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 1:22pm

As 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 80013

THANK 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

THIS IS NO ACCIDENT, COMRADES

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.” (more…)

Why worry about consequences to little brown freedom-loving people on the other side of the world when there’s always Bush to blame?  And how can a few million casualties possibly matter while there’s a battle for utopia on the line?

Investors Business Daily, Friday 7/23, pg. A12.

Colorado leftists are freakin’ out as the election comes into focus and they’ve realized that no one takes them and their ridiculous policies seriously anymore.  Two years ago their socialist agenda had the benefit of obscurity–significant time had passed since their socialist ideas were last tried and failed, so they could appear fresh, new, even imaginative.  Ha!  Well, that’s over and we all get to experience the socialist failure in real time now.  Everyone sees all the new public spending built on debt, all the new equipment for police and fire, plenty of federal money for schools, yet the private sector remains under siege, small businesses can’t afford to hire, and people are still losing jobs and homes.

So, the bloom is off the Obama rose for all those useful idiots who believed the socialist fiction two years ago.  And just wait till those 39 million uninsured voters who already don’t pay any federal income tax wake up next year to discover they owe $900 to the feds because they haven’t secured a health insurance policy.  Ooh they’re going to be pissed to discover they’ve been turned into criminals.  Of course, even though not a single Republican voted for Obamacare, they’ll still find some way to blame Republicans for their predicament.

I mean, leftism is a belief system that suspends causation and the rules of sound logic, so, under that umbrella, reality and history don’t stand a chance.

TIMES SQUARE ATTACK RESPONSE:  NONE DARE CALL IT THINKING

On May 1, 2010, when news of the Times Square terrorist attack first broke, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, on national television, as to who might have done it, “If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who’s homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something . . . .”  Bloomberg was not alone.  U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that there was no evidence that the attack was “anything other than a one-off,” a British expression for “one of a kind.”  At least the country was spared President Obama telling Americans that they should not “jump to conclusions,” as he did after the Fort Hood Massacre when the media reported that “Major Hasan . . . killed 13 and left 31 injured after he jumped on to a desk screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ - God is Great - and fired on defenseless colleagues.” (more…)

(more…)

The veiled threats against the Comedy Central show’s creators should be taken very seriously. Islamists seek to replace the rule of law with that of commanding right and forbidding wrong.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

‘South Park” is hilarious, right? Not any more.

Last week, Zachary Adam Chesser—a 20-year-old Muslim convert who now goes by the name Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee—posted a warning on the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of the show on Comedy Central. The episode, which trotted out many celebrities the show has previously satirized, also “featured” the Prophet Muhammad: He was heard once from within a U-Haul truck and a second time from inside a bear costume.

For this apparent blasphemy, Mr. Amrikee warned that co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone “will probably end up” like Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh, readers will remember, was the Dutch filmmaker who was brutally murdered in 2004 on the streets of Amsterdam. He was killed for producing “Submission,” a film that criticized the subordinate role of women in Islam, with me.

There has been some debate about whether Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker should view the Web posting as a direct threat. Here’s Mr. Amrikee’s perspective: “It’s not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome,” he told Foxnews.com. “They’re going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It’s just the reality.” He’s also published the home and office addresses of Messrs. Stone and Parker, as well as images of Van Gogh’s body.

According to First Amendment experts, technically speaking this posting does not constitute a threat. And general opinion seems to be that even if this posting was intended as a threat, Mr. Amrikee and his ilk are merely fringe extremists who are disgruntled with U.S. foreign policy; their “outrage” merits little attention.

This raises the question: How much harm can an Islamist fringe group do in a free society? The answer is a lot.

Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim first thought to have been a minor character in radical circles, killed Theo van Gogh. Only during the investigation did it emerge that he was the ringleader of the Hofstad Group, a terrorist organization that was being monitored by the Dutch Secret Service.

The story was very similar in the case of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons, drawn by Kurt Westergaard, were published in September 2005 to little notice but exploded five months later into an international drama complete with riots and flag-burnings. The man behind this campaign of outrage was an Egyptian-born radical imam named Ahmed Abu-Laban.

Prior to this conflagration, Mr. Abu-Laban was seen as a marginal figure. Yet his campaign ended up costing Denmark businesses an estimated $170 million in the spring of 2006. And this doesn’t include the cost of rebuilding destroyed property and protecting the cartoonists.

So how worried should the creators of “South Park” be about the “marginal figures” who now threaten them? Very. In essence, Mr. Amrikee’s posting is an informal fatwa. Here’s how it works:

There is a basic principle in Islamic scripture—unknown to most not-so-observant Muslims and most non-Muslims—called “commanding right and forbidding wrong.” It obligates Muslim males to police behavior seen to be wrong and personally deal out the appropriate punishment as stated in scripture. In its mildest form, devout people give friendly advice to abstain from wrongdoing. Less mild is the practice whereby Afghan men feel empowered to beat women who are not veiled.

By publicizing the supposed sins of Messrs. Stone and Parker, Mr. Amrikee undoubtedly believes he is fulfilling his duty to command right and forbid wrong. His message is not just an opinion. It will appeal to like-minded individuals who, even though they are a minority, are a large and random enough group to carry out the divine punishment. The best illustration of this was demonstrated by the Somali man who broke into Mr. Westergaard’s home in January carrying an axe and a knife.

Any Muslim, male or female, who knows about the “offense” may decide to perform the duty of killing those who insult the prophet. So what can be done to help Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone?

The first step is for them to consult with experts on how to stay safe. Even though living with protection, as I do now in Washington, D.C., curtails some of your freedom, it is better than risking the worst.

Much depends on how far the U.S. government is prepared to contribute to their protection. According to the Danish government, protecting Mr. Westergaard costs the taxpayers $3.9 million, excluding technical operating equipment. That’s a tall order at a time of intense fiscal pressure.

One way of reducing the cost is to organize a solidarity campaign. The entertainment business, especially Hollywood, is one of the wealthiest and most powerful industries in the world. Following the example of Jon Stewart, who used the first segment of his April 22 show to defend “South Park,” producers, actors, writers, musicians and other entertainers could lead such an effort.

Another idea is to do stories of Muhammad where his image is shown as much as possible. These stories do not have to be negative or insulting, they just need to spread the risk. The aim is to confront hypersensitive Muslims with more targets than they can possibly contend with.

Another important advantage of such a campaign is to accustom Muslims to the kind of treatment that the followers of other religions have long been used to. After the “South Park” episode in question there was no threatening response from Buddhists, Christians and Jews—to say nothing of Tom Cruise and Barbra Streisand fans—all of whom had far more reason to be offended than Muslims.

Islamists seek to replace the rule of law with that of commanding right and forbidding wrong. With over a billion and a half people calling Muhammad their moral guide, it is imperative that we examine the consequences of his guidance, starting with the notion that those who depict his image or criticize his teachings should be punished.

In “South Park,” this tyrannical rule is cleverly needled when Tom Cruise asks the question: How come Muhammad is the only celebrity protected from ridicule? Now we know why.

Shariah Law Presentation

What Non-Muslims Need To Know

Beth Shelly reports today,

PAGE 2A - WEST ELBERT COUNTY SUN - THURSDAY FEBRUARY 11.2010
“Early this morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” there was a discussion about our freedoms and who they are set aside for, particularly the 14th Amendment, which defines citizenship and keeps our civil and political rights from being abridged or denied.

The Nation’s Chris Hayes . was speaking on the rights of suspected terrorists, particularly the issues of indefinite detention and whether should they be “Mirandized” or not. He stressed the point that the U.S. Constitution’s protection of legal rights not only applies to legal citizens, but, unpopular as that is today, it also applies to terrorist suspects, much as it does to illegal immigrants who are arrested on American soils.

But in the Bush administration, in the name of public safety, those legal rights were curtailed for certain terrorist suspects. A Feb. 9 editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled “Cheney’s Revenge” asserts that despite efforts little has been done by the Obama administration to move away ` from that stance. The editorial cites the President’s desired closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities and his administration’s backing down of trying 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other enemy combatants in civilian court.

In response, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said, “I know Bush did it, but that doesn’t make it right,” adding it is something we are still “muddling through.” Meanwhile,  Mort Zukerman of U.S. New & World Report counters, saying the Supreme Court allows for different rules to apply than what exist for U.S. citizens.
Forty years ago it was civil rights. Today it is the rights of terrorist suspects.

An ongoing  process, to be sure, on how to apply our legal protections. But it began more than 230 years ago with our first president and changed significantly with , the election of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War.

Understanding the “muddling” and shifting public opinion that occurs over time, it is the basic concept of democracy and freedom that we celebrate with Presidents’ Day. Hope you all get a chance to sit back and reflect on it this weekend.”

Well , it won’t take a weekend to reflect on this. First, the 14th Amendment, “Citizenship Rights.”

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Was the Christmas day bomber born or naturalized in the U.S.?  Was KSM?  No.  They’re not citizens of the U.S.  Where do the Nation’s Chris Hayes and reporter Beth Shelly come up with the notion that 14th Am. protections were intended to apply to non-citizens?  Certainly not in the text of the Constitution so amended.

The government’s legal authority to deal with non-citizen terrorists comes in the body of the Constitution under Article 1, Section 8, “Powers of Congress.”

“The Congress shall have Power ….
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War … and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To …. repel Invasions;
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

Article 1, Section 9, “Limits on Congress” also applies.

“The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

Fruit of Kaboom and KSM are invading members of a multi-state Islamic religious sect who have declared war on the United States.  The 14th Amendment body of law protects individual citizen rights against the government.  It doesn’t protect members of invading armies who are in a fight to destroy the government.  Yet the left would have us buy into this absurdity in order to create a public political forum for attacking conservative politicians.  They would subvert the Constitution–that protects them too–to score political points in the modern media-charged democratic process.    

Enjoy your weekend.

Of course, it is not fair to compare our current American democratic leaders with the Bolsheviks.Yes, they both use the same slogans in their speeches.

Yes, they both stir up envy and class warfare to distract from their failures.

Yes, both political movements sought control of the banks as the foundation for their new egalitarian vision.

And yes, they are both opposed to free speech, as was made clear by the reaction of American leftists to the recent Supreme Court decision.

But you would never find a Czar anywhere in the Soviet government.

By SVETLANA KUNIN

Perspectives Of A Soviet Immigrant (No. 6)

Op-Ed: Papuans and Zulus by Saul Bellow

Despots do not accept the autonomy of the literary imagination. Freedom of the imagination, dangerous to them, is related to the independence of the soul. This independence is not peculiar to artists, it is common to all human beings.
….

In the U.S., we were protected in the past by a sense of humor. In the days of Mark Twain, of Mr. Dooley and H. L. Mencken, we were still able to kid ourselves. Mencken’s wicked jokes on Boobus Americanus — his term for the average man — had a salutary influence on the discussion of public questions and on public behavior. Sometimes crude, openly prejudiced but often very funny, he banged away at the professors, the politicians and the Jim Crow South. But fanatics and demagogues had far less influence in those pre-sensitive days. Child gangsters did not then kill the kids who “dissed” them.

Righteousness and rage threaten the independence of our souls.

Rage is now brilliantly prestigious. Rage, the reverse of bourgeois prudence, is a luxury. Rage is distinguished, it is a patrician passion. The rage of rappers and rioters takes as its premise the majority’s admission of guilt for past and present injustices, and counts on the admiration of the repressed for the emotional power of the uninhibited and “justly” angry. Rage can also be manipulative; it can be an instrument of censorship and despotism.

As a onetime anthropologist, I know a taboo when I see one. Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo.

We can’t open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists.

As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated.

Saul Bellow, professor of literature at Boston University, won the Nobel Prize in 1976.

David Kupelian, The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell us Corruption Disguised as Freedom, Nashville, 2005. p. 183.