The New York Sun is reporting:
With social conservatives up in arms over the possibility that Senator McCain may tap a supporter of abortion rights, Senator Lieberman, as his running mate, one staunch McCain ally and abortion opponent says the Connecticut lawmaker is the perfect choice.
Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, said social conservatives are making a mistake by opposing Mr. Lieberman, arguing that the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee could help deliver Mr. McCain the election in November. While ardent abortion foes have said the “pro-life” principle is too important to give up for the sake of political pragmatism, Mr. King turned the argument on its head, saying that electing an anti-abortion president in Mr. McCain outweighs the risk of a more conservative vice presidential pick that would ultimately lose to Senator Obama in November.
“They would be the ones morally responsible for electing a pro-choice president,” Mr. King said of Mr. Lieberman’s right-wing critics in an interview with The New York Sun yesterday.
Mr. McCain drew the ire of opponents of legalized abortion when he told the Weekly Standard last week that the support of abortion rights would not necessarily disqualify a former Pennsylvania governor, Tom Ridge, as a prospective running mate. And reports have spread this week that he also is considering Mr. Lieberman.
The news has led to angry warnings from social conservatives, and the talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Mr. McCain would “destroy the Republican Party.”
“I understand the sincerity but I really believe it’s misguided, and I’m saying that as a person who has a 100% pro-life voting record,” Mr. King said.
View my original post “The Vote That Will Cost Obama the Presidency” from February 20th, 2008 here.
More background here:
And where does John McCain stand?
Hat-tip: Redstate
On a day clouded by growing VP speculation, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has finally stepped down. With Iraq beginning to settle, foreign policy concerns will shift to Russia’s newfound aggression and the delicate state of Pakistan and its neighbor, Afghanistan.
This news comes at a time when the United States may need a Petraeus-esque surge to counter the advances of resurgent Taliban and Al-Qaeda factions in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Despite our concerns about Iran, I continue to believe that Pakistan is the more menacing national security threat, ready at any moment to boil over. With a confirmed nuclear weapons stockpile and indisputable links to Al-Qaeda, Pakistan can now add widespread political instability to its long list of troubles.
Regardless of President Bush’s (too late in coming) attempts to veto lavish spending bills from Congress, I am fairly certain this type of foreign aid is neither fiscally responsible nor strategically wise. $227 million to Pakistan for repairs to F-16 fighter jets? I have a few squabbles with this expenditure:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After the United States has spent more than $5 billion in a largely failed effort to bolster the Pakistani military effort against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, some American officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the money. The strategy to improve the Pakistani military, they said, needs to be completely revamped.
In interviews in Islamabad and Washington, Bush administration and military officials said they believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The United States has accused members of Pakistan’s main spy agency of tipping off al Qaeda-linked militants before U.S. missile attacks on targets in Pakistani tribal lands, Pakistan’s defense minister said.
Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar openly acknowledged American mistrust of Pakistan’s main military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in remarks aired on Thursday on Pakistani television.
“They think that there are some elements in the ISI at some level that when the government of Pakistan is informed of targets, then leak it to them (militants) at some level,” Mukhtar told Geo in Washington, having accompanied Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on a maiden visit to the United States.
In January 2007, as part of his overhauled Iraq strategy, President George W. Bush announced that Petraeus would succeed Gen. George Casey as commanding general of MNF-I to lead all U.S. troops in Iraq. On January 23, the Senate Armed Services Committee held Petraeus’s nomination hearing, during which he testified on his ideas for Iraq, particularly the strategy underpinning the ” surge” of forces. During his opening statement, Petraeus stated that “security of the population, especially in Baghdad, and in partnership with the Iraqi Security Forces, will be the focus of the military effort.” He went on to state that security will require establishing a persistent presence, especially in Iraq’s most threatened neighborhoods. He also noted the critical importance of helping Iraq increase its governmental capacity, develop employment programs, and improve daily life for its citizens.
The struggle to secure and stabilize Pakistan is an issue I had the opportunity to study extensively last year during a freshman comparative politics course. In a term paper that discussed the future of Pakistani politics, I was not optimistic of the prospects for a bright future:
The lack of a united and determined political center has opened a power vacuum that military professionals and radical fundamentalists have come to control. The constant shift in governing bodies has not allowed for political stabilization. Both the center–left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the center-right Pakistan Muslim League (PML) governed as the leading factions in the decade lasting from elections in 1988 to the military coup in 1999. The resulting military takeover and suppression of popular parties does not allow for the process of contestation to take hold. Contestation is the existence of legitimate competition for the voting electorate. Inclusion is the desired effect of contestation in which the majority of the adult population is able to vote. Ideally, the most stable political systems will see a gradual rise contestation and a resulting increase in inclusion.
A more realistic and attainable route for Pakistan’s political system is not the purifying process of democratization, but the modification and liberalization of its authoritarian establishment. Democratization replaces a regime not chosen in contested elections with a ruling government that represents the voting electorate. Liberalization occurs when an authoritarian regime loosens media restrictions, holds elections for offices with little clout, and increases personal freedoms to once suppressed political dissidents. These steps give the look of democratic progress without guaranteeing the electoral turnover of top autocrats and decision makers. Pakistan seems destined to go no further than the liberalization of their autocratic rule, since top officials are so allergic to democratic change and empowerment.
As 2007 and 2008 are the years we’ll remember as decisive in our victory in Iraq, let us hope and pray that 2009 and beyond will produce similar results in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
DaveG’s original ruling on the field has been overturned.
Over 14 hours have passed since Rick Warren’s Saddleback Civil Forum on Presidency concluded, and neither CNN nor any other media outlet have proceeded to interpret the senior McCain adviser’s e-mail, received and reported by John King, as a newsworthy retraction, or reversal, of McCain’s statement four days ago, in which the Republican nominee told the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes that he won’t rule out a pro-choice running mate.
I suspected the call was wrong, but waited to throw the red flag until there was incontrovertible evidence to bolster my skepticism (coming in the form of subsequent, and notable omissions; the absence of a reiteration of this alleged ‘news’ by CNN, or a corroborating report by another network or member of the press).
In reviewing McCain’s comments from last night, there is, quite the contrary, reason to believe the Arizona senator offered additional information to confirm his comfort with a supporter of abortion rights such as Tom Ridge or Rudy Giuliani as his prospective vice president. Two specific remarks by McCain stood out as attempts to assuage the concerns of leery single-issue social conservatives.
MCCAIN: I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate, and as President of the United States, I will be a pro-life president, and this presidency will have pro-life policies. That’s my commitment. That’s my commitment to you.
WARREN: OK, we don’t have to go longer on that one.
WARREN: Define marriage.
MCCAIN: Union…A union between man and a woman — between one man and one woman. That’s my definition of marriage.
MCCAIN: Could I…are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court justices, or should I mention that?
WARREN: We will get to that.
MCCAIN: OK, alright, OK. But that’s –
WARREN: Remember, you got ahead…you went and answered all my questions. That’s good.
MCCAIN: No, no, that’s…When we speak of the issue of the rights of the unborn, we need to talk about judges.
UPDATE: Ridge: GOP would accept abortion-rights VP
Tom Ridge, this morning, on “Fox News Sunday“:
WALLACE: Governor Ridge, John McCain stirred the vice presidential pot this week when he said the following about you, and let’s put it up on the screen. “Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders, and he has happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out.”
Question: Given its long pro-life history, do you really think that the Republican Party would accept a pro-choice running mate?
RIDGE: My friend of 25 years is passionately pro-life. He is also passionately a believer that the Republican Party must have a big tent. And I think, frankly, what he was just saying to the rest of the world is that we need to accept both points of view.
He’s not judgmental about me or my belief. He just disagrees with me. And there’s no doubt in my mind, no doubt whatsoever, that there would be — he would have a strong pro-life administration. No question about it.
WALLACE: And to answer my question specifically, do you think the Republican Party would accept a pro-choice running mate?
RIDGE: Well, I think that would be up to — first of all, to John to decide whether he wants a pro-choice running mate, and then we would have to see how the Republican Party would rally around it.
At the end of the day, I think the Republican Party will be comfortable with whatever John makes.
WALLACE: Now, I just want to follow up one more time on this. The last time you were here, we talked about your pro-choice views.
RIDGE: Right.
WALLACE: And here’s what you had to say.
RIDGE: Well, I believe what I believe, and I’ve had that point of view before I got into elected office. I’ve had it when I served and I have it now.
WALLACE: Governor, have you talked with McCain about your pro-choice views on abortion and whether you would follow his pro-life views if you were to become his running mate?
RIDGE: Well, we’ve had no discussions on this very important issue. As I said before, he understands the majority of the Republican Party disagrees with me on this issue. We’ve had no conversations.
And the last time I checked, the vice president is not an independent voice. He echoes the position of the president of the United States.
WALLACE: And that’s what you would do if you were the running mate?
RIDGE: I think that’s the responsibility of the vice president. If you’re unwilling or unable to do that, then I think you should defer to someone else.
UPDATE II: Bobby Jindal, earlier today, on Meet the Press:
MR. GREGORY: Governor Jindal, this week Senator McCain indicated that he would be open to a pro-choice running mate like former Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge. As somebody who opposes abortion rights, conservative in the party, do you think that would be a mistake that would hurt Senator McCain?
GOV. JINDAL: Look, I think people will end up voting for who’s running for president. The bottom line is this: Senator McCain has a pro-life record. He said he’ll have a pro-life administration. What’s most important to me as a pro-life voter is what kinds of judges will the next president appoint to the Supreme Court. Are they going to be judges that will read the Constitution or will they be judges that will try to create laws? This Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling struck down a death penalty case for Louisiana, a death penalty law in Louisiana for child rapists. We don’t want activist judges that will be creating law instead of just reading the Constitution.
You know, last night Senator Obama had a chance in a church in California to talk about abortion. He said he opposes late-term abortions. His voting record says different. He’s always voted for those things. I wish he would just say honestly he’s pro-choice, he’s not a pro-life candidate. With Senator McCain, we know he’s pro-life. There are two men running for president, two major candidates on the ticket. We have more–as a pro-life voter, I certainly have more confidence in the judges that Senator McCain would appoint to the Supreme Court.
Dole, Burr and GOP should be Nehemiah for lower income families
By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report
In 445 B.C. the Persian King Artaxerxes sent Nehemiah, an Israelite who was a trusted official, to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Mel Watt (D-NC) joined most of his fellow Democrats (and not too few Republicans) last month is passing a law arbitrarily bailing out over 300,000 sub-prime loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while, inexplicably ending a successful conservative program allowing charitable organizations to provide down payment assistance to lower income first time homebuyers for regular FHA loans.
FHA loans are not sub prime loans to credit risky borrowers like a high percentage of the bailed out loans. Moreover, 501c3 organizations like Nehemiah provide an extra level of scrutiny for loans they provide DPA assistance for and coach and assist the first time home borrowers from loan application thru sale and throughout the life of the loan.
The “moral hazard” of the risky loans does not apply to FHA loans, so it remains a puzzle why Congress ended the DPA programs. This is especially so given the credit crunch and housing depression amidst record overall and minority homeownership. If the housing slump is too end, homes must be sold to first time homebuyers, who are, disproportionately minority single women with children. The biggest customers of Nehemiah and other such charitable orgs providing DPA is just that demographic and there default rate is in line with overall FHA loans.
Gamecock has recently cited the war the Democratic Party has been waging against lower income families in their preference for high gas prices and fetishes for snail darters and the Gore Church of Manmade Global Warming hoax while their constituents, post gas station visits, choose between the store brand peas and Lesuer. Especially those of Mel Watt that live a life dependant on reasonably priced gas off I-85.
Mel voted to bring the walls down on potential homebuyers in his district, the State of North Carolina and all across the United States before they were ever built.
Tar Heel State senators Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr didn’t even bother to vote on the bank bailout bill that President Bush reluctantly signed. The President could have used some assistance from our senators of a state so dependant on housing for its standard of living.
Gamecock has also long argued that conservative GOP policies are, and have been since the 1980s, better for all Americans, and especially lower income families and that Republicans need to make this point clear.
Well, Madam Dole and Mister Burr, here is your chance. We hope that Senator Dole will be more responsive to this public request than she has been to one of the more prominent realtors in Charlotte who has been unable to get an audience with the senator on the merits of DPA.
A recent story on the Charlotte Observer rated Dole one of the most “ineffective” senators in Washington. Personally, this rooster usually prefers ineffective porkbarrelists and, in any event cares not for vague rankings for headlines. After all, the 50th best state in the United States is still not in poor Mexico! And the worst vanilla ice cream is still ice cream! But I digress…
Senator Dole has shown that she can get her mind right. She was, not long ago, an acolyte of Gore’s church until she heard painful cries caused by $4/gallon gas.
Hear this cry madam: North Carolina is heavily dependant on housing growth for its well being. The DPA program was not part of the problem of the housing bubble.
Please vote to restore the DPA program and rebuild the walls.
We need Nehemiahs, not another Jericho. The GOP needs to be seen, rightly, as the party of the middle class. So be it, and don’t be quiet about it, unless you want us writing minority reports forever. This country and state is center-right and our policies are right. Let’s take back the majority for the majority.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” - The Chief Justice
“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew
Originally published in and introducing Gamecock’s DeVine Law
The greatest and most blessed Land east (and west) of the Garden of Eden has needed continual healings of varying degrees since its founding. We became the last best hope of man on Earth, the arsenal of Democracy and God-given Liberty’s Shining City on a Hill because we sought and received healings of our Land via a Judeo-Christian prescription:
2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Dr. Richard Land, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), prescribed that Scriptural anecdote for what ails America recently as a guest speaker at the First Baptist Church in Charlotte.
Dr. Land is a frequent quest on Meet the Press and other prominent television programs and probably the best “public Evangelical face” save for Reverend Billy Graham, who best refutes the secular left’s false caricature of Christians as wanting to “impose our views” on America.
The fact is that Christians, and especially those of the Evangelical variety finally joined more politically active Catholics, only became politically active in large numbers when five or more lawyers on the U.S. Supreme Court began imposing their views via their re-written, non-ratified by We the People Constitution on them beginning in the 1960’s and especially after the early 1970’s ruling that struck down anti-abortion laws in most of the states.
Dr. Land has been calling for a healing of our land long before $4.00/gallon gas and milk; in no wise demands that non-Christians participate in the initial operation; and cites prior healings initiated in our history by Christians that healed the land for all.
Dr. Land distinguishes between America as “Blessed”, being an undeserved gift, and “Healed’ as having to be earned, and while he also cites Lincoln’s, we need to be on God’s side” for the non-partisan SBC admonition that God is on no political party’s side, he does not hesitate to declare that God is on Life’s side and that one cannot vote for a pro-abortion rights politician or judge and be on God’s side.
But before turning to the “Chronicles” Plan, Land chronicles some past healings that are instructive for stanching today’s cultural rot. He cites the prominent role Christians played in the Abolitionist movement that lead to ending slavery; the Progressive movement that brought necessary workplace reforms; the Suffragette movement for women and the Civil Rights movement.
He then bemoaned that over the past forty years, the secular culture has influenced the Church more than Christians have been salt and light for America.
Our Constitution vests power in We the People, not just we the non-religious people, and Dr. Land enunciated the long held Baptist advocacy for separating church form State lest the state harm the church in its soul saving mission. But he also pointed out that Christians are part of we the people and that free speech is not just free non-religious speech. Land echoed gamecock in his, we speak, we vote, we accept the outcome till the next vote.
That said, Dr. Land then turned to the scripture and declared that the healing we seek for all of America’s land begins with God’s people, as it is God speaking in verse 14 above saying “my people.”
The formula Land cites seems eerily familiar to several periods in America’s history, some of which pre-ceded our founding and the Church’s (and Hebrew peoples’) history for the past 2000-5000 years. The formula?
Revival. Awakening. Reformation.
Revival occurs when Christians humble themselves, pray, seek God’s face and turn from their wicked ways. The first step is for “Christians themselves” to clean up their act so that others want in on the act. When others look and see the benefits of eschewing drugs, saving sex for marriage, staying married and living wholesome lives.
There is no imposing of anything. It is first about an example that persuades and draws others, so that healing is possible. No social construct can cure a disease when the ingredients (see us) are so diseased.
Land’s recent book, The Divided States of America: What Liberals and Conservatives are Missing in the God-and-Country Shouting Match! is a great amen to the sermon yours truly witnessed here in the Tar Heel state.
Christians and non-Christians alike should appreciate his approach to public policy if not all of the substantive positions.
Let the healing of the land begin!
In that regard, Dr. land recently endorsed Alaska Governor, Republican Sarah Palin for theVice-President spot on the McCain ticket. Baptists are truly the liberated woman’s friend. Land also dismissed any suggestion that Obama could peel off more than a marginal portion of the non-black Evangelical vote given his radical pro-abortion views.
Land was also one of many Christians last year and early this year that opposed having a pro-abortion presidential nominee like Rudy Giuliani.
Who says the influence of the Christian Right is waning?
Not me.
Mike DeVine aka Gamecock’s Charlotte Observer columns Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” - The Chief Justice Race 4 2008 “One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
Just as the Republican Party considers nominating its first pro-choice candidate for a national ticket in a generation, the Democratic Party also seems to have learned that most Americans aren’t absolutists on this ancient issue. Obama supporter and conservative Catholic Doug Kmiec has helped the Democratic Party come to terms with the reality that abortion is something other than an amoral medical procedure:
The new Democratic Party Platform is obviously something many people of different points of view had a hand in. Some of us argued that Roe be reversed; others that it be reaffirmed. Those polar positions are not where either Democratic or Republican parties are at — nor realistically the American people.
The Republicans are dug in on seeking the elusive 5th vote to overturn Roe, but even with all the past Republican appointments to the Court, that is unlikely. And in any event, overturning Roe does nothing directly to save a life; it merely tosses the issue to the states which may or may not affirm life.
Catholic teaching tells us when we reach an impasse for life, we need to seek out another way - to make at least some progress in building up the culture of life. Interestingly, that’s where Obama’s effort has guided the Democratic platform.
Yes, there is the reaffirmation of Roe, but it is now matched with a full-throated call for efforts to address the irresponsibility of kids having kids, through appropriate educational efforts emphasizing the maturity and responsibility that must accompany sexual intimacy.
The most important Obama-inspired addition to the platform is the explicit call for greater respect for prenatal assistance, paid maternity leave, and if a woman is unable to raise her child, a sensitively structured and caring adoption system. To have the Democrats in the “strongly support” column for these measures in favor of life should not go unnoticed.
That still leaves the Democratic Party Platform well short of where honoring all life needs to be from a Catholic perspective, but it moves the ball considerably toward the side that favors life from the moment of conception.
I think what both parties are starting to realize is that most Americans agree neither with a no-abortions-no-exceptions policy, nor with a world view that allows an eight month old human fetus to be ripped apart. Ultimately, I suspect the median American viewpoint on abortion goes something like this: most Americans aren’t really going to prevent a scared sixteen year old girl from terminating her pregnancy in the first trimester, but those same Americans find it reprehensible that such a decision must be made in the case of any woman due to a deadbeat dad or a potential job loss or an inability to afford child care. If 2008 is the year that the Democratic Party begins to attack abortion on the demand side, and also the year that the Republican Party admits that it’s acceptable to hold public office while being something less than steadfast in the face of that scared sixteen year old girl who’s only a few weeks pregnant, well, then maybe this is the year that both parties stop using the abortion issue as a political football and try to build some consensus on the issue to actually reduce the number of abortions that take place in this country.
By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report
If Russia’s goal is to re-build an empire, they would stand a better chance with the ignorant appeasing socialists of Western Europe. But they never took West Berlin and they won’t take back Eastern Europe nor Tbilisi, Georgia, thanks to the backbone of the 21st Century Truman, the conservative majority American voters and the United States military as well as the memory of tyranny in east of the Iron Curtain.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and the heads of state of five other nations that had once been dominated by the Soviet Union vowed never to concede the independence they’ve enjoyed since 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved.”The entire world is with us,” Saakashvili told a crowd of thousands that thronged downtown Tbilisi in a late night rally.
On the podium with him were the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.
With these concerns in mind, I have directed a series of steps to demonstrate our solidarity with the Georgian people and bring about a peaceful resolution to this conflict. I’m sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to France, where she will confer with President Sarkozy. She will then travel to Tbilisi, where she will personally convey America’s unwavering support for Georgia’s democratic government. On this trip she will continue our efforts to rally the free world in the defense of a free Georgia.I’ve also directed Secretary of Defense Bob Gates to begin a humanitarian mission to the people of Georgia, headed by the United States military. This mission will be vigorous and ongoing. A U.S. C-17 aircraft with humanitarian supplies is on its way. And in the days ahead we will use U.S. aircraft, as well as naval forces, to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies.
The leaders of five former slave states of the USSR master flew into a war zone to defy Putin’s mafia dictatorship. If that doesn’t reflect the character and will of their people, nothing can.
President Bush is sending in US military assets and personnel into the war zone a week faster than that Give ‘em Hell Harry did to Berlin.
Russia may get an Ossetia or so, but Putin will get nothing else on its eastern border.
The spines of President Bush, America and Eastern Europe are too stiff for that.
God bless America, those in Eastern Europe that love America and its Liberty gift, and God bless President George “The Liberator in Asia” Bush, soon also to be revered as the preserver of Liberty in Europe/Asia.
And God bless John McCain for identifying the evil that is Putin long ago and taking a Bush-like hawkish stance now, in stark contrast to the deer in the headlights ingenue that is the Democratic party’s nominee.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” - The Chief Justice Race 4 2008 “One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes is reporting:
IN A WIDE-RANGING INTERVIEW aboard his campaign plane this morning, John McCain said that he is open to choosing a pro-choice running mate and named former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as someone who merits serious consideration despite his support for abortion rights.
“I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party,” McCain said. “And I also feel that–and I’m not trying to equivocate here–that Americans want us to work together. You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out.”
McCain’s comments came in response to a question about comments he made to several reporters during the Republican primary season. During that exchange, McCain was asked whether New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg would make a good running mate. McCain offered strong words of praise for Bloomberg but said that Bloomberg’s position on abortion–he is also pro-choice–would make it difficult to choose him as a vice presidential candidate.
In the interview this morning, McCain suggested that Ridge would be more palatable to social conservatives than Bloomberg.
“I think it’s a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a–albeit strong–but just it’s a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far moreso than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.”
So the question remains: Are the Georges and yours truly right?
Earlier in the interview, McCain criticized the Obama campaign for comments Obama adviser Susan Rice made on Hardball last night. Rice suggested that McCain’s strong anti-Russian rhetoric might have contributed to difficulties there.
“John McCain shot from the hip, a very aggressive, very belligerent statement,” Rice told MSNBC. “He may or may not have complicated the situation.”
McCain raised Rice’s comments unprompted and laughed them off before saying: “It’s just an example–they politicize these issues without understanding that national security is not something that’s a political issue. Same thing with the surge. It’s in keeping with sort of the path that they’ve been on–to politicize national security for their perceived short term political interests.”
Over the past five days, McCain said, Obama has shown his lack of experience on foreign policy issues and a lack of understanding of the region. McCain, asked why he had not directly criticized Obama’s response to the crisis, said: “Well, I’m more concerned about the situation there, number one. Number two is–people will make their own judgment. But I think people will obviously conclude that his inexperience and his lack of knowledge of this region and the issues are very apparent. But I think people will reach that conclusion.”
The United States and the rest of the West is reluctant to militarily intervene in Georgia.
Why? Have we learned nothing from history? Have we not learned that kicking the ball down the road only clears the pathway for tyrants with imperial ambitions? Is it not abundantly clear that ignoring action by aggressor states only gives them — and other states of a similar persuasion — the green light to do as they please?
Vladimir Putin and his lackey Medvedev clearly are making a power play — timed precisely to align with the start of the Olympics, no doubt, for maximum non-response from the West — to show that Russia means business. They want to reclaim some of its former Soviet glory, refuse to advance serious human rights in the country they govern, and, with this action, have clearly indicated that they are not going to cooperate with or try to assimilate with the West.
Georgia is our ally. Georgia wants to become part of the West, join NATO, cooperate with the United States, support our goals, become truly free and prosperous — are we really going to turn our backs on them to curry favor with an autocrat — moreover, one that’s in bed with Iran?
Imagine if the West had refused to allow Hitler to claim Czechoslovakia. Imagine if we’d refused to allow the whims of Arab dictators to determine whether we allowed Saddam Hussein to keep his rule intact after the Gulf War. Imagine if we’d bombed North Korea’s nuclear facilities early on rather than take the word of a psychopath that he’d disarm. (A sole bright spot: Libya’s Gaddafi giving up his WMD program post-Iraq War) Imagine if the West — the United States in particular — had relied on power, rather than paper; in action, rather than words, over the course of the last half-century.
The way only to stop aggression is to stop aggression. So enough obfuscating. Enough equivocating. Enough stalling. The United States, if it wants to claim any moral high ground on this issue, should send military aid to Georgia immediately — both because it is morally just and because it will deter later threats to Western values, both from Russia and from other aggressor states.
By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report.
________________________________________________________________________________
-Focus on what we do going forward.
Russia invaded the democratic Nation of Georgia for no moral reason or purpose.
The United States of America did not invade said nation. The USA did not “allow” same, nor should they reasonably have been expected to deter same. Multiple war winning and stay the course until victory, insurgency defeating President George W. Bush did nothing, nor failed to do anything, to make said South Ossetia invasion more likely.
A megalomaniac bully with new wealth calculated and planned to commit an irrational evil act.
Yet, the first words out of not a few conservatives’ mouths were uttered, not to denounce the evil actor, but, rather to bemoan what the US should have done or not have done ( some even going back to 1999) or that we were “caught” flat-footed. The most illuminating of the bemoanings were from the gamecock respected Michael Ledeen in an interview with Dennis Prager at the end of which he basically admitted what I have concluded: There is nothing we could have done, short of having troops and tanks stationed everywhere on Earth (and even then), to deter all evil acts everywhere at all times.
Some have also ridiculed President Bush for not immediately leaving the Olympic Games for Washington to make a dramatic statement from the Oval Office. The more obscure have suggested that Bush’s close soul lookinginto (2001-2?) relationship with the Pu-KGB power behind the throne-tin ruler lead to the invasion of a democratic friend of the US that has the third most troops in Iraq.
Gamecock crows, Poppycock! To all that.
President Bush has made America’s deterrent effect real again. Libya confirmed the nation-state effect in public what is exponentially multiplied in private. See also Mookie al Sadr and the letters between Zawahiri (alive?) and Zarqawi (dead) and the tail between legs al Qaeda high-tailing it to the Afghan-Pakistani paradise sans liver machines.
But we can’t deter everything an irrational bully wants to do against a geographically vulnerable bully-bait.
President Bush was ridiculed by the left immediately after 911 and a few years into Iraq, only to see him win two wars. We know his values are Reaganesque on the question of good vs. evil.
Bush was great at 3am on 911, as confirmed by the account in Bob Woodward’s book that showed the president seeing we were at war instantly.
The Russian invasion of Georgia is serious, but for the US, its way past dawn, much less 3am, and this rooster knows dawns, backwards and forwards.
President Bush showed the calm of the world’s greatest power by staying in China to boost the morale of out heroes. Yes, Putin calmly planned his poop job on the Olympics and Georgia, but he didn’t make the Texas Cowboy blink in this high stakes poker.
I am constantly amused at the knee-jerk peanut gallery, left and right, but am in sorry that some on the right seem to echo the old Blame America First crowd (especially those that would tear ligaments reaching back nine years to try and rehabilitate a Wes Clark that wanted to “bomb the Russians’ or something close when they were our allies in Bosnia.)
I would close with a tip of the hat to Pat Buchanan who practically predicted this with his bemoaning of our carving up of non-NATO Serbia and antagonizing Russia with our NATO reach into their “former” sphere of influence.
But as I tip the hat at prescient intelligence, I at once reject the import of same for policy implications.
No, I favor embracing nations that want Liberty. That an evil man or nation will react at same deters me not at all. Would not embracing Liberty produce better results?
Of course not.
And I trust the man that has liberated over 50 million people to get this challenge right as well.
Let Bush be Bush and America will triumph.
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Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” - The Chief Justice Race 4 2008 “One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
…And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but we should all be very concerned about this alarming lack of understanding and the impact on our nation’s businesses.
AP released this article today: Most companies in US avoid federal income taxes
Apparently the use of S-corps has resulted in a large portion of the tax base to be transferred to personal taxes and away from corporate taxes. Do these people really think that business owners will choose to pay the higher of 2 taxes? The article goes on to discuss that senators Levin and Dorgan are unhappy that companies are using “transfers” to conduct internal sales within the companies and subsidiaries. This is a normal practice - do they want the parent and child companies to be in competition with each other? Absurd.
Dorgan and Levin have complained about companies abusing transfer prices - amounts charged on transactions between companies in a group, such as a parent and subsidiary. In some cases, multinational companies can manipulate transfer prices to shift income from higher to lower tax jurisdictions, cutting their tax liabilities. The GAO did not suggest which companies might be doing this.
That was not the real scary part - read on:
“It’s time for the big corporations to pay their fair share,” Dorgan said.
That last line sent chills down my spine. This is from the same man to who said that the highest wage earners are not paying enough, and then failed to say that there was an “enough” when talking about these incomes. He suggested that 75% might not be enough tax. This warped sense of fairness, policy-wise, is going to kill our potential for economic recovery.
This is just one more reason to quit bickering over the dang VP slot, and get busy supporting the Republican candidate. If Obama wins, then these idiots will have free reign.
The New York Times has an excellent piece on a little discussed but crucial factor come election day: state ballot initiatives.
You can get yourself up to speed on them all here.
If McCain loses we’ll face at least 2 years of an all-Democratic government. Depending on how careful they are we may face 4-8 years of all Democratic government.
What things that matter to you will have suffered under 8 years of Speaker Pelosi and President Obama?
I think we often have a sort of division attitude because many of us are Republicans for different reasons. Many of the people on this blog disagree with much of the Republican agenda.
At a minimum I think we should find some unity in the catastrophe of 8 years of liberal Democratic governance. From 1960-1968 we faced 8 years of liberal dominance.
After that period politics moved so far left that Nixon had to govern as an economic, social and foreign policy moderate. Could you imagine how much damage would occur now with a solidly liberal US government?
Most of us cannot remember what liberalism was. If we lose, America will get a crash course in liberalism.
Gateway Pundit nails Team Obama’s reaction to the Georgia-Russia conflict:
Barack Obama released a meaningless statement yesterday after Russia began a bombing campaign inside Georgia, a staunch US ally…
Nowhere in Obama’s original statement did he exclusively condemn Russia but rather took the citizen of the world approach and left America’s ally Georgia to fend for itself.
But, that was yesterday.
Now Politico is reporting that Barack Obama has released a fresh new statement and has decided to choose sides:
“I condemn Russia’s aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate ceasefire… Russia must stop its bombing campaign, cease flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia.”
Suddenly, Barack is sounding McCainish.
Surprised?Drew thinks someone must have looked it up and told Obama which side we are on.
Hat-tip to GP commenter Laika’s Last Wolf for the Google bit.
By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report
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Lots of families in Marietta, Georgia can no longer afford to take their kids to Zaxbys for some great tasting chicken, and they don’t want to wait until no earlier than 2009, 2011 or 2013 as they wait for “the issue” to produce a “perfect” solution.
Especially when we can have both.
I refer here to the presumed conflict between the reawakening of Republicans in the House of Representatives via their week old sit-in strategy demanding a vote on an oil drilling bill as Speaker Pelosi and the “let them eat cake” aka “let them pump tires” Democrats went on a five-week vacation paid for by We the People, too many of which can’t afford a five-minute vacation at KFC, much less five days at Myrtle Beach, thanks to the price of gas and its impact on the price of food and nearly every other necessity of life.
Rush Limbaugh and conservatives have been rightly buoyed by the actions of the House Republicans and even of President Bush and John McCain, in seizing this issue, in understanding we are at war with leftists that want to transform the greatest hope of man on earth, and to use the oil drilling issue and others to translate the center-right conservative majority of We the People into a majority in Congress and a Republican President receptive to the demands of same in passing a truly comprehensive energy bill that unleashes the power of American free enterprise that has made us the most powerful nation on Earth.
The goals of a bill now to tilt the market toward immediate low oil prices and a conservative majority and better bills next year are not mutually exclusive, so long as Marietta’s and the Peach State’s U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)and the other four GOP senators in his “gang of five” within the gang of ten, make clear that they desire and will work toward even further expansions of energy exploration and reductions of regulations inhibiting the building of oil refineries and nuclear power plants later.
Rush raised some good points with Saxby on Friday concerning the effect of the gang of ten on the House effort, as well as the effect of the proposed legislation on the automatic expiration of the oil drilling moratorium, unless renewed by the House, this October. (Chambliss made a good point about how same could be put in a difficult to veto budget bill and that getting this gang of ten bill would be an improvement.)
The Chambliss bill could cause the price of oil, gasoline and food to fall.
Must I repeat the above and remind the generally affluent Redstate readers of how much lower income families have been for months and are suffering NOW? They are not living the American dream anymore. They need relief asap, and the Chambliss bill offers relief soon and does not preclude more progress later.
In fact, it can easily be used as a catalyst for further progress. For that to happen though, Rush’s usual optimism will need to get properly focused and the always looking for a dark cloud Redstaters and the like will need to quit their masochistic desire to always eat their own and embrace gloom and doom.
And one more thing: The gang of five repubs were working on their bill well BEFORE the House GOP’s spontaneous sit-in and trying to get some democrats to expand oil drilling and agree to a bill that could send a signal to the markets that supply will be going up, at least as strong as the one President Bush sent by ending the executive moratorium that has helped reduce the price of a barrel of oil by over 25%.
It is not fair to say they pour cold water on anything when their work was revealed before the sit-in. I heard of the gang of ten’s proposal at least 18 hours before the sit in!
We conservatives can win this war with the left, but as we pursue total victory, we have battles that are vital now.
Low income families need relief now, as in September. The Chambliss bill offers that hope and in no way prevents pursuing more. Those that think so have little imagination.
Respectfully submitted by
Mike dittohead of 17 years who wrote the TMR/HinzSight tribute to El Rushbo gamecock DeVine
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Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” - The Chief Justice Race 4 2008 “One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
Here is the official release:
ARLINGTON, VA — Today, news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally-recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory. What is most critical now is to avoid further confrontation between Russian and Georgian military forces. The consequences for Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave.
The government of Georgia has called for a cease-fire and for a resumption of direct talks on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course. The U.S. should immediately work with the EU and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course it has chosen. We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation. Finally, the international community needs to establish a truly independent and neutral peacekeeping force in South Ossetia.
Americans have to ask themselves who they want answering the phone in the White House come January when situations such as this arise: a man who is ready to lead on foreign policy/national defense from the very first minute of his amdinistration, or a freshman Senator who has never bothered to convene a meeting of his subcommittee on Afghanistan?
Here is Sen. McCain’s speech from Jackson, Ohio earlier today:
It’s time to get America’s economy moving again. Companies like Merillat and families across Ohio face challenges in their businesses and around the kitchen table. And obviously, energy prices are too high. We’re losing jobs. Our housing market is on the decline. And the cost of everything is going up. And in the face of this, Washington is on vacation.
In the face of a severe energy crisis, the Congress decides to go on a five-week vacation. When I’m president of the United States, I will call the Congress back into session and tell them to act and not to leave town, to take their vacation or their pay raise until they address this energy crisis. And now is the time for action.
We need an all-of-the-above plan to address our energy crisis, with alternative energy, drilling, and nuclear power. That means drilling here, drilling now, in the United States of America and off the United States of American’s coast.
Everybody knows that drilling is a very vital part of bridging our gap between our dependence on foreign oil, which is transferring $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much. And we have the — we have the resources to be explored and exploited, and we could obtain some of the benefit of that within months.
My opponent, Senator Obama, opposes both storage and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. He opposes offshore drilling immediately, and he’s out of touch.
And we need to crack down on those who have abused our credit market and caused this housing decline. We need to take action to support American businesses so that we can stop jobs from going overseas and create more jobs here at home.
America has the second highest business rate in the entire world. It’s any wonder that jobs are moving overseas. We’re taxing them out of the country. Unfortunately, Senator Obama’s plans would raise taxes on businesses even more. He’s promised tax increases on income, tax increases on investment, tax increases on small businesses. That’s exactly, exactly the wrong strategy. Raising taxes in a bad economy is about the worst thing you can do, because it’ll kill even more jobs when what we need are policies that create jobs.
What we need today is an economic surge. Our surge has succeeded in Iraq militarily. Now we need an economic surge to keep jobs here at home and create new ones. We need to reduce the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America. We need to open new markets to U.S. products. And we need to reduce the cost of healthcare. And we need to end the out of control spending in Washington that’s putting our debt on the backs of our children.
Now’s the time for action, and when I’m president, we are going to get it done.
I want to say again to the people here at Merillat, thank you for your hospitality. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your obvious dedication to safety. I’m very impressed by your industrial safety record and your teams that have made such an outstanding record possible. And obviously, Karen Strauss (ph) and John Lewis (ph) and the entire team here, thank you very much.