Message To The GOP – You Need To Start Over

In the wake of the 2008 elections, it has become painfully obvious that the Republican Party needs to wipe the slate clean, do a total house cleaning and start over; rebuilding the party around their young superstars.

Where was the famous and much touted day of the election get out the vote power of the GOP?

Why isn’t the name of the Chairman of the GOP, Mike Duncan, a household name?

How did the Republican Party get out done in fundraising by the Democrats?

Where was the Republican presence on college campuses?

Why were the same people running things during the 2006 midterm election disaster still running things in 2008? In a party that is supposed to be the embodiment of merit based success, those that failed in 2006 should have been long gone. In any corporation, that board of directors would have been out….

Why can’t members of the black community name one black Republican… or even know there is an equivalent to the Congressional Black Caucus on the Republican side.

Once upon a time, it was cool to be a Republican. That time has passed.

With a Presidential Nominee and a Chairman of the Party, not to mention the continued idolization of Reagan, the Republican Party has now become my grandfather’s party.

So here is some advice…

This Post Has Been Moved To My New Blog – CLICK HERE

Palin And Sexism In The Aftermath Of The Election

I have been ruminating on this issue for the last couple of days. I knew it was coming, but I wanted to see just how it played out.

The attacks on Sarah Palin are horrendously sexist and wholly unfair.

The Rest Of This Article Has Been Moved To My New Blog – CLICK HERE

A Message To “Disaffected Dems” And The Republican Party

Barack Obama is right.  Now is the time for change.

The American public rejected the hard right swing that was part and parcel with the Bush Administration and, blinded by rhetoric, swung far to the left…  but not the traditional Democratic left.  This is a new Democratic Party.

In the wake of this election cycle, people should remember that:

• It was Democrats that voted against GLBT rights in 4 states
• It was Democrats that voted against two very strong and capable women
• It was Democrats that attacked two very strong women with vicious sexism
• It was Democrats that found the attacks on freedom of speech acceptable (truth squads)
• It was Democrats that applauded unfair and unethical election practices (primaries)
• It was Democrats that abandoned campaign finance reform
• It was Democrats that conducted a questionable war on the sanctity of the vote (acorn, ohio)

And also that

• It was evangelicals that failed to come out for the Republican Party
• It was the evangelicals that turned out in higher numbers for the Democrats

No matter what the rhetoric, no matter what the politicians say, the Democratic Party has abandoned two of its’ key constituencies…  women and gays.  I shudder to thing what will happen when little bites begin to be taken out of Roe v Wade.  I no longer have any confidence that the Democratic Party will protect women’s right to choose.

It is time for the Republican party to abandon the Neo-Conservatives.  It is time for the Republicans to recapture the center and to become the party of Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Barry Goldwater once again.

It is time to remake the face of the Republican Party as the party of small government, both in business and in our daily lives.

It is time for the Republican Party to become the party of equal rights and freedoms for all.

It is time for the Republican Party to become the party that it once was.  The party that fought to give African Americans the right to vote.  The party that fought to give women the right to vote.  The party that helped the first woman get elected to Congress.  The party that fought for the individual against the crushing weight of the society and the government.

It is time for the Republican Party to abandon the path set forth by John Sears and Karl Rove and get back to its’ roots.

I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon the “Religious Right” that abandoned you.

I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon its attack on a woman’s right to choose.

I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon the attacks on the division between church and state.

I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon the injection of religion into social policy

I am calling on the Republican Party to allow people of any race, creed, color or sexual preference to associate in any way they deem appropriate…  including marriage.

I am calling on the Republican Party to defend my rights as a citizen to live my life without interference from the government as long as my actions are not harming others.

I am calling on the Republican Party to stop being a RINO and start being Republican once again.

Through A Democrat’s Eyes: Why McCain and Not Obama Part 3 – Character

In the third and final part of my series explaining why this Democrat is voting for McCain and not Obama, the discussion will center around issues of character, encompasing not only personal character but social policy beliefs as well.

Personal Character

This is a very simple subject to discuss when it comes to John McCain, but a very long and involved one when it comes to Barack Obama, so let’s get John McCain out of the way.

John McCain is very obviously a good, generous, straightforward, honest and honorable man.  He is a man that has dedicated his entire life to the service of his country.  John McCain the image is exactly the same as John McCain the man.

Country First is not just a campaign slogan for John McCain, it has been the over arching theme of his entire life.  John McCain grew up in a Navy family, followed his father and grandfather’s footsteps and entered the Navy as well.  He has stood up for what he believes in at every turn…  even when it was to his disadvantage.

John McCain stood up to his party when it came to putting the marines in Beirut, when it came to recognizing that global warming is a real and pressing issue, when it came to the execution of the Iraq war, when it came to the creation of the prison at Guantanamo, he is against the use of rendition as a tool, he is against the use of waterboarding and views it as torture…  and those are just a few of the innumerable examples of situations in which John McCain has stood for what he believes in even in the face of intense pressure.

Does John McCain have his faults?  Of course.

There are basically 2 situations that the Obots tend to point out…

1.  He left his first wife for Cindy.  This is a fact, and his first marriage not working out is one of the great regrets of his life, but I think that some understanding should be given to John considering the situation he was in at the time.

John spend 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton, facing unbelievable amounts of torture, solitary confinement and dehumanization.  He returned from Vietnam to a wife he had not seen for 6+ years, most of which he spent being tortured, only to find her paralyzed.  Having a wife that is suddenly paralyzed is a difficult thing for any marriage and a significant number of these end in divorce.  Add this to the recent trauma of spending over 5 years as a POW and is anyone really surprised the marriage did not work out?

The most important thing about this situation is that John always took care of his children.  Always.  And he and his first wife are still on very friendly terms.  As a matter of fact, John’s first wife is one of his biggest supporters.

2.  Keating Five.  For those of you that are not familiar, the Keating 5 is a term that refers to a group of 5 Senators that were accused of corrupt dealings with a banker named Keating during the “Savings and Loan Crisis” of the 80’s.

The group of Senators was comprised of 4 Democrats and 1 Republican…  John McCain.

Only problem is that John McCain (as well as John Glenn) was completely exonerated of any wrong doing what-so-ever by the Special Prosecutor Robert Bennet and recommended removing John McCain from any further investigation.  So why was McCain kept in the group of those accused of wrong doing?  Well, removing John McCain would remove the only Republican from the corruption case and politically the Democrats in power could not afford to have 3 of their Senators sit up there alone, going down in flames for shady dealings.

Against the wishes of the Special Prosecutor, the Democratic Chair of the Ethics Committee kept McCain’s name on the list and gave him what essentially amounted to a scowl and a wagging finger because McCain had done nothing wrong.  The committee decided that McCain’s actions “were not improper nor attended with gross negligence,” about which McCain said…  “I see it as a full exoneration”

This is usually the part where the Obots chime in with “But Cindy and her dad were in business with Keating!”  Well, the first problem with this argument is that John has ZERO to do with his wife’s families business endeavors.  ZERO.  This is the reason that John didn’t know how many houses they owned…  because he has nothing to do with his wife’s investments.  The second problem with this is logic…  The McCain family is one of the biggest real estate investors in all of Arizona, and Keating’s bank was one of the largest banks in all of Arizona.  These two parties would almost have to work together on some level, and it’s not like they were wrapped up together in multiple projects.  They were co-investors in one shopping center.  One.

So those are McCain’s downsides…  not too shabby.  I mean everyone has skeletons in their closet and if this is all John has…  I’ll take it.

As for Barack Obama…  holy god.  I am not even sure where to start…

One of the problems in evaluating Barack Obama and his character is his lack of a record.  While John McCain has a multi-decade record we can point to and say, regardless of rhetoric, this is what this man believes and these are the decisions he would make, Obama’s record is razor thin.

We do have his voting record from the 143 days in the US Senate, and his voting record from his years in the Illinois legislature, but there are issues with those as well.  On many of the harder and more controversial votes, Obama was either absent, voted “present” or voted but claimed he “pressed the wrong button.”  All the records from his legislative office have mysteriously been lost as well, so we can’t even peruse through those to gain insight.

He has also sealed all his school records, so we can’t even take a look at his grades, what classes he took, his papers/disserations, anything.  (Michelle’s either btw.)  So that is not a help either.

And so what are we left with?  We are left with two things…  What Obama says he believes, and since every politician lies, that doesn’t do us any good.  Or we can look at the people he has surrounded himself with over the years, which is pretty much all we have left since everything else has been seal, lost, walled off or shut down.

The thing about Obama and his associations is that, individually, they are no big deal.  The problem starts coming in when you start taking a look at them as a group, what all of their philosphies are and how they all interconnect.  Then we are left with a decision…  is Obama the only person that doesn’t fit in the picture or is he the one that ties them all together?.

So let’s take a look…

1.  Ayers and Dohrn – This couple led a group known as the Weather Underground which bombed several Federal Buildings (Pentagon, Capital Buidling, etc) and is responsible for the deaths of a few police officers as well as several of their own members.  Ayers and Dohrn went on the run for a decade and were finally apprehended in 1980.  Both of their cases were dropped because of technicalities, and they admit they are both “guilty as hell, but free as a bird.”

As Wikipedia puts it:  “The Weatherman group had long held that militancy was becoming more important than nonviolent forms of anti-war action, and that university-campus-based demonstrations needed to be punctuated with more dramatic actions, which had the potential to interfere with the U.S. military and internal security apparatus. The belief was that these types of urban guerrilla actions would act as a catalyst for the coming revolution. Many international events indeed seemed to support the Weathermen’s overall assertion that worldwide revolution was imminent, such as the tumultuous Cultural Revolution in China; the 1968 student revolts in France, Mexico City and elsewhere; the Prague Spring; the emergence of the Tupamaros organization in Uruguay; the emergence of the Guinea-Bissauan Revolution and similar Marxist-led independence movements throughout Africa; and within the United States, the prominence of the Black Panther Party together with a series of “ghetto rebellions” throughout poor black neighborhoods across the country.^” There are a number of quotes from Ayers and Dohrn talking about how youths will have to kill their parents and the genocide of capitalists.

The political philosphy that these people ascribe to is communo-fascist and both of them are totally unrepentant and freely admit that they wish they had done more at the time of their insurrectionist activities.  Bill Ayers is the type of man that screams, yells and tramples on the US flag, calling the US an oppressor and murderer, and yet lives in his insular academic world with his cushy job and lives in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago with a multimillion dollar house.  Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are still the 60′s radicals they were 40 years ago.  They never grew up.  He sees white people as evil oppressors of all african americans, he sees America as evil oppressors of the third world and he sees Israel as the oppressors of the Palestinians.

Barack Obama has attempted to minimize his connections with Ayers and Dohrn, saying that Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood…  and yet, Michelle’s first job at a law firm had her working with Dohrn.  Obama was promoted to president of the Woods Foundation…  By Ayers.  Obama sat on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization intented to improve education but instead focused on increasing the “political awareness” of inner city youths, with Ayers.  Obama lives a block away from Ayers.  Obama has done a multitude of speaking engagements with Ayers.  Ayers dedicated a book to Obama, and spoke about him in another book.  Ayers helped Obama write “Dreams of My Father.”  Ayers babysat the Obama’s children.  And the first time it was announced, unofficially, that Obama was running for political office, it was at a party in Ayers’ living room.

This man is much more than just a guy in the neighborhood.  He is a close personal friend and colleague.

Then we have Reverend Jeremiah Wright…  wow.   This guy is hard-core.  A true black power movement figure that still sees the world in terms of black and white without recognizing how far the world has come.  He has called the United States the “US-KKK of A” and called for God to “Damn America!”  He made horrendously disparaging remarks about both Hillary and Bill Clinton, and has made even worse comments about white people in general.  He is the type of man that screams, yells and tramples on the US flag, calling the US an oppressor and murderer, and yet lives in his insular  world with his cushy job and lives in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago with a multimillion dollar house.  Jeremiah Wright is still the 60′s radical he was 40 years ago, except now he is a “Christian” instead of a member of the Nation of Islam (yes, Wright was a member of the Nation of Islam.)  He sees white people as evil oppressors of all african americans, he sees America as evil oppressors of the third world and he sees Israel as the oppressors of the Palestinians…  even going as far as visiting Libya’s Khadafi with his friend Louis Farrakhan and calling Khadafi one of the great freedom fighters for African independence!

Obama claims that, in the 20 years of attending the church, he never heard any of the “controversial” comments played in a virtual loop on television, a claim which I find very hard to believe.  When asked about his attendence, he said not every Sunday, so I think to myself…  maybe.  Ok, maybe he is like a Christmas and Easter church attender, so maybe he has been 30 times or so over 20 years…  no, when he clarified, he said a couple times a month.  This means that he has attended services at this church hundreds of times, and the phrases that so offended much of America are part and parcel with the theological philosophy that the Rev Wright preaches, Black Liberation Theology.  This is also a church that has published manifesto’s from members of the terrorist group Hamas.  This is the Reverend that brought Obama to Christianity.  This is the man that mentored him, married him and baptised his children.  I HIGHLY doubt he knew nothing about this stuff.  In addition, as with most churches that are not the traditional Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian variety, you don’t just go to the church closest to you.  These are the types of churches that you actively seek out and choose because of the message of the preacher…  because of the theological philosophy of the church.

And then there is Rashid Khalidi.  Khalidi is currently a professor at Columbia.  He was a professor at U of Chicago.  He worked for WAFFA, a front organization for the PLO, as the press officer from the early 70′s to the early 80′s.  He has called the creation of Israel one of the biggest crimes in history and called for its destruction.  He has been more than sympathetic to the Palestinian terrorists, and was one of the reasons Ahmedinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University.

Khalidi and Obama were friends.  Khalidi was a political supporter, personal friend, and regular dinner companion.  The Los Angeles Times has a video tape of the goodbye party for Khalidi, which both Obama’s and Ayers/Dohrn attended.  It is also reported that a variety of very anti-Israeli comments were made during this party, and that a dance troop that regularly performs a re-enactment of “infidel beheadings” as a part of the repetoir was in attendence.  Because of the censorship perpetrated by the LA Times, we do not know what exactly happened at the party or exactly what Obama said during his speech.

And so now we turn to Tony Rezko.  Here are 8 things you need to know about Rezko

1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down.

2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers — primarily not-for-profit groups — building low-income housing with government funds.

3. One of the firm’s not-for-profit clients — the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama’s then-boss Allison Davis — was partners with Rezko’s company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator’s time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko’s company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm’s clients in four later deals — none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar “made the decisions for the joint venture,” says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm.

4. In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 — representing a district that included 11 of Rezko’s 30 low-income housing projects.

5. Rezko’s low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building — which was in Obama’s Illinois Senate district.

6. In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko — a member of his campaign finance committee — held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.

7. A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko’s wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood — a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million — $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko’s wife paid full price — $625,000 — for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko’s wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it “boneheaded” because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.

8. Eight months later — in October 2006 — Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama’s run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity.

I would add only two things…  since the article was written, Rezko has been convicted of fraud and that the money that Rezko used to “help” Obama buy his house very likely came from a man named Nadhmi Auchi.

Now, Auchi…  there is a character…  here is an incomplete blurb from Wikipedia:

Auchi was a member of the Baath Party in Iraq before Saddam Hussein came to power.^[3] While he denies any ties to Hussein’s government, British media reports indicate he sold naval ships to Hussein’s government in the 1980s.^[3]

He is one of the largest shareholders in BNP Paribas, a French bank involved in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme for Iraq.

In 2003, Auchi was convicted of fraud, and given a 15 month suspended sentence and a £1.5m fine for taking illegal payments from French oil company Elf Aquitaine.^[4]

In recent years he has entered into several partnerships with Chicago-area businessman Tony Rezko, effectively coming to his rescue as his various investment schemes began collapsing. Auchi bought about 15 of Rezko’s pizzerias in Wisconsin, according to court records.^[6] In 2005 he took a stake in Rezko’s South Loop development at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street, a deal estimated by observers familiar with the details at $170 million.^[3]

In 2008 Stuart Levine, the U.S. government’s star witness in the corruption trial against Rezko, asserted that Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, were among the guests at party in Auchi’s honor that took place at Rezko’s residence on 3 April 2004.^[6] While Obama has acknowledged his ties to Rezko, a spokesman said that the senator responded that “Sen. Obama does not recall meeting Nadhmi Auchi at any time or on any occasion, and this includes any event that may have been held for Mr. Auchi.”^[6]

In 2008 The Times of London reported the discovery of state documents in Illinois recording that a Panamanian company by the name of Fintrade Services lent money to a fund raiser for Obama in 2005. Fintrade’s directors included Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr Auchi’s wife. Spokespeople declined to answer when questioned about whether he was linked to this business.^[7]

The Times also reported that Auchi’s company loaned Tony Rezko $3.5 million three weeks before Rezko’s lot and Obama’s new home were purchased in 2005.^[8]

I would add that Belgian officials accused Auchi’s bank of laundering money for both Saddam’s Iraq and Khadafi’s Libya during the Oil For Food programs.  And the claims that Auchi had no ties to Saddam are paper thin at best.

And now we turn to Khalid Al-Mansour….  Al-Mansour is a black-muslim lawyer that is a rags-to-riches type who mentored the founders of the Black Panthers and is suspected of supporting and arranging for support from a member of the Saudi Royal family for Barack Obama’s collegiate career at Harvard.

And then there is Obama’s “other pastor,” Rev. Meeks, who is also a State Representative.  Meeks is a preacher in the same vein as Wright and has been cited as one of Obama’s mentors, though Obama denies it now.  Meeks has been known to say such lovely things as  “We don’t have slave masters.  We’ve got mayors but they are still the same white people who have presided over systems where black people are not able or to be educated….  They do the same thing.  They preside over systems where they have the control of the lives of African-American and Hispanic people.”

Nice, huh?

And, though I could keep going, I will close with Larry Walsh.  A close friend of Barack Obama and poker buddy, Walsh is currently under investigation by the FBI about a possible lobbyist kickback scandal.

As I said, taken individually there is a plausable deniability to each one of these characters…  an ability to minimize the connection between Obama and the other person, but taken all together, it begins to look like a pattern at the very least.

Social Issues

Roe v Wade is the biggest issue that has been beaten over the heads of America’s women…  and while John McCain is pro-life and thinks that Roe v Wade is a bad decision on tenuous legal grounds, he does not think that the Federal Government should make it illegal.  He believes, as a Federalist, that the decision should be up to the states.  End of story.  And while Obama claims to support Roe, he nearly voted to confirm John Roberts and may nominate a man named Cass Sunstein to the Supreme Court, a man that also thinks that Roe is a bad decision.  Also, the likelyhood of Roe getting overturned is slight.  Even Antonin Scalia, the courts most conservative judge, is loathe to take the subject on and considers it to be a founding principle of law at this point.

Either way, both McCain and Obama have promised that neither will use a litmus test when picking SCOTUS appts.  In addition, with a massive majority in the Senate, it is unlikely that any strict Pro-lifer would make it to confirmation.

GLBT rights…  McCain and Obama basically have the same stance on this issue.  Domestic Partnership, no marriage.  EOS.

Equal Pay.  While Obama supports equal pay legislation and McCain opposes it, it is interesting to note that in Obama’s office, women make $0.79 for every $1 the men make, and yet in McCain’s office the women make $1.07 for every $1 the men make.  McCain also has many more women in higher level staffer positions than Obama.  Add this to the fact that Obama risked splitting the Democratic party in order to avoid choosing a woman as a Vice President, while McCain…  well, he picked one hell of a woman, and one that challenges the very foundations of liberal feminism.

So…  after that whole long thing…  who do you think has the better character to be President?

Guest Blogger CT: Be Careful When Puma-ing, You Might Get More Than You Bargained For

Note From Texas Hill Country – CT is a blogger and a dedicated Conservative Republican.  This is the story about how (s)he came to know the PUMA movement and subsequent impressions.  I found this very interesting, wonderfully written and asked if I could cross-post the article here.  CT was kind enough to allow me to do so, and here you go…

From Politics and Critical Thinking

A few days ago one of the contributors on Conservative Badlands did a piece called the PUMA Factor, it was a look at how this block of voters might be one of the groups to decide the Presidential election in 08’. It made me realize that I didn’t know much about their movement or philosophies, other than the obvious. PUMA means Party Unity My Ass and they were angry because HRC got lambasted in the primaries and there was a SERIOUS possibility of caucus manipulation. So, I had an out of the ordinary idea, I figured go into their virtual community and ask them if anyone would be interested in answering a few questions for this post. Well I got some takers.

Most of the PUMA’s that answered the call of the wild in my open thread were female but the composite of their whole movement, I imagine, is a little harder to determine. One very pleasant and intelligent woman, who goes by the SN, Angrynana said this, “Also, there is a mistake in thinking all Pumas and Puma types are older, white women. There are men, people of many religions, all races, gays and lesbians, young, middle-aged, and older Pumas. There are groups from the West and the East. There are Native American Pumas and African American Pumas.” I can honestly say I believe this assessment. Since there were about 18 million people who voted for Hillary in the primaries and the Democratic Party is noted for its pluralism, it makes sense they are a very diverse lot.

What I was more curious about was what brought them to this point and what were they going to do after the election. Their responses ranged from moving to the GOP, going Independent, to retaking the Democratic Party. Judging the answers, Ereizindian sums the majority of their thoughts up well, “If the Dem leadership continues to deprecate its members who were slandered and vilified in the primaries and GE, I shall become an Indie, possibly on my way to becoming a Republican.” This is not to say all of sudden they identify with the Republican or Conservative movement. For them, however, it will be a near strategic impossibility to retake the Democratic Party. It has slid too far into an abyss of identity politics and viral cult worship, it is no longer about issues, it is about one man.

Despite their obvious visceral anger towards the Democratic Party establishment a single theme reigned supreme in the great majority of their posts and emails. Helen put it best, “IT IS COUNTRY AND PRINCIPLES BEFORE PARTY.” I was absolutely, jaw droppingly, astounded to hear a Hillary supporting Democrat in Exile say this. These responses gave me the insight to look at them as I have never looked at a political opponent before, I saw Americans who care about their country. This got me thinking, who am I to judge whether they can love their country just because they are Democrats. Neither Republicans nor Conservatives have the copyright or moniker on patriotism. After all aren’t PUMA’s demonstrating this by standing by our sides?

They have become apostates to their party but not their country, that speaks volumes to me. PUMA’s have recognized that this is about America, not a singular person. They also understand this has nothing to do with the sweeping change and one man, little m, cannnot shoulder this all by his lonesome. That goal is far too lofty and enchanting to be anywhere near reality. Truth be told, he is neither Atlas nor Prometheus, even if he thinks he is.

In closing I would like to thank all of the ladies and gentlemen who so graciously accepted my invite to participate in this undertaking, I hope I did you justice. Sometimes we get reminders of things from unexpected sources and that is what the PUMA’s did for me. My suggestion to Republicans and Conservatives, alike, try and understand them. Politically we may need them as much as they need us, we are rapidly becoming a house that is acquiring vacancies and they may need a home. More importantly, they are Americans who love their country enough to look past partisan lines. That, my friends, is the miracle of being an American first.

-CT

“Happy Hunting!”

Pic cred to The Confluence, I violated some internet copyright laws by snagging them. Hopefully in the spirit of the post they won’t mind.

Barney Frank Calls Republicans Racists!!!

The Democrats are throwing this word around too damn much… this is dangerous stuff and they are using these accusations as a wedge issue, but do not understand the possible repercussions.

Here is the total line of BS…

From the LATIMES

Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation’s housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that’s racially motivated….

“They get to take things out on poor people,” Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. “Let’s be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn’t hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people.”

Disgusting.

No one is attacking affordable housing you MORON.  They are attacking the policies that led to the crisis we are now facing…  the crisis that YOUR COMMITTEE over saw.

John McCain tried to stop what was happening 2 years ago…  YOU BLOCKED IT.

It’s not about race…  no one cares about race!  It’s about people that can actually PAY!!!

Stop trying to shift the blame Barney!!!

Holy God, the Democrats have lost their minds!!!

Republican Party Files Complaint Against Obama For Illegal Fundraising

From WaPo

A lawyer for the Republican National Committee today said the party will ask the Federal Election Commission to look into the source of thousands of small-dollar contributions to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.

The RNC is alleging that the Obama campaign was so hungry for donations it “looked the other way” as contributions piled up from suspicious, and possibly even illegal foreign donors….

Cairncross alleged there was mounting evidence of this, and cited a report in the current issue of Newsweek magazine that documents a handful of instances where donors made repeated small donations using fake names, such as “Good Will” and “Doodad Pro.”

The Newsweek report says that earlier this year the Obama campaign returned $33,000 to two Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip who had bought T-shirts in bulk from the campaign’s online store — purchases that count as campaign contributions. The brothers had listed their address as “Ga.,” which the campaign took to mean Georgia rather than Gaza….

At the heart of the RNC complaint is a federal fundraising rule that lets campaigns accept donations under $200 without itemizing the names and addresses of the donors on its campaign finance reports. The rule was intended as a matter of practicality — it did not seem reasonable to ask a campaign to gather that information from every five-dollar donor.

But the Obama campaign has raised more than $200 million this way, a staggering sum for donations that will not be subjected to outside scrutiny.

There have been several articles about this on the JustSayNoDeal blogs for a good while now, and I am happy to hear that the RNC has decided to take action…

The responses and statements out of the Obama camp on how diligent they really are about ensuring the legitimacy…  The details of the Nigerian scheme from the BBC

Nigerian anti-graft investigators have seized money raised by the head of the Nigerian Stock Exchange to support US presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The EFCC said it had seized 74m naira ($630,000, £314,000)….

US political parties are not allowed to receive contributions from abroad….

The money was going to be spent on adverts encouraging Nigerians in the US to vote for Mr Obama….

“We paid for the hall and the entertainers and the surplus, we said would be spent on advertisements aimed at persuading Nigerians to tell their relatives in America to register to vote.

“There is not one Nigerian who doesn’t have a relative or friend in America. Our aim was to encourage those people to tell their family who have the right to vote in America to vote for Obama.”

Super…  essentially foreign 527′s running campaign ads in the US…  Love that.

And from Newsmax comes the story of Will, Good and Pro, Doodad…  who both work for “Loving You.”

More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won’t disclose.

Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP)…  Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200 threshold.

“Contributions that come under $200 aggregated per person are not listed,” said Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the FEC. “They don’t appear anywhere, so there’s no way of knowing who they are….”

The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. Only $39.6 million of that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has identified….

A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25.

Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You…”  In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375.

Similarly, a donor identified as “Pro, Doodad,” from “Nando, NY,” gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25. For most of these donations, Mr. Doodad Pro listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You,” just as Good Will had done….  Doodad’s cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $10,965.

Then there are the foreigners contributing to Obama…  Also From Newsmax

The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as “UK,” the United Kingdom.

More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680.

But others came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France….

A pair of Palestinian brothers named Hosam and Monir Edwan contributed more than $31,300 to the Obama campaign in October and November 2007, FEC records show.

The indication is that nearly HALF of the money Obama has raised could be tainted…  that sure would explain his incredible record breaking fundraising month after month, wouldn’t it?

Remember When Obama Loved Deregulation and The Republicans Way Back In April

As the mortgage crisis and the bailout negotiations unfold, Obama is on the stump making claims about how he was always for increased controls and wanted reform for Fannie and Freddie long ago.  How he saw the Republican economic model as fundamentally flawed…

This comes from a post put up by Deja Vu on Capital Hill and I think it perfectly encapsulates exactly how completely full of it Barack Obama really is…

Fox News

OBAMA: Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

WALLACE: Such as?

OBAMA: Well, on issues of regulation. I think that back in the ’60s and ’70s a lot of the way we regulated industry was top-down command and control, we’re going to tell businesses exactly how to do things.

And you know, I think that the Republican Party and people who thought about the markets came up with the notion that, “You know what? If you simply set some guidelines, some rules and incentives, for businesses — let them figure out how they’re going to, for example, reduce pollution,” and a cap and trade system, for example is a smarter way of doing it, controlling pollution, than dictating every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and oftentimes is less efficient.

Of course that was back in the day of April of this year. Who could have predicted this totally unexpected crisis as a result of the deregulation that Obama found so inspiring?

Not Obama.

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As usual, Deju Vu hits the nail right on the head.

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The most interesting thing about it is that the Republican in the race was actually for more controls and clarity…  but of course Obama can’t let you believe that.  He has to lie his ass off to cover up how full of crap he is.

Obama…  real change or just changing his shorts?

Palin As Xena… Cutting Thru The Dems

This article is so good and so complete that it is difficult to get everything it’s about into a snippet…  I highly recommend you just go read the whole thing, but I will provide a few little tidbits for you.

The Sunday Times UK

Obama camp in panic as ‘Xena’ Sarah Palin scythes through support

Palinmania has washed away the Democrat’s lead in key states

-SNIP-

THE high-heeled, moose-hunting governor of Alaska has sent Barack Obama’s campaign into a state of panic as support for the Democratic presidential candidate haemorrhages in the battleground states he must win to reach the White House.

-SNIP-

The mother of five, who has been called Xena, the warrior princess, said in a television interview: “I think he’s regretting not picking [Clinton] now, I do. What determination and grit and even grace through some tough shots that were fired her way – she handled those well,” Palin said.

-SNIP-

I n t h e f a c e o f P a l i n ’ s onslaught, Obama has continued to base his campaign on the outdated claim that John McCain and his running mate represent four more years of a failed Bush administration.

A senior Obama adviser said candidly that claim did not work. “I don’t think it’s sticking. The McCain campaign has stolen our message of ‘change’ – the very thing we’ve been campaigning on for 20 months. Well, who’s the change? It’s McCain.” Palin’s astounding rise has left the Obama camp floundering for a new narrative that will capture the imagination of voters in the run-up to the November 4 election. “There is overreaction and panic,” the official admitted. “The hard part for Barack is she’s stolen his thunder a bit. It has knocked us off our game.”

-SNIP-

Obama’s adviser said the attacks had misfired. “At the end of the day, women are sick of men running everything. They’re thinking, ‘Enough already.’ It has nothing to do with what she stands for. Our mistake was thinking women had nowhere else to go.”

-SNIP-

Palinmania has washed away Obama’s polling leads in several swing states that he had been counting on to win.

A clutch of polls last week showed McCain ahead by five points in Missouri, four in Ohio, four in Virginia and eight in Florida. New Mexico and N e v a d a , t w o t o p O b a m a targets, recorded narrow leads for McCain. Other states that had appeared to be comfortably in the Democratic camp now look precarious. In blue-collar New Jersey, Obama’s lead has shrunk to three points; in latte-sipping Washing-ton, it is down to two.

-SNIP-

Katherine Hoppe, 65, was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Another Democrat for McCain”. She worked as a volunteer at Hillary Clinton’s headquarters in Ballston, Virginia, and was present at her concession speech to Obama.

“I felt horrible,” she said. “When McCain announced that he had picked Palin, I went crazy. When you’re my age and Hillary’s, you want to give to the next generation. Hillary did that. She gave us Sarah.”

Clinton is said by friends to be “gutted” that she put 18m cracks in the glass ceiling for women only to have Palin kick in the pane. But she is thought to share Palin’s conviction that the media are treating the Alaskan governor unfairly.

-SNIP-

After repeated jabs from McCain, including the false charge that Obama supported sex education for kinder-garteners, the Illinois senator hit back with a negative advertisement mocking his 72-year-old rival for being out of date and out of touch with computer technology, including e-mail.

It backfired when it emerged that McCain was unable to type because he was injured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

If You Are Looking For A Great Orator… John McCain Is Not It. BUT….

If you are looking for a great orator, the kind that makes your knees weak and has you screaming “hallelujah” to the rafters, the John McCain is not your guy…

BUT

If you listen to the content of his speech, to his words, they are chock full of wonderful reasoning and incredible insight.

His speech tonite, while not delivered with the oratorical skill of an Obama, was true and spoke directly to the heart.

He called for an optomistic view of America.  He realizes things are not great for America but has the faith that Americans can change things and make them better.  He believes very deeply in the greatness of this country and he made that abundantly evident tonight.

He also called for the end of petty bickering between the parties and called out his own party for it’s own failings, something that both he and Palin are known to do on occasion.  He also promised that if anyone pulled anything shady or stuffed a bill with pork, he would not only fight it, but that he would make sure we knew who they were.

He said that the Republican party had gotten away from it’s core principles, those of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt…  and he’s right.  They have.  And he promised to get them back to that.

He told people that “We” are not the ones we have been waiting for, that YOU are the one YOU have been waiting for.

He called for people to stand up and fight, fight for what is right and good in our lives and about this country.

If anyone remembers the Barack Obama’s speech in 2004 about Red States and Blue States…

This is a man that LIVES that idea.

And the thing about John McCain is that I KNOW I won’t always agree with him, but I KNOW that he will listen with an open mind and an open heart.

I don’t have to “hope” when it comes to John McCain…  I know.

HERE is the full text of his speech.

Per FoxNews TV – McCain Raises $47M In August

John McCain raised $47 million in the month of August, the most he has raised so far…  and $10M+ of it since he announced the VP pick only days ago.

With the announcement of at least 1 major Clinton backer switching to McCain (HERE) and his prediction that you will see many more making the same move, as well as the groundswell of support for Palin among the “PUMA” voters, the Republican record breaking fundraising month is a sure sign that McCain is picking up speed.

The Hurricane Gustav interefered with the Republican Convention, but it has afforded time to get a few little tidbits out into the news, trooper and baby “gates”,  that would normally garner much more attention than they are because of the storm.

The storm has also afforded McCain another opportunity to look Presidential, and another opportunity for Obama to look not so Presidential.  (HERE)

We will see how things work out at the end of the week.

Hillary Can’t Fix What Her Party Broke….

This is the best, most accurate and honest article I have read on the subject yet…

From Froma Harrop on RCP

…for Hillary’s angry backers, the issue is no longer what was done to her. It was about what was done to them.

Democrats had turned on fellow Democrats, and although the arrows flew in all directions, the nastiest of the invective fell on the ladies who loved Hillary. That these loyal Democrats had been targeted made them nuts.

How strange that anyone writing for a political site would be smeared for backing a candidate of the same party. If the Democratic leadership had any sense of self-preservation, it would have shunned creepy bloggers and those who provided their forum. Instead, it hailed them as voices of the new generation.

The Democrats clearly have a hooligan problem. It was as though their left-wingers suffered a kind of Karl Rove envy. They wanted to go on the attack, demonize a Clinton and hurl abuse at the Clinton’s friends. Only a year ago, Vanity Fair ran a cover story on how Clinton hatred had infected much of the right wing. The left seems to have grabbed the baton. And it apparently did not dawn on the Obama shock troops that they were offending the very people their man might someday need.

The Rovian right never made that mistake with non-candidates. It reserved its thuggery for people who would never vote for a Republican.

Read the whole article on RCP…  It is fantastic.  CLICK HERE

Sarah Palin Is McCain’s VP Pick… Brilliant

CLICK HERE

DAYTON, Ohio – Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain introduced his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a raucous rally Friday in Ohio, praising her “tenacity” and “skill” in tackling tough problems.

Palin becomes the first woman to serve on a GOP presidential ticket and the first Alaskan to appear on a national ticket.

“She is exactly who this country needs to help us fight the same old Washington politics of me first and country second,” McCain told his Dayton, Ohio, audience.

HuffPo – Why Hillary’s Folks Won’t Quit

I have not been a fan of the Huffington Post during this election cycle.  The Huffington Post, along with DailyKos and DU, lead the charge in the online attack against Clinton, at least perceptually.

Since the end of the primaries, when the real numbers are coming in and critical votes came up, and Obama did not perform as these entities would have liked, they started to get a bit more critical of Obama…  thus the advent of articles like the following…

LINK

One thing that can be said about Hillary Clinton’s backers is that the word quit is not in their vocabulary. Their thinly disguised end around at the Democratic presidential nomination shouldn’t really surprise. The end around is the soft soap announcement that they’ll keep her name in play as a Democratic presidential candidate at the convention. There are several reasons why there’s no quit in Hillary’s folks. They make up a big percentage of the Party, and they still fervently believe that she’s the best, maybe only, Democrat who can beat McCain.

Their passion is driven by an odd, troubling and invigorating, commitment mix of dedication, gender support and racial fears. It’s also driven by the growing unease that the steam is leaking out of Obama’s turbine. Despite seven weeks of non stop media fawning over and adulation of him, Obama still can’t give McCain the shakes in the polls. Worse, McCain seems to have gotten better. He’s sharpened his message, his attacks and confidence.

SNIP

The hard numbers and demographics certainly are good reason for terror over an Obama loss. His caucus and primary wins in the red states and the handful of endorsements he got from the Democratic governors and senators in those states hardly spell a breakthrough for the Democrats in the head to head match with McCain. Obama swept to primary or caucus wins in Idaho, North Dakota, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia and Nebraska. Bush won these states handily in 2000 and 2004. But that’s only the start of the problem. Republicans outnumber Democrats in Idaho and Utah by a crushing margin of a three to one, and in other states by margins of two to one and half.

The red states that Obama won in the Democratic primaries have been the guaranteed pathway for Republican presidents Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. to win and stay in the White House. Their 170 to 200 electoral votes are virtually in the GOP’s coffers before the first vote is cast on Election Day. The states are so bankable and reliable for the GOP that it’s the rarest of rare sighting to see a GOP presidential candidate even bother to make anything more than a token appearance in these states in the stretch run of the campaign.

Read the rest…  except for a detail or two (ie the injection of race…  they just can’t leave it alone, can they?) it is a really good article.

BarackBook – Ouch.

This is pretty funny…  imaginative too.  I am shocked the GOP came up with something this clever.

It is an info page on Obama and a few of his associates set up to look like facebook pages…. 

Check it out.  His associations are pretty amazing.  And not in a good way.

http://www.barackbook.com/

 

Thanks to Annie1

Alaska’s Republican Senator Ted Stevens Indicted

From the NYT

“Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican senator in United States history and a figure of great influence in Washington as well as in his home state, has been indicted on federal charges of failing to report gifts and income.

Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven felony counts related to renovations on his home in Alaska. The charges arise from an investigation that has been under way for more than a year, in connection with the senator’s relationship with a businessman who oversaw the home-remodeling project.

The indictment will surely reverberate through the November elections. Mr. Stevens, who has been in the Senate for 40 years, is up for re-election this year. Mark Begich, a popular Democratic mayor of Anchorage, hopes to supplant him.”

This is good news for the Democrats.  Looks like they are picking up one more seat in the Senate.

Hopefully it will be one with a backbone…