COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Anybody But McCain

Thoughts on the Republican candidates.

I am sorry that early on, I dismissed Congressman Paul as a nut, but honestly, you can't listen to the man and not see that he is very intelligent with very sound positions and has the best interests of the country at heart. I have grown to respect him and I'm glad that he is in the race.

Governor Huckabee, too, is a surprise. He is an extremely capable politician and carries his own in any debate. He has a great sense of humor and seems to have a good grasp of the issues.

I like the business skills and experience that George Romney brings to the table. I believe that these abilities and insights will serve the country well in the coming years.

Senator McCain has served his country. He deserves the accolades and thanks due any veteran who made the sacrifices he made for his country. He was right about more troops for Iraq. He says he learned his lesson about immigration. He will see that a fence is built before any more reforms are proposed. But I'm sorry, I remember the two weeks last year when he and Lindsey Graham along with George Bush and Teddy Kennedy tried their damnest to push the Comprehensive Immigration Reform down the throats of America. I'm sorry Senator, those wounds are too fresh in my mind and coupled with issues such as McCain-Feingold, the gang of fourteen, your stance on "torture", and your big government attitude, I just can't support you. I would vote for any Republican candidate before I voted for you.




88 comments:

  1. But, but, what about Global Warming?
    Without caps and trades, were doomed!
    ---
    All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse -- and so, just as I predicted, the base has fractured.
    (Leaving out Noonan's point that GWB is involved here also.)
    Some going here, some going there. Senator McCain's been able to cobble together enough votes to win in a few states.
    Fine.
    He deserves credit for that.

    But to pretend that Senator McCain is the choice of conservatives when exit poll data from every primary state show just the opposite...
    He is not the choice of conservatives, as opposed to the choice of the Republican establishment -- and that distinction is key.

    The Republican establishment, which has long sought to rid the party of conservative influence since Reagan, is feeling a victory today as well as our friends in the media. But both are just far-fetched and wrong.

    Limbaugh

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  2. Congressman Paul has sound positions (for the most part.)

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  3. No war.
    No welfare state.
    Words Ron Paul just used.
    He never says one word about there perhaps being a threat out there somewheres. Just hole up behind the oceans.

    Question being answered--Would Ronald Reagan endorse you, and why?

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  4. It's being shown that Florida Republicans are by in large, moderates. McCain may have a harder time in other states.

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  5. A UN-hosted climate conference in Bali in December set out a plan for reaching a global deal by the end of 2009, in time for governments to ratify any agreement before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

    The so-called Bali road map was only agreed to by the United States after European nations threatened to boycott the Hawaii meeting. The Bush administration has argued for nations being allowed to develop their own plans to tackle climate change, rather than an internationally imposed target on limiting greenhouse-gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.

    Environmental groups have voiced concern that the US gathering could be an effort to water-down the United Nations process - an attempt by the US to keep the discussion of climate change measures on its own terms.


    Common Ground

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  6. That may be true, whit.
    But you had your vote, your opportunity to influence the GOP.

    Every other Republican but John McCain lost that particular election in Florida.
    57 delegates, from your State of Florida go to McCain, because of the voting you already participated in.

    The only question, in a swing State, such as Florida, will you vote for any Republican, the Democrat nominee or the Librarian.

    You and your State had its chance to choose delegates to the GOP Convention, it did. It will not get another go round, this cycle.

    Who do you want the members of the Team44 to be?
    GOP stalwarts or those from the Carter and Clinton Administrations.

    I have the opportunity to dissent, while pragmaticly knowing it makes no difference, McCain will carry Arizona hands down. We will send our Electoral Collegians to vote for McCain and Team GOP, regardless of my principled vote.

    Can the same be said with a guarentee about Florida.
    It's all, or nothing regards the Collegians. In Florida, they say, every vote counts.

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  7. Paul says he supported Reagan before anybody, and Reagan campaigned for him, and by golly was for the gold standard.

    Huck says the question is presumptious, but he'd endorse RR, and hopes he'd endorse Huck. We should believe in those things RR believed, by golly.

    Debate over. Winner: Mitt Romney, of course.

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  8. Paul does seem to think that if we just bring everyone home everything will be hunkydory.

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  9. Well, the Governors of two of the largest states in the country, Schwarzenegger and Crist are both RINOs and are supporting McCain. This tells me that the Republican party is all but finished as we know it. Of course, a few years ago I would have sworn that the Democrat party was shattered. So, you can never say with certainty but it does not look encouraging for conservatives.

    Unfortunately, we'll just have to hold our noses and fall in line.

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  10. The Ron Paul folks must have been hiding in the fuselage of Air Force One, because he’s been getting cheers since the break. The press corps is about to start taking bets on the Mac and Mitt cage match.

    Huckabee is clearly frustrated at being outside the mutual smackdown, snapping, “I didn’t come here to umpire a ballgame between these two.” Huckabee and Paul have spent a lot of the debate quietly grumbling to each other, presumably about their lack of questions and camera time.


    Debate in California

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  11. Libertarians need to find better politicians to represent them.

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  12. Not CA, NY, NJ, PA, whit.
    Those are the "big" delegate count States, along with AZ.

    All moderate.

    Where are these "conservative" Republicans? Certainly not many in Hawaii. Few in Arizona.
    Illinois Republicans did not seem to turn out for Mr Keyes, a conservative stalwart.
    The GOP there is such disarray they turned to Mr Keyes, not a native. The natives didn't even want to try.

    Where are the conservatives, where do they hold a majority, in what State or Region do they reign?

    Not South Carolina, just look at the vote turnout differentials between the Dem primary and the GOP. Mr Thompson had to go home, he did so poorly in his firewall State.

    Mississippi perhaps, not Arkansas the home of the Huck. Not Texas where GWBush held sway, a moderate if ever there was one. GWBush who speaks for the GOP.

    doug says to discount GWBush
    "Leaving out Noonan's point that GWB is involved here also."
    Which is the entire point of what the GOP is, who is the Leader of the Pack, but the fellow who abdicated on a successor. As he abdicated on border security, as he abdicate on victory in Afghanistan, as he abdicated on Osama "Dead or Alive".

    The "conservatives" are RINOs,
    get used to it.

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  13. Huckabee’s answer on climate change sounds like a common sense defense of federalism– right or wrong, Californians should be able to make the decision for themselves. And he brings up “unfunded mandates” – major negative buzzwords for GOP primary voters.

    Common Sense Response

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  14. Mat, the same can be said for the Republicans, the Democrats, and the Israelis!

    And the Canadians...

    Did you see that Sharon jr. is off to jail?

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  15. "The conservatives are RINOs."

    Good point, I stand corrected.

    The world has turned upside down and conservatives are now RINOs.

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  16. I'm not so sure about off-shore natural resources being controlled solely by a state. What happened to E Pluribus Unum.

    If Florida or California don't want to provide oil to the nation, should they look for help from the nation when they have earthquakes, wild fires or hurricanes?

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  17. Tancredo is your conservative.

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  18. Bob,

    Hey, what's wrong with Harper?


    dRat,

    Check post #72 two threads back.

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  19. Why?
    Perhaps wih a time check, but I'm not countin' 'em down

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  20. Oh, there only were 72, that made it easier.
    Well, mat, the US it disagrees, with you.

    From the President on down to the troops in the field. Until the Government changes policy, it's the reality, the enemy is not Islam.
    How we move forward.

    Almost 700,000 trained and funded mussulmen, just in Iraq toil under US largesse. 1 million in Pakistan get US funding, failed State or not.
    70,000 in Afghanistan cash US checks, at least indirectly.

    Almost 2 million mussulmen we have as proxies under the policies of GWBush. Fact of life.

    Love it or leave it.

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  21. Construction began on developments such as the Niven Lake reservoir, Bailey House and the new Shoppers Drug Mart.

    A committee to build the field house was struck.

    The city got its Smart Growth development plan underway, as well as a feasibility study looking at possibilities for using geothermal energy from Con Mine to heat the city.


    Yellowknife going Geo-thermal

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  22. It's the last one on that thread. I addressed it to you.

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  23. Tancredo was transcended, sam

    Couldn't get enough support to keep his Congressional seat in Colorado.
    Quit the Government entirely.

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  24. mat, you make an interesting point two threads back but why wouldn't it also apply to Muslims? If you take Judaism out of the Jew what's left? Why bother even calling him a Jew other then his mother's influence? Similarily the same goes for the Muslims. You can hew to the hard line definitions of both tribes but in the end...

    ...is that what all whom fit in the category are? Is that their essence? A Jew is a Jew and Muslim is a Muslim and we must seperate all them combatants? nah!

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  25. Ash,

    What's left is the culture and nationalism, without the irrational fanaticism of religious chauvinism.

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  26. Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao, director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said one of those killed in the ensuing firefights was a ranking MILF commander named Maunara Dumatar.

    Four of Dumatar’s men men -- Kasan Gandamra, Asrab Taub, Apo Burob, and Mama Utingan, were also killed in the five-hour running gunbattle with a rival group led by Orak Tawakil Pangadag, also a Maranaw MILF commander.

    Goltiao said the groups of Dumatar and Pangadag, though all belonging to the MILF, have long been fighting over strategic patches of lands in areas where they both operate.


    Lanao del Sur

    Filipino Islamists taking each other out. Gotta love that.

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  27. The US, mat, disagrees about Afghanistan and Iraq being sectarian States.

    We wrote the Constitutions, but didn't read them.
    Israel is sectarian in that it is a "Jewish State" a Jewish homeland.
    Proud of it, too. No fault there, but it biases the opinions of many, wrapping religion around Nationalism.

    In Iraq we do not see many nationalists, nor that many religionists, in Anbar anyway.

    In Basra I think a counter argument could be made, but that is where the Coalition has succeeded. So that discussion is mute, in any real political sense.

    The US was led into a box canyon of propaganda, because the alternative was beyond the scope of Team43s abilities. That's where we stay. No one but Paul even acknowledges it, and he'd scadaddle from the Region, just like Reagan did. No war with Islam with Ron Paul. Nor Obama, nor Romney or McCain. The "surge" is dependent upon the Iraqi Army to succeed. The whole of the US effort is dependent upon the Iraqi Government, to succeed.

    Insanity, but reality.
    "Mad" McCain could fit right in.

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  28. Mat, but can't Muslims also be left with something similar? Sure the orothodox, heck, the simple believers, are...

    ...messed up,

    but that seems to be true about all religions. Take the religion out and, heck, all is fine and dandy, and Christmas is one heckuva fun time of year...

    ... so is EID and Hanakuh!

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  29. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  30. Giving states the right to opt out of drilling is madness, whether fakir politicians call it Federalism or not.
    Jeeze.

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  31. Also making the cut is Poland’s entry, “Katyn” by Andrzej Wajda, which dramatizes the massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviets in 1940.
    Another Jewish-themed foreign film, Brazil’s “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation,” was among the nine semifinalists in the category but did not make the final cut.

    It is the story of a boy with one Jewish parent who is thrown into an Orthodox environment when his parents flee the 1970 military dictatorship. The director, Cao Hamburger, is the grandson of Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany.

    To the surprise of most film critics, the Romanian entry “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” didn’t even make the semifinals. The film on the tribulations of getting an abortion in communist Romania had won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and top honors at the European Film Awards.


    Oscar Cut

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  32. Ash,

    That's exactly it. Take God out from the equation of nationalism and you get Zionism. Israel being the national homeland the ancient Judeans that were expelled by the Romans. Most (Jewish) Israelis will tell you point blank, they don't believe in God. That's what I'm trying to explain to dRat.

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  33. You can take Salem out of the country, but...
    You can't take the country out of Salems!

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  34. Nepal’s sidelined monarch Gyanendra, in a special interview granted to the chief editor of the Rastravani weekly, Mr. Hari Lamsal has broken his silence and has ventilated his inner feelings for the first time after the 2006 April uprising that forced him to relinquish power and handover it to the people.

    “We acquired a mode of silence because we wanted the peace process to conclude successfully”, Gyanendra said.

    “Where is the county heading, what course it is taking and where is the mass being carried…mainly the Nepali people now have to speak”, King Gyanendra suggested.


    Gyanendra Speaks

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  35. But they still define themselves by the religion, mat.

    That is how they draw their tribal lines, by sectarian means.

    More so than Christians in the US.

    Good folk that define themselves by both their religion and their nationalism, even if they've never lived in Israel.
    It's the "dream", the "idea", the style of it.
    The "title rights" going back to Judea and "Gods'" promise of a promised land. Or Uganda could have been the homeland of the Jews after WWII, or Nevada ...
    The other options were rejected, for sectarian reasons

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  36. An Iraqi television cameraman and his driver were killed in a roadside bomb attack as the crew were working on a report to mark the upcoming anniversary of the February 2006 bombing of the gold-domed Shiite shrine in Samarra, blamed on Sunni extremists, the station reported.

    The attack Tuesday struck the journalists' car in Balad, about 80 kilometers north of Baghdad and near the Samarra site, said Haider Kadhum, news editor of Al-Forat television. An Al-Forat correspondent and camera assistant were also wounded in the attack.


    Samarra

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  37. dRat,

    No. Jews define themselves by their biological ethnicity. Herod wasn't a Jew. He subscribed to the Jewish religion, but he wasn't a Jew.

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  38. If the slowly deploying UN/African Union force fails to halt the violence, or aborts Рa possibility explicitly raised by head of UN peacekeeping Jean-Marie Gu̩henno Рthen genocidal destruction will almost certainly accelerate and hundreds of thousands more will probably die. If the international community fails to commit the resources required by this extraordinarily difficult mission, the lack of security will become intolerable.

    Humanitarian groups – the essential lifeline for more than 4.2 million human beings in Darfur – will be obliged to suspend operations or withdraw. A critically weakened population could face a cataclysm of death and suffering.

    More than any genocide following the Holocaust, Darfur's killing fields are the measure of whether, 60 years after its ratification, the UN Convention has any remaining force or meaning. The debacle of deployment in Darfur argues that the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations desperately requires a substantial, robust standing force, prepared to deploy urgently to protect civilian populations facing geno-cide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.


    Abject Failure

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  39. Is this what you're trying to tell me, that the Russians are tearing the fabric of the sectarian State to shreds?
    The fact that there is even a Ministry of Religion exempifies the sectarian nature of the State.

    But the biggest wave of immigration in the last 20 years followed the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. Approximately 900,000 Soviet Jews have settled in Israel.

    Using the formula defined by the Law of Return, many Soviet Union citizens who qualified for Israeli citizenship came from intermarried families. Many are quite disconnected to Jewish tradition after years of political and religious persecution.

    Yet, this is a highly educated immigrant population that includes engineers, scientists, and IT specialists who partly fuelled the tech boom of the 1990s. At the same time, these immigrants are causing major political and cultural shifts in Israel with the appearance of such non-Jewish customs as pork in butcher shops. Political parties are now paying attention to this enormous constituency.

    Rethinking the "Right of Return"

    Since the Law (or "Right") of Return opens the door of Israeli immigration to people who are not Jewish according to orthodox Jewish law, the current criteria has become a sharply divisive social issue. Religious leaders argue that Israel will no longer be a Jewish state if immigrants such as those from the former Soviet Union and Falasha Mura continue to enter the country.

    However, the large number of new immigrants who are already citizens means this is rather a moot point. Most of these new immigrants see themselves as part of an Israeli Jewish society although the religious establishment does not consider them Jewish.

    A leading contender for the leadership of the Labor Party, Ophir Pines-Paz, is making headlines by acknowledging this type of identity among non-Orthodox immigrants. These immigrants are also beginning to use their collective demographic bulk to challenge the status quo such as in the Ministry of Religion's authority over matters of civil status, most importantly marriage and divorce.

    At the same time, for Jews around the world, the idea of Israel as a homeland and refuge remains central. North American Jews have long been dedicated to the cause of the Ethiopian Jews, for example. In June 2005, the Association of Jewish Federations in North America voted in favor of raising $100 million over the next five years to bring the remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel.


    A conflicted place, it seems. But I did not want to piss wi"o" off any more than he already is, to say Israel is already a secular country, that discriminates by ethnicity, not religion.

    Most of these new immigrants see themselves as part of an Israeli Jewish society although the religious establishment does not consider them Jewish.

    If the immigrants consider themselves Jewish, they are.

    Just as some Christians claim that the beliefs of other Christians are not Christian, at all.

    whit regarding the Merry Christmas Christian muggers and trish in regards the Armegeddan Christians, Christians that she and whit, respectedly, says aren't Christians at all. While they certainly are, at least in their own minds. Which is where sectarianship resides, not in a book or a rule, but in the mind of the individual.
    Inquisitioners may demur.

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  40. Sam,
    More proof they are manifestly ready to take on global energy management and taxation,
    to save the World from
    CLIMATE CHANGE!

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  41. Our Only Hope
    ---
    Mac Attack Punches out Mitt on national TV,
    and is disqualified from the fight.

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  42. A society and religion so fractured, the particpents cannot agree who is even allowed to claim the right to play.

    Defining what the meaning of is, is.
    writ large.

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  43. Nice to see Mitt not grinning for a change, plus, it adds realism.

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  44. Now you are making fun of his war wounds, the torture he endured, for US, doug.

    His arm is crippled, not as badly of Bob Dole's, but McCain is stoved up.

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  45. dRat,

    The issue is intermarriage with non-Jews, not lack of religion. As I said, Jews define themselves by their biological ethnicity. They've done so long before the advent of Moses and the Jewish religion.

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  46. Herod's group was forced to convert to Judaism, as I recall. What do you mean, he wasn't a Jew?

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  47. Olmert is what is

    Exactly, doug, exactly.
    He is Israels' face to the world

    Love it or leave it.

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  48. The issue then is ethnic or racial purity, as it was for the Nazi.

    Little wonder wi"o" gets his tit in a wringer. There is an ideological connection, if you are right, mat, between the Jews and the NAZI, that must often strike a nerve. When the two socities are compared by their attitudes towards the "other", which is everyone else in sight. Even some of their own, driven by a fantasy of biological purity.

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  49. Bob,

    Herod is not a biological descendant of Abraham and Sarah. He's not a Jew,

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  50. I'll have to think on that idea for a while, mat, get my head around it.
    A religion that is a family, no thers can qualify, if their blood is not pure.

    Like the vampires in "Blade".
    Pure bloods and hybrids, in the same pews. The pure bloods looking down on everyone else in the room.

    An ultimate in elitism, in its' own way. A position that cannot be trumped by reason. In real life.
    Amongst our special friends, how bizarre.
    Tomorrow, amigos

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  51. The Idumaean family, successors to the Edomites of the Hebrew Bible, settled in Idumea, formerly known as Edom, in southern Judea. When the Maccabean John Hyrcanus conquered Idumea in 140–130 BC, he required all Idumaeans to obey Jewish law or to leave; most Idumaeans thus converted to Judaism. wiki

    John Hyrcanus recruited 'em by the sword, gave them the option we would associate with the muzzies, today.

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  52. As always, the Masons are involved!
    Where's Truepeers when we need him?

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  53. Al-bob, your talking in tongues!
    I thot you were an English Major?

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  54. "Of course, there were also some Turks who helped lead the Young Turk movement. For example, Talaat Pasha. Talaat was the interior minister and dictator of the regime during World war I. He had been a member of Carasso's Italian masonic lodge in Salonika. One year prior to the 1908 coup, Talaat became the grand master of the Scottish Rite Masons in the Ottoman Empire. If you go to the [archives of] Scottish Rite headquarters in Washington, D.C., you can find that most of the Young Turk leaders were officials in the Scottish Rite."

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  55. Damn, the Scots get implicated again!
    That'd be me!

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  56. dRat,

    A family that is a nation.

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  57. Bob,

    The Falash Mura is a more interesting case. These are ethnic Jews that were converted to Christiany. Ethiopian Moranos if you like. I hope they return to the family.

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  58. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  59. Unbelievable
    Not.
    “He was either going off his brief or he was sadly mistaken,” Mr. Herman said. “There was nothing in the record to suggest that they really wanted to move forward on democratic reform.”

    Indeed, in December 2005, Mr. Nazarbayev won another election, which the security organization itself said was marred by an “atmosphere of intimidation” and “ballot-box stuffing.”

    After Mr. Nazarbayev won with 91 percent of the vote, Mr. Clinton sent his congratulations. “Recognizing that your work has received an excellent grade is one of the most important rewards in life,” Mr. Clinton wrote in a letter released by the Kazakh embassy. Last September, just weeks after Kazakhstan held an election that once again failed to meet international standards, Mr. Clinton honored Mr. Nazarbayev by inviting him to his annual philanthropic conference.

    Within 48 hours of Mr. Clinton’s departure from Almaty on Sept. 7, Mr. Giustra got his deal. UrAsia signed two memorandums of understanding that paved the way for the company to become partners with Kazatomprom in three mines.

    The cost to UrAsia was more than $450 million, money the company did not have in hand and had only weeks to come up with. The transaction was finalized in November, after UrAsia raised the money through the largest initial public offering in the history of Canada’s Venture Exchange.
    ---
    Both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Giustra at first denied that any such meeting occurred. Mr. Giustra also denied ever arranging for Kazakh officials to meet with Mr. Clinton. Wednesday, after The Times told them that others said a meeting, in Mr. Clinton’s home, had in fact taken place, both men acknowledged it.

    “You are correct that I asked the president to meet with the head of Kazatomprom,” Mr. Giustra said. “Mr. Dzhakishev asked me in February 2007 to set up a meeting with former President Clinton to discuss the future of the nuclear energy industry.” Mr. Giustra said the meeting “escaped my memory until you raised it.”

    Wednesday, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman, Ben Yarrow, issued what he called a “correction,” saying: “Today, Mr. Giustra told our office that in February 2007, he brought Mr. Dzhakishev from Kazatomprom to meet with President Clinton to discuss the future of nuclear energy.”

    Mr. Yarrow said his earlier denial was based on the former president’s records, which he said “show a Feb. 27 meeting with Mr. Giustra; no other attendees are listed.”

    Mr. Dzhakishev said he had a vivid memory of his Chappaqua visit, and a souvenir to prove it: a photograph of himself with the former president.

    “I hung up the photograph of us and people ask me if I met with Clinton and I say, Yes, I met with Clinton,” he said, smiling proudly.
    ---
    “UrAsia was able to jump-start the whole process somehow,” Mr. Clark said. The company became a “major uranium producer when it didn’t even exist before.”

    A Profitable Sale
    Records show that Mr. Giustra donated the $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation in the months that followed in 2006, but neither he nor a spokesman for Mr. Clinton would say exactly when.
    In September 2006, Mr. Giustra co-produced a gala 60th birthday for Mr. Clinton that featured stars like Jon Bon Jovi and raised about $21 million for the Clinton Foundation.

    In February 2007, a company called Uranium One agreed to pay $3.1 billion to acquire UrAsia. Mr. Giustra, a director and major shareholder in UrAsia, would be paid $7.05 per share for a company that just two years earlier was trading at 10 cents per share.

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  60. dRat,

    What's the ideological connection?

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  61. What a hell of a choice, the Clintons or McCain. And I'm reading a good book 'American Creation' about the founding, and face the sordid reality on the internet.

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  62. One piece of evidence, however, does not fit Adam's interpretive patten, ironically provided by none other than Adams himself. On July 2, aftertwo days of debate, the congress passed Lee's resolution. The next day Adams wrote the following words to Abigail:

    'Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps never has nor will be decided among men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, independent States..." The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be clebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival...It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bonfires and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.'

    That still begs the question of the wording of the Declaration itself. After voting on the Lee resolution, the congress moved immediately to a consideration of Jefferson's draft.....

    the delegates made very few changes in the early section of the Declaration that preceded the litany of grievances against the king. The following words, as far as we can tell, occasioned little if any comment:

    "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are intsituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

    Apparently regarded by all the delegates at the time as a mere rhtorical flourish designed to introduce the more serious business, these fifty-five words would grow in meaning to become the seminal statement of the American creed. With these words, Jefferson had smuggled the revolutionary agenda into the founding document, casually and almost inadvertently planting the seeds that would grow into the expanding mandate for individual rights that eventually ended slavery, made women's sufferage inevitable, and sanctioned the civil rights of all minorities. No less a figure than Abraham Lincoln, who could rival Jefferson in his way with words, put it most poignantly in 1858; "All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to intorduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and ia all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of the re-appearing tyranny and oppression."
    --------
    But I wish Lincoln hadn't used the word embalm--plant, sow would be much better.

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  63. Anybody but McCain? How about--Nader?--

    Here’s a safe bet: the two major political parties will nominate Presidential candidates from the corporate wings of their parties.

    What will that leave us in this election year?

    Corporate control as usual.

    If this happens, we have two choices – throw in the towel.

    Or fight back.

    If we choose to fight back, here’s a good option:

    Join with a person whose life is one of dedicated service to the public interest.

    To help him organize a political campaign in every state against corporate control over our lives.

    Luckily, that person – Ralph Nader – is considering such a campaign.

    But he will need active and informed citizens in every Congressional district in the country.

    He will need volunteers.

    He will need funds.

    He will need dedication.

    That’s why we’ve signed on at Nader’s exploratory web site: www.naderexplore08.org

    Check it out.

    And spread the word.

    In 2008, it’s either sit back and watch the drift.

    Or get off the couch and fight back.

    Hope you will join us.

    Thank you.

    The Nader Team




    P.S. Hear Ralph On Democracy Now Thursday Morning at 8am: Click on www.democracynow.org to check for local listings or to listen live online.

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  64. McCain is for prosecuting those who hire illegals.
    "AFTER the Border is Secured!"

    Heard that one from el-Bush...

    Later, trust us!

    (nobody asks why we have to wait)
    the beat go on.

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  65. I had a lay-over in Atlanta tonight and watched that debate. McCain put me in mind of one of the Bush Gore debates with Gore rolling his eyes. He looked bad and not very presidential.Romney , Huck and Paul all seemed better than McCain. I think Trish may be wrong that he is the man. Do I dare say that?

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  66. Not if the entire GOP establishment can be neutralized, and Mitt can beat Huck in the South.
    Wanna Bet?

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  67. Mark McKinnon worked for Bush.
    A Mexican gal that worked for him smuggled some docs to the Gore Campaign!
    Looks Slimey, don't he?

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  68. In those days they didn't fight in the winter, so in the Spring Washington at Valley Forge asked where should they be marching to?

    "All officers responded in a matter of days, leaving a written record that affords a clear window into the strategic thinking of the leadership with the Continental Army at this most propitious moment. Most of the officers were still thinking of the war in conventional terms as a contest between armies. Most favored one of the two offensive choices, though one aggressive officer, Lord Stirling, recommended simultaneous attacks on both Philadelphia and New York. The clear consensus was that the Con. Army needed to deliver a decisive blow against Howe's army along the lines that Gates had delivered against Burgouyne at Saratoga. This was a matter of honor, as they saw it, as well as the only way to win the war.

    In retrospect, there were two fault lines running through their recommendations, first, they continued to assume that the more protracted the war, the greater the British advantage, in effect that time was on the side of the British Army; second, they were proposing an aggressive strategy that, by their own calculations, would require between 25,000 and 35,000 troops to succeed, yet the current strength of the army was less than half that level. The very idea of a defensive strategy seemed dishonorable, almost cowardly, though one officer, William Maxwell, observed that Washington's third option made no sense to him 'unless it should be our designs to beat the enemy by protracting the war to a length that they could no longer prosecute it, which I believe is not our intention.'

    ...The mnost outspoken endorsement of a wholly defensive strategy came from a French engineering officer, Duportail, who dismissed the offensive options as suicidal and the men who advocated them as juvenile romantics obsessed with honor and glory, therefore blind to the obvious strategic reality--namely, that it was the British and not the American army that needed to win the war. Duportail offered the clearest and most prescient analysis of the advantages that would accrue to the American cause over time, and of the folly of discarding that advantage by seeking a decisive battle against a superior British army."
    from 'American Creation'

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  69. Little wonder wi"o" gets his tit in a wringer.


    Naw Rat you dont understand the Eternal Jew

    If I based my "rights" on what I thought G-d said, I'd be demanding all of Historic Israel, and ever compromise on one square inch of land...


    But I do demand that Jews have a right to be able to LIVE....

    After the history of west and their murderous treatment of us and the Arab's and their murderous treatment of us, I just dont think that settling for .9/650th of the middle east is unfair, and when you understand that OUR .9/650th has 20% arabs well what the fuck..

    We demand the right to be able to eat pizza without it being legal to be blown up

    We demand the right to be able to take a walk to the store without being stabbed or shot at

    We demand the right to actually BUY land and build a house on vacant lands

    None of this is because we are infact the historic title owners of the land, but because, after 2000 years we have be finally given our turn at stewardship of of homeland and guess what?

    .9/650th of the middle east can OUTPRODUCE, OUT INVENT, OUT LIVE all of the rest of the middle east combined...

    Israel is a miracle, because of the people and their demand to be Israelis, defined by a Jewish State's culture, belief's & ethics.

    Jews are a family, our greatest come from outside and join in... Take King David's grandmother, a convert, so no, we aint pure blood nazis demanding a blood test, but rather a small tiny family that the world has enjoyed murdering for 2000 years

    we just refuse to die...

    and guess what?

    I'll stack up my family, the Jews, all 8 million us, against any 300,000,000 moslems/arabs any day...

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  70. Ruth, that's the name I was trying to think of. Ruth and Boaz. Good story, and fitting too from a Christian perspective, making Jesus a little gentile, if you give the birth stories credence, as you must, mythically; fitting mythically, if you're out to save the whole world, having a little of all flowing in one's veins. Mythically speaking of course.
    ---------
    Valley Forge was a God send, with the starvation, disease, death and desertions, it weakened the Continental Army to the point Washington couldn't take the advice of the majority of his people, which he was inclined to do, and attack the Brits at New York, or Philadelphia, or both. Couldn't, because wasn't able to. Would have probably failed, losing popular support, which was getting marginal by that time. Forced by the circumstance into a kind of guerilla war, which was where victory lay. A set piece battle is just what was not wanted. Practically the only good advice he got, other than from the Frenchman mentioned above, was from a fellow that warned that the most important part of any battle scene was going to be the escape route.

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  71. Despite McCain's 82 percent ranking by the American Conservative Union, and his support for balanced budgets, an end to pork-barrel spending and earmarks, strong support for the war, and expressed regret over once supporting the Bush illegal immigration reform package, McCain was branded by the conservative media as a sellout and a near liberal. Not to mention, he was supposedly too old and hot-tempered to be the Republican nominee. The more McCain was discovered not to be a perfect conservative, the more he was accused of not even being a good one.

    Even stranger, the various Republican candidates began invoking Ronald Reagan's three-decade-old tenure as the new litmus test of the times - apparently to show how moderates like the wayward McCain fell far short of the Gipper's true-blue conservatism.

    Were conservatives supposed to forget that a maverick Reagan raised some taxes, signed an illegal alien amnesty bill, expanded government, appointed centrist Supreme Court justices, advocated nuclear disarmament, sold arms to Iran and pulled out of Lebanon - but to remember only that John McCain was not for the original Bush tax cuts or once supported the administration's offer of a quasi-amnesty?

    The Democratic cat-fighters are doing their best to give away a once-sure general election, but the Republicans seem to be doing even more to ensure that they forfeit the unexpected gift they've been given.

    If Hillary Clinton does end up winning her party's nomination, November's vote may hinge on whether moderates and liberals are nauseated enough by the Clintons' brawling and character assassination to cross over and vote for a decorated Republican war hero - that is, if his own flag-waving party doesn't destroy him first.

    Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

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  72. Well, the human genome project has found that humans migrated, out of africa after the Toba super volcano erupted 74,000 years ago.

    the worldwide human population shrank to as small as 10,000 people or even less
    That the entire human population of the modern world came from those survivors.

    That we are all brothers in blood.

    That the Jews want to differentiate their sub-grouping of tribal offspring, suits me.
    Be proud of the blood, keep it "pure". Regulate and track human pedigrees, as if people were dogs or horses. Use seletive breeding to improve or inbreed your "race".

    Just do not expect or ask for help from the US in such an endevour.

    Sounds like a bunch of NAZI propaganda to me, but because it's "old" it's acceptable and even celebrated by some.

    Wish you well, but if those 900,000 Russians are not Jews, then Israel, as a Jewish homeland, is truly destined for the ash heap of history. That they may kill a lot of others on the way out the door, regrettable, too.

    But then the Knights Templars will have won, in the end, if that is the course the Israeli choose.
    A blast from the past.

    The world brought down by tribal passions. Old Hickory was right, there is no room for tribes in the modern world.

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  73. the rat speaks...That the Jews want to differentiate their sub-grouping of tribal offspring, suits me.
    Be proud of the blood, keep it "pure". Regulate and track human pedigrees, as if people were dogs or horses. Use seletive breeding to improve or inbreed your "race".

    Just do not expect or ask for help from the US in such an endevour.

    Sounds like a bunch of NAZI propaganda to me, but because it's "old" it's acceptable and even celebrated by some.








    oh the logic....

    How dare Jews wish to protect their lives, culture or identity...

    Is it only for the arabs, brits, french, chinese, spanish, and all others of the world that have that right?

    Let's be frank...

    The arabs, who occupy 649.1/650th of the middle east ethnically cleansed it's jews OUT of those lands..

    the Europeans, collectively murdered and ethnically cleansed jews out of their lands, many of which (lands) jews lived in BEFORE most europeans were even nation states....

    I love the way you twist Israel's wish to exist as a racist nazi like entity...

    So i assume your FINAL solution is just destroy israel? and then Let's have peace in our time by murdering every last jew? then all the problems will be solved...

    Yep rat, I have heard it before, from real Nazis, from Moslem Leaders, from Nasser, from Royalty of Europe, from inbred hillbiilles and white supremists..

    Rat you are in GOOD company...


    but not to fret Rat, we have heard much worse, by MUCH better than you...

    and no, excuse us as we DON"T just slit our throats for peace...

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  74. "The world brought down by tribal passions. Old Hickory was right, there is no room for tribes in the modern world."


    dRat,

    You speak of theory as fact. You speak of fact as fiction, of fiction as fact. And you speak with two tongues. You rail against the Hebrew globalists Rothchilds, and you condemn the Hebrew nationalists. The only consistent logic you present is that of an anti semite.

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  75. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  76. The vast majority of wars fought
    and vast majority of humanity killed was due to Empire. And if the world will be destroyed due to war, it will be because of Empire, smoking Hickory notwithstanding.

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  77. The vast majority of wars fought
    and vast majority of humanity killed was due to Empire.

    Mat, I respect the opinion, and Europe has been plenty bloody, but I think you might be overlooking India, China, others, even the forever wars in the New World. It's hard to put a figure on some of those old slaughters. It's been a blood drenched earth, looked at from any point of view.

    He, now I look at your post again I see you said 'Empire' not 'Europe'--so, strike what I said, cause I'm agreeing with you.

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  78. McCain was right on immigration, the Comprehensive Reform plan was a good idea. I haven't heard much against it that turned out to be actually there when I looked at the text of the bill.

    As for amnesty, I wonder what other unjust laws are upheld on the grounds that to repeal them would offer amnesty to violators.

    McCain has what, a 100% rating from CATO and a 0% rating from the ACLU? Can't be all bad.
    (source: www.ontheissues.org)

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  79. "..strike what I said, cause I'm agreeing with you."


    Phew! :)

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  80. When McCain says that the people on Wall Street who made bad loans should be punished, was he saying that government should punish them or that they should be punished in the usual market way (by the fact that they lose money when the borrowers default)?

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  81. But to pretend that Senator McCain is the choice of conservatives when exit poll data from every primary state show just the opposite... --doug

    McCain is conservative in the sense that he has consistently voted for free markets, for gun rights, and against abortion rights. I don't think there is any other candidate running who has done that. Maybe Fred Thompson.

    I think that there are a lot of people who were misled into thinking that the anti-immigration stand is conservative. But it certainly isn't laissez-faire.

    It seems to me that the anti-immigration side is trying to push us towards the kind of society where police can come up to us randomly and ask us to produce our papers proving who we are and our right to be here. Like in the opening scene of Casablanca. I don't think that is conservative.

    I am not a fan of the stimulus package, because I don't believe that demand side stimulus really exists. If we call it a welfare package that would be more accurate, it might shift wealth around but it won't stimulate anything.

    However when I see people like Tancredo stand up and say that they don't want to help the millions of Americans who need help because some illegal immigrants might also be helped, it makes me wonder what their priorities are. It is one thing to propose closing the loophole as an amendment, it is quite another to oppose the bill because it has the loophole.

    I just don't see his position on immigration as conservative, it seems to me like he wants people to have to justify themselves to the federal government, and is using immigration as a means towards achieving that federal power grab.

    Implicit in the second and fourth amendments is the idea that people need some freedom from government scrutiny. It is government that should be accountable to the people, Trancredo has it backwards. It is reasonable that people should be able to demand credentials from officials, but we shouldn't have to provide any.

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