Caucus Fraucas

Apparently there was a bit of a flap at our county Republican Caucus this past weekend, and we weren't the only county in Missouri to have such a fracas.

There's a bit of history behind this.  After decades of lack of interest in party politics on the local level, those who showed up ran the place.  And I think they got a little used to having their way.

It's obvious that the powers that be in the RNC want Romney as their candidate.   And the local county caucuses have central committees and chairs that have probably been made aware of this or are otherwise sympathetic.

Enter the Ron Paul folks.   They learned several years ago how these meetings are supposed to be run, and how they are actually run, and  how those two things are different.  The rules that are supposed to apply are Robert's Rules of Order.

After being railroaded out of the caucus system in the past, in 2008 they had studied up and when something improper happened, such as the chair giving his own nominations or closing nominations without movements and seconds and such, the Paul people knew that part of Roberts Rules is to stand up, interrupt in a very specific way, "Point of order!" and state their objection that the rules are not being followed.

They tried it in 2008, only to have Chairs across the state (and likely in other states as well) simply pretend they weren't there, and carry on as if they heard or saw nothing.

Well this time, they brought numbers and a professional parliamentarian.  And they successfully took over our county caucus before the old boy network could railroad control to themselves.   They ended up with all of the delegates ... finally ceding 10% to the Romney folks in some sort of deal.   The Santorum people were shut out.

This really upset a lot of the Santorum people -- most of whom had no idea how these meetings are run and didn't know the past history.

Word is there were over twice as many Santorum and Paul people there as there were Romney people.   The overwhelming numbers and the loud objections gave the old boys pause and they dutifully (probably under duress) complied with the proper rules.   The Paul people were ready, the Santorum people were not.  And in the end, the Paul people followed the rules.  And it didn't break down into what happened in St. Charles.

This is understandable given the history, and given that the Santorum people are largely post-2008 election newbies.  They didn't even know they had to have ducks, much less have them in a row.  They were like a lot of us have been ... sure that decency and fairness would mean that the people running the show would do the right thing and help them along.

So they ended up with no delegates.   But the Paul people actually did us all a favor.  First, the Santorum people weren't going to end up with any anyway.   Had the Paul people not shown up with their ducks in a row and t's crossed and i's dotted, the Romney people would have railroaded the Santorum people leaving them right where they are now.

But something else happened.

The Old Boys network is on notice.  It scared the crap out of them.  As well it should.

And next time around, the people who support Santorum (who may well be supporting someone else next time around) ... if they're still as motivated to save the country ... will have learned something from the Paul people.   1) you gotta know you gotta have ducks next time, and 2) get them in a Robert's Rules of Order kind of row.  And bring lots of ducks.

With Apologies to Matt Wuerker

FAS^RA^CISM!!!!!!

Morgan pointed this story out on HKB.

The flyer of the flag had this to say about the uproar over it.

"It leads me to believe that it's not about the flag," she told FoxNews.com. "Certain elements cannot accept Barack Obama as president."

Let's try a control group for an experiment. Let's compare this one to the group of presidents images that have been used to replace the stars on Old Glory ... oh wait ... THERE AREN'T ANY!!!!

If the same had been done with Bush, the Left and those who support Obama (but I repeat myself) would have screamed "Fascist!"

But it's Obama, so they just call anyone who objects "racist".

It's rather tired, no?

You know what?  (Got another post on this later, but) I had a co-worker honestly ask me the other day "What's Wrong With Socialism"?  Of course, the quick answer is Maggie Thatcher's answer, "Eventually you run out of other people's money".  But I went the "It's incompatible with Human Nature" route.  Digressing, though.

No, what I'd like to point out here that Socialists are Statists, and Statists always seem to go down this route -- replace the old iconography with the new -- and very often that iconography has to do with some cult of personality.   Lennin, Mao, Che, Castro, Mussolini ... Obama ...

Look at the prevailing Obama iconography, and then Google Image Search Communist Propaganda Posters

Coincidence?  No.  It's the mindset of these people.   They're bigger than life.  They're above it all.  Sort of a God.

Surprise! Maureen is in on the White House PR Campaign

With an oh-so-cute "right back at ya" headline:   "Don't Tread on Us"

Yeah, that's right.  Fighting against the government mandating everyone must pay for free/subsidized birth control for women is the same thing as fighting women.

Uh huh.  We all really secretly hate our wives and daughters and mothers and aunts.  That's it.  You got us, Maureen.  We're really not human at all.   Maybe we should just be rounded up and ...

Brilliant Satire from ReasonTV

Listen to the tone of her voice and look at the look on her face as she finishes her "testimony" for the staged panel of Democrat Congressmen. It all comes off like some fifth grader trying to win kudos from her teacher.  Which isn't as far from the truth as it sounds.

McCaskill's Reply to my First Amendment Concerns

Thank you for contacting me regarding birth control and women's health.  I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond.

Well, it was really on the First Amendment, but of course ... I expected an immediate re-casting of the contact.

I believe we should all work to prevent and reduce the number of abortions in this country.  I support access to birth control, which will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and ultimately reduce abortions.  

Well, we could just sterilize everyone.  That'd take the number of abortions down to zero.   But something tells me this really isn't about reducing abortions.  Call it a hunch.

This is an emotional, difficult subject.  But if you really believe that reducing abortions is important in this country, which I do, then it doesn't work to keep putting up barriers to women getting birth control.

So what you're saying is

"Not forcing paying for someone else's birth control" = "

putting up barriers to women getting birth control"

Much like requiring voter id is "putting up barriers" to voting (while requiring someone to have a Social Security number apparently doesn't "put up barriers" to people becoming employed) Hey, how about  a 6 lane highway right up the valley to the base of the Maroon Bells, then?  I mean, opposing that would "put up barriers" to access to that majestic landmark.

For this reason, I voted against the amendment offered by my colleague, Senator Roy Blunt (Senate Amendment 1520), which would have allowed any employer, health plan sponsor, or insurance company to refuse coverage for their employees for any type of essential health care services -- including birth control, maternity care, prenatal testing, and HIV/AIDS screening -- based solely on an undefined "moral objection."

Oh, I'm sure that moral objection would quickly be defined.  And if people didn't like it they could choose not to work there.  It turns out, in a free country, nobody should be forced to work for anyone, nor should anyone be forced to hire anyone they don't want to hire, nor pay for products or services they object morally to.  Is it really that difficult to understand?

As you may know, following considerable debate, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reached a compromise so that religiously-affiliated employers will not have to provide birth control if it violates that employer's religious beliefs.  This compromise, which I support, ensures that all women with employer-sponsored health plans will have access to free preventive health services, while protecting the religious freedom of religiously-affiliated employers.  If a church or religious employer determines that covering birth control would be inconsistent with their organization's beliefs, the insurance company rather than the employer will be required to offer these services directly to women. 

You mean after considerable backpedaling and re-rationalizing.  Sidestepping, for the moment, that society owes women free birth control, or that it is under the purview of the Federal Government to make sure this happens --  I vehemently disagree on both points -- and sidestepping the suggestion that pregnancy is on the same moral plane as a "disease", this is like suggesting that if the government wants me to offer hitman services and I don't actually want to murder someone myself, I can rest easy even though money I contribute is being used for these services --  because the government will just make sure that I 1) must pay for an outsourcing service that 2) offers hitman services.

I still payed into a system and my money helped pay for an unconscionable action on someone else's part.  And I have no choice in that.   Choice -- making a decision -- involves weighing the costs.  If it costs me more to do something I may have the right to do, I might decide on my own that it is worth the cost --- to me -- or I might decide that it is not -- so I don't do it.   Either way it's not someone else's job to pay for it.

Groups on both sides of the debate, including the Catholic Health Association and Planned Parenthood, have expressed their support of this compromise.

That has no bearing on on the subject whatsoever.  I would also wager that the Catholic Health Association is not in any way sanctioned by the Catholic Church.  It's a name someone made up, like the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine -- which is made up largely of non-physicians and is actually an animal rights front group.  You can name an organization anything you want to to make it sound like it's something it's not.

Under the new HHS guidelines, no one will be required to use birth control or other preventive care services under any plan. 

If I believe it is wrong, what is the moral difference between me doing it and me subsidizing someone else's ability to do it?

Each woman, pursuant to her own beliefs, will access the services she deems appropriate.  

On my blood-stained dime.

However, a woman will not be denied access to health services, like birth control, based on the decision of her employer, instead of retaining for herself the right to choose whether to use birth control or not.  

Her birth control is not the responsibility of her employer, and no right has been taken from her.  I have a right to keep and bear arms, but there is no expectation that someone will buy those arms for me.  If I want to exercise my right, I have to save my pennies and buy it myself, or do without.  

The new guidelines also do not eliminate or change existing conscience protections, which I support, that allow doctors and individual healthcare providers to choose whether or not to prescribe or administer birth control in accordance with their own beliefs.

Again, bypassing the issue that requires someone who objects to it on moral grounds to help pay for it.

It should be noted that 28 states already require health insurance plans to cover contraceptive services. 

Hey, if all your friends are jumping off the bridge, so should you!

 The compromise guidelines follow in the steps of most states, including Missouri, which have already found a reasonable way to ensure access to preventive health services while also respecting employers' First Amendment right to religious freedom, a fundamental principle on which our nation was founded.

It does not respect an objection employer's right to religious freedom at all.  It forces him into a situation where he simply has 

NO Choice

What we have here is an effort to remove the cost of someone else's choice and by force of law, force that cost upon people who think the desired treatment is morally wrong.  It goes to the very heart of the First Amendment, your platitudes to the contrary notwithstanding.

And at its core, I suspect this is not about birth control at all in the end.  This is about taxpayer subsidized abortions.  Because in your world, birth control is women's health is abortion.   If you can rationalize that not forcing someone to pay for something for someone else is equivalent to denying access to it, you can rationalize anything.

This is nothing less than an effort to silence moral objections progressives disagree with.

Bill Whittle on the News Media

In talking about why the Democrats won the news cycle with Little Miss Pay For My Birth Control.

The news media is owned by the Democratic Party of The United States of America.  Let's just get that out of the way and say that every single time this thing comes up. [] If you control the testimony, you control the TV cameras, you control the outcome. [] It's not a matter of what the information is, it's a matter of who controls the information.

Same thing with the Obama Still Campaigning Against Palin thing.

It's real simple. You have your allies in the media go soften up the public by spinning something someone said into some "famous" misquote, and then go in and bat cleanup by arguing against things people never said. Media sets up the strawmen and you just go knock them down for the cameras. Aaaaand fade.

I mean, who said that drilling alone would solve our energy problems? As a matter of fact, I think the first time I heard "all of the above" -- I'm pretty sure it was out of Palin's mouth. So now apparently Obama agrees with the real Palin while arguing with the fake, media-created one.

Where Do You Draw The Line?

Since I was a kid, my logical, non-religious Pro-Life (really anti-abortion) argument has always been ... where do you draw the line?

If you have a human 1 second after birth (of course, Obama disagrees, but I digress), then why isn't it a human 1 second before birth?  Indeed, if you can deliver a baby weeks early and it's a human once it comes out, why wasn't it a second before, even if it's weeks early?   So, conception becomes a very safe, clear moral line. 

Well, it appears that at least some of They Who Like To Smudge Lines have moved their line to somewhere past birth.   But they would never do that.   Oh yes.  Yes they would.

The FDA can regulate your body.

The Federal Department of Health and Human Services will control your health care.

Now to ratchet down how far from death you have to be before you're no longer really a person.

Hey, anybody have a copy of Logan's Run?

But that would never happen.


Really?

I Don't Care About Pink Slime

I really don't.

Sounds like a way of reducing waste and killing harmful bacteria in the ground meat supply.

People who are creeped out about it probably think that packages of beef grow on trees and they develop labels as they ripen, along with a rind of plastic and styrofoam.   And if you plant that little diaper underneath it in the ground, it'll grow into a new beef tree or something.

Guess what?  Lots of animals eat the whole body of their prey.   People eat brains and tongues and livers and intestines and stomach linings and kidneys.  Just what is it that you're worried about getting into your hambuger patty?   Raw meat is slimy.  It just is.  It doesn't get produced naturally in the back room of McDonalds right in the paper or cardboard box, complete with pickles and onions.

Freakin' wimps.

Your Cells are Regulated by the FDA

The FDA says that since it regulates chemical drugs, and all living things produce chemicals, then all living things fall under FDA jurisdiction.

But I'm sure that's nothing to worry about.  Right?  They'd never use that authority to say, stop you from using something from your own body to cure itself or anything ... would they?

Well ok, maybe they would, but they wouldn't take it any further than that ...  I mean, it's not like the Federal Government wants to take control over decisions about health care, is it?

Is it?

Nothing to See Here

Frank Marshall Davis was just a poet.
Bill Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood.
Jeremiah Wright was like a crazy uncle.
Van Jones?  What, Van who?
Derrick Bell was just a law professor.

How many other nobodies like these have turned up?

Put hell, Palin prayed that we were doing the right thing in Iraq.  That's scary!

Speaking of Football Metaphors

Funny, when you teed it up for the public like Lucy Van Pelt in front of a panel of Democrats and some TV cameras, I thought that's exactly what you were using it for.

Bombshell

It is clear the MSM does not understand Breitbart.   Even when it is explained directly to them.  They don't know what they're up against. Someone holds a mirror up to them and they say "so, a mirror!?" They don't even see themselves.  It's just a piece of shiny glass to them.

One thing you should keep in mind before viewing the tape, because it makes the panel's coordinated attack all the richer ... is that Joel Pollack is married to a black woman, the daughter of a Nelson Mandela appointee from South Africa.




I was curious about what Brietbart had up his sleeve when I saw his CPAC speech, and he talked about how Obama wasn't vetted by the media in 2008 and that he would be this time - and that he had video.   Last night, Breitbart.com (editor in chief Joel Pollack) released some video of Obama introducing, then embracing Derrick Bell - who was a developer and proponent of Critical Race Theory.

Watch what Soledad does.   She is immediately condescending and dismissive of the video, and is telling her viewers what to think.  This is just a Harvard law student introducing a prominent Harvard law professor.  Nothing to see here.   Oh, wait, you're going to bring up Critical Race Theory?  Ah, that's nothing and if you say it is you don't know what you're talking about.  No, don't try to convince people that you know anything about it, I have spoken and you are Wrong™!  Oh, wait, you're not going to let it drop?  Where's the bombshell?  Where's the bombshell, 'cause I don't see it.

Joel resisted the temptation to go to the easy joke, "the bombshell is you!"  (hey, well, she kinda is, and that's a compliment, Soledad, and I mean it.) But in truth, that's what the bombshell is - and always was with Breitbart.

Look at the ACORN tapes.   What was in the first one was bad enough, but that was Breitbart's genius.  He wasn't just going for exposing ACORN.  He knew what he'd have to do in order to get it past the media filter.  And in doing so, he went for exposing the media as well.  It was the only way.

He knew the media would circle the wagons and protect ACORN and be dismissive of it, right down to how it was going to be dismissive of it.  It was an isolated incident.  Nothing to see here.  Fire a couple of bad apples if you have to.  Done.

But then he released the tape of it happening at a second office.   Ok, embarrassing, but the media just grabbed a few more fire extinguishers and expanded the damage control narrative to a little wider circle.   Then Breitbart released another, and another.  And it was over.   The media had egg on its face and everyone saw the corrupt culture that was ACORN.

They haven't learned.

Because the bombshell WAS what was happening in that newsroom.   Yes, the video was Barack Obama embracing a radical with a radical theory, and yes, one of his colleagues admitted that they hid that tape during the 2008 campaign.  Which is bad enough.

What makes this so interesting, when you think about it, uh, it's, uh, of course we hid this throughout the 2008 campaign.  I don't care if they find it now ..."  - Deriek Bell's colleague Charles Ogletree commenting on the Obama Bell tape at a lecture at the W.E.B. Dubois Center for African American Studies.

But what the panel doesn't get is that it's just a little piece of the picture, and that their very attempts at damage control are going to come back to bite them.

Again.

Joel finally answers her

"The bombshell is happening right here on this program where we've got a story and you're not interested in telling your viewers who Derrick Bell actually is, and you want to come in and obfuscate and tell me that I don't know what Critical Race Theory is, that White Supremacy has nothing to do with it, that Barack Obama was just embracing a guy."

In other words, the bombshell is your reaction to this story.

She tries near the end to get Joel to spill the beans about what else he's got.   Joel's not going to tip his hand. I'm sure they'd love to know so that they can work on preparing a counter attack.  And oh, they want to know.  If they have any memory at all, they are scared of what's coming next and not having a calm, easy, well rehearsed explanation to dismiss it.  But it doesn't look like they do have a memory, because they're stepping right in it when they pull the race card and try to paint him as one of those white Republican guys they try so hard to paint a stereotype of .... he's afraid of black people.

Which, of course, explains why Joel married one.

" ... by the way, the entire audience was white, it looks like from the back of their heads in that video tape, it's being shot, and they laughed "

So it's no big deal.  Which is, of course, why Ogletree said they hid it.

"If it was a bunch of white people that would be the first time an all white audience attended a lecture at the W.E.B. Dubois Center for African American Studies at Harvard University."

Zing!  Keep digging Soledad.  So she sidesteps:

"You know what, somebody was talking in my ear so I didn't hear everything you said."

How convenient.  Much easier for you to dismiss by not acknowledging.  That way you don't have to answer  to it.

Seriously, twice liberal panelists just come out and blatantly say that they are judging Pollack by the color of his skin, and they're cool with that.

If they're smart, they realize what they've just stepped into and they're having meetings about what to do when the next video comes out -- which may very well have Bell expounding on Critical Race Theory, which will likely make Soledad go spatula hunting to dig for her face in all that gooey, dripping egg.

Looks like Pollack knew Breitbart's game plan, and hopefully learned some of his strategy.

Pass the popcorn.  I think this is going to be fun.

Things I Wish My Side Wouldn't Do

Call people inflammatorily derogatory names in public, for one.  Oh, Rush had a point with the Sandra Fluke thing, and I think Rush does more good than harm.  But he shouldn't have gone there.  For one thing, it makes the rest of our jobs harder defending him and defending our cause.  There's plenty to mine there with "hey, I want the government to take the risk out of my sex life by buying or forcing people to buy my birth control for me".    Just lay it out like it is.  Let people call her what they want to in private conversation.   But doing it this way plays right into the play they designed in their little Alinsky playbook.  Leave the dirty name calling out of it.   Take the moral high ground.

Speaking of the moral high ground, this thing with kids getting in trouble for, and a school apologizing to another school, for chants of "USA!  USA!" after a basketball game -- between two American high schools. I know that certain conservative media figures, like most of their much more numerous liberal counterparts, drag out the "whip up the base" event of the day/week and beat the drum.   There are plenty of legitimate things to gripe about to do this.  I don't have a problem with it.

But I do have a problem with it when it's not legitimate.   And this one, from the evidence presented -- isn't.

I the context it occurred, it makes zero sense --  unless it was provoked by the other side by La Raza chants or something. Was there a big screen TV suddenly after the game, showing the end of the USA/Russia hockey game? Did they just announce the capture or killing of a top Al Queda officer? If so, it wasn't mentioned. I realize the press is famous for leaving out key things, but this was the coach. And it was Texas.  Where PC probably rules less than anywhere else in the country.

Now, see, if they had actually been playing a team from Mexico, a Mexican High School from a town across the border in Coahuila ... then it would have been appropriate.

But it was an American high school beating another American high school. Why The Fritz would you spontaneously break out in "USA!, USA!" unless you were suggesting that the other side wasn't American?

The kids (and I'd be willing to bet that it was a loud minority) that engaged in this were basically telling at least the players on the other team, who were reportedly all Hispanic, "You don't belong here."   That's wrong.   I'm siding with the coach here.  It's inappropriate.  It's bad decorum.  And our teachers should enforce good decorum especially in school and at official school events.

Deal is, it's stories like this where our reactions can make us look bad. I don't know which side (the conservosphere or the liberosphere) has the people who publicize these more questionable stories, but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to dismiss the impression of the coach of a Texas basketball team on this unless I'm presented with some evidence that says he was wrong. He was there, he knows the students, he knows the rivalries ... this just gives us crap to step in that the libs can point at, and it's distracting from real incidents where we definitely have the moral high ground. I understand we're hypersensitized to this kind of thing. But we can't let them get under our skin.

#IAMANDREWBREITBART

F* Yeah!  I'm with you Daniel Knauf!!!!

Here we go again...

A Great Man Is Gone

Andrew Breitbart died last night.  Only 43 years old.

This video from the 2010 Tea Party convention really sums up what he's all about.  Pick up his flag and keep moving toward them.