Tonight's Music

Another number by the lovely Julie Fowlis. This is from the third season of the BBC's Transatlantic Sessions. Here is the lineup of artists:

Julie Fowlis - vocals
Bruce Molsky - harmony vocals & fiddle
Aly Bain - fiddle
Michael McGoldrick - Whistle
Russ Barenberg - mandolin
Phil Cunningham - piano
Jerry Douglas - slide
Sharon Shannon - button accordion

The song is Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach

Richardson quits

From The New York Times:

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is pulling out of the presidential race, after coming in fourth in both the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses.

Mr. Richardson made the decision after returning to New Mexico yesterday and meeting with his top advisers. He is expected to make an announcement Thursday, according to sources with knowledge of the governor’s decision.

Mr. Richardson’s withdrawal removes a candidate who had a hard-edged message of immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, but tempered it with humorous television advertisements that emphasized his wide-ranging credentials in a clever and effective way.

In New Hampshire, Mr. Richardson gained less than five percent of the vote on Tuesday. In Iowa last Thursday, he came in with two percent of the caucus vote, despite having spent weeks campaigning in the state and flooding the airwaves with a series of commercials that portrayed him as a job seeker in front of a bored interviewer, unimpressed with his extensive résumé.

For a while, Mr. Richardson was in double-digit territory in Iowa, but that lead diminished as the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton gained strength. It is unclear whether Richardson supporters will gravitate to Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton.

He needed to meet with "advisers" to figure out that he wasn't going anywhere? The truth is that most of his supporters (at least three of the five) will go to Obama since what Richardson mostly had going for him was the fact that he wasn't Hillary.

The fallout from New Hampshire

From The New York Times:

MANCHESTER, N.H. — After Senator John McCain’s victory here on Tuesday, the Republican field is more scrambled than ever, with the battleground now shifting to a series of states where each of the leading candidates believes he holds certain advantages.

The next showdown will be on Jan. 15 in Michigan, a vast state struggling with a recession and the loss of manufacturing jobs. It is where Mitt Romney was born and reared, and many still fondly remember his late father, George, a three-term governor. Mr. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, will fly there on Wednesday afternoon, with his aides saying the state has become his fire wall.

But his campaign has clearly been crippled by a second loss, this time in a state where he even has a vacation home.

I never had the slightest doubt that McCain was going to win New Hampshire. It is a state whose primary process uniquely favors him in that registered independents can chose to vote in either party's primary. It is no surprise that independents, who generally tend to lean somewhat to the left, favored Mr. McCain heavily.

The question now is whether McCain will be able to continue winning in states where only Republicans can vote.

Republican voters in those states need to seriously consider whether they want to cast their votes for someone who can only win by appealing to the left. In the general election between McCain/Clinton or McCain/Obama those independents will find themselves faced with a choice between a liberal and a Liberal. In that kind of race they historically have chosen the Liberal.

Only when there has been as clear cut choice between as liberal and a conservative has the swing voters tended to favor the Republican side. As they did when Reagan ran against Carter and then Mondale. Even when the Republican has not been a genuine conservative, as with Bush father and son, they have appeared to be conservative in their campaigns.

There is one true conservative in this race, Fred Thompson. If you take Mitt Romney's word that his current positions are what he truly believes he is also a conservative. The other candidates on the Republican side range from a law-and-order liberal (Giuliani - think Mussolini with a smiley face) to a strident member of the religious left (Huckabee - and we need to be very careful of folks like him as the religious left are the ones who gave us prohibition, the progressive income tax and US involvement in WWI, not a good track record) to a certifiable kook who welcomes the support of white supremacists and 9/11 truthers and whose plan for fighting the World War against Islamofascism is to request the enemies terms of surrender (Ron Paul, the ass clown).

Clearly there is one good choice for Republicans and one acceptable choice. The rest are disasters in waiting if elected, but most likely unelectable.

The single greatest danger I see is that the compressed primary schedule will cause anyone who can win a few of the early voting states to be seen as the "unstoppable force" and gather support by default. Iowa's unusually high percentage of Evangelical voters made it natural Huckabee territory. New Hampshire's leftward tilt and practice of allowing independents to vote tipped it into the McCain camp. Michigan's wretched economy (a product of an extreme left-wing state government) has made it highly susceptible to a particularly ugly and detestable form of populism, think Germany in the late 1920's, look for Huckabee and Edwards to do well there.

NONE of these early states are really reflective of America as a whole but they have been granted a great deal of power to influence how the American people view the candidates.

My advice is to take a step backward and refocus on the ultimate goal we need to achieve, which is a genuine conservative in the White House.

Elmer tries to scam them again

From The Washington Times:

Mike Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution to prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens, according to his top immigration surrogate — a radical step no other major presidential candidate has embraced.

Mr. Huckabee, who won last week's Republican Iowa caucuses, promised Minuteman Project founder James Gilchrist that he would force a test case to the Supreme Court to challenge birthright citizenship, and would push Congress to pass a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to remove any doubt.

This is another case where Elmer shows great skill at playing the conservative base. He stakes out a position which is absolutely right, but has no chance whatsoever of being enacted into law.

In order for a constitutional amendment to become law it must be ratified by three quarters of the states. Despite the fact that the amendment which was designed by congress to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their children was ONLY intended to grant citizenship to that particular group and was never intended to grant citizenship to the children of foreign nationals it has, through a Supreme Court misinterpretation, done exactly that.

For the state legislatures to overturn that error by ratifying a "28th Amendment" would mean angering too many immigrant rights and civil rights groups.

In other words it would take too much political courage.

Just like the Fair Tax. Huckabee knows that it is a good idea with passionate supporters but has no chance of being enacted in the near term. This lets him sign onto a major tax reform movement without having to actually do anything to reform the tax code. The Fair Tax will not even get a vote in congress so Elmer can push it then watch it go down in flames then say "I did my best" then back a tax increase.

Tonight's Music

Julie Fowlis and Friends at the Queen Elizabeth Hall 9th November 2007.

Clinton squeaks by

Those who were praying for a Clinton win in NH so that the Democrat race would drag on and inflict the maximum amount of damage on whoever turned out to be the winner got their wish tonight.

The problem is that Obama is such a hollow man that the only things going for him were charisma and momentum.

He still has charisma but now the momentum has stalled.

Can he remain viable?

New Hampshire

As things stand right now McCain has won New Hampshire and the Democrat race is too close to call with the definite possibility of a Clinton win, although only by a razor thin margin.

More later tonight.

Bill is losing it too

There is a great deal of buzz about Hillary's public nervous breakdown since she lost Iowa and has seen her lead in the national polls collapse but Bill is also melting down in a very public way.

BTY, Bill he called you a crook because you are a crook.

The rats are leaving the sinking ship

From the Los Angeles Times:

ON desks all over Hollywood, there's a note this morning waiting to be sent:

Memo to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: We think you're aces. Really. And we love your husband. But we're running off with Sen. Barack Obama. Hope you understand. It's all about being part of history. We'll do lunch after the inauguration.

Of course, in certain Westside mansions, loyalty to the Clintons runs deeper than any primary result. But in a town that for many months has been divided by head and heart, a lot of entertainment industry people who chose Clinton because she was the smart choice, the "inevitable" Democratic candidate, are going where their hearts have long wanted to take them -- to a place on the Obama bandwagon (and nobody wants to miss the last seat).

From the beginning, Hollywood has loved Obama's story -- his "pitch" as they say -- but were wary of his real box office potential. Iowa and now possibly New Hampshire have lifted that uncertainty. The only thing the town likes better than a great story is a winning one.

Phones started ringing even before the junior senator from Illinois had completed his Iowa victory speech, which hardened political pros compared to legendary addresses given by the Kennedys, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Ronald Reagan. West of La Cienega, the clips on cable news were the best audition tapes anybody had seen in a long time.

If Clinton loses in New Hampshire tonight, predicted longtime political operative turned Hollywood producer Brian Quintana, Hollywood "will defect to Barack in droves."

"It is not a question of loyalty; Barack is simply too close to making history for Hollywood not to be part of it," Quintana said. "For most of us, Hillary was our first choice, but she has come up short. Barack has become a movement."

The SS Clinton is holed, taking on water and beginning to list to port and the rats are heading over the side to look for something more seaworthy.

Sweet justice. Hollywood helped to prop up her worthless husband but here's the thing. Remember all those "hero president" movies that came out during the Clinton administration? In all of them the president was either single or the First Lady was deep in the background.

Even back then the entertainment industry loved BJ Bill but wished Mrs. Clinton was out of the picture.

They may be about to get their wish.

Tonight's Music

A slideshow of the Scottish Highlands set to the music of Capercaillie.

I passed

H/T: Shooting the Messenger

The latest polling results

Here's the dope on the Rasmussen Reports data on Mrs. Bill Clinton's national poll numbers collapse:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that Hillary Clinton’s national polling lead has collapsed. Before the Iowa caucuses, Clinton held a seventeen-point lead over Barack Obama. Today, that lead is down to four percentage points in a survey with a four-point margin of sampling error.

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, it’s now Clinton 33%, Barack Obama 29% and John Edwards 20% (see recent daily numbers). Next update Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. RasmussenMarkets.com data suggests that Obama may now be considered the frontrunner for the nomination.

In New Hampshire, Monday’s tracking update shows Obama retaining his double digit lead over Clinton. Obama’s victory has triggered a political earthquake, but it would be foolish to assume that he will cruise to the nomination unchallenged by the formidable Clinton campaign team.

In the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination, it’s Huckabee 20% McCain 19%, Rudy Giuliani 17%, Mitt Romney 15%, and Fred Thompson at 11%. Ron Paul attracts 3% support (see recent daily numbers). A Rasmussen Reports analysis suggests that if McCain wins in New Hampshire, the race will finally have a clear frontrunner.

However, a McCain victory in the Granite State is far from assured. New polling data released Monday shows McCain’s lead over Romney in New Hampshire. own to a statistically insignificant one-point lead. Final polling data for New Hampshire will be released Tuesday morning.

See he CAN'T play second fiddle

Bill lists the things which hold Hillary back that even he can't fix.

In his mind it is:

All Bill

All the Time

Now and Forever.

And then, seemingly in the blink of an eye

The course of world events changes . . .

From the Drudge Report:

Facing a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a sudden collapse in national polls and an expected fund-raising drought, Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?!

"She can't take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada," laments one top campaign insider. "If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn't want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats."

Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary "could soon be out."

MORE

Key players in Clinton's inner circle are said to be split. James Carville is urging her to fight it out through at least February and Super Tuesday, where she has a shot at thwarting Barack Obama in a big state. But others close to the former first lady now see no possible road to victory, sources claim.

Developing...

[The dramatic reversal of fortunes has left the media establishment stunned and racing to keep up with fast-moving changes.

In its final poll before Iowa, CNN showed Clinton with a two-point lead over Obama. Editorial decisions were being made based on an understanding the Democratic primary race would be close, explained a network executive.]

Also on Drudge's front page:

RASMUSSEN: Clinton's lead in national polling collapse... now Clinton 33 Obama 29; Before Iowa showed Clinton 41 Obama 24... Developing...

Until this minute Clinton and her sycophants could claim that Mrs. Bill Clinton held a commanding lead in the national polls. That is no more.

Will Obama be able to survive the media anal exam that a frontrunner gets? Even a Democrat, who the MSM will be doing all it can to aid will still be subjected to vastly increased scrutiny once he reaches the top spot. What about the folder of damaging information the Clinton secret police have supposedly turned up on Obama? Will they release it to the media (through surrogates, of course) to attempt to sink nominee Obama?

After all with a Republican in the White House in 2008 that gives Mrs. Clinton another shot in 2012. If a Democrat is running for reelection that would put off Clinton's next possible attempt until 2016 at which time she will be too old.

Of course what are the chances that Hillary really will withdraw from the race? I think she will stay in. My gut tells me that someone with such poor political instincts as she has proven herself to have and such an insane lust for power as she has also proven herself to have will not be capable of dropping out of what will probably be her one and only chance to grab the political brass ring.

On the other hand a defeat would end her chances of ever advancing beyond the Senate and decisively end the Clinton machine's strangle hold on the Democrat Party. It would also diminish Bill Clintons appeal as someone Democrat candidates would want to campaign for them and it would put a serious dent into his earning power. While ex-presidents can always get book deals and command generous speaking fees the gravy train Billy Blow Job has been riding would come to an end because giving him an astronomical speaking fee would no longer be seen as a way of legally bribing the future president and power behind the throne of the DNC.

To add support to the idea that Mrs. Clinton is in genuine trouble is this from the New York Times:

DURHAM, N.H. — Is this what it would have been like had Elvis been reduced to playing Reno?

Former President Bill Clinton has been drawing sleepy and sometimes smallish crowds at big venues in the state that revived his presidential campaign in 1992. He entered to polite applause and rows of empty seats at the University of New Hampshire on Friday. Several people filed out midspeech, and the room was largely quiet as he spoke, with few interruptions for laughter or applause. He talked about his administration, his foundation work and some about his wife.

. . . [T]here was a similarly listless aura at the previous stop, in Rochester. And again, on Saturday in Bow, at just the sort of high school gym that the master campaigner used to blow out. Only about 225 showed up in Bow — about one-third the capacity of the room — to hear Mr. Clinton hit his bullet points on the subprime lending crisis, $100 barrels of oil and how “10 of Hillary’s fellow senators have endorsed her.”

“The crowd seemed very passive,” Arthur Cunningham of Bow said after the speech. “Maybe they were tired.” [of the Clintons - LC]

The New Hampshire voters are turning away from Mrs. Clinton because it now looks like someone else can win and they never really liked her. They just thought she was the only one who could win.

Notice also that even with his wife on the ropes that Bill still can't make it about anything other than himself. "He talked about his administration, his foundation work and some about his wife."

"SOME" about his wife? She was supposed to be the reason that he was there. When this is all over someone should ask Hillary if even a shot at the presidency was worth staying married to that malignant narcissist.

Again let me stress this. I do not think that Hillary Clinton is going to drop out. At least not this early. However I admit that my desire not to get suckered by falling for something that I so desperately want to believe could be making me excessively skeptical.

Tonight's Music

Another video from the group Celtic Underground, who describe their sound as "Celtic Electronica". This is called Tecno Medley.

Ms. Bhutto's real legacy

It is good to remind ourselves that the world outside the US and its political race is still out there and still requires our attention. William Dalrymple reminds us that Benazir Bhutto was not everything that her hagiographers would wish us to believe:

WHEN, in May 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India was killed by a suicide bomber, there was an international outpouring of grief. Recent days have seen the same with the death of Benazir Bhutto: another glamorous, Western-educated scion of a great South Asian political dynasty tragically assassinated at an election rally.

There is, however, an important difference between the two deaths: while Mr. Gandhi was assassinated by Sri Lankan Hindu extremists because of his policy of confronting them, Ms. Bhutto was apparently the victim of Islamist militant groups that she allowed to flourish under her administrations in the 1980s and 1990s.

It was under Ms. Bhutto’s watch that the Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, first installed the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was also at that time that hundreds of young Islamic militants were recruited from the madrassas to do the agency’s dirty work in Indian Kashmir. It seems that, like some terrorist equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster, the extremists turned on both the person and the state that had helped bring them into being.

While it is true that the recruitment of jihadists had started before she took office and that Ms. Bhutto was insufficiently strong — or competent — to have had full control over either the intelligence services or the Pakistani Army when she was in office, it is equally naïve to believe she had no influence over her country’s foreign policy toward its two most important neighbors, India and Afghanistan.

Everyone now knows how disastrous the rule of the Taliban turned out to be in Afghanistan, how brutally it subjected women and how it allowed Al Qaeda to train in camps within its territory. But another, and in the long term perhaps equally perilous, legacy of Ms. Bhutto’s tenure is often forgotten: the turning of Kashmir into a jihadist playground.

In 1989, when the insurgency in the Indian portion of the disputed region first began, it was largely an amateur affair of young, secular-minded Kashmiri Muslims rising village by village and wielding homemade weapons — firearms fashioned from the steering shafts of rickshaws and so on. By the early ’90s, however, Pakistan was sending over the border thousands of well-trained, heavily armed and ideologically hardened jihadis. Some were the same sorts of exiled Arab radicals who were at the same time forming Al Qaeda in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan.

By 1993, during Ms. Bhutto’s second term, the Arab and Afghan jihadis (and their Inter-Services Intelligence masters) had really begun to take over the uprising from the locals. It was at this stage that the secular leadership of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front began losing ground to hard-line Islamist outfits like Hizbul Mujahedeen.

I asked Benazir Bhutto about her Kashmir policy and the potential dangers of the growing role of religious extremists in the conflict during an interview in 1994. “India tries to gloss over its policy of repression in Kashmir,” she replied. “India does have might, but has been unable to crush the people of Kashmir. We are not prepared to keep silent, and collude with repression.”

Hamid Gul, who was the head of the intelligence agency during her first administration, was more forthcoming still. “The Kashmiri people have risen up,” he told me, “and it is the national purpose of Pakistan to help liberate them.” He continued, “If the jihadis go out and contain India, tying down their army on their own soil, for a legitimate cause, why should we not support them?”

Benazir Bhutto’s death is, of course, a calamity, particularly as she embodied the hopes of so many liberal Pakistanis. But, contrary to the commentary we’ve seen in the last week, she was not comparable to Myanmar’s Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Ms. Bhutto’s governments were widely criticized by Amnesty International and other groups for their use of death squads and terrible record on deaths in police custody, abductions and torture. As for her democratic bona fides, she had no qualms about banning rallies by opposing political parties while in power.

Within her own party, she declared herself the president for life and controlled all decisions. She rejected her brother Murtaza’s bid to challenge her for its leadership and when he persisted, he was shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances during a police ambush outside the Bhutto family home.

Benazir Bhutto was certainly a brave and secular-minded woman. But the obituaries painting her as dying to save democracy distort history. Instead, she was a natural autocrat who did little for human rights, a calculating politician who was complicit in Pakistan’s becoming the region’s principal jihadi paymaster while she also ramped up an insurgency in Kashmir that has brought two nuclear powers to the brink of war.

It's all she has left

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 5 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton tried repeatedly to knock Sen. Barack Obama off his footing during a high-stakes debate here on Saturday night -- criticizing his health-care proposal and questioning his ability to bring about change and actually serve as president.

"Words are not action," she said, seeking to draw a distinction between the inspirational rhetoric that catapulted Obama into victory in the Iowa caucuses and what she said was her own long record of being an effective agent of change.

The debate came three days before a pivotal primary here, one that will set the course for the rest of the Democratic nomination battle. Obama's victory in Iowa put Clinton on the defensive and rattled her advisers, who know that a second loss on Tuesday could cripple her campaign. A pair of new polls showed the two front-runners even in New Hampshire, and one of them indicated that women are no longer breaking in favor of Clinton but are now divided between her and Obama.

In comparison with some past debates, Saturday's session produced a role reversal, with Clinton playing the scrappy underdog.

Obama repeatedly fired back at the senator from New York and found an aggressive ally in former senator John Edwards (N.C.), who portrayed Clinton as the "status quo" and himself and Obama as the two candidates promoting real change agendas, albeit with very different styles.

"I didn't hear these kinds of attacks from Senator Clinton when she was ahead," Edwards said. "Every time [Obama] speaks out for change, every time I fight for change, the forces of status quo are going to attack -- every single time."

Clinton has already made modifications on the campaign trail, and she used the debate to repeatedly drive home her message to New Hampshire voters: Don't be swayed by Iowa, and instead take a hard look at Obama before casting your ballots.

So that's the new strategy. Play the underdog. Mrs. Bill Clinton has, until now, hung her campaign on the "fact" that she was the inevitable candidate. As far as she was concerned even showing up to campaign was an insult. But a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation.

Now Mrs. Clinton is in a real fight and it is one she seems to be losing. Yes she still has a comfortable lead in the national polls, but in those states who do not have a primary on their doorstep the national polls are essentially meaningless name recognition contests. In those states which are facing an imminent primary, like New Hampshire, voters are paying attention and when the average person pays attention to Hillary Clinton they do not like what they see.

Of the three Democrat frontrunners Obama is the only one who comes off looking and sounding like a good and decent person. Clinton comes off like someone who loves power for the sake of power and will do or say anything to get it. If you present yourself to her as someone who is willing to sell his/her liberty for a government handout she has a use for you. If you are a free and independent individual then you are an enemy who must be crushed.

John Edwards, aka the Breck Girl, sounds like nothing more than a 1930's era CPUSA labor organizer spewing venomous bile about the capitalists and their evil corporations. Listen to him for five minutes and you start praying for a small army of company police armed with Thompson submachine guns and baseball bats to wade into the crowd.

Obama, who is dead wrong in every last opinion he holds about anything more important that boxers vs briefs, at least sounds like someone who is and will continue to tell the truth as he sees it. People simply like him and they do not like Hillary. He looks like he can win against a republican and Edwards doesn't.

That makes the choice very simple for Democrats who want to win in November. All it took was a voice calling from out of an Iowa cornfield saying "the empress has no clothes"*.

*Sorry for the mental picture.

Tonight's Music

Iona performing Here I Stnad from the 1996 DVD Iona.

Romney gets a win

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) - Mitt Romney captured his first win of the Republican presidential race, gaining most of Wyoming's delegates at stake in GOP caucuses on Saturday.
The former Massachusetts governor won six of the first eight delegates to be selected. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and California Rep. Duncan Hunter won one apiece, meaning no other candidate could beat Romney. Caucuses were still being held to decide all 12 delegates at stake.

The win was a boost for Romney, coming two days after his loss to Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses and three days before the first-in-the- nation primary in New Hampshire. Those two states have attracted most of the political attention. Wyoming had scheduled its GOP county conventions earlier to attract candidates to the state but had only modest results.

Romney visited Wyoming in August and November and three of his five sons campaigned in the state. One son, Josh Romney, owns a ranch in southwest Wyoming.

"Number one, he campaigned here," delegate Leigh Vosler of Cheyenne said of Romney. "I think that helped while some other candidates ignored us. But also he's the right person for the job."

Wyoming doesn't have many people so it doesn't have too many delegates but this is still an important win for Mitt. It helps establish that the Huckabee phenomena is nothing more than a speed bump on the way to a Thompson or Romney nomination.

Rasmussen Reports

Barack Obama, fresh from his victory in Iowa, now holds a ten point lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race found Obama with 37% of the vote while Clinton earns 27%. John Edwards is the only other candidate in double digits, with 19% support. Bill Richardson is the choice for 8%.

View the rest of the data here.

Hillary Clinton is very likely going to lose again.

Lord, I love saying that!

More on the future after Iowa

James Pethokoukis throws in his two cents on the meaning of the Iowa results:

1) I have feeling we are going to start hearing a lot more from Hillary Clinton about Barack Obama's "trillion dollar" increase—as she described it in a debate—in Social Security taxes.

2) Today's lousy jobs numbers will increase the likelihood that economic growth will be a huge 2008 issue. (As Global Insight put it: "The real shocker in today's report was the sharp jump in the unemployment rate to 5.0% from 4.7%. We haven't seen a [0.3 percentage point] jump in the unemployment rate since the 2001 recession.") The issue will be not how to slice the economic pie but how to grow the economic pie. Fiscal stimulus packages will abound. Let the tax-cut bidding war begin! What's more, the jobs numbers plus Mike Huckabee's stunning populist win will make the rest of the GOP field realize that a "Morning in America" campaign (or as Sam Brownback put it: "America rocks!") is not going to work, nor is blaming the media for all the pessimism out there.

3) Trade with China will be as big an issue as the war in Iraq, with all the candidates sounding ever more populist on the issue. There may be more talk about the dollar and trade than in any election since McKinley-Bryan in 1896.

4) As an insurgent candidate, Huckabee didn't have the dough to hire economists to create an economic plan. So he went with the off-the-shelf FairTax. Not only does it call for abolishing the IRS—a nice populist touch—but it has the added benefit of a built-in constituency. With Huckabee needing to flesh out his policy agenda, don't be surprised if the sweeping FairTax recedes a bit from sight and becomes more of a policy end goal, as when opponents of abortion talk about banning it after first creating a stronger "culture of life."

In the interim, Huckabee could advocate pursuing a more family-friendly tax code, such as dramatically expanding the child tax credit or, as Ramesh Ponnuru of the National Review has suggested, combining the existing child credit, the child-care credit, and the adoption credit into a new, enlarged child credit of $2,500 per child—available, in full, to all households with children , to be applied against income taxes. Expect supply-siders like the Club for Growth to scream.

5) If Mitt Romney doesn't win the nomination (and right now the betting markets put the odds at John McCain 31 percent, Rudy Giuliani 29 percent, and Romney and Huckabee tied at 16 percent), one of the other candidates should swipe his elegantly simple tax plan—essentially a progressive consumption tax—and elegantly simple budget plan, which would limit the growth of discretionary, nondefense spending to the rate of inflation minus 1 percent. He never pushed them very hard in the debates. Maybe Huckabee could call it the New FairTax.

6) In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks basically declared the end of the Reagan coalition and low-tax, small-government Reaganomics:

That coalition had its day, but it is shrinking now. The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins. Republicans' losses have come across the board, but the G.O.P. has been hemorrhaging support among independent voters. If any Republican candidate is going to win this year, he will have to offer a new brand of Republicanism.

I look at the polls too, and what I see is a public that still thinks it is taxed too much and the government spends too much—as well as being concerned about healthcare and education. But the larger point is this: Most people don't realize that there are market-based approaches to issues like healthcare and education. And free-market-oriented politicians like ex-governor Jeb Bush of Florida and Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina have shown that it is possible to govern from the right with an agenda that's about more than just cutting taxes. I would love a wonky Democrat-GOP debate that focused on those issues.

7) FYI: Here are some key features of Obamanomics: Raise income taxes on wealthier Americans, raise Social Security taxes on wealthier Americans, increase government healthcare spending by $65 billion a year while trying to find $100 billion a year in savings, spend an additional $15 billion a year on climate change investment. Here is his whole plan.

8) One more thing about today's weak employment report: There has been only one presidential election since 1900 with no incumbent president or vice president running and with a recession during the election year. That was 1920, and the out-of-power party, the GOP, won in the biggest landslide in presidential election history.

I really hope that part about McCain being the favorite turns out to be a highly temporary blip.

Saturday Morning Cartoon and PSA

This morning's feature is a claymation short which is supposed to have actually aired on broadcast television at some point. It has since been banned. It is described as a "very creepy, disturbing children's cartoon".



Next is an anti-littering PSA from New York City.

Mrs. Clinton booed by Democrats

From Time:

If the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 100 Club dinner is any bell weather – Barack Obama will handily win here. When Obama, the dinner’s last speaker, took the stage the crowd surged forward chanting “O-bam-a” and “Fired Up, Ready to Go!” So many people pressed toward the stage that an announcer asked people to “please take their seats for safety concerns.”

By comparison Hillary was twice booed. The first time was when she said she has always and will continue to work for "change for you. The audience, particularly from Obama supporters (they were waving Obama signs) let out a noise that sounded like a thousand people collectively groaning. The second time came a few minutes later when Clinton said: "The there are two big questions for voters in New Hampshire. One is: who will be ready to lead from day one? The second," and here Clinton was forced to pause as boos from the crowd mixed with cheers from her own supporters. "Is who can we nominate who will go the distance against the Republicans?”

The dinner held in the Hampshire Dome in Milford is the largest political dinner in New Hampshire history, Republican or Democrat. More than 3,000 people attended.

It is far too soon to count Mrs. Clinton out however her campaign appears to be showing all the signs of a Howard Dean style meltdown.

We'll know if we hear a scream.

The media trys to figure it all out

From The Washington Post:

For most of the past year, the news media treated Hillary Clinton as inevitable and Mike Huckabee as invisible.

In the wake of Thursday's Iowa caucuses, those judgments are looking rather shortsighted.

Until recent weeks, Huckabee was regarded as an asterisk, a former Arkansas governor whose entry into the presidential race didn't even warrant a mention on the "CBS Evening News." He was good for comic relief -- the wisecracking, bass-playing, weight-losing preacher man -- but not portrayed as a serious threat to win in Iowa or anyplace else. The media's chief benchmark is money, and Mitt Romney had truckloads of it and Huckabee very little.

Barack Obama, who beat Clinton in the Democratic contest, was initially hailed by anchors and pundits as a "rock star," but by the summer and fall he was depicted as a dull candidate who seemed to have little hope of catching up. Commentators openly urged him to attack the former first lady. Obama's winning margin was something of a surprise, but not as big, perhaps, as the bursting of the Hillary bubble that may have been inflated by a year's worth of press.

"Everyone just thought she was going to win -- I mean, how could she not?" says Keli Goff, an African American blogger and former Democratic strategist. "How could a freshman senator no one had heard of until a couple of years ago, whose name no one could pronounce, come out of nowhere and beat a woman married to the 'first black president'?"

The reason that she was never "inevitable" is simple. People do not like her. And the more people see of her the less they like her. There is simply no help for that.

Now Democrats, at least the Party's moonbat base hate Republicans. They hate Republicans in general and George W Bush in particular more than they hate Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. For people motivated by hatred that strong the only goal in the upcoming election will be Republican defeat. As long as Mrs. Bill Clinton has the appearance of being the most electable candidate she will have a large base of support.

There is also a segment of the Democrat Party who remain head over heels in love with BJ Billy. These people tend to think that a vote for Hillary is a vote for a third term for Bill. In those people's minds Bill will be using Hillary as a hand puppet to govern the nation. Nothing that Mrs. Clinton can do will lose the support of those people (other than file for divorce).

The question is are there enough moonbat haters and Bill groupies to carry her over the top.

As for Huckabee, or Elmer Gantry as I call him, he won almost all of the Evangelical vote in a state which has a large number of evangelicals. Outside of that group he got almost no support. Will his Iowa win and the appearence of momentum it imparts to him be enough to cause other Republican voters to flock to him? I doubt it, but it is possible.

Tonight's Music

Celtic Underground - Modern Jigs. This is described as Celtic electronica.

How will Hillary react to her loss?

From The New York Post:

More on the implications of the fact that Hillary Lost:

January 4, 2008 -- DES MOINES, Iowa - Awaiting her coronation here last night, Hillary Rodham Clinton instead faced a seething revolt within her own party.

VIDEO: Barack Obama's Victory Speech

More than 70 percent of Iowa Democrats rejected her bid to get back into the White House.

And so, after 15 years of domination, the Clinton dynasty has finally lost its grip on the Democratic Party.

More than anything else, Clinton's campaign was built upon the aura of inevitability.

That's now shattered and left in Iowa's frozen cornfields.

What's devastating to her is that she lost so badly to such a political novice.

Sure, Barack Obama is an incredibly impressive and appealing figure. He has magically turned the nasty politics of race on its head here in a state with a less than 3 percent black population.

His hopeful determination to end the sordid politics that the Clintons are such masters of has even lifelong Republicans eager to vote for him.

Still, Obama has four years less experience in the Senate than Clinton.

And he didn't spend eight years in the White House as first lady like she did. He hasn't met one-tenth of the world leaders that she's met. Whatever.

Adding insult to Clinton's real campaign injury is that she also lost to John Edwards, a retread loser from four years ago running a nasty class-warfare campaign that ultimately won't do any better this time than it did last time.

It's certainly conceivable that Clinton can go on to stage a dramatic comeback in New Hampshire just as her husband did in 1992, forever billing him the "Comeback Kid." She maintains a solid lead there.

But the same dynamics that worked in Iowa are now at work in New Hampshire.

Carrying high the flag of "change," Obama will again attract all those people who are just sick and tired everybody in Washington. Add to the mix that Clinton goes there as a fallen star and Obama goes there as a rock star.

The problem with caressing the jewels of the crown before the coronation is that it's really embarrassing when it turns out that the coronation goes to someone else.

Clinton's invincibility has turned into inadequacy. She stumbled from Almighty to also-ran.

The only question that remains now is whether she will be able to recover enough to go on.

But does she really want to spend the rest of her viable political career on the national stage tearing down the man who is poised to become America's real first black president?

The answer to that last question is not just "yes" but "HELL YES"! The word leaking out of the Clinton campaign is that they have big thick files full of negative information on Obama and they are going to use every bit of it.

The Clintons are what they are. They will be true to themselves and that means that when faced with a threat they will do all within their power to utterly destroy that threat. They are going to give Obama both barrels in an attempt to demolish and ruin him.

Hillary Lost

Hillary lost. Saying that gives me so much pleasure I think I'll do it again.

Hillary Lost.

I know the race is just beginning and that Mrs. Bill Clinton is bound to win some primaries in the future but this was the first test in the nomination race and she lost.

Peggy Noonan has some thoughts on Hillary's loss:

And so it begins.

We wanted exciting, we got exciting.

As this is written, late on the night of the caucuses, the outlines of the decisions seem clear: Barack Obama won.

Hillary Clinton, the inevitable, the avatar of the machine, lost.

It's huge. Even though people have been talking about this possibility for six weeks now, it's still huge. She had the money, she had the organization, the party's stars, she had Elvis behind her, and the Clinton name in a base that loved Bill. And she lost. There are always a lot of reasons for a loss, but the ur-reason in this case, the thing it all comes down to? There's something about her that makes you look, watch, think, look again, weigh and say: No.

She started out way ahead, met everyone, and lost.

As for Sen. Obama, his victory is similarly huge. He won the five biggest counties in Iowa, from the center of the state to the South Dakota border. He carried the young in a tidal wave. He outpolled Mrs. Clinton among women.

He did it with a classy campaign, an unruffled manner, and an appeal on the stump that said every day, through the lines: Look at who I am and see me, the change that you desire is right here, move on with me and we will bring it forward together.

He had a harder row to hoe than Mrs. Clinton did. He was lesser known, too young, lacked an establishment. He had to knock her down while building himself up. (She only had to build herself up until the end, when she went after his grade-school essays.) His takedown of Mrs. Clinton was the softest demolition in the history of falling buildings. I think we were there when it happened, in the debate in which he was questioned on why so many of Bill Clinton's aides were advising him. She laughed, and he said he was looking forward to her advising him, too. He took mama to school.

And so something new begins on the Democratic side.


Hillary is not heading to a coronation. She may not even get the nomination. While I believe that Obama is a better human being than Mrs. Clinton (he would almost have to be) he is, in fact, more left-wing than she is. An Obama presidency would be an even bigger disaster than a second Clinton presidency.

However for now it is enough that Hillary Lost.

I'm back

I didn't have time for any pictures, but I may get some tomorrow.

Normal posting resumes now.

Gone for the day

I'm heading across the mountains for a day trip to Knoxville. I'll try to snap some pictures.

See you this evening.

Tonight's Music

Kate Rusby - The Wild Goose

Christian charity does not take at gunpoint

From American Thinker:

Mike Huckabee said last Sunday on Meet the Press that his faith was important to him and that it drove his views on everything from the environment to poverty to disease and to hunger. Huckabee then went on to say that he thought the Republican Party needed to take a greater leadership role on these sorts of issues and that, as a Christian, he wanted to make sure that Republicans spoke out more on these issues.

Excellent. As a Christian Republican myself, I will express support for protecting God's Creation, fighting sickness, and ending hunger. All are profoundly Christian ideals. But Mike Huckabee, as a Christian, is not really talking about protecting Creation, fighting sickness or ending hunger. Mike is talking about using the coercive power of government to force other people to pay taxes and to comply with onerous and arbitrary laws to do what Mike thinks, as a Christian, he should be doing.

That is the salient fact: as a Christian, Huckabee can be a witness to Christian behavior; he can exhort others to themselves become a witness to Christian behavior; but he cannot demand the enslavement of others to do those things which, as a Christian, he feels that he should do. The term "enslavement," of course, is relative. Americans are comparatively free. But everything that Huckabee feels government should do requires a loss of freedom for every American. Moreover, Huckabee is not just asking for the greater enslavement of Christian Americans, but he is asking for the greater enslavement of all Americans. This is most un-Christian. Does my verdict sound extreme? Substitute "Rome" for "America" and substitute "publican" for "tax dollars."

Did Christ ever say his followers should ask Rome to do more for the welfare of its subjects? Or did Christ ask each individual Christian to personally do more to feed the hungry, to comfort the sick, to care for the widows and orphans, and to seek justice and mercy? Rome was a welfare state. The urban masses of Rome lived on bread and circuses. Roman power, outside Rome, build good roads, aqueducts, baths, bridges, libraries and undertook many other public works projects. Pax Romana was a very real blessing to nations who had fought wars around Mare Nostrum for centuries.

Despite the ways in which Roman power could be used to improve the world, Christ never looked to Rome to bring paradise or earth or even to be the agent of doing good in this world. Christ, rather, enjoined his followers to personally sacrifice and work for the rest of the world. He did not want Christians running for Roman offices to use the hated Roman taxes to "do good." His message was personal.

Christians have heeded that call. Newt Gingrich, for example, does care about the environment and ecology, but as a private citizen. Rush Limbaugh quietly and privately helps many charities. Each Christmas the Salvation Army has hosts of volunteers who raise money to directly help the poor. Christians throughout America have healed the sick, comforted the distressed, and preserved the glory of Creation - but they act personally, and not through the enslavement of other Americans.

Mike should want to be a disciple of Christ and not a consul of Rome. At the time of Christ, everyone knew just how much good Rome did, but they also knew the price of Roman benefits. It was by no means clear whether Rome, on balance, did more good or bad. But it was always clear that the Christian who gave of us own purse to feed the hungry did pure good. That is the distinction between using Rome (or any government) to try to do good and using one's own Christian conscience and will to do good.

But there are other problems with Huckabee's pining for more government intervention. Not only is the enslavement of others to do what one thinks is right fundamentally unchristian, but it is also horribly inefficient and produces much wickedness disguised as goodness. Creating bureaucracies of government employees to "care" for the poor, the environment, the sick and so forth has proven the least cost-effective way of helping people, but worse, these bureaucrats are not acting out of Christian love: they are just doing their job. These "dependency" bureaucracies actually coarsen the consciences of both recipients and administrators.

One of the worst things, if not the worst thing, about Elmer's candidacy has been the way he has created the impression that committed Christians desire bigger government.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Biblically educated Christians understand that not one word of the New Testament is directed to government. All of it is meant for individual Christians. Rather than support the idea of a welfare state the Bible actually forbids the giving of so much as one crumb of bread to the idle poor.

Real charity, the kind which has meaning before God, must be first of all voluntary. God loves a cheerful giver not someone who gives only because the government has sent men with guns out to take his money by force and redistribute it to those the government favors, at the moment.

A heartwarming story

From WorldNewDaily:

A grocery store customer in Indianapolis is being credited with halting an armed robbery by pulling his own weapon and pointing it at the assailant until police arrived.

According to a report in the Indianapolis Star, Charlie Merrell, 51, was in a checkout line at a grocery store called Bucks IGA on the city's south side when a "masked man jumped a nearby counter and held a gun on a store employee."

The police report cited by the newspaper said the incident happened at 5:17 in the afternoon Monday as Merrell was doing some year-end shopping.

"While the suspect was demanding cash from the workers," according to the police report, "Merrell pulled his own handgun, pointed it at the robber and ordered him to put down his weapon."

The newspaper noted that Officer Jason Bockting, in his documentation of the incident, said when the suspect seemed to hesitate, "Merrell racked the slide on his gun to load a round in the chamber."

At that point, the report said, "the suspect placed his gun and a bag of cash on the counter, dropping some of the money … the suspect removed his mask and lay on the floor."

Merrill, meanwhile, held the suspect at gunpoint until officers arrived and took him away in handcuffs.

Police reported Merrell had a valid permit to carry the handgun, and they recovered an unloaded .380-caliber handgun and $779 cash from the suspect.

Police records show Dwain Smith, 19, was being held in the Marion County Jail on a bond of $30,000 on initial charges of robbery, criminal confinement, pointing a firearm, battery and carrying a handgun without a license.

Kudos to Mr. Merrell for both having a gun and the courage to use it, but here is a tip for future reference. A semi-automatic firearm without a round in the chamber is not loaded and an unloaded pistol is useful only as a hammer. And it isn't a very good hammer at that.

Results are in from Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama, bidding to become the nation's first black president, captured the Iowa caucuses Thursday night, opening test in the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination. Mike Huckabee rode a wave of support from evangelical Christians to victory in the Republican caucuses.

Obama, 46 and a first-term senator from Illinois, eased past a high-powered field that included Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the former first lady, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the party's 2004 vice presidential nominee.

Among Republicans, Huckabee, a preacher turned politician, handily defeated Mitt Romney despite being outspent by tens of millions of dollars, and deciding in the campaign's final days to scrap television commercials that would have assailed the former Massachusetts governor.

Obama, who campaigned as an apostle of change in Washington, was gaining 36 percent support among Democrats., Edwards, who ran promising to battle the special interests in the capital, and Clinton, who stressed her experience, both were drawing about 30 percent.

What is interesting in all of this is the role perceptions play in the outcome. Hillary's third-place finish means that she is in deep trouble because she was seen as the inevitable candidate. Thompson's third-place finish means that he is newly viable because too many of those who should have known better had written him off.

What to take from all of this? It is nowhere written that Hillary must be the Democrat nominee and all those true conservatives who would have backed Thompson if they only thought he could win have no reason to withhold their support now.

It's a new race brothers and sisters. Enjoy the ride.

I'm back, sort of

Hello everybody. Sorry about not posting before now but the press of work and family responsibilities has been keeping me busy these past few weeks. Tomorrow will also be a light posting day but after that things will (or should) return to more or less normal.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and please come again.

Fred needs to understand that modern politics is a knife fight

David Limbaugh shares some of my frustrations with Fred Thompson's campaign style:

It's time to step up, Fred. Conservatives need a leader about whom we have no major reservations. The only one looming out there about you is your failure, so far, to persuade voters you want the job.

All of the GOP candidates are vastly superior to all of the Democrat candidates, but here's the way I see the field now.

Rudy is a strong leader and very good on national security and the war. But he is a social-issues liberal whose pledge to appoint originalist judges is encouraging, but not completely convincing.

John McCain is a war hero and a patriot. He has been strong on Iraq but disappointing on Guantanamo, tough interrogation techniques and other war-related issues. He is not a supply-sider and is abysmally bad – obviously – on campaign finance reform and thus free speech. Also profoundly troubling is his history of sycophancy toward the liberal media elite and, in turn, their sporadic love affair with him.

Mike Huckabee, I believe, is a strong and sincere Christian. That means a lot to me. It doesn't bother me that he wears it on his sleeve – assuming he's not being exploitive of his religion, and there, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Every candidate's worldview guides his beliefs and agenda, and it would be far worse for Huckabee to deny the strong influence of his worldview in forming his identity and contributing to his ideology. It's one thing to be upset with Huckabee if you believe he has used his Christian credentials subtly to highlight and demean Mitt Romney's Mormonism, but I don't believe that's what he's done. Christians shouldn't be accused of attacking other faiths when they are simply promoting their own.

My problems with Huckabee concern his political agenda. Huckabee is probably the strongest social-issues conservative, and since his views are driven by his strong faith, I don't fear he'll change for expediency or other reasons. But it does bother me that he appears to believe – erroneously, in my opinion – that his faith requires him to endorse an unacceptably expansive role for government. Extremely problematic are his views on foreign policy – applying Golden Rule principles to implacable, deadly terrorists and dictators and sometimes even convicted murderers; his nanny-state, big-government tendencies, including advocating a federal smoking ban, greater government involvement in health care, and opposing school choice; his ambiguous record on taxes; and his pandering to liberals on global warming and class warfare, especially in borrowing from their lexicon to pile on George Bush concerning his approach to Democrats and to foreign policy.
Mitt Romney is a man I've warmed to as the campaign has unfolded. I began with great skepticism because of his major, far-too-recent flips on major issues. Certain aspects of his record – even after his conversion – cast doubt on his commitment to the unborn and traditional marriage. He also strikes me as a bit too coiffed, too robotic and too much of a politician. But I do see Romney as a very likeable man who is saying almost all of the right things, pun intended, and who, if he is the man he holds himself to be, will make a great president.

That leaves us with Fred. I must confess that Fred is the only one I don't have major reservations about – apart from his electability. Yes, I worry that he supported McCain-Feingold and that he might not be a strong supply-sider. But on most issues, he seems reliably conservative and appears to have a solid and strong character. I do believe that with Fred, we know what we are getting.

I find his lack of "fire in the belly" refreshing. He strikes me as one of the few presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan whose primary motivation is not personal aggrandizement but rather serving and leading the nation in very troubled and dangerous times. I see him as almost being drafted into this project, and his refusal to drool publicly over the prospect of becoming the most powerful man in the world is positively delightful.

That said, he needs to make a more convincing case to the voters, which will require a greater display of enthusiasm that he views these as both perilous and promising times and that he is the best man, overall, to navigate the ship of state through these times.

So, Fred, please, as distasteful as it may be to you, it's time to step up and prove you want it. Time is short.

Here's how I see it. I believe that power is so dangerous and so corrupting that the last person you want to trust with it is the man or woman who craves it. Anyone like Bill Clinton who decided in high school that he wanted to be president is someone who should never be allowed closer to the oval office than the guided tour. This lets out Hillary who began planning on taking over in elected office for Bill all the way back in Arkansas.

This also disqualifies McCain whose whoring after the media for more than a decade has been part of his strategy to gain the White House. Giuliani also fails this test because he has been positioning himself for this campaign since he was mayor of New York City. Edwards us also out because anyone who will, in effect, abandon a wife who is dying of cancer and very young children to mount a hopeless campaign for president not only doesn't deserve the office he doesn't even deserve a share of the earth's oxygen supply.

About the only serious candidate for president who passes the "he hasn't been driven insane by his mad lust for power" test is Fred Thompson. Thompson is the true "Civics 101" candidate. Remember how we were told that the way the founders planned it every few years the voting public would find a man whose character and accomplishments in life led them to believe that he would make a good president or congressmen or Senator? Remember how that man was supposed to be reluctant to leave his real life and take a pay cut to take on the headaches of public office? But the people would insist that the nation had been good to the man and it was his time to "give something back" so the candidate would reluctantly stand for office and if elected would only serve one or two terms and then insist on going back to his real life.

Fred Thompson is that man. He was drafted by conservatives who looked at the slate of candidates and knew despair. They begged him to run and he, reluctantly, agreed.

The fact is that he is the only true conservative in the race.

The fact is that only conservative leadership can save the United States of America.

The fact is that in the general election a RINO will lose in a landslide to the Democrat, no matter whether it is Clinton or Obama.

The fact is that all the Republican candidates except Thompson are RINOs.

Those of us who understand what is at stake want Thompson to do absolutely anything it takes to win because anyone else would be a disaster.

Tonight's Music

This is Shooglenifty performing the tune Tammienorrie at the 2007 Cambridge Folk Festival.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

(NOTE: This is an updated version of a column by Ann Coulter that first ran several years ago.)

Is it just me, or does Kwanzaa seem to come earlier and earlier each year? The same goes for the Iowa caucuses -- the early scheduling of which forced me to run an attack on a synthetic candidate, rather than a synthetic holiday, last week.

I've seen so few mentions of Kwanzaa this year, I was going to declare my campaign a success, but I see that President Bush issued another absurd Kwanzaa message in December, referring to millions of African-Americans gathering to celebrate Kwanzaa.

I believe more African-Americans spent this season reflecting on the birth of Christ than some phony non-Christian holiday invented a few decades ago by an FBI stooge. Kwanzaa is a holiday for white liberals, not blacks.

It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI.

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the '60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Using that criterion, Karenga's United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga's United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented "African" names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named "Jamal" currently sit on death row?)

Whether Karenga was a willing dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. Curiously, in a 1995 interview with Ethnic NewsWatch, Karenga matter-of-factly explained that the forces out to get O.J. Simpson for the "framed" murder of two whites included: "the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Interpol, the Chicago Police Department" and so on. Karenga should know about FBI infiltration. (He further noted that the evidence against O.J. "was not strong enough to prohibit or eliminate unreasonable doubt" -- an interesting standard of proof.)

In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the '70s, Karenga was quick to criticize rumors that black radicals were government-supported. When Nigerian newspapers claimed that some American black radicals were CIA operatives, Karenga publicly denounced the idea, saying, "Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents."

Now we know that the FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In one barbarous outburst, Karenga's United Slaves shot to death Black Panthers Al "Bunchy" Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins on the UCLA campus. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as a black studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.

(Sing to "Jingle Bells")

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!

Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life -- economics, work, personality, even litter removal. ("Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.") It takes a village to raise a police snitch.

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from "classical Marxism," he essentially explained that under Kawaida, we also hate whites. While taking the "best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism" -- which one assumes would exclude the forced abortions, imprisonment of homosexuals and forced labor -- Kawaida practitioners believe one's racial identity "determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding." There's an inclusive philosophy for you.

Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Worst Generation. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA's revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani -- the exact same seven "principles" of Kwanzaa.

With his Kwanzaa greetings, President Bush is saluting the intellectual sibling of the Symbionese Liberation Army, killer of housewives and police. He is saluting the founder of United Slaves, who were such lunatics that they shot Panthers for not being sufficiently insane -- all with the FBI as their covert ally.

It's as if David Duke invented a holiday called "Anglika," and the president of the United States issued a presidential proclamation honoring the synthetic, racist holiday. People might well stand up and take notice if that happened.

Kwanzaa was the result of a '60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural nonsense that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga's United Slaves -- the violence, the Marxism, the insanity. Most absurdly, for leftists anyway, is that they have forgotten the FBI's tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.

Now the "holiday" concocted by an FBI dupe is honored in a presidential proclamation and public schools across the nation. In Oregon public schools this year, Kwanzaa -- but not Christmas -- appeared on the official calendar.

Bush called Kwanzaa a holiday that promotes "unity" and "faith." Faith in what? Liberals' unbounded capacity to respect any faith but Christianity?

A movement that started approximately 2,000 years before Kwanzaa leaps well beyond mere "unity" and "faith" to proclaim that we are all equal before God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). It was practitioners of that faith who were at the forefront of the abolitionist and civil rights movements. But that's all been washed down the memory hole, along with the true origins of Kwanzaa.

Miss Ann is perhaps a bit too kind to the Black Panthers otherwise hits the target squarely. As usual.

Back to Sunday school for you

From The Brussels Journal:

What happens when a modern secular Brit tries to make a point about religion:

Romney and Huckabee would make any Englishman uncomfortable as we avoid mixing politics and religion, an irony considering that we have an Established State Church and the USA specifically does not.

Huckabee, as I understand it, is one of those gentle but intellectually challenged souls who believes the Bible literally to be true: that is a matter entirely for him, of course, but I do wish he would tell us how Moses managed to get two of every animal, plant and so forth that has ever existed on Earth into one vessel and just how big it was…

I'm sure Noah would have liked to know how Moses managed that as well.

Tonight's Music

Donal Lunny, Noel Hill, Liam O Maonlai & Hothouse Flowers. Rock influenced Celtic or Celtic influenced rock. Take your pick.

NRO offers their predictions for 2008

Here are some of the ones that caught my eye:

There will be worse pictures of Hillary than the one Drudge highlighted.

When Edwards packs it in, he will throw his support to Obama.

There will not be another 9/11 style attack on U.S. soil, but at least one will be thwarted as al-Qaeda proves desperate to give Bush a “goodbye present.”

Osama bin Laden will be killed. Some famous moron will proclaim that Bush “saved” Bin Laden’s death until the end to boost his “legacy.”

The surge in Iraq will be declared a victory, and Republicans will campaign on it November.

Bill Clinton will join the Obama campaign.

The National Intelligence Estimate assuring us that Iran ceased work on a nuclear bomb in 2003 will be “readjusted” in light of new evidence to suggest that they started up again in December 2007 when the report was issued.

Hillary Clinton goes negative on Oprah.

Hollywood writers continue to strike. No one outside Hollywood notices.

Michael Yon gets some of the credit he deserves.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will sign into law a sweeping school choice program.

Nancy Pelosi will use the phrase “…for the children…” in nearly every floor speech.

Running against Hillary Clinton — who will be tarnished once against by new campaign finance scandals — the House GOP will pick up a dozen seats in the House of Representatives, leaving Speaker Pelosi a greater challenge to manage an already unmanageable House.

After a surge in Iowa, Fred Thompson will win the GOP nomination and then be elected the 44th President of the United States.

Iran will continue developing nuclear weapons — with fewer economic or diplomatic impediments thanks to the intelligence community’s decision to substitute its own policy preferences for those of the White House.

The CIA will not undergo the reform it needs in 2008. The CIA’s principal tasks are to steal secrets — and to keep secrets. It recent years it has shown little facility for either.

The situation in Pakistan will continue to deteriorate leaving great uncertainty about that country’s nuclear weapons and technology and the use of its territory by al-Qaeda.

The renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue at Annapolis will lead nowhere.

The Syrian assault on Lebanon — on Lebanese freedom and democracy — will continue.

The “surge” in Iraq will continue to work. Sooner or later everyone will accept that 7-10 years of significant U.S. military presence is the minimum for getting a new government up and stabilized, (as the military predicted while planning the war).

Our culture will continue its downward plunge. Behavior that seemed genuinely shocking when it was first presented on, say, Sex in the City, is now the subplot of everything else, including news specials and crime shows. (Swingers, internet S&M hook-ups leading to death, etc. are discussed in early prime time on major networks.) Nothing big will happen to disrupt the appalling early sexualization of young girls.

Here are some Hillbilly White Trash predictions for the coming year:

One of the anti-war movies that no one went to see will win the Best Picture Oscar.

A damaged Hillary Clinton will win the Democrat nomination and lose the general election to a Thompson/Romney or Romney/Thompson Republican ticket.

Rudolph Giuliani will be either the Attorney General or, more likely, Secretary of Homeland Security in the upcoming Republican administration.

Sales of recorded music will continue to decrease due primarily to the fact that the majority of the record companies output is pure crap. The industry will continue in its state of denial and blame their customers for transferring music to their computers, iPods and other download devices.

There will be a tragic crash involving one of the new Airbus A-380 jets due to the way they were rushed into service.

Katie Couric will leave her anchor job at CBS.

On election night at least one anchor of a broadcast network or CNN will forget himself/herself in the excitement of the moment and start referring to the Democrat Party and its candidates as "we" and "us" and the Republican Party and its candidates as "them".

The Breck Girl's heart and soul

Rich Lowery nails the Breck Girl:

Knoxville, Iowa — John Edwards is angry, and he wants people to know it. Republicans complain of Democratic class warfare all the time. It’s usually an overwrought charge. But Edwards is the real thing. His message is resentful, confrontational and paranoid, verging on the openly hateful. And Iowa audiences are loving it.

Edwards is like a stand-up comedian who has honed his act down to the most effective material. In the case of the comedian, all that’s left is laughs; in the case of Edwards, almost all that is left is unbridled hostility. His campaign pitch is a well-polished mailed fist aimed at the gut of the establishment, defined by Edwards as heartless, money-grubbing corporations.

“This corporate greed is killing the middle class, killing American jobs and it is stealing your children’s future,” Edwards tells a rapt crowd of a couple hundred people in the lobby of a high school here.

The reason we don’t have universal health coverage, according to Edwards, is “very simple” — the drug companies and insurance companies oppose it. In fact, everything is “very simple” to him. In his down-home Manichaean vision, dark corporate forces are responsible for everything he doesn’t like.

This is a worldview that doesn’t allow for legitimate differences of opinion. On the one side is “the glorification of corporate greed,” and on the other are the people willing to fight it — everyone in between is either a tool or a coward. Battle lines drawn, Edwards’s vision bristles with evocations of power. The people will have to wield the “sovereign power” of the country against corporations that will only “give their power away when we take their power away from them.”

The traction he’s been getting is a sign that Iowans weary of the lover Obama, have been drawn to the hater Edwards. The former North Carolina senator doesn’t invoke hate, but he comes close. He tells his audience FDR said that “those people who hate me, I enjoy their hate. Bring it on.” Hate me and I’ll hate you in return, Edwards seems to be saying.

If Obama talks of cross-partisan understanding, Edwards talks of revenge: “What we have to do with these people is we have to treat them exactly as they have treated you.” Which will have to be quite excoriating since corporations are supposedly impoverishing ordinary people and stealing their children’s future. Edwards assures the audience that his crusade isn’t driven by cool rationality, but by gut-level emotion: “It is very personal to me.”

It is rare indeed to hear a politician brag about his fistfights as a child as Edwards does to establish his credentials for the “epic fight” ahead. Persuasion and negotiations are anathema to him and he explicitly forswears them: “People say to me, as president of the United States I want you to sit at a table and negotiate with these people. Never.” He’s willing to talk to Iran, but not to Pfizer. One is only a terrorist-sponsoring enemy of the United States, after all, and the other is a drug company.

For all its populist grievance, Edwards has a certain conservative appeal based on filial piety. He brings up his grandparents and parents constantly, and frames his fight against corporations in terms of all the striving our forebears have done to secure a better future. He complains that the mill where his father worked has now closed. In a change election, Edwards sells a kind of nostalgia, as if fighting the corporations will end the capitalist churning that so discomfits his listeners.

Edwards is in the protectionist, us-versus-them tradition of Dick Gephardt and Pat Buchanan, populists who thrived in the Iowa caucuses and then sputtered out. Ultimately, Edwards offers a sectarian message with limited appeal to an upwardly mobile country that is richer and, for all the dissatisfaction with Washington, more content than when FDR was welcoming the hatred of plutocrats. But, for now, some Iowa Democrats are willing to give hate a chance.

The Breck Girl is a leftist who lacks the wit to pretend to be otherwise. This will allow him to appeal to a certain segment of the Democrat Party, but not to the nation at large. In fact his consistent third place standing in the Democrat primary polls shows that he can't even appeal to the Democrat Party at large.

The fact that he spews pure hatred comes at no surprise. That is the fuel which has powered all movements of the political left, from Lenin's Bolsheviks to Hitler's Nazis.

The Pod-People are livid

NEW YORK (AP) -- ABC and Fox News Channel are narrowing the field of presidential candidates invited to debates this weekend just before the New Hampshire primary, in Fox's case infuriating supporters of Republican Rep. Ron Paul.

The roster of participants for ABC's back-to-back, prime-time Republican and Democratic debates Saturday in New Hampshire will be determined after results of Thursday's Iowa caucus become clear.

Fox, meanwhile, has invited five GOP candidates to a forum with Chris Wallace scheduled for its mobile studio in New Hampshire on Sunday. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee received invites, leaving Paul of Texas and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on the sidelines.

The network said it had limited space in its studio -- a souped-up bus -- and that it invited candidates who had received double-digit support in recent polls.

In a nationwide poll conducted December 14-20 by The Associated Press and Yahoo, Thompson had the support of 11 percent of GOP voters and Paul was at 3 percent. Paul's support is at 6 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted in early December.

What they are trying to do is to let voters get a good look at the candidates who actually have a chance of winning the nomination. However much the arrested development cases who are supporting Paul want to argue the point the fact is that he does not, never has had and never will have any chance of winning the Republican nomination.

2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2008 dawns cold and windy here in the mountains of Western North Carolina as we begin the new year under a winter storm warning.

I hope everyone has a wonderful year in 2008.