The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

The RINO Message: “We want your votes but not your candidates”

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In an email today from Jim DeMint:

As you know, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski lost the Republican primary to her conservative challenger, Joe Miller, in a fair fight. But instead of graciously conceding and endorsing the Republican nominee, Murkowski announced that she will continue her campaign as an independent write-in candidate.

Senate Republicans held a closed-door meeting yesterday afternoon to elect someone to replace Senator Murkowski as the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Or so we thought.

Rather than taking away Murkowski’s leadership position on the committee, Senate Republicans decided to let her keep it. One senator after another stood up to argue in favor of protecting her place on the committee — a position she will no doubt use in her campaign against Joe Miller, the conservative Republican nominee.

It was bad enough to watch my colleagues work to support her in the primary after she had built a record of betraying conservatives principles. But watching them back her after she left the party and launched a campaign against the Republican nominee was more than I could bear.

I spoke out against the motion and I voted against it. But the good ol’ boys Senate club, which always protects its own, prevailed. The motion was adopted by secret ballot and the final tally was not disclosed.

More from Marc Thiessen:

In an interview, [Joe] Miller told me he is confident that he can win with Murkowski in the race: “She was given her job and now she thinks she deserves it. She has disrespected the will of the Alaskan voter. We had the largest turnout of any Republican primary in the history of the state of Alaska. The race was won fair and square. And then in the wake of that, she claims that the election was ‘hijacked’ and that it was a group of ‘extremists’ that voted for me. It gets down to the fact that she perceives herself as entitled, and she can’t let go of the power she’s held for the last eight years.”

In that sense of entitlement, Murkowski is not alone. All last week, we heard the GOP establishment complain how the Tea Party is threatening Republican unity by pursuing “ideological purity” at the expense of a “big tent” party. But Tea Party-endorsed candidates are the ones who have stayed within the GOP tent. Rather than launching destructive third-party bids, fiscally conservative insurgents have contested GOP primaries — and when they have lost, they have endorsed their establishment opponents virtually without fail.

Contrast that with the record of the establishment candidates. When it became clear Charlie Crist would lose to Marco Rubio in Florida’s Senate race, Crist bolted the GOP and decided to run as an independent. When Arlen Specter saw he would lose to Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, he became a Democrat. And, after losing the GOP nomination in Alaska, Murkowski is running as an independent write-in candidate. And yet, we are told that it is the Tea Party that is dividing the GOP and threatening party unity. For establishment candidates, unity seems to be a one-way street. The message to Tea Party activists across the country is:  We want your votes but not your candidates.

Read that last sentence again:  We want your votes but not your candidates.  That, dear readers, is the root of all angst (or should I say “disgust”) now being demonstrated by the average American voter.  The average American voter who, when push comes to shove, is conservative and pragmatic, common sense and bottom line.  Sure, a majority of these folks voted for “hope” and “change” but paying for other people’s mortgages, abortions, and business miscalculations (not to mention padding the personal bank accounts of unrepresenting representatives a la Rangel, Dodd et al) wasn’t exactly how they defined it and the sea change being demonstrated by RINO and progressive liberal losses to “nobody” conservative candidates is the manifestation of their buyer’s remorse. 

We have plenty of politicians in Washington.  What we want and what we need are representatives of we, the people.  Despite those claims of honor among thieves it is apparently asking too much of either the GOP or the DNC to face the firing squad squarely; it appears they’ll wake up November 3rd looking like proverbial deer in the headlights.  Doesn’t say much for their claims of being the “best and brightest”, does it?  Particularly when the warnings signs are clear.  A friend of mine recently received a solicitation from the Republican National Committee and sent it back; in the space for an “other” donation amount they noted they had made a nice-sized donation directly to Sharron Angle’s Senate campaign in Nevada.  Other shots like this are being sent across the bow every day; I told my local GOP House candidate just last week that if, when he gets to Washington, he becomes what we’ve come to expect as a stereotypical politician I would personally kick his butt.  But therein lies the task that faces us:  we must become personally involved in governing this great Republic and we must remain personally involved.  It is complacency that is the biggest reason America now faces such an uncertain future, therefore it is a return to vigilence that is our personal and individual responsibility if we wish to bequeath something better than federal slavery to our children.

Understanding The 14th Amendment

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If you are to understand any issue, you must do your homework.  So as the debate rages on about “anchor babies” and citizenship for illegal immigrants, I thought it might be helpful to share the following pieces of testimony of Edward J. Erler before the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims on June 25, 1997.  (Mr. Erler is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute and Professor of Political Science at California State University, San Bernardino and the author of The American Polity (Crane Russak, 1993); he has also authored articles on the fourteenth amendment, affirmative action, the death penalty and other topics.)  In it, he puts things into plain English:

Senator Jacob Howard, the author of the citizenship clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, defined who would fall within the “jurisdiction of the United States”:

[E]very person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.

What Mr. Erler has layed out is called “original intent” and in a world where the “rule of law” superscedes the “rule of man” it is the basis for interpretation.  Avoiding original intent for perceptions of political gain is what has created the problem of “anchor babies” in the first place:

…it seems to be beyond cavil that the jurisdiction clause of the fourteenth amendment was intended by its framers to have independent force; not all persons born in the geographical limits of the United States are within the jurisdiction of the United States. To be within the jurisdiction of the United States means to be within its political jurisdiction. Those who today advocate birth-right citizenship for children of illegal aliens born within the geographical boundaries of the United States believe that the fourteenth amendment extends to these children what the framers of the fourteenth amendment said did not extend to Native Americans.

In the case of the children born to aliens illegally in the United States, their citizenship would follow the citizenship of their parents or be determined by the laws of the country in which the parents hold citizenship. The fact that illegal aliens have violated laws of the United States precludes any possibility that they can be properly said to be within the jurisdiction of the United States as the aliens surely have demonstrated that they do not believe themselves to be subject to the laws of the United States, or are only partially subject. Contrary to a currently fashionable argument, the denial of birth-right citizenship to children of illegal aliens does not punish the children for the sins of the parents because the children don’t have a right to citizenship in the first place they are being denied nothing that is rightfully theirs. It would, of course, be a different matter for the children born of legal aliens who have been admitted by the laws of the United States. Whether their children would be citizens at birth or upon the attainment of citizenship by the parents would be a matter for Congress to determine.

Jurisdiction is not a geographical concept; it is a matter of political allegiance. Birth-right citizenship has no place in republican government; it is the relic of monarchy and should be recognized as such once again by Congress.

 To read Mr. Erler’s testimony in full (highly recommended), click HERE.

Campaigning On The Taxpayer’s Dime

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I suppose that blundering Joe Biden has to do something to earn the money we pay him to be Vice-President.  But campaigning for other Democrats seems a bit…shall we say, excessive.  I don’t recall ever agreeing to such a thing being in his job description; do you?

Biden, who has been designated as the administration’s political point man for House Democratic campaigns, will be on the road three of seven days a week campaigning for candidates, this official said.

Profanity Planned For Sacred Ground

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President Walking Eagle and his administration have done everything possible to insult our friend and ally, Great Britain, to the point of hating us, yet there are those Brits, gods bless them, who get it and remain comitted to helping America remain the champion of liberty.

I have yet to hear or read anything better that addresses the sheer lunacy of the Islamic mosque planned to be built at Ground Zero than this piece by Pat Condell.  Watch it and keep in mind that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the main proponent, is also one of the key financiers behind last week’s violent “aid” flotilla to Gaza (the Free Gaza Movement, which also has the support of William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn – surprise, surprise).  You know, the one where the activists were armed but the lame-stream press (Reuters, again) cropped photos if they showed them holding weapons.

Then watch it again.  If you must, watch it yet a third time and let the truth of this horrible, wicked insult sink into the very marrow of your bones.

Then send your letters of protest to:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
PHONE 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC)

FAX (212) 312-0700

E-MAIL:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

Thank you for your plain-spoken eloquence, Pat.

When Fox Guards Henhouse

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Americans rest so easily knowing that Attorney General Eric Holder heads up such a stellar Justice Department, as witnessed by its failing to take the default judgement in the Black Panther voter intimidation case and by his condemnation of Arizona’s recent immigration check legislation without even reading it, that it makes perfect sense the request to appoint a special prosecutor to look into allegations made by Representative Joe Sestak that the White House offered him a job to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Arlen Specter is being stonewalled. 

“We assure you that the Department of Justice takes very seriously allegations of criminal conduct by public officials,” Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich told [R-CA Representative Darrell] Issa in a letter. “All such matters are reviewed carefully by career prosecutors and law enforcement agents, and appropriate action, if warranted, is taken.”

Weich said a special prosecutor won’t be needed because the Justice Department “has a long history of handling investigations of high level officials professionally and independently, without the need to appoint a special counsel.”

It makes perfect sense to have those who would likely be involved in what is an impeachable offense do the investigation of wrong-doing, doesn’t it?  Rather like the mother of the school bully being called into the principal’s office to make the decision as to whether or not her child sucker-punched another child.

And it’s just another day in Chicago….

Another “No Tax Increase” Tax Increase

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It is being reported tonight that Congress is hastily slapping together a “grab bag” of legislation they think they need to pass before heading off for the Memorial Day holiday break.  But as with everything in this Congress, haste to exploit the latest crise du jour is going to cost the American taxpayer yet again.

This time in the form of higher gasoline taxes – a quadrupling of the current 8 cents a barrel.  This is being touted as a way to make sure there is enough money to pay for oil spills.  Like the one in the Gulf of Mexico that BP is going to pay for.

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders have said they expect BP to foot the bill for the cleanup.

“Taxpayers will not pick up the tab,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday.

So of course it makes perfect sense to raise taxes on everyone in America who drives a car, rides a motorcycle, uses a lawnmower, or any other engine-driven piece of machinery that uses gasoline.

I so love the smell of hypocrisy floating on the warm, spring evening air.

Coakley Campaign Callers Lying To MA Voters

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No one doubts the depths of ugly deceit of which progressive liberal Democrats are capable, but aside from the high school aspects of it, this latest “trick” from the Coakley campaign takes the cake:

Pro-lifers are receiving phone calls from people claiming to be Mass Citizens.  The callers say that Mass Citizens is not supporting Scott Brown because of his position on health care!

The truth is that Mass Citizens is suporting Brown because of his position on health care!  

These deceitful calls are coming from 202-461-3441, a Washington, DC number.  The phone company says this is a company called SOOH.  Pro-lifers are not the only victims of this scam.  Our MCFL sleuths have found that this same number is calling people across the state claiming to be different groups with different messages – all anti-Brown!

If you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit?

Way to go, Martha.  You’re a real class act.

This Weekend’s Lesson In Leadership

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Let’s see now.  We’re in the middle of a pretty serious recession that has no end in sight.  The administration is about to tax banks for taking a loan from the government and then paying it back while the IRS upped just pretty much everyone’s tax bill with new 2010 federal tax rates.  Two of the Big Three automakers are owned by the taxpayers and that brilliant, Ivy League idea of a “Cash For Clunkers” program ended up with top ten clunkers traded in having been made by those Big Two but the top ten sales of new vehicles going to everyone else.  Unemployment and housing foreclosures are both at double-digits with no real signs of slowing down so the administration is exploring ways to get their hands on the money people have put into their 401ks.  The government’s security programs failed to stop both a jihadist massacre at Fort Hood and a jihadist attack on a plane above U.S. soil and their diplomatic efforts are failing equally with the nuclear weapons programs of both North Korea and Iran.

We mustn’t forget that it’s absolutely imperative for the government to take over the U.S. health care industry and to convince enough people that there is such a thing as global warming or climate change or something, anything, even if validated by falsified data, Virginia, to justify passing on the enormous financial burdens of cap and trade.

So what does a United States president do when the going is so very, very rough?  How does he lead his country back to the prosperity inherent in Her Constitution and Bill of Rights?  Why, he schemes in pure partisanship until the wee hours of the morning behind closed doors, then hits the campaign trail for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts this weekend.  And he also picks up his magic pen to write a piece for Newsweek  about the disaster in Haiti.

Atta boy, Barry.  Demonstrate your commitment to transparency.  Stump for a corrupt candidate whose own husband’s own police union won’t endorse her.  Indulge your penchant for spouting nonsensical fluff about something that isn’t anyone’s fault and where the need is obvious for a publication that has become nothing more than venue for op/ed pieces.  That’s the way to show real leadership.