This election year is crucial for the state of Virginia and for our nation.
It is absolutely critical that we elect a candidate to the U.S. Senate who will stand up to the big spending liberals in Congress…someone who will fight for the taxpayers of our state…a person willing to fight to reduce wasteful spending and lower taxes…a U.S. Senator who will protect our families and the working men and women…a man with the courage and honesty who will go to battle for Virginians.
You deserve a U.S. Senator with all of those qualities. You should demand a Senator who is honest and tough and who will work for you. And, my friends I submit that candidate in this election is former Gov. JIM GILMORE, and I hope you will help us elect him as our next U.S. SENATOR!
You may remember that as Virginia’s Governor Jim Gilmore signed into law five different tax cuts for Virginians totaling $1.5 billion, including a 70 percent cut in the Car Tax. Time and again, Jim Gilmore stood his ground against those who wanted to tax and spend and take more money from your pockets. For his courageous stands against wasteful spending and increased taxes, Jim Gilmore was three times awarded the “Friends of the Taxpayer Award” by Americans for Tax Reform.
You may also remember that as Attorney General Jim Gilmore launched successful investigations into Medicaid fraud, government waste, and consumer protection. The fact is that Jim Gilmore is someone who stands up for the working people of Virginia. We MUST elect Jim Gilmore to the United States Senate on November 4th!
Why should I tell you when Obama himself put it so eloquently?
Hear the full interview here. Obama thinks “assault weapons” are only for crime. Sure, and nobody ever enjoys target shooting in this country, and certainly there’s no need to maintain the balance of power between the people and their government. They’ll always protect us!
Sure. And no one ever gets attacked outside of their homes either.
On the way home from Mt. Jackson today (where I was hoping to have a phone bank, but alas), I heard an advertisement from Senator Jim Webb, informing me that he was a proud NRA member, that his father had given him a rifle, and that he had given his son a rifle. From this, plus his heartfelt assurances, I was supposed to believe that Barack Obama is not going to fight to strip away our Second Amendment rights.
Putting aside the fact that Obama has already shared his thoughts that the Constitution is an outmoded document that is halting “progress,” I was struck by how I was supposed to believe that because Jim Webb is good on guns Obama is too.
Well, I’m touched that Jim Webb believes in sharing the tradition of hunting and the shooting sports with his son. It’s pretty common, if not downright universal, for one generation to find something to leave to the next. My father is still on this earth, but by far the best thing he’s ever given me is his advice. Alot of them are great nuggets, like “Dance with the one that brung you,” “You can judge a man by the company he keeps,” and “It’s not the number of friends but their quality.”
Perhaps the one rule that pops up again and again in politics that my father gave me is “A man should be judge by his actions, not his words.” And so that’s why I have so much trouble when, although Barack Obama keeps telling me that he believes in my fundamental right to self-protection and the balance of power through the freedom to bear arms, his record as an Illinois State Senator tells a much different tale:
- Voted to limit handgun purchases to one a month while a State Senator (Illinois Senate, HB2579, vote 34, 5/16/2003)
- Proposed raising taxes on guns and ammunition over 500% (Chicago Defender, 12/13/1999)
- Voted for a bill that would have banned most target rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and even muzzleloaders and would have allowed law enforcement to enter homes to retrieve the guns (SB 1195, 3/13/03)
- Voted against saving homeowners from prosecution when they used a firearm to stop a home invasion (SB2165, 3/25/04)
As a United States Senator, he continued to leave a trail of anti-gun actions, even as he carefully parsed his words while running for the nomination:
- Refused to sign, with over 300 other members of Congress, an amicus curiae brief supporting gun rights during DC vs. Heller
- Supported Senator Edward Kennedy’s bill that would have banned numerous popular center-fire cartridges on the grounds that they are “armor piercing ammunition”
- Voted to allow reckless lawsuits that do little more than bankrupt honest gun manufacturers (United State Senate, S 397, Vote 219, 7/29/05)
I’m sorry, but those simply are not the actions of someone who respects either the balance of power the second amendment ensures or the rights of millions of Americans to enjoy pastimes that have been handed down through generations.
I think I’ll stick with Dad instead of Jim Webb on this one.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Election 2008, Election Fraud, Election law and process, State Government and Politics, Uncategorized
Earlier this month I wrote that Fairfax County General Registrar was engaging in some questionable behavior by targeting jails over other locations for on-site absentee ballot registration. Now, some even more disturbing news is emerging from Fairfax, this time in the form of absenstee ballots from our men and women in uniform being thrown out en masse. From Human Events:
Fairfax County Registrar Rokey Suleman is disqualifying an overwhelming majority of the military federal write-in absentee ballots received in his county on the basis that no address had been given for those witnessing the voter signatures on the ballots. According to Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity and four former members of the military who held a press conference on Thursday, over 98 percent of these military absentee ballots in Fairfax County are being rejected.
“The federal write-in absentee ballot is a federally mandated ballot that allows military service members and their dependents to cast an absentee ballot when they haven’t received a [state] ballot before the election,” Herrity said. “For them it’s a safety net. It allows them to vote if the mail truck hasn’t reached his or her remote base in Iran or Afghanistan in time to cast a regular absentee ballot.”
When asked how many ballots had been rejected, Herrity responded, “Out of the 260 military federal write-in ballots received to date, only five included an address for the witness. The other 255 have been set aside for rejection.”
Fortunately, Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a veteran himself, is doing his best to make sure that every vote cast by our country’s finest is counted. From the Virginian Pilot (based out of Hampton Roads, where even more people will be on the lookout for this sort of behavior due to the region’s large military population):
State elections officials and Attorney General Bob McDonnell are taking a new look at a thicket of state and federal voting laws that threaten to invalidate some of the thousands of absentee votes being cast by military members and other Virginians overseas.
“Every eligible vote will be counted,” David Clementson, a McDonnell spokesman, said Friday.
The review by the State Board of Elections and McDonnell’s office comes amid calls from some of the attorney general’s fellow Republicans for the state to count all votes submitted using a federal write-in absentee ballot.
In a conference call arranged by the McCain for President campaign, former Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said Friday that federal law should “trump” a state statute that the elections board has said would require it to set aside some votes submitted on the federal ballot.
At issue is a state requirement that the completed federal ballot provide both the name and address of a witness to the absentee vote – unless the voter has also requested a separate, state-furnished ballot. The federal form, used for voting in all 50 states, does not provide a space for the address and does not specify which states, such as Virginia, require it.
The federal ballot is intended as a backup, for use when voters have applied for, but not yet received, a Virginia ballot. The state form requires the witness’s signature but not an address.
More from the Waynesboro News Virginian:
State Board of Elections Spokeswoman Susan Pollard said the 100 ballots in the Northern Virginia area are under investigation by Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell.
Under state law, Pollard said, the ballots must be witnessed and also include a signature of the witness and the witness’ printed name and address.
She said the 100 ballots in question lack all the witness requirements of the state law.
She said McDonnell’s office is working to review both federal and state law and said the status of the 100 ballots is uncertain.
“We are also looking to see if this is occurring elsewhere in Virginia,” Pollard said of the witness information problem.
This time from the political arm of the nation’s largest Taxpayer’s group. From Marketwatch:
The National Taxpayers Union Campaign Fund (NTUCF), the political action arm of the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU), today announced it has endorsed former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore (R) for the state’s U.S. Senate seat.
“When he held Virginia’s executive position, Jim Gilmore time and again proved his commitment to reduce the burden on taxpayers,” NTUCF President Duane Parde said. “He espoused pro-growth economic policies, chief among them cuts in the state’s dreaded car tax, which inspired many similar platforms across the country.”Gilmore, who also served as Virginia’s Attorney General, emerged as a national leader in the fight against predatory Internet taxes. He’s expressed strong opposition to the recent $700 billion bailout of the financial industry. Gilmore’s Democratic opponent, meanwhile, supports the bailout package, along with a number of other damaging policies, such as cap-and-trade energy legislation, expensive new infrastructure programs, and large tax hikes.
Over the past few days the Obama campaign has been highlighting a series of high profile “defections” (mostly retired Governors who disagree with many of the party’s platform planks to begin with). The being said, Obama still hasn’t impressed many, including America’s most famous non-Italian plumber:
Joe the Plumber all but came out of the water closet for Sen. John McCain on Friday, saying that his famous exchange with Sen. Barack Obama made him “scared for America” and that he doesn’t trust the Democratic presidential candidate on taxes.
The plumber, aka Joe Wurzelbacher, burst into the headlines after he buttonholed Mr. Obama less than two weeks ago during a campaign stop in his Holland, Ohio, neighborhood and quizzed him about his tax policy. On Friday, he said that he wasn’t impressed by the Illinois senator in their encounter.
“When I was face to face with him, my honest first impression was that I expected something more. I had heard so much about ‘his presence’ in the media that I was surprised to find that he seemed very average,” Mr. Wurzelbacher wrote in a live online chat on WashingtonTimes.com (read the transcript with Mr. Wurzelbacher here).
“My gut feeling as he answered my questions? I was scared for America,” he wrote in response to a reader who asked “When you were face to face with Obama, what were you thinking and how did it feel?”
I’ve posted before on the true nature of Bill Ayers’ education philosophy and work, but the State Board of Elections Wall Street Journal (I don’t know what I was thinking) has more on just what Ayers’ agenda is:
I’ve studied Mr. Ayers’s work for years and read most of his books. His hatred of America is as virulent as when he planted a bomb at the Pentagon. And this hatred informs his educational “reform” efforts. Of course, Mr. Obama isn’t going to appoint him to run the education department. But the media mainstreaming of a figure like Mr. Ayers could have terrible consequences for the country’s politics and public schools.
The education career of William Ayers began when he enrolled at Columbia University’s Teachers College at the age of 40. He planned to stay long enough to get a teaching credential. But he experienced an epiphany in a course offered by Maxine Greene, who urged future teachers to tell children about the evils of the existing, oppressive capitalist social order. In her essay “In Search of a Critical Pedagogy,” for example, Ms. Greene wrote of an education that would portray “homelessness as a consequence of the private dealings of landlords, an arms buildup as a consequence of corporate decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private property-holder’s choice.”
That was music to the ears of the ex-Weatherman. Mr. Ayers acquired a doctorate in education and landed an Ed school appointment at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
……
Daley the son has maintained as tight a rein over the city’s Democratic Party machine as did his father, doling out patronage jobs and contracts to loyalists and tolerating as much corruption as in the old days. But unlike his father, he was ready to cut deals with veterans of the hard-core, radical left who were working for their revolutionary ideas from within the system they once sought to destroy from without. There is no lack of such veterans. One of Chicago’s congressmen, Bobby Rush, is a former chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party; Louis Gutierrez, a former leader of a Puerto Rican liberation group, the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, is another.
In this Chicago, where there are no enemies on the left, Mr. Ayers’s second career flourished. It didn’t hurt that his father, Thomas Ayers, was the CEO of the Commonwealth Edison company, a friend of both Daleys and a major power broker in the city.
……
In fact, as one of the leaders of a movement for bringing radical social-justice teaching into our public school classrooms, Mr. Ayers is not a school reformer. He is a school destroyer.
He still hopes for a revolutionary upheaval that will finally bring down American capitalism and imperialism, but this time around Mr. Ayers sows the seeds of resistance and rebellion in America’s future teachers. Thus, education students signing up for a course Mr. Ayers teaches at UIC, “On Urban Education,” can read these exhortations from the course description: “Homelessness, crime, racism, oppression — we have the resources and knowledge to fight and overcome these things. We need to look beyond our isolated situations, to define our problems globally. We cannot be child advocates . . . in Chicago or New York and ignore the web that links us with the children of India or Palestine.”
The readings Mr. Ayers assigns to his university students are as intellectually diverse as a political commissar’s indoctrination session in one of his favorite communist tyrannies. The list for his urban education course includes the bible of the critical pedagogy movement, Brazilian Marxist Paolo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”; two books by Mr. Ayers himself; and “Teaching to Transgress” by bell hooks (lower case), the radical black feminist writer.
Two must read articles from the Wall Street Journal. First, they get to the heart of Obama’s policies regarding the growth of government:
Whether or not last night’s much-improved debate performance helps John McCain rally in the polls, at least voters finally got a clearer sense of the policy differences. For our money, the best line of the night was Mr. McCain’s Freudian slip of referring to Barack Obama as “Senator Government.” Neither candidate is offering policies that meet the serious economic moment. But Mr. McCain would let Americans keep more of their own income to ride out the downturn, while Mr. Obama is revealing that his default agenda is to spend money and expand the government.
Cribbing from Hillary Clinton’s playbook, Mr. Obama called this week for a “90 day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners that are acting in good faith,” whatever that last phrase means. When Mrs. Clinton proposed a foreclosure moratorium during the Democratic primaries, Mr. Obama had said it would lead to more expensive mortgages going forward. He was right then.
The Treasury’s Hope Now program and the Federal Housing Administration are already helping to refinance homes for millions of homeowners. Anyone who isn’t able to qualify for one of those voluntary programs and who still can’t afford to pay a mortgage isn’t likely to be any better fixed in a mere 90 days. Mr. Obama also overlooks that the banks that service the mortgages don’t typically own them. They’re owned by far-flung investors via a mortgage-backed security.
Mr. Obama apparently wants the feds to unilaterally rewrite contracts based on something as undefinable as “good faith.” At the same time, he is repeating his proposal to change the bankruptcy code so judges can unilaterally rewrite mortgage contracts as well. All of this would make credit less available to working families in the future.
Another Obama idea is to give a $3,000 tax credit to companies that create new jobs in the U.S. over the next two years. We don’t know many employers who would hire people merely because of a tax credit that barely covers administrative costs, especially if that tax credit vanishes after two years. And especially if Mr. Obama is going to hit that same business with a whopping tax increase. As he told skeptical “Joe the Plumber” — actually Joe Wurzelbacher of Toledo — in his own Freudian slip this week, “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” But there won’t be any wealth to spread if no one creates it.
Meanwhile, they offer an even scarier picture of things to come if the Democrats sweep the nation this election:
If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.
Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven’t since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.
The nearby table shows the major bills that passed the House this year or last before being stopped by the Senate minority. Keep in mind that the most important power of the filibuster is to shape legislation, not merely to block it. The threat of 41 committed Senators can cause the House to modify its desires even before legislation comes to a vote. Without that restraining power, all of the following have very good chances of becoming law in 2009 or 2010.
They proceeded to go through a litany of areas where Democrats would greatly affect the shape of domestic policy, including Medicare, business, union regulation, environmental policies, taxes and free speech.
Throughout this campaign Barack Obama has run on the mantra of change, change, change. For example, he changed his views of earmarks after it became politically inconvenient. However, that didn’t stop him from making sure that his closest friends and supporters were taken care of:
Sen. Barack Obama, who vows to change Washington by trimming wasteful spending and disclosing special-interest requests, wrote the Bush administration last year to seek a multimillion-dollar federal grant for a Chicago housing project that is behind schedule and whose development team includes a longtime political supporter.
Mr. Obama’s letter, however, was never disclosed publicly. In fact, the letter was ghostwritten for him by a consultant for the Chicago Housing Authority, which wanted the money – a practice ethics watchdogs have frequently criticized.
The housing project through July had completed fewer than one-sixth of the 439 public housing units it had planned, court records show.
The Bush administration obliged Mr. Obama’s request, awarding a $20 million competitive grant last month from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It called the project a “shining example” of urban revitalization. The Washington Times learned of the letter from Republican operatives.
As Mr. Obama campaigns for president as an agent of change who promises to clean up Washington’s money game, his role in the Stateway project raises questions about the appearance of a conflict of interest and whether he has been participating in the very system he criticizes, watchdogs say.
Now some say that earmarks and similar state funds can be very helpful for communities. I think there may be some logic to that, but certainly not in these kinds of situations:
A charity being probed after it was handed $100,000 of taxpayers’ money by Barack Obama is headed by an “opportunist” whose own family wouldn’t trust him with a dime, The Post has learned.
Chicago Better Housing Association boss Kenny Smith is so desperate for cash, he launched a bitter courtroom battle with his 73-year-old disabled mom in an unsuccessful bid to take control of her $1,400-a-month pension and Social Security payouts, according to court papers and relatives.
His family last week told The Post they were amazed that Smith – a former volunteer for Obama who has donated $550 to his various campaigns – was trusted with the hefty state grant to build a botanic garden in his blighted South Side Chicago neighborhood.
Land earmarked for the plan is still overgrown and covered in garbage – eight years after then-state Sen. Obama steered the pork-barrel funds to the program.
The Illinois attorney general last month launched an investigation to find out what the Chicago Better Housing Association did with the cash.
“I wouldn’t go as far as saying Kenny’s an out-and-out crook, but he’s an opportunist,” said his brother-in-law, Robert Thomas.
Then, finally, Roll Call reveals that pro-Obama lobbyists have figured a work-around to the Senator’s famous ban on donations from their “ilk.” From Roll Call:
Obama has pledged to forgo lobbyists’ political contributions and minimized their role within his campaign. Yet, for the past two years, many lobbyists have found creative ways to stay involved, volunteering on policy committees or having spouses contribute to the campaign.
More recently, Washington-area lobbyists and lawyers have looked across the Potomac to the battleground state of Virginia to put their dollars and volunteer hours to use.
While lobbyists are also prevented from contributing to the Democratic National Committee, they can donate to Democratic state parties.
Last month, more than two dozen Democratic lawyers, lobbyists and political insiders did just that, holding a major fundraiser for the Democratic Party of Virginia.
The fundraiser’s primary purpose was to raise money for get-out-the-vote efforts, which would help all Democratic candidates on the ballot in Virginia.
The Sept. 16 event at Hogan & Hartson’s Washington office raised more than $125,000.
Headlined by a pair of Virginia Democrats, Gov. Tim Kaine and Senate candidate Mark Warner, it also included a number of early Obama supporters and longtime Democratic operatives.
Co-hosts included Stan Fendley of Corning, Tom Walls of McGuireWoods Consulting, Mike House of Hogan & Hartson, John Buscher of Holland & Knight and Dwight Fettig of Arnold & Porter, among others.
Virginia Democratic Reps. Bobby Scott and Jim Moran were also in attendance.
Virginia Democratic Party spokesman Jared Leopold said the state party has more than 2,000 new donors both within Virginia and across the Potomac.
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in volunteers here in Virginia,” Leopold said. “It doesn’t matter to us if you are a lobbyist or a college kid. The point is to get out there and knock on doors.”
While the Virginia Democratic Party was the only beneficiary of the event, it was nonetheless an outlet for those frustrated by Obama’s strictures against lobbyists contributing to the greater Democratic Party cause, said one Democrat at the event.
Many Democrats have been blowing off the McCain campaign’s attempts to bring to light Barack Obama’s true relationship with Bill Ayers, head of the left-wing terrorist organization Weather Underground in the 1960’s. They say that Obama was 8, he had nothing to do with the attacks, Ayer’s is just an old reformed radical.
And there is some truth to that. Obama cannot be held morally responsible for Ayer’s actions. That would just be irresponsible for Republicans to make that claim. The larger, and far more important issue, is Ayer’s current work, and his vision for American education. From Investor’s Business Daily:
“School reformer” is how Brokaw identified the co-founder of the Weather Underground, the radical organization that, among other activities, bombed government buildings, banks, police departments and military bases in the early 1970s.
Yeah, right: Ayers is a school reformer in the same sense, as City Journal’s Sol Stern put it, as Joe Stalin was an agricultural reformer.
An idea of what Ayers has in mind for America’s schools was provided in his own words not 40 years ago when Obama was eight years old, but less than two years ago in November 2006 at the World Education Forum in Caracas hosted by dictator Hugo Chavez.
With Chavez at his side, Ayers voiced his support for “the political educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how . . . all of you continue to overcome the failures of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.”
Ayers told the great humanitarian Chavez: “Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion.” It is that form of socialist revolution that Ayers, and Obama, have worked to bring to America.
Ayers, now a tenured Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.
As Stern points out, “Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children in the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive.”
If Ayers was just another nutty professor, we’d be lucky. But he wields great influence in academic circles and has had Obama’s ear. He’s the author or editor of 15 books. Chicago’s current mayor, Richard M. Daley, has employed Ayers as a teacher trainer for Chicago’s public schools and consulted him on the city’s education-reform plans.
Look closer. Ayer’s agenda remains a radical one, even if he has embraced the pragmatism of Saul Alinksy’s world view in his old age. Insiders have repeatedly admitted that Ayers served as the “guiding light” of the Chicago Annenberg Foundation, and Ayers’s own projects have recieved funding. One such project:
One of Ayers’ descriptions for a course called “Improving Learning Environments” says a prospective K-12 teacher needs to “be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and . . . be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation.”
I’ll let that speak for itself.
