Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Hey GOP: Fortune Favors the bold

Posted: September 30, 2010 by datechguy in blogger for hire, elections, media, politics
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On January 20th the day after the Scott Brown Election, commenting on the arrogance of the defeated Democrats for the electorate I wrote this:

If the GOP doesn’t take advantage of this foolishness it’s only because they are not trying.

Well the Massachusetts GOP tried so hard that they didn’t even bother to run a candidate against the vulnerable Coakley. If it hadn’t been for Jim McKenna’s write-in campaign she would be sailing to re-election
Today at National Review ObiWan again used a military metaphor:

Jim: Generally, what should the Republicans be doing?

Obi-Wan: Avoid the saddest mistake that’s made in conflict – McClellan at Antietam, Mead at Gettysburg, or the Falaise Gap in WWII, or not letting Patton go for the Siegfried Line before that terrible winter and most of our casualties in Europe. Experts lack imagination and can’t seize the chance for Cannae-like victory.

Can you imagine with all the ethical vulnerabilities you have been showing about Schumer – not to mention that he’s more a symbol of this Congress than anyone and he’s got pretty unimpressive numbers – the GOP is not even mounting a campaign against him?

That the trick Attack Attack Attack

The Democrats have been under siege (ala Petersburg) defending unpopular policies that republicans have been nailing them on, first slowly then finally breaking through their flanks on both left and right. They are fleeing this president in the same way as the Confederates were fleeing Grant. This Mosque is one issue that the President has decided to stop and fight on as did the Confederates at Sayler’s Creek. Sheridan had the right answer saying: “Go Right through them, they are demoralized as hell.”

And as Stacy points out it’s not just timidness it’s not knowing where the fight actually is:

Nothing illustrates the disconnect between money and brains in the GOP than a fact highlighted by Jimmie Bise: Charlie Crist raised $4.3 million in a single three-month period of 2009.

The more I think about that, the angrier I get. Who were these more-money-than-brains people who wrote those checks for Crist? Did they just take the word of John Cornyn and Jim Greer that Crist was the man to beat in the Florida GOP Senate primary?

A fool and his money are soon parted, and there are times when the Republican Party resembles nothing so much as a scam for separating rich fools from their money.

For $4.3 million, you could have paid 86 bloggers $50,000 a year.

As I have been living off of $27k a year unemployment the number is staggering but more important is that 86 bloggers putting up 6 posts a day could literally write a post about EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR CONGRESS EVERY SINGLE DAY.

If even half of said bloggers were on the road covering campaigns you could have fresh stories that come direct from the districts boosting said candidates rather than the MSM stories attacking them coming from Washington. What kind of Stories? Well how about reports from candidate forums Georgia or Profiles of candidates in Maryland or interviews with candidates in NC and California or reports direct from Alaska.

These kind of reports, positive reports coming out on a daily basis keep the opposition demoralized, instead of being able to force us to play on their field.

and the last warning comes from Glenn Reynolds and reader:

But if the GOP establishment fights us to the end, then it will take an actual third-party to engage the public in transforming our political system. That will take much more time, and much more effort. And it will be a bloody mess (hopefully only figuratively! my biggest fear is otherwise) for years as we clean up the pieces of the train wreck they have driven us into.

Indeed. As I’ve warned before, if the GOP retakes Congress and then blows it, we’re likely to see not only a third-party Presidential challenge, but a lot of third-party challengers for Congressional seats.

It’s like Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, you get one shot, don’t blow it.

Update: Yet another Instalanche! Thanks Glenn. Hi folks, since your last visit we have scared John Olver, been Scheduled Saturday for another guest appearance on WCRN from 2-4 p.m. and should have a new Examiner column up before I hit the sack. Update: My examiner article Will the voters buy the One Nation timeshare is now up

The president not the only one behind when it comes to appointments

Posted: September 30, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, politics
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It looks like the prez is going to have to wait for some of his appointments a bit longer:

By scheduling pro-forma sessions on Mondays and Fridays, lawmakers can take away Obama’s ability to make recess appointments.

Obama had 115 executive- and judicial-branch nominees pending on the Senate’s executive calendar as of Wednesday afternoon.

Bad sign for the president considering the incredible majorities he has in both houses. But as Father Z reports the Washington is not the only place where there are a lot of open seats waiting to be filled:

There are at present quite a few important curial positions and sees around the world which usually have cardinals… but don’t.

At the time of this writing, I believe there are 103 voting cardinals (men who have not turned 80 years old). By the end of November two more cardinals will hit 80 (Tumi, Pujats), bringing the number of voting cardinals down to 101. By the end of next February, four more (Panafieu, Vidal, García-Gasco, Ruini – sadly) – 97. By the end of April two more (Keeler, Sebastiani) – 95. So, an American and two Italians will have dropped from the list, leaving 10 Americans and 15 Italians as electors.

I won’t even pretend to know the inside baseball of the Vatican but with an elderly pope, the men who are elevated to cardinal now will have a lot to do with the direction of the church for decades.

The perfect metaphor for the democratic party

Posted: September 28, 2010 by datechguy in business, congress, elections, politics
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I finally found a new John Olver sign in Fitchburg

Hey a John Olver sign

And is there any more appropriate location for a sign promoting a democratic member of congress…

The perfect setting

then a closed business?

And in case you think it is a stunt, lets go to the video!

Democrats it’s all yours.

Opposing Sharia is now bigotry…

Posted: September 28, 2010 by datechguy in politics
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About 15 years ago when the first talk of civil unions came up when people were talking about a constitutional amendment to enshrine actual marriage explicitly in the constitution the media and the pols pooh poohed the entire idea saying that nobody is talking about Gay Marriage and the idea it was going to come up was nonsense.

People who had more sense on the state level decided not to take chances and passed constitutional amendments to their own state constitutions.

Interestingly enough we are seeing this phenom again in Oklahoma:

Oklahoma is poised to become the first state in the nation to ban state judges from relying on Islamic law known as Sharia when deciding cases.

The ban is a cornerstone of a “Save our State” amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that was recently approved by the Legislature.

The amendment — which also would forbid judges from using international laws as a basis for decisions — will now be put before Oklahoma’s voters in November. Approval is expected.

Well this is a victory for liberals surely, Sharia law being so oppressive to women and gays and restrictive on sex etc etc I’m sure that our friends on the left will be cheering the chance for the voters to reject such a set of misogynistic rules right? Apparently not:

Reps. Duncan and Moore’s “us vs. them” mentality exemplifies the mainstreaming of extreme right-wing Islamophobia. Once hawked by fringe figures, the “creeping Sharia” delusion is finding champions among staunch conservative leaders like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose crusade against all-things-Islamic culminated in his call for “a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States” at the Value Voters Summit this month.

Ah it’s all about Islamophobia, there is actually no reason why Sharia is something to be worried about, it can’t happen here. Next thing you will be telling me is that honor killings are taking place in America or something.

Jay Nordlinger identified these people long ago:

During the Cold War, we used to speak of anti-anti-Communists. These were people (on the left) who were not exactly pro-Communist. But they so hated the anti-Communists, they were . . . well, anti-anti-Communists — the best, the fairest name for them.

Today, there are anti-anti-Islamofascists. They are not on the Islamofascist side in the War on Terror. But they hate those who are fighting, or attempting to fight, the Islamofascists more than they could ever hate the Islamofascists. They are anti-anti-Islamofascists.

The similarities between yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists and today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists would make a very good essay — perhaps by David Pryce-Jones or Norman Podhoretz. Of course, many of today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists were yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists — I mean, the same people, in the flesh.

The day these people hate actual oppressors as much as they hate their pseudo oppressors will be a marvelous day for this country, and for themselves.

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