Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

"A congo line of malcontents known as the Democratic Convention" Mark Levin


Where is all the hatred? Where is the anti-Americanism? Where is the Dean Scream?

Hollywood has chipped in. It seems the Democrats have cleaned themselves up and are trying to cast themselves as regular, patriotic, God-fearing Americans. What an act !!

And the Oscar goes to:

Ted Kennedy: After years of drunken stupidness. Manslaugher. Leaving the scene of a crime. Rape accomplice and exposing himself in a restaurant, he puts on an oscar worthy performance as an aging grandfather whose only crime is caring a little too much. We'll wait for the Kopechne family to weigh in.

Nancy Pelosi: A life-long advocate of gay rights and abortion on-demand, she has been cast as a discerning Catholic who has agonized over the issue of when life begins. Most people bought it, but the Pope, the Cardinal of Denver and the Cardinal of N.Y. panned her performance.

Michelle Obama: She decided she LOVES America. After calling America a mean country and never being proud of America until a few months ago....she has decided that she was wrong and she really loves her country. I would give the edge to Michelle for playing such a stretch role.

Stand-by. The Sequel is tonight.


"I called up my friend LeRoy on the phone
I said, Buddy, I'm afraid to be alone
'Cause I got some weird ideas in my head
About things to do in Denver when you're dead" Warren Zevon

Submitted by D. B. Jackson

Thud !! Fizz !! Obama picks a running mate

The question is, does Biden add so much clout to the ticket that it is worth the 'shouldn't the ticket be the other way around' debate that is inevitable? Is he worth the Hillary and Hillary supporter backlash?

Each day that goes by, Obama looks less like a viable presidential candidate and more like a glib, cocky, substance-free (the other substance) first term senator. The choice of Biden was a safe and predictable choice. One wonders what the downside of the Evan Bayh or Hillary Clinton options were; from Barack and Michelle's standpoint.

But, in any case, here we go.

Biden brings good experience and a solid liberal voting record - albeit not left wing reactionary like the top of the ticket. He believes in big government, high taxes, weak foreign policy and activist judges...but he is on the moderate to conservative side of the current 'woodstock attendee' democratic party.

He brings strong debating skills, a sense of humor and some charm.

He also is prone to gaffes like no other candidate. He had to leave the 1988 race after it was determined he had plagorized a speech by U.K. Socialist Neil Kinnock. He left the current race shortly after calling Obama the first clean and articulate black presidential candidate (take that Al and Jesse !!). For the party that once claimed JFK and Harry Truman as members, but since brought into the toilet by Bill Clinton, these are barely venial sins.

He'll be well coached and rehearsed...but I don't expect him to avoid a good gaffe or two with that many microphones and that many reporters following him around. I'm looking forward to it.

Personally, I am being very generous to Biden, relative to my personal feelings. I actually think that he is an arrogant and condescending SOB who thinks he is the smartest person in the room. His questioning during senatorial hearings of judges or generals are among the most vicious and sarcastic that I have ever heard. But that is just me...

Was it a good choice for Obama? Maybe. All choices had their downsides. The Clinton impact is his biggest risk. And Biden isn't bringing a state with him. Delaware is already Dem - and small. But overall, I think Obama and Biden can present an attractive ticket for the left-wing and for the mindless undecideds.

"In the words of Joe Biden 'We have nothing to fear, but fear itself'" Alf 1987

Submitted by D. B. Jackson

Hillary: The Game Changer?

Since we are probably on the eve of finding out who Barack Obama’s running mate will be, I thought I would engage in a little “what-if.” The conventional wisdom has been that, while Hillary Clinton would bring positives to Barack Obama’s campaign, especially in terms of attraction to women, her negatives would far outweigh those advantages.

The negatives are as follows:

Hillary is a very polarizing figure. She is loved by many but hated by many more.

Hillary has the potential to mobilize the Republican base like McCain never could. Many conservatives are ambivalent about McCain. That ambivalence was not eased by his flirtation with pro-choice candidates for Vice President. However, if you throw Hillary Clinton into the mix, Republicans will salivate at the opportunity to vote against another Clinton.

Trust. Could Barack Obama ever trust the Clintons? The short answer is no and Obama knows that. They still are concerned that the Clintons will take over the convention next week to make it about them (and incidentally, to sabotage Obama). Despite that mistrust, Obama, like many Democrats, fear the Clintons more than they hate them. That is shown by the degree to which Obama turned the convention over to them. A Vice President is in place to promote the President’s agenda. Obama could never trust the Clinton’s to put the interests of his administration over their personal interests.

These are industrial strength negatives.

However, I think it is still very possible that Obama will chose Hillary as his running mate. As long as Obama was running high in the polls and seemed to be the presumptive (key word) winner, he had no need of the Clintons. Add to that the bad blood that developed during the primaries and you have an Obama who wants nothing to do with Hillary or her husband. However, in politics, last month can be ancient history. Obama is no longer the heir-apparent to the mantle of the Presidency. His resume has been weighed in the balances by many people and found wanting.

John McCain’s attacks have struck home and shown Barack Obama for what he is, a well-spoken candidate with a lot of vague promises and virtually no experience with which to back it up. Obama's poll numbers are coming down and his negatives are rising. McCain’s attacks have forced Obama to counterattack and that is not to Obama’s favor because it undermines his only strength…the positive image he has developed. In short, the trends are running against Obama and he knows it. He needs something, or someone, to change the game. That someone could be Hillary Clinton.

Hillary would infuse new excitement into Obama’s campaign. Her presence would do much to heal the rift that still remains between her supporters and Obama's. To top it off, you would have the Clintons spitting out the tent instead of into it, thus following Sun-tzu's dictum, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

I also suspect that most Republican strategists would much rather run against Obama-Bayh or Obama-Biden than Obama-Clinton. Hillary's addition to the campaign has the potential to "flip the field" on McCain just as he is gaining traction.

I admit that this is extreme speculation...so much so that I'm not even predicting this will happen. However, I would not be surprised either.

We'll all wait and see.

--Submitted by B. Bryant

The Empire Strikes Back

Twenty years after the cold war officially ended, the Russians have reminded us why Ronald Reagan called them the ‘Evil Empire.’ Putin has reminded us that absolute power corrupts and Obama has reminded us why Lenin called him and his ilk, ’useful idiots.’

President Bush has, as he always does in matters of foreign policy, risen to the occasion and drew a very fine line in the sand over the Russian-Georgian conflict. It is uncomfortable to hear the strong rhetoric again, after we have staked much hope on U.S. and Russian cooperation.. Perhaps we wanted it more than the facts warranted it, but, in this world of conflicts, it would have been good to end the cold war; the conflict and the rhetoric.

Is Russia back? Did it ever leave? Is this part of some longer term strategic move to assemble some key pieces of the old USSR ? We’d like to believe that this is an isolated incident and that Russia had no choice but to act the way it did. The facts do not support this.

What appears to make John McCain and George Bush different than any Democrat in matters of complex and dangerous foreign policy is their willingness to make tough decisions and see the world for what it is or what it might be…not what we want it to be. People are complex agents with motives that are unclear. The worst case scenario must always be discussed, whether it be in matters of the war against terror or the anti-social moves of our ‘allies.’ The Democrats prefer to handle in a way that would best be suited for handling a lawn clipping dispute with a neighbor. Strong language, sanctions and war are not in their arsenal.

A few years ago, I was watching Saving Private Ryan with my kids. During the movie and during the most intense fighting seen, I told my kids…see, this is what happens when Democrats get in power. Perhaps I was being a little unfair to FDR, but I would maintain that any conflict that gets to the point of a D-Day like invasion and the dropping of atom bombs has two or three years of gross mismanagement all over it. We can’t let situations get to this point. We can’t let the world misbehave. When a country breaks its treaties and acts hostilely toward its neighbors, there has to be a rapid and meaningful response…first diplomatically, then militarily.

The Europeans might shrink at the challenge…but we must recognize that our boys will have to pick up the pieces.

McCain gets it.

Submitted by D. B. Jackson

Buchanan's "A Catholic Case Against Barack"

In an article this week on the Human Events site, Pat Buchanan makes an airtight case for why no Catholic or evangelical (indeed, no humane person) should support Barack Obama. Buchanan cites Obama's A+ rating with both NARAL and Planned Parenthood as well as his work in the Illinois legislature to kill a bill to protect children who had survived an attempted abortion. Buchanan's article should be read by all thinking persons before they vote.

His most damning quote is: "How can a man who purports to be a Christian justify this?"

A Catholic Case Against Barack
Patrick Buchanan

In the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama rolled up more than 90 percent of the African-American vote. Among Catholics, he lost by 40 points. The cool liberal Harvard Law grad was not a good fit for the socially conservative ethnics of Altoona, Aliquippa and Johnstown.

But if Barack had a problem with Catholics then, he has a far higher hurdle to surmount in the fall, with those millions of Catholics who still take their faith and moral code seriously.

For not only is Barack the most pro-abortion member of the Senate, with his straight A+ report card from the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood. He supports the late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion, where the baby's skull is stabbed with scissors in the birth canal and the brains are sucked out to end its life swiftly and ease passage of the corpse into the pan.

Partial-birth abortion, said the late Sen. Pat Moynihan, "comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary."

Yet, when Congress was voting to ban this terrible form of death for a mature fetus, Michelle Obama was signing fundraising letters pledging that, if elected, Barack would be "tireless" in keeping legal this "legitimate medical procedure."

And Barack did not let the militants down. When the Supreme Court upheld the congressional ban on this barbaric procedure, Barack denounced the court for denying "equal rights for women."

As David Freddoso reports in his new best-seller, "The Case Against Barack Obama," the Illinois senator goes further than any U.S. senator has dared go in defending what John Paul II called the "culture of death."

Thrice in the Illinois legislature, Obama helped block a bill that was designed solely to protect the life of infants already born, and outside the womb, who had miraculously survived the attempt to kill them during an abortion. Thrice, Obama voted to let doctors and nurses allow these tiny human beings die of neglect and be tossed out with the medical waste.

How can a man who purports to be a Christian justify this?

If, as its advocates contend, abortion has to remain legal to protect the life and health, mental and physical, of the mother, how is a mother's life or health in the least threatened by a baby no longer inside her -- but lying on a table or in a pan fighting for life and breath?

How is it essential for the life or health of a woman that her baby, who somehow survived the horrible ordeal of abortion, be left to die or put to death? Yet, that is what Obama voted for, thrice, in the Illinois Senate.

When a bill almost identical to the one Barack fought in Illinois, the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, came to the floor of the U.S. Senate in 2001, the vote was 98 to 0 in favor. Barbara Boxer, the most pro-abortion member of the Senate before Barack came, spoke out on its behalf:

"Of course, we believe everyone should deserve the protection of this bill. ... Who could be more vulnerable than a newborn baby? So, of course, we agree with that. ... We join with an 'aye' vote on this. I hope it will, in fact, be unanimous."

Obama says he opposed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act because he feared it might imperil Roe v. Wade. But if Roe v. Wade did allow infanticide or murder, which is what letting a tiny baby die of neglect or killing it outright amounts to, why would he not want that court decision reviewed and amended to outlaw infanticide?

Is the right to an abortion so sacrosanct to Obama that killing by neglect or snuffing out of the life of tiny babies outside the womb must be protected if necessary to preserve that right?
Obama is an abortion absolutist. "I could find no instance in his entire career," writes Freddoso, "in which he voted for any regulation or restriction on the practice of abortion."

In 2007, Barack pledged that, in his first act as president, he will sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would cancel every federal, state or local regulation or restriction on abortion. The National Organization for Women says it would abolish all restrictions on government funding of abortion.

What we once called God's Country would become the nation on earth most zealously committed to an unrestricted right of abortion from conception to birth.

Before any devout Catholic, Evangelical Christian or Orthodox Jew votes for Obama, he or she might spend 15 minutes in Chapter 10 of Freddoso's "Case Against Barack." For if, as Catholics believe, abortion is the killing of an unborn child, and participation in an abortion entails automatic excommunication, how can a good Catholic support a candidate who will appoint justices to make Roe v. Wade eternal and eliminate all restrictions on a practice Catholics legislators have fought for three decades to curtail?

And which Catholic priests and prelates will it be who give invocations at Obama rallies, even as Mother Church fights to save the lives of unborn children whom Obama believes have no right to life and no rights at all?

--Submitted by B. Bryant

The Return of the Soviets: Lessons in Responsiveness

Most of us know what has transpired in Georgia recently.

What many of the US citizens don't realize, partly because the majority of the country is absorbed in the Olympics (or any other entertainment that helps citizens avoid real world issues), is that we just saw a real, live test of our presidential candidates' capabilities in foreign affairs. Real. Live. Not staged, not set before a camera with scripts and props... a real-life issue, in real-time.

What did we see?

John McCain:

"We must remind Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability, and peace of that world," he said while campaigning in Pennsylvania. "World history is often made in remote, obscure countries. It is being made in Georgia today."

Warning that "the very existence of independent Georgia - and the survival of its democratically-elected government - are at stake," McCain asserted that the fate of Georgia is "both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance to the United States of America."
Strong response, measured yet clear: 'enough already'

B H Obama:
"The relationship between Russia and the West is long and complicated," Obama said. "There have been many turning points, for good and ill. This is another turning point. Let me be clear: We seek a future of cooperative engagement with the Russian government, and friendship with the Russian people. We want Russia to play its rightful role as a great nation - but with that role comes the responsibility to act as a force for progress in this new century, not regression to the conflicts of the past. That is why the United States and the international community must speak out strongly against this aggression, and for peace and security."
Weak response, panders to Russian interests: 'pardon me, but if you could find the time to take a timeout from this agression and join us in a chorus of Kumbaya...'


Right now, Putin is laughing his a$$ off while thinking about the prospect of dealing with Obama for four years.

The real-time scoreboard has the tally at:
McCain 1, Obama 0. (I'd give him a negative 10, but we can't do negative numbers here because I like to accentuate the positive.)



-- Submitted by R Wellesley

Obama's Distorted View of Family (LINK)

For those naive persons who state that they see no distinction in the candidates for President, the difference could not be more stark than when it comes to the issue of the family.

In responding to John McCain's statement of 3 weeks ago where he said that he did not believe in gay adoption, Barack H. Obama affirmed his unequivocal support for the right of homosexual couples to adopt children. In a letter to the pro-homosexual Family Equality Council, Obama wrote:

"We also have to do more to support and strengthen LGBT [Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender] families because equality in relationship, family, and adoption rights is not some abstract principle; it's about whether millions of LGBT Americans can finally live lives marked by dignity and freedom."

This is further seen on another of Obama's stances. Obama, who has not come out openly for gay marriage--despite congratulating the "newly married" couples in California--nevertheless is a strong proponent for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which states that homosexual "marriages" in one state do not have to be recognized by other states. Obama again wrote in the letter to the Family Equality Council:

"That's why we have to repeal laws like the Defense of Marriage Act. That's why we have to eliminate discrimination against LGBT families. And that's why we have to extend equal treatment in our family and adoption laws."

For Barack Obama, "family" carries an extended, and unchristian meaning, despite his attempt to pass himself off as a traditional Christian. "Family," it seems, means whatever anyone wants it to mean and Obama is prepared to formulate government policies, not to mention overturn thousands of years of family practices, to accommodate even the most radical views of the homosexual community whose favor he is currying.

Obama's adoption of far-left revisionism regarding the family leaves a great opening for McCain. Americans oppose homosexual marriage and homosexual adoption by sizable margins. All McCain would have to do is make a clear statement (via political ads) of his opposition to homosexual marriage and adoption and the election would be his.

McCain needs to do this. He needs to hang Obama's leftism regarding homosexuals around his neck. Such a policy would coalesce his support among conservatives and tilt pro-family independents his way.

This should be a no-brainer. I hope McCain sees it this way instead of following those advisers who try to keep him in the middle of the road.

-- Submitted by B. Bryant

The Audacity of Deceit

Today's topic: Budget deficits.
Today's target: Those who appropriate funds.

For those of you who don't know, the President of the United States does not appropriate a budget. Rather, it's Congress that appropriates funds for the government.

In 2007, the budget deficit was $163 billion.
In 2008, the budget deficit is forecast to be $389 billion.

Political party controlling Congress: Democrats

Why this is important:
Interest payments on federal debt: $250 billion in 2008 (estimated)
Interest payments are the fourth (4th) largest spending item in the 2008 budget.

I'd normally go off on a point about how Obama has been a part of this problem, but quite honestly, he's been out campaigning for what, twelve years now? I'm not even sure he knows what an appropriations vote is.

Let's remember to point out the obvious when we report deficit and debt numbers. The President can submit a budget request, but it's the Congress that determines how much spending will be done. And Congress - run by the Democrats - doesn't get it.

-- Submitted by R Wellesley

Obama's Weapon of Choice

Up until now, I was ready to declare that Obama was the first competitive presidential candidate that didn't have a single good idea. He proved me wrong last week.
While defending his position on not drilling for oil or building nuclear power plants, Obama declared that we can be foreign oil free (and free from those pesky oil wells) by merely checking our tire pressure.
This may sound easy, but staying on a solid regimen of tire checking is not without its sacrifice. He knows that asking people to bend over once a month to make sure that there is 35 p.s.i. in each tire is not going to win him any friends in the 'keep my pants clean' camp, but that is exactly what makes Obama different.
He is willing to speak frankly and honestly, even if it means ruffling a few feathers and losing a few votes. Finally a refreshing, brave voice from a man not unwilling to make the tough decisions on energy.

My one and only concern with the plan is the impact on the oil company profits. We may see mass layoffs and major asset write-offs from our largest oil companies - if we all choose to do this at once. My advice and my one modification to his plan is...let's phase it in. I recommend that we check the tire pressure on just one tire this week. We can do a second and a third and a fourth in subsequent weeks. This will allow the oil companies to adjust their output for the shrinking demand. It will hopefully save a few jobs in the oil industry.

This is what a 'change' candidate will do. This is how a 'hope' candidate can win. This is how a guy willing to face a problem head on can solve the tenacious problems facing our nation. If he solved the oil shortage so quickly and so elegantly, imagine what he will do for national security, the federal deficit, health care, economic growth - and whatever else this brave and straight-talking young man is will to tackle.

It's time for a refreshing new voice. Vote Obama !!!

(Pictured is a Brookstone tire gauge. Perhaps similar to the one that Obama himself carries with him. A little pricey for the average person, who can purchase a tire gauge at Autozone for about three bucks.)


Submitted by D. B. Jackson