The Nigh Seen Creeder

Joltin' Django is gonna be out of town for a few days. The Nigh Seen Creeder will return Sunday, November 30.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Editor's Note: This post first appeared in November of last year.

In addition to Thanksgiving Day itself, there are quite a few certainties during Thanksgiving Week: falling leaves, 14-pound day after Thanksgiving newspapers, Christmas commercials, football games featuring the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions, and "very special" holiday-themed movies on Lifetime.

Something else we can count on 'round Thanksgiving are bevies of "experts" coming out of the woodwork to tell us how much/what we should eat when turkey-time arrives. They say, "Don't overdo it" ... "Substitute [this] for [that]" ... "Avoid [this] entirely." If and when I ever come face to face with one of these food fascists, this is what I'll tell him or her:

Well, let's just say lots of four-letter will fly.

In the United States, there are two holidays during which food plays an important - nay, integral - part: Thanksgiving and Christmas. (While it's not an official holiday, I guess you could add Super Bowl Sunday to the list; but that day is known as much, if not more, for drinkin' than it is for eatin'.) Not only is food itself an integral part of these holidays, there are certain foodstuffs that are associated with 'em as well:

Turkey, giblet gravy, dressing, mashed taters, ham, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls as big as your head, pumpkin pie, and assorted candies, cakes, wines and cheeses. We don't have a constitutional right to these things on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we sure as hell should.

Which brings me back to the food fascists. This past weekend, MSNBC re-posted an AP story from 2004 in which an anonymous author made the following statement vis-à-vis Thanksgiving:

"[Here's] what your plate should look like: a serving of turkey no larger than a deck of playing cards and half a cup each of two starches. (A half-cup is about the size of a computer mouse.)

"And that’s being generous."

The above-mentioned article also features this little chart:

● Try eating a little of everything, but that means just a few bites.

● Eat only the unique foods. Mashed potatoes and turkey may be traditional, but they also are easily had any day of the week. Instead, use those calories for ... more seasonal items.

● Fill up on salad and vegetables before heading for the turkey and candied sweet potatoes. Then if you are still hungry, hit the vegetables again after the turkey to reduce the amount of dessert you eat.

● Visualize your stomach; it’s about the size of two fists. If the food on your plate won’t fit, cut back.

Slices of turkey no bigger than a deck of cards?! A half-cup of dressing?! No mashed taters?! Salad?! See what I mean about wantin' a blankin' break?

Look, I'm a big boy. I don't need anyone - anonymous online "experts" included - to tell me what to eat and/or how much to eat during the holidays. I'll admit, I usually eat too much on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, as well as each day after (them left-overs gotta go somewhere). I'm smart enough to know, however, that if I engage in a two-day pig-out twice a year, I'm not going to freakin' die as a result; and I know that I'm not going to contract diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, herpes, HIV, etc. if, at one sitting, I eat enough turkey breast to fill my 7 3/8-size Brooklyn Cyclones hat.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when a man's gotta eat, a man's gotta eat ... especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't need no busybody, know-it-all food fascist to instruct me otherwise.

Pass the gravy ...

Regular Creeder Readers know I've said pretty much the same thing (on several occasions):

"[The 2010 Tennessee gubernatorial race] a wide open race, unless Bill Frist decides to run. And then the race is over, if he does. It's that simple. He can clear the field in terms of any other candidate have any realistic chance at all of being elected."

Michael Nelson, professor of political science at Rhodes College

This don't surprise me, one freakin' bit (HT: Gary Bauer):

Talk show host John Ziegler commissioned a poll by John Zogby to test the knowledge of more than 500 Obama voters in a nationwide survey conducted after the election. The results are shocking. It must be noted upfront that virtually all those surveyed had high school diplomas, and more than half had college degrees. Only 2% of Obama voters earned “perfect or near-perfect scores on a post election test which gauged their knowledge of statements and scandals associated with the presidential tickets.”

For example: 57% could not correctly say which party controlled Congress; 88% did not know that Obama said his policies would bankrupt the coal industry; 56% did not know that Obama started his political career at the home of two former domestic terrorists; and 72% did not know that Joe Biden dropped out of a previous campaign due to plagiarism. But, 94% knew Sarah Palin had a pregnant teenage daughter; 86% knew Sarah Palin had $150,000 in clothes purchased for her; and 87% said that Sarah Palin stated she could see Russia from her house. Sarah Palin never actually said that – Tiny Fey of Saturday Night Live fame did. You can learn more about this poll and John Ziegler’s upcoming documentary, “Media Malpractice” at: How Obama Got Elected.

I know it's impolitic to say, but I'm still of the opinion that folks should have to earn a voter-registration card -- given its societal and historical significance and all. That said, upon learning that the average B. Hussein Obama voter don't have too much on the ball when it comes to civics, history, or current events, I'm ready to ... I'm ready to take "spectacular" action to ensure that none of my future votes are cancelled-out by folks who have trouble pouring piss out of a boot.

Indeed.

President-elect B. Hussein Obama has announced additional cabinet choices, and most of 'em are folks who served in the Clinton Administration: Eric Holder, Larry Summers, Bill Richardson, et al. In a letter to the Nashville City Paper, C.W. Clouse says this is a good thing:

"The Clinton Administration was the last successful administration in Washington so why not take advantage of his people's expertise in ... domestic policy and try to use them to revitalize the economy as Clinton did."

By choosing former Clinton officials almost exclusively to staff his White House, Obama is no doubt hopeful that a little of that '90s- economic lightning will soon strike twice. What he - and Obama sycophants like C.W. Clouse - needs to remember is we ain't living in 1994-99 anymore. Three things happened during those years that ain't likely to happen again. To wit:

● In 1995, something called the Internet entered the American consciousness on a grand scale, and it revolutionized the way folks communicate, shop, organize and promote businesses, politic, and on and on and on. The Internet boosted economic growth on a grand scale, and it it boosted -- over-boosted -- the stock market. 'Tis unlikely that anything as earth-shaking as the Internet will come down the pike during the next four years. (Obama can charge Al Gore to create Internet 2.0, but it ain't gonna happen.)

● During Bill Clinton's first two years in office, GDP growth was stagnant; the federal government was forecasting budget deficits as far as the eye could see; and he was lurching from one political crisis to another -- most of which were the direct result of his relying too heavily on his most liberal supporters, e.g., gays in the military, socialist health-care, abandoning tax cuts, etc. When Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, it convinced Bill Clinton to pursue middle-of-the-road policies. No, wait ... it convinced him to hire Bill Morris, who in turn forced Bill Clinton to pursue middle-of-the-road policies. If not for a Republican Congress, Bill Clinton would've never signed off on cap-gains tax reductions; he would've never openly supported a line-item veto and spending cuts to achieve a balanced budget; and he would've NEVER agreed to support welfare reform. Even if Obama governs as the extreme leftist he claimed to be during the 2008 Democratic primary, it's highly unlikely that the GOP will take control of either house of Congress in 2010. Thus, there will not be an ideological stopper, if you will, to force Obama into the political center ... where he needs to be if he wants to (a) ensure economic growth, and (b) be more than a one-term president.

● We've all heard about Bill Clinton's balanced budgets, right? What few know - or, what few care to acknowledge - is that the primary reason Clinton was able to achieve a balanced budget is because he cut the military's budget by some 33 percent. If Obama were to try to reduce America's military capability by 1/3 - what with 150,000+ troops currently engaged in combat in two theatres - he would no doubt find a great many left-wing sorts in Congress to support him, but he'd also quickly learn that Americans, as a whole, do not cotton to under-funding troops in the field. And - and this is a big and - he might just provoke his officers and enlisted men and women into an open rebellion. (Lest you think I'm being hyperbolic with my "rebellion" suggestion, just take out a history book and look what was transpiring in France in May 1958.)

For all of Obama's talk of "change," tain't a damn thing he's really changing. His economic policies are straight-up Keynesian with a hint of Clement Atlee à la 1946; his cabinet is shaping up to be Bill Clinton Cabinet Number Three (see above); when he announced that his kids would be attending an exclusive private school, he gave a big non-endorsment to D.C. Schools Superintendant Michelle Rhee's union-defying reforms that're currently winning plaudits from serious education reformers (Rhee's a Democrat, by the way); and his one lone Republican cabinet appointee - holdover Sec. of Defence Robert Gates - was chosen because he's never officially registered as a Republican.

Obama and his the-'90s-were-über-idyllic supporters need to come down to earth and get one thing through their pea-brains: We ain't in 1997 anymore!

President-elect B. Hussein Obama and his wife, Michelle, have announced which Washington, D.C., school their little darlin's will be attending. Big shock ... les enfants d'Obama be attending Sidwell Friends School, the über-exclusive private academy that educates the children of Washington's biggest movers and shakers (Vice President-elect Joe "Plugs" Biden's grandchildren attend Sidwell Friends, as did Chelsea Clinton).

When the choice was announced, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Obama, said, A number of great schools were considered. ... In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now."

Note that the Obamas "selected" the school their daughters will attend. The Obamas have done quite well for themselves over the years, so they can afford the $21,000-per-year, per-student tuition at Sidwell Friends. But what about the not-so-well-to-do D.C. parents whose children are stuck in sub-par schools? I'm sure they'd love to "choose" a "best fit" school for their children, but lack the financial means to do so.

Currently, the Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program each year offers $7,500 to nearly 2,000 children to attend private schools in D.C. Democrats in Congress are pulling out all the stops to kill this wildly popular program. (If you're wondering what the average family income is for kids in the D.C. voucher program, it is, according to the Wall Street Journal, around $22,000). It will be interesting to see what a President Obama will do vis-à-vis D.C.'s nascent voucher program. I have a sneaking suspicion that he'll either work to kill it, or he'll let congressional Democrats kill it and claim he was powerless to stop them from doing so.

Now, I don't begrudge anyone who sends their children to private school. I attended a private elementary and secondary school. What I do have a problem with, however, are fat-cat Democrats who send their kids to expensive 'n' exclusive private schools, but are unwilling to support programs that would allow the children of less-affluent parents to attend school in which, well, they might actually learn something.

If Obama allows the Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program to die, it will quickly put to rest the notion that he's a Man of the People; and it will be proof positive of something that I and other conservative bloggers have been saying for many, many months: B. Hussein is just another tool of Democrat-aligned special interests (see: National Education Association).

Joltin' Django is already making plans to be in the gallery, blogging away, when the Republican Party takes control of the Tennessee House of Representatives - for the first time since Reconstruction - in January.

One of the interesting back stories of the Republican Party's rise in the General Assembly is the fact that the center of legislative politics in this state has shifted, decidedly, from West Tennessee to East Tennessee. That means House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington) is going to be out in the cold come January, and so will House Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry (D-Memphis). If you've ever heard one of DeBerry's shrieking, nearly incomprehensible speeches prior to the governor's State of the State addresses, you know what a welcome change a new Speaker Pro Tempore will be.

The Jackson Sun's Tom Bohs tells folks in West Tennessee they better get used to not being the center of Tennessee's political universe

[Y]ou can kiss West Tennessee political sway goodbye in Nashville. You can count on state Sen. Ron Ramsey keeping control of the Senate and staying on as lieutenant governor. And you most likely can look forward to a Republican to replace state House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh. Naifeh's control of House legislation won't be missed by too many people. He tended to heavy handedness. I guess that comes with too many years in the driver's seat; Naifeh had 18, more than any other state House leader in history.

Along with the retirement of Sen. John Wilder, a political legend, we are seeing the final vestiges of West Tennessee political clout slip away. Republican Dolores Gresham won Wilder's' seat in a surprise, some say, win over Democratic Party faithful Randy Camp. But Gresham doesn't bring much clout to the Senate table beyond being a Republican. Don't look for many West Tennessee perks during her first term in the Senate.

The recent election was just the final blow to the West Tennessee political hegemony. It began when Gov. Ned McWherter retired. It was followed by Jackson's Matt Kisber giving up his powerful House seat where he was chairman of the House Finance Committee.

Gov. Phil Bredesen took over the governor's office in 2002, but he is from Nashville. I have noticed that during his six years in office, Bredesen's appointments to boards, commissions and other positions have been heavy in Middle and East Tennessee. Memphis gets a few bones tossed its way, but Jackson and rural West Tennessee are largely left out in the cold.

Now, with the GOP in control, Republicans will be in charge of appointing all constitutional officers. Already former Sen. Rosalind Kurita, a Clarksville Democrat who supported Ramsey to give him the lieutenant governor's job, has been rejected by the GOP for the secretary of state job.

With the state Senate and House being controlled by the GOP, our area will have to look to District 73 Rep. Jimmy Eldridge and District 72 Rep. Steve McDaniel, for Republican clout. Eldridge has paid his dues in Nashville. He is a tireless worker, smart, and a political schmoozer of the first order. McDaniel is a party stalwart and is due a significant position. Eldridge and McDaniel will be our new go-to guys to get anything done. But they will have to do some political arm-twisting while avoiding the political pitfalls of deal making. As for other West Tennessee Republicans, they are mostly new and will have to pay their legislative dues before they can wield much power.

Tennessee is a decidedly red state, and it has been drifting to the right and into the arms of the GOP for years. Oddly enough, Gov. Bredesen will likely be the least affected by these changes. He has already accomplished much of what he hoped to do for Tennessee. He has governed from right of center all along, and it is hard to imagine what the GOP wants to do that he and they can't come to terms on during his last two years in office.

Look for the political power shift to be realized in Middle and East Tennessee. Ramsey hails from Blountville in East Tennessee. Rep. Gary Mumpower of Bristol is likely to become House speaker, though Naifeh still will be in the running. The governor's job, if recent history is any indication, will next go to a Republican. If the Republican is Bill Frist of Nashville, it will be a long time before West Tennessee rises again from the Mississippi delta to wield much political clout.

I don't mean to imply that GOP control of state politics is necessarily a bad thing. It is not. My concern is for West Tennessee. With the majority of Republican political power brokers being from Middle and East Tennessee, I am concerned about getting things done in our neck of the woods. I'm talking about economic development, building roads and other infrastructure and finishing the Haywood County industrial mega-site that could bring thousands of jobs to our area.

With control ebbing in favor of the GOP, it is time to give serious thought to Republican candidates from West Tennessee. The 2010 election is next in line. We must develop and elect the best candidates who can speak for West Tennessee.

Last week, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, used a racial slur to attack President-elect B. Hussein Obama. In an audio message posted on an al-Qaeda-affiliated Web site, al-Zawahiri said this: "And in you [Obama] and in Colin Powell, [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice and your likes, the words of Malcolm X concerning house negroes are confirmed."

As the Campaign for Working Families PAC opines, that little diatribe should serve as a wake-up for the American Left:

There has also been a temptation on the Left to think that if we could just stop being pro-Israel and give the Palestinians a state, the conflict with Islamofascism would end. Wrong again. al-Zawahiri mentions Jews once in his diatribe. He doesn’t mention the Palestinians at all. There is no doubt that he and the rest of the jihadists want a second Holocaust of the Jews. But that would only whet their appetite. They want us all dead – Jews, Christians, moderate Muslims – anyone who believes in human dignity and freedom.

Is it too much to hope that Al-Zawahiri’s "welcome" to President-elect Obama will be a reality check for the American Left and for the incoming administration? Will they finally understand that we have not been at war for seven years because of oil or Halliburton or because we have a "Texas cowboy" in the White House? Having a Chicago progressive in the Oval Office won’t deter our enemies either. I hope and pray al-Zawahiri has started a long overdue education for millions of Americans on the Left.

GOPAC is the preeminent education and training center for Republican candidates and activists. Back in the mid-'90s, GOPAC helped me out quite a bit when I was working on a State House campaign; and ever since then, I've contributed a considerable sum to GOPAC every year.

GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele has all but announced that he'll be seeking the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. I've been quite pleased with the work Steele has done as head of GOPAC, and I anticipate supporting his bid for RNC chairman if and when he throws his hat officially into the ring.

I recently received an e-mail from Michael Steele in which he articulates a vision for the Republican Party's, and America's, future. This is good stuff:

Republicans once asserted that the opportunities this nation has to offer rests not in government but rather the hands of individuals. Public policy should empower citizens, not governments, to make informed decisions for their families and future. Taxes should be kept low because the product of one's labor should belong to the individual doing the labor, not to the government who can only take it by means of force. Growth should be encouraged in the private sector, not the public, because only in the former will risk, innovation and entrepreneurship naturally lead to greater opportunity for all Americans.

Over the past decade or so, however, we Republicans lost our way. The disparity between our rhetoric and our action grew till our credibility snapped. Our actions overwhelmed our words. It wasn't the fault of our ideals. It was the failure of our leadership. Over time our principles morphed into baser motives. Our continued political dominance grew more important to those who led us than the noble vision for a greater American future most of us originally signed on for. And to maintain power we turned to the controls of government - we, in fact, as much as anyone else, became the party of big government. We behaved like Democrats.

The Republican Party is at a crossroads -- like it has never been before. The Country has changed and our Party must adapt. However, it is wrong to believe we must change our principals or become conservative-lite. After all, the voters did not suddenly become liberal; but they have lost any sense of confidence that the Republican Party holds the answers to their problems.

Abraham Lincoln reminds us, "The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from a cause we believe is just." If we are to regain the trust of the American people and restore the credibility of our ideas, our party must break with what went wrong and once again stand for what is right.

Lincoln stood on principle like a rock, strong, unflinching, alone, the waters of hell crashing against him. But Lincoln also recognized that holding on principle alone was only the first step. We must also lead and more importantly, we must listen.

Most Americans today see a Republican Party that defines itself by what it is against rather than what it is for. We can tell you why public schools aren't working, but not articulate a compelling vision for how we'll better educate children. We're well equipped to rail against tax increases; but can't begin to explain how we'll help the poor. We exclude far better than we welcome.

Things were different as recently as 20 years ago. Back then, Ronald Reagan made it cool to be a Republican - it wasn't just his specific policies, but the timeless truths he so eloquently gave voice to upon which his policies were based. That's the Republican Party we must re-establish.

It can't just be a business involved with the management of government. Instead, we must represent a transformative movement that speaks with empathy and compassion, but isn't afraid of hard truths and productive debate. We must stand on timeless principles but with fresh ideas and a welcoming heart.

We must articulate a positive vision for America's future that speaks to Americans' hopes, concerns and needs. It's time to stop defining ourselves by what we are not, and tell voters what we believe, how we'll lead, and where we'll go ... how we Republicans will make America better ... how we'll make their families more prosperous, their children better educated, their parents more secure, and all of us healthier, safer, and stronger.

Our challenge lies not in beating Democrats, but in uniting around a message that both solidifies our ranks and attracts new Republicans to our cause. Our foundation is strong. It consists of principles that are true in all times for all people. Yet in recent years our appeal has narrowed. That must change. While social values ground us as individuals, and serve our communities and nation well -- they should not serve as the sole agenda to animate our party's political action.

Instead, we have to listen to what Americans are telling us about their hopes, desires, and needs, and then translate that message into proposals for meaningful action squarely grounded on the values we Republicans have always stood strong for.

It is this faith in the power and ingenuity of the individual to create the legacy of a nation through hard work, personal responsibility and self-discipline - The American Dream - that is our uniting principle. That is the sacred ground upon which our Republican Party was built. It is the ground upon which we have always stood when we stood at our best. And now, for the sake of all Americans today and to come, it is the ground we must reclaim.

Remember when I said that I was gonna start rejectin' comments full o' off-topic leftist jackassery?

Did you wonder what I meant by that?

Well, here you go ... courtesy of Mr./Ms. Potato In Your Tailpipe:

[New comment on Back to the future. Date: 11/17/2008 9:26:54 P.M. Pacific Standard Time:

"Hahahaahhaaaaa!!!

"Fuck you, you redneck faggot sack of fucking shit."]

Redneck? Lemme dust off my Glenn Gould and Wes Montgomery records, and lemme dig out my 30+ Criterion Collection DVDs.

Faggot? Do you know something my girlfriend don't?!

Methinks Mr. Potato needs to take the tuber in his tailpipe and shove it in his left or right ear. Maybe his brain will've been poked into having a big bunch o' learned sense at that point. Indeed.

I played football when I was in junior high. One day my teammates and I were on the football field waiting for practice to start when a kid in my class grabbed his stomach and started groaning. When asked what was the matter, he said, and I quote: "I must've gotten a hold of some hard cheese at lunch." Before we knew it he was bent over behind some bushes ... and let's just say he wasn't looking for four-leaf clovers.

From that day forward, my friends and I adopted "I must've gotten a hold of some hard cheese" as a euphemism for stomachaches, headaches, sore throats, and every other malady under the sun. Indeed, when a sixth-grader was stricken with appendicitis in the middle of the elementary school lunchroom, my friends and I, naturally, said hard cheese was what did him in.

Well, I must've got hold of some hard cheese this past Sunday 'cause I've been sick all week. Now, by sick I don't mean being a little under the weather sick. Oh, no, I was so sick earlier this week that I didn't eat nothin' for two straight days. And the whole not eating thing ... that, my friends (apologies to John McCain), means I was really sick.

I mention all this to explain why my posts have been so sporadic, and almost after-the-fact, this week. It also explains why I've neither approved nor rejected comments for the past few days -- 'cause I ain't read none of 'em. You may have also noticed that the fonts and layout of the Nigh Seen Creeder was f'ed up for a couple of days. I tinkered with the HTML a bit to make room for pictures of the bumper stickers I'll soon be selling -- Don't Blame Me, I Voted For McCain! -- and I messed somethin' up. It's fixed now, as am I. I'm hoping everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

"This weekend, in the pages of the state’s Sunday newspapers, Tennessee Democrats in the state House openly fretted about how things would be under a new Republican leadership."

-- Clint Brewer, "Turnabout’s fair play for state Dems," Nashville City Paper

Republicans ain't fu**in' stupid. They - We - are fully aware of how the GOP's been skunkfully-treated in the Tenn. House since ... Victoria was Queen of England. To wit:

Naifeh has steadfastly refused to appoint Republicans as officers of committees that have any policy-making authority. (In a 1995 interview Naifeh pettily name-checked Newt Gingrich as his inspiration for the way in which he chose committee chairs, as if the administrative procedures of the U.S. House have any relevance on Nashville's Capitol Hill.) Naifeh routinely instructs subcommittee chairs to kill Republican bills, and he allows Republican bills with widespread popular support to be heavily amended in order for Democrats to claim credit. Finally, Republicans - especially Republicans who are critical of Naifeh or Democrats in general - are assigned offices in the War Memorial Building, which is uncomfortably stuffy in the summer, damp and drafty in the winter, and features drinking fountains that squirt water a dog wouldn't drink.

Democrats in the Tenn. House of Representatives have treated their Republican colleagues like little bee-yatches for many, many years. Now they want to be treated with temperance and respect. Puh-leez.

When I think about the Democrats who work in the State House and the State Senate, and for the state's constitutional officers (not to mention the Democrat officers themselves), I feel ... well, I feem plum giddy. And ain't no weepy Tennessean article going to make me feel otherwise. Indeed.

Ain't it good to be alive and be a Republican in Tennessee?!

Speaking to reporters at a business summit in Dubai, Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that he's considering running for governor of New York and hasn't ruled out a second presidential run.

Rudy has a better than even chance of becoming the next governor of New York. Indeed, that state is crumbling under the weight of bloated budgets and dwindling tax base, and New Yorkers are clamoring for a man of action like Rudy. On the other hand, Rudy was an incredibly weak candidate during the 2008 Republican primaries. If he runs for president again, I fear it will be nothing but an exercise in futility.

That said, there's already a lot of speculation going 'round about who will emerge as the front-runners for the 2012 GOP nomination. Hell, PoliticalDerby.com was speculating about such the day.

Watch the governors. The GOP grass-roots will not be in any mood to nominate another U.S. Senate pol in four years. Indeed, I look for the next Republican nominee to be a current or former governor. Jindal, Romney, Sanford, Palin ... keep a watch out for those names, and watch which of 'em spend a lot of time stumping for '10 House and Senate GOP candidates (à la Richard Nixon in 1965-66).

Watch the General. Remember when Democrats -- includeing President-elect B. Hussein Obama -- said a "surge" of troops in Iraq wouldn't change nothin'? Remember when the surge worked, and then B. Hussein Obama said he still opposed the political policy/military plan that was - is - bring stability to Iraq?! If President B. Hussein pulls U.S. troops out of Iraq and the country erupts into civil war, or if, God forbid, the United States suffers another terrorist attack and Obama gets all Jimmy Carter on our asses, don't be surprised if a lot of folks start talkin' a lot about drafting David Petraeus for Prez.

Remember when I said that I would no longer accept comments with whining and ranting, insults and non sequiturs? Some folks didn't believe me ... but they're sure as hell believing me now 'cause I've been dumping, on average, 8-10 comments each day.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: This is Joltin' Django's blog, and if you want to see your comments posted you'll obey Joltin' Django's rules. I'll go over 'em again one more time for those who didn't catch 'em the first time.

First rule: Obey all rules. Additionally, comments must be on-topic. No personal insults directed toward me or any Creeder Reader will be tolerated. If you dare make a sweeping statement on any public policy issue, e.g., "cuting gap-gains taxes is bad", you'd better by God have some facts and figur's to buttress your claim.

As I said in my original post "[T]his blog is a forum in which I say whatever I think I need to say. If you want to leave a comment, more power to you. If you do leave a comment, however, you'd better be prepared to post within the strictures of the ground rules I've now established."

I didn't type that just to practice my typing skills. I meant it ... as those who've left nutbucket posts over the the past two weeks can attest.

How many times did B. Hussein Obama and his sychophants use the word "change" during the 2008 presidential election? By my very conservative estimate, it was 1,326,901. How's this for "change":

Here's how you can tell the campaign is over and the transition has begun: Barack Obama's aides now wear suits and ties, their desks are in the Federal Building on 6th Street in Washington, D.C. - and Clintonites are everywhere.

Obama's victory in the general election produced what his primary campaign couldn't: A swift merger of the Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party with the Illinois Senator's self-styled insurgency. The merger began, during the campaign, in the policy apparatus - which is now rapidly becoming the governing apparatus.

... Thirty-one of the 47 people so far named to transition or staff posts have ties to the Clinton administration, including all but one of the members of his 12-person Transition Advisory Board and both of his White House staff choices.

I guess if Obama wants folks who have White House experience, he has no choice but to turn to former Clintonites (most of the veterans of the Carter Administration are either too old to serve or have gone to that great donkey coral in the sky). However, it is odd that Obama's already staffing his "team" with folks who were responsible for making the first two years of the first Clinton term such a disaster.

We all know what happened in 1994: Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate for the first time in eight years, and control of the U.S. House for the first time in forty years. Clinton was also forced to turn right, and he spent the remainder of his years in office supporting things like welfare reform, free trade, lower cap-gains taxes, and a balanced budget. Wouldn't it be funny if history repeated itself? Will Moveon.org, George Soros, ACORN, et al. cotton to Obama's "change" if he's forced to abandon his doctrinaire liberalism in favor of more centrist or - gasp! - center-right positions?

If Obama keeps asking former Clintonites to polish up their résumés, we're gonna get a chance to find out.

I urge you to watch this video. An elderly woman stands up for traditional marriage, and, well, just watch the reaction from the pro-gay marriage mob.

What you'll see is pretty disgusting. This video should put to rest the illusion of "tolerance" that left-wingers hide behind, and it should put a fire in the belly of anyone who supports traditional values.

Historian Michael Beschloss was on Imus in the Morning earlier this week. When the conversation turned to B. Hussein Obama, Beschloss said Obama had a higher IQ than any other 2008 presidential aspirant. When quizzed by Imus, Beschloss admitted he doesn't know what Obama's IQ is. Then Beschloss said this:

"Obama is the smartest person to ever become President."

Was Beschloss drunk when he said that?! Does he honestly believe that Obama bests Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, or James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution and co-author of the Federalist, on the Smartest Ever scale? Hell, an honest historian would rank Woodrow Wilson ahead of Obama.

Unlike Obama, Wilson had a distinguished career in academia prior to being elected President. He was a professor of political science and the president of Princeton, and he wrote six academic tomes, including the five-volume A History of the American People. (Now don't get me wrong, I'm no big Woodrow Wilson fan. Wilson was an avowed racist, and some of his wartime measures smacked of fascism.)

So, what proof does Michael Beschloss have that Obama is one of the smartest guys to ever become prez, or, more importantly the smartest. The answer, of course, is none. If I could interview Beschloss, I would ask him to consider this ...

Obama steadfastly refused to release his college transcripts during the 2008 camapaign, so we have absolutely no idea how his undergraduate and post-graduate studies played out.

Obama's stint as a "lecturer" at Harvard Law School was brief and undistinguished, and he published no scholarly articles during that time.

And speaking of writing, the two books Obama has published - memoirs both - are full of weepy self-reflection and Oprah-esque emotionalism, and neither contain what anyone would consider deep cogitations on economics, political science, history, pedagogy, etc. Oh, sure, his Audacity of Hope talks about the need to "invest" hither and yon, but it's the same kind of piddlin' crap that Democrats of all stripes propose -- even those who're not considered the smartest of the smart.

Finally, I've yet to hear a single Obama supporter who can, when quizzed, name a single piece of significant legislation he sponsored and helped pass into law during his four years in the U.S. Senate. Even his Senate colleagues have a hard time with that question.

... and then I would ask him if he still thinks Obama is the "smartest person to ever become president." If he answered in the affirmative, I would ... well, I don't know what I'd do. I'm sure it would include four-letter words and lots of a certain historian being an "idiot." Or worse.

In April 1962, President John F. Kennedy hosted a dinner for a group of Nobel Prize winners at The White House. During remarks to welcome his guests, Kennedy said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Kennedy was on to something. If a dozen Obamas were somehow able to take up residence in the White House, their collective smarts wouldn't equal that of one Thomas Jefferson's.

Any serious historian should know that. Indeed.

If this don't make you weep for America's future, then you must've voted for B. Hussein Obama ...

In case you haven't heard, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss now faces a run-off battle (due to Georgia's quirky election laws) against Democrat/first-class turd Jim Martin.

Senator Chambliss got 49.8 percent of the vote on November 4. Martin, a former state lawmaker from Atlanta, got 46.8 percent. Libertarian Allen Buckley got 3.4 percent. Georgia voters will go to the polls on December 2nd to choose between Chambliss and Martin.

But for Allen Buckley, Sen. Chambliss would've been re-elected last week and a GOP filibuster-firewall would be a given. I can only hope that the misguided liberty-loving souls who voted for Buckley will throw-in for Chambliss in three weeks.

America's captitalist ecomonic system is now hanging by a precarious thread. Obama's forces want us to embrace the smiley-faced socialism that now grips France and Germany (countries in which 10 percent annual unemployment is a rule rather than an an exception); but some folks, like Saxby Chambliss are of the opinion that Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, and Ronald Reagan are rolling in their graves.

Libertarians who voted for Buckley on November -- especially those who're either going to stay home on Dec. 2 or who're considering casting a run-off vote for Jim Martin -- need to think about this:

Incompetent, ineffectual Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) was first elected 'cause a Libertarian candidate on the ballot in his initial campaign drained enough votes from his Republican opponent. Imagine what our political "climate" would be like now if the limp-wristed Harry Reid wasn't in the U.S. Senate.

I hope and pray that the folks who voted for Buckley will do the "right" thing and vote for Saxby in three weeks. I'm not only hoping and praying -- indeed, I sent a $500 check to Saxby's re-re-election campaign yesterday -- I'm imploring them to get behind the guy who knows that Mr. Adam Smith ain't just a crank at the end of the street who don't rake his front yard.

So there.

Writing in yesterday's Nashville City Paper, Clint Brewer said this about the U.S. House of Representative's Blue Dog Coalition:

Four of Tennessee’s five Democratic Congressmen are members of the increasingly influential Blue Dog Coalition within the Democratic House Caucus. Congressmen Jim Cooper, John Tanner, Bart Gordon and Lincoln Davis are all Blue Dog stalwarts, and their caucus within a caucus seeks to pull House Democrats to the reasonable middle of the road on policy matters.

Unfortunately, Mr. Brewer don't even know what he's talking about. Influential? Middle of the Road? The Blue Dogs? Puh-leez. Never in the history of Congress has there ever been a more irrelevant and/or ineffectual caucus that the group of individuals who've dubbed themselves the Blue Dog Coalition. Case in point:

U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon -- a "card-carrying" Blue Dog -- is basically a city councilman masquerading as a Member of Congress. In his 20+ years in Congress, Gordon has never sponsored a piece of legislation that would significantly change America's tax code or entitlement system or military or judiciary. His most important legislative achievement is a law which bars jailbirds from receiving Pell Grants. Good one, Bart.

Now, if you want to know why your grandma's Social Security check was late in coming, or if you want the bridge that straddles the creek near your house named after your semi-famous grandpa, that's when you call Bart Gordon ... and that's when he shines like the midday sun in July. Gordon is an expert when it comes to piddlin' around, but he's a 13-term amateur when it comes to grasping and tackling the major issues of the day. See what I mean when I say he's a city councilman masquerading as a U.S. Rep? "Influential?" Puh-leez.

That said, Bart Gordon ain't no middle-of-the-road Congressman, neither. He's pro-choice; he's a proto-Keynesian; and his lifetime score from the American Conservative Union is 29. (By comparison, Lincoln Davis, another Tennessee Blue Dog, gets a 60 score from the ACU.) Furthermore, in his 20+ years in Washington, Gordon's never - ever - bucked the Democratic leadership on any important issue. Whenever his party's leaders've have instructed him to jump, he's jumped.

When B. Hussein Obama and his congressional henchmen/henchwomen start proposing billions of dollars in new spending next year without truthfully revealing how they intend to pay for it, don't expect Bart Gordon to stand athwart House Democrats shouting "Stop!" What he'll do is fall into line and do what he's been instructed to do. Just you wait and see.

On this Veterans’ Day, please to enjoy some excerpts from General Douglas MacArthur’s still-prescient farewell address:

Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn...

They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?

Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man-at-arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefield many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless...

From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage. As I listened to those songs [of the glee club], in memory’s eye I could see those staggering columns of the first World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through the mire of shell-pocked roads to form grimly for the attack, blue lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many to the judgment seat of God.

I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died, unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory...

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our process of government: Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by Federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be.

These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, honor, country...

The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished – tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory always I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, honor, country ...

Someone once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.  If we take that definition as a given, then voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York are completely insane.  (Or maybe they're just fuckin' stupid, I can't quite decide.)
 
The above-mentioned states were all suffering economically long before the current financial crisis hit. Hell, Michigan's been in a recession for the last five years.  But that's not all they have in common.
 
They're all states in which union bosses, bureaucrats, and big-government Democrats have instituted closed-shop workplaces, rigid labor rules, piss-poor schools, high personal and corporate taxes, and break-the-bank budgets.  These policies have not only caused innumerable businesses to dash for greener economic pastures, they've also driven responsible taxpayers first to the suburbs, and then to places like Florida, Texas, and, yes, Tennessee.
 
That said, there's something else the states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York have in common:  They all went for B. Hussein Obama in the 2008 election. Now, even though the voters in these states have first-hand knowledge of what happens when Democrat-led governments give unions and bureaucrats too much power, enact confiscatory tax schemes, and spend money like a drunken sailor on leave, they still voted for B. Hussein, a Democrat who's on record as saying that he wants to give unions and bureaucrats more power, wants to enact a confiscatory tax scheme ...
 
Insanity, indeed.
 
You know it will be funny - tragically funny, mind you - if/when one of the Solid Blue states (i.e., pro-Obama, Democratic Gov. and legislature) goes completely belly-up.  The folks who've mindlessly pushed the button for Democrats at all levels of government will then have a lot of s'plaining to do.  Let's just hope there're Republicans in each state who have the guts to make 'em do just that. 

We all know that the Republican Party took a big one on the chin, nationally last week. What you may not know - thanks mainstream media - is that the GOP had more than a few important state-level victories on the 4th of November. Thanks to GOPAC for telling us 'bout 'em (please pay particular attention to the two "Yes We Can!" victories I've highlighted):

Arizona
Republicans increased their majorities in both legislative chambers. Two seats were gained in the State Senate and one seat in the House.

Arkansas
Republicans gained four seats in the State House.

Georgia
The State Senate and House were able to remain the majority with both chambers keeping double-digit leads over Democrats.

Idaho
Republicans were able to increase their majority in the House by picking up two seats in the House and Senate.

Indiana
Governor Mitch Daniels was re-elected Governor with a 17.8% margin of victory.

North Carolina
Pearl Burris Floyd became the first black female to be elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Missouri
Republicans picked up three seats in the State Senate to increase their majority.

Montana
Republicans gained control of the State Senate and will now hold a 27-23 majority.

North Dakota
Republicans maintained majorities in both the State Senate, 25-21, and House, 58-36. State Treasurer Kelly Schmidt also won re-election.

Ohio
Republicans were able to hold their majority in the State Senate with a 9 seat advantage.

Oklahoma
For the first time in the state's history, Republicans now control the State Senate. Republicans also made gains in the House by increasing their majority with another 5 seats.

Pennsylvania
Voters in the Keystone state re-elected Attorney General Tom Corbett and Republicans increased their lead in the State Senate to 30-20.

South Carolina
Tim Scott will take his historic seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives. After defeating two other candidates to win the nomination, Scott becomes the first black Republican to be elected to the house since Reconstruction.

South Dakota
Republicans maintained majorities in both the State Senate, 19-15, and House, 46-24.

Tennessee
For the first time since 1869, Republicans now control both the State Senate and House.

Texas
Commissioner Michael Williams won re-election statewide as Chairman of the Railroad Commission, while both the State House and Senate Republicans held their majorities.

Vermont
Lt. Governor Brian Dubie was re-elected for the third time.

Washington State
Attorney General Rob McKenna was re-elected in the face of a strong Democratic tide.

Wisconsin
The Republican State House preserved their majority of plus five.

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, it was often said of B. Hussein Obama that he came off as more articulate when using a Telepromter than when speaking off the cuff.  Well, ol' B. Hussein - excuse me, President-elect B. Hussein - held his first post-election news conference yesterday, and it didn't take long Mr. Articulate to make a complete ass out of himself.
 
Answering reporters' questions in Chicago, Obama said he had spoken with all the living presidents as he prepares to take office in January. Then he smiled and added, "I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any seances."
 
No one has ever suggested that Nancy Reagan ever participated in a seance.  What was suggested, by Donald Regan in a bitter tell-all after he was fired, was that Mrs. Reagan consulted an astrologer to help set her husband's schedule. Upon hearing about Regan's remarks, President Reagan broke with his policy of not commenting on books by former White House staffers and stated for the record that no "policy or decision in my mind has ever been influenced by astrology.
 
A First Lady whose name was associated with conversations with the dead was Hillary Rodham (Clinton).  In his 1997 book The Choice, Bob Woodward described how Rodham (Clinton) regularly met with a spiritual adviser who helped her engage in imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt. Newsweek magazine characterized the meetings as "seances," a term that sent White House officials into a tizzy.
 
B. Hussein did have enough class to call Mrs. Reagan and apologize for his "careless" remark. However, the fact that Obama uncorked such a stupid, shipdit comment -- during his first freakin' press conference -- makes me fearful that he and his natural hair-challenged co-pilot, Joe Biden, are gonna be apologizing for a lot of stupid, shipdit remarks, and careless policy lurches, over the next - Oh, God - four years.

The 2010 congressional elections can't come soon enough ... 

Way back in 1994, I was working for Memphis economist Steve Wilson, who was a member of the "six-pack" of Republican primary contestants who hoped to remove Jim Sasser from the U.S. Senate.  One of 'em, Bill Frist, would do just that; and another, Bob Corker, would replace Bill Frist twelve years later.
 
Steve Wilson announced his intention to run for Sasser's seat a full year-and-a-half before the primary election, which is how I came to work for him:  He was the first to ask, so I through my support behind him.  Wilson treaded water for months, and then he began openly courting the support of Christian conservatives.  His name i.d. and numbers began to rise, as did the balance in his campaign account. 
 
In Spring '94, Wilson embarked on an official announcement tour across the state.  He made his big announcement in Memphis.  Then he got on a plane and made stops in Jackson, Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and the Tri-Cities.  I and some 2,500 fellow Wilson supporters were crammed inside a hanger at the Nashville airport when our candidate stopped in Music City.  He gave a stem winder of a speech ("Let's sack Sasser!" I remember him saying) he shook some hands and hugged a few ladies, and then he was on his way.
 
The day after Steve Wilson's Nashville announcement stop, Gail Kerr's short piece in the Tennessean included the comment that Wilson spoke to a "handful" of supporters.  I was livid.  I left a message on her voice mail in which I expressed my doubt that she'd even been at the event. I told her that no one who had been there would've described the gathered folks as a "handful" of supporters. 
 
Later that day, another campaign worker told me that Kerr had been at the airport on the day of the announcement -- but she'd come and gone before Wilson ever arrived. "Someone who showed up an hour before the event probably could conclude that there was only a handful of people there," he said.  I left another message on Kerr's voice mail blasting her "sloppy reporting," and I demanded that she call me back.  I never heard from her.  I also wrote a letter to the Tennessean setting the record straight.  Of course, it was never published. 
 
Steve Wilson obviously didn't win the Republican primary for Sasser's seat in '94.  He came in a respectable third behind Frist and Corker, who'd both thrown so much personal money into the race that none of the other candidates really had a chance of winning.
 
Oh, two years later I was in that same airplane hanger participating in a campaign event.  This time it was a rally for Lamar Alexander the day after the 1996 New Hampshire GOP presidential primary.  Alexander had come within a whip and a whisker from knocking Bob Dole out of that race entirely -- Dole was able to survive only because of a blitz of negative TV ads, directed squarely at Alexander, during the last few days of the campaign -- and he was rallying the troops before the campaign shifted to South Carolina. 
 
I couldn't help but notice that there were about the same number of people at the Alexander event that there'd been at the Wilson event.  Conspicuously absent from the Tennessean's coverage of the event were the words "handful of supporters."  Since I have a looooooong political memory, I left another message on Kerr's voicemail asking her, again, to justify her crappy coverage of Steve Wilson's announcement event.  I never heard from her ... and I swore that I'd never again read anything to which her byline was affixed.
 
I was able to keep my promise until yesterday.  There was Kerr's fat face on the front page of the Tennessean's "Local" section under this headline: "Tide turns for Naifeh after GOP wins House majority."  I just had to read what Kerr had to say about the Republican takeover of the State House for the first time since Reconstruction.

When I got to the part where Kerr says Jimmy Naifeh can expect giant "na-na-na-na-boo-boo[s]" from the GOP in January, I asked myself, "Now why am I reading this crap?" Then I got to the part in the column in which Kerr speculates on who the next House Speaker will be. She mentions Minority Leader Jason Mumpower, about whom she says:

"[H]e leans to the far right on the conservative meter."

My blood pressure rose like it was 1994 all over again. When I cooled down a bit, dispatched this e-mail to Ms. Kerr:

Two things disturb me about your labeling State Rep. Mumpower as a "far right" conservative (Tennessean, November 6).

First, you make no effort to qualify who is and who's not worthy of being dubbed "far right." What must one do to be considered a far-right conservative, as opposed to just an ordinary conservative?

Also, I'd be willing to bet a dollar to your nickel that you've never used the term "far-left liberal" to describe a liberal member of the General Assembly. If there are degrees of conservatism, surely there are degrees of liberalism as well. If you were asked to pick, say, five far-left liberals members of the Tenn. House of Representatives, whom would you pick?

I eagerly await your reply.

I've yet to hear from Gail Kerr. My dollar to your dime says I never do.

who wants to bet?

"When I hear a [Democratic] insider ... urging at the 11th hour that we now rally around lame-duck Bush in his last few days, I detect a sense of apprehension that no Democrats would wish conservatives to treat Obama as they did Bush for eight years."

-- Victor Davis Hanson

Yesterday, B. Hussein's sycophants told us we've a president-elect who's one hell of a post-partisan political professional who's gonna change virtually everything. That horse-hockey was officially scooped over the fence today with word that Obama has tapped U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff.

Rahm Emanuel is a partisan hack with a capital "P" and a capital "H". He once mailed a dead fish ("Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes") to a right-leaning pollster with whom he had a beef, and he famously said Republicans could "go fuck themselves" after the 2006 congressional elections. How "post-partisan" is that shit?!

B. Hussein Obama was weened on Chicago's patented brand of corrupt Democratic politics. And Rahm Emanuel started sucking on that corrupt Democratic teet when B. Hussein was still turning his head when folks shouted, "Hey, Barry!"

It upsets my stomach to know that a half-wit, super-partisan Chicago pol will soon dictate who can and who cannot enter the Oval Office for the next four years. It upsets my stomach even more to know that another half-witted Chicago pol is gonna be in that Oval Office.

Wow.

Come Monday, I'll be placing my initial order for 500 "Don't blame me, I voted for McCain" bumper stickers. Some 8-10 weeks ago, a liberal Creeder Reader told me that NO-body would be interested in purchasing "Don't blame me ... McCain" bumper stickers. When I told the liberal sort to put his money where his mouth, er, keyboard, was in the form of a bet, he declined, naturally.

Be sure to watch the left column of this blog in coming weeks. There'll soon be products offered that Creeder Readers will crave and, soon thereafter, enjoy. And then some.

The late country-comedian Jerry Clower introduced some of his best bits with this question: "Ain't it good to be alive and to be in Tennessee?!"

Considering yesterday's election results, it is GREAT to be alive and be in Tennessee ... if you give two squirts about liberty and low taxes, and if you'd like to kick a trial lawyer or a union goon in the balls.

On November 4, 2008, Tennessee proved itself an island of sanity in a state-by-state ocean of stupidity. To wit:

● John McCain and Sarah Palin won 93 of Tennessee's 99 counties.

● U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander bested his half-wit Democrat opponent, Bob Tuke, by 780,000 votes.

● REPUBLICANS NOW CONTROL THE TENNESSEE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE RECONSTRUCTION. (Note: Republican Bill Jenkins served as House Speaker from '71-72 when there was an equal number of Republicans and Democrats in the Tenn. House, with the lone independent voting for Jenkins as Speaker)

● REPUBLICANS NOW HAVE A FIRM FIVE-SEAT MAJORITY IN THE TENNESSEE SENATE. Republican Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey is now a bigger power-broker in Tennessee than Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen. I just hope I have a VHS tape ready when Bredesen says, "I'm still relevant ...!"

● TENNESSEE'S CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICES ARE NOW IN REPUBLICAN HANDS. The fact that Secretary of State, and confirmed putz-boy Riley Darnell ("To hell with photo IDs!") is gonna be lookin' for work come the new year makes me giddy as a schoolgirl.

● FOR THE FIRST TIME, EVER, REPUBLICANS WILL CONTROL EACH AND EVERY ELECTION COMMISSION IN THE STATE. Tennessee state law dictates that the controlling party in the State House chooses election commission members for each and every one of Tennessee's counties. That is, for the first time since Andrew Johnson was a household name, the GOP now controls the election apparatus in each county in this state. Don't have a photo-ID with your pic on it ....? Don't bother trying to vote in this here state.

● HOUSE SPEAKER JIMMY NAIFEH IS NOW A MAFIOSO-LOOKIN', LEFT-WING CORKSOCKER WHO WILL SOON BE SITTING AT A DESK IN THE REAR OF THE TENNESSEE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITH NOTHIN' TO DO. Resign, Jimmy Naif. I'm sure your fellow fatass/outré Tennessee Democrat Al Gore can recommend for you a suitable "green" job, in which you can puff-up (!) 'til you have a greater sense of self-importance than you've had for the past dozen-and-a-half years. Indeed.

Random ruminations on the events of 4 November 2008:

● For all the B. Hussein Obama-inspired ""Kumbaya" crap that's been a topic of conversation in the mainstream media today, America remains a deeply divided country. Obama bested McCain by about the same margin that Bill Clinton bested George H.W. Bush in '92. As pissed as the electorate was in the last few weeks of the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama should've won by at least - at least - ten points.

● If the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac house of cards, which was primarily constructed by Democrats ("I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing." -- Rep. Barney Frank, 2003), hadn't fallen just weeks before this year's election, the results would've been remarkably different. That's not to say that McCain would've won ... but folks would not have gone to bed knowing who won.

●The results of the 2008 election should not be interpreted as a mandate for Obama's redistributionist schemes. First of all, the 2008 election will be remembered as an election in which voters negatively-passed judgement on the failures of the Bush Administration (some of which were real, and some of which were merely perceived and stoked by a dishonest media). Here's something for Obamaniacs to digest before they go convincing themselves that Americans are four-square in favor of their country becoming a European-style welfare state:

By 60%-20%, Americans believe lower taxes, not higher government spending, will best ensure economic recovery, according to a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll.

By 86%-9%, Americans believe government should focus on jobs and economic growth over income redistribution, according to a New Models/Winston Group survey.

● Democrats have a history of overreaching after winning "big" elections. For example:

The Watergate liberals of '74 not only doomed Jimmy Carter's presidency from the outset, they helped usher in Ronald Reagan's landslide election in 1980, Kemp-Roth, "Morning in America," and all that.

Bill Clinton's coterie of liberal wonks and wunderkinds convinced him to embark on a crusade to end the military's ban on gays in the military as his first order of business. Strike one. Clinton then abandoned his pledge to cut taxes for the middle class and proposed the largest tax increase in U.S. History, which passed with nary a single Republican vote. Strike two. Then he stood before Congress and brandished a silver pen and said that his wife's complicated, convoluted health-care scheme must pass lest the entire Republic perish. Strike three. (There were additional strikes when he held up traffic at LAX while he got a high-dollar haircut on Air Force One; and then his hell-bent desire to appoint a female Attorney General resulted in Zoë Baird-gate and freakin' Janet Reno.) Result? A dozen or so center-right Democrats in Congress switched parties in '93, and in '94 ... any politically-savvy sort knows what happened in 1994.

● "Fairness Doctrine." Obama was quoted in Monday's Wall Street Journal as saying that he would not pursue a re-institution of the Fairness Doctrine as president. His colleagues in Congress ain't singin' from the same choir book. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY/Television) are both on recent record saying that a debate on the Fairness Doctrine will be a first order of business come January 2009. If Obama does not come out against the Fairness Doctrine, or if he feigns indifference, he's not gonna be a happy camper when he goes to bed on Election Night 2010.

You know, I almost fuckin' dare Congressional Democrats to try to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. If the Dems want to get the center-right majority of this nation all kinds of riled-up, they'll start chirpin' 'bout how the one media entity (AM radio) that's not completely controlled by left-wing shipdits needs to, by law, sing mandated songs of praise to B. Hussein Obama, aka The Messiah, and his allies in Congress. Again, I fuckin' dare 'em.

The Dems ran hundreds of ads in '94 calling the Republican Contract with America "crazy" ... and they got their asses soundly beat. Imagine what will happen if the Dems call the folks who listen to AM radio and who oppose the Fairness Doctrine "crazy."

The Nigh Seen Creeder is - and has been since its inception - a blog upon which I, Joltin' Django, hold forth on carefully-chosen political and pop culture Issues of the Day. 

I've not only enjoyed hearing from folks who agree with me, I've encouraged those who've never shared my opinions to offer their comments and concerns as well.  All I ever asked was that comments be on-topic, factual, and lacking in personal insults.
 
Unfortunately, and perhaps with my encouragement, a growing number of folks have been using certain Nigh Seen Creeder posts as mini-message boards to vent and bitch and piss and moan ... even if what they're venting and bitching and pissing and moaning about has nothing to do with the topic at hand.  That shit is stopping Too-Day.
 
Beginning tomorrow, here's what's gonna be what at the Nigh Seen Creeder, as far as comments are concerned:
 
All off-topic comments will be rejected.

All anonymous comments will be rejected. (Hell, I'm about half-ready to only allow comments from folks with verifiable Blogger, Live Journal, Word Press, etc. accounts.)

Personal insults will not be tolerated.

Blanket statements of debatable fact (i.e., "Republicans support tax cuts for the rich") are verboten unless works are cited, or linked, to buttress the claim.

Calling me - or any Southerner for that matter - a "hick" or a "redneck" or a "rube" will get your comment rejected faster than you can say: "Auto manufacturer chooses [Southern city] for new plant."

Again, this blog is a forum in which I say whatever I think I need to say. If you want to leave a comment, more power to you.  If you do leave a comment, however, you'd better be prepared to post within the strictures of the ground rules I've now established.  

Tain't gonna be no simpleton "Obama Good/McCain Bad," or bigoted "Southerners Dumb/Yankees 'n' Left Coasters Geniuses," comments ever allowed here again.

So there.    

"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder."

-- Frederic Bastiat, The Law

One of the most truthfully-truthful marks on liberals is ... they are extremely generous folks, so long as the money with which they're being generous belongs to someone else. Case in point: Delaware Senator Joe Biden.

Since joining this year's Democrat presidential ticket, Biden's been Cheerleader Number One for B. Hussein Obama's redistributionist schemes. Question is: How has Biden redistributed his own personal income? Well, let's take a look ...

During the last ten years, Joe Biden received some $2.4 million in earned income. From those monies, he gave a grand total of $3,690 to charity. That's .002 percent of his total income.

For some perspective: I make, like, 1/4 of what Biden makes - er, declares - each year. Just in the last six months, I mailed a check for $500 to Tennessee Right to Life; I sent $500 to the Reagan Ranch; and I've put several hundred dollars in my church's collection plate. Looks like I'm one-up -- nay, 'bout ten times up -- on Joe Biden in the charity department, and then some.

Joe Biden claims to be a big-time Catholic. Indeed, he's gone on record stating:

"The next Republican that tells me I'm not a religious, I'm going to shove my Rosary beads down their throat."

I ain't no Roman Catholic, but I'm pretty sure the Pope would never bestow blessings upon a Church Member who gives but a very small pittance of his earnings to charity; not to mention a Church Member who threatens violence against someone who simply disagrees with him politcally.

Saints save us from Joe Biden ... !

When I started playing guitar at age 13, my next-door neighbor at the time gave me a big box of cassette tapes he didn't want anymore. Almost overnight he'd ditched Van Halen and Stevie Ray Vaughan in favor of whatever crappy rap music was popular at the time.

One of the tapes in that box would become one of my favorite LPs of all time: Let the Music Do the Talking by the Joe Perry Project. Bluesy, boozy and ballsy, I was so influenced by Let the Music Do the Talking - particularly Joe Perry's solos - that it didn't take long before I could play each and every song note-for-note. I was never a big Aerosmith fan, but, by God, I was never shy about telling folks that Joe Perry was one of my favorite guitar players, based on his Project's debut album alone.

I started playing acoustic music almost exclusively a few years back, so I'm sure my electric chops ain't what they used to be. After reading the following story, I might just have to dig out Let the Music Do the Talking and do a play-along. Indeed, I have a lot of new respect for Joe Perry, I tell you what. To wit:

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has come out in support of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. It marks the first time the guitarist has publicly endorsed a presidential candidate.

"We pretty much stay out of it," Perry tells the Boston Herald. "But seeing so many people come out for Obama, I just felt like 'What the hell. I might as well raise my hand for this side.'"

Perry cites national security and economic concerns as his reason to throw his support toward the Arizona Senator.

"I've been a hard-core Republican my whole life," Perry says. "My mother and father drilled into me from the very start that if you work hard and be positive, you'll get what you're working for."

And although McCain is trailing in the polls, the guitarist says, "I think that he's got a chance."

On at least a dozen occasions, I've alerted Creeder Readers that B. Hussein Obama's policy prescriptions for our ailing economy, i.e, higher marginal and cap-gains taxes, protectionism, ankle-grabbing on behalf of unions, trillions in new spending, etc., mirror what Herbert Hoover did in 1932 to turn a deep recession into the Great Depression, and what FDR did from 1933-37 to trigger a depression within the Depression.

In Friday's Wall Street Journal, Professor Russell Roberts tells us 'bout the blunders of '32 and '33-37, and tells us why the best course of action at this point might be a little inaction (fat chance that'll ever happen with the Second Coming in the White House). To wit:

People ask me if the current mess feels like 1929. But the right comparison is 1932, when Herbert Hoover was desperately trying anything, anything at all, to get the economy going. The stock market had crashed. The economy was starting to follow it down. So what did Hoover and his fellow policy makers do?

In 1930, Congress passed a massive tariff increase, in hopes of protecting American jobs. Hoover signed it. But it simply accelerated the economy's slide. The Federal Reserve contracted the money supply, taking a recession and making it into a depression. By 1932, real GDP was 25% lower than three years earlier.

Hoover increased federal spending steadily, including an increase in real terms of about 40% in 1932. At the same time, fearful that deficits were harmful, Hoover raised income taxes.

Nothing worked. So Franklin Roosevelt came into office pledging stronger medicine. Enter even bigger increases in government spending. Government nationalization. Bigger deficits. Destruction of crops and livestock in the name of raising prices. Government-organized cartels. A greater empowerment of unions. It was a whirlwind of activity without any real plan.

It worked for a while, but then, in 1938, the economy turned sour again. Unemployment, which had been falling, spiked again, reaching 19%. Consumption didn't recover to its prewar levels until 1945. ...

A recession is coming (or has already arrived) no matter what happens in Washington. The question is whether the attempt to forestall it is going to make it worse and turn it into another Great Depression.

By acting without rhyme or reason, politicians have destroyed the rules of the game. There is no reason to invest, no reason to take risk, no reason to be prudent, no reason to look for buyers if your firm is failing. Everything is up in the air and as a result, the only prudent policy is to wait and see what the government will do next. The frenetic efforts of FDR had the same impact: Net investment was negative through much of the 1930s.

The next administration is unlikely to do any better. Mr. Bernanke is perhaps the greatest living authority on the Great Depression, yet he has failed to stem the damage. Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke are confronted with a sick patient. They have antibiotics. They have a scalpel. But is there any evidence from the last seven months that they understand the underlying cause of the illness, or how to cure it?

Worst of all are the political incentives that are unleashed when Washington promises to spend a trillion dollars (and counting). No one can spend such money wisely even if they want to. The information about who needs to be bailed out and who needs to fail is too complicated. Inevitably, such decisions will begin to be more about politics than economics.

The banks were first. Then the insurance companies. The car makers are getting a cut. Who's next? The governors, probably. Homeowners are waiting. Then there will be the hedge funds. Once the line forms, companies will stop trying to save themselves and focus on being saved by Washington. The resulting spiral will be devastating.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus about a preferable alternative. The economists are almost as clueless as the politicians. At such a time, inaction may be the wisest course of action.
Read the entire op-ed here.