Twitter and an Interesting Candidate - Chuck DeVore

Here is an article about an interesting candidate, Chuck DeVore, mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. Visit Chuck DeVore's blog here http://www.chuckdevore.com/blog/index.php as well as how Twitter is being used today.

Playing Catch-Up, the GOP Is All Atwitter About the Internet
Republican Hopefuls Ponder a 'Tech Gap'; Chuck DeVore's 'Tweets' Raise Campaign Cash
By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS
At a recent debate, the candidates to become chairman of the Republican National Committee were asked -- after rattling off how many guns they own -- whether they have any "followers" on Twitter, the popular online social network for short messages.
They didn't miss a beat.
"Yes, the number is growing last time I checked -- 300 to 400," replied candidate Michael Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland. Users of the site keep track of posts, or "tweets," from other users by becoming their followers.
Another candidate, Katon Dawson, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, said he would be Twittering away at that very moment if it weren't for the debate rules. "I'm just not doing it today because you told us we couldn't," he said.

RNC Chair Candidates on the Web
Click on number of contacts for link to candidate's page.

Facebook friends
Twitter followers
Blog
Rebuild the Party contacts
Saul Anuzis
3309
3645
yes
73
Ken Blackwell
4998
2443
NA
159
Katon Dawson
784
1192
NA
no
Mike Duncan
NA
NA
yes
2
Chip Saltsman
NA
662
yes
no
Michael Steele
3865
952
yes
no
Source: Topconservativesontwitter.org

Then Ken Blackwell, a former secretary of state of Ohio, trumped them both. "I do Twitter, but let me just say I have 4,000 friends on Facebook, which is probably more than these two guys put together, but who's counting?"
As the Republican Party rebuilds after its defeat at the polls in November, the discussion has centered not so much on honing its message as on messaging -- on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. In previous elections, the GOP often used technology in targeting voters more effectively than Democrats did; now the party is playing catch-up. RNC members, meeting in Washington, are scheduled to elect a party chairman on Friday.
"When you get beat, you look at where you got beat and double down on improving that area," says Cyrus Krohn, the RNC's director of e-campaigning. "The Internet is the place you can look at and say there's room for improvement."
Within days of the election, a technology consultant in Nashville, Tenn., started a Web site devoted to getting Republicans on Twitter, spotlighting which of the 168 RNC voting-members use the tool (last count: 20). A conservative strategist issued a 10-point action plan for rebuilding the party, declaring the No. 1 priority to be "winning the technology war with the Democrats."
Mike Duncan, the incumbent RNC chairman running for re-election, was pressed during a recent interview with conservative talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt about the perceived "tech gap" between the two parties.
After Mr. Duncan, 57, called the gap a "big myth," Mr. Hewitt pressed him.
"Are you on Twitter, by the way, Mike Duncan?" asked Mr. Hewitt, himself a heavy Twitterer.
"I do not Twitter," replied Mr. Duncan, who explained that he doesn't like to be distracted by Twitter while talking to people. Many like to use the tool during conferences or other events. "But we have the capability here in the building -- a lot of the guys here do it."
He added that he does carry two BlackBerrys and enjoys using a Kindle, the handheld device for downloading digital books.
Some Republicans worry that all the tech talk is overshadowing more fundamental tasks, like recruiting new candidates and broadening the party's appeal. The Obama-Biden campaign's innovative use of new online tools, namely social networking, texting and video, helped raise money and organize volunteers. But the percentage of voters contacted by the campaign was about the same as the Democratic presidential ticket did fours years before, according to some surveys, they point out.
"If there's someone out there who votes for the candidate who Twitters more, then we need to take away his voter-registration card," says Michael Palmer, who headed the new media operations for the McCain-Palin campaign.
Associated Press
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore checks his PDA during a budget debate in Sacramento, Calif., in December.
With some exceptions, Sen. John McCain's campaign incorporated the same new tech features as its Democratic rivals, he argues. But more people used the Democratic ticket's social-networking tools because its supporters tended to be younger, he says.
"Our soccer moms might pay their bills online, but they probably won't spend six hours a day on Facebook," says Mr. Palmer, 28.
Jon Henke, who advised former Tennessee Republican Sen. Fred Thompson on new-media efforts last year in his brief presidential run, agrees tech savviness is only a means to an end.
"The party right now is like someone seeing their neighbor buy a shiny new truck, and wanting one, too," says Mr. Henke, 34. "But then not realizing the neighbor has something to haul."
He added the Internet's bottom-up nature is more suited to the opposition and grass-roots insurgents, something Republicans are now forced to become.
Few have internalized that message more than a little-known California assemblyman named Chuck DeVore.
The 46-year-old former aerospace-company executive has already begun contesting the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Barbara Boxer, who faces re-election in 2010, by putting much of his daily routine online.
A Multitasker
He regularly updates his Facebook status on his BlackBerry, which automatically appears on his Twitter account, as well as on the site devoted to getting Republicans on Twitter, called topconservativesontwitter.org. (His 924 followers rank him 389th on that site.)
Mr. DeVore says his campaign, with little funding and facing a well-known incumbent, depends on steadily building word of mouth. He says he has modeled his campaign on that of President Barack Obama, who is often referred to as the first "Internet president."
"Chuck is using his nuclear-powered lawn mower while his faithful dog supervises," he posted Sunday afternoon, referring to the electricity in his neighborhood coming from a nearby nuclear power station. Mr. DeVore supports the use of nuclear energy.
But the constant posting has led to more than idle chatter. His commentary on everything from greenhouse-gas emissions to laws banning cellphone use in cars have led to national television appearances on shows including "Dr. Phil" and "Nova."

Chuck DeVore
He couldn't afford to pay for similar publicity through traditional radio or TV advertising, he says, particularly over such a long campaign.
Raising a Few Bucks
He believes he's the first politician to raise money on Twitter, estimating he received more than $1,600 in 24 hours in early December, with an average donation of close to $20. Much of that effort was led by his first hire, Justin Hart, a former blogger for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.
"We don't expect to raise big dollars from this, but we do get street cred and a base to build on," says Mr. Hart, 37, who joined Mr. DeVore after several other tech strategists turned him down.
Mr. DeVore has written an online movie review for a conservative Hollywood Web site to gain name recognition in that traditionally liberal town. He called Tom Cruise's "Valkyrie" a film with "soul and dignity." He first developed his online promotional skills earlier this decade in marketing a novel he co-wrote, called "China Attacks," about an invasion of Taiwan.
A campaign consultant of Mrs. Boxer says the three-term Democratic senator also uses a variety of online tools and has collected more than 300,000 email addresses of supporters. Some well-known Republicans could soon enter the race, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. boss. But Mr. DeVore thinks his online approach gives him a chance.
"There are still a fair number of Republicans that haven't thought about using these things yet," says Mr. DeVore. "I say to them, 'Look, it won't make a bad candidate good, but you need to start doing this.'"
Write to Christopher Rhoads at christopher.rhoads@wsj.com

Thank You House GOP!!! Your turn Senate GOP!!!

Big hat tip from http://www.redstate.com/

Thank You!
Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)

The House GOP held the line. They voted unanimously to oppose the Obama Stimulus Plan. The Democrats will now own this failure.
Earlier today I said we must make our side feel pain when they displease us. But we should be prepared to say thanks too.
I’m giving a $22.00 donation to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the group that elects House Republicans.
We may not agree with them every time. But it is quite important that we say thanks to them when they hold the line on the advance of socialism.


A Challenge to the Senate GOP: Don’t Abandon House Republicans on the Front Lines of the War for America’s Future
Posted by Jeff Emanuel (Profile)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat-Electable, Nevada) came out today and bragged that some Senate Republicans would vote for the awful so-called “stimulus” bill despite the fact that:
(A) It’s a massive, wasteful pork-barrel bill that won’t stimulate anything or anyone (except those who get really, really excited at the prospect of huge transfers of borrowed cash from larger governments to smaller governments); and
(B) doing so would provide the Democrats with bipartisan cover which they only need in order to have someone else to point the finger of blame at when this proposal goes down in flames like the Hindenburg.
I fully expect Republican Main-Streeters like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter to vote for this monstrosity which borrows and transfers more money than there is total currency currently in circulation; however, I’m hereby challenging every one of them and their colleagues to prove me wrong.
The House sent a powerful message yesterday by standing united against this terrible proposal. They have a long way to go before they’re redeemed for the last several years of mismanagement and Democrat-lite behavior, but yesterday served as a very good first step.
Call your Senator http://www.nrsc.org/races/ and tell him or her not to abandon the House GOP on the Front Lines of the current battle for Congress and for America’s future.
The Democrats have enough votes to pass this and every other rotten item on their agenda without Republican help. Let’s make them do it — and, through that, make them own every single negative outcome that results from their awful policies.
What say you? Are you with me?

Carlos Slim (of Mexico) to bail out the New York Times!

Big hat tip to http://www.vdare.com/

Carlos Slim To Bailout The NY Times?
Posted By Steve Sailer
The New York Times is the most influential journalistic institution in the world. The NYT decides, in the more marginal cases, for the rest of the news media [1] what is and isn’t national news. Obviously, if a jetliner lands in the Hudson River, everybody knows it’s news. On the other hand, if a drunken stripper makes incoherent accusations against [2] Duke lacrosse players, it’s only national news if the NYT decides to run two dozen stories about it, which lets everybody else in the media know that its Real News Symbolic of Major Social Problems and thus they can sanctimoniously splash this salacious tripe.
The NYT, at present and probably for the future as well, a big money pit. No doubt it will have to downsize itself tremendously. But likely so will its major competitors, so the NYT’s relative influence over the rest of the media is unlikely to decline much.
Meanwhile, as the federal government takes over control of ever more of the decreasing amount of wealth in America, the long term relative value of having a stake in the most powerful news arbiter should be increasing.
Mexican telephone monopolist, [3] Carlos Slim, who didn’t get to be more or less the richest man in the world by passing up a chance to influence the government, is thus, not surprisingly, in [4] talks to help bailout the New York Times. Once you’ve gotten the Mexican government eating out of your hand, the logical next step is the American government.

**UPDATE**
Considering how skimpy the paper has become in the desperate effort to save money, it’s now appropriate in more ways than one to call it the
Slim Times. (Click this link)

GOP holds the line 244-188!!

Big hat tip from Michelle Malkin!


GOP holds the line: 244-188. This crap sandwich is all yours, Dems
By Michelle Malkin •
January 28, 2009 06:21 PM

Own it. Embrace it. Swallow it. The House version of the $1.1 trillion Generational Theft Act of 2009 is all the Democrats’ doing now.
Not one Republican voted for it. (1 Republican had to leave early).
177 Republicans and 11 Democrats opposed.
No bending over today.
Finally. A party of opposition worth its name.
And now… on to the squishes in the Senate.
Savor this while you can.
Kudos to the GOP leadership for showing some spine. More, please.
Mega-kudos to the conservative staffers on the Hill behind the scenes standing up for what’s right and providing intellectual and informational ammunition to the grass-roots.
And bailout-sized kudos to each and every one of you who made your voice heard.
Gird your loins. We’ve only just begun.
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/01/28/gop-holds-the-line-244-188-this-crap-sandwich-is-all-yours-dems/
***
Allahpundit’s got the lowdown.
Dems who voted NAY: Griffith, Peterson, Boyd, Bright, Kanjorski, Kratovil, Cooper, Taylor, Ellsworth, Minnick, and Shuler.
Now, that’s bipartisanship we can believe in!
Full roll call vote is here.

Allan West- Interesting Candidate

Here's an interesting candidtate that you might want to learn about if you are in either Florida or New York. http://www.allenwestforcongress.com/about_allen.php

"Town Call Meeting"
Sign up for LIVE "Town Call Meeting" with LTC Allen West hosted by the ‘Go West Blog’
You are invited to participate in the first live (conference) calls with LTC (ret) Allen West. This call is being hosted by the ‘Go West Blog’ and moderated by Phil Orenstein, member and co-founder of the ‘Go West Blog’. Please sign up for the LIVE call with Allen by hitting reply and requesting the call-in details. Please give your name and town. As ‘seating is limited’ to a ‘first call-in’ basis, we ask that you request the call-in info by Wednesday, January 28th, only if you know you will participate. Location:
Contact Info: Email Phil Orenstein at maduroman@att.net for call-in information
Date/Time: January 31st, 2009 at 07:00pm

The Queens Village Republican Club Lincoln Bicentennial Dinner
Speaking EngagementLocation: Antun's 96-43 Springfield Blvd. Queens Village, NYDate/Time: February 8th, 2009 at 3:00pm


Issues
For Economic Restoration And Fiscal Responsibility
Make the tax cuts permanent; abolish the Death Tax and Alternative Minimum Taxes; simplify the tax code to offer a one-page tax return.
Reduce corporate and capital gains taxes; reward corporations with tax cuts or incentives for keeping jobs on American soil.
Prevent appropriations bills from including unrelated projects or appropriations to reduce extraneous politics.
Immediately discontinue the practice of earmarks to restore fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control Congress.
For A More Secure America
Keep America on the offense against global terrorism and its state sponsors.
Immediately secure our borders; cease taxpayer-funded benefits to illegals, establish English as our national language; enforce all existing laws.
Deport foreign felons to their countries of origin; end the practice of anchor babies; promote H-2A visas for employee recruitment by businesses.
Move Border Patrol from Immigration and Naturalization Service to the Department of Defense.
Support Israel to become a member of NATO to share its protection with our allies.
Approve FISA to allow real-time action in response to terrorist contact with any person within US boundaries.
For Energy Independence
To provide immediate relief and long term solutions for energy, eliminate caps on domestic oil production.
Support research and development of full spectrum of energy sources, including sugar-based ethanol.
Suspend the 2007 corn ethanol program to reduce current pressure on global food prices.
For Education And Health Care Improvement
Support and facilitate trade education programs to develop marketable skills.
Allow open-market purchase of health care insurance throughout the US, rather than restrict options by state, and other market-driven solutions.
Duplicate FloridaCompareCare.gov and MyFloridaRx.com nationally to allow comparison shopping for cost and quality of health care providers and procedures.
Require “e-prescriptions” to reduce fraud and error from misread handwritten prescriptions.
For Natural Disaster Insurance
Create federal tax credit for the cost of windstorm and earthquake insurance; no tax on that amount of income.
Allow federal tax credit for any and all amounts paid to repair or rebuild any property, crop or equipment damaged by natural disasters not covered by insurance for all forms of property ownership.
For Supporting Our Troops
Ensure troop funding must NEVER be used to resolve internal partisan disputes as long as American soldiers are deployed in a war zone.
Provide health care funding for any deployed soldier serving or injured in the line of duty as a fully funded annual budget line item.
VA mortgage funding should include a credit equal to a 10% down payment for a first home purchase.
For the Second Amendment
An armed and informed law-abiding citizenry is the best defense against an unjust government and the criminal element created by irresponsible societal benevolence and activist judges.

We are all Rush Limbaughs Now!!

Big Hat Tip to It's a Rich World!! Click here http://thisisrich.blogspot.com/2009/01/were-all-rush-limbaughs-now.html

We're ALL Rush Limbaughs now!!
The headline reads:

House GOP member to Rush: Back off
That's the position of Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga.

When a republican congressman takes that position against Rush, I take it to mean that he wants me to "back off" as well. What Rep. Gingrey fails to realize is that there are literally millions and millions of us out here who are physically and emotionally sickened by the capitulation of weak willed republicans who care more about getting along with democrats than those who once made up their base. I say "once made up their base" because conservatives have had it with politicians like Rep. Gingrey who attempt to marginalize Rush, the powerful Voice of Conservatism for 20 years, and consequently, we conservatives. We're no longer the base to which republicans look; they seem to be looking to democrats as their base.

Where are the towering republicans with the cahones to stand up to Pelosi and Reid? Rush stands up to them daily and illuminates their absolutely absurd agenda with parody and clever humor. Republicans should be honoring him.

Screw with Rush at your own peril, elected republicans. His army far exceeds yours!

Memo to President Obama: Add Immigration Moratorium to the Economic Stimulus Package

Big Hat Tip from Vdare.com

By Edwin S. Rubenstein
Memo to President Obama: Add Immigration Moratorium to the Economic Stimulus Package

Dear Mr. President: What if government spending can’t turn things around? What if the banks continue hoarding TARP funds, and deny loans to deserving companies and individuals? Now think: what would happen if after years of monstrous fiscal deficits the U.S. is still mired in unemployment and slow growth?
The last time that happened—in the 1930s – the outcome was…. Well, you know how that played out. But even without Smoot-Hawley and beggar–thy-neighbor policy mistakes, the U.S. could face a similar fate today.
Consider this: Two to three percent GDP growth is needed just to absorb new entrants to the labor force.
In times of buoyant demand, this is no problem. In times of collapsing private spending, as now—it is a huge one. Even unbelievably large fiscal deficits—10 percent of GDP or more –will not stimulate enough growth to prevent unemployment from continuing to rise through the next two years. [Choices made in 2009 will shape the globe’s destiny, By Martin Wolf, Financial Times, January 7, 2009.]
One reason for our predicament: immigration is swelling the U.S. labor force beyond the ability of fiscal policy to generate jobs.
During the decade of the 1990s, 47 percent of U.S. civilian labor force growth was due to immigration. This represented the largest influx of foreign workers ever to enter the U.S. in a given decade—substantially exceeding the number who came here during the Great Wave of 1890 to 1910. [Andrew Sum, et al., Foreign Immigration and the Labor Force of the U.S., [PDF] Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, July 2004.]
But records are made to be broken, and nowhere more so than in immigration. Over the period 2000 to 2007 foreign-born individuals accounted for:
38 percent of U.S. population growth
51 percent of U.S. labor force growth
56 percent of U.S. employment growth. (In other words, immigrants displaced Americans).
(Please see Chart 1 for the underlying numbers.)
All of which raises an obvious question: Why not impose a moratorium on immigration? By cutting labor force growth in half, this would allow our weakened economy to absorb a greater fraction of new—native-born American—entrants.
The unemployment rate would fall. And, equally important, average incomes would rise as jobs currently going to low wage immigrants would be filled by U.S.-born workers.
What would an immediate moratorium do? I have run the numbers for 2008.
You will recall that the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in December 2008, up from 4.9 percent in December of 2007. Over that period unemployment rose by 3.6 million, swelled by job losers as well as new labor force entrants.
The civilian labor force grew by 611,000 last year, from 153.836 million in December 2007 to 154.447 million December 2008. Had a moratorium been in effect, about 305,000 fewer people would be looking for jobs.
That may not sound like a lot at a time when jobs are disappearing by more than 500,000 per month. But 305,000 fewer job seekers is equal to about 9 percent of last year’s stunning unemployment increase, the biggest for 22 years.
Implication: a one-year moratorium would reduce by at least 9 percent the stimulus spending required to restore the economy to its pre-meltdown state. That translates to $90 billion of federal savings.
Of course, if the moratorium were extended for several years, its effects would compound.
Plus, when (and if) the economy bounces back, employment of native-born Americans would increase that much faster.
You might consider a more sweeping change in immigration policy: enforcing the immigration laws. Neglecting them has permitted from 8 to 10 million illegal aliens to work in the United States. (That’s the official estimate. Private estimates are as high as double that).
Escort just half of them to the border and you will have rolled-back last year’s entire unemployment spike—and then some...
Their employers will squeal like stuck pigs. So will the ethnic lobbies and the religious Left.
But in this economy, no one can say the illegals are doing jobs that Americans won’t do.
Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.

The GOP Should Make the Democrats Own this “Stimulus” and Every Other Failed Policy They Want to Implement

Hat tip from Redstate.com

The GOP Should Make the Democrats Own this “Stimulus” and Every Other Failed Policy They Want to Implement
America voted to make Washington a Sole Proprietorship. Let\'s give them what they asked for.
Posted by Jeff Emanuel (Profile)
Wednesday, January 28th
Last I checked, the Democrats held the White House and had nearly 60 votes and over 250 in the House — more than enough to pass and sign this $800B monstrosity of a pork-barrel giveaway they call a “stimulus” (as well as every other pet project they want to put into law). So why don’t they shut up and do it already? Why are they wasting time trying to bring some Republican votes on board (even adopting a GOP amendment to the bill — albeit the one out of 18 total which would have no material effect on the legislation outside of commissioning a post-passage panel to study it)?
From where I sit, the answer to that question is pretty obvious: the Democrats know exactly what a terrible bill this is, and want some GOP votes to give them “bipartisan” cover (and someone else to point the finger of blame at when this behemoth utterly fails to fulfill its supposed purpose of stimulating the economy and creating jobs).
What the GOP should do here is obvious: every single Republican in the House and Senate should vote NO on this bill. Every. Single. One. No making speeches about how bad it is, then voting for it
(I’m looking at you, Senator Cornyn). No voting on the side of utter fiscal irresponsibility and economic backwardness for whatever reason (memo to the 40 GOP Reps who supported the awful SCHIP expansion proposal). No excuses whatsoever — just vote no.

Voting against this bill — which recommends sinking more taxpayer-owned cash into legislators’ pet projects than the entire amount of currency in circulation right now* — would send the powerful, two-part message that Republicans want no part of frittering away nearly a trillion more dollars of Americans’ money on handouts and pork-barrel projects, and that, if such wasteful programs are going to pass during this period of Democratic dominance in Washington, they are going to do so without help from the more fiscally-responsible minority.
House Republicans made an effort last week to voice their concerns with this proposal, and to lay out an alternative, more realistically workable stimulus proposal — and the effort was met with a curt “I won” from President Obama.
Republicans need to remember that retort, and need to ensure that neither Obama nor Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s Congressional majorities forget that they, too, won. The best way to do this is by eschewing the inexplicable temptation to provide the Democrats with bipartisan cover, and voting in unison against monstrosities like this “stimulus” and SCHIP expansion.
In other words, the only help hte GOP needs to give the Democrats is an assist in ensuring that the majority has sole ownership of every one of the poor policy decisions being made during this period of Democrat dominance on the Hill. Make them prove they have the courage to follow their convictions and pass this on their own.
Let’s tattoo the phrase “I won” on the Democrats’ foreheads. They need to own every single one of their bad policies.
*According to the Federal Reserve, only $800 billion is currently in circulation (thanks to Ernest Istook for the email tip)

Rick Warren's Inauguration Prayer

A very interesting analysis of Rick Warren's Inauguration prayer


The Most Underrated Part of the Inauguration
Chuck Norris

I know inaugural news and commentary are already passe. But I could not find one report this past week that caught what I believe was the most subtle, strategic and possibly subversive moment of the inauguration ceremony. Did you catch it?

Like most news agencies, U.S. News & World Report reported that the Rev. Rick Warren's invocation "clearly opted for a conciliatory tone that eschewed any mention of culture-war issues." But Warren hardly was pacifying the elites or anyone else -- if you truly understand what he prayed. The invocation seemed like a rather benign blessing that even his most ardent foes could have interpreted as inclusive. But the real portrait of his prayer was quite to the contrary.
First of all, Warren's prayer was nearly five minutes long -- about 486 words. He certainly didn't cower to typical audience intolerance for long prayers and opt for a short grace before meals.
Second, Warren embarked on what theologians call a Mars Hill apologetic, which is a biblical approach and deductive line of reasoning that the apostle Paul used in teaching about a Creator God, with whom all can identify at first: "Almighty God, our Father, everything we see and everything we can't see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you. It all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory. History is your story."
Third, Warren then narrowed his focus by identifying the Creator as the one true Hebrew (or Jewish) God of the Old Testament -- something that sounds inclusive of Judaism but also serves as the basis and narrowing of his Christian logic. At the same time, he was culturally relative and sensitive to (but not necessarily endorsing of) Islam by extolling God as "the compassionate and merciful one," a descriptive line that opens all but one chapter of the Quran. Warren prayed: "The Scripture tells us, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.' And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made."
Fourth, Warren then covered the gamut in compassionate petitions -- thanking God for racial freedom and equality, praying a blessing on Obama and his Cabinet, and asking God to help us all unite in freedom, forgive us of our presumption and pride, and share with and serve all humanity.
Fifth, Warren turned on a dime by calling on God to help us remember this universal religious truth (in all Middle Eastern religions, I might add): God will judge all nations and all peoples. Then, for clarity's sake, the name of Warren's Supreme Judge was given. He referred to this transforming agent, who changed his own life, in four different languages: "I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life -- Yeshua (Hebrew), Isa (Arabic), Jesus (Spanish pronunciation), Jesus (English pronuncation)."
Sixth and last, just when you thought the "amen" was imminent, Warren gave a coup de grace to any political or earthly power -- a possibly subversive chess move to subtly call Obama's regime into checkmate. He called upon the global Christian community to invoke God's power against any and all human strongholds by collectively praying the Lord's Prayer. Warren rallied all branches, traditions and denominations of the universal church by triggering a prayer response through his words "who taught us to pray, saying …" Proof came as cameras immediately panned across the people in the Washington crowd, many of whom found themselves suddenly reciting the prayer with Warren. (It was interesting to watch how Obama chose not to join in.)
What everyone needs to understand is that the Lord's Prayer is no trite religious repetition to Warren. He once explained in one of his teachings: "'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' Why do we pray that 'Thy will be done as it is in heaven'? Because in heaven, God's will is done perfectly. Is God's will done perfectly on earth? Absolutely not. In fact, most of the things that happen on earth are not God's will. God's will is not always done. … But when you pray, 'Thy will be done,' you're saying … 'I accept your plan, and I surrender to God's control.'"
Reciting the Lord's Prayer is pleading with God to erect his kingdom and execute his desires on earth as they are in heaven. It is calling upon the one true God, asking for his nature to overrun ours, his wishes to be fulfilled (not ours), and his rule and reign to be established (not ours). On the flip side, it is the most "dangerous" prayer one can pray if one wants to continue to live selfishly, misuse power and maintain control over others.
The Lord's Prayer is, in reality, the most invasive and subversive prayer to human selfishness that one can say. It's able to break down strongholds within us, within others and even within political structures. As Warren again said, praying the Lord's Prayer is ideal "when your circumstances are uncontrollable, when people around you won't change (they're unchangeable), and when problems are unexplainable."
Now you tell me: Why would Warren, who thoroughly understands the Scriptures, pray that particular prayer at the transference of new political powers with whom he largely disagrees? The answer is obvious.
Like millions of others, I repeated this relatively short prayer by rote for most of my life without thinking twice about its meaning. But then I learned about its powerful truths from my pastor, who teaches its principles and encourages its daily recitation through a simple acronym. (You can listen to his Lord's Prayer message series on his Web site, www.NationalTreasures.org.) The Lord's Prayer has revolutionized my prayers and my life, and I believe (as I know Warren does) it can change all of our lives, government and the world if we sincerely and regularly pray it. That's exactly why Warren's invocation included it.
For most, Warren was reinforcing his image as "a unifying, post-Christian-right figure rather than as a divisive culture warrior." But reality is, as Jesus called his apostles to do, Warren was being as "shrewd as a serpent and innocent as a dove." And most never even caught it.
Say what you will about this purpose-driven pastor, but when you parse it, the Rev. Rick Warren's inaugural invocation was about as purpose-driven as prayers come.

Portland- a "white" city?

Big hat tip to Steve Sailer on this to read if you are interested in Urban demographics

The Unbearable Whiteness of Portland
Portland, Oregon is, of course, near the top of any list of Stuff White People Like. It has it all: environmental restrictions on suburban development, trams, liberal social attitudes, bicycle trails, awareness, an upscale population, microbreweries, sterility, and so much more. Not surprisingly, white people like Portland. In fact, it was the only city in the country where reporter Jonathan Tilove found, while researching his book The View from Martin Luther King Drive, that white gentrifiers were driving blacks away from the local MLK Drive. Similarly, it's one of the few cities in the country with a growing population of Reform/Conservative Jews.
Nonwhites, eh ... not so much.
Of all the major urban area's, Portland's "core city" is the whitest.
For last week's Obasm, the Portland Oregonian ran a lengthy article by Betsy Hammond lamenting, "In a Changing World, Portland Remains Overwhelmingly White." On the printed version, the subheadline read, "The metro area is less diverse than most -- even Salt Lake City." As we all know these days, Mormons are the source of all evil.
(In reality, Mormons invite in to Utah Latin and Pacific Islander converts.)
As the nation's first African American president prepares to take office this week, metro Portland -- with its overwhelmingly white population and leadership -- is demographically out of step with 2009 America.
Among the nation's 40 largest metro areas, only four -- none of them in the West -- are whiter than Portland, new census figures show.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/news_impact/2009/01/race.top40.jpg


But what's really distinctive about Portland is not that it has white suburbs, but that the core city is so white -- 74%, compared to runner-up Seattle's 68%. In contrast, Detroit is last at 8% (presumably, mostly grizzled Clint Eastwoods yelling at the damn punks to get off his lawn).
Los Angeles, which everyone in Portland despises, has the least white suburbs: only 34% white, making it the least white metropolitan area in the country.
... But since 2000, growth rates among Portland's small minority populations have slowed from the 1990s. In the same period, more than 100,000 additional non-Hispanic whites have flocked to the Portland area. The whitest suburb -- Clark County outside Vancouver -- alone added 53,000 white residents.
The upshot is that the Portland metro area is startlingly white viewed against the national landscape -- even whiter than Salt Lake City, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates. Metro Portland includes Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Clark counties.
The implications are far-reaching.
In today's America, people of color make up more than 40 percent of a typical metro area's population, an analysis by The Oregonian shows.
But in metro Portland, public policy still is controlled from a white point of view. Among the hundreds of mayors, city council members and state lawmakers representing metro Portland, there are just four Latino city councilors, one African-born council member and a lone African American state senator.
Portland's lack of diversity means it is less cosmopolitan, less dynamic and at risk of being less competitive than other metro areas, worries David Bragdon, president of the Metro regional government.

Click image to enlarge http://blog.oregonlive.com/news_impact/2009/01/GS.11RACE118.jpg

It's a plus that Portland is a magnet for young, college-educated Americans who can choose to live anywhere, says William Frey, demographer for the Brookings Institution and a specialist in urban and suburban trends.
But college-educated Americans are overwhelmingly white, and those who migrate to Portland are disproportionately so -- the "beer, bikes and Birkenstock" crowd, in the words of Portland economist Joe Cortright.
Portland-area employers competing for top talent have a hard time retaining African American hires, who often can't bear the social and cultural isolation of a metro area that is less than 3 percent black.
"A lot of my friends and other minorities come here to Portland thinking of it as a stopover," says Angel Anderson, an African American software engineer from suburban Chicago who was recruited by Intel. "They leave the state in a year or two."
Anderson has stayed four years, bought a house in Tanasbourne, loves her job and calls Portland "the friendliest place I have ever lived." But she chafes at often being the only black face in the room, longing for "somebody I could talk to who might have similar experiences to me."
The Portland area's nearly half-million people of color often get the message that their concerns are an afterthought, says Irma Valdez, a real estate agent who serves on the Portland Planning Commission. "Some of the stuff I hear on the planning commission would make you want to pass out," she says.
Sustainability, downtown condos and bike lanes drown out priorities of minority residents, she says.
A MAX line to serve Latino families living near Southeast 122nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard. Naming a Portland street for Cesar Chavez. Creating affordable family housing. Calls for immigration reform.
"Those are off the table," Valdez says. "Not because Portland is racist, but because there is always some other agenda item that is more pressing."
Minority residents can feel left out, unable to easily find a hairdresser, a radio station that resonates, a church that feels like home, says Vicki Nakamura, who helps employers recruit and retain minority professionals.
Nakamura has taken the lead on hosting quarterly corporate-sponsored gatherings, dubbed "Say Hey," to welcome minority professionals. Several hundred people gather to sip wine, nibble hors d'oeuvres and welcome African Americans, Asians and Latinos to town.
"You go to Say Hey, and you see two-thirds of the people are people of color and you're pretty thrilled. Sometimes the newcomers are almost in tears," she says.
Sam Adams, Portland's new mayor, says white leaders must make sure they respond to challenges faced by people of color. Re-establishing the city's human rights commission, supporting minority contractor requirements and battling what he calls "shamefully" high dropout rates among minority youths are among his priorities.
"That we are so overwhelmingly white ... is neither good nor bad, but it's a fact. So we have to work that much harder to make sure that nonwhite Portlanders have unfettered access to social and economic opportunities," says Adams, who presides over an all-white City Council.
An all-white City Council!
Portland is predominantly white today primarily because it started out virtually all white and stayed largely that way for more than 100 years, by design.
Oregon was settled by pioneers who pushed West from 1840 to 1880, a generation much concerned with race, says Darrell Millner, professor of black studies at Portland State University. At the time, whites in the South thought the solution to racial strife was to enslave blacks, but he says whites who came to Oregon didn't want to possess blacks, they wanted to escape them.
"Conventional wisdom at the time was clear, says Millner: "If you don't have more than one race, then you don't have any racial problems."
First as a territory, then as a state, Oregon passed laws banning African Americans from Oregon. In the late 1800s, Chinese laborers were admitted to mine and build railroads, but they could not bring women or children or own property -- and were often victimized, such as during the 1887 massacre of 37 Chinese miners camped along the Snake River in Wallowa County.
During the African American migration out of the South in the 1920s, Oregon didn't draw blacks mainly because it was "off the map, too remote, too far from black population centers," Millner says. Seattle, settled later than Portland, had less overtly racist views and offered more maritime jobs. California was closer, offered railroad jobs and had better weather.
Until the 1990s, the biggest minority population surge in metro Portland came in the early 1940s, when the African American population grew tenfold as blacks were recruited for wartime work. "The traditional source of labor, young white males, was not available, and somebody had to build the ships," Millner says.
After the war, half the black population left Oregon because "black people couldn't find any employment, they couldn't buy homes in most of the state and the police were extremely hostile," he says.
Those who remained were restricted to live in North and Northeast Portland. Asian immigrants could not own homes, period. Japanese Americans were interned far from Portland during World War II and, once released, were initially barred from living within 150 miles of the coast.
"Oregon was virulently racist for much of its history," says Bragdon, the Metro leader. "And if you don't have a large minority population, that becomes self-reinforcing over time."
Since 2000, the metro areas of Seattle and Salt Lake City -- places nearly as white as Portland -- have grown larger and more diverse, primarily by adding Latinos and Asians to their suburbs.
Salt Lake, which was as white as Portland in 2000, drew 53,000 additional Latino residents and 11,000 more Asians. Key to the growth was outreach by the county mayor, who made diversity a top goal and regularly attends minority cultural events, says Rebecca Sanchez, the county's diversity affairs coordinator.
By contrast, in that same period, metro Portland added more white people than all minorities combined....
Longtime residents of both Clackamas and Clark counties say a reputation for redneck attitudes, along with the historic absence of minority residents, has turned away some potential residents of color.
... Latinos, the fastest-growing group, now represent nearly one of every five Oregon students. Metrowide, white students have fallen to two-thirds of the enrollment.
Among 10 year-olds born in Oregon, one in seven had parents of different races or one parent who was Latino and one who was not. ... Unlike most metro areas, Portland's urban core isn't a hub for minorities. Instead, Portland is the whitest big city in the nation, at 74 percent white. Seattle, at 68 percent, is No. 2.
Expensive, close-in housing continues to draw more whites than minorities, census figures show. Since 2000, Portland added 10,000 white residents, reversing a trend from the 1990s.
Portland will grow less white and more diverse -- just more slowly than the rest of the country, experts say. Latinos in particular will play a much bigger role in the metro area's future.
"We've got Hispanics moving to Indiana and Iowa, so they are going to come to Portland," says Frey of the Brookings Institution. But their foothold on political power is likely to lag their numbers, he says, and white politicians will continue to call the shots for a growing Latino population for years.
Dina DiNucci, expertly forming a crepe behind the counter of her neighborhood coffee shop in Gresham, is ahead of the curve, living and working in one of the most ethnically diverse parts of metro Portland. Her customers include Latinos and Russian immigrants along with longtime white residents of the area.
"We are not just a white America anymore," she says. "It is changing all around us."
-- Betsy Hammond; betsyhammond@news.oregonian.com
I have this vague impression that Russians are white. Also, aren't people name "Dina DiNucci" normally Italians rather than Hispanics?A commenter in Portland responds:
Yes but, how else would Portlandites know how to advise urbanites on the Value of Diversity if they didn't have protective growth boundaries that drive home prices to levels to where the poor folk (Black/Brown) can only work or visit?
De facto segregation is user-friendly and so much easier to ignore.
Similarly, I wrote about this conundrum in a 2004 VDARE.com article entitled "The Limits of Libertarianism," comparing environmentalist Northern California to traditionally more free enterprise South California:
Subtle but important social differences emerged between Southern and Northern California. Which was the better mode was arguable—until recently.
Now, however, it has become clear that Northern California's traditional elitism has helped it withstand the onslaught of illegal immigration better than Southern California's traditional populist libertarianism. ...
Northern California forestalled much of the dreariness of Southern California's Hispanic areas by being a high-cost economy. Ferociously powerful unions kept wages high. Stringent aesthetic restrictions and large amounts of land devoted to parks kept housing costs high. Northern Californians spearheaded the environmentalist movement—which had the unspoken but not-unintended consequence of driving up property values even further.
Southern California, in contrast, was not heavily unionized or environmentalized. It encouraged developers to put up huge tracts of homes.
The longterm downside of SWPLism, of course, is dying out. A 2005 New York Times article focusing on Portland was aptly entitled: "Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children."
PORTLAND, Ore. - The Pearl District in the heart of this perpetually self-improving city seems to have everything in new urban design and comfort, from the Whole Foods store where fresh-buffed bell peppers are displayed like runway models to the converted lofts that face sidewalk gardens.
Everything except children.
Crime is down. New homes and businesses are sprouting everywhere. But in what may be Portland's trendiest and fastest-growing neighborhood, the number of school-age children grew by only three between the census counts in 1990 and 2000, according to demographers at Portland State University.
"The neighborhood would love to have more kids, that's probably the top of our wish list," said Joan Pendergast of the Pearl Neighborhood Association. "We don't want to be a one-dimensional place."
It is a problem unlike the urban woes of cities like Detroit and Baltimore, where families have fled decaying neighborhoods, business areas and schools. Portland is one of the nation's top draws for the kind of educated, self-starting urbanites that midsize cities are competing to attract. But as these cities are remodeled to match the tastes of people living well in neighborhoods that were nearly abandoned a generation ago, they are struggling to hold on to enough children to keep schools running and parks alive with young voices.
San Francisco, where the median house price is now about $700,000, had the lowest percentage of people under 18 of any large city in the nation, 14.5 percent, compared with 25.7 percent nationwide, the 2000 census reported. Seattle, where there are more dogs than children, was a close second. Boston, Honolulu, Portland, Miami, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin and Atlanta, all considered, healthy, vibrant urban areas, were not far behind. The problem is not just that American women are having fewer children, reflected in the lowest birth rate ever recorded in the country.
Officials say that the very things that attract people who revitalize a city - dense vertical housing, fashionable restaurants and shops and mass transit that makes a car unnecessary - are driving out children by making the neighborhoods too expensive for young families.Has any place found a solution?On a lighter note, last year, Stuff White People Like summarized a similar NY Times article about Portland's lack of minorities in its continuing "White People in the News" section:
Summary
Portland struggles to figure out how to create diversity without affecting property values. It is not easy. Fortunately, things are being solved through awareness.
Best Passage
“I’ve been really upset by what I perceive to be Portland’s blind spot in its progressivism,” said Khaela Maricich, a local artist and musician. “They think they live in the best city in the country, but it’s all about saving the environment and things like that. It’s not really about social issues. It’s upper-middle-class progressivism, really.”
Ms. Maricich, 33, who is white, spoke after attending this month’s meeting of Portland’s Restorative Listening Project.

NORM COLEMAN WINS MAJOR COURT CASE -- FRANKEN EFFORT TO STOP COUNTING VOTES IS REJECTED‏

Progress in the Minnesota Senate Recount!! Keep checking here www.colemanforsenate.com and give if you can!! See previous links on this here http://brianleesblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/minnesota-stolen-election.html


Last night the courts in Minnesota dealt a striking blow to Al Franken and flat out denied his motion to dismiss Norm Coleman's legal election contest. The Franken campaign now has to finally face reality: they can't weasel their way out of having to go to court on a case they've made clear they know they won't win.

They've tried just about every sneaky maneuver they can think of, and the continued scheming on the part of Al Franken and Harry Reid hasn't gone unnoticed all across Minnesota. Check out what the Fargo Forum had to say in its spot-on editorial today:

"Al Franken should allow Minnesota election law to run its course before he assumes a seat in the U.S. Senate is his. A campaign to seize the seat before state courts finish their work is unseemly at best, arrogant at worst.

"The latest curious turn in the Senate race between Democrat Franken and former incumbent Republican Norm Coleman finds Franken scheming with the Senate's Democratic leader, Harry Reid, to circumvent the state's legal election procedures."
(Forum editorial: Franken, Reid tilt the table http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/228782/)

The Forum editorial proves that Minnesotans aren't going to stand for political gamesmanship by Reid and Franken which threatens the Constitutional rights of each and every citizen. The Franken campaign may have reversed themselves on calling for every vote to be counted, but the Coleman campaign absolutely hasn't. We steadfastly believe that we cannot allow any Minnesotan to be disenfranchised in this process, and now that we are in this new phase of the post-election proceedings, it's time for every valid vote to be counted fairly.

"Franken, Reid and the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate seem to be working hard to derail the legal process in Minnesota. Reid, who has earned the title of stumblebum-in-chief over his handling of the non-seating and then seating of Illinois Sen. Roland Burris, is further tarnishing the Senate majority with what appear to be heavy-handed tactics.

"Franken's eager participation in Reid's couplike stunt seems to contradict his campaign's earlier cry that "every vote be counted." That's precisely the aim of Coleman's lawsuit. There are thousands of votes in question, most of them absentee ballots. An outcome that leaves questions about those ballots in the minds of Minnesotans will taint whoever ultimately wins."
(Forum editorial: Franken, Reid tilt the table http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/228782/)

Last night's victory paves the way for the trial to begin on Monday. We need your continued support to help protect the rights of Minnesotans and determine the rightful winner of the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. Please click here to make a donation of $10, $25, $100 or more to show your support. With your help, we know that as he led on election night, Norm Coleman will be ahead again if this trial fairly allows each validly cast vote to be counted.

P.S.- - Keep checking www.colemanforsenate.com for the latest news on the election contest and for more information on how your contribution to our efforts is making a difference!
Team Coleman

Jan 20, 2009

Dear Friend,
Today marks an historic occasion for each and every American, from all backgrounds, all political philosophies and all walks of life. We all wish our new President well, and we will support him when we agree with him and be the voice of the loyal opposition when we do not.
Unfortunately, the kind of change that President Barack Obama brings to Washington is worlds apart from the kind of change that Al Franken is seeking here in Minnesota.
Barack Obama won a majority of our nation's votes fair and square.Al Franken had to change the rules of the game to overturn our victory.
Barack Obama was elected based on the principle of one person - one vote.Al Franken's lead exists because some votes were counted twice, while others weren't counted at all.
Franken's coordinated attempt to silence voices must not stand. But it might, unless I hear from you soon.
Click here now to contribute $15, $25, $35, $50, $100 or more - up to $2,300 per person - to the Coleman for Senate Recount Fund.
The amount you contribute is important, but even more critical is your immediate reply. In less than one week, a three-judge panel will begin to consider our legal challenge to Franken's outrageous power grab.
We can't be a day late or a dollar short in providing them with all the information they need to see that the latest results of the Canvassing Board are patently unconstitutional and inherently undemocratic. With George Soros raising millions for Franken's Recount Fund, I need your generous continued support.
Please let me hear from you soon. Can I count on you to go my website now to get the latest news on our legal challenge, and to support our recount fund with your best contribution?
Yours truly,Norm Coleman

El Paso's Low Crime Rate

Steve Sailer found a Great article about my city!! Oh, the Lithium!!! Of course, he's the author of the most excellent book - America's Half-Blood Prince that you can get here http://www.lulu.com/content/4576443 or here http://www.vdare.com/half-blood_prince/

El Paso's low crime rate

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/01/el-pasos-low.html

The NYT article "Two Sides of a Border: One Violent, One Peaceful" compares the low murder rate in El Paso to the carnage in Ciudad Juarez across the Rio Grande (which, when I crossed the bridge that figures in "No Country for Old Men" in 1980, cost me $0.02 each way). The newspaper mentions various theories, but the article should have mentioned that El Paso has long been famous for an anomalously low crime rate.
Here's an article entitled "The Texas Tranquilizer" from Time's archives, dated October 4, 1971:
By legend Texans are a grandiose breed with more than the natural share of megalomaniacs. But University of Texas Biochemist Earl B. Dawson thinks that he detects an uncommon pocket of psychological adjustment around El Paso. The reason, says Dawson, lies in the deep wells from which the city draws its water supply.
According to Dawson's studies of urine samples from 3,000 Texans, El Paso's water is heavily laced with lithium, a tranquilizing chemical widely used in the treatment of manic depression and other psychiatric disorders. He notes that Dallas, which has low lithium levels because it draws its water from surface supplies, has "about seven times more admissions to state mental hospitals than El Paso." But state mental health officials point out that the mental hospital closest to Dallas is 35 miles from the city, while the one nearest El Paso is 350 miles away—and the long distance could affect admission figures.
But FBI statistics show that while Dallas had 5,970 known crimes per 100,000 population last year, El Paso had 2,889 per 100,000. Dallas (pop. 844,000) had 242 murders, El Paso (pop. 323,000) only 13. Dr. Frederick Goodwin, an expert on lithium studies for the National Institute of Mental Health, doubts that "lithium has these magical properties in the population." Others are not so sure. If lithium does have anything to do with the relative peace in El Paso, what would it do for other cities like New York and Chicago?
I have no idea if Dawson's lithium theory panned out, but it's fun to recall something I heard about three decades ago when I went to Rice U. in Houston.By the way, I give reporter James C. McKinley a thumbs-up for using the dreaded V word correctly for once in describing a Mexican neighborhood:
Across the river, the once-vibrant streets of Juárez are dark and gloomy, as residents scurry for home. My recollection of my evening in Ciudad Juarez in 1980 was that the tourist section was, indeed, "vibrant" -- which, I insist, should only be used to denote a neighborhood with lots of loud live music coming out of the doors of bars (e.g., you can rightly call the French Quarter in New Orleans vibrant, but calling Van Nuys, CA "vibrant" just shows you can't think of anything else to say about it).

House Seat going to GOP?

Big hat tip to http://www.redstate.com/

NY Headed for Special Election?

Posted by Brian Faughnan (Profile)

Friday, January 23rd
Roll Call reports on the widely-anticipated announcement of Representative Kirsten Gillibrand’s elevation to the Senate, and the special election that is likely to follow. This looks like an excellent opportunity for a Republican pickup — as the district is reported to have a Republican advantage of roughly 3 points:
According to several political sources in upstate New York, state Sen. Betty Little (R) has begun talking to local GOP leaders about making the race.
But the Republicans could have an abundance of candidates, including Sandy Treadwell, a wealthy former New York GOP chairman who took 38 percent of the vote against Gillibrand in November. Treadwell spent almost $6 million of his own money on the race last year, and his personal wealth could give him an edge in a special election.
Former state Assembly Minority Leader John Faso (R), who was almost elected state comptroller in 2002 and was clobbered as the GOP nominee for governor in 2006, has been contemplating a political comeback and may see a race for Gillibrand’s seat as a way back in the political game.
Also mentioned is state Sen. Steven Saland (R). State legislators like Saland and Little would not have to sacrifice their seats to run in a special election.
The list of obvious potential Democratic contenders for the seat is shorter, though state Assemblyman Tim Gordon has been mentioned. Gordon, a member of the Independence Party, was elected to a GOP-leaning seat in 2006 with the support of Democrats. While he lives just outside of the 20th district, his legislative district overlaps with portions of the 20th.
It is also possible that some of the Democrats who were primary runners-up to now-Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) in the adjoining 21st district may try their luck in the 20th. Tracey Brooks, the ambitious former Clinton Senate aide who finished second to Tonko in the primary and is close to Gillibrand’s political team, is certain to be mentioned.
Another long-shot possibility for the Democrats is former star New York Rangers goalie Mike Richter, who owns a home in the Adirondack Mountains. Richter has pondered running for Congress in Connecticut during the past few election cycles.
I note that Roll Call fails to mention the possibility that Assembly Republican Leader Jim Tedisco will run. There are already reports that Tedisco is making calls to gauge support. What do we think of Little, Faso, Tedisco, Treadwell, et al? Feedback is welcome in the comment section.
Another thing to watch for in any special election is the extent to which it smokes out possible Republican candidates for 2010. If Peter King, Rick Lazio, and potentially Rudy Giuliani have an interest in seeking statewide office in the next cycle, expect them to work for the Republican candidate in New York’s 20th district.

So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause!

Very interesting take from Newsbusters!


'So This Is How Liberty Dies...With Thunderous Applause'

By Noel Sheppard (Bio Archive)
January 23, 2009

"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."
Such was fabulously stated by the fictional character Padme (Natalie Portman) in "Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith" as she watched Emperor Palpatine tell a cheering Senate that he had taken all power away from them to form a Galactic Empire (h/t NBer bradbenj5952).
As the film was released in May 2005 shortly after George W. Bush's second inauguration, there were many in the media who saw a parallel between the events depicted and what was going on in our nation.
A former Wall Street Journal editor asked "Is Bush a Sith Lord?" Years later, Hillary Clinton called Dick Cheney Darth Vader.
Yet, if you watch this scene now, given what transpired during the presidential campaign last year and the cheering masses at Tuesday's inauguration, mightn't this have been a rather prescient foreshadowing of events in the future (video embedded below the fold):
With the massive explosion in government control proposed by the new administration, and people gratefully applauding such, maybe George Lucas was predicting the future rather than commenting about the present.

If so, is Padme Sarah Palin...or Ann Coulter?

Regardless, a Google search of "Bush is Palpatine" produces 118,000 results. "Cheney is Darth Vader" garners almost 95,000.
What are the odds Obama-loving media members will ever compare him or Vice President Joe Biden to these two movie villains or any such nefarious fictional characters?
Seems highly unlikely, doesn't it?
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.

Our Struggle for the Soul of our Nation!

A very interesting analysis!!!

Our Struggle for the Soul of our Nation
http://thepublicdiscourse.com/printerfriendly.php?selectedarticle=2009.01.22.001.pdart
by Robert George
January 22, 2009
In remarks delivered yesterday at the Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life, Robert P. George reflected on the history of the pro-life movement and offered advice for its future.
Thirty-six years ago tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its infamous decision in Roe v. Wade and its companion case Doe v. Bolton. In the name of a generalized “right to privacy” allegedly implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, seven justices created a license to kill the unborn. These men probably had no idea that they were unleashing a struggle for the soul of the nation. Five had been appointed by Republican presidents—two by Eisenhower, three by Nixon. Four of these five were regarded as “conservative,” “law and order” judges: Warren E. Burger, Potter Stewart, Lewis F. Powell, and Harry Blackmun. All no doubt believed that legal abortion was a humane and enlightened policy, one that would ease the burdens of many women and girls and relieve the enormous cost to society of a high birth rate among indigent (often unmarried) women. They seemed blithely to assume that abortion would be easily integrated into the fabric of American social and political life. They were wrong on all counts. They were wrong about the Constitution. As William H. Rehnquist and Byron White, the two dissenting justices in the case, pointed out, it is absurd to claim that a right to feticide follows from the constitutional injunction that “no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” If the Constitution can be read to imply anything about abortion, it is that unborn human beings are, like everyone else, entitled to “the equal protection of the laws.” At a minimum, Roe and Doe were an outrageous usurpation of the constitutional authority of the people of the United States to shape law and policy through the institutions of representative government. The Roe justices were also wrong to imagine that legal abortion would prove to be enlightened or in the slightest respect humane. On the contrary, the policy imposed by the Court has proven to be an unmitigated disaster. In the thirty-six years since Roe and Doe, abortion has taken the lives of more than fifty million unborn victims—each a distinct, unique, precious human being. It has done immeasurable moral, psychological, and sometimes physical harm to women who are so very often, and in so many respects, truly abortion’s “secondary victims.” It has corrupted physicians and nurses by turning healers into killers. It has undermined the moral authority of the law by its injustice. It has abetted irresponsible—even predatory—male sexual behavior. Far from reducing the rate of out-of-wedlock births, particularly to poor women, illegitimacy has skyrocketed in the age of abortion. Now the abortion license has metastasized into widespread elite support for deadly embryo experimentation and even, in my home state of New Jersey, to the express legalization of the horrific and grisly practice of fetal farming—the creation of human beings by cloning or other processes for the purpose of harvesting their tissues and organs at any point up to birth for experimentation and transplantation. The justices were wrong, moreover, to suppose that America, as a nation, would learn to live with the abortion license. A notable effect of the Court’s rulings was to energize the grassroots pro-life movement that had come into being a few years earlier to resist legislative efforts to liberalize state abortion laws. In the beginning, the movement and its leadership were largely Catholic. The mainline Protestant churches, if they concerned themselves with the issue at all, positioned themselves on the pro-abortion side. At a decisive moment, however, the Evangelical community became fully activated in the cause. Today, a common commitment to defending the unborn is at the heart of an unprecedented Catholic-Evangelical alliance that extends beyond abortion to issues of sexuality and marriage, education, welfare, crime and prison policy, international human rights, and the place of religion in American public life. Great Evangelical leaders such as James Dobson and Charles Colson stand arm in arm with their Catholic brothers and sisters in defending the right to life of every human being, irrespective not only of race, sex, and ethnicity, but also of age, size, stage of development, and condition of dependency. It is this alliance that stands in the gap today in the fight against cloning and embryo-destructive biomedical research. Abortion and embryo-destructive research are at the heart of the divide between the nation’s major political parties. When Roe and Doe were decided, many Democratic Party politicians—and even some notable liberals—were outspokenly pro-life. Teddy Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, and Al Gore, for example, publicly proclaimed their commitment to defending the unborn against the violence of abortion. Soon, however, the number of pro-life Democrats began to dwindle and pro-life liberals became an endangered species. Some, including Kennedy, Jackson, Gephardt, and Gore, defected to the pro-abortion camp, evidently for political reasons. People of firmer conviction found themselves in many cases carried by the force of conscience out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican fold. Although pro-abortion Republicans are today more common than pro-life Democrats, and carry much more influence within their party, the Republican Party has been officially pro-life since Ronald Reagan won the presidential nomination in 1980. “Pro-choice” Republican presidential aspirants, such as California Governor Pete Wilson in 1992, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter in 1996, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani have failed miserably, and the pro-life majority in the Party has beaten back attempts to nominate individuals who are not clearly pro-life for the Vice Presidency. John McCain clearly wanted to select renegade Democrat Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate in 2008, but was prevented from doing so for one reason and one reason only: Lieberman’s pro-abortion record made him unacceptable to the base of the Republican Party. In recent years, pro-abortion Republicans have not even ventured token efforts to remove the strong and unequivocal pro-life plank in the Party’s platform. The Republican Party’s support for the unborn has brought into its ranks many disaffected rank-and-file Democrats, including a large number of Catholics and Evangelicals. I am one. Indeed, it overstates the matter only a bit to say that, as a result of the conflict of worldviews that began with abortion, the Republicans have become the party of the religiously engaged, while the Democrats have become the party of liberal secularists. Barack Obama is trying to win over religiously serious Catholics and Evangelicals, without altering in the slightest his support for abortion, including late-term and partial-birth abortions, the funding of abortion and embryo-destructive research with taxpayer dollars, the elimination of informed consent and parental notification laws, and the revocation of conscience and religious liberty protections for pro-life doctors and other healthcare workers and pharmacists. He will ultimately fail. We must see to it that he fails. In this project, Obama is being served and abetted by a small number of Catholic and Evangelical intellectuals and activists who have been peddling the claim that Obama, despite his pro-abortion extremism, is effectively pro-life because of his allegedly enlightened economic and social policies will reduce the number of abortions. This is delusional. The truth is that Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to serve in the United States Senate or seek the Office of President of the United States. The revocation of the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy, funding limitations on embryo-destructive research, informed consent laws, parental notification statutes—all of which Obama has promised to his pro-abortion base—will dramatically increase the number of abortions, and will do so for reasons that have been articulated by the abortion lobby itself. It is the pro-abortion side that tells us that the Hyde Amendment alone has resulted in 300,000 fewer abortions each year than would otherwise be performed—and that is why they so desperately want it to be repealed. Yet the putatively pro-life Obama apologists claim that the man who pledges to repeal it is going to reduce the number of abortions. Let me say it again: this is delusional. One great disappointment to the pro-life cause over the first three decades of the era of Roe V. Wade was the failure of Republican presidents from Nixon through George H.W. Bush to secure Supreme Court appointments for jurists who would reverse Roe. Of the six justices appointed by Republicans between 1973 and the retirement of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in 2004, only two—Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas—opposed Roe. However, George W. Bush’s two appointees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, give every indication of being true constitutionalist judges. They have voted to uphold the federal ban on partial-birth abortions, and I am hopeful that they will in due course vote to send Roe to the ash heap of history alongside moral and constitutional travesties such as Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson. Still, at least one more pro-abortion justice must be replaced if the regime of judicially imposed abortion-on-demand is to be dismantled. At best, the vote on the Supreme Court today is 5 to 4 in the wrong direction. Obviously, no Obama nominee will support overturning Roe, and this may be the greatest tragedy of the 2008 election. But let us not forget that three of the four constitutionalists on the Court—Justices Thomas, Roberts, and Alito—are its youngest members; and the fourth, Justice Scalia, at age seventy-two is far from elderly by Supreme Court standards and he remains, thank God, physically vigorous and mentally sharp. I have no doubt that Obama will have one or two vacancies to fill in the next four years, but there is a very good chance that the seats that will be vacated are seats already held by pro-abortion justices. What is likely to happen, then, is that the status quo will hold. So let us even now look forward to the 2012 election which will almost certainly be the decisive one when it comes to the Supreme Court and the future of Roe v. Wade. Of course, from the pro-life vantage point, success on the judicial front is only the prelude to the larger political struggle over abortion. If Roe is reversed, the result will be to return the matter to the domain of ordinary democratic deliberation for resolution by the state legislatures or the Congress. The burden will then be on the pro-life movement to win the struggle for the soul of the nation. We must, with God’s help, persuade our fellow citizens to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence by bringing the unborn fully within the protection of our laws. On this score, we have a marvelous model in the great anti-slavery crusader William Wilberforce. When he began his work against the monstrous evil of chattel slavery, the odds appeared to be long against abolition. He was attacked by partisans of the slave power as a zealot, a religious fanatic, and, most perversely, an enemy of freedom. He was, they said, imposing his religious values on others. If he didn’t like slavery, well, no one was forcing him to own slaves. He should mind his own business and stay out of other people’s affairs. Less vitriolic critics said that he was unrealistic. He was a dreamer. He was making impossible demands. Does any of this sound familiar? Wilberforce refused to be intimidated. He would allow nothing to deter him from his mission of Christian charity to free the slaves and end the practice of slavery. He was undaunted by the ridicule often heaped upon him. A more recent hero, Mother Teresa of Calcutta reminded us during her final visit to the United States that prayer is the most powerful weapon in the pro-life arsenal. Wilberforce would certainly agree. We must ask God’s forgiveness for our great national sin of abandoning the unborn to the crime of abortion and implore His guidance and assistance in recalling the nation to its founding ideals of liberty and justice for all. While not all pro-life citizens are in a position to be activists or exercise leadership in the social and political spheres, all are able to participate in the prayer effort, and no one’s prayers are superfluous. In addition to prayer and our political efforts, there is the obligation to reach out to pregnant women who are in need or who are subject for other reasons to pro-abortion pressures. The partisans of abortion, with the help of an overwhelmingly sympathetic and deeply biased news media, have portrayed people who oppose the killing of the unborn, whether by abortion or in embryo-destructive research, as heartless moralizers bent on oppressing women and impeding the progress of science. Nothing could be further from the truth. For decades, pro-life people—mostly women—have devoted themselves, often at great personal cost and in the face of many obstacles, to assisting their pregnant sisters in need. They have recognized that a truly just and humane understanding is one that recognizes the common dignity and mutual interests of mother and child. Ordinary pro-life individuals and families have worked and sacrificed to provide for the material, emotional, and spiritual needs of pregnant women in need—many of whom, it must be noted, are driven to contemplate abortion under pressure from boyfriends, husbands, family, and friends. Even women who have succumbed to the temptation to destroy their unborn children are not condemned or abandoned by the pro-life movement. Rather, they are offered forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing—no strings attached. At the same time, it is pro-life Americans who are leading the charge for ethical and therapeutically useful forms of stem cell research—research that does not compromise biomedical science by killing in the cause of healing. And those of us who are Christians must, in obedience to the command of Christ himself, love our enemies. We must pray for those who have brought the abortion license upon our nation and for those who today protect and sustain it. We must also pray for those who perform and profit from the taking of human life. Our love for them must be godly and ungrudging. We must never give up on its power to transform. Will we achieve our goal of establishing justice for the unborn? Will abortion finally go the way of slavery? Dare we hope that the killing of the unborn can be made not only unlawful but for most people unthinkable? Of course, it is not given to us to know just how much we will, in the end, be able to achieve. Despite the triumph of the pro-abortion party in the recent elections, there is no good reason to believe that our efforts in the domain of law and policy are futile or are doomed to fail. Yet we have no guarantee of their success. As the great Fr. Richard John Neuhaus so often said: for us, there is only the trying. The rest is God’s business, not ours. Yet we are given to know that in trying, we fulfill God’s commands, and build up His kingdom. And we know this: our prayers, political and educational efforts, and outreach to pregnant women in need have, by God’s mercy, already saved countless precious lives. We must not lose sight of this fact in our grief at the loss of so many others due to the injustice of our laws and the coldness of so many hearts toward abortion’s tiny victims. Reflecting on the carnage of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address concluded that “the great scourge of war” had been brought upon both North and South as punishment for the national sin of slavery. Perhaps God saw fit to let the nation survive despite that sin because of the sincere, selfless, and prayerful efforts of the enemies of slavery to end that monstrous evil. Thanks be to God, the conflict over abortion has not produced, and will not produce, a civil war. Still, we must not forget that we are a people under judgment. We are called to account for the national sin of abortion. Like Thomas Jefferson reflecting on the evil of slavery—an evil in which he was personally complicit—we must “tremble for our country when we consider that God is just.” Like Abraham Lincoln, whom President Obama invokes but does not emulate, we must pray that God, in His mercy, will not abandon us, but will rather restore us to the true and lofty moral ideals of our founding. Even at this dark hour for our movement, let us here highly resolve to hasten the day when this nation, under God, will be truly and fully and finally dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.

On this Day, We Remember!

On This Day, We Remember.
Posted by Leon H. Wolf (Profile)
Thursday, January 22nd at 8:24AM EST 48 Comments

Click for relevent Picture http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2009/01/22/on-this-day-we-remember/

The primary function of any just government is to prevent and punish the taking of innocent human life. To but state the proposition is to prove it. Nevertheless, 36 years ago today, in the tradition of Scott v. Sanford, the Supreme Court of the United States took it upon themselves to declare that a certain class of humans were not really humans at all. In Dred Scott, the Supreme Court declared that certain humans were not humans and therefore could be enslaved. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court declared that certain humans were not humans and therefore not entitled to have government prevent or punish their unjust killing. Worse, that the government was constitutionally prevented from preventing or punishing their unjust killing.
Almost two generations later, this constitutional and moral atrocity has resulted in the deaths of almost 50 million humans, killed without recourse under the shelter of judicial fiat because of the happenstance of their location. In many respects, it would be easy for the American consciousness to forget these losses; after all, the very reason they are unprotected by the law is that they are small and contained entirely within another human. And, indeed, in Europe and many other places the conversation has passed the unborn by and they die unlamented by any organized movement that seeks justice and protection for them. Yet something different exists within the American moral character which prevents us from forgetting, and from moving on. And so, year after year on this day, we gather in Washington to remember those who have died, to contemplate the enormity of the task before us, and to remind the Supreme Court that our voices will not be excluded from the democratic process forever.
Over the years, our accomplishments have been significant, if inadequate. We have generated widespread support for incremental restrictions on abortion, and have seen societal attitudes on abortion gradually shift towards restriction rather than permission. As ultrasound technology becomes more ubiquitous and advanced, the public has become gradually more accepting of the undeniable truth that unborn children are just that: children. Smaller, perhaps. Less developed, certainly. Hidden to the naked eye, without a doubt. But a child nonetheless. Once that realization hits home, only the blackest of souls will happily embrace the legal killing of children.
This year, however, the pro-life movement faces a unique challenge. This year, our march will not be addressed by a friendly President. In fact, our country has just inaugurated the most fervent supporter of the legalized killing of children who has ever occupied the White House. He has campaigned early and often on rolling back every restriction on abortion that has ever been passed. Already in the dustbin are a number of Bush’s executive orders respecting human life. Within moments of Obama’s inauguration, the whitehouse.gov site had been forcibly scrubbed of all reference to pro-life rhetoric and replaced with language indicating fervent support for legalized abortion at all stages and without restrictions.

Helping Babies into this world!!

Big hat tip to Hugh Hewitt

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Helping Babies Into The World, And Why We Should
Posted by: Hugh Hewitt
The arrival of President Obama --the most pro-abortion rights president ever-- means that for the next few years pro-life activists can expect very few legislative or exectuive banch victories, and whether the current Supreme Court even considers cases central to the issue remains to be seen.But there is a lot to be done at the level of helping moms deliver healthy babies, as this post on Option Line from Between Two Worlds reveals.
Here as well is an address by Princeton Professor Robert George on the abortion debate and the obligations of pro-life activists even in an era of greatly reduced federal influence.

Two key paragraphs:
Of course, it is not given to us to know just how much we will, in the end, be able to achieve. Despite the triumph of the pro-abortion party in the recent elections, there is no good reason to believe that our efforts in the domain of law and policy are futile or are doomed to fail. Yet we have no guarantee of their success. As the great Fr. Richard John Neuhaus so often said: for us, there is only the trying. The rest is God’s business, not ours. Yet we are given to know that in trying, we fulfill God’s commands, and build up His kingdom. And we know this: our prayers, political and educational efforts, and outreach to pregnant women in need have, by God’s mercy, already saved countless precious lives. We must not lose sight of this fact in our grief at the loss of so many others due to the injustice of our laws and the coldness of so many hearts toward abortion’s tiny victims.

Is Obama the Messiah?

Is Obama the Messiah? Read this article and find out!

The Messiah Question
A commentary by Randy Stiver

On February 18, 2008 Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Claire Hoffman posted a blog on Newsweek magazine's "Under God" religious section titled: Is Obama a (or the) Messiah?
The blog began: "Is Obama the Messiah? People are asking these days and it's not so hard to understand why: the desperate throngs, the tears, the great awakening of a slumbering demographic…The Messiah question is a loud one coming from all corners."
Ms. Hoffman is not the only reporter to address the issue. In June of 2008 columnist Jonah Goldberg said that a simple Google search would pop up nearly 3.5 million hits for the words "Messiah" and "Obama."
Unfortunately, across America conservatives and liberals have mused or mocked the notion of a messianic president. Many left-leaning media figures populated the electronic waves with their transfixion on the president-messiah concept. No doubt observers around the world also participated, though probably less vociferously.
The meaning of "messiah"
"Messiah" is rooted in the Hebrew language, meaning "anointed one," the savior-deliverer of the Israelites. After the twelve tribes of Israel split into two nations in 930 BC—the House of Israel in the north and the House of Judah in the south—the Jews began anticipating a messiah to deliver them from their enemies.
Over a millennium later, Christianity grew into a world religion by believing that Jesus of Nazareth is in fact the Messiah of all mankind. The Jews however did not view Him as such, so they continue to anticipate the arrival of the one and great Messiah.
In popular culture "messiah" denotes one who will save and deliver a nation or tribe from its enemies, troubles and discouragement, making them into a great—or the greatest—people on earth.
Messiah or dictator?
Unfortunately, that desire when misguided has propelled to power many unscrupulous rulers. Typically, the messiah-like leaders of the modern era have been among the world's worst dictators. Characteristically such a messianic figure:
Viewed himself as his nation's "anticipated one."
Represented himself as the only leader able to solve his nation's problems.
Insisted on being regarded as the absolute greatest person in his nation.
Exalted himself as the sole source of authority to his people.
Governed by his rules only—not by the rule of law.
Demanded absolute loyalty—under pain of prison or death.
Recruited his blindly loyal supporters to enforce his whims.
Claimed to be the only one able to make his people great—which usually included an attempt to pretty much take over the world.
Had his picture or a statue prominently displayed wherever he ruled.
You know of these modern messianic dictators: Adolf Hitler in Germany, Josef Stalin in Soviet Russia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Mao Tse-tung in China to name a few. Some did some good for some people—but at great sacrifice for so many others.
True messiahs they were not! Jesus Christ spoke of such leaders.
Rulers of the gentiles
Technically, "gentiles" in the Bible refers to "the nations" of people who are not Israelites. Sometimes Jesus' disciples argued with unbiblical, gentile-like logic about their future roles under Him. "But Jesus called them to Himself and said, 'You know that the Gentiles lord it over them [often tyrannizing their subjects], and those who are great exercise authority [as dictators] over them'" (Matthew 20:25).
Jesus' bottom line is: Messiah-complex leadership by mere humans is not and never has been of God. He responded plainly, "It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:26-28, New Revised Standard Version).
Answer to the Messiah question
Should we look for a messiah from the rank and file of planet earth? Not so, my friends. Then who is the true Messiah, the actual Savior-Deliverer, and how will He lead His people—all people?
The politics of the true Messiah—Jesus Christ—is the service-to-others "politics" of the future Kingdom of God, not the paltry, tawdry, self-serving leadership that all too often crops up as part of political infighting of this world.
Christ alone is the "Anointed One." Nobody else can be the Messiah, just Him!
So what does the messiah question mean for you? Like with His first disciples, Jesus Christ desires for you to participate in His quality service to others. Learn how that can become a reality. Simply request or download our free booklet: Jesus Christ, the Real Story.


Related Resources
Was Jesus Christ the Messiah? What was Jesus Christ's purpose? Why did He come to earth? Why will He come again? The answers to these questions become evident when we examine the concept of the Messiah.
What Do 'Messiah' and 'Jesus Christ' Mean? The term Christ is an English derivative of the New Testament Greek word christos, which means "anointed." The equivalent Hebrew word in the Old Testament is mashiach. This term is transliterated in the King James New Testament as messias (John 1:41; 4:25), a word that has come down into modern English, including many Bible versions, as "messiah." Both Christ and Messiah mean "anointed" or "anointed one."
The Messiah's Misunderstood Mission Jesus performed miracles and signs. He healed the sick, raised the dead, quelled storms of nature, fed the multitudes and exercised absolute authority over the spirit world—yet He wasn't accepted as Israel's Messiah.