New Tizona post

The G-8 has come to FredCo!

Frederick County, Maryland, USA. It’s a relatively normal place…normal being relative anywhere, I suppose. It’s home to about 235,000 souls, and is roughly 670 square miles in area. You can drive from one end of the county to another in under 30 minutes, whether it’s north-south or east-west.

I’ve call FredCo home for 13 years now. As with most who moved here in the 90′s, it was the only place in the Baltimore/Washington corridor where we could afford a larger house with a yard.

But FredCo has within its borders something that sets it apart from other mostly rural counties in Maryland. Just outside of Thurmont, a mere 15 minute drive from the city of Frederick, is a little place called Camp David. And, suddenly, this weekend Frederick County is on the map.

Read more at The Tizona Group.

New Tizona Post

And it begins...

The pattern has been played out over and over. A potential Team Elephant presidential candidate starts to rise in the polls. A bulls-eye is affixed to that candidate. A combination of Republican elites, their allies in the punditocracy, and Big Media (the BM for short), which simply can't help itself when an opportunity to dump on a Republican presents itself, begin hammering on any and all perceived defects of said candidate. Next thing you know, the new frontrunner is cast on the scrap heap, either to quit (like Herman Cain) or to flounder haplessly trying to regain momentum (like Michele Bachmann and Governor Perry Gardasil).

Now that Newt Gingrich is dropping faster than shares in Freddie Mac, Ron Paul has surged into a virtual tie and perhaps even the lead in Iowa.

That's bad.

Read the rest at The Tizona Group.

Did I mention that I'm right?

Piling on more "I told you", I cite another source certain that creating law under the influence of emotion is a bad, bad idea.

Within minutes of the Casey Anthony verdict, much of America devolved into the mass media equivalent of a mob bearing torches and pitchforks. Twitter lit up with calls for vigilante justice, and proposals that we revoke the Fifth Amendment's protection against double jeopardy (or at least that we revoke it for Casey Anthony). Nancy Grace nearly spit fire, proclaiming, "The devil is dancing tonight." Conservative syndicated columnist Ben Shapiro wants to change the jury system entirely.

Even as DNA testing continues to exonerate wrongly convicted people, including people who were nearly executed, it's this rare case -- in which a jury recognized that there was no physical evidence linking Anthony to her daughter's murder -- that has America questioning its justice system.
[...]
Laws named after crime victims and dead people are usually a bad idea. They play more to emotion than reason. But they're disturbingly predictable, especially when they come after the death of a child. So it's really no surprise that activist Michelle Crowder is now pushing "Caylee's Law," a proposed federal bill that would charge parents with a felony if they fail to report a missing child within 24 hours, or if they fail to report the death of a child within an hour. What's surprising is just how quickly the Change.org petition for Caylee's Law has gone viral. As of this writing it has more than 700,000 signatures, and is now the most successful campaign in the site's history. For reasons of constitutionality and practicality, it seems unlikely that Caylee's Law will ever be realized at the federal level. But according to the AP, at least sixteen state legislatures are now considering some version of the law. That's troubling.

This is a bad way to make public policy. In an interview with CNN, Crowder concedes that she didn't consult with a single law enforcement official before coming up with her 24-hour and 1-hour limits. This raises some questions. How did she come up with those cutoffs? Did she consult with any grief counselors to see if there may be innocuous reasons why an innocent person who just witnessed a child's death might not immediately report it, such as shock, passing out, or some other sort of mental breakdown? Did she consult with a forensic pathologist to see if it's even possible to pin down the time of death with the sort of precision you'd need to make Caylee's Law enforceable? Have any of the lawmakers who have proposed or are planning to propose this law actually consulted with anyone with some knowledge of these issues?

These excerpts just scratch the surface of Mr. Balko's arguments. Please read the entire article. He makes the best case imaginable to avoid making Caylee's Law a reality.

I hate being right

In my last post, I wrote about my dread about bad law resulting from a knee-jerk reaction to the Casey Anthony verdict. I hate being right.

Michelle Crowder of Durant, Oklahoma is calling for Caylee's Law, a piece of legislation that would make it a felony for a parent to fail to report a missing child to law enforcement. And people are listening. Important people.
[...]
This won't help Caylee directly. But it will help America's kids.

It will help the quarter of gay teens who are kicked out of their homes by their parents simply for admitting they love someone of the same gender, kids whose parents leave them to rot on the sidewalks. As it stands, parents CAN kick their kids out, and with rules that don't require they report them missing, abdicating their duties to love and protect their children isn't a felony.
[...]
Caylee's Law, or whatever you call it, would help us make sense of how a system will punish a parent with child abuse charges for leaving children unattended for a long period of time (and rightly so!) but let a parent skate for not reporting a child missing. It can't be one but not the other, America. That's why we need a law.

Did I not tell you? Yet another law "for the children". Ye gods!

But the law of unintended consequences always rides shotgun with these kind of emotion-laded knee-jerk laws. Exhibit A: your 16-year-old daughter runs away with a musician after trying to poison you for the insurance money. You want this back in your life? You figure, "Eh, goodbye and good riddance." But if you don't report your daughter missing and take her back with open arms when she is returned by the cops, you're guilty of child abuse. Of course, if you do take her back, you'd better sleep with one eye open.....but I digress.

And where did this statistic about one quarter of gay teens being kicked out of their homes come from? Sounds fishy to me. I'd wager they're including "boy toys" who ran off with an older man who promised them goodies in exchange for butt sex in that obviously embellished tally. But that "leaving them to rot on the sidewalks" line? Priceless.

Emotions and law make bad bedfellows. But politicians pandering for your vote don't care. They'll pass whatever ridiculous law you tell them you want.

And you wonder why you are less free every day.....

Trial by Media

Deadeye watched the Casey Anthony trial with rapt fascination over the past six weeks. I would venture that there is no one out there as knowledgeable about that case (outside of the attorneys, that is) than Deadeye. When Casey Anthony was found not guilty on all charges except lying to police yesterday, Deadeye was dumbfounded. She has officially lost all confidence in the jury system.

While I would tend to agree with her the the cumulative evidence should have led to a verdict of guilty, I'm less concerned with the verdict and more concerned about a growing trend that became apparent during this trial. Call it what you will, it boils down to trail by media.

The worst offender was Nancy Grace, of course. Were it up to Ms. Grace, Casey Anthony would be dead already. Nancy Grace has spent the past three years proclaiming the guilt of "tot mom". I thought that the "not guilty" verdict might elicit some sort of contemplative pause from her. As if! She said in response to the verdict that "the devil is dancing tonight". On her show last night, she spent an entire segment excoriating the defense team for having the audacity to celebrate their victory. Claiming "I never did that as a prosecutor", she heaped derision on Casey's attorneys. Being ever cynical...and knowing Nancy's predilection for playing fast and loose with the law during her career as a prosecutor...I would guess that the reason she never celebrated was because she didn't want to draw too much attention to her tactics.

If it were just Nancy Grace acting this way on the airways, you could dismiss this is as one bitter crank amid a sea of babble. But it's not just Ms. Grace. It's Jane VOLUME-Mitchell. It's Vinnie Politan. It's the hosts of In Session on Tru TV. The babble from this Tower of Babel is not just harmless words. If you listen to the comments of people around the country, they are convinced that the jury flat out blew the case. They're convinced that Casey Anthony is GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY. And the reason they're so convinced is because they've been harangued for three solid years by people selling sensationalism for ratings.

Still not convinced it's all that dangerous, Vulture. Okay, indulge me for a second. What happens when a sizable segment of the populace is worked up into a frenzy about something or other? Answer: laws get passed. Bad laws. Laws that make us less free and more susceptible to unwarranted incarceration. THIS is what concerns me. THIS is what I see as the danger.

Here's hoping that the Casey Anthony verdict does NOT have the effect of giving politicians a premise for abolishing or negating trial by jury.

New Tizona Post

Weiner pulls out.

The schadenfreude has been beyond blissful. A creepy libtard is caught flashing his namesake. Caught lying about it. Accused of asking a former prØn star to lie for him.

The Eisenhower Warnings

Frequent Tizona Group commenter J.M. Heinrichs made the following comment in reference to a comment I made about Ron Paul being the only Team Elephant candidate who would take on the military-industrial complex.

People keep forgetting that Eisenhower issued two warnings, and the Mil-Industry one was the lessor.

That got me thinking. Everyone who knows anything about history is familiar with Eisenhower's admonition about the military-industrial complex. But another warning? I was intrigued. I googled Eisenhower's speech and found this.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.  (emphasis mine)

Does that sound familiar to you? It should.

The War on Man-made Global Warming (AGW) is just one example of what has become a symbiotic relationship between left-leaning politicians, left-leaning bureaucrats, and left-leaning academics. Science has been co-opted by this nefarious troika to the detriment of both science and humanity.

Government money is allotted to those scientists who come up with the "results" that government wants to see. Public policy is made on the basis of these "influenced" findings. And politicians leverage these "facts" to demogogue against those who question their agendas.

It's a pity that this Eisenhower warning wasn't given the same weight as the other, equally important warning. Only time will tell whether it will be the military-industrial complex that is our undoing or the scientific-technological elite.

Maryland's lost icon

There are certain people one associates with Maryland. Cal Ripken. H.L. Menken. John Unitas.

One of those people synonymous with Maryland passed yesterday.

William Donald Schaefer, the dominant political figure of the last half-century of Maryland history, died Monday after a "do-it-now" career that changed the face of Baltimore while bringing a burst of energy to the city he loved. He was 89.

William Donald Schaefer was Maryland. No one before or since has dominated Maryland politics like Schaefer did in his heyday. He served 4 terms as Mayor of Bawlmer, 2 terms as Governor, and a couple of terms as State Comptroller for good measure. And he did it with a style all his own.

Schaefer transcended political labels. I voted for him every time he ran for whatever office he was pursuing. His party? Which office? Didn't matter. Willie Don Schaefer flat out got things done. Positive things.

Schaefer converted Baltimore from "Cleveland by the Bay" into the kind of place that actually attracts tourists (and their money). He acted to keep businesses in Maryland when his fellow Dems were actively trying to tax the bejeesus out of anything that moved (Maryland motto: "If you can imagine it, we can tax it").

But the most important thing WDS did, IMO, was take Maryland's third-world quality highway system and convert it into the East Coast's finest in the span of only 8 years. This is no exaggeration. Baltimore/Washington International Airport used to only be accessible via a 2-lane highway (actually a paved-over cattle trail) in the 1980's. Seriously, can you think of anything more third-world than that?

Willie Don could be a buffoon, to be sure. But it was calculated buffoonery. It was his self-deprecating way of calling attention to Maryland, and particularly to Bawlmer, HIS city.

RIP Willie Don. There'll never be another one like you.

We're #1! We're #1!

States, cities, and regions are known to promote things for which they are predominant. Idaho potatoes. Maryland crabs. New Orleans' Bourbon St. attractions. Chicago Style pizza. Memphis blues. New England chowders.

Notwithstanding that trend, there's a very low likelihood that the greater DC region will be proclaiming their number one status in this area.

Bad, but perhaps unsurprising news for area commuters: A new report indicates drivers in the Washington region lead the country in time, money and gas wasted in traffic.

D.C. drivers spend about 70 hours every year in road congestion, according to the 2010 Urban Mobility Report, considered the authority on traffic rankings.

This is the worst delay in the country.

We're #1! We're #1! Ah, crap!

By the way, this is the second time in the past three years DC has achieved #1 status.

As someone who has endured this hell on Earth for over 23 years, I have say that Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia are absolutely guilty of economic malfeasance in their inattention to regional highway construction.

"Vulture! Highways are expensive!" So is gridlock. How many billions of dollars are lost to this region every year because of our grossly inadequate highway system?

"You should take mass transit!" Really? Mass transit in this reason is designed under the paradigm of traffic filtering into the District in the morning and out to Maryland and Virginia in the evening. So how, exactly, does that help someone like me, who lives in Maryland but works in Virginia? I'll tell you how: not at all!

This is NOT a region where mass transit can be the only solution to the problem. There are too may consultants, contractors, and other non-traditional employment types for that to work.

But it's not going to the change. Highways will never be a high priority in People's Republics like Maryland and the District of Columbia. And Richmond absolutely HATES Northern Virginia, considering its citizens to be yankees. Getting money out of Richmond for NoVa is like getting child support from a rapper. It COULD happen. It's just not likely.

But hey! It's nice for DC to be famous for something besides government waste and corruption, right?

Demagoging tragedy

Frankly, I don't know which sickens me more: the abhorrent mass murder committed by a sicko-psycho in Arizona that also left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded, or the reaction to her wounding in the media.

Big Media (the BM for short) -- the same BM that demanded that we "not rush to judgment" following the Ft. Hood mass murder by a sicko-psycho -- rushed to judgment bigtime this time.  "Right-wing rhetoric" was blamed by some, an ironic claim, it turns out.  The shooter was described as "quite liberal" and a "political radical" by classmates.

Turns out when it comes to hateful rhetoric, the left doesn't fare too poorly itself.  Caribou Barbie hung in effigy.  Il Duce quoted as saying, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun". Ironic.

  Sarah Palin Caribou Barbie was blamed for "putting a bulls-eye on Rep. Giffords", an ironic claim, it turns out.  A Daily Kos blogger said that Giffords was "dead to me" just two days prior to the attack.  Not quite a bulls-eye, but ugly nonetheless.

Of course, Faux News came out all in defense of Caribou Barbie.  What?  You expected differently?  Regardless of where you get your news, children, you're gonna get spin.

Naturally, the Tea Party was blamed as well.  Yeah, all of that "hateful rhetoric" about sticking to the Constitution really makes folks want to kill their Congress-critter [/sarcasm].

Naturally, the Succubus of State had to weigh in, calling the shooter, "an extremist".  Takes one to know one, I suppose...

But the simple fact is that the shooter is mentally unbalanced.  How unbalanced?  Enough to where his college classmates were scared of him.

No one is blaming Caribou Barbie, or the Tea Party, or even Calvin Klein for this kook who castrated a journalist.  Not the right political angle, I suppose.

Look, it's no secret that I hate Team Donkey and Team Elephant equally.  Anyone who thinks that either of them is "the good guys" is drinking the Kool Aid.  But the partisan demagoguery on display the past two days has been nauseating.  And frankly, you have to ask, if the wounded Representative had an 'R' after her name, would there be all of this finger pointing and whining about "hateful political rhetoric"?

I think you know the answer to that question...

A change in talk radio?

I don't normally listen to Quinn and Rose in the morning.  Oh, sure, I used to on occasion, if for no other reason than for confirmation of the latest "conservative" talking points and for their histrionics about "the most importantest election ever!", whichever election it might be.

But this morning Mike Church went to commercial and The Sports Junkies were in a commercial break as well, so I tuned in Q-n-R.  What a surprise!  Rose (of course it wasn't Quinn!) was waxing wroth against a dangerous man.  And it wasn't Il Duce!

Rose read from an article written some months ago by WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah.  The last sentence of the article reads,

There is perhaps no more dangerous man in America today than Mitt Romney. If he succeeds Obama, it will be the final nail in the coffin of American liberty. You've been duly warned.

That Farah, a man of principles, would say this about Mitt Romney is not unexpected.  Farah isn't one of those "vote for the guy with the 'R' after his name or we'll all die!" pseudo-conservatives.  He sees the Elephants for what they are.

But for Rose to read his article -- and agree with it wholeheartedly -- is something of a "man bites dog" moment.

Is there something happening out there in Talk Radio land?  Have the blathering heads seen the writing on the wall and started distancing themselves from the Rockefellerite elitists of Team Elephant?

It's too soon to say for sure.  But I, for one, hope that, like the old folk song says, "the times they are a changin'".

Piling on: more TSSA abuse

TSSA (you can't spell Schutzstaffel without the double S) is the hot topic these days, crowding out the G20 Summit, the ConAgra/Archer Daniels Midland/Big Agra food industry takeover bill, and, well, everything else. And why not?  After all, they make it so easy!

The latest is this tale of humiliation.

A retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

“I was absolutely humiliated, I couldn’t even speak,” said Thomas D. “Tom” Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, Mich.

Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach. “I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes.”

Long story short...

I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”

The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”

Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.

Ah, but don't worry, Mr. Sawyer.  Il Duce feels your pain.

President Obama said today he sympathizes with passenger complaints about aggressive body pat-downs at airports, but his counter-terrorism aides say they are necessary to guard against hidden explosives.

Balancing privacy and security is a "tough situation," Obama told reporters at a news conference following the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal.

"One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes a huge inconvenience for all of us," Obama said.

Uh, no, Mr. President. It is NOT a huge inconvenience for ALL of us.  You traipse all over the world in the opulence that is Air Force One.  And even those members of Congress who make a big show of flying commercial (hey, how 'bout that? [/sarcasm]) manage to skip the humiliation reserved for the rest of us (hat tip: Ye Olde Journalist).

No airport pat-down for the incoming House speaker.

On Friday, the GOP's John Boehner was guided past the metal detectors and hand inspections given to other passengers on his flight home to Ohio.

Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel said his boss followed procedures set by Capitol Police and the Transportation Security Administration. Steel said the same rules apply to other congressional leaders.

Yeah. The same rules apply to other congressional leaders. Because, after all, only we mundanes should be humiliated, NOT the elites who rule us.

Toes forwarded a proposed solution to the TSSA madness. I think it's a huge improvement over the current MCF.

Solution to issue of full-body scanners at airports: A booth you step into that will detonate any explosive device you may have hidden on or in your body. The explosion is contained within the booth. Win-Win? No profiling and will eliminate long and expensive trials. Hmmmm: In the airport you hear a muffled explosion. Later an announcement, "Attention, standby passengers! Seats now available on flight number...

Priceless.

Vulture Droppings: Most Importantist Election Ever Edition

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

---

There's an election tomorrow.  Hey, how 'bout that? [/sarcasm]

"Shame on you, Vulture!  It's the most importantist election ever!"  Uh huh.

"Vulture!  It's all different this year!  The Tea Party is gonna change everything!"  Really?  How so?  The Tea Parties have been completely co-opted by Team Elephant.  Why would I say that?  What evidence do I have of such a thing?  A sampling:

Some traditional Republican consultants are advising — with a straight face — that newly elected Republican members of Congress "reach across the aisle…and "work with the Democrats."

John Boehner "rallies the troops" with empty (and limp) words "backing" Tea Party principles.  He swears spending will be rolled back to "pre-bailouts levels".  Seriously?  Going from $1.5 trillion deficits to $1 trillion deficits?  Oooooh!  I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO impressed!

And worst of all, the Queen of Inside the Beltway faux conservatism "celebrates" the Tea Party as having "saved" Team Elephant from King George the Dim.  Ms. Noonan, for those of you who weren't paying attention, was one of King George's biggest apologists during his 8 year reign of error.

---

"Vulture! Even YOU have to admit that we're better off with Republican-co-opted Tea Party candidates than with the Dhimmi-crats who have rammed a 50-year wish-list of Progressivism down our throats the past 4 years!"

Better?  Better HOW?  BETTER would have been for the Tea Parties to have come together as a third party or under the umbrella of one of the existing third parties (Libertarian or Constitution, for example).  BETTER would be for those candidates to be able to enter Mordor on the Potomac (hat tip: Mike Church) with a clean slate and a fresh canvas than to walk into the clutches of Mitch McCommie and John BaneTurd.

---

Here's the big reason I'm so unenthusiastic.  I'll lay it out in a single sentence.  The co-opting of the Tea Parties by Team Elephant guarantees the failure of the principles that brought those people together.  Guaran.  Effing.  Tees it.

There is no principle that Republicans will not run from, no compromise they will not accept, no stand crucial enough for them to make.

What happens to the Tea Parties after their "champions" are relegated to the Congressional equivalent of the Back Bench, and the John Boehner Business-as-Usual express continues propping up Crony Capitalism?  What happens after Mitch McConnell compromises for the umpteenth time on a point of principle that just SCREAMS for men of courage and conviction to just say "NO!"?

You kill this once-in-a-political lifetime awakening of the sheeple, and you kill any chance we ever have of wresting power away from the looters.

But that's the idea really, isn't it?  That's why the GOP has co-opted the Tea Parties.  They like the gravy train that is "public service" in Washington every bit as much as Team Donkey does.

---

Pledge to America is lame

Nearly assured of a massive victory at the polls in November, Team Elephant did what it does best: it undermined its own chances for success.  Their chosen mode of self-immolation this election: Son of Contract With America.

This propaganda masterpiece, called  A Pledge to America, is a real head-scratcher.  There is no reference to nor acknowledgment of the Tea Party.  Why would the Elephant elites give any credit to people they both loath and seek to discredit?

A lot of slick pictures accompany the propaganda piece.  These are images meant to elicit an emotional, patriotic response from the reader.  It made me sick.

The document is divided into sections tailored at issues the elitists think are important to ordinary Americans. The promise in the preface to "honor the Constitution" and "those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment", is broken right away in the Foreword, where they state that, when it comes to spending cuts, "common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops" will be made.  Business as usual, anyone?

Here's the worst from each section.

Section 1, Job Creation.  Job creation.  Job creation.  They still think the GOVERNMENT creates jobs.  Nevertheless, the steps they propose to take, while hardly representing job creation, do at least improve the business environment to where employers MIGHT consider hiring.

Grade: B

Section 2, Reduce the Size of Government.  The people who gave us King George the Dim's War Without End are trying to sell us reduced government spending and the size of government?  That's rich. 

They promise to "act immediately to reduce spending" (yawn).  They promise to cut government spending to "pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels".   Hey, how 'bout that? [/sarcasm]   Pre-bailout levels?  That's it?  WTF!  I think the American people -- and particularly the people who make up the Tea Parties -- want more than that.  Much more.  This "promise" is a joke.

They want to put "limits" on the growth of Government.  Limits?!?!? On growth?!?!?  Are you effin' kidding me!  A real plan would seek to reduce the size of government by at least 15% JUST FOR STARTERS.

They plan to hold weekly votes on spending. Hey, how 'bout that? [/sarcasm] And this dog and pony show will achieve what exactly? 

But it's the last "promise" that really set my teeth on edge.  "We will make the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs for today’s seniors and future generations".  You can't make this stuff up. 

Grade: F

Section 3, Health Care.  They promise "repeal and replace".  70% of Americans support repeal.  But replace? 

Part of what constitutes "replace" is to "ensure access for patients with pre-existing conditions."  I kid you not.

Grade: D-

Section 4, Reform Congress and Restore Trust.  I laughed my ass off when I read that.  Seriously?  Among the promises in this section is a promise to "adhere to the Constitution".  How, precisely, do you plan to do that AND "ensure access for patients with pre-existing conditions" AND "maintain entitlements", neither of which is Constitutionally permitted?

Grade: F

Section 5, National Security.  I can summarize this in two sentences.  Spend more money on defense systems like missile defense.  And continue the War Without End.  There is also a hollow promise to "enforce our immigration laws".  Nobody believes that.  Nobody. 

Grade: F

Section 6, Checks and Balances.  The shortest section, this is yet another attempt by the Elephant elites to sucker us.  I can sum this section up in two words: "Trust me".  The right answer -- No way!

Grade: F

There you have it.  Aren't you impressed?  Doesn't this steaming POS make you just long to rush to the polls to vote for the guy with the 'R' by his name?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll get a shower.  I feel dirty.

Topic revisited -- Team Elephant's "reformation"

I last spoke on this subject some days before the primary elections.  Now the primaries for Delaware, Maryland, New York, and various other states are complete.  Let's see what Team Elephant has been up to in the time since my last taunt post.

Wanna see true colors?  See this.

In an extraordinary move, the state Republican Party began automated phone calls attacking O'Donnell in the campaign's final hours. The calls feature the voice of a woman who identifies herself as Kristin Murray, O'Donnell's campaign manager in her 2008 unsuccessful Senate campaign, accusing the candidate of "living on campaign donations — using them for rent and personal expenses, while leaving her workers unpaid and piling up thousands in debt."

O'Donnell's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Republican officials have said privately they intend to write off the seat if O'Donnell is victorious against Castle.

The establishment would rather lose than support a candidate whose views aren't those of John McCommie, Lincoln Chafee, and other stalwart "conservatives".  What is it you're not seeing here, conservatives?  These people hate you and hate everything you believe in.

Most telling was the establishment response to O'Donnell's win.

However, a top Republican official told CNN on Tuesday night that O'Donnell will have to show she can generate viable support before the national party will give her money.

"It is now incumbent on Sarah Palin, (U.S. Sen.) Jim DeMint and the Tea Party Express to help support her," the official said on condition of not being identified by name. "They got her here. Now make it happen."

After the establishment said they wouldn't support O'Donnell financially, she made her own pitch -- and picked up $1.5 million dollars just since Tuesday!  You're looking bad, Rockefellerites!

New York posted a stunning upset as well.  Carl Paladino upset RINO Rick Lazio.

The Team Elephant establishment is grossly out of touch with its base.  I would say DELIBERATELY out of touch; they really would rather see grassroots candidates lose.  They will only support "their kind".  WHY you people still affiliate yourselves with that party, I cannot understand.

Dumbest. Politician. Ever.

First there was Dan Quayle, a legendary dim bulb.  His heir to the thrown (no misspelling: he gets "thrown" by common logic) is, of course, Joe Biden, a man whose intellect, if measured in kilowatt hours, would barely register the energey expended by the refrigerator light.  When it's off.

But neither of those gentlemen has ANYTHING on this bimbo.  Ladies and gentlemen: I present Milwaukee County Executive Peggy West.

If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding the borders, I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border.

I sincerely hope this woman isn't allowed to drive. *shudders*

This is Democracy at work. The stupid and venal rule. Normal people need not apply.

AMF Tax Waster

A tax waster goes home to that great pork patch in the sky.

Robert Carlyle Byrd, the longest-serving member of Congress in United States history, who spent much of his career as a conservative Democrat and ended it by fiercely opposing the war in Iraq and questioning the state's powerful coal industry, died Monday. He was 92.

Showing the press's penchant for confusing terms, the linked news article refers to Mr. Byrd as a "conservative Democrat".  Conservative in what way?  What in the name of Zeus is "conservative" about a Senate appropriations chairman who has more than 30 public works projects named after him?  Think I'm kidding?  This page contains a list of some of the "public" projects/buildings/roads created in the name of Robert C. Byrd.  Citizens Against Government Waste has dubbed him the "King of Pork".  He also voted for ObamaCare.  That's hardly "conservative", wouldn't you agree?

Mr. Byrd lived a Teflon life, thanks mostly to a lapdog media that takes great care not to be too hard on folk with a "D" after their name.  Byrd was a bigot; his membership in the Klan and his reference to some despicable people as "white niggers" are case in point.  Yet Trent Lott was forced to resign the Senate for one flippant gaffe, while Byrd was sheltered.

Politicians like Robert Byrd are precisely what's wrong in Washington.  He was more concerned with "bringing home the bacon" to West Virginia than he was with the well being of the nation or with his Constitutional duty to protect the freedoms of US citizens.

AMF, normally "adios, my friend" has a different MF in this case.  We'll call it the Robert C. Byrd Memorial Sendoff.

The trouble with elephants

I approach this post with a little bit of hesitation.  I don't want to look like I'm picking on a fellow blogger and singling him out as being...how do I say this delicately?...easily duped.  But the posts of this blogger go a long way towards proving a point I've been trying to drum home for some time now.  Please indulge me a little on this one.

The blog to which I refer is called Elephants in the Blue Grass.  Now, I'm sure Mr. "Grass" is a nice enough fellow.  But he needs to cut down on his Kool-Aid intake.

Mr. "Grass" has a real issue with Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son and candidate for the Senate from Kentucky.  I am aware that "Grass" is touting another candidate for Senate, Trey Grayson, who I'm sure is a swell fellow.  And far be it from me to get my panties in a wad because an individual supports a candidate other than the one I would favor.  But I can tell when someone has gone beyond hyping their candidate and "downing" the opponent to a nasty place from which they can only produce hyperventilated girly smear.  You know, the stuff we usually get from Team Donkey.  Thank I'm kidding?  How would YOU characterize his calling Mr. Paul "part of the blame America first crowd."

Mr. "Grass" is quite unhappy with the desire on the part of Mr. Paul (and his dad, I might add) to scale back the mission of the US military to that of....wait for it...defending the nation.  You know, abandoning the Bush doctrine of War Without End.  This causes Mr. "Grass" to lapse into fainting spells. 

He's also just a wee bit butt hurt that Mr. Paul has vowed to vote to repeal the Patriot Act.  Personally, I can think of nothing more patriotic than repeal of the Patriot Act.  But I'm more concerned with personal liberties than in creating an All-Powerful Staat in the image of the Team Elephant Pax Americana pipe dream.

I hate to pick on the guy.  I really do.  He's done nothing to wrong me.  But his wrong-headed jihad against Paul is just baffling.  Rand Paul sounds to me like exactly the kind of guy the Tea Party folks are trying to get elected.  But Mr. "Grass" and the Team Elephant elites are fighting him tooth and nail.

And therein lies my point - the point I've been hammering on like a jackhammer on steroids most of this year.  If you're a person who believes in the principles of the Constitution as written by the Founders, a person who wants to live in the nation they envisioned, you need to leave the Republican party.  Team Elephant is not your friend.  Team Elephant does NOT represent small government, personal liberty, and fiscal responsibility.  They represent intrusive Überwachenden-style snooping, War Without End, and spending til the cows come home...just spending on different stuff than the Donkeys want to spend money on.

A party that thinks Romney-Palin would be a swell ticket for the Presidency is a party in need of euthanasia.  And those who put their faith in such a party need to get used to the idea of serfdom.

Ron Paul as Rodney Dangerfield

I tell ya, he just don't get no respect.

Almost as interesting is that Ron Paul only lost to Romney by a single vote. It looks like the Paulistas continue to infiltrate these GOP conferences and demonstrate outsized influence.
[...]
Maybe it just reflects a fundamental split. A quarter just want someone who can win, a quarter want to completely overhaul the GOP in Paulist direction, and half are split up among various socially conservative long-shots.

Sorry, but no. You're completely wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are, in fact, a number of schizophrenic camps masquerading as Team Elephant.  But the breakdown (and boy do I mean breakdown) is more like this:

• Rockefellerite elitists
• All war, all the time Neocons
• Big government in our image Republicrats
• RINOs
• People who want to blow up the GOP and start over

Everyone from the first four categories hates Ron Paul.  H-A-T-E-S him.  Hates him to the point where they'd vote for a liberal Mormon who advocated a Massachusetts health care debacle before they'd vote for him.  Hates him to the point where they disparage his supporters as Paulistas (like some sort of insurgency) who "skew" the results of their precious straw polls.

But you "conservatives" just go ahead and continue to waste your votes on these creeps.  I'm the crazy one, because I walked away from Team Elephant when I realized that they didn't give a rat's ass about anything but the acquisition and exercise of power.  You know, just like the "bad guys", Team Donkey.

One final note on the SRLC.  Ron Paul upset the assembled Elephants by speaking the truth regarding the economic policies of Il Duce.

Republicans and tea party activists are fond of accusing President Barack Obama of being a socialist, but today party gadfly Ron Paul said they had it wrong.

“In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist,” the Texas Republican said to a smattering of applause at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

“He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Gadfly. There's that "no respect" thing again.

For those of you a little unschooled in economic systems, Corporatism is the official name of Fascism.  Fascism is the name that gained popularity as the description of the Corporatist economic model in the 1920's due to the success (to that point) of the original Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, in making it work.

But Team Elephant would rather Red bait than speak the truth, so Socialism it is.

The case for a third party

There is a particular litmus test I have for whether or not someone is serious about restoring this country to its former state as a Constitutional Republic.  That test is this: are you opposed to the creation of a third party whose purpose is to elect candidates committed to a return to the Constitutional rule of law?  If the answer is "no", then you've shown yourself to be yet another duped sheeple drinking that Team Elephant Kool-Aid.  I cannot in good conscience take you seriously.

Many blathering heads take umbrage with my stubborn insistence that the current political parties are totally co-opted and cannot be reclaimed.  They quote Ronald Reagan, who said, waaaay back in 1977:

I have to say I cannot agree with some of my friends—perhaps including some of you here tonight—who have answered that question by saying this nation needs a new political party.

I respect that view and I know that those who have reached it have done so after long hours of study. But I believe that political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved. For one thing, the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over.

Rather than a third party, we can have a new first party made up of people who share our principles. I have said before that if a formal change in name proves desirable, then so be it. But tonight, for purpose of discussion, I’m going to refer to it simply as the New Republican Party.

At this point they follow up with a rather childish, "See? See? The great Ronald Reagan said it! We need to stay Republican and save the Party."

There's only one problem with that illogic: Reagan failed.

For all of the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan as President, he was unsuccessful in his quest to fundamentally change the character of the Party.  Look at the last four candidates for President in the post-Reagan era:

• George H. W. Bush, Rockefellerite
  


• Bob Dole, Big Government true believer
  


• George W. Bush, Neocon
  


• John McCommie, RINO
  

That's not the slate of candidates a party espousing individual liberty and small government foists upon its followers.

"But Vulture!  The Republicans have changed!  They've really changed going in the 2010 elections".

No, no they haven't.  They haven't changed one bit.  You know how I know that?

• Michael Steele is still the RNC chairman
  


• John McCommie is being pushed by Party elites over J. D. Hayworth because he's "more electable"
  


• Party elites are still pushing for Mitt Romney to be the standard-bearer in 2012
  

Here's the rub.  We know that Team Donkey wants power to implement their vision of Big Government.  But the same is true of Team Elephant - they want power to implement their vision of Big Government.  Neither gives a rat's ass about you or your personal freedoms.

A strong third party will offer a chance for real change in Washington, if done correctly.  It can be a haven for small-L libertarians, small government conservatives, and independents, as well as for current members of Team Donkey fed up with the Fascist takeover of their party by the toxic 60's generation.

Perhaps even more import is the impact it would have on the two big Parties.  Both would be forced to move from their current entrenched positions - either further to the Left or drawing back to the Right - in order to attract voters away from the new party.  For the first time since Reagan, libertarians and conservatives wouldn't have to hold their noses to vote.  That alone is reason enough for me.

Think I'm full of it?  Hit me with your best shot.  I'm dying to see where you think I'm "wrong".