Nom de guerre: Rivrdog

RNC "problem"?

There is a perceived problem for the GOP, that of a failure of "diversity". Of course, it's folks outside of the party making that claim.

I don't think the problem exists, but both Jay Leno and the AssPress thinks so, so let's discuss it.

The GOP is the party of Lincoln, in fact was a new and splinter party that Lincoln, a thinker, joined because he was a "maverick". It was started as a Northern political pressure group prior to the Civil War in 1854, and the fervor to start it grew out of the intense internal fighting over which states would be allowed to maintain slavery and which states would not, as new states were being added to the USA frequently. The slave-or-free status of Kansas was the over-riding reason the GOP was formed, as a third party, when the Democrats and the Whigs controlled the political apparatus of the nation.

Since the South was not at question over whether it would be slave or free, and those states were all going to be slave states, the GOP never made any early attempts to organize down there below Mason and Dixon's Line. The first efforts to carry the GOP into the South weren't made until AFTER the Civil War when Reconstruction was imposed on the South, and the GOP went along with the ARMY to conduct the forced political re-orientation there. Needless to say, the GOP didn't gain much of a foothold in the South THAT way.

So, members of the black race who had been denied the right to vote now had it, and the Democrats knew that if all those votes went to Republicans, they would lose their hold on the South, because there were a LOT of former male slaves, all now eligible to vote, and all being marched off to the courthouses to be registered to do so.

The rest is history, as they say in the thinker's game.

Various means were applied by the Democratic Party to insure their continued political dominance of the South. The Poll tax was levied, and just plain bribery was very successful also, with Democratic politicians vying with each other to see how cheaply they could "buy" the newly-registered votes. It didn't cost much, and as late as the 1950's in my youth, votes were bought by the Democratic Party ward bosses in the core areas of Washington, DC with Short Dogs, little 4-ounce bottles of cheap whiskey which might have been bottled just for the purpose.

Fast-forward 50 years to today (but bear in mind that for the Democrats, the old ways die hard and slow).

Last night, as I was watching Leno, I noted that he made a joking reference in his monologue to the lack of minorities visible on the convention floor at the GOP convention. In fact, he cracked up the band with the jokes he made about it. This morning, the AssPress also made note of it, and in their article, actually interviewed a few minority convention attendees, WHO ALL SUPPORTED THEIR PARTY.

So, when you forget your American History and wonder where, why and how the Democratic Party got to be the party which included minorities, and why there are few of them in the GOP, now you know.

The (D)emocrats simply went out and bought all of them, and do to this day.

The GOP, OTOH, recruits folks on PRINCIPLE, those principles being the defense of freedom (as illustrated so well by Lincoln) and the promotion of private enterprise, responsible for the growth of the nation since Lincoln.

The GOP will probably lose this coming election, and with it, all relevance in politics, ending the GOP experiment at just over a century because the legions of new voters, the youth of our Nation, have already been bought and paid for by the Democratic Party through the processes of education, which that party cunningly took control of two generations ago.

If the recording and subsequent dissemination of historical fact is still allowed in our future nation (I'm not betting that it will be), historical analysts will note that the most important contribution of the defunct Republican Party to American culture was to emphasize not only the work ethic, but the ethic of the private control of commerce, now fading fast and almost replaced by an oligarchy made up of the Central Government and those  corporate bosses willing to kowtow to them in exchange for the "right" to conduct commerce and thereby enrich themselves.

This nation will play at two-party politics for a few more election cycles, but I will only need the fingers of one hand to count them.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to my reloading bench, where 212 shiny, clean .44 Remington Magnum hulls await rebirth into useful form.

Obama-Biden

The (D)ummocrats just lost the election. There isn't a voter with better than a third-grade education who won't see that this ticket is farther Left than Mao and the Red Guards, too far Left, too fast.

Balance on the ticket? Who needs it? It's obvious now that George Soros is pulling the puppet-strings here, and intends to be the Shadow President. Soros is a Socialist, in the European model.

Second thing, Obama isn't too proud of his pick, either. Pulled it off after midnight Eastern time on a Friday? Left his Internet Corps in the lurch (they were supposed to get out a text message with his choice as the first form of the announcement)? That means that the pick will not even be discussed in a major way until Monday....Wait! The opening of the (D)ummocrat Cornvention will overshadow that.

Yep, Obama couldn't have tried harder to hide his choice.

Unless, and you read THIS bit of outer-space punditry first right HERE, Biden gets up at the convention and gives a stirring speech as to why he CAN'T BE THE VEEP (might have something to do with plagiarism), and maybe then the Hildebeeste gets "backed in" as part of an orchestrated, tumultuous, fooferaw on the convention floor.

Naaaah. That's just too wild. Not entirely impossible, but too wild. It's Soros flexing his billions, buying his way into the shadow leadership of the nation through his Manchurian Candidate.

Soros must also own the Wiki system: within minutes of the announcement, the Joe Biden Wiki had been altered to both announce Obama's choice, and downplay the plagiarism angle, which were the keywords I used to search for it (biden + plagiarism), and also the first suggestion that came up in the google window as soon as I put "biden" in the search box.

John Effing Kerry again?

...according to the gudwife, there are rumors that John Effing Kerry is being proposed for Obama's Veep.

Free advice time.

This free advice is for Barack Hussein Obama, and no one else.

Barack, you have built up some momentum in this campaign by first building on a deep-seated distrust of Hillary, which was a clever thing to do, then promoting yourself as the Young Messiah, which was a cunning thing to do, but now you find yourself in need of a boost in your mid-summer poll stats.

You have played out the rock-star idea. Your opponent has skewered you with it over the last week, and gotten some play in the liberal comedy clubs, so you are over-extended there. So now, you have your Veep rumor mill throwing out hints, and the most recent, since the flame-out of your buddy John Edwards, is John Kerry.

In order for you to win the election and actually do something beside wear the POTUS suits you have undoubtedly ordered from Milan already, you have to sometimes see past the conventional wisdom of your party.

Your party honchos think that you are a tad bit inexperienced, and that such inexperience could cause you to lose the contest in November. So they have come up with the VERY conventional idea of pairing you with a highly-experienced Veep candidate. This might actually work for you, since people WILL forget that Veeps don't mean shit, ever. They are there, and have been there since the 1790's, ONLY to bring in a critical voting block. A Veep might mean something to the aged McCain's campaign, but it won't to a young guy like you.

OK, so who do you pick? Your first choice was Edwards, which aside from his major FUBAR, would have been a good choice. For some reason this pundit doesn't understand, despite being about as Left as you, he would have brought in a fair number of independents. Too bad he had that bimbo episode, he's no good to you now.

Edwards is out, so where do you look next? John F**king Kerry. Look, Barack, the man is the most recent LOSER from your party, not any kind of a winner. Sure, he's been around in the Senate since Christ was a Corporal, but just calendar days doesn't make him any more electable than John McCain would be, who has been around about as long, just on time served.

Remember Swift Boat, Barack? Like it or not, refute it if you can, Swift Boat sank Kerry in the last election. When he tried to play off his war experience to counter Bush's 9-11 experience, he ran aground on some serious rocky shoals. Now you want HIM? AGAIN?

One of the huge mistakes your (D)onk leaders make, Barack, is in assuming that EVERYONE has the memory span of a flea. Maybe some of your most vital constituencies have that failing, but it is NOT a failing of the Independent Voter, who is on a higher plane of education AND imagination. The Independent Voter WILL remember ALL the old issues with John F**king Kerry, and they will cast their votes for the Old Guy.

OK, Barack, so far, I've been negative all over you. I try NOT to finish that way, so here's some positive advice: pick someone for Veep that the Independent Voter will JUMP for. Someone who is deep in Senate experience, has as little of that sin of hypocrisy (lets out Al Gore) as possible, and has ALREADY pulled in the Independent Voters.

There's only one who fits that requirement, Barack. That's Joe Lieberman.

You want instant credibility for your ticket, Barack? Joe's your man. He WILL pull the Independents in, guaranteed. The word "balance" will be on EVERYONE'S lips with Joe by your side.

There's only ONE problem. Joe will probably turn you down, and when he does, you will have rebuffed all the Soros people in vain. MoveOn dot org will laugh at you when Joe Says No. They know you will have to CRAWL back to them to get their help when Joe Says No.

Why would Joe Say No? Let me count the ways.

1. Joe thinks you suck as a leader.
2. Joe thinks you are VERY weak in the W.O.T.
3. Joe doesn't like your bedfellows, the aforementioned Soros and MoveOn dot org.
4. Joe is a Jew, and takes his faith seriously. He knows that you have been buddy-buddy with the jew-haters of color, and he hates THAT.

Other than that, Joe would be fine with and for you.

Keep trying, Barack. Trouble with using the rumor mill is that it is a two-edged sword: once you have piqued peoples' interest with rumors, they will want to move to the next step, reality. Better make your choice quick, now, or they will start to lose interest.

Think Evan Bayh. With him, you will keep most of the Hillary voters from pushing that Wrong Button.

Now, if I am excused from this duty, I will go improve MY most valuable skills, and go to the range.

"Weasely" Clark has a slip of lip

....except in his case, he means it. He does not have the "Bushism" excuse.

It happened on Lars Larson's radio program this morning. I was enroute across the rivah to #1 daughter's house on cat-sitting duty and had tuned in the radio show on KXL-750 AM.

Lars announced the General, gave him a flowery AND sincere build-up, which at the time almost made me puke in my Hazelnut Latte. The interview went on, with Gen. Clark bumbling on with Obama talking points and Lars, who usually has a no-talking-points rule, letting him bloviate.

I got to my destination, and went into the  Dau's house and did my hour of maintenance chores there and schmoozed with the new tabby, then went back out to my rig and fired up for the trip back to OR.

The interview had ended, and now Lars was headlining himself, having just gotten the Weasel to admit that he (and Obama, presumably, since he is a paid shill for the Obamamessiah) doesn't care HOW members of the military feel about Obama as a prospective Commander-In-Chief.

It's the old "if we wanted you to have a political experience, we would issue you one" crap that various "I'm the very model of a modern Major-General" top officers tend to throw at their troops, but in this case, it's political to the core.

I had flashbacks to the Kerry-Edwards team in '04, when this same issue of a douchebag C-I-C came up within the military, whose members were, last time I checked, all eligible to vote as citizens. You will remember that some (D) states, notably Florida, responded by failing to count military absentee ballots, and you will also recall that little issue in the '06 election of (not really) WA Governor Gregoire, when as many as 1400 improper felon's ballots WERE counted, and thousands of soldiers' ballots "didn't get there in time", resulting in the "election" of Gregoire by 142 votes.

Looks like nothing much has changed for the troops according to (D)onk policy since the '04 and '06 contests: it's still OK to take a bullet for your Commander-In Chief, but don't you ever try to vote against him.

The more they scream for "change"...

...the more life goes on as usual.

So I'm sitting morosely in the Little Black Truck at a gas station, watching the money counter change digits in a blur (11.57 gallons for $48.00, you do the math), when a school bus pulls up to the stop light. All the windows are down, and the kids inside, middle schoolers, are chanting "no more school", in perfect harmony.

Ah, yes, the innocence of youth....

McCain's funding strategy

Can anyone reading blather (like mine) on the subject of McCain's money woes REALLY believe that the GOP brain trust will be outspent by the (D)onks this fall?

This article seems to think McCain is in trouble.

Bulltwaddle.

McCain is just idling along, watching the brutal primary fights of BHO vs. HRC.

He knows, as I do, that there is more or less a finite amount of dollars with which to campaign (on either side of the aisle), and the (D)onks, by spending like drunken sailors this early in the campaign season, will risk running into the dreaded donor apathy issue later on, when donor revenues will determine who gets the best last-minute air-time blitz to top off their campaign with.

McCain, facing even more of an in-party split than the (D)onks do, knows that the best way to manage that split is to not give it the time it needs to fester, or the time scalawags need to widen the fundie vs moderate gulf within the GOP.

McCain may have personal issues with his little backslide on having to apply for public money, but I don't. To me, as long as we are playing by this corrupt little rule book, it's the party who gets to November with the most moolah to buy TV time with that wins. A sad commentary on the times, but it's reality.

I'm going to support McCain from this point on, relying on the common-sense approach of "better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't know" to guide me. McCain has enough political flaws to bury the entire conservative cause (which he may yet do), but for all the reasons everyone else enumerates, he must be supported.

Sean Hannity, you're an idiot

So Senator Obama shows his true colors by dissing almost everyone in the productive middle class with his "religion and guns" quip, and all Sean Hannity can think of to hang him with is a tired old connection to a tired old Weather Underground terrorist of the 70's? (Reference: "Hannity's America" 041308)

C'mon, Sean, you can do better than that. You're supposed to have POLITICAL instinct, which if you had any, would have told you:

1. No one who either votes or pungles up money for candidates gives a rat's patootie about just another college professor who played with bombs during the bad old SDS-Weathermen days of the early 70's. That's thirty-five years ago, and therefore consigned to ancient history, which can be ignored at one's option, according to our current educational establishment.
2. You had to try too hard to make the connection. Both Obama and this bomber-hippie are directors of some obscure foundation in Chicago. So what? That's no smoking gun, it's not even a smoking roach, fer Christ's sake.
3. You took an address at North Dakota University where the two appeared together as your "Aha, gotcha?" Let's see, isn't there a rule somewhere in your business about the relevancy of the context? North Dakota stopped being very relevant politically with the demise of the Strategic Air Command, Sean.

The significant news of the week was Obama's "guns and religion" diatribe, and it didn't even make your weekly blather show. You might have picked the correct topic with which to energize Obama's opposition, but you didn't. You might even have had McCain responding to both the Obama FUBAR and yourself if you'd have said something like:

"Senator Obama showed his true color this week, and we're NOT talking race here. Senator Obama, in a fight for his political life against Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, just gave the back of his hand to the truly productive part of the middle class, and he showed even more contempt for the Second Amendment to our Constitution. No, that's disingenuous. Senator Obama showed his FEAR of the Second Amendment with the "Religion and Guns" blast at the middle class. By showing his FEAR of the Second Amendment, Senator Obama revealed that he expects to try to turn the Constitution on it's ear badly enough to raise a risk of bringing the Founder's true meaning of the Second into play, i.e. the forced replacement of a tyrannical government. So, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, why don't BOTH OF YOU ask the serious questions of your opponent? The most imperative of those questions to ask is why does Senator Obama fear the part of our Constitution that only exists for the defense of the citizen and of the Free Republic? MY take on this is that no honest citizen with allegiance to our Constitution has anything to fear from the arms allowed by the Second Amendment. The only people who might fear the consequences of the Second have a darker purpose in their hearts."

You missed THAT boat badly, Sean Hannity. Try again.

Political Masada

Whence goes the Grand Old Party?

The Democratic Party is having a fine old time, with what might very well be a battle down to the wire to decide what flavor of Socialist they want as President. With Barak Obama, you get a young idealist Socialist, and with Hillary Rodham Clinton, you get TWO tired, old, corrupt Socialists. Rush Limbaugh has predicted, many months back, that this race would boil down to Obama-HRC on the (D)onkey side, and it appears he was right. However, Rush ALSO predicted, at the same time, that whichever of them actually won the nomination would pick the other one as running mate. I'm not so sure of that prediction now, although I originally believed it. I think Bill Clinton showed his true colors, and now Obama knows that as First Mate of the Second Banana, he would try (and likely succeed) to become the shadow President. So, I suspect Obama has crossed HRC off his short list of Veep candidates, and will now pick a moderate. I see Richardson's star rising here, but that's just a gut feeling, no facts to back it up.

The Grand Old Party, OTOH, is in it's death throes, and will commit a political Masada with the nomination of John McCain.

McCain is not a Republican. Those GOP stands he claims for the moment are flags of convenience. John McCain is for John McCain, not the US of A. Let's forget for a moment that he flew and fought in the Vietnam War, was shot down and spent the rest of the war as a POW. That is neither here nor there, and reflects not one whit on his ability, or lack thereof, to run the country. FWIW, Randy Cunningham was a far better pilot, was a fighter Ace, never got shot down, and is languishing in Federal Prison as I write. War service means nothing if you throw away the key it might give you, and both McCain AND Cunningham did that.

McCain has had his fingers in the cookie jar before. Read up on the Keating Five Scandal, in which he was adjudged to have committed grave improprieties of influence-peddling. Since that time, he has developed a penchant for crossing party lines and helping to enact some legislation that flies directly in the face of our Constitutional life and principles.

Our Constitution has a Bill of Rights, which leads off with the First Amendment protecting the right to Free Speech, the most important right which the American people have granted themselves. Next in importance is the Second Amendment, in which we have granted ourselves the right to keep and bear arms with which to protect ourselves, our Nation and the Rights we have granted to ourselves. John McCain has voted for limits on that right, by wanting the Government to decide when law-abiding gun owners may conduct a lawful commerce in firearms between themselves.

In the entire above paragraph, where I talked about the Bill of Rights, you will notice that I never said that the GOVERNMENT GRANTED THOSE RIGHTS. In our system, the rights were there to start with, paid for with the blood of General Washington's men who wrested this land from the control of the British monarchy. We gave ourselves those rights, and only we may take them away, in any degree, but John McCain has failed to realize that.

Now, many in the fraternity of gun writers have decided to jump on the John McCain bandwagon, and that is their right to do so. It is NOT their right to try to convince us to vote for him by hawking a highly-colored version of history, John McCain's history of supporting limitations, TO ANY DEGREE, on the right to possess and bear arms, and the right to conduct lawful commerce in them. John McCain evidently believes in a paternal version of his Oath of Office, in which, both as a military officer AND as a Senator, he swore to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States. With the McCain type of politician, and the Clinton type of politician as well (no record for Obama yet), there is a smug belief that power moves downward from the Government to the people, but those who have taken this view are wrong, it is the opposite. No officer of Government has a whit more authority than We the People give him or her, and the Oath of Office makes it clear that those who swear to it agree to SERVE the government, not use the Government against the People.

Those officers of Government forget that at their peril, but WE THE PEOPLE forget that at grave risk of enslavement by the Government.

In the Fortress of Masada, a brave Jewish tribe held out against the Romans for three years, but the superior Roman military engineering eventually reduced their fortress. The night before the Romans would have stormed the fort (and put all it's occupants to death), the holders of Fortress Masada committed mass suicide, which act is against the Jewish religion, but later Rabbinical scholars have ruled that they were justified in doing so.

In our great political game, the Left has gained a strong ascendancy, and one which might just turn into an unbeatable political majority.

What is the GOP's response to this ascendancy? Elect a Statist calling himself a Conservative, and not just a Statist who is occasionally and partially drawn to a few tenets of the Left, but one who OBVIOUSLY believes that ANY tenet of the Left may be supported as long as it boosts the paternal power of the Government.

Readers, that is the very definition of Masada, the act of suicide. If  we elect McCain, and then allow him to continue to project his paternalistic idea of Government upon us, we are enslaved. It matters little to a slave what political stripe his Masters give themselves, he is still a slave.

It is most curious that McCain, close to locking up the nomination of the GOP for President this year, sees a necessity to bamboozle us with his claims of following the last true conservative President, Ronald Reagan (who was still flawed, but at least NOT paternalistic). McCain doesn't need that minority of the right end of the political spectrum to be nominated now, so why would he begin this tub-thumping channeling of Ronald Reagan?

The answer, dear readers, is simply that he has to re-enforce his own aura of paternalism.

It offers us a chance to see into the soul of McCain, though. Look deeply, past the oratory, to the work McCain has actually done. You will see a deep disregard for the sanctity of the First Amendment, and with the First Amendment stripped of it's armor as McCain has done (with McCain-Feingold) and wants to do more of, the Second Amendment can hardly be expected to stand. In fact, the entire Bill of Rights, and with it, the entire Constitution, is in mortal danger when the First Amendment is emasculated.

John McCain, while dressed in his best Reagan cowboy clothes, has a bloody nutting knife in his hand, if you care to look.

And there's not a young bull in sight, fellow gunbloggers. Those are YOUR nuts he's looking to remove.

Campaign finance reform?

Ya wanna know why campaign finance reform is such a crock of crap?

One word: Bloomberg

A rich Wall Streeter, having made billions speculating with other people's money, now wants to buy the Presidency. He proposes to start a third party and fund it to the tune of more money than both the traditional parties have available.

And McCain-Feingold, for all it's Constitution-bending high-mindedness, can't stop the rich Socialist from buying the highest office in the land with his own money.

The democratic Republic we live in, and and are sworn to die to protect, has a hierarchy of "the four boxes", the Mail Box, the Soap Box, the Ballot Box and the Cartridge Box.

The Mail Box refers to the free exchange of ideas, as happens daily in this and millions of other blogs. There have been moves to muzzle the blogs within the last two months of an election.

The Soap Box refers to the promotion of political candidates, and that's been under attack, with calls for the renewal of the un-fairest thing to ever be called a polar opposite, the "Fairness Doctrine"

The Ballot Box is under attack from many directions, mostly by liberals who want to insure that a few percentage points of fraudulent balloting will always be available to tip elections to the Democrats when they need it.

Then, there is the Cartridge Box. Like most things these days, it has a warning on it.

That warning reads: Open only when you are denied the use of the previous three Boxes.

We're getting closer, people.

Buh-Bye Alberto

Alberto Gonzales has resigned, according to this AssPress story.

Buh-Bye, Alberto. You held your standard high, but were lacking in a few important criteria for success, such as supporting the Second Amendment, which you seemed early on to oppose. You also (although I blame this one on your boss) totally FUBAR'd the dismissal of the 8 Clintonian legal beagles.

You won't be missed.

Will this merely whet the appetite of the BDS people for more scalps?

Probably, after the resignation of Rove just a few days ago, this will give them the idea that they have W on the run.

Oh well, it diverts attention from the REAL FUBAR, the total screwing-up of the war in Iraq.

If I wasn't on this diet, this'd be one of those days I'd start with a stiff drink.