While even conservative oservers are marveling at the non-liberal appointments to his cabinet, Obama’s pick at DOJ, Eric Holder sneaks a little under the radar. The Holder selection is currently is getting uneven traction due to his troubling involvement in the Marc Rich pardon in the wanning days of Clinton years. Word is that a whispering count is underway in the senate to gauge support and its probable that even some Dem senators might not support Holder.

But while MSM is only writing about Holder’s Marc Rich problem and his puzzling views on firearms, one subject is going unnoticed. Its Holder’s views and previous associations with voting issues.

Prior to the 2004 election, much focus was given to the states of Ohio and Florida as was this year. George Bush won both states that year and retained the White House. Yet it was clear that we were probably seeing the early efforts of ACORN and other quasi groups in both registering voters and making fraudulent votes. It is here where Holder’s past should also be questioned.

In an October 2004 Fox News Sunday broadcast the subject was broached and this NY Sun article is telling of Holder’s partisan views on voting:

“If every vote is allowed to be cast and every vote is counted, John Kerry will be president within a day of that election.”

Really?

Holder hasn’t been taken to task on this one yet. Republicans are pretty sensitive to potential fraud of which Holder’s position clearly indicates he is well, unsensitive to. Holder’s obvious ambivalence to voter fraud that favors a Democrat is enough to disqualify him as Attorney General.

Has it already been forgotten Obama’s involvement with ACORN? Is it in Eric Holder he finds a kindred spirit?

Obama certainly is aware of Holder’s efforts for Democrats in the last election cycle so it might that among the reasonable cabinet appointees Hokder is his stealth candidate - the one he truly needs to carry out some of his true leftist leanings and his attempts to build lasting influence.

The nomination of Hillary Clinton at State has sucked up alll the oxygen this week. Obama’s other choices will require no political capital. Holder certainly will and Obama might be willing to use it here as it is through the Department of Justice where he and his kindred spirits of the left can gain the most.

Posted under Uncategorized

As the new digs are pitcher friendly and grass (unlike 70’s and 80’s ballparks) the Mets should bulild their team the old fashioned way: Pitching and defense.

This means and big time closer (Brian Fuentes or KRod) then a new 2B to play with Jose Reyes ( Orlando Hudson) and a set-up guy who can close (Houston Street, Kerry Wood or JJ Putz). Set-up men can even be valued as an everyday player (See Duaner Sanchez and Roger McDowell)

Rumors indicate this might me close to Omar Minaya’s thinking. If he delivers, the Mets can get to the post season next year.

Posted under Uncategorized

It must be just ok as it looks as if Minnesota’s Sec of State Mark Ritchie is just pulling a Mike Nifong. The GOP cannot let this go unchallenged.

It still disturbs me that the people of Minnesota could put someone as despicable as Al Franken in office.

Posted under Uncategorized

South Carolina Govenor Mark Sanford is a rising GOP star and his op-ed in CNN today is a worthy read. Here’s some:

Beyond the presidential race, it goes without saying the Republican Party took a shellacking nationally. Some on the left will say our electoral losses are a repudiation of our principles of lower taxes, smaller government and individual liberty. But Tuesday was not in fact a rejection of those principles — it was a rejection of Republicans’ failure to live up to those principles.

I believe in the Biblical notion of taking the log out of your own eye before worrying about the splinter in someone else’s. Accordingly, let me focus on my own party and the way Ted Stevens personifies what went wrong in the election.

As a senior ranking Republican from Alaska, he was a proud champion of pork barrel spending and bridges to nowhere, and stayed so long that he developed a blind eye to ethical lapses that would be readily seen by scout leaders and soccer moms alike.

Republicans have campaigned on the conservative themes of lower taxes, less government and more freedom — they just haven’t governed that way. America didn’t turn away from conservatism, they turned away from many who faked it.

So during our “time in the wilderness,” it’s my hope that we go back to the basics of conservatism — what it stands for and its real-world implications for people’s lives. The sooner we do, the sooner we will see good policy from Republicans, and the sooner I suspect we will return to electoral favor.

Sanford is a former US Congressman and does not make his assumptions without experience.

Posted under Uncategorized

Newt Gingrich is the most skilled conservative politician in America today. He is feared and loathed by the left. He is a visionary and will provide the kind of star power thats badly needed in the GOP. Anyone of these qualities is enough to be thankful that the man who lead the GOP takeover of the House in 1994 wants the job.

There are naysayers with whom I often time find much to agree on such as AJStrata, but I find it too dismissively simple to apply such a tag as “retread” on Gingrich.

Gingrich has remained a man of ideas since he left the House. He embraced the new media long before if was sexy to do so and effectively been a public face not only for the party but for the conservative movement itself.

He is used to the national stage and can handle the demonization that will most certainly begin again. The GOP must learn that it will have to hit back it the dialogue of ideas. John McCain’s old senate GOP way in the campaign of self rightous civility delivered a loss and bitter defeats in states that were once GOP strongholds in Florida, North Carolina and Indiana.

I believe that Michael Steele, while a tremendous public servant and pol, cannot provide what can Gingrich to a party badly need of so much. I’m hoping that Steele will indeed remain a visible leader and challenge Barbara Mikulski for her Maryland US Senate seat in 2010.

Posted under Uncategorized

I’m beginning to believe it was because he was a “yeah, but” Republican. Here from the Ace of Spades:

There is no “McCainism” as there was a “Bushism” or “Reaganism.” Those men offered fairly clear visions (well, Reagan particularly so). Not McCain. Everything with him is just his personal gut, principle-free, just an instinct, an impulse, which often takes him in wildly contradictory places (but he’s always haughty about the moral superiority of his decisions).

For example, he’s pro-drilling… but not in ANWR. Um, why? He’s forever undercutting himself with unexplained hedges and caveats.

He’s pro-business… Kinda. Except when he’s making his distaste for anyone working in the private sector “for profit not patriotism” so glaringly evident.

He wants to lower taxes. Sorta. Sometimes. Maybe. In election years.

We must regard Obama as suspect because of his association with the terrorist Bill Ayers… but it’s racist to mention his membership in Jeremiah Wright’s Church of Hate.

This leads to a paralysis among his campaign staff. Everyone knew, pretty much, the Idea of Reagan. They could act independently with confidence that they were advancing Reagan’s goals.

No one could do that with McCain.

Steve mentioned the german military term schwerpunkt, or “critical point.” (PDF link.) Every military mission needed an easily comprehended schwerpunkt; even the most complicated mission must have, at its heart, a simple idea, a non-complex goal. If the goal was to capture the bridge, it must be clear that capturing the bridge was the schwerpunkt. Not only was everyone clear on the general goal, then, but when asked to give orders independent of senior command, lower officers would know the main goal that each of their orders must advance, the schwerpunkt. Without that, lower officers could not possibly issue orders that would serve the mission’s goal. How can one advance the mission without knowing precisely what is at its heart?

What was McCain’s schwerpunkt? What was his case? Ultimately he sought to run not on a plan or an idea, but upon his character, his personal wisdom and integrity (something I note, not uncoincidentally, could never benefit Republicans generally, as an *idea* could).

He always had a tough battle, but in the end he had no plan for battle, only the unwavering belief that he alone was equipped to lead the war.

There was no idea of McCain beyond McCain himself.

And ultimately, he lost. No man is greater than an idea.

Even the great McCain.

Was it all about the McCain vanity? Perhaps.

McCain’s first response to the financial meltdown was to call for Chris Cox’s ouster and not to provide real leadership or point out clear Democrat malfeasance. He’s still not come to the defense of Sarah Palin. He’s continues to demonstrate an incompleteness of sorts that’s puzzling but when considered as context for independent
voters its makes it easiler to understand a defeat to a charismatic yet extremely left-leaning opponent.

Posted under Uncategorized

Add Minnesota Secretary of State to the one that already includes Ohio’s to the list of state elected officials committing election crimes. This from Powerline this statement from the Coleman campaign.

“Not content to allow the recount process to move forward as prescribed by law, the Franken Campaign and its supporters are attempting a campaign of undue influence. The increasing questions about unexplained and improbable shifts in vote counts, coupled with Franken Campaign antics over the past 24 hours, compelled us to seek legal action to protect the rights of Minnesota voters. We had an election. Senator Coleman won. And we now must have a legal and transparent process conducted in the light of day - and that is our goal and intent.

“Late last night, after another unexplained shift in votes occurred when the Secretary of State’s Office closed, new ballots have suddenly appeared from a heavily Democratic precinct. These ballots have been unsecure since the election, yet the Franken Campaign is demanding they be stuffed into the ballot box, attempting to change a vote count that was already finished. Minnesota election laws provide specific rules for reviewing and counting ballots. Today’s legal proceeding is an effort to ensure that a transparent and orderly process be in place. The Franken Campaign should be joining us in this action, not seeking to push the process outside the bounds of the law.”

Posted under Uncategorized

What those folks whom smeared Sarah Palin to Carl Camerone wouldn’t advance to voters.
Poor John McCain, like so many in the REP Senate. Like the French, they don’t hit back. When given an issue on the silver platter - Dem fault in Freddie and Fannie collapse, he and his campaign refused to make it and issue. AND EVEN WHEN MCCAIN HAD TAKEN THE LEAD ON IT WHEN IT HAPPENED!!!!! But they make sure they give alot of slim to the media about Sarah Palin. Unless McCain corrects this within hours, he’s a loser, too. And it explains losing the White House. McCain and his campaign are more concerned with making nice with the media thatn they were winning for folks whom supported them.

Posted under Uncategorized

Its called an Incomplete, if you’ve ever been a student. And it may well be that conservatives believed this about John McCain. From Ace of Spades:

There is no “McCainism” as there was a “Bushism” or “Reaganism.” Those men offered fairly clear visions (well, Reagan particularly so). Not McCain. Everything with him is just his personal gut, principle-free, just an instinct, an impulse, which often takes him in wildly contradictory places (but he’s always haughty about the moral superiority of his decisions).

For example, he’s pro-drilling… but not in ANWR. Um, why? He’s forever undercutting himself with unexplained hedges and caveats.

He’s pro-business… Kinda. Except when he’s making his distaste for anyone working in the private sector “for profit not patriotism” so glaringly evident.

He wants to lower taxes. Sorta. Sometimes. Maybe. In election years.

We must regard Obama as suspect because of his association with the terrorist Bill Ayers… but it’s racist to mention his membership in Jeremiah Wright’s Church of Hate.

This leads to a paralysis among his campaign staff. Everyone knew, pretty much, the Idea of Reagan. They could act independently with confidence that they were advancing Reagan’s goals.

No one could do that with McCain.

Maybe so, indeed. The media would like to tell you that conservative values are dead. But are they? McCain’s inconsitencies on these issues prompt another response. His positions on abortion and the war were winners. But everything else from McCain was a “yeah, but.”

Only from conservative sites will conservative value voters find real poll data. The networks and Dems will tell you otherwise and what you already think for that matter.

Posted under Uncategorized

FOX’s Carl Cameron practically slobbered over himself attempting to get out as many petty smears of Sarah Palin he’s picked up from “sources” within the McCain Campaign he’d been fed. Thank goodness some members of the new media are taking them both to task.

First, Michelle Malkin.

At least all the Hollywood and Manhattan Palin-haters were willing to sign their names and put their faces on their attacks.

Let’s assume the rumor-mongers are telling the truth for a moment. Who does it damn more: Sarah Palin or McCain and his vetters who green-lighted her for the vice presidential nomination? Don’t need an Ivy League degree to figure that one out.

Sarah Palin worked her heart out. She energized tens of thousands to come out who would have otherwise stayed home. She touched countless families. I didn’t agree with everything she said on the campaign trail. But two fundamental conservative stands she took mattered greatly to me: She vigorously defended the Second Amendment and the sanctity of life more eloquently in practice than any of the educated conservative aristocracy.

And she did it all with a tirelessness and infectious optimism that defied the shameless, bottomless attempts by elites in both parties to bring her and her family down.

Shame on the smearers who don’t have the balls to show their faces.

Thank you, Sarah Palin. Thank you for stepping up the plate and serving your country.

Snobs exist of the Republican side too as evidenced by the performance of some conservative writers like Peggy Noonan, David Frum and Kathleen Parker. I guess for them, it is only those like them who can and should lead.

More at Red State, Ace,

Posted under Uncategorized