This is what I did last night

Fifteen 11 year old boys at my house for my son's birthday party. In the top picture they are obviously mesmerized by this website. (Just kidding) It was a Weird Al Yankovic video.

It was fun, I'm exhausted. I'm going to go clean up now. Think of this as an open thread.

Ouch!

Hillary, that is gonna leave a mark!

via Drudge

Obama is having a very good week

Check out this edited version of the reaction of Iowans immediately after the last debate at Obama's campaign site.

He should really make that into a commercial. These regular people really hit on all of Hillary's weaknesses.

Update: Well, it's about freakin time.

What gives here?

I looked all day the other day for this quote from Obama when Oprah introduced him and could not find it anywhere. I didn't want to mis-quote him, but Charles Krauthammer has it:

Barack Obama opens his speech at his South Carolina Oprah rally with "Giving all praise and honor to God. Look at the day that the Lord has made."

All I have heard from the media are quotes from Huckabee about faith and religion, but Obama says something overtly religious and not a peep out of the mainstream media.

Why do you think that is? I know, but do you?

Hillary will be flying all over Iowa

Ok, not that way, but in a "Hill-a-copter!" Beginning Dec. 16th Hillary will blanket Iowa in 5-day tour hitting all 99 Counties, "Letting Iowans Know That Hillary’s Working For Change, Working For You."

via Michelle

Obama, may I suggest this for you?

Seriously, Obama should do some sort stealth jet at the same time. Arrive just before she does at every stop.

Huckamessage

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Remember how I said the higher purpose that Obama may have been born for is to stop Hillary?

Well, maybe the higher purpose Huckabee was born for was to make the Republican party either forgive McCain, or accept Romney, and understand that the people of faith will never vote for Rudy. A divine message to the GOP, so to speak.

Can I get an Amen?

"Rudy on immigration, then and now"

Illegal immigration. He was for it before he was against it.

Climate Change

I thought it interesting that in the last Iowa debates of both parties, they used the term "global climate change" instead of "global warming." Maybe because it was colder than a witch's...ummm....nose outside during the debates?

Anyway, in related news, The American Thinker brings us the results of the Kyoto treaty ratified it in 1998:

If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto.

As The American Thinker points out:

One would think that countries that committed to the Kyoto treaty are doing a better job of curtailing carbon emissions. One would also think that the United States, the only country that does not even intend to ratify, keeps on emitting carbon dioxide at growth levels much higher than those who signed.

And one would be wrong.

via Powerline

Huckabee, Huckabee, Huckabee

It seems to be all anyone can talk about.

Michael Gerson at the WaPo wonders if Huckabee's acceptance of Gilchrist's (the minutemen founder) endorsement was the biggest mistake he could make.

Ron Paul is paying for trips to Iowa of two former Republican legislators from Mike Huckabee 's home state to criticize Huckabee's record on immigration and taxes.

Iowa Polls Drove Huckabee Surge

Real Clear Politics Stuart Rothenberg says a Huckabee candidacy could be a disaster as far as electability goes. Huckabee has no foreign policy experience. None.

Heading Right with Captain Quarters radio has an interview with Huckabee.

One more: Rich Lowery: Huckacide.

Ok, enough with the "Hucka{insert word} already.

To be honest, I wish all this buzz would go away. I understand why social conservatives like Huckabee, but I agree with Rothenberg, his electability in the general election is zero. We need the best person to be able to win against Hillary, not a newbie. We need someone who can effectively run this war. Huckabee has no experience there either. Also, although I am certainly a person of faith (nothing is more important to me), I am uncomfortable with Huckabee's mixing of faith and politics. Faith should be a part of who you are, not a part of your political campaign. I think that alienates too many Americans who don't share that faith.

There is also that "gut" feeling I have. It's nothing I can explain, but I just don't feel good about Huckabee. I'm sure he is a nice person, a good man, but he isn't what we need right now. We need to focus on someone who can win. We have good candidates. McCain, Romney, and Thompson are who we should be focusing on. Not Huckabee and not Rudy.

Let's get to it.

"Masters of Disasters"

Oh good Lord, no.

via Hotair

Obama tells Hillary the way it's going to be...

You go, Obama. Tell that woman who's in charge!

Axelrod (Obama advisor) said that the two senators spoke for about 10 minutes today, during which Clinton apologized for the comments made by her New Hampshire co-chair Billy Shaheen, who told the Washington Post that Obama's past cocaine use would make him vulnerable to GOP attacks. "Senator Obama expressed to Senator Clinton it's important for campaigns to send a signal from the top as to what type of campaign they want to run. If you send a signal that negative campaigning is the fun part of campaigns and treat it as a sport, then you are sending a signal down the line that it's all okay. They have to decide if they want to send a different signal and certainly by asking Mr. Shaheen to leave that would be a different signal," Axelrod said.

And she did just about 20 minutes later.

Clinton's campaign Co-Chair resigns

The first head to roll:

Shaheen announces decision to step down as Clinton campaign Co-Chair
“I would like to reiterate that I deeply regret my comments yesterday and say again that they were in no way authorized by Senator Clinton or the Clinton campaign. Senator Clinton has been running a positive campaign focused on the issues that matter to America’s families. Plus she threatened to kill my cat."

Ok, I made the last sentence up. But with Clinton, you just never know.

via HotAir

In related news, over at Reihl World View, Dan noticed that a progressive blog caught some sock puppets from the Clinton Campaign. It was The Blue Hampshire Blog:

Recently, we admins noticed this comment thread on a recommended diary, and the oddities it posed made us look a little deeper than we normally would.
As the comment thread revealed, users pinballwizard, elf, shley24, MTAY all registered in succession to recommend the diary. A further look by us revealed that:
* they had registered within minutes of each other, including another user a bit later, janbaby, who was not among the recommenders, * the same IP address was used by all of them, and is registered to the Clinton campaign, * two other recommenders, blues and kmeisje, also registered from the same IP address.

The administrators say commenters from campaigns are always welcome as long as they identify themselves as such.

Come on guys, this is just the beginning. Let's just sit back and watch the show. Clinton's team is sure to give us one.

The Sad Life Of Matthew Murray

Matthew Murray is the 24 yr old that killed four people at two New Life Church facilities in Colorado. Murray attended YWAM (for youth) training at Arvada's Faith Bible Chapel. Earlier, the Director explained they let Murray go from a missionary program because of what he called "issues related to his health." Could that "health" issue been that he was gay? One of the things that hasn't been reported on so much in the mainstream media is that Matthew wrote about being bi-sexual:

Last summer, he wrote, "People like us are going to go to hell, according to Christians." He lists several reasons why. Reason number seven is bluntly stated, "I'm bisexual." In other postings, Murray wrote, "... I can never get a female date. I am at least able to get some male action."

On an online website Murray wrote that he told her, "Using drugs, alcohol and having gay sex, I'm just trying to do what any Christian pastor would do. At least I'm not doing meth like Ted Haggard."

He posted about not understanding how Haggard could be forgiven, yet he himself could not:

He posted, "I want to know where was all the love, mercy and compassion for my supposed imperfections?"

What were his imperfections?

He said he had participated in“every sort of sexual perversion”…including bestiality. He says he rebelled from his strict Christian back ground in 2004:

It was in 2004 at age 20 when I rebelled against my parents and their church that I immediately went out and bought Marilyn Manson’s “Smells Like Children” Album. From there I got all of Marilyn Manson’s albums and went on to an assortment of metal and Black Metal groups:
Vital Remains, Slayer, Cradle of Filth, Danzig, Black Sabbath, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Emperor, Slipknot, Tool, Dark Funeral, Marduk, Gorgoroth etc

He also sought refuge in the occult. Here is a posting of some of his online writings. They are deeply sad and disturbing. At one point he yells at his mother and tells her he likes men and would like to do a threesome in front of her and his dad. I don't want to copy and paste that conversation for the obvious reasons it is R-rated.

In many of the writings he refers to being raped. It seems it was by a man since he later says it wasn't consensual and then says that he would like to one day be with a female.

In early 2004, I was still living at home at age 20. I went to a charismatic conference at New Life church with my mother and her church. At the conference I got into a debate with two prayer team staff members. These two staff members watched me throughout the conference to find out who I was with. They found my mother and told her this story that went something along the lines of I “wasn’t walking with the lord and could be planning violence.”

It seems clear that in the rebelling against his strict home life and the strict dictates of the New Life Church combined with his mental state, he blamed everything on Christians such as those at New Life.

In reading through his writings, it is heartbreaking. Matthew was obviously abused and raped. He saw hypocrisy at the church and oppressiveness with his family trying to control him at home. Add on to that the various medications he took for his depression and it all ends the way we saw it end.

Some gay websites are blaming the whole thing on the fact that Matthew was gay and the Church tried to change him. Whatever sexuality Matthew desired or was, it was only a symptom of the inner demons that he stuggled with. This really wasn't about being gay against being Christian imo. It was about never finding the good inside himself.

I'm not making a judgement here on Matthew or his family. I'll let God do that. But for the websites that I surfed through that seem to want to blame the Church, or homophoblia, or his parents, or hypocrisy for what Matthew did, I don't buy it.

I have known people who went through these kinds of things, as horrible as they are, and come out of it as wonderful human beings. Matthew never understood that God wasn't the New Life Church or his parents. He was being forced to find answers there. And then he looked for more answers in all the wrong places.

There is no doubt in my heart and mind that the struggle between good and evil surrounds each of us every day. Matthew had more of a struggle than most of us, but he could not overcome. He was devoured.

May God have mercy on his soul.

I Peter 5:8
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

A Candidate Only a Mother Could Love

Does anyone else find it strange that a new ad put out by the Clinton Campaign starring her mother is only about one thing, Hillary being a "good person." Her mother begins with this: "What I would like people to know about Hillary is what a good person she is."

Wouldn't we know that about Hillary after all these years of knowing her? When you have to get your mom to tell people that you "really are a good person, no, really, A good person. I promise," I find that pretty sad.

I suppose Rudy will be next with his mom telling us he "really is a loyal person. Really. He is."

Someone explain this to me...

*I go to do some Christmas shopping and get an instalaunch! Welcome and come back and read me everyday! Scroll through while you are here. I'm not like the rest! I'm clean and only allow clean comments. I have as many leftwing commenters as I do rightwing and everything in between. A real debate can be had here. Not just shouting at each other. I have a Catholic/Christian point of view and I try to not mimic what the other blogs are saying. I end up doing that sometimes because I get the story first!


Congressman Steve King reacted this morning to the nine “NO” votes on his resolution to honor Christmas and the Christian faith. The vote shocked Capitol Hill observers because votes on similar resolutions honoring the holidays of Islam and Hinduism passed without any NO votes.

Appearing this morning on the Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends, King said, “The [nine] naysayers didn’t make it to the floor to debate. I would like to know how they could vote Yes on Islam, Yes on the Indian Religions and No on Christianity when the foundation of this nation and our American culture is Christianity…I think there’s an assault on Christianity in America.”

To find out who voted no, follow link. Look, I don't need any stinkin' resolution to honor Christmas or the Christian faith. But someone explain to me why it is ok and good to honor other religions and not this one?

I don't get it. Even from the Democrats, I don't get this.

President Edwards?

The one scenario no one is talking about. Hillary has her venom set on Obama, but what if, in all the fray, Edwards ends up with momentum? Maybe Democrats will see Hillary for what she is, a manipulating corrupt political machine, but honestly feel that Obama cannot win the general election because of lack of experience and past indiscretions?

Edwards is saying all the things the left want to hear. He has been through the process before and he is handsome and charismatic and is from the south.

Don't underestimate this man. I see him getting the nomination before Obama (although I honestly don't see anyone taking this from Hillary)

Imagine Romney and Edwards being the nominees. The hair jokes. The Ken jokes. The two best looking men to ever run for President against each other.

It would be fun.

Hillary's fangs come out.

Remember when Hillary said with Obama it was time for the fun to begin?

It's begun.

Billy Shaheen, the co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's is just bewildered and perplexed:

Among his concerns about Obama as the nominee, he said in an interview here today, is that his background is so relatively unknown and that the Republicans would do their best to unearth negative aspects of it, or concoct mistruths about it. Shaheen, a lawyer and influential state power broker, mentioned as an example Obama's use of cocaine and marijuana as a young man, which Obama has been open about in his memoir and on the trail.
"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen,
....

Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Gee, he's so concerned. This is so obvious. The Clinton campaign is angry that these questions aren't being asked by the media. They know if they put it out there themselves it will look like a deep personal attack so instead the campaign manager says that these are the questions the Republicans will be asking. He's just so worried about that. It's the Republicans who will play dirty tricks, not us, who just did by saying this.

Remember when Novak said the Clinton campaign had something on Obama and Obama diffused it by saying he wasn't playing that game? The Clinton campaign has something on Obama, but they don't want to be the ones to put it out there and they are just simmering for it to get out.

I think it would be sweet for Romney, McCain, Thompson, Guiliani, and Huckabee's campaigns to all come out and say, "We promise we will not be asking those questions in the general election. We understand Obama's past discretions and considered it done."

Wouldn't that be delicious?

via Ace (who,btw, thinks this makes Hillary done, who is he kidding?)

The Republican Debate

How many of these do we need to have? Good grief.

I watched a bit of it. Nothing new. But I did like it when the moderator asked for a show of hands on certain questions, Thompson said "I'm not doing the show of hands thing." And everyone else agreed. Good on him. It is stupid.

Stuff

Huckabee recieves endorsement of Jim GilChrist, founder of the Minuteman project. This certainly takes the sting out of Huckabee's past illegal immigration stances. Here is Huckabee's immigration and border enforcement plan.

UPDATE: It seems Jim GilChrist asked all the candidates if they would like his suppport and Huckabee is the only one who accepted. After Huckabee's record on illegal immigration, that must have seemed like a Godsend. (no pun intended) via HotAir

GOP Des Moines Register/Iowa Public Television debate today will be a bit more interesting with Alan Keyes there. Keyes is always good for fire and brimstone.

MaryKatharine is wondering where in the world is Fred Thompson?

One last thought. I watched Hillary and Warren Buffet on CNBC discussing the estate tax and how wonderful it is to tax money that has already been taxed:

"The estate tax has been historically part of our very fundamental belief that we should have a meritocracy, that we do not want a system — where we expect people to make it on their own — to be, over time, dominated by inherited wealth," she said. "That we do believe that people should have to get out there and make their way, to a great extent."

She also said the following, but I cannot find it in any transcript. She said that "passing wealth from generation to generation must be stopped."

I almost fell on the floor. So people who have wealth and pass that wealth down to their children should not be allowed to do so in Hillary's opinion! The government should get that money. Good grief. Could that be any more socialistic?

I suppose If Clinton gets elected people who work hard to make a great deal of money need to spend all of it before they die. Because heaven forbid their children receive it.

California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring had this to say:

"Hillary Clinton's death tax is just another tax on assets that have already been taxed," Nehring said. "Under Clinton's plan, family-owned businesses and individuals stand to lose half of everything when the business and/or property pass from one generation to another."

"Andrew Giuliani defends relationship with father"

Oh, really?

Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew, defended his relationship with his father during an interview with the campus newspaper last week. The Duke University Junior spoke to the paper after learning that Details Magazine labeled him as the “person who could most easily torpedo” his father’s campaign, ranking him the 19th most powerful man under-45.

Andrew responded:

He added that Details mischaracterized his relationship with his father based on a New York Times article earlier this year that he said twisted his words.

“For them to say I have no relationship with my father is flat out wrong. They took a 20-minute interview and spun it in the direction that they wanted,” Giuliani said. “It’s not anything new to say that The New York Times is not in my father’s corner, and they did a good job of proving that. I wasn’t careful enough in watching my words and gave them too much rope to hang myself with.”

Umm... yeah..wow. Such a rigorous defense! Here is the opportunity to set things straight and all he can say is that the NYT was wrong to say he had "no relationship" with his father?

Oh, he has a relationship with his father alright. It's called "strained."

There is something about leaving your kids, humilating the mother of your children in public, as you are cavorting around town with a mistress while you are mayor of NYC, that might lend itself to a "strained" relationship with those children when they are grown.

I doubt the boy will even vote for his father.

Update: If you want an in depth (and I mean really in depth) look at Rudy's business dealings after 9-11, Vanity Fair has this. Needless to say, VF hates Rudy so view the story through that lens.