November 27, 2007
Robert “Prince of Darkness” Novak Has Issues with Huckabee’s Surge
Robert Novak, The Sun-Times News Group, November 26, 2007
Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the ”Club for Greed”? That sounds like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards, all Democrats preaching the class struggle. In fact, the rejoinder comes from Mike Huckabee, who has broken out of the pack of second-tier Republican presidential candidates to become a serious contender — definitely in Iowa and perhaps nationally.
Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know he is a high-tax, protectionist, big-government advocate of a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans. Until now, they did not bother to expose the former governor of Arkansas as a false conservative because he seemed an underfunded, unknown nuisance candidate. Now that he has pulled even with Mitt Romney for the Iowa caucuses with the possibility of more progress, the beleaguered Republican Party has a frightening problem on its hands.
The rise of evangelical Christians as the force that blasted the GOP out of minority status always contained an inherent danger if these Republican acolytes supported not merely a conventional conservative but also one of their own. That has happened with Huckabee, a former Baptist minister educated at Ouachita Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The danger is a serious contender for the nomination who passes the litmus test of social conservatives on abortion, gay marriage and gun control but is far removed from the conservative- libertarian model of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
There is no doubt about Huckabee’s record during a decade as governor. He was regarded by fellow Republican governors as a compulsive tax increaser and spender. He increased the Arkansas tax burden by 47 percent.
Huckabee has sought to counteract his reputation as a taxer by pressing for replacement of the income tax with a sales tax and recently signed the no-tax-increase pledge of Americans for Tax Reform. But Huckabee simply does not fit in normal boundaries of economic conservatism, as when he criticized President Bush’s veto of a Democratic expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Calling global warming a “moral issue” mandating “a biblical duty” to prevent climate change, he has endorsed the cap-and-trade system that is anathema to the free market.
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Zogby says She can’t win
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1393
Zogby says all Republicans will beat Hillary in the general election.
Have you ever heard such bullshit in your life?
Zogby puts his can’t-be-worse reputation on the line to claim that America will vote for more war, more Bush-bullshit, more Halliburton, more Enron, more cover-ups, more pardons, more tax cuts for the rich and more Katrina-style cronyism for another four years?
Of course, they won’t gamble on that, they’ll just give you their Nancy Grace Guarantee
that it will happen and when it doesn’t NOBODY will get the bastards on camera and play
their false words and DEMAND that they explain themselves.
When in doubt, follow the money and the money is screaming “Clinton 44 landslide.”
November 26, 2007
William Rivers Pitt: Bad, Worse, Worst and Beyond
William Rivers Pitt, TruthOut, November 26, 2007
“Fear is just another word for ignorance.”
– Hunter S. Thompson
Once upon a time there was Bad, and there was Worse, and there was Worst, and that used to be it. Those were the only parameters necessary when the time came to assess the severity of a given situation and decide if the thing was merely wrong, actually dangerous, or just plan ridiculous. Bad, for example, was Gerald Ford’s full pardon of Richard Nixon, which came in tandem with his decision to let Nixon keep the tapes. That’s pretty straightforward, and the provided example should be clear enough: Bad means something is pretty damned bad.
Worse, by comparison, was Oliver North’s sale of missiles to the same Iranian government that killed more than two hundred Marines in Beirut back in ’83, followed by his illegal funneling of that sale’s proceeds to fund a pack of kill-crazy fascists in Central America who shot some nuns and other non-combatants down like dogs using the good bullets they bought with thrice-laundered American tax dollars.
All of which was taking place as Reagan slid further into the senility that eventually left him capable only of pretending to be the president. Rather than deal with the reality of the situation, however, the decision was made to hand the entire hyper-weaponized machinery of the federal government over to a bunch of wild boys nobody ever voted for, whose abuse of that power rapidly devolved into a mind-bending crime spree that almost got their uncomprehending boss impeached.
As for Worst, well … that’s simple enough. Worst was a box in the cargo hold of Air Force One that left Dallas with John Kennedy inside of it, and was the blood pooling beneath Robert Kennedy’s head as he lay dying on a dirty kitchen floor in California, and was Martin Luther King Jr. shot dead through the throat on some inconsequential Memphis hotel balcony, and was Medgar Evers shot dead in his driveway while his wife and children watched and wailed, and was Malcom Little who became Malcolm X who became El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz before a dozen gunshots put him down like Evers to die before the eyes of his wife and children.
Russert Hands Meet the Press Over To Matalin and Carville
After watching Meet the Press this Sunday I would imagine that some presidential candidates whose names are not Clinton and Thompson should be screaming at NBC for equal time for themselves. On Sunday’s program, Tim Russert, host of the program, had a round table discussion of the 2008 presidential election and two of the guests were husband wife nut jobs James Carville and Mary Matalin. Matalin and Carville’s performances should be cause for outrage.
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Christmas Shopping at Sears
I know I needed this reminder since Sears isn’t always my first choice. Amazing when you think of how long the war has lasted and they haven’t withdrawn from their commitment. Could we each buy at least one thing at Sears this year?How does Sears treat its employees who are called up for military duty? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and lose benefits as a result of being called up.
Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years.
I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution. I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves.
Pass it on.
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