Early Leads in the Nominating Process

With the nominating conventions more than 17 months away, what, if anything, do these early polls mean for would-be nominees? A look back at nearly 50 years of early primary polls suggests that Republican front-runners are often a good bet to capture the nomination, but the picture is more mixed for leading Democrats.

In seven open Republican contests since 1960, the early front-runners held on to win the party nod six times.¹ By contrast, early Democratic poll leaders won four out of eight open contests between 1960 and 2004. In early 2003, Sen. John Kerry was tied with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, but fell behind Gen. Wesley Clark and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean at different times later in the year before eventually getting the final nod from Democrats.

Unfortunately for Republican aspirants in this cycle, no candidate can benefit from the GOP's traditional early leader tenacity for the simple reason that no single frontrunner has been established. Until recently, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain had been running neck-in-neck in Republican horse race polls. Although recent nationwide polls show Giuliani slightly outpacing McCain among likely GOP primary voters, some election watchers are skeptical about Giuliani's chances, given his relatively liberal views on social issues.

On the other hand, the Democratic front-runner, Clinton as of now, need not necessarily be daunted by historical precedent, whatever other challenges she may face in the months to come. At least two of the Democrats who did not win the nomination withdrew from the race for reasons other than lagging support in the polls. One decided against a run (New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1992); one withdrew in the face of scandal (Sen. Gary Hart in 1988).

via-pew research center

via-http://PatriotPost.US/subscribe/humor.

A radically common-sense idea

One Congressman is hoping to blaze a trail back to America's roots -- the U.S. Constitution

By Jeff Emanuel

Last week, as was noted here on RedState at the time, conservative Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ), as he has every session since the 104^th Congress, introduced his Enumerated Powers Act in the House of Representatives. This legislation would, in his words, "require Members of Congress to include an explicit statement of Constitutional authority into each bill that is introduced.

In other words, he says, "It would hold Congress accountable for its actions."

via-redstate

"The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs
of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivalry
of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition,
and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence
of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and
sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his
government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe
when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate
every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner
in which he may seek future admission to paradise." ---Mark
Twain

Their words count.
this is from '89

The Democrats say that the economy is horrible, no one can find jobs, people are miserable and they need the government to do something! (read-raise taxes)


The truth;

Unemployment Rate Drops to 4.5%...

Trade deficit shrinks to $59.1B...

"the most deplorable effect of all is that diminution of attachment and reverence which steals into the hearts of the people, towards a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity, and disappoints so many of their flattering hopes. No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability."

James Madison

Hillary is by far the most pandering, fake, phony, unchristian person in the world.
Listen to this and then be honest with yourself.
Does she sound sincere?

Met a Guy who recently came back from Iraq.
He brought back some videos
Of what they do over there,
Stuff you don't see on the MSM
Our guys are highly trained, responsible and very careful in what they do




Here is a training film
It shows just how intense the training of our men is.

Why confront Islamism?

Why confront Islamism? Because if we don't it will continue to get more extreme. This is not Islamophobia, as many Muslims and their apologists protest. A phobia is a baseless irrational fear. Detestation of Islamism, the violent form of Islam, is based on irrefutable facts and it is not only rational, it is ethically imperative.

It is a virtue to take action to oppose the hateful, a vice to ignore it. It is a virtue to hate tyranny, misogyny, discriminations of all sorts, oppression, and all manners of violations of the legitimate rights of individual and peoples. Islamism is a mutation of Islam into a terrible menace. It is religious fascism, a destroyer of liberty and much of what free people cherish. Therefore, it must be confronted.

read the rest at American Thinker

Urgent

On Wednesday, we launched an important petition to

"Stop Albert Gore
and Reject the UN's Global Warming Treaty."

Gore is re-energizing the
movement advocating Kyoto compliance -- the biggest UN power-grab in
history.

I urge you to sign this petition now, please. We already have over
30,000 electronic signatures. We want to deliver 100,000 signatures to
the Senate by the time Al Gore reaches the podium at this Sunday's
Academy Awards.

It takes only 20 seconds to sign online, link to:
http://PatriotPetitions.US/StopGore

"His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible
I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of
friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was
indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great
man."

---Thomas Jefferson about George Washington





















These two quotes from George Washington which best embody his
dedication to liberty and God. The first from his First Inaugural
Address, 30 April 1789, and the second from his Farewell Address,
19 September 1796.

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny
of the republican model of government, are justly considered as
deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted
to the hands of the American People."

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In
vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should
labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness---these
firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens."

World War III roundup

Coordinated Attacks Kill 8 in Thailand

4 Police Killed in Afghan Bomb Attack

Attacks kill 30 in Iraq, mourners gunned down

String of Bombings Kill 15 in Baghdad

At Least 29 Bombs Explode in Thailand

Suspected ringleader of Madrid attacks wo not answer questions from...

Saudi al- Qaida wing urges attacks on oil facilities

Nigerian Muslim Convicts in Legal Limbo

Egypt arrests 80 Brotherhood Islamists in sweeps

French Muslim convert on trial for Australia plot

Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power




By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID ROHDE

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 — Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.



via-The New York Times (so take this with a grain of salt)

New wage boost puts squeeze on teenage workers across Arizona

Employers are cutting back hours, laying off young staffers

Chad Graham
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 10, 2007 12:00 AM

Oh, for the days when Arizona's high school students could roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters or scoop ice cream without worrying about ballot initiatives affecting their earning power.

That's certainly not the case under the state's new minimum-wage law that went into effect last month.

Some Valley employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much that they're cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees.
advertisement


And teens are among the first workers to go.

Companies maintain the new wage was raised to $6.75 per hour from $5.15 per hour to help the breadwinners in working-poor families. Teens typically have other means of support.

Mark Messner, owner of Pepi's Pizza in south Phoenix, estimates he has employed more than 2,000 high school students since 1990. But he plans to lay off three teenage workers and decrease hours worked by others. Of his 25-person workforce, roughly 75 percent are in high school.

"I've had to go to some of my kids and say, 'Look, my payroll just increased 13 percent,' " he said. " 'Sorry, I don't have any hours for you.' "

via-AZcentral.com

The Left hated him as much as they hate Bush now!


Soviet monument to make way for Reagan


Opponents of Poland's former communist regime reportedly want to pay a posthumous homage to US President Ronald Reagan by erecting his statue in the place of a Soviet-era monument.

In an open letter to the mayor of the southwestern city of Katowice, the former anti-regime activists said that the staunchly anti-communist Reagan had been a "symbol of liberty," the Polish news agency PAP reported.

As a result, they said, he deserved to become the centrepiece of the city's Freedom Square, replacing a monument to the Soviet troops who drove out the occupying Nazis in 1945.

They also said that they wanted the site to be rebaptised "Ronald Reagan Freedom Square."

City hall spokesman Waldemar Bojarun said that Katowice's councillors would consider the issue.

Bojarun said that he had "enormous respect" for Reagan.

However, he said, the proposal could cost an estimated 500,000 zlotys (128,000 euros, 168,000 dollars) and the city had "other pressing needs."

There are already separate plans to erect a statue in memory of Reagan in the centre of the Polish capital, Warsaw, which would be paid-for from private funds.

Reagan, who dubbed the Soviet Union an "evil empire," is widely credited by Poles with having driven communism to the wall.

The conservative Republican made fighting communism the cornerstone of his 1980-1988 presidency, and backed Poland's Solidarity trade union after it went underground when the regime declared martial law in 1981.

Reagan died in June 2004 at the age of 93.


via- Brietbart

War powers

article 2 section 2
The president shall be the commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices.....

The Democrats think they run everything in Washington right now.
They are discussing the direction of the war, Should we surge? or not?
Well, as usual, they hate the constitution! They have no respect for it.


Federalist paper #74
Alexander Hamilton wrote;

The President of the United States is to be "commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States WHEN CALLED INTO THE ACTUAL SERVICE of the United States." The propriety of this provision is so evident in itself, and it is, at the same time, so consonant to the precedents of the State constitutions in general, that little need be said to explain or enforce it. Even those of them which have, in other respects, coupled the chief magistrate with a council, have for the most part concentrated the military authority in him alone. Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.

Global warming hoax update

Bad News for Global Warming Alarmists



It's been a bad year for Global Warming Alarmists. Researchers are finding more and more evidence of natural warming events in the earth's past, events that were far more rapid and dramatic than first thought. Several scientists, disgusted with the media's refusal to carry their mesage accurately, have begun writing letters and books. Even the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has long been the most vocal supporter of climate alarmism, has finished its Fourth Assessment report, which lowers worst case estimates sharply, and cuts in half long-term predictions for sea level rise. Evidence of the beneficial aspects of continues to mount, with arctic seal populations increasing, longer growing seasons, and less extreme temperature swings.

Is it any wonder environmentalists are getting even more emotional in the debate? In public, they state they simply want "truth to out," but the reality is a bit different. Recently, Weather Channel host Heidi Cullen made a strong bid to silence the opposition, calling for the removal of AMS certification for meteorologists who challenged the belief in catastrophic human-induced global warming. In it, she compared global warming denial to "going on air and saying that hurricanes rotate clockwise," apparently herself unaware that in the southern hemisphere hurricanes do indeed rotate in this direction. Cullen's statement immediately provoked outrage from meteorologists around the nation, with one of them angrily proclaiming, "I don't know a single meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype."
via-Daily tech

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE ANTI WAR LEFT?
This makes me sick.

"That poll about Iraq...
came out last week and it posed various
questions about whether folks
thought the 'surge' was a good idea
or not. Including the following:
'Do you personally want the
Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?'
And here's how the American people answered:
63 percent said yes,
22 percent said no,
15 percent said they didn't know.
Let me see if I understand that.
For four years, regardless of this
or that position on the merits of the war,
almost everybody has claimed to 'support our troops.'
Some of us have always thought
that 'supporting the troops' while not supporting
them in their mission is not entirely credible.
But here we have 37 percent of
the American people actually urging defeat on them.
They 'support our troops' by wanting them to lose.
This isn't a question about
whether you think the plan will work,
but whether you want it to work.

And nearly 40 percent of respondents either don't know or
are actively rooting for failure...

What were the numbers like for D-Day?"
---Mark Steyn

What Thomas Jefferson learned
from the Muslim book of jihad



By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
January 2007

Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book.

It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the
"Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put an end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.



via- Sean Bell (no- not the one who was shot by the cops)