He’s been saying this out on the stump for a long time. Guess he means it. Wonder if he’ll issue all of them some “brown shirts”?

Yavol mein commandant!

CHANGE? Oh ya betcha!

Fred Thompson does not mince words — He’s not at all impressed with the vacationing Barack Obama‘s reponse to the Russian invasion of sovereign, democratic Georgia:

While this [Russia/Georgia] crisis plays out we should also note that these events give evidence of a larger reality: the next American President is going to face an international landscape that is more difficult and treacherous than we have ever faced. By now most Americans appreciate the dangers of international terrorism and the fact that a small number of people can wreck unimaginable havoc upon our country and our people if they get their hands on the right kinds of weaponry. What is less understood is that some of the older, traditional kinds of threats are still very much with us, only heightened because of the increasing availability of nuclear weapons and other weapon technologies.

{…}

This is no time to elect a president whose international experience is limited to speaking to adoring European crowds who want to see the United States retreat from the world … until they require our help in the next crisis that threatens them.

It has been instructive for the country to see the candidates’ reaction to the equivalent of Hillary Clinton’s 3 a.m. phone call. While he was vacationing in Hawaii, Barack Obama’s advisors scrambled into action and initially came up with the expected liberal bromides which equated the actions of Russia and Georgia and only ratcheted up the rhetoric when they began to actually understand what was happening.

It wasn’t that difficult for John McCain. For him Georgia was another little-known part of the world, whose leaders and history he is familiar with. And long before this Georgian crisis, he’s had the correct read on Russia, just as he’s had the right read on what we needed to do in Iraq.

This crisis half a world away confirms what I’ve been saying for a while: This election cycle, the traffic in the world is very heavy …and dangerous; it’s no time to give a kid with barely a learner’s permit the keys to the car.

Go and read it all. Now, who do you really want answering thost 3:00 am calls?

Technorati Tags: Fred Thompson, Barack Obama, Russian invasion, Georgia

Watch as Senator Mitch McConnell, (R) Kentucky, proposes that allowance for off-shore drilling be triggered at $4.50, $5, $7.50 and finally at $10 per gallon price of gasoline — and the Democrats objections overriding his requests.

Hey America, even if you have to fork over 10 George Washingtons (nope, doesn’t look like Obama by the way) for a gallon of go juice for the family jalopy, those “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet” congressional Dem-wits don’t want to give you any relief. But, is their stance even a little bit sound, even on an environmental level? Nope, Nada, Ain’t NO way Jose! — Charles Krauthammer elaborates:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Outer Continental Shelf. She won’t even allow it to come to a vote. With $4 gas having massively shifted public opinion in favor of domestic production, she wants to protect her Democratic members from having to cast an anti-drilling election-year vote. Moreover, given the public mood, she might even lose. This cannot be permitted. Why? Because as she explained to Politico: “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet.”

A lovely sentiment. But has Pelosi actually thought through the moratorium’s actual effects on the planet?

Consider: 25 years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. petroleum was produced domestically. Today it’s 25 percent. From its peak in 1970, U.S. production has declined a staggering 47 percent. The world consumes 86 million barrels a day; the United States, roughly 20 million. We need the stuff to run our cars and planes and economy. Where does it come from?

Places like Nigeria where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills, and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population — which leads to more spills and explosions. Just this week, two Royal Dutch Shell pipelines had to be shut down because bombings by local militants were causing leaks into the ground.

Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico, where deep-sea U.S. oil rigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill.

The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling — essentially drilling down, then sideways — allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the U.S. has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet.

Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic?

The net environmental effect of Pelosi’s no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world — thereby increasing net planetary damage.

{…}

They [the Dem-wit Democrats] seem blissfully unaware that the argument for their drill-there-not-here policy collapses on its own environmental terms. [Emph. mine]

[h/t: Michelle Malkin]The Democrats are sure good at NIMBY. Remember RFK and his uncle Teddy Kennedy and the fight to keep wind turbines out of their precious beach-front sight lines, even though you couldn’t even see ‘em from his compound? Yeah, let’s save good ol’ Gaia, at least that part o’ her that we can see from the windows at Tiffany’s. Oh ya betcha! That’s some hard-core environmental hair-growin’ and planet-savin’ going on — sho’ ‘nuf. But, forget these schmoes — Hugh Hewitt has a plan:

Shut down the government by blocking the appropriation’s bill, which will no undoubtedly contain a continuation of the off-shore drilling ban and let the public know how those Dem-wits really feel!

John Hawkins correctly notes that the ban on offshore drilling on the outer continental shelf expires at the end of the fiscal year. If the GOP refuses to allow an appropriations bill with the ban through the Congress, the ban will expire even as the government shuts down.
{…}
Obama opposes outer continental shelf drilling. Pelosi opposes outer continental shelf drilling. Reid opposes outer continental shelf drilling.

But majorities in both houses of Congress and John McCain support outer continental shelf drilling, as do large majorities of Americans.

After the war and judges, energy is the most important issue in the fall, and the GOP should keep a clear focus on the Democrats indifference to the pain at the pump spreading throughout the country.
{…}
But if the plans are laid now and explanations given over and over again of why a showdown and a shutdown are coming –because we have to bring new domestic supllies of oit to market– the GOP can win this confrontation and get the drilling ban lifted.

In the meantime, the Department of the Interior should prepare to start issuing leases for the newly opened areas the moment the ban is off. Secretary Kempthorne hemmed and hawed when I asked him about this, but President Bush and his team should direct DOI to be ready to go.[Emph. mine]

As Michell Malkin notes, even Californians (yeah, us nut jobs out here on the Left Coast!) are beginning to see the big picture.

See what happens when you lead?

It took the Beltway GOP long enough to get in front of the issue, but now it’s paying off.

No need for “rebranding” or “re-imaging” or moving to the left. Just moving ahead in the Right direction.

Still, as gasoline and heating oil prices continue to hover at $4 per gallon or rise further, and with food prices skyrocketing from increasing transportation costs, let all the up-for-a-vote Representatives and Senators that are against drilling have to face the music back home.

“Gee, we sure are sorry that lil’ Jimmy and lil’ Suzie aren’t gettin’ three squares a day because you have to pay for fuel to drive to work, or that their lil’ fingers and toes have turned that funky blue-black color — you ever heard of turning up the heat? — oh, sorry ’bout those heating oil and natural gas prices, but hey you know, we gotta concentrate on what’s really important here!”

[We're] trying to save the planet; [T]rying to save the planet.”

Yeah — right! Gaia don’t vote! Tell that to someone who cares . . .

Technorati Tags: Senator Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, anti-drilling, off-shore drilling ban, outer continental shelf drilling

Hey lefties — don’t break into my house!

From Breitbart:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes, the justices’ first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court’s 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms restrictions intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual’s right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by “the historical narrative” both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home,” Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington’s requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns.

Wow! I wasn’t expecting that . . . of course, the dissenting 4 justices give you a strong bitter taste of what’s to come if Obama is elected and selects the next several justices for our highest courts.

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

{…}

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, “In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.”

You get that last one? “[No right] to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.” I guess only the murderous thugs and hardened gang members get to play with the boom sticks huh? These liberal justices live in a La La Land in their own minds — dreaming about that always close Utopia where “We all just get along.” Reality is such a bummer . . .

For the S.C.O.T.U.S. alone, it’s imperative that John McCain become our next president!

Technorati Tags: Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice John Paul Stevens, Justice Stephen Breyer, Second Amendment

As usual, the Anchoress hits the proverbial nail on its head and drives the sucker home with a single blow! This time its her reaction to the growing sentiment in some legal circles that we here in the United States might need to reevaluate our First Amendment rights to Free Speech and become more like Europe, or Canada — where much of admittedly disgusting and hurtful expression of ideas has become civilly liable, or even criminal, much to their detriment IMHO.

Free speech is part of what makes America great, and singular. It is what leaves America unbent when the rest of the world is cowering. Americans will die for freedom – for the freedom to say what they like, be who they are and to bend the knee only if they choose to do so, and then (usually) before no one but the Creator.

And they’ll die helping to bring that sort of freedom to others.

You don’t surrender your right to speak freely in some misbegotten effort to legislate “niceness.” To do that is to admit you are too frightened to be free.

A lot of disturbing trends in our country (I’m especially thinking of the rise of the Obamessiah!) are the result of too many of our country’s men and women grown boys and grown girls being “too frightened to be free”. What a shameful outcome from those that followed the Greatest Generation, who proved many times over that they were more than brave enough to fight, and die, for freedom. Guess we’re too busy watchin’ Oprah or somethin’ in HD to care, too concerned that we might chip a nail. Pity — pathetic! Yep lady, you’re right.

Wusses.

Technorati Tags: First Amendment, Free Speech

I spend a lot of time dreading this fall’s elections, mostly because I see so much hand wringing on the GOP side as they look with trepidation at almost definite losses in the House and Senate races. It’s frustrating, and according to Dafydd over at Big Lizards fixable, if the Grand Old Party would get together and actually stand for something again, like for a real, sparkling, accept-no-excuses American Future.

Boldness is what we need now: Instead of accepting our political dhimmitude at the hands of Majority Leader Harry “Pinky” Reid (D-Caesar’s Palace, 85%) and Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 93%, not counting missed votes), we must risk everything on a real campaign to take back the Congress.

The GOP needs a new national strategy, similar in some ways to the Contract With America in 1994; but that contract was entirely procedural and inside-baseball. What we need today is a substantive national strategy.

Obama has his “American Moment” speech; fine. But for those of us who want America to last more than a moment, let’s have a strategy based around the theme, Vote For an American Future:

1 – Vote for American energy for America and our friends

America is an energy nation: We use a lot, but we have a lot more reserves than we’re allowed by law to tap.

We need to drill for oil everywhere on American territory where oil is to be found, as well as in international waters; but we’ll use American high-technology to drill in an environmentally safe and sound way.

{…}

2 – Vote for an economy of wealth, not illth

A simple rule that applies universally: You cannot tax yourself into prosperity. We need some form of taxation to pay for things we need; but we don’t need taxes to “level the playing field” by crippling successful people so that life’s losers don’t feel so bad.

{…}

3 – Vote for security, not surrender

We stand at a tipping point of history: We have it in our power to destroy the Iran/al-Qaeda axis and secure not just America but the West for decades. But we need to mobilize more than just our military, brilliant as it is. This existential struggle cannot be won by bullets and bombs alone.

We need to bring together defense, diplomacy, intelligence, and the ideology of freedom in this world-wide conflict. Americans instinctively distrust “nation building;” but that makes us ideal stewards to help failed states in the “non-integrated gap” to rebuild their own nations — with our support and know-how.

We must completely rebuild our intelligence agencies from the ground up.

{…}

4 – Vote for the ownership society

So-called “entitlements” are bleeding us dry. Out of the $3 trillion budget, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security alone account for nearly 50% of spending. This is completely unsustainable; either we find a long-term solution to out of control entitlement programs, or else we give up on America.

The problem is right in the name: “Entitlement” programs are services and money that we’ve told citizens they’re “entitled” to extract from the government, no matter how fiscally catastrophic that is. The amount we pay each recipient increases by more than inflation every year, while the number of recipients grow as we all live longer, due to better medical care, and lead healthier lives. Add those together, and you have a prescription for disaster.

{…}

5 – Vote for Capitalism, not crony liberalism and corruption

Earmarks are the corruption of ruling elite; they’re personal budget items stuffed into legislation in the dead of night, often without any other senator or representative even seeing them. They pour money into the pockets of special interests, to the tune of hundreds of thousands, millions, and sometimes even tens of millions of dollars.

The recipient then kicks back some of that money to the reelection campaign of the member who pushed through the earmark. Earmarks as close as you can get to out and out bribery without being arrested.

{…}

E pluribus unum

Democrats have controlled Congress for the past two years, and they had significant veto power even before the 2006 elections.

{…}

The only plan the Democrats have for growing the economy is to tax us all to death.
It shouldn’t be too hard to show voters that we Republicans have a better plan than “taxicide.”

Sure sounds better than sitting in the corner doin’ the lip diddle and thinkin’ “Woe is me!” — which is what I see far too much of going on with our GOP “leaders”.

As I often say, there’s lot’s o’ good thinkin’ within those ellipses — so get, go and read it all!

Technorati Tags: American Moment