RightWave

“I don’t believe there’s any cloud that hangs over me, I think there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me.”

- Illinois Goveror Rod Blagojevich

Other suggestions?

P.S. Did you hear that the investigation of Rep. Charlie Rangel is expanding?

Have you surfed over to the newly-relaunched Americans for Prosperity website lately?  It’s swanky!

Make sure you sign up and join the ground troops for freedom and free enterprise!  As I’ve mentioned and we’ve all said – we’ve got a tough year ahead of us, and our side needs to be organized.

Saddle up!

So, scuttlebutt is that the next Obama-led “economic stimulus package” to come out of Congress may well include another increase in the minimum wage.

Really?

As if the first one wasn’t bad enough.  Let’s think this one through, shall we?

So, the economy’s in a downturn.  Employers are already making labor cuts to save costs and keep businesses afloat (and costs down for the consumers).

The government’s response?  Make labor more expensive.

Well, duh.  Cuz, you know, that makes sense.

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but if you follow the path of results down from this plan, you end up with more government payouts being funded by fewer actual taxpayers (likely paying much higher percentages of their incomes to the government).  That’s not sustainable!  Is the goal to have every industry crawling to the government for a bailout?

Anyone else thing this is sounding awfully Randian in how it’s playing out?  I’m certainly no die-hard objectivist, but come on.  I know the lefty’s are bleeding hearts, but surely they haven’t lost all capacity to process logical outcomes?

Oh, well, maybe so.

All I can say, folks, is gird up.  Get ready for the fight.  Even though things look bleak, it’s important that our side not give up – that we keep fighting and making our case to the American people and make it in a way that’s personal and folks can relate to.  If we slink away and resign ourselves to the fact that everything’s going to hell in a handbasket, well, it will.  And no one will be there to pick up the pieces on the other side.

To quote the great Winston Churchill:

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty–never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Or, if you prefer:

Quick programming note: I’ve now added my Twitter feed to the sidebar of the blog here (go me in figuring out how to do that!).  I know I’ve been a little sparse in the postings (I will improve on that front, however), so in the meantime, I hope you can follow my rants and raves through Twitter.

UPDATE – It turns out this is my 100th post!  Woo hoo!

If you’ve been looking for an excuse to avoid watching NBC this week’s your week to do it.  Watching Sunday Night Football tonight, I learned that Cris Collingsworth walks to work and Tiki Barbour takes public transit. (odd, don’t you think, given that Tiki does the Cadillac SUV commercial?)  Keith Olbermann, bless his heart, drinks his water from a cup or mug, rather than buying bottled water and Dan Patrick has driven a hybrid for the past four years.

Wow.  I’m impressed.

After those several minutes of my life I’ll never get back, the camera zips down to Australia where Meredith Viera is standing by (by the ocean no less) waiting to tell us we have a shortage of water.   Other members of the Today Show team are at glaciers in Iceland, by the way, which are apparently on the verge of melting and flooding all land masses. (hm – doesn’t sound like a shortage of water to me…)

To remind you of Green Week, NBC has even colored its peacock logo completely green.   It’s all a little nauseating, to be honest.  At least, so far, they’ve been suggesting things individuals can do to conserve.  We’ll see how long it takes for some of their more lefty hosts (good thing Olbermann is done for the week on the parent network) to start talking about new regulations or government action.  How many shows do you suppose Al Gore is booked for this week?

If it weren’t for The Office, I’d probably avoid NBC all week, but alas, Toby returns this week, and I can’t miss that!

I’ve been ranting about this in person for a couple of weeks now, so might as well carry it over to the blogosphere.  What was with the “hologram” thing CNN was doing on election night?  Did you see will.i.am hologrammed in there with Anderson Cooper?  How awkward!

I really expected “Help me Obi-Wan, you’re my only hope” to pop up at some point.

If you missed it…

Ok, so I’ve been terrible about posting over the past few weeks.  And, with all that fun and electoral drama even!  Shame on me.  Certainly, there will be LOTS more to come in the coming months/years/etc.  And, we’ll all gear up and have that fight and it’ll be fun – though probably more depressing than not.

In the meantime, just one relatively minor observation.  This has been bothering me a lot since the election of The One.

As I was perusing Facebook status updates and tweets a’plenty, a theme among my lefty friends began to emerge.  Something to the effect of “I can now be proud to be an American again!” or “Finally, Americans woke up!”  Boy that tweaks me.

I’ve tried to be gracious and kind to my Obama-loving friends.  And, I intend to continue to be…for the most part.  I think it’s an important part of our political system.  We fight, we battle, we debate, and then, when it’s over, we get a drink.  But, tonight, I need to let loose a bit.

Look.  I don’t like Barack Obama.  It’s true.  I don’t like him or pretty much anything he stands for.  I don’t think that’ll come as a shock to anyone.

But you know what else?  I’m no less proud of my country or of being an American than I was on November 3rd.  I don’t have the desire to move to Canada.  (Though Switzerland is lovely…)  I won’t be out revoking my citizenship or talking about how the country has gone to hell in a handbasket because it elected this man to be President (though I may say it’s gone there for other reasons!).

I’m an American. And, I’m damn proud of it.  No, it’s not blind patriotism.  And, no I don’t think we’re all perfect and coming up roses.

The fact remains: America is NOT our government.  America is the American people.  It’s the hard work and ingenuity of our workers and entrepreneurs.  It’s our free enterprise system.  It’s our republic and our freedom that allows for political debate.

So, to my liberal friends, first, I say congratulations.  Your man won, and he deserved to.  But, if that’s what it took to “restore your faith in America,” frankly, I’m disappointed in you and the political leaders you admire who sadly are saying the same thing.

I know it’s not every lefty.  And to those who believe as I do in the fundamental pride in country and belief in American exceptionalism, I’m glad to stand beside you.

To the rest, well, in four (or, God help us, eight) years, I guess Canada’s still an option.  I’ll still be proud to be an American.

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Coming soon…bailouts, taxes, and GOP leadership, oh my!

Given that Congress has an approval rating hovering around 15%, why wouldn’t the McCain campaign be saying something along the lines of:

“Do you really want the people who’ve been running Congress the past two years to be running the whole country?”

I’m sure someone else can put it better, but why wouldn’t he make the case that Democrats have run Congress through the most unpopular time in history and he’s been fighting them (and GOP leaders) every step of the way?

He’s actually got a legitimate case to make on this front, but I’m lost as to why there haven’t been more attacks (from both sides, frankly) on Congress.

Oh well.  It’ll all be over in a few days.

Fred Thompson unleashes his Get Out the Vote Rally.  And, despite my tiring of “Joe the Plumber,” I really like this section:

This is the reason why they do not understand Joe the Plumber.  Because he doesn’t have a higher income today they assume that he never will and that he believes he never will. They expect him to resent anyone whose doing better than he is, instead of planning to do better himself. They don’t understand the Joes of the world.  Never have.  Never will.

This political philosophy has a long tradition. At best it can be labeled a benign welfare state.  But history tells us that it can lead to tyranny or economic turmoil or both.  And … most important … it has never found favor in the United States – not during the Great Depression, in times of war, or any other time.

It’s because in this country we have a different view.  We know that people do better when given opportunity and responsibility.  It has to do with our view of the nature of man.  We believe that man is supposed to be kept, fed, and protected from the elements by a master.  We believe that man was meant to be free—entitled to be free.  It’s an inalienable right, endowed by our Creator.  When free and inspired man can achieve great things – for his family, community and his nation.  In fact this belief is what we built our nation on.

Read on… (Thanks to The Corner!)

UPDATE: You can watch him too.

So, it’s sad, but I re-jiggered the map I’d posted earlier… and even with the big states I think are still “out there” left as undecided, Obama still wins.  Oy.  It’s going to be a long next few years…

>2008 Election Contest: Pick Your President – Predict the winner of the 2008 presidential election.