Archives for August 2010
we the people.
These folks (see below) liberally refer to we the people and, more troubling, they believe they personally channel the will of the people, and this has me concerned. There’s no statesmanship here, no discussion of governing principles or economic philosophies, no insights into the constitutional battles raging all around us–none of that–just undiluted US vs. THEM populism glossed over with a few we the people‘s to give themselves a constitutional veneer of legitimacy. Bullfeathers. If your best reason to be governor is that you’re not one of the blue meanies, you really should get out.
To be sure, party trumps person, however, should pure populism trump party? After all, pure populism is the mess we’re already in. More of the same, albeit of a different color, hardly seems like a remedy.
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Smoke Filled Back Rooms banned
by Robert Rowland on Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:22pmAs in all campaigns and movements there are those moments when we all start having doubts, we all grow tired from the seemingly constant barrage of bias media or we grow discouraged when we hear things like how much money the other side has compared to ours. We begin to question our own belief systems and ask, “can the people or the will of the people really prevail”? Prevail against a powerful machine that will do almost anything to maintain the status quo. A machine so focused on their own power and influence that they think they can circumvent the will of the American people. People who because they have wealth think they can intimidate the people’s candidate into quitting to make room for their choice. One who will serve their plans, not ours.
Now I get this message from Karen Maes, Dan’s wife. She’s one of us, just like us, a mom, a spouse and having met her several times, just a down to earth genuine, no pretense person. Listen to her passion, listen to her commitment not just to her husband and family but to the cause, our cause. I can’t imagine the sacrifices and pressure this type of endeavor puts on a family, especially with young children still in the house, but they’re doing it, and they’re representing each one of us in doing so.
We are grassroots, regular folks who know the system is broke, we know if we don’t hold our ground now to these “smoke filled, lost in time” good ole’ boys (gender neutral), will win again, and we may never get another chance to set things right.
PLEASE READ THIS LETTER AND THINK ABOUT YOUR ROLE IN THIS HISTORIC MOMENT IN COLORADO POLITICS. THE TIME TO GET INVOLVED IS NOW, NOT TOMORROW, TODAY! I refuse to let these folks stop the moment we’ve been waiting for all these years, to get a people’s candidate elected, not someone conjured up in one of their smoke filled rooms. I know what I want to be able to say I did when the time comes years from now, do you?
Robert Rowland, Elbert Tea Party/912 Chairman
The View of A Smoke Filled Room by Karen Maes
Most of you have never met me, so let me introduce myself: I’m Karen, Dan’s wife of soon to be 20 years and, as Dan’s wife, I tend to stay in the background. I have found my role in the campaign to be one of support for my husband in this race, no matter what. I try to stay out of the “politics” of it so I can stay positive and thus maintain a home where our children can live happy and content. I do support my husband fully in this campaign, which has never been about him, but about YOU the people. Why am I now writing to you? Because the events of the last few weeks have me angry!
– Hide quoted text –Over the last few weeks, Dan has been approached by many “political insiders” (let me clarify, this is not GOP party representatives) who have asked my husband to drop out of the race. WHY? I believe they are afraid of him because he’s the outsider. I believe they are afraid because he can’t be controlled by them. When did politics become this way?!?! Let me tell you this: I WILL NOT ALLOW DAN TO DROP OUT OF THIS RACE! YOU elected him to be the Republican nominee, how dare someone try to take that away from you! You must stand by me and not allow it either! Dan is here to represent YOU. He has become YOUR voice! I call him your megaphone, because now you have someone who is listening to what is important to YOU!
Since Dan’s historic victory in the state primary you would think all those people who preached the importance of backing the winner, no matter who it would be, would be practicing what they preached. In some cases, they have and I appreciate them so much. They are an encouragement to Dan. What makes me (and Dan) sick are the people who are not. Not only do they not support him but they are what actually make up the “smoke filled room”. This room does not have four walls. It can be a phone call from someone who thinks they have more power than they have. It can be a meeting at a restaurant with someone who asked for a meeting “to help” Dan and that person attempts to pressure Dan to leave. It can be a potential fundraising event with a few wealthy people who attempt to hijack the meeting and appeal to Dan’s integrity and honor to “do what is right” and step aside for their candidate.
I was stunned to hear Dan relay this message from a meeting: a wealthy man advised Dan that Dan should use his great sales skills to influence the grass roots to understand that Dan stepping aside was in the best interest of the state. Can you believe the arrogance! He actually thought that you work for Dan rather than Dan working for YOU! Dan told them they had no clue what was really happening and that they “just don’t get it”! Dan told them that THE PEOPLE WILL NOT TOLERATE political games like this any longer. He told them you are not going to fall in line.
Another thing that I found arrogant was that Dan relayed that these men were watching some of their business associates say they would go to Hickenlooper because, “they might be able to influence HIM”. Is this what THE PEOPLE want? They saw this movement of what might be 50-100 people toward Hickenlooper. Can you imagine that they thought this was more important than the hundreds of thousands of people who voted in the primary, and the almost two hundred thousand who voted for Dan earlier this month!
I am so grateful for all of the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice that our volunteers have provided to date but you must know that Dan needs you more than ever. He has told me how so many of you committed to stand behind him when he stands up to the politics as usual and the potential corruption. I am asking you all to do so now with strong voices and courage.
Don’t buy into the lies and corruption that you have pledged to fight and beat in 2010! DON’T LISTEN TO THEM! Dan has spoken the truth to you everywhere.
I know Dan to have stood up to corruption as a young police officer, this stance of integrity cost him his job.
I have watched him compete against the big guys in the business world for over 20 years, and always provide our children and me with an honorable lifestyle based in his faith.
Now I see him coming home exhausted but determined to be your voice.He is like YOUR megaphone! By himself he is silent, but with your voices behind him he will make them louder and heard!!!
WE MUST NOT LET CORRUPTION WIN! It won’t be easy, but please STAY STRONG! Do not allow these “politial-insiders” in their ‘smoke-filled rooms” to dictate to THE PEOPLE who to vote for! You’ve made your voices be heard at the state assembly and again at the primary! We CANNOT ALLOW power hungry individuals to dictate to our candidates and elected officails!
I’m sorry, but I do have to mention it: we’ve run the campaign on a shoe string, and you have told us that you appreciate it! I’ve heard many comments along the line of “if Dan can win the primary election on only $200,000, imagine what he can do for our state!” We do need funds to compete against Hickenlooper, against the people out there that think they are all-powerful because they have money. Please contribute so we can continue to help Dan megaphone YOUR voice!! Just go to www.danmaes.com and click on the contributions tab, or mail your contribution to Friends of Dan Maes for Governor
11 W Hampden Ave
Englewood, CO 80013THANK YOU all again for all of your hard work! This campaign won because of good old fashioned hard work by volunteers!
THANK YOU to all of you who have not even met Dan but are fighting for a return to our conservative values!
THANK YOU for the emails and cards of encouragement! They lift his spirit when he might have just been under attack. Please don’t forget to also encourage and pray for all our volunteers, staff, and Tambor as they are being attacked too!
STAY STRONG in these final weeks, and let YOUR voice be heard! DO NOT TOLERATE THE SMOKE FILLED ROOM CORRUPTION! Please forward this email plea on… We need to unite!
God Bless,
Karen Maes
critical thinking a.k.a. racism
How ‘Brilliant’ Can President Obama Be?
By JEFFREY S. HOWARD Posted 08/27/2010 06:06 PM ET
Every person, newscaster and commentator always prefaces any, even the mildest criticism, of President Obama’s policies with some statement about how dazzlingly brilliant the man is. Liberals, conservatives, independents — it never changes. Why is this? And most important of all, is it true?
What and where is the proof that Obama is such a sharp fellow? The recorded evidence is unavailable since his academic records, and test scores from three universities are sealed at his demand. Sure, he graduated from Harvard, but so did George Bush, who earned an MBA but is still pilloried by some as dumber than dirt.
We shall have to examine Obama’s performance and make our own assumptions based on observations.
Obama selected advisers and Cabinet heads who have basically no experience in the private sector. He relies heavily on them to tell him what to do about the sick economy. Their knee-jerk responses are Keynesian (borrow and spend), based on a dubious theory popular 70 years ago, and proved unworkable in the past.
They sold us the stimulus (“porkulus”) package of spending.The result? Rising unemployment and falling home sales prove that “recovery summer” is going down the tube without touching the sides. The president retains his economic Rasputins. Is loyalty to failure a sign of a great mind?
Obama farmed out the stimulus, omnibus budget, financial reform, cap-and-tax and health care bills to Congress — allowing it free rein. He did not exercise leadership and instead abdicated to the whims of Nancy Pelosi, David Obey, Harry Reid and Chris Dodd.
Trillions are borrowed and spent on the public sector while real jobs evaporate. Banks invest in bonds instead of businesses. Impending and threatened mandates, regulation and tax increases choke off entrepreneurial ambitions. Does this activity indicate a high level of intelligence, or just managerial ineptitude?
The president is unable to string a cogent sentence together without a pair of Teleprompters working perfectly. He can deliver a mesmerizing speech but can’t even remember who is standing beside him when the tape runs off the tracks. His most often used extemporaneous word is “um.”
This may be a clue as to why he has granted fewer press conferences than any president in memory. Can such performances be equated to “brilliance”? Not in my book.
Stepping in the political equivalent of a doggie dumpling seems to bring out the worst in Obama. Why and how could he pop off with everything from “The Cambridge Police acted stupidly” to flip-flops on the New York mosque issue, and everything in between? His inane mumblings about the skivvy shorts bomber, the public trial of the 9/11 plotters, the fanatic major who gunned down 13 soldiers, the Arizona immigration law and “saving or creating” jobs belies any vast reservoir of intelligence.
Sharp presidents do not dive into lose/lose situations with such gusto.
How is Obama’s foreign policy working out? The U.S. needs strong allies to defeat monstrous enemies. Dissing the British, scolding Israel, canceling the missile shield in Eastern Europe and groveling to foreign royalty do not bode well. Our enemies, from Iran to Venezuela, smell weakness and timidity. Ignoring cold reality and dreaming that personal charisma is the solution to international tensions is probably on the daft side of the intelligence continuum.
The “4 million green jobs” mantra espoused by the president is a canard when examined closely. Renewable energy technology exists only due to huge government subsidies. Ethanol is inefficient, raising the prices of gasoline and corn. Wind farms produce intermittent power that flummoxes the grid and requires conventional power plants to run continuously as backup. The net carbon reduction is miniscule.
Both schemes are massive misallocations of resources better used elsewhere. An astute president would inform himself on both sides of the issue rather than blatantly parrot a load of poppycock from the Van Jones crowd.
A Republican president who parties far more than he works would be trashed by every media outlet in the land. But Obama is a Democrat who enjoys the media’s deep support. He escapes any serious questions about his busy golf schedule, multiple vacations, endless fundraising and campaigning, constant banquets and concerts in the White House, and his obvious detachment from the people he supposedly leads.
He appears more of a dilettante than a leader. A smart fellow would move to de-emphasize his privileged lifestyle instead of flaunting it in front of a nation mired in a recession.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe Obama is smart. Then again, Jimmy Carter was intelligent but proved to be the worst president of our lifetimes — up to now.
• Howard, a Redmond, Wash.-based real estate developer, appeared on this page Aug. 20 with an “Open Letter To President Obama.”
S.B. 1070 Appellant brief
CONCLUSION
The United States faced a heavy burden in establishing its entitlement to a preliminary injunction enjoining Arizona from enforcing S.B. 1070. The United States fell far short of meeting that burden. The district court’s finding that the United States is likely to prevail on its claims that sections 2(B), 3, 5(C), and 6 of S.B. 1070 are preempted failed to apply the correct standard for the United States’ facial challenge to these provisions, failed in its analysis of Congress’ intent, and erroneously accepted at face value all of the United States’ factual assertions. The serious errors in the district court’s preliminary injunction order require that the order be vacated.
Right To Health Care Choice
tea party (fill in the blank)
The fervor with which tea partyers defend the caucus system and the Republican Party of Colorado after those machineries produced mediocre 2010 candidates is frankly shocking. The tea party is not a registered political party and has no corporate or political identity at the Colorado Secretary of State. It can’t open a bank account, officially sponsor a candidate for office, or officially sponsor ballot initiatives. It appears to be a political party up for grabs that the Republicans in Colorado have currently grabbed.
Tomorrow, it could be the Constitution Party or Democrat Party who grab them. They’re an easy mark because anyone can identify themselves as a tea party candidate. As an informal association the tea party can be shoe-horned into any camp. The grassroots folks have the best of intentions but everyone knows where the road paved with good intentions leads.
My experiences at tea party rallies in Washington (9/12/09) and Denver (4/15/09) were not occasions to celebrate the Republican Party. There was a common thread of critical thinking by speakers and attendees at those rallies that held both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the big government rear-ends sitting squarely on American citizens. That the tea party in Colorado has now turned into a cheerleader for the Republican Party, while coincidentally the Colorado Republican Party has produced no qualified candidates who give any indication they will reduce the burden of government at all levels, is a huge disconnect.
A tea party that cannot uphold candidates and ballot initiatives as standards to measure against will get whatever the powers-that-be choose to give them. And that’s the role of a tool.
Platforms: Tancredo vs. Maes
Abort73.com
Pounding Maes
The Poundstone/Maes contribution-that-wasn’t-a-contribution scandal has not yet catalyzed a discussion about the value of the caucus system in Colorado. It should.
You can’t blame the success of Maes and Buck at the Republican state assembly of caucus system delegates on the tea party. If these candidates are faulty, if they weren’t adequately vetted, and they appear not to have been, you’ve got one group to thank for that, and that’s the self-anointed precinct caucus state delegates led by Dick Wadhams and the Republican party officials from each county who consorted to present them to the voters.
So the question to Mike Rosen on the party-trumps-person theory of electoral politics is, “Does party trump delegate negligence?” Do you hold your nose and pull the lever for the apparent fraud and for the old-guard Washington-monied tea-party-poser on the thin hope that you might get some taxpayer-favoring legislation out of one of these folks some day down the road?
Or do you reasonably expect them to behave consistently within the characters they’ve already shown–characters which raise questions about how carefully they would husband Colorado’s public wealth and taxing power–and as a voter look around for alternatives? Obviously, we know how Tancredo answers that question.
These are serious failings of Colorado’s caucus system. This is what happens when the anointed run amok. A petition process where all candidates go before the voting populace from the beginning, where they all face tough questions from the voting populace from the beginning, would not necessarily produce a better outcome, but at least the responsibility for the outcome would be in the right place, and that would greatly improve our chances.
Postscript: I get nervous when I hear a politician tell me about the will of the people: Rowlands grassroots perspective and ensuing debate
The Long War
I have to thank James Gorski for inspiring me to dig my heels in and take on Andrew McCarthy’s, “The Grand Jihad,” in earnest. This book rightfully belongs on the same shelf next to where you keep your copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
No matter how much religion you believe, no matter how securely you hold to the fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, no matter how you uphold the rule of law in Western society, these values, in themselves, won’t protect you. [Read more…]
Letter To President Obama
An Open Letter To President Obama
By JEFFREY S. HOWARD Posted 08/19/2010 06:22 PM ET
In today’s dangerous world, we need a president with experience, leadership and courage. Unfortunately, you have shown us little of those traits. [Read more…]
Riptones
Solutions for America
after the “O”
We’re told one reason Obama’s popularity is falling in various polls is because the hard left have lost faith in him. The next leftist to take up the mantle of saving the republic from the scourge of individual liberty will learn from Obama’s defection from the left’s vision. That ideologue will capture the hearts of the hard left and also collect the drifting center independents in the deal. When they all fall in line behind the next strong man we will have our American dictator.
primary questions
It’s fascinating how the national post-primary spin has morphed Buck into an upstart outsider candidate (the one supported by millions of Washington PAC money) and Norton is now the old guard candidate (who petitioned on to the ballot because the old guard caucus system wouldn’t support her.)
And it’s fascinating that Tancredo (defender of closing American borders to illegal immigrants) got into his race by issuing an ultimatum to Maes and McInnis to withdraw, and now Maes has issued orders to Tancredo to withdraw. Who will blink first in the Tancredo vs. Maes Mexican standoff? (And does Tom even do Mexican standoffs?)
If the Republican Party leadership concludes that Maes can’t beat Hickenlooper, could they get Maes to stand down (unlikely), and would they dine on some chewy crow and nominate Norton (unlikely) ?
8/8/10 – 8/9/10
October Surprise 2010
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, 08 July 2010
In London last week, I had dinner with an old friend, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, one of the world’s most well-known journalists who currently writes the financial news column for the Daily Telegraph.
A few days later (7/04), Ambrose unloaded a column that made a headline on Drudge, that the US is headed for a repeat of the 1932 Great Depression.
Here’s the question to make sense of this: Did the Great Depression result in an expansion of economic freedom or an expansion of government control?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. The Great Depression ushered in a sea-change shift away from individual liberty to massive unconstitutional government interference in American lives. It also launched the Democrats’ monopoly control of political power in Congress, most specifically in the House where all the money is initially spent, that lasted sixty-two years, from 1932 to 1994.
We are now on the verge of a Second Great Depression. As the apparatchiks in the Kremlin of the Soviet Union would say when confronted with a curious convergence of events, “This is no accident, Comrades.” [Read more…]