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Civil War II: The Left’s Order of Battle

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

The War Is Against You

Over the summer, we’ve been watching in growing angst as our country is devolving.  None of this is coincidental, and none of it is random or purposeless.  These are the opening salvos in an attack on the republic.  What we’re witnessing is very much like the beginning of the rise of the confederacy of the pre-Civil War South, but with a difference: This new foe is employing all the tactics of the various statist revolutions we witnessed in the early twentieth century.  A few months ago, I told you about the rise of the “Woke Supremacists.” Nothing has changed, except that they have become more organized and more virulent.  These are not peaceful protests, conceived in benevolent motives, but coincidentally escalating into riots.  These are riots, with a veneer of peaceful demonstrations lashed to their front, both as a disguise and as a shield for the vile onslaught only superficially concealed behind them.  Bricks have been pre-positioned. Frozen water bottles are filled in backpacks. Crude pyrotechnic devices are employed.  Guns and knives are concealed beneath shirts and jackets, and the grins of stone-cold killers are concealed behind the anarchists’ masks.  What is their purpose?  What are they after?  Who is funding them?  How are they coordinating their actions?  What is the ultimate goal?  Ladies and gentlemen, these are the cannon fodder in the globalists’ revolution against you.  Like the first rebellions of the Civil War in 1861, this is the launch of a Civil War against the United States of America, these are their foot-soldiers, and they are following orders.  It’s not about an election, except as a means to an end.  Their war is against you, and they won’t be satisfied until you are crushed beneath their feet.

They’re too stupid and too foolish to do anything but follow orders.  When you look at the people who are rioting, you realize that most are just more than children.  As ever, the leftists driving this have decided to use the vigorous young as their battlefield meat-shields.  Too inexperienced to understand how they’ve been manipulated, or that they will be discarded as soon as their masters no longer require their services, they line up in harried, emotional state to stand for the cause of BLM and/or ANTIFA.  They actually believe they’re fighting fascism, these poor, stupid young fools, but to watch the vacant, unthinking looks of bewilderment when asked a simple question by on-the-ground reporters is genuinely frightening.  They spout chants, but they don’t know the meaning and it’s clear they haven’t considered the consequences.  Just like in the 1960s when the hard-core radicals used the average college students who’d become caught up in the moment, the masters of this revolt are using today’s youth. They’ve never heard of Kent State, and they have no idea what could happen to them if events go even slightly off the rails.

The hard-core phalanx behind them is composed largely of career criminals, many the beneficiaries of the COVID prison releases.  One begins to wonder how many of those government officials who ordered the releases knew precisely that they had been effectively filling the ranks of the revolutionary force.  Now we see that they are employing the tactics first described by other historical radicals, using fire to spread terror all along the West coast states.  Now they’ve taken to attempting(and in a few cases succeeding at) the assassination of police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and federal agents.  This too has historical precedent.  Stand-down orders to police forces in some jurisdictions have become common.  Tying the hands of the police in the enforcement of our basic criminal law has become the norm.  Soros-backed district attorneys won’t file charges, and these monsters are re-released to set more fires, incite more rioting, create more mayhem, and to rape, pillage, plunder, and demolish the areas in which they operate.

These people are receiving orders.  They’re using encrypted on-line applications that provide them a platform to text back and forth to coordinate their plans.  Applications like Telegram, but predominately Signal, are the chosen method for communicating so that their words will likely never be discovered, and therefore, their premeditation and coordination will always remain obscured.  Government cannot penetrate the encryption, at least not yet, so that they will never be discovered.  More importantly, their masters will evade discovery and detection.  This permits them the plausible deniability and stealth that otherwise “respected public officials” would need to conceal their involvement from an unsuspecting public.  Have you noticed that when the first little police-involved incident occurs, whatever the locality, a mob suddenly forms?  Kenosha, Wisconsin.  Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  All of these are rapid-reaction teams secreted within communities to exploit any incident, no matter how innocent the police had been, nor how obvious the criminality of the allegedly aggrieved party had been.

In the Northwest, particularly in Oregon and Washington, fires are starting all over the map, usually a short way off of a major highway or thoroughfare.  To be blunt, these fires aren’t “starting” in some spontaneous lightning strike, or as the result of some other relatively innocuous cause. They’re being ignited.  They’re being started by arsonists who are trying literally to stoke the fires of the coming Civil War II.  All of this is being coordinated from highly-placed, but as yet unidentified operators coordinating with the Democrat Party, but also with foreign operators whose huge wealth is being brought to bear in a war on the United States.

The United States is the last free country, mostly, anywhere in the world.  All the rest have fallen to some degree.  We’re the last nation that enjoys a fundamental right to keep and bear arms.  We’re the last nation in which free speech and religious expression are almost entirely protected.  The globalists must change this, because we are the last obstacle to the global slave-state they envision.  To do that, they must reduce us under varying forms of arbitrary governmental power.  That means arbitrary government orders of all sorts, restricting what we do, where we do it, and how we do it.  Sound familiar?

Then comes the following disturbing tidbit from the 25th of October, 2019:

Imagine that! Joe Biden was warning about our relative unpreparedness for a pandemic in October 2019.  Does anybody believe he’s got a Nostradamus-like gift of foresight, or is it something else? What better way to get the populace accustomed to arbitrary governmental exercises of power?  What better way to bargain airfares to ferry the thugs back and forth across the country?  Ask yourself, now that a defecting Chinese virologist has alleged that the COVID19 was created in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan: COVID19 is real, and it’s bad, but was it naturally occurring, or did it have “help” getting loose in the US?  How did Joe Biden know in October 2019?  There have long been stories that COVID19 was released in October of last year, and the pandemic may have begun as early as October 6th.  Does anybody believe this is mere coincidence?  Is it possible that Joe Biden would ‘just happen’ to mention our preparedness for a pandemic that, unbeknown to the rest of us, had already begun to spread from its source?  After all, in late 2019, there was a table-top exercise called Event201 in which a Coronavirus kills 65 million people.  Players included members of the last presidential administration.  While this exercise may have been purely coincidental, what’s odd is the timing.

Who’s driving this?  I can’t be certain, but I do know that the various district attorneys that George Soros had funded in their elections are playing a distinct role.  It’s also clear that certain mayors and governors are involved.  Given the apparent coordination, it’s fairly certain that the Biden/Harris campaign is involved, but I don’t think Joe Biden is running the show, and I don’t think Kamala Harris is very capable in this regard either.  We already know that the Clinton/Obama mobsters are somehow involved, and it’s no secret that Barack Obama has been running around the globe, either trailing or leading(or both) President Trump to virtually every locale to which the President flies.  It’s also clear that Obama has been operating some sort of shadow government, using people secreted within the government, who are still serving as holdovers in the Trump administration.  They infect most of the executive departments, particularly the law enforcement and intelligence agencies, along with the Department of State.

Some have asked what the motive driving all of this could be. I will tell you that it’s what it always is: The pursuit of naked political power, which means the power to compel and coerce you to their will.  For different segments of the people who will bring you Civil War II, there are differing and sometimes competitive variations on that theme.  The Washington DC establishment, controlled by the globalists, is only too happy to aid and abet this revolution. They will do anything to maintain their lock on power.  The street-level thugs simply want a paycheck and meal.  They’re being financially supported, and since mayhem is what they do best, it comes natural to them.  This sort of thuggery is their natural state.  The globalists driving this want a one-world government, and the control over all of it. Everything. Every where.  The less obvious segment that is staying mostly hidden are the field managers, those who directly control and deploy the street-level thugs. These are committed communists who believe they are going to get the kind of communist cesspool they desire, and expect to be elevated above their peers.  The intellectuals upon whom all of these committed communists rely are the most insulated, but they will also be among the first the field managers will later dispose.  The media is the last piece of this wheel of doom,  They think they will be insulated and treated better since they will tell the stories their masters demand in order to propagandize the people they expect to control. What they don’t understand is that once the communists have succeeded, the so-called “journalists” won’t be needed at all.  How many “journalists” work in Kim Jung Un’s slave-pit? In Mao’s? In Pol Pot’s? Once in control, the propaganda changes its aim, from the poor enslaved people, to the external world. It’s not as though they will any remaining need to “convince” anybody in the United States.

The order of battle, from the bottom up, beginning with the cannon-fodder, looks like this: Organized teams of garden-variety malcontents who have been convinced by their college professors or peers that they’re “changing the world.” These are the entirely disposable throngs of delusional twits who believe the lie of socialism, but absent the safety of the mob, wouldn’t be able to muster the fortitude to carry the trash to the curb.  They have no life experience of note, have never actually struggled for much of anything, and most will have come from middle-class to upper middle-class environments in which foolish parents who loved them had catered to their every whim.  These numbskulls actually have the most to lose if they succeed, but they’re too ignorant to know better. Their job is to be that “mostly peaceful” face, and act as a shield for the real thugs behind them. They are mostly in their early twenties.

The thugs are frequently longterm ne’er-do-wells, in and out of jail or prison, and often into their thirties or forties. Many are hardened, habitual criminals, who have been involved in various forms of mayhem for a long time. Many will have been let out of jail as part of the COVID 19 releases. These are the thugs who will actually attack police and others, and they’ve perfected their tactics, using improvised weapons but also carrying illegal firearms(either weapons that are illegal, or that because of their prior records, are illegal for them to possess.) These are the people who’ve been flown around the country, because they’re hard-core, experienced rioters and thugs.  They make for maximum mayhem, and are willing to commit any crime on the spur of the moment. These people are capable of murder, and they are the chief beneficiaries of the Soros district attorneys’ policies of letting lesser criminals go. Many of them are eligible for arrest as probation violators simply by their participation, but they’re hardened and don’t much care one way or the other.  Threats of arrest pose no deterrence for these thugs.

The field controllers are another case. These are apparatchiks of the first order. Their job is to be the on-scene or regional command for the various groups of thugs and cannon-fodder. They coordinate resources, and make sure that the various elements are deployed as needed.  These people are mostly invisible, but they’re constantly on their cellular devices, directing traffic. Their job is to make sure that elements fill in behind other elements, and to rotate people in and out of the front of the skirmishes.  These people virtually never participate directly in the riots.  Theirs is a job of coordination, and making sure the riot continues.  They don’t necessarily dictate the overall strategy, but they are empowered to shift people around within a particular scene as is needed to maximize their impact.  There may be several of these working a particular riot, and they will spend much of their time coordinating among themselves.

The regional controllers are above that. They’re responsible for making sure people are moved in and out of regions as needed to fulfill larger mission goals. For instance, these would be the people who make sure that if two dozen hardcore rioters are needed for the RNC in Washington, they’ll be tasked with shifting people and making sure the right people move. They’ll make sure that field controllers provide overall status reports, and they are also the folks who coordinate with legal teams to get arrested rioters released when possible.

As we go up the chain, things begin to get murky.  We know that there is a funding mechanism, and part of it runs right through the middle of the Democrat party and all its allied agitator groups. What becomes more difficult here is figuring out exactly who is pulling the strings. At this level, all communications are encrypted, or they’re otherwise disguised in plain sight. Twitter accounts are used for broadcasts using coded language.

The political hacks who collude with all this don’t know very many details. It’s all about plausible deniability. Politicians don’t need or want the details, because if this all goes badly, somehow, they want to be able to wash their hands of it and walk away.  They know what the globalists are doing, and they’re happy to facilitate it and capitalize on it. They have more to lose than almost anybody else, inasmuch as they’re more motivated to get rid of Donald Trump than almost anybody. Theirs are the dirty secrets that would wreck their careers. Theirs are the corruptions that would expose them to legal, never mind political catastrophe.

Like the politicians, the globalist funders of this civil war are deeply corrupt people.  Their interests are financial, but also egotistical.  They believe only they are qualified to direct your lives, and only they are smart enough to know how government(s) should operate.  These truly are fascists, inasmuch as they believe that governments should be controlled in coordination with large global corporate interests.  Their corporations, even if founded in America, have no loyalty to the United States.  They see themselves as bigger than any government, and ultimately, the people who drive government.  They want a one-world government they can easily control, complying only with a single set of laws they manage to put into place.  These people have aims that ultimately call for the reduction of the world’s population, and leave them in charge of the world’s assets.

It’s also critical to remember that this is about the coming election, and also all subsequent elections.  Their intent is to create a nationwide version of California, whereby there may be a few Republicans here or there, but they intend to rapidly nullify them and make of the country a one-party state. They even believe in the destruction of individual states, instead preferring to re-order things into regional governments. They envision ridding us even of municipal governments, simply making them departments within the larger regional or national government.  Theirs is the notion of consolidation, and they have no room for our quaint American views on federalism or local control.  They know that the people can most easily control the governments closest to home, so they intend to strip all of that away.  Sure, we may even have elections, but those elections will be impotent exercises in which the choice is between one statist dictator-in-waiting and the other dictator-to-be.  They have no interest in negotiations, or compromise.  They want power, and they intend to take it, whether you consent to be governed by them or not.

This Civil War had begun in 2009 with the ascension of Barack Obama to the presidency.  The rise of the Tea Party had been the first movement in opposition to it. Since then, it’s been a war between series of left-wing groups that acted as surrogates to create the bottom-up pressure all leftist movements need.  First, we had the occupiers of Wall Street.  BLM rose up, but after an associate assassinated police officers in Dallas, they took a huge PR hit.  Then we had the outlandish rise of the pink hat brigades.  After that, we have a series of others, including the rise of Antifa and other associated anarchists’ groups, and now they’re all banding together.

Before this election season is over, we will witness every manner of attack on this President, the country at large, and the American people. The Democrats have a long history of enmity to this country, beginning with the first US Civil War.  They spawned the KKK.  They instigated one series of radical, divisive attacks on our republic after the next. Now, they see their moment.  Now, they see a divided America they can attack openly and with little consequence.  Ladies and gentlemen, be prepared to defend your homes, your families, your lives, and your republic. It very well may come to that, as the subversive elements in the United States carry out their attacks, and the Democrats carry out their political and legal attacks on the republic and the polity of our nation in general.  The two deputies shot in the face in Los Angeles County are just the beginning.  It’s going to get worse, and it’s going to become more frequent. They want power, all of them, each for their peculiar reasons, but they’re willing to settle any squabbles among them after they’ve subjugated the American people.  It’s the way communists always operate. It’s what they do.

 

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Posted in Activism, America at the End, Anti-Capitalists, Civil Unrest, Civil War II, Coup d'etat, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Featured, Leftist Cabal, News, Politics, Terrorism, Treason | Comments Closed

GOP Mafia Produces Cochran Win in Mississippi

Wednesday, June 25th, 2014

Haley’s Helot

There really is something deeply wrong with the GOP establishment, and as nearly all conservatives have always suspected, it’s this: Despite all of the GOP establishment’s haughty talk about moderation, they are willing to do anything, no matter how repulsive, to achieve their political ends in order to maintain power.  In Mississippi, Thad Cochran held onto his seat by the slimmest of margins over conservative Chris McDaniels.  Had there not been a laundry list of out-of-state, center-left interests pouring money in on Cochran’s behalf, this race would have come out differently, but what I want dispirited conservatives to know is that despite the loss, you won.  It might be hard to see at the moment, but there’s really something to be said for your accomplishments in this race.  The truth is now plain to see, and for those who doubted it before, the veil should now be thoroughly lifted:  The GOP establishment is comprised of a mafia-like element that will use any tactic necessary to keep its scumbags in office, and in this election, it was revealed in full, but this was only possible because conservatives pushed them to the brink.

Thad Cochran has been in political office nearly all of my life.  Now he faces an election for a seventh term, and if he succeeds, he will have served in the US Senate for forty-two years by the time the new term expires.  This is despicable.  What makes it all the more disgusting is the manner of his primary victory.  He did not win on the strength of his record, which is sorely lacking.  He did not win on the merits of his legislative proposals.  He did not win because Republicans in his state favor him.  He did not win even because Republican voters though McDaniels was an inferior candidate.  No, he won on the strength of contributions from his center-left connections, shady endorsements, and because his campaign’s proxies illegally urged Democrats to cross over and vote for him in the Republican primary.  They gave “walking-around money” to would-be Democrat voters, and they basically called McDaniels and the TEA Party “racists” who were out to get Barack Obama. Take a look at this flier, circulated prior to the primary run-off(H/T John Fund at NRO):

Despicable Cochran flier that circulated days before the run-off

Let me say this clearly.  Thad Cochran is a scumbag, and that he would employ such an outrageous tactic merely speaks to his unfitness for office.  Were I a Mississippi conservative, there is no way I would vote to re-elect this dirtball.  Instead, I would vote for the Democrat.  You might ask: “But Mark, if the Democrat is elected, we might not retake the Senate,” to which I must respond with a question: “We?”  Who comprises any “we” in any of this?  It is not Republicans and conservatives.  It is not TEA Party and constitutionalists.  The only “we” who will run the Senate, even if the Republicans win a majority in 2014 is the GOP establishment mafia.  I’d like Mississippi conservatives to think about that.

Haley Barbour and his extended gang, including Michael Bloomberg, Karl Rove, the Chamber of Commerce, a Facebook executive, and a legion of GOP establishment thugs were willing to use ginned-up Democrat support to steal this seat away from Mississippi conservatives.  Mississippi conservatives and TEA Party activists should know that there can be no restoration of the constitutional government they hope to promote so long as a gang of criminal cronies own their Senator.  The worst of it may have been the last-minute use of a sickening tactic of soliciting Democrats to support Cochran even if they would not vote for him in the Fall.

Listen to the following recording for a sample of what establishment Republicans(!) did to secure victory:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpp6cYZrrcs]

This call went out to black Democrats to get them to vote in the Republican primary.

This is the establishment of the Republican Party.  They’re every bit the statist, mafia-like dirtbags the Democrats are, and as you can see, they will work with Democrats whenever necessary to maintain their grip on power.   What is my suggestion to the conservatives and TEA Party folk in Mississippi?  Either run McDaniels as an independent in November, or simply go out to support the Democrat.  Yes, I actually suggest supporting the Democrat, because since Cochran is willing to invite Democrats into the primary campaign, Mississippi conservatives should turn the table on him and give him a dose of his own medicine.  Yes, this means the Democrat will sit in office for six years, but to quote Hillary Clinton, “what difference does it make?”  You now have a six-term RINO running for a seventh term who is firmly in Haley Barbour’s and Karl Rove’s pocket.  This November, for much the same reasons, I am voting for anybody but the RINO liar John Cornyn(R-TX.)  If we’re going to take our country back, we’ll first need to surrender a few things, and in this case, it means giving up the illusion of a Republican-led Senate that wouldn’t be the least bit conservative anyway.

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Posted in Activism, Congress, Featured, GOP Establishment, News, Politics, RINO Alert, Senate Races, Tea Party, Tokyo Rove | 3 Comments »

IRS Scandal Follow-up: The Show Must Go On

Sunday, June 22nd, 2014

…But nobody actually asked Koskinen about the Sonasoft contract. Wonder why?

On Saturday, it was revealed that the IRS has been contracting with Sonasoft for the back-up of emails since 2005, and indeed, looking at Sonasoft’s clients list, listed there is the Internal Revenue Service.  Adding to my list of things about which the Republicans should seek testimony (if they’re serious,) the specific details of the performance requirements of this contract must now be considered.  Undoubtedly, in soliciting bids for back-ups, there must have been a policy for back-ups the bidder must have been prepared to fulfill.  These details would have been dominated by a records retention schedule that would have been designed to comply with statutory minimums. In any event, such a contract would have been carefully vetted for specific performance requirements, the methodology by which performance could be verified, and the chain of responsibility for those on the government side of the contract to make sure performance was fulfilled, or to seek remediation if the requirements were not met.  There would be a schedule of audits of the performance, and there should be no excuse for pretending somebody hadn’t known their specific duties, on either side of the contract. Here’s the point: We very likely have an organized criminal conspiracy, and if the Republicans don’t begin to immediately turn over rocks to find the culprits, the evidence will be destroyed, but that may be precisely what the GOP leadership wants.

People continue to question whether I’ve entered the realm of “tinfoil-hat-wearing” conspiracy kooks, because I doubt the seriousness of the intent of the House Republican leadership in pursuing this scandal.  After all, they ask, why would the Republicans seek to cover the scandal?  Let’s be blunt, shall we?  As long as this scandal has been going on without serious investigation, how much evidence has been destroyed in the interim?  It is true that if there is a cover-up, there will always be some evidence of that, because it’s impossible to completely cover the tracks of what has been done.  Permitting a delay of the investigation would allow the culprits to destroy the evidence so that any crimes perpetrated in the original scandal would be hard to substantiate to the satisfaction of a jury, or an impeachment proceeding, even if the evidence of a cover-up would be harder to conceal.  In the end, however, let us imagine that there had been a few Republicans who had wanted to hammer the TEA Party, like John Boehner, or Mitch McConnell.  They’ve said as much in open contempt for the TEA Party.  By permitting the administration and its lackeys to destroy evidence, the evidence of their own complicity would be hidden too, and all that would remain are the allegations and evidence of a cover-up of something, in which the Republican leadership would not be implicated.  After all, they’ve been conducting an investigation, right?

If this sounds too conspiratorial to you, consider that these are the same people who invented voting for a thing before voting against it.  John Cornyn had no problem voting for cloture on the Senate Amnesty bill last year before coming home to Texas to tell voters he had voted against the final bill, which he had.  He repeated the procedure at the time of the government shutdown last October, again voting to bring the bill for a vote, so that he could vote against it thereby claiming “conservative credentials” all the while have enabled the bill to see the light of day in the first place.  They bank on we voters remaining largely ignorant of their scandalous manipulations, so that a less-than-vigorous investigation wouldn’t provide much of a surprise. By the way, and by way of evidence of the establishment’s thesis in operation, John Cornyn won his primary by pretending to be a conservative while relying on the longterm detachment and ignorance of voters.  Still, roughly forty percent of the Republican electorate in Texas was able to see through his nonsense, but not enough to replace him as our Senator.

My point to you is this: It may be too late to salvage the data, because this has been left withering on the vine for much too long.  The list of particulars I provided yesterday should have been exercised more than two years ago, and it should have been done with vigor.  If there is no active complicity by Republican leadership, there is at least gross incompetence verging on the criminally negligent.  Are we to believe that none of the people in leadership had any idea, and that none of their staff had any idea how to approach such a scandal?  Are we to believe they had no access to any person with sufficient technical understanding who would have apprised them of the sort of things that would need to have been done to “disappear” such data?  Are we to believe that those who were conducting the preliminary investigations on behalf of House committees could not imagine to immediately contact people specializing in data recovery?  Why has it taken until yesterday to discover that the IRS had contracted with Sonasoft?  What were these investigators investigating?  Didn’t they look at the IT expenditures and contracts of the IRS for clues?  You see, once you consider all of this, it’s easier to understand how an observer could reasonably conclude that the Republicans didn’t want to investigate, and having been forced into it by public pressure, have done a half-hearted job of it.

How can we be nearly three years into this investigation, and we’re only now finding there had been a back-up company contracted?  I will not be surprised to learn that the IRS contract with Sonasoft required them to hold emails for a period of only three years, so that by now, Lois Lerner’s emails have fallen off the archive due to age.  A serious investigation would have immediately discovered the existence of a contract with Sonasoft, and those records could have been pulled three years ago.  What will we get as a result?  At best, some underlings who were a part of the cover-up will be burned, but the chain of command to the top will be obfuscated, and then we will get some dog-and-pony IRS Reform bill that will require the agency from this date forward to maintain all emails for ten years, or some such thing.  Then it will all go away, and the original participants in the scandal of targeting TEA Party groups and their members will be forgotten, and life will go on in Washington DC, with we being the only victims, now poorer and less free, and deprived of justice.

The questions I’ve posed over the last thirty-six hours are the sort I would expect of a serious investigation.  To date, we’ve had a lot of finger-waggling by Republicans asking questions of witnesses, but we’ve gotten no meat from these bones.  Certainly, it does not help that we have a Department of Justice that is led by a crook and crony, and it does not help that the media covers everything up on behalf of this administration, but if the Republicans had been serious about getting to the bottom of this scandal, they would have taken significantly more exhaustive steps by now, but to date, all they’ve done is generate ominous soundbites that tend to feed the red-meat aspects of politics, yet have resulted in no arrests, no indictments, and no justice.  In three years?  This scandal is well on its way to becoming a cold case, and that’s just how Washington DC likes it.

Update: The Daily Caller reports that the IRS cancelled its Sonasoft contract only weeks after Lois Lerner’s hard-drive “crash.”

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Posted in Activism, Barack Obama, Congress, Featured, GOP Establishment, IRS Scandal, News, Politics, Tea Party | 5 Comments »

John Boehner’s Dog and Pony Show

Saturday, June 21st, 2014

On Friday, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives continued its wholly political, and ultimately theatrical investigation of the IRS Tea Party-targeting scandal.  Chairman Dave Camp’s(R-MI) committee brought current IRS Commissioner John Koskinen before the committee to testify as to the loss of Lois Lerner’s emails, among other misdeeds.  You may argue that Paul Ryan(R-WI) was very aggressive in his examination of the witness, but that entire exchange was mere political theater that will evince nothing at the end of the investigation.  Had the Republicans in Congress the first inclination to get to the bottom of this scandal, they would begin by taking the following series of steps:

  1.  Bring before the committee the entire IT staff that supports the IRS, particularly its executives.
  2. Audit the purchase records and replacement schedule of equipment used to support Lois Lerner’s computer usage. Congress should want to know how old her computer had been when the hard disk “died.”
  3. Require IT staff managers to testify as to the method of email archiving, email storage, email backups, and the entire email system used by the IRS.
  4. Seek a federal court order requiring the production of all existing equipment that is currently, or has ever been in use by the IRS in storing email,over the period of the last six years, including particularly SAN devices and servers.
  5. Seek a federal court order requiring the immediate production of all backup media on which IRS files and email may have been copied.
  6. Form a select committee with broad investigatory powers to pursue the entirety of this affair, particularly with an eye toward fraud, destruction of government records and data, as well as political influences brought to bear on the IRS from any branch of government or outside interest groups.
  7. Bring in experts to audit access records for servers and storage devices to discover when anybody interacted with the equipment in question. These devices and servers maintain extensive logs of the commands issued from administrators. Knowing who did what will be a key to cracking this case. The government may well have logging servers to which all events are reported.

For those of you who are less than technically inclined, I will be glad to explain to you why this whole “lost hard drive” claim is a dodge, and for those who may have less than a strong understanding of the politics, I’ll be glad to explain to you how I know the Republicans are playing a game for show, but do not want the truth to come out.

As an information systems professional, who works with storage systems, backup systems, networks, servers, and workstations every day, and who works with the applications and databases which is the purpose of all of that lovely, grotesquely expensive equipment, let me tell you a few things you won’t read in the media.  You might even take a moment to learn a bit more about your own computer.

First, the email system the IRS uses is almost certainly an IMAP or MAPI variant.  This means that on the most basic level, emails are not stored on the client, except as a temporarily cached copy.  Deleting it may cause the email to appear deleted for that user, but the mail archiving functionality will maintain a copy for a period as prescribed by policy, usually determined in applicable statutes and regulations. Most corporate and government environments will not even permit users to store mail in local folders(email folders solely on your local computer) unless they are first archived in the email archiving system, which is generally part of the same overall system. Nevertheless, examining the event viewer in Windows will offer some insight into what may or may not have been done on a given workstation or server. Linux and other operating systems have similar logging facilities.  (If you have Windows, you can get an idea by going to your Control Panel, then to Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. You will be surprised what you can learn about your computer’s routine operations.)

In the second place, the number of servers used for an email system to support an organization the size of the IRS must be quite large.  It undoubtedly consists of multiple servers, at multiple server farms, in a redundant scheme of some sort intended to prevent the loss of data.  You, the taxpayer, has spent billions upon billions since the advent of email to provide these facilities for our federal bureaucracy.

Third, since email storage in such an environment is bound to be monumental in scale, there are undoubtedly many storage blades of some form, probably Storage Area Networks(SANs) to handle the storage needs of the mail system servers.  These are also geographically dispersed for reasons of data security, and what you should know about these technologies is that if your Storage Administrators are doing their jobs, there is virtually no credible fashion in which data of this sort could be lost simply because somebody’s office computer’s hard disk died.

To put it in context, consider one of the leading manufacturer’s systems.  Called an ISE2, it’s made by X-IO and it can contain two datapacs that contain what are essentially a stack of hard disks that are effectively “self-healing,” and in common usage, contain more than fourteen terabytes of data in each datapac.  By design, such a device already creates a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks(RAID) by virtue of its design, permitting the administrator to choose either RAID 1(mirroring) or RAID 5(a form of quasi-mirroring).  The way these devices are used is to create storage volumes in the datapacs and attach those volumes to servers.  They can be swapped in and out, and they can be mirrored as individual entities across other devices.  The servers in question see these volumes as hard-drives, and in effect, they function in precisely that manner.    I would be stunned to find that the US Federal government is not using such an arrangement, whomever the vendor, and there are many.  Chances are high that wherever the server farm is that operates the IRS email system, there are likely to be many SAN units, or other storage containers that have similar functionality.

Putting of all of this into simplest terms, the series of failures that would be required to disappear Lois Lerner’s emails, along with those of six other IRS executives, is an astonishing string of virtual impossibilities and displays of incompetence and malfeasance that should result in the ouster of every IT manager supporting the IRS.  It’s not that I don’t believe there are incompetents working in government, or that I don’t believe there are some slothful folk administering systems for the IRS, but that the totality of this loss of data represents a complete failure at virtually every level and every step of the organization.  Even in a clunky, bureaucratic, top-heavy organization like the IRS, there are still some competent people who keep it working despite all the obstacles placed in their way. The manner in which their storage systems and server farms are designed tends to preclude the chance that something so seemingly innocuous as the loss of one person’s email(or seven) is even a remote possibility.

Knowing how such systems work, and knowing that the government spends more money on the core computing technology than any entity on the planet, their claim to have lost the email due to a hard drive failure on a client machine is an absolute farce.  To claim even that no data was recoverable on that hard drive is pretty hard to believe too, since I’ve seen data recovered from hard disks that have been in computers essentially destroyed by fires.  In fact, given the nature of the data I have handled over the course of my computing career, it is common that when a computer reaches the end of its service life, organizations resell the computers but strip the hard drives out of them for mechanical destruction so that no data may be recovered from them. (In many cases, this involves drilling holes through the platters, using a cutting torch, or other methodology designed to destroy the actual storage media in the drive, which is generally very hard metal platters.)

All of that doesn’t matter in the least, however, as the servers and archive servers and storage devices in the systems are apt to have contained one or more(probably many more) copies of the target emails. Then there are backup tapes or other backup devices. No, ladies and gentlemen, if the administration’s hacks like Mr. Koskinen come forward to tell you in smug tones that the data was irretrievably lost, they are lying.  It may have been irretrievably destroyed, but that would require a conspiracy because no one computer technician could possibly have access to all the relevant systems in an organization so large.

The technician who was responsible for maintaining and repairing Lois Lerner’s computer is not the same technician who administers the email system.  That administrator is not the same person who operates and maintains the bulk data storage containers, nor is that the same person who operates all backups and certainly not the same person who maintains and administers the network on which all of this computing takes place.  It’s not plausible in an organization the size of the IRS.  In many cases, data is duplicated and moved off-site for disaster recovery purposes.  No, if this data is unrecoverable, it is because it was ordered to be placed in that state.  Knowing this, and knowing what would be entailed in literally destroying any trace of these emails, I can only conclude that this administration is lying, and is an active participant in a criminal conspiracy and cover-up of crimes that would tend to place Lerner and her superiors in jeopardy of long jail terms, and this president in the direct path of impeachment proceedings.

At the beginning of this article, I explained to you that I believed that the claim about the emails being “lost” is nonsense, and a lie.  I hope I’ve managed to illuminate a few of the reasons why you should not believe such claims, but I also contended that you should not believe that the Republicans are very serious about uncovering the truth, despite their harrumphing to the contrary.   You see, if the Republicans in Congress were serious about all of this, they would issue subpoenas to the entire IT staff.  They would drag them in, one at a time, starting at the top, and working their way down to the lowest technician.  They would have questions, specific technical questions, prepared for them by people like me, or actually those rare birds who designed such systems, and they would begin the grilling.  Under oath.  Somebody would crack.  A lie of this sort cannot be hidden if there is a consistent and tireless effort to uncover it.

The problem may be that to uncover Lois Lerner’s email would reveal something no Representative in that committee hearing room wants you to know:  Lerner may have been receiving emails from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill urging audits and investigations into Tea Party groups.  The IRS was used in this instance to quell a peaceful, political uprising by making the formation of a group so painful and problematic as to frustrate into capitulation all but the most insistent and persistent persons.  The Republicans tried first to co-opt the Tea Party phenomenon, making it their own, but when they found they were unable to control the myriad of organizations springing to life around the country, their next motive was to destroy it because they posed a serious challenge to the orthodoxy of establishment power in Washington DC.  Most Republicans in Washington DC want the Tea Party buried, some of them more fervently even than the Democrats.

If the Republicans in the House cannot muster a select committee to look into this and other matters of extreme government corruption, it is only because they do no want the truth discovered.  If they will not bring an endless string of witnesses to testify as to their role in the email “losses” and the system design of the email and data facilities of the IRS, then they don’t want an answer.  Paul Ryan and others can put on one Hell of a show in the committee room, but the truth is that saying “I don’t believe you” in an exchange with an IRS commissioner isn’t going to turn over many stones.  If you want the truth, you bring in the subject matter experts and responsible parties, and you grill them and continue to remind them of their oaths.  At some point, some junior flunky intern who was told to ditch a hard disk in the Potomac is going to squeal, because he doesn’t want to go to prison.  Then you bring back the person who gave him that order, and then the person who issued that order from higher on the food chain.   Work your way down to get them on the record, until somebody cracks, and then work your way back up, exposing lies until the scheme is revealed in full.

If the Congress won’t do this, they’re not serious about the matter.  It suggests strongly that they don’t want the truth revealed any more than the administration.  There are plenty of smart people on Capitol Hill, and they have plenty of contacts who understand such systems and could provide technical advice both in the formation of questions and in the manner by which to challenge the credibility of the answers.  Those behind this atrocious abuse of government power must be held accountable and jailed for their crimes.  Make no mistake about it: Grievous crimes were committed both as a part of the targeting, as well as during this extended cover-up.  If the Republicans now fail to uncover those crimes and see this investigatory process through to a just ending, you can be sure that they hadn’t wanted the truth to be discovered, because their fingerprints are all over this too.

 

 

 

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Posted in Activism, Barack Obama, Featured, GOP Establishment, IRS Scandal, News, Politics, Taxes, Tea Party | 11 Comments »

Three Courses Among Which None Wish to Choose

Saturday, January 25th, 2014

Easier not to choose?

I’ve remained still these last weeks waiting to see the outcome of things in my own world.  My wife suffered a heart attack in early December, and while she survived and is on the mend, it put me into a pensive mood during which I’ve said little while simply absorbing what’s going on in the world around us.  I don’t have all of the answers, but what I do know is that we have a choice to make.  It struck me with a certain clarity when I realized that for all the efforts of good and conscientious conservatives, we’re barely making a dent.  The American people are thoroughly dispirited in a way not seen since Carter, and maybe even the pre-war era of FDR’s long and loathsome administration.  Nothing is improving.  Jobs are scarce.  The printed currency is piling up, and with it a stack of IOUs that would reach from Earth to the no-longer-planet Pluto.  What strikes me most is the unwillingness to choose, perhaps because all of the options seem so depressingly bad.  We are now at a stage in our civilization’s collapse that we must fight, reform, or surrender.  Make no mistake about it, as while we defer the choice, the available options only become more severe in their fullest meanings.  In time, the choice will be taken from us, and surrender will be replaced by slavery, whether we’d choose it or not. Even now, the embrace of the police state is transforming from a gentle, confidence-instilling hug into a death-grip from which it seems there may be no escape.

Maybe it’s time you had that blunt bit of talk with loved-ones who may not realize what’s afoot.    I know I’ve tried.  Some never listen because it’s too painful.  More often, because it is a complicated problem with implications that will reach into every life, most refuse to consider it.  Our nation is well on its way to becoming Rome.  We witness now the harbingers of our moral collapse, with an unconscionable display of motherly pride in a son who literally prostituted himself to homosexual pornography to support her household.  Lot’s wife had at least the advantage of a husband who would tell her to avert her eyes.  This scandalous decline in our cultural moral standards has left us with a nation that is rudderless not only in Washington DC, but in Everytown, USA, where plain, ordinary citizens no longer seem to muster much moral indignation about anything of consequence, while others rush to uphold the vile, the obnoxious, and the nonsensical.

Don’t misunderstand me: There are still many Americans who feel as I do, and you may well be among them, yet we are a declining proportion of a population overwhelmingly beset with endless distractions that will mean nothing when they find themselves at some future date languishing in the gutter.  I don’t believe it must end this way, but if we don’t choose another course, and soon, it will end this way.  As one friend constantly reminds me, “nothing ends well or it would never end.”  There’s a certain pragmatism to that view against which I would like to rebel, but like most of my readers, I feel the crushing weight of history pressing down upon us.

Will we fight?  Will a beleaguered people take up arms?  Many an American has made oaths, not all of them idle, about the nature of how they will go down, but I wonder if when faced with it, how many will simply fold.  More, one could wonder if this is not precisely what certain statist elements are attempting to provoke.  Against the combined forces of the modern government, who could long endure?  Who would desire this sort of outcome?  Who would want a fractured nation consumed by civil war?  Still, if it became the only viable option for our survival, I wonder how many would stand and fight, and for what they’d be fighting.

Will we surrender?  Will we yield to the historic march of statism, giving up first the last measures of our personal sovereignty; our property, such slim wealth as we may have managed to preserve, and all personal discretion to a police state that will command our every action, and make our every choice?   The evidence today would suggest that this shall be our path.  Despite its clear predatory aims against our liberties, observe the fact that at least one-third of Americans still believe the failed roll-out of the monstrous “Obama-care” should continue.  Such people do not deserve freedom, and will not long cling to it, precisely because such measures of freedom they tend to demand are merely vestiges of the concept.

Will we reform?  Here lies the last option for salvaging the nation, yet it is also the historically slimmest probability. The singular advantage we may possess when compared to all the collapsing civilizations that have before us descended into ash is that our basic law has been so difficult to amend that it has succeeded only twenty-seven times in more than two-hundred years.  What this means is that some vital portions have been left intact, leaving to us an escape-clause of sorts, and a method by which to reach from the grave’s brink at the last moment to reform our dying civilization.  This makes us undeniably unique with respect to opportunity, but the question remains as to whether we can summon the character in sufficient numbers to reach for that constitutional kill-switch.

I have become convinced that while we may tinker around with this office or that, and while we may occasionally elect a competent, sincere conservative, the federal authorities in Washington rule almost without respect to our laws, never mind our wishes.  Mark Levin has stated often and with growing impatience that we will almost certainly fail to reform by focusing on the federal government and its elected office-holders.  We must reach into the constitutional tool-kit and utilize its most powerful weapon against the centralization of power in Washington DC: Article V. holds the entire mechanism for reforms we seek.  It is not an easy road, and there will be no instant gratification, but if we are to overcome the gaping maw of the all-powerful government now consuming us, it is upon the authority of Article V that our salvation may rest. If you’ve not yet read The Liberty Amendments, I would urge you to consider picking up a copy soon.

Even now, we can observe the Obama administration’s predatory, despotic intentions.  While a review board declared that the NSA’s spying on US citizens should cease, the Obama administration rejected the board’s conclusions.  While we watch, the Obama administration makes it plain that they are checking their enemies list and checking it twice, and the only way to escape it is to be perpetually nice to the administration and its aims.  No dissent of any sort will be tolerated, whether you’re Dinesh D’Souza or a Tea Party activist.  Worse, the Republicans on Capitol Hill are joining in, with Mitch McConnell saying the Tea Party needs a punch in the nose.  There is really no longer any question about it: The war on the American people, their culture, their traditions, and their dreams is in full force, never mind the complete destruction of any prosperity they had once known.  There is no accident in it, and it’s all going according to plan.  My question for you remains: Will we submit to this historic script, with our part as helpless victims played to the hilt?

It’s time for us to consider whether we will be led down that same old path.  We’re barely more than nine months from the mid-terms, and the evidence is that we are yielding momentum as the Republicans in Washington DC continue to throttle our efforts. One might wonder how this can be, but I understand it: We are exhausted, our morale has taken a beating, and more and more of us find we’re under an economic strain that makes other efforts seem too tiring.  Some of us have noticed the expanding police state, deciding it best to lie low and to refrain from open activism.  Myself, I feel as though I must now get all of my personal effects in order, in the manner of a soldier preparing for a deployment to war.  Sometimes, I wonder if that’s merely my perception, but something tells me I’m not alone.

Like any other movement, it’s time to assess our position, our options, and our next move.  Waiting for the “Republicans” to save us clearly won’t yield any fruit, so we must ask whether we now huddle in darkness waiting for the end, or instead rise in some fashion. I credit Mark Levin for reminding us of the one way out of all of this that remains, but now the challenge is before us:  We have a choice, and we’d best make it before it’s made for us.

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Posted in Activism, Featured, Mark Levin, News, Obama, Politics, Tea Party, War | 44 Comments »

Independence Party Makes Inroads in UK

Sunday, January 5th, 2014

Same thing, only different…

It’s been nearly two decades since it was established, but the U.K.’s Independence Party(UKIP) isn’t going away, and indeed, it has begun to make inroads, particularly at the local level.  The larger reason for this opportunity may be that the establishment Tory party, long considered the UK’s “conservatives,” have abandoned conservative policies in favor of progressive ideas.  If that sounds familiar to you, it should, because in many respects, our own Republican party, long-portrayed in media as virtually synonymous with “conservative” has been behaving like liberals.  Of course, the Tories in the UK have always been more slanted to the left than had been our Republicans, but lately, they’ve all but abandoned any pretense to conservative thought.  As this has happened, it has had a curious effect on the Independence Party, swelling its ranks lately and giving it a real foothold in local elections.  UKIP seems to understand this is a fight over the long run, and not a battle to be won in an election cycle or two.  Their leader, Nigel Farage, made clear in an interview with Foxnews what is the UKIP’s aim:

“We want to take back our country, we want to take back our government, and we want to take back our birthright,”

If this sounds familiar to Tea Party activists, it should.  Just like the Republicans here, the Tories have begun to fully embrace National Healthcare, and all sorts of left-wing ideals, including liberal immigration policies, and the whole slate of liberal policy preferences advocated and advanced by their Labor Party. the U.K.’s equivalent to our own Democrats.  The largest strategic difference between the Tea Party and the UKIP is that rather than seeking to influence the Tories, the Independence Party is in direct competition with them.  They are not trying to work on the party from within, but instead making a full frontal assault on the establishment “Conservatives.” While not precisely like the Tea Party in all respects, in terms of a movement, it is quite similar in its grass-roots orientation.

Naturally, they are dismissed as “racists” and “kooks” and all sorts of demeaning labels by both the traditional parties, but that isn’t stopping them from moving ahead.  Dishonest labels only work so long, as does the attempt to define the whole of the party by the bombastic or outrageous statements of a few individuals within it. More, the UKIP has focused on an issue that seems to a majority of voters across party lines: Membership in the EU.  UKIP opposes it while both Labor and the Tories favor it, despite the fact that a clear majority of the populace stands in favor of withdrawing from the EU.  With this on the table in 2014, UKIP stands to make further inroads as the only party pushing in the same direction as the populace.

This is in many respects like the arguments on two issues we face domestically. The first is Obama-care, and the second is immigration.  In both cases, the US population is opposed by strong majorities to any sort of amnesty and continuance of the health-care law.  While there are still some Republicans who are opposed to amnesty, and a few more in favor of repeal of Obama-care, the fact remains that a large number of Republicans in both houses of Congress are in favor of an amnesty deal, and distinguishing by their votes, have been only too willing to fund and thereby continue Obama-care.

If UKIP manages to pull off some electoral victories, it may offer a hint to Tea Party activists in the US: It may be time to put up its own slate of candidates, completely independent of the Republicans, and it may be time to formally register as a political party.  The sorts of clear issues in which the American people are at odds with both major political parties may be reaching a climax, at which one party or the other must disappear.  This is what happened to the Whigs one and one-half centuries ago, and it may be the end in store for the Republicans if Tea Party activists can get their act together.  Like more and more voters in Britain, Americans may discover that they have no need of both a conservative party and a fake conservative party. If this comes to be the case in the U.K., it  may evince hope for a resurgence of the Tea Party, perhaps under a new banner independent in all respects of the Republican Party.

It may be time for the Tea Party to take that leap.

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Posted in Activism, Featured, Healthcare, Immigration, News, Obamacare, Politics, Tea Party | 5 Comments »

Cruz or Lose: What’s Really at Stake if Our Leaders Won’t Fight

Thursday, September 26th, 2013

Just Once, Use It!

The truth of the matter is actually rather simple: Obama-care could be de-funded any time John Boehner decided to find his…voice…and do something concrete that is entirely within his power.  The House, led by Speaker Boehner, could initiate the process of sending individual appropriation bills to the Senate, one after the next, for all the essential programs and budget items that would fall under the ordinary budgetary process.  Send a defense spending bill.  Send a Social Security spending bill, and up the ante by giving a 4% raise in the cost of living adjustment, one time, “to account for the effects of inflation not considered in the CPI”(Consumer Price Index.)  Do the same with other big spending programs, but simply withhold one on Obamacare.  Dare Harry Reid to hold up the bills, or the President to veto them should they pass the Senate.  Go on television and explain why all spending measures must begin in the House, and the House has passed each and every one of these individual things, and throw down the list on the table.  Tell seniors: Harry Reid is holding up your Social Security check.  Tell soldiers that the President, their commander-in-chief, is preventing them from being paid.   Just tell the truth: Because the President and his party are more interested in buying votes than in funding the essential functions of government, the President is willing to see Grandma eating dog-food and soldiers in the field being denied beans and bullets.

I predict that with his increasingly tenuous grasp on the support of the American people, Obama would cave.  Tie each bill to the debt ceiling.  Make it impossible for government to spend more than its receipts.  This can all be accomplished if the House of Representatives merely exercises its prevailing constitutional authority over the purse.  You might want to know that Obama is probably a good deal more nervous about this than you might guess.  This is because government has been illegally borrowing money in excess of the current debt ceiling since early summer.  To me, this is an unconscionable circumstance, and part of the reason Boehner is going along is because the President has succeeded in buying his silence through Boehner’s complicity.  The US government is already in a sort of insurrection against its own laws.  Why do you suppose the debt clock has remained frozen these months, just shy of the legal borrowing limit?  Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is still lending money into existence to somebody.  Any rational person can guess the real answer here, and if there isn’t a continuing resolution and a corresponding increase in the debt ceiling soon, Obama and all those assisting him will be in deep…water.

There is a conspiracy of silence in Washington DC, and the American people are its first and foremost victim.  The truth is that at the current rate of government borrowing, no program is sustainable.  It’s now so bad that they’re suspending investments and re-investments of Federal Employee retirement funds.  That’s how bad it really is, and it’s the reason that John Boehner isn’t saying a word.   It’s the reason nobody really wants to push on de-funding Obama-care, and it’s the reason Washington DC is hoping they’ll pass a continuing resolution to fund the government and this will all just quietly go away… for now.

Ladies and gentlemen, you should know that there is no chance whatever that we will succeed in slowing this runaway government unless we lean very heavily on our elected representatives.  There’s no chance that as long as stooges like John Cornyn(R-TX) are willing to betray us that we can expect any change in direction.  We mustn’t let these rotten liars continue.  Yes, it’s as bad as that, and everybody should know it.  How many conservatives are aware of what’s been going on with our debt?  How many conservatives realize the implications?  When and if they re-start that debt clock, you will watch it wind up more quickly than ever, at blinding speed as it lurches to catch up with all the debt the government has illegally accrued in the last several months.  There is treason in Washington DC, and if you want to know why Speaker Boehner will do nothing about it, it’s because he’s in on it too.

On Friday will come the vote for cloture on the bill now pending before the Senate.  Reid must not succeed, which means you must turn up the volume on all Senators beginning first thing in the morning.  If you can fax them, do so. Their fax numbers are listed on the Senate’s website.  Just select your state in the upper right-hand corner, and if your own senators are pretty solid, check in with some of the others, including the Minority leader’s(Mitch McConnell of Kentucky) and the Minority Whip’s(John Cornyn of Texas).  Also hammer some of the red-state Senators who are up for re-election in 2014.  There’s some evidence Senator Manchin of West Virginia is beginning to crack under the pressure.  It’s time for maximum effort and maximum exertion from this moment until we win or lose.  This will almost certainly move back to the House, in which case we’ll need to get after Boehner and the establishment phalanx there.  Let us not squander the momentum and the good start Senators Ted Cruz(R-TX) and Mike Lee(R-UT) have provided.  We’re in for one hell of a fight, and our country’s future is at stake.  This is no time for hesitation or waffling, and we must demand our elected leaders show the character and fortitude we expect.  The country is in real danger now, much worse than the DC class will tell you, and it’s time we let them know that we see what they’ve done, what they’re doing, and what we intend to do about it.

Editors note: You will notice on the Senate homepage that there is an article celebrating 100 years of direct election of the Senate, complete with a propagandist puff-piece about the passage of the 17th Amendment.  Mark Levin’s book must really be getting to them, since he proposed repealing the 17th.  Coincidental? You decide.

Congressional Switchboard: 202 224 3121

 

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Posted in Featured, News, Obamacare, Politics, Statism, Tea Party | 5 Comments »

Time for Conservatives to “Go Rogue” on Amnesty Advocates

Monday, August 5th, 2013

Our Only Option

Enough is enough. Readers will surely remember how in the summer of 2010, we nearly stopped Obama-care with great turn-out at town-hall events at which we grilled members (of both parties) on the matter of the “Affordable Care Act.”  Members of the House and Senate rose each morning to find new Youtube videos of their colleagues being outed as fools and charlatans.  Since then, many have gone to a system of tele-Townhalls in order to avoid such spectacles, but that shouldn’t stop us.  We need to know where these fence-sitters on immigration will be holding their town-hall events, and we need to know even where amnesty’s open supporters will be taking questions from constituents, even if it’s on the streets going in and out of meeting locations.  We need to show up in order to make a fuss.  No violence.  No foul language.  We’re polite people, but we shouldn’t be push-overs.  Just ask the damning questions and demand answers:

“Given that this legislation is likely to create 20-30 million new US citizens over the next decade, and given that seven in nine new immigrants register and vote Democrat, how do you propose that Republicans will ever have even a chance at future electoral victory?”

“Why do you insist on pretending that the House immigration bill now working its way through committees will be anything other than a Trojan horse for the treasonous Gang-of-Eight bill that has passed the Senate?”

“Do you think we’re stupid?”

“What do you expect this bill will do to the American people?”

“Why would you go along with what is essentially a treason against the American worker?”

“What are you being offered or promised to support this treason?”

“If letting in 12-30 million people predominately from Mexico and points South will be good for the American economy, why isn’t their remaining in place good for the economies of their countries of origin?”

“Teen unemployment is over fifty percent this summer.  Unemployment among African Americans is at stunningly high levels.  How does infusing the economy with 12-30 million mostly low-skill workers assist our unemployed fellow-Americans who are struggling to make ends meet?”

“Why does Congress and this President together refuse to enforce the laws on the books today?”

“Why does the compassion and concern of members of Congress extend to illegal immigrants, but not to US Citizens?”

“Can you comment on the political influence of large corporations and unions in pushing this immigration bill?  The US Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO joining forces to help craft the Senate bill can’t possibly be good for America(ns.) What is your position on that bill? I ask, because it seems that House efforts are aimed at passing something so the Senate bill can be substituted in its entirety in conference.”

“Is it true that any House bill that passes could be essentially replaced by House-Senate conferees with the Gang-of-Eight bill?  Yes or no?”

“What is your position on the so-called “Hastert rule?” Do you believe Speaker Boehner will apply that rule to any immigration conference bill? What is likely to happen if he doesn’t?”

I’m sure you can come up with your own, but the simple fact is that these people need to be held to answer for this mess. We know what they’re trying to do, and it’s time we put a stop to it.

If you know where your Congressman is holding a town hall meeting, please post it in comments.  This will help other readers get to the meetings.  I will create a posting with as many of them as readers provide.  We need maximum participation.  What we will need to succeed on this and other issues is to put these men and women who we’ve elected to represent us on the spot.  They need to be able to explain their positions on immigration reform, but more, on the process by which the process will come to a vote.  They need most of all to explain how any House bill won’t become a Trojan horse for the Senate bill.

The truth is that they won’t be able to explain it away, so we must hold their feet to the fire on this issue by demanding they answer the hard questions.

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Posted in Activism, Amnesty, Congress, Featured, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Politics, Tea Party | 3 Comments »

Beating Back the Progressive Republicans With Their Own Bludgeon

Sunday, July 7th, 2013

A New Kind of Tea Party

There has been a great deal of discussion over the last week concerning the remarks made by Governor Palin in answer to a question from Josh Painter, regarding the possibility of a new party to supplant the GOP.  As Steve Deace covers in his own cost/benefit analysis of the idea, there are a few practical considerations to leaving the Republican Party that make for a gargantuan series of problems, including effectively surrendering the whole governance of the country to the Democrats in the short run.  As Deace also explains quite effectively,  if we don’t change the direction of the country, it won’t matter much because with the current supine and tepid leadership of the GOP, we have arrived already in that effective condition.  What opposition to the Obama agenda do conservatives see from the GOP?  There has been little evident among establishment Republicans, often behaving more like collaborators than opponents.  This conflict has been a long time in coming, but I believe we must face it squarely or surrender to  statism.  If we are going to conquer our political foes, we must clean up our own house, refusing to abandon it to the slumlords of the GOP establishment.  For once, let us do the unexpected, turning tables on them: We must build a party within the Party as the means by which to take it over, but this time, for keeps.

Ever since the days of the progressive era, there has been a class of Republicans the members of which don’t hold republican ideals.  Their manner of coming to dominate the GOP was a form of stealthy infiltration and guile.  They looked like conservatives, and they used many of the appropriate conservative buzzwords in speeches and articles, so that it was somewhat harder to recognize them.  They gained influence by building their own parallel mechanisms within the Republican Party, all aimed at supplanting conservative ideology and philosophy with their own.  Cronies were inserted all up and down the Republican totem pole, giving them vast power with which to override any conservative sentiments.  Time after time, they managed to keep conservatives out, and the few times they failed, they almost always managed to sabotage them somehow.  When Barry Goldwater(R-AZ) sought the Republican nomination in 1964, they submarined him, the Rockefeller Republicans withdrawing virtually all support, barely managing to pretend they would support Barry Goldwater.

In 1980, the same crowd finally lost another round of the RNC nomination fight, having nearly lost it four years earlier.  Ronald Reagan wasn’t getting much establishment support early on, even immediately after the nominating convention, but when they saw that the train was going to leave the station without them, they hurried to climb aboard, pointing to moderate VP choice George HW Bush as the thing that made Reagan “tolerable.”  The truth is, they saw Reagan as a plausible vehicle to install their own people at the highest levels of government, for later use, but also as a way to confound and steer the Reagan administration.  America would have its first conservative president in generations, but the establishment Republicans were going to use every bit of influence they could to turn it to their advantage. They did this as they always do, establishing their own chain of cooperation and control within the Reagan administration.  The amnesty bill of 1986 was probably the greatest evidence of their scheming, a bill that contributed to the loss of Republican control of the Senate that year by depressing conservative turnout, much as what happened in 2006 when Republicans lost the Congress after that year’s amnesty attempt.

We conservatives should take a few lessons from this, and I believe if we’re attentive to the details, it will be easier to understand what must be done and how we must do it.  Others have written extensively about how to carry out a virtual overthrow inside the Republican Party, so I won’t expend too much of your time on that.  Instead, I wish to talk about the character of what you must do.  What we need is a party within the party.  Rather than trying to become our own free-standing party, a solution we already know will take many years and even decades to complete, let us create a subset of the Republican Party and we can call it the “Freedom Faction.” Freedom of association being what it is, I’m sure the Republican Party won’t mind if some of its members are simultaneously members of another group over which they have no control.  Well, perhaps they will not mind too much, but if they do, to devil with them. They’re who we mean to defeat firstly.

This is what the Tea Parties has been, with the singular distinction that they were not officially a subset of the Republican Party, and did not seek to be.  This has permitted them independence of action and advocacy, which is a critical thing common-sense conservatives need, but it is also a detriment inasmuch as it is more difficult for them to guide the direction of the GOP.  In fact, most of us who are most desperately frustrated with the direction of the Republican Party are precisely the Tea Party folk, meaning many can merely adopt the “Freedom Faction” and move in.  My point is that despite all that has been said about the Tea Party, many of them soldier on in spite of the way they’ve been treated by Democrats and Republicans alike.  The left likes to say that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” so since they consider Tea Partiers “terrorists,” let us instead be freedom-fighters.  That’s what we really are, and that’s what our movement must embrace. We’re small “r” republicans who constitute the Freedom Faction of the Republican Party.  It was always our party, despite the RINOs and the establishment hacks, and it can still be our party if we simply act to take it back, but to do so, we’ll need to build a party within the party so that as insurgents, we can place our own in the places of influence.

The Republican Party is willing to except Democrats in open primary states to help them select establishment nominees, and since they haven’t demonstrated the will to stop that, I doubt they’ll muster the sentiment to stop us, although we do pose the larger threat.  What do my small “r” republican readers think?  Is it time to build our Freedom Faction and use it as a platform from which to recapture our party? It will take discipline, teamwork, and a broad coordination, all things of which we are capable, but which are are somewhat alien to our general dispositions. We are demonstrably an independent lot.  The establishment will know something is afoot, and they will try to thwart us, but we have an advantage demonstrated by Romney’s miserable election day ground-game: We’re more agile and fluid, while they are grinding cogs in a hopelessly malfunctioning machine.  They won’t want us.  They don’t have a choice.  Will they show their true colors and banish us from the party?  Not likely. Will they try to control, infiltrate and sabotage us?  Absolutely.  Will they send Karl “Tokyo” Rove to attack us? I can’t wait.

If a party is free to makes its own rules, it seems to me that a party within a party should be able to do the same.  The establishment Republicans never seemed to have a problem setting up rules and procedures to their liking, or rigging conventions four years in advance.  Of course, I’ve never built a party before, though I may have a few useful ideas. Nevertheless, to bring this to fruition will take more than one anonymous curmudgeon on a blog site.  If you’re interested, let me know at freedom-faction@markamerica.com. I’d love to read your ideas! Some of you have decades of experience in local political activism, so that your wisdom will be needed by younger activists who wish to establish a Freedom Faction.  If we hope to take control of  the Republican Party, while avoiding the daunting problems of simply abandoning it for a new party, I think building an explicit faction within the party is a great idea.  After all, that’s what the establishment, RINO Republicans have been doing to us for ages.  Is it not time to turn tables?

The DC insiders say the Tea Party is dead, but I don’t believe that.  I think they’re about to run into a “Tea Party” the  likes of which they’ve never imagined, and it may just be out to clean up Washington DC with a vengeance.

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Posted in Activism, Conservatism, Featured, GOP Establishment, News, Politics, Tea Party, Tokyo Rove | 3 Comments »

How Much Did Establishment Republicans Know About IRS Targeting?

Friday, June 28th, 2013

Remember This?

Given their clear penchant for betraying conservatives, and given the half-fast approach they have taken to the investigation into the IRS Tea Party-targeting scandal, and also considering the apparent reluctance of some House Republicans to seek a special prosecutor on this and related matters, I have begun to wonder if perhaps our Republicans in Washington DC are “un-indicted co-conspirators” in this IRS scandal too.  We already know that Republicans have been aware since early 2012, and perhaps a good deal sooner, but one must wonder how much they knew.  They have happily trotted-out a number of requests sent to the IRS by Democrats asking for audits of Tea Party groups, but I wonder what would be revealed if IRS correspondence with Republican members is scrutinized at some future date.  Would we find that Republicans, particularly of the Tea Party-averse establishment stripe would suddenly materialize before us?  Back in July 2011, I may have been more right than I had dared to suspect when I wrote about the bi-partisan war against the Tea Party.

It became fairly clear in the aftermath of the 2010 mid-term elections that something wasn’t quite right.  In the Spring and Summer of 2011, Tea Parties began to raise Hell even with wavering Republican members over the debt ceiling issue.  It was at this time that the split between the conservative base of the party and the establishment intelligentsia began to widen.  This is purely speculative, but I wonder if we shouldn’t insist on finding out who on the Republican side might have had a hand in the effort to quell the Tea Party.  After all, among Washington DC and establishment Republicans, there is no feeling of unity with the Tea Party, in purpose or motive, and in many cases, it would be fair to say there is some substantial enmity.   Why didn’t Darrell Issa(R-CA) throw up some sort of red flag in 2012 when the Treasury Department informed him of the problem in 2012?  More, as it turns out, Issa specifically requested that the audit be limited to IRS groups, even though there were others acknowledged to be on the so-called BOLO(Be On Look-Out) lists.  Why narrow it?  Could it be that there was far more targeting going on, perhaps directed from both sides of the aisle?

Again, while I have no direct evidence to support such an allegation, we do know with certainty that the initial foray by the House into the matter of Tea Party-targeting by the IRS was tepid, and slow in coming.  We also know there exists scant love for Tea Partiers on Capitol Hill.  Could it be that these same treacherous Republicans who have conspired to destroy the country by amnesty for illegal immigrants might also have taken part in this effort at targeting the Tea Party?  Time will tell, but if you assume the GOP establishment in Washington DC wouldn’t resort to such tactics, you may be in for a shock.  I surely hope that a special prosecutor is brought on, despite the fact that I have my doubts about any willingness on the part of the Obama administration or the Holder Justice Department to diligently investigate anything, but because I know that is and has been impossible to trust Beltway Republicans, I’d just as soon learn the truth if they had a hand in it.  Some may complain that I don’t have anything like a bullet-proof case, but the problem is that we conservatives can no longer trust the GOP in Washington, so we mustn’t take anything for granted.

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Posted in Activism, Featured, GOP Establishment, News, Politics, Tea Party | 7 Comments »

Karl Rove Still Trying to Decide for Conservatives

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013

Shrugging-Off Levin

Karl Rove appeared on Hannity on Tuesday night to deflect criticism that he’s an agent of the establishment at war with the Tea Party.  I don’t buy it, and I believe his own professions in this clip should give you a sense of how he views the rank-and-file conservatives in the country.  You see, he explains that it’s the goal of his “Conservative Victory Project” to support “the most conservative candidate who can win.” You may well notice that there exists a mile of wiggle-room in that statement, and it’s made from a deeply held sense of arrogance that is simply undeniable.  If you watch carefully, at roughly 3:43 into the clip from Hannity’s show, as Sean asks him a question about the reaction to the Time article, you will see what “Tokyo Rove” thinks of Mark Levin, shrugging him off in derisive dismissal(screen-capture at left.)  Watch the segment:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne9aYtgFn1A]

Rove attacked the motives of a wide range of people in the Tea Party movement, both in the blogosphere and in activist endeavors, as seeking some financial end.  The irony of such a claim is galling.  Mr. Rove insists that his new group exists to support “the most conservative candidate who can win.”  This prompts a few questions in my mind, and I’d like to see them answered by Mr. Rove or any of his numerous establishment apologists:

  1. Who decides what constitutes the “most conservative?”  According to whose standard?  Karl Rove’s?
  2. Who decides who is able to win?  According to whose calculations? Karl Rove’s?
  3. What do we know about Mr. Rove’s success rate in his selections of candidates?

You see, when I answer these questions, I come to several conclusions, and none of them support Mr. Rove’s fanciful explanation on Hannity’s show.  Karl Rove has shown no understanding of conservatism.  His relentless appeal for immigration reform, his attacks on other conservative causes, candidates or efforts, and his involvement in the Bush administration with the passage of very liberal programs suggest to me quite strongly that Karl Rove is not an appropriate or even qualified judge of conservatism in any respect.

Since when is Mr. Rove the final arbiter on who is able to win?  He told us throughout the primary season that only Romney could win, and through the general campaign that Romney would win, and that it might be a big win(though he did not quite go down the fantastic rabbit-hole with Dick Morris who predicted a Romney landslide.)  Still, if 2012 is the measure of Mr. Rove’s ability to pick winners and losers, I’d say he did pretty poorly, and on his performance in 2012 measured against his own predictions and his own direction of funds, I would suggest that a blind-folded ape flipping  coins could have done as well, and probably much better.  For somebody who now indicates he supported Steelman in Missouri, it’s funny that he twice refers to her as “Deb,” though her name is Sarah.  I can’t say it adds much to his credibility.

Hannity’s apologetic interview with Karl Rove does nothing to convince me that Rove intends anything but that which has already been said.  His history of efforts against the grass-roots of the Republican Party are evidence enough for me that what he’s after is not conservatism, and certainly not victory.  Translated, “the most conservative candidate who can win” means: “Vote for the people we recommend, or we’re going to destroy your candidate, depriving your candidate of just enough votes to make them lose.” It’s clear to me that Rove and his bunch would just as soon lose as have an actual conservative win office, and I’m not inclined to believe a word Mr. Whiteboard has to say in his own defense.  Sure, the article at the beginning of this latest flap appeared in the New York Times, and I’m certain there’s a bias there, but it hardly excuses Rove’s past actions, and doesn’t explain away his current ones either.  One of these days, conservatives will begin to catch on that an “R” following somebody’s name doesn’t necessarily imply the first damned thing about their philosophical leanings.

 

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Posted in Activism, Conservatism, Featured, GOP Establishment, Mark Levin, News, Politics, Tea Party, video | Comments Closed

Message to Congressional Republicans

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Beohner Re-Elected Speaker

I’ve listened to this mewling bunch of whiners tell us they’re “one-half of one-third” until I can stand it no longer.  It’s true that Obama was re-elected, and it’s true that Harry Reid still runs the Senate, but it’s also true that Republicans still control the House, and it’s about damned time they begin to behave like it.  All, I repeat ALL, spending and taxing measures must originate in the House.   This is no time for tears, and no situation for surrender.  If we are to hold off these statist loons, we must begin now, and we must begin here, at the cliff’s edge. These slack-jawed losers-in-waiting had better understand reality, if they can see it through all of those tears:  You were sent to Congress to STOP OBAMA, and I’m sick and tired of Republicans who have all the spine of overcooked spaghetti, and who will not live up to THEIR mandate.  I’m not one to cast unnecessary or pointless profanity into the public sphere, but you squishy whiners in the House had better get your acts together.  I have one message for House Republicans: SACK UP or GET OUT!

If you’re not willing to do the work you were elected to do, I expect you to tender your resignations now.  Conservatives no longer wish to listen to the excuses.  If you surrender on taxes to make a deal with Herr Obama, you will be blamed when the economy goes into recession.  If you refuse, and he plunges us over this so-called “fiscal cliff,” you’ll be blamed.  So be it.  You’re going to be blamed either way, so you might just as well summon the testicular fortitude to do what is right and stand on a principle.  My apologies to the ladies in the House Republican Caucus, but I think some of you are more capable of leading, and you’ll need to do so, because you’re surrounded by Republican eunuchs.  They haven’t the equipment or the gumption to do what is needed, but a few among your number have.

You people have let this thug-in-chief control the narrative for far too long.  While he and his henchmen have castigated Republicans for the alleged “war on women,” he’s been conducting a real war on America.  It’s time you say so.  While you permit him to get away with alleging that all of your opposition owes only to his race, you’ve let his party machine toss out one of your number who happened to be an African-American, and it’s not coincidental that none of you seem all too unhappy about it, because he dared to oppose some of your deal-making.

Back in 2011, as your so-called “speaker” was making deals with Harry and Barry behind closed doors, selling-out both principle and country, you sat on your hands and made no fuss as this entire debacle was shoved down your throats.  You took it.  You let it happen.  You went along with it.  Now, some sixteen months later, you’re surprised to find Obama still controlling the situation?  If you rest on your laurels, as you did throughout the campaign season of 2012, what did you think would be the likely result?  Your short-sighted deal-making of July 2011 has set this stage, and you’re to be held responsible for it.

Now the president intends to run the table on you, and your answer is “Let’s make a deal?”  DEAL???  Let me tell you the real deal, and let’s make it clear: Do you remember in 2006, when you lost the House?  2014 is right around the corner, and if you don’t find your stones for this fight, you might just as well go home.  In fact, why wait?  If you’re unwilling to make a stand now, why don’t you simply surrender altogether?  Why don’t you quit your nifty offices, with all your staff and goodies, and make a run for the border…of your home state?

This is not good enough.  It’s not nearly good enough.  The “fiscal cliff” is a joke.  The monetary cliff is real, and the money-printing must stop, but the only way to do that is for you to put the brakes on it.  ALL spending and taxing measures must originate in the House.  Simply don’t originate any.  Why aren’t you out in front of the White House making a spectacle?  Why aren’t you down there marching and yelling?  When will you learn that if you don’t have the ball anyway, you might just as well keep it in his court and let him field it?  I’ll tell you why: You people have grown too comfortable, and besides, he’ll let your pet earmarks through so long as he can get his agenda into law.  It’s time to set all this aside now.  Where are your tears for the US Constitution, the destruction of which you are enabling?

Dare this president to spend one nickel without your authorization.  Dare him to spend one cent beyond the debt ceiling.  Dare him.  Where is your courage?  Will you stand for nothing?  Will you fall for anything?  When will you realize that this clown can only make traction when you let him?  He is impotent if you take the purse away.  Impotent.  If he tries, impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanors.  There’s simply no other purpose for which you exist in your offices.  If you fold, there will be no coming back, and there’s no time to argue about it.  If you won’t do what is necessary to preserve this union, then we must replace you.  You have compromised your last if you expect to return to office in January 2015.

It’s time for Congressional Republicans to act as though they’re in charge of the House, and if they won’t stand, we must send them home.  What is the point in fighting to have a majority that once installed will not fight for the principles on which it was elected to lead?  Even now, Obama is trying to incite public support for his legislative tax-and-print agenda, but what is John Boehner doing?

This madness needs to end, but it won’t end until the adults in the room learn to say “no” and stick to it. Who will be the adults?  It will need to be we conservatives.  We conservatives need to think of this entire situation as an emergency, and as a war, but rather than become despaired at the current situation, we need to think in terms of warfare.  That’s how the enemy thinks, and until we realize that it is only the outcry of we conservatives who can make these cowardly Republicans in Congress fetch some resolve, we’re going to be in for a tough time.  The country is not nearly so overwhelmed as these election results might indicate if viewed only through the lenses of whining losers.  We need to buck-up first, and then we need to hold Congressional Republicans’ feet to the fire, and we need to let them hear us.  If we don’t do it, who will?  If now is not the time to stand, when shall we?

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Posted in Activism, Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatism, Featured, News, Politics, Tea Party | 8 Comments »

Ted Cruz Wins Texas Run-Off!

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

On to the General Election!

Ted Cruz won Tuesday’s Senate run-off against Lt.Governor David Dewhurst in convincing fashion, defeating the Austin moderate by a margin of nearly ten points.  That’s a stunning win given how his campaign was outspent by Dewhurst, and it speaks to the commitment of activists all across the state, and a few notable conservatives who showed up to campaign for Cruz, including Sarah Palin, and Jim DeMint, but also that big voice on the evening airwaves, Mark Levin.  Tea Party Express worked tirelessly to get out the vote, and Amy Kremer must be ecstatic and exhausted.  Nevertheless, Cruz must still win the general election in November, but it’s a refreshing change to see that Austin insider David Dewhurst didn’t walk away with the nomination.  Texas conservatives and Tea Party patriots won a huge victory Tuesday over the Austin establishment!

Twitter was awash in comments all evening, and when various media outlets began to call the race, it was quickly a party of sorts as faithful re-Tweeters spread the word and celebrated.

Meanwhile, at 9pm central, Governor Palin took to the airwaves on Greta Van Susteren’s “On the Record” on FoxNews, and just before going on, she posted a note of congratulation to Ted Cruz on her Facebook page:

“Congratulations to Ted Cruz! This is a victory both for Ted and for the grassroots Tea Party movement. This primary race has always been about the kind of leadership we need in D.C. Our goal is not just about changing the majority in the Senate. It is about the kind of leadership we want. Ted Cruz represents the kind of strong conservative leadership we want in D.C. Go-along to get-along career politicians who hew the path of least resistance are no longer acceptable at a time when our country is drowning in debt and our children’s futures are at stake. The message of this race couldn’t be clearer for the political establishment: the Tea Party is alive and well and we will not settle for business as usual. Now, it’s on to November!”

For his part, Ted Cruz thanked Governor Palin, Senator DeMint, and all of his supporters and endorsers via Twitter immediately after the race was called, and Texas conservatives were able to bask for the remainder of the evening in the warm glow of victory!  Saturday, in attendance at a small, hastily assembled Cruz campaign stop in Waco, he noticed my Texas4Palin t-shirt, plastered with Cruz buttons, and he said: “Governor Palin really energizes a crowd, doesn’t she? She’s really terrific!” It was easy to see that he was thankful for her support, and appreciative of all the Texans who turned out for him at his stops around the state.

For my part, thanks to all of those who have re-tweeted my messages on Twitter in support of Ted Cruz, and thanks on behalf of a grateful state to Governor Palin, Senator DeMint, Mark Levin, Amy Kremer, and all of the others who so tirelessly labored to get our candidate the win.  It’s grass-roots activism at its finest, and I have had the great privilege of helping in a cause in which we dared not fail.  Thanks to the candidate himself, who ran a clean campaign in the face of withering, fraudulent attacks and dirty tricks from his opponent.  Congratulations to all!

Way to go Texas!  Now let’s help conservatives in other states as well!

 

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Sarah Palin Rocks The Woodlands For Ted Cruz!

Saturday, July 28th, 2012

Revving The Crowd for Cruz!

On Friday, I drove the two-and-one-half hours from my home to the Ted Cruz rally at The Woodlands, just North of Houston.  The venue was Town Green Park and the speakers included a number of Tea Party leaders, like Amy Kremer, and also Senator Jim DeMint(R-SC.)  Ted Cruz gave a very encouraging, impassioned speech about what he would do if elected to the Senate, and he appropriated Barack Obama’s catch-phrase “Yes, We Can” in a little dialogue with the crowd, asking the crowd “Can we repeal Obama-care?”  On cue, the crowd responded with a thundering “YES WE CAN!”  Cruz exuded confidence, but the truth is that with early voting now ended, the real crunch is on from now until Tuesday to turn out the vote across Texas on his behalf.  In her customary form, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made her speech to thundering applause and enthusiastic support.  It was a remarkable speech, and Palin was fiery with the energy and passion that have made her the premiere speaker in the Republican party over the last four years.  Conservatives turn out for Sarah Palin, and there’s simply no escaping that fact.

(Note to GOP establishment: You may want to rethink this plan to exclude her from the convention in Tampa next month.)

I was also heartened to see so many of my friends from TxO4P on hand, including Josh Thuma, who was so enthusiastic in Indianola, Iowa last September, so it was no surprise that at The Woodlands, he followed up in similar form, waving signs and cheering-on all of the speakers.  I saw Cynthia Dixon and Del Parker, and some other faces I recognized, so I decided that rather than spending my time trying to capture the event, I would simply join in the fun.  It was a good time for all, and Jim DeMint gave an excellent talk about needing help in the Senate, meaning he want more constitutional conservatives.  He went on to extol the virtues of Ted Cruz, introducing the candidate to great applause, and Cruz made mention of the effort to repeal Obama-care, saying he would work every day until it had been repealed, killing off the notion of replacement: “Every last word…” must be repealed, vowed Cruz.  The crowd roared in approval.

Hearing the Roar

Cruz went on to introduce Governor Palin, and the crowd’s cheering was so loud from my vantage point that I couldn’t hear the first few words of her speech.  As always, when Governor Palin speaks at such an event, she speaks as much for those gathered as to them.  This event was no different, and she focused in particular on three themes, including the wreck Obama has made and is making of the country, and the intractability of the permanent political class in the mission to restore our constitution, and naturally, how Ted Cruz will be an important player in that fight.  She mentioned that she intended to try out Chick Fil-A on her way back to the airport, and as always, Governor Palin made good on her word, later posting this on her Facebook page:

The Palins Stop at Chick Fil-A

She wore the boots  Governor Perry gave her on a previous visit to the Lone Star State, saying “at least in that one case he made a good decision,” but also gently chiding Perry for his present support of David Dewhurst in the primary against Ted Cruz.  She mocked Obama’s assertion of last week in Texas that he’s seeing “shades of purple,” implying that the state might one day go Democrat.  With the amnesty-by-executive-order that Obama has put in place, there can be little doubt that is part of his aim.  Governor Palin exhorted the crowd to not let Texas go purple or blue.  Said the Governor:

“There will be an Alaskan-sized blizzard on the Brazos before Texas turns blue for Barack.”

“Damn straight.”  (So said many in the crowd.)  She also went after the “lap-dogs in the media practicing yellow journalism,” but then she shifted her focus to the permanent political class in Washington DC that has managed to confound some of the efforts of the Tea Party patriots who sent more conservatives to the House in 2010, managing to co-opt some of them.  She was brilliantly on point as she made clear that politicians in both parties have failed to carry out their constitutional responsibilities, passing Obama-care over the objections of the American people, and failing to enact a budget in four years, but she reminded the crowd:

“There’s nothing wrong with America that a good, old-fashioned fair election can’t fix.”

She then explained that she was supporting Ted Cruz because he is a common-sense, constitutional conservative, saying “Ted Cruz represents the positive change we need.”

Sarah Palin, Ted and Heidi Cruz, Jim DeMint

You can watch the video here, courtesy of  the BarracudaBrigade:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CPFyYHRV_o]

As has been the case at events in which Gov. Palin speaks, after the conclusion of her remarks, and to the cheering of the crowd, she and Todd went off-stage and to the rope line, where she signed autographs for a long while, and as usual, the rope-line was mobbed.

I don’t have a firm grasp on how many people were in the park for the event, but I would guess there had been well over one-thousand, perhaps closer to twice that number, despite the sweltering heat.  One thing is certain: Texas really is Palin country, and all who want to support a common-sense, constitutional conservative in this election ought to follow Governor Palin’s lead.  With early voting over across the Lone Star State, what remains is election day, Tuesday, 31 July.  Let’s get out the vote and put Ted Cruz over the top!

 

 

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Posted in Activism, Featured, News, Palinistas, Politics, Sarah Palin, Senate Races, Tea Party, Texas Politics, video | 4 Comments »

Will the Patient Live?

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Will our Republic Endure?

The Republic that is our constitutional, representative form of government stands upon a precipice.  We have a President who has undertaken to set aside the constitution at every turn.  We have a Congress divided, split between a Senate controlled by a maniacal shill for the President, and a House of Representatives led(and I use that verb very loosely) by a Speaker who is unwilling to do battle with the President, unwilling to attempt even the most basic defense of our Constitution, and incapable even of holding an outrageous Attorney General to account  without much hand-wringing and waffling.  We have a United State Supreme Court that has most recently ruled that States have no sovereignty to speak of, and not even the authority to protect its own citizenry.  We are told by the presumptive Republican nominee that he will repeal Obamacare, despite implementing a similar program in the state he governed, while his various mouthpieces talk about “replacement.”

Do you think we face long odds?  Do you believe our Republic can survive or recover?  The decision expected from the Supreme Court on Thursday will either re-shape our country forevermore, or allow us one more opportunity to restore it.  Make no mistake about it:  If the court upholds the Affordable Car Act, the Republic is dead.

I have given this a good deal of thought, busy as I have been these last two months, and as we’ve all waited to see what tomorrow will bring, I’ve decided that if the Supreme Court of the United States upholds this legislative abomination, a de facto state of war exists between the United States Federal Government and the people whose rights it had been constituted to defend.  Those who will perceive this as true will be branded enemies of the state, in one fashion or another, and the decline of this Republic will accelerate at a breathtaking pace. There can be no recovery of the Republic if this law is allowed to stand, and the urgings to repeal it from we citizens, with platforms large and small, will fall on the same deaf ears that have ignored our pleas for more than two years.  If this law stands, there is no constitutional, representative republic.

If the law is overturned, even then, our jeopardy will only have begun, because this President will ignore the ruling of the court, as he has done repeatedly, and as he has done remorselessly.  He will attempt to impose his program anyway, and even should our  milquetoast House of Representatives act to impede him, he will turn to incitement, outright.  He will attempt to raise a mob, and force his will by virtue of threats and violence.  He will do everything in his power, and many, many things beyond their legitimate exercise in order to create chaos.  Barack Obama will not rest, and none of the looters or moochers who ride upon his coattails will allow this to be overturned. We may see what can only be termed a civil war, and it will be bloody.

This is the direction in which this nation has been lurching for generations, since the so-called “progressives” took over both parties.  We have been led into a box canyon, from which none may escape unscathed.  Today, idiotic former Democrat Congressman from Rhode Island, and latest family ne’er-do-well, Patrick Kennedy warned:

“If the Court upholds the law, dangerous Tea Party extremists will go on a rampage.”

We should be so lucky.  The truth is that if the court upholds this law, Tea Party types will not go on a rampage, because they are not dangerous, although they probably should have been.

Rampage or not, civil war or not, this piece of legislation and all that has followed in its wake serve to demonstrate how fragile our Republic has become after a century of unceasing statist agitation.  In the 1930s, we could have sustained this condition had our court exhibited such staying power as to have overturned all of the New Deal legislation, because the American people were still a moral people by a vastly overwhelming majority.  By “moral,” I mean specifically in the sense that they respected the notion of property rights, the idea of self-sufficiency, and the concepts that once buttressed our constitutional foundation.  Who now can claim this description would apply?

I spent most of the first decade of my adult life serving under an oath by which I swore to uphold and defend the United States Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  I have never yielded on my oath, neither for comfort nor for ease; neither for the sake of a false unity nor for the sake of familial peace.  Sadly, many of my countrymen no longer even understand what principles that oath had been constructed to honor, and to protect, but still, I observe it, while our Supreme Court ignores it, our President demolishes it, and our Congress abandons its defense.  No branch of government seems interested in upholding it any longer, and by this procedure, they have slowly stolen our Constitution from us.  Thursday, we will learn if we shall have even one more chance to resurrect our Republic, but if we are given that chance, we must neither squander it nor revel too long in our temporary reprieve.  “Rampage?”  Indeed, we of Tea Party orientation must rampage at the polls, where we must not permit even the most thuggish brigands of the President to deter us from our electoral duties.  We must now walk back the entire statist menu, or watch our Republic perish.  If the Supreme Court does not present a sentence of death, we must make the most of any temporary stay. We must undo it all, or be undone by it.

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Posted in Featured, Healthcare, Judicial Activism, Law, News, Obamacare, Politics, Welfare State | 4 Comments »

Marco Rubio Says “Yay Romney!” – Says No to Brokered Convention

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Rubio Endorses Romney

Marco Rubio endorsed Mitt Romney on Sean Hannity’s show a few minutes ago on FNC.  Let me get this guy some pom-poms.  I’m not interested in hearing anything more about Rubio as a Tea Party guy.  He’s a Bushie.  Those of you who have seen him as a Tea Party guy?  I’ve got news for you: WRONGO.  He was a Tea Party guy because he needed your votes to overcome Charlie Crist, not an altogether terrible outcome, but let’s not overdo this Tea Party narrative.  It had also been people connected with Senator Rubio who pushed Florida’s primary forward and got out the vote for Mitt Romney in that state, with South Florida winning that state for Mitt Romney.  Remember, it was Florida that caused the four early states(IA,NH,SC,UT)  to move their primaries up to January.

This endorsement has been a fait accompli for some time, the only reason for its public unveiling is to afford some plausible deniability to the freshman Senator.  The truth is that he’s part of the same old crowd that helped to make Florida Jeb Bush country, and still runs that state’s machine.  I warned my readers some time ago that you can learn a good deal from an endorsement, and it’s usually about the endorser more than the recipient of that endorsement.  This is no exception.  Rubio rattled on about wanting to avoid a brokered convention.

Here’s the problem, Senator Rubio:  Some of us want a brokered convention because we think Mitt Romney is a horrible candidate even when he chooses you as his running mate, as we’ve known since Florida that he will.

You’ll do nothing to improve that.

I’m waiting a little longer before I pronounce my final judgment on this race, but the truth is that the establishment is making its big push for Romney now, and you can expect a string of endorsements to come out in the coming weeks to give some false momentum to Mitt Romney.

Note: And then there’s this, for Republicans who hate the so-called “birther” controversy: I keep getting emails from a guy who insists Marco Rubio’s parents were not citizens at the time of his birth, thus making him ineligible to be President or VP, and that this is the “real reason” the GOP establishment has participated in “shouting down investigations into Obama.”  I don’t assign any particular credibility to this guy’s charges, except that I can see a fuss coming if Romney does get the nomination and does pick Rubio. Both are still big “ifs” in my book.

Will we now be forced to endure that indignity too?

 

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Posted in Featured, GOP Establishment, Mitt Romney, News, Politics, RINO Alert | 6 Comments »

Chris Rock’s Insane Hatred Caught on Camera

Thursday, March 15th, 2012
sexy kim kardashian dresses

Chris Rock Attacks Camera

It seems that there’s something wrong with this guy.  Chris Rock’s hostility has always had a racial element, and his legendary rants on the subject of race have always bordered on the disturbed, but being a big Hollywood celebrity, he’s able to get away with all of this vile garbage under the heading of being a comic.  I would suppose that may work if his audience thinks what he has to say is funny.  Jason Mattera’s new book entitled Hollywood Hypocrites exposes some of the endless nonsense that so many of these leftists in Hollywood do, that contradicts so much of what they profess.  In this case, as Breitbart.com reports, Mattera was asking Chris Rock about his statements about the Tea Party in a 2011 Esquire Magazine interview, when Rock said:

“When I see the Tea Party and all this stuff, it actually feels like racism’s almost over. Because this is the last — this is the act up before the sleep. They’re going crazy. They’re insane. You want to get rid of them — and the next thing you know, they’re fucking knocked out. And that’s what’s going on in the country right now.”

When Mattera questioned Rock about this, he reportedly grabbed the camera and hurled it some fifty feet, before threatening a fight.  This isn’t sane behavior.  It’s called assault.  Watch the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzDLGk0tvas]

This is inexcusable conduct, but be ready for the left to excuse it.  They will offer reasons why Mattera shouldn’t have asked the question, or similar, but what they will not do is to openly criticize Chris Rock’s thuggish behavior.  Mattera interviewed a number of Hollywood types for his book.  He says there will be more footage coming.  It’s long past time that somebody exposed the blatant hypocrisy in Hollywood.

Chris Rock talks about insane racism, and then puts on this display?  Projection?

_______________________________________________________________________________________

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Posted in Media, News, Politics, Tea Party, Video | 4 Comments »

Video Reminder of the Tea Party’s Fight – Video

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

Time to Take America Back

I’ve attached a video to this post as a reminder of the things our departed friend Andrew Breitbart had supported, because while he has passed, the movement he defended and supported goes on.  The Tea Party is still here, and conservatives are still here, so why don’t we take a moment to remind ourselves of where we were just two years ago.  This video went viral at the time of its initial posting on Youtube, but let us not forget this as part of our modern Tea Party heritage.  It’s easy to become dispirited, and it’s easy to forget how much worse others have had it.  It’s time to kick some ass, and we do so, we should remember why we fight:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVAhr4hZDJE]

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Posted in Activism, Conservatism, Media, News, Politics, Tea Party, Veterans, Video | 4 Comments »

Fierce Conservative Andrew Breitbart Dead at 43

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

Fierce Conservative

It’s hard to believe the blogging giant is dead.  At just 43 years of age, I cannot fathom what a loss this must be for his family.  The articles I have read list only “natural causes,” but it’s still hard to imagine.  The conservative firebrand, and vigorous fighter of statism will be thoroughly missed.  Breitbart exemplified the indomitable spirit of conservatism, and he was a great warrior in media.  This is a tragic loss.  My sincerest condolences to his family.  This is crushing news for conservatism, and for America.  A true warrior in life, may he rest in peace.

It’s a human tendency to lose track of how valuable somebody may be to one’s life until they are gone.  Andrew Breitbart’s ceaseless efforts on behalf of conservatism and America placed him high up the list of patriots in media.  In the last few years, I cannot think of a single conservative in media who has made a greater concerted effort to advance the cause of liberty, by revealing it to those who would see it.  More, he exposed the enemies of liberty, and the Republic, and he showed through his websites how thoroughly the liberal media establishment has undermined our nation.  It’s not that Andrew Breitbart did something so stunning in a technical sense, but that the fact that he would pursue media as he did was stunning to an establishment accustomed to sweeping their own dirt under the rug.

Breitbart took all of them on.  He defended the Tea Party.  He exposed government lies.  He did so much to advance conservatism, but more, the cause of our constitutional republic.  To lose this fantastic fighter is a terrible loss for America.  Like so many this morning, I am stunned. May all our thoughts and prayers be with the Breitbart family.

 

Andrew Breitbart 1969-2012

Let us remember him and honor him by carrying on his fight!

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Posted in Activism, Conservatism, Media, News, Politics, Tea Party | 6 Comments »

The Dissolution of the Social Compact

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

Is America Breaking Down?

On Tuesday evening, Mark Levin posed a question on his radio show that bears serious consideration by we conservatives, and I think it’s time we discuss it.  It’s not a matter of winning any longer, but whether we can stave off disaster.  What Levin wondered aloud was whether our nation might be saved at all. He asked if it is too late, because there are too few people remaining who will oppose the advance of statism.  Are we too few?  Is it too late?  Is the America we had known doomed?  If so, what will we have instead?  Our Republic stands on the brink of collapse, and the question we now face is what we can do about it.  The signs are all around us: If we don’t turn things around in 2012, it may be that we never will.

Identifying the problem we face is simple, and it’s really what Alexis de Tocqueville proposed when he wrote Democracy In America.  Among all of the other important and prescient things he warned, these may have been the two we should have etched in stone on the steps of Congress, and on every class-room door in the country:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

That helps to describe our predicament, and this punctuates it:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

Our nation is now just more than 200 years on from the adoption of our current constitution, and it seems that the cause of Tocqueville’s warning is being realized before our eyes.  Barack Obama is effectively a dictator, overturning laws by failing to enforce them, and by promulgating regulations that have no legal basis in authority under our Constitution.  Our people, a majority of them, live substantially by taking from others, and those who produce their living have been indoctrinated to supine servitude.  This isn’t the nation of our founding, and our current president’s enmity to the constitution to which he has sworn an oath demonstrates our dire situation.  Many judges no longer see any reason to restrain themselves to the content or context of the laws on the basis of which they’re allegedly ruling, and they reach out to international case law for precedents that conflict with our own constitution.  Under these conditions, our Republic cannot survive, much less flourish, and we are headed for darkness.

Part of what my professional life entails is the process of evaluating threats and vulnerabilities, and projecting organization capabilities for confronting them.  Applying that technique to our current situation, for individuals who consider themselves conservative, never mind libertarian, I think we’re going to see a revolution of radical statists, and I believe this has been the aim of George Soros and his pack of radical cohorts.  Our options are going to be just three, and you had better begin to consider them:

  • Submit – Accept the country is going to become a radical socialist state complete with a police-state front
  • Flee – Leave the country in search of friendly shores that will accept you
  • Fight – Take up arms against it, risking life, limb, and property

These aren’t pleasant options, no matter which we consider, but let’s look at them.  To submit would mean to maintain immediate physical safety, but it also means giving up virtually all personal sovereignty.  I’m not cut out for this option, because I’m not one who respects claims of arbitrary authority over my life, or the way in which I choose to live it.  I’m not one who abides by theft, whether carried out by a hoodlum in a darkened alleyway, or in the open by a federal bureaucrat.  I don’t accept the idea that my life, liberty, and property are rightly subject to the aggression of other men, whether alone, or as a mob.  This means that for me, I’m not inclined to submit, but every person will be forced to make their own choices.  I fear too many will lie down in order to avoid harm, because in point of fact, the last century has been a progression of this sort of incremental surrender.

I don’t wish to surrender my country.  I’m not the sort to flee from tyranny, although I must admit that I’ve done so before.  I live out in the country precisely because I could not abide the growing tyranny in a municipality that orders its residents to have so many shrubs, so many trees, and what sort of decorations they can place on their own properties.  I could not abide it, so I moved a short way out of the city, and in a matter of a decade, that city annexed properties quickly advancing upon me.  At that point, I moved my family and my horses to an even more remote locale, and set up the farm where I expect that I will find some peace for the remainder of my days.  This won’t be the case, however, if the federal government becomes the sort of coercive police state that leftists desire.  There will be no escape to the country, and the only choice will be to flee the country altogether.

As I’ve reported, there have been some people, including filmmaker James Cameron who have fled to New Zealand, but the problem for most of us is that few can afford that move, and countries like New Zealand are smart enough to refuse easy immigration.  Where then shall we go?  The geographical isolation that has served America as a protection promises to serve now as a prison.  Canada?  Mexico?  These are our choices, and neither looks very promising to most Americans.  I can’t imagine that Mexico will offer much promise, and Canada won’t absorb us all.  In my view, this sort of flight isn’t feasible for me, or for most Americans, which then brings us along to the option nobody wants to consider.

Fighting a counter-revolution is a deadly affair, particularly when the power of government is in the hands of the revolutionaries.  From the outset, they will have command of the entire military, the police, and indeed, the entire array of government institutions, and since the media serves the revolution in most important ways, they’ve already created a willing propaganda arm.  They control the horizontal and the vertical, so communications will become an impossibility.  How do you wage a war against such a force?  How is it possible to win?  There is a very good reason that peoples the world over flee from or submit to large scale national social tyrannies:  These are easier than fighting.  These pose less danger.

What sort of country have ours become that we must even consider the revolutionary tyranny that is now creeping toward us, gathering inertia?  I do not wish to seem as though I’m a doomsayer, but the truth is that we’re in very real national distress.  Across the vast expanses of this country, there are probably fewer than one in six who I would consider committed patriots who believe we should maintain this republic as framed by our constitution, but still fewer who are willing to fight to preserve it.  I doubt we could must five million patriots who would step forward and take up arms in defense of the republic, and make war against the people who have slowly usurped our system of government.

I am not asking or urging anybody to do anything, except think.  I’d like you to consider the meaning of all of these things, and what you are willing to do to preserve what we all claim to love so dearly.  Is our liberty to be abandoned without a fight?  Is our freedom really to be eclipsed in this generation?  Why are we going on quietly about our lives?  The Tea Party was launched with the intention of creating a push-back, but the Tea Party has been largely silent in the last year.   The problem is that without some rallying cry, we’re sliding more quickly toward the national catastrophe that now awaits in the gaping maw of the social welfare police-state.  The other problem faced by those who would be inclined to fight if it comes to it is that we don’t have a single bright line for the trigger for a fight.  What is that trigger?  What is the thing that if the government undertakes, we would immediately respond with war?

This reminds me of the story of Wyatt Earp standing down a mob:  “Sure, you’ll get me in a rush, but who wants to be first?”  This is a question nobody likes to consider, because nobody wants to be first.  Perhaps that will change, and perhaps it’s not yet as bad as that implies, but at some point, we’ll reach that climax at the pace in which we’re now rushing toward tyranny.  All I’m suggesting to my fellow Americans is that now is the time to think these things through.  What will we do in defense of our constitution when those sworn to uphold it decide instead to set it aside?  What will be that condition under which we will no longer abide the transgressions?  It’s easy to make brave oaths, today in the shrinking protection our liberties provide, but if our social compact is to be dissolved, it will no longer be a matter of oaths but instead a course of actions that we must consider.

 

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Posted in Civil Unrest, Conservatism, Global Revolution, News, Politics, Tea Party | 14 Comments »

Tea Party Vs. Occupy Wall Street

Monday, February 20th, 2012

The Undeniable Truth

It’s impossible to argue with a straight face that there’s any real similarities between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, and yet that is the contention of some who allege that both are protest movements aimed at reform.  If that’s the extent of their similarity, those who claim this as the basis for a relationship between the two are stuck in superficial characteristic that permit one to claim that an orange and a basketball are nearly the same.  The Tea Party is predicated on the idea that the best government is that which governs least, while the Occupiers, to the degree you can discern any central agenda, are concerned only with tearing portions of the private sector down.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the dissimilarities far outweigh superficial observations, yet this is the argument you get from leftist shills.  Other superficial differences include that the majority of both groups is Caucasian, and male, but in demographic terms, this is the end of similarities.  The Tea Party folks are somewhat older, and somewhat more settled in life, and have already engaged in productive activities for most of their lives, while it seems Occupiers seem to be those who haven’t quite yet figured out what they want to be when they finish growing up.  If that seems a bit condescending, I will confess that  I’m caught, but only because that is my own observation.

The key distinction between the two groups stems from this:  The Tea Party has a generic ideological and philosophical basis that its numbers understand, whereas the Occupiers seem to have a scatter-shot approach to issues, and if you examine any of them in isolation from the others, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to learn anything about the beliefs of the group, except perhaps that they all think they deserve something, somehow provided by others. They want their student loans forgiven, or they want banks closed down, or they want capitalism brought to heel under the boot of statism.  They abhor globalization, but simultaneously say they’re in favor of free trade.  They say they want opportunities, but they have squandered many by their own admissions.

In short, while it’s quite easy to make out what the Tea Party wants, it’s no so easy to understand anything about the Occupiers’ demands, because theirs are a moving target, and they seem to modify them daily.  They have no electoral agenda, except perhaps that they generically favor Obama, but none of them can tell you why with any sort of conviction.  In all, I find it odd that anybody would take serious such a comparison, until you understand how thoroughly the Occupiers failed.  They were ginned up to be the left’s answer to the Tea Party, but as the record shows, their behavior in public and private spaces brought them no shortage of negative coverage.  It’s so bad that they don’t even bother pretending there is a degree of moral superiority as occurred at the outset, but instead seek to improve their position by the comparison, attaching themselves to Tea Party by way of false claims of similar purpose.

Of course, now that they’ve seen how badly they’ve been received by the American people, a number of Occupiers are now, belatedly joining in on the anti-Obama bandwagon.  As Yahoo reported, Obama has brought the two groups together, but only because increasingly, both are now opposing him.  Even in this, however, they’re not really together, as the demands of Occupiers seems to be for the President to move even further left.  Clearly, that’s not a message the Tea Party will endorse.  It’s simply not true to say that the two groups are similar, and even the Yahoo article goes on to admit that this is the case.  Still, it’s interesting to watch the purveyors of leftwing propaganda try to paint the Occupy Wall Street movement as a younger, grungier Tea Party, but until its members learn how to find jobs and pay their own bills, never mind bath, it’s going to remain a hard sell.

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Posted in Activism, Anti-Capitalists, Capitalism, Civil Unrest, Conservatism, Media, News, Occupiers, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, Tea Party | 3 Comments »

Saturday’s CPAC Session and Governor Palin

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Pointing the Way

Many “Palinistas” and many conservatives in general are wondering what former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will say when she delivers the keynote address on Saturday, the final day of the CPAC conference in Washington DC.  There’s no way of knowing in advance but as with any such appearance by Governor Palin, I expect she’ll offer further insight into the 2012 election cycle, and almost certainly will “rally the troops.”  I think most are waiting to see what she’ll say, and whether they’re establishment wing of the GOP, or grass-roots conservative activists, you can bet that they will want to know her thoughts on virtually anything about which she’s willing to speak.  As with any event at which she speaks, there will be people coming in from all over the country to hear her, and a little birdy at CPAC has already told me there is a bit of a buzz in expectation.

What Governor Palin offers that draws such crowds (to the chagrin and despair of the GOP establishment and the leftist media respectively,) is her plainspoken approach to identifying the problems our nation faces, and the facts that are inescapable about our current plight.  She is not merely a doomsayer, however, as she offers concise solution sets for addressing our problems, generally to an audience of grass-roots folk who are anxious to see the implementation of the sorts of reforms she advocates.  One could scarcely imagine a presentation in which she would not offer ideas about the way forward, but not only for conservatives, but also for the whole body of the American people.

Since her announcement of October 5th on Mark Levin’s show that she was not going to be seeking the Republican nomination “at this time,” many held onto hopes that she would later enter the race.  In the intervening period, she has made frequent appearances on FoxNews as a contributor, including during primary and caucus coverage in the early states.  In recent weeks, she has taken the position that she would like to see the primary process continue, because she believed that there was still a good deal of vetting left to do.  As part of that strategy, she said if she were a South Carolina voter, she would vote for Newt Gingrich, and this seemed to have some effect as Tea Party folk turned out for Gingrich in overwhelming numbers despite the scorched-earth campaign of Mitt Romney in a state where the supposed Tea Party-favored governor had endorsed and was stumping with Romney.

To many in the GOP establishment, Palin is a thorn in their sides.  They realize that her populist streak actually makes of her a threat to the status quo they enjoy.  What she will say on Saturday, whatever its content, is sure to have an effect on the election cycle of 2012, if only because so many conservatives seem to key on her for direction.  Among grass-roots activists, she is able to fire them up and she brings an enthusiasm to such events born of her optimism about America.  When she speaks of America and Americans, it seems always to be informed by her own love of both, and her devotion to the country her own children will inherit.

I know there will be Americans who will view the CPAC keynote with an abiding interest in what Governor Palin will say, and in the way she will say it.  She has a flair for turning phrases that will permeate the blogosphere, and that will rebound for weeks or months through social media, in a sort of long-lasting echo carried by those who admire her commitment to the country’s future.  Some “Palinistas” are having viewing parties, frequently virtual, but all in the spirit of hearing her message and carrying it forward.  As an observer of social media, it is always amazing to see how many people become thoroughly energized and invigorated in the political sphere in the wake of one of her major speeches.

Saturday will be a fascinating day if only to watch the growing buzz around Governor Palin’s speech, but conservatives will be most interested in the content of her address.  She is scheduled to speak at 4:30 Eastern, or 1:30 Pacific.  CPAC is scheduled to be televised on C-SPAN, and the live stream on CPAC.org should be active.  Whatever she offers Saturday, it will likely cause a stir simply because the conservative movement simply cannot get enough of Palin’s common sense applications of conservative ideas.

Note: If you’re a Tammy Bruce subscriber, she’s posted that the TAMChat will be open during the speech. These sorts of virtual viewing parties are springing up all over the Internet.

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Posted in Conservatism, Free Speech, Media, News, Politics, Sarah Palin, Tea Party | 10 Comments »

Ann Coulter Finally Loses It – Video

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

Good Grief!

At least she wasn’t ranting and raving, quite. I think Ann has lost the last shred of her rapidly declining credibility.  Her littany is exhausting:

Romney is “conservative.”  Newt isn’t electable.  Obama is “personally charming.”  Tea Party is a bunch of “utter hypocrites” for supporting Newt. The “era of Rockefeller Republicans is over.”

Oh, and again: “Romney is the most conservative….”

H/T GatewayPundit

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0sH_gpbAwU]

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Posted in Media, News, Politics, Tea Party, video | 8 Comments »

After Florida…

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Florida's Rotten Fruit

I know that for some, this will strike some as a contradictory note compared with what I wrote on Tuesday evening, but it’s not if you’re reading carefully.  On Tuesday evening, what I told you is that Floridians just voted to re-elect Obama, and I firmly believe that.  The problem is, Florida is an important state, but it’s hardly the be-all, end-all the Republican establishment will spend the next several weeks pretending it had been.  My post on Florida of Tuesday evening should serve as a warning to others, who hold strong conservative and Tea Party values: I believe 2012 will be a watershed year, and the identity of the Republican party’s nominee will define the election.  If we select a conservative who voters can differentiate substantially from Obama on the most important issues of our time, we can win.  If we vote a barely-right-of-Obama candidate, who has similar big government leanings, we will lose, and we may well lose the House, never mind regaining the Senate, but what I need you to understand is that this contest is not yet over.

I’ve explained at length all the reasons Romney can’t win, and I’m certain most readers here can tick them off like a shopping list of items, but by now, we all realize that one thing militates against a Romney victory more than any other:  Romney-care.  It’s effectively the ultimate death-knell of his campaign, and he can’t use it in the general, which is why he’s using it in the primary.  In the general campaign, Obama will absolutely slay Romney with his pathetic “states’ rights” argument, because in truth, even Obama knows that’s nothing but a useless dodge.  Don’t misunderstand:  Obama is fine with Romney-care – it served as the model for his own healthcare reform – but he knows Romney can’t speak of it without doing damage to himself minimally equal to any he might inflict on Obama.

Can Romney claim “Obamacare will bankrupt the nation?”  He can’t if he wants to avoid Obama  reminding voters that Romney’s own program is bankrupting Massachusetts already.  Obama will say his is different enough to bankrupt the nation, and of course, he will use the claims of “social justice” and “civil rights” in opposition to the “states’ rights” argument.  In truth, I can’t imagine how Romney doesn’t wind up yielding on this issue.  I can’t see how he presses it, and frankly, I can also see Obama attacking his position on repeal, which may not help Obama with independents, but it will be his rallying cry to his base.  He will dangle the carrott of its benefits before the eyes of his supporters, while whipping them with the stick of Romney’s promised repeal, and there Romney will stand, flat-footed, neither able to respond in defense or in counterattack, neutered forevermore on the subject.

I keep stressing these points because what you must know is that Florida can still be the aberration and not the trend-setter.  One of the problems we face is turn-out in the coming primaries and caucuses, because Obama’s goons have nothing better to do than to give us our candidate.  In Florida, it was largely Broward and Dade counties that gave Romney his margin of victory, and this should tell you everything: Those are overwhelmingly Democrat-heavy counties, and that Romney did so well in them offers you a clue as to the real identity of many Romney voters there. You can be assured that a large number of Democrats cross-registered so they could vote in the Republican primary, since they already know who their own nominee will be.

Here I sit in Texas, and as anecdotal as it may seem, I know several hundred people here well enough to know where they stand at the moment on the primary race, and what I can tell you is this:  I don’t know a soul among them who wants Romney.  Ron Paul? Sure, a few dozen. Rick Santorum? A few dozen more.  Newt Gingrich?  He has a commanding lead among the Republicans I know, but among Democrats, and left-leaning independents, the answer is unanimous:  Romney.  Some of them have already told me they have registered last year as Republicans so they could vote Romney in the primary.  It’s the plan, you see.

The only way to overcome all of this is for conservatives and Tea Party folk to unite and overcome Romney. Florida’s result need only be as meaningful as you allow.  It needn’t be a trend-setter.  As I’ve explained at length, I don’t believe Romney can win in November, but there is still plenty of time to prevent that from being our sole choice. Romney isn’t a winning campaigner, and while any who oppose him must overcome his bankroll, as I explained on Tuesday, that needn’t be the driving force. It’s now up to you: Lose with Romney or win with a conservative(or at least such reasonable facsimile as we can muster.)  Mitt’s not inevitable just yet.

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Posted in Conservatism, Election 2012, GOP Establishment, Mitt Romney, News, Politics, Tea Party | 8 Comments »

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