Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are joining forces and telling President Barack Obama to do his job and secure our borders. Check out their new ad. See also the statement on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. Money quote: “We’re all Arizonans now and we say with clear unity: ‘Mr. President, do your job. Secure our border.’”

Jan Brewer succeeded Janet Napolitano to become the 22nd governor of Arizona when Napolitano was appointed Secretary of Homeland Security in 2009. Prior to her service as governor, Brewer served a term and a half as Arizona Secretary of State. She served for thirteen years in the Arizona State Legislature, three years as a state representative and ten years as a state senator. She served as chairwoman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for six years, steering Maricopa County through a serious fiscal crisis and earning the county the reputation of being “one of the two best managed large counties in the nation,” according to Governing Magazine.

Gov. Brewer already has more experience in government than Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Sarah Palin had in 2008. She has more executive experience than any of the candidates on either of the 2008 presidential tickets. Gov. Brewer will have recently turned 68 years old on November 6, 2012. I think you know where I’m going with this.

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The Democratic Party is waging an intergenerational war. Their primary targets? Those of us who are 35 years old and younger. The question is: Are we going to fight or are we going to surrender?

Socialists, by definition, are the enemies of youth. The Marxist imperative — “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” — exhorts socialists to enslave the young, requiring our hard work and then taking what we earn from our work and giving it to older generations.

Who will pay for insolvent entitlements for the elderly like Social Security and Medicare? We will. Those well over the age of 35 initiated the government takeover of health care, but we will benefit the least from it while paying the most for it (h/t The Two Malcontents). Those over the age of 35 are engaging in massive deficit spending primarily for their own benefit, but we will bear the responsibility of paying that debt back. Congressmen and senators who are far older than 35 are planning to implement the largest tax increase in American history in the dubious pursuit of curbing carbon emissions, but citizens under 35 will pay those taxes and suffer through the job loss created by such stifling taxation.

Democrats at the state and local levels won’t balance their budgets by cutting spending. So what do they do instead? In Pittsburgh, they tax your college tuition to pay pensions, insisting that providing income for the retired is more important than your education. You can bet that a similar tax is coming to a college town near you. Meanwhile, in California, college tuition is going up 32% because of the ineptitude of liberal Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic legislature. Here in Ohio, at my own Ohio University, I’m looking forward to a 3.5% tuition increase next year because of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of Gov. Ted Strickland and OU administrators.

People from our generation turned out in record numbers to elect Barack Obama last year and give Democrats huge majorities in both chambers of Congress. Maybe you were one of them. I was, and I’m smart enough to regret it today because I see them using their power to subjugate my future to the insatiable hunger of the state. How many Pittsburgh students do you think helped elect Democratic Mayor Luke Ravenstahl? How many UC students helped elect the legislators responsible for their 32% tuition increase? How many OU students hit the ballot box for Ted Strickland?

If you were duped like I was duped, it’s a forgivable offense. The genius of socialism is that it exploits youthful inexperience and idealism to its own advantage. Socialists make utopian promises of hope and change, of slowing the rise of the oceans and healing the planet, but they never explain to the young people they’re busy mesmerizing that these promises come at a cost. The cost is your freedom and prosperity, yours specifically.

If you were duped, you’re forgiven. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. I began this post asking a very simple question: Will we fight or will we surrender? If we turn our heads and ignore the political process next year and in 2012, we surrender. If we get all wrapped up in fads and third parties that aren’t electorally viable, if we declare ourselves Anarchists or Greens or Libertarians, we surrender. If we go back to the ballot box and cast votes for the same Democrats who are waging intergenerational war against us, we surrender.

I, for one, am going to fight. If you want to fight, if you’re not willing to give up your freedom and prosperity in exchange for empty utopian promises, then you should join me. The alternative, the only alternative, is the only existing political opposition — and that is the Republican Party. It’s at a crossroads right now, a time of soul-searching and getting back to basics. Those of us who are under 35 have a historic opportunity to participate, to push for a libertarian Republican Party with a live and let live agenda consistent with our generation’s principles. We can either participate or we can withraw. But remember, withdrawal is surrender and your future, yours, is at stake.

Don’t surrender. Fight. Join the Republican resistance and demand freedom and prosperity for Generations Y and Z. This is your wake-up call.

Cross-posted to From the Rust Belt and featured at Libertarian Republican.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level” yesterday, according to Fox News. Reid compared Republican opponents of the monstrosity known as “health care reform” to abolition, racial integration, and women’s suffrage opponents:

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these excuses before, you’re right,” Reid said Monday. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’”

He continued: “When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right.

“When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.”

There are many angles from which to attack Reid’s outlandish remarks. Republicans could, for example, point out that Democrats have consistently gone ape every time abortion has been compared to the Holocaust or President Obama has been compared to Hitler, Stalin, or Mao. Now their Senate Majority Leader is turning around and comparing Republicans to those who opposed abolition, racial integration, and women’s suffrage.

Republicans could also point out that we were told the historic election of a black president meant that we were moving toward a post-racial America. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Democratic Party have increasingly exploited America’s racial divisions and sought to portray their political opponents as racists.

But I think the best way to approach this is to point out the obvious, as the Fox News reporters have and as Michelle Malkin (among others) has. The obvious is that Sen. Reid was right: There were those who opposed abolition, racial integration, and women’s suffrage. And they were Democrats. Yes, the best way to approach Sen. Reid’s idiocy is to give him — and the rest of the country — a refresher lesson in American history and the history of the Democratic Party.

Much more beneath the fold…

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From the Gouverneur Times:

The computerized voting machines used by many voters in the 23rd district had a computer virus – tainting the results, not just from those machines known to have been infected, but casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.

Cathleen Rogers, the Democratic Elections Commissioner in Hamilton County stated that they discovered a problem with their voting machines the week prior to the election and that the “virus” was fixed by a Technical Support representatives from Dominion, the manufacturer. . . . None of the machines (from the same manufacturer) used in the other counties within the 23rd district were looked at nor were they recertified after the “reprogramming” that occurred in Hamilton County.

As is pointed out in the article, this virus debacle calls into question all of the NY-23 election results. It is simply unbelievable that a virus was found in Hamilton County voting machines one week before the special election and none of the other machines in the district were examined. Who really won in NY-23, and did the virus tamper with the vote count?

Last and most pertinent question: Where did the virus come from? Were there any, erm, community organizers near the voting machines prior to the election?

Cross-posted to my personal blog: Nate, Uncensored.

Just a few absurd news stories I thought I would share with my fellow college undergrads this beautiful, yet chilly Friday morning…

First up is news that the New York Times, clearly desperate for readers, is offering any college professor who makes the Times required reading in his or her syllabus a free subscription. In case the implications aren’t abundantly clear — I know it’s early — let me spell it out for you. The Times is going to let professors have a subscription to their newspaper for free if they make you pay for it. I would call for a student boycott of the New York Times, but clearly none of us are reading it anyway or they wouldn’t have hatched this scheme.

Next up is news out of Pittsburgh that is sure to boil your morning oatmeal. Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is proposing a “Fair Share Tax” that would levy a 1% tax on college tuition (h/t Instapundit). In his not-so-humble opinion, students just aren’t paying their fair share for city services. Mary Hines, president of the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education and president of Carlow University, disagrees. She points out that students already pay income and property taxes in Pittsburgh. But of course that’s not enough for Ravenstahl. When are there really enough taxes for any liberal?

If this “Fair Share Tax” passes muster in Pittsburgh, look for it to come to a college town near you. I’m sure the corruptocrats in the Athens County Democratic Party will be chomping at the bit to levy a similar tax once they hear the news. Just remember, my fellow matriculants: You do have options. Republicans are for lower taxes and, unless they’re RINOs, aren’t likely to tax your tuition. These folks who want to levy taxes on your tuition are counting on you to keep voting for hopeandchange (TM) at the ballot box.

Last but certainly not least, in this edition of What Were They Smoking and Where Can I Find Some?, we explore what kind of hard drugs University of California regents must have been on when they thought they would quietly get away with increasing tuition by 32%. Are they familiar with the long tradition of student protest at California colleges and universities? But UC students aren’t going quietly into that good night; they’re raging, raging against the dying of their bank accounts. And good for them. But guys, don’t just blame the regents. Your far left state government and its budget mismanagement, that’s the real culprit.

All of this begs the question: Leftist assault on higher education, or just putting the liberal in the liberal arts?

Cross-posted to my personal blog: Nate, Uncensored.

If Democrats don’t want gays and lesbians to stay home in 2010 and 2012 (they don’t), they will pass at least a partial repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) sometime next year. President Obama explicitly promised to repeal DOMA during the 2008 campaign, and the Democratic leadership in Congress has also expressed support for repeal. Republicans can and must get out in front of this issue and pressure Democrats into a bipartisan agreement that would still protect the essential spirit of DOMA.

We can do that by supporting a libertarian, populist revision of DOMA — by introducing a Let the People Decide Act of 2010.

Here’s how it would work. The full faith and credit clause that prevents same-sex marriages from being forcibly exported to other states would be left completely intact. The clause that excludes same-sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships from federal rights and benefits would be repealed if and only if voters within a state approve some version of same-sex unions through ballot issues.

More beneath the fold…

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Sarah Palin is making news everywhere over the past few days, promoting her new book Going Rogue: An American Life through a series of interviews and a national book tour. Many are looking to her most recent interviews to examine whether or not she is in fact qualified to run for president in 2012. She has made a number of eloquent, red meat policy statements in these interviews and there is a lot to examine. I’ll leave that to others.

While finding out where Palin stands on policy is important, I think there are other ways one can discern whether or not she is qualified to lead our nation. Over a year ago, Palin gave her speech at the Republican National Convention as the GOP vice presidential candidate. I think now is the appropriate time to look back on that speech and see just how prescient Palin’s claims about the future of America under an Obama administration have turned out to be.

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It’s a beautiful Thursday morning here in Southeastern Ohio. Actually, I think every Thursday morning is beautiful because it’s the last day of classes for me for the week. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, I thought we should play a game called Name That Democratic President. I’ll provide you with two clues, then you can take a guess and peek underneath the fold to see if you’re right. Don’t visit the links before you guess though; that’s cheating. Here goes!

Clue #1: In the run-up to her inevitable endorsement of NY-23′s lying leftist Bill Owens, Dede Scozzafava was told by text message that this Democratic president was trying to get in touch with her. Dede declined to return his calls.

Clue #2: Following the passage of PelosiCare by just five votes in the House of Representatives, this Democratic president went to the Senate and told Democratic senators that attacks by so-called “teabaggers” (a derogatory term for conservative Tea Party activists) meant that the Democratic majority was actually winning. He urged Senate Democrats to make history and pass PelosiCare right away.

Find out just who this Democratic president is beneath the fold…

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Don’t let them tell you that Barack Obama wasn’t watching the election returns last Tuesday. From a sickeningly sappy interview with Dede Scozzafava in the Washington Post, we glean this little gem:

Scozzafava’s black Nokia phone vibrated nonstop. She rarely picked it up, except for family or close friends. She called the publisher of the Watertown Daily Times to convey her private support for Owens. She received a text informing her that former president Bill Clinton was trying to reach her, but she wasn’t returning any messages.

The emphasis is mine. Leaving aside the unbelievable notion that Scozzafava wouldn’t have returned a message from a former president, take that in for a minute. Bill Clinton was trying to reach her.

The former president of the United States, former leader of the free world, Democratic superstar, almost First Gentleman Bill Clinton was reaching out to Scozzafava for an Owens endorsement.

Could it be that the Obamacrats knew they were going to lose in Virginia, feared they were going to lose in New Jersey, and were desperate for some face-saving victory? Fearing that if they lost all three elections the media might turn on them, Democrats dispatched a former president for an assemblywoman’s endorsement so the media would cling to the meme that Republicans were killing the party by pushing out “moderates” when we couldn’t win with conservatives.

We can never prove that President Obama was concerned about last Tuesday’s election. What Scozzafava has revealed is that at least one Democratic president was concerned. Don’t let them tell you that last Tuesday didn’t matter, and don’t let them tell you that their desperate grab for NY-23 means a conservative defeat. Hoffman and his supporters made Bill Clinton beg for an endorsement from a woman who wouldn’t even return his calls. If that kind of humiliation of a former Democratic president is their “victory,” let them have it.

Cross-posted to my personal blog: Nate, Uncensored.

Today is the 234th birthday of the Marine Corps, and it has me thinking about a friend of mine who comes from a Marine Corps family. I met him shortly after I came to the Ohio University campus in 2007 and we became pretty good friends throughout that school year. I got the chance to meet his dad, who served in the Marine Corps, during a Memorial Day Weekend camping trip with his family in 2008.

He was a big guy with a somewhat intimidating presence, the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley (or a bright alley, for that matter) if you had somehow ended up on his bad side. He also struck me as a no-nonsense kind of guy. No excuses. You succeed or you fail, and if you fail you pick yourself up again — but you don’t make excuses. You own your life, your triumphs and your mistakes, and you either work to better it or you don’t.

But it was also pretty clear that he was a good guy, a man with a deep sense of loyalty. That sense of loyalty was obvious by the way he interacted with his family and by the way they interacted with him. Here was a real father in an age when real fatherhood is rare, when men are so often inclined to cede their responsibilities to the mothers of their children, to the public educational system, and to other government programs. Not this guy. With him, you got the impression that he would be just as willing to die for his family as he was willing to die for his country as a Marine.

More beneath the fold…

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