31 October 2008

Do Something: Get Out The Vote (Bumped, Re-Re-Posted, UPDATED, Again)

If, like me, you'd prefer not to see America elect the most liberal-left President in modern history, with Pelosi controlling the House, and Reid the Senate, thereby enabling them to make us Canada Jr., how about a little GOTV?

(no offense to my Canadian readers)

We're close and closing. And anyway, nobody knows what to expect with the polls this year anyway. They were wildly inaccurate during the primaries and they've been all over the place the last few weeks.

Whether you are in a Battleground state for McCain, California for Proposition 8, or Washington State for Dino Rossi, volunteer a little time and make some calls or pound the pavement and visit some Republicans & undecideds.

If you have information on GOTV efforts in your area, email me with the relevant details and I'll pass them along.

PUT JOHN McCAIN & SARAH PALIN IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
PASS PROPOSITION 8?
GET DINO ROSSI ELECTED?
MAINTAIN A FILIBUSTER IN THE SENATE?

YES WE CAN!!!!!1!!!

UPDATE 31 October 12:45pm BST:
A little research has revealed an interesting fact: During the primaries, Barack Obama performed, on average, 2.8 points worse than he polled in the 3 days leading up to the election.

Call this whatever you want, I call this hope we can believe in.

Also, be sure and check out the Iowahawk post I linked to earlier today. His explanation of the statistics behind polling should also provide a bit of optimistic comfort.

Finally, I don't know how I missed this before: For all those of you who, like me, can't get to a McCain camp calling center, for whatever reason, click here, to sign up to make calls online. Even if you can only do it for 15 mins--do it. Do it for 15 mins every day from now until the election.

For advice and more on how to successfully do this, check out Gabriel Malor's post at Ace.

UPDATE 1 November 2:08am BST: I got the information I referred to above. I narrowed down from the Top 10 states in terms of visits to OL&L to the states that could impact things. They are:
- California w/Prop 8 and the fact that so many of you are from there and can call out.
- Pennsylvania. Yep, I was surprised too. There are quite a few of you PA readers. And you live in a hotly contested state.
- Virginia - We'll see if this traditionally red state is really going to go for Obama. In fact, this will be an early bellweather on election night. You readers get out and do your job: make calls for McCain.
- Washington - Do what you can for Dino Rossi and make calls into other states.
- I think there's a Georgia Victory Center listed in there somewhere too. Lots of Georgia readers. Thanks, guys.
Anyway, thanks to Fernando M. for hosting the spreadsheet with all the info. Click here to download and get to work.

Alternatively, you can always make calls from the safety of your own home by using your computer.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Hip Hop Republican



This is one of the best videos I have seen all year. Well-worth the 8 minutes. Show this one to your friends and family.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

GOTV - Call From Your Computer

Folks, all those of you in awesome Red states or hopeless blue states--those of you who aren't close or unable to make it to a McCain 2008 Victory call center, this is your chance to help get McPalin in the White House:
Online Phone Bank
It's easy to do and you can call into whatever state you like. Pennsylvania seems like a good one to me.

Put in a couple of hours every day from here until election day.

This sucker is still winnable.

(see my other GOTV post)


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

What 'Change' Means: The Cost Of Electing Obama

These are my comments which accompanied the length post of Henninger's vision of Obamerica. His stuff was good, but I didn't want my accompanying comments to get lost in the length.

I know you're out there, those of you who consider yourselves fiscal conservatives or libertarians, but who have somehow talked yourselves into voting for Barack Obama.

Many of you have persuaded yourselves that by electing a young black man as President, the nation will somehow have healed itself of the open wound of slavery and segregation.

This fantastical dream--for that's what it is--will come at an extremely high price, if, indeed, it ever does come.

Daniel Henninger puts its cost--America's transformation into a Western European-style socialist democracy--in very plain terms
.

If you are going to vote for Obama, you'd better be damned sure you understand what that vote means beyond "hope" & "change." It will be a transformational change for America, a transformation--described above by Henninger--for which few Obama voters realize they are voting.

It is not sustainable. Something, folks, has gotta give. I'll give you a clue--two clues, actually:
- cuts in defense spending AND
- higher taxes
In the case of Western Europe, they have been enjoying the public good provided by our defense and security for the last 50 years.

Because they didn't have to fund a military, they could afford to build vast welfare states. Even then, with no defense expenditures and with their aging populations, they are beginning to find themselves unable to fund all the promised entitlements. In the coming years, they will either have to pursue high growth, free market policies, or see their welfare state collapse in on itself.

We cannot make the same decision of butter over guns, because there isn't another one of U.S. to maintain the peace and security on which democracy in this world hinges. Someone has to be responsible and be the world's police and it will take a high growth country to do it, not another western european socialist democracy.

Let me repeat: We cannot turn ourselves into Western Europe because we cannot, as they have done, take a break from history and rely on some unseen ally to protect us. And we ought not follow Western Europe into an unsustainable welfare-state scenario.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

ShamWow!

(image link)


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Do Something: Get Out The Vote (Bumped, Re-Posted, UPDATED)

In 2006, against the tide, I made calls via Skype using the RNC's web page with voter information for various important Senate seats. (Yeah, I know how that turned out, smart-A's.) Assuming I can find the link, I'll be doing a lot more of the same all weekend and into the next week.

[as below, click this link to make online calls]

If, like me, you'd prefer not to see America elect the most liberal-left President in modern history, with Pelosi controlling the House, and Reid the Senate, thereby enabling them to make us Canada Jr., how about a little GOTV?

(no offense to my Canadian readers)

We're close and closing. And anyway, nobody knows what to expect with the polls this year anyway. They were wildly inaccurate during the primaries and they've been all over the place the last few weeks.

I analyzed my analytics and discovered the Top 10 states visiting OL&L over the last year or so. I am in the process of getting info for McCain Victory 2008 campaign centers in the corresponding states. I'll get back to you with that when I can.

Whether you are in a Battleground state for McCain, California for Proposition 8, or Washington State for Dino Rossi, volunteer a little time and make some calls or pound the pavement and visit some Republicans & undecideds.

If you have information on GOTV efforts in your area, email me with the relevant details and I'll pass them along.

PUT JOHN McCAIN & SARAH PALIN IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
PASS PROPOSITION 8?
GET DINO ROSSI ELECTED?
MAINTAIN A FILIBUSTER IN THE SENATE?

YES WE CAN!!!!!1!!!

UPDATE 31 October 12:45pm BST:
A little research has revealed an interesting fact: During the primaries, Barack Obama performed, on average, 2.8 points worse than he polled in the 3 days leading up to the election.

Call this whatever you want, I call this hope we can believe in.

Also, be sure and check out the Iowahawk post I linked to earlier today. His explanation of the statistics behind polling should also provide a bit of optimistic comfort.

Finally, I don't know how I missed this before: For all those of you who, like me, can't get to a McCain camp calling center, for whatever reason, click here, to sign up to make calls online. Even if you can only do it for 15 mins--do it. Do it for 15 mins every day from now until the election.

For advice and more on how to successfully do this, check out Gabriel Malor's post at Ace.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Yes On Prop 8 - My Best Shot (Re-Re-Posted)

[ed. note: I'm going to keep reposting this through 4 November. Skip if you've already read it. Read if you haven't. Pass it along to friends and acquaintances--especially those voting in California.]

For the No on 8 folks, Gay Marriage isn't just a positive right they want enforced, it's a lifestyle they want normalized and accepted--by force, if necessary--by the rest of America. It's not enough to live and let live. It's about changing definitions and understandings and traditions and reshaping society and American culture.

Consider the latest back-and-forth between the Yes and No on 8 folks (h/t Branden B.):
The top issue that has emerged in the Proposition 8 campaign is whether same-sex marriage will be taught in California public schools if the initiative is not enacted. Opponents of Proposition 8 are spending millions of dollars on television commercials telling voters that the Yes on 8 campaign’s claim that gay marriage will be taught in public schools is a lie. Yet a review of public records filed with the First District Court of Appeal in Boston shows these same organizations who claim our statement is a lie fought to make it true in Massachusetts. Specifically, they fought to ensure that gay marriage be taught in Massachusetts public schools, even over the objection of parents who sought an “opt out” for their children. Gay marriage was legalized by Massachusetts courts in 2003.

Further, their assurance that parents can always “opt-out” of such instruction when it is taught is belied by the fact that in Massachusetts, they argued successfully that Massachusetts’ parental opt-out provision should not be permitted.

“These damning public records show that it is in fact the organizations leading and financing the No on 8 campaign who are lying to California voters,” said Yes on 8 campaign manager Frank Schubert. “On one coast of the country they tell judges that gay marriage should be taught to children in school at the youngest possible age. But, on the opposite coast, here in California, they have the audacity to tell voters that gay marriage has nothing to do with public schools.”
A friend who watches such things, told me that a recent episode of the popular teen soap 90210 (the 2008 version), had a scene in which students were paired up, given fake babies, and told to take care of them. The liberal utopians in Hollywood paired up two straight male teens, told them they were a gay married couple, and designated one of them the "caretaker."

After reviewing the shows treatment of the couple, I'm not so sure it wasn't an inadvertent argument against gay marriage. Sure, the writers depicted the teacher as enlightened and the students as ignorant & chauvinist (the liberal stereotype of conservative men). But the two guys regarded each other with disgust, cared not at all for the assignment (their fake child), and ultimately failed, going their separate ways--hardly a successful gay couple w/child.

How did that one get past the editors/director/producers?

At it's core, conservatism and traditionalists and the religious defend marriage as being between a man and a woman because history has shown that it is the most successful way to raise a family and perpetuate a society and culture. Empirical data from Europe is just beginning to trickle in and it doesn't look good for gay couple-based families.

Even so, I can't prove, based on evidence, that gay marriage would ruin society. But I can't prove it in the same way that defense of marriage advocates couldn't prove that the loosening of divorce laws in the 60's--making "no fault" the rule--would erode marriage and lead to more single-parent homes. We reap what we've sown there with higher crime, drop-out, and illiteracy rates from those coming from these less-than-ideal homes.

Moreover, it is the burden of those who want to change the status quo to prove that at least, the change will not negatively impact society. This is an assertion they cannot prove. And further, their claim of this positive "right" does not outweigh the potential negative impact on our society and culture.

We did not start this so-called "culture war," but we will fight to defend and conserve traditional marriage, because history has proven its success.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Vote McCain: An Appeal To Fiscal Libertarians & Conservatives

I know you're out there, those of you who consider yourselves fiscal conservatives or libertarians, but who have somehow talked yourselves into voting for Barack Obama.

Many of you have persuaded yourselves that by electing a young black man as President, the nation will somehow have healed itself of the open wound of slavery and segregation.

This fantastical dream--for that's what it is--will come at an extremely high price, if, indeed, it ever does come.

Daniel Henninger puts its cost--America's transformation into a Western European-style socialist democracy--in very plain terms
.
[...]

I don't agree with the argument that an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government is a one-off, that good old nonideological American pragmatism will temper their ambitions. Not true. With this election, the U.S. is at a philosophical tipping point.

The goal of Sen. Obama and the modern, "progressive" Democratic Party is to move the U.S. in the direction of Western Europe, the so-called German model and its "social market economy." Under this notion, business is highly regulated, as it would be in the next Congress under Democratic House committee chairmen Markey, Frank and Waxman. Business is allowed to create "wealth" so long as its utility is not primarily to create new jobs or economic growth but to support a deep welfare system.

[...]

This would be a historic shift, one post-Vietnam Democrats have been trying to achieve since their failed fight with Ronald Reagan's "Cowboy Capitalism."

Of course Cowboy Capitalism built the country. More than any previous nation in history, the United States made its way forward on a 200-year wave of upwardly mobile, profit-seeking merchants, tradesmen, craftsmen and workers. They blew out of New England and New York, rolled across the wildernesses of the Central States, pushed across a tough Western frontier and banged into San Francisco and Los Angeles, leaving in their path city after city of vast wealth.

The U.S. emerged a superpower, and the tool of that ascent was simple -- the pursuit of economic growth. Now China, India and Brazil, embracing high-growth Cowboy Capitalism, are doing what we did, only their cities are bigger.

Now comes Barack Obama, standing at the head of a progressive Democratic Party, his right hand rising to say, "Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be for-profit cowboys. It's time to spread the wealth around."

What this implies, undeniably, is that the United States would move away from running with the high GDP, high-growth nations rising today as economic and political powers and move over to retire with the low-growth economies we displaced -- old Europe.

As noted in a 2006 World Bank report, spending in Europe on social-protection programs averages 19% of GDP (85% of it on social insurance programs), compared to 9% of GDP in the U.S. The Obama proposals send the U.S. inexorably and permanently toward European levels of social protection. This isn't an "agenda." It's a final temptation.

In partial detail:

Obama's federalized medical insurance system starts the transition away from private medical care and toward Obama's endlessly promised "universal health care." This has always been the sine qua non of planting a true, managed-market economy in the U.S.

Obama's refundable tax credits are direct cash transfers from the federal government. This would place some 48% of Americans, nearly half, out of the income tax system. More than a tax proposal, this is a deep philosophical shift, an American version of being "on the dole."

His stated intent to renegotiate free-trade agreements such as Nafta is a philosophical shift. It abandons the tradition of a hyper-competitive America dating back to the Industrial Revolution, toward a protected, domestic workforce, as in Western Europe. The Democratic proposal to eliminate private union votes -- "card check" -- ensures the spread of a static, Euro-style workforce.

Eliminating the ceiling on payroll taxes changes Social Security from an insurance to a welfare program. Obama's tax credits requires performing government-identified activities, the essence of a "directed economy."

All this would transform the animating American idea -- away from creation and toward protection.

Many voters -- progressive Democrats, the asset-safe rich, academics and college students -- regard this as where America should go. They explicitly want America's great natural energies transferred away from unwieldy economic competition and toward social construction. They want the U.S. to reduce its "footprint" in the world. Monies saved by stepping down from superpower status can be reprogrammed into "investments" (a favorite Obama word) in a vast Euro-style hammock of social protection programs.

(emphasis added)

If you are going to vote for Obama, you'd better be damned sure you understand what that vote means beyond "hope" & "change." It will be a transformational change for America, a transformation--described above by Henninger--for which few Obama voters realize they are voting.

It is not sustainable. Something, folks, has gotta give. I'll give you a clue--two clues, actually:
- cuts in defense spending AND
- higher taxes
In the case of Western Europe, they have been enjoying the public good provided by our defense and security for the last 50 years.

Because they didn't have to fund a military, they could afford to build vast welfare states. Even then, with no defense expenditures and with their aging populations, they are beginning to find themselves unable to fund all the promised entitlements. In the coming years, they will either have to pursue high growth, free market policies, or see their welfare state collapse in on itself.

We cannot make the same decision of butter over guns, because there isn't another one of U.S. to maintain the peace and security on which democracy in this world hinges. Someone has to be responsible and be the world's police and it will take a high growth country to do it, not another western european socialist democracy.

Let me repeat: We cannot turn ourselves into Western Europe because we cannot, as they have done, take a break from history and rely on some unseen ally to protect us. And we ought not follow Western Europe into an unsustainable welfare-state scenario.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Li'l Obama OR Treacher Is Awesome



Link.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Iowahawk On Urns & Balls

Let the wise-guy break down the complicated statistics of election polling for you. I promise, it will leaving you feeling optimistic about next Tuesday and make you laugh, at the end.
Statisticians love balls and urns. A typical Stats 101 midterm, for example, usually includes a question along these lines:

"You take a simple random sample of 1000 balls from an urn containing 120,000,000 red and blue balls, and your sample shows 450 red balls and 550 blue balls. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the true proportion of blue balls in the urn."

After choking back a giggle about "blue balls," you whip out your calculator and text your frat brother who has a copy of last semester's midterm.
Click here to continue reading.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

30 October 2008

Do Something: Get Out The Vote

In 2006, against the tide, I made calls via Skype using the RNC's web page with voter information for various important Senate seats. (Yeah, I know how that turned out, smart-A's.) Assuming I can find the link, I'll be doing a lot more of the same all weekend and into the next week.

[as below, click this link to make online calls]

If, like me, you'd prefer not to see America elect the most liberal-left President in modern history, with Pelosi controlling the House, and Reid the Senate, thereby enabling them to make us Canada Jr., how about a little GOTV?

(no offense to my Canadian readers)

We're close and closing. And anyway, nobody knows what to expect with the polls this year anyway. They were wildly inaccurate during the primaries and they've been all over the place the last few weeks.

I analyzed my analytics and discovered the Top 10 states visiting OL&L over the last year or so. I am in the process of getting info for McCain Victory 2008 campaign centers in the corresponding states. I'll get back to you with that when I can.

Whether you are in a Battleground state for McCain, California for Proposition 8, or Washington State for Dino Rossi, volunteer a little time and make some calls or pound the pavement and visit some Republicans & undecideds.

If you have information on GOTV efforts in your area, email me with the relevant details and I'll pass them along.

PUT JOHN McCAIN & SARAH PALIN IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
PASS PROPOSITION 8?
GET DINO ROSSI ELECTED?
MAINTAIN A FILIBUSTER IN THE SENATE?

YES WE CAN!!!!!1!!!

UPDATE 31 October 12:45pm BST:
A little research has revealed an interesting fact: During the primaries, Barack Obama performed, on average, 2.8 points worse than he polled in the 3 days leading up to the election.

Call this whatever you want, I call this hope we can believe in.

Also, be sure and check out the Iowahawk post I linked to earlier today. His explanation of the statistics behind polling should also provide a bit of optimistic comfort.

Finally, I don't know how I missed this before: For all those of you who, like me, can't get to a McCain camp calling center, for whatever reason, click here, to sign up to make calls online. Even if you can only do it for 15 mins--do it. Do it for 15 mins every day from now until the election.

For advice and more on how to successfully do this, check out Gabriel Malor's post at Ace.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

"Dear Mr. Obama" MUST WATCH

I first posted this back on 12 September. The BBC reports that since it first debuted the end of August, "Dear Mr. Obama" has become the YouTube video of the campaign.

With good reason. It is powerful. Watch it again and send it to your friends.




If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Isn't Obama, Like, The Awesomest Guy Ever?!

Earlier today I went on a bit of a rant (a thoughtful, caring one) about the mindless, emotion-based support of many Obama backers.

Reader Amanda B. emailed another, recent example, from one of her friends on Facebook.
After your last post, I thought you would get a kick out of this. Just another piece of evidence that Obama voters have no idea what is going on...

This is a recent note posted by a friend on facebook.

Best Quote EVER
"Lately, he's called me a socialist," said Obama. "I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he will be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten."
God I love Obama!!!! EVERYONE GET OUT AND VOTE IN THIS ELECTION!!!! ITS IMPORTANT!

She has either has no knowledge of Obama's past voting record [or] she has no idea what socialism is. I have a feeling it's a combination of both.
Yup. These are his supporters. Lots of un-ironic exclamation points.

If Obama says it, it must be true!!!!1!!one!!!


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

"Comprehensive Argument Against Barack Obama"

From Guy Benson, Mary Katherine Ham, and Ed Morissey, this guide is an absolutely must read. It is Barack Obama in his own words--contradicted & exposed by his own words.

I'll let them explain for themselves who they are:
Allow us to put our cards on the table at the outset: We are two young conservative journalists—both in our 20s. Unlike many of our peers, we are not swept up in Obamamania and would prefer John McCain to win the election. We’ve teamed up with seasoned blogger extraordinaire, Ed Morrissey, whose careful and thoughtful pursuit of the truth—even when it benefits his political opponents—is respected across the blogosphere. In that spirit, we are not at all interested in perpetuating lies, rumors, and innuendo about Barack Obama. Promoting such information does America a disservice, allows Obama’s supporters to justifiably cry “smear,” and damages our own credibility.

What follows is by no means comprehensive, but it does shed some much-needed light on a number of Obama’s positions, statements, and associations about which he has been less than honest. We’ve attempted to boil each issue down to a succinct explanation with an accompanying, brief video clip—often starring Barack Obama in his own words. Before pulling the lever for someone who hopes voters will ignore his paper-thin resume, unsavory associations, and hard-left voting record, each citizen has a duty to do his due diligence.

In short, we hope this “closing argument” is compelling and clear, and we encourage you to share this essay with undecided or wavering family members, friends, and co-workers.

Think my arguments against Obama are crap? Fine. Give these guys a read.

Every Presidential election is the most important election, you owe it to yourselves to give the other side one last chance to change your mind.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

"Manifesto Of The Silenced Majority"

From Director Blue, a great compilation, excerpt:
• We believe that Barack Obama is a brilliant orator and a man possessed of more charisma than any politician since JFK.
• But we also believe that his philosophy of "spreading the wealth around" is an ill-disguised form of socialism that undermines everything America holds dear.
Read it, re-think your vote for Obama.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Yes On Prop 8 - My Best Shot (Bumped, Re-Posted)

For the No on 8 folks, Gay Marriage isn't just a positive right they want enforced, it's a lifestyle they want normalized and accepted--by force, if necessary--by the rest of America. It's not enough to live and let live. It's about changing definitions and understandings and traditions and reshaping society and American culture.

Consider the latest back-and-forth between the Yes and No on 8 folks (h/t Branden B.):
The top issue that has emerged in the Proposition 8 campaign is whether same-sex marriage will be taught in California public schools if the initiative is not enacted. Opponents of Proposition 8 are spending millions of dollars on television commercials telling voters that the Yes on 8 campaign’s claim that gay marriage will be taught in public schools is a lie. Yet a review of public records filed with the First District Court of Appeal in Boston shows these same organizations who claim our statement is a lie fought to make it true in Massachusetts. Specifically, they fought to ensure that gay marriage be taught in Massachusetts public schools, even over the objection of parents who sought an “opt out” for their children. Gay marriage was legalized by Massachusetts courts in 2003.

Further, their assurance that parents can always “opt-out” of such instruction when it is taught is belied by the fact that in Massachusetts, they argued successfully that Massachusetts’ parental opt-out provision should not be permitted.

“These damning public records show that it is in fact the organizations leading and financing the No on 8 campaign who are lying to California voters,” said Yes on 8 campaign manager Frank Schubert. “On one coast of the country they tell judges that gay marriage should be taught to children in school at the youngest possible age. But, on the opposite coast, here in California, they have the audacity to tell voters that gay marriage has nothing to do with public schools.”
A friend who watches such things told me that a recent episode of the popular teen soap 90210 (the 2008 version) had a scene in which students were paired up, given fake babies, and told to take care of them. The liberal utopians in Hollywood paired up two straight male teens, told them they were a gay married couple, and designated one of them the "caretaker."

After reviewing the shows treatment of the couple, I'm not so sure it wasn't an inadvertent argument against gay marriage. Sure, the writers depicted the teacher as enlightened and the students as ignorant & chauvinist (the liberal stereotype of conservative men). But the two guys regarded each other with disgust, cared not at all for the assignment (their fake child), and ultimately failed, going their separate ways--hardly a successful gay couple w/child.

How did that one get past the editors/director/producers?

At it's core, conservatism and traditionalists and the religious defend marriage as being between a man and a woman because history has shown that it is the most successful way to raise a family and perpetuate a society and culture. Empirical data from Europe is just beginning to trickle in and it doesn't look good for gay couple-based families.

Even so, I can't prove, based on evidence, that gay marriage would ruin society. But I can't prove it in the same way that defense of marriage advocates couldn't prove that the loosening of divorce laws in the 60's--making "no fault" the rule--would erode marriage and lead to more single-parent homes. We reap what we've sown there with higher crime, drop-out, and illiteracy rates from those coming from these less-than-ideal homes.

Moreover, it is the burden of those who want to change the status quo to prove that at least, the change will not negatively impact society. This is an assertion they cannot prove. And further, their claim of this positive "right" does not outweigh the potential negative impact on our society and culture.

We did not start this so-called "culture war," but we will fight to defend and conserve traditional marriage, because history has proven its success.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Nobama: An Appeal To Reason

Among my friends who support Barack Obama, there are very few who can actually name or describe in any detail, his admittedly few policy prescriptions. In most cases, I know more about what he has said he would do than they do. For them, a vote for Obama, in addition to being a vote for "change" and "hope," is also a feel-good vote.

Thomas Sowell put it pretty well:
Telling a friend that the love of his life is a phony and dangerous is not likely to get him to change his mind. But it may cost you a friend.

It is much the same story with true believers in Barack Obama. They have made up their minds and not only don’t want to be confused by the facts, they resent being told the facts.

An e-mail from a reader mentioned trying to tell his sister why he was voting against Obama but, when he tried to argue some facts, she cut him short: “You don’t like him and I do!” she said. End of discussion.


When one thinks of all the men who have put their lives on the line in battle to defend and preserve this country, it is especially painful to think that there are people living in the safety and comfort of civilian life who cannot be bothered to find out the facts about candidates before voting to put the fate of this nation, and of generations yet to come, in the hands of someone chosen because they like his words or style.
Whether that feelgoodedness comes from the collective cool transferred to them by the Obama camp (another way Obama is a collectivist) or because they believe the hype and the rhetoric or perhaps even because they think electing Obama will somehow help America get past its history rather than Presidentializing a racial grievance monger--whatever reason they feel good about voting for Obama, my sense is that it's going to turn into a feel-bad outcome.

What little we know about Obama--his foul associations with racist, hate-monger Reverend Jeremiah Wright, commie-terrorist Bill Ayers, slum lord Tony Rezko--does not match his airy rhetoric and campaign promises.

Why should we believe a man who promises to cut taxes when, at every opportunity, he has voted to raise taxes or opposed tax cuts?

Why should be believe that a man has any respect for human life when he voted against protecting those babies who, against the odds, survived the abortion procedure and were born alive?

Why should we believe a man will successfully lead our armed forces and protect America when he has demonstrated that politics--winning an election!--is more important than winning a war?--A man who refuses to acknowledge the success of The Surge and would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

Why should we believe that Barack Obama will ever do anything that is unpopular politically for the good of his country, when all he has ever done is voted present?

Why should we believe that Obama will do anything to change the way government is run when, after receiving over $100,000 in campaign donations, he so willingly went along with the Fannie Mae train wreck, opposing any attempts at reform. If you believe Obama will change anything in Washington with respect to earmarks, corruption, kickbacks, etc., you are woefully mistaken.

We have no reason to believe--no rational, logical reason to assume--that Barack Obama will actually do what he has promised or be able to do what millions of people have hoped. Those who vote for Obama, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, cast aside all logic and reason and ensconce themselves in a willfully ignorant, padded room of feel-good platitudes.

Unless you are a far left liberal, then you may be pleased with what you will get.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

29 October 2008

Daily Snark: Compare & Contrast

From Ace:
John McCain: tortured by Communists

Barack Obama: tutored by Communists


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"I'm Feeling Lucky"

Bret Stephens latest column asks the crucial question, "Will Obama Gut Defense?" This is a very serious and important question.

Like so many other things with Obama, candid Barack says things that are very different what you hear from candidate Barack.
When it comes to defense, there are two Barack Obamas in this race. There is the candidate who insists, as he did last year in an article in Foreign Affairs, that "a strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace"; pledges to increase the size of our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines while providing them with "first-rate equipment, armor, incentives and training"; and seems to be as gung-ho for a surge in Afghanistan as he was opposed to the one in Iraq.

And then there is the candidate who early this year recorded an ad for Caucus for Priorities, a far-left outfit that wants to cut 15% of the Pentagon's budget in favor of "education, healthcare, job training, alternative energy development, world hunger [and] deficit reduction."

"Thanks so much for the Caucus for Priorities for the great work you've been doing," says Mr. Obama in the ad, before promising to "cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending . . . slow our development of future combat systems . . . not develop new nuclear weapons."

Joe Biden also cut an ad for the group that was even more emphatic: "I'll tell you what we cannot afford . . . a trillion-dollar commitment to 'Star Wars,' new nuclear weapons, a thousand-ship Navy, the F-22 Raptor."

Stephens puts it best, calling a vote for Obama the political equivalent of clicking on Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" search option.

Like Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what craptastic coconut & rum-filled chocolate you're going to get.


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"Free-Market Capitalism Will Save Us"

Not in the religious sense.

Steve Forbes's latest column on the causes of the credit crises and its historical ramifications is enlightening. Though I don't agree with everything he says, his characterization of the Great Depression and the lessons to be learned from past mistakes feels right. I particularly like this pasasge:
The Depression was actually triggered by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1929--30, which imposed massive taxes on countless imports. Other countries retaliated in kind. The global trading system collapsed. International capital flows dried up. The legislative history of Smoot-Hawley is instructive. When it first surfaced in Congress during the fall of 1929, the stock market cratered. When near the end of 1929 it appeared that Smoot-Hawley was being sidetracked, stocks rallied, ending the year almost where they had begun. But then in early 1930 Smoot-Hawley resurfaced, and stocks resumed their slide, which continued after Smoot-Hawley was signed into law that June. A devastating global contraction ensued.

Compounding that error was the U.S.' giant tax increase in 1932. President Herbert Hoover thought a balanced budget would restore confidence. The top income tax rate was raised from 25% to 63%. Hoover even legislated an excise tax on checks--you had to pay Uncle Sam a fee every time you wrote a check. Not surprisingly, strapped consumers withdrew massive amounts of cash from banks in order to conduct their business, which put even more stress on troubled banks. This check tax was one of the factors leading to the bank closures of 1933. The huge tax increase deepened the U.S. economic slump.

If not for the Depression, Hitler would never have come to power--the Nazis had carried only 2% of the vote in 1928.

It's impossible to separate the political from the economic. Protectionism and isolationism have already begun to rear their ugly heads--Obama's posturing on Nafta and other free trade agreements is just one example.

And, lest you think it's nothing more than airy campaign talk, bear in mind that trade unions are some of his biggest financial contributors and supporters. They would like nothing more than to kill Nafta and impose protectionist measures all in the name of, as Forbes puts it, "better" labor and environmental rules. This is entirely disingenuous.

Rather, expanding free-trade--revisiting Doha and continuing to pursue bi- and multi-lateral free trade agreements (Colombia, South Korea, Pacific Rim)--is the answer.

"Free-market capitalism will save us, if we let it."

(h/t Matt B.)


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"You Can Vote However You Like"



(h/t Shannon L., lots of people, thanks)


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Brief Defense Of Conservatism

One of the best defenses of conservatism comes, ironically, from the left. Joan Chevalier, essayist & speechwriter, writing in the Boston Globe:
According to The Huffington Post, Obama's lack of experience is immune from criticism because he attended Ivy League schools, "was a serious and successful student," is a well-traveled, published author, and has a diverse background. Heck, he's me!

Yet, in every one of my encounters with America's rural communities, the diversity of my privileged experience was eclipsed by the depth of theirs. I had rhetoric; they had well-measured speech, punctuated by forbearing silences. I had easy answers; they knew there was no such thing.

It is not that the Republican base is anti-intellectual, as David Broder claims; they are anti-elitist. An Ivy League education is hardly a universal signal of competence in anything other than the liberal cultural canon.

(emphasis added)

I agree.


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28 October 2008

Mark Steyn On Barack The Benign

From last Saturday's column.

This is why I don't want the U.S. to turn into just another European nation. Because their status quo is unsustainable. And because, when I look north, I see what happens when a North American country plays euro-wannabe.

Would that all conservative pundits stood strong (Parker, Noonan, Buckley) like Mark Steyn.
[...]

McCain vs Obama is not the choice many of us would have liked in an ideal world. But then it’s not an “ideal world”, and the belief that it can be made so is one of the things that separates those who think Obama will “heal the planet” and those of us who support McCain faute de mieux. I agree with Thomas Sowell that an Obama-Pelosi supermajority will mark what he calls “a point of no return”. It would not be, as some naysayers scoff, “Jimmy Carter’s second term”, but something far more transformative. The new president would front the fourth great wave of liberal annexation — the first being FDR’s New Deal, the second LBJ’s Great Society, and the third the incremental but remorseless cultural advance when Reagan conservatives began winning victories at the ballot box and liberals turned their attention to the other levers of the society, from grade school up. The terrorist educator William Ayers, Obama’s patron in Chicago, is an exemplar of the last model: forty years ago, he was in favor of blowing up public buildings; then he figured out it was easier to get inside and undermine them from within.

All three liberal waves have transformed American expectations of the state. The spirit of the age is: Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Why can’t the government sort out my health care? Why can’t they pick up my mortgage?

In his first inaugural address, Calvin Coolidge said: “I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.” That’s true in a more profound sense than he could have foreseen. In Europe, lavish social-democratic government has transformed citizens into eternal wards of the nanny state: the bureaucracy’s assumption of every adult responsibility has severed Continentals from the most basic survival impulse, to the point where unaffordable entitlements on shriveled birth rates have put a question mark over some of the oldest nation states on earth. A vote for an Obama-Pelosi-Barney Frank-ACORN supermajority is a vote for a Europeanized domestic policy that is, as the eco-types like to say, “unsustainable”.

More to the point, the only reason why Belgium has gotten away with being Belgium and Sweden Sweden and Germany Germany this long is because America’s America. The soft comfortable cocoon in which western Europe has dozed this last half-century is girded by cold hard American power. What happens when the last serious western nation votes for the same soothing beguiling siren song as its enervated allies?

“People of the world,” declared Senator Obama sonorously at his self-worship service in Germany, “look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.”
No, sorry. History proved no such thing. In the Cold War, the world did not stand as one. One half of Europe was a prison, and in the other half far too many people — the Barack Obamas of the day — were happy to go along with that division in perpetuity. And the wall came down not because “the world stood as one” but because a few courageous people stood against the conventional wisdom of the day. Had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan been like Helmut Schmidt and Francois Mitterand and Pierre Trudeau and Jimmy Carter, the Soviet empire (notwithstanding its own incompetence) would have survived and the wall would still be standing. Senator Obama’s feeble passivity will get you a big round of applause precisely because it’s the easy option: Do nothing but hold hands and sing the easy listening anthems of one-worldism, and the planet will heal.

To govern is to choose. And sometimes the choices are tough ones. When has Barack Obama chosen to take a stand? When he got along to get along with the Chicago machine? When he sat for 20 years in the pews of an ugly neo-segregationist race-baiting grievance-monger? When he voted to deny the surviving “fetuses” of botched abortions medical treatment? When in his short time in national politics he racked up the most liberal – ie, the most doctrinaire, the most orthodox, the most reflex — voting record in the Senate? Or when, on those many occasions the questions got complex and required a choice, he dodged it and voted merely “present”?

The world rarely stands as one. You can, as Reagan and Thatcher did, stand up. Or, like Obama voting “present”, you can stand down.

Nobody denies that, in promoting himself from “community organizer” to the world’s President-designate in nothing flat, he has shown an amazing and impressively ruthless single-mindedness. But the path of personal glory has been, in terms of policy and philosophy, the path of least resistance.

Peggy Noonan thinks a President Obama will be like the dog who chases the car and finally catches it: Now what? I think Obama will be content to be King Barack the Benign, Spreader of Wealth and Healer of Planets. His rise is, in many ways, testament to the persistence of the monarchical urge even in a two-century old republic. So the “Now what?” questions will be answered by others, beginning with the liberal supermajority in Congress. And as he has done all his life he will take the path of least resistance. An Obama Administration will pitch America toward EU domestic policy and UN foreign policy. Thomas Sowell is right: It would be a “point of no return”, the most explicit repudiation of the animating principles of America. For a vigilant republic of limited government and self-reliant citizens, it would be a Declaration of Dependence.
See also Pete Du Pont on the "Europeanization" of America and what an Obama presidency might look like.


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Steven Calabresi On Obama's Courts

Just how liberal-left would a new Obama administration be? How would his choices and decisions play themselves out on the Supreme Court and various Courts of Appeals? What will become of your whimsical, youthful, hipster vote for "change" & "hope?"

Calabresi provides a view of Obama's dystopia.
[...]

If Barack Obama wins the presidency, he will almost certainly fill those two vacant seats (on the DC Circuit Court), the seats of two older Clinton appointees who will retire, and most likely the seats of four older Reagan and George H.W. Bush appointees who may retire as well.

The net result is that the legal left will once again have a majority on the nation's most important regulatory court of appeals.

The balance will shift as well on almost all of the 12 other federal appeals courts. Nine of the 13 will probably swing to the left if Mr. Obama is elected (not counting the Ninth Circuit, which the left solidly controls today). Circuit majorities are likely at stake in this presidential election for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal. That includes the federal appeals courts for New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and virtually every other major center of finance in the country.

On the Supreme Court, six of the current nine justices will be 70 years old or older on January 20, 2009. There is a widespread expectation that the next president could make four appointments in just his first term, with maybe two more in a second term. Here too we are poised for heavy change.

These numbers ought to raise serious concern because of Mr. Obama's extreme left-wing views about the role of judges. He believes -- and he is quite open about this -- that judges ought to decide cases in light of the empathy they ought to feel for the little guy in any lawsuit.

Speaking in July 2007 at a conference of Planned Parenthood, he said: "[W]e need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

On this view, plaintiffs should usually win against defendants in civil cases; criminals in cases against the police; consumers, employees and stockholders in suits brought against corporations; and citizens in suits brought against the government. Empathy, not justice, [will be] to be the mission of the federal courts, and the redistribution of wealth should be their mantra.

In a Sept. 6, 2001, interview with Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ-FM, Mr. Obama noted that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society," and "to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical."

He also noted that the Court "didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted." That is to say, he noted that the U.S. Constitution as written is only a guarantee of negative liberties from government -- and not an entitlement to a right to welfare or economic justice.

This raises the question of whether Mr. Obama can in good faith take the presidential oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" as he must do if he is to take office. Does Mr. Obama support the Constitution as it is written, or does he support amendments to guarantee welfare? Is his provision of a "tax cut" to millions of Americans who currently pay no taxes merely a foreshadowing of constitutional rights to welfare, health care, Social Security, vacation time and the redistribution of wealth? Perhaps the candidate ought to be asked to answer these questions before the election rather than after.

Every new federal judge has been required by federal law to take an oath of office in which he swears that he will "administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich." Mr. Obama's emphasis on empathy in essence requires the appointment of judges committed in advance to violating this oath. To the traditional view of justice as a blindfolded person weighing legal claims fairly on a scale, he wants to tear the blindfold off, so the judge can rule for the party he empathizes with most.

The legal left wants Americans to imagine that the federal courts are very right-wing now, and that Mr. Obama will merely stem some great right-wing federal judicial tide. The reality is completely different. The federal courts hang in the balance, and it is the left which is poised to capture them.

A whole generation of Americans has come of age since the nation experienced the bad judicial appointments and foolish economic and regulatory policy of the Johnson and Carter administrations. If Mr. Obama wins we could possibly see any or all of the following: a federal constitutional right to welfare; a federal constitutional mandate of affirmative action wherever there are racial disparities, without regard to proof of discriminatory intent; a right for government-financed abortions through the third trimester of pregnancy; the abolition of capital punishment and the mass freeing of criminal defendants; ruinous shareholder suits against corporate officers and directors; and approval of huge punitive damage awards, like those imposed against tobacco companies, against many legitimate businesses such as those selling fattening food.

Nothing less than the very idea of liberty and the rule of law are at stake in this election. We should not let Mr. Obama replace justice with empathy in our nation's courtrooms.

(emphasis added)

My Obama-supporting friends insist that Obama isn't nearly this left-wing, that I should listen to what he has said during the campaign.


Since when has a campaign promise ever been an accurate indicator of an administration's policy preference?

Personally, I think the off-script, pre-election statements are the most revealing. These are the times--some of which Calabrisi highlights above--that reveal exactly what the candidate really believes, as opposed to what he's saying to get elected.

It's why I believe that Obama really is a the most liberal-left candidate since FDR. It's why I believe that he really does beleive in and would pursue redistributive policies. The naysayers say, well, he's only going to raise marginal tax rates 4%. If you believe that he can fund his entire policy wishlist and the credit crisis and everything else with a mere 4% raise of marginal rates, then you are an idiot.

This is why when Obama goes off-script and makes comments like the one to Joe the Plumber--that he wants to "spread the wealth around," I listen up. Because I know this is what he really believes, rather than what his campaign comms staff has told him to say to get elected.

Obama is not a euro-socialist just because he wants to raise taxes by 4%. He's a euro-socialist because he will give "tax refunds" to people who pay no taxes whatsoever. By whatever name Obama wants to call it, this is redistribution of income.

This is taking money from someone who has earned it and giving it to someone who has not. This makes people dependent on government and the all-powerful goodness of The One.

Just remember, Obamabots: Whatever The One gives, The One can just as easily take it away.


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Henninger On Palin

This column is why, when people ask what I read, I say, "Dan Henninger" and not "Peggy Noonan."

Apart from my history binge reading: Dan Henninger, Mark Steyn, Thomas Sowell, Ace, Jonah Goldberg, & Rich Lowry. These are my fav pundits.

Back to Henninger. He defends Palin the way I wish I could (because he's a great writer).
The abuse being heaped on Sarah Palin is such a cheap shot.

The complaint against the Alaska governor, at its most basic, is that she doesn't qualify for admission to the national political fraternity. Boy, that's rich. Behold the shabby frat house that says it's above her pay grade.

Congress has the lowest approval rating ever registered in the history of polling (12%!). She isn't the reason polls are showing people want the entire Congress fired, with many telling pollsters they themselves could do a better job.

Sarah Palin didn't design a system of presidential primaries whose length and cost ensures that only the most obsessional personalities will run the gauntlet, while a long list of effective governors don't run.

These rules have wasted the electorate's time the past three presidential elections, by filling the debates with such zero-support candidates as Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Al Sharpton, Duncan Hunter, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden (8,000 total votes), Wesley Clark and Alan Keyes.

Out of this process has fallen a Democratic nominee who entered the U.S. Senate in 2005 fresh off a stint in the Illinois state legislature, with next to no record of political accomplishment. He may be elected mainly because, in Colin Powell's word, he is thought to be "transformational." One may hope so.

By not bothering to look very deeply at the details beneath either candidate's governing proposals, the media have created a lot of downtime to take free kicks at Gov. Palin. My former colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has compiled a glossary of Palin invective, and I've added a few: "Republican blow-up doll," "idiot," "Christian Stepford wife," "Jesus freak," "Caribou Barbie," "a dope," "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party," "liar," "a national disgrace" and "her pretense that she is a woman."

If American politics is at low ebb, it is because so many of its observers enjoy working in its fetid backwash.

The primary discomfort with Gov. Palin is the notion that she doesn't have sufficient experience to be president, that Sen. McCain should have picked a Washington hand seasoned in the ways of the world. Such as? Here's an opinion poll question:

If as Joe Biden suggests the U.S. is likely to be tested by a foreign enemy next year, who of the following would you rather have dealing with it in the Oval Office: Nancy (of Damascus) Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Edwards, Joe (the U.S. drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon) Biden, Mike Huckabee, Geraldine Ferraro, Tom DeLay, Jimmy Carter or Sarah Palin?

My pick? Gov. Palin, surely the most grounded, common-sense person on that list of prime-time politicians.

[...]

The quick surge of party-wide excitement and campaign contributions after his selection of Sarah Palin made clear that the McCain candidacy was moribund and headed for a low-turnout debacle. If he had picked any of the plain-vanilla men on his veep short list -- Pawlenty, Sanford, Romney or Lieberman -- they'd have won approval from the media's college of cardinals, and killed his campaign.

The stoning of Sarah Palin has exposed enough cultural fissures in American politics to occupy strategists full-time until 2012. We now see there is a left-to-right elite centered in New York, Washington, Hollywood and Silicon Valley who hand down judgments of the nation's mortals from their perch atop the Bell Curve.

It seems only yesterday that the most critical skill in presidential politics was being able to connect to people in places like Bronko's bar or Saddleback Church. When Gov. Palin showed she excelled at that, the goal posts suddenly moved and the new game was being able to talk the talk in London, Paris, Tehran or Moscow. She looks about a half-step behind Sen. Obama on that learning curve.

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of "Saturday Night Live," lives on the forward wave of American life. This week he gave his view of Sarah Palin to EW.com: "I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she's powerful. Her politics aren't my politics. But you can see that she's a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she's had a huge impact. People connect to her."

Uh-oh. Sounds like the cancer could be in remission.

(per usual, emphasis added)

There is no problem with conservatism. Maybe the Republican party. But not conservatism. This country remains center-right in its political orientation. The reason McCain has done so well is because Palin energized so many people--and all of this despite Democrats' massive home-court advantage (Bush, Iraq, Ted Stevens, the credit crisis, I'm sure I'm forgetting something).

This country is looking for some excuse--any excuse would do--to vote for someone other than Barack Obama. I respect John McCain and certainly honor his service, but heaven knows I've had my problems with him as a Presidential candidate.

Above all else, a loss by McCain should not be viewed as a repudiation of conservatism or Sarah Palin. The opposite is true. Conservatism is still favored by a majority in this country (if not "Republicanism") and, excepting the media, Angry Left, and political elites, loves Sarah Palin.

That is to say, average Joes like Sarah Palin.


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Orson Scott Card On Media Bias

As the article states, Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and from Richland--a town that neighbors my hometown of Kennewick, Washington.

When even the Democrats see the damage done by an in-the-tank media, you know there's a problem. From the article:
Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.
Rather than seeking the truth about Bill Ayers, the media ignored it, leaving it to the McCain campaign to do the heavy lifting and the perception that anything they uncovered was somehow less than true. Ditto Rezko, Wright, and everyone else.

Not only does the MSM write stories favorable to Obama, they avoid writing ones that might cast him in a bad light. Like the fact that his campaign disabled the credit card verification software enabling the website to accept donations from people whose personal information did not match the credit card. This is Barack Obama-style grassroots organizing. This way, Obama can take donations multiple times from some people and it's also why he's gotten donations from China and the Middle East.

That's just one of the latest examples.

You could also consider the fact that when the blogosphere digs up a quote where Obama, again, endorses redistribution of income, "spreading the wealth"--flat out marxism--for the second time in a week, the MSM "factcheckers" defend him, so he doesn't have to.

You know, because the $750million he raised from his "grassroots" donors in China just wasn't enough.

The media has provided him with millions of dollars of free advertising.

This kind of thing should make you sick.

(h/t lots of people, thanks)


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Prop 8 Video



(Thanks to Fernando M.)


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Responses to Krauthammer (UPDATED)

Yesterday's post--dominated by Krauthammer--which discussed the state of conservatism, prompted a number of good responses from readers, two of which I will post here.

First, Matt P. wrote about McCain and doing his job as Senator from the state of Arizona:
The Charles Krauthammer article that you posted reminded me of a conversation that I had recently about "McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago." The fascinating point that I never heard was about what McCain actually did... his job. He is not being paid by the American taxpayer to campaign for the presidency of the United States. He is being paid to represent the citizens of Arizona as a member of the U.S. Senate. If I decided that I wanted to interview and schmooze for a position on a board of directors somewhere, you better bet that I'm either taking vacation time, doing it outside of work hours or not getting paid for it. You can debate about how productive his time was while he was in DC for the matter, but you cannot dispute the fact that his paycheck shows that he was where should have been.
Careful, Matt P., with those crazy ideas of yours--that politicians should actually do the job for which they are paid.

Meanwhile, Matt B. "gets it":
If the GOP even thinks about hanging a McCain lost election around Palin's neck I am officially renouncing my membership and $ from the GOP and going independent. I cant stand these stories about McCain staffers who are infected with Potomac Fever complaining about Palin going off script and possibly costing McCain the election. Let her go off script, she clearly had to "wing it" at the convention and it was one of the most powerful and invigorating speeches I have ever seen and millions went into the GOP war chest in the days following. The whole reason they didnt call the election for Obama 3 months ago is because of Palin. She has rallied the base and alot of people (real americans) identify with her or want to identify her.
It's one thing to lose an election, it's a whole other thing to draw the wrong conclusions from that loss.

If McCain loses, Palin won't be the reason. Like I said yesterday and Matt B. explains clearly above, McCain wouldn't even have a chance without Sarah Palin. People who argue otherwise either a) don't get how elections are won or 2) are trying to cover themselves.

Sarah Palin motivates the base to vote and GOTV. W/o Palin, those people probably stay home. This is more than half of the battle. The other part is either persuading enough "independents" to put you over the top or depressing the other side.

I'm not going to join the MSM chorus declaring the election for Barack Obama because I've counted out John McCain in the past and been proven wrong. This election is still close enough (especially in the battleground states) that if the national trackers close to within 3 points, McCain will have an honest to goodness shot at pulling this thing out.

Plus, no one really has any idea what's really going on with the polls. They're all over the place and they're accounting for all sorts of supposedly new trends. Democrats are telling us, yet again, that this is the year young voters actually turn out to vote. We'll see. I've been hearing that as long as I've been following Presidential elections ("This is the year young Americans make themselves heard!!!1!!").

I don't want to say that I doubt the Obama hipsters, because that would make me cynical about young Americans, but, well, I doubt the hipsters.

Just about anything could happen in this election--Obama landslide, McCain landslide, close win either way, endless litigation of results in several battleground states--and I wouldn't be surprised.

UPDATE 2:49pm BST: Ben T. responds:
Don't you think McCain would have done far better picking Lieberman? The man he really wanted on his ticket? Yes, Palin rallied the base. But to be honest with you it is a base that is increasingly irrelevant. In an age where the middle majority are tired of partisanship, having a split ticket would have gone a long way. Not sure how it would have affected financing or GOTV efforts, but it would have been huge for middle voters.
I don't think McCain would have done better picking Lieberman because I don't think the Republican base would have voted for them. John McCain is already far and away more "centrist" than Barack Obama. Adding Joe Lieberman would have made it a center-left ticket--what Obama and Biden claim to be. The base would have stayed home and Obama's current 5-7 point national advantage would be in the double digits.


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27 October 2008

Krauthammer: The Conservative Case For John McCain

I'll take Krauthammer over Hitchens, Adelman, Powell, or Buckley (Chris) any day.
Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.

McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.

McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?

And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.

The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.

Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.

If McCain loses, I will blame his handling of the campaign, rather than his ideology (conservative), for the loss. One of the things that frustrated me the most was his me-too economic populism on the credit crisis when I thought there was a clear opportunity to strike a Reagan-like note on the power of free markets.

If McCain loses, it won't be because he has been too conservative, as some have alleged. The only example they can point to is his overt over-conservativeness in choosing Palin. You know what? She's just the VP. Presidential candidates have always chosen VPs for their perceived electoral advantages.

Let me lay some more truth on you: If it weren't for Palin, things wouldn't be even this close. Bush won in 2000 and especially in 2004 because he got his base to vote. If McCain has any shot at winning in 2008, it will be because Palin got the conservatives out to vote.

Don't buy the tripe that Palin is the reason McCain is behind or may lose the election. It's just not true.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

26 October 2008

"Some Things Are More Important Than The Economy"

Many soldiers who have fought in Iraq and many parents of soldiers who have died in Iraq fear that if Obama is elected, he will follow through on repeated campaign promises to immediately exit Iraq, leaving it to al Qaeda , whom we've already beaten, and making the loss of so many American lives worth nothing.

Byron York reports on meeting a person from each of these groups--a soldier and a parent of a fallen Marine.

Warning: This article is powerful and compelling. You must read it.
At John McCain’s rallies these days, the talk is of taxes and Joe the Plumber and the financial crisis and mortgage relief and an end to wasteful federal spending. Those are all perfectly fine things for a campaign to emphasize; polls show voters of all stripes are overwhelmingly concerned about the economy. But at McCain’s events, you’ll also find people who’ve come for another reason, one that is slipping in the polls of voters’ concerns but is deeply personal to them: the war in Iraq.

“I just gave John McCain my Purple Heart,” Marine Sgt. Jack Eubanks told me a few minutes after McCain finished a speech at a campaign rally in Woodbridge, Virginia Saturday. “I said, ‘I want to give this to you, sir, as a reminder that we want you to keep your promise to bring us home in victory and honor, so it will mean something.’"

“We fought over there, and we want it to mean something,” Eubanks continued. “We don’t want to come back and it just be all for nothing.”

Eubanks, 22 years old, knows as much about the war as anyone. On October 3, 2005, he was in a Humvee on patrol near the Syrian border when an IED went off. “I was thrown from the vehicle, took some shrapnel, landed on my spine and mashed it up a little bit,” Eubanks told me in a remarkably good-humored way. He was injured much more than just a little; it took him eleven months to recover. And then — then he volunteered to go back. In August 2007, he was hurt again in a strangely similar way. “Hit by a mortar, thrown from a vehicle — the same situation,” Eubanks told me. Now, he’s teaching recruits at Marine Corps Base Quantico — and walking with a cane.

These days, as he ponders the war and the meaning it has for him — he says he saw remarkable progress in Iraq between his 2005 and 2007 tours — Eubanks’s overwhelming fear is that it might all be for naught. “I thin
k Obama’s just going to pull everyone home as soon as he can, despite what’s going on over there,” he told me. “I just don’t want it to turn into another Vietnam or worse where everything we fought for, and all my buddies who died over there, it was just for nothing.” Eubanks believes McCain — he called McCain “so inspiring” and said he was in awe of the senator during their brief meeting — will prevent that from happening.

As I talked to Eubanks, just a few feet away a conversation — well, a pretty loud exchange of views — was wrapping up. It involved the now-famous Tito the Builder, who I wrote about a few days ago, and reporters who questioned Tito’s fervent support for McCain. Near the end of the conversation, a tall man joined in. “Obama’s not interested in change for the United States,” the man said. “He’s interested in himself.”

The subject of Iraq came up. “We are winning!” said Tito. “We are winning!”

“My son was over there,” the man added. “And all these guys came back and said the media was causing the hype that we were losing that war, and that was not true.” More debate followed.

Finally, the talk wound down, and the tall man walked away. I walked over and asked his name. He was Greg Medina, and he lived nearby in Woodbridge. His son had been to Iraq? “He was with 1/3,” Medina said, referring to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.

“We buried him two years to the day after he graduated from boot camp.”

Medina told me the story of his son, Brian, who was killed after being in Iraq less than two months, shot to death on November 12, 2004 in fierce house-to-house fighting in Fallujah. The day it happened, Greg had slept badly and had a vague and awful premonition in the hours before Marine officers knocked on his door to deliver the news. Brian was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Now, Medina, who himself served 20 years in the Navy, is filled with the dread that his son’s death will have no meaning. “My fear is that if Obama gets elected, everybody who went over there and died, died in vain because he’s just going to drag this country through the mud,” Medina told me. He knew that sounded a little harsh, so he added, “That’s my opinion.” And then he said: “Whoever wins, I wish them luck, obviously, because I live in this country, and I don’t want to see anything bad happen.”

Talking to Medina brought back a conversation I had with McCain back in October 2007 as we rode around Iowa in a campaign van. McCain was talking about how badly the Bush administration had mismanaged the war. “The thing that makes you almost cry is that one of the battles that will rank among the most courageous the Marines have ever fought is the battle of Fallujah,” McCain told me. “They lost 86 guys and several hundred wounded in the most bitter kind of house-to-house fighting. And you know what happened then? They left. They left. After sacrificing 86 of those brave young 19- and 20-year-olds, they left. I mean, it’s unconscionable.”

Brian Medina was one of those 20-year-olds killed in that fighting. Less than a year later, Jack Eubanks was blown out of his Humvee. Now, Eubanks and Greg Medina are counting on John McCain to keep his promise, should he become commander-in-chief. Some things are more important than the economy.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

College Blog Competition

No, not an announcement that I'm in one. Rather, this is an announcement for all those of you who would like to enter.

Last year I did the AFF blog contest thing and maybe got 4th place. They've improved things this year, after I harassed them about it, and will now provide feedback, in addition to the cash money awarded to the winners. A welcome change.

Reader Fernando M. pointed out another blog competition, open to all those of you attending higher ed in the U.S. This one is sponsored by College Scholarships.org. Apply, and if you make it, let me know so I can link to you and help you win. Might as well be one of my readers.

Good luck.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

25 October 2008

Voter Fraud (UPDATED)

A few years ago, someone I know voted more than once at BYU's Battle of the Bands competition. This person's friend was in the running and was, going into the comp, one of the top 2 or 3 bands. As it turned out, the band won the competition by less than the number of additional, fraudulent, votes made by the friend-of-the-band.

That's bad.

But it's also just another stupid battle of the bands competition at one of thousands of universities across the country. It didn't have anything to do with the single most important office on the face of the earth.

In the name of, something, liberal "community organizing" groups like ACORN sign up literally tens of thousands of imaginary voters in order to create as much confusion as possible surrounding the actual vote. Why? So they can push through as many fraudulent votes as they possibly can, so they can game the system the way the 'friend-of-the-band' did at BYU and make sure their "friend," Barack Obama, wins.

It's happening in Ohio.

It's happening in Seattle. (it worked the last time around when Chris Gregoire beat Dino Rossi after the 3rd recount and inclusion of literally thousands of additional votes which were "found" after the fact. yeah.)

It's happening in Pennsylvania.

Even ACORN's own internal review shows "irregularities."

A loss in two weeks will be a hell of a lot easier to take if it isn't a result of Democratic litigation and the inclusion of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent ACORN votes.

Remember: Wanting your guy to win does not justify breaking the law, gaming the system, and negating legitimate voters' right to elect their leaders.

UPDATE 3:31pm BDT: I almost forgot: They signed up a bunch of convicts in Virginia, too


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

24 October 2008

Guy Who Said Iraq Would Be A 'Cakewalk' Endorses Obama

I catch hell from my anti-Iraq war, liberal progressive friends all the time (or at least I used to, until The Surge became such a wild success) about the supposed statement that the war would be a "cakewalk," etc. They would smugly point out that it has been anything but.

So anyway, the guy who actually made that infamous statement--not Bush, not Cheney, not McCain--KEN ADELMAN, just announced that he's supporting Barack Obama.

Now that he's for Obama, all is forgiven. Whatever.

(h/t Ace)


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

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