Here's A Good Start If It's Done Right

Got this from GOPUSA in an email blast. At first glance, it looks like it will work just fine, if they install the pipeline right the first time. There are pipelines buried everywhere carrying refined petroleum products and natural gas and they work just fine. I know this project will keep a lot of welders and welding inspectors very busy, and yes, I'm self-serving. I like to work. I like earning a living.

I also know the enviro-wackjobs will be very busy trying to stop it. This project will twist their panties in a wad.

Here's the location map.
And here is the Google Earth satellite view.

View Larger Map

I'm sure they'll find some red-breasted tit-mouse kangaroo owl who only eats snail-darters and claim endangered species.

Here's the link to voice support for this project.

The Keystone XL pipeline would bring North American oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast here in the US.

That means more American jobs, lower energy costs (including lower prices at the pump), and a more stable, secure energy supply. But unless the Federal Government allows access to the vast resources at our fingertips, those jobs will go overseas - and America will stay just another international crisis away from gas prices reaching $4/gallon again, or soaring even higher.

"You Lie" Is Worse Than "You're Dead"

Bozell: Who Is James Eric Fuller?

OK, so conservatives have to be accused of fostering hatred with our alleged vitriol, the kind of vitriol that fuels the flames of violence, like we witnessed in Tucson except — well, except there wasn’t and isn’t a shred of evidence that the killer was influenced by any conservatives since a) he didn’t listen to or watch conservative programming and b) isn’t a conservative.

There is the hypothetical question: What if the perpetrator of violence were liberal? How would the media react then? How many would put Chris Matthews, Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann and Co. on trial for creating the “atmosphere” of “hatred” so often ascribed to conservatives only?

In fact, it happened. One of Jared Loughner’s shooting victims was a local leftist activist, James Eric Fuller, who last week was invited to ABC’s taping of “An American Conversation.” There, in front of all the cameras, he interrupted a local tea party activist by uttering what should be considered in this atmosphere to be a blood-curdling threat: “You’re dead!” Police considered these words serious enough to have him removed and involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

The very same media outlets that had spent seven days pounding conservatives with no evidence didn’t find this threat worth more than a perfunctory mention, an asterisk. The same people who turned the words “You lie!” from Rep. Joe Wilson to Obama into a week-long scandal for conservatives now heard a man proclaim “You’re dead!” to a tea party activist at a national news taping — and they yawned.

Which is not to say that the press wasn’t interested in the pronouncements of this man. In fact, Fuller had been featured in an interview on the radical-left Pacifica Radio network the day before, and they dutifully broadcast his either dishonest or insane rant: “It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls.”

So let’s look at the coverage. The first responsibility to report this was ABC’s, since they invited this crank to their special episode of “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. ABC did a big story previewing their “healing” event on “World News Saturday.” At first, they pretended that no one made a death threat, and no one was dragged away by police. Anchor David Muir, who co-hosted the town hall meeting, declared, “Wasn’t it something to see this community together? … They want consensus.” Amanpour agreed: “Today we saw them wanting to carry on an honest dialogue … but a reasonable and rational one.”

Read more

Michelle Malkin

The Hate Speech Inquisition

There isn't a shred of evidence that deranged Tucson massacre suspect Jared Loughner ever listened to talk radio or cared about illegal immigration. Indeed, after 300 exhaustive interviews, the feds "remain stumped" about his motives, according to Tuesday's Washington Post. But that hasn't stopped a coalition of power-grabbing politicians, progressive activists and open-borders lobbyists from plying their quack cure for the American body politic: government-sponsored speech suppression.

++ Read More

Ron Paul and the Cujo Effect

Ron Paul and the 'Cujo' Effect
Paul A. Ibbetson

Ron Paul, the failed presidential candidate of 2008, has become the Cujo of the Republican Party, but not for many of the reasons you may think. Just like the loveable St. Bernard of Stephen King's creative mind, there is an often unobserved duality to the Texas congressman. Like Cujo, Ron Paul is far from being "all bad." Many of his long-standing beliefs in the Constitution, limited government, and the free market are not only conservative beliefs but also bedrock examples of what has made this country great. As well, Paul's military service to this country is exemplary and worthy of emulation.

Unfortunately, Ron Paul's positive points are outweighed by his radical views on many important issues. While many rail against the tax system we currently have, Ron Paul advocates eliminating the Federal Reserve and the IRS with no feasible
replacement system. When Paul gets to slashing government entities, he includes the FBI and CIA, saying they should also go the way of the dodo bird. It is here that the inflammation of a skewed viral way of thinking begins to be seen in the Paul mentality.

This is not something new for the Texas congressman. During the 1980's Paul was attacking Ronald Reagan on the use of the CIA along with his "eye rolling" support for the legalization of drugs. Today, Ron Paul's modern day conspiracy theory stances and "blame America first" positions have garnered him the 9/11 truth crowds and the paranoia-pill pushers such as Alex Jones and Jesse Ventura. In reality, this is a dog that has been hunting for a long time.

It is the added benefit of perspective that shows Ron Paul and Cujo to be on similar ground. Both are not inherently bad, they both just have a "little crazy" in them.

More after the jump.

Astro-turfing- Dhimmi Style

GOPUSA:

In response to the success of the Tea Party movement comes a new anti-Tea Party effort. Dubbed "The Tea Party is Over," the organization seeks to "prevent the Tea Party's dangerous ideas from gaining legislative traction." Dangerous ideas? That's right.

That's exactly what the web site states at www.TheTeaPartyIsOver.org:

Our Strategy is simple. This movement is a fad. Some of their ideas include the belief that programs like Social Security and Medicare are socialistic and should never have been created in the first place and that President Obama is a Socialist. Other ideas include undermining the legitimacy of the federal government in favor of a radical rightwing form of state's rights. We need to prevent their dangerous ideas from gaining a legislative foothold. So our strategy is to spread the truth about their dangerous ideas and prevent their policies from taking root in America.

Now, for all of you who just read their "strategy," I ask you to go back and read it one more time. Let it soak in. Undermining the legitimacy of the federal government? Radical rightwing form of state's rights? Are you kidding me? Isn't that what's stated in the Constitution? Doesn't America have a tradition of opposing centralized power in favor of more rights and opportunities for its citizens?

As it turns out, this "grassroots" effort is not what it appears. In a brilliant piece of reporting by FOXNews.com, we learn a "seemingly grassroots organization that's mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds -- including sizable labor union contributions -- through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer."

The Educated Elites vs Normal Americans

Obama's Rapturous Style Versus Tea Party Substance
By Michael Barone
January 14, 2010

"Rapturous" is a good word to describe the emotional and mental state of most Zero voters.

Remember those rapturous crowds that swooned at Barack Obama's rhetoric? "We are the change we are seeking," he proclaimed. "We will be able to look back and tell our children" that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

A lot of style there, but not very much substance. A Brookings Institution scholar who produced nothing more than that would soon be looking for a new job.

In retrospect, the Obama enthusiasts seem to have been motivated by a yearning for a rapturous, nuanced leader. Send that terrible tyrant with his tortured sentences and moral certitude back to Texas and install The One in the White House, and all would be well.

The Obama enthusiasts have achieved that goal, and perhaps it's not surprising that, as polls show, they're not much engaged in the details of the health care bills or cap-and-trade legislation or looming tax increases and the like. They, or at least most of them, were never much interested in those things anyway.

In contrast, the tea party protesters, many of them as fractious and loudmouthed as Brooks thinks, are interested in substantive political issues.

They decry the dangers of expanding the national debt, increasing government spending and putting government in command of the health care sector.

Their concerns have basis in fact. The national debt is on a trajectory to double as a percentage of the economy over 10 years, and the Democrats' health care bills threaten to bend the cost curve up. Higher taxes could choke off economic recovery and keep unemployment up near double-digit rates for years.

Last year's stimulus bill surreptitiously raised the budget baseline for many domestic spending programs and sent money to state and local governments -- a payoff to the public employee unions who spent more than $100 million to elect Democrats in 2008.

The Enemy

Obama Considers Real America 'The Enemy'
By Christopher G. Adamo
August 13, 2009

The glaring duplicity in media coverage of the current chaotic "healthcare" debate is unparalleled. When a lone gunman shoots an abortionist, the nightly news incessantly recounts the event for weeks, insisting that the brutal action most certainly reflects a universal mindset among any and all who call themselves pro-life. But let the people of heartland America rise up in unprecedented numbers at Democrat "town hall" meetings and voice their sincere opposition to the attempt by Obama and the left to implement socialized "health care," and they are derided as merely a loud but insignificant "fringe."

In other words, the stories presented on the nightly news are no reflection of reality. Instead, events are selectively cited and depicted so as to promote the leftist ideology of the network "news" apparatchiks.

An enormous groundswell of opposition to the Obama Administration is erupting throughout the land. Real Americans are shaking off their former apathy and reasserting their role in the workings of the national government. Congressional and White House liberals are being put to flight and their agenda is being driven back. Yet the liberal media cabal lacks even that shred of objectivity needed to address this pivotal moment in American history with any degree of honesty.

Fatal Attraction

When the 20 somethings I work with tell me they are more afraid of Gov Sarah Palin than muslim terrorists; when they tell my bumperstickers scare them more than UBL, I have to wonder where the hell the've been gettig their intel.

America's Fatal Attraction
By David Limbaugh

Excuse my mastery of the obvious, but I have to believe the greatest obstacle to America's return to policy sanity is the electorate's cultish adoration of Barack Obama. If it weren't for this disturbing phenomenon -- not to discount a healthy dose of blind partisanship -- it is inconceivable that the majority of people would tolerate Obama's dismantling of America's free market system, his returning America to a pre-9/11 mindset against terrorists, his increasing usurpations of power, and his corrupt ties and practices, from the public funding of ACORN to the summary dismissal of the case against the Black Panthers to his firing of inspector general Gerald Walpin apparently for uncovering corruption by Obama's friends.

They Will Succeed If You Don't Do Something

The extreme-left is desperately trying to take over every aspect of your life. In case you haven't noticed, they're taking control of the banking industry, they're trying to take control of your family's healthcare, they're taking control of the auto industry and the energy industry...

But, most horrifically, THEY'RE TRYING TO TAKE CONTROL OF YOU. And, make no mistake; the so-called $3.6 TRILLION BUDGET ABOMINATION IS THEIR MEANS TO DO IT. Some critics, to borrow a phrase from the good folks at FreedomWorks, are saying that this $ 3.6 trillion budget abomination "taxes too much, spends too much, and borrows too much." But the simple fact that $3.6 trillion is a mind-boggling figure is just one small piece of the puzzle.

The one thing that no one is really taking about (the 800 pound gorilla in the room) is that this $3.6 trillion budget abomination is ALSO the LARGEST AND MOST AMBITIOUS GOVERNMENT POWER GRAB IN THE HISTORY OF THIS COUNTRY. And if it passes, you can start to kiss the free-market system goodbye. If it passes, you can kiss your personal liberties goodbye.

Here are just a handful of the highlights:
Health Care: According to the typically pro-Obama New York Times: "Mr. Obama asked Congress to set aside $634 billion in a 'reserve fund for health care reform.' He provided no new information about how to cover the uninsured, saying he would work out the details with Congress later this year." The Times also stated that Obama "would also increase premiums charged to Medicare beneficiaries...." No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. Obama is asking Congress for $634 billion dollars of your money, is offering no clear plan as to what he wants to do with the money (he'll get to that later, after the money is appropriated) and wants to cut back on benefits. The only thing that is certain is the government will start taking money out of your pocket and start making your healthcare decisions for you.

Taxes: Moveon.org, while promoting the $3.6 trillion budget abomination, repeats the Obama mantra that it: "Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime."

The truth of the matter, however, is that this $3.6 trillion budget calls for a number of hidden taxes. One of these is a cap-and-trade energy tax which, according to The Wall Street Journal "would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3 percent of its after-tax income every year. That's about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9 percent to 2.7 percent of income."

The Wall Street Journal concludes: "Cap and trade, in other words, is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth--but in a very curious way. It takes from the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from Miami, Ohio, and gives to Miami, Florida; and takes from an industrial America that is already struggling and gives to rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street 'green tech' investors who know how to leverage the political class."

Jobs: MoveOn.org claims the budget "Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced." The folks at FreedomWorks have this to say: "The numbers being used here, like the numbers used in the stimulus debate, are deceptive in that they hide the less rosy bigger picture. It is a classic case of 'what is seen and what is not seen' as described so clearly by economists Frederic Bastiat and Henry Hazlitt. What is seen are the jobs that will certainly result from the government spending $100 billion. What is not seen are all the jobs that are lost because the government has to take those $100 billion out of one part of the economy to spend it somewhere else."

You're starting to get the picture. This $3.6 trillion budget has nothing to do with stimulating the economy, or making life better for the average Joe; unless, of course, you believe that the redistribution of YOUR income and government intrusion into YOUR life are good things. Perhaps that's why Senator Judd Gregg called Obama's $3.6 trillion budget "an extraordinary move of our government to the left." Gregg added that President Obama "is proposing the largest tax increase in history..."

Tell the Republican and Democratic Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. in unmistakable terms that the American people want this $3.6 trillion abomination of a budget bill DEAD... a stake driven through its heart. Tell them that the American people do not want "compromises" or insignificant amounts of fat trimmed from this monster. Tell the Republican and Democratic Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. that OBAMA'S BUDGET MUST DIE!

Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President:

Recently, you stated that: "There will be a time for profits...Now is not that time." Not since you made Joe the most famous plumber in America by telling him (and all of us) that you wanted to "spread the wealth around" have you been so transparent about your attitude toward the private sector.
You complain about "excessive" CEO salaries and bonuses. And I must admit that it strains credulity to imagine the chutzpah it takes for some of these companies to engage in such indulgences with both hands outstretched to the federal government for bailout dollars in numbers most of us can't even comprehend. It is unseemly at best to watch these jackals presiding over companies that are hemorrhaging buckets of red ink while they fly off into the sunset in their corporate jets with their golden parachutes -- paid for by American taxpayers.
Unfortunately, the same rules don't seem to apply to you and your cohorts in government. You have an equally arrogant, cavalier attitude toward the hard-working Americans who pay for your salary and your extravagant lifestyle. And you don't seem to play by the rules you create for the rest of us. Your new treasury secretary cheated on his taxes and yet was confirmed to oversee the Internal Revenue Service. Your nominee to run the health and human services department is the poster boy for limousine liberals who don't even pay for their limousines -- or at least not the taxes they owe on them. And your attorney general believes in pardons for terrorists and tax cheats.
Meanwhile, you and your Democrat Congress act as though the revenue you are using for your pork-laden bailouts and so-called stimulus packages just grew on the money tree in the back yard at the White House and is yours to do with as you see fit. Well, let me remind you of something, Mr. President: that money you are doling out is money my great-grandchildren haven't even earned yet. It is tax revenue your successor five presidents down the line will have to steal from them in order to pay for this madness.
The saddest thing about this whole scenario, Mr. President, is that you are killing the one entity in our society that is actually creating jobs. Any high school Economics 101 teacher can tell you that in good economic times, 75 percent of new jobs in this country are created by small, independently-owned businesses. In times like these, when corporate America is slashing workforces like mad, that number is 100 percent!
And yet who gets the bailouts? Joe the Plumber or Sam's Handyman Service, who eek out a living trying to find enough work to keep themselves and one or two employees afloat? No, it's Citibank and the bloated auto industry. We're told that they are "too big to fail."
Well, let me tell you something, Mr. President. Granted, it would be a pretty big ripple through the economy if General Motors went under. But if you put every small entrepreneur in this country out of business, our economy, as we know it, will be gone.Mr. President, small business owners are being crushed by a largely hysteria-created recession.
Their credit has been cut off because of the irresponsible behavior of Members of Congress and the greed of some on Wall Street. These entrepreneurs aren't asking for a bailout. They just want you and your bloated, obstructionist government to get out of their way!
Not the time for profits, indeed! With all due respect, this is precisely the time when businesses need profits. But then, the ignorant souls who voted for you -- many of whom don't even pay taxes -- have so wrapped themselves in victim status and class envy that they are cheering you on as their new Fairness Czar; so I guess I don't expect you to listen to me. I won't have a real say in the matter again until the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November 2012. See you then.
Respectfully,
Doug Patton
An American taxpayer

When Is A Hate Crime Not A Hate Crime?

Silly, when the target is predominately Christian and patriotic of course. Then it's just arson by a gang of maniacal fairies.

Doug Patton has some thoughts.

So let me see if I have this straight. The media fell all over itself during the Obama campaign avoiding an in-depth look at the vitriol flowing like a river of vomit out of Wright's Chicago church. Yet, when Sarah Palin was named as John McCain's choice for vice president, every major news outlet in the country put reporters on planes to Alaska to "investigate" this woman's strange church. And now that this same church has been burned -- an act that would surely be hailed as a "hate crime" had it happened at Obama's church -- we are told that a ministry to help homosexuals who want to leave their deviant lifestyle may be the reason for the attack.
Meanwhile, the loving, forgiving members of the Wasilla Bible Church are turning the other cheek after their church has just been burned to the ground. Can you imagine Jeremiah Wright and his ilk having such a reaction had it been the Trinity United Church of Christ that was attacked?

Foreign Policy Experience?

GPOUSA Dr. Thomas Sowell

Now that the Democrats have recovered from the shock of Governor Sarah Palin's nomination as the Republican's candidate for vice president, they have suddenly discovered that her lack of experience in general-- and foreign policy experience in particular-- is a terrible danger in someone just a heartbeat away from being President of the United States.

For those who are satisfied with talking points, there is no need to go any further. But, for those who still consider substance relevant, this is an incredible argument coming from those whose presidential candidate has even less experience in public office than Sarah Palin, and none in foreign policy.

Moreover, if Senator Barack Obama is elected, he will not be a heartbeat away from the presidency, his would be the heartbeat of the president-- and he would be the one making foreign policy.

But the big talking point is that the Democrats' vice-presidential nominee, Senator Joe Biden, has years of foreign policy experience as a member, and now chairman, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

That all depends on what the definition of "experience" is.

The fact that Senator Joe Biden has for years listened to all sorts of people testify on all sorts of foreign policy issues tells us nothing about how well he understood the issues.

Out of the four presidential and vice-presidential candidates this year, only Governor Palin has had to make executive decisions and live with the consequences.

As for Senator Obama, his various pronouncements on foreign policy have been as immature as they have been presumptuous.

He talked publicly about taking military action against Pakistan, one of our few Islamic allies and a nation with nuclear weapons.

Barack Obama's first response to the Russian invasion of Georgia was to urge "all sides" to negotiate a cease-fire and take their issues to the United Nations. That is standard liberal talk, which even Obama had second thoughts about, after Senator John McCain gave a more grown-up response.

We should all have second thoughts about what is, and is not, foreign policy "experience."

Sarah America

GOPUSA Larry Kudlow:

The No. 1 economic issue this election is gasoline prices at the pump. The tax-hike effect of surging oil on global markets that has translated to a huge spike at your local gas station has drained the economy of its vitality. It has damaged consumer purchasing power, made it tougher to pay mortgages on time, worsened the credit crunch, raised the inflation rate, undermined corporate profits and thrown stocks into the first bear market in five years.
Of course, with all the political hoopla from the Denver Democrats, it's easy to forget the populist revolt against high gas prices at the pump. Sen. Obama never mentioned skyrocketing pump prices or their devastating economic impact on ordinary working-class folks. But this is the energy election. It will determine our future peace and prosperity. And Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has the energy answer: Our abundant country can produce more energy at lower cost if government gets out of the way.
Coming from the natural-resource rich state of Alaska, Palin is an experienced energy expert. She knows more about the economics of energy than Sens. McCain, Obama or Biden. And in this year of the oil-shock economy, Palin's role will be absolutely crucial.

"Obama is way off-base on all that. I think those politicians who don't understand that we need more domestic supply of energy flowing into our hungry markets (are) living in la-la land. And we're in a world of hurt if their agenda continues to be to lock up these safe, secure domestic supplies of energy."

That's what Palin told me in a CNBC interview in late June. I call it drill, drill, drill. But in fact it's a full-throated America-first energy policy that will create millions of high-paying jobs with complete government deregulation and decontrol of the full menu of energy sources: oil, natural gas, nuclear, clean coal, shale and the alternative fuels of wind, solar and cellulosic.
Why aren't all the candidates talking like Palin? How can this great country put its future growth and prosperity in the hands of enemies like Tsar Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez. Well, get ready for Sarah America to take on the fight against all comers.

0bama-Biden Not Gonna Do Your Bidden

From GOPUSA

On Monday, while Democrats delivered vague speeches from a stage set that rivaled a rock concert, those outside the convention hall were left asking: Who is the real Barack Obama? The American Issues Project's new ad provides part of the answer.

The ad explores Obama's ties to William Ayers, whom the New York Sun describes as a "founding member of the group that bombed the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon during the 1970s."
In 2001, Ayers Did Not Express Regret For His Past Conduct And Even Claimed The Weather Underground "Didn't Do Enough" Bombings. "Mr. Ayers wrote a memoir, 'Fugitive Days,' published in 2001, and on the day of the September 11 terrorist attacks, he was quoted by the New York Times as saying: 'I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.'" (Russell Berman, "Obama's Ties To Left Come Under Scrutiny," The New York Sun, 2/19/08)
"Obama's relationship with Ayers is an especially vivid milepost on his rise, in record time, from a local official who unabashedly reflected a very liberal district to the leader of national movement based largely on the claim that he can transcend ideological divides." (Ben Smith, "Obama Once Visited 60s Radicals," Politico, 2/22/08)
The fact that Barack Obama chose to launch his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist reflects not only a lack of judgment, but also real questions about his views. Obama's response to the ad? A full-throated defense of his long association with a man who says he didn't bomb enough U.S. targets. That tells us more about Barack Obama than any of the speeches we saw Monday night ever could.
To find out more facts about the Obama-Ayers relationship, just click here.

Also, in a AP news story running on GOPUSA, Ayers "compared U.S. government actions to the Sept. 11 attacks."

It is also becoming clear that the Obama-Biden ticket has even deeper ties to corrupt political powerbroker Tony Rezko.

On Monday, we learned that Joe Biden has a 30-year friendship with a key figure in the Tony Rezko trial. When Biden sought the Democratic nomination for president, he turned to his long-time financial contributor and adviser Joseph Cari, Jr. for help. Cari is now awaiting sentencing for his part in an $850,000 kickback scheme overseen by Tony Rezko.

Shortly Before Cari's Indictment Biden Called Him "An Honorable Guy."
"Shortly before Cari's corruption indictment by a federal grand jury in Chicago in 2006, Sen. Biden called him "an honorable guy" and was planning to appoint him to a high-ranking campaign position for the 2008 presidential campaign. However, the Illinois shakedown scheme...derailed Cari's future plans." (Chuck Goudie, "Unlocking Biden's Baggage Reveals Blago Ticket," Daily Herald [Chicago, IL], 8/25/08)

Biden "Won't Give Obama Much Cover On The Tony Rezko Front."
"No matter what help Barack Obama might get from Sen. Joseph Biden, his newly named vice presidential running mate won't give Obama much cover on the Tony Rezko front." (Dave McKinney, "Biden Has Deep Ties To Rezko Accomplice," The Chicago Sun-Times, 8/25/08)

As predicted, this week voters are getting a preview of the choice they will have to make in November ... and the "new politics" looks a lot more like politics as usual.

The choice is clear: BARACK OBAMA IS NOT READY TO LEAD. JOHN McCAIN IS.

John McCain stands for a government that is principled, honest, and worthy of the American people that it serves.
John McCain will get my vote in November. I hope he will get yours as well.

Democrats and Veterans

From GOPUSA by Scott Swett

Scott Swett is the primary author of a new book on the 2004 presidential campaign, To Set The Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry. He is also the primary webmaster of SwiftVets.com and WinterSoldier.com.

The Democrats recently announced the theme for the day that Sen. Barack Obama's running mate will speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver -- "national security and honoring veterans." This may well provide a hint about who the vice-presidential selection will be, as it seems unlikely that such a theme would be used to frame a nominee who, like Sen. Obama, has no military experience.
Before speculating about the most likely candidate, let's take a few moments to review ways in which the Democratic Party has gone about "honoring" the US military in the past.

In November of 2000, during the statewide vote recount in Florida, Al Gore and the Democrats sent lawyers to every voting district in the state, armed with detailed instructions on how to disqualify military absentee ballots. Peggy Noonan reported that "...Democrats on the ground, and their operators from the Democratic National Committee and the state organization and the Gore campaign, deliberately and systematically scrutinized for challenge every military absentee ballot, and knocked out as many as they could on whatever technicality they could find or even invent."

Early in 2004, evidence emerged that a small group of Army prison guards had humiliated and abused captive insurgents at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The abuses were discovered by the Army itself, and those responsible were duly tried, convicted and sentenced. Nevertheless, leftists eager to discredit the US military seized upon these trivial events as though they constituted the most important story of the war. Sen. Edward Kennedy rose in the Senate to charge that "Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management -- US management." By June, the New York Times had featured Abu Ghraib stories on its front page more than 50 times, including a string of 28 days in a row. The purpose was evident -- to undermine support for the military and its mission by persuading the public that American troops were brutal abusers.

Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore was a welcome guest at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where he sat in former President Jimmy Carter's box seat. Yet Moore had openly embraced those who ambushed and killed US troops, saying that "the Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'the enemy.' They are the revolution, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win." Ohio Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur echoed this view, suggesting that "...Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kinds of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown." This is a particularly novel way to support our troops -- by comparing their enemies to the patriots who fought for American independence.

In 2005, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin compared the treatment of terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo, Cuba to the crimes committed "by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings." In fact, no prisoners had died at Guantanamo, whereas some fifteen to thirty million Soviets expired in the gulags, six million Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps, and two million Cambodians were murdered by Pol Pot's communist Khmer Rouge. A Pentagon spokesman noted that all members of Congress were welcome to inspect the Guantanamo facilities -- something Sen. Durbin had never done. Public outrage eventually prompted Durbin to offer a qualified apology "...if anything I said cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military."

In 2006, Democratic Congressman John Murtha falsely claimed that US Marines who had battled in Haditha, Iraq had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Marine Corps officials pointed out that Murtha had not yet been briefed on the event at the time he made his atrocity allegations. Charges against nearly all participants in the Haditha engagement have since been dismissed. The Marine staff sergeant who led the squad recently filed a federal defamation lawsuit against Murtha that has yet to come to trial.

Later the same year, New York Democrat Charles Rangel explained why young Americans join the military -- they aren't capable of doing anything else. Congressman Rangel said, incorrectly, that most members of the military "come from very, very high areas of unemployment" and denied that they "want to fight." Rangel further displayed his deep respect for US troops by adding that if a young man "...has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq."

Sen. Tom Harkin recently suggested that Sen. John McCain's military background is a liability rather than an asset. "Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military," said Harkin, "and I think that can be pretty dangerous."

Presidential nominee Obama also took a few moments last year to honor the US military for its ongoing campaign in Afghanistan, by suggesting that it consisted primarily of "air-raiding villages and killing civilians...."

Who then is the Democrat best qualified to continue this tradition as Barack Obama's running mate? The choice is obvious: former nominee John Kerry. Kerry started his political career in 1971 by falsely accusing American troops of committing genocide in Vietnam. He accused his own Navy comrades of war crimes.

His Vietnam Veterans Against the War created the dysfunctional caricature of Vietnam veterans that Hollywood and the media embraced for three decades.
Perhaps more than anyone else, John Kerry is responsible for the way our Vietnam veterans were treated -- with contempt and pity, rather than respect.

After his unsuccessful attempt to market himself as a war hero in 2004, Kerry soon reverted to form, claiming that US troops were "going into homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children..." Kerry's own effort to compete in the 2008 cycle was derailed by his revealing suggestion to a college audience that "if you study hard and you do your homework... you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
So fire up the sound system. Launch the balloons. And let the honoring of America's veterans begin.

More On 0Bama

0bama's Communist Cover-up Continues
by Cliff Kincaid

In a surprising admission that could become a major scandal in the presidential race, Barack Obama's 40-page so-called "rebuttal" to Jerome Corsi's book, The Obama Nation, acknowledges for the first time that the senator once had a personal relationship with identified Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member Frank Marshall Davis, a key high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii. But the 40-page report, advertised and sold to the media as a refutation of Corsi's "lies," doesn't identify Davis as a hard-core communist and it dishonestly edits an article about Davis to eliminate references to his admitted involvement in CPUSA activities and make the black revolutionary writer and "poet" look like a civil rights activist. In fact, Davis was a secret CPUSA member who continued his involvement in the CPUSA or its front activities into the 1970s, when he became Barack Obama's mentor in Hawaii. Corsi's book devotes part of chapter three, "Black Rage, Drugs, and a Communist Mentor," to Davis. This official Obama campaign cover-up, which attempts to further mislead voters about Obama's mysterious and controversial background, occurs as serious questions are being raised about Obama's initial soft line toward the Russian invasion of Georgia. In his first statement on the crisis, Obama failed to directly condemn the Russian invasion. Obama "did not directly blame Russia" for the crisis, the New York Times acknowledged. (web site)

The Bear Is Still In The Woods
by Doug Patton

As Barack Obama continues to remind voters in those equivocal yet reassuring tones of his why he is completely unqualified to be president, John McCain shows why he should win this election by a landslide.
The contrast between the two men during the forum at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church was stunning. As usual, Obama was tentative, vague, stammered through his answers and was simply wrong on every issue. McCain was surprisingly quick, sure of himself and knew exactly what he believed - and why. When Obama was asked what he thought about the nature of evil in our time, instead of talking about terrorism, the invasion of Georgia or the danger of a nuclear suicide state in Iran, he rambled on about child abuse in America. Asked the same question, McCain immediately pointed to Islamic extremism and naked Russian aggression.
In view of that Russian aggression, as well as the other international minefields that will be waiting for the next occupant of the White House, the McCain campaign should give serious consideration to running the 1984 Ronald Reagan "bear in the woods" commercial (web site)
Here is a transcript of the simple but effective commercial: "There is a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don't see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it's vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear..."

A fatal misconception is the belief that evil can be reasoned with.