Monday, August 31, 2009

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Experts See Huge Dem Losses in 2010

As predicted:

"After an August recess marked by raucous town halls, troubling polling data and widespread anecdotal evidence of a volatile electorate, the small universe of political analysts who closely follow House races is predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in 2010.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House — not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

Top political analyst Charlie Cook, in a special August 20 update to subscribers, wrote that “the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and congressional Democrats.”

"Many veteran congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats,” he wrote.

At the mid-August Netroots Nation convention, Nate Silver, a Democratic analyst whose uncannily accurate, stat-driven predictions have made his website FiveThirtyEight.com a must read among political junkies, predicted that Republicans will win between 20 and 50 seats next year. He further alarmed an audience of progressive activists by arguing that the GOP has between a 25 and 33 percent chance of winning back control of the House."


It didn't take six months for America to wake up to it's conservative underpinnings. A little dab of Obama Socialism is enough to remind Americans that his policies are not what we want for America. I seeing the 50 seat swing and a return of control of the house to the GOP. What we should be doing now is getting our candidates - true conservatives - identified and supported.
Over at Hot Air Ed:
"Can they do it again? The GOP has a much stronger wind at its back than they did in 1994 with the rapid decline of Democratic support, but they need to organize effectively to take advantage of it. The NRCC needs to build a foundation that will attract the conservative base and independent voters alike. Their best bet is to focus on economic freedom, fiscal responsibility, less government control, and free-market reforms that make sense. Republicans have to have a positive message for voters, not just a gainsay of Obamanomics. They have two easy targets with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to paint Congress as aggressively radical, but that has to be paired with an agenda that wins hearts and minds across a broad spectrum."
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Where's the Media on Obama's Unpopularity

Remember when Bush went below 50 percent approval in the polls how the media kept reminding us how unpopular he was? Where were are they now? Rasmussen - most accurate of the polls in 2004, 2006 and 2008 has Obama at 46% approval and 53% disapproval. UPDATE: Today at %45. David Brooks - who supported THE ONE.
"The administration hasn’t been able to pull it off. From the stimulus to health care, it has joined itself at the hip to the liberal leadership in Congress. The White House has failed to veto measures, like the pork-laden omnibus spending bill, that would have demonstrated independence and fiscal restraint. By force of circumstances and by design, the president has promoted one policy after another that increases spending and centralizes power in Washington. The result is the Obama slide, the most important feature of the current moment. The number of Americans who trust President Obama to make the right decisions has fallen by roughly 17 percentage points. Obama’s job approval is down to about 50 percent. All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast. Anxiety is now pervasive. Trust in government rose when Obama took office. It has fallen back to historic lows. Fifty-nine percent of Americans now think the country is headed in the wrong direction."
We said it all along, there's a kid driving the bus, and he's headed for a cliff. Question is how many more jump off before it goes over?
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What Experience Does George Will Have in War?

I've never considered George Will anything other than a "true Conservative", nevertheless this is insane.
"George F. Will, the elite conservative commentator, will call in his next column for U.S. ground troops to leave Afghanistan, according to publishing sources. “[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters,” Will writes in the column, scheduled for publication later this week. President Obama ordered a total of 21,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan in February and March, and casualties have mounted as the forces began confronting the Taliban more aggressively. August saw the highest monthly death toll for the U.S. since the invasion in 2001, the second record month in a row. Will’s prescription – in which he urges Obama to remember Bismarck’s decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870 - seems certain to split Republicans. He is a favorite of fiscal conservatives. The more hawkish right can be expected to attack his conclusion as foolhardy, short-sighted and naïve, potentially making the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attack. The columnist’s startling recommendation surfaced on the same day that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, sent an assessment up his chain of command recommending what he called “a revised implementation strategy.” In a statement, McChrystal also called for “commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.” In the column, Will warns that any nation-building strategy could be impossible to execute given the Taliban’s ability to seemingly disappear into the rugged mountain terrain and the lack of economic development in the war-plagued nation."
Fer crying out loud, who in the hell is talking about "nation building"? It's about containment of the Taliban, controlling Al Qaeda - who are not in Afghanistan, and a commitment to the people of Afghanistan. It's about honor George, of those who gave their lives - which you never had a chance to sacrifice - and about winning - not retreating. Lobbing missiles vis Clinton will not do in. Wake the f-k up man!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

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Carol Shea Porter has Former Police Officer and Constituent arrested at Town Hall Meeting

Via Hot Air:
"This is a curious re-election strategy, especially for a Representative who made her name by bird-dogging her former Congressman at his town-hall forums. Consistency isn’t Carol Shea-Porter’s strong suit, apparently, as she demonstrates in this clip from the meeting she finally held with constituents after dodging them for most of the month. When one of her constituents challenges the presence of union enforcers in the crowd, Shea-Porter asks for police intervention."
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Democrats to Ram Unpopular Obamacare Down America's Throat

Talk about the last great act of defiance.
"The talk in Washington is that Senate Democrats are preparing to push through health care reforms using parliamentary procedures that will allow a simple majority to prevail in their chamber, as it does in the House, instead of the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster that Senate Republicans are sure to mount. With the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, the Democrats do not have the votes just among their 57 members (and the two independents) to break a filibuster, and not all of these can be counted on to vote in lock step. If the Democrats want to enact health care reform this year, they appear to have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy. We say this with considerable regret because a bipartisan compromise would be the surest way to achieve comprehensive reforms with broad public support. But the ideological split between the parties is too wide — and the animosities too deep — for that to be possible. In recent weeks, it has become inescapably clear that Republicans are unlikely to vote for substantial reform this year. Many seem bent on scuttling President Obama’s signature domestic issue no matter the cost. As Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, so infamously put it: “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”
Go fer it. With only 24 percent of Americans - mostly Democrats - believing this is a good move, and a full 49 percent of Americans not wanting Government run healthcare, and congressional ballots tilting heavily towards the GOP, it would be suicide. But then no one has accused the Democratically controlled congress of being smart. For these reasons I doubt it happens. In spite of this editorial's "optimism", the Democratic power-base is simply not ready to see 2010 turn into 1994. , , ,
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Congressional Generic Ballot Continues to Heavily favor GOP

And over a long period of time.
"This summer brought a significant shift in voter preferences in the Generic Congressional Ballot. As Republican Congressional candidates once again lead Democrats by a 43% to 38% margin this week, this is now the ninth straight ballot the GOP has held a modest advantage. Over the past nine weeks, Republicans have held a two-to-five point advantage over Democrats every week. It is important to note, however, that the recent shift is not only because Republicans have been gaining support, but that Democrats have slipped in support. While support for Republican candidates ranged from 41% to 43%, support for Democrats ranged from 37% to 39%. Looking back one year ago, support was strikingly different for the parties. Throughout the summer of 2008, support for Democratic congressional candidates ranged from 45% to 48%. Republican support ranged from 34% to 37%."
It's easy. After three years of Democratic Partisan Failure, voters have had enough. But we can't take this for granted. We need strong conservative candidates who can speak conservative values to Americans that counter the liberal/socialist views they getting from Democrats.
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Cheney was Right, Waterboarding Worked!

Sure to send the left-wing flapping.
"After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials." In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture. Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group's plans, ideology and operatives," said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified. "He'd even use a chalkboard at times." These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its "preeminent source" on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques."
And from just a few minutes of waterboarding this criminal, but it was key.
"KSM, an accomplished resistor, provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate or incomplete," according to newly unclassified portions of a 2004 report by the CIA's then-inspector general released Monday by the Justice Department. The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable, because it is impossible to know whether less coercive methods would have achieved the same result. But for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general's report and other documents released this week indicate."
Let's not forget that in the beginning of the interrogation process interrogators used methods outlined in the Army Field manual but they proved ineffective. Operatives such as KSM has trained on resisting the "coffee and cookie - be my buddy" methods and how to resist them. He and other detainees didn't bargan on the fact that we would go to greater lengths to get information. How much of an asset did KSM become. From an anonymous op in the CIA, "If KSM were to be returned to Al Qaeda he would be assassinated within minutes - he's a dead man either way". Technorati Tags: , ,
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Eleanor Clift - Forget about Kennedy's Womanizing He was Really Good Guy!

Finally a feminists speaks out of the death of the greatest of chauvinism, but...
"For those who remember, there's no forgiving the incident that took the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign aide left to drown in the waters of Chappaquiddick Island. The moment embodied an era that was mercifully ending. For a long time a rich and powerful man in the public eye could reasonably expect that women would simply be playthings, and that private sins would remain just that: private. That was changing in 1969. Feminism was moving toward the mainstream, and the image of a Kennedy leaving a woman to drown seemed to epitomize the inequality of the sexes. But always Kennedy managed to muddle through and even grow in stature, to become known as a Great American. Some Americans—men and women—are infuriated by this. If you're not sympathetic to Kennedy's politics, you'll note that he had a staggeringly privileged life, and got away with something he shouldn't have. It's easy to tally his other failings. In 1980, when he ran for president, his wife Joan dutifully stood by his side, but it was clear from her body language that the marriage was in trouble, and soon after the campaign ended, so did the marriage. Joan was one of many political wives who have been subjected to the humiliation of publicly pretending to be in a loving marriage that was a sham. Kennedy was a rogue, and his escapades, fueled by alcohol, were well documented. He was single through much of the '80s and into the '90s, and his risky behavior blew up on him one night in Palm Beach, Fla., when a bout of drinking ended with his nephew William Kennedy Smith being charged with date rape. A sensational trial followed, after which Smith was acquitted. But there was no escaping that Kennedy, the scion of the family, had damaged himself further. Even he knew it, saying at one point that he recognized "the faults in the conduct of my private life."
So you would think, but....
"For some women, reverence for Kennedy stopped with Chappaquiddick. The rest of us have a very different view: Kennedy had the gift of time to make amends, and we were the beneficiaries of that.”
Let's just call feminism dead at this point, all the credibility - what little there was - is now gone. Technorati Tags:
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