Friday, 3 of September of 2010

Category » Robert Stacy McCain

Alaska Libertarian Party To Murkowski: No Thanks

There’s been some talk around the web that if Lisa Murkowski loses the Republican nomination for US Senate in Alaska that she might try to run as a Libertarian. Apparently, the Alaska Libertarian Party has said thanks but no thanks. Eric Dondero of Libertarian Republican broke the story today…

The Executive Committee of the Alaska Libertarian Party held an emergency meeting yesterday to discuss the contested primary results in the Republican Senate primary. All 5 board members met in an undisclosed location in northeast Anchorage to hammer out a decision as to how to move forward.

Friends of Lisa Murkowski approached the ALP early Wednesday morning immediately after the Tuesday primaries, feeling out if there was any possibility that the Senator could appear on the Libertarian line for the fall election, as a third party candidate. Other supporters of the Senator, including at least two longstanding members of the Libertarian Party, also called to lobby ALP Chair Scott Kohlhaas to keep an “open mind,” on the issue.

Kohlhaas was immediately innundated with Alaska and national media over the matter.

On Sunday morning, over coffee and donuts, the ExComm voted unanimously, 5 to 0 to deny the Senator the ballot line. There was no malice intended. ALP Chair Kohlhaas has repeatedly stated that she is a nice lady, and the ALP was flattered by the offer.

Robert Stacy McCain, who knows Dondero, offers some juicier details at his blog and makes a gutsier choice in his post title.

Murkowski’s opponent, Tea Party backed Republican Joe Miller, has a slight lead but absentee ballots have yet to be counted.

Allahpundit at Hot Air describes the inherent catch 22 in all this….

Irony of ironies, if Miller wins the primary then the one person in Alaska who can probably guarantee his victory in the general is … Lisa Murkowski, by endorsing him and asking her supporters to back him in a show of party unity. (She has major centrist appeal, drawing 38 percent of indies, 32 percent of Republicans, and even 27 percent of Democrats in a three-way race.) Think Murky will be willing to put all this behind her and help the GOP by declaring “It’s Miller time” in Alaska?

Read more on this at Memeorandum.

  • Share/Bookmark

How About Topless Katie Holmes for STIMULUS Czar?

In addition to being a great actress and a beautiful woman, I think Katie Holmes could do amazing things to (ahem) stimulate the economy.

See (a lot more) below the fold.

Read more »

  • Share/Bookmark

Will Folks and Larry Sinclair, What’s The Difference?

There isn’t much difference, really.

Both are bloggers, both claim to have had lurid sexual encounters with rising politicians and both want you to just take their word for it.

One difference between them is that Will Folks made his outrageous claim about a conservative Republican woman, while Larry Sinclair made his outrageous claim about a liberal Democrat man.

The other difference is that the media paid attention to one of them. Guess which one…

As noted HERE, HERE and HERE, the media didn’t ignore Will Folks at all, even as he tried to play the victim.

There was no credibility for the claims made by either of these men. Their stories should have been treated the same way. As in, the way one handles garbage.

Nikki Haley’s campaign stood strong and in the end she emerged the victor, but one has to wonder if she would have crossed the 50% mark and thus avoided a runoff were it not for Will Folks and his media aided smear campaign.

In the end, Nikki Haley will be the new governor of South Carolina.

Will Folks, like Larry Sinclair, will just be damaged goods.

  • Share/Bookmark

Nikki Haley Destroys a Smear Campaign

If you follow American Glob, you may have noticed I’m not covering the coordinated smear campaign against Republican South Carolina gubernatorial candidate, Nikki Haley.

There are two reasons for that.

The first reason is that the subject is already being superbly covered by Red State, Robert Stacy McCain and Ace. I applaud their coverage of this story and their defense of Haley.

The second reason is that I simply don’t buy any of it. This baseless attack on Haley is made of the same crap we’ve seen hurled at Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann on a regular basis. As Nikki Haley notes in the video below, the attacks against her only came when she started polling well.

With that in mind, I saw a great post on Red State tonight by Moe Lane which has a video of a debate where Nikki Haley confronts one of the smear merchants working against her. I had to wade into this subject, if only to show you this video. Nikki Haley is pretty awesome.

I’ve never been to South Carolina, but I bet the voters of The Palmetto State know the truth when they hear it. Hopefully, they’re listening to Nikki Haley.

  • Share/Bookmark

Hot Air Vs. Red Eye, Allahpundit & Andy Levy Have Interesting Twitter Exchange About Rand Paul

Some people are energized by the Republican yet libertarianish nomination of Rand Paul for US senate in Kentucky, others are more skeptical. Consider the following Twitter exchange between Allahpundit of Hot Air and Andy Levy of the FOX News show Red Eye.

This might qualify as the ultimate Neocon vs. Libertarian blood match or just so much online drivel. You decide. To quote Allahpundit, “It’s on.”


See the full exchange after the jump….

Read more »

  • Share/Bookmark

Alan Colmes Says There’s No Such Thing As Radical Islam, Daniel Pearl Couldn’t Be Reached For Comment

Hat tip to ZIP.

Liberal commentator Alan Colmes appeared on Megyn Kelly’s FOX News program yesterday and claimed that there’s no such thing as radical Islam.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl couldn’t be reached for comment because in 2002, an Islamic radical used a knife to cut Daniel Pearl’s head off, while he was completely awake without any type of anesthesia.


Meanwhile, liberal media outlets continue to insist that recent attempted terror attacks on the US have absolutely nothing to do with radical Islam. After all, things like that don’t happen in liberal places like Massachusetts.

Left Bank of the Charles breaks it down: You might be a terrorist if…

Attorney General Eric Holder can’t even say the words, neither can Obama.

It’s not that hard to figure out who’s attacking America, you just have to live in reality.

Our leaders apparently, do not.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit links. Thanks!

  • Share/Bookmark

Hey Pennsylvania! Here Are 3 Good Reasons to Vote for Tim Burns

Tim Burns is a Republican running for congress in Pennsylvania’s 12th district. The special election which will decide the winner is this Tuesday. Here are 3 good reasons to support Tim Burns.

1. He’s not a politician. Tim Burns is a successful, self made business man. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in elected office who knows something about growing business and creating jobs?

2. He’s running for the right reasons. Tim Burns is running out of a sense of duty to serve, not because he feels he’s entitled to a legacy seat.

3. His opponent has the backing of the media and the SEIU. Need I say more?

There’s all kinds of crazy stuff going on in Pennsylvania right now over this particular election and Stacy McCain is covering it all.

Oh, did I mention Tim Burns has the full support of Scott Brown?

  • Share/Bookmark

Elena Kagan Has Three Problems

Elena Kagan is Obama’s latest nominee to the US Supreme Court.

Unlike noted uterus expert Andrew Sullivan, I could not possibly care less if Ms. Kagan is gay. In my mind, there are three important questions for which she should provide an explanation.

1. Plagiarism Scandal?

As Dean of Harvard Law School in 2004 and 2005 she treated two liberal law professors with kid gloves when they were busted for plagiarism. Her chicanery was so blatant that even a leftist academic said she should be fired for her “whitewash.”

Kagan’s essential absolution of both professors has been virtually unnoticed in the flood of stories about her possible Supreme Court nomination this year and in 2009 when she was considered a top candidate to replace liberal Justice David Souter.

But the way she handled professors Larry Tribe and Charles Ogletree, when they both were caught swiping the words of others, seems to violate basic principles of fairness.

She let the professors off easy for the kind of offense that for which any Harvard undergraduate or law school would have been suspended if not expelled.

2. Do as I Say, Not as I Do?

The White House Monday said that Supreme Court nominee won’t follow her own advice from 1995 in answering questions on specific legal cases or issues, supporting Kagan’s flip flop on the issue that she first made a year ago.

Kagan wrote in 1995 that the confirmation process had become a “charade” because nominees were not answering direct questions, and said they should have to do so.

But during a briefing with reporters in the White House, Ron Klain, a top legal adviser to Vice President Joe Biden who played a key role in helping President Obama choose Kagan, said that she no longer holds this opinion.

And finally, question number three…

Read more »

  • Share/Bookmark

Left Wing Media Continues Struggle to Define the Tea Party Movement

UPDATE: Instapundit links! Welcome Insta-readers!

Left wing/media + Tea Party = Define. Demonize. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s like watching a 3 year old struggle with a jigsaw puzzle for AGES 14 AND UP.

The 3 year old thinks he’s grown up enough to do the puzzle, but after hours of frustration, throws the box of pieces at the wall in anger and screams “RACISTS!”

Charles Blow of The New York Times hit that breaking point last week.

Mark Lilla, writing in the New York Review of Books is the latest 3 year old to step up to the plate.

Many Americans, a vocal and varied segment of the public at large, have now convinced themselves that educated elites—politicians, bureaucrats, reporters, but also doctors, scientists, even schoolteachers—are controlling our lives. And they want them to stop. They say they are tired of being told what counts as news or what they should think about global warming; tired of being told what their children should be taught, how much of their paychecks they get to keep, whether to insure themselves, which medicines they can have, where they can build their homes, which guns they can buy, when they have to wear seatbelts and helmets, whether they can talk on the phone while driving, which foods they can eat, how much soda they can drink…the list is long.

Apparently, by Lilla’s estimation, Americans should not be allowed to decide these things for themselves. Don’t you cave men know that your social betters know what’s in your best interest? Lilla’s article is long but it doesn’t take him too long to reach the tantrum point…

A new strain of populism is metastasizing [Note the Cancer reference] before our eyes, nourished by the same libertarian impulses that have unsettled American society for half a century now. [SNIP] Welcome to the politics of the libertarian mob.

Forgive me for asking, Professor Lilla but aren’t the words “libertarian” and “mob” mutually exclusive?

Robert Stacy McCain, commenting on the same article observes…

An exaggeration, of course, but you sense the source of liberal Lilla’s frustration. What was the point of the Left’s “long march through the institutions” if, having captured those institutions, they can’t use them to tell everybody else what to do?

Streiff at RedState smartly adds…

This is a very convenient position to take when you’re in Mr. Lilla’s position. The alternative is to admit that your entire world view is being repudiated by most of the country.

Here’s an explanation of the Tea Party for Misters Blow and Lilla that any three year old could understand. Federal spending and the expansion of government under eight years of George W. Bush was bad. Under Obama, it’s already worse.

Libertarianism is not the enemy and the Tea Party movement is not racist.

Now who wants a cookie?!

  • Share/Bookmark

WaPo Vs. HuffPo? Who Can Tell The Difference?

Ben Smith at The Politico asks the burning question that’s keeping everyone awake at night. Washington Post or Huffington Post?

The once-cautious Washington Post has begun to invest heavily in the liberal blogosphere, transforming its online presence – a combination of accident and design – into a competitor of the Huffington Post and TalkingPointsMemo as much as the New York Times.

The Post’s foray into the new media world received some unfavorable attention last weekend when its latest hire, Dave Weigel, who covers conservatives, referred to gay marriage foes as “bigots.” But the resulting controversy brought into relief a larger shift: The Post now hosts three of the strongest liberal blogs on the Internet, and draws a disproportionate share of its traffic and buzz from them, a significant change for a traditional newspaper that has struggled to remake itself.

Who can tell the difference? Has everyone forgotten that little incident in July of 2009 when the editor of the Washington Post was caught red handed selling access to the Obama Administration?

The Washington Post’s ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record “salons” was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.

Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have now taken full responsibility for what was envisioned as a series of 11 intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues. For a fee of up to $25,000, underwriters were guaranteed a seat at the table with lawmakers, administration officials, think tank experts, business leaders and the heads of associations.

Furthermore, it’s worthy to note that in a recent article by Byron York of the Washington Examiner, titled The Top 10 Dumbest Things Said About the Arizona Immigration Law, The Washington Post won the contest hands-down with 3 out of 10. Even The Huffington Post only scored a 1.

Robert Stacy McCain sums it up perfectly.

As long as you get the facts right, who gives a damn about “bias” or “favoritism”?

Favoritism from the Washington Post doesn’t count for much anyway.

Just ask Creigh Deeds.

  • Share/Bookmark