McCain, ANWR, and the Grand Canyon
by Burt Noyes
John McCain has said he will not let drilling for oil start in the
Alaska National Wildlife Refuge because of it's pristine beauty: "As
far as ANWR is concerned, I don’t want to drill in the Grand Canyon,
and I don’t want to drill in the Everglades. This is one of the most
pristine and beautiful parts of the world."
The "pristine beauty" part depends on what part of ANWR you are talking
about. Pictured below is part of the coastal area that has been
reserved for oil drilling. Of course, the environmentalist wackos
have successfully blocked our country from drilling there and achieving
any kind of energy independence.
 
The following pictures (from other parts of ANWR) are what
environmentalists show the simple-minded people, like John McCain, when
trying to convince them of the damage and loss of habitat that will
occur when drilling eventually commences in ANWR:
As far as comparisons with the Grand Canyon, ANWR
gets under 2,000 visitors annually. Why? "For most of the year,
ANWR is unbearably cold and dark. For several weeks, the sun doesn't
even rise and leaves the windswept landscape a very inhospitable
environment. Only a few hundred people visit ANWR each year."
But the Grand Canyon, pictured below, gets an
astounding 5 million visitors annually. I guess that our
country's energy independence and national security will have to be set
aside so that John McCain and the Marxist environmentalists can have
their pristine ANWR that they never will visit.
|
One of many reasons I can't
vote for McCain
by Burt Noyes
 The chart below shows the
global temperature trend for the last 20
years. This is not just for the U.S. or the Arctic Circle, but
for the entire earth from the surface to 8 miles altitude.
Clearly, human activity and the use of carbon-emitting fossil fuels is
not contributing to global warming, since we put increasing amounts
of
carbon into the atmosphere each year and the temperature trend is
definitely downward since the peak of 1997. The Mt. Pinatubo
eruption in June of 1991 demonstrates the natural forces control our
climate, not man.
McCain is a fool to pander to the Marxist environmentalists who would
curb our energy use and subsequent economic growth through the
'cap-and-trade' legislation for a few votes. The goal of these
left-wing extremists is to bring America to it's knees and allow
international bodies like the UN to exert more control over our country
through worldwide policing of energy usage and carbon emissions.
We already have had encroachments on our personal liberty and freedoms
with the recent nationwide law that will ban incandescent light bulbs
by 2014.
A McCain presidency will marginalize the conservative movement and push
our country even further along the road to fascism.
|
 How Abraham Lincoln saved the Union but
destroyed America
There's a funny line in
the movies: "The operation was a success but the patient died".
Abraham Lincoln is often
considered the greatest president
because he "saved the Union", that is, he kept the southern states from
successfully seceding and forming their own Confederate government,
and he "freed the slaves" by signing the Emancipation Proclamation in
1863. But the political aftermath would do far more damage to
America than the Civil War had ever done.
To understand the struggle between the North and South, we have
to look at how both sides viewed the Federal government and States'
rights. Remember that in 1860 the United States of America,
commonly called "the Union" in those days, was only 84 years old.
Most of the key political figures had parents who lived during the time
of the American revolution, so the concept of "the Union" and a
centralized Federal government as a permanent political structure was
not as prevalent as it is today.
The dominant view in the North, which Lincoln shared, was
that the states who had entered into the Union at the time of the
Revolutionary War were bound to stay in the Union, by military force if
necessary, and could not withdraw or secede from the Union.
The Southern states viewed their participation in the Union as
voluntary and that secession was their right if the Federal government
over-stepped it's Constitutional powers and encroached on the States'
rights to self-rule.
In fact, the key issue in the presidential election which
Lincoln won was not whether the South should give up slavery, but
whether the Federal government could outlaw slavery in new states that
were entering the Union. The Southern states felt that giving the
Federal government this kind of power would weaken their own right to
decide whether they would be slave states or free states.
As for Lincoln, he had made it clear during the election that
although he was against slavery he would not use the Federal government
to eliminate slavery in the South and would let slavery, which was
already declining, die naturally due to free market forces.
Economic power was also at stake in the North/South
divide. Contrary to what most history classes teach, the Panic of
1857 had devastated the Northern economy which was based on
manufacturing
and banking, while the Southern states, whose economy was primarily
based on agriculture, were virtually untouched by the economic crisis
gripping the North.
If the Southern states, which had the advantage of goods to
export and good shipping facilities, withdrew from the Union and
established free trade internationally it would further decimate the
North financially.
To prevent this from happening, the Federal government used it's
military forces to control the trade of the South, imposing taxes on
cotton and tariffs on exports, leading to further
division. The first battle of the Civil War, the attack on Union
forces at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, was in response to
this kind of meddling in free trade by the Federal government.
The day after the Confederate forces captured Fort Sumter,
Lincoln called up 75,000
militiamen from the states to suppress the Southern rebellion.
The conflict between North and South was now a full-fledged
civil war. By the time the Union won the war four years later, more
than 620,000 soldiers died in combat during the four-year war, while
over a million more died from disease.
How the Civil War changed
America
The political consequences of the war were enormous. By
virtue of it's victory, the Union had stopped the secession of the
Confederacy and gave the Federal government much more power over the
States.
That Federal power kept growing and continues to grow to this
day,
threatening the freedoms and liberties that the founders of our country
sought to guarantee to all citizens in the Constitution. America
now borders on becoming a Socialist state with the Federal government
now in charge of the well-being of over half the population through
it's entitlement programs like Welfare, Social Security, Medicaid and
Medicaire, the Prescription Drug Program, and Earned Income
Credits. The near future probably includes universal health care
insurance and child-care programs that will place all children in
government-run day cares from infancy and continue to indoctrinate them
through graduation from high school and even into college.
The economic landscape also changed dramatically. The
Northern states manufacturing based economy became dominant and the
industrial revolution accelerated beyond anyone's imagination. As
in most wars, research, development, and technology were instrumental
in victory and now in the following peace time those talents were
turned towards the market place and the expansion of America to the
west.
Agricultural production started to shift away from the South and
into the new states in the mid-west. New railroads made transporting
agricultural and manufactured products easier and led to greater
integration of the economies of the North, South, and West. As
modern machinery entered the workplace and labor unions formed, people
worked less hours and now turned their attention to education and
leisure activities.
The social structure of America also changed forever after the
Civil War. The most obvious change was the newly granted freedom
to millions of slaves who could now vote, own land, start businesses,
and hold political office. Although it was easy to legislate
freedom, changing the way whites and blacks in America viewed each
other would take another hundred and forty years of hard work and
tolerance.
A subtle but dangerous change in our country also occurred as a
result of the Union victory in the Civil War. As noted, Lincoln
felt it was not the government's role to force and end to slavery, and
that the free market would accomplish that eventually.
But now the government has become a vehicle for social
change. Instead of individuals using education, the free market,
and dialogue to elevate people from poverty and correct injustice, the
government was now viewed as the instrument of change, whether it
was addressing racial injustice, saving the whales, stopping global
warming, access to
abortion, fighting AIDS, or the war on drugs.
Today America is at a political cross-roads as unlike any time
since the election of 1860. We can choose to follow the liberals
into a totally socialistic state like those found in Europe or we can
fight for the conservative values of individual freedom and liberty
with less government interference in our lives.
The choice is ours, for now.
Suggested reading...
Abraham
Lincoln: Tyrant, Hypocrite, or Consummate Statesman?
Causes of the
Civil War: A North Georgia Perspective
Causes
of
the Civil War
Top
Five causes of the Civil War
Civil War Facts
The
Panic of 1857
|
"Race"ing to the White House in 2008
The most deeply
ingrained human flaw is racism, and it is on full display this week in
the Democrat Party. The intramural
race war that has been brewing in the left wing of American
politics is finally an open conflagration exposing the hypocrisy of the
liberal mindset.
As white liberals were trying to assuage their guilt by
seeking absolution from the new messiah of the left, Barack Obama, the
masters of the Democrat plantation were busy changing the locks on the
doors of the mansion.
The timing of Geraldine Ferraro's remarks on Obama's lack of
substance and being the recipient of political affirmative action
nicely coincided with the surfacing of videos in which Obama's pastor
goes into a series of anti-American rants complete with the paranoid
conspiracy theories that pass as left wing intellectualism. As
Ferraro fell on her political sword, handily provided by Hillary
herself, Obama was forced to "denounce", in relative terms, the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright.
Obama's effort to heal the racial divide in America started out
with an attack on the founding fathers, the Constitution, the
conservatives, and even a dead guy who couldn't speak up for himself,
Ronald Reagan. He explained the anger smoldering under the brush
in the black community, a rage that white America doesn't see because
it manifests itself in the barber shops and churches of the black
community.
He used the classical liberal ploys of generalizing groups of
people as victims instead of seeing them as individuals, speaking of
the "black experience", saying that the white guys will vote for
McCain, and drumming up class envy among his followers by attacking
corporate America.
Saying that there is a black experience is like saying that
there is a white experience. Is the white experience defined by
the experience of a boy raised in the Appalachians, or is it the
experience of a girl raised in southern California? Maybe it's
the experience of a Pearl Harbor survivor, or a lobster fishermen in
Maine, or a steel worker in New Orleans.
And I can guarantee you that I am one white guy who won't be
voting for McCain.
Corporate America has done more for lower to middle class
Americans than any liberal Democrat entitlement program ever has.
By providing jobs and low-cost goods, Walmart has raised the standard
of living for millions of people despite the sabotage of liberals in
government. Drug companies have developed life-saving
medications, extending the lives of even the poorest; computer giants
have made education more accessible than ever; and car companies have
made cars that last longer, are more reliable and made financing them
easier than ever. Mortgage companies made credit easier to attain
and gave millions of high-risk individuals a chance to build equity and
wealth through home ownership and break the cycle of poverty that they
grew up in.
Obama wasn't building bridges in his speech Tuesday, he was
rallying his liberal base by digging an even deeper and wider gulf
between the two Americas. By poking at the raw nerve of racial
tension, he elevated himself into the pantheon of black leaders in
America, but did not make himself an American leader.
Obama's speech will remind his supporters that liberals
judge them not by the "content of their character", but by the color of
their skin. Prejudices lying dormant in the hysteria of
Obama-mania will surface once again, which gives the Democrats the
perpetual victims they need to prop up as evidence that America is
still stuck in the 20th century.
And Hillary will be laughing all the way to the White House.
|
Anti-homeschoolers really attacking
Christianity
The upoar created by the
ruling in California's state court last week that a home schooling
family must enroll their children in a government run public school was
not just an attack on homeschoolers, but an attack on the Christianity.
The majority of homeschoolers in the US are conservative
Christian families that want to give their children an education that
incorporates the Christian values and worldview held by their parents.
At the same time, such parents are also seeking to protect their
children from the indoctrination of rot-gut secularism and moral
relativism that is the prevailing religion taught in the public
schools. Left-wing propaganda from fascists, homosexual activists,
evolutionists, multi-culturalists, and global warming alarmists pervade
government schools and undermine human dignity, freedom of thought and
speech, and the American culture.
With a favorable teacher-to-student ratio, it's not surprising
that homeschooled children excel academically, routinely getting above
average SAT scores, and winning a disproportionate number of national
geography and spelling bees.
Results like this not only demonstrate the superiority of
homeschooling over public education, but also the superiority of
Christian-based education over secularism, moral relativism, and
political correctness. The teacher's unions, which operate as a
government sponsored monopoly, are understandably threatened by the
success of homeschoolers and are seeking to eliminate the competition
by bringing suits against homeschoolers, voucher programs, and private
schools.
Children raised in the homeschooling environment are also not
exposed to the rampant socialism and fascism that is part of the public
education curriculum. One of the goals of public education is to
create a class of citizens who are dependent on the government for
food, health care, education, jobs, and a sense of self-worth.
If liberals like Hillary Clinton get their way, the government
will basically be in charge of raising each child from infancy through
adulthood. The State wants to assume the role of the parents, and
homeschoolers stand in the way of the nanny state from taking over.
It's no surprise then that the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nazi
Germany, all of which were hostile to Christians, banned homeschooling.
Christian conservatives must continue to fight politically for
the God-given rights of all people by fighting for their own rights
first.
|
 Monica Lewinsky, Next Secretary of State?
Recently, Hillary Clinton
has gotten a lot of attention for her "red phone" advertisement, in
which she implies that if the "red phone" rang in the middle of the
night, she has the lifetime of
experience to handle that responsibility.
She mocks Obama's lack of such experience and previews the
potential downside in a debate with McCain.
But what does
Hillary's
lifetime of experience really amount to? Basically her main
qualification that she be the next president is that she has spent the
last 30 years riding Bill's coattails and "being there" in the White
House for eight years.
Since being the wife
of the president is Hillary's main
qualification to be the next president, then wouldn't Monica Lewinsky
then be qualified to be the next Secretary of State? After all,
she was by his side in the Oval Office as he conducted the serious
business of running our country and it's foreign and domestic
"affairs", to use the term loosely.
But in reality, Monica is probably owed a large debt of
gratitude by the American public. She kept Bill so busy that he
couldn't really meddle in the affairs of governance and public policy,
thus keeping his hands off our economy both literally and figuratively.
With Bill distracted by his sexual exploits and resulting
scandal, the last years of his presidency were remarkably
"unremarkable", producing very few foreign and domestic accomplishments.
As conservatives know, a grid-locked government is the second
best thing that can happen to an economy, and there was a mini-boom in
Bill Clinton's last term. For her service to our country, Lewinsky
should at the least receive the Medal of Freedom.
Or maybe she could serve as Treasury Secretary in the next
administration in keeping with her penchant for economic policy and
growth.
|
 The Next Step in the Race
Mike Huckabee's
concession speech, which you can view below, was delivered with the
class and graciousness that has been the hallmark of his campaign.
Mike Huckabee has
rekindled the conservative movement but has also exposed how far to the
left the Republican party has moved by it's nomination of McCain.
Although conservatives can't stomach the thought of a liberal
Clinton or Obama presidency, we cannot continue the incremental move to
the left that is breaking up the Reagan coalition and support a liberal
Republican nominee that has no guiding conservative principles.
McCain will only continue to tear down our constitutional rights,
betray our moral highground, and dampen our free market system with
tighter government regulation.
With no foundational conservative principles, McCain's
presidency will be blown about by the political winds of Washington
like a ship with no rudder headed by a captain with no compass.
We understand Mike's position in his consession speech, as he
tries to be the healer instead of the divider. Governor Huckabee
has a great future in the Republican party and can continue to serve as
a desperately needed voice for the conservative movement on a national
scale. Mike's stand on traditional values and the FairTax will
serve the country well for years to come.
But as conservative voters, we need to band together in a
national movement that looks well beyond this November and to future
elections on the local, state, and national level.
The first step has to be a Mike Huckabee write-in campaign, and
that is well under way. We have about 1,900 people already
committed, and there are thousands more who will be writing in
Huckabee's name on the ballot when November 4 rolls around.
We need people around the country to check with their local
authorities and get directions for writing in Huckabee's name on the
ballot. With the advent of electronic ballots and scanning
machines, the process may vary county by county.
We will post directions on this website for writing in Huckabee
at the toll booths as we get feedback from voters around the country.
God bless Mike Huckabee and his family! Most of all, God
bless America!
|
 Can Ralph Nader save the GOP this time
around?
In 2000, Ralph Nader ran
as an independent presidential candidate, peeling enough votes from Al
Gore to give G.W. Bush the victory in the most litigiously contested
election of all time.
Nader's 97,000+ votes in Florida in the 2000 election was the
deciding factor, but don't count on any such electoral magic this time
around.
The Democrats and their hard-core left wing won't succumb to
Nader's romancing in this election cycle. They learned in their
lesson
and won't get suckered this November into giving the GOP an early
Christmas present..
In fact, Nader's veep running mate, Matt Gonzalez, couldn't win
the mayor's office as a Green Party candidate in San Francisco,
arguably the most liberal left-wing big city in America. This
pair of hybrid-loving tree-huggers has as much appeal to the Democrats
as a skin-head at a Louis Farrakhan family reunion.
Instead, the Democrats will rally around their nominee, most
likely Barack Obama, and give the Republican nominee the roughest,
toughest, grittiest, meanest, nastiest, and dirtiest fight in election
history.
If John McCain manages to be the GOP standard-bearer in
November, expect him to suffer a 50-state landslide loss to Obama or a
45-state loss to Clinton.
McCain fits the stereotypical caricature of Republicans that
liberals love to hate, despite his many liberal leanings and efforts to
grab the political center before Obama does. Whether his opponent
is Obama or Clinton, he will look old and
senile during the eventual debates, and he has been around Congress so
long that every past vote and
political deal will come back to bite him in the posterior.
The Democrats are seething with rage at anything Bush-like, so
McCain's "Bush Lite" milquetoast conservatism will galvanize the
desperate lefties, who tolerate no dissent, into a solid voting bloc.
Couple this with a chance to finally vote for someone not named Bush or
Clinton, a Democrat majority in both houses of Congress, and the
liberals literally think their Socialist utopian state is within reach.
Add to the mix the conservative backlash that has erupted
against McCain's ascendancy on Super Tuesday, and you have the
perfect storm, from a liberal's point of view.
The GOP had better get ready for a big lump of coal this
Christmas, and they should treasure it, because fossil fuels will be
getting scarcer during the coming Democratic administration.
I guess this makes it a win/win situation for Nader all the way
around. |
 The Un-American Candidate
A lot of attention was
paid to the photo on the left of Barack Obama "forgetting" to put his
hand over his heart during the national anthem during a campaign event.
Not being one who looks for a conspiracy behind every fault, I
didn't find it alarming and gave Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt
that he was probably nervous or distracted at the moment.
And when Mr. Obama said that he didn't wear a U.S. flag pin on
his lapel because it wasn't necessary to prove one's patriotism, I
again gave him the benefit of the doubt.
But I can't give him that benefit anymore.
During a campaign stop in Milwaukee his wife, Michelle Obama,
said: “People in this country are ready for change and hungry for
a different kind of politics and … for
the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because
it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”
Michelle Obama is only now "proud of her country"?
America is the country that advances freedom, liberty, and
economic opportunity to the rest of the world.
America is the country that has freed hundreds of millions of
people from Fascists, Nazis, Taliban, vicious dictators, malaria, AIDS,
starvation, communism, Marxism, and slavery worldwide without asking
for anything back.
America is the country that has willingly sacrificed the lives
of hundreds of thousands of our best and bravest young men and women to
help people of all religions, ethnic, and racial origins free
themselves of tyranny without asking for anything back.
America is the country where Barack and Michelle Obama have
lived the American dream. They are proof that in America "life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness" aren't just words on a paper but
the essence of the American culture and way of life.
The Obama campaign has tried to deflect criticism of Michelle's
comments with the usual political spin, but it rings hollow when you
look at the track record of this couple.
The most alarming thing about this election cycle is not the
scarcity
of qualified candidates, but the willingness of the American
public to support and elect people who loathe the country and the
Constitution that gives them this opportunity to achieve the highest
political office in the world. |
 Conservative truth: Sleep with a snake and
you're gonna get bit
The firestorm that
erupted today over the New York Times article about John McCain's
relationship with a female lobbyist should provide a lesson for
conservatives on the danger of cozying up to political opponents and
compromising one's principles for political expediency.
Liberals like those that run the NYT are dead set against any
Republican becoming our next president. The kind of attack they
launched against McCain, whether true or not, should not come as a
surprise.
The NYT endorsed John McCain for the Republican nomination
knowing full well that they would run this attack article in the
future. They obviously had planned on setting up McCain as a
straw-man to knock down, thus clearing the way for an easy path to the
presidency for the Democrat nominee.
McCain has spent the last eight years building a cozy
relationship with the left-wing liberals in this country, thinking that
they would reward him with loyalty and fairness in this election cycle.
He couldn't have been more wrong. When you sleep
with a snake you're gonna get bit.
Conservatives have to apply the same philosophy to McCain and
continue to oppose him based on principle and not on fear or scandal.
McCain has thumbed his nose at conservatives over and over
again but now has tried to "unite" the Republican party by invoking
Reaganism and trotting out his "conservative" Washington friends and
their enthusiastic endorsements.
Conservatives can't fall into the trap of thinking that if
liberals are attacking McCain, then he must be more conservative than
they gave him credit for. Liberals will eat their own to advance
their cause, as McCain has recently discovered.
McCain is the snake that the conservatives have to beware
of in this election cycle.
If elected, he will bite those who supported him, and bite
hard. |
"Where do we go after this election
cycle?"
A Letter from Greg and Loretta Tripodes
 Hi, my name is Greg
Tripodes. My wife, Loretta and I are excited that Gov. Huckabee
has given us hope for America. We need a highly educated person
with values and integrity to lead this country. We sincerely hope
and pray that Gov. Huckabee is nominated and will be elected as our
next President.
As we all know, if Gov. Huckabee wins the nomination, then we
must continue to move on to the Presidency. However, if he
doesn'’t win, this country cannot afford to let the enthusiasm of his
supporters fade away. It’s very important to keep Gov.
Huckabee’s values moving forward in a positive direction by keeping his
website active.
We definitely must keep our resources united. All the
Meet-Up groups need to remain in effect so that people who believe in
Faith, Family, and Freedom can stay united throughout the country.
Real family values can be guaranteed in America’'s future by
electing true conservatives into public office. Videos of these
TRUE conservatives and their ideas can be posted on YouTube's’ website
for the public to view. Call lists that are being used will
continue to be implemented in reaching voters in congressional
elections.
People will be aware of all the facts surrounding issues that
Congress and the government are debating by publishing those issues on
the website. People will be able to contact their congressman to
voice their opinions via phone and email.
President Bush nominated Harriet Miers last year and TRUE
conservatives put a stop to her nomination by calling and emailing
their congressmen. Their determination brought about the
confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts. (Thank GOD!) We also had a
huge effect with the amnesty fiasco. Supporters of Gov. Huckabee
across the nation will have a huge impact in accomplishing the goals of
the TRUE conservatives. The campaign must stay intact in order
for this to become a reality.
We hope that Gov. Huckabee will continue to inspire us in the
pursuit of transforming this country’s FUTURE He has given
us all a “Chance to Believe”.
In closing, we are hoping that this will be of interest to Gov.
Huckabee. If he is not, can you please help us get in contact
with the appropriate people to keep the ball rolling.
We look forward to your comments and suggestions in this matter.
Sincerely yours,
Greg & Loretta Tripodes
|
 The GOP's New Clothes
In a place they
call America, there was a conservative emperor who was loved and
respected by his people.
The conservative emperor believed in lower taxes, smaller
government, freedom of speech and religion, defending the unborn and
preserving traditional marriage, protecting the borders, the rule of
law, and defending the country and it's Constitution from all enemies
at home or abroad.
As the emperor grew older, he started to fear that he
would lose his position and popularity and even the next election.
He asked his advisors for help: "How do I make sure the
people still love me and keep me in power?"
His advisors recommended he start using the words "compassionate
conservatism" even though he was already compassionate.
They also suggested that he increase the number of government
agencies, hire more federal employees, grant amnesty to illegal aliens,
restrict the political speech of the people, jump on the global warming
bandwagon, allow the use of embryos for stem cell research, give people
fake tax rebates, and run up trillions of dollars of debt so that they
could fund more earmarks and entitlement programs like the Medicare
Prescription Drug Plan.
These things didn't sound conservative, but the
emperor was desperate because there was an election coming up
The advisors told the emperor he was still conservative and
trotted out many of his old conservative friends who told him he was a
conservative. The emperor decided to go before the people and
show them his new conservatism and ask for their vote once again.
When the people who had supported the emperor saw him and his
friends in their new conservatism, they were puzzled. Some
decided that if they said that was conservative, that was good enough
for them and would vote for the emperor anyway.
But a number of the people who knew what true conservatism
is decided that they couldn't vote for anybody that year because the
emperor was now just like his liberal opponents.
That November, the emperor and his old friends were voted out of
office.
|
 John McCain: Working the Political Center
John McCain has been on a
mission to grab the political center ever since his defeat at the hands
of G.W. Bush in the 2000 presidential primary.
David Limbaugh makes the case in his column:
McCain "would be willing to use
the bully pulpit and governing power of the presidency to suppress
political speech, punish producers, oil companies and drug companies,
open wider our borders, cater to the whacko environmental movement and
its junk-science-driven pseudo-consensus on global warming, nominate
judges who don't "wear their conservatism on their sleeve," close
Gitmo, confer constitutional civil liberties on enemy combatants, end
life-saving interrogation techniques, demonize evangelical
conservatives, and obstruct efforts of conservative Republican
legislators."
McCain's positions on these issues is based on
political expediency, not principled thought and belief. But
conservatives will be asked to swallow their ideals and vote for McCain
in the general election for the sake of the Republican party.
John McCain feels that by gravitating to the political center
and appealing to Democrats and independents, he will have the best
chance of winning the general election.
The political reality is that the political center is a
leftist position anyway. Why would leftists and centrists choose
an old white guy who to them represents the status quo when they could
elect a energetic black man who has virtually the same position on
several key issues?
McCain will probably try to shore up his "centrist" base
by picking Joe Leiberman as his VP running mate, but by doing so will
just perpetuate the old white guy persona that will kill him in the
general election.
Already the media has taken gentle jabs at McCain's age,
but it will get worse as time goes on. Jay Leno had a line this week
about the Republicans being the big tent party. He said
that with Mike Huckabee you have the revivalist tent, with Ron
Paul the circus tent, and with John McCain the oxygen tent.
Conservatives have to hold up against the hard push coming
from the political establishment. In the several months leading
up to the election in November, you will see many conservative leaders
wear down and switch their loyalties to McCain, ultimately compromising
their own principles and the people who listen to them.
|
 The 2008 Washington Power Grab
The race for the
presidency is down to four people, three U.S. Senators and one former
governor of Arkansas.
The U.S. Senate is a very exclusive club. It's 100 members
are the make or break body for legislation, can declare war, and
dictate the president's choices for nominees to the Supreme Court.
It's also the place where politicians learn to abandon principles
for compromise. The Senate is the ultimate Mutual Admiration
Society.
Just look at the three current senators gunning for the 2008
presidency. None of them have any experience as an executive of
any government agency or business enterprise.
McCain has said before that Hillary would make a fine president,
words that will come back to haunt him in the general election.
And despite their sometimes heated exchanges, Clinton and Obama
are cut from the same cloth and will not pull the rug out from under
the other when the Democrat nominee is finally decided.
The 2007 attempt to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens
was typical of the back room wheeling and dealing that goes on in the
Senate between both parties as they try to ignore the constituents that
put them there.
Senators have the luxury of telling their voters one thing on
the campaign trail and compromising those promises in the Senate
without suffering any penalty. And don't think that
McCain/Feingold was about campaign finance reform, it was a sham that
made it extremely difficult to successfully unseat incumbent Senators
like McCain and Feingold.
The only barriers that kept the Senate from destroying America
in the last several years is the presidency of G.W. Bush and the
minority of conservative Congressmen and women serving in the House of
Representatives.
That will change with a McCain, Clinton, or Obama
presidency. The Oval Office will be a rubber stamp for the Senate
and will make the Federal government a run-away freight train that will
destroy what little restraint exists in Washington, D.C.
The only hope for a positive outcome this November is to put a
proven executive in the White House, one who isn't a Washington insider
and has the principled fortitude to say "No" to Congress.
That person is Mike Huckabee.
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 Do we need another Reagan?
The folly of the Republican establishment in
looking for a Ronald Reagan clone borders on cultism.
Reagan was a fine man who led the conservative movement to
prominence, not a Reagan movement. But the Republican
establishment and elitists have determined that the only way for the
conservative movement to make progress is to have a Reagan clone as the
presidential nominee.
Would we want a Reagan clone today? No way!
Reagan turned tail and ran when the terrorists struck in Beirut
on Oct.
23, 1983, killing 241 American soldiers. His lack of backbone in
this situation became the default policy on terrorism until we were
struck on 9/11.
In 1986, Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and
Control Act, also known as Simpson-Mizzoli. This law gave amnesty
to millions of illegal aliens and laid the groundwork for the invasion
of our country by millions more that has happened since.
Reagan was great at battling liberalism and Communism, but his
national security policies made America a soft target, and we are
paying a heavy price for that today.
The Reagan purists of today slam Mike Huckabee because he's not
Reaganesque. I say that's fine with me.
We need a conservative leader who can bring solutions for the
problems we face in 2008, not 1980.
|
 Cost of Romney's Mass. health-care plan
skyrockets
I doubt
you will hear
about this from the "conservative" media. This is what happens
when the government interferes with the free market.
According to recent reports, the cost of Massachusetts' health
insurance mandate will rise 85 percent, or $400 million, in 2009.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), meanwhile, has been on the
presidential campaign trail praising the program he put into place.
According to The Boston Globe, the cost increase is largely due
to an
increase in the number of people signing up for state-subsidized health
insurance. State and federal taxpayers are likely to shoulder the cost
increase.
"Essentially, the people who signed up under the mandate were
the
people who were getting subsidies," said Michael Tanner, director of
health and welfare studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.
Carmen Balber, a consumer advocate at Foundation for Taxpayer
and
Consumer Rights, added, "What we've seen happen in Massachusetts is
that lots of people are signing up for subsidized care," although "just
7 to 8 percent of the people who have newly signed up for health
insurance have enrolled in a program they must pay full price for."
Tanner told Cybercast News Service that the state will likely
need to raise taxes to cover the additional costs.
Romney, however, has been campaigning on the health insurance
plan as a success.
"We put in place a plan that gets every citizen in our state
health
insurance, and it didn't cost us new money," he said during the
Republican debate in New Hampshire on Jan. 5. "It didn't require us to
raise taxes."
Mitt Romney likes to brag that he got universal coverage in
Massachusetts without a tax increase," said Tanner. "I don't think
that's going to be true for long."
Click
here for full story
|
 The truth about the economic stimulus
package
What a way to
buy votes.
With the threat of a recession looming in the near future,
President
Bush and Congress agreed to an economic stimulus package of "tax
rebates" for lower to middle class households.
People eligible
would get anywhere from $300-$1200 in the hope that they will spend the
money and restore the lost momentum in the U.S. economy.
The $150 billion package would also give businesses $50 billion
in tax
incentives.
The normally super-slow federal government displayed tremendous
speed
in developing this package, which proves that when it comes to buying
votes, both parties can spend recklessly and without regard for sound
economic principles.
Many of the recipients do not pay taxes, so to call it a "tax
rebate"
is foolish. It is really a welfare check.
No word yet on where the money for this package comes from.
It would have been better to just tell everyone that does pay
taxes to
deduct the allotted rebate from their next payment to the IRS, but that
wouldn't buy as many votes for either party.
Better yet, the
best way to stimulate the economy would be to pass H.R. 25, also known
as the FairTax. The FairTax would
unleash the economic power of
individuals, small businesses, and large corporations.
With
the FairTax, every person with a job or business pays no income tax, so
they get a full paycheck instead of having deductions taken from their
pay and sent to the government agencies like the IRS and Social
Security Administration.
The income tax is then replaced with a
national sales tax of about 23%, which replaces the embedded taxes that
are found in every product or service.
The result is that the
prices of products and services remains virtually unchanged while
reducing the size of government, getting the IRS out of our lives, and
giving the poorest of Americans a real economic boost. |
 What's splitting the Reagan coalition?
How is it that a
successful conservative governor who wants to eliminate the IRS, defend
the sanctity of life and marriage, appoint judges like Scalia and
Roberts, and fight Islamic fascism to the finish is running third in
the Republican primaries?
Answer: Since mid-November of
2007, there has been a push by the conservative "new media" to destroy
the Republican opponents of Mitt Romney.
The dominant conservative publication The National Review had set the tone
for this by endorsing Mitt Romney. Around the same time, Rush
Limbaugh was visiting his idol from childhood, William Buckley, the
founder of The National Review
and considered by many to be the founder of the modern conservative
movement.
Within days, Rush Limbaugh and other "conservative" talk
show hosts and columnists were excoriating Huckabee.
Instead of offering an honest analysis of Huckabee's political
career, they sought to portray him as a hayseed born-againer who loved
raising taxes and wanted to bring about an Orwellian Big Brother state.
In the meantime, Romney decided to go negative against
Huckabee in Iowa, where Huckabee had grabbed the lead. Romney's
attack ads were a blatantly dishonest attempt to portray Huckabee as a
crime
loving tax-raiser, and, coupled with the constant barrage of
misinformation from the talk shows, alienated a core constituent group
of social conservatives who correctly recognized the attacks on
Huckabee as a slam against themselves and their values.
The rift that is now splitting the conservatives will not
be healed during this election process. The Christian right and
the FairTax activists now see that they are welcome just as long as
they go along with the Republican establishment. To think that
someone like Huckabee who represents these groups should be president
is considered heresy by the elitists who want to control the nomination
process.
The secular elitists who enjoy the posh lifestyle and rubbing
elbows with political snobs are embarrassed that grass-roots activists
like conservative Christians and FairTaxers are in their tent and are
succeeding in driving them out, ensuring that a liberal, be it Romney,
McCain, Clinton, or Obama will be in the White House next year.
|
  A
vote for Huckabee is a vote for...?
The new mantra spawned by
the "conservative" new media and picked up by the Romney campaign is
that a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for McCain, a vote for Clinton,
or a vote for Obama.
Just pick your scariest liberal!
First, if Huckabee is so dangerous and, as some of the pundits
have said, a Christian liberal and Socialist, then how is it that he is
peeling off votes from the "conservative" media darling Mitt
Romney? There seems to be some hypocrisy in their claim.
A vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for Mike Huckabee.
Whatever happened to voting for someone based on values and principles
held in high regard by the voter? What merit is there in using
your vote against a candidate?
By voting to advance the candidate that most closely shares your
views, you and others who share your values tell the entire country and
the power brokers in the political system that your voting bloc is not
for sale and won't compromise it's principles for political expediency.
The current feeling in the political establishment, whether you
are Democrat or Republican, is that you are welcome as long as you back
the candidate of their choice.
"You will vote this way and you will like it!"
Some people say that our country can't survive a Clinton, Obama,
or McCain presidency. They say that a liberal president will do
damage to our country and society on a scale that will be irreversible.
I have more faith in our country and it's institutions that
that. America has survived a bitter Civil War, several recessions
and the Great Depression. America has won two World Wars, and the
Cold War, survived four years of Jimmy Carter and eight years of Bill
Clinton, and is winning the global war on Islamic fascism despite the
best efforts of liberal politicians and media to surrender to the enemy.
If conservatives lose this election cycle, let it be because we
stood for a cause and not because we surrendered to fear.
Super Tuesday is around the corner. This is the day, the
week, the month, and the year to vote for someone and something you
believe in and make a real difference.
|
 Super Tuesday After "Math": The
Flawed Logic of Sean Hannity
Following Super Tuesday's
primaries there was a lot of belly-aching by the conservative talk show
hosts.
Sean Hannity was the loudest, and made matters worse by living
in "What if?" land instead of dealing with reality.
Sean feels that "if" Huckabee wasn't in the race, Mitt would be
the front-runner in the Republican nomination process.
"If" only Huckabee would quit as suggested by Mitt and Sean,
then McCain wouldn't have a chance to win. After all, Huckabee
has no chance of winning the nomination, right?
Sean kept up the new mantra that Huckabee is peeling off votes
away from Mitt and thus handing the nomination over to McCain.
But let's use Sean's own logic and go back to the South Carolina
primary.
Mike Huckabee had a decisive victory in Iowa, McCain had trounced
Romney in New Hampshire, and Mitt had won Wyoming. Fred Thompson
was nowhere to be seen because he had put all his focus into South
Carolina.
In the meantime, Huckabee was being vilified by Rush, Sean, Ann
and the rest of the conservative talk radio wing while they all piled
on the Fred Thompson bandwagon.
When the South Carolina primary rolled around, conservatives
rejected McCain and split their votes between Huckabee, Romney, and
Thompson. McCain barely beat Huckabee, and became the
front-runner in the race.
Romney and Thompson didn't show very well in S.C., but they
definitely had enabled the McCain win by trying to act as spoilers
against Huckabee. Thompson dropped out and Mitt has been trying
to get his groove back ever since.
Playing the "what if?" game, suppose that the South had moved
their primaries up earlier and Huckabee was the clear front-runner
going into Florida and New Hampshire. Would Sean have been
suggesting that Romney drop out of the race to give Huckabee the
victory over McCain. After all, wouldn't a vote for Mitt be a
vote for McCain?.
Bible belt conservatives and FairTaxers are not going to vote
for Romney, it's that simple. Romney has no conservative credentials
and his fiscal policies are just barely to the right of Hillary and
Obama.
Sean also dismisses Huckabee's five victories on Super
Tuesday. Huckabee did beat McCain and Romney in those states, and
if Huckabee had dropped out before, those voters would not have had a
chance to be heard in the nomination process. To suggest that a
candidate with a substantial number of dedicated voters should just
"drop out" and quit denigrates those voters and their issues.
If anything is damaging the right wing of the Republican party,
it's the ongoing myth that Romney is conservative and it's promotion by
the "conservative" new media. It's time for the myth to die!
|
 Dr. James Dobson endorses Huckabee
Leading evangelical
leader Dr. James Dobson endorsed Mike Huckabee Thursday, just hours
after Mitt Romney suspended his campaign.
Dobson's endorsement could have come a lot earlier, but better
late than never.
Dobson was probably waiting for Romney to drop out so he could
avoid being labeled a Christian "bigot" by the media.
Truth is, Romney's Mormonism was practically irrelevant to the
Christian right wing, as evidenced by the number of evangelicals that
were voting for him and keeping his campaign alive.
The dirty little secret that no one wants to talk about is that
Romney's recent switch to "conservative values" never passed the smell
test.
Usually, the conversion to conservative principles is
accompanied by another conversion, the conversion of the sinner.
Since Romney had no corresponding "spiritual conversion" to
match his "conservative conversion", it was correctly rejected as
political pandering.
Add to this an honest look at his fiscal record and promotion of
big government health care in Massachusetts, his refusal to support the
FairTax and honest tax reform, and his numerous lies and distortions
about himself and his opponents, and you had a recipe for disaster in
the general election.
Now we have to stop another disaster waiting in the wings, the
Straight Talk Express.
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