George Washington 1789:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor – and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be – That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks – for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation – for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war –for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed – for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions – to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually – to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed – to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord – To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us – and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

I’ve never heard it said better.

Gallup Survey on Afghanistan

Which of the following would you like to see President Obama do? Increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the roughly 40,000 the U.S. commanding general there has recommended. Increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan but by a smaller amount than the 40,000 the U.S. commanding general there has recommended. Keep the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan the same as now. Or, begin to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

• Increase by 40,000 37% [35%]
• Increase by less than 40,000 10% [7%]
• Keep the same number 9% [7%]
• Reduce the number 39% [44%]

Among Democrats

• Increase by 40,000 17% [18%]
• Increase by less than 40,000 12% [8%]
• Keep the same number 10% [6%]
• Reduce the number 57% [60%]

Among Independents

• Increase by 40,000 36% [36%]
• Increase by less than 40,000 10% [7%]
• Keep the same number 8% [8%]
• Reduce the number 37% [43%]

Among Republicans

• Increase by 40,000 65% [57%]
• Increase by less than 40,000 7% [6%]
• Keep the same number 8% [7%]
• Reduce the number 17% [26%]

Thinking about U.S. military action in Afghanistan that began in October 2001, do you think the United States made a mistake in sending military forces to Afghanistan, or not?

• Yes, made a mistake 36% (37% )
• No, did not make a mistake 60% (61%)

Among Democrats

• Yes, made a mistake 50% (54%)
• No, did not make a mistake 47% (44%)

Among Independents

• Yes, made a mistake 39% (34%)
• No, did not make a mistake 56% (65%)

Among Republicans

• Yes, made a mistake 14% (19%)
• No, did not make a mistake 84% (76%)

Survey of 1,017 adults was conducted November 20-22. The margin of error is ±4 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted November 5-8 are in brackets. Results from the poll conducted August 31 – September 2 are in parentheses.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJanaq5iSoc[/youtube]

A Soldier’s Thanksgiving

I know we are at war,

But I hear change is in sight

Instead of family and friends for Thanksgiving you will

Chow with your comrades tonight

One to your left, the other to your right.

Your regiment, your battalion,

Have now become family and friends

Living day to day in a personal sacrifice

On a mission to defend.

You are the hero’s who’s faces we may never get to see

But the pride and glory that’s lives in a soldier heart

Biers one word

“Integrity”

On this day

We give thanks and honor to those brave and true

Our banners, we will proudly wave

The Red, White, and Blue

We will give our thanks not only to our god

but also to every soldier for our bounties, that be.

For they give meaning to words

Home of the brave Land of the Free.

To the soldiers in the mess hall

Eating their thanksgiving feast,

to the troops in the desert eating another

Meal ready to eat.

May peace, hope and strength

Travel with you along the way

And may these wishes find you

On A Soldiers Thanksgiving day.

_____________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Approval/disapproval numbers for Obama courtesy of SurveyUSA.

Obama’s numbers have plummeted in the swing States of Virginia and Missouri and are even in the blue States in the Pacific north-west.

Alabama 38/59
California 53/38
Kansas 38/58
Kentucky 38/58
Missouri 38/58
New York 53/39
Oregon 47/47
Virginia 37/60
Washington 48/48

_____________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Milton Friedman once remarked that the story of human history is mostly one of misery and suffering. This whole human liberty thing is a bizarre anomaly in the annals of civilization.

It is true. Even today, as hard as it is for most of us to conceive of it, most people are living an existence filled with suffering.

If you truly believe, as I do, that the United States of America is the greatest place to live on this planet, then reflect upon this: only about five percent of the world’s population is lucky enough to have been born here.

So, those are one-in-twenty odds. You and I beat the odds.

I look at my life — I have all of my basic wants provided for, a loving mother, an intellect with the potential that few men have, a healthy body, access to unlimited information through the Internet, a library filled with hundreds of incredible books, I attend a well-regarded university. Stranger still, I am able to express the sides of me that place me in a distinct minority: my sexual orientation is tolerated and even accepted by my society, and I am free to express my atheism without fear for my safety.

In a historical context, this is utterly baffling. How did we get here?

It was a conscious effort on the part of great men (and women!). I am so very thankful that man’s mind, reason, and the technology and progress it has produced has made me, in my opinion, one of the luckiest men ever to have lived.

If you live in the West, have a loving family, do not have to worry about basic wants, have access to the Internet, are healthy, and are smart enough to be politically active, then you too should number yourself among the luckiest men and women ever to have lived.

If the worst of our problems is that the president’s policies annoy us, that we may have to wait a few extra days for that new gadget we want, or that our brother is acting a bit peevish lately, then consider yourself truly and utterly blessed.

How often do we forget just how lucky we are!

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

Nate Silver has published an analysis of how far Pres. Obama’s Gallup approval ratings could drop before he could expect to tie Govs. Palin and Romney in head-to-head elections:

There have been 11 Palin versus Obama polls that have come out this year — 8 by Public Policy Polling and one each from Rasmussen, Clarus, and Marist. Those polls showed Obama approval ranging from 49 percent to 55 percent — not far from Dowd’s sweet spot — but Obama defeating Palin by margins ranging from 6 points to 23.

If we make a scatterplot of these polls, we can extrapolate backward to get an estimate of where Obama’s approval rating would need to be in order to bring Palin into a tie with him; the answer is about 43 percent.

If we do the same thing with Mitt Romney’s numbers, on the other hand, we get a breakeven point of 46 percent:

So, one way to look at this is that Palin gives Obama an approval rating bonus of about 3 points: if Obama can defeat a Generic Republican with an approval rating of X, he can defeat Palin with an approval rating of X-3.

Disappointingly, Silver did not include Huckabee, who has also appeared in many head-to-head polls against Obama, in his analysis (other possibilities, like Pawlenty, Daniels and Thune lack the name recognition to perform as strongly in head-to-head polls). Still, Silver provides us with an intriguing barometer of Obama’s relative strength in a general election.

Unfortunately, a lot can happen between February 2012 and November 2012, the time gap between the likely emergence of a frontrunner for the Republican nomination and the general election, rendering the selection of the “most optimal candidate” to defeat Obama (relative to his polls numbers) nearly impossible.

As more and more of the emails and documents from ClimateGate are examined, I would like to take this opportunity to keep our readers updated on the profound nuttery that goes on in the mind of “scientists.”

Quote number one is brought to you by Powerline.

This quote is from Phil Jones, the Director of the Climate Research Unit.  When one of his comrades mentions that increased SO2 in the atmosphere may hinder all plans for warming the globe until 2020, Comrade Jones responds with this nugget:

Tim, Chris,

I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office press release with Doug’s paper that said something like -half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998!

Still a way to go before 2014.

I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying where’s the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.

Aren’t scientists supposed to examine data objectively to come to a certain conclusion?  If global temperatures cooled for the next ten years, shouldn’t they be relieved that the world isn’t going to end or something- instead of worrying about the “smug grins” of the anti-warmingmongers?

I was reading through the most recent Public Policy Polling release from Wisconsin and noticed some striking results.

Support for Bailouts:

• 18 to 29: 18% Support, 82% Opposition
• 30 to 45: 23% Support, 61% Opposition
• 46 to 65: 22% Support, 60% Opposition
• 65+: 13% Support, 69% Opposition

Support for Stimulus:

• 18 to 29: 14% Support, 50% Opposition
• 30 to 45: 35% Support, 49% Opposition
• 46 to 65: 31% Support, 58% Opposition
• 65+: 25% Support, 60% Opposition

Generic Congressional Ballot: among 18 to 29:

• 40% Republican
• 36% Democratic

Let’s remember, 2008 Presidential exit polls showed that 18-29 year old Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly supported Obama:

• 64% Obama
• 35% McCain

While these young people generally don’t have a good opinion of the GOP, they are strongly opposed to the fiscal irresponsibility coming out Washington and it looks like they are blaming the Democrats for it.

The problem for Democrats here is that they are losing traditional white voters. The Gallup poll out today showed only 39% of whites approved of Obama’s job performance. For the Democrat coalition to stay together, they need overwhelming support from young people, blacks, and Hispanics going forward. The loss of any one of these groups would spell serious trouble. While Obama’s approval among Hispanics has dropped slightly since he took office, it isn’t enough to dramatically change things. What is going on among young people (particularly white young people)  will result in the end of the Hope and Change express if it continues.

In closing, be very skeptical when the mainstream media touts the end of either political party. Leftists earlier this year would make us believe that based on changing demographics that the Democrat party would be in charge for the next  couple decades. While the demographics will undoubtedly change over time, I think you will see leftist candidates receiving less support among young people and the future, Hispanics than we saw in the last two election cycles. Time will tell if I am correct but much of the polling data and personal experiences that I am having in California lead me to think I am going to be right.

Rasmussen 2012 Political Survey

• Mitt Romney 44%
• Barack Obama 44%

• Barack Obama 42%
• Mitt Romney 34%
• Lou Dobbs 14%

• Barack Obama 46%
• Sarah Palin 43%

• Barack Obama 44%
• Sarah Palin 37%
• Lou Dobbs 12%

• Barack Obama 45%
• Mike Huckabee 41%

• Barack Obama 42%
• Mike Huckabee 36%
• Lou Dobbs 12%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Mike Huckabee 58% / 30% {+28%}
• Mitt Romney 49% / 38% {+11%}
• Barack Obama 48% / 51% {-3%}
• Sarah Palin 46% / 49% {-3%}
• Lou Dobbs 33% / 42% {-9%}

Do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job Barack Obama has been doing?

• Strongly approve 34%
• Somewhat approve 13%
• Somewhat disapprove 13%
• Strongly disapprove 39%

Survey of 800 likely voters was conducted November 24. The margin of error is +/- 3.5 percentage points.

Rasmussen New York Senatorial Survey

• Rudy Giuliani 53%
• Kirsten Gillibrand 40%
• Some other candidate 4%
• Not sure 2%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Rudy Giuliani 63% {58%} [55%] (56%) / 33% {38%} [44%] (39%) {+30%}
• Kirsten Gillibrand 46% {40%} [39%] / 41% {37%} [42%] {+5%}

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted November 23. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted November 17 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 22 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted July 14 are in parentheses.

Inside the numbers:

Giuliani leads among male voters by 28 points and breaks almost even among women. He also picks up 35% of the Democratic vote and carries voters not affiliated with either major party by more than two-to-one.

DaveG has an awfully quirky way of using terms. After months of being obsessed with “technocrats,” whatever those are, he has now decided that “neoconservative” refers to the ideology of the conservative revival under Thatcher/Reagan and “neoliberal” refers to the political Third Way epitomized by the Clinton/Blair politics that followed it.

Those terms, actually, are already taken; neoconservatism refers to the welfare-state-friendly, hawkish ideology propagated by men like Irving Kristol; “neoliberalism” is a derogatory term used by leftist opponents of globalization and free trade.

Since DaveG thinks that Obama represents “paleoliberalism” — that is, traditional, New Deal-style liberalism — but does not quite define paleoconservatism outside of “what Ross Perot did,” I’m going to assume — perhaps against my better judgment — that he means by paleoconservatism the same thing that everyone else does: the Buchananite ideology that holds forth to the tenets of nationalism, traditional morality in the public square, isolationism, and populism. Paleocons usually support protectionism and heavy-handed religion in schools, oppose the Iraq War, and call for closed borders. To paleocons, America’s glory days are behind her.

It looks like the hypothesis goes something like this: we’ve tried everything else and people aren’t accepting it, so it’s time to try out the fourth option: the Old Right.

If this is what DaveG means, then he is utterly, almost embarrassingly wrong. Paleoconservatism — unlike New Deal liberalism — is a dead ideology. Even if it is true — and sadly, I think that it is — that Americans are becoming wary of free trade, that doesn’t mean that they’ve become xenophobic, nativist, or ready to bar gays from being schoolteachers. It doesn’t mean that they’re ready to withdraw from the Middle East overnight. It doesn’t mean that they’re willing to accept — not in 1992, and not twenty years later — the kind of rhetoric that filled Pat Buchanan’s notorious 1992 RNC speech.

So there’s that little problem.

But even if Americans did believe it — or were ready to take a chance on it — who on Earth would lead this movement? Pat Buchanan is busy defending Adolf Hitler and comparing Israel to Nazis, Tom Tancredo isn’t as much of a paleoconservative as people think (and he’s running for governor, anyway [Well, regardless, if I have to explain to you why he couldn't win...]), Ron Paul is looney tunes, and Lou Dobbs is…well, Lou Dobbs. So where’s the man for the moment? All of DaveG’s other revivals were led by charismatic figures — Reagan, Clinton, Obama. Where’s the paleoconservative leader?

There’s also no evidence that the Thatcher/Reagan model can’t work again. Americans are ready once again for someone who is socially conservative but not abrasive, a true-blue capitalist who can truly defend it from a moral and practical standpoint, and an American exceptionalist who doesn’t sound like he wants to hoist the red flag and start slitting throats.

But alas, that faces a similar leadership problem.

Or does it?

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

As a practicing Catholic, I am exceedingly proud of the Church’s involvement in protecting the poor and the helpless–including the unborn–and influencing Congress and other legislative bodies to enact policy in favor of such protection. Unfortunately, in recent weeks the Catholic Church has been under much scrutiny. Liberals have attacked it for its key role in passing the Stupak abortion amendment (see one crackpot theory here) and for allegedly putting its opposition to gay marriage ahead of helping the poor and needy in Washington, D.C. Since both of these positions are aligned with the betterment of American society and with Church doctrine, some of the critics apparently require some education on why the Church is so involved in these matters.

First, regarding abortion. The crackpot theory I reference above is just one of the many opinions critiquing the Church’s push for pro-life policies in health care reform. These critics seem to forget that if health care reform is about saving lives (as Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) apparently believes) then the Church’s position is superbly pro-health care reform, no questions asked. Saving lives is saving lives, even though some Democrats and liberals only seem to value those lives if they can receive welfare or pay taxes.

Additionally, critics of the Church forget that, according to USCCB.org: “615 Catholic hospitals account for 12.5% of community hospitals in the United States, and over 15.5% of all U.S. hospital admissions. In addition to hospitals, the Catholic health care network also includes 404 health care centers and 1,509 specialized homes.63 In 20 states, Catholic health care facilities account for more than 20% of admissions.64 Catholic hospitals employ over 598,934 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs).65 In 2005, there were more than 15.4 million emergency room visits and more than 86 million outpatient visits in Catholic hospitals. 66 In 2005, the number of Catholic residential homes for children, or orphanages, totaled 235, serving a total of 50,264 young people.” Clearly, health care reform would greatly affect Catholic services to millions of Americans. Why shouldn’t the Church have a say in health care policies? Unions make up only a bit over seven percent of private sector workers and yet receive much attention and lavish legislative support at the hands of Democrats.

Lastly, critical Democrats forget another important fact: the Church was crucial to their victorious passage of the House health care bill and will play a similarly key role for the Senate. To defeat the Church’s efforts is to defeat health care reform. Period.

The gay marriage debate/public services between the Church and the D.C. City Council is perhaps even thornier than the Church’s involvement in health care reform. In short, D.C. is trying to pass same-sex marriage laws and has a domestic partnership statute that forces organizations that receive money from the city to give equal domestic benefits to both heterosexual and homosexual partners. The Church, naturally, is opposed to this, since its basic beliefs hold that homosexual relationships are immoral. The city is threatening to ban the Church from receiving contracts to provide services to some 68,000 city residents.

I first learned about this issue from the front page Washington Post article on November 12, 2009. The article, unfortunately, framed the issue as the Church issuing an ultimatum to the city, as did a CNN piece I saw last week. This framing is a complete falsehood. As Jonetta Barras wrote in The Washington Examiner on November 16, the Church is merely holding to its faith. After all, permitting the D.C. same-sex marriage laws to be upheld would bar the Church from receiving city money to help the poor, since the Church tenets would be at odds with those of the government. As a friend put it, it is the city that is putting the pressure on the Church, not the other way around.

I have no problem with the city deciding to disallow the Church from contracting to provide services if it violates city law. While I disagree with gay marriage and feel the city is harming its citizens through this policy, laws are laws and should generally be upheld until changed. That’s not the issue. The issue is that the city has decided to create an environment where falsehoods, not facts, rule the day. While the Church takes responsibility for $18 to $20 million of city money annually in D.C., it also throws in $10 million from its own coffers. That is $30 million dollars being put into the city by an organization that, according to Barras, “…is a well-managed operation.” This is not about the Church pushing its beliefs on the city, but about the city deciding to ideologically allow gay marriage at the expense of its citizens.

In short, if the city decides to uphold domestic partnership laws and allow same-sex marriage, the Catholic Church will be forced to diminish its services severely. The cost-benefit analysis of this should be the real debate, not seeing how much false blame can be foisted on the Church for holding fast to its beliefs.

In both of the above situations, the Catholic Church is getting shafted for doing what it has always done when helping people: holding to its principles. It is a practical reality that the Church helps millions of Americans every year by providing health care, shelters and adoption services. As such, I find it surprising that liberals, who should thank the Church for supporting health care reform, health care for illegal immigrants and other “liberal” policies, reject the Church’s public service because it has certain tenets. Meanwhile conservatives, who by and large are against the current health care reform bills in Congress and oppose health care for illegal immigrants, recognize the true good the Church is doing and are willing to support even the Church’s efforts they don’t agree with (including by supporting the Stupak Amendment in the House, which guaranteed passage of the Democratic bill) in order to help their brothers and sisters.

A year ago, when Barack Obama won the Presidency, he made a vague promise to meet “every new dollar of spending with a dollar of revenue”.  Needless to say, he’s failed miserably.  But, Obama’s failure is just symptomatic of a broader problem; the United States has become ungovernable.  No, we’re not going to collapse into a Latin American Banana Republic.  We won’t be, MSNBC’s hysteria notwithstanding, beset by violent reactionaries who drive government to a standstill and paralyze the political process.  The process is already paralyzed but violent reactionaries remain the creature under the liberal bed.

These boogeymen are too drastic and uninventive, but the nightmare is real enough.  We have a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit and we’re a hairsbreadth away from runaway inflation.  The weak economy and low-interest rates are keeping it at bay, temporarily, but the goliath will eventually strike.  We have, yes, a health insurance system which is woefully inadequate to the needs of the 21st century; it’s tied to employment in an increasingly mobile world and it doesn’t align consumers to quality or cost.  How shall we solve these problems?

Well, let’s just take the Republican Party and it’s two major factions, as an example.  Grassroots conservatives expect more tax cuts and more spending cuts.  When someone points out that the deficit is very large indeed, and that no US President in history has managed to cut spending by more than 5-8% in a single year, and that therefore maybe we can’t afford tax cuts just now, they’re derided as RINO’s and unprincipled hacks.  Spending can always be cut and infinitely.  The political process, which requires negotiation with an ideologically distinct majority party, isn’t a factor.

Establishment Republicans are more reasonable, they insist….except, they’re running ads attacking Obamacare plan for cutting Medicare expenses…or creating alternative health care plans which are deficit neutral.  Since, you see, when we’re spending 1.4 trillion more than we’re taking in, deficit neutral reforms on our single largest area of spending is exactly what we need.  We’re in a fiscal crisis and, apparently, 1/6 of the budget is untouchable.  And so is Defense.  And so are agricultural subsidies.  And so is social security because Bush tried that and boy did it go badly.  But, don’t worry, these boys will drag a trillion+ in  savings out of “waste and abuse”.

Our cows are sacred, our chicken are sacred…heck, even our pigs are sacred- they do, after all, have those cute snouts.  We’d probably become a vegetarian nation, except that’s far too self-denying.  We won’t touch the cows, but we don’t want anyone else touching them either- they’re our cows.  Nothing can get done- no one will bow to reality to forge a solution which even accomodates the diverse interests of one party, let alone the diverse interests of one nation.  We’re now the Ungovernable States of America.

Americans…Republicans…Conservatives need to set up priorities and give their politicians leeway to work with those priorities.  Everything can’t be a priority.  Now is the time for hard choices and one of the choices is this: are we going to ride off into the sun, on a winged horse of principle, or are we going to again become that nation which won two wars on the back of sacrifice and self-discipline?

-

Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Former Governor Mike Huckabee’s interview with Katie Couric came out today. Here is the clip related to Presidential politics:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Huckabee’s points:

• Republicans win by sticking to principals and carrying them out
• Republicans have been hurt by supporting big spending, centralized government, and breaking principal of localism
• Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin have a “very significant future”
• Marco Rubio will be a contender for President someday
• Mitch Daniels is “brilliant”
• Haley Barbour is “probably best political strategist in the country”

Watch the Clip

In the coming months, I expect to be writing in more detail about the topic of the need for reform within government-run higher education.  A group I would like to now briefly introduce to you is the Arizona-based League for Innovation.  I expect to be writing more about the League for Innovation, commonly referred to as “the League,” a group that will likely be new to many readers.

From 2005 to 2009, I served as an elected Trustee of Johnson County Community College, a League “board member college.”  I saw a tremendous amount of incompetence and corruption during my tenure.  The theme of the current administration of President Terry Calaway can be described with the phrase, “The cover-up is worse than the crime,” with specific regard to Calaway’s violation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA).  KOMA violations by local governments are common enough where I’ll compare one to a 100-mph speeding ticket:  it’s not good for a government official to get caught with one, but it’s by no means the “end of the world” when it occurs.  But when caught, Calaway and the two elected board officials reacted as if it were Watergate.

In recent weeks, the following groups have joined my battle against the unrepentant, illegal behavior by JCCC’s Terry Calaway: the Kansas Press Association, the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, The Kansas City Star editorial board, the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government, and the editorial board for ABC affiliate KMBC channel 9.  If you’re interested in reading more about this successful months-long fight for open government in Kansas, I’ll direct you to my Web site.

Calaway currently wastes taxpayer money giving a no-bid legal contract to Mark Ferguson, a partner in the law firm of Kansas Democratic Party Chairman Larry Gates.  In what is perhaps the most ridiculous act I’ve ever witnessed, Calaway directed Ferguson in April 2009 to send me a “cease and desist” letter, threatening legal action if I would continue to talk about Calaway’s corruption; I called their bluff.  My favorite story about attorney Mark Ferguson is this one — Ferguson once told a reporter for JCCC’s Campus Ledger (paraphrase):  I won’t grant an open records request because I know you’re going to report about the information.

The League for Innovation is relevant to you because it plays a leadership role among America’s community colleges and because it receives millions of your tax dollars every year.  In particular, the League is relevant to you if your state or local tax dollars go directly to one of the 19 community colleges, whose CEOs each serve as one of 19 directors of the board for the private entity that is the League for Innovation.

After the fold, I will list the 19 board member colleges and CEOs, and that will conclude this article.  For now, I’ll point readers to the League’s Web site. (more…)

As Alex Knepper pointed out earlier,  the world seems a hell of a lot cooler today after the ClimateGate  story hit the newswires.  As is the normal custom,  the U.S. media is conveniently quiet, with the one usual exception.

Don Surber, of the Daily Mail, had this to say:

Trillions of dollars and an entire way of life are at stake and the media yawns. With the exception of Glenn Beck and others who are not part of the pack mentality in journalism there are few reports and those reports attack not the scientists who conspired to suppress evidence and manipulate public opinion — as revealed in the Climategate e-mails — but rather at the hackers.

On Saturday, I blasted the Washington post report — “Hackers steal electronic data from top climate research center” — as being spin.

The mistake was that the Post assigned the story to Juliet Eilperin, an environmentalist reporter — and then buried it on Page 14. Readers can look at her stories and judge for her other work for themselves.

She did a follow-up on Sunday’s Page 4 that was more critical of the what the purloined pixels revealed, writing: “Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.”

Am I paranoid, or does it feel as though our press has completely turned into the Soviet News Bureau? 

Or, “Perot’s Revenge!”

For the past thirty years, the Anglosphere has gone through a variety of socio-political changes that began with right-wing revolutions on either side of the pond and which have culminated in the reign of two embattled leftists — Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama — presiding over the economic and international ruin of once great empires. What’s interesting is the manner in which the U.S. and the U.K. have gone through parallel transformations almost simultaneously. Even more interesting is to examine the clues which suggest that what awaits both nations may be a great PaleoConservative re-awakening.

The story begins in the late ’70s/early ’80s. Then, the expansion of the state into every aspect of the lives of Britons and Americans alike led to a revolution in society and in government. Thatcherism was born — or was it Reaganism? — which promised to restore economic and personal freedom to societies whose cultures demanded those things and who were being denied as much by the creeping leviathan. This revolutionary conservatism was quite distinct from the Toryism of the past. It attempted to enact big, sweeping changes on society, but in a right-wing direction. It was optimistic and full of life and bested the tired, aging leftism of the past. Its victories were swift and exacting.

Eventually, though, revolutionary conservatism ran its course. It accomplished a few big goals — a dramatic increase in economic freedom, the rebuilding of the Anglosphere’s military prowess, and the end of the Cold War — but didn’t end the welfare state as its supporters had hoped nor did it ignite a cultural revolution on the ground. As debt piled up due to the continued growth of the state, and as new, less charismatic leaders took the reins of revolutionary conservatism in George H.W. Bush and John Major, Americans and Britons began to look for an alternative to their right-wing governments only to find standard issue leftists on the other side.

Then something interesting happened. In the 1990s, the Democrats and the Labourites figured out how to marry traditional support for left-of-center policies with the pro-growth and internationalist positions of the Reaganites. NeoLiberalism became the position of the left-of-center parties in the Anglosphere, with two young, charismatic NeoLiberals taking the helm on each side of the Atlantic. Both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair promised to maintain their nation’s prowess in a post-Cold War world, to avoid going back to pre-Reagan/Thatcher levels of taxation or regulation, and to do so by making government programs more market-friendly and more efficient, thus leading to less debt. With the technological economic boom that took place during the ’90s, the Anglosphere decided that there was nowhere to go but up and that the optimism of the high-tech, modern NeoLiberals was the future.

NeoLiberalism was the order of business for a decade and half in the Anglosphere. The UK’s political system allowed Blair to maintain power for about as long, but America’s system term-limited Clinton, of course, leading to the ascent of another NeoLiberal, or NeoConservative, we call it, George W. Bush. Bushism was essentially NeoLiberalism by any other name. Clinton had a Madeline Albright foreign policy of using the military for humanitarian reasons and to build nations, Bush had a Bill Kristol foreign policy of using the military to spread democracy and freedom and to build nations. The Clintonites and the Bushies were both pro-business, pro-trade, opposed to regulation, supportive of Alan Greenspan, and their sole disagreement over taxation essentially amounted to a four-percentage-point difference on the top tax bracket. Clinton had Dick Morris and Bush had Michael Gerson, but both essentially advocated using government to help people help themselves. Both were pro-immigration and staunch internationalists and neither actually did anything about social issues, despite coming from different cultural camps.

Then, tragedy struck.

When Islamic fanaticism reached American shores on 9/11, the natural orientation of the NeoLiberals towards internationalism led to an Anglo-American quest into Mesopotamia and Afghanistan that has resulted in much loss in blood and treasure without the promised conversion of these societies into something that fails to resemble the 10th Century. Meanwhile, at home, all of those supposed efficient and market-friendly reforms and entitlements did nothing to slow the creeping fiscal ruin, and in many cases seems to have made things worse. Taxes have remained low while debt has ballooned. The pro-business slant of the NeoLiberals started to make government look a little too close to business, especially in the wake of the bailouts which seem to have helped no one except for the robber barons, and the attempt to build an economy on one bubble after another led to all of the bubbles popping, yielding double-digit unemployment.

The last few years have thus seen a NeoLiberal/NeoConservative collapse at home and abroad, with Americans and Britons installing PaleoLiberals in their place. Gordon Brown and Barack Obama represent a type of liberalism that has run neither the UK nor the US since the 1970s, and yet both are now in power, largely because both represent a desire for the return of security and stability. Revolutionary Conservatism didn’t work, NeoLiberalism didn’t work, so how about PaleoLiberalism?

Well, that doesn’t seem to be working either. Obama and Brown are both on the ropes, largely because they have done exactly what one would expect them to do: fail to end military intervention abroad, probably for humanitarian reasons, attempt to continue the expansion of government at home, not in a market-friendly way but in a traditional leftist way, and send the bill to the people in the form of a still rising national debt.

It’s because of the failures of both NeoLiberalism and PaleoLiberalism, and because of the seeming failures of Revolutionary and NeoConservatism, that I expect to see a resurgence of PaleoConservatism in the coming years. This makes sense given that PaleoConservatism is the one political approach that hasn’t been tried in awhile by either country, and that growing popular angst at things like internationalism, top-down government, and government debt will make PaleoCons seem prescient, given that they’ve been issuing warnings about all of these things for years. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Paleos were right. History will make that final determination. But at least in the near future, they’ll start to seem as if they were right.

We can already see shades of this in the popular political uprisings over the past few years. Ron Paulism was all about an end to the utopian quest for Pax Americana, curtailing government, and existed against the backdrop of a suspicion of the special interests who have long been in bed with the political establishment. The Tea Party/Palin/Beck movement also focuses on essentially being left alone by government and is especially hostile to the bailouts. And the new supposed purity test for Republicans advocated by certain prominent conservatives, far from a NeoCon document extolling the importance of using government to enact a revolution at home and abroad, is ultimately a call for the devolution of power away from the federal government and towards states, communities, and citizens. Even the cultural issues involved are presented in a federalist or anti-government manner: don’t use MY money to fund abortion, don’t force MY state to change its marriage laws, etc.

Meanwhile, in the U.K., David Cameron is also quite distinct from Thatcher’s Revolutionary Conservatism, Blair’s NeoLiberalism, and Brown’s PaleoLiberalism. Cameron focuses primarily on the citizen, the family, the community, the locality, and opposes expansion of the national government. A Cameron government would likely represent the ascent of a type of Toryism that the UK hasn’t seen in awhile either.

Ultimately, the failures of the Anglosphere at home and abroad have made Americans suspicious of all the things that their leaders have sold them for the past thirty years. Top-down revolutions either imposed by the federal government or forced onto other societies through the sword don’t seem to work. And that’s leading people to re-discover the concept of organic change at home and of the limits of what America is capable of doing abroad. Massive tax cuts didn’t seem to create enough growth to close the national debt. Nor did trillions of dollars in new spending. And that’s resulting in folks focusing on fiscal responsibility rather than more tax cuts or new entitlements. And speaking of which, both sleek, market-friendly entitlements and big, bulky entitlements seem to yield the same result, which is resulting in a move towards small-bore and targeted reforms and away from big, sweeping solutions. And the economic situation on the ground is making a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants even more unlikely and is causing folks to wonder whether Ross Perot was right about trade policies.

In fact, Ross Perot was arguably the John the Baptist of whatever PaleoCon Moment the nation is about to experience, as it was he, in the middle of the three-decade-long Anglosphere frat party, who came the closest to the presidency while warning of the dire consequences of not eating one’s vegetables. Perot derided the excess of both the Reaganites and the Clintonites, issuing Cassandra-esque warnings of imminent fiscal collapse due to the trajectory of the entitlements and the fantasy of perpetual economic growth. Perot hated the proximity of special interests to those in public office and opposed the Gulf War (a view which Ron Paul’s supporters would like) while questioning the economic impact of an ever-increasing trade deficit on the American economy. He had no interest in social issues because they weren’t national issues. As Perot once said to Larry King, and I paraphrase, most issues are local issues, which means most laws should be local laws. A few issues are state issues, which means that a few laws should be state laws. And every now and then, an issue is so big that it has to be a federal issue, requiring a federal law. Sounds a lot like what today’s Paulites and Palinistas are raving about.

While it’s true that Ron Paul supporters, the Palin/Beck/Tea Party crowd, and the throngs of Obama ’08/McDonnell ’09 angry middle class independents are ultimately three different and distinct groups of Americans, it’s also true that all of these voters, whether white collar or blue collar, whether carrying a bong, a Bible, or a BlackBerry, have several things in common. They all oppose the top-down decision-making of the federal government. They all view the nation’s special interests as modern day robber barons who are being bailed out while they suffer. They all want the devolution of government power, the reduction of government debt, and a decrease in internationalism in some form or other, with some opposed to our trade deficit, others opposed to our military presence in the Middle East, others opposed to the U.N., immigration, etc. They are, essentially, three different heads of a growing PaleoCon movement. And the giant is sleeping right now because each group distrusts the other. If one leader were savvy enough to unite them all under a common banner, they just may be unstoppable.

It’s not enough anymore to wonder what the global warming religionists believe, or whether they’re onto something. As if the arguments put out by previous skeptics weren’t enough, we now have rock-solid proof that the religionists themselves are having a dark night of the soul. In light of this, it’s now far more appropriate to ask why people continue to believe in global warming — er, climate change — and how we should go about separating this church from the state.

The explanation that I propose is that global warming fetishists subscribe to a dangerous ideology called scientism — the concept that science, in all of its manifestations, trumps all else.

In the philosophical realm, this ideology is dangerous enough; a science not guided by moral values is empty and potentially dangerous. The only valid foundation for science is a valid morality — a direction-based science.

In the political realm, scientism manifests itself as a strange, secular religious belief that, in the words of Dr. Thomas Szasz, cannot discern the difference between why a surgeon wears a white coat and a priest wears a cassock. And it’s something that we all have to pay for.

Adherents to scientism believe that the authority of institutionalized science takes precedence over healthy skepticism, that doubters must be shunned, that inconvenient questions must be avoided — upholding church dogma is more important than discerning truth, after all — and that being on the wrong side of a supposed “scientific consensus” is worse than heresy.

The white coats intimidate them into blind acquiescence. True believers in the global warming faith do so because they believe that to undermine the institution of science is an egregious transgression, akin to how Catholics viewed heresy in the Middle Ages. In this respect, it is about the believer, not the idea: securing one’s own ideological purity is far more important than discerning truth.

The (false) carping about a “scientific consensus” — as if it were as controversial as germ theory or the concept of gravity — both ignores the fact that scientists are constantly disagreeing amongst themselves and have produced thousands of global warming skeptics — and those are just the ones being open about it; the ones that don’t rely on government grant money or an adherence to the official party line: a belief in global warming.

It is dangerous when any group of people — in this case, environmentalist ‘progressives’ — believe in the infallibility of an institution, or the inherent, immutable goodness of a collective — in this case, climatologists — that must be considered impervious to outside influence. Only a blind adherence to ideology can explain a worldview that states that oil companies are trying to suppress data against their stated position, but that government-sponsored climatologists with a government-approved line to adhere to are completely altruistic and benevolent. It is even more dangerous when this faith intermingles with government.

The slew of anti-Republican books about the Right’s “war on science” have been ubiquitous over the past decade. From “The Republican War On Science” to “Undermining Science,” the titles are quite blunt. Which only makes the questions that need to be asked even more obvious: can “science” be wrong? Is “science” a political agenda? Is it appropriate for citizens to doubt “science”? How can we tell when a “scientific consensus” is wrong? Does a scientist ever have an agenda outside of the benevolent propagation of his findings? What about a scientific organization? Is it the role of the government to fund “science”? When? Could this intermingling of interests potentially create any problems? These are questions that no one on the left wanted to ask, lest they be accused of “undermining science.” The power of reputation was too much; no one wanted to risk being ostracized.

The fallout of Climategate should teach us two important lessons — that a healthy dose of skepticism is direly needed in American society, and that anyone who believes that the right has a monopoly on faith-based reasoning is sadly, sadly mistaken.

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

This may have been Sarah’s best interview of her book tour.  The interview was a fair balance of policy and personal. 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr9IPzuNQe0&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

A few “behind the scenes” pictures can be found here.

H/T: Our friends as CP4

_____________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Get a load of this T-shirt being sold on a leftist(!) website:

HOPE IS FADING FAST

Shepard Fairey’s famous “HOPE” poster never looked so good.

Read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3…

Let me start by saying that if you have any particular questions about this chapter, you can leave them in the comments section and I’ll “find it and get back to ya!”

Sorry not to have had this posted yesterday; I’m a college kid with a bizarre sleep schedule.

Anyway, this chapter is where it gets interesting. A lot of ground has already been covered and a lot of the juiciest bits have already been gone over dozens of times by major news outlets. A few things in particular struck out at me that weren’t really reported in the media.

1. Yes, She Was Vetted. In early September 2008, I was utterly convinced that Palin was never vetted and that she was an impulse choice. In private conversations with certain insiders, this was confirmed to me and I was completely shocked.

However, according to Palin herself, they knew exactly what they were getting. They knew that Bristol was pregnant, they knew about Troopergate, they knew about her record, they knew about Todd’s DUI. Everything.

So we can put that to rest. Palin was vetted.

2. The Rollout/An Abominable Press Release. It’s no wonder that people ever questioned it in the first place, though. Just how horrifically prepared was Palin’s rollout by the McCain campaign? There was no packet of press information with trivia and tidbits, to start. But it gets worse: when Palin first saw on television that Bristol’s pregnancy had been revealed to the world, she was told that it was under control. But nothing had gone through her. The press release — one that I remember, very vividly, finding abhorrent — said that the Palins were “so proud to be grandparents.” Palin was rightly appalled by the implication that she was celebrating teenage pregnancy. She tried her best, she said, to get it changed, even sending a revised version to the operatives, but to no avail. I felt bad upon reading it, knowing that I’d pilloried her for that press release. Yikes. (On a similar note, it was also sad to read Palin recollect the phone call from a distraught Bristol, crying over the media focusing on her pregnancy, as if it had anything to do with her: “I’m not the candidate!” On the other hand, Sarah should have seen that coming and should have consulted her kids in advance…)

[EDIT: Commenter Martha reminds me of something else: the press release also indicated that Bristol and Levi had agreed to get married; Sarah did not want this to be so and insists in the book that there were never any solid plans for the two to marry.]

3. The “Sarkozy” Prank Call. Sarah was pretty dumb on this count, right? Well, yes, but no. Apparently, she was told in advance by aides that she’d receive a call from Sarkozy himself. In other words, it’s not like she just picked up the phone and heard “Hey, it’s the president of France!” She figured it was a pre-arranged call.

Okay, I hear you saying — but why didn’t she catch on? Well, she says: she figured he was drunk.

Should she have caught on? Yeah, probably so, especially after the “Nailin’ Palin” bit. But she’s a goddamn human being. And a human being, as she points out, that fell for the tricks of the same pranksters that Bill Gates and Donald Trump fell for. And Lord knows we’ve all fallen for dumb things before.

Steve Schmidt was pretty livid: “How could anyone be so stupid?!” he yelled at her. To which Palin wondered why it was on the schedule in the first place.

All things considered, I looked at Palin far less negatively for that incident by the time that I finished that section.

4. Debate Prep. According to Sarah, Randy Scheneumann and Joe Lieberman really saved the day. The original debate prep was occurring in a stuffy hotel room, where she had pre-canned answers on little cards that she was told by the campaign that she had to give. There were dozens that she kept, but she shared only a few. The sample question would be along the lines of “What should America’s role on the global stage be?” and Sarah’s answer was supposed to be “John and I are optimists and believe in America’s greatness…” and such nonsense. According to Sarah, she asked why she can’t just answer the question, and she was told that, well, you don’t have to answer the question. You really shouldn’t, in other words.

They escaped to McCain’s ranch, where Scheneumann started working with her and made her feel much more comfortable. Joe Lieberman, by telling her to be herself and just have fun with it, apparently also made her feel much more comfortable. To this day, Scheneumann is a Palin ally.

5. Can I Call You Joe? Folksy populism? Yeah, right! Nothing but self-interest. During debate prep, Palin kept accidentally calling him “Senator O’Biden” — starting with Obama’s name by accident but segwaying into Biden’s. So, asked Scheneumann, why not just ask to call him Joe instead? And so it went.

6. Settling Scores? I don’t think so. As I read the chapter, it seemed a lot more balanced in tone and much less bitter than one would be led to believe. By necessity, some of this is “score-settling,” but for a person who’s been smeared as a moron and worse, it’s hard to avoid a tinge of bitterness.

Her hands aren’t totally clean, though. Was it wrong for the campaign to send her back to Katie Couric for another beating? Well, it was certainly dumb. But is the McCain campaign really to blame for that interview? It’s not Steve Schmidt’s fault that Palin’s understanding of economics was too weak to coherently explain the logistics of the bailout. And now she’s free of the McCain campaign’s clutches! — But she’s hardly shown much intellectual mettle during her book tour.

7. Media Blackout. From the start, Palin had ideas about how her local media should handle her vice-presidential run. She wanted someone from the Alaska press to follow her and keep people in Alaska updated, but Schmidt and co., shut that idea down. “Alaska only has three electoral votes,” he apparently said. Given Sarah’s background, I honestly believe that she was interested in letting Alaskans know what she was up to, but this is a fairly inconsequential point on the whole.

It was indicative of a broader problem, though: hell, the media were kept away from Sarah on the jet. She was literally not allowed to talk to them and would send Piper back and forth with messages instead. By the time Halloween came around, they were so close that the press prepared a trick-or-treat session for Piper.

Chapter 5 and 6 coming tomorrow…

Talk to Alex Knepper at apkkib@aol.com

Obama is now serious about Afghanistan. So serious, in fact, that he is going to hold a rare Monday evening meeting of the War Council to decide once and for all how to proceed.

While I am very much relieved to hear that our President has finally decided it is time to either fish or cut bait on this issue — especially one for which our country’s finest have been fighting and dying for months while he twiddles and dawdles and engages in some heavy navel gazing — I cannot help wondering if the atrocious reviews his Asia trip have been getting from across the political spectrum and around the world might have something to do with this sudden bout of decisiveness.

In paper after paper and commentator after commentator the criticism has been loud and long. Even the New York Times has gotten into the act. Influential publications foreign and domestic have blasted him. And then there was that SNL skit — surely the last straw.

The President desperately needs to look good in Foreign Policy and fast. Hence the sudden interest in FINALLY coming to a decision on the thorniest Foreign Policy problem on his plate, or at least the one that he has the most control over. The weeks and months of dithering must now come to an end. It is now imperative that President Barack Obama be seen as a strong, decisive leader on the world stage, not just another incompetent fool in over his head — an image that has been hardening around the world much to the dismay of him and his advisers.

I wonder what he will decide.

If I may say so, the Salazar brothers are the two most infernally infuriating people that the Colorado GOP have ever encountered. Colorado has been trending a little bluer the last few years – but even in years when we were going hard-red, now-Secretary Ken Salazar was winning statewide. And then his brother Johnny picked off a rural GOP house seat (CO-3) in 2004 when most Dems were getting plowed under. At this point, saying “Salazar” in my presence is a bit like waving a red flag at a very angry bull. So, while I am generally very pleased with the way things are going in most Colorado races for 2010, the one thing that sticks in my craw is that we’re not seriously trying to take out Secretary Kenny’s big brother - because the climate in 2010 is going to make this our best (and maybe only) shot at actually getting rid of the guy.

We’ve got a very competitive candidate against Rep. Perlmutter in Distict 7 (CVI D+4) and we’re charging hard against Betsy Markey in District 4 (R+6) but apparently we’re too intimidated by little Johnny to put up a solid challenge in District 3 – which has a Cook Voting Index score of R+5 and by all rights should be a targeted seat! In fairness, we do have Scott Tipton, who took the GOP’s last legitimate shot at Rep. Salazar in 2006 and is now back for seconds. Tipton seems like a stand-up guy in my estimation – but he got pummeled 61%-34% last time, and I really don’t want to see that movie again.

In my mind, part of the reason we can’t compete is that we keep throwing suit-and-tie politicians (often lacking charisma) at the Salazars - who have perfected cowboy populism right down to the white hats, shiny boots, and ever-present bolo ties. So, I have to admit that I was mildly intrigued when I read that some guy who referred to himself as “The Cowboy Colonel” had jumped in the race on the GOP side. Of course, our snarky liberal friends at ColoradoPols.com lambasted Bob McConnell’s strongly worded announcement editorial and odd nickname - but frankly he sounded to me like the type of  bull-in-the -china-shop guy who might be able to steal Salazar’s thunder.  I figured I’d see how serious he  was.

What I found was a a relatively low-budget campaign website with enough aw-shucks, all-American, cowboy straight talk to make Sarah Palin look like a latte-sipping urban liberal - and I liked it. The issue positions were mostly spot on, the candidate seems very well read, and at the same time he comes across as hard-core rural Coloradoan who takes no bull from anybody. With health care on the front-burner, I like the fact that he has been an EMT for ten years, and as someone who cares about our troops and the wars they fight, I like the idea of electing a retired Colonel in the Army Rangers.

 ”He may not have a lot of money”, I said to myself, “but if he could get it, we may have finally found the one guy on the planet who can out-cowboy John Salazar.”  

Am I saying that McConnell is in a position to win right now? No, I’m not. From what I’ve seen so far, he would need a lot more money and a much more professional campaign machine to compete with Scott Tipton, let alone John Salazar. What I will say is that Bob McConnell is the type of candidate who could compete with John Salazar given the resources – and the type of guy we should be looking at recruiting to take on people like Salazar (for any readers at the NRCC – that jab was addressed at you).

We can play against entrenched Blue Dogs in GOP-leaning districts if we recruit common sense Americans who tell it like it is, don’t mince words, and hence can get the attention of the electorate. If the national party (or the conservative movement) decides to give such people a megaphone and stand them up as legit candidates, I think we could pick off a few Dems that we would otherwise have missed. And its not like we’re any worse off if we take a chance and lose. 

As for McConnell himself – I do have a few questions before I get fully on board. First I would want to see some video to prove that he is as articulate on the stump as he is in his writing. Second, I would like to see if he can get a little grassroots support behind him or if this is going to be a one-man show. Third, he needs to hone the message a little bit because he has a bit an advertising problem – “The Cowboy Colonel” is a bit of a hokey nickname to run on, but at the same time the candidate’s name may confuse conservatives who recently spent a lot of time tracking Bob McDonnell in Virginia. So – if there’s a legitimately good story about how/why people started calling you “The Cowboy Colonel”, get it out in the media so that you can use it effectively (if you just made it up yourself - drop it like a hot potato).  

What are the chances that we get a Cowboy Colonel in Congress? I don’t know. But I do know that Bob McConnell has my attention, and I hope that he can catch the attention of Republicans in the 3rd district who are interested in putting forward more than just a sacrificial lamb.

Bob – the jury is still out – but I like what I see so far and I figure the least I can do is steer a little blog traffic your way.

For readers under a certain age, I assume that it will be helpful to link to Wikipedia’s entries for “Fonzie” and “Jumping the shark.”

From Drudge, I learned of this video advertisement by a European group called “Plane Stupid,” which believes that “Aviation is the fastest growing cause of climate change.”  The ad is quite graphic, and it shows a large number of realistic, computer-animated polar bears falling from the sky at random, and dying as they land on a downtown city street.  At least one lands on a car.

This UK Guardian column describes Plane Stupid as “anti-aviation expansion campaigners.”

Their falls are (presumably deliberately) reminiscent of jumpers from the 911 towers and with visceral violence the poor ursine beasts crash cruelly into the concrete and tarmac with sickening thuds.

The effect is shocking; the message brutal: every short haul flight you take emits four hundred kilogrammes of carbon dioxide – the equivalent weight of an adult polar bear.

With everything being pushed right now by left-wing Democrats, I’ve never been more thankful for three branches of government and a bi-cameral legislature, making the approval process for legislation lengthy and difficult.

Breitbart.tv has the video, which I’ll publish below the fold.  Again, I’ll warn that it’s very realistic and graphic.

(more…)

According to the Des Moines Register, Obama’s approval in Iowa is now 49%. This is in the very heart of populist country.

It is a over two years before the Primaries and Caucuses start in 2012. People who seriously rely upon polls this far out to be deterministic have been proven to be fools time and time again. So we should not read too much into this.

However, if the trend continues, we might see a primary challenge to Barack Obama in 2012. After all, Hillary Clinton isn’t getting any younger. It is 2012 or never for her.

So how low must Obama’s numbers go before he needs to seriously concern himself with a 2012 challenge? And if not Hillary, who? Certainly not Joe Biden.

To challenge a setting President, the challenger must have plenty of national prestige to begin with. What Democrat beside Hillary fits that bill? Teddy Kennedy has gone to join his ancestors. Harry Reid and Larry Byrd look like they may join him any day now. John Edwards has effectively removed himself from contention. Who’s left? Anybody?

A terrifying but informative article concerning the United States’ colossal debt load and deficits appeared today in the New York Times (yes, you heard that correctly – the New York Times). I would consider this required reading, as it depicts the truly grave situation we as a nation have created. The highlights:

Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

…“The government is on teaser rates,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates lower deficits. “We’re taking out a huge mortgage right now, but we won’t feel the pain until later.”

…“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

The current low rates on the country’s debt were caused by temporary factors that are already beginning to fade. One factor was the economic crisis itself, which caused panicked investors around the world to plow their money into the comparative safety of Treasury bills and notes. Even though the United States was the epicenter of the global crisis, investors viewed Treasury securities as the least dangerous place to park their money.

On top of that, the Fed used almost every tool in its arsenal to push interest rates down even further. It cut the overnight federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend reserves to one another, to almost zero. And to reduce longer-term rates, it bought more than $1.5 trillion worth of Treasury bonds and government-guaranteed securities linked to mortgages.

Those conditions are already beginning to change. Global investors are shifting money into riskier investments like stocks and corporate bonds, and they have been pouring money into fast-growing countries like Brazil and China.

…Even a small increase in interest rates has a big impact. An increase of one percentage point in the Treasury’s average cost of borrowing would cost American taxpayers an extra $80 billion this year — about equal to the combined budgets of the Department of Energy and the Department of Education.

But that could seem like a relatively modest pinch. Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, estimated that the Treasury’s tab for debt service this year would have been $221 billion higher if it had faced the same interest rates as it did last year.

The White House estimates that the government will have to borrow about $3.5 trillion more over the next three years. On top of that, the Treasury has to refinance, or roll over, a huge amount of short-term debt that was issued during the financial crisis. Treasury officials estimate that about 36 percent of the government’s marketable debt — about $1.6 trillion — is coming due in the months ahead.

If that doesn’t feel like a bath in ice-cold water, I don’t know what does. Thankfully, prominent Republicans have begun to emphasize deficit reduction (which voters consider a top priority), after the party has rightfully shouldered criticism from opponents and voters for the inexcusable run-up in spending under the Bush administration. Also on the positive side, the party has multiple governors – Pawlenty and Romney, among others – with strong records of managing deficits and spending in the mix for 2012.

As a last note, I’d like to get an idea of what readers value more: balanced budgets (with current federal tax rates) or tax cuts (with corresponding national deficits of, say, under $300 billion).

(h/t) Commenter MWS

This is what Sen. Lieberman had to say (sorry, no direct link other than the RedState post which references it) regarding how he’ll vote on Harry Reid’s government takeover health care bill:

“[O]nce the bill is on the floor, amendments will be offered,” he said on Sunday. “But essentially every amendment is subject to a filibuster and will take 60 votes to pass. My only resort, and every other senator — and there will be others who feel exactly the way I do about the public option, if the public option is still in there — the only resort we have is to say no at the end to reporting the bill off the floor.”-(emphasis mine.)

So here is the key point to remember: only one vote from a Democratic Senator is required to keep the government takeover of health care from happening. And this is, by my count, the third time that Sen. Lieberman has stated publicly that he will note vote to end debate on any bill which contains the public option.

The latest Rasmussen poll on the Arizona gubernatorial race has Joe Arpaio (Maricopa County sheriff) beating Terry Goddard (Democratic candidate presumptive, current Attorney General, and former mayor of Phoenix) quite handily, 51-39. Whether Arpaio will run is unknown.

I admit to some (pleasant) surprise — I have been looking at Goddard as nearly unbeatable. State Treasurer Dean Martin also makes a close race of it, losing to Goddard 40-38, well within MoE.

Incumbent Jan Brewer, who is the only announced candidate of either party, is losing 44-35, about the same as in Rasmussen’s last poll in September, when it was 42-35.

Rasmussen Arizona Gubernatorial Race

• Goddard: 44%
• Brewer: 35%

• Goddard: 39%
• Arpaio: 51%

• Goddard: 40%
• Martin: 38%

Survey of 1200 likely voters, November 18. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points.

I put together this graph from Rasmussen Report data here — it compares approval/disapproval of the Democratic health care plans over the past few months (I selected dates roughly a month apart, since Ras has asked the questions on an irregular schedule).

The data is not perfectly comparable, of course, since the dates are sometimes different days of the week and, most importantly, what constitutes “the Democratic health care plans” has changed frequently both in reality and perception. Nonetheless, the trendline of support for whatever the Democrats are doing is clearly downward.

Detroit Free Press Michigan Gubernatorial Primary

• Pete Hoekstra 21%
• Mike Cox 15%
• Michael Bouchard 13%
• Rick Snyder 5%
• Tom George 3%
• Unsure 37%

Survey of likely Republican primary voters was conducted by Denno-Noor from November 12-17. The margin of error is +/- 5.6 percentage points.