Despare And Hope

I caught this video on the tube this afternoon and it sent a shiver down my spine.



While cruising by the Rott this evening, I caught this and I got some stiffness back.



Vote! They haven't destroyed us yet.

Houston Gives Pelousy A Big Welcome

Last Friday, my states contribution to the downfall of the U.S., Nancy Pelosi visited Houston, Texas to deliver a speech to the Progressive Forum on health care, the war in Afghanistan, energy -- and her autobiography (and puff up her war chest...and betcha she used her gov't funded jet to get there).

The good news was there was some patriotic dissent there to let her know that there is a reason her poll numbers suck.



If only my fellow Californians could get this worked up about her idiocy and vote her butt out.

Election Day And So Much More

Note: I started writing this prior to the election. When you get to the line, that is the day after the election.


Today we're voting for a new President.

There are so many things I could say to try to sway you to my side of the argument that would just be political. I now have something that is much more important to me.

My son, Chris, enlisted in the Army yesterday.



He just turned 20, he's an adult, and he has the right to decide what to do with his life. Since he was 10 he has been interested in the military. I had taken him to Air Shows since he was 2, but from when he was old enough to understand, I never said that that military was the only way to go.

In High School, he went through JROTC, and he (now tells me) planned on going in right after graduation, but he was "in love" with a (smart, good, parent approved) girl, and she didn't want him to go away. So he didn't.

With only a HS education and not knowing what he wanted to do, he got a crap job and as a floor stocker then cashier at a local department store. They managed to always schedule him for 38 1/2 hours a week, so no benefits. They kept dumping more responsibility on him with no compensation until he said enough is enough.

He quit, and while I don't believe in leaving a job without somewhere else to go, I understood. He spent the next 9 months looking for jobs. He basically lived off what he had saved for everything outside of room and board, but the responses he started getting lately was that "No hiring until February and even then, they may lay people off". Just the prospect of a Obambi election was killing expansion.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm doubly afraid today.

I now live in a country who's people have decided that they want the gov't to make all those hard decisions for them. The fact that, like all gov't programs, that we will only get .30 return on the dollar (if lucky), well, don't bother them with the details, it'll be "free".

My son is going into the military. I'm am still very proud of his choice, but now I fear for him. Obambi is going to gut the military budget, yet...I'm willing to bet...commit them to "blue helmet" conflicts with no set ROE or real goal. I just wonder, is he going to throw us into the middle of Darfur with the rule of "don't hurt anyone"...or maybe "help out" in the stability of Kenya, by shoring up Obambi's family ties there?

And the left kept telling us that overthrowing a dictator that killed an average of 2,000 people a day, every day for twenty years, wasn't justified. Want to know what real torture is like, go here. (WARNING: GRAPHIC)

Vote Early!!!

Obambi is not a good closer. At first I was wondering why there was such a big push from his campaign to vote early!!! Get your vote in now!!! Don't wait!!!

As was shown in the primaries, Teh One almost let Hillary pull it out at the end. It's happening again. Obambi was up 16 points last week and now with just 5 days left, McVain has closed to about 2 points (within the margin of error).

There are quite a few things that could have caused this.

The shackles being taken of Sarah Palin and letting her do what the VP nominee is suppose to do, challenge the other side.

Maybe "Joe the Plumber" struck a chord with some younger people just starting out and do not appreciate the message of "If you make too much more than everyone else, WE will take that "extra" money and give it to someone who didn't feel like working as hard as you...and where that line of "too much" is is in doubt. It seems to get lower as time moves on, 250K, 200K, 150k...where's it going to settle?

I've heard that these numbers have been out there all the time, they just didn't specify which particular tax classification they were using. These are the guys who we expect to state our goals to other countries. There can be no doubt about what you're saying when dealing with foreign countries. Obambi can't count on the press digging them out or hiding what they said in those circumstances, and he's got to keep in mind, his VP would be "Mr. Gafftastic".

Personally, I beleive that the earlier polls were completely made up (i.e. weighted on bad data), the MSM held out as long as they could with polls shifted to the Dems, to discourage the Right, that they will look like complete idiots if the vote runs closer to where it stands now. If they stuck with the 16 point lead for Teh One up to Monday, and the popular vote ends up 46/48 either way, any believability in fairness would be proven even to the densest among us.

The votes that went in early missed all the info that comes out in the last week. A lot of it is BS, but some of it is when the candidates slip and say what they didn't want to let out yet. I have to wonder about those who voted weeks ago wish they could have that vote back?

ACORNholed

How ACORN keeps getting grants to register voters is beyond me. Every election they have been involved in they have been charged with filing false registrations, 1,000's of them. This time, no difference. They are under investigation in 15 states, all of them a battleground state that will probably decided which way the election tips.

Every year it's the same excuse of it's just a "few" bad apples and they, themselves point out some of the shady looking ones. I don't buy it any more, and this year more than any other. They point out enough to look like they're policing themselves, but while they get the county boards of election looking here at a few dozen "questionable" registrations, they shove through 100's over there.

It looks like a scheme to just overwhelm the system during the last few weeks and that there is no way for the states to comply. If(?)the investigations continue past November and it's found out that 1000's of people voted twice or voted that shouldn't have and the final race is close, how legitimate can the elections be?

I fear the next month because of this and a topic that my friend Blackiswhite is covering on his blog. Berg v. Obama Update.

These two things alone could lead to a Constitutional crisis that has never been experienced before.

Housecleaning

Just goofing today.

Did some housecleaning on this site. Had some things that were driving me crazy, so I figured out how to fix them. Nothing anyone is going notice but me, but every time I ran into these little glitches I'd just get a little angrier about not catching them before it got stuck in here.

I wanted to customize my header with a Pic...Text...Pic, but it got to complicated for me to work on today.

I've added a poll to the sidebar. I'll update when I feel like it.

Four and a half weeks until the damn election. I know how I want to vote, I could just go absentee, but that wouldn't shut up the talking heads on TV. I can't get away from it.

I have listened to the debates and will try to catch the last two, but that will be just to see if either of our esteemed Presidential nominees manages to screw up bad enough to flush his chance (I can hope can't I...leave me something to live for!).

I'm wondering that if McCain loses, if Palin will be around in 2012. A combo of Palin and Jindal might not be a bad ticket. Even if McCain wins Palin/Jindal '12 wouldn't be bad.



Future President of the United States.

F*ck Yeah!!!

(Sorry I caught part of Team America last night.)

Why I'm So Damn Sick of the Elections

The primaries ran what? About 3 years? If it was a strategy to make the populace just bore and sick of the whole thing, it seems to have worked with me.

I decided how I was going to vote at the end of the conventions, and now I just wish we could cast our vote and get the thing over with.

For the last couple of days I have been listening to the Dhimicrats gloat over how bad the economy is and how we can't afford 4 more years of the policies that got us into this shit.

They just forget to mention the facts behind the collapse of Bear Sterns and the collapse and bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG.

What was the Bush policy on Fannie and Freddie? (From the NY Times Sept. 11, 2003)

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

Whoa!!! We can't have that! Imagine the nerve of trying to rein in a runaway train 5 years before it hits the wall. Surely the Dhimicrats foresaw the problem also.

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

Either they really didn't see it coming, or they were just using their usual playbook and giving "free" money to people to win the next election. Whichever it was, can we afford four years of a continuation of this type of planning and policy?

It goes back way further, back to our old buddy Clinton. (from IBD)

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but “predatory.”

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the ’90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.

The Demorats set it up in the '90's and when Bush tried to correct it, they told Bush he was racist, denying affordable housing to the poor and minorities. Now that their homes are foreclosed and their credit is fubar, I bet they'd really thank their protectors on the left side of the aisle, not to mention how trilled I am to pay part of the mortgage they never should have had in the first place.

When they raise my taxes to pay this fiasco off, there is a good chance I may not be able to meet my obligations, so the situation won't be getting better. It'll most likely get worse being we're already committed to the bailouts.

On top of this, WTF is the gov't doing pledging to cover housing for a month for the people of Texas that were displaced by the hurricane? Since I was born, I've heard the rest of the U.S. bitch at me about if I live in an earthquake zone and get hit, I deserve the grief. We get a quake that does damage about every 10 years. You asshats that live in hurricane and tornado country get nailed how many time EVERY year? And then go right back into the same place and rebuild, but don't worry, we'll bail you out again next year.

World...Hell...Hand basket. I think it's already been assembled.

But I'm Tired.

(With due respects to George Thorogood.)

Just been occupied for the last week. Nothing big, just stuff I didn't really want to deal with, but it was just better to dive in and get it over with. Such is life.

The week has been news worthy.

Kalifornia's Supreme Court decided that no matter what the people want the law to be, they know better and found a loophole to make same-sex marriages legal. I'm fine with civil unions and am in favor of the Church's being remove from the legal side of it altogether. Have a State recognition of the pairing for the gov't, then if one choses, to have the union blesses by God at the Church of their choice, have a separate Church service. This way the Church is not refusing to uphold state law by denying gays a service that their beliefs say cannot be sanctioned.

There was a major donnybrook over at the Rott (that I missed most of) regarding whether you were a better Republican by voting or not voting for McVain in November. It got to where each side accusing the other of being communist and the dreaded RINO slur was used widely.

The Emperor had to step in and swing his mighty clue bat scepter and remind everyone that we are all working towards the same end, we just differ as to which way to get there.

I got my voter pamphlet early this week for the June elections. It's just for a few County/City things and judges...lots of judges. It reminded me that up until this year, Kalifornia had no say in the Presidential nominee (maybe this was a good thing), however, even though the Primaries were moved up 3 months, I still wasn't given a choice. I voted for Romney, but he had, in reality, already ceded the race. So much for my (somewhat populous) state getting a say after a few dinky states get theirs.

On top of that, I'm voting in March (primaries), June (local) and again in November (General). That's three elections in 9 months. I really try to take my vote serious and make an informed choice, but damn, this is too much. I've just taken a breath from the current election and the choices for the next are sitting in my mailbox when I get home. That our representatives refuse to make a decision and let it drop down to a referendum, just pisses me off!! What the hell did we elect those people to do.

It usually works out that the State Supreme Court rules that someone forgot/or put an extra semicolon in the wording of the bill, so it's "unconstitutional", so we get to start all over again and nothing happens to correct the problem.

Teddy "the Swimmer" Kennedy had couple of seizures today. Politically and morally, I loathe the man, but I cannot wish death on anyone, unless they are actively trying to kill me. He may be trying to enslave me, but he is only a threat to my and my kid's future living standard, and I'm sure with his Hawvard education and somewhere between $43-162 million, he knows what is best for the little people like me. Although the work he has ever done is to try to keep his or some family members ass out of jail or the scandal sheets.

Well I think that little rant made up for the last week, so in closing I'll include the song referenced at the top.

But I'm tired. :lol:



We saw Thorogood and the Destroyers at Dodger Stadium at a "Rock the Stadium" after game event and my kid, who was about 10 at the time, was bouncing around so much, we thought he would fall out out the cheap seats we were in and be dancing in front of the stage.

It's Friday!!

I know it's really Thursday. I'm not that tired, but it is my Friday. I'm off work until next Tuesday at 1:00 PM. I didn't get a heck of a lot of sleep yesterday (my own fault), but work was fairly quiet, so I'll probably just relax and nap today and try to skew my sleep cycle back to nighttime.

What I saw last night:

No paper trail on Obama: Judicial Watch
Via HotAir

The president of a prominent watchdog group said Wednesday that he believes Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “intended to leave no paper trail” during his time in the Illinois Senate. …

In a statement, Fitton noted that his group has sought access to Obama’s records as a state senator and questioned whether the presidential candidate has been forthcoming with regard to what happened to those documents.

However, he said that “nobody knows where they are, if they exist at all” and claimed that “Obama’s story keeps changing.”

Isn't that just grand? I'm split on whether the records are missingdestroyed, or this man running for POTUS didn't do a damn thing during his 8 years in the Illinois Senate. Either way, it ain't pretty.
______________________________

Hot Air TV: Mattera stumps Winter Soldier II tale-tellers

Did he really expect these guys to swear that the tales they're telling are true. Of course not, but it was fun watching them squirm a bit.
______________________________________

Pennsylvania's Superdelegates Measure Clinton, Obama (Update1)

While the New York senator is leading in polls, some undecided superdelegates -- elected officials who get an automatic vote on the party presidential nomination regardless of the primary's outcome -- say they are concerned that her nomination would motivate greater numbers of Republicans to turn out in November to vote against her, and other Democrats too.

Damned if they do....This is getting to be just to much fun. It seems like every day the Dems come to a fork in the road and neither choice is going to get them to where they want to go.
________________________________

This ties in with the above:

Sen. Nelson Wants To Revamp Voting, Scrap Electoral College

Nelson plans to be in Tallahassee this morning to deliver an address from the state Senate floor to propose a major election process overhaul - including the politically improbable notion of dumping the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote.

"The time for reform is now," Nelson said in an advance copy of the Democratic senator's speech sent out by his staff Wednesday.

We've seen what a fine job the Dems have done with their Primaries, so lets allow them to rewrite the Constitution and we can have this much chaos going on right up to the inauguration.

Nelson, whose own state has been in the center of a series of recent election controversies, has called for electoral changes before.

Now, the senior Florida senator is seizing on the latest controversy - the battle over Florida's Democratic delegates - to renew that effort..

The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its delegates to the party's nominating convention because the state moved its primary to Jan. 29, when party rules held that only four other states could hold their contests before Feb. 5.

Now I've heard that Florida is a Republican controlled state and it's the evil GOP that forced the DNC to not recognize the results....but:

From Wikipedia

In May 2007, the Florida Legislature passed House Bill 537, in response to public support for Florida to return to a "paper trail" for elections. During the legislative process, a number of amendments were added, one of which moved the date of the state's primary to January 29, 2008, setting up a confrontation with the DNC.[54] The vote passed with bipartisan support: 118 to 0 in the House, 37 to 2 in the Senate.

[emp-mine]

Sounds like there weren't to many Dems thinking about rules they knew about (passed only 2 years prior) or like typical Libs, they figured that that was what they wanted to do and they could get away with it...because that's what we want.

Effin' children.

Up until this year when we moved our Primary up from November to February (inside the rules)I was always pissed me off that the state with the largest population had no say in our parties candidate. That even then I had to go for my second choice, and lose, was a disappointment, but that's life. That only 20% of the people bothered to vote shouldn't bother me, but maybe that's the number of legal citizens left here.

"In December, I lost that court fight," Nelson said in the early version of his speech. "But I have continued to push for my party to find a way to seat a delegation from Florida, while giving Floridians a meaningful voice in the selection of their party's nominee."

Nelson said."If nothing else, this election has provided further evidence that our system is broken,"

As a result, Nelson is expected to spell out details of a "broader-based" election-reform package that he plans to introduce.

[emp-mine]

Sippy Cup banging of the highest order. "I want!, I want!!, I waaaant!!!!"
And because you went against known rules, you are now ready to throw them all out and make sure they get rewritten in the way you require...until the next time you want to change them.

By far, the most controversial among the list of reforms could be Nelson's call for a resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and allow direct election of a president by popular vote.

"If the principle of one-person, one-vote is to mean anything, the candidate who wins a majority of the votes should win the presidency," Nelson said in his prepared speech. "This country cannot afford to wait that long, before we fix the flaws we still see in our election system."

I'm in the process of reading "The Heritage Guide To the Constitution" right now, but I'm only up to "Qualifications for the Senate" (pg 65) and will have to skip ahead to "Electoral College" (pg 186) to really understand how this mechanism works. I did skim over, the related "Electors for the District of Columbia" (pg 426) which only covers giving D.C. representation just to make sure, but for over 200 years this system seems to have worked overall, and from my experience, anytime Congress tries to improve something, it gets worse.

Even if this amendment gets though Congress, I can't see 3/4 of the states ratifying it, it would put to much power in the large population states.

I do have some funny stuff, but I think I'll post it later.

The S. Carolina Primary

Gotta love it.

Obama 55%

Clinton 27%

Oh yeah, that other guy 18%

Bet there were some ashtrays flying around Shillary's HQ last night and Bill's hied is butt down to Floriduh pronto to do some campaigning fund raising and get out of range.

Bill's contribution to the The Great Cankled Ones ® race has backfired on them time and again. Not only has his hits on Obama been seen as what they are, racist, but he comes out diminished. He is an ex-president and suppose to be an elder statesman and only tangentially involved in the election. For him to come out and heap glowing praise on his wife would be understandable, but for him to be the attack dog, dropping little innuendos, not to mention outright lies about their opponent makes him look like the political hack I've known him to be since he took office.

That the PC crap has jumped up and bit the Dems in the butt is giving me unfathomable pleasure. If Shillery attacks Obama, it's racist, if Obama attacks Shillery, he's picking on a girl. Mwahahah!!!

The Clintoon camp is scared. They're scrambling for any delegate they can get, hence: Clintons try to change delegate rules; lefties outraged.
Via Michelle Malkin

Having “won” a considerable number of delegates solely because no one else contested the races, all of a sudden she is struck by the manifest unfairness of not seating the delegates — and just in time for a) a bounce in the Florida poll for sticking up for them, and b) Obama to have no chance to contest the Florida race!

Not to mention, but I will: Is the right right on the Clintons?
From the L.A. Slimes

But the conservatives might have had a point about the Clintons' character. Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky jeopardized the whole progressive project for momentary pleasure. The Clintons gleefully triangulated the Democrats in Congress to boost his approval rating. They do seem to have a feeling of entitlement to power.

[emphasis mine]


This could be fun going into Super Tuesday.
Are the two camps gooing to play nice, or pull out the knives?

Is Fred Dead?

Most likely.

It all seems to have gone so wrong at every step. I understood his waiting to announce, but then he did...and nothing. It was around a month later that anything about his campaign started to leak out, even I was starting to wonder if he was really running.

I knew his positions and was ready to jump on, but word never got out. Combination of him not pushing hard enough at the git go, the MSM ignoring him...both...we'll never know.

He would make a great Veep, the guy that can go out as the surrogate for the President and state clearly what our positions are and I believe whoever he was giving the message to would believe what he was being told.

However, word is he's not interested in being VP.

He may run for Governor of Tennessee in 2010. Their gain, our loss.

Depending on how the outlook here in Kalifornia shapes up over the next 10 days for the GOP, if someone I can live with has a huge lead, I may still vote for Fred (he's on the ballot) just to point out my disappointment with the ones left in the race.

If it's close between Romney and McCain, I'll vote Romney. If either of them have a certifiably safe margin, I'll stick in my protest vote.

If McCain could convince Thompson to be VP, I think I could vote for that, it would be a sign that McCain has a clue, and I have my doubts that McCain could physically run for a second term and if things started to get back in order, we could have another 8 years with Fred.

But I dream.

Open Primaries

This is why I am vehemently opposed to Open Primaries:

Kos advocates election mischief in Michigan
By Michelle Malkin • January 11, 2008 12:08 PM

Markos Moulitsas, mainstream Newsweek columnist, tells his minions at the Daily Kos to muck up the Michigan primary: “Let’s have some fun in Michigan.”

...we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us. We want Mitt to stay in the race, and to do that, we need him to win in Michigan.

They tried to foist Open Primaries on the people her in Kalifornia back in '96. Thankfully the U.S. Supreme Court shot it down because it violated a political party's First Amendment right of association.

We're still stuck with a "Modified Closed Primary System" where if you are registered as unaffiliated ("decline to state") you can request a party ballot, otherwise you get a nonpartisan ballot, containing only the names of all candidates for nonpartisan offices and measures to be voted upon at the primary election.

Living on the LEFT coast, I saw nothing but disaster with an Open Primary. The Dems have to much of a lock here, so for them to cross over and vote for the worst Republican candidate wouldn't be to much of a gamble. All they do is dilute my vote.

If you want to vote for a Republican candidate, re-register, it isn't hard. If you like someone so much to vote against your party, maybe you're in the wrong party.

Fred

If you've been a regular to my site (Haahaahaaha, OK, I'm over it now), you'll notice a new thing on the right sidebar, "Endorsements". I'm going with Fred Thompson for the next election.

He is a true Federalist..if the constitution doesn't specifically mention it, it's not the Fed's job, it's up to the individual States. If enough States decide it should be Federal law, pass an amendment.

I've heard all the lame crap about he's lazy, he's just an actor, etc.

From The Globe and Mail:

THE PRESIDENT of the United States from 2008 to 2012 will be one of the following three people: Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney.

It’s rather early in the election season for such pointed speculation. But a look at the situation reveals that the prediction is not all that chancy.

It is now almost certain that Mrs. Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee. Fred Thompson is the most likely choice for the Republican nomination, but he could not beat Hillary Clinton in the fall.

Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Romney are the only two Republicans with a shot at the nomination who could defeat Hillary Clinton.

Republican candidate Sam Brownback, a dark horse, said the other day that if the Republicans nominate Mr. Thompson it’s political suicide. He’s right. Most polls show that, going head-to-head against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Thompson would lose by 2-1. The former Tennessee Senator would be the Barry Goldwater of 2008. He is too right-wing to appeal to enough moderates to win and he is too prone to incredible gaffes.

I've heard it before and I hope history repeats itself.

HT: Emperor Misha I @ The Rott

I Now Have Something To Look Forward To In The Elections

Cindy Sheehan has announced her bid to run against Pelosi in the upcoming elections.

Cindy Sheehan Targets Pelosi, Impeachment via NewsMax.

I can't wait to hear the idiotic respond to the insane. The level of discourse in these debates should cause peoples heads to explode. Pelosi thinks that she'll just be able to ignore Saint Cindy of the Ditch, but I don't think the LameStreamMedia will allow it. Pelosi is to secure in her seat, so the only thing worth covering will be to see how much Cindy can get under her skin.