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Posted at 11:11am on May 16, 2008 Bearers of False Witness and the False Witnesses They Bear

The Al Franken Ignorance Tale

By Erick

You may think that’s an odd title for a blog post about comedian and Senate candidate Al Franken, but those are his words. In his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Franken attempts to paint anyone who disagrees with him as a liar or worse. Ironically enough, this book has put the failed radio host on a path of lies and deceit, due to his failure to pay for workers’ compensation while the book was being written and researched.

Franken’s defense…ignorance. While this may apply to Franken in most cases, it is a hard sell in this instance. In order to believe Franken’s claims of ignorance on his corporate governance problems you must believe totally disregarding reality:

•     Franken claims he never knew about his New York problems because he moved to Minnesota in April of 2005. To believe this you must also believe these additional Franken claims:

1.       Franken never received, or knew about, any of the dozen notices sent to him by the state of New York regarding his failure to pay worker’s compensation insurance

2.       Franken never received any notices or heard from the collection agency hired by the state of New York to collect the workers’ compensation insurance premiums Franken failed to pay

•    To believe Franken’s claims of ignorance you must ignore the following facts:

Read on . . .

Posted in 2008 | Al Franken | Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them | Minnesota | Norm Coleman — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:43am on May 16, 2008 You need to remember that you're in the Fishbowl now, Barry.

For however much longer you last.

By Moe Lane

Everything you do, everything you say, everywhere you go, there's somebody with a tricorder taking it all in. And then it goes onto Youtube. And then people write about it, often with mean-spirited titles like "Obama's sniper tale? When he stood up to Detroit's 'cold' shoulder." And then it goes on the Internet. Not always in that order, but it goes out.

You are never off the record. You are never safely among friends. You are never able to just assume that something will just slide on by. And nothing that you do or say will ever go away.

Ever.

Have a nice day!

Moe Lane

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Detroit — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:07am on May 16, 2008 The Politico and Sensationalism

By Erick

"McCain adviser ousted in conflict uproar," reads the Politico headline. That may make for a great headline, but neither it nor the sensationalism in the story are accurate.

Craig Shirley, a friend who helps RedState with PR work (hey, they should have mentioned us too), has done work with Stop Her Now, that our own Kevin Holtsberry is involved in. The Obama campaign no doubt pushed this story on the Politico, which as an organization seems more susceptible than any other media organization save the New York Times for candidate generated stories, and the Politico gladly went with the sensationalism.

Actually, Craig was asked by the McCain campaign if he wanted to continue working with the campaign or with Stop-Him-Now. Craig chose, not the campaign.

Likewise, Stop-Him-Now is not one of those shadowy 527 organizations, but an internet website that FEC regulations do not apply to. Stop Her Now was a 527, but certainly not shadowy. It only existed on the net and largely went unnoticed by the press until the guns turned on Jesus Obama.

Add this to the Politico file.

Oh, and pay attention little lefties:

RedState -------------> Craig Shirley-------------> Stop-Him-Now------------->Kevin Holtsberry ---------------> RedState

What a web we weave.

Posted in 2008 | Craig Shirley | Politico — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:51am on May 16, 2008 Republicans - "like a deer in the headlights"

By bs

In today's WSJ Opinion Journal, Peggy Noonan again demonstrates why I so enjoy reading her stuff. She paints a perfect picture of the deep problems the GOP has in 2008. The biggest case in the article is made by quotes from a memo created by Rep. Tom Davis. I loved this bit of insight from Mr. Davis:

But this week a House Republican said publicly what many say privately, that there is another truth. "Members and pundits . . . fail to understand the deep seated antipathy toward the president, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia in a 20-page memo to House GOP leaders.

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Posted at 9:45am on May 16, 2008 Can WaPo editors read?

By Soren Dayton

The Washington Post should either fire their editors or send them to remedial education. They should be ashamed that they let this garbage get printed.

Despite his reputation in the media as a charming maverick, McCain has shown that he is also happy to use Nixon-style dirty campaign tactics. By charging recently that Hamas is rooting for an Obama victory,

McCain isn't "charging". A senior Hamas leader said that "actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election [...] and he has a vision to change America." Why isn't that the story, rather than a distortion of McCain's statement?

This clown James Rubin continues:

I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

"Deal with" is not the same as "unconditional" talks at the level of heads of state. The President of Iran says that Israel should be destroyed and their weapons are being used to kill American soldiers. Indeed, yesterday on the blogger call McCain pointed out that Ryan Crocker regularly interacts with Iranians in Baghdad.

How could the Washington Post's editors let this garbage get printed in their paper? Are they illiterate or just biased beyond belief?

Posted in 2008 | Hamas | James Rubin | John McCain | liberal media bias — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:15am on May 16, 2008 Unions Gear up to Attack McCain

By Warner Todd Huston

Of course, no one could expect less of organized labor but to attack Republicans, even John McCain. But the amount of money proposed to be spent to destroy McCain really makes one wonder if every last union member would approve of such vast expenditures of their dues money?

To answer that question, the AFL-CIO, for its part, intends to "talk to their members," at least according to the Associated Press. In fact, if one weren't paying too close attention, one would think that the union is asking permission about who to endorse -- and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you...

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Posted at 7:58am on May 16, 2008 Marx Was Right

By kowalski

Here is the outlook as I see it, folks:

In the 2008 elections, the Republican Party is going to suffer the most sweeping losses in modern history and wind up with a deficit in the House of Representatives of more than 70 seats, and the Senate may be similarly dominated by Democrats.

John McCain's campaign to triumph over Barack Obama by acting like a Conservative Democrat who believes that all Americans are "compatriots" and that we must move beyond partisanship simply isn't going to get any traction in either the MSM or among the population. The electorate is hungry and eager to throw any and all Republicans into the wilderness. His "cross the aisles" campaign is furthermore going to hasten the breakup of the existing Republican Party as we know it into a group of infighting factions, all of whom detest each other even in their impotence in beating Barack Obama at the polls. The McCain campaign can read the newspapers itself: it knows that it is getting absolutely no grace period or honeymoon from the MSM as a result of its much-ballyhooed "friendliness" to the media in the past several years.

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Posted at 5:53am on May 16, 2008 Obama and Elitism

By TomlinsonDouthat

Stanley Crouch recently defended Barack Obama from the increasingly common criticism of him as an elitist:

Columbia- and Harvard-educated, bad-bowling Obama is an elite, the conservatives—and the Clintons—claim. He is out of touch with the working class, they say.

It has become commonplace for the predictable millionaire puppets of Fox News and their conservative talk radio counterparts to present themselves as the voices of the working class in combat with an educated elite from places like Harvard.

But beneath those clichés fester ideas that are deeply anti-democratic.

They are anti-democratic because they scoff at this basic truth: Education is the key to social mobility in our country. The stereotyped working class has no innate limits. It has produced the majority of doctors, engineers, architects, educators and others who realized the dreams of their families by studying hard and moving into careers quite different from those of their parents and their neighbors.

Crouch is absolutely correct in the last three sentences of this passage, but I think he misunderstands the nature of the charge of elitism. One does not become an elitist by going to an Ivy League school, nor by doing very well there. One does not become an elitist by making a million dollars. One does not become an elitist by excelling in one's chosen profession. Nor does one become an elitist by believing that such accomplishments are worthy of respect, as they very often are.

Rather, elitism is the belief that the people who have such accomplishments to their credit are more worthy of respect than those who, for whatever reason, do not. Elitism is not a matter of who you are or of what you do—nor of being "out of touch" with people who are different from you—but of how you treat your fellow man, which is the essence both of politics and of morality. Elitism can make itself known in a variety of ways—from a condescending attitude towards one's supposed social inferiors, to treating these supposed inferiors as mere instruments of one's own ambitions, to matters of public policy of great and grave importance. Barack Obama has displayed the full spectrum of elitist behavior.

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Posted at 3:49am on May 16, 2008 McCain, Obama, and Hamas

By Derannimer

Ok, so I don't know if everyone's seen this yet, but the Huffington Post has a blog promoting an interview McCain gave to one James Rubin, shortly following the Palestinian elections back in 2006, in which, so Rubin reports, McCain said he would consider talking to Hamas (h/t HotAir). Here's the HuffPo blog:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/15/exclusive-video-mccain-wa_n_102...

And here, for those who don't wish to follow the link, is the relevant quotage:

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Posted at 12:30am on May 16, 2008 The vote against Obama election?

By Hammer2008

So I guess I'm supposed to be satisfied by casting a vote against Obama this November (by casting my vote for McCain).

A few questions:
Would McCain have won the nomination had GOP voters thought Obama and Clinton were "easy pickings" when contrasted against a vocal conservative? It appears (we) settled on McCain because (we) believed (we) needed a moderate republican to take on the Dems. Now McCain has taken the road less traveled... by campaigning in Utopian-speak, as liberals do?

Posted in 2008 — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:42pm on May 15, 2008 Putting Bush's Words In Context: Barack Obama, Neville Chamberlain, and the Art of Appeasement

By Erick

Posted in 2008 | appeasement | Barack Obama | George Bush | Neville Chamberlain | War — Comments (80)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:02pm on May 15, 2008 Draft Meg Whitman for VP!

By ex democrat

I really think Republicans have a hard year this year. With the three recent special election losses in Republican districts, we are up against a wall. I really think that the top of the ticket will be the only way to save huge losses in November. That said, John McCain's operation is nothing compared to Obama's or even Clinton's.

I think Barack Obama has the foreign policy ideas of a two year old with his suggestions of chit chatting with Ahmedinejad when they have Hamas and Hezbollah waging its proxy war and voting against naming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization when there's open evidence that they were providing weapons to Hezbollah in their attacks on Lebanon. His domestic policy is summed up by the National Journal's rating of him as the most liberal senator in Congress. Despite these transparent shortcomings, he has the momentum, the money and the media all in his favor.

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Posted at 5:52pm on May 15, 2008 Don Young Votes for Tax Increase

By Erick

John Boehner, Roy Blunt, and the House GOP leadership, having failed to deal decisively and boldly to purge the cancer that is Don Young from the House GOP Caucus, got to witness him vote to raise taxes today. He joined 31 other Republicans who have no real leaders to show them the way.

The tax increase is a .5% increase on individuals who make more than $500,000.00 a year. The Democrats, naturally, called it a "Patriot Tax." They should have called it what it is: the "Rape the Entrepreneurial Class Tax Law" or RECTAL.

You know, I think we, all of us here at RedState, should commit to a project: every work day from now until he is crushed in the primary, write some bad about Don Young. Highlight his arrogance, highlight his scandals, highlight his votes, highlight his corruption, highlight his general jackassery -- highlight all the stuff to make sure when people are Googling him, they find out everyone hates Don Young except Don Young and a bunch of people in the federal pen.

By the way, the Club for Growth PAC put out a press release on this. Yes, they *do* get involved in primaries, Don Young.

Posted in 2008 | Culture of Corruption | Democrats | Don Young | tax increase — Comments (53)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:17pm on May 15, 2008 Think Progress fails history

By Soren Dayton

ThinkProgress notes a passage from John McCain's speech today in which McCain warns of the dangers of appeasement:

Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain. I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.

Think Progress proceeds to fail history 101:

McCain’s praise of Ronald Reagan is wholly misplaced. To recap, during the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, hostages were not released because of Iran’s fear of Reagan, as McCain suggested. In reality, Iran released them after Reagan administration officials infamously sold arms to the country, which were transfered to Ayatollah Khomeini. As a result, 11 Reagan officials were convicted of crimes.

They are so laughably, ignorantly wrong. The hostages were released on Reagan's inauguration day. Recall that these guys recently accused McCain of plagiarism when someone had actually stolen the lines from him.

Hacks and clowns

Posted in 2008 | John McCain | Ronald Reagan | Smearing And Sliming John McCain | ThinkProgress — Comments (65) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:06pm on May 15, 2008 May 15 McCain Blogger Conference Call

McCain Answers, Does Not Eat Waffle

By Dan McLaughlin

Senator McCain just finished a conference call with bloggers. Most of the call was dominated by discussion of Iraq and Iran, specifically Senator Obama's reaction to President Bush's remarks in Israel, Senator McCain's thoughts on negotiating with Iran and Senator McCain's thoughts on his announced goal to win the war in Iraq by 2013. Here are the highlights:

Senator McCain set out his definition of victory in Iraq, including control of the country by the Maliki government, the Iraqi military taking over responsibility and U.S. troops out of harms way and reducing U.S. troop presence, but he stressed that this does not mean we leave Iraq, or that there is not still "sporadic fighting." He again analogized a long-term presence in Iraq to those in Kuwait and Korea.

Senator McCain specifically stated that he looks forward to having with Sen. Obama or Clinton a "debate as to whether we are winning or not" in Iraq. He stressed repeatedly the importance of the "facts on the ground."

He emphasized that he is not announcing a date for withdrawal by setting a 2013 goal. When a questioner characterized his speech as a withdrawal date he was quite firm in telling her that "you either didn't read or didn't understand my speech" and said it "should be fairly apparent" that he picked 2013 because that would be the end of his first term and he's saying what he intends to accomplish.

Turning to Iran, Sen. McCain said he took Pres. Bush at his word that in his remarks on the dangers of appeasement he was not referring to Sen. Obama, but he did note "such a vociferous reaction" by Sen. Obama and characterized as the "highest degree of naivete and inexperience" to negotiate with Iran when the Iranian leadership refers to Israel as "a stinking corpse" and threatens to wipe Israel off the map and supports terrorism and the insurgency in Iraq, emphasizing that such talks would only lend prestige to the Iranian regime.

As Sen. McCain described Sen. Obama's proposal for such talks: "what is it that he wants to talk about?"

Sen. McCain then laid out his conditions for talking with Iran: renounce threats against Israel, renounce nuclear ambitions, stop supplying "lethal explosive devices" to insurgents in Iraq. He noted that he'd be willing to offer incentives to Iran but they would have to make those steps first. He also noted that U.S. Ambassador Crocker, in Iraq, has tried talking with the Iranian Ambassador there (despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations) but has met with nothing but intransigence.

A few more random points:

Posted in 2008 | Bloggers | John McCain — Comments (17)/ Email this page » / Read More »