Elections

According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN's voter registration work in the state.

“U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio's secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”

The political plan was described in an October article as “having been scaled back,” and of course, ACORN denied any partisan activity.

“But to some, ACORN's early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group's goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.

"There's no question that ACORN strategized to figure out how its election efforts could maximize the benefit for selected Democratic candidates in the most competitive races," U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California told The Plain Dealer. “

An illuminating  fact not mentioned in either article is that ACORN prepared political plans for several key battleground states in 2006 and again during the 2007-08 election cycle. As evidenced by the draft plans developed in the Spring of 2006 by the Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD) of ACORN Political Operations, these plans were aimed at electing “progressives” and in some cases broke down the Congressional districts by race for maximum targeting. SWORD, which was staffed by Project Vote staff, including myself, worked with ACORN head organizers in FL, MD, MI, MN, OH, PA, and RI to create local documents for the ACORN field staff to implement and present to funders and/or various partner organizations.

A copy of the Maryland and Colorado draft plans from 2006 are available online. Key parts of the plans are the contact and Congressional district sections at the end. For example, in the Maryland plan, it calls for mailings and face to face contact. A screen shot of the type of mailing Marylanders received is shown below.

ACORN used Project Vote staff and computers to create the PowerPoint “Campaign for a New Congress." This PowerPoint was aimed at swaying the Congressional election in Maryland from Albert Wynn to ACORN ally Donna Edwards. Using the final political plan, ACORN canvassed voters and mailed pieces through its affiliate Communities Voting Together.

Campaign for a New Congress

Communities Voting Together has the same address as the Project Vote office in DC and its address on the screen shot above is the same Elysian Fields address where hundreds of other ACORN entities "reside.

As a 527 group, Communities Voting Together paid over 150,000 to Citizen's Services Inc, and contributed to Wade Rathke's Chief Organizer Fund. Jeff Robinson is listed as the contact for Communities Voting Together and some may remembered Robinson from the 2008 elections (emphasis mine):

"In fact, the Obama campaign paid an ACORN-run organization more than $800,000. In Federal Election Commission required filings, the Obama campaign reported that this money was paid for polling, advance work and event staging. After watchdog scrutiny called this claim into question, the Obama campaign revised its filing and acknowledged that CSI was paid for “get-out-the-vote” projects.

CSI Executive Vice President Jeff Robinson last August told Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter David M. Brown that CSI is a 'separate organization entirely' from ACORN. But as Brown reported, CSI has the same office address as ACORN’s national headquarters, ACORN itself described CSI in 2006 as its 'campaign services entity.' Coincidentally, the widely identified “national deputy political director for campaigns and elections” for ACORN is...Jeff Robinson."

ACORN's shell corporations make it easy for a political plan to become a partisan voter registration drive facilitated by thin veiled “partnerships.” The filing reports of Communities Voting Together raise a number of questions, including whether the misspelling of the name on the filing was intentional. The payments to various ACORN entities should give any astute lawmaker pause.

ACORN has been able to claim that it never worked in some recent elections including NY-23, but as this screen shoot illustrates, Communities Voting together was mailing and passing out door knockers in 2006 for Corzine in New Jersey (without a mention of ACORN).

Will ACORN backed officials like Jennifer Brunner (who has her eye on a Senate seat) and officials in Maryland and Colorado take notices of these obvious attempts to elect Democrats, or will they continue to turn a blind eye to ACORN in order to save themselves?

There is nothing here for the ‘enlightened’ progressive class in this, except perhaps poetic justice of a sort. They are about to be ground under the heel of an insatiable government in pursuit of a fanciful and totally unattainable poly-nirvana, along with the rest of us proles…or at least that’s how they see us. They just haven’t figured it out yet. Their heads are still stuck too far in the clouds, but reality is going to come knocking in a big way very soon.

This economic engine of ours is coughing and sputtering like a poorly tuned motor…and getting just about as good mileage out of the fuel which powers it. We’re not talking about the liberals’ other favorite mythical beast, energy, here. We’re talking about the greatest asset this country has. We’re talking about its people. We are talking about jobs. We are talking about an INSANELY obsessed government, totally and completely out of control, hell bent on destroying whatever economic power still resides in the people and the greatest driver in this or any economy, small business, entrepreneurship, and private investment.

The elite leftist is a creature of infinite contravention, espousing an ideology which by its very nature destroys that which produces the means that permits that  intellectual disconnect.

The rest of us see things in a much simpler context. We see our homes, our children, our livelihoods, our savings and our futures threatened by an unresponsive, irresponsible and punitive government in contravention of the very laws that frame its scope of governance. We have only the recourse left to us by the Constitution as a law-abiding people. At least for now. We have the ballot box and the ability to change the direction of the government and the country.

There IS a political sea-change taking place out there now, as an ANGRY and aroused citizenry become aware and educated to the depth and breadth of the betrayal of our trust by a rabidly left-leaning and TYRANNICAL CABAL within the highest reaches of our government.

There will be a huge reckoning in the elections of 2010. I don’t think the DeMarxists could moderate or change course now if they wanted too. They are like a truck on a steep grade which has lost it’s brakes. Fortunately for us, they are about to run into the wall of the American people.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

 Media Matters continues to try to provide cover for the public flogging ACORN has received as a result of investigative videos which showed ACORN employees giving advice on a number of illegal activities including human trafficking, child prostitution, bank fraud, illegal immigration and tax evasion. Meanwhile, the mainstream media has largely ignored a growing scandal that cannot be contained: ACORN is reportedly closing offices across the country, including the site of the DC undercover videotape..

Also, today another damning ACORN tape was released at Big Government. This time an ACORN member openly confessed to ACORN using non-partisan voter registration to secretly produce Obama votes.

Anyone paying attention knows accusations relating to voter registration fraud, illicit partisan activity and other chicanery often have been made against ACORN, with ACORN either denying all or any ACORN fault. In October of 2008, I testified in Pennsylvania regarding the illegal coordination between Barack Obama's Campaign and ACORN:

“A former staffer for Project Vote, a sister organization of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, testified at a hearing in Pennsylvania on Wednesday that the Obama campaign provided the group with a campaign donor list in late 2007 for their fundraising efforts. The former D.C. staffer, Anita Moncrief, said she still has a copy of what she called the 'development plan' she used to help her identify the maxed-out Obama donors for solicitation. The hearing was part of a lawsuit brought by the GOP seeking information and an injunction against certain ACORN activities in Pennsylvania.

“McCain-Palin campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement, 'We now know that Barack Obama's campaign was working hand-in-glove with an organization reportedly under investigation by the F.B.I. and in more than a dozen states. In addition to funneling $832,000 to ACORN for get-out-the-vote efforts, the Obama campaign and ACORN have been sharing donor lists, encouraging maxed-out Obama donors to contribute to this unethical organization.'" (emphasis mine).”

The member caught on tape publicized by Big Government is another in a long line of “bad apples” for ACORN. As it becomes harder to hide behind poor minorities, ACORN appears to be on the run. Unfortunately, they are running to the White House. There Barack Obama, ACORN's “inside man,” seems poised to protect ACORN and even strike down its enemies. Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) serves as a close confidant of the President with over 20 visits logged in at the White House (he tops the frequent visitor list). Stern has every reason to expect this sort of access, as he not only funneled many millions of dollars into the Obama campaign, but also aligned with SEIU's sister organization, ACORN, to ensure that Obama was elected.

The screen shot is from an internal ACORN document from 2006. When combined with the admissions of the member, it provides additional proof that ACORN and SEIU - with the help of the Obama presidential campaign - intentionally took government and tax exempt donations through organizations like Project Vote to run a partisan voter registration drive aimed at electing Obama. Both the Federal Elections Commission and the media ignored the Obama donor list that was submitted as evidence in the Pennsylvania case and sworn testimony. But can they ignore the admission of someone saying: “I Am ACORN”?

As President ,Obama has paved the way for ACORN and SEIU to receive stimulus money and ACORN favorites to receive prime appointments to both executive and judicial positions.

Of course, Obama has admitted to limited ties with ACORN. But Americans have witnessed Obama run the country like one big ACORN office and trying to implement ACORN's radical agenda. Apparently being a community organizer is something that - like ACORN - is hard for Obama to shake. In 2001, a group of ACORN protesters broke up a community tenant meeting by shouting the words, “Yes, We Can.” Eight years later, ACORN man Obama rode to victory using the same slogan of those angry protesters.

With so much to lose, lawmakers are concerned about the lengths to which Obama will go to in order to protect ACORN. Congressman Steve King of Iowa released a statement today suggesting that a cover-up may be being executed under the guise of an investigation:

“Bob Bauer has a public record of defending Barack Obama’s relationship with ACORN. Bauer has acted as the agent between Obama and ACORN, and now he will be perfectly positioned to be tasked with erasing the tracks between Obama and ACORN. Bauer’s hiring appears to be a tactical maneuver to strategically defend the White House exactly one week after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans and seized paper records and computer hard drives that may lead to the White House.”

Congressman King has reason to worry. The Democrat-controlled Congress has given ACORN plenty of time and warning to prepare for these “investigations”. In March of this year Michigan Representative John Conyers backed down from a call to investigate ACORN after several witnesses testified about the 2008 elections and ACORN. Portions of my Pennsylvania testimony regarding ACORN's illegal activities in 2008 were read into the record and hundreds of pages of evidence were submitted by GOP Attorney Heather Heidelbaugh. In explaining his flip flop, Conyers cited “the Powers that be.” As the “Age of Obama” unfolds, it's not hard to guess who "the powers" are.

Obama is willing to make small, symbolic concessions like removing ACORN from the Census, but his Justice Department remains oddly complacent with ACORN. The bailout hungry media covered up the Obama/ACORN story  and continue to ignore damaging stories like the IRS dropping ACORN from its list of VITA sites.

Mainstream newspapers and online liberal “news” sources appear content to continue to play the “race card” and paint conservatives as obsessed about ACORN because ACORN purported to help the poor. ACORN may be Teflon as long as Obama is in the White House. Charges of tax evasion, child prostitution, voter registration fraud, illegal immigration, bank fraud, etc. may not stick to ACORN.

With 2010 rapidly approaching, a look at ACORN's cookie cutter statements on its voter programs tells us what ACORN plans for America.

Fortunately, Big Government caught one of those “highly trained” ACORN organizers on tape. How many more "bad apples" does it take before it is generally realized that ACORN itself is rotten to the core?

“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated” -Mark Twain

The Republican party is undergoing a rapid and drastic change. As we speak, all sorts of factions vie and joust for preeminence within a party that seems to be deflating overnight. People associated with the party for a long time look about them in disbelief, as if after an airplane crash where there seems nothing at all recognizable left of the original vehicle, just little pieces strewn as far as the eye can see.

It is speculated that the GOP have become the new Whigs, and will inevitably be cast aside in favor of a one party state into the foreseeable future. Of course, this sort of speculation is frivolous.

What happened to the GOP becomes clear with the benefit of some distance from the tremendous shifts of the 2006 and 2008 elections. It is linked to a massive shift across the board amongst our media, political class, and intelligentsia that has been so big as to have gone almost unnoticed until now.

The problem with the GOP from an electoral perspective in both 2006 and 2008 stem from a fairly simple source, but that source is deeply rooted and readjustment will inevitably be painful.

As a Congressional staffer, I worked on Capitol Hill, and saw the GOP leadership in the House from a relatively close vantage point. As a member of my generation, and coming as I do from California, I found the culture of Washington DC to be unique, and that found within Republican areas of Congress even more so. That is the first clue as to what went wrong for the party

Washington is anachronistic. The culture is a leftover from an earlier age. While the rest of the nation is culturally very firmly in the 21st century, the area inside the Washington DC beltway is probably approaching the 1980s or so. This cultural divide is a result of necessity, it is the natural effect of the machine that Washington is and the function it serves.

For decades, we were every bit the Republic. We sent our representatives to Washington based largely on our estimate of their judgment, with no idea what issues they may have to face in the years until the next election, and we judged them based on what we thought that they had done, based largely on the reports of a few media outlets and the statements they released themselves. Since the machinery for more direct government simply did not exist, this was the best system we could use, and it worked quite well for a very long time.

In the resulting culture within Washington itself, something I call the “cult of the gentleman”, and more negative people describe as an “old boy’s club” developed. It was the logical creation of our very political system, and it too had it’s uses. In this system, a person sent to Washington had to be a “gentleman” to get anything done. A gentleman was somebody who was first and foremost loyal to his friends, who stood absolutely on his word to his close associates, and who closed deals with a handshake, not a contract, and certainly never a press release. Because representatives were there to act as independent agents on behalf of the voters, and could receive but little input from those voters thanks to distance and technological limitations, they were effectively on their own. They had to rely on their own judgment exclusively, and since the landscape of Washington is composed of other such persons, the first skill they had to know was how to be a gentleman, so as to get along with the other Washingtonians, so that they could get something done; because you could not accomplish anything if you could not sign others on to your initiatives.

This is where “horse trading” comes from. Elected agents would agree to support one another, just as bloggers today mutually link to one another for support. One would vote for the bill his friend proposed, not based on the contents of that bill, but based on his relationship to it’s author. In return, one of his bills would be supported. This was logical, since politicians could rely on face to face contact with people they spoke to every day, and had to rely on one another’s word, just as their constituents relied on them based on their word.

What has happened in the last ten years is a technological revolution in America that is easily as significant as the opening of the first newspaper presses in the American Colonies. This change was rapid, and it has not yet reached the full extent of it’s tremendous impact on our whole civilization. Suddenly, average voters are able to track, through a constant stream of information coming onto the internet, the activity of their representatives in far greater detail than ever before. Suddenly people could speak back quickly and efficiently in real time, and they could use the internet to organize rallies and political activities all by themselves, coming together like the crystal in saline solution; spontaneously, with only a small spark.

In the old Washington, you voted for the bill your friend proposed because he was close and your constituents were far away. It is quickly changing into a situation where your constituents are close and your friend is far away; separated by the barriers to human interaction we all experience as information flows at us in an ever increasing stream. This utterly changes the paradigm for Washingtonians, but they are the last to realize it.

What we ourselves do not realize is the extent to which this has shifted the political game in the United States. Nor do we understand how irrevocable that shift has been. Both the Democrat and Republican parties have for many decades had two fundamental factions within their ranks; “personality politicians” and “ideology politicians”. To a greater or lesser extent, virtually every politician of any party can be placed in one of these two categories.

A personality politician runs on his personality, he makes the case that he can be trusted with the power to represent a given region because of his inherent judgment, character, or wisdom. The ideology politician makes the case that his ideology (which he will elaborate if he wants to be successful) is one which most closely represents the people of his district. This is a divide long understood and written about by political scientists; the obligation of a politician to try to accurately represent his constituents or the obligation of a politician to use his own judgment. There is no one answer to this, it is not black and white, and a politician will always have to strike some balance between what he perceives to be the will of his constituents and what he perceives to be the right thing to do.

As a result of far greater technical ability to follow every word and action of politicians, via people recording them with cellphone cameras, vloggers following them with palmcorders, and the old established leakers and journalists of days gone by, we have become a far more well informed body politic than previously. The result is the triumph of the ideological politician over the gentleman politician.

Now, traditionally, an ideologue was mistrusted in Washington, because they necessarily saw everything through the lens of their ideology. Nobody wanted to work with a guy who lived his life as a result of a political ideology. Why is this? Just think about it, you may vote for a guy who does nothing but spout his political ideology, and who becomes fiery and enraged when somebody strays from the political line, but would you want to have a drink with him in the Republican Club (or local bar)? Even more to the point; would you want that guy in your living room all the time? No, gentlemen, though ideologically slippery, were far and away more congenial to be around, and even when standing in opposition to you, were ready to go out for cocktails after the day’s joust was over. Thus, ideologues gained a reputation as people who couldn’t be taken seriously. They could raise an angry mob back home, but in DC, they couldn’t get anything done, because they estranged people.

But you say, if we are “closer” now to our politicians than we were, shouldn’t the gentlemen be rewarded for being personable? In answer, I ask if you have ever read the comments on your average youtube posting. We do not consider the internet to be equivalent to sitting in the bar with someone or we wouldn’t treat online postings the way we would a bathroom wall at a truck stop. We would never think to write on any part of our homes what we write on online forums. No, we are incredibly critical, often hostile, and always highly ideological when online, and are personable, quiet, neighborly, and uninterested in politics when we meet our neighbors mowing their lawns. That is the America of the 21st century.

Simply put; he is rewarded who can consistently put forth an ideology and intelligently defend it, and is rewarded more to the extent that that ideology is broad and consistently fits with the facts of our world. What a gentleman politician can explain eye to eye in a cocktail lounge inside the Beltway sounds like absurd flip-flopping when he explains it in writing to an online critic. In this environment, ideology is king.

The Democratic party has already dealt with this revolution, but the GOP is only going through this transition now. Back in the late 1990s, I was very surprised at the degree to which the Democratic party was beginning to drift leftward. This accelerated rapidly after President Clinton left office, and I was puzzled, and incorrectly assumed (based on 20th century political calculus) that as they moved hard to the left, they would alienate the center, which they needed for national office.

You saw personality politicians in the Democratic party left behind (Sen. Joe Lieberman is a perfect example). I knew something significant was going on when the Democrats could nominate Lieberman as Vice Presidential nominee for the 2000 election, only to abandon him as too centrist in 2006. How could a party move that much, ideologically speaking, in so short a time? How could Al Gore run as hard left as he could, for as long as he could and still be sidelined and honestly be probably too moderate for today’s Democratic party? How could Hillary Clinton have been undermined and ultimately toppled from the left in 2008? Even more interesting is why the Democrats could move so hard to the left and win such a big majority in the 2008 election if the entire nation has not shifted very much?

Clinton lost in 2008 because she was using the old calculus; you have to win the middle, and personality is more important than consistent ideology. Simply put, in the no holds barred debate forum of today’s America, a politician who consistently maintains a single ideological stance over time will win out over one who does not. Just consider the case of the criticism of Hillary’s vote on the Iraq war. Just look at Barack Obama’s voting record. He is as rock-ribbed liberal as you can be. With so many easy to use online rating systems and sites that describe every vote a politician ever made, it is easy for bloggers and pundits, and anybody else to look at a voting record boiled down to hard facts. It is easier to defend a consistent record from critics who disagree with your premises than to defend an inconsistent record from people who question your judgment.

If we analyze any one vote to make a demonstration, we should look at the most important vote cast by the Republican majority since the decision concerning the Iraq war; the financial services bailout vote of August 2008. In this vote, the GOP was split. The party divided neatly between those who stood by the Bush administration, and those who stood by Republican ideology. Tradition would dictate that a party stand by a guy they had gone to lunches with and spoken to face to face, and who was probably 75% kosher ideologically from a GOP standpoint, not that they would throw an old colleague and fellow gentleman to the wolves the first time he makes a major break from the party line. Tradition was wildly out of date in 2008, as the Democrats, still reeling from their own internal bloodbath, knew perfectly well.

The Republicans were left behind because of the nature of being in power in Washington. Remember where I said the Democratic shift accelerated after the end of Clinton’s Presidency? When a party is in power, they are very busy; they are working with other members of their party inside Washington. Ideas are bouncing from the Republicans in the House and Senate to the White House, back over to the Congress, and being churned over and put into laws or discarded. The fast pace, and volume of work to be done in running our nation do not allow a lot of time for reflection. White House staff consider it normal to suffer a rolling staff turnover as people burn out after a year or two in those conditions. In this environment, with the best and brightest in a party occupied by their jobs, there is no time or energy left for a rethinking of the party itself, and traditionally, this has led to a party too long in power getting out of touch with the country.

In this case, it isn’t just a matter of being out of touch, but a small matter of the most significant communications revolution since radio taking place across the world. The Democratic party was out of power and therefore subject to the rapid changes. This was well documented by the media, who speak of the “netroots” movement. What is not being considered is the truth that this revolution in two way communications is not limited to the left wing in politics, nor is the Internet as a whole liberal; certainly, despite the impressions given by early internet being linked to academia, it is far less liberal than the major conventional media outlets such as newspapers or television.

This brings me to predictions. We see today that the steady, individually tiny, and collectively overwhelming pressures of rapid feedback are utterly transforming our conventional media. Newspapers are increasingly obsolete. If a columnist wishes to be heard, he can make a blog like everybody else and his writing will stand on it’s own merit, not his ability to fight a bureaucratic battle within a little news company hierarchy. If he complains that he needs money, let him make a blog as well. Successful bloggers have found ways to make more money blogging than the average columnist makes writing columns. We, the blogosphere, feel no pity for the newspapers.

Major television, no matter how big the mother company, is not immune. MSNBC was moved further faster, but we see CNN also polarizing in their editorial outlook hard to the left, while Fox polarizes more and more to the right. All the media outlets are giving up the idea of “objective” journalism in favor of the far more honest understanding that everybody has some kind of bias one way or another and it is better for everybody if that bias is known in advance and not concealed. This is precisely what is effecting politics as well. We want reliability and predictability from our politicians and news anchors, not so much personality. This was the death of John McCain, whose war hero record was necessarily non-ideological, and therefore necessarily irrelevant to the principal debate. While Obama could defend a consistent stance, even if it was no the same as the majority of the country, McCain had none. We respect those we disagree with utterly but who honestly believe what they believe and stick to their guns; we do not respect those who seem to have no philosophy whatever.

This is why the GOP seemed like the party of the old boy’s club. This is why the party seemed to have no ideology at all. This is why the GOP leadership seemed to betray the country on the most important legislation in a lifetime, when it so obviously was opposite their ideological stance against out of control government, and it is why the Democrats are veering so hard to the left in so many ways in so short a time.

McCain lost the Presidency when he came back to Washington, suspended his campaign, the nation held it’s breath, and then instead of siding with the vast majority of voters against both an unpopular President Bush and his opponent, he simply echoed both of them on the bailout issue, losing his credibility and watching his poll numbers evaporate. At that moment, his campaign was lost and they knew it.

As a result of this new world, the GOP will re-form. It will do so even if it does not want to, but will be forced to by the will of the American people to have some check on the other party. The Republican ranks will be purged of those who cannot consistently defend their ideology or even explain what it is. Gentlemen will be brutally dropped, just as we saw in the bloodbath that left a former Democratic nominee for Vice President end up supporting the opposite party’s nominee for President only eight years later. What happened amongst Democrats will now happen on an accelerated time scale with the GOP, and it will look messy, but in the end, the party will be reborn far more fit, far more in tune with today’s America, and ultimately, since we have not lurched to the left as a nation, with very good prospects considering that all this is taking place in a center-right country.

For more commentary visit www.jubalbiggs.wordpress.com

This morning Chris Christie officially declared that he will make a run for the Republican nomination for Governor official during the first week of February.

With access to lists of Republican supporters and activists collected by Christie supporters such as State Senator Joe Kyrillos, the former prosecutor sent the following message.

Dear Friend,

This morning I am filing papers to begin the process to become a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey.

I did not take this step lightly. It was only after careful consideration and consultation with my family that I decided to become a candidate.

New Jersey is broken. New Jersey’s taxes have become so unaffordable that more families are leaving our state than moving here. Our state's business tax climate is ranked 50th in the nation and has become so unattractive to employers that only government jobs are growing in New Jersey. Yet nothing in Trenton gets done to fix these problems.

We can change this. We can solve these problems if we're willing to make the tough decisions.

In my seven years as your United States Attorney, I didn't shy away from any of the tough decisions. I took on corporate greed, political corruption, terrorism and environmental polluters. Public officials from both parties were prosecuted for corruption – more than 130 were convicted, and not one was acquitted. Corporate executives who cheated their companies and hurt their workers were successfully prosecuted. Terrorist plots were disrupted; polluters punished.

Many didn’t believe we could win these battles. We did, and with strong leadership we will win the fight for Governor and change this state for the better.

My formal announcement for Governor will come in the first week in February and I hope you will join us (I will email you the details). With strong leadership now, we can fix our broken state and make it more affordable for all New Jersey families.

Sincerely,

Chris Christie

The filing of papers with the State Board of Elections to begin making his his candidacy for Governor of New Jersey a reality is about time.

For Christie to stall his decision to run or not run any longer would be detrimental to both his own success and our party’s success.

It is no secret that he would probably be running and to begin with a late, or later start than he already intends, only makes things tougher for the G.O.P. than they may already be.

From the message sent out by Christie, which essentially makes his intentions clear, one can see that the soon to be candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey is banking on a campaign that will play up his prosecutorial, clean government credentials and business interests.

Those are important issues however, Christie would be wise to highlight the damage done to the citizens of New Jersey due to the anti business climate that Corzine and Democrats have created in the state more than just the desire of businesses. The focus needs to be on the people. By simply making himself the “pro-business” candidate, Christie will fall into a trap that Democrats are great at. It is a trap that, in the minds of voters, Democrats perpetuate a sense that Republicans are the party for big business.

So Christie needs to carefully phrase his intentions to improve the environment for business in New Jersey.

One of the most encouraging comments in his email was a reference to the fact that only government jobs are growing in New Jersey. If Christie can hammer home the fact that Democrats have made government a business that they treat like corrupt Wall Street, ponzi schemers and profit from at the sake of taxpayers, he may be on to a winning theme in November.

But first he must get our nomination.

It is my hope that Chris Christie will work hard for that nomination. He just might have to with people like Assemblyman Richard Merkt and former Mayor Steve Lonegan on his tail.

The two, especially Mayor Lonegan are going to be innovative in their approaches to government and in a time when Americans were wanting “change”, New Jerseyans are really wanting change. Business as usual is not something that New Jersey residents want from government and people like Steve Lonegan are anything but business usual. Many can see that as a refreshing change from the business as usual that we have gotten from the current administration in Trenton.

So once Christie does become an official candidate and starts campaigning as one, it will be interesting to see how he distinguishes himself from the pack and from your run of the mill politicians.

And the sooner he starts trying to do so, the better.

Be Sure To Sign The Petition To

REPEAL THE CONGRESSIONAL PAY HIKE

Sign the Online Petition - Repeal The Automatic Pay Raise That Congress Is Receiving

Pass The Link On To Family, Friends and Co-workers

http://www.gopetition.com/online/24301.html

AND DON'T FORGET.............

BE SURE TO SIGN THE PETITION URGING THE NOMINATION

OF SENATOR BECK FOR LT. GOV.

POSTED EARLIER TODAY: JACK KEMP - A POLITICAL ICON BATTLES CANCER

It has been reported that Jack Kemp has cancer.

His office released the following statement:

“Mr. Kemp has been undergoing tests to determine the origin of the disease and the options for continued treatment. He will continue to serve as Chairman of Kemp Partners and plans to remain involved in his business, charitable and politically related activities. Mr. Kemp and his family are grateful for the thoughts and prayers of friends and appreciate respect for their privacy at this time”..........

To Read More, Go To:

http://politics247.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/jack-kemp-a-political-icon-battles-cancer/

Senator Jennifer Beck fired the first shot in one of the new year's opening session of the New Jersey State Senate.

To a packed chamber, the feisty freshman Senator stated "New Jersey's fiscal mess is one of the worst in the country, and the responsibility for being worse off than other States comes from Corzine" . "Corzine refuses to acknowledge that his tax and toll increases, unsustainable spending increases, and a job-killing COAH/housing subsidy bill have made things worse and can't be blamed on others." She added "Every time Corzine is asked about New Jersey's fiscal mess, he refuses to accept any responsibility,".

When first campaigning for Governor, then U.S. Senator Jon Corzine promised to control state spending, yet once elected, during the first six months of is misadministration, he raised taxes by almost $2 billion dollars. Now that he is up for re-election, New Jersey has a budget gap of $2.1 billion dollars, an amount that surpasses the revenue of increased taxes that he initiated during his first six months in office.

His most recent try at closing the existing budget gap came with an announcement that decared he was going to to slash the state budget as much as $812 million dollars by targeting things such as adolescent illiteracy where he can eliminate as much as $ 11 thousand.

These recent attempts at controlling spending are miniscule and misdirected but almost as troubling as what we are hearing from Corzine is what we are not hearing from him.

Throughout his tenure as Governor, Corzine has been quite clandestine about budget numbers and contract negotiations. Republican lawmakers have recently filed lawsuits which seek to have the Governor reveal certain figures and there is currently a case in the courts that deals with secret emails between the Governor and his former girlfriend Carla Katz regarding how the two negotiated a state contract with a local Communication Workers Union, one of the state’s most powerful unions of which Katz was thePresident of at the time.

As most of us know, Governor Corzine has been doing everything but govern.

The past few years have been an example of a man who has been controlled by events and unable to control any events. More than that, he has been unable to cope with events. The state of New Jersey has spiraled out of economic control and it began to do so long before the rest of the nation entered troubled economic territory.

For the average person, under Corzine, New Jersey has become increasingly unaffordable and the quality of life in the Garden State has done anything but improve.

It is part of the reason for declines in population which will cost the state a congressional seat after the 2010 census.

It is a result of people fleeing New Jersey for more affordable states with more opportunity and more economic freedom.

For these reasons Senator Beck joined with State Senator Kevin O’Toole, ( R )-Bergen, and called upon the Governor to “ finally accept some responsibility for New Jersey’s fiscal mess” and adopt what they called “three bipartisan common-sense ideas to make New Jersey more affordable and hold government accountable”. The proposa urges the governor to:

1. Listen to bipartisan calls in the senate to postpone, and make substantial reforms to, a job crushing COAH/housing subsidy law.
2. Listen to bipartisan calls in the senate for additional spending cuts. (See $1.2 billion in spending cuts proposed by Republicans)
3. Listen to bipartisan calls in the Senate to derail a Corzine proposal to let local government skip pension payments until after his reelection.

All of the above are reasonable and realistic steps, that few could rationally argue against and that even fewer can see reason not to accept.

So we are quite proud of Senator Beck. We are proud of her many legislative initiatives targeted at turning things around New Jersey, including the aforementioned bipartisan proposal.

We are proud of her many efforts to open the legislative process up to the public, eliminate government corruption and to reform government in New Jersey. We are also proud of and grateful for her taking the lead once again and demanding that Governor Corzine at least try to effectively deal with the mess that he has only made worse up to now.

BE SURE TO SIGN THE PETITION URGING THE SELECTION OF JENNIFER BECK FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE OR GO TO http://www.gopetition.com/online/23572.html/

* * * * * * * * ALSO * * * * * * * *

Be Sure To Sign The Petition To

REPEAL THE CONGRESSIONAL PAY HIKE

Sign the Online Petition - Repeal The Automatic Pay Raise That Congress Is Receiving

Pass The Link On To Family, Friends and Co-workers

http://www.gopetition.com/online/24301.html

ONLY IN NEW YORK CITY.

http://mrltavern.podomatic.com

People, I live about 45 minutes from mid-town Manhattan. It's just a Metro North train ride away. I used to work in the city and would commute there on a daily basis. Before that I would always commute there to see two of my old friends who lived there. Now, one old friend is gone to California and the other has moved 1 hour and 10 minutes north.

I have no other reason to go to Manhattan ever again and couldn't be farther from it, especially around this time. Watch the whole video if you haven't already and you'll hear what I'm saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQalRPQ8stI

Only in New York City. But this is not the real New York.

I've often said, whether on my show or in blogs that. only in a SICK place like Manhattan, you could be a convicted rapist, an illegal immigrant who drove drunk and wiped out an entire family of six or even a pedophile, once you tell a tolerant liberal that you're a Republican/conservative you will then find out how INTOLERANT ILL-liberal liberals can be.

The people in this video are the same kind of people who allowed a Muslim anti-American rally in 2006, where they burned flags and chanted "Death To America" right on the same city streets.

Did we hear any jeers or boos in that video? Nooooooooo!

Only in New York City.

Don't get me wrong. I love the city. I love the beauty of it. I love the energy of it. I love Central Park, Bryant Park, the museums, the comedy clubs, the food, the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge and Times Square. I love BBQ ribs at Brother Jimmy's and cheese burgers at PJ Clarke's. Trust me, there's a lot to love.

But I can't stand the people. Especially the ones who are in this video. This is not the real New York. This is not the New York where I come from.

These losers, who call themselves the intellectual elite (although you might think differently with the intelligent middle fingers that are counted in this video), DO NOT represent me as a New Yorker. These are people who elected Mayor Dinkins out of white guilt/black pride.  Dinkins, in just four short years, drove the city further into the gutter.  Then, the same ILL-liberals secretly cheered when their one bedroom condo dollar values soared under a Giuliani administration. They're the same disgusting, despicable, liberals who would call you a racist if you told them you wouldn't vote for Barack Insane Obama.

Meanwhile, these intolerant, ill-liberals remain idle and silent when faced with sexism regarding Sarah Palin. You know, it's racist that a woman at a McCain rally would call Obama an Arab (although it's still up in the air whether or not that woman was an Obama plant to set McCain off) but it's IS alright when a group of degenerates want to sport "Palin's a cunt" t-shirts at Obama's rallies. And what about the comments from Obama himself, who claims McCain is "out of touch" and "can't use a computer" implying that he's old?

I ask you intolerant, ill-liberal liberals, is John McCain a victim of AGEISM? Or is that ISM above your pay-grade???

I'll say this again, the fact that McCain can't use a computer because his shoulders were broken by the Vietcong is a plus. Because it will be one less politician in Washington who won't be on Craigslist looking for whores.

Only in New York City.

Not my city. Not the New York that I know.

Mr.L

As I recently pointed out (click here and here), now that McCain and Obama have done their duty for their real masters, Wall Street; John McCain can now afford to name names.

For the record: while it may seem like many middle Americans are only to happy to respond to this ploy; what they really are responding to is the realization that someone has finally heard their voices in this election -- that free-market, fiscal conservatism is not dead -- that once their true leader is found, these ideals will rise to political dominance again and right the wrongs that are presently being undertaken in their name.

ex animo

 

 

davidfarrar 

MR.L’s TAVERN 23 this Saturday night at 9:30pm EST. on ChimpsyRadio. www.chimpsyradio.com/ctl.html http://mrltavern.podomatic.com

I thought McCain did well in the second debate last night, especially on the economic issues. I have a feeling McCain is waiting to really pounce on Obama in the third debate. Brit Hume claimed that McCain lost. I’d personally like to cancel Brit Hume like a subscription of Newsweek for such an absurd analysis.
Laddies and Lasses, I caught one major LIE that Obama told last night. I don’t know if you did either. Here it is from the transcript where McCain and Obama responded to a question regarding the bailout. Laddies and Lasses, anyone with a one half of a brain knows that all roads that to this economic crisis begin with Fannie and Freddie. Here’s what Obama said:
“I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it. A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got to re-regulate, and nothing happened.”
When I looked further into the matter, I found that he claims he wrote the letter on October 17th 2007. In past press releases, Obama has stated that he wrote the FTC and asked them to “investigate subprime lenders to determine whether minority borrowers have been victims of discrimination.”
First of all, I wish we could all SEE the letter. Wouldn’t you like to see it? But, even if it does exist, why it would mean that he lied about it last night. If he did write it, just a year ago when the bubble was about to burst, it would mean that he wanted more minorities to get mortgages just on the principle that they are minorities.
Why, if we looked at what Obama said last night and then read the so-called letter that he wrote, we would need to ask ourselves what does regulation mean to Obama? Does it actually mean DE-regulate to him?
On June 28, 2008, Obama told the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, "We have to stabilize the housing market. And the Latino community as well as the African-American community was particularly hard hit when it comes to foreclosures.”

It’s as clear as the blue sky that Obama wasn’t talking about regulating banks because they were lending out too much money to people who couldn’t afford the mortgages. Or, that perhaps banks shouldn’t have been lending 120% and engaging in poor due diligence. No…

The only issue that mattered to Obama (which is hard to detect in all of his double speak) was whether or not minority borrowers were being discriminated against and if Latino or black home owners were going through “unfair” foreclosure. Perhaps he wanted to give them more of a break than they already got? Perhaps if he was president, he would let some of these buyers, some who were living well out of their means, too stupid to read the note or have a lawyer present when signing, off the hook and have us pay their debt for them.

I will remind you that there was a clause in the first bailout bill that wanted to grant amnesty to over 500,000 illegal immigrants who up and left their distressed homes and went back to where ever the fuck they came from.

On this issue alone, Obama exposes his far left ideology that wants to keep giving more to the deadbeats and let the sucker, the hard-working responsible taxpayer, to pick up the check.

He’s no moderate.

He’s a stealth liberal.

He’s an economic dunce.

It is always important to honor those who did the right thing. So I humbly ask all those here at TNR to help create a cyber "State Honor Roll" of  House members from each state who had the right stuff, who did the right thing, and to distribute their list to its widest limits on the boundless public stage of the internet.

I hope by doing so, all those other politicians who didn't measure up, who didn't see their way through to do the right thing,  will understand we will not forget come election time. It is very imporant that we do this.

I will start with my own State delegation from Georgia, who numbered an amazing nine(9) Representatives who voted against the Wall Street bailout give away-- God bless them all!

1. Rep.   John Barrow           (D GA 12th District)        

 2. Rep.   Hank Johnson       (D GA 4th District)           

  3. Rep.  Paul Broun            (R GA 10th District)       

 4. Rep. Nathan Deal            (R-GA 9th District)          

5. Rep. Phil Gingrey              (R-GA 11th District)        

6. Rep. Rep. Jack Kingston  (R-GA 1st District)           

 7. Rep. John Linder               (R-GA 7th District)         

8.Rep. Tom Price                  (R-GA 6th District)          

9.Rep. Lynn Westmoreland  (R-GA 3rd District)            

Please create your own "State Honor Roll", or I will work with anyone who would like help in creating their own for their House Reps who did the right thing. Positive re-enforcement is a very powerful tool yet seldom used in politics. It is time we used it in conjunction with the power of the Internet do demonstrate to all those who didn't do the right thing their mistake in a positive way.

So I would ask all those who can post these "State Honor Rolls" to do so one their own websites, or where ever and when ever you can on the vast public stage of the Internet. 

ex animo

davidfarrar