Betraying a Sacred Trust and Appeasing Islamofascists Does Not Bring Peace

During the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, Americans emgaged Islamic terror for the first time. The Barbary Pirate states of North Africa charged each nation tribute for the privilege of shipping on the Mediterranean. When they unilaterally tried to raise the tribute paid by the US, we sent not more money, but the Navy and Marines. The Marines made deals with the local opposition who helped us invade Tripoli. Once we accomplished our goals, we left. Our opposition friends ended up in the hands of the Bey of Tripoli.

American history has this dark side. We convince people to help us, then we abandon them when public opinion moves on. We did it to Tripolitanians; we did it to the South Vietnamese. We are about to do it to Afghanistan.

Obama and his advisors are leaning towards giving the Islamofascist Talibam a role in that nation's government. Imagine giving the Nazis a role in 1946 Germany! The Taliban massacred its opponents. It tortured, mutilated, and killed women who went to school. These murders were public spectacles in soccer stadiums!

It does not matter that we promised these people a new future and that we would help them achieve one without fear. Obama simply wants to abandon these people to the fates of fanatics with guns. He wants to lose everything our soldiers fought and died for because Afghanistan is inconvenient to him.

Obama just got the Nobel Peace Prize. It was given to him by people who know not what peace actually is. Peace is not platitudes. Peace is not the absence of war. Peace only comes when problems are solved. George W. Bush's diplomacy gave us the promise of long term peace because it aimed to actually solve problems, not ignore them or put them off. apologizing for doing the right thing, putting our enemies in control of nations, only encourages the militants to fight harder because they learned that terrorism accomplishes their goals.

Obama has that award and he may shout that he is looking for "peace in our time." But he has set himself up as this generation's Neville Chamberlain, another naive politician who thinks that his country's enemies can be dealt with reasonably.

NRCC launches Fire Pelosi Campaign

In 2008, Nancy Pelosi received 204,996 votes to win reelection in her home district. We need your help today to collect at least 204,997 names on our "Fire Nancy Pelosi" mobile petition. You can put us one step closer to our goal by signing the petition right away.

Republicans are in a strong position to take back the House majority and fire Pelosi in the 2010 midterm election. In terms of candidate recruitment, fundraising, and issue development, we are far ahead of where we were at this point in 1993 - and you remember what happened in 1994.

Please take a moment to sign our petition by entering your mobile number to the right and send a clear message that Americans are unhappy with Pelosi's "leadership."

Breaking Down Health Care Opinion Polls

The media is trying very hard to give legs to the notion that Obama has a "silent majority" out there that approves of his ideas of socialized health care. It is rather interesting that writers keep coming back to Nixonisms when they speak of Obama. I suppose that is improvement over seeing him as either Lincoln or the Messiah.

You have to think about these polls and what is asked. The question can skew the result. If I asked 10,000 random people if health care in the United States needs reformed, a solid majority would say "yes." However, if you dig a little deeper the differences emerge in the details. Some want full socialism, some want a government option. Most want to keep the whole system private. Many support tort reform to eliminate frivolous lawsuits and lower costs. Quite a few want to find ways to decrease free use of the system by illegal aliens. Many have proposed changing regulations to encourage pooling by small business owners. Most support getting rid of the "pre-existing condition" cluase from health insurance. You won't find many people defending that little detail. Just asking if you support reforming the health care system includes all of these different positions.

This only indicates that health care reform is a big tent issue. Most want to see changes. That does not mean that people want the radical plans and unconstitutional requirements now floated around by left wingers. Create small business pools, pass tort reform, get rid of the restrictions on pre-existing conditions, and keep the government out. That is what Americans want; that is what they ought to get.

I Like Clark

Last weekend my parents were in town. We went for dinner at a local place here in Keyser called the Candlewyck Inn. You pick up the menu in a place like this and think hard about all the choices. So many look appealing, but eventually you settle on one because you think it is the absolute best choice out of several good options. (I picked the filet mignon covered in crab! Delicious!)

That is how I feel about the many choices we have in the First Congressional District for the Republican nomination. So many good options, some of whom would make good candidates and respectable Representatives. To me, speaking only for myself and on behalf of no other person or group, Clark Barnes represents the most solid choice.

I note reactions of non political people when they hear Clark decided to run. News of Barnes in the race generates a lot of excitement. Even Democrats who have grown sick of the mess in Washington see Clark as a man who can make things happen.

To those who have never met him, it may be difficult to convey the energy and charisma he brings to an event or a campaign. Barnes has both of the key characteristics of a great campaigner. He connects well with both crowds and individuals without fudging on his principles. Barnes brings a systematic campaign style that emphasizes personal contact with constituents. Many successful GOP candidates have used the personal touch to overcome Democratic majorities in their districts and Clark is no different.

Next year we have an opportunity to add West Virginia to the list of states that will successfully rid themselves of Democratic Representatives. Alan Mollohan is well-known and well-funded, but Jim Humphries of Charleston will tell you that money and notoriety alone will not beat a popular and charismatic congressional candidate (lost to Capito twice.) We need the right kind of candidate, however, to connect with Democratic and independent voters.

Nominate Clark Barnes and he will beat Alan Mollohan. Send him to Congress, and he will represent his state and district, not the whims of a dictatorial Speaker of the House.

Capito to EPA: Miners Deserve Clarity

As uncertainty remains throughout the Appalachian coal mining region, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is calling on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson to clarify her agency’s actions as it relates to delays in the mine permitting process. Capito outlined her concerns in a letter to Jackson today, arguing that continued ambiguity and delays in the permitting process will cost Mountain State jobs and choke off economic investment in the state.

“Further delay of mining permits creates enormous uncertainty that’s forcing mines to delay investment, halt production and lay off workers across the region,” she wrote. “It is imperative that the EPA clarify the process for approving or rejecting permits – hard working West Virginians depend on it.”

Capito, who met with representatives of the EPA and the US. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) after the original June announcement from the EPA, also called on the EPA to reconcile their stated commitment to an expedient resolution to the 79 outstanding permit applications in Appalachia.

“While we were promised that permits would be reviewed deliberately, but expeditiously, what we have is a process with no apparent end in sight,” Capito added later.

Though the EPA has pointed to a 60-day clock for approval of permits, the clock only begins when the Corps is able to officially “pick up” the application and it is unclear if any of the permits in question have even been released by the EPA. It is also unclear what timeline – if any – the EPA has placed upon itself, given that it has retained overall authority to veto any pending permit.

“It's certainly appropriate to have legitimate oversight and review of all proposed permits, but the EPA’s most recent statement is only the latest in a series which have created uncertainty and ambiguity for mines across our state and region,” Capito wrote.

Of the 79 permit applications in question, 23 are located in West Virginia.

The full text of the Capito letter can be accessed here.

Maybe Because He Wants to Win the War

General McChrystal has written, spoken, and probably leaked to the public his earnest desire to win the war in Afghanistan by requesting what the Democrats called for several years ago, more troops.

Back when Iraq's future remained uncertain, many Democrats, including the current Secretary of State, called for more focus on Afghanistan. They, including the current president, called this country the real war and Iraq the distraction. Now Afghanistan is the distraction and the Olympics are the real war.

Naturally the officers and soldiers have gotten fed up with the shifting of attention. Obama called health care the most important struggle of this generation (excuse me, are we not at WAR?) He has little concern or time for Afghanistan, so long as he can get one domestic victory and the Olympics (oops, may have screwed the pooch on that one.)

Danger does exist in too massive a buildup; after all, we trained them to hit the logistical units of massive concentrations of men and armor during the Soviet occupation. However we need to expand our presence in the countryside. Experts at the Army War College have studied two hundred years of irregular warfare in American history and figured out a gameplan for victory.

They concluded that you can pacify a region like Afghanistan in two ways, offer security or terror to the most important factor which is the population. Americans do not terrify civilians, even though that is the easiest way to win. Instead the goal is to establish permanent security. It makes no sense to advance into a town, secure it, gain cooperation, then abandon it to go after another objective. You need a long term presence to help train security units and home guards so that they can protect themselves. This requires time and more manpower.

Is Obama interested? Does Obama care? His generals have taken the extraordinary step of speaking out to try and pressure him into giving the war more attention than the Olympics. Let's hope they succeed. Failure in Afghanistan means emboldened terrorists and more attacks on our soil.

My Friends, My G________ Friends!

“I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!” Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding serves in so many ways as the template for the current presidency. He served a short time in the Ohio state senate, then the US Senate. Prior to that he edited a small town newspaper and helped the Ohio Republican machine. The GOP ran him because he was attractive and sounded very good speaking about nothing. He hinged his campaign on the word "normalcy" and defeated james Cox and the Democrats. Harding then went on to failures that still did not reach the level of the neophyte Obama The reason for this was that perhaps because deapite all his failings, Harding still believed in hands off government. He did not give himself a chance to screw up too badly. Obama, meanwhile, believes in interventionism on a Mussoliniesque level.

Both Obama and Harding had friends to worry about. They both dragged the flotsam and jetsom of their own local and state political machines to Washington with them. Harding's friends tried to leverage illegal profit out of the system while Obama's simply want the power to enact their kooky ideas. Both men found themselves embarassed time and time again because they appointed men to influence with embarassing predilections.

Obama recently appointed a man as "safe schools czar" who admittedly in a published book encouraged a fifteen year old boy to have sex with an older man in a bus station. Many (not all of, but many of) Obama's biggest Hollywood supporters line up to denounce the arrest and imprisonment of Roman Polanski who drugged and sodomized a 7th grade girl. They feel that his status as an artist raises him above the law. I rarely agree with Chris Rock on anything, but he made a good point when he said that not even Johnny Cochran would defend OJ by saying "did you see him play for the Bills?"

Most of Obama's appointees as czars have shady pasts of some sort; that is why they were not sent to the Senate as choices for real executive branch posts. However, his lack of concern for their opinions and actions have come back to convince many that we are one year into a chaotic and incompetent presidency.

Beneath His Dignity, An Epic Fail

George Washington was one day walking down a street in the capital. One of his old friends, Governeur Morris, had just arrived and was anxious to see Washington, but first saw the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton pointed out the president and encouraged Morris to walk over, slap him on the back, and greet him with enthusiasm. Morris did so. Washington stopped, slowly turned his head to face Morris, and froze him with a stare like pure liquid nitrogen. He then coldly continued his walk.



Washington had a very conscious idea of the image of a president. He strove daily to present the image of simplicity and dignity. He required no uniformed guards, bands, or announcement. Washington believed that if a president was worthwhile, people would know when one entered the room. He also remained very strict about what actions lay beneath the dignity of a president.



I am positive that George Washington would react with rage at the idea of a sitting Chief Magistrate of the United States kowtowing to a group of foreigners to get games played somewhere in America. I do not care if the Prime Minister of Britain or the President of Russia has done it, we should keep high expectations of our head of state. Would Queen Elizabeth beg for Olympic games? I think not!



Let us, though, for one second assume that begging foreigners to allow us to spend uncounted millions and go farther into debt is an appropriate task for an American president. Surely that is a task reserved for when times are good and burdens are light. As a person with family fighting in the Middle East, it insults me that Obama went to Denmark to flash his smile, speak about his dream of a Chicago Olympics, and make an "oh by the way" stop to meet with his generals. A smart politician would have played up the meeting with commanders and made the Olympic stop secondary. Otherwise, people might get the idea you care more about the Olympics than the sacrifices of our fighting men and allies.



Then, if your Olympic pitch fails, you do not look like you spent a lot of money to travel across the ocean and waste everyone's time. Also the IOC doesn't get peeved when you do not stick around to watch all the other presenters who courteously watched you. After all, if you are fighting a war and care about those fighting it as well as the outcome, people understand if you have to leave to meet the generals.



But Obama didn't. As usual his priorities got skewed, he failed to think things through, and ended up looking stupid again. Not saying he is stupid, but he has not learned much political competence since entering office.



As the kids say these days, Olympic campaign 2009 will go down in history as . . .



Epic Fail.