Birthers bad. Homosexuals good.

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic  whines in an article about GOP candidates who have “flirted with birtherism.” 

“Et tu, Rob Portman? Ye of sensibility and rectitude? Ye of maturity and political resolve?  Despite inquires from the Cincinnati Enquirer and Plain Dealer, Portman’s campaign won’t directly answer the question of whether the candidate believes that President Obama is a citizen. (Obama is.) So now, we’re up to five Republican Senate candidates — major ones, not including J.D. Hayworth in Arizona for the moment — who have flirted with Birtherism….”

Oh, boo-frickin’ hoo.  There are a lot of good people out there who believe that there is fire behind all that smoke.  Those people vote.  The same people who advocate a big tent when it comes to the homosexual vote want it slammed shut on birthers.  Sorry Mr. Big Shot, but a lot of people don’t believe it just because you said it ain’t so, and they sure as hell don’t trust Obama.

I’ll give up my suspicions about Obama’s past when I feel the original birth certificate in my stubby little fingers, and when I see with my own eyes his education records.  And I’ll fight for the right of the birthers to question his past as much as they want.  Rejection of Birtherism isn’t a litmus test of the Republican party. Yet.

A Rejoinder to Smitty: Why we NEED to fight social issues at the national issue

Smitty, the better looking blogger at “The Other McCain” wrote an excellent article today, but I believe that while his premise is correct, he draws the wrong conclusion.  Allow me to explain why I believe this.  First, Smitty wrote an article in which he took issue with a social conservative, Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association, who said this: “The tea party movement needs to insist that candidates believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.”

Smitty responding to that quote, wrote this:

“Mr. Fischer, sir, we need to split the difference here. While I fully, 100% subscribe to the sanctity of life, and I agree that the symbol “marriage” means exactly what you think it meant, means, and shall mean, from alpha to omega, I don’t think individual social concerns are a proper Federal issue, for the following reason:

“You go beyond the notion of the Constitution protecting you from the Federal government, and instead assert that the Federal government can and should tell you what to do.”

Agreed agreed agreed with what is written in bold, Smitty, well done!  Ok, so what is the problem you ask?  The problem is that while that in bold is the goal, where the battle is raging on social issues is currently at the federal level.

Roe v. Wade was a Federal Court decision whereby the Federal Government “can and did tell us what to do.”  It cannot be undone by the individual states.  It can only be undone by Federal legislators appointing socially conservative– or at least pro states’ rights– jurists and justices to the courts. 

Likewise, there is that lawsuit percolating through the Federal Courts in California whereby David Boies and Ted Olsen are attempting to get the Federal Courts to rule that states can not forbid gays to marry.  In other words, that lawsuit is set to become the Roe v. Wade of gay marriage.  We, The People, want to decide the issue at the state level?  Too bad, the Federal Courts won’t let us.

The reason we need to fight social issues at the Federal level is because that is where the battle is raging.  We don’t currently have the right to battle it at the state level on the issue of abortion, and we won’t have the right to battle gay marriage at the state level, either, if Boies’ law suit is successful.  

If we do not appoint candidates who “believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage” we are ensuring that the battle will be lost before it is started.   It’s like Abe Lincoln ordering Gen. Meade to withdraw from Gettysburg before the first day of battle.  The battlefield is the federal judiciary.  Only the federal legislators can change the make up of the federal court system in order to stop their usurpation of our rights. 

To paraphrase Smitty’s quote:  You THE FEDERAL COURTS go beyond the notion of the Constitution protecting you from the Federal government, and instead assert that the Federal government can and should tell you what to do—SO WE HAVE TO STOP THEM BY APPOINTING PRO LIFE AND PRO MARRIAGE LEGISLATORS WHO WILL APPOINT PRO LIFE AND PRO MARRIAGE JUDGES, WHO WILL LEAVE IT UP TO THE STATES TO DECIDE.”

Please, don’t give in to the usual blather that social cons should shut up and agree with libertarians and fiscal conservatives on fiscal issues, and shut the hell up about social issues.  The fight is raging on social issues at the federal level not because social cons asked for the fight there but because that is where the liberals have taken the fight.  Far from asking Gen. Meade to retreat before the battle is joined, I’m asking him to take the high ground and hold it against all assaults!  Once we return these issues to the states where they belong, then we can agree to part ways with the libertarians and with the fiscal conservatives who do not agree with us on these social issues.

Perhaps a way to keep our fragile coalition of fiscal conservatives together is to ensure our social liberal and libertarian brethren that we do not seek to force our views on them at the federal level, we merely seek to allow those battles to be fought where they belong–at the state level. 

I  have taken this time to gently suggest that Smitty has drawn the wrong conclusion only because we need good men like Smitty on our side.  As Lincoln said of Grant: I can’t spare him, he’s a figher!  As usual, I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.

Lt. Gen. Smitty, 1st "The Other McCain Brigade"

Mr. Google: he hate me

A month ago Smash Mouth was averaging +4,700 hits per day.  Then our hits dropped precipitously down to +1,200 for the past twenty days.  We must have pissed off somebody, somewhere (besides Dan “Charles Johnson, Jr.” Riehl, who never referred anybody to us anyway).   We blame the “Google Dance.”  Couldn’t be John Doe’s shitty articles and Neanderthal personality.

watt dew ideots haff inn comon?

h/t oldhippie.com

Get your T-shirts here

Patrick “Patches” Kennedy, motivational speaker

h/t Nicedeb, whose husband made the first video. 

Now watch this slightly longer speech by his father. He starts off slow but gets wound up as bad or worse than his son Patrick.

The drunken bum doesn’t fall very far from the tree…”But I would remember what my daddy said, With tears in his eyes on his dyin bed. He said, “Patches, I’m depending on you son, To pull the family through. My son it’s all left up to you…”

Gary Solis nominated for Dumbass of the Year Award

Gary Solis, “Adjunct Professor” at Georgetown University Law Center puked up some crap and the Washington Post printed it.  The gist of his article was that CIA operators of the drone attacks in Afghanistan makes them “unlawful combatants” no different from the terrorist rag heads that they are targeting, and subject to “lawful attacks” by the  wherever they are found, whether in the U.S.A. or in Afghanistan (where several were recently killed by a suicide bomber). 

“In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents [operating drones over Afghanistan] are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities….”

“If the CIA civilian personnel recently killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afghanistan, were directly involved in supplying targeting data, arming or flying drones in the combat zone, they were lawful targets of the enemy, although the enemy himself was not a lawful combatant….”

Well la-dee fucking da!   I’m sure their relatives and friends will be happy to hear that Mr. Solis thinks that they were unlawful combatants and “lawful targets of the enemy.”  I’m glad that you served in ‘Nam and are a distinguished scholar, but I wonder what happened to your common sense?  No, Dumbass of the Year Nominee, it is not “lawful” to target anybody when you yourself are an unlawful combatant. 

Ask yourself this: If the suicide bomber who killed the CIA agents had lived, could he have been prosecuted? Hell yes.  He did not kill the agents in “self-defense.”  It is not an excuse that he was trying to protect other unlawful combatants from being killed. They had no rights not to be killed.  Since they are unlawful themselves, it is never “lawful” for them to kill our soldiers or civilians–or anybody–you incredible dumbass.  Beyond that, what difference does it make whether the CIA are lawful or unlawful when they are killed? They are still dead. And are you implying that, except for the fact that the CIA agents were “out of uniform,”  the ragheads wouldn’t try to kill our agents?  Whether they were “unlawful combatants” or not is totally irrelevant.  Rag heads don’t abide by the Geneva Convention.  

They said if I voted for McCain the muslim vermin of the world would continue to hate the U.S.A.

and protest everytime our President traveled to their countries. They were right.  Way to you Indonesian vermin, I support  you this time.