New PajamasMedia Video

In a world of the brainwashed American, it is commentary like this that keeps me going.

Well done, Sonja Schmidt. It is becoming more and more obvious that the truly strong, self-respecting women that should be lifted up to role-model status in America call conservatism home. While the weak and dependent are Democrats.

A Politician’s Worst Nightmare: The Truth

“Damn this age of technology, quick recall, and brain stimulating drugs” is probably on the mind of Nancy Pelosi. A few weeks ago, after Obama released the CIA memos that started this debate on enhanced interrogations, Pelosi took to the microphone and said Congress was never told about the methods Bush and the CIA used. Well, it didn’t take too long for the truth to start coming out.

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Who cares, right? Just another politician telling lies to get what she wanted. That is just the game, right?

I am sick beyond cure of these people. Why must we listen to these “leaders” decry the practices of Wall Street as selfish and immoral, while they, themselves, blatantly lie to us when it suits their political agenda?

If this country hopes to recover from this and any future economic mess, we are going to need a good dose of morality from the top, down. We need to step back to those basics that we teach our children and our leaders talk about daily: Don’t lie, be nice to others. You know, those Judeo-Christian principles everyone is so glad we were not founded on.

Thank God we have a president that “believe[s] in the power of prayer”. Oh… wait.

Moderate Attraction

So it seems like Jeb Bush has joined the populist chorus line that the GOP should shed its conservative, Reagan roots and try to attract moderates. I don’t disagree with the premise that the GOP (or any political movement) has to enlist the help of some moderates to get what they want. My disagreement is with the premise of attracting moderates by being moderate!

Let’s say you are a media consultant working for a presidential campaign. Your client asks you to make a commercial geared toward moderates. What would your commercial be? What issues do moderates care about? As a matter of fact, what do moderates think about certain issues? Let me make it simpler. What would a commercial about health care say in order to attract moderates? In short, nothing.

That is because moderates–by definition–have no opinion! This is why 90% of the ads for presidential and other political candidates are negative. They are trying to attract moderates. A candidate doesn’t want to say what his positions are on an issue, because it might offend someone with moderate tendencies–which are neutral in nature. Instead, the candidate attacks his opponents extremist side to point out the non-moderate nature of their opponent. It is a vicious back and forth of “I’m moderate and he’s not” that is modern politics.

The fact is, you can not attract moderates by being moderate. There is nothing attractive about being moderate. A moderate presidential candidate seems weak and indecisive. They seem out of touch and favors the status quo.

Look at John McCain. Last election, the GOP nominated the most moderate and bi-partisan individual they had to offer. And he lost! He didn’t attract moderates. He repelled them. To them, he seemed weak and unfit for the job. The economic crisis showed these moderates that they didn’t want a man of moderation. They wanted a man of action! They wanted someone who was going to take big steps to fix the economy and fix Washington. Basically, they wanted an extremist!!!!

There is only one way to attract moderates, and that is the way Reagan did it. He did it by being conservative. He said, “this is what I stand for.” And the moderates like it. They liked it so much, he won with forty-nine state landslides and elected him twice. Be conservative and Moderates will come. If they don’t, either they don’t get the message, or they are not moderate.

Arlen Specter

I typically don’t post about something until after the story breaks. It gives me time to clear out any off-the-cuff emotional responses I might have and gives me time to think. I try to only blog in a manner that exhibits thought instead of pure emotion. This is not going to be one of those posts.

Sen. Arlen Specter (W-PA) (stick with me and you’ll find out what the ‘W’ stands for) has switched parties from the Republicans to the Democrats, giving the Dems 59 seats in the Senate. The fate of the filibuster proof Senate now rests in the hands of that partisan jackass Al Franken. What a country, right?

Many people are thinking that signals the end of the Republican party. Or a sign that the Republicans are no longer big tent enough to win elections. As Olympia Snowe (R-MA) puts it, “it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection.” Before we get to Specter, let me tackle this first.

The idea that the Republican party is closed off to dissenting voices is absurd. The Democrats are just as closed to opinion on the right as the Republicans might be to the left. Let’s face it, Republicans have more pro-choice and open-borders advocates with a voice than the Dems have pro-life and closed-borders. Name for me the last Democratic presidential candidate that was pro-life? The last to presidential election cycles were a joke on the Democrat side. I watched 7 or 8 people stand on stage and all give the same answers unless they were attacking someone. The creativity of the attacks were the only thing that set each apart from the other.

Arlen Specters swap in parties has nothing to do with any lack of diversity in the party. The fact that he was in the party for so long proofs that there is diversity. Specter switched parties because he is a politician. A calculating, cold, only thinks about himself politician. But worse than that, he is a whore politician (there’s the ‘W’). Let’s look at the politician side first.

Specter stated himself that

The Pennsylvanian said he had decided that ‘the prospects for winning a Republican primary are bleak’ in his home state, and that he is ‘not prepared’ to have his 29-year record in the Senate decided by the the ‘jury’ of the Republican Party primary.

The “jury”??!? Sir, those jurors, as you call them, are your voters. They elected you to represent them. If they feel you are not representing them in the correct manner, than they have every right to throw you out of office. That is how our system works!!! Perhaps if you worried more about representing those that elected you instead of playing nice with the Washington elite, you wouldn’t be in the position. Instead, Specter looks for the easiest road possible to hold his seat.

But that doesn’t hold a candle to this. You might be surprised to know that this isn’t the first time Specter has done this:

Specter is a whore. He sells himself to highest, political bidder in an effort to further his own career. The man has no principles (what are moderate principles anyway). His services (in this case, his vote) is up for bid to the person or person’s willing to give him the most for it.

This man is the sad, but accurate, poster-child for what is wrong with Washington today. Politicians spend more time and effort trying to figure out how to bolster their careers and political futures than doing the job they were sent to Washington to do, represent the people.

So take him, Democrats. As a Libertarian, I couldn’t care less. But be forewarned. The minute you spot being profitable for Specter, he is gone. Its happened several times before, it will happen again. Enjoy.

The Real Meghan McCain

I know you all have been waiting with baited breathe for this, so here it is. The loser’s blonde, trust-fund daughter comes out with her plan for the Republicans to turn the youth vote around and potentially save the Republican Party.

It may be satire, but all comedy must have an element of truth in it in order to be funny. Right?

Enhanced Interrogations Worked

Los Angles should be on their knees thanking God that George W. Bush was in office in 2003 and not Obama. The Washington Post has released a story saying that after waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they received information that allowed them to break up another attack. I’ll just post a few quotes from the article. It is quite good.

“Soon, you will know.” That is the ominous statement an uncooperative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, told his CIA interrogators when they initially asked him – after he had been captured – about additional planned al Qaeda attacks on the United States

…

As CIA Acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo explained in a 2004 letter to then-Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the CIA would only resort to waterboarding a top al Qaeda leader when the agency had “credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent,”

…

“Both KSM and Zubaydah had ‘expressed their belief that the general U.S. population was “weak,” lacked resilience and would be unable to “do what was necessary” to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals,’ ” the memo says. “Indeed, before the CIA used enhanced techniques in its interrogation of KSM, he resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon, you will know.’ ”

After he was waterboarded, KSM provided the CIA with information that enabled the U.S. government to close down a terror cell already “tasked” with flying a jet into a building in Los Angeles

There are times I wish I had a magic crystal ball that could tell me an alternative reality based on the simplest change in decision making. Today, nearly every liberal in L.A. is apoplectic over the idea that Bush’s CIA used waterboarding on anyone. These high and mighty examples of God’s finest gifts to humanity would never change their minds on waterboarding based on something as insignificant as their own lives. They would say (in their classic fashion of regurgitating talking points instead of actual thoughts), “If I had to die to save America’s morality, I would.” After I finished vomiting, I would pull out my crystal ball.

The fact is, Bush can’t win here. If he hadn’t waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and fouled the plot, the liberals would have cried that Bush was incompetent and couldn’t do the most basic job of keeping Americans safe. The fact is, the left can not be pleased when a Republican is in the White House. Even when that Republican is more liberal than conservative. I gave credit to Obama for saving Captain Phillips from the pirates. Why can’t the left give credit to Bush for saving multiple American lives?

Lastly, I am sick of liberals getting to set the premise of any political debate. But, I guess I must except it. So, let’s apply their premise and logic to what we have learned with this story:

1) Torture never yields any reliable intelligence.

2) Waterboarding gave us reliable intelligence, therefore

3) Waterboarding is not torture.

Did I get that one right?

Miss America Pageant Metaphor

It’s been all over the news. Miss California giving a politically incorrect answer that cost her the pageant. Perez Hilton video blogging his anger, calling Miss California “a stupid bitch” as an obvious means of keeping the political debate above personal attacks. None of this surprises me. I see the direction our country is headed. One where only mainstream thought is acceptable, and those that disagree are degraded and shut up. But this video made my day:

A few points I think are worth mentioning. Let’s start with Perez. Perez has said that if she would have given an answer along the lines of “let each state decide”, he wouldn’t have marked her off. That it would have been the best answer. Where is the evidence that Perez would have accepted that answer any better than the one she gave? After all, Perez is a huge advocate of abolishing Prop 8. Prop 8 was voted on and passed by the people of California. If he truly believed in federalism, he would support Prop 8 as a staple of a healthy democracy. Instead, he advocates the will of the people be overturned in a courtroom. Not surprising that he supports federalism when it shows results he agrees with (hello Vermont), but despises it when it is against him. What a patriot!

Of course, like most liberals, they don’t afford the same privilege to those who disagree with them. He asked for Miss California’s opinion, but it is obvious he didn’t want her actual opinion. Instead, he wanted the typical politically correct drivel that the left expects from the right, but never expects of themselves (explain to me how “Dumb Bitch” is politically correct).

Of course, like most small scale things, they are a prefect metaphor for what is happening to our country. Liberals, for too long, have been allowed to say what is and isn’t okay to say, do, or think. Now we have reached a tipping point. A point where un-pc speech no longer just results in sharp, scathing looks or gossip behind that persons back. Instead, un-pc behavior results in lost opportunities and destroyed lives. Politically Correct behavior is now expected of any person who operates in the public. This is the soft fascism that people like Ron Paul have warned about.

A final point. Bravo to Miss California. She was asked her opinion and gave it. Even after the attempted destruction of her character, she stands by her statements and thanks God for the trials of her life. This is a girl we could all take a lesson from. She is a true American hero, and my Miss America!

CIA Memo Release

It has been mere days since President Obama releases CIA memos on their enhanced interrogation techniques. As expected, those on the right are taking exception, and those on the left are foaming with glee. Talk Radio and the right-wing blogs are talking about the disenfranchisement of the CIA operatives and the opening for another attack to occur. Based on the facts given, I would have to agree, but I want to look at this in a different light. A light that might be deemed more wishful thinking than reality, but one that I find more believable when you examine the character of our new president. Simply: He can’t be that stupid…

Let’s look at why he released them first. Despite your feelings on the interrogation methods used during the Bush years, you have to conclude (if you are intellectually honest) that they worked. We got the information, and we were kept safe. If these interrogation methods worked and they kept us safe, would getting rid of them make us less safe and open up the possibility for another attack? Obama has to know this, so why release them? Only two reasons come to mind: he’s either trying to help the enemy (which I don’t believe) or he is trying to make his political base happy.

For years, the base of the Democrat party have held rallies and protests against the CIA methods of the Bush years. Now that Obama is president, they thought things would change. Troops pulled out of Iraq, Gitmo closed, and the Patriot Act repealed. Oh how they were wrong. Instead, Obama is keeping troops in Iraq, keeping Gitmo open until he figures out what do with the prisoners (which no one will take), and is strengthening the Patriot Act. Too much longer, and his will start protesting him. Ah, but how easy it is to please the left.

Obama releases CIA memos of past interrogation methods. Now his base can become preoccupied with suing the Bush administration, and believe that Obama really is for change and transparency.

Now, you might be thinking, “Right, he made us less safe to pander to his base!” But did he?

You have to understand something if one wants to truly understand Obama. He is a politician, and he has big plans. In order to do what he wants to do on health care, energy, and other issues, he has to have the backing of the people. His high approval numbers are the main reason the Republicans are weak kneed in opposing him. What would happen if there was another terrorist attack on American soil? What would happen if that attack could be traced back to the release of these memos and his lax in strength on foreign policy? His approval numbers would plummet, Republicans would have ammunition, and American attitude of urgency would shift away from domestic policy back to foreign policy. Leaving Obama’s plans in the dust, only to be written about in his post-presidential memoirs.

Obama is a cold, calculating politician. Washington is full of them. The idea that he would risk his political clout and popularity on the chance of a terrorist attack is absurd. He would never risk a speed bump in his plan such as that. So he releases a few memos on past interrogation methods and keeps safety procedures and renditions in place. Everybody has bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Now, I could be giving Obama a lot more credit than he is due. I’ll admit it. Maybe this is wishful thinking. But, I just can’t believe Obama would risk another attack when he has so much left to do. Take care though American. Cause if I’m wrong…. Well, pray I’m not.

So Good…

… I had to both tweet and post this video here. Well done, pajamas media!

Portrait of the Republican Party

I personally have no problem with any of the McCain’s. John McCain was given his shot, and he blew it. But there is one person who is truly getting through this thick skin of mine and starting to get on my last nerves. His daughter, Meghan McCain.

No matter what you think of her, she is trying to actively help the Republican Party. She has gone on several venues saying the Republicans should accept homosexual marriage and pander to as many groups as possible to get their vote (she is particularly in love with the youth vote). Who can blame her? If you believe in something, you should stand up for her. I don’t agree with her, but I appreciate her vigor. But does she have the clout?

I had completely forgotten that Meghan McCain had admitted to Alan Colmes in an interview (Hannity not available?) that she had voted for Gore and Kerry in previous elections. Now, I don’t care who you vote for, but admitting to voting for the other parties nominee then try to reshape the Republicans? Why should we listen to her? She hurt on her credibility. Well, here’s the problem:

Meghan McCain said Tuesday that she voted for Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential race. But McCain, who was born in 1984, was too young to vote in that race.

The fact is, Meghan McCain doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about the Republican party. She is simply on a one woman crusade to become more excepted by the mainstream media and pals in L.A. (I followed her for a while on Twitter. These were the highlights of her life, far and away). Look at what she’s been doing since John’s loss. Ever since her father’s loss, Meghan McCain has been on every news venue that will waste air time to interview the daughter of the loser. While on these low rating, low content shows, she has taken the opportunity to blame everyone under the sun for her father’s loss. It can hardly be blamed on her. She is just doing what every Republican has been doing for the last few years. Trying to become excepted by those that control the mainstream media: liberals.

Don’t believe me? Look at who she has been criticizing. Has it been Democrats, liberals, television or print media, or her own father? Nope. The only people she has blamed are those that have carried the Republicans to success in previous elections, Conservatives and Talk Radio. The same people that those in the media and pop culture view as the enemy.

She might not know it, but she has become the perfect metaphor for the Republican Party. Running around from media outlet to media outlet without any coherent message. Their only quest is a never ending hide-and-seek of looking for acceptance from the very people that are trying to tear them down. It is sickening to watch.

Edit: Looks like I am not the only person tired of Meghan McCain.