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This is the price that has to be paid for POLITICAL CORRECTNESS in our society. What’s even more chilling is that it has occurred on a United States Military Reservation on US soil by an OFFICER of the US Army. We are in a world-wide war with the philosophy of a religion which believes that it alone shall rule supreme on earth. That all other faiths, societies and nations must be subsumed by and to it. The peace loving religion of Islam has more escape clauses than a slip and fall attorney on steroids. In short where the ‘faith’ is concerned anything, literally anything, goes. There are dispensations for any behavior including, but not limited to, giving false witness and lying under oath. Major Nidal Malik Hasan was given the best this country had to offer in terms of education. It allowed him to become a  Medical Officer in the Army. He took an oath to follow the lawful orders of superior officers and to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. He had made statements which SHOULD have set off alarms all over a security conscious military. He went on a one man JIHAD/SUICIDE mission in which he killed 13 US citizens and wounded 31 others. This is not the first time a member of the ‘religion of peace’ has committed a crime against this country in incidents which are usually quickly hushed up or barely reported at all. In the massacre at Fort Hood the cartridge casings hadn’t stopped bouncing on the deck before an FBI type was contacting a news service breathlessly pronouncing that “It’s not terrorist related”. Really? Does anyone remember the one man Jihadi who shot up the EL Al terminal at LAX? Or the DC sniper who was a homegrown Muslim convert? As a matter of FACT since 9/11 there have been THIRTY ONE attacks on US Citizens by Islamo-Fascist terrorists on US soil, domestically grown or otherwise. Meanwhile, US Muslims are quick to start playing the victim card blaming everyone and everything but themselves. There is tremendous danger in not recognizing the danger of a ‘religion’ for whom lying under oath or otherwise is a legitimate method of advancing a hateful repressing philosophy based on a seventh century mentality and whose aim is first and foremost the destruction of our country and our way of life. Yet our government…ESPECIALLY THIS government, ever mindful of ‘Muslim sensitivities’, continues down the precarious path of political correctness to the detriment of our society and most particularly our military. Our Military Intelligence and CID (Criminal Investigation Division), that would normally function in high gear in a country at war, has been largely muzzled and ignored in the race to be sensitive and accommodating to cultures other than our own. These people need to be freed to do their jobs. Major Hasan should never have gotten as far as he did…the signs were all there for those who cared to see. There is a culture of political correctness in our military, and most particularly in the Army, which is going to cost more lives unless we stop and take inventory of what and who we face and stop treating this world-wide WAR as though it were a parlor game at a sorority party. Undoubtedly there are many US Muslims who are solid loyal American citizens…undoubtedly there are many who are not and how are we to know the difference?

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

What Ramesh Ponnuru has written about Tuesday's wins is right in so many ways:

More important, a few Republican candidates have demonstrated that it is possible to transcend the party's conservative-moderate divide. In Virginia, Robert McDonnell won a landslide — the first Republican win in a governor's race there in 12 years — by running as a problem solver. Social conservatives know he is one of them. But independent voters strongly backed him too. Voters as a whole trusted him more than his Democratic opponent on everything from fixing the roads to strengthening the economy. Once he had that trust, Democrats were unable to get voters to see him as frighteningly conservative, although they tried to make hay out of a hard-right master's thesis McDonnell wrote in 1989.

[Disclosure: I consulted for the McDonnell campaign, and these are my personal views on why he won.]

In the wake of McDonnell's landslide, many observers have pointed to his brand of "pragmatism" to make the case that McDonnell -- and not Hoffman in NY-23 -- is the way forward for conservatives in 2010.

But to point to McDonnell as a subrosa moderate profoundly misses the point. McDonnell is a strong conservative who early in the campaign put Deeds on the defensive by running against Obama and Pelosi's policies, most notably card check and cap-and-trade. There was never any doubt as to McDonnell's conservative bona fides.

But even though McDonnell was in fact a true conservative, there was no need to make the election about those credentials. McDonnell's conservatism spoke for itself.

What the campaign keyed in on very early is that most voters aren't ideological. In a time of crisis, they first and foremost want problems solved -- and specifically, the problems created by too much government meddling and taxes to go away.

Wait, not ideological? So Ruffini's saying we need to run moderates? No. That is precisely the opposite of what I am saying.

Because very few independents care about ideological name-checks, they won't be swayed by scare tactics trying to persuade them that Candidate X is the ideological second-coming of Attila the Hun. We saw this with the thesis attacks. Candidates have wide latitude to run as who they actually are, so long as they can persuade voters they'll deal with the bread and butter issues (which was McDonnell's calling card).

In a purple state like Virginia, you can win by running as a liberal and a problem-solver (Kaine), as a moderate and a problem-solver (Warner), and as a strong conservative and a problem-solver (McDonnell).

Faced with that choice, why wouldn't we choose to run the conservative every time? A non-ideological electorate gives us more leeway to run conservatives in blueish/purple states, not less. To get a flavor of this in action, just look at the closing slide of McDonnell's ads:

The ubiquitous "Jobs Governor" branding and the spinning icons highlighting different issues is evocative of the desire for practical, clickable solutions to everyday problems shown in another recent marketing campaign.

Fixing Northern Virginia traffic? There's an app for that.

Jobs? There's an app for that.

Education? There's an app for that.

Essentially, whatever the issue was, Bob McDonnell wanted you he had the proverbial "app for that" -- a set of practical solutions not overtly branded as left, center, or right.

Considering the issue void that was the Creigh Deeds campaign, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Republicans in Virginia have struggled to make their prescriptions relevant to swing voters. Our issues in local elections have traditionally been issues like taxes and immigration that don't always lend themselves to policy heft. And a lack of policy heft has translated into an intangible sense that there's not enough "there there."

This was the central challenge facing the McDonnell campaign at its outset, and so it systematically sought to dismantle this critique by branding McDonnell as a practical problem solver without compromising his conservative principles.

Republicans can be specific, detailed, and confident in putting forward solutions relevant to the middle class, while also being more conservative than we have been in recent years (especially with the Bush era spending binge). There's not an either/or tradeoff between conservatism and a policy focus, something the McDonnell campaign proved in Virginia this year.

The lesson of the McDonnell campaign: Maintain your conservative principles, but make the election about policy. And whatever the issue, make sure you've got an app for that.

Amidst all the post-election analyses, there was a lot of chatter blaming conservatives for the loss of a seat that had been held by a GOP-er since before Abe Lincoln.....

Because the liberal MSM can't win on their party's ideology (because they are actually irrelevant), they have taken to spinning right-wing ideology as out of touch.

But I find that a mistaken way of looking at recent events.

Conservativism is absolutely still relevant....

If it weren't it wouldn't be able to be the basis of the most popularly watched cable news channel (FOX), spawned a mass grassroots movement (Tea Party Movement), or created a national sweetheart (Sarah Palin).....They wouldn't have been able to force the GOP establishment's candidate to suspend her campaign, thrusting the Conservative Party candidate into the GOP spot.  A year after the most electrifying grassroots movement we have seen in my lifetime, the Republican party was able to take back two Governorships that had previously gone to the other side.

A lot of criticism and hate has been had on conservatives this week despite huge wins in a generally Democrat state, and one in a battleground swing state that had previously gone Dem the year before.  These are big wins...

.....Critics like to hate on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, yet they're following arguably rivals the likes of Britney Spears' breakdown.

No, the conservative movement is not to be mistaken as irrelevant or characterized as those right-wing crazies.   They are normal, average everyday American citizens who are tired of too much government..

And people are listening.

The American Medical Association supports only its own political agenda and not its member doctors, according to some physicians. Many will not even join this once prestigious organization, citing concerns that it no longer reflects their opinions or their concerns for their patients. The AMA came out in favor of the 1.8 TRILLION dollar health care debacle. Putting the LIE to that is the report that 45% of physicians would consider quitting the profession if the bill passes. 65% of practicing doctors are fully opposed to government controlled health care. Only about 18% of physicians are represented by the AMA. That other GREAT SELLOUT is the AARP, another politically motivated Kool-Aid outfit interested ONLY in its own profit margin, who stopped speaking for the vast numbers of seniors a long time ago. Many seniors, always conscious of dollar concerns, have signed up for the AARP to take advantage of supplemental insurance discounts and until recently were largely unaware of the AARP’s extreme liberal proclivities. This all changed with the Obama administration’s drive for for a single payer health care system, which even the thickest senior could tell was BAD news for senior health care and in fact they were about to be thrown under the proverbial Obama Bus…sort of like he did to his Granny? I witnessed an AARP meeting in Fremont, California, where the AARP, attempting to answer the tens of thousands of angry calls and letters directed at them by members who objected to the AARP’s stated intent to support the massive government takeover, asked some very pointed questions of the AARP spinette, whereupon she promptly snitted up and abruptly walked out of the meeting. The AARP subsequently came out with a statement saying they were ‘rethinking’ their support…Well girls and boys, we can see how they rethunk it. Meanwhile in Washington, a little group of  FIFTY THOUSAND of our friends and neighbors gathered on the capitol steps in response to Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s call to action on Friday last. They then proceeded to the Capitol office buildings to have a little tête à tête with their Representatives about just who the hell they work for and just exactly what was expected of them. All very respectfully you understand..though some of our most liberal Congress Critters didn’t reciprocate and either hid or actually abused some constituents. I guess they didn’t care to be confronted with the truth of the fact that they have been exposed for what and who they are. There will be a HUGE reckoning in 2010. The whole country is steaming and they are so insular and so blinded by their own ambition they can’t see it. Nancy with the Flash Frozen Smile lied again and then reneged on her pledge to allow members of Congress and the public 72 hours to examine the final version of the bill. What a surprise! I’m shocked. Speaker Pelosi intends to go ahead with a sneak vote on Saturday despite sharply deteriorating support in her own party. Many Conservative patriots are staying in Washington to keep up the pressure on members of Congress. Another call was put out by Rep. Bachmann on Mark Levin’s radio show on Thursday, for anyone who is in range and can possibly reach DC in time to come to the Capitol to support this totally grass roots Conservative Patriotic effort. Mark Levin was at the rally in person and his presence was HUGE. God bless America…

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

 Six Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee attended Michele Bachmann's Tea Party yesterday instead of attending a committee meeting and voting on Republican-sponsored amendments to the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. TPM reports:

One measure, offered by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the committee, failed to pass by a single vote, 15-15. Reps. King and Gohmert were absent.

Another, offered by Rep. Dan Lundgren (R-CA), failed by a vote of 11 to 8. Reps. King, Gohmert, Jordan, and Poe were all missing.

And a third, brought by Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL), which would have bolstered the ability of local law enforcement to use a device that records phone numbers from a particular phone, failed by 12 to 10, with King, Gohmert, Jordan, Poe, and Franks all absent. (A subsequent amendment that did essentially the same thing later passed, it's worth noting.)

In the end, the bill - which Republicans on the committee blasted, saying it would hinder law enforcement and intelligence agencies in fighting terror - was voted out of committee by 16-10 - with six Republicans absent for the final vote.

I guess the lure of the cameras and the chance to pander to the loons was just too strong to resist compared to the tedium of, you knowing, doing the job you were elected to do.

It is the Sarah Palin syndrome - sometimes governing is just so boring you have to chuck it in so you can spend more time on Facebook.

Pneumonia is a kind of acute disease which needs immediate treatment. The diagnostic pneumonia symptoms include Frequent or painful cough,chest pain,fever,difficult breathing, fatigue,etc. Walking pneumonia is one of its kind which is harmless as that of flu

Sarah Burris of Future Majority beats me to the punch in rebutting a blog post about a “Rising Tide of the GOP Youth,” as described by The Weekly Standard’s Rachel Hoff. Burris writes:

First, while Rachel is right to congratulate McDonnell for his campaign’s youth outreach, I hardly think it has anything to do with young voters having gone to the GOP…

This doesn’t mean young voters have gone GOP, it means that when you put forth the effort to get young voters, you speak to their issues, and you get out the vote you get a good result.

I wish I felt comfortable celebrating the fact that the 2009 elections meant young voters were turning toward the GOP, but unfortunately I just don’t buy it. Hoff suggests that “18-29 year olds in Virginia voted for Bob McDonnell over the Democrat 54% to 44%” could indicate a new trend, but as Burris notes, in Virginia there was not a “strong Democrat at the top of the ticket but…[there was] a strong Republican.” The unfortunate fact is that one Republican candidate’s successful effort in winning the youth vote does not indicate any sort of trend for future elections (for a counterargument, just look to New Jersey, where 57% of young voters voted for Corzine).

And while Hoff notes that “turnout among 18-29 year olds was 19% in New Jersey and only 17% in Virginia,” an “alarmingly low” turnout, it would be a huge mistake for the GOP to write off the youth vote based upon these numbers. As I have written previously, what’s at stake here is that the Republican Party stands to lose a generation of voters to the Democratic Party, potentially for life. Although Chairman Steele has taken some major efforts to reform the Republican National Committee, such as a huge push to modernize the RNC’s new media efforts, there still has not been a substantial push by Steele’s RNC to win over young voters.

In the end, both Burris and Hoff agree that making a real, authentic effort to earn the votes of young voters will result in young voter turnout. The Republican Party still has time left to turn the tide and prevent many of today’s young voters from becoming lifelong Democrats; however, the clock is ticking and time is running out. Major congratulations are due to the McDonnell campaign and their young voter outreach, but there is no time to pat ourselves on the back. Both the RNC and Republican candidates must follow Bob McDonnell’s lead and find unique new ways to reach out to and ultimately win over young voters.