The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
I was just about out the door to head to DAD-WI when Mike Huckabee popped on Fox. I had expected him to drop out like Mitt Romney, especially since he had teamed with John McCain to deny West Virginia to Mitt Romney, but he isn’t.
I hope McCain likes that stab in the back.
I can’t yet say that I will vote for John McCain (indeed, I may never be able to say that, and the scales are still weighted against), but he has reached out and started to heal the rift between him and conservatives like me. There are still a lot of items that I need to have to either have explained or forgotten. Indeed, somewhere below I have 13 reasons to say, “To hell with him”, and I didn’t hear squat on any of those 13.
At the same time, I heard a lengthier explanation of why he can claim to be member of the low-cost portion of small-government conservative. I heard that he will be open to persuasion on his liberal tendencies.
I probably will just take the next few days off of national politics and run a heap of conflicting things through my head.
OK, it’s still early, the emotions haven’t even subsided to being generously considered “raw”. Even so, it’s time to start thinking about tomorrow and what we will do now that the last person with any hint of conservative credentials has dropped out of the race. Do we now just rally around McCain because the party says so? Do we sit this one out? Do we go to the dark side and vote for the Dem just so that the Republicans don’t get all the mud?
Let me offer this for some mashing and hashing on. Think of it as part of your cathartic process:
I’m beginning to think (and I’ll grant you I haven’t finished my creative using of foul language each time I hear McCain use the phrase “My Friend!”) that our best bet might in fact be to get behind McCain.
Before Steve bans my posting privileges forever, let me explain. I think we can all agree that McCain is as close to the squishy middle as you can be and still be a Republican. I think it’s also apparent that McCain has a fairly strong following among certain parts of the Rat brigades. I think this Rat following could, especially if Hill is the Dem candidate, put a decent amount of support for McCain from the Rats. If McCain got that support and got the support of the conservative R’s, I think there is a chance he could win the November contest in what would be considered a landslide.
Assuming the above, can we use McCain the way he has been using us? Can we take his win and leverage it for a win for conservatives? Let’s face it, the Senate and House races are going to be terribly important this year. In fact, they may be even more important if McCain gets in. They may be the groups that keep McCain holding any level of conservative principle. I believe that if McCain wins and does so in a way that I lay out i.e. large margins, he could have some decent coat tails to use in the districts that kicked the R’s out last election. Most of those districts tossed the R’s out on relatively narrow margins. Would there be enough good will with McCain to rebalance the House and keep the Senate from becoming any worse?
Could this be the silver lining?
Hot Air and others are reporting Mitt Romney will suspend his Presidential campaign, with the announcement at CPAC coming up shortly (carried by C-SPAN2). I don’t have enough time to set up a CiL, so we’re back to the old method for one time and one time only.
F*CK! FU*K! FUC*!
11:38 (all times Central and in 24-hour format) – Laura Ingraham looking real good in black. Also, a question from the Hot Air thread questions what the difference between “suspending” and “ending” is, with the immediate answer that a “suspension” does not release the delegates. Wait one while I go through the Romney roster and see what is and isn’t officially “pledged”.
11:45 – Ingraham introducing Mitt as the “conservative’s conservative” and a “class act” (she got one of two right). There’s the calm-down horseshit again.
11:47 – “What a welcome” as he gets cheered. Guess the crowd didn’t get the memo.
11:48 – (Reminder; I paraphase a lot) Blue tie (not good). Family affair, blah, blah, blah. Last year, CPAC gave me a send-off. Thank you, 11 states that voted for me.
11:49 – Thank you for showing up and speaking up. “Conservative principles are needed now more than ever…. Unless America changes course, we could become the France of the 21st Century.”
11:50 – (More paraphrasing) Only one nation has laid down millions of lives, won, and only took enough land to bury its dead, the US.
11:51 – The biggest challenge we have to face is the attack on America’s culture.
11:52 – “Culture makes all the difference…. What makes America unique?” The drive to succeed, a belief in either God or a higher calling than themselves.
11:54 – “The threat to culture comes from within…. Some think we won against (the culture of welfare), but the liberals haven’t given up…. Dependency is culture-killing.” (perhaps Mitt should have given this speech to Bush 7 years ago when he pushed No Child Left Behind and pushing more of the tax burden on the rich).
11:56 – Talking about fatherless families; sobering stats (60+% of black families, 45+% of Hispanic families, 25% of white families are single-parent families). Pass the Marriage amendment.
11:57 – The failed Europe today is the result of liberalism run amok, driving out God and traditional families. Now onto the economy.
12:45 – Sorry about that; the cable started crashing as I was about to post a rumor that Romney would endorse McCain found on the HotAir thread. Lots of expletives were tossed around the bunker, and it turns out that Romney is going home. Sure sounded like a virtual endorsement of McCain at CPAC, however.
13:13 – One last thought; I hope you weren’t counting on a very conciliatory speech out of McCain in about 45 minutes (if my watch and the schedule are right).
In my post about my caucus experience on Loopy Tuesday, I said that McCain needed to work hard to show the conservatives that he had some small modicum of concern for them. I stand by that. If McCain keeps invoking Reagan and doesn’t have action behind his words I believe he will see one of the nastiest blow blacks ever seen in national politics.
Scott Ott at Townhall.com http://scottott.townhall.com/g/2bb0f0f4-a139-49bb-8af7-9ac06ae1159d has laid out a plan that would include nearly all of your favorite Republican candidates in a McCain administration. The kicker, at least for this conservative, would be having Fred T as VP. Hmmmmmmmmm?
What do you think? Do you think Johnny Mac could allow someone as smart and conservative as Fred to be that close to the seat?
Despite a massive win by John McCain on Super-Duper Tuesday, he is still, at least by Flip’s calculations, 471 delegates short of actually locking up the nomination. As such, the other three remaining candidates, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul, are soldiering on as of this writing. There is a heap of contests the next two weeks, with depending on the results of Louisiana, either 238 or 258, including Wisconsin’s, so let’s take a quick look at how the delegates are allocated, courtesy The Green Papers:
– Saturday, February 9 –
– Tuesday, Febrary 12 –
– Saturday, February 16 –
– Tuesday, February 19 –
One last semi-drunk/semi-hung over post before I grab a quick wink. The popular meme is that it will be Mike Huckabee, based on the deal the two reached to help send Mitt Romney into the Super-Duper Loseday death spiral. That is not exactly a sure thing. McCain doesn’t exactly need a lot of help in the South; he held his own south of the Mason-Dixon line. Further, Huckabee is a social conservative, and McCain is likely going to be drunk with delusions of grandeur since he (all-but-)won the nomination of the “conservative” party by spitting in the eyes of the conservatives, be they economic, governmental or social.
Rather, I suspect he will go with a moderate-to-liberal woman, probably Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe or Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Given there will be either a black man or a white woman at the head of the other ticket, he will be under intense pressure to respond in kind. Rudy Giuliani would be the RNC choice, given that the schedule was originally set up with him in mind, he is also a liberal, and he yielded and endorsed McCain to deliver the Northeast. However, he is a white guy, and that just won’t do. At last check, Colin Powell and Condelezza Rice, who would both be yet another spit in the eyes of conservatives, are not interested. Michael Steele and J.C. Watts, while qualifying on the minority front, are probably too conservative for McCain.
Thoughts? Suggestions? The comments are open.
Note; I wrote most of this yesterday afternoon/evening; I’m rushing this out while hung over because the inevitable has happened.
Back in April, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute asked some of Wisconsin’s best and brightest right-of-center minds to answer the question, “Is Conservatism Out Of Gas?” (easier-to-follow archives than what they provide here for week 1 and here for weeks 2-4). I threw in my two cents on both Wisconsin and the national scene, and given the events of the Republican Presidential primary/caucus season, it’s high time to revisit this.
As the title says, this revisit will focus on the national scene, but I would be remiss if I didn’t briefly mention the Wisconsin one. While the situation hasn’t changed since I last visited the question, there is some progress on the judicial front. We did find a judicially-conservative judge, Mike Gabelman, to take on Doyle appointee Justice Louis Butler for the Supreme Court. Depending on what happens in that race, I may revisit that portion.
There are four basic legs of the conservative coalition, three of which are essentially unique to American conservatism and two of which are shared by libertarians. The first one I’ll deal with is governmental conservatism, shared with libertarians. At the federal level, it is a basic respect for the Constitution, and for federalism, which precludes using the federal government as an “overlord” to either push a particular philosophy or to buy votes. The three candidates who espoused this, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul, all were summarily rejected. In no state did the three of them even amount to a quarter of the vote. Mitt Romney attempted some outreach in this regard after a governorship spent growing the public-private partnership in Massachusetts; however, his only success in a state where he faced competition was after once again dipping into the bigger government well.
Why did this die? Simple; decades upon decades of government cultivating a dependence of the populace on it has, as surely as nicotine, marijuana, cocaine, or caffeine, created a dependence on government that is exceptionally hard to break, even as the country plunges into an economic mess caused by the creation and expansion of that dependence. One could say that it died when the 104th Congress lost the government shutdown battle in 1995, and he or she would have a valid point. One could also say it died when George W. Bush ran as a “compassionate ‘conservative'”, and again he or she would have a valid point. It just hasn’t been recognized until now.
The second portion that is at best on life support, almost as a direct result of the death of the first, is economic conservatism, also shared by libertarians. The few tax cuts that aren’t specifically targeted at a small subset of the few taxpayers left are sold not as actually reducing the amount of money the federal government receives. Indeed, it is hard, if not impossible, to use government as a way to buy votes without a complete lack of fiscal restraint.
There is a little bit of hope in this regard; John McCain does recognize the need to not have earmarks; however, the fight against earmarks is but a small part of economic conservatism, and that’s the only part that McCain recognizes. Morever, the fallout from the method of his primary win, including the likelyhood of humiliation in November, makes even that moot.
The third leg, a victim of suicide, is social conservatism. Rather than embrace candidates that also espouse the remainder of the conservative coalition, the voters listened to the RNC’s thinly-veiled call to push out those that believe in small government and fiscal restraint and pushed a candidate who, franky, is a big-government socialist, Mike Huckabee. The remainder of the conservative coalition pushed back, and after a surprise win in Iowa, Huckabee didn’t have a single win until today with a “stop-Romney” parliamentary move in West Virginia, with follow-on wins in his home state of Arkansas and heavily-Southern Baptist Arkansas.
That leaves the last leg, foreign policy. It is the one that is not, at least historically, uniquely-American. I will note that Paul is the outlier here; as a libertarian, he espouses weakness in the face of attacks, and that has been roundly rejected by the Republicans. The remainder of the candidates, both surviving and withdrawn, do recognize that to retreat in the face of attacks is only a recipe for the ultimate defeat of America. However, that is not, on its own, enough to carry the day. By focusing solely on this to the mutual exclusion of the other three legs, the RNC has planted the seeds of its humiliation in November. There are many conservatives, both influential and bloggers, who have vowed not to vote for John McCain.
I briefly considered tossing this, or at least postponing it again, after a rather lengthy discussion with Brian Fraley over beers. However, I’ve put it off too long. I hope the RNC is happy with the separation of the Republican Party from the conservatives and the resulting death spiral last experienced by the Whig Party. I also hope the rank-and-file is happy with being a national minority party for the remainder of its marked time as it is poised to nominate a candidate who would rather be a member of the other party. Lastly, I hope the “conservatives” who participated in the systematic destruction of every candidate who came forth to carry the broad-based conservative banner by voting for or supporting somebody else because of some perceived slight are happy about being shoved into the dustbin of history, because neither McCain nor the Democrats will let conservatives back into the political game if they can help it.
Revisions/extensions (1:06 am 2/6/2008) – There is a lot of good discussion over at Michelle’s place, as she notes there is an actual CPAC topic called, “Is the GOP lost?”.
There’s an old story about two guys who are out hiking in the woods. Long into their hike, in the deepest part of the woods, they stumble upon a bear. The startled bear turns and begins to growl at the two men giving every indication that it is about to charge. Immediately, the first of the two men sits down, takes a new pair of high quality running shoes out of his backpack and starts putting them on. The second man looked incredulously at the first man says, "What are you doing? You can’t out run that bear!" The second man replies matter of factly, "I don’t have to, I just have to out run you!"
OK this is an old joke but it seems to sum up John McCain’s approach to winning the Republican nomination. McCain’s shenanigan’s in WV show that if he can’t win outright he’ll do whatever he needs to make sure that Romney gets eaten by the bear!
Some of you folks may find McCain’s tactic in WV surprising although I can’t imagine why. McCain has shown on numerous occasions that his need to be in the MSM spotlight far outweighs any sense of team or camaraderie, at least with anyone that would be considered conservative. Off the top of your head, can you name any legislation that McCain sponsored that didn’t include one of the most liberal of liberals as a cosponsor? McCain/Kennedy, McCain/Lieberman, McCain/Feingold?
Anyone who thinks that a "President" McCain will reach across the aisle (to the right!) or move towards the right are living with greater H.O.P.E. than the staunchest Obama supporter.
Since Mike Huckabee teamed up with both John McCain and Ron Paul (Nick? Chris? Flashy? Care to explain?) to take West Virginia from Mitt Romney, I’m going to be taking the rest of the afternoon to write my answer to the question.
I’ll let you guys in on the vomit-enducing fun a bit early, however, with a new NRE poll:
Is conservatism dead?
Up to 1 answer(s) was/were allowed
Total Voters: 93
Loading ...I’m working on a couple of divergent things, and I am preparing for the Fat Tuesday Drinking Right, so I will not be offering coverage of Super-Duper Tuesday. I can’t speak for any of my guest-bloggers (except for Fred, who will also be face-down in beads before the night is over; just don’t tell Mrs. RDW).
If you are looking for coverage, I highly recommend the following places (hopefully I remembered to shut off the pingbacks for those few who I’m putting links to posts instead of the main blog for; since this place will likely be silent tonight, I don’t need the traffic of those looking for SDT coverage):
– Michelle Malkin
– Mike’s America (he’ll have a live chat going)
– American Princess (E.M. will be a bit late)
– Hot Air
– TownHall
– Pajamas Media
– VodkaPundit (who is also part of the PJM coverage)
– Free Republic
– Sister Toldjah
– Suitably Flip
– Little Green Footballs
– Ace and the fellow moronbloggers
– The Campaign Spot
– bRight & Early
If I forgot you, I apologize; this one’s going up early. Leave a comment/pingback/trackback, and hopefully a few people will find their way into your place from the comments section (no, I will not be updating this; I don’t feel like having to check and uncheck the auto-notification option).
It’s been way too long since a HamNation has come down the pike, but this one’s worth it. Since I don’t want to steal from The Hammer, go, watch, and marvel at the genius that is MKH.
Stephen Green describing Congress to somebody north of the longest undefended border in the world (no, not the Mexican-American border, at least not yet):
The Senate is kind of like the House of Lords, only we’ve been stupid enough to let them hold on to real power.
The House is 435 people so offensive that their neighbors think it’s worth spending a couple hundred thousand dollars a year just to ship them away to Washington. These same bozos determine our taxes.
To which I add, the Speaker of the House tends to think that he or she is Prime Minister, when it is the executive that presides over the Senate.
While I tend to feel strongly about positions I take, I try to ensure that emotion doesn’t come into play until I’ve made a sound decision. This is why I’ve been puzzled by why I have such a strong aversion to John McCain as the potential Republican nominee when I hear that the American Conservative Union (ACU) has given him a lifetime rating of 82.3. Is it possible that I’ve gotten myself wrapped up in the McCain derangement rather than doing a thoughtful analysis? After looking at the ACU it turns out that like most things McCain has said lately, while the fact snippet is true, there is much more to the story.
McCain does indeed have a lifetime rating of 82.3 from the ACU. However, his recent ratings tell a different story. In 2005 McCain’s rating was 80, still not bad. In 2006 McCain’s rating dropped to 65. Why has McCain dropped?
One might say that McCain’s drop is somehow related to issues that are peculiar to his representation of the people of Arizona. One might say that, but if they do they would have to ask McCain’s Arizona counterpart, Senator Kyle why he has a lifetime rating of 96.9, a 2005 rating of perfect 100 and a 2006 rating of 80. Obviously the issue isn’t representation of Arizona residents. No, Senator McCain’s issue is that in 2006 he decided to vote against positions that are solidly conservative.
Everyone is aware that McCain went AWOL regarding the amnesty issue but does anyone remember that in July of last year McCain voted against the building of the border fence? Oh yeah, I forgot, he’s learned his lesson now!
How about taxes? I can’t figure out whether McCain is for or against Bush’s tax cuts. He seems to dance around the issue each time it is asked. Does anyone remember when McCain voted for a Senate bill that would have increased the number of votes required to LOWER TAXES from a simple majority to 60 votes? Does this really sound like someone who thinks tax cuts are important?
How about prolife? McCain’s record is consistently conservative when it comes to abortion. However, in my book, prolife issues also extend to embryonic research. I find it hard to reconcile being prolife but accepting the use of embryonic stem cells. At the very least, embryonic stem cell research should not be funded by the federal government. Yup, that would be the consistent prolife position but it’s not McCain’s. McCain voted FOR the bill that allowed the use of federal funds for embryonic research. I could go on with other examples of McCain’s recent lack of conservatism but I won’t. The nauseating details can be found here: http://www.acuratings.org/2006senate.htm
So why do I think I’m schizophrenic when thinking of McCain’s lifetime ACU ratings and his non-conservative rap? The answer is I’m not, he is! While having a lifetime rating that is not perfect but is acceptable, during the most recent 18 months his liberal leanings have become more apparent. When the likes of Chuck Hagel and Norm Coleman have better ACU ratings than you do I think it’s safe to say that you’ve left the conservative wing of the party!
Revisions/extensions (5:11 pm 2/4/2008; steveegg) – Fixed some formatting issues.
Revisions/extensions (1:30 pm 2/6/2008) – McCain is now inevitable. “Thank” you RNC, rank-and-file, and “conservatives” who refused to back and ultimately coalesce around a conservative candidate.
Flip has been doing a bang-up job on keeping track of the delegate counts. Indeed, I’m going to, er, borrow his GOP Primary Scoreboard – Maine Edition…
Sorry, I blew up my pics folder
Flip also ran the math on what Mitt Romney would need post-Super-Duper Tuesday to get the nomination based on what he gets on SDT. He figures that, for any candidate to remain viable after SDT, the candidate would have to need no more than 2/3rds of the delegates unspoken for by SDT. In Romney’s case, that would mean he would need to get at least 34% of the delegates in SDT.
Because I’m not satisfied by looking at just the latest candidate the LeftStreamMedia is trying to dump out of the race, I decided to resynthesize the viability factors for the remainder of the candidates, taking each through the full gamut of 0% of the SDT delegates (or the percentage a particular candidate would need just to remain mathematically in it without taking from one of the other 4) to 100%. Of particular note, I also ran a set for John McCain that assumed he would get all of Mike Huckabee’s delegates after SDT, and that Huckabee would have 165 delegates coming out of tomorrow (in short, his percentage of delegates now). First, the chart for McCain and Romney:
Note that, if McCain does not get Huckabee’s delegates, he will need to get 34% of the SDT delegates to remain “effectively viable”, that is, he needs to get no more than 2/3rds of the remaining delegates. That is the same (give or take rounding) as what Romney needs. Similarily, for McCain to become “effectively inevitable”, that is, he would need no more than 1/3rd of the remaining delegates, he would have to get 69% of the SDT delegates, compared to Romney’s 70%.
Where it gets interesting is when one adds Huckabee’s delegates to McCain’s. I’ll ignore the “effectively viable” number I originally calculated, as an 18% showing would make McCain anything but viable. However, if McCain and Huckabee got a combined 66% of the SDT delegates (the example in my chart has McCain getting 53% and Huckabee 13%), and all of Huckabee’s delegates went to McCain (or vice versa if you’re a Huckster), he would become effectively inevitable. Also, even if McCain and Huckabee took every delegate on Tuesday, their combined delegate count would not be enough to mathematically lock up the nomination.
Next up, the surviving also-rans, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul:
In order to remain “effectively viable”, both Huckabee and Paul would need to get at least 40% of the delegates on SDT. Morever, while both could theoretically be mathematically eliminated, only Paul is in serious danger of that. He would need to more than double his average delegate performance in order to have any shot whatsoever.
(Extension) Now that Super-Duper Tuesday is over, let’s go back to Flip for an analysis of the numbers. He does assume that McCain got all of California’s delegates because he won every county, while Jim Geraghty says that Romney will end up winning between 2 and 4 of California’s Congressional districts and thus between 6 and 12 delegates. There are also currently a few anomalies between plugging the percentages into the above analysis and the current Flip analysis that I cannot currently explain.
What is clear by any metric that includes California is that McCain has somewhere more than 60% of the delegates he needs to get the nomination on the first ballot. Worse, specifically for those hoping for a brokered convention, there already has been a deal cut between McCain and Huckabee, specifically in the West Virginia convention, where the McCain delegates flipped to Huckabee en masse on the second ballot. If the inverse holds true, McCain would have roughly 75% of the delegates he needs.
The road is all-but-impossible for Romney. Most if the states and territories up in the next 2 weeks, including Wisconsin, use by-district WTA schemes, and I expect McCain to take both of the “state”wide WTA contests (the largest prize of Virginia and the District of Columbia) as he is the Beltway and veteran candidate.
The Cheddarsphere’s Blogfather obtained a copy of an e-mail exchange between Paul Olsen (yes, the brother of Sen. Luther Olsen, both of the Olsen family distillery infamy) and Luther’s chief of staff Heather Smith over Luther’s decision to once again recuse himself from the corn-a-hole debate after initially being a cosponsor, partly because it went onto the state’s e-mail system and thus is a public record, but mostly because it went out to upwards of 40 people legitimately. What is quite telling is a portion of Smith’s response…
…There are a huge number of people in southeast Wisconsin – not just talk radio, but certainly including them, who are looking for a reason to take out Luther, and make him the next Mary Panzer. Bob can tell you this easily – there are a ton of the “true conservatives” (who also are the ethanol-haters) from down there who have pledged to defeat any republican who would dare to vote for this….
So they start by ginning up support in the moneyed Milwaukee market which HATES ethanol. Whatever. If it’s only Milwaukee people, you can probably withstand the storm, because you can assume your constituents are OK. But, and clearly you don’t realize this, Luther’s constituents heard this, and reacted. And not 3-4-5-10 people. We got dozens of
calls and emails just yesterday alone. From constituents. Not from just people who hate ethanol, although there were a few of those. But from people who think that Luther is dirty. That he’s deceitful. That you are. That he’s pulling a fast one on everyone, so that you and he benefit. These are the people Luther asks permission from every few years to keep his job.There were not a hundred calls, or ten, or EVEN ONE CALL from a constituent who wanted to tell Luther, “Heck yeah, vote for this, it’s great!” We got a memo from a “special interest group” and the DNR, and heaven knows the DNR should always be listened to.
As a Milwaukee-area ethanol-hater (no need for the scare quotes when it’s burned; put it into a glass and I rather like ethanol), I will work to oust those that want to burn our food. ‘Tis good to hear the folks of Olsen’s district have risen up, and also good that he has listened to them.
As an aside, I don’t exactly buy Smith’s contention that it’s dead. The last time we whacked this, it started in the Assembly, and she’s using the Assembly’s lack of a companion bill as “proof” that it’s well and truly dead. My outside-the-Beltway view is that the corn-a-hole folks thought that they’d try where they failed last time (namely, the Senate), and take for granted they still had the support of the Assembly and Jim Doyle. Given the last attempt went through the Assembly with more than half the ‘Rats (20 of 39) then supporting it, and the leadership in the Assembly now supported it then, it cannot be assumed that the Assembly won’t touch it.
Bill Quick has the first 10, John Stephenson has the last 3. They both do a better job of explaining than I, and since I pretty much agree with the explanations, I’ll simply list the thirteen here…
#13 – The McCain-Snowe-Dorgan Drug Reimportation Act of 2004 (which would have shut down pharmaceutical research and development)
#12 – The McCain-Edwards-Kennedy Patients’ Bill of Rights Lawyers’ Bill of Sale
#11 – McShame’s defense of John F. Kerry against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
#10 – McShame’s siding with the gay activists in a case when the Christian Civic League of Maine attempted to generate grass-roots support for the federal Marriage Protection Amendment
#9 – The Keating Five (mark my words; should McCain become the nominee, the moment he gets the required number of delegates, the presstitutes will be all over this)
#8 – Siding with the pro-abortion lobby when Wisconsin Right to Life attempted to generate grass-roots support to bust the filibuster of an attempt to prevent minors from crossing state lines for the purpose of getting an abortion without their parents’ consent during the re-coronation of Nobody’s Senator, Herb Kohl
#7 – Siding with the pro-abortion lobby again when Wisconsin Right to Life wanted to bust the judicial filibusters while his good friend Russ el-Slimeroad (Moonbat-Al Qaeda) was up for re-coronation
#6 – McShame’s starring role in the Gang of 14, which buried several good Constitutionalist judicial nominees
#5 – McShame’s ongoing class warfare
#4 – The McCain-Kennedy-Bush Shamnesty Act
#3 – McShame’s support for full Constitutional rights for terrorists
#2 – McShame-Slimeroad Lieberal Protection Act
And the #1 reason why I will never vote for John McCain…
#1 – If John McShame is not a RINO (he said in 2004 when he was flirting with running with Kerry – "I believe my party has gone astray. I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and in their philosophy."), I don’t know what a RINO is
Like I said, I’d rather deal with the flip-flops I do and don’t know about than somebody who, but for the War (and even on that, there’s a vital portion he agrees with the ‘Rats on), would be happier than a pig in day-old shit as a ‘Rat.
This time, it’s in Maine’s caucuses, which CNN had Romney winning 52%-21% at last count. For the record, that’s 5 caucii/conventions, 3 wins for Romney, 1 for McCain and 1 for Huckabee (and in that one, Romney vastly outpolled McCain). Bravo Zulu, Slu.
Tell me again why the fuck a guy who twice wanted to bolt to the ‘Rats in the last 7 years is leading the Pubbie nomination process.
(H/T – Jon Ham, more discussion from Rick Moran and the Imperial Torturer and silent E, and lawhawk)
Mississippi House Bill 282, written by Republican W.T. Mayhall Jr., and introduced by him, fellow Republican John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows, would prohibit restaurants licensed by the state of Mississippi from serving the “obese” under pain of closure by the state. That’s right; if this becomes law, 30 percent of the residents of Mississippi would be banished to the home kitchen. Don’t believe me? Allow me to pull the text from the bill:
HOUSE BILL NO. 282
AN ACT TO PROHIBIT CERTAIN FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS FROM SERVING FOOD TO ANY PERSON WHO IS OBESE, BASED ON CRITERIA PRESCRIBED BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT TO PREPARE WRITTEN MATERIALS THAT DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN THE CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING WHETHER A PERSON IS OBESE AND TO PROVIDE THOSE MATERIALS TO THE FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT TO MONITOR THE FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THIS ACT; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:
SECTION 1. (1) The provisions of this section shall apply to any food establishment that is required to obtain a permit from the State Department of Health under Section 41-3-15(4)(f), that operates primarily in an enclosed facility and that has five (5) or more seats for customers.
(2) Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.
(3) The State Department of Health shall monitor the food establishments to which this section applies for compliance with the provisions of this section, and may revoke the permit of any food establishment that repeatedly violates the provisions of this section.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2008.
I probably shouldn’t be the one to judge, but if Rep. Read’s House portrait is still still accurate, he’ll be shut out of restaurants. Brilliance, bipartisan P-I-G. Sheer, unadulterated BRILLIANCE!
Revisions/extensions (6:42 pm 2/1/2008) – Sorry about the slight, silent E. I didn’t finish reading my seriously-overloaded reader before punching this out initially.
R&E part 2 (7:22 pm 2/1/2008) – Once again, I have to issue an apology. Somehow, I missed lawhawk’s run at this.
Since I’m doing lists, I’ll bring one created by Mr. Pelican Pants up from the comments….
1980: Bush is VP
1984: Bush is VP
1988: Bush is Prez
1992: Clinton is Prez
1996: Clinton is Prez
2000: Bush 2 is Prez
2004: Bush 2 is Prez
2008: Clinton 2 is Prez??In other words, if HRC is elected this year, two families will have effectively run this country for 32 years.
If she’s elected, it would more likely be 36 years when all is said and done, Pelican. There have been only three “natural” one-term Presidents (which takes out the never-elected Gerald Ford) since the turn of the last century (William Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter), and only Carter did not take the Oval Office from a fellow party member. Also, all 3 turned over the Oval Office to the opposition party.
It wasn’t exactly a secret at the time, and when the story finally made print with details in March, 2007, I don’t remember if I had already considered it old news. However, Drudge pulled it out of the memory hole today (H/T – Allahpundit, who is also the one that remembered it was 10 months old). Another new bit comes from Jack M., who offers some fresh first-hand confirmation. Guess it’s time to break out the ugly stick (on page 2 because it will not be for the squeamish or for those at work at a place they don’t own).
Leave it to the Emperor to come up with an elegant, kick-ass solution – write in Fred Dalton Thompson for President. Of course, that still would leave the bottom half to solve. Question; who for the bottom half? It would have to be somebody not in Virginia.
The corn-a-hole lobby and the bipartian P-I-G are still searching for two votes for passage of SB380 according to Mark Belling. Therefore, they sent it back to committee looking to flip 2 to the dark side.
Do not let that happen. Keep on calling and e-mailing your state Senator; tell them “NO!” to a forced replacement of almost every single gasoline engine in the state.
Revisions/extensions (5:43 pm 1/31/2008) – My Anti-ethanol rant page has been rewritten.
Revisions/extensions (9:42 am 1/31/2008) – This will be up at the top of the blog until the Senate is done with it (originally posted at 7:43 am 1/31/2008); look for fresher posts below. Also, just as a reminder of how important you the citizen can be, I went back into the NRE archives and found my thanks to, among others, the 17 Senators that killed the previous attempt.
My Senator, Jeff Plale, has an e-mail waiting for him urging him to repeat his rejection of this mandate. Does your Senator have a fresh reminder? If not, make it happen now, they’ll be in session in under 1 1/2 hours.
Revisions/extensions part 2 (5:52 pm 1/31/2008) – They’re two votes short, so they sent it back to committee for a vote hunt, and will bring it back immediately should they find 2 votes. Since they’re going to keep up the skeer, we’re going to have to keep up the skeer. Also, I got too fancy in my math in the second half of the article (thanks for the gentle reminder, Dad29).
Charlie’s all over this attempt to drive Wisconsin-based Briggs & Stratton and Harley Davidson out of Wisconsin’s marketplace for the benefit of the corn-a-hole lobby by eventually requiring 25% of all fuel in Wisconsin come from “renewable” sources in the form of Senate Bill 380. The bipartisan P-I-G fast-tracked this, passed a couple of meaningless amendments, and it’s on the floor of the Senate today.
What, the federal mandate, as odious as it is to the driving public, is not enough for the corn-a-hole lobby? Historically-high prices for corn is not enough? I believe you know the phrase I have for them, and the last part is “…and the combine you rode in on.”
Related to that, Marcus Aurelius has some numbers in his great corn squeezings experiment. While he didn’t provide a specific mileage for driving with regular E0 gas (he’s outside the Algore/Whitman Memorial E10 RFG mandate hell I have to deal with), and the estimated price for E85 in Appleton (based on his calculation on cost per mile, it’s $2.31/gallon) is a heck of a lot lower than it is in Milwaukee (I semi-regularily pass one station that offers E85; it was going for $2.60/gallon during that time frame and now it’s up to $2.85/gallon), I have enough to start running with. Given his rough estimate of mileage on E0 of 15-17 mph, I’ll assume that, just before he began this experiment just before Christmas, he was getting about 14 mpg with his flex-fuel Chevy Suburban. He got 11.1 mpg with 3 fill-ups on E85, and though most of his driving was what the EPA would consider “city” and in and out of 4WD, he did have an extended highway run.
That, my friends, is about a 27% drop in fuel mileage from E0. Given my historic estimate of a 5% drop in fuel mileage between E0 and Algore/Whitman E10, that’s about a 19% drop between that and E85. For one to break even, E85 would need to be about 21% 27% cheaper than regular gas and about 17% 19% cheaper than Algore/Whitman E10. Given E0 gas went for about $3/gallon during that time frame, and Algore/Whitman E10 went for about $2.85 in that time frame, E85 would need to go for about $2.36/gallon during that time frame to be as cost-efficient at the pump as either E0 or Algore/Whitman E10 $2.19/gallon to be as cost-efficient at the pump as E0 and $2.30/gallon to be as cost-efficient at the pump as Algore/Whitman E10 during that time frame. It didn’t even get close to that in the Milwaukee area. Hell, it didn’t even get there for Marcus.
I don’t recall specifically hearing this scary-sobering factoid, but I’ll toss this list out there.
1945-1953 – Democratic Party
1953-1961 – Republican Party
1961-1969 – Democratic Party
1969-1977 – Republican Party
1977-1981 – Democratic Party
1981-1993 – Republican Party
1993-2001 – Democratic Party
2001-(at least 2009) – Republican Party
I started with 1945 because, while Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1944 to a 4th term, his Vice President, Harry Truman, assumed the office near the beginning of the term and thus the term was more his than Roosevelt’s, and the 22nd Amendment term-limiting Presidents was ratified during Truman’s administration, though it did not apply to him.
What is scary-sobering is only once in the last 63 years (64 by the time President Bush is officially term-limited) has a party maintained control of the White House for more than 8 years, and the party in control now is the Republican Party. Of course, the one long-term outlier is the Republican Party.
[No Runny Eggs is proudly powered by WordPress.]
