I couldn't believe what I read just a few minutes ago on a conservative friend's site. This post, from On The Right - a conservative blogger, is basically a repetition of every Democrat talking point out there right now. I sort of went off on the guy's comments section, and I wanted to post it here because I think you all need to know this.

All this negativism BY REPUBLICANS WILL drive down voter turnout. Right now, there are a lot of people in office who want to do the right thing. Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, wants power. She said, "I'll have any suite I want" after the election. We're squabbling amongst ourselves about how the people we elected aren't conservative enough, while Ms. San Francisco pines for the corner office and tries to push the ACLU down Kentuckians throats. Please read:

Steve said, "We have done nothing to improve the lives of the middle class and have ignored the poor while giving tax breaks to the most affluent in our society!" What? You sound like Al Gore.

Your whole post makes you sound like a mouthpiece for the Democrats. You're repeating the stump speeches of Democrats, only you're saying "we."

The massive tax cuts were for the middle class. Not to mention, it's not exactly a new idea to go into deficit spending when the economy hits a recession. That is part of why the business cycles are getting smaller. We have short recessions instead of long depressions. Not to mention, have you seen where the deficit is shrinking? If Congress would tighten the belt just a little bit, we would have a balanced budget. The economy grows every year. That's what those GDP numbers are all about every quarter. The growing economy, combined with the Bush tax cuts, has caused more revenue to flow into the government. Therefore, the practical reality is that they are going to spend it. Now, I would love for them to send it back, but it's not going to happen. A more pragmatic argument would be to argue about how they spend it. I wish they would spend more on border control and technology r&d (alternative fuel methods which could eventually be mainstream - reducing dependance on foreign oil), instead of the social engineering projects that are going on now.

Something that bothers me, though, is that you just left out national security of your list of things that matter to conservatives. Do you understand that all of this talk of taxes, healthcare, and so on is pointless if fanatics get into the country and start detonating dirty bombs, suicide bombings, and flying more airplanes into more buildings? ALL of that gets brushed aside, because in order to have a perfect conservative utopia, you have to have a place in which to live in peace. This nation, and frankly this world, is not at peace right now. Those people hated us and our nation and Israel and Britain long before the Iraq War and they will hate us for a long time from now. We have to fight them.

My question is, would it make you happy for Republicans to lose on 11/7? Would you like that? Would it be punishment or something to all of those Republicans who aren't quite conservative enough for the conservative utopia? That's what it sounds like when you repeat Democrat stump speeches.

If you keep rallying for the Republicans to lose, who is going to pass all of this conservative legislation that you want? Nancy Pelosi? You want to see some social security reform? Forget about it. You want some Hillary-care? You got it.

Democrats are going to stall all possible progress that could be made in the last two years of the Bush presidency, or regime, as you might say, they're going to drag the economy down, prevent continuance of the Patriot Act, push legislation to give terrorists the right to attorney, push for free education for all illegal immigrants, and then blame all of the bad stuff on George Bush during the race for the presidency in 2008.

Mark it down. They're going to screw everything up and then blame it on Bush and the Republicans in their presidential campaigns, all because people like you demand perfection during the election season. It doesn't matter who is in Congress when disaster strikes. Who the President is is what matters. If Democrats take Congress and weaken anti-terror measures, then someone gets in and blows something up, do you think people are going to say, "Oh, those stupid Democrats!" Absolutely not. They're going to blame Bush and then we're going to have to sit through eight years of Democrat rule, at least, complaining the entire time about the insanity of what they're doing, their lack of resolution on Social Security reform, raising taxes, raising minimum wages, granting the UN power over us, and so on.

The time for all of this ranting was the day after election day - 2004. We should come together during the election season so the country doesn't get turned over to a bunch of radicals.

Were you happier during the Clinton years? Are San Francisco values better than weak-conservative values? Decide on Novmber 7th.

The necessity of the Senate appropriately dealing with the border issue is only half about the border. It is obviously necessary to close it. People who say we can deal with the border and the 12 million might be right, in the sense that we can. However, we should not do it yet.

Forcing the Senate to pass a bill which deals with border enforcement is about the people forcing the Senate to do something. The House gets a lot of credit for holding strong and forcing Congress to take a conservative approach to the immigration/border issue. The border bill is about people forcing Congress to do something, disciplining the Senate, and most importantly, the Senate taking an opportunity to show that they hear us and to show that they are willing to take a conservative approach.

It may very well be possible for us to deal with every facet of the immigration/border problem in one piece of legislation. Senate Republicans, however, need to show that they hear us. I think for too long, Congressional-types have tried to show everybody how incredibly intelligent they are by passing huge, "comprehensive," all-encompassing pieces of legislation full of wisdom rivaled only by God and all they have done is make asses out of themselves by taking twenty-five years to pass the bill and then once it's passed, watching as it fails.

Baby steps are the way to go on this issue. It is good for Senate and House Republicans and the nation as a whole. Solving one problem at a time, starting with the most important and obvious problems, will eventually solve the whole issue.

Bush is definitely wrong about this. However, make no mistake, as I told you a long time ago, he is wrong on purpose. He is aware that Congress could not agree on comprehensive legislation. He is purposely giving Republican Congressmen an opportunity to "distance themselves" from him by being more conservative than him. This gives Republican candidates a chance to capitalize on the President's low approval, even while riding his coattails on the strength of his anti-terror record.

Beautiful strategy, but only if Republican candidates take the opportunity.

As I told you would happen 4 days ago, yesterday Stan Chesley (previously referred to as "class-action attorneys," and ridiculed here) made himself the first class-action attorney to file a lawsuit against Comair and Delta. The fake caring has already begun.

Chesley's lack of shame is despicable. The crash was on Sunday morning. How long did it take Chesley to get to the victims' families, stir up his best Clintonian crocodile tears, and then talk them in to letting him sue someone on their behalf? Well, word about the suit came out Friday. You do the math. I wonder where Chesley and Co. celebrated afterwards. It just makes me sick the way this greedy predator pounces on grieving families.

A lawsuit which yields monetary benefits for anyone after an accident such as this one does nothing. It will not bring anybody back to life, and it can potentially make life even more miserable for the victims' families, because no amount of money can ease the pain caused by the loss of a loved one. Large sums of money often drive people into miserable lifestyles, and people (e.g. lottery winners) often regret ever taking the money. I believe that everyone should have a good life insurance policy for their spouse or family to collect at a time like this, but that is really just to replace the victim's income over the next x years.

I'm not saying necessarily that there should be no lawsuit here, or that if Comair was negligent they should not pay something. However, I think it would be more appropriate for Comair to spend money on increased safety standards, newer airplanes, and newer technologies to make catastrophes like this more rare. Maybe they could double the victims' existing life insurance policies and provide post-humous insurance for those victims who did not have life insurance. Perhaps the most appropriate thing would be for people to not fly on airlines after they crash, thus putting the airline out of business. That is one way to make them pay, isn't it? Then they, "can't do this to somebody else." Right? It would be much more effective. All suing an airline does is pull money out of the airline's insurance company. After the suit, it is back to business as usual. To wholly picket the airline would drive it out of business and strike fear in all the others.

Seriously, why do you think Chesley has already picked Comair/Delta? The NTSB's investigation is not complete. How could he know who to sue? Why not the Bluegrass Airport? Was the plane crash really Comair's fault? Maybe the pilots were just doing what they were told to do by the guy in the tower. Maybe Chesley should sue the controller for not sleeping enough and telling the pilot to go to the wrong runway. The controller doesn't have insurance for that kind of thing, though. Not enough for Chesley, even if he does. See, Comair and Delta are the Big Business, and so they probably have a Big Insurance policy that can be cleaned out when something like this happens. So Chesley doesn't really even have to worry about what is right and what is wrong. He just sues whoever has the most insurance.

Maybe eventually airlines won't fear the cost of updating equipment and revamping airplanes. Maybe one day we will all be comfortable on airplanes. Maybe one day there will be multiple cockpit doors, maybe even two cockpits, and armed security people on every flight. They can't afford these things now, though. The nation refuses to build coal to liquid fuel plants to provide airlines with cheap fuel. The nation refuses to allow competent security measures to be implemented at airports and on airplanes. And people sue each other over everything driving piles of cash into law firms, and slowing progress, all in the name of . . . some righteous mission. When was the last time you heard about a law firm being sued by someone. I don't think that happens very often. Legal malpractice is not a big topic, is it?

If I were Comair and I were not negligent, I would fight Chesley with everything I have, prove my innocence, and then sue Chesley for everything he has. Maybe then we could get some cheaper flights.

(Judge Wil) Schroder for Justice has hired Ray Stewart and the Frankfort-based Stewart Media Group to do their campaign ads this fall. Stewart has a pretty slimy reputation, especially since 2002 when he ran a campaign ad which purportedly depicted the opposition candidate in a trailer preparing to have sex with a man who was not her husband. This from the Lexington Herald-Leader:

The ad, which Emmons called a fabrication, did not mention adultery. But it showed a sitting woman removing clothing as a man moved toward her. "It shows just how little she values her reputation and wedding vows," said the ad, which was prepared by Frankfort political consultant Ray Stewart.

This also from the Herald-Leader:

In it, May introduces what he says is "an X-rated video" that he says shows Hancock. The woman in the tape is sitting on a small bed, beginning to remove her pants.

May says in the ad that the tape "shows just how little she values her reputation and wedding vows."

Stewart, May's consultant, offered a deal yesterday. He said his campaign would drop the sex tape ad if Hancock's campaign dropped the ad about May's brushes with the law. Emmons said that might not happen.

Apparently, Stewart was "fighting fire with fire." His client had been arrested for one reason or another 56 times over the previous eleven years and the adulterous sinning cheater-woman in the video told the public about it. His response was to lie and then say that he wasn't going to stop lying until the sinner woman stopped telling the truth. I wonder what Stewart would have done if the woman had mentioned that 40 of the 56 charges upon which his client had been arrested were later amended down. My bet is he would have ran the exact same ad.

This says a lot about Schroder. He has this "anything to win" attitude. He will do whatever he has to do to win that seat because he is obsessed with power and has no morals. A decent candidate would not take free service from Stewart. Apparently, some Republicans have hired the guy just so their opponents can't. Whether or not that's true, we may never know, but I hope that we can run a state in which people who do the right thing win the elections. Call it pie in the sky, but Marcus Carey is doing the right thing and he would make a superb Kentucky Supreme Court Justice.

One reason I know this is because when Marcus Carey saw Wil Schroder out in public last week he tried to shake his hand. That is a common enough courtesy to extend to your opponent in a civil democratic election. Judge Schroder wasn't even gentlemanly enough to shake hands with Carey. He turned his back on him and muttered something under his breath. Schroder is acting as if he is offended that someone has the audacity to run against him in this election. It's a typical liberal attitude. They think they are entitled to power because they are just such good and caring people. They think it is their birthright. It is like John Kerry going to the front of the line and saying, "Do you know who I am?"

Schroder is having a hard time hiding his true self. Marcus Carey is looking more and more like not only a better man, but a more reasonable man who is more fit to be Justice. Schroder will do what is popular, not what is right as laid out by the law. He is too weak to be Justice. He is too concerned with being liked. He is too obsessed with power, and too in love with himself. The humble Marcus Carey is the one who will set the laws of Kentucky above himself, his ego, what is popular, and all else.

Democrats. Constantly relying on the media to do their dirty work. They've done it ever since there were only three television stations. Once people gained the options of who to listen to and whether or not to listen to all sides, conservatives started winning. Don't put all your eggs in one blog, people.

Kentucky Progress reported a rumor that Cindy Sheehan is coming to Kentucky for a Democrat fund-raiser. That would be perfect for the Republicans. Democrats think money is the solution to everything. Anything for a few dollars. They shouldn't even go near Cindy Sheehan, much less receive remarks from her formally and accept money at the event. That's their prerogative, though.

Anyway, a comment-fest then ensued and I became frustrated with some of the comments:

What I am the most sick of is people talking about things being popular or unpopular.

Even if the majority of the country really does believe we should leave Iraq, that doesn't mean leaving Iraq is the right decision!! The right thing to do is not always popular.

We're a sick nation, and it doesn't surprise me at all to hear that "a majority of Americans believe the Iraq War is a mistake." Frankly, though, it doesn't matter what the majority of Americans think regarding this issue. All you can do is vote. I thank God every day that we have a president and an administration that, for the most part, doesn't care about what these stupid polls say. He wants to do the right thing. He wants to do what is best for the country - long term. That course of action won't necessarily be popular right now, but I can guarantee you that a hundred years from now Americans will survey history and thank God that we did what we are now doing.

Myopic America. At least the voting bloc is majority conservative.

We're just scared that this next war will have to end like WWII. That's a legitimate fear. However, if we do the right thing now and do not allow this sickness to infect the world any further, that will probably not be necessary. Even if it is necessary, so be it. Look at Japan now. It is one of the greatest nations on the planet. In 1945, though, it was consumed by a depraved ideology. War changed that.

I was honored, I guess, to be chosen "Best Conservative Parody Blog Ever" by Wirecan yesterday. Things like this tell me I'm doing something right. This guy apparently knows that this is not a parody site, but decided to label mine "parody" anyway because of my excessive level of stupidity. Awesome!

Open letter to Tom Jurich - University of Louisville Athletic Director:

Hi, Mr. Jurich. I am just amazed when I walk or drive around campus at all the new or relatively new sports facilities that have been built since you became UofL's Athletic Director. They are awesome for the University, the city, and ultimately the state.

I can't help but to think that you could do great things for the state of Kentucky if you ever put your mind to it. I mentioned the idea to a highly respected professor on campus and he said it wouldn't be a bad idea. I said we should try to make you President of the University. He mentioned a better idea - President of the Council on Postsecondary Education.

It may sound far-fetched to some, maybe even to you. You know - giving an athletics guy (and a UofL guy to boot) authority to make decisions that would impact the entire state's education system. "What does he know about that?! That's dumb!" I don't care, though.

You don't play around. You think long-term. You set high goals and you take steps, even the necessary baby steps, to accomplish those goals. You find the money, raise the money, print the money, whatever it takes to get the job done. You delegate properly. More importantly, in my mind, you're determined. You can sell an idea if you want to, if you know it is the right thing to do for the long term.

Just like you went and got Pitino, and you've bargained to keep Petrino - paying both of them the big bucks they deserve - you could do the same in the higher academic arena. You could persuade the best professors to come here and bring their research grants and their teams and families with them. You could get Federal grants and bring true national academic and scientific recognition to the state. Kentucky may be ripe right now, with this UofL stem-cell thing going on. If that pans out, as it appears to be, and the correct catalysts are applied this place could boom.

You might laugh at this, but I can't help it. I think you have what it takes to drive this state towards success.

Maybe once you get Papa John's Cardinal Stadium expanded you'll consider a job change? A NCAA Championship? BCS Bowl?

You've benefited Louisville tremendously. You could benefit Kentucky next.

This is not a post about athletics at all. I just think Tom Jurich has great leadership, innovation, and problem-solving skills. We need more people like him in state government.

I love the stories coming out of Provincetown, MA about gay people harassing straight people for being straight. The funniest part about it is when they call the straight people "breeders." As if humanity could survive without "breeders."

It's actually a lot more serious than how I'm presenting it, but the fair and balanced news website has a story about it. It's definitely worth reading at least 50% of the article.

Here's a link.

Thanks to Stop the ACLU, I read Islamo-Nazi propaganda today. It was truly amazing. Not unbelievable at all, but amazing. The aforelinked piece about Senator Santorum's "repugnant remarks on Islam, Iran, and Syria" reminds me so much of Joseph Goebbels it is ridiculous.

The funny thing about stuff like this is it points you directly to your enemy. If al-Jazeera publishes an editorial defending Iran and Syria, that is exactly who you need to fight. Since it also criticizes Senator Santorum, that tells you that Senator Santorum is doing something right - if by "doing something right" you mean "doing something to defeat terrorism."

It's Isaiah 5:20 again.

The guy actually said at the end of the article, "Vote Democratic." That is just amazing. I think it was actually stupid on the propagandist's part, because some people will probably (and should) exploit the crap out of that. So the guy is actually probably doing something to hurt his cause, which of course is getting weak Democrats into office so terrorists can get into the country, break things, and kill people.

They might be idiots, but we have some idiots, too. Part of our strategy must be to be collectively smarter than them. Americans have to learn to read between the lines and not believe everything they see or hear, and more importantly, ask "Why would ____ do/say that?" We're so skeptical of the Bush Administration, but we (some of us) believe everything that newspapers and television sets tell us. Some of us believe that human rights organizations fight only for human rights. Some of us believe the ACLU only wants to protect civil liberties as defined in the Constitution. We think news shows are right. We think journalists are smart. We think newspapers present historically documented eye-witness account no other side of the story facts. We think the United Nations is a world governing body.

I don't want to sound too cynical, because I actually believe that there is a tremendous amount of good in the world. It is a great place that we have been given. However, wake up!!!! There are some honest people and organizations out there. Look for them.

This is the comment I made on Stop the ACLU's entry about this Lebanese-German el-Masri and the ACLU suit on his behalf:

The ACLU wants to undermine ALL security measures because they actually want another terrorist attack to occur -key phrase warning- while George Bush is President.

This, in their minds and in the minds of Democrats everywhere, would embarass George Bush, prove his policies to be a failure, and catapault them into a position where they can take the lead credibility position on terrorism, because it IS the most important issue out there. Yes, STILL. Actually and politically.

The ACLU and the NYT would not be doing this crap if it could not benefit Democrats. If a Democrat wins in ‘08, watch them drop all these national security oriented lawsuits and go back to the good old right to child pornography etc. The ACLU that we all love.

Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy! genius, has some very humorous and seemingly conservative writing on his site. I didn't investigate his front personality very extensively at all, but he seemed pretty conservative, what with living in Utah, being a Mormon, being intelligent, and referring to "left coast crap." I even felt some of his pain this morning.

I am grateful to Michael for the extra web traffic, but not for the humor-impaired sock puppet users who showed up on the message board this morning to either defend Jeopardy! or make trouble, I can't tell which. In any case, they've (he's?) violated several of our posting guidelines, and the threads will be removed shortly. I welcome reasoned disagreement on a blog entry's strengths and flaws, but this wasn't it.

Man. I know the feeling. Is it possible that I am as smart as Ken Jennings and that is why we get harassed?

Don't burst my bubble. Let me live this out for a little while.

The Iraq challenge isn't over, and it will eventually be concluded. As more of us can see now, the purpose of it was mostly to destabilize - and then restabilize in a more correct and less terroristic fashion - the broader Middle East as a whole. Anybody who thinks Iraq was about Saddam & Co. is out of touch. Bush actually laid most of this out a long time ago. Nobody listened, though. Everybody wanted to talk about WMD. They had to sell it to us somehow, though.

This spending thing is definitely ridiculous. Deficit spending to get out of a recession isn't exactly a new idea, though. Plus, even though he has veto power, I still think that ball is mostly in Congress's court.

On that note, I don't really care who is President on January 21, 2009, as long as it's somebody who will not wimp out on this Middle East struggle. If it turns into World War III, so be it, but if we stay strong and be smart it probably won't go that far.

Stop doubting. "No legacy for Mr. Bush." Whatever. All of this is obviously very, very complex and sensitive. That's why it's so frustrating when people reduce this discussion to low-IQ arguments about oil, and Big Oil, and Halliburton, etc.

It's much more serious than that.

Maybe it is time to elect a true conservative in '08. In fact, I emphatically agree with that. However, #1 is stopping Islamofascists and anyone else who would nuke us because if we fail to take care of this problem now it will come back to haunt us in the form of suicide bombings, dirty bombs, and mushroom clouds.

Iran is the heart of Islamofascist terror. However, you have to weaken your opponent before going for the knockout. Iraq is a jab. Hezbollah is a jab. Al-Qaida is a jab. It's all part of defeating one opponent, though. That enemy is terrorism, or more specifically, Islamofascist terror. Of course, North Korea could play a role in this, and maybe a major role, but our main enemy right now are the Islamofascists.

We have to be confident, though. All this self-doubt and worry will do nothing but serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy is we don't clean up our own acts.

The mental part of the game is the most important part. Offense and defense are simple. What matters is strategy, confidence, a can-win attitude. Sometimes the game plan may need to be altered. That's fine. Do it, but not until you're absolutely certain that your plan won't work because there is a very real possibility that it just hasn't worked yet.

I should probably get some quotes from coaches on this stuff. Maybe then you would believe me. I'll leave that up to you, though.

Betty Williams, co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize announced today to schoolchildren in Australia, "Right now, I would love to kill George Bush."

The Nobel people may desire peace, but they are too consumed with idealism and doing what is popular to make a sound decision regarding how to achieve peace.

Pray that all this chatter doesn't cloud the vision of the president's security service.

John at Stop the ACLU has a great comprehensive review of why the American Criminal Liberties Union is ridiculous at this page.

If anyone is having trouble understanding why the ACLU is not helping the cause of progress in America, or thinks the ACLU is cool, reading this page would be a good way to start turning your life around. It probably takes about ten minutes to read, but he has a ton of links which could further your education.

It's a must read.