Besides the photo-ops and foreign policy credential-building, that is?  Because according to an email to BLACKFIVE from a USAF Captain, he isn’t there to talk to regular soldiers:

Hello everyone,

As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an hour on his visit to ‘ The War Zone ‘ . I wanted to share with you what happened.

He got off the plane and got into a bullet proof vehicle, got to the area to meet with the Major General (2 Star) who is the commander here at Bagram.

As the Soldiers where lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off and didn’t say a word as he went into the conference room to meet the General. As he finished, the vehicles took him to the ClamShell (pretty much a big top tent that military personnel can play basketball or work out in with weights) so he could take his publicity pictures playing basketball. He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to thank them for their service.

So really he was just here to make a showing for the Americans back home that he is their candidate for President. I think that if you are going to make an effort to come all the way over here you would thank those that are providing the freedom that they are providing for you.

I swear we got more thanks from the NBA Basketball Players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from one of the Senators, who wants to be the President of the United States . I just don’t understand how anyone would want him to be our Commander-and-Chief. It was almost that he was scared to be around those that provide the freedom for him and our great country.

If this is blunt and to the point I am sorry but I wanted you all to know what kind of caliber of person he really is. What you see in the news is all fake.

In service,

CPT J
Bagram, Afghanistan

Senate Conservatives Fund endorses US Sen. Candidate Bob Schaffer.

Solid choice.

If you haven’t read anything about this in the blogosphere, you surely will until this story is either proven or disproven.

Former Democratic VP candidate, Presidential candidate, and Senator John Edwards cornered with a mistress and a lovechild:

The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer — met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn’t leave until early the next morning.

Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.

But a months-long NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation had yielded information that Rielle and Edwards, 54, had arranged to secretly meet afterward and for the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own.

The NATIONAL ENQUIRER broke the story of Edwards’ love child scandal last year, when Rielle was still pregnant and Edwards was still considered a strong candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Both parties denied the NATIONAL ENQUIRER report and a close friend of Edwards’ came forward and said he was the father of Rielle’s baby. But sources told the NATIONAL ENQUIRER a far different story - they revealed that Edwards was engineering a massive cover up of his shocking infidelity.

Yes, it’s the National Enquirer. But it’s the same tabloid that broke the Rush Limbaugh prescription drug story, and a host of stories in the OJ murder case and the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Only time will tell… given how much of a smarmy know-it-all, holier-than-thou personality Edwards is, this wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

“Is McCain inching Towards Pawlenty?”

You can see an earlier thread of Veepstakes speculation here.

Consider this an open thread to continue said speculation.

Go to Parnell’s campaign website here.

Does his campaign symbol seem, uh, familiar to you?  It should.  You can see one a lot like it here.

He’s not in the general election yet… but in a Republican primary race.  I’d advise Lt. Gov. Parnell to change his symbol…

Awesome.

As we all know, the Democrat party only cares about giving Americans choice when it involves an unborn child.  When it comes to your tax dollars, your doctor, your retirement, and your children….well, they prefer to dictate from Washington.  Here is a nice piece on the DC school voucher program.  Guess what?  The poor are flocking to remove their children from disastrous public schools.

From Investor’s Business Daily:

It’s a little known fact that, after invading Iraq in 2003, the U.S. found massive amounts of uranium yellowcake, the stuff that can be refined into nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel, at a facility in Tuwaitha outside of Baghdad.

In recent weeks, the U.S. secretly has helped the Iraqi government ship it all to Canada, where it was bought by a Canadian company for further processing into nuclear fuel — thus keeping it from potential use by terrorists or unsavory regimes in the region.

This has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Yet, as the AP reported, this marks a “significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy.”

Seems to us this should be big news.

550 metric tons of the stuff was found, and is now being shipped to Canada… 550 metric tons, mind you, not just a few spent shells with residue in them. The article points out that with 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium, Saddam could have made 142 nuclear weapons.

Grassroots revolt against the GOP in the House and Senate:

And one more thing: come November 5th, should the current GOP leadership in either house survive to lead in a new Congress, the Lincoln Club of Orange County will review its financial backing of all Congressional Republicans, and we urge others to do likewise. A GOP caucus that would re-elect such leaders is not one we would likely continue to support.

Because, simply put: we refuse to support a permanent minority.

Read the entire article, it is well worth it.  The GOP would be wise to start listening to grassroots conservatives, and conservative leaders in Congress.

H/T to the Senate Conservatives Fund blog.

Across the country today family and friends are gathering for picnics and parties. This evening cities throughout the nation will be painting the night skies with fantastical displays of fireworks and light( the most phenomenal of which, by the way, are put on by Zambelli Fireworks in Pittsburgh). Today is July 4th, Independence Day and while Americans of all stripes are grilling burgers and digging into apple pie and oohing and ahhing at colorful splashes of fire in the night sky, I ponder just how many of these people really know what they are celebrating today and do they really understand why? I think the answer to that is no.

We’ve come a long way since 1776 when the Founders of this great nation declared us an independent people, free from the abuse and treachery at the hands of the British. But, after 232 years have we simply traded that foreign tyranny for a domestic? When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence he envisioned a society based on individual freedom and liberty. It was a society where anybody was free to choose their own destiny, to provide for themselves and their family, and achieve unlimited opportunity and where charity was a personal decision based on the kindness of one’s heart and the giving of others, but those days are well behind us.

You see, in today’s America an ever growing, overreaching government has bastardized that foundation and sent us down a path where it has become barely recognizable. In today’s America we are told by the state how, what and where to educate our children. Today we live in an America where our free speech is censored be it deemed too insensitive to others’ ears. We are told our moral faiths which have remained constant for thousands of years are hateful and bigoted. In today’s America our highest court gives precedent, to corporate conglomerates, our private land rights allowing them to snatch them away if they can better feed the state’s mammoth apatite than that of a working family. In today’s Land of the Free the prosperity of your average American is stunted by the theft of your labors at the hands of the collective. Today, you’re average American works until May just to pay the government. Indeed, we have truly strayed from the concepts of individualism and unlimited achievement. The Founders revolted over much less than this.

Now we are in another election year and half of our country’s voters are cheering on a full blown Marxist who uplifts them with promises of suckling off the rewards of the other half who have lived and exemplified the American dream, all under the guise of a spurious sense of “fairness” and the “greater good.” The other half have aligned themselves with a man who will continue to dredge us through several more years of death and struggle abroad in the name of nation building under the fraudulent notion of “safety” and “security.” Don’t you dare question it either. Surely, this is not what General Washington fought for in the American Revolution, nor General Grant in the Civil War. It is certainly not the America my grandfather defended in World War II nor the country my father served under in Vietnam.

I am certainly not ungrateful for what I have. I think too many Americans are ignorant as to how good we have it here compared to most of the world, but as each year passes I find less to celebrate. Perhaps I am too cynical, but I find it sad to see so many of my fellow countrymen sit back and willingly enable and cheer on a burgeoning bureaucratic beast as it swallows whole so much of what is rightly ours. I would like to believe that America’s best days still await, but I fear they are long gone.

[UPDATE - Langley]: Sam, while I agree with the sentiment here, I also agree with Erick at Red State that despite all of the flaws that we are surrounded by and the challenges we face, days like today are worth celebrating and recommit ourselves to fighting to restore the First Principles that the Declaration of Independence represented, and that our Founders pledged their lives and sacred honor to fight for.

First Principles.

First, in case you haven’t heard, Christopher Hitchens got voluntarily waterboarded and says (this is me ripping from Ace) with Absolute Moral Authority that the practice is bad and torture.

The definition of torture?  Via Ace of Spades, via S. Weasel:

Torture is any experience so horrible that no-one would consider trying it out simply for the purpose of writing a Vanity Fair article about what it’s like.

Short statement, but it sure says a lot.

As some of you may know, conservative hero and Senator Jim DeMint (SC) recently started the Senate Conservatives’ Fund. You can read my earlier write-up on the new group and how it fits into the growing list of movement conservative institutions here.

Senator DeMint is soliciting conservatives’ advice as to what races the SCF should support; obviously the candidates should be truly conservative ones, not simply anyone with an “R” next to their name.

I have already emailed them with my recommendations at this time. I need to do a bit more research before I make any further ones; I sent them the names of three candidates that jumped out at me immediately as conservatives from my knowledge of them - they are Sens. Inhofe, Cornyn, and Rep. Pearce (running for NM - SEN). I know several others are pretty reliably conservative, but I wanted to send them my initial thoughts immediately and hem and haw a bit about other races. I’m sure other conservatives have sent them the most pressing names as well, meaning hopefully they can get a sense for the highest-priority races in the conservative sense.  And, some of these guys are pretty good conservative votes but will not need the help (see Saxby Chambliss in Georgia).

The following is a list of Senate races this November:

ALABAMA: Jeff Sessions (R)* vs. Vivian Davis Figures (D)

ALASKA: Ted Stevens (R)* vs. Mark Begich (D)

COLORADO: Bob Schaffer (R) vs. Mark Udall (D)

GEORGIA: Saxby Chambliss (R)* vs. Vernon Jones (D)

IDAHO: James Risch (R) vs. Larry LaRocco (D)

KENTUCKY: Mitch McConnell (R)* vs. Bruce Lunsford (D)

LOUISIANA: John Kennedy (R) vs. Mary Landrieu (D)*

MAINE: Susan Collins (R)* vs. Tom Allen (D)

MINNESOTA: Norm Coleman (R)* vs. Al Franken (DFL)

MISSISSIPPI: Roger Wicker (R)* vs. Ronnie Musgrove (D

NEBRASKA: Mike Johanns (R) vs. Scott Kleeb (D)

NEW HAMPSHIRE: John Sununu (R)* vs. Jeanne Shaheen (D

NEW JERSEY: Dick Zimmer (R) vs. Frank Lautenberg (D)*

NEW MEXICO: Steve Pearce (R) vs. Tom Udall (D)

NORTH CAROLINA: Elizabeth Dole (R)* vs. Kay Hagan (D)

OKLAHOMA: Jim Inhofe (R)* vs. Andrew Rice (D)

OREGON: Gordon Smith (R)* vs. Jeff Merkley (D)

SOUTH DAKOTA: Joel Dykstra (R) vs. Tim Johnson (D)*

TEXAS: John Cornyn (R)* vs. Rick Noriega (D)

VIRGINIA: Jim Gilmore (R) vs. Mark Warner (D)

* Incumbent

You can email the SCF with recommendations at: info@senateconservatives.com .

California State Sen. Tom McClintock, darling of the conservatives in California and rabble-rouser against Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled CA legislature.  Club for Growth endorsed, as well.

We should start a series on this site highlighting Republican candidates worthwhile of SaveTheGOPers’ support this election cycle.  A Save the GOP “slatecard” if you will.

Members and readers of this site certainly have disagreements about the GOP nominee for president, which is understandable and healthy for us to debate.

With that disagreement (and lack of real passion for McCain for most STG supporters of him, anyway, more of a “anybody but Obama” mindset), we should focus on where conservatives can make a difference and need to rebuild our bench: Congress, governorships, state house control, et cetera.

The Alaskan Representative with Potomac Fever gets the endorsement of Huck PAC.

Republican Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, challenging Young in the party primary, has the endorsement of Gov. Sarah Palin (rapidly gaining attention beyond the blogosphere in recent weeks) and of the Club for Growth.

I’d say that’s a pretty good litmus test, and a microcosm of the battle within the Republican Party. On one side you have the Huck PACs and incumbent Don Youngs, and on the other side you have the upstart reformist conservatives. My bet? Young gets bested in the primary. Another RINO bites the dust. Slowly but surely, conservatives manage to accrue more power within the Party. This could mean great things for 2012, 2016, or beyond.

National Review has a primer on Don Young.

Cross-posted at The Next Right.

The speaker of the House made it clear to me and more than forty of my colleagues yesterday that a bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to outlaw the “Fairness Doctrine” (which a liberal administration could use to silence Rush Limbaugh, other radio talk show hosts and much of the new alternative media) would not see the light of day in Congress during ’08.  In ruling out a vote on Pence’s proposed Broadcaster’s Freedom Act, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA.) also signaled her strong support for revival of the “Fairness Doctrine” — which would require radio station owners to provide equal time to radio commentary when it is requested.

Experts say that the “Fairness Doctrine,” which was ended under the Reagan Administration, would put a major burden on small radio stations in providing equal time to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative broadcasters, who are a potent political force.  Rather than engage in the costly practice of providing that time, the experts conclude, many stations would simply not carry Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other talk show hosts who are likely to generate demands for equal time.

Human Events

I’m not just loosely throwing out the term like stupid college kids do to describe George Bush when they don’t even know what the word means.  When the government can pass a law that dictates what is government permitted speech and what is not, that is real, live fascism folks.  We are already being told what to expect for the next four years under an Obama presidency and freedom is in jeopardy.

Feel the embarrassment!

But seriously, as I’ve stated before, this was a poor move by the Obama campaign that made him appear to be egotistical and self-righteous (which he is), and in the end adds only more credence to the notion that Sen. Barack Obama is an unserious, media-hyped candidate.

A piece by Robert Novak today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When John McCain met privately with Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin after a political event in the Milwaukee suburbs May 29, the Republican presidential candidate might not have realized that he had just come face to face with an opportunity and a test. Ryan showed him his plan to reform the economy. McCain expressed interest and said he would turn it over to his campaign’s economists.

That was truly ominous. If the Kemp-Roth tax cut had been handed over to economists three decades ago, it likely would have died in its crib and aborted the national and Republican revival under President Ronald Reagan. Ryan’s plan is more sweeping than the proposal by his boss and mentor Jack Kemp, who dealt only with taxes. In 70 pages, “Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future” shows the way to reform taxes, control spending and brake runaway entitlement outlays.

Ryan has proposed far too much to handle for nervous House Republican leaders. They have refrained from publicly knocking Ryan down only because they are in a state of terror over their party’s desperate condition, as indicated by plummeting polls and special election defeats. More important is the yet unstated reaction by McCain, famously uninterested in economics but never shy on courage to defy the conventional wisdom.

Actually, to embrace Ryan’s Roadmap requires more political insight than courage. Ryan was met with enthusiastic approval at some 35 town meetings in his southern Wisconsin industrial district, where he unveiled his plan over the last two months. His constituents, who sent liberal Democrat Les Aspin to Congress for 22 years, are legendary “Reagan Democrats” who have soured on the GOP. Ryan believes they are far ahead of politicians in their alarm over entitlements. “Do we have the guts to act?” asks Ryan.

Ryan fears potential national disaster is ahead because we “will exceed the European extent of government and bring our economy to extinction.” With the U.S. government share of the economy at 20 percent, he sees it rising to a calamitous 40 percent when his three children (ages 3, 4 and 6) reach their 30s, requiring a doubled tax rate. President Bush’s appropriations rose $49 billion over the last year, and the Democratic-controlled House upped that ante. But spending enacted by Congress is dwarfed by statutory increases in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.

Ryan’s Roadmap makes a serious effort, as neither Congress nor the Bush administration did, to cut appropriated spending. Ryan calls it “Gramm-Rudman on steroids” (referring to successive spending control measures beginning in 1985).

But his boldest thrust comes in radical changes to entitlements, including an option for persons under 55 years old to buy private retirement insurance, plus reduced benefits and delayed retirement for Social Security. His Internal Revenue reform would amount to an optional modified flat tax (advocated in principle by McCain) and substituting a small business consumption tax for the corporate income tax rate — while holding federal taxes to 18.5 percent of gross domestic product.

It is hardly likely the Republican leadership would embrace Ryan’s daring agenda if it cannot even bring itself temporarily to forego pork-barrel spending by passing a moratorium on earmarks. But Ryan represents a younger breed of reform Republicans who now have junior leadership positions.

Ryan, 38, top Republican on the House Budget Committee, has been working closely with freshman Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 43, who has been named chairman of the national platform by Minority Leader John Boehner, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, 45, the party’s chief deputy whip. After another expected bad GOP defeat in the 2008 congressional elections, Ryan, McCarthy and Cantor could constitute the party’s new House leadership.

But who will be in the White House? McCain so far has generated little excitement in his own Republican base, much less among Reagan Democrats. His cautious political and economic advisers flinch at complicated tax changes, massive budget cuts and tampering with Social Security. But a campaign based on Barack Obama’s shortcomings may not be enough on Election Day. While Ryan says the people are more than ready for his strong medicine, McCain has not yet agreed.

If this is the attitude in England, then the US enviro-psychos and “politicians-turned-scientists” had better increase their fear campaign a little bit more.

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

There is some chatter that this ad, run in South Dakota during the primary, triggered Obama’s decision to opt out of public campaign financing. Whatever you think of the content, ads like this will have a devastating impact on some voters. More details here.