In the words of Public Enemy, “Don’t Believe the Hype!” No matter what various pundits try to tell you about this race, don’t fall for it. As much as Sarah Palin wants to be the conservative kingmaker (talk about believing your own hype!) on the one hand, or Ann Coulter going from rock ribbed conservative to mushy moderate on the other, the prevailing narrative about the GOP nomination race isn’t true.

As much as some would like to convince you that this election cycle is about the “war” between the conservative base of the Party exemplified by the TEA Party movement and the GOP establishment, it really isn’t. To be that you would have to have a truly staunch conservative pitted against one of the GOP elite, and you simply don’t have that.

What we do have is this: two moderates trying their damnedest to convince the GOP primary/caucus electorate that they are the “true”, “Reaganite” conservative in this race.

However, when you look at the two leading candidates, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, what you are really looking at are two men whose mouths profess an abiding love for conservative principles, but whose records show an abundance of political moderation.

Take Newt, please (insert rim shot here)! Now, there is no arguing that much of what Newt did in leading the GOP to a historic victory in the Congressional elections of 1994 was based on solidly conservative ideas and ideals, the truth is that Newt was never that much of a champion of his own Contract With America. He duly got nearly every issue he ran on to the floor for a vote, but when those measures were defeated, Newt abandoned them like one of his wives. Then, when his GOP brothers got tired of his Emperor Newt 1 act and forced him out of power, his true colors came shining through (h/t Cyndi Lauper). Since leaving the official employ of the people of Georgia, Newt has kept busy by singing the praises of RomneyCare at its passage; cheerleading use of individual mandates as a solution to the ‘free rider’ problem; sitting on couches virtually making out with Nancy Pelosi while telling us that AGW was real and had to be immediately addressed; and more recently extolling a very leftist point of view that federal judges, up to and including SCOTUS justices, should be subjected to Congressional hearings to justify the decisions they make in legal cases brought before them. And for good measure, he would also like to reserve to himself the right as POTUS to simply ignore any ruling that the SCOTUS makes that he takes issue with! Does any of that sound even remotely conservative to you? Yet this is the person that too many conservatives have placed the mantle of “true conservative” upon, as if he is the second coming of Ronald Reagan. I don’t care how much Sarah Palin, Nancy and Michael Reagan, or others try to convince me otherwise, I know that Newt isn’t an honest conservative. And giving John King a public tongue lashing, no matter how well deserved, doesn’t change that fact!

As for Mitt, we all know his history. When he was governor of the Bay State, he was as moderate as they come. He was for abortion. He was pro “gay rights”. And he was the ultimate statist, witness RomneyCare. It seems that the only time Mitt embraces conservatism is when he’s seeking office outside the state of Massachusetts. I mean, even when he was campaigning against Teddy Kennedy, the so-called “Liberal Lion”, this cat tried to get to the left of him! What kind of ‘conservative’ tries that trick!?!

And these are the guys we are supposed to believe represent the opposing sides of the internecine conservative versus moderate battle within the GOP?

Give me a freaking break!

What we really have in these two is a Massachusetts Republican, i.e. Scott Brown versus a former lobbyist…err…historian…for Fannie and Freddie. The ultimate Beltway insider in Newt versus Mr. Country Clubber in Mitt, and we’re supposed to believe that one of them is a real conservative.

How stupid do they think we are people?

At base, we’re looking at two sides of the same opportunistic coin, only one comes with much less baggage than the other. And one manages to almost seem sincere when he calls himself a conservative.

But both of them are way less than the conservative ideal, and the GOP establishment would be at peace with either one of them.

So don’t believe that hype.

 What are we conservatives to do in this election? It seems that barring some unlikely occurrence, like a Bobby Jindal jumping into the race, or a dramatic victory…or close second…by Rick Santorum in South Carolina Saturday night, we are going to be left with a choice between two unpalatable choices for the GOP nomination. Either Mitt Romney, scion of the Romney Clan, or Newt Gingrich, president of the He-Man-Ego Trippin’-SuperFreak club (membership of 1) will end up as standard bearer against Team Obamanation in the fall election. And that spells one thing for conservatives in the coming election.

Political doom.

Conservatives can cite chapter and verse about why the oh, so moderate Romney does not turn their political ignition switch. He has that record of doing whatever he can to win office in Massachusetts, even going so far as to try to get to the left of the deceased “Liberal Lion” Ted Kennedy. I mean, when you have stated that out in the open, it’s kinda hard to come back a few years later trying to convince conservatives that you’re one of them! Add into that the fact that you were all for an individual health care mandate, and refuse to back away from it even as you castigate President Obama for doing basically the same thing at the nation level, and conservatives are not exactly going to flock to your side (Ann Coulter notwithstanding).

As for Newt… Great God what can I say about Newt? Everyone knows he has an ego as big as all outside; I mean who but an egotist tells a guy that has finished above him on the two instances that actual voters had a chance to choose (Santorum) to step aside!?! And who besides an egotist asks his wife (allegedly) to allow him to continue his extramarital affair, with the attitude that the wife should willingly “share” her husband? And we don’t even have to get into his hair-brained political ideas like the aforementioned individual mandate, his embrace of AGW, and his recent idea that a President should just be able to ignore any SCOTUS ruling that doesn’t suit his political tastes or agendas. What, pray tell, is conservative about any of those positions? And this is the man who today is running around the Palmetto State declaring himself the conservative choice in the race.

Where are all the Tea Partiers at? Where they at? Because now is the time to make a stand toward taking the country back from Obama, and keeping it from falling into the hands of a plastic presidential action figure or a portly egomaniac. Rising up in 2010 only goes so far if you lie back down in 2012.

And if things don’t change in a hurry, were going to see something worse than even a President Romney would be; a return engagement by a lame duck radical President Obama.

At this point I am sick to death of hearing the refrain, “Remember Reagan’s 11^th Commandment: do not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” I am tired of it, because it is one of the stupidest things I have heard coming out of this Republican nomination campaign. I am sick of it because it makes no sense in this type of political context. And I am sick of it because it is being used by some as a shield to ward off any criticism of them by their opponents.

I am pretty sure that Ronald Reagan was smart enough to understand that when running in a primary against fellow Republicans, at some point you are going to have to go after them. I mean, this is the guy who managed to start the total implosion of the Soviet Union…so he should have been smart enough to recognize the realities of campaigning.

Now, I am not saying that what we should want is for our candidates to spend their time on the trail relentlessly attacking one another on a personal level. That would be foolish, as voters generally don’t take to that kind of thing. It makes the attacker look weak, since all he/she has to say is something personal about the other candidate, and not anything positive to say about themselves.

However, I see nothing at all wrong with candidates going after each other on policy, temperament, political history, or character issues, since all have a bearing on how one would likely govern. Anybody remember the famously flawed LBJ, the paranoid Nixon, or the horndog Clinton? Those things matter in choosing a candidate for the highest elective office in the world!

I mean, why shouldn’t Newt Gingrich call Mitt Romney a flip-flop artist in the same league as John Heinz-Kerry? It’s not like it isn’t true, now is it? Mitt has had more positions than a porn star in a double feature!

And why shouldn’t Rick Perry call Newt a Washington insider? Again, there’s nothing but truth there. Newt went from being Speaker of the House to influence peddler, basically lobbying for Fannie and Freddie in his time away from elective office. Is that not the definition of an insider, and an example of the government-lobbyist revolving door?

Likewise, why shouldn’t Michelle Bachmann state her concerns about Ron Paul’s foreign policy positions? In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with pointing out that a President Ron Paul would allow Israel to be wiped off the map and an American locale to be transformed into what Brian R once described as “A City of Glass” before he saw fit to challenge anyone who threatens us. I mean, last I heard from Mr. Paul, we should take a totally “hands-off” posture in Iran and allow them to become a nuclear armed exporter of terrorism in the hopes that they wouldn’t attack us. Or we should abandon our military bases around the world, because God knows no one would rush to fill the power vacuum an American retreat would cause!

Furthermore, it is the height of stupidity to act as though anyone running for POTUS should be having a love-in with his/her opponents. If you want to win an election, you had damned well better be able to differentiate yourself from the opposition and be trying to convince voters that you are the only choice for the job. I mean, how foolish is it to be in race and stand around singing the praises of your competitors? I mean, if Candidate A is so taken with Candidate B, why the heck should I vote for A?

So I say that during a primary, break the 11^th Commandment! If you believe that you are the best person for the job, say so. And if you think your opponent is a worthless hack, say that too. As the saying goes, all’s fair in love and politics!

Well, they’re at it again. It didn’t take long to happen, but it took longer that I figured it would. The Stupid Party is once again rearing its foolish head, and We the People are the only ones who can stop the return of the GOP Deathstar.

It seems that once again, in one of the most pivotal elections in the history of this Republic, the GOP is trying to force some milquetoast, warmed over, gator faced, bucket mouthed Republican down our throats. With a wealth of  conservatives to choose from, the GOP “brain trust” is busy trying to sell us on the moderate approach. It is as if they are the only people in the world that understands that conservatism wins and moderates are generally only moderately successful.

But if you listen to the “experts”, Herman Cain is too inexperienced; Michelle Bachman is too crazy, and Rick Santorum is a religious zealot bent on bringing back clothes hanger abortions in back alleys. So we must pick Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, or as an emergency candidate Newt Gingrich.

The only thing is, the base wants none of these people! We don’t want Obama’s ambassador to China carrying the GOP banner. I mean, it’s bad enough that Huntsman went to work for Obama, but if he’ll sell out the guy who made him a household name in diplomatic and political circles, what will he do to us?

We don’t want  the guy who flips and flops more than John Kerry (what is it with those Taxachusettts presidential hopefuls, anyway?) and whose signature legislative accomplishment was Romneycare----precursor to Obamneycare. And what is his lame @ss excuse? That since it was being tried at the state level that made it okay, but it should have never been tried at that national level! As if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts forcing its citizens to buy a product basically controlled by the government is any better an idea than doing it nationally. Only a statist schmuck would act like it was a good idea at any level for the government to attempt to run the lives of its citizens. But we’re supposed to pull an Ann Coulter, throw away our conservative principles, and jump on his bandwagon because he is…wait for it…wait for it…now!...electable! Is if anyone is better than the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at present. Well guess what, slapping some Brill Cream Dream in front of us, who holds some disturbingly close views as the Big egO just ain’t doing it for me!

And what else needs to be said about Newt? I can get over the multiple wives thing, since they weren’t all at once, but what I can’t get over is the complete sell-out of the conservative cause when he was Speaker of the House. I watch him in the debates, and he’s like Kaa in the Disney Jungle Book movie: if you look into his eyes long enough, he will hypnotize you, and soon after that he’ll be feeding his political ambitions (not to mention his huge ego) on your support.

We have got to rise up like we did in the 2010 midterm elections, and let these b@stards know that we aren’t gonna fall for the okey-doke. We  aren’t as stupid as the GOP obviously is, and thinks we are. We know a railroad job when we see one, and if we ain’t seeing one with Mitt Obamney, then there ain’t ever been a railroad job!

Stand up people, or we’ll be seeing Obmaney-Pawlenty 2012 stickers popping up, and in January 2013, we’ll also be seeing Obama-Whomever taking the oath of office. Our time is coming soon with the early primaries…we had better seize the day. Because if we don’t, God have mercy on our souls…cause Obama won’t have any on this country!

One day a few weeks ago, my younger brother called me and announced that no matter who won the GOP nomination, he was voting for Herman Cain for POTUS. Now, I wasn’t ready to make such a commitment but every day I get a little bit closer to that position. But as far as the primaries, Cain is my man.

I first heard Herman Cain speak a few years ago when he filled in for Atlanta based, nationally syndicated talk show host Neil Boortz, and I was mesmerized. Just listening to him speak, he sounded like a guy that you would like to have as a friend, and when it came to economic issues, he was very knowledgeable, but he managed to retain his down to earth type charm. And listening to the usual political animals, you understand how difficult that seems to be for people. It’s not always easy to be the smartest guy in the room, without coming off as thinking you’re the smartest guy in the room. But Cain was able to pull that off, making his explanations of issues in language that everyone can understand…not just the political class.

When Cain declared his bid for the presidency, I was very excited because finally there was a Black man on the national political scene who shared my values, views, and concerns and was not beholden to the old-line civil rights establishment. But what was even better, he didn’t care what those clowns had to say because he had made his own way in the world as a businessman, and was more than willing to do so as a politician as well. Further, I was excited to see whether the Tea Party was willing to take the same stand on a presidential candidate as they had been willing to take on congressional candidates, and rally behind someone who was not a career GOP pol, but was someone with real world experience that could be brought to bear in our current political system. Someone who actually embodies the actual type of person that the Founders envisioned being in positions of governmental influence…the citizen-statesman. So far, the TPM has rallied to his side and has pushed him ahead of the establishment candidate Mitt Romney, and that has been very heartening for me.

But what has really been the biggest surprise for me is how Herman Cain, the guy everyone tried to lump in with Gary Johnson, John Huntsman, and yes, Ron Paul as basically an irrelevant, fringe candidate has not only taken the lead in the polls, but has shaped the debate. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, like it or not, forced the other candidates to start getting specific with their ideas about economic growth and tax policy, instead of giving us the usual GOP boilerplate: “I’m for lower taxes”; “Let’s help small business”; “We need to take a look at the tax code”. Cain presented a defined plan that did what the GOP always claims it wants to do; fundamentally change and restructure the current tax policies. The plan was so bold that it forced the likes of Michelle Bachmann and Mitt Romney to start going beyond their campaign mantra “Go to my website” and actually start giving specifics. That’s what being bold can do for you!

Now Cain is facing what all frontrunners/threats go through: mudslinging, also known as “opposition research”. Someone fed the people at Politico a story that alleges that Cain somehow sexually harassed two women some 15 or more years ago by using either a non sexual verbal or physical gesture that upset the poor souls. Thinly sourced as it is, the media, including Fox News, is reacting as if this is some major scandal that Cain has to weather to show that he is a viable candidate. But why should Cain run around endlessly defending himself from a story that offers no specifics as to what he is alleged to have done? I mean, how bizarre is it when the people who wrote the story refuse to give any details, then say that Cain was being bizarre when he failed to give those details when speaking at the National Press Club? What else was he supposed to say, other than what he has already said?

But as this race goes on, my mind is becoming more made up…and Herman Cain is my guy. And as much baggage as Newt Gingrich has, I think the last few years have humbled him enough that he could make Cain a good vice president. He knows his way around D.C., he has some great ideas, and you can stick him in a closet like Obama does Biden if he gets out of hand!

Cain-Gingrich 2012!

 My younger brother sent me an interesting text message yesterday concerning the proposed jobs plan that Grand Imperial President…of the World Obama is demanding be passed by the Congress post haste. In it, according to the information that my brother shared with me the White House is urging the Congress to create an all new class of victims for the Democrats to pander to. What is that new group you ask?

The unemployed.

Seriously.

No joke.

With the votes of his most die hard supporters in Congress, President Obama aims to turn the unemployed into a group that has special rights and gets special considerations, much like the physically disabled or the mentally challenged. According to what my brother was able to glean, the President proposes to strong arm businesses into favoring the hiring of the long term unemployed over those people who are simply between jobs, doing what Americans have always done…look for a better opportunity elsewhere in the marketplace. But on Obamaworld, hiring those people would represent discrimination against those who have been unemployed for a long period of time, so the long term unemployed would be able to theoretically sue companies that chose not to hire them!

What this whole idea does is to reinforce two things that conservatives have always instinctively understood about situations where the government creates protected classes or groups of people: (1) In order to “end discrimination”, someone new has to become a victim of discrimination and (2) Democrats can only survive by feeding off the despair of groups that they have reduced to victim hood status.

By allowing the long term unemployed a right to sue a prospective employer who chooses not to hire them, often in favor of hiring someone more suited to the job position to be filled, the qualified worker who is simply attempting to find a better employment situation is openly being discriminated against. What this does in essence is bars an ambitious person from trying to better their own financial and professional positions by making it criminal for an employer to employ them. What company is going to run the risk of violating federal law to hire a particular applicant, if doing so carries the threat of a major lawsuit being filed against them? I would guess that some would do it, but most would not take that chance, especially with the unethical Attorney General Eric Holder in charge at Justice. The risk just does not seem to be worth any potential reward on this one.

Further, it is a shame that the long term unemployed are now being cast as helpless victims, unable to fend for themselves. Look, up until three months ago, I was one of the long term unemployed/underemployed; I never saw myself as a victim of anything other than circumstance. I came out of college with my degree in history to a world where the unthinkable was happening…teachers were being let go for purely financial reasons. Suddenly, my plans to get my degree and move seamlessly into the teaching profession were sidetracked, and I had to come up with a different plan. So I began looking for work in my field, or a closely related field, while simultaneously looking for other gainful employment. It took a while to find something full time, but eventually my perseverance paid off and now I have a well paying, full time gig. But I was nobody’s victim; circumstances simply forced me to alter my plans and account for the present reality.

Besides, how much of a victim can you be when the government has already extended unemployment benefits to last darned near two years, and is proposing another extension in this alleged “jobs plan”? We all know that this is just a way to get another group of so-called victims locked onto the liberal plantation, dependent on the “benevolent” Democrats to pay the freight for the right of first refusal on their votes. Because without a captive audience, the Democrats hardly stand a snowball’s chances in July of remaining a viable political presence going forward.

I just hope that when all the dust settles and people can look at the situation clearly, that they will realize that this “jobs plan” is just another Obama smokescreen intended to fool all the trusting dupes out there. Hopefully, those people have wised up to the reality of the Obama presidency and see it for the failure that it is, and this plan for the mish-mash of liberal poppycock that we conservatives know it to be.

We can only hope.

 Back in the days of yore, roughly the mid 1960s through nearly the entire decade of the 1970s, and for a considerable portion of the 1980s, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill men’s basketball program totally dominated the venerable Atlantic Coast Conference. It seemed that every year the Tar Heels were winning the regular season title, the legendary conference tournament title, or both. From time to time other programs would rise up to challenge the Heels and their dominance of the league, notably the David Thompson-Tommy Burleson-Monte Towe era at North Carolina State, or the Jeff Mullins era at nearby Duke University, and the memorable John Lucas-Len Elmore-Tom McMillen era at the University of Maryland.

But at the end of the day, those were always short lived moments of glory, akin to a passing summer storm; beautiful and awesome in its moment, but lacking any staying power beyond its brief moment of splendor.

But always there was North Carolina and its legendary coach, Dean Edwards Smith, assisted ably through the years by men like Larry Brown, Eddie Fogler, Roy Williams, and the ever present Bill Guthridge. Legendary and some near legendary coaches tutoring players like Charles Scott, Phil Ford, Tommy LaGarde, Mitch Kupchak, James Worthy, and Michael Jordan. That parade of talent being taught by such a high caliber of coaches made North Carolina’s dominance seem as if it were their birthright, and that it was as inevitable as 90 degree heat in August.

This dominance gave birth to a collection of fans that began to see themselves as “ABC” fans: Anybody But Carolina. Many of them had no true rooting interests in other teams, while others were fans of other teams and were just sick to death of seeing Carolina win all the time. They would root for absolutely anyone to beat Carolina, just so they could relish the sight of the baby blue and white clad troops stumble off the court in defeat.

After all that, many of you may be wondering just what I am leading up to by going into the history of ACC basketball and the birth of the “ABC” contingent. So here it is: we have to avoid the temptation to become the political version of the “ABCers” in making the argument that we are “ABO” voters: Anybody But Obama.

I have heard over and over that anyone running for the GOP presidential nomination would be a better President than Barrack Obama, and every time I hear it, it makes me cringe…especially when I hear the amen chorus affirming that idea. What I have to ask is this: do people really believe that any GOP candidate would be better than Obama? Because, as you can probably tell from my tone, I sure as shootin’ don’t believe that for a New York minute.

Are you really telling me that Ron Paul would be a better president than Obama? Ron Paul, who espouses some solid fiscal ideas but thinks that America should adopt an isolationist foreign policy, and only sally forth if we are directly attacked? The Ron Paul who would gladly abandon all of our international allies and ignore our vital international interests in order to hopefully be left alone by the rest of the world? That Ron Paul? Really?

Or how’s about Tim Pawlenty, who before bowing out of the race was too danged afraid of Mitt Romney to stand by his comments about what he termed “Obamneycare”? The same Pawlenty whose main theme was to attack Michelle Bachmann for the crime of suffering migraine headaches? That guy?

Or Newt Gingrinch who has so much personal baggage that he should sign an endorsement deal with Samsonite to lug all that junk around? Or Mitt Romney, who was for abortion, the individual mandate, and moderate Republicanism before he was against it? Or Rick Perry, who thought…and still thinks…that somehow it is the responsibility of the state of Texas to force young girls to get a vaccination that guards them against cervical cancer caused by STDS? And whose only real regret about the whole debacle is that he bypassed the legislature, ruling by executive fiat?

I could go on for days, tearing into each candidate, even the ones that I like; however, that isn’t the purpose of this essay.

What is the purpose then, you ask?

Simply to warn people away from this irrational attitude as we get closer to picking the GOP standard bearer in 2012. The simple fact is that it is a fool’s errand to run around believing that just anyone could beat Obama and that just anyone would be a better President. We have to make clearheaded, objective decisions on who we support in the primaries, and if we are going to support the primary winner in the general election of 2012. We cannot be caught up in the rhetoric and emotion of being against Obama and thus becoming willing to settle for the most “electable” candidate again, as so many of us did in 2008. You see where that idea got us, right?

We can’t get so caught up in opposing Obama that we fail to fully vet our own candidates for the office. If we do that, we become the political equivalent of Clemson basketball in the ACC throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s…irrelevant. Or we end up picking another loser as the candidate…kind of like Bob Staak!

Let me start by being totally open here: I am generally a huge Ann Coulter fan. I read her columns, I used to catch as many of her television and radio appearances as I could, and I have owned every one of her books...and still have the vast majority of them. I even like, on the whole, her newest book Demonic. As usual, Ann skewers deeply held liberal beliefs, exposes them to the harsh light of reality, and holds them up to well deserved ridicule. The point of her newest book is to trace the liberal's embrace of mob action back to the French Revolution and how closely the current liberal mob mindset mirrors the attitudes, thoughts, and tactics of the leaders of that bloody revolt.

But sometimes, Ms. Ann runs off the rails a little bit and there are a couple of places in her book that I think exemplify this. And that's what prompted me to write this little post, because someone has to challenge her on these issues.

The first place where Ann runs off the rails is when she tries to make the case that the civil rights movement was the first time that America accepted and acquiesced to mob action. Now, she makes some valid points that since the Civil Rights Movement the left has tried to cast every one of their protests in the same moral light, even though they usually have no similarities at all. She also makes a valid point that in some instances, especially the decision to use children in the Birmingham march that was effectively Bull Connor's last stand, Martin Luther King Jr. put people in harms way to prove his point. As Ann points out in the book, by the time of the Birmingham march Bull Connor was on his way out of power in the city, with his position having been eliminated and having been totally defeated in the race for mayor. Connor's power was broken and the city's merchants had already agreed to begin desegregation...so there was no real point to the march, other than to provoke a bitter Connor into taking some violent action against the marchers. Where Ann goes wrong in my opinion, is when she equates these marches to mob actions. The riots you see whenever the left decides to protest a G-20 meeting is a mob action; windows are smashed, property damaged, police assaulted, and chaos reigns. But in the entire history of the Civil Rights marches of the 1950's and 60's, where are the examples of the marchers destroying businesses? Where is the example of a marcher attacking a police officer? Where are the images of the seething rage of the marchers as they attempted to physically intimidate those who disagreed with them? If you can find those images, post them here...because I haven't seen them. It seems that in trying to make a broader point about the left's prodigious use of mob action to get their way, Ann decided to rope the Civil Rights movement in...for what reason I don't pretend to understand. But to compare the marchers of the Civil Rights era, who peacefully exercised their rights to assemble and petition their government for redress of their legitimate grievances to the mobs of enviro-whackos and anti-capitalist thugs is just a bridge too far. The two are nothing alike, and trying to link them shows a bit of faulty reasoning to me.

Then there is Ann's decades long crusade to convince everyone that the five young men who were convicted and later exonerated of raping Trisha Meili in the infamous Central Park Jogger case are really guilty...in spite of the lack of physical evidence against them, the confession and DNA matching of convicted rapist-murderer Matias Reyes, and the decision of the very DA's office that led the original prosecution asking that the men's convictions be set aside and the original indictments be vacated. Ann instead takes the same line as a NYPD report ( that conveniently exonerated the department of any wrongdoing or unethical conduct ) that the confessions taken from these men at the time were enough to sustain the verdicts. She even argues that the fact that the men, boys at the time between the ages of 14 and 16, told different stories makes their confessions credible! According to Ann (and the NYPD report she so agrees with), it would have been extremely suspicious if the kids all told the same basic story about an event that they were all allegedly involved in!

Now, on some level I can understand that thought: if everyone tells the exact same story in the exact same words, you probably have a cooked up story on your hands. But that line of reasoning breaks down when you look at the events involved and the time that the kids were arrested. Four of the five eventual defendants were arrested within hours of the attacks, some within minutes of leaving the park. The  other eventual defendant was arrested later the next day as he returned to his family's apartment; the point is that even if these kids had told the same story, it wouldn't have been suspicious because they had not had time to fabricate any cover story. But as it was, the kids told wildly different stories, with one kid giving the cops four different statements...three coming after every time the cops were able to separate him from his family. Amazingly, the kids couldn't even agree on the basic events of the attack that they were alleged to have taken part in; they couldn't even agree on who hit the woman first! That would be like me, Brian, Crawfish, and Cynewulf being accused of ratpacking Alan Colmes, getting arrested, and then we give the cops four different stories. I say I did it; Brian says he didn't see it; Craw says Cyne did it; and Cyne names Scottie, Mrs AL, drpete, and Philosophocon! If you heard that, would you think that we did it, seeing as to how the four of us can't seem to figure out who did what? In what world does that type of inconsistency morph into believability?

Ann uses the exoneration of these five men as an example of mob action, because as people started to poke holes in the prosecution case,  the press started to raise questions about the actual innocence of the men, and the DA's office began to take an honest look at their own prosecution, momentum began to build for at least granting the men a new trial based on new evidence. But since when is trying to use the established justice system procedures an example of mob action? By the time the charges were dismissed against them, all but one of the men were already out of jail having completed their sentences. The only one still in prison was Raymond Santana, who was serving time for drug possession with intent.  He was released early because with the convictions having been vacated he had to be sentenced as a first time offender, so the time he had already served on that charge exceeded to sentence he would have received for the offense. So no "beasts" were released from prison to terrorize the population; instead the true beast was finally brought to justice.

But what I have to wonder is if Ann ever considered that the original convictions were the real result of a mob mentality? I mean, I remember the press that this case received back in the day: it was wall to wall, the biggest story on the networks. This was one of those high profile cases where the people were outraged, the mayor was apoplectic, and the NYPD was under pressure to get someone for the crime. They arrested a whole gang of kids who had been in the park that night, and managed to obtain confessions from five of them. The prosecutors office, driven by media and political pressures, were willing to do just about anything to gain a conviction. And they did, even though there was no physical evidence to link the five to the jogger; in fact the DNA evidence that they did have excluded any of the five as the attacker. You had a victim who was beaten to the point that she nearly bled to death from head wounds, yet none of the alleged attackers had any of her blood in her. Couldn't the rush to judgment and the media portrayals as the men as guilty simply for being accused have been a better example of the mob mentality? I don't know exactly what it is about this particular case pushes Ann's buttons so hard, but she might need to step back a bit  to reassess her position on this case, because the facts of the case don't support the dogmatic opinion that she holds here. The injustice wasn't that they were exonerated, but that they ever went to prison in the first place!

Now that concludes my rant, and it felt good to get that off my chest! I would still recommend her book to people, because for the most part it is good work...if you like Ann's style. But just know when you go into the chapter (!!) about the Central Park case that Ann has some serious issues working on this one that really warps her perspective on the case.

One of the strangest things I have heard in the current debate about the debt ceiling and the hell on earth that would be unleashed if it were not raised post haste...with increases in taxes as well...is the notion that the President has some authority to raise the debt limit on his own. I have heard members of Congress urge the president to do just that, and the other day I heard the Chosen One intimating to the La Raza meeting that he had considered it, but that he wasn't going to do that because it isn't the way a democracy works. But he did it with the attitude that he simply is choosing not to use this particular power, and the constitutional illiterates at La Raza ate it up, as have many on the Democratic side of the political aisle, and way too many of the "intellectuals" in the media. Their attitude about it basically is that the president is showing in this moment how great a leader he is by allowing Congress to keep up their negotiations without him acting like The Rock and simply laying the smackdown on their candy @$$e$.

Then there was Mitch McConnell's brilliant plan to try to shift political blame to the White House for this mess by proposing legislation that would allow the President to raise the debt limit on his own, without authorization from Congress. I don't know, and frankly don't care, if this was meant to be a one time offer from McConnell to the White House; all I know is that the very idea is dangerous. It is all well and good for McConnell to offer to gut the House of it's constitutional prerogative from over in the rare air of the Senate, but just because you offer to write a statute doesn't make what you're trying to do any closer to right than it was when you hatched the idea.

But what is amazing to me is the fact that both those claiming to believe that a president has the authority to unilaterally raise the debt limit on his own and those who supported McConnell's crackpot idea seem to believe that the Constitution actually allows these sorts of things. And when elected members of Congress believe this stuff, you can see why we are in the mess we're in right now. I mean, how can you swear an oath to support and defend a document that you have no clue to what it says?

But what is even scarier than that is what I believe to be true in this instance, mainly that these people know what the Constitution says and simply don't care, because they feel they are serving an electorate that had no firsthand knowledge of what our governing document actually says.

Take the McConnell proposal, please! I fail to understand how someone like Mitch McConnell and anyone who thought his idea was workable could look at the Constitution, the history behind it, and the men who framed it and actually believe that such a plan would be allowable under that document. What made those idiots think for even a moment that a simple statute could transfer the enumerated powers granted to the Congress in Article 1 Section 8 to borrow money on the credit of the United States to the Executive? What part of "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debt...of the United States..." did these people not understand? That doesn't even need any interpretation to understand! Yet Mitch McConnell, in a pitiful bid to try to gain political points on Obama was willing to strip the House of it's responsibilities...and hardly anyone questioned the constitutionality of it.

Then you move onto the Usurper in Chief and his minions pretending that somehow the Fourteenth Amendment gives the President the authority to incur more debt for the nation on his own volition. They keep yammering about Section 4 as if it gives the President some super-authority, but this is what the section says verbatim: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void." Can anyone out there tell me where the idea that the President, who isn't even mentioned in this section, has the right to incur debt without congressional approval can be found here? And if this were giving the Executive some special powers not mention anywhere in Article 2, which basically lays out what the Executive is allowed to do, why does Section 5 say this:" The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." I'll tell you why: the Democrats are itching to make Obama into some type of monarch, that's why! But even the various kings and queens of England were not allowed to drag their nations into debt without the say-so of Parliament...and these were people who believed that God Almighty Himself had ordained them to rule over their subjects! But even the divinely appointed kings and queens of England had enough humility to understand that they had some earthly limitations on their power, but this clown and his enablers think he should rule without oversight of any kind when it comes to spending our money and borrowing in our names!

Look, I don't know how this will all turn out in the end, but I do know that this type of intentional ignorance of our governing document is not good for this country. We cannot allow our elected leaders and representatives to misconstrue, distort, or simply ignore the Constitution to fit their political whims. It was those types of shenanigans that got us into this mess to begin with, and allowing it to go on only makes the matters worse.

This is absolutely amazing to me people! I start working nights, miss a few days of news, and the next thing I know the Congress is holding two votes on the Libya Un-War, as it has been so aptly called elsewhere. What is getting my goat, though is how the Congress is trying to have it's cake and eat it on this issue.

As I have been on record as saying, I remain convinced that this action is Libya is one of the most blatantly lawless acts in the annals of this most lawless of administrations. The President committed our troops to a shooting war without even a nod to the Congress, but with plenty of support/permission from the Arab League, NATO, the UN, and any other international body the Obamanation felt the need to grovel before to launch his assaults aimed at. ..ahem..."protecting civilians from Qadaffi's forces". All this while ignoring the constitutional role that Congress has to play in the decision making process of engaging in military hostilities. And to add the cherry to the top of this schnit sundae, we have seen air strikes aimed deliberately to kill a head of state that ended up killing, you guessed it, civilians!

Now comes the House of Representatives to the fray, after seeing the role of the Congress ignored like Meagan Fox at a gay pride parade, to take two votes on the Libya fiasco. The first was offered as an authorization of force for the ongoing "kinetic military action" that involves US planes, pilots, bombs, and no doubt special operators. This was a mostly symbolic vote, since whether it passed or failed  the military action was going to continue apace; did anyone think that Obama was actually going to heed this vote? To paraphrase from that legendary comedy Blazing Saddles, "We don't need no steenking authorizations!" To the surprise of absolutely no one, the resolution failed, with 70 Democrats joining the GOP majority in denying Obama the symbolic authorization.

The second vote was one that actually had teeth, as it was an opportunity to back up the symbolic vote that would have changed nothing with a vote that would have changed everything. The resolution, introduced by Speaker Boehner sought to cut off all funding for ongoing military operations in Libya and would have had the same results that a similar measure in 1973 had on the Vietnam War---ending our involvement.

What is surprising is that after all the shouting about the way the administration took us to war, and the ongoing questions about the legality of our involvement there, is that the resolution was rather soundly defeated with 89 Republicants voting against the measure...some of whom voted FOR the resolution Dennis Kucinich brought forth the end all military actions in Libya  immediately. Now I understand that some of the congressmen felt that defunding the operation would allow for the administration to use NATO as cover for intervening, but it seems to me that Obama and company were already doing that.

See, my problem is that we are either for military intervention in Libya or against it. There is no middle ground here, and I had thought that Congress, especially the GOP led House was in full-throated opposition to engaging in military action that could not possibly be spun to contain any national interest. But when the rubber met the road, it was easier to continue funding a war that you pretend to oppose than to call a halt to the illegal usurpation of congressional power by a power mad White House, or to turn off the money spigot on a war that the White House refuses to call a war.

I wanted to believe that the new GOP led house had the courage of their convictions, but actions like this make you wonder whether this about doing what's right or trying to preserve an issue for the upcoming election cycle.

I was all prepared to write about the dangers of the stupid, stupid stance that President Obama took in calling for Israel to retreat to indefensible borders to garner "peace" with the so called Palestinians, but Bibi pretty well handled that at the White House and before Congress. So I was left to find something else to write about, and one day at work it popped into my head.

Write about the Second Amendment. That's not usually my bailiwick, but the more I thought about it the more natural it seemed, because I think I will be bringing a different perspective to the issue. What's my fresh new take? Well, I think the Democrats/liberals are exactly right about the Second Amendment...and it makes the conservative point of view the obviously correct one. In other words, the very argument that liberals make in trying to make the Second Amendment a collective right reinforces the correct view that bearing arms is an individual right.

You may be wondering what in the world I am talking about, so let me explain myself, before any of you blow a gasket thinking that I have gone off the rails. My thinking here is informed primarily by the text of the Second Amendment and the thinking of the men who wrote the amendment, which was informed by the times that they had just lived through.

You see, the Founders were always suspicious of large standing armies, fearing that they could be used to harass the citizenry, as the British had done to them, and that the presence of such an armed force would tempt the United States to entangle itself in foreign military adventures. So at the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1784 that officially ended the American Revolution, the United States armed forces were essentially demobilized. The Founders then wrote the Second Amendment, which reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It, like most of the Constitution, is as simple as can be and not really open to a lot of interpretation, but of course "constitutional scholars" have been parsing this plain language for decades so as to empower the government to infringe on the rights of the citizens to keep and bear arms.

The argument that the left continues to use is that bearing arms is only for the upkeep of a well regulated militia, and when you look at it, they're right. That is exactly what the Founders meant when they wrote the Second Amendment. They meant for American military defense to be undertaken by local militias, not a large standing armed force. And in that very argument, the liberals prove exactly the point we conservatives have been making since the "constitutional scholars" started to say that the Second Amendment meant the exact opposite of what the text clearly states.

By now, my conservative friends know exactly where I am going with this train of thought, and some of them may be slapping their foreheads right now saying "Why didn't I think of that?" Meanwhile, there may be others sitting back in their chairs saying, "That's just what I've been saying all along!" But just to let everyone know precisely my thinking on this, here it is: If you understand what a militia is, then you understand that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right exclusively, and can never be taken as a collective right!

The very definition of a militia reveals the true purpose of the Second Amendment, because a militia is defined as "1a: a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency, 1b: a body of citizens organized for military service."  Now, the first part of that definition is historically invalid, because the record shows that at the time the Constitution was ratified, America basically had no standing armed forces because the Revolution had ended. So the second definition would be the pertinent one in determining what the Second Amendment truly means, as would a quick review of America's military history.

After the end of the Revolution, America basically had no standing armed forces. The Navy was strengthened somewhat, but overall American legislators and executives did not seek to substantially strengthen the young nation's armed forces. In reality, this state of benign neglect persisted until after World War 2, as the armies involved in our major wars before them were made up primarily of militiamen, called up to serve in a time of emergency to fill out the ranks of the forces as needed. In fact, in the War of 1812 and the Civil War, most of the militiamen and many who would become regular soldiers reported for duty with their personal firearms, since the government could not supply them the weapons they needed. It was not until after World War 2 that America finally decided that having a large standing armed force was a necessity, and only then after seeing the threat that totalitarian regimes posed to freedom across the world, and their willingness to make war on seemingly defenseless nations.

So when liberals are arguing that the right to bear arms is only for the maintenance of a strong militia, they are right; but they make our argument, because only an armed citizenry can form a militia as meant at the adoption of the Constitution. There was no National Guard back then, only farmers, businessmen, and laborers with their personal weapons to rally to our national defense in times of peril.

So for once the liberals are right...and they make our point for us.

I wonder how it must feel to still lose the only argument you truly ever won?

Dear readers and friends,

I have been posting here at Town Hall for as long as blogs have been available, and have enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoy talking and debating politics as much as the next man (or woman), and I enjoy spicing things up with the occasional sports or religious post. But recently I have decided to put more of my focus on where it is supposed to be, namely in strengthening my relationship with Christ, and that has led me to make a move that I never really thought about making.

On that note I want to inform you all that I have started a new blog at Google's Blogger site. The address is http://standingpost.blogspot.com, and I sincerely hope that you will support that blog as well as you have supported this one. I understand that many of the people who read this blog do not consider themselves to be particularly religious, but I also know that many are both committed political conservatives and committed Christians. Whatever the case may be, I invite you all to visit my new blog to see what the Lord has for me to do, and maybe it will edify those who believe...and bring those who do not closer to that point.

That does not mean that I will shut down production here at the Spade; we've been too strong for too long for me to just walk away. And I still enjoy writing about and debating politics. I'll probably just keep the two separate and see where Standing Post takes me while still doing the Spade. Hey, I'm not Mitch Daniels here, I can focus on more than one thing at a time (insert rim shot here)!

So please, join me at my new blog, feel free to share, and I'll be talking to you soon.

Sincerely,

E. Edwards aka Ed

With everything that has been going on lately, I haven't been able to really sit down and craft one single post about any subject, so I'm just going to drop some thoughts on a few different subjects here. Feel free to comment on some, all, or (heaven forbid!) none of them. I'm looking forward to hearing what the readers have to say. So on that note, let's get started!

Scratch One Tango!  That's the phrase that used to be used on my beloved SOCOM US Navy SeALS games when an enemy got greased, and last Sunday Osama bin Laden became Osama bin Deaden after our SeALS put one through his head. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say, and I have not a care how the killing was accomplished. Unlike Alan Dershowitz and his ilk, I don't care if OBL was armed, sleeping, running away, or butt naked screwing his wife when they found him and greased him...just so long as they greased him. The world is now a slightly better and less dangerous place with this character roaming around serving as a living inspiration and bankroll to his terrorist confederates.

Fish Food  Sticking with the OBL story for just a moment, I keep hearing people complaining about the Islamic rites and burial that OBL was given before he became a fish feeder out in the Arabian Sea. Much of the argument boils down to this: The 9/11 victims didn't get proper burials, so why should OBL? Well, my brother and I were talking about that and he pointed out that in fact those bodies that were recovered were handled in such a way that the families were able to say their goodbyes to their loved ones in whatever manner they chose. We understand that many families were never able to have that type of closure, but what does that really have to do with how the military decided to dispose of OBL? As for me, I argue it was a mistake for another reason. As I, and others, have said repeatedly the Arab culture only respects strength and in a fight they are only going to fear those who show no tendency to back down. Knowing that Islam teaches that the body must be buried within 24 hours of death, only after going through certain rituals or the person will be denied entry into Paradise, I would have put his body on display for a few days and then dumped him into the sea like so much waste water. That would have sent a powerful message to the Islamic extremists that this is what happens if you screw with us; not only can you kiss your butt goodbye here on earth, but we will keep your sorry tail away from your 72 virgins and rivers of milk and honey too!

Hypocrisy Thy Name Is Hannity!  I know that I have been taking serious shots at Hannity here lately, but he makes it just so easy that I cannot seem to resist. His latest bit of hypocrisy is his stance on the burial of OBL at sea and the decision to prepare his body and that according to Islamic custom. He's going on on and on about how this was a terrible idea, even though the national security team and the military felt that doing it this way could possibly avoid inciting any more violence than the actual killing did. But Hannity doesn't seem to care abut that, he's just outraged that OBL was treated that way and the US won't release pictures of his dead body to the public. But wait... Wasn't it just a couple of months ago that Mr. Republican was saying that because the military was afraid of inciting violence against the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq that Pastor Terry Jones should not exercise his constitutionally protected right to burn the Koran? Wasn't he in high dudgeon about that, going on day after day about how the military's wishes should be respected if it would keep soldiers safe? So what's different now? If you are so convinced that military wishes should be made manifest in one case why not in the other? I' m just wondering where that particular line gets drawn.

Unlawful Acts in the "Un-War"  Shep Smith at FNC has dubbed our military action in Libya as the "Un-war", and the title fits t to a tee. But what has been troubling to me is the actions that we have been taking in regard to Qadaffi, and the fact that they are patently illegal. Now, this isn't to say that Qadaffi is a good guy or anything, or that it would not be fine with me to see him toppled from power. But in order to do that, the Obama administration has decided to break US law in an effort to get him. When we launched an air strike on the Bab al-Aziziya compound that killed one his sons and three of his grandchildren, the president was breaking the law set down in Executive Order 11905 Section 5(g). That section, originally signed by Gerald Ford in 1976 and subsequently upheld by every president since, states that "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." Now, I don't know about you but it seems like that was a pretty clear attempt at killing Qadaffi. My point is that the rule of law has to be upheld even when dealing with people we don't like, or it ceases to exist.

GOP Debate  I watched part of this last night and I got to like Herman Cain more as the night went on! He was really good and I think Tim Pawlenty helped himself some as well. Let me know what you guys thought about it!

I was going to do this post smacking down Donald Trump as a conservative, but others have beaten me to it and done it just right. Just listen to this blast from Mark Levin (h/t Mediaite)  where "The Great One" absolutely lambastes the idea that this moron is worthy to be our President. This is a link that you really want to open, if I must say so myself.

So, after hearing what Levin did to Trump, I decided that in keeping with the reason I created the Spade in the first place, it is time to once again call the spade on this issue.

Conservatives, what the hell are you thinking? Donald Trump? Honestly, this is the best we can do? Really?

This clown walks around with that thing on his head that looks like a Garfield hairball, and because he bleats about Obama's birth certificate, he has become a conservative hero? Is that all it takes to impress the right? I sure as hell hope not, because if it is then all the stuff Anarcho Libertine and Moshe regularly spew abut conservatives may be borne out to some degree!

Or is it his protectionist talk about China that gets so many of us all hot and bothered? I mean, we can all agree that we need to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese made goods in order to teach the heathen Chinese not to mess with us. Right? Well, uh, no...not quite right. You see, setting off a tariff war with China could be really bad for us on two fronts: first we get a whole lot of our manufactured goods from China, so increased tariffs would dramatically raise the prices of the products that we buy every day, from clothes to consumer electronics. Is it really a good idea to create a further rise in consumer prices during a very fragile economic recovery? According to Trump it is, because it would stick it to the Chinese. Further, is there anyone out there who thinks that China...and her economic acolytes...would not respond by slapping higher tariffs on American made goods? Hello Smoot-Hawley, Part Deux!

As you may be able to tell, I have no great love for the idea of a Donald Trump presidential run and I think the very idea, and the support it is getting, reflects poorly on the right. This man has absolutely no real qualifications to be president, and especially so as a potential GOP candidate. He had no love for the Bush administration, going so far at one point to call for Bush's impeachment; he had the bright idea that Bush should have been on speaking terms with the leaders of Iran; and that Condi Rice was a poor Secretary of State because she wasn't making deals with world leaders. And this nincompoop has become the person, after Chris Christie of course, that many a conservative political wet dream centers around? Give me a break!

I am no fan of President Obama's, but neither am I one of those who scream that "Anyone would be better than Obama!"...mainly because that is patently absurd. How would Trump be better than Obama? He believes in Canadian style health care...just like Obama. He is "personally pro-life, but respects the right to an abortion"...just like Obama. He believes that America should meet with the likes of Ahmadenijad without preconditions and we should be making deals with him...just like Obama. Trying to appeal to birthers and using harsh rhetoric about China does not a conservative make, and especially not a conservative presidential candidate.

We can do better than Donald Trump, people. And if we don't then we can say hello to another four years of President Obama, because that's what's coming down the pike if we choose "The Donald".

Speaker Boehner has been catching a lot of flack from the conservative base for his comment that the House of Representatives is only "1/2 of 1/3" of the federal government as set up in the Constitution. He has been laughed at by some and criticized by many, and not without some reason. That statement comes off sounding like a cop-out for when the House GOP doesn't get the results that the base is clamoring for, and even I looked at it that way when I first heard it.

But when you stop to think about the position that the House GOP is in, while they have the power of the purse, that power is severely limited by the way our government is divided. There is no way that the House Republicans, even with a massive majority, can get everything that we in the base would like. Take the budget deal just passed that averted the looming government shutdown; many on the right are excoriating Boehner and company for "selling out" because they were unable to get to the $100 billion in budget cuts they campaigned on. Now, it would have been great to get there, but is it really so bad that we were only able to get to a bit over $60 billion? I mean, the only way to have gotten any higher was to have the Senate on board, and that wasn't happening because the donkeys still run that side of the Hill. Furthermore, shutting down the government would have been a nightmare for the GOP once you know what the White House was planning on shutting down. According to a report at the American Spectator website, the White House was going to shutter the Smithsonian and its websites, along with any other agencies that dealt with the public in  order to create inconveniences that would be dutifully reported...pictures and all...by a complaint news media. And no matter how many of us get our news from the web or FNC, most of the people still get their news from the networks who can still largely shape public opinion.

This isn't meant to make excuses for the GOP, but we can't rush to throw the baby out with the bath water. This isn't all we may have dreamed of, but $60 billion is much better than $0.00. Besides, how much can you expect when you're just 1/2 of 1/3?