Month: October 2010

Maryland: The Land that TEA Forgot?/A Monoblogue Post

I actually sent this in to PJM early this but they decided not to run it for whatever reason. Maybe it’s a little bit off-message, or perhaps we are a true backwater of conservative politics.

Last year in Virginia and New Jersey, the first successes of the TEA Party movement swept unabashed fiscal conservatives Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie into office.

Similarly in Pennsylvania, the latest polls show Republicans with wide leads in statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate. Next door in West Virginia, a Republican has a good chance of taking over the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat stalwart Robert Byrd.

Even where the polls aren’t as friendly, such as Delaware, they garnered national attention when a TEA Party-backed upstart in Christine O’Donnell upended longtime moderate Republican Congressman Mike Castle in the September 14 primary. O’Donnell made her final push to victory after getting financial backing from the TEA Party Express and the endorsement of Sarah Palin.

Yet as all that political turmoil roils states which border Maryland, TEA Party activists there bemoan the fact that they’ve been bypassed by the excitement.

Sarah Palin’s endorsement of TEA Party favorite Brian Murphy did little to help his campaign for governor as he was spanked by a nearly 50 point margin in the September 14 primary. While Delaware voters turned their political world upside down by going against the state’s establishment Republicans and selecting O’Donnell, Maryland’s state GOP apparatus placed their support behind former governor Bob Ehrlich almost immediately after he formally announced he would seek the office again. The move angered conservative activists but more mainline Republicans bought the argument that only Ehrlich could unseat current Governor Martin O’Malley – who defeated Ehrlich in 2006.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, Ehrlich trails in the latest Rasmussen Poll by 8 points, which is larger than his 2006 margin of defeat. A similar (and more recent) poll by Gonzales Research has Ehrlich down 5.

Of course there are bright spots for conservative activists in some portions of the state. Andy Harris is a TEA Party favorite who is giving freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil all he can handle in a spirited First District race that’s also a rematch, from 2008. Even more popular is the man challenging Steny Hoyer in the Fifth District, Charles Lollar. He’s a dynamic speaker who has excited crowds anywhere from a small campaign event to the 9-12 rally in Washington, D.C.

But for two TEA Party believers I spoke to, the lack of good choices on the Maryland ballot is disheartening.

Read about the Two Tea Party Patriots here.

Does Superman hate the U.S. as much as the left?

It’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, it’s the new Superman: dark and brooding with glowering – and eerily glowing – eyes.

A brand new 130-page graphic novel, released Wednesday to comic book shops by DC Comics, turns the famous Man of Steel comic book character into a darker, more menacing, angrier and more self-conscious “superhero” than any previous incarnation of Superman.

“What would happen if the origin of The Man of Tomorrow were introduced today for the very first time? Return to Smallville and experience the journey of Earth’s favorite adopted son as he grows from boy to Superman like you’ve never seen before,” said promotional material from DC Comics describing the book.

Gone is the Superman of yesteryear and “Truth, Justice and the American Way” – the motto for the seventy-plus-year-old franchise. This Superman has been “re-envisioned” as a scowling, 20-year-old alienated youth, dressed in a hoodie sweatshirt, with eyes ablaze.

The new dark artwork represents a conscious change, according to DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio.

New Superman

“(W)e needed to make him hip, moody and sexy in order to really appeal to who are really wanting to read novels with our characters,” DiDio told the Associated Press.

The story, which was written by noted sci-fi writer J. Michael Straczynski, still finds the young Clark Kent, newly graduated from Smallville Junior College, going to Metropolis, still going to work for the Daily Planet, and still fighting villains, but this Kent focuses more on asking existential questions like –“Where do I come from? What am I doing here? Who am I? What am I?”

Read more here.

Angle: ‘Shock and Awe’ in Washington on Nov. 3

Sen. John McCain delivered a rousing endorsement Friday of Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle and urged cheering supporters to send her to Washington as part of a historic turnaround in Washington power.

A confident-sounding Angle, locked in a tight race with Majority Leader Harry Reid, predicted “there is going to be shock and awe in Washington” on Nov. 3, the day after the election.

“We need to take back our economy,” she said. “It’s our government and it’s our money.”

McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee, told the crowd at a Las Vegas casino that the “election will change America. The world is watching.

“Sharron brings hope and Sharron brings action,” he said after embracing the former Reno legislator on stage, with an oversized American flag draped behind them.

McCain’s appearance was intended to bolster Angle’s credibility, particularly with moderates, in a campaign in which Reid has relentlessly attacked her as a fringe conservative unfit for office. A succession of speakers, including actor and conservative activist Jon Voight, said her election would help turn back two years of Democratic policies that had damaged the nation’s standing at home and abroad.

The invited crowd cheered, “Dump Harry Reid.”

Across town, Reid was targeting Filipinos, the second largest foreign-born group in Nevada, at a crowded rally with popular Filipino boxer and congressman Manny Pacquiao.

Reid and Pacquiao entered the room to chants of “Manny, Manny.” In a brief speech, Pacquiao endorsed Reid in his native Tagalog.

Reid, a former boxer, denounced Angle’s conservative views, her criticism of Social Security, Wall Street regulation and public health care for veterans.

Read more here.

American Patriots For Liberty

A new organization just popped up on Facebook. This is in response to the local Tea Party being co-opted by the MDGOP as well as, the local MD chapter of AFP. It seems so many conservative groups who begin with the right intentions and the right people, are overtaken by ego’s, self-serving interests and political opportunists. It seems it is easier to co-opt and organization when those people are fighting a war on both sides. So many in the Tea party are fighting against socialism, but also with many who call themselves conservatives, but who are not. The country club Republican is back with a vengeance and trying to steal the Tea Party for their election purposes.

Well, it seems a few in Maryland are fed up with it all. It would be nice to keep things open to all and allow anyone to come in. However, that is how the Salisbury Tea Party came to an end. Things must be controlled in a tighter fashion and members must be known, as well as, their intentions. A leaderless organization is pure and true ideology, but alas, also the quickest way to fail.

Some of the things American Patriots For Liberty stand for:

Freedom
Liberty
The American Constitution
The U.S. Republic
The American People
Principle over Party
A strong National Defense
The Free Market
The Fair/Flat Tax

This is a new organization that is just coming together and was born from the phone calls between just a few locals on the Eastern Shore of Maryland a month ago. More information on them will be comign soon as they are intent on not being co-opted and building a non-profit chapter.

Facebook

Moderate Islam?

Every time anything even marginally critical of Muslims or Islam appears in the media apologists, Muslim or otherwise, respond by saying ‘moderate voices must be heard’ or ‘misconceptions about Islam are widespread’ or ‘Islam is really a religion of peace and tolerance’ or other such platitudes.

These pronouncements are dead wrong. What we must look at is how and why Islam manifests itself the way it does and what we must listen to are the cries of its victims, those that are still alive that is. If we did we would realize that Islam is not a religion of peace and tolerance and that Muslims constantly commit heinous acts in its name everywhere on earth, the United States and Canada included. We would realize that it is in fact not merely religion, it is a completely proscribed way of life which requires true believers to act in ways that are fundamentally at odds with free, democratic, secular, Judeo-Christian, Western societies like ours. We would realize that Islam is expansionist and demands that non believers submit to its imperatives, with horrific consequences if they don’t. We would realize that the Koran is full of hatred and intolerance and misogyny, that Islam really hasn’t changed since its inception, that its very nature makes change virtually impossible and that the term ‘moderate Islam’ is complete hogwash.

Let there be no mistake. The vast majority of Muslims in the West are every bit as peaceful and tolerant in their daily lives as you or I, but they are not true believers or practitioners even if they think they are. They couldn’t be because if they were every single one of them would be out to conquer us and bring us under Islam’s sway. Moderate, peaceful, tolerant, integrated Muslims-absolutely. They are all around us. Moderate, peaceful, tolerant, integrated Islam — no such thing. Every day all over the world people are murdered, maimed, raped, attacked, vilified and humiliated under its aegis and according to its precepts and dictates. We have had 1400 years of this behavior and the evidence is overwhelming and beyond dispute…moderate Islam simply does not exist and never has.

Unfortunately, it’s very difficult for ordinary citizens to gain an accurate picture of Islam because the mainstream media is unwilling or unable to show its true colors, out of ignorance, political correctness, fear of retaliation or any number of other such reasons. The media would do us all a huge favor if it did however. Islam is a direct and serious threat to Western civilization in general and must be seen for what it is if we are to keep it from destroying our way of life and forcing us all to live as it requires us to. Including moderate Muslims.

With horrific consequences if we don’t.

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