2008 is Not ’McCain or Bust’

Via my discussion at HotAir:

“I don’t believe we have the luxury of sacrificing four or eight years to teach Senator McCain a lesson or to help maintain the GOP brand (the brand argument was always weak to me). The stakes are too high and the truth is that eight years of Obama could be a game changer for the long run.”Mormon Doc on August 17, 2008 at 9:44 PM

My worry for months has been based on the talk of so called conservatives who say that it is basically either McCain or bust. What that tells me is that these so called conservatives are putting everything into the Presidential election and if Obama wins, they will become like those people who needed professional help after President Bush won in 2004. Or they won’t be that bad, but they will simply give up on this nation and on being active in politics, because they felt it was all or nothing in the general election.

That is wrong.

This election is not the be all, end all. If Obama wins, the country will go on. Might be worse, might be the same. Heck, might be better somehow. None of us know. However, this fatalistic attitude among so called conservatives that McCain has to win otherwise we are doomed is pathetic. It sounds like what I heard from the Left prior to 2004. I thought it was pathetic coming from the Left and I think it is pathetic coming from the Right as well.

This isn’t about ‘teaching Senator McCain a lesson’. This is about the nation. This is about what is best for the country in the near future and the distant future.

The point that people seem to be missing is that this isn’t about two men, this is about ideology and what is best for America. Americans shouldn’t support Presidents or Senators or Congressmen, they should support their city, their State and their Nation above all. Presidents will come and go. They will either help or harm the nation in small or large ways. What makes this country continue on is its people.

Thus, the important thing is not to support a candidate, but to support an ideology. Support principles and values. Our politicians are a reflection of the values or lack of values of the American public. Thus, Obama and McCain being poor candidates is a testament to our society being a poor society that needs education, needs inspiration and needs to be reminded of what makes this nation great.

Obama doesn’t make this nation great. McCain doesn’t make it great. The ideals and values and principles of this nation and the American people who uphold and stick to those ideals and values and principles make this country great decade after decade, generation after generation.

My problem is reading people put their faith in politicians and political parties instead of the ideals and values and principles of this nation.

Michael in MI on August 17, 2008 at 10:00 PM

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Republican Party Sells Out on Energy and Hands 2008 Election to Democrats

Not that they really had a chance to win any seats anyway, considering the American public is made up of a bunch of idiotic ignoramuses who are clueless about the fact that the Democrat Party has caused this energy crisis and has wanted high gas prices all along. But, as many around conservative blogs have already stated, this is why they call the Republican Party “the Stupid Party”.

However, I still am sticking with blaming the American public. Politicians are just like the entertainment industry and the mass media: they are only going to do what keeps getting them votes. If the American public stopped watching the filth on TV and stopped buying the crap put out by the music industry, the entertainment industry wouldn’t be continuing to make their filthy crap. If the American public stopped watching the mass media, stopped subscribing to the newspapers and stopped tuning into the cable news’ smut TV with all their shows about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and the latest slut of the day, the mass media wouldn’t continue to put that crap on TV and would actually have to report on things of interest to the American people. But, their continued broadcast of crap ‘news’ just proves that the majority of the American public is made up of a bunch of shallow, superficial ignoramuses who enjoy watching that nonsense.

The same holds true for politics. Politicians don’t vote themselves into office. Politicians are not handed the keys to the office by their predecessors and they are not granted their seats due to a family inheritance. The American People vote them into office. Thus, a bad politician is due to a bad American public. Period.

And now, here we go again with the Republican Party pulling a John McCain and going for “compromise” and “bipartisanship” over principle and what is the right thing to do for the country. This is all due to the new direction of the Republican Party in which John McCain is trying to take it. “Moderatism”. Yeah, all those loudmouth, holier-than-thou “moderates” who have been berating us conservatives saying that “bipartisanship” and “moderatism” is the way to go, well here you go @ssholes. This is what you get from “moderatism”. F#cking tools.

Republican Energy Fumble

Politics has its puzzling moments. John McCain and most of the GOP experienced one late last week. That was when five of their own set about dismantling the best issue Republicans have in the upcoming election.

It’s taken time, but Sen. McCain and his party have finally found — in energy — an issue that’s working for them. Riding voter discontent over high gas prices, the GOP has made anti-drilling Democrats this summer’s headlines.

Their enthusiasm has given conservative candidates a boost in tough races. And Mr. McCain has pressured Barack Obama into an energy debate, where the Democrat has struggled to explain shifting and confused policy proposals.

Still, it was probably too much to assume every Republican would work out that their side was winning this issue. And so, last Friday, in stumbled Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson — alongside five Senate Democrats. This “Gang of 10″ announced a “sweeping” and “bipartisan” energy plan to break Washington’s energy “stalemate.” What they did was throw every vulnerable Democrat, and Mr. Obama, a life preserver.

That’s because the plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast — putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska’s oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.

The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn’t have penned it better. And so the Republican Five has potentially given antidrilling Democrats the political cover they need to neutralize energy through November.

Sen. Obama was thrilled. He quickly praised the Gang’s bipartisan spirit, and warmed up to a possible compromise. Of course, he means removing even the token drilling provisions now in the bill. But he’s only too happy for the focus to remain on the Gang’s efforts, and in particular on the five Republicans providing his party its fig leaf.

Equally gleeful was Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrat. She had been sweating the energy debate, especially after her vote against more oil-shale production — a position her Republican opponent, John Kennedy, had used against her to great effect. Yet there she was, chummily standing with the Gang of 10 and boasting that she is working with “five Republicans” to “lower prices at the pump by increasing offshore drilling here at home.”

Mr. McCain, who had been commanding the energy debate, was left to explain why he, of all people, wasn’t more enthusiastic about a “bipartisan” effort on energy, especially one that includes “drilling.” His camp was forced to take refuge in taxes, explaining that their boss couldn’t sign up for a bill that included more. If this is what Mr. McCain’s good friend Lindsey Graham considers “helping,” somebody might want to ask him to stop.

And pity poor Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been working overtime to stanch GOP losses this fall and head off a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate. His dogged efforts to highlight Democratic opposition to drilling has kept energy in the news and laid the groundwork for GOP candidates to use the issue to their advantage.

In the Colorado Senate race, Democrats had christened former GOP Rep. Bob Schaffer “Big Oil Bob” — hoping to smear his oil industry career. “Big Oil Bob” has instead embraced his pro-drilling positions and is pummeling opponent Mark Udall for his antidrilling stance. In recent weeks, Mr. Schaffer has erased Mr. Udall’s lead. Polls show Republican Sens. Norm Coleman (Minnesota) and John Sununu (New Hampshire) both climbing in the polls on the back of strong energy arguments. As two of the GOP’s most vulnerable senators, both might well have run for cover with the Gang of 10. Instead they’re fighting on the merits.

The “bipartisan” Republican senators have undercut these efforts, and boosted Ms. Landrieu. They’ve even put a smile on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s face. He’d been struggling to tamp down the energy debate through November, where he hopes to increase his majority and permanently shelve drilling. He’s now counting on the Gang to fruitlessly continue “negotiations” straight through the Senate’s short September session and solve his problem for him.

Not one of the five Republicans in the Gang is facing a tough election this year. That’s the sort of security that leads to bad decisions. And theirs is the sort of thinking that could leave Republicans in a permanent minority.

My Congressman, Representative Thaddeus McCotter, has been one of the Republicans in the House leading the charge against the Democrats. Now he has been hung out to dry during his re-election campaign as well. Thanks a lot you f#cking putzes. This is what happens when you nominate a complete “moderate” jackass idiot like McCain who has been against drilling for pretty much his entire career. So now he just lost this issue as a campaign strength and he will be back to getting pummelled by Barry Obama on his way to a landslide loss to the Obamessiah in November.

Brilliant.

I f#cking hate “moderates” and their so-called “bipartisanship” and “compromise”. You know what bipartisanship and compromise are? They are giving the other side what they want, while you compromise any principles you claim to have and get jack sh!t in return. *That* is “moderatism”. F#cking tools.

Stephen Spruiell: The Ethanol Gang

Earlier today, Larry linked to Kim Strassel’s Wall Street Journal article on the Senate’s “Gang of Ten.” I’m linking to it again, because it is vitally important reading for anyone trying to understand the damage the gang is doing. Here’s a key passage:

… it was probably too much to assume every Republican would work out that their side was winning [the energy] issue. And so, last Friday, in stumbled Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson — alongside five Senate Democrats. This “Gang of 10” announced a “sweeping” and “bipartisan” energy plan to break Washington’s energy “stalemate.” What they did was throw every vulnerable Democrat, and Mr. Obama, a life preserver.

That’s because the plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast — putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska’s oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.

The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn’t have penned it better. And so the Republican Five has potentially given antidrilling Democrats the political cover they need to neutralize energy through November.

There’s one word that explains why these five Republicans are selling out: Biofuels. The gang’s “compromise bill” contains billions in subsidies for research into biofuels, and for the manufacture of ethanol-burning cars.

Thune is from the corn-producing state of South Dakota and has always been a big advocate for corn ethanol. The flagship university in Corker’s home state of Tennessee houses a major biofuels research center, specializing in cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass. Chambliss is the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. He and Isakson both represent Georgia, where they are trying to figure out how to turn Georgia peanuts into fuel. And Graham — well, Graham just seems to have a mania for joining bipartisan gangs.

The worst part — as Strassel points out — is that the gang would raise the money for these new ethanol ventures by repealing tax provisions that allow oil companies to write off the cost of expanding refinery capacity. Whatever this bill is, it’s not a cheaper-gas bill. In fact, despite its meager drilling provisions, it looks a lot like the opposite.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: It May Be August

but I gather some congressional phone lines are keeping pretty active over this:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — House Republican Policy Chairman, Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) issued the following statement about the Senate group known as the “Gang of Ten.”

I oppose the Senate’s “Tepid Ten” attempt to address America’s energy crisis.

The Tepid Ten’s scheme is ill-advised and injurious to America’s energy future.

In treating Americans’ energy reserves like a re-districting map, politics – not production – is this proposal’s goal. In consequence, if embraced this proposal will perpetuate a governmentally imposed ban made obsolete by soaring energy prices and, thereby, continue a governmentally imposed shortage of American energy, particularly oil and gas. Thus, this proposal will not increase energy supplies sufficiently enough to provide economically suffering Americans critical, comprehensive relief from high gasoline and natural gas prices. Compounding this problem, the proposal’s tax increase will be passed on to Americans through higher gas prices; and, thus, increase working people’s pain at the pump.

Given these aforementioned and other flaws in their proposal, the Tepid Ten should, instead, heed working people’s cry to unleash America’s full energy; lower gasoline and natural gas prices; and always remember – be it regarding our energy crisis and other issues – the words of President Ronald Reagan:

“Government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem!”

Larry Kudlow: The Oil Tax Cut Is Good for Growth, Lower Inflation, and Solving the Credit Crunch

The tax-cut effects of lower oil prices are the single-biggest economic story right now. Even with Fannie Mae’s terrible reported earnings, stocks are up 240 points in today’s trading. Why? Because oil is down another $4 to $116. That’s a more than 20 percent drop from its peak in mid-July, about the time President Bush launched his drill, drill, drill offensive to roll back the moratorium on offshore and domestic production, including shale and ANWR.

Bush removed the executive moratorium order, and now the entire country is clamoring for Congress to remove its moratorium. So far the Reid-Pelosi Democrats continue to dither and oppose new drilling. And as Kim Strassel wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal, the so-called “Gang of 10” compromise is a lousy deal. Obama is flirting with that compromise, but he has basically positioned himself as the anti-driller. Fortunately John McCain has repositioned himself as the pro-driller, and his rising polls show popular support.

But oil markets see the political tide in favor of drilling. As poll after poll is released — showing huge public support for drilling — oil traders are selling contracts short in anticipation of greater oil supplies in the future. And while all this is going on, the oil shock of the past six-to-nine months has curbed energy demand and promoted conservation. In other words, markets work. The combination of expected future supply increases and a pullback in demand is working to bring down prices.

Again, oil-price drops have a huge tax-cut effect on the economy. What many pessimists overlook, however, is that the tax-cut effect of lower oil will significantly help solve the credit-crunch problem in financial markets and at the large banks. Think about this. Declining oil enhances consumer purchasing power, raises profits, and gives everyone more economic strength. Folks struggling to pay mortgages will have a better time of it with lower energy costs. Pocketbooks will stretch further. Business commodity costs will go down and profits will go up. All that sub-prime mortgage paper sitting in bank portfolios will be worth more as homeowners can better service their mortgages in the wake of shrinking energy burdens.

The very key point here — which is being missed by so many — is that lower oil will solve the credit crunch. Just as the price shock of the last few quarters deepened the credit crunch and brought the economy to the edge of recession, today’s oil-price plunge will ease the credit crunch and strengthen economic growth. Not only that, but plunging gold prices and the strengthening of King Dollar show the counter-inflationary impact of lower oil. Real interest rates are rising in the Treasury market as oil prices fall.

The oil tax cut is good for growth, good for lower inflation, and good for solving the credit crunch that has plagued financial markets. In effect, the credit problems that continued to resurface are yesterday’s story, and the credit solution coming from plunging oil is tomorrow’s headline.

This is why the Goldilocks summer stock market rally has legs.

Mexican Army Invades United States

See-Dubya at Michelle Malkin’s site asks:

I figured this news would send the blogosphere through the roof. On my usual prowlings I see one squawk from the Jawa Report.

Did we just give up on this whole “border” thing?

That should have been evident to everyone months ago. The American public could care less about illegal immigration and border security. If they did care, they would not have nominated Captain Amnesty – who is friends with racist pro-illegal immigration group La Raza as well as racist pro-illegal immigration Juan Hernandez – for President in the Republican Party.

Also, take a look at all the polls. Where does illegal immigration rank on things people care about regarding this upcoming election? Towards the bottom.

And yet, people tell me that I am supposed to put my trust in the American people to do the right thing and vote for McCain over Obama in November.

Bwahahahahahahahahaha! Don’t make me bust a lung. With all due respect to Forrest Gump, I may not be a smart man, but I know what BULLSH!T is.

And that is what everyone telling me to put my faith in the American public are flinging at me. Barack Obama is going to win. Because the American public is made up of a bunch of selfish, fickle, superficial ignoramuses.

And just like the American public has forgotten all about the hot issue of 2007 — illegal immigration — by November, the American public will have forgotten all about the hot issue of the summer of 2008 — gas prices and domestic drilling. And the vast majority of them will cast their votes for Senator Obama. And the Democrat Party will also gain seats in the House and Senate.

You doubt that? Then let’s hear your argument. And again, remember, the American public nominated Captain Amnesty, shill of La Raza, for the Republican ticket for the Presidency. If you think I’m going to put my trust in a bunch of morons who did that after they were supposedly all up in arms about illegal immigration in 2007, think again.

See-Dubya at Michelle Malkin: Followup on the Mexican Army’s latest incursion

Obama – An Old-Fashioned, Big Government, Race-Conscious Liberal Category: News and Politics

Via Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker Blog: Obama as a State Senator

Stanley Kurtz at The Weekly Standard: Barack Obama’s Lost Years

Barack Obama’s neighborhood newspaper, the Hyde Park Herald, has a longstanding tradition of opening its pages to elected officials – from Chicago aldermen to state legislators to U.S. senators. Obama himself, as a state senator, wrote more than 40 columns for the Herald, under the title “Springfield Report,” between 1996 and 2004. Read in isolation, Obama’s columns from the state capital tell us little. Placed in the context of political and policy battles then raging in Illinois, however, the young legislator’s dispatches powerfully illuminate his political beliefs. Even more revealing are hundreds of articles chronicling Obama’s early political and legislative activities in the pages not only of the Hyde Park Herald, but also of another South Side fixture, the Chicago Defender.

Obama moved to Chicago in order to place himself in what he understood to be the de facto “capital” of black America. For well over 100 years, the Chicago Defender has been the voice of that capital, and therefore a paper of national significance for African Americans. Early on in his political career, Obama complained of being slighted by major media, like the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Yet extensive and continuous coverage in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald presents a remarkable resource for understanding who Obama is. Reportage in these two papers is particularly significant because Obama’s early political career – the time between his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate in 1995 and his race for U.S. Senate in 2004 – can fairly be called the “lost years,” the period Obama seems least eager to talk about, in contrast to his formative years in Hawaii, California, and New York or his days as a community organizer, both of which are recounted in his memoir, Dreams from My Father. The pages of the Hyde Park Herald and the Chicago Defender thus offer entrée into Obama’s heretofore hidden world.

What they portray is a Barack Obama sharply at variance with the image of the post-racial, post-ideological, bipartisan, culture-war-shunning politician familiar from current media coverage and purveyed by the Obama campaign. As details of Obama’s early political career emerge into the light, his associations with such radical figures as Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend James Meeks, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn look less like peculiar instances of personal misjudgment and more like intentional political partnerships. At his core, in other words, the politician chronicled here is profoundly race-conscious, exceedingly liberal, free-spending even in the face of looming state budget deficits, and partisan. Elected president, this man would presumably shift the country sharply to the left on all the key issues of the day – culture-war issues included. It’s no wonder Obama has passed over his Springfield years in relative silence.

Thomas Lifson highlights these two examples, but be sure to read the entire enlightening article by Stanley Kurtz:

In 2004, a U.S. District Court disallowed the ordinance under which Chicago required the use of at least 25 percent minority business enterprises and 5 percent women’s business enterprises on city-funded projects. In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, Obama and Jesse Jackson were among the prominent voices calling for a black leadership summit to plot strategy for a restoration of Chicago’s construction quotas. Obama and his allies succeeded in bringing back race-based contracting.

[ . . . ]

A Chicago Defender story of 1999 features a front-page picture of Obama beside the headline, “Obama: Illinois Black Caucus is broken.” In the accompanying article, although Obama denies demanding that black legislators march in perfect lockstep, he expresses anger that black state senators have failed to unite for the purpose of placing a newly approved riverboat casino in a minority neighborhood. The failed casino vote, Obama argues, means that the black caucus “is broken and needs to unite for the common good of the African-American community.” Obama continues, “The problem right now is that we don’t have a unified agenda that’s enforced back in the community and is clearly articulated. Everybody tends to be lone agents in these situations.”

Speaking in reply to Obama was Mary E. Flowers, an African-American state senator who apparently broke black caucus discipline and voted to approve the casino’s location in a nonminority area. Said Flowers: “The Black Caucus is from different tribes, different walks of life. I don’t expect all of the whites to vote alike.  .  .  .  Why is it that all of us should walk alike, talk alike and vote alike?  .  .  .  I was chosen by my constituents to represent them, and that is what I try to do.” Given Obama’s supposedly post-racial politics, it is notable that he should be the one demanding enforcement of a black political agenda against “lone agents,” while another black legislator appeals to Obama to leave her free to represent her constituents, black or white, as she sees fit.

Are They Journalists or are They Americans?

I have to admit that the first thing that came to mind after reading this post at Blackfive about a FOX News Channel cameraman, Chris Jackson, rescuing a wounded U.S. Marine after an IED blast was along the same lines as commentor “Grimmy”:

“I suspect many libs will be condemning this cameraman for abandoning his “journalistic integrity” and doing anything other than standing by and filming the Marine as he burned to death.”

That was my thought as well. Actually I was thinking, for any other “journalist”, and especially a cameraman, their first instinct would have been “ooh! ooh! We’ve got action here! Where’s my camera so I can get this on tape and broadcast this exciting footage to the world to show how horrible it is here in Afghanistan and how Americans troops are failing!”

And then I got to thinking about how so-called journalists have always stated that they have to be “impartial” when it comes to war reporting and not “cheerlead” for the United States to succeed. They have to remain “impartial” and be journalists before they are Americans.

Hmmm…

So, I’d like to know why journalists remain “impartial” when it comes to America’s efforts in war, however, journalists throw that impartiality to the wind when it comes to American politics.

Apparently, they are journalists before they are Americans and they are Democrats and Leftists before they are journalists.

Actually, in my opinion, all journalists are scumbags until they prove otherwise. Mr. Chris Jackson, you have proven otherwise. Kudos to you, sir. And kudos to FOX News Channel for employing such a man.