Monthly Archives: January 2010
Rick Moran meets the proverbial woodshed
At the hand of the Classic Liberal. A good read. Rick Moran sort of strikes me as a Give-Up Conservative, as in he truly thinks that the Constitution no longer should be followed. There is no return to the founding principles according to the Give-Up Conservatives. They are Liberalesque in their belief that we, as Conservatives, should move on, and stop living in the past. I can only say to Moran that the founder’s principles ARE what made this nation great, and without those principles, we will never return to greatness. It will only be a question of how Socialist we are, not if we are Socialist as a nation.
Sorry Mr. Moran, but I love my country too much to be a weak-spined, Give-Up Conservative.
Stacy McCain gets all the cool gigs
He is at Scott Brown HQ, asking questions, and reporting firsthand. Nice job there Mr. McCain. But, I must question your choice in hats.
I am not saying Brown will beat Coakley, but……
Coakley and the White House are already playing the blame game, and you can figure that, in the end, Coakley will have to find a place under the Magical ObamaBus
The Coakley vs. White House snit fit that Ben Smith is chronicling at Politico is simply too rich to ignore. Predictably, the White House is spinning the “bad candidate” meme while the Coakley camp is pointing a finger at the tin eared, obtuse political strategy of a White House consumed with cramming unpopular policy down on an already energized electorate.
The adviser, who cited internal polling numbers to make the case, e-mails that, “There’s more to the story than that. If Martha is guilty of taking the race for granted, so is the White House and the DNC.”
The adviser pointed to internal polling to argue that Coakley held a wide — 20 point — lead on Dec. 19, and that the damage she took between that survey and a Jan. 5 Rasmussen poll putting the race at 9 points came from the national scene: The Senate vote on health care, with the controversy over Ben Nelson’s deal for Nebraska, and the Christmas Day bombing.
Obama’s ego is getting in the way of him being any type of success as a president. He is going to lose his big health care bill because of his complete unwillingness to LISTEN to the people. The signs of a major collapse of the Democratic majorities are as plain to see as they could possibly be. Yet, Obama continues to ignore every one of them.
He might get it if he were as perceptive, as Evan Bayh
The White House seems to have its approach figured out: “President Barack Obama plans a combative response” in that case, Politico’s Mike Allen reports. He quotes an unnamed presidential advisor as saying, “The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall. The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.’”
Not everyone in the president’s party seems likely to go along for that particular ride. Centrist Democrats, and those who feel vulnerable when it comes to this year’s midterm elections, have already been making life difficult for the White House and for congressional leaders. If a Republican wins in what should unquestionably have been a Democratic seat, they’re likely to push that envelope further.
We’ve already seen one strong bit of evidence on that front: Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a key Senate Democratic centrist, took a very different stand from the White House’s when he spoke to ABC News about the race.
“[I]f you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up,” Bayh said. He told ABC he believes Democrats have gone too far to the left. “It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message … Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country — that’s not going to work too well.”
My hope? Keep on dreaming Obama!
If Scott Brown wins tonight……
Keith Olbermann’s head will explode, Chris Matthew’s legs will fall off, Ed Schultz will, oh who really cares what the douchebags at MSNBS will do when Scott Brown wins. Let us focus on what Scott Brown WILL do, when he wins.
This just arrived in my inbox:
We Just confirmed from two Top Scott Brown Aides and our Man on the Ground in Boston that should Scott Brown win the MA special election against Martha Coakley, Scott Brown will be giving the Republican Response to the State of the Union Address!
No, sorry ladies, I hear he will not being doing it in the nude.
Take Our Massachusetts Special Election Poll!
What Percentage Of Martha Coakley Votes Will Be Fraudulent?
Click on the image above to answer the question.
Earth tries to talk sense to Danny Glover
Why is poking fun of mental midgets like Danny Glover so much fun? Who cares why! Just enjoy!
Bush to blame again?
Martha Coakley is TANKING in the polls, going down faster than Charles Johnson’s credibility, and guess who is to blame?
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), speaking with a gaggle of reporters after the event, said that while state Sen. Scott Brown (R) offers voters a quick fix, in reality, the problems created by “George Bush and his cronies” are not so easily solved.
“If you think there’s magic out there and things can be turned around overnight, then you would vote for someone who could promise you that, like Scott Brown,” Kennedy said. “If you don’t, if you know that it takes eight years for George Bush and his cronies to put our country into this hole … then you know we have a lot of digging to do, but some work needs to be done and this president’s in the process of doing it and we need to get Marcia Coakley to help him to do that.”
Yes, it must be Bush’s fault. Coakley’s daily missteps have absolutely nothing to do with it. By the way, the article also stated that Patrick Kennedy repeatedly referred to Martha Coakley as Marcia Coakley throughout his interview with reporters. But, that too is Bush’s fault.
Ah, so, Patrick Kennedy, the latest in the long line of drunken douchebag Kennedys, praises a woman whose name he does not even know? Yep! That is your party of depth and intellect!
That loud crashing sound you just heard was……
The Democrats hope of retaining Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat
FOX 25 in Boston reports that Scott Brown has surged to a double digit lead over Coakley.
BOSTON (FOX25, myfoxboston) – A poll released a day before the special Senate race shows Senator Scott Brown surging to a double-digit lead over Attorney General Martha Coakley in the race for the open Massachusetts Senate seat.
The shift in favor of the Republican Party is a potential disaster for President Barack Obama and his Democratic political agenda.
Brown has surged to a double-digit lead over Coakley in three Massachusetts communities identified as bellwethers, according to the latest SuffolkUniversitybellwether polling of the race for U.S. Senate.
Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody all show solid margins for Brown, the state senator running against Coakley.
Meanwhile, The Politico reports that Coakley has gone into freefall.
A new InsiderAdvantage poll conducted exclusively for POLITICO shows Republican Scott Brown surging to a 9-point advantage over Martha Coakley a day before Massachusetts voters trek to the ballot box to choose a new senator.
I am loving this. The Left is going into convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and losing their minds over this. They are acting like some brat denied a new toy. It suits them I think. Especially this moron, who would rather cheat the people, than have someone he does not approve of elected!
And do not overlook the sheer stupidity of John Kerry! Jill rips into him! as he digs in the Pit of Failed Liberal Rhetoric
Sister Toldjah catches Olbermann making a complete ass of himself! AGAIN!
And Pat Austin has THIS from Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan:
And so one suspects that this is a profound moment in the now accelerating decline of this country. And one of the major parties is ecstatic about it.
My “debate” with Barret Brown
Barret Brown, along with several other bloggers, including Charles Johnson, have insisted on waging an insidious campaign to label Robert Stacy McCain, of The Other McCain a RAAAAACIST! Having had quite enough of this nonsense, I have challenged Brown to debate why he insists on calling McCain something he clearly is not.
To my surprise, and to his credit, Brown has decided to take up said challenge. So, let me start by laying out why I know Brown to be wrong. Consider what Brown writes about McCain, in this post and in a chapter in his new book apparently.
regarding the charges that have been leveled by Charles Johnson and I against Robert Stacy McCain over the past several months. Incidentally, the final chapter concerns McCain himself, and should be sufficient to convince any honest reader that McCain is exactly what some of us have determined him to be – a white supremacist. The chapter also details the manner in which the former Washington Times editor and correspondent has perpetrated at least one extraordinary breach of journalist ethics by writing a news article concerning a dispute between a certain Professor Jonathan Farley and Sons of Confederate Veterans – an organization of which McCain is an active member – while slanting the article in such a way as to make Farley out to be some great villain. A few months after writing the article, McCain gave a speech to the SCV in which he asserts the following:
This we know: Our ancestors’ cause was just and their conduct was honorable. Anyone who says otherwise is insulting the memory of heroes… If the Confederate cause was a matter of honor for our ancestors, then it is a matter of honor for us, their descendants. It is our duty to defend the honor of our ancestors, and to preserve their memory for our own descendants.
… even at the expense of basic ethical considerations, it would seem; McCain did a swell job of taking on Farley, who had written a column in which he bashed the Confederacy and was thus clearly guilty of “insulting the memory of heroes.”
Brown pulls the classic tactic here. McCain “defended” the Confederacy, and the Confederacy was bad and racist, so, McCain is therefore a White supremacist. This is a tired, pathetic, and historically inaccurate supposition used by Brown, and of course, others seeking to discredit people they cannot defeat in honest, open debate.
Brown equates membership in the SCV, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, with White supremacist views somehow. This is puzzling. The SCV is not a racist group. They, are a group of folks proud of their history, heritage, and their ancestors. Many are re-enactors, and love the living history they present to many people of all races, ages, and backgrounds. To label them racist, which Brown does here, is frankly despicable, cowardly, and bigoted. McCain, as a member, SHOULD, ABSOLUTELY, defend his ancestors. And race has nothing to do with that!
In short, Brown seems be unwilling to actually learn about the War Between the States, and the many reasons that the South seceded, a Constitutional right well accepted by many in those days. Brown also wishes, it would seem, to ignore the reasons that hundreds of thousands of Southerners fought the war. I will give you a hint to help you out sir. One Southern boy, captured at First Mannassas, was asked by his Northern captors why he was fighting. “Well” he said, looking at the Federal troops “y’all are down here aren’t you?” The issue to this young man, and to the vast majority of his fellow Southerners who fought, was that his land had invading troops on it. He was fighting for liberty.
Facts can get in the way, can’t they Mr. Brown. The facts about the war do not favor your arguments or “proof” that McCain is a racist. The average Confederate soldier, no matter their rank compared themselves to the men in the Continental Army. There is a reason the Great Seal of the Confederacy featured George Washington. The founding principles of the 13 original colonies were largely those of the Confederacy. Again, compare the Confederate Constitution to the United States Constituition. Remarkably similar these documents are.
Now, of course, Brown will have us all believe that the only reas0n the South fought was slavery, and that therefore the Confederacy was entirely evil, and anyone defending their Confederate ancestors is, by extension, defending slavery, and are, therefore a White Supremacist.
This is quite wrong of course, as a serious study of the war shows. I wonder how much time Brown has spent in study of this conflict. If he has spent any at all, he has been reading some fallacious material, and that is regretful.
Now, Mr. Brown, if you wish to continue this, please, help yourself. I am not going anywhere.
Doug Hagin
Yet ANOTHER Poll Puts Brown Up By 9 Points
New Poll: Martha Coakley ‘In Freefall’ – The Politico
A new InsiderAdvantage poll conducted exclusively for POLITICO shows Republican Scott Brown surging to a nine-point advantage over Martha Coakley a day before Massachusetts voters trek to the ballot box to choose a new senator.
According to the survey conducted Sunday evening, Brown leads the Democratic attorney general 52 percent to 43 percent.
“I actually think the bottom is falling out,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery, referring to Coakley’s fall in the polls over the last ten days. “I think that this candidate is in freefall. Clearly this race is imploding for her.”
The numbers show males and independents overwhelmingly breaking for Brown, who has married his GQ looks with a populist tone in a pick-up truck on the campaign trail.
Brown holds a 15-point lead among males and crushes Coakley by 41 points among self-described independents, a group that’s been steadily inching away from the Democratic party over the last year due to growing apprehension with government spending, bailouts and health care reform.
Most Of MSM Yawns, Rolls Over As Largest Union Theft In History Goes Largely Unreported – Big Journalism
While the mainstream media swarmed all over Bernie Madoff, AIG and corporate billionaires, the gentlemen of the press, who are so proud of fighting for the Little Guy, were mostly out to an expense-account lunch when Melissa King allegedly made off with $42 million rightfully belonging to members of the Laborers International Union of North American (LIUNA).
In what is being called the largest union embezzlement in American history, the LIUNA Local 147 (New York) office administration was apparently unsatisfied with her meager $500,000 a year paycheck.
According to watchdog Carl Horowitz:
LIUNA Local 147 is an elite underground construction unit known as the “Sandhogs.” With roots going back well over 100 years, the heavily Irish-ethnic 1,000-member union represents the workers who dig New York City’s subway, sewer and water tunnels, often at hundreds of feet beneath the ground. It was the sandhogs who did the excavation work for such engineering marvels as the Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown and Brooklyn-Battery Tunnels. Their massive ongoing main project, the Third Water Tunnel, when completed in 2020 at a projected cost of roughly $6 billion, will carry 1.3 billion gallons of water per day for 9 million area residents and ensure that water keeps running should either of the first two tunnels fails. It’s grueling and dangerous work. And the workers are paid well. They also expect to collect their full retirement benefits. But thanks to the alleged actions of Melissa King, there’s a distinct possibility they won’t.
King, 58, a resident of Irvington, N.Y., through her home-based company, King Care LLC, handled all administrative functions for Sandhog benefit funds since 1980, and at an annual official compensation that eventually reached $540,000. That’s pretty lavish even for an international union president. Apparently, it wasn’t lavish enough. Starting in 2002, prosecutors charge, King illegally transferred about $42 million from three union accounts covering pensions, vacation pay and other benefits to accounts she personally controlled. A large portion of it, to put it lightly, was unrelated to union business. Of the alleged thefts, $7.2 million went to pay off American Express bills, more than $3 million to equestrian businesses (apparently she was grooming her daughter for an equestrian career), and $713,500 to a jewelry business. The criminal complaint states she also transferred $500,000 to an E*Trade Securities account without union authorization.
Mrs. King’s lawyers made a routine statement about expected vindication, and claimed in a response to a civil suit by union trustees that she was asked to provide administrative services not usually required, and charged reasonable fees.
The link to her arrest warrant is here.
What is perhaps most shocking in this entire story is not the fact that a union officer embezzled millions (that’s been par for the course for more than a century) nor that the mainstream media initially buried the story (we’re lucky we got a CNN hit from our Andy Stern investigation); it’s that she is alleged to have run up a total of $7.2 million in AmEx debt. Really, that’s just impressive.
To its credit, The New York Times followed its initial report on the case with a an up-close-and-personal look at Mrs. King and her lavish lifestyle.
Out of more than 5,000 owners of horses ranked by the United States Equestrian Federation in hunter events, Ms. King-Kaplan’s horses, as a group, rose to 4th place in 2007 and 2008, from 913th in 2005.
“The family members always wondered how she could afford all those horses,” said Teresa Laggner, a San Diego lawyer who handles the estate of the parents of Ms. King’s fourth husband. “I guess now we know.”
Sunday Surveys Put Brown Lead At Nine-Plus Points Over Coakley – Washington Examiner
A survey conducted Sunday in Massachusetts finds Republican Scott Brown with a nearly 10 point lead over Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election campaign to fill the U.S. Senate seat occupied for nearly five decades by Ted Kennedy.
Massachusetts voters go to the polls Tuesday in a campaign that until only a few weeks ago seemed like a cake-walk for Coakley, the state’s incumbent attorney general.
The survey was conducted for Pajamas Media whose Roger Simon this morning describes the results:
“A poll taken Sunday afternoon while President Obama was in Massachusetts campaigning for Democrat Martha Coakley against Republican Scott Brown for the open Senate seat in that state showed Brown leading his Democratic opponent by 9.6% (51.9% to 42.3% with 5.7% undecided).”
The telephone survey conducted by Cross Target was of 574 likely voters and has a margin of error of 4.09 percent.
Another survey conducted Sunday found an almost identical 9.6 percent lead for Brown. This second survey was conducted by the Merriman River Group (MRG), which said its findings indicate “that Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 50.8% – 41.2% in the contest to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Liberty Party candidate Joe Kennedy pulls in just 1.8% support, while 6.2% of voters are still not sure.”
Significantly, MRG’s results suggest strongly that the Massachusetts electorate has pretty much made up its mind on this race:
“Brown and Coakley both have most of their supporters locked in. 98% of both candidate’s supporters say they are definitely or probably going to vote for their candidate. In contrast, 22% of Kennedy’s supporters are just leaning toward him, suggesting that Brown and Coakley may both want to take aim at swaying those voters,” the MRG summary said.
Rule 5 Sunday
Everyone likes pretty girls. So opines Stacy McCain, who invented Rule 5 blogging. So, in honor of that rule, I offer up my own Rule 5 post, complete with LOTS of hotness!
Lance starts it off by showing an appreciation of Jets cheerleaders!
Wyblog offers his appreciation of Sandra Bullock, and other celebrities generosity
Washington Rebel also appreciates beauty
Richard McEnroe has a fever for Rose McGowan
Theo Spark is questioning the hotness of Bar Rafeali?
Stacy McCain sees the relevance Lindsay Lohan in Massachusetts?
The Classic Liberal has banking tips from a bikini-clad Danielle Lloyd
Wyatt Earp is dreaming of being bitten by Ashley Greene
Pat Austing pays homage to Alyssa Milano
Sister Toldjah has a crush on Jets QB Mark Sanchez
Right of course honors Tide and Bronco cheerleaders
William Teach has a flashing hockey fan
Paco has his usual fine assortment of retro Rule 5
Jamie Jeffords brings us Mila Kunis
Bob belvedere goes old school too
Bring the Heat brings us Julie Benz!
Donald Douglas has lingerie video
“This Is A Scandal To Rank With Climategate”: Temperature Readings Have Been Manipulated At The Two Key Climate Centers In The U.S. – Pat Dollard
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a link to US weatherman John Coleman’s magisterial demolition of the Great AGW Scam. I particularly recommend part 4 because that’s the one with all the meat. It shows how temperature readings have been manipulated at the two key climate data centres in the United States – the NASA Goddard Science and Space Institute at Columbia University in New York and the NOAA National Climate Data Center in Ashville, North Carolina. (Hat tip: Platosays)
This is a scandal to rank with Climategate.
What it shows is that, just like in Britain at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) temperature data records have been grotesquely distorted by activist scientists in order to exaggerate the appearance of late 20th century global warming. They achieved this – with an insouciant disregard for scientific integrity which quite beggars belief – through the simple expedient of ignoring most of those weather stations in higher, colder places and using mainly ones in warmer spots. Then, they averaged out the temperature readings given by the warmer stations to give a global average. Et voila: exactly the scary “climate change” they needed to persuade bodies like the IPCC that AGW was a clear and present danger requiring urgent pan-governmental action.
The man who spotted all this is a computer programmer called EM Smith – aka the Chiefio. You can read the full report at his excellent blog. In the 70s, the Chiefio discovered, GISS and NOAA took their temperature data from 6,000 weather stations around the world. By 1990, though, this figure had mysteriously dropped to 1500. Even more mysteriously this 75 per cent reduction in the number of stations used had a clear bias against those at higher latitudes and elevations.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
