The Black Republican

Most people probably aren't aware of it, but we here at TBR have continued to have problems with pernicious spam. Happily, even the other contributors probably are unaware of that, because MT's newest upgrade has kept almost all of it off the blog and in the mechanism's moderation system, which only I have to deal with. Unfortunately, I have had the settings for the tripwire into the junk mailbox torqued up so high, we occasionally have lost comments. And since we were averaging about 25,000 junk comments a month, it's only been sheer luck when I've found a good comment amid all the crap - when I've bothered to look at all, which was almost never.

My friend Doug long ago told me to institute a CAPTCHA mechanism, but I could never find an MT plugin that didn't require modification. And unlike the Generic Geek, I'm not really enough of a coder to want to climb inside the php to do it manually (assuming I could figure the code in the first place).

Well, I think I've finally beaten the spammers, because I found a CAPTCHA plugin that actually works relatively out of the box. I had a scare for about an hour while (like every other attempt at CAPTCHA) I was failing to get it to work, and after I found that Arvind stopped supporting his creation. But eventually I got the kinks out and it seems to be smooth sailing so far.

While I was at it, I made a few improvements to the look and operation of the comment and preview templates, including the requirement that all comments have to be previewed before being posted. (This being an extra step against the spammers now that should save me a modification later.)

As always, let me know if you see any problems.

Get the duct tape. You're gonna need it after you read about the morons who live in a community I lovingly referred to as Stonybrook by the Dump. "The Lee County Commission voted unanimously to proceed with plans to build a bio-diesel plant at the Gulfcoast landfill." The 'problem' here is the residents of a planned community that sits RIGHT SMACK NEXT TO THE LANDFILL. I must add that the landfill existed LONG before the neighborhood was even BUILT.

IMO, the 'concerns' that the woman quoted in the story have are illegitimate. She knew she was moving in next to a dump when she bought the house. Safety concerns are legitimate. If you're storing natural gas, things can happen. I'll grant them that. However, if the residents of this community are having such serious health problems, they should MOVE. There are plenty of houses for sale.

Cox & Forkum

To be part of the 'in' crowd here, I decided that today, my 34th birthday, would be a great time to post my 'lengthy introduction.' Here goes. It all started on November 29, 1972 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson, Maryland. Where all the 'clinic babies' were born at the time. However, as I was pondering this, I realized that there are nearly ZERO familial influences on my political philosophy. There are, obviously, other factors that led me to become a conservative.

My parents were very adamant about voting. They voted in nearly every election possible (as far as I remember), but my mom was especially quirky. She would vote but saw it as her constitutional right to not tell anyone who she voted for. My oldest brother is an entrepreneur. He's owned more businesses than I've had jobs. My next to oldest brother and younger brother are both redneck, gun-owning, ex-Marines who spent their careers in the air wing. All three of them are Bush-hating liberals. Go figure. My great-grandfather was mayor of my home town. However, given that he died in 1973, that had little to do with me becoming conservative.

The area I grew up in is reasonably conservative. OK, it was white central. In my high school of 1200 students, only 6 were black and 1 was Asian. Being that white doesn't make it conservative, but that it was all middle to upper middle class blue collar families pretty much does. In fact, it has been red more often than not since at least 2000. I was surrounded by rednecks and other upper middle class people for most of my life. My brothers, cousins, and uncles all went hunting nearly every fall. I was even invited to go duck hunting by a student when I was student teaching. Thus, my love and respect for firearms. Especially rifles and shotguns.

Looking back, I don't believe that I perceived much of a leftwing bias by my teachers in high school. This is with the exception of my economics teacher who used to tauntingly sing "If you liked Nixon, then you'll love Reagan." One very vivid memory, however, came when he was called away from the class and my U.S. History teacher took over briefly and said "You notice how he sings that song? Ask him who he voted for in '88. And then ask him about his Rolex." During my 'sophomore' year in college, my roommate was a HUGE Rush Limbaugh fan. In fact, it was during that year that Rush was on TV. Remember watching that? We TAPED it. That was my first real revelation that I was, in fact, conservative and not a democrat as I was registered.

My view on abortion is probably the most odd. When my mother got pregnant with me, she was advised to have me aborted because of the complications she had with the previous delivery. She, as I recall, had 4 miniature heart attacks during that delivery. It was considered, at the time, to be very risky for her to deliver me. However, she chose to go forward with it, trusting in God. So here I am. I don't believe that abortion is a constitutional right, but I do believe that there are medically necessary times for it. It is not birth control.

I think that 2 things have most influenced me to be conservative. My religion and my wife. Even though my maternal grandparents are devoutly Lutheran, they really had little to do with the direction that my religious up-bringing went. Gas prices in the 70's forced us to start walking to a Methodist church. Creepy. However, when I realized that organizations like the ACLU are against Christianity and that liberals are more against Christianity than conservatives, the choice there was very clear. Many times, I have set down how my life is under the direction of God, but that's a topic for another post.

For me, I see the Republican party as the party that is for freedom, for national security, and for people like my family and me. I'm proud to be a conservative. I'm proud to be an American.

I strongly suggest this piece by Allen Guelzo as "Recommended Reading".

Long live the Chief Justice of the United States.

Think back to the framers who drafted the Constitution. These were people who literally risked everything to gain the right to govern themselves, certainly risked all their material well-being and risked their lives in the struggle for independence. And the thought that the first thing they would do when they got around to drafting a Constitution would be to say, 'Let's take all the hard issues in our society and let's turn them over to nine unelected people who aren't politically accountable and let them decide,' that would have been the farthest thing from their mind.I have enormous respect for the authority carried by the people across the street in Congress. Hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people have voted for them and put their confidence in their judgment.Not a single person has voted for me and if we don't like what the people in Congress do, we can get rid of them, and if you don't like what I do, it's kind of too bad. And that is, to me, an important constraint. It means that I'm not there to make a judgment based on my personal policy preferences or my political preferences.The only reason I'm protected from those political pressures is because I'm supposed to make a decision based on the law. And so I don't think it would be a good idea to turn all the hard issues over to the courts. Those hard issues belong in Congress, they belong in the Executive Branch.The courts have the responsibility to make sure both of those branches abide by the legal limits in the Constitution, but that's it.

There's a prickly and somewhat humorous thread at Dean's World discussing the subject of public nudity. In considering another response, I tripped over the following, from Justice Scalia.

The purpose of Indiana's nudity law would be violated, I think, if 60,000 fully consenting adults crowded into the Hoosierdome to display their genitals to one another, even if there were not an offended innocent in the crowd. Our society prohibits, and all human societies have prohibited, certain activities not because they harm others but because they are considered, in the traditional phrase, "contra bonos mores," i.e., immoral.

Two days ago on Newsbusters, there was a blog entitled "ABC's Sawyer Repeats 'More Racist or More Sexist' Question". Yesterday, on the Washingtonian was a gushing exposé on Barack Obama. It took a conversation with my wife to get to the revelation of the connection, but that's why I love her. What they're doing in the media is setting up the excuse the loser of the 2008 Democrat presidential primary can use. This, of course, precludes that the 2 media darlings in this case are Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton.

Race must be an issue, though. One of the things I 'analyzed' this week was the vote break down in the Maryland Senate race. The 2 blackest areas (according to the 2000 census data) of Maryland voted overwhelmingly for the white man. Obviously, it would be ill-advised to extrapolate that this trend would repeat itself in 2008 in Maryland, but I had to throw that out there (I've been sitting on it for days now).

The point? My prediction: America's going to end up being more racist than sexist in 2008 (in the eyes of the dino-media and the left). Obama, et al, have no chance against the Clinton presidential machine. Her presidential nomination has been pre-destined. It has been foretold since her ascension to her throne in the Senate. Now, if only the Republicans could make this a total chick fight and get Condoleeza Rice nominated.

Glenn E. (Bo) Schembechler -
April 1, 1929 - November 17, 2006

I am as big an Ohio State fan as there is on this planet (after all, I was born on Campus!) and this saddens me as much as when Woody left us. Those two men understood.

My sympathies and condolences to the Schembechler's and the entire University of Michigan family. He was a great man and will be missed.

But I really can't help but have a rye smile, thinking that Woody just wanted some familiar company for the game.

For those of you who are unaware - or dead! - there is a fairly important college football game tomorrow. The red state versus the blue state, King Kong vs Godzilla, the unstoppable force vs the immovable object, a clash of Titans!

"The Game"

Go Bucks! Beat Michigan!

I strongly suggest this piece by Newt Gingrich as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Gabor Boritt as "Recommended Reading".

How much will it cost me to get you to forget it ever happened?

Sonovabitch Lott, you've regained your spot as my archnemesis. Assuming you'd ever stopped being.

Also: Michelle is doing a good recap from around the dextrosphere.

I love technology. Don't you? I have 6 buttons on my Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer that provide me with all the information I need to know every day. One for Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, one for Congressional Quarterly, 2 that tell me how crappy my portfolio's doing, one for Fark.com, and one to tell me when I get e-mail from the church's web page. But I digress. The real point of this post is to point you a nice little page that shows 2 stories of how the left is already beginning it's consumption of itself.

Taegon Goddard's Political wire has this ironic headline: "Murtha on the New Ethics Bill". The story speaks for itself, but we see that when a member of the Democratic party dissents with the woman who would be speaker, the left wing smear machine is already to kick into high gear. Sit back and watch the carnage my friends. Take heart. This IS only a 2 year lease.

I strongly suggest this piece by Janet Wilson as "Recommended Reading".

... we have two choices. We can sit on our hands, or we can fight. I choose the later!

Fighting this battle may just be tilting at windmills, but I'll take a Don Quixote over a buffoonish Sancho any day.

I'd rather die striving for some lofty yet unatainable goal than to live with the knowledge that I was to much of a coward to try.

Hat tip to Ragnar at The Jawa Report and to Ace for leading me there!

Somewhere along the line, I started getting emails from Bill Frist. I rarely read them, and always wondered what he'd say if he knew how disappointed I've been in him since I suggested (in the very early days of The Black Republican) that he take over the Senate leadership. But I never opted out because I wanted to hear what information he wanted to disseminate.

My patience has paid off a little, because he's got this survey he wants people to fill out. The only thing better than venting on this form would be if they put a straw poll on it and let me rank him as the last person among the expected people running that I want to see as President.

Well... next to last, right before John McCain.

And by "wavering Republicans" I mean myself.

The gang (and I mean that literally, of course) at Ace of Spades HQ is thinking that throwing the Rovemeister under the bus might not be such a bad thing if it nets us 6 To 8 Seriously Corrupt Democratic Senators. Or so the right index finger of Jack Abramoff is willing to point for prosecutors.

Only problem: for some reason, he's being sent to prison where, for some reason, prosecutors aren't allowed to talk to him. How much you want to make a bet this is the first "bipartisan deal" of the new Congress?

An email sent to a certain Corner contributor on the occasion of a nasty column about her in one of the worst wastes of newsprint in America.

Kathryn,

Re: "Sex-obsessed"

I've never understood this charge when I hear it leveled. How is it that people whose whole world seems to revolve around "sexual orientation", who apparently spend every waking moment needing it to be accepted and even endorsed by the rest of the populace, and who go on tirades like spoiled little children when someone won't lie to them and tell them it's perfectly fine, natural, and wholesome, have the twisted mentality to suggest that anyone who dares tell them to put a sock in it is "obsessed with sex"?

Akin to calling a black person "articulate", this might just be code for someone who might otherwise be described as a "papist". Because, you know, we just love to breed. (Something our detractors have a slight problem with, for some reason.)

On a not-entirely-separate note, please post fair warning next time you want me to visit the Village Voice. Now I have to shower.

The smartest man in America offers some dispiriting words that invoke The TBR Rule.

It is easy to say “the parties are no different” or “things couldn’t get any worse.”

People have said that before — and have been proved wrong before. Before the election of 1860, abolitionists said it would make no difference whether Lincoln or a Democrat was elected. But millions of people were freed because that prediction was wrong.

In Germany, the Weimar Republic was nobody’s idea of an ideal government and, in the desperate days of the Great Depression, no doubt many German voters thought that nothing could be worse. But they discovered during the dozen years of Nazi rule just how much worse things could be.

Karl Rove always comforted any fears of mine by telling people that he was following an historic example set by the McKinley administration when they re-established Republican governance for a generation. But that plan has now fallen apart, and as a result the party seems bent on tearing itself apart. The idea that the leadership of my party is so ignorant of the political dynamics occurring within the rank and file is... well, it's beyond my ability to characterize effectively. Hell, I was even one of the Republicans trying to convince people that comprehensive immigration reform wasn't such a bad idea, and even I can see that handing the Democrats a victory on that issue now will completely capsize the Republican ship. I suggested to Steve the other day that perhaps the President's plan might allow us to claim victory over the situation the way the Democrats siezed the Civil Rights mantle in 1964. That's obviously what the President is hoping for, but - as Sowell points out in his piece - at what cost?

"Maverick" John McCain and social liberal Rudy Guiliani are the leading contenders for our Presidential nomination in 2008. Senator Arlen Spector is telling us we're too conservative, and we should become just as liberal as the Democrats. And now an Hispanic empty suit is named to be the head of the RNC. Are we trying to ensure Hispanic loyalty to a party that won't exist in a few years?

CNN reports my earlier enthusiasm regarding Michael Steele has not only been dashed, it's been pulverized.

Sen. Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican elected in 2004, has accepted an offer by the White House to become the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, three sources tell CNN.

For the first time since I started this blog - hell, for the first time in my life - I'm considering that perhaps the Republican Party is a lost cause. If conservatives lose out in the leadership elections, I may not have a political home any longer.

As hard as it is to believe, last week's election returns hadn't even gotten cold when I'd already started to see reports that either John Boehner or Roy Blount - or God-forbid both - will return to the Capitol in their current posts in the Republican leadership. This week hasn't even seen my first cup of Monday java yet but we already hear Novak confirm the Corner scuttlebut.

Politics is perception. What did we hear Republicans saying when Mark Foley resigned? That at least we kicked him out - Democrat pervert Gerry Studds was re-elected six times. What happened to Tom Delay and William Jefferson? Republican Tom Delay was indicted on bogus corruption charges, but we made him step down anyway. Democrat William Jefferson was caught with cold cash - in his freezer - and he was re-elected. It's sad there's a double standard, but that's the way we play the game. More importantly, our voters expect us to play that way or they stay home and we get voted out.

Is it so hard to remember this is what happened just last week? In a stunning repudiation, Republicans were seen by most Americans as the party of big government. And who passed the legislation that gave us that big government? It wasn't the entitlement fairy, it was the old leadership of Tom Delay and Roy Blount. When Delay resigned, conservatives wanted a full cleanup of the House leadership, and a "return to our principles". They settled for Boehner instead of allowing Blount to succeed Delay as majority leader, and then they allowed Blount to stay as whip. Then they prayed this would be good enough to stop the bleeding.

Politics is perception. It obviously wasn't good enough to change the perception, and we got our clocks cleaned.

"He hasn't been in long enough to change things," some are saying. Look, that's a cop-out. If Boehner was going to change the perception that The Old Boys Club was running the show, we wouldn't be in the minority right now.

I, for one, am not going to sit on my hands. What can we do about it? We can give our Republican Congressmen the same treatment we gave the Senate when someone tried to prevent passage of transparency-in-government legislation.

Call your Congressmen and insist that he or she vote for Mike Pence for Minority Leader and John Shadegg for Minority Whip. Or perception and reality will keep us in that minority.

Word is that the RNC has asked Michael Steele to replace Ken Mehlman as RNC Chairman. Maybe Mehlman's prediction that this will be the Year of the Black Republican will come true despite the losses at the polls.

What might The Man of Steele's acceptance - which he has yet to confirm - mean to the Party of Lincoln? The Chairmanship is the FACE of the party. He's the guy who sells the party, both ideologically and financially. Having a brown face and a conservative heart selling our party to the masses almost makes up for the loss.

UPDATE: Well, actually it's more of a correction. I forgot the hat tip. Go to Ace, where there's a lively discussion going on about this.

I strongly suggest this piece by Greg Giroux as "Recommended Reading".

I notice I never actually posted this when I saw it, which means it's long overdue.

Cox & Forkum

Wow. I know I agree with Dean - and Ron Silver - about the war and its importance compared to other issues. And I am truly happy for Joe Lieberman in a totally non-partisan way. I fully supported Bill Buckley's column the other day in support of Joe. ( Dean)

But in keeping with my last post, we see this video with Silver, and I realize:

America won last night.

We could have won bigger - for instance if Harold Ford and Michael Steele had both won, we'd be looking at the same numbers as today, but with drastically different results - but America did win nonetheless. The Democratic Party took a huge step last night toward reality and away from insanity. The little snip I heard from Nancy Pelosi on the radio this morning seemed genuinely gracious in victory, calling for us to "work together" and find "a common solution for Iraq". It remains to be seen if they keep walking in the right direction, and it's not like I'll be voting Democrat anytime soon. I dread to think what the rest of her speech might have been. But it's good that we're no longer looking at a disintegrating second party in a two party system.

And yes, I'm still calling you "the second party", Democrats. I recall quite distinctly you making this claim, after you lost in 1994: just because of one election, you can't claim you're the majority party in America again, especially after being completely out in the wilderness for so long.

As our newly re-elected governor in California might say: We'll be back.

On the other hand....

I finally found an article that fit the clear mood I thought was missing from the election post-mortem.

McCain gains political capital in elections

Sen. John McCain emerged from yesterday's elections as one of Republicans' only winners as Democrats made solid gains and both parties turn an eye toward 2008.
The Arizona Republican, who wasn't up for re-election, rallied to the side of Republican candidates at 131 events -- a strong showing that displayed his rising popularity. His strength was underscored Monday when Charlie Crist, Florida's new Republican governor, chose to skip a scheduled rally with President Bush for an event with Mr. McCain.
"There's going to be a batch of people who are going to personally owe McCain and there's going to be another batch of people who are going to have to rethink their view of him," said Michael McKenna, a Republican strategist and pollster.
"He was a pretty solid party stalwart this go around, in a cycle when it was not easy to be a party stalwart."

It is 1852, and we are the Whigs - though, notably, no Lewis Davis Campbell has yet appeared to pronounce the Republican Party "dead".

I think Stephen Dinan and The Washington Times exactly miss the point. Surely, McCain has proven he is a good Republican. But he, like the President, supported a "squishy middle" strategy that has tried to fight for Republican numbers instead of the conservative ideology. Someone this morning should ask Mike DeWine (of the famed "Gang of 14", no less) how that worked for him. Someone should ask Lincoln Chafee (also of the "Gang") how well the President's help in defeating a conservative in the primary aided him in a general election in liberal Rhode Island.

Many conservatives will not stand with McCain and Rudy Giuliani any more. The question is, will they fight to retake the party of Ronald Reagan, or will they leave it to a fate like what befell the Whigs?

Damned if I know.

What we do know is that Democrats have successfully regained the House by a similar margin to what the Republicans had, and the Senate is teetering close to Democratic control without actually getting there. But despite the rhetoric of national Democrats, the candidates who won seem to have run on more moderate platforms. Meanwhile, anti-war poster boy Ned Lamont in Deep Blue Connecticut was soundly defeated by newly independent superhawk Joe Lieberman.

All in all, it seems as though the Democrats will have the same kind of hobbled majority the Republicans had: narrowly holding a center of power filled with people who actually disagree with their own party on some very important issues.

There are plenty of pundits spouting what they think, and I have yet to see anyone treat the situation fairly. Most from the left seem to be suggesting the American people have validated everything that liberal Democrats stand for. Most on the right are twittering about the plethora of issues - like immigration - that Congress failed to fix to the ultra-conservatives' satisfaction. But the victors are the people least likely to succesfully deal with those issues. Either way, it's a bad misreading of the mood of the country.

And then there's the war. The Surrender Party has won with many candidates who aren't afraid to fight, and more than a few who recently were in Iraq themselves. Many are already suggesting the President will be forced to withdraw quickly from the field, which is a terrible misunderestimation of Bush's resolve, and practical reality.

Ultimately, it feels to me as though the storm is finally breaking upon the gunwales, and at this crucial time the captain and first mate have both decided to sieze the wheel and are fighting over it while the ship begins to take water. There is no clear middle, and no party really resides there. Meanwhile, we continue to founder.

I jumped into the middle of the interview that Mandy had this morning with representative candidate Tim Mahoney and I'm sure glad I did. What I heard made me glad I was already planning on voting for Joe Negron.

This is part of the reason I call Thomas Sowell the smartest man in America. In just three sentences he completely reveals the duplicity and disingenuousness of the liberals and Democrat hustlers:

Democrats have learned to avoid admitting to being liberals and this year are running a number of moderate candidates.

If these new moderate candidates are elected and give the Democrats control of Congress, that control will be exercised by senior Democrats who will hold leadership positions — and all of them are liberal extremists, whether people like Nancy Pelosi in the House or Ted Kennedy and John Kerry in the Senate.

Getting people to vote for moderates, in order to put extremists in power, may be the newest and biggest voter fraud.

Today will tell us how well their "show" plays in Peoria!

Always on the search of left-wing lunacy, I have a Google Toolbar button for CQPolitics.com. However, today's amusement came from the map they have of how the Senate races are currently predicted. What caught my attention (being not color blind) was that the Florida Senate race isn't exactly buttoned up, as the MSM would have you believe.

Friends, conservatives, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury the The Republican party, not to praise them;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with the Republicans…. The noble Harry Reid
Hath told you the Republicans were corrupt:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously will the Republicans answer it….
Here, under leave of Harry Reid and the rest,
(For Harry Reid is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men and women)
Come I to speak in the Republican's funeral…

The Republican party was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Harry Reid says they are corrupt;
And Harry Reid is an honourable man….
The Republican tax cuts hath brought many revenues home to Washington,
Whose revenues did the general coffers fill:
Did in this the Republicans seem corrupt?
When that the citizens cried and jumped from burning towers, the Republicans hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Harry Reid says they are corrupt;
And Harry Reid is an honourable man.
You all did see that on several different occasions,
with usurpers and invaders crossing into our territories to take our riches (and possibly kill our citizens),
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi presented them with compromises that would have
increased the Republican popularity with the usurpers and invaders (but not stemmed their tide),
Which they did refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Harry Reid says they are corrupt;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Harry Reid spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love them once, and reproved that love in 2002 and 2004, and not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for them now?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with the Republicans,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of the Republicans might
Have stood against the terrorists of the world; now lie them there.
And none so poor to do them reverence. Who will stand against the terrorists now?
O masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Harry Reid wrong, and Nancy Pelosi wrong,
Who, you all know, are most honourable:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead Republicans, to wrong myself and you,
Than I would wrong such honourable men.
But here's a parchment with the seal of the Republicans;
I found it not in the media, but hidden in a closet, 'tis the Republicans will:
Let but the commons hear this testament--
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read...

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honourable:
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:
I am no orator, as John Kerry is;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friends; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of them:
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you the Republican's sweet wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me: but were I John Kerry,
And John Kerry me, there would be a person who
could ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue
In every wound of the Republican's that should move
The stones of the citizens to rise and mutiny.

Why, friends, you go to do you know not what:
Wherein hath the Republican's thus deserved your loves?
Alas, you know not: I must tell you then:
You have forgot the will I told you of.

Here is the will, and under the Republican's seal:

To every citizen they give, to increase the personal wealth of several rather than few,
a reduction in the taxes payed to the federal state.
Moreover, they hath left you more employment and lower interest rates on your homes;
On this side of the Rio Grande, they hath left you a fence to stem the tide of usurpers and invaders,
And, though the struggle has just begun, in lands far off and strange,
a grand effort by the noble Legions of this country to rid the world of the terrorist scourge, so that you and your heirs, for ever, may walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.

Here were the Republicans! When comes such another?

I strongly suggest this piece by Victor Davis Hanson as "Recommended Reading".

Think of this when you go to the polls on Tuesday.

Democrats

Republicans

Independents

You can only vote...
...ONCE.

Is it really safe...
...to sit at home?

Avoid the Yellow Pages...
...when shopping for a plastic surgeon.

Premiere blog hottie Michelle Malkin replays Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's response to the Washington Post's biased coverage, as seen on Fox News Sunday this morning:

Now, how many times (have) you seen the Washington Post do a second editorial on a candidate that they didn't even endorse? It makes no sense. So clearly, I must be winning this race, and the Washington Post will have to write that headline, "Steele Wins", and then eat it. [emphasis mine]

I strongly suggest this piece by Christian Coalition of Florida as "Recommended Reading".

Happy November Surprise from Karl Rove, courtesy of.... The New York Times? (link at Stop The ACLU)

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990’s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

My question is: too little, too late? It depends how torqued up New Media can make the otherwise-uninformed portion of the populace between now and Tuesday. Go at it, bloggers.

OK... so John F'n Kerry says the following:

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

He then claims that what he said was really meant to be some sort of joke about the President.

Well, Mr. Kerry, it seems that some of your audience understood the joke more than others.

A big stovepipe hat tip to the whole gang over at HotAir

Update: It seems that John Kerry is claiming that he has apologized...

"I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended," Kerry said in a statement.

And while some may be tempted to give this horses ass the benefit of the doubt and concede that he may have just fumbled a joke, how does that claim hold up when you find out that not only he has said similar stuff before, but seems to have held these views for decades?

Kerry apologized Wednesday for the 2006 campaign trail gaffe that some took as suggesting U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq were undereducated. He contended the remark was aimed at Bush, not the soldiers.

In 1972, as he ran for the House, he was less apologetic in his comments about the merits of a volunteer army. He declared in the questionnaire that he opposed the draft but considered a volunteer army "a greater anathema."

"I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown," Kerry wrote. "We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply 'doing its job.'

"Equally as important, a volunteer army with our present constitutional crisis takes accountability away from the president and put the people further from control over military activities," he wrote.

You regret? You apologize? May I suggest Senator, that you are not nearly as sorry as you are going to be. You may have just helped your party lose the power they so desperately crave. Just ask Joe Lieberman how it feels to get thrown under that bus.

Oh, and Senator, if anyone threatens you, don't worry. One of those stupid soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines - or their civilian counterparts - will be there to protect you. They are so stupid they actually think you have every right to say the asinine things you do. Can you imagine?!

Although this website isn't really that old yet, we have still tried to establish some 'traditions' here. The first is our unwritten rule that nearly any article, book, or mention by a politician of Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War gets mentioned somehow. It may only be a post to our Recommended Reading section, but such references seldom go unnoticed.

Our second 'tradition' - albeit a rather new one - is to annually designate one national figure as our Black Republican of the Year.

As a contributor to this blog my official nomination for this year's award, whether he wins or loses, goes to Michael Steele.