A Vote for McCain is a vote for Hillary?

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It seems that conservatives in the media are all up in arms about John McCain possibly being the nominee of the republican party.

Rush Limbaugh has lambasted McCain on his show for his stance on immigration, torture, Guantanamo, free speech, etc. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck have done the same.

But this. I didn’t see that coming. Ann Coulter said on Hannity and Colmes and she would vote for Hillary before she voted for McCain, saying that Hillary was “more conservative” than McCain.

I’ve heard a lot of that logic for the past couple of days. Glenn Beck has even mulled the idea around. Here’s my take.

I will never, ever vote for Hillary Clinton. I can’t do it. If she were to win the White House there’s no telling what she’d do. The conventional wisdom is that she’d be so bad in two years that the republicans would take over congress again.

So what?

A republican congress is rendered virtually worthless without a befriended president. I would rather have a GOPer in the Oval Office than a republican majority in congress.

In those first four years, even if she doesn’t get reelected, she’ll have instituted a universal health care plan. Would have pulled our troops out of Iraq. Would have allowed North Korea and Iran to continue their nuclear weapons program. Would have let the Bush tax cuts expire thus enacting a tax increase on Americans. Would have bailed people out of their home foreclosures, just so they can go do it again. Would have given the 12 million illegal immigrants amnesty, without securing the border. Would have increased the size of our government by at least 20%. And so on and so fourth.

I can’t take that risk. At least John McCain would hold up someconservative principles. Clinton wouldn’t go near any.

My real big concern with McCain is the economy. I truly believe he is strong on the war. The war on terrorism, maybe not. But the war in Iraq I think he’s solid. However the economy is his gray area. He doesn’t know much about it, leaving him impressionable to eager democrats.

Remember, McCain is the kind of person that gives up his ground of issues in the name of “bipartisanship.” So if the liberals made any effort to “fix” the economy with their bailouts and tax increases, McCain would likely crack.

While I wouldn’t consider voting for Hillary I would entertain the idea of a third party candidate. Most third party people aren’t up my ally (the group I would most align with is the libertarians), but someone out there might be worthy of my anti-McCain vote.

While I do believe Romney and McCain have sizable differences, the disparities between Clinton and McCain are even larger.

VIDEO UPDATE 1-31-08

–jb

The Florida Primary

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Oh gosh darn it!

Fox News has just called the race for John McCain, which is huge considering Florida is a winner take all state. Meaning McCain grabs 57 delegates while Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, and Paul get nothing.

I’m going to tell you right now, I’m not enthused with McCain. His stance on illegal immigration, his opposition to the Bush tax cuts, his willingness to give in to democrats, it all spells trouble. I have issues with his economic views and overall I just don’t think he’s the kind of guy that’s going to stand up for what he believes in.

At least with Bush you knew what he stood for. There was no discrepancy. He never waffled, he was a hard nosed president. With McCain he could believe one thing and then turn around and change it in the name of “bipartisanship.” It’s not bipartisanship if one side is totally giving up their ground.

As for the rest of the candidates Giuliani might as well drop out. The worst strategy ever devised has failed and he needs to move on. I supported Giuliani and I was disappointed to see him slip, but it wasn’t a surprise. Not competing in the early states was a huge mistake and he paid for it.

So now I guess I’ll give me official endorsement to Mitt Romney. He’s been wobbly in the past on certain issues, but overall I think he fits the bill and would make a fine president.

Oh by the way, Clinton has mastered the art of winning states that mean nothing. She took Florida by a landslide but Florida has no delegates therefore it meant nothing. She might get some momentum, but other than that it was for not.

UPDATE: Mitt Romney just delivered his speech and I must say it was fantastic. It has emotion and enthusiasm and really got me excited to be a new supporter of his. Remember I just switched from Giuliani to Romney because it’s inevitable that Rudy is dropping out.

Romney’s big thing now is change. I’m not a huge fan of campaigns over doing the whole change thing, but Romney’s change isn’t radical. Obama’s idea of change is socialism. Romney’s idea of change is stronger capitalism. Both are change, Romney’s is better.

We still have to hear from the victor, John McCain. I’ll update after I hear him speak.

UPDATE: McCain’s speech is kind of a drag. The video and audio weren’t sync up on the TV so it looked like a Japanese movie. But that got fixed. McCain’s speech is more or less an Oscar speech, he’s thanking every Tom, Dick, and Harry he’s talked to in the last week.

And in the boredom of the speech I noticed that Florida governor Charlie Crist looks a lot like USC coach Pete Carroll. Acts a lot like him to.

As of right now McCain is giving his obligatory “back when I was in the military” story. Those are honestly getting old. I guess I wouldn’t have that much of a beef with McCain’s speaking style if he didn’t sound so scripted. At least make an effort to sound genuine and creative.

–jb

An Email regarding Lennox

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I got an email from a CMU student, who I will leave nameless. She is on the opposite side of the Dennis Lennox story. She believes that Lennox is “a manipulator and a liar,” and that CMU was simply holding up their policies. I appreciate her email, however I believe it is flawed and fact less. Here it is point by point.

First of all I would like to say CMU is a great school and just because they are upholding school policies doesn’t mean they are conspiring against all conservatives, as Dennis Lennox would like to think.

For starters CMU is a good school (I wouldn’t call it great) and they are upholding school policies. However the punishment must fit the crime. Explain how passing out “printed materials” merits expulsion. As for as “conspiring against all conservatives,” I’m certainly not painting it that way, and from what I’ve read I really don’t think Lennox is either. However if CMU is going to hold up this school policy of passing out materials, they need to hold up ALL school policies, including drinking and drugs.

You’re broadcasting an opinion based soley on what one side had to say…theres two sides to every story.

There certainly are, and I’ve attempted to contact Peter Koper. He respond to my email saying, “I am advised that I am prohibited by law from commenting to a third party about any matter involving a student.” The school is taboo about this subject because of the Family Right and Privacy Act which, according to Koper, forbids them from speaking about the subject.

Dennis is a manipulator and a liar. He is up for explusion because he lied to school officials. In my opinion he has only himself to blame.

When did he lie? About his identity? As far as I’m aware, and again this is coming from Lennox, he didn’t know Koper was a school official at the time. Meaning he never lied.

He posted a video of a dean “assaulting” him in the hopes of stirring up trouble, but now he’s the only one in trouble, because who knows what else was on that tape. He showed about 1 minute of tape. For all we know he could have been instigating the whole thing. He could have edited the tape before he aired it.

I don’t know what’s on that tape, and neither do you. We can’t assume Lennox instigated the situation. But even if he did that doesn’t absolve the dean from assaulting him. The fact of the matter is the video showed one thing, the dean overstepped her boundaries and acted childish.

And about Gary Peters…COME ON, get a life. Has anyone seen the videos of Dennis stalking Peters? It’s disturbing. Peters is running for office. He is a temorary faculty member (not making that much money). He has to support himself somehow.

I have not seen the videos, however those videos are not the reason Lennox might get expelled. We have to keep sight on the reason for this expulsion hearing. It’s because the school wants to rid themselves of a voice against Gary Peters. You make it seem that holding public office doesn’t pay, it does. Peters could survive on his own while holding public office. However that’s not even the point. The point is he is teaching political science and public policy. It would be hard to be bipartisan in that teaching if you held office and made those decisions. The following is from the CMU website.

As chairman, Peters will teach two political science seminars and organize two forums each year that address public policy and political issues throughout Michigan. Peters also plans to implement an electronic journal that will bring students, academics and practitioners together on public policy issues facing Michigan and the country.

He’s running for a congressional seat and you expect him to teach fairly on public policy and political issues in Michigan? That’s just not going to happen. It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s a democrat, it has everything to do with the fact that students are paying thousands of dollars to get a well rounded education, not a one sided lecture.

Are we going to start hate groups against all professors that have side projects such as writing books or coaching their kids basketball team? They aren’t dedicating all their time to teaching. Should we start stalking them too??? Gimme a break.

Again you’re missing the point. The dissent towards Peters stems from him running for a congressional seat while at the same time teaching about public policy and politics.

Once again I thank this woman for her response, discussion is the best way to form an opinion and get the facts. I hope that more people email me regarding this topic. My email is jacob at thecurrentpodcast dot com

–jb

Mike Huckabee really wants to be Vice President

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If you haven’t heard Romney and McCain are going after each other over the economy and Iraq. McCain said that in April Romney was calling for a timetable for withdrawal. Romney responded saying that McCain was being “dishonest” and taking his words out of context.

Romney then took that opportunity to attack McCain on the economy, more specifically his vote against the Bush tax cuts.

So as all of this mudslinging is going on someone asks Huckabee about it, his response was….

“Dishonest? I’ve never seen John McCain say something that is just blatantly untrue,” Huckabee said on “Fox News Sunday.” Huckabee later praised McCain, saying “we have a civil approach to presidential process. Neither of us has sought the office by cracking the kneecaps of the other.”

Sounds to me like Huckabee is sucking up to be Vice President. He sees he’s not going to win the nomination and thinks that McCain has the best shot. Remember, earlier Huckabee was bashing Romney for bashing McCain because McCain was an American hero. Huckabee is doing some serious ass kissing. If McCain wins he’s got a shot at the vice presidency, but if Romney wins, he’ll just be an unemployed politician.

–jb

The Current Overflow [Episode 82]

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This is The Current Overflow for The Current episode 82, all the stuff that I didn’t have time to talk about on Saturday’s show.

Duncan Hunter endorses Mike Huckabee
This was a bit of a surprise. Hunter was considered by some to be the most conservative presidential candidate. So what does he do after he drops out? He endorses the most confused conservative of the bunch.

“I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” Hunter said in a statement. “Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of China’s emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of America’s industrial base.

“Along with these issues of national security, border enforcement and protecting the U.S. industrial base, I see another quality of Mike Huckabee’s candidacy that compels my endorsement,” he added. “Mike Huckabee is a man of outstanding character and integrity. I saw that character over the last year of campaigning and was greatly impressed. The other Republican candidates have many strengths and I wish them all well.”

“Strongly committed to strengthening national defense?” The guy doesn’t know Pakistan for Afghanistan. He’s had too many foreign policy blunders to count and his record on illegal immigration is not up to Duncan “Mr Border Fence” Hunter standards. I just don’t understand why Hunter would endorse him. Maybe because Huckabee’s a good person? That’s got to be it. Or maybe it’s because Hunter doesn’t want to get his ass beaten in by Chuck Norris.

Dennis Kucinich ends his presidential bid
Mr. Aluminum Hat has removed himself from the presidential race. Does anyone else think this was eight months too late?

He says he wants to focus on winning his congressional district, but we all know he dropped out because he sucks. Although it does appear it won’t be a cake walk back to the Capitol for Kucinich. He’s got four democrats running against him for his seat in Congress. All four of them have had ample time to fund raise while Kucinich was living out a fantasy on the campaign trail. However my understanding is that Dennis can transfer his funds for president to his congressional account. But even then he’s got more to raise.

I kind of feel bad for the people of Cleveland, Ohio. The nation might have gotten rid of him, but Clevelanders still have to tolerate his nuttiness. But hey, they elected him.

That’s all I had leftover from the show. Don’t forget video updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday available here.

New episode of the show on Saturday February 2.

–jb

Obama wins South Carolina

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As I predicted on the show at 4PM today, Barack Obama took the crown in South Carolina stomping Hillary Clinton by 28%.

The final results showed Obama at 55%, Clinton at 27% and Edwards at 18%. 551 confused South Carolinians voted for Dennis Kucinich.

I’ll be honest, while I thought Obama was going to win, I was shocked to see that he had won so handedly. I turned the TV on a 7PM sharp and was taken aback when Fox News had already called the race to Obama. And while the dominance in the state is impressive it certainly doesn’t mean he’s going to sweep into the White House.

We have to remember this is Hillary Clinton he’s running against. The woman that will “say anything” to get elected. She’s also the woman who turned a Obama win in Iowa, to a Clinton win in New Hampshire. She’s in no way out of this race.

I also must admit that Bill Clinton was right. It really pains me to say that but he was. Looking at the exit polls we see that 81% of blacks voted for Obama, while only 24% of whites voted for him. This vote was clearly along racial lines which will make for an interesting race once we get to more predominately white voting states.

People also have to remember that this is a race for the most delegates, not the most states won. You can win the majority of the 50 states and still lose. In the democratic primaries there are delegates known as “super delegates.” These delegates are uncommitted to any state voting and can choose whichever candidate they please. There are 796, and thus far 182 have pledged their support for Clinton. Only 89 have gone towards Obama.

Clinton will get more super delegates. She’s tightly wound in the democratic party and has been there longer than Obama. It also helps that her husband was the president. Thus more super delegates will vote for her, most simply out of intimidation and peer pressure.

It would also appear that Billy Jeff negatively impacted his beau’s campaign.

Roughly 6 in 10 South Carolina Democratic primary voters said Bill Clinton’s campaigning was important in how they ultimately decided to vote, and of those voters, 47 percent went for Barack Obama while only 38 percent went for Hillary Clinton. Fourteen percent of those voters voted for John Edwards.

While Billy-Bob was flapping his yap, most democrats were decrying his trash talking. I guess he didn’t take the hint. I have a feeling that you’ll be seeing a more tamer Bill Clinton in the coming days.

However Bill’s behavior just goes to show what kind of administration you’ll be getting with Hillary. It’ll be mean, cranky, temperamental, and short fused. Bill isn’t the only one in that relationships with anger problems, Hillary’s got ‘em as well.

The Dennis Lennox Mess [UPDATED]

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UPDATE: Lennox sent me a message on Facebook with a synopsis of the whole situation. Here is what was sent to me.

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Central Michigan University administrators are going forward with an expulsion hearing for a student who opposes Democratic congressional candidate and political science professor Gary Peters, The Saginaw News reports today.

A hearing on Wednesday at 8 a.m. will decide the future of Students Against Gary Peters spokesman Dennis Lennox, a third year student, who has coordinated a coalition of 150 students who want Peters to pick between Congress and campus. It is unknown if the hearing will continue, as school administrators and trustees have been besieged by hundreds of complaints in recent days.

Lennox is charged with three alleged violations of student regulations for an October 23 incident when a then-unknown man confiscated copies of The Peters Report newsletter.

According to internal CMU documents released Monday, English professor Peter Koper was the unknown man who filed a complaint with the Office of Student Life. Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Life Anthony Voisin took Koper at his word without conducting an investigation and filed three charges against Lennox for distributing a newsletter in violation of policies on printed materials, failing to identify himself to a university official and providing a false identity to a university official.

Koper sent his complaint to several administrators, possibly violating student privacy laws and policies. Among those who received the complaint was Dean Pamela Gates, a longtime professor in the English Department, who made national headlines when she was caught on video assaulting Lennox as he tried serving a Freedom of Information Act request.

Gates and Koper are also colleagues of the professors who sent e-mails shortly after the October 23 incident that maliciously attacked Lennox. English Department faculty said he was mentally ill for having “noxious political and social beliefs” with the potential of being “Virginia Tech dangerous.”

Voisin didn’t notify Lennox of the accusations until November 26 – the same day the ACLU warned the school its campus-wide ban on videotaping Peters was unconstitutional.

CMU postponed the expulsion hearing in early December after an uproar from citizens and state legislators. The original hearing was also put-off when it was discovered administrators wanted to proceed without turning over allegations and evidence to Lennox, which would have made it difficult for the student to prepare a defense.

The details of the charges and the identity of the unknown man were only released when Lennox exercised his right to review records under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The Detroit Free Press on December 18, quoting Lennox, reported Peters was only hired by CMU because administrators wanted a Democrat for the position and were afraid of upsetting Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

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Nick over at RightMichigan.com tipped me off to this story.

Here’s basically what happened. A student at Central Michigan University named Dennis Lennox was distributing printed materials in Anspach Hall on campus, which is a violation of student code. While he was distributing the information a professor, Peter Koper, began to pick up the materials knowing that it was against the code.

From that point on it gets fuzzy.

According to a letter Koper sent to Anthony Voisin, the Director of Student Life at the University, Lennox refused to identify himself to Koper, “jerked” the flyers Koper had taken down out of his hand, and proceeded down the hallway.

Now the school is lobbying to expel Lennox. However the story runs a little deeper than that.

Lennox is heading up a group dubbed, “Students against Gary Peters.” Who is Gary Peters?

Peters is a professor at CMU, he is also running for the congressional seat in Oakland county as a democrat. If he were to win and continue teaching, his position in public office would pervert his ability to ethically teach.

Lennox has been leading the opposition to Peters, which is great. However the University doesn’t like that opposition. So what I’m getting from this story is that the University is using this seemingly meaningless violation of student code as a catalyst to rid themselves of Lennox.

I still have some reading up to do on this story so here are the links where you can find all the information…
The synopsis of the “printed material” encounter
The Letter Koper sent to Voisin
Information about Peters running for office
Saginaw News articles about the situation
Information on the expulsion hearing as well as university contacts

At that last link you can access information to contact a University official to voice your opinion. I encourage you all to do that. Meanwhile I’m going to try my best to track down Lennox to get an interview for the show before his hearing. Hopefully I can get it before Saturday’s taping.

I’ll continue to follow this story and keep you alert to the ongoings. You can also check out RightMichigan.com from the latest as well.

By the way, there’s a full show on Saturday and you can expect a video update tomorrow.

–jb

UPDATE: Mike Volpe commented on this post with one important detail that I did leave out. Check out his comment in the comments section for more information on that and a more descriptive view on the whole ordeal check out his post.

The Current: Overflow

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Happy Tuesday ever body, this is The Current Overflow, where I go over the stories that I just couldn’t squeeze into the real show on Saturday.

I’m going to start off by mentioning something that has no relevance to any story but just entered my mind today. Why is Barack Obama’s past drug use off limits? I was reading Newsweek and read this in their little dignity index…

BET boss Bob Johnson’s cheap flick at Obama’s teenage misdeeds was low, but his claim that he was alluding to Obama’s “community organizing” was worse. It also made no sense. Score: 68

Here’s Johnson’s full comment

To me, as an African American, I am frankly insulted the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues — when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book — when they have been involved

So why is it that Obama’s drug use is a taboo topic? Is it because he admitted to it? Or has smoking weed become such a common occurrence that we prop someone up for it? I think it has something to do with the nature of the act. It’s not considered damaging or bad, and has become commonplace. Obama’s drug use should be and issue. It was illegal back then and it’s illegal now.

Bin Laden’s Son Wants to be a Peace Activist
That might be the most ironic headline you’ll ever read by it’s true.

Omar Osama Bin Laden says he doesn’t renounce his father’s actions but thinks there’s a better way to settle the dispute between the west and the Muslim world. And apparently Omar is the answer.

Omar says, “It’s about changing the ideas of the Western mind. A lot of people think Arabs—especially the bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama—are all terrorists. This is not the truth.” I think Omar needs to do a little more research. Very few people are ignorant enough to believe that all Arabs are terrorists. It’s a small percentage that actually do, they just make everyone else look bad. His solution isn’t that far fetched either. His father is using the same motive to kill thousands of innocent Americans.

Omar, one of 19 bin laden babies, continued by saying, “My father thinks he will be good for defending the Arab people and stop anyone from hurting the Arab or Muslim people any place in the world.” So let me understand this. You’re father, in an effort to stop the “hurting” of Muslims is kill innocent Americans. For starters when did American’s start mass killing Arabs. I’m sure we can be blamed for a few deaths, but enough to merit killing 3,000+ of our people, never.

Secondly, if you’re going to fight back, make sure you’re attacking the right people. When we went after Al-Qaeda we did just that, go after al-qaeda. It led us into Iraq but we initially went after into Afghanistan, but that’s only because the Taliban governed there. Although Muslims attacked us, we didn’t just go into some random country, murdering people for no reason.

Omar finishes by saying his father is asking for a truce but the US isn’t listening. What reason do we have to listen? Answer that Omar and then you’ll understand.

Big Brother to Control Thermostats
The government of California would like to control your home.

Well at least the air conditioning and the heat.

The plan would require each homeowner to install a thermostat that would transmit “price signals” and automatically adjust the temperature four degrees up or down. Basically people that aren’t remotely close to your home would like to control the temperature inside.

The idea is to control the price for homeowners and, get this, stop global warming. This is the definition of government intervention, I can’t think of one person who would want the government to control the temperature of their abode.

In all fairness, if there is any, the plan would allow homeowners to override the adjustment, but even that doesn’t make it any better.

Chertoff: Tougher ID standards by Jan 31
Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff would like to decrease ID vulnerabilities at the border. The problem? The democrats in congress are trying to stop him.

“We’re going to eliminate the vulnerabilities that we can eliminate now even with Congress delaying our initiative,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff in a phone interview with Townhall on Thursday.

As of Jan 31 Homeland Security will stop “oral declarations,” meaning that you can no longer walk up to the border and claim your status, you have to prove it. The intentions are good, DHS estimates there were over 30,000 instances of false oral claims between October 2004 – September 2007.

The number of documents that are considered acceptable forms of identification will be reduced from 8,000.

To me it sounds like we’re heading in the right direction. Since we don’t have a president or a congress who’s concerned about sealing the borders, it’s refreshing to find someone in this administration that wants to take some action.

That does it for The Current: Overflow. The Current episode 82 will be online Saturday.

Don’t forget video updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You can check them out here.

–jb

Now it Gets Fun

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From the debate tonight. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton go at it. Hillary challenges Obama on his Iraq war votes in the Senate, to which he doesn’t answer. And Obama snaps back at Clinton on her representation of his Reagan comments. Hillary then pulls out the trump card bring up Tony Rezko and Obama’s association with him (expect Clinton to pull more from Rezko later in the campaign).

The exchange got pretty heated, and it left Edwards whining about having no time.