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   The debate over Net Neutrality is taking place below the radar because of the shear volume of words being dedicated to health care, but it is an important one that needs some more attention.  The Republican stance can be summed up in five words "no government regulation of the Internet".  I understand that this fits one of the core conservative principles, small government, and I don't disagree with it in general.  The problem is I think this issue is far too complex to be boiled down to a five word answer.  As I've considered it more, and I'll freely admit that I'm not an expert, there appear to be a few other issues involved that speak to the future of conservatism.

- The Republican argument is that the government should not be able to tell ISPs how they can do business.  The free market should be allowed to work and these businesses should be left alone to make the decisions they feel are necessary.  Again, I have no argument with the basic principle, but is the ISP market truly a free market?  How many Americans actually have alternatives when it comes to choosing an ISP?  Even for those Americans who have a choice, are the alternatives really apples to apples?  I'm one of the lucky few who can choose between a cable provider and FIOS.  This empowers me to switch providers if I feel one of them is making business decisions that I don't like.  Most people don't have this luxury.

- In our quest to keep the ISP market "free" are we potentially restricting the market for content on the Internet?  One need only look at the cable/satellite television market to see what happens when the people who control the delivery mechanism begin developing their own content.  Time Warner, COMCAST, and the rest have clearly taken actions intended to promote their own content and stifle competition.  Since they are doing this in a market that is similar to that of the ISPs (i.e. not as free as an economist would like it to be due to the restrictive options available to many consumers) they are able to warp the content market in ways that limit the choice of consumers.  Thus the issue of Net Neutrality appears to force conservatives to make a choice...we can have either a free market for the ISPs or we can have a free market for the content providers.  It's hard for me to think of a way we can have both, and the current approach appears to put conservatives in the difficult position of choosing one market over another.

- One of the prime conservative complaints about the recent bailout of the car companies was that business is not risk free.  Companies make decisions.  If they work out they make money, if they don't then they fail.  Are we in danger of having this get thrown in our face on the issue of Net Neutrality?  The ISPs and wireless carriers had a business plan.  Spend money to provide the highest speed internet service we can so people can actually do things like download music, watch tv, play games, etc.  When people see what can be done they will want to pay for this service.  The problem now is that the plan worked too well.  More people want to take advantage of the power of the internet than the system can accommodate.  Are we allowing them to pull a "bait and switch"?  Certainly we're not bailing them out with government dollars, but could we not look at the McCain bill as an effort to protect them from the consequences of their business decisions?

  Again, in an effort to stave off some vitriol, let me say that I agree with the basic approach the Republicans are taking.  I agree that government regulation should be limited to that which is absolutely necessary.  The issue I have is with taking a complicated problem and reducing it to one that is simple.  There is danger in that approach because it ignores the consequences of the decisions made.  I'm interested in the thoughts of fellow conservatives on the issue of Net Neutrality that go beyond the five word answer.  I hope I've come to the right place.

What have the Chicoms seen about Barry Hussein that the moon-eyed crowd here, those that are left,  haven’t been able to get through their observedly addled craniums? Of course, in China they are used to a very heavy-handed government approach to life in general, so Mr. Obama really looks like the inexperienced lightweight that he is. If  he thinks he is going to negotiate anything out of them he’ll have to find another soothsayer, because the Chinese wrote the book on it thousands of years ago and Barry just doesn’t have what it takes, or even close to it, and neither has anyone in his administration.

It’s amazing how when things get a bit dicey at home, El Presidente always manages to prance off  in absentia when the criticism starts to fly. Maybe it’s because his teleprompters were made offshore, to jobs lost here in this country and therefore work best on foreign soil. Truth is, he just doesn’t want to be here to answer pointed questions, or as pointed as they ever get from 98% of that pandering White House news corps, or the equally DOA fringe media.

The two latest gorge spilling events have had to do with his Muslim Jihadist Army Major, massacring thirteen of our US Army troops ON AMERICAN SOIL, then having to listen to Barry and his spin doctor apologists in the Army itself, in his administration, and in the forever babbling fringe media, trying to turn this murdering scumbag into some sort of victim of ‘American’ oppression and harassment.

Meanwhile, the entire US Muslim population gears up to play the poor oppressed minority to a ‘T’, while many of their mosques preach hatred and  their charitable organizations pump money into terrorist jihadist organizations and causes. Hey Barry, what madrasa was it you attended when you were traveling in Pakistan on an Indonesian Muslim passport? You know, the one that showed you as an Indonesian citizen at a time when travel to Pakistan was barred to holders of an American Passport? Wish somebody would explain that one to me. I’ve got it! Must have been part of Barry’s Muslim outreach program.

Then there’s Eric Holder and the firestorm that has been ignited by the announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends are being brought here for trial in a NewYork Federal Court. Let’s see, these are really creepy people… the kind that would set a little girl on fire to teach her father a lesson. Fact folks…that’s how these dudes operate over there. We are taking them away from military tribunals where they belong. Remember, these people don’t even rate the protection of the Geneva Convention.

Obama, because IT IS OBAMA, can’t distance himself from this one. He can’t travel far enough to be able to say, “Why, it’s my Attorney General just doing his job”. It won’t work Barry…your sheets have been pulled on this one too. It’s what you and Holder promised all along to your left wing Marxist kooks…to expose our intelligence operations through Soviet style SHOW trials here in the US. That’s plain to see.

What we also see, Mr Hussein Obama, is that you place our nation, our intelligence community, our armed forces personnel and the citizens of this country at great risk. You sir, abrogate your Oath and the Constitution of this country every time you open your lying mouth.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

Normally hard assets such as gold track the value of the US dollar. When the dollar falls, stock price of companies with assets increase as does Gold which has gone up more than 10% in less than two months. Note the recent increase in gold price without the drop in the value of the dollar as Obama begins trip to China.

 Media Matters continues to try to provide cover for the public flogging ACORN has received as a result of investigative videos which showed ACORN employees giving advice on a number of illegal activities including human trafficking, child prostitution, bank fraud, illegal immigration and tax evasion. Meanwhile, the mainstream media has largely ignored a growing scandal that cannot be contained: ACORN is reportedly closing offices across the country, including the site of the DC undercover videotape..

Also, today another damning ACORN tape was released at Big Government. This time an ACORN member openly confessed to ACORN using non-partisan voter registration to secretly produce Obama votes.

Anyone paying attention knows accusations relating to voter registration fraud, illicit partisan activity and other chicanery often have been made against ACORN, with ACORN either denying all or any ACORN fault. In October of 2008, I testified in Pennsylvania regarding the illegal coordination between Barack Obama's Campaign and ACORN:

“A former staffer for Project Vote, a sister organization of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, testified at a hearing in Pennsylvania on Wednesday that the Obama campaign provided the group with a campaign donor list in late 2007 for their fundraising efforts. The former D.C. staffer, Anita Moncrief, said she still has a copy of what she called the 'development plan' she used to help her identify the maxed-out Obama donors for solicitation. The hearing was part of a lawsuit brought by the GOP seeking information and an injunction against certain ACORN activities in Pennsylvania.

“McCain-Palin campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement, 'We now know that Barack Obama's campaign was working hand-in-glove with an organization reportedly under investigation by the F.B.I. and in more than a dozen states. In addition to funneling $832,000 to ACORN for get-out-the-vote efforts, the Obama campaign and ACORN have been sharing donor lists, encouraging maxed-out Obama donors to contribute to this unethical organization.'" (emphasis mine).”

The member caught on tape publicized by Big Government is another in a long line of “bad apples” for ACORN. As it becomes harder to hide behind poor minorities, ACORN appears to be on the run. Unfortunately, they are running to the White House. There Barack Obama, ACORN's “inside man,” seems poised to protect ACORN and even strike down its enemies. Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) serves as a close confidant of the President with over 20 visits logged in at the White House (he tops the frequent visitor list). Stern has every reason to expect this sort of access, as he not only funneled many millions of dollars into the Obama campaign, but also aligned with SEIU's sister organization, ACORN, to ensure that Obama was elected.

The screen shot is from an internal ACORN document from 2006. When combined with the admissions of the member, it provides additional proof that ACORN and SEIU - with the help of the Obama presidential campaign - intentionally took government and tax exempt donations through organizations like Project Vote to run a partisan voter registration drive aimed at electing Obama. Both the Federal Elections Commission and the media ignored the Obama donor list that was submitted as evidence in the Pennsylvania case and sworn testimony. But can they ignore the admission of someone saying: “I Am ACORN”?

As President ,Obama has paved the way for ACORN and SEIU to receive stimulus money and ACORN favorites to receive prime appointments to both executive and judicial positions.

Of course, Obama has admitted to limited ties with ACORN. But Americans have witnessed Obama run the country like one big ACORN office and trying to implement ACORN's radical agenda. Apparently being a community organizer is something that - like ACORN - is hard for Obama to shake. In 2001, a group of ACORN protesters broke up a community tenant meeting by shouting the words, “Yes, We Can.” Eight years later, ACORN man Obama rode to victory using the same slogan of those angry protesters.

With so much to lose, lawmakers are concerned about the lengths to which Obama will go to in order to protect ACORN. Congressman Steve King of Iowa released a statement today suggesting that a cover-up may be being executed under the guise of an investigation:

“Bob Bauer has a public record of defending Barack Obama’s relationship with ACORN. Bauer has acted as the agent between Obama and ACORN, and now he will be perfectly positioned to be tasked with erasing the tracks between Obama and ACORN. Bauer’s hiring appears to be a tactical maneuver to strategically defend the White House exactly one week after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans and seized paper records and computer hard drives that may lead to the White House.”

Congressman King has reason to worry. The Democrat-controlled Congress has given ACORN plenty of time and warning to prepare for these “investigations”. In March of this year Michigan Representative John Conyers backed down from a call to investigate ACORN after several witnesses testified about the 2008 elections and ACORN. Portions of my Pennsylvania testimony regarding ACORN's illegal activities in 2008 were read into the record and hundreds of pages of evidence were submitted by GOP Attorney Heather Heidelbaugh. In explaining his flip flop, Conyers cited “the Powers that be.” As the “Age of Obama” unfolds, it's not hard to guess who "the powers" are.

Obama is willing to make small, symbolic concessions like removing ACORN from the Census, but his Justice Department remains oddly complacent with ACORN. The bailout hungry media covered up the Obama/ACORN story  and continue to ignore damaging stories like the IRS dropping ACORN from its list of VITA sites.

Mainstream newspapers and online liberal “news” sources appear content to continue to play the “race card” and paint conservatives as obsessed about ACORN because ACORN purported to help the poor. ACORN may be Teflon as long as Obama is in the White House. Charges of tax evasion, child prostitution, voter registration fraud, illegal immigration, bank fraud, etc. may not stick to ACORN.

With 2010 rapidly approaching, a look at ACORN's cookie cutter statements on its voter programs tells us what ACORN plans for America.

Fortunately, Big Government caught one of those “highly trained” ACORN organizers on tape. How many more "bad apples" does it take before it is generally realized that ACORN itself is rotten to the core?

Chris Dodd has a polling profile reminscent of NJ Governor Jon Corzine. He's behind, he's been behind for a long while, and the poll internals indicate he's likely to stay behind.

Given that the election is less than a year away, how could Dodd eke out a victory?

Have an opponent with high negatives. Thankfully for him, one is already in the race.

Five Republicans are in the race now. Former Congressman Rob Simmons has yet to run TV ads, but has residual name ID in central and eastern CT from his days in Congress. He is leading  Dodd by 11 points.

Former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley has run TV ads . He is leading Dodd by 7 points.

The other three candidates--Linda McMahon, Sam Caligiuri and Peter Schiff--all are in effective dead heats with Dodd in the 43-41% range.  So they are equal, right?

No. McMahon is the weakest of the lot.  Neither Caligiuri or Schiff have spent dime one on TV ads, while McMahon has blanketed the state--even running ads on NYC TV. Yet she fares no better than the more frugal candidates in the race.

The secret here is while McMahon is buying name recognition, much of it is already negative. 

According to Quinnipiac Simmons's image is now 40% favorable , 10% unfavorable. His rating with unaffiliated voters is 42% favorable- 7% unfavorable.

Linda McMahon did not make such a good first impression.    She rates at 20% favorable to 13% unfavorable.  14% of unaffiliates and 15% of men already have a negative impression of the wrestling mogul.

Amazingly, more people in CT dislike Linda McMahon after a few weeks in elective politics than dislike Rob Simmons after nearly 20 years at  the trade.

The rule of thumb is that a challenger's early numbers usually have to run 2 to 1 favorable to have a shot at an incumbent. McMahon's slick campaign ain't getting the split she needs. And Lord knows what's going to happen if and when Dodd unloads some negatives on her. Sure she'll have plenty of cash to respond, but methinks Chris Dodd will enjoy the mudfest. It's not like his numbers can go much further down.

Now one would think Dodd's dream---a rookie opponent with high and rising negatives--couldn't come true. But it might due to the quirks of the CT GOP and our geography.

Rob Simmons is very well known in eastern CT, which does not have many registered Republicans.  But he is not well known in heavily Republican Fairfield County, which is served by NYC TV.    McMahon's been on those stations; Simmons never has.

I suspect the reason the ballot test for the CT primary is now 28% Simmons - 17% McMahon is heavily due to Simmons having low visibility in the southwestern part of CT.

So all of McMahon's millions got her the same ballot test as the candidates not spending money, and the highest negative ratings in the Republican field.

I suggest CT Republicans take a long hard look at these poll internals. When a candidate makes a tepid first impression, it usually doesn;t improve by just pouring resources into the same suboptimal message.

And if Linda McMahon isn't ahead of the weakened Dodd now after spending millions, why would she be when her negatives inevitably rise?

Let's not do Chris Dodd any favors, please

 Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration, under pressure to show it is serious about tackling the budget deficit, is seizing on an unusual target to showcase fiscal responsibility: the $700 billion financial rescue. 

The administration wants to keep some of the unspent funds available for emergencies, but is considering setting aside a chunk for debt reduction, according to people familiar with the matter. It is also expected to lower the projected long-term cost of the program -- the amount it expects to lose -- to as little as $200 billion from $341 billion estimated in August.

The idea is still a matter of debate within the administration and it is unclear how much impact it would have on the nation's mounting deficit levels. Still, the potential move illustrates how the Obama administration is trying to find any way it can to bring down the deficit, which is turning into a political as well as an economic liability.

The White House is in the early stages of considering what bigger moves it might make for next year's budget. The Office of Management and Budget has asked all cabinet agencies, except defense and veterans affairs, to prepare two budget proposals for fiscal 2011, which begins Oct 1, 2010. One would freeze spending at current levels. The other would cut spending by 5%.

Politico:

President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year's State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning.

Andrew Sullivan (headline: Obama, Deficit Hawk):

To treat the stimulus package as if it were something he just felt like doing - because he's a big government maniac - is a lie, a piece of propaganda that has seeped into the lazy Beltway desire to describe everything - even now - into the big government/small government, red-blue paradigm.

Item two: The health insurance reform almost painfully tries to pay for itself - something that Bush's Medicare entitlement didn't even pretend to do. 

Item three: there's a big big difference between spending on green and infrastructure investment and slashing taxes or increasing Medicare entitlements.

The way in which cynical and amnesiac Republicans have tried to portray this as classic big government liberalism is a lie. You can debate the merits of each initiative, but this is obviously not an administration as fiscally reckless as the last one. Mercifully, they have a chance to show it in earnest next year. And to call the bluff of those Republicans yelling about spending while having absolutely no plans or ideas for cutting it.

It can’t be the American people…WE didn’t ask that the most virulently dangerous terrorists on earth be brought to American soil, so that they could be defended at the bar of our courts by Marxist ACLU attorneys and given rights that should be reserved only for citizens of this country. Eric Holder and associates have a lot to answer for.

Meanwhile, the Osama–whoops slip of the tongue that– the Obama mis-administration is busy with a purely Soviet-style purge in our government, that far outshines anything that Bill and Hill did at the advent of their ‘most ethical administration in history’, beginning with the firing of the White House travel office employees.

Mr Fair-and-Open is going back FIVE YEARS to purge Republican and Conservative appointees, to replace them with good little Trotskyite apparatchiks like Anita Dunn, another fatality of the people of this country actually listening to what these Politburo types say and then holding them to it.

Obama can’t make a decision or WON’T make a decision to reinforce our forces in harms way, but he sure seems to be able to make every wrong decision possible regarding this country, its people and its rapidly failing economy. We have political correctness operating in high gear throughout the highest command of our military…this HAS to be a top down attitude. Not ALL of our military…the  attitude of the chain of command down at the level of the combat commands is a little different, thank God. But no less affected by it, because they cannot help BUT be affected by a weak and cowardly Commander-in-Chief.

The question is, as I’m sure many millions of Americans have secretly asked themselves, just who or what is Obama working for…who is it that’s yanking this guys chain? Can it be that he’s REALLY that stupid, inept and naive? It is as suspicious as all get out that his Muslim outreach program just happens to encompass bringing internationally known terrorists into our courtrooms, where they will be able to make a mockery of our system and allow a grandstanding display to encourage others like them around the world. Meanwhile, rabid leftist attorneys, who already having done much to destroy our Constitution and our system of jurisprudence, attempt to get them off on one technicality or another that they may again be able to go forth and murder more Americans. Any one or two of these factors could be written off as coincidental. Taken as a totality, it’s mind boggling.

We were warned for years about the evils of socialism and communism and it’s here. We have an awful lot to do to save our country. We must be strong of faith and will. We must join with our families, friends and neighbors, together with all like-minded patriots, to defeat this monstrous evil once and for all.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

    Some idiot at work keeps tuning the TV in the breakroom to CNN so everytime I go in there to top off my water I have no choice but to listen to the drivel that comes from there.  Two days ago (sorry for the delay on my posting...) I caught part of an interview with Dede Scozzafava.  The caption below her says "GOP strips Scozzafava of her leadership role".  Well no duh!  The woman endorsed the Democrat canidate!  Why shouldn't she be stripped of her leadership role? 

And then the anchor asked her if there would be a place for moderates in the upcoming 2010 elections...  Hello!  This woman is pro choice, pro taxes, pro card check, pro union, pro government run health care.  In what way is she a moderate?  I get so tired of liberals calling other liberals "moderates".  Grow a pair and admit you're a liberal and that anyone who believes most of the things you believe is not a "moderate" but just as much of a liberal as you are....

I'll skip down to the money quote, or quotes:

Ryan said an important factor in the decision to concede was the unexpected -- and erroneous -- close vote in Oswego County, where polls had Hoffman with a double digit percentage point lead heading into Election Day.

"That’s the thing that threw us off," Ryan said.

Oswego County elections officials blame the mistakes on "chaos" in their call-in center that included a phone system foul-up and inspectors who read numbers incorrectly when phoning in results. Of 245 races in the county -- not including the congressional and court races -- 84 had incorrect totals reported election night.

In the congressional race, more votes were cast in Oswego County than any other in the 11-county district.

The district’s second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where Hoffman also has benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining about 700 votes. Owens led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman now leads by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.

Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.

Liberals and Marxists everywhere are quick to point to Fidel Castro’s Cuba as the ideal socialist society. Insipid pandering celebs such as Michael Moore, Sean Penn and Harry Belafonte are all over themselves lauding the place to the skies. Understand…they wouldn’t want to LIVE there. Not as ordinary citizens anyhow, much like our Congress won’t LIVE under the health care that they are proposing for us.

I’m forever astounded at the consistency of liberal thought versus action. It’s always for someone ELSE to do or say, or think or live by. Never themselves. Wherefore the disconnect? I’ll stick with my brain lesion theory.

Not too long ago, we had a massive state of emergency in the Gulag of Cuba when it was announced that there was a critical shortage of toilet paper. See, if they’d just listened to Sheryl Crowe… they don’t grow corn in Cuba so no corn cob… and sugar cane don’t work so well…how about tobacco leaf? Gee, they can always carry a bottle of water and emulate the middle eastern example…wonder how long that would take to catch on with the trendy lefty crowd? Now we have a severe shortage of power and clean water. What a surprise…shortages in this worker’s paradise?

Handsome UGO Chavez has announced severe shortages as well, as has Brazil which just had a power outage affecting 60,000,000 people (that’s sixty MILLION people for you math challenged libs out there), due to nothing more than very poorly maintained power transmission lines.

Our own flu vaccine production has become a rancid joke under “GOVERNMENT” supervision. People all over the country are unable to access a vaccine that we have had ample time and warning to prepare. It’s so embarrassing that the Obama administration has stopped ginning up the pandemic hysteria because of their obvious ineptitude in managing a largely manufactured crises. This is BEFORE ‘healthcare’ is even passed.

By way of example and a harbinger of our own future if we don’t STAND UP and stop these Marxist dilettantes, the socialist health care system in the UK is on the verge of imploding. They can’t pump enough money into it to make it work. It produces nothing but bureaucracy and mismanagement, to say nothing of very poor and inadequate patient care…almost indifferent. I personally know of one lady in Wales who has waited well over a year to see a specialist over a rotator cuff problem. She has told me of a friend of hers who waited EIGHTEEN MONTHS for an eye operation that I obtained here in two weeks.

Insane levels of taxation and regulation are causing a massive exodus of business and manufacturing overseas, while all the DeMarxists and the wannabe Dictatorate in the White House do is grope for more money, while planting ever more burden on the backs of the citizenry. Socialized health care…hell’s bells…SOCIALIZED ANYTHING has failed miserably wherever it has been tried. A quick look at any unrevised history will tell the tale very quickly.

It’s time we told the Obama bunch just exactly that and we will not have any part of it. Elections are coming in 2010 and we need to sweep the boards clean!

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009