Happy New Year 2008

Best wishes for a safe and prosperous 2008!

Nuke

It’s That Time Of Year, Again!

This is the twentieth anniversary of the year’s worst reporting from the Media Research Center, known as the Best of Notable Quotables.
Of all the liberal biased comments from various media sources, whether electronic or print, the MRC has diligently gleaned through them all, selected the worst of them all, and submitted them to a panel of judges to assign a point total, giving us the worst of the year, and there is one clear winner, as the quote of the year.

“As Violence Falls in Iraq, Cemetery Workers Feel the Pinch”
— Headline over an October 16 story by McClatchy News Service reporters Jay Price and Qasim Zein.

There are sixteen categories, from which the judges had to review them all, ranging from ‘America Makes Us Sick,’ to ‘Tin Foil Hat.’
As there are many that attack President Bush, on many different topics, and not just the GWOT, here are a few selected quotes I found worthy of mention, in this festival of journalistic incompetence, as they are category winners.

Senator Barack Obama: “Let’s roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, let’s make certain that those resources go to the people who need it….We’re not going to solve it by pretending that issues of poverty and struggle among working families are just going to go away magically because the stock market is going up.”
Moderator Chris Matthews: “So much of what you say just grabs people like me, because it sounds like Bobby Kennedy. It sounds like the ’60s at its absolute best.”
— Exchange at AFSCME Democratic candidates forum shown live on MSNBC, June 19. [78 points]

“I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.”
— Host Bill Maher on his HBO show Real Time, March 2, discussing how a few commenters at a left-wing blog were upset that an attempt to kill Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan had failed. [91 points]

Co-host Harry Smith: “President Bush getting ready to go to Europe for the G-8. The folks in the European Union want to do emissions reductions. The President said yesterday we’re not going to participate….If you were president, you would have probably signed on?”
Former Vice President Al Gore: “Yeah, yeah.”
Smith: “Do you mind if I-? [holds up a ‘Gore 2008’ pin]…There you go. You can hold it. [laughter]….Here, let’s see what it looks like. [holds pin to Gore’s lapel]…All right, all right. Save that in a freeze frame.”
— Exchange on CBS’s The Early Show, May 30. [64 points]

On and on it goes, and many of the runners-up in each category are worthy of being the best…or worst…whatever!
At the end of the list is a page listing the judges used to rate these quotes. I take my hat off to them for their efforts, they are certainly better men and women than me, but then they don’t mention how much Pepto-Bismol or barf bags were needed to complete this task.
I also commend the hard working employees of MRC for their diligence in listening to every inane comment made by the various journalist in this country, and compiling such an enormous amount of information for the judges to review, and for us to read, and to view, as videos of these comments are also available.
I experienced a full range of emotions, going through this list, but I had to rate and vote on the reaction that I experienced the most, and the winner is:
Incredulity!

Lest we forget

Yes, Virginia.  There is a War on Terror.

National security is the number one issue of the Republican  primary for a very good reason.  Muslim terrorism is real.  It is a threat that America cannot ignore.  It is the reason that Republicans must prevail in the 2008 elections.  The Sun offers this reminder, lest we forget.

Qari Hifzur Rehamn, 60, spoke openly of imposing Islamic law’s stoning and beheading on Britain – as Pakistan was rocked by unrest over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

He warned: “We want Islamic law for all Pakistan and then the world.

“We would like to do this by preaching. But if not then we would use force.”

Rehamn, 60, spoke in the Pakistani town of Kahuta as the call to prayer echoed over the dusty streets.

He is Imam of the town’s fundamentalist religious school or madrassa, where classes for kids as young as nine include Jihad or Holy War and barbaric punishments.

His teachings are frightening enough. But his mosque lies in the shadow of the secret bunker where Pakistan produces nuclear weapons.

And when asked if it would be right to nuke British infidels, he laughed and answered: “Probably.”

Read more

Who didn’t see this coming?

Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, has boasted of providing for universal healthcare in the Commonwealth.  In fact, Hillary Clinton’s reincarnation of universal healthcare was unveiled a few months ago, and it looked remarkably similar.  Employers are required to provide access to insurance, or face fines from the state.

Enter the law of unintended consequences.  Many employers have decided that paying the fines is better for their company than providing insurance.

I’m shocked.  Shocked, I tell ya.

Businesses with 11 or more full-time equivalent workers are now required to offer insurance or pay a fine. The law also bars employers from offering higher-wage workers better health benefits than low-wage employees. In addition, workers with access to employer-subsidized insurance are now barred from getting state-supported coverage, and will be excluded from the state’s free care program starting in April.

The provisions were designed to ensure that as many workers as possible get coverage through their employers in a state where about 70 percent of the 200,000 businesses offer insurance benefits.

For years, Doug Barlow and his business partner had paid 100 percent of the insurance cost for 11 full-time salaried workers at their three Burger King restaurants in Boston. The new law’s antidiscrimination provisions led them to offer insurance to 27 hourly employees. But the potential cost – nearly $1,100 per month for family coverage – pushed them to cut the firm’s contribution to 50 percent.

“I was prepared for a lot more people coming into our plan, but it didn’t happen,” said Barlow. Other employers said they are seeing the same pattern – expanded eligibility that does not lead to many more insured individuals.

“For most working-class people, regardless of whether the company pays part of the premium, it’s very expensive,” Barlow said. “Some full-time people said they’d done the math and it is cheaper for them to pay the state penalty than pay their half of health insurance.”

The law requires individuals to obtain insurance by Dec. 31, if the state deems it affordable, or pay a penalty of $219. Next year, the penalty will rise.

As they say, read it all.

What do you think, Club for Growth?  Socialized medicine has no place in a capitalist society.  Get your heads out of your azzes and quit supporting this moron.

Dogs take Liberty with defensive gem

From ESPN

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Sylvester Croom and Mississippi State capped a turnaround season built on defense with one of their stingiest efforts.

Anthony Dixon scored on a 1-yard run with 1:54 remaining, Derek Pegues had two interceptions and Mississippi State kept Central Florida’s Kevin Smith from breaking the single-season rushing record in a 10-3 victory at the Liberty Bowl on Saturday.

In a game featuring anemic offenses and few big plays, the Bulldogs (8-5) kept Central Florida (10-4) out of the end zone and held Smith to 119 yards. The junior finished 61 yards shy of Barry Sanders’ single-season record of 2,628 yards set for Oklahoma State in 1988.

It was the lowest scoring Liberty Bowl since Penn State beat Tulane 9-6 in 1979.

Dixon finished with 66 yards and won the game with a 1-yard dive after Kyle Israel threw his third interception.

The Bulldogs held the Knights to 219 yards and forced four turnovers.

Cover-up? Bhutto aide says bathed body, saw bullet wound

ISLAMABAD: A close aide to Benazir Bhutto told on Saturday she saw a bullet wound in the Pakistani opposition leader’s head when she bathed her body after her assassination.

Bhutto’s spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who said she was in the former premier’s motorcade at the time of the gun and suicide attack, rejected government claims that the death was caused when Bhutto’s head hit her sunroof.

“I was actually part of the party which bathed her body before the funeral,” said Rehman, who added that her car was used to transport Bhutto to hospital.

“There was a bullet wound I saw that went in from the back of her head and came out the other side.

“We could not even wash her properly because the wound was still seeping. She lost a huge amount of blood.”

Rehman accused the government of mounting a cover-up over Bhutto’s death. “The hospital was made to change its statement. They never gave a proper report,” she said.

“I believe the interior ministry is saying that she died from some concussion that may have taken place against the sunroof.

“This is ridiculous, dangerous nonsense because it is a cover-up of what actually happened.”

Source: dnaindia.com

Who killed Mde. Bhutto?  Developing…

NowPublic

Tags: hospital | islamabad | accused | added | Aide | assassination | attack | bathed | Benazir | Bhutto | BULLET | caused | claims | cover-up | funeral | Government | leader | motorcade | mounting | opposition | Pakistani | Politics | Premier | Rehman | Rejected | report | Saturday | says | sherry | spokeswoman | statement | suicide | sunroof | Transport | WOUND

Top 10 Climate Myth-Busters for 2007

Something to read on a slow Saturday.

“I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with the facts.” That saying most appropriately sums up the year in climate science for the fanatic global warming crowd.

As Al Gore, the United Nations, grandstanding politicians and celebrities, taxpayer-dependent climate researchers, socialist-minded Greens, climate profiteers and other members of the alarmist railroad relentlessly continued their drive for greenhouse gas regulation in 2007, the year’s scientific developments actually pointed in the opposite direction. Here’s the round-up:

1. Cracked crystal balls. Observed temperature changes measured over the last 30 years don’t match well with temperatures predicted by the mathematical climate models relied on by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers reported.

The models predict significantly warmer atmospheric temperatures than actually occurred, despite the availability of more and better quality data and improved modeling efforts since the late-1970s.

“We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these models be viewed with much caution,” the researchers concluded. Read more…

2. The big yellow ball in the sky. The Sun may have contributed 50 percent or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900, according to a new historical temperature reconstruction showing more variation in pre-industrial temperatures than previously thought.

The researchers found that “the climate is very sensitive to solar changes and a significant fraction of the global warming that occurred during the last century should be solar induced.” Read more…

3. Pre-SUV warming. Another new temperature reconstruction for the past 2,000 years indicates that globally averaged temperature 1,000 years ago was about 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the current temperature. Since that climatic “heat wave” obviously wasn’t caused by coal-fired power plants and SUVs, the current temperature is quite within natural variability, deflating alarmists’ rash conclusions about the warming of the past 50 years. Read more…

4. A disciplined climate. Runaway global warming — the alarmist fantasy in which a warmer global temperature causes climatic events that, in turn, cause more warming and so-on in a never-ending positive feedback loop — was cornered by new data from researchers at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH). The new research sheds light on the mechanism by which the atmosphere self-regulates. Read more…

5. A gnarly wipeout. Climate alarmists gleefully surfed a 2005 study that claimed greenhouse gas emissions would slow Atlantic Ocean circulation and cause a mini ice age in Europe. But an international team of researchers reported that the intensity of the Atlantic circulation may vary by as much as a factor of eight in a single year. The decrease in Atlantic circulation claimed in the 2005study falls well within this variation and so is likely part of a natural yearly trend, according to the new study. Read more…

6. A pollution solution. A new study reported that the solid particles suspended in the atmosphere (called “aerosols”) that make up “brown clouds” may actually contribute to warmer temperatures — precisely the opposite effect heretofore claimed by global warming alarmists.

“These findings might seem to contradict the general notion of aerosol particles as cooling agents in the global climate system …,” concluded the researchers. Read more…

7. Lazy temperature? Researchers reported that the rate of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions was three times greater during 2000 to 2004 than during the 1990s. Since increasing atmospheric C02 levels allegedly cause global warming, the new study must mean that global temperatures are soaring even faster now than they did during the 1990s, right?

Wrong. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Climatic Data Center, ever-changing global temperatures are in no way keeping pace with ever-increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Read more…

8. Don’t plant that tree! Researchers reported that while tropical forests exert a cooling influence on global climate, forests in northern regions exert a significant warming influence on climate. Based on the researchers’ computer modeling, forests above 20 degrees latitude in the Northern Hemisphere — that is, north of the line of latitude running through Southern Mexico, Saharan Africa, central India and the southernmost Chinese Island of Hainan — will warm surface temperatures in those regions by an estimated 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Read more…

9. The Tropical Arctic. Dutch researchers reported that during a period of intense global warming 55 million years ago — when the Arctic Ocean was as warm as 73 degrees Fahrenheit — there was a tremendous release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But which came first, the warming or the greenhouse gases?

It was the warming, according to the researchers. Read more…

10. Much ado about nothing. In a report to Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed greenhouse gas regulation to be quite the fool’s errand. In estimating the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases 90 years from now under both a scenario where no action is taken to reduce manmade emissions and a scenario where maximum regulation is implemented, the estimated difference in average global temperature between the two scenarios is 0.17 degrees Centigrade.

For reference purposes, the estimated total increase in average global temperature for the 20th century was about 0.50 degrees Celsius.

That’s what researchers have reported this year. And let’s not forget the spanking a British high judge gave Al Gore’s movie for all its scientific inaccuracies and the thrashing non-alarmist climate scientists gave to alarmist climate scientists in a debate sponsored by the New York debating society Intelligence Squared.

Al Gore and the alarmist mob claim the debate about the science of global warming is “over.” Given the developments of 2007, it’s easy to see why they would want it that way.

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Mitt or Hillary? Take the quiz

Listening to their current stump speeches, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton seem like polar opposites. The Democratic lightening rod and the former New England governor appear to offer voters a contrasting vision of leadership: government activism versus free market solutions to the challenges of 21st century America.

Their rhetoric, however, is a different story. In fact, many of their statements are downright interchangeable.

Criticisms of each candidate range from opportunism to pandering, hypocrisy to flip-flopping. Certainly, the two candidates offer starkly different leadership styles, policy differences, and philosophies of governance. But, just listening to their words, it’s sometimes difficult to tell who said what to whom.

We’ve pulled the following quotes from the excellent resource website, “On The Issues.” See if you can identify the speaker as Mitt Romney, or Hillary Clinton.

1) “I am adamantly against illegal immigrants. People have got to stop employing illegal immigrants. you see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work & construction work & domestic work.”

2) “We have to have our citizens insured, and we’re not going to do that by tax exemptions, because the people that don’t have insurance aren’t paying taxes.”

3) “I hate the idea of in any way making it more difficult for kids, even those who are illegal aliens, to afford college.”

4) “We need to stand firm on behalf of sensible gun control legislation.”

5) “I also support an assault weapon ban.”

6) “The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.”

7) “I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion. Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion.”

8] “We ought to be providing domestic partnership benefits for people who are in homosexual and lesbian relationships.”
_________________________________________

The answers:

(1) Hillary, (2) Mitt, (3) Mitt, (4) Hillary, (5) Mitt, (6) Hillary, (7) Hillary, (8) Hillary

So, how did you do? If you got all 8 correctly, you win this pdf of Hillary Clinton’s 1969 Wellesley thesis, “There Is Only The Fight,” (suitable for downloading).

Enjoy!

P.S. — I started to say something about the commonality of Hillary seeing Dr. MLK in Chicago, 1962, and Mitt “seeing” his father march with Dr. MLK, but I decided that might be piling on a bit. Heh™.

Reposted by popular request.

Romney could have kept killer behind bars

SHIRLEY, Mass.—A killer accused in the slaying of a newlywed couple in Washington state shortly after he was released from prison in Massachusetts should have been held behind bars for almost a year longer, but the Romney administration failed to file paperwork in time to take away his “good time” credits.

A Department of Correction superintendent, under then-Gov. Mitt Romney, did not act on a disciplinary recommendation to strip 300 days of credit from Daniel Tavares after he was accused of threats to prison staff in 2003, state officials announced Friday in releasing results of a probe into the Tavares case.

Because of the paperwork error, Tavares was allowed to keep nearly a year’s worth of “good days” to complete his sentence June 14. Five months later, newlyweds Brian and Beverly Mauck were killed in Graham, Wash., allegedly by Tavares.

“He would have still been incarcerated. We are very dismayed. He was violent,” Correction Commissioner Harold Clarke said at a news conference Friday. “This is an individual who should not have been released any earlier than required.”

Listening to Howard Dean

This afternoon’s Rush Limbaugh Show, hosted by Mark Belling, featured a semi-restrained rant by the host against Mike Huckabee. I listened to one segment of the show, as time allowed. According to Belling, other than the two issues of gay marriage and abortion, reading the words of Mike Huckabee is virtually indistinguishable from reading the words of John Edwards.

Belling needed only to include Mike’s pro-Second Amendment stance, and he would have scored the Howard Dean Trifecta:

I am tired of coming to the South and fighting elections on guns, God and gays.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m picking on Belling. Rudy Guiliani said much the same thing with his statement on social issues a few months back:

“Our party has to get beyond issues like that.”

Jeffery Lord in the American Spectator tried a similar tack in a blistering piece today, assailing Huckabee for “attacking Reaganomics.”

So while it does not surprise that there are class warrior Democrats attacking the idea of economic opportunity as “greed” and promising all manner of ways to pit one group against another, it is startling indeed to hear the following from a Republican presidential front runner — former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Lord makes no specific references to Huckabee’s policy positions, but instead relies on statements by The Club for Growth as the arbiter of true conservatism. Any serious observer of the Republican Primary season understands that the The Club for Growth has been anything but an honest broker with regards to Huckabee specifically, and generally, any Republican who fails to meet the small-tent definition of conservatism they espouse.

The idea troubles that the nominee of the conservative party could be someone who fails to understand that his apparent scorn for “Wall Street” could resonate negatively with the almost 50 percent of the American population who are now shareholders — because of Ronald Reagan. Does Huckabee really believe that all these millions of people are therefore “greedy”? That economic growth as exemplified by Reaganomics is nothing more than a show-stopping parade of excess by out of control Middle Americans? If in fact in his heart- of-hearts he has some sort of contempt for the Reagan agenda — and the Reagan economic accomplishments that restored America to its place as the shining city on a hill — Governor Huckabee will soon find himself doing his best to balance on a stool that is missing a leg.

Do Mr. Lord, Mr. Belling, and others actually believe that the Club for Growth represents the 50 percent of Americans who own a small piece of Wall Street in their 401(k)’s?

Please.

The Club for Growth represents The Club for Growth. Their crusade for ideological purity is largely responsible for the loss of the Senate in 2006. If the Club for Growth is such a serious and respected group policy wonks, as Lord suggests, then why haven’t they successfully answered the leftist mantra of “Tax Cuts for the Rich?” Answer that and you take the whole “Greed” issue off the table.

There is only one reason that the left trots out that line: It works.

If the smartest guys in the room at The Club for Growth can’t answer that, then maybe they’re not so smart after all. And, maybe their personal crusade against Mike Huckabee has cost them in credibility in ways that they cannot yet fathom. And maybe, just maybe the middle class, gun-toting, Bible believing, wife-loving, foot soldiers of the Reagan coalition just don’t believe the Club for Growth anymore, and couldn’t care less about what the American Spectator says, and are just as likely to tell NRO and WSJ to go jump in the lake as not.

Try this experiment: Go back just a couple of years and find any Mitt Romney speech concerning the social issues, right to life, defense of marriage, and the right to keep and bear arms. Any of them, it doesn’t matter. Now, close you eyes as you listen and you just might think you’re listening to ….. John Kerry.

Get it?

Paulian poge or imposter?

Or patriot, maybe? There’s no way for me to know for sure.

I ran across a website diary authored by “captainj0e” while browsing over at Free Republic. Captainj0e is a Ron Paul guy who claims to be serving his second tour of duty in Iraq.

Frankly, I haven’t spent enough time around the Paulians to be able to recognize their rhetoric, but this guy uses rhetoric that is straight out of DailyPos:

I KNOW that most soldiers agree with ME … that we shouldn’t be in Iraq. Many soldiers are itching to go hunt down Bin Laden, but that’s not what the terrorists in the White House want. [emphasis mine]

And, here is an often-repeated claim:

Ron Paul has more campaign donations from Active Duty Military and Veterans than any other candidate.

Has anyone ever verified this claim? Or, is it like the Hillary Clinton claim of “35 years of experience” that is repeated so often that no one bothers to challenge it anymore, especially since any documentation that might support her claim is safely locked away.

Captainj0e writes a campaign letter supporting Ron Paul, and promises to mail it to 100 voters in every state before the primaries. He closes with this disclaimer,

“Of course I hand-write the addresses on the envelope, and each letter is personalized and has my real name (which I choose not to post here).”

It’s probably wise of captainnj0e to preserve his anonymity, considering that whole UCMJ thing. And, if he’s for real, he has certainly earned the right to express his opinion. But, I dunno, my BS meter is pegged out on this one.

++++++++++++

This is the World Famous Friday Open Thread, the last one of 2007.

WFFOT: A Free-Speech, Open trackback, weekend buffet of some of the best folks on the internet. Our readers.

—-

Trackposted to Stop the ACLU, Is It Just Me?, The Midnight Sun, Rosemary’s Thoughts, guerrilla radio, 123beta, Stix Blog, Right Truth, Adam’s Blog, DragonLady’s World, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Big Dog’s Weblog, Cao’s Blog, Chuck Adkins, Adeline and Hazel, Allie is Wired, Faultline USA, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The Uncooperative Blogger, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Stageleft, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Fred campaign broke, dropping out?

Politico has an interesting piece on Fred Thompson’s campaign.  Staggering, broke, and about to drop out of the race?

When I got a generic fundraising e-mail “from” Fred Thompson campaign manager Bill Lacy last night offering “a quick update” on the effort to get “on the air statewide in Iowa,” I didn’t take it literally.

I should have.

Fred has gone dark in Iowa.

With not enough cash to buy ads, he’s doing all the free media he can on his bus tour.   But it’s a remarkable indicator of just how topsy-turvy the GOP race has been that the man once viewed as the party’s savior cannot even afford to buy TV time in the final days before Iowa.

Bhutto assassinated in Pakistan

Update: SwampWoman is following the story at Red Nation

By SADAQAT JAN and ZARAR KHAN

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday in a suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a campaign rally, aides said.

The death of the 54-year-old charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections into chaos and created fears of mass protests and violence across the nuclear-armed nation, an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, 8 miles south of Islamabad. She was shot in the neck and chest by the attacker, who then blew himself up, said Rehman Malik, Bhutto’s security adviser.

At least 20 others were killed in the attack.

Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery.

“At 6:16 p.m., she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

“The surgeons confirmed that she has been martyred,” Bhutto’s lawyer Babar Awan said.

Bhutto’s supporters at the hospital exploded in anger, smashing the glass door at the main entrance of the emergency unit. Others burst into tears. One man with a flag of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party tied around his head was beating his chest.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack. But some of Bhutto’s supporters at the hospital began chanting, “Killer, Killer, Musharraf,” referring to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Bhutto’s main political opponent. A few began stoning cars outside.

“We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment including jammers, but they paid no heed to our requests,” Malik said.

Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and opposition leader, arrived at the hospital and sat silently next to Bhutto’s body.

Hours earlier, four people were killed at a rally for Sharif when his supporters clashed with backers of Musharraf near Rawalpindi.

High steppin’ and fancy dancin’

I ran across this a few days ago and posted it as an update on the previous thread.

Rather than be accused of burying the lead, I wanted to take the opportunity to ask our readers this question:

“Is it legal for dead people to make political contributions?”

I don’t think the deceased is too worried about facing any legal consequences, but what about the person or persons who engineered the donations? And what about the organization that accepted the contributions?

In this case, the deceased donor is/was Arkansas gazillionaire Jackson (Jack) Stephens. The recipient of his graveyard largesse is The Club for Growth.

Jackson (Steve) Stephens, Jr., is also a big time contributor to the Club for Growth, and serves on the Board.

Jackson Stephens passed away on June 23, 2005. According to Campaign Money.com, Mr. Stephens apparently made some 20 contributions totaling roughly $200,000 to The Club for Growth, after he died.

The spreadsheet shows separate contributions for Jackson Stephens and Jackson Stephens, Jr., so it doesn’t appear to be just a clerical error.

Frankly, it may all be perfectly legit, some sort of estate planning gimmick, I don’t know.

I’m just wondering, how can this happen?

Club for Growth goes all in

Can the Republican nomination be bought?

The Club for Growth apparently thinks so, as their spending on the anti-Huckabee crusade has grown to over $550,000 in the last three weeks alone.

The Associated Press is reporting that Houston homebuilder Bob Perry of Swiftboat fame, is joining with fellow scalawag ¹ Jackson “Steve” Stephens, Jr. to bankroll the Club for Growth’s last ditch effort to stop Mike Huckabee. Mr. Perry is actively supporting Mitt Romney for the 2008 nomination, having donated the maximum allowable to Romney’s campaign.

Perry, who has been described as “the man who pulls the strings,” but “never gets his hands dirty,” is largely “unknown outside campaign-finance databases and a small group of political leaders. Many politicians who have received Perry’s money say they never have met him.” ² Perry was the nation’s biggest donor in the 2006 elections, giving more than $16 million to state and federal candidates and campaign groups.

Bob Perry’s political donations figure prominently in a recent lawsuit against Gov. Rick Perry’s (no relation) 2006 re-election campaign and the Republican Governor’s Association today claiming they illegally hid $1 million in donations from the Houston homebuilder. ³

You can view a copy of the lawsuit here.

It does makes one wonder if running afoul of campaign finance laws is an unwritten requirement for membership in the Club for Growth, whose own settlement with the FEC made headlines just three months ago:

The agreement [with the Federal Election Commission] asks the court to enter a consent judgment requiring Club for Growth to pay a civil penalty of $350,000 for failing to register with the FEC as a political committee and report its contributions and expenditures. ⁴

In the 2006 election cycle, Perry, who was the “#1 individual donor to 527 committees, donated as much as the #2, #3 and #4 on the list. That is $9,750,000 in total.”⁵

Update: I ran across this⁶ a few days ago, and it made me wonder.

Jackson (Jack) Stephens, Steve’s father, who passed away on June 23, 2005, apparently made some 20 contributions totaling roughly $200,000 to The Club for Growth, after he died.

How can that happen?

_____________________

¹ To most Southerners, scalawags were an unprincipled group of traitorous opportunists who abandoned their countrymen and ingratiated themselves with the hated Eastern Elite for their own material gain.

² Seattle Times

³ Texas Politics

⁴ USA Today

⁵ Sourcewatch

⁶ Campaign Money

Trackposted to Is It Just Me?, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, DragonLady’s World, Big Dog’s Weblog, Cao’s Blog, Chuck Adkins, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, The Uncooperative Blogger, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Stageleft, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Mitt v Hillary: Take the Quiz

Listening to their current stump speeches, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton seem like polar opposites. The Democratic lightening rod and the former New England governor appear to offer voters a contrasting vision of leadership: government activism versus free market solutions to the challenges of 21st century America.Their rhetoric, however, is a different story. In fact, many of their statements are downright interchangeable.

Criticisms of each candidate range from opportunism to pandering, hypocrisy to flip-flopping. Certainly, the two candidates offer starkly different leadership styles, policy differences, and philosophies of governance. But, just listening to their words, it’s sometimes difficult to tell who said what to whom.

We’ve pulled the following quotes from the excellent resource website, “On The Issues.” See if you can identify the speaker as Mitt Romney, or Hillary Clinton.

1) “I am adamantly against illegal immigrants. People have got to stop employing illegal immigrants. you see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work & construction work & domestic work.”

2) “We have to have our citizens insured, and we’re not going to do that by tax exemptions, because the people that don’t have insurance aren’t paying taxes.”

3) “I hate the idea of in any way making it more difficult for kids, even those who are illegal aliens, to afford college.”

4) “We need to stand firm on behalf of sensible gun control legislation.”

5) “I also support an assault weapon ban.”

6) “The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they’re not.”

7) “I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion. Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion.”

8] “We ought to be providing domestic partnership benefits for people who are in homosexual and lesbian relationships.”

_________________________________________

The answers:

(1) Hillary, (2) Mitt, (3) Mitt, (4) Hillary, (5) Mitt, (6) Hillary, (7) Hillary, (8) Hillary

So, how did you do? If you got all 8 correctly, you win this pdf of Hillary Clinton’s 1969 Wellesley thesis, “There Is Only The Fight,” (suitable for downloading).

Enjoy!

P.S. — I started to say something about the commonality of Hillary seeing Dr. MLK in Chicago, 1962, and Mitt “seeing” his father march with Dr. MLK, but I decided that might be piling on a bit. Heh™.

Source: bloggers4huckabee.wordpress.com

original post by Nuke

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS!

Jesus’ coming was foretold in prophecies, long before his birth, and no other has had the impact on mankind, as he.
Teaching and guiding any who would listen, and shaping the world even for those who chose to ignore him, no other being on Earth has changed life like Jesus, for so many, and for so long.
I celebrate his birth, and can only pray to live the life he wished for us all.
Please take a moment to reflect on what this day, his recognized Birthday, means to us, flawed as we are.  He has always loved us.

Christmas eve roundup from our Reciprocated Link-friends

So who is blogging tonight?

Apparently, not just me. Here’s a quick look at our blog-friends who have posted on 12/24/07…

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The 1389 Blog takes a video journey through Orthodox Christmas carols.

Blue Star Chronicles notes that the Republican-controlled culture of corruption has evolved into the ethically challenged Democrat-led Congress on Beer Monday.

David Drake has Dean Martin.

Plus, I’ve got my work cut out for me in order to bring Doug Ross into the Huckabee camp.

Richard Dawkins is cranking up the effort to build an army of non-believers. I wonder if they see the irony? Flanders Fields has the story.

The Hammer sends Christmas greetings, so does Free Thoughts (international version),

Ft. Hard Knox has the best Pictures of the year, and Right Truth reminds us that God is still in control.

Hatless shares Christmas joy in the Gospel of John, while

Helvidius discusses Selective Humanity, in terms of economic theory with a nice bash of the NYT.

The 102nd Combat Eng. located another brother at IOR .

VH brings us some very cool sand sculpture. Check it out.

Jammiewearingfool has the story of a burqa-clad suicide bomber, and MOR asks some important questions in “God bless us ever one?

Thanos has The Carol of the Bells. Very cool. So is RT’s Christmas video message.

The Midnight Sun takes a look at anti-Western violence in Saudi. Clicking on their link showed me that I needed to fix their link. Sorry guys.

The Nose on Your Face has the latest fashion rage from the rage boy himself.

Ivo is a little tired of libertarian and socialist paranoia, and spins a nice rant.

Wolf Pangloss takes President Musharef to task. Ain’t the internet wonderful?

Angel has a picturesque Holiday Message, and Writer Chick says, “All is Calm.”

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From all of us at Nuke’s, Warm wishes for a Joyous Christmas.

You folks are great. Glad to have you as friends.

A Christmas Song From….Achmed the Dead Terrorist!

I keeel you!

Ding Dong Merrily On High!

Celtic Woman. So nice to look at too.

Merry Christmas from osama

h/t n2l

Ho, Ho Ho

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Stop the ACLU, Is It Just Me?, The Midnight Sun, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Stix Blog, Right Truth, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Chuck Adkins, Pursuing Holiness, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, Right Voices, Stageleft, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, 123beta, guerrilla radio, Adam’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

“Adesta, Fideles”

Texting may be hazardous to your thumbs

Well, it had to happen sooner or later.

The first recorded case of “Text Messagers Thumb”. In New Zealand.

The 20-year old student is thought to have sent up to 100-text messages/day, which resulted in inflammation of the tendons in her thumb, causing grave discomfort. The condition, is officially known as tenosynovitis.

Source: gizmodo

100 per day?

Dang, I feel old.

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Get your Clinton Library Card

Release the records!

Sign the petition to get your own Clinton Library Card…

Announcing a new site

I’ve been kinda busy setting up a new site.

It’s called Bloggers 4 Huckabee .

The new website will be dedicated to political news and posts, with an emphasis on rebuttals of negative press, Huck news, and a little but of opposition research.

Although I will continue to post occasional Huck pieces here at Nuke’s, the fact is, I don’t want to change the focus of current events, news, music, poetry, and other topics of interest that all of the contributors have brought to the table for the past year and a half.

Besides, I don’t want anyone to not feel welcome here, just because I’m supporting Huck. All points of view are welcome at this blog, and that’s not going to change.

So, if you want to follow the campaign, or if you have a contribution that you want to make at the new site, please feel free to come on by. Just bookmark the site and add it to your regular reads.

Warm Regards and Merry Christmas,

Nuke