davintosh

The latest poll from Rasumussen Reports shows that for the first time ever, “The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits.” (link) A mere 9 percent of the American people think the Democrat-controlled Legislative Branch of our Federal government is doing a good job; the other 91 percent of us see things more clearly.

So yeah; do we really need or want to have the Executive Branch controlled by another Democrat for the next four years?

Actually, a low approval rating means that Congress isn’t doing much, and when that happens, it is a Very Good Thing.

Well, the June 3 South Dakota Primary election is looming large, and with things being so close between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, South Dakota is suddenly a factor once again. And the two of them have suddenly rediscovered South Dakota, as evidenced by the fresh deluge of campaign ads. And each of the ads is a true groaner.

Mrs. Bill Clinton drones on about being a friend to the middle class, all the while complaining about the “Bush economy”; an economy that she — as the junior US Senator from New York — had a hand in creating. An economy that many (including me) believe is on a false downturn, a direct result of actions taken by her party and the complicit media to increase the chance of getting a Democrat in the White House. Watch how quickly things turn around after the Nov. 4 election.

“We are 8 trillion dollars in debt,” Clinton tells an audience in the ad. “We borrow money from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis.” But smart voters will read between the lines and hear her reminding us that the Chinese are in a position to loan us money in part because of her and Bill’s extracurricular activities during their eight years in the White House. And she can also be heard saying that she is partly at fault for any economic problems caused by Washington — she’s been in the Senate for how long?

Yeah. She’d make a great US President.

Then there’s Barack Hussein Obama. Yeah, I know he doesn’t like people using his middle name. Tough cookies. Blame it on your parents. Anyway, his commercial says, “Let’s go change the world!”, reasoning that he can change the world because of a good speech. I think. I didn’t really follow the logic, because I don’t think there was any to it. But that one is better than the typical platitudes he spews in most of his commercials; “We want change,” “We can change America,” “We can create a new Washington.” He makes me groan every time I hear his voice. Such a joke. A bad one.

Yeah, he’s the guy who said he’d meet with any world leader without preconditions, then later scolded Jimmy Carter for meeting with Hamas. He complains that the US has lost influence in the world community in recent years; elect him, and the US would be a laughing stock in the world community. Elect him, and we will end up in a weaker position militarily than at the end of Bill Clinton’s disastrous presidency (hear it from B. Hussein himself.) He is dangerously naive to think that he can cut the military to the degree he proposes in that video and still protect the American people.

I wish they would both just go away. And we’ve got five more months of this crap. I’m no fan of John McCain either, but he’d make a much better President than either of the two Democrat candidates.

What’s really funny about this campaign is that Hillary is still in the running. It seemed in the beginning that the fix was in for Obama, and the pressure continues to mount for Hillary to drop out. She has Rush Limbaugh and his Operation Chaos to thank; Rush urged Republican voters to change party affiliation for their primary elections so they can keep the Hillary candidacy alive as long as possible so that she can keep swinging at Obama, bloodying him as much as possible. That’s really funny because the mainstream media just doesn’t get the whole Operation Chaos thing; they think that the votes for her are legitimate and will translate to real votes in November. It is to laugh!

What really scares me though is how many people will place legitimate votes for one or the other of these two socialist idiots, even here in South Dakota. That tells a sad tale of how far from the Federalist ideals we as a nation have drifted. God help us all.

Today we say goodbye to William F. Buckley Jr., a true gentleman and one of the best spokesmen for the political right. He was a prolific writer, the founder of National Review Magazine, and is credited by many to be one of the founding fathers of the current conservative movement in the US. Although he will be missed, we can be grateful that his writings will always be with us.

I don’t remember the first time I heard of Buckley, but the image of him stuck in my mind is him in the middle of a heated argument on some political show… Everyone in the discussion is red in the face and shouting to get their point across, but Buckley is poised, confident, speaking calmly and plainly, articulating his side of the discussion as only he can. The man possessed a brilliant wit and an unmatched mastery of the English language, ready to disarm any opponent in a battle of wits.

God speed, Mr. Buckley. May you rest in the company of saints, and of God the Heavenly Father.

Sounds like the election year economic stimulus package has been passed & signed by the President, so the checks are forthcoming. Yes, I’m eligible to receive the prescribed “rebate”, even though I don’t think I need it and even though the total may even exceed what I paid in federal taxes last year.

Reports suggest that the economy is headed for a slowdown — some say a recession — and the stimulus package is intended to be an infusion of cash that will head it off. I’m not sure how serious the slowdown is because around here, things are pretty decent. Unemployment is down, building permits are up, etc… Don’t know if I’d call it a boom, but people don’t seem to be hurting.

What I wonder is this; if the stimulus package wasn’t approved and the recession didn’t materialize, would anybody connect the two? You’ve got to know that after the rebates hit the streets, if the recession doesn’t happen, everybody in Washington will be like, “Good thing we did that; imagine how bad the economy would be if we hadn’t.” Come to think of it, they’ll probably say something like that even if there is a recession; “Good thing we did that; imagine how much worse it would be if we hadn’t.”

All the stimulus package amounts to is a dose of income redistribution. The people in the higher tax brackets don’t get the rebates; some would say that a rebate of this size wouldn’t make a difference to people who make a lot of money. But if the intent is to get people to go out and spend to give the economy a boost, wouldn’t giving cash to more people — including those who are already spending disposable income — help even more?

It’s not even February, and it seems the media types have already appointed a candidate for the Republican ticket. We’re barely done with a handful of primaries, and if you listen to the pundits, John McCain is the man. And so far he’s only won in one state, and that by only 3 percent.

The South Dakota Primary won’t happen until June 3, and who knows who will even still be in the running by that time. To be honest, I’m not terribly excited about any of them, but any of them would be far preferable to Hillarious Clinton or Barack Obama.

My pick for the Republican ticket would be Fred Thompson, but that all changed just yesterday when he threw in the towel. Even the commentators on the political right didn’t see much chance for him to prevail in the primaries, and his “fire in the belly” speech did nothing to help him in anybody’s eyes. So he’ll likely be off to his next acting gig (although you can still buy Fred ’08 stuff on his website; I might just pick up a coffee mug!)

Mit Romney is my second pick (I guess he’s first now), but he has that Mormon thing going against him. I think he’d lead well and keep his goofy, um, cult… thing… at bay; but at the end of the day, the fact that he buys into the Mormon teachings makes one question his judgement. Some might argue that Mormonism isn’t much different than mainline Christianity, but that someone wouldn’t be me. Christianity takes faith to comprehend, but makes sense when viewed historically; Mormonism is just plain off-the-charts weird. What I like about Romney is that he’s squeaky clean and he’s closer to the Reagan Conservative model than the alternatives. He’s not a dead-on Reagan Conservative, but he’s darn close. If only he didn’t have that Mormon thing to drag him down.

Rudy Giuliani is RINO, even more so than McCain. Even though I think he’d be a good leader, I’d have trouble voting for him.

And that leaves us with Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist minister from Arkansas. Of the whole bunch, he’s probably got the most experience that would help him in the White House, but even considering that and the fact that he’s a Christian, I still don’t know if he’d be the best guy for the job. His record on economic issues is less than stellar; from what I understand, he governs more like a moderate or a liberal when it comes to money.

Why oh why can’t we get another true Reagan Conservative to run for the presidency? Someone who knows economics and is able to lead with that knowledge and educate the people to understand and accept the truths of conservative economics. Someone with the charisma and the financial backing to make a successful go of it. There is someone out there who fits that description; he just isn’t running for office this year. Maybe in 2012?

Can I nominate John Thune?

It’s funny how much of a fuss is made by so many in the mainstream media over the failure of the GOP constituency to come together behind any of the Republican candidates. The problem is that I’m not the only one who has trouble getting excited over any of these guys. But one thing I do know is that no matter who wins, Republicans will be rooting for whoever is nominated, because regardless of how unexcited we might be about the candidates, we will most assuredly come together to defeat the Democrats, regardless of who is nominated on that ticket. Any of the guys on the Republican side would be preferable to Hillary or Obama.

And all that amid news of a looming recession and stock markets plunging worldwide… Could it be the markets are shuddering at even the thought of Obama or Clinton in the White House this time next year?

Well, the auction for Harry Reid’s smear letter ended at noon today with a price of $2,100,100. When I wrote about this auction earlier, I thought maybe the price might top $1.5 million, but gah!

I was listening to Rush on my way home for lunch when the auction ended, and Rush was pretty astounded as well, as he should be since he pledged to match whatever the end price was. But what astounded him (and me) even more was that Harry Reid got up on the Senate floor an hour before the auction ended and tried to take at least partial credit for the idea of auctioning off the letter for charity. Here’s a transcript of what he said:

Madam President, earlier this month I came to the floor to discuss some comments made by Rush Limbaugh. Following my remarks, more than 40 of my Senate colleagues and I cosigned a letter to the chairman of Clear Channel, Mark May, telling him we wanted him to confer with Limbaugh regarding the statements he made.

I’ve since spoken to Mark May about this. Mark May in fact called me regarding this letter. This week, Rush Limbaugh put the original copy of that letter up for auction on eBay. Mr. President, we didn’t have time, or we could have gotten every Senator to sign that letter.

He put the letter up for auction on eBay, and I think very, very constructively, let the proceeds of that to go to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. That provides scholarship assistance to Marines and federal law enforcement personnel whose parents fall in the line of duty. What could be a more worthwhile cause? I think it’s really good that this money on eBay is going to be raised for this purpose.

When I spoke to Mark May, he and I thought this probably wouldn’t make much money, a letter, written by Democrat Senators, complaining about something. This morning, the bid is more than two million for this. We’ve watched it during the week. It keeps going up and up and up. There’s only a little bit of time left on it, but it certainly is going to be more than two million. Never did we think that this letter would bring money of this nature.

And for the cause, Madam President, it’s extremely good. Now everybody knows that Rush Limbaugh and I don’t agree on everything in life. Maybe that’s kind of an understatement. But without qualification, Mark May, the owner of the network that has Rush Limbaugh, their auction is going to be something that raises money for a worthwhile cause. I don’t know what we could do more important than helping to ensure that children of our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty have the opportunity for their children to have a good education.

“Is that not audacious?” said Rush, and I have to agree. Harry Reid stands up on the Senate floor this morning with no other purpose than to put himself on a soapbox to create soundbites for the media, all with the intent of taking credit for something that he had no part in. His only part in all of this was to abuse his power as the Senate Majority Leader in an attempt to bully Rush, a private citizen, into submission. And then when Rush turns the tables on him and tries to make something good out of it, Reid jumps up and tries to steal the show. It was shameful. I just listened to the audio from Reid’s September 26 rant again, and it just makes me sick to hear all that. There is no truth to what he’s saying, he knew it then, and he really knows it now. Today’s act is called damage control.

Read through his statement again. He does absolutely nothing but recount what happened, trying to weave himself into the success that Rush made of the debacle that he — Reid — created. And he closes his statements saying… Well, saying nothing at all; “their auction is going to be something that raises money for a worthwhile cause.” Well duh. That just really emphasizes to me that he had absolutely nothing to say; only trying to get himself and other 40 Senatorial dolts out of the hot water they find themselves in, and trying to make themselves look like the heros they will never be.

Now some news outlets are finally picking up the story, saying that Reid “urged bids on it.” Yeah, right. An hour before the end of the auction, when the minimum bid is over $2 million. What a hypocrite. And what dupes are the major media outlets that play into Reid’s spin on this.