The Texas 18th District Blog

The Secretary of State in Connecticut just reported some voters are reporting a 40 minute wait to vote.  In 2004 my wife and I stood in line 2 hours to early vote.  This time we waited about 40 minutes or so to early vote.  I guess they just don’t have many voters in Connecticut.  Once inside the polling station we voted and were out in less than 5 minutes.  Another point is that with all of the known voter fraud [voters registered with names like “Donald Duck”, “Jive Turkey” etc., and registrants whose address on the registration list doesn’t match their drivers license and cannot produce an electric bill or phone bill to prove they moved]  they are being asked to fill out a provisional ballot.  I imagine completing the provisonal ballot takes longer as well as their discussion with the voting personnel.  So a long wait is mostly the result of the fraudsters.

Last night on my car radio I heard a woman comment on ACORN.  She said in 2000 ACORN used fraud to get George Bush elected and so if they use fraud to get Obama elected this year it is just the chickens coming home to roost.  I never heard of ACORN supporting Bush in 2000. 

Obama’s vision is far from that of Founding Fathers

by Star Parker

“Pushing back on accusations from John McCain that he’s a socialist, Barack Obama said, “I don’t know what’s next. By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret Communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

Once again, we get the Obama oratorical fog. The problem isn’t what he does with his toys or sandwich, it’s what he sees as legitimate to do, under authority of government, with mine and yours.

“(McCain) has called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class.”

Obama’s plans go much further than using the tax code to redistribute wealth.

He’s got about $700 billion in so-called refundable tax credits in mind, direct money transfers to individuals, to finance his social engineering ideas in education, child care, and environmental policy.”

Who says Jews are Smart?

By Jonathan Rosenblum

Virtually his whole public career has been closely intertwined with the unrepentant former Weatherman William Ayers.

Another member of Ayers’ Hyde Park circle was former PLO official and the current Edward Said Professor at Columbia University, Rashid Khalidi, whom Obama credits with opening his eyes to the plight of Palestinians. He has been heavily funded by the virulently anti-Israel George Soros. (link)

Obama has numerous ties to the Nation of Islam, in particular through Tony Rezko, the convicted, Syrian-born racketeer, who partly paid for Obama’s home.

Obama’s foreign policy advisors have included: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor and thirty-year critic of Israel; Samantha Powers, who has called for an end to aid to Israel and the introduction of American forces to protect the Palestinians; and Robert Malley, who has made a career of advancing, together with a former Arafat advisor, a revisionist account in which Israel was responsible for the breakdown of Camp David.

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I always like to throw in a little humor to lighten things up.  My daughter and her husband are standing in line in New Jersey to vote right at this moment.  Starbucks is offering free coffee today.  So here is her message to me:

Starbucks is giving away free coffee today if you say you voted.  So Tim tells the people in line just now, that the coffee is free if you voted, but if you voted Democrat you have to pay tax on it!

LOL!

 What an old anecdote about Mo Udall in the hospital reveals about McCain’s character.  (and Slate has not been kind to Republicans)

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn’t long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. “He’s not going to wake up this time,” McCain said.

On the way out of the parking lot, McCain recalled what it was like to be a nobody called upon by a somebody. As he did, his voice acquired the same warmth that colored Russell Feingold’s speech when he described the first call from John McCain. “When you called Feingold … ” I started to ask him. But before I could, he interrupted. “Yeah,” he says, “I thought of Mo.”

 Mark Steyn: Obama’s a better symbol than president

And why not? Obama in the White House, Obama on the dollar bill, Obama on Rushmore would symbolize the possibilities of America more than that narrow list of white-bread protestant presidents to date.

The problem is we’re not electing a symbol, a logo, a two-dimensional image. Long before he emerged on the national stage as Barack the Hope-Giver and Bringer of Change, there was a three-dimensional Barack Obama, a real man who lives in the real world. And that’s where the problem lies.

The senator and his doting Obots in the media have gone to great lengths to obscure what Barack Obama does when he’s not being a symbol: his voting record, his friends, his patrons, his life outside the soft-focus memoirs is deemed nonrelevant to the general hopey-changey vibe. But occasionally we get a glimpse. The offhand aside to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around” was revealing because it suggests a crude redistributive view of “social justice”. Yet the nimble Hope-a-Dope sidestepper brushed it aside, telling a crowd in Raleigh that next John McCain will be “accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

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Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates.

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The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

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When was the last time a poor person offered you a job?

Engineer2

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

A Perfect Storm

 by Thomas Sowell

Some elections are routine, some are important and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic– and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

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Sheila Jackson Lee and Ties to Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) link here

Our law enforcement agencies and the FBI have been torn by this failure to define an ideological enemy. At the same time that the FBI is testifying at the Holy Land Foundation trial as to how the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic supremacist goals, other parts of the FBI have been told to invite CAIR to provide training for the FBI on their views of Islam. CAIR also has provided “training” and guidance to DHS, TSA, Customs, and other law enforcement agencies. CAIR also attends meetings with an influential advisory panel on homeland security. The Investigative Project of Terrorism reports that “several members of Congress maintain close ties with CAIR” (Jim McDermott, Keith Ellison, Sheila Jackson Lee, Bill Pascrell, Dennis Kucinich). Such congressional representatives have no concerns about CAIR’s founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad as a documented supporter of the Hamas Islamic supremacist terrorist group. The American mainstream media frequently contacts CAIR to provide comments on news stories without providing context as to who and what they are - providing further public legitimacy for them. America has similar challenges with other groups associated with Islamic supremacism such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). CAIR and ISNA are unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terror finance trial. The President of ISNA not only spoke at a national political party’s presidential convention, she also is on the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project team calling for engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood.

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

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I am Joe the Plumber Sheriff of Nottingham

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John Faulk’s Rating By “Americans for Better Immigration” (link)

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Quote of the day:
“[In] a world in which the many illegal foreign contributions to the leading candidate’s unprecedented fundraising include his own deportation-ordered aunt, satire is dead.” — Mark Steyn

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Michael Yon from Afghanistan with an election story

Vote   Bill Gurley

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

Shield laws in the United States (wikipedia)  As I mentioned months ago Wikipedia is not an academic source but a great place to get a quick summary and starting point.

A “shield law” is legislation designed to provide a news reporter with the right to refuse to testify as to information and/or sources of information obtained during the newsgathering and dissemination process.

There is no federal shield law (although a limited one has been passed by the House and awaits a Senate vote as of July 2008), and state shield laws vary in scope, as further discussed in this article. In general, however, a shield law aims to provide the classic protection of, “a reporter cannot be forced to reveal his or her source” law.

Veteran reporter Judith Miller joins Fox News

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court during the Valerie Plame affair, has joined the Fox News Channel as a contributor, the network said Monday.

Miller will be an analyst at Fox News on security and international affairs and write for FoxNews.com.

Before joining Fox News Channel, Miller was a New York Times reporter for 25 years. She was jailed in 2005 when she declined to reveal the name of a confidential source to a federal grand jury investigating Plame’s unmasking as a CIA operative.

Miller won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting about terrorism and has written about that topic and many others. She also is an adjunct at the Manhattan Institute.

 “a special prosecutor’s zeal to get a conviction in a case involving a non-crime”

More recently, Colin Powell sat silent while two lives were ruined in a special prosecutor’s zeal to get a conviction in a case involving a non-crime: telling columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

The full story is told in Novak’s book, “The Prince of Darkness.” What is relevant here is that a New York Times reporter went to jail for refusing to tell who had revealed Ms. Plame’s occupation to her, and White House aide Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury because his memory of what he said did not match the memories of some reporters– whose memories did not match each other’s.

All the while Colin Powell knew that his own subordinate, Richard Armitage, was the one who had told Robert Novak that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. Neither Armitage nor anybody else was convicted for that because there was no crime to convict them of.

The only crimes were those created in the course of the investigation, unless the silence of Richard Armitage and Colin Powell are regarded as moral crimes.

I think a grave injustice was done to a number of people in the instances cited above.  On the other hand this recent Rashid Khalidi story concerning the LA Times is a different aspect of the issue.  An unidentified source says he videotaped a dinner at which politically sensitive issues were discussed.  Khalidi and Obama were at the dinner.  The source gave a tape to the L A Times with the condition that they not release it.  They say they released a transcript.  One issue is how do we know the integrity of the transcript.  There’s been a lot of news articles about that this week see  here In Camera.

Not releasing the tape has created a lot of negative speculation that what is on the tape could be harmful to Obama.  Apparently the transcript wasn’t.  I haven’t read it.  So if a reporter doesn’t disclose sources it leads to speculation about the credibility of the reporter and the sources.  If a reporter discloses sources, it puts the reporter out of business. 

My experience as an auditor was if someone told me where to look for a problem that they new existed I kept their identity secret from everyone.  I then had a subordinate audit or I personally audited the information and if I found problems I reported them as routine audit findings.  If a reporter invents issues and reports them as actual that too is harmful.

The Federal Government has whistleblower protection laws that are to protect someone who reports a contractor or employee ripping off the government.  The whistleblower gets a financial reward and usually suffers job loss and a lot of harassment.  Look here:

Texas Voter Fraud Is a 3rd Degree Felony

Let’s all understand that Texas Voter Fraud, including purposely voting more than 1 time in a Presidential Election is punishable as a 3rd Degree Felony and that such voter fraud will be and already is being vigorously pursued in the State of Texas.

With the problems we have had with ACORN fraudulent voter registrations nation wide and other issues including “snow-birds” registering and voting in more than one state….. The “hammer is down” in Texas this year!

Voting twice (more than once) in a presidential election is a 3rd degree felony in Texas (and in most States) punishable by up to 5-10 years in prison and a $5,000-$10,000 fine. This election is far too important to let “Voter Indiscretion” slide by the wayside. Texas and other states are on-guard.

Certain Political Dignitaries did Texas a great disservice misrepresenting the fact that Texans can vote twice in the “2-Step” word play, including Bill Clinton. That’s not fact.

Texas authorities are on the lookout for dual registered “snowbirds” as well as anyone else fraudulently voting twice in early voting and on election day, at the polls.

Play those games in Texas and you run a high risk of becoming a convicted 3rd degree felon this year in Texas.

IT”S NOT WORTH THE RISK!

Let’s get this sorted out before Tuesday.

Ken

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

“If It Redistributes Like a Duck…”:

Friday, October 31, 2008

By: David Harsanyi

Obama is first ever presidential candidate to call for redistribution.

Barack Obama is going to fix the economy by “spreading the wealth around”?

Now, I’m not attempting to demonize Obama, God forbid. It’s just that, as we all know, that’s what Obama told Joe the Plumber.

Obama laughs off the charge of socialist behavior — and to be fair, socialism isn’t the precise term to affix to his ideas. It’s more like Robin Hood economics. On a recent campaign stop, Obama joked that by the end of the week, McCain would be accusing him “of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”

A funny line. But of course, Obama’s lofty intellect must comprehend the fundamental difference between sharing your GI Joe with a friend and having a bully snatch your GI Joe for the collective prepubescent good. It’s the difference between coercion and free association and trade. In practical terms, it’s the difference between government cheese and a meal at Ruth’s Chris.

Now, I’m not suggesting Obama intends to transform this nation into 1950s-era Soviet tyranny or that he will possess the power to do so. I’m suggesting Obama is praising and mainstreaming an economic philosophy that has failed to produce a scintilla of fairness or prosperity anywhere on earth, ever.

If It Quacks Like a Duck, it’s a Duck… Read the rest here, originally published by RealClearPolitics.com:

If It Redistributes Like a Duck…

Ken

American Voters know which politicians failed us in the Mortgage Meltdown!

Thomas Sowell 

Let us hope that today’s Israeli government understands that issue the same way as regards Iran, since ours may not.

Despite the media hype that we need to rehabilitate ourselves in the eyes of the world, the United States of America remains the number one destination of immigrants from around the world, some of whom take desperate chances with their lives to get here, whether across the waters of the Caribbean or by crossing our dangerous southwest desert.

Mychal Massie

“Is freedom of speech in Obama’s lexicon?
Tuesday October 28, 2008 by Mychal Massie — Obama has staked his presidential aspirations on “change” and being the advocate for the middle class, i.e., the people. Yet it appears that one of the primary changes he will exact is to strip the “people” of their constitutional right to freedom of speech by ensuring that they pay a painful pr …”

Obama just said “we are 4 days away...” from election day.  Finally, a truthful utterance!

Heritage Foundation Requests Obama to Pull False Ad

Plundering the Plumber’s Records

If Joe the Plumber were Jawad the Suspected Terrorist, civil liberties activists would stampede the halls of Congress on his behalf. Liberal columnists would hyperventilate over the outrageous invasions of his privacy by Ohio state and local employees. The ACLU would demand the Big Brother snoopers’ heads. And Democratic leaders would convene immediate hearings and parade him around the Beltway as the new poster boy/victim of unlawful domestic spying.

But because peaceful American citizen Joe Wurzelbacher is an outspoken enemy of socialism, rather than an enemy of America, the defenders of privacy have responded to his plight with an impenetrable cone of silence.

The title above is my personal opinion. 

I have read numerous times over the last 10 years in James Taranto’s Wall St Journal column about scientists disagreeing with the media on Global Warming.  Most recently about fishermen having difficulty getting to North Sea fishing areas where they normally fish in summers. The idea of Global Warming is to implement more government control over our lives by taking away our cars and making us use public transportation; by making us live in smaller houses so we can pay more taxes, and on and on. 

 MIT scientists baffled by global warming theory, contradicts scientific data

Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man’s contributions.

Record snow storm triggers delays

Snow flurries throughout the night and early morning caused numerous delays for travellers using Switzerland’s rail system on Thursday.

Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate 

Recently the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won’t be as bad “as people say”.

RECORD COLD FOR OCALA

Record cold swept over the region Wednesday

It was a record for Oct. 29 and the second lowest temperature ever recorded in October since 1850. Ocala’s official weather site is at the city water treatment plant on Southeast 24th Street.Until Wednesday, Oct. 29’s record temperature was 37 in 1943 and a close second was 38 degrees in 1957.

I heard Obama this morning condemn Bush and McCain for not doing enough to fight global warming.  From the above articles it seems they are overdoing it.  Bush and McCain need to reduce their efforts or we are going to be too cool.

More Information 

Scientists who remain calm are intimidated, and those extreme skeptics who doubt the global warming orthodoxy are abominated. A distinguished American think tank that sought an open debate on climate change, the American Enterprise Institute, was slandered in the media as a tool of Big Oil. A leading British climate scientist, Mike Hulme of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has adumbrated the extent of this anti-intellectual campaign, saying “I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.”

More Here

Global Warming Gobbledygook
“Here’s a Reuters dispatch that exemplifies why “global warming” is impossible to take seriously:

Even if people stopped pumping out carbon dioxide and other pollutants tomorrow, global warming would still get worse, two teams of researchers reported on Thursday. . . .

Virtually no one disagrees human activity is fueling global warming, and a global treaty signed in Kyoto, Japan, aims to reduce polluting emissions. But the world’s biggest polluter, the United States, has withdrawn from the 1997 treaty, saying its provisions would hurt the U.S. economy.

Actually, lots of people disagree that “human activity is fueling global warming,” but Reuters seems to view them as nonpersons. (By contrast, if you think Osama bin Laden is a “freedom fighter,” you can count on Reuters’ respect.)

In any case, the first paragraph quoted above refutes the second one. If there’s nothing we can do to stop “global warming,” how can we be causing it to begin with?”

Remember to vote straight Republican on the ballot so you don’t accidentally miss John Faulk.

Another view on why the stock markets are so bad  Wall St Journal article you should see.

 Obama and the Politics of Crowds

“On the face of it, there is nothing overwhelmingly stirring about Sen. Obama. There is a cerebral quality to him, and an air of detachment. He has eloquence, but within bounds. After nearly two years on the trail, the audience can pretty much anticipate and recite his lines. The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest — African-Americans and affluent white liberals — has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking — Canetti’s feeling of equality within the crowd…”

Obama and “The Left” 

A candidate who spends two decades promoting polarization and then runs as a healer and uniter, rather than a divider, forfeits all trust by that fact alone.”