared to chastise Democrats Saturday over leaving behind piles of miniature American flags after Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech last Thursday in Denver.Lovely, huh? I wonder how many pictures of The One were discarded carelessly after his speech?
Boy Scouts have arrived with 84 trash bags full of bundles of flags at the site of a McCain rally scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. local time in Colorado Springs.
The campaign says the flags were recovered from Invesco Field after the Democrats concluded their convention there, and they are going to be used as part of the warm-up ceremonies before McCain takes the stage for the rally.
FOX News has been told a vendor at Invesco Field found the flags, which were going to be thrown out, and turned them over to the McCain campaign.
Veterans in Colorado Springs are expected to distribute the flags to the audience at the rally.
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Conservative: Kept within sensible limits, not excessive, discreet, heedful of consequences, reasonable, and restrained.
American Exceptionalism: The United States is an exceptional nation. No other country in the history of the world has done more to secure liberty and honor God-given rights of individuals. Our government is uniquely of, by, and for the people, not the other way around.
We Are One People: All of America's citizens can enjoy the rights and freedoms of our country without diminishing the rights of others. There can be honest differences of opinion and such differences result in opponents, not enemies.
Limited Government and Personal Freedom: Thomas Jefferson was correct when he wrote: "That government is best which governs least." Public servants must be held accountable to the highest standards of ethical conduct. Government should be limited to the powers delegated it by the Constitution. Beyond these powers, as government grows, individual freedom shrinks and the economy suffers. High taxes, runaway government spending, and over-regulation of business and farming punish initiative and stifle economic growth. Your property is yours and you have the basic right to make use of it without unreasonable government restrictions.
Reassertion of 10th Amendment Sovereignty: The 10th amendment to the United States constitution guarantees to the states and their people all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States. The United States constitution defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the United States constitution and no more. The Federal government was created by the states and their people specifically to be an agent of the states and their people. The federal government, as our agent, should be discouraged from imposing certain restrictive mandates or exercising powers that are beyond the scope of those constitutionally delegated.
Family is the Foundation of the Republic: Family and the values it fosters are the foundation of American society and their preservation is essential to our Nation's continued success.
The Supreme Court: The purpose of the Supreme Court is to determine whether laws are in keeping with the Constitutionally limited powers delegated the government. The Supreme Court is not to rule based on any other standard than that of a strict interpretation of the United States Constitution.
Individual Rights: The United States were founded on the fundamental principle that individuals have certain rights and freedoms which cannot be infringed upon and may be restricted only to the degree necessary to preserve the rights of others. The subjugation of individual rights in favor of groups rights is unconstitutional and has always lead to the trampling of individual freedom.
Individual Responsibility: Individuals are responsible for their actions and the consequences. It is not government's place to save individuals from their mistakes. This kind of government intervention only encourages irresponsible behavior and impinges on others' rights. With freedom comes responsibility and that individuals must take personal responsibility for their own actions and our criminal justice system must be based on this idea.
Religious Freedom: Americans should be free to practice religion how they please. Christianity has been a positive force in our society. Government should not overreach its powers to discriminate against any religious group. Government has no right to suppress prayers nor expressions of faith in public schools.
Respect for Life: Life is sacred and is to be defended. This includes the most vulnerable among us, the unborn. Ronald Reagan was correct when he wrote: "Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life -- the unborn -- without diminishing the value of all human life."
Right to Bear Arms: The right to own a gun is recognized specifically in the Constitution, yet it is constantly under attack legislatively and legally. The right to own firearms is important to the safety and security of individuals and a nation.
Strong Military and National Defense: A strong military is a necessary deterrent in dangerous world. The U.S. must maintain military superiority to ensure our security. The American military is made up of dedicated and patriotic individuals who deserve this nation's full support. The preservation of our rights and freedoms necessitates a strong national defense and the ability of the United States to negotiate with other nations from a position of strength.
Secure Borders: Legal immigrants have enriched this country. Illegal immigration undermines American sovereignty and weakens national security. The U.S. has a right and obligation to secure it's borders.
Energy Independence: For national security and economic reasons it is time that we as a nation become energy independent by exploiting all our natural resources responsibly while at the same time encouraging energy innovation.
Educational Choice: Parents have the right to determine the values with which their children will be raised and to have the widest possible choice among public, private and religious schools and that competition will improve public education.
Low Taxes, Free Markets, and Fiscal Constraint: The the money you earn is yours and government in a free society should be given only as much as is needed to perform those limited duties which are delegated to it. Government redistribution of income through taxation is not Constitutional. Individuals have a right to their income and are far better managers of their money than is the government. The free enterprise system is the most effective engine of economic progress and free market solutions improve the economy while upholding individual freedoms.
This is written partly by me and compiled partly from here and here.
This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. ~ Winston Churchill
When my country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir. ~ Thomas Paine
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. ~ Ayn Rand
I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.
~ by William Tyler Page
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