Free In Idaho!

Maverick…on embryonic stem cell research.

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign has enlisted the aid of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) in reaffirming McCain’s support of taxpayer funding for embryonic stem cell research in the face of an Obama for President campaign radio ad that accuses McCain of not supporting stem cell research.

“The fact is John McCain has been a champion for stem cell research, which holds the promise of curing devastating diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease,” Specter said in a press release put out by the McCain campaign on Wednesday. “John McCain bucked the majority of our party in standing strong with me in urging the Bush Administration to lift restrictions on stem cell research, and last year voted to overturn the Bush policy.”

Just being his loveable old, maverick self. 

Hey Maverick.  Read the papers.  You might find out you’re behind the curve here.  Instead of hacking off “your” party, why not take a position that REALLY says “reform” and support government funding for this research instead?  You’ll thank me if you take my advice.

A breakthrough in stem cell research reported Thursday could render moot the divisive political-ethical debate over the use of cells culled from human embryos.

A team of Boston scientists announced that they have developed a safe way to generate pluripotent stem cells (iPS) that are functionally similar to embryonic stem cells, but are derived from adult cells. A previous technique had a cancer risk.

The breakthrough involved using mice cells, but if it can be repeated in humans, it could pave the way for treatment of a wide range of genetic diseases. The ultimate promise is to one day develop therapies using a patient’s own cells to cure disease.

I’m not a huge supporter of government funding every research scientist in the country, but this might be a good investment for somebody with a little cash (which we taxpayers DON’T right now).

I just heard the news announce that John McCain is suspending his Presidential campaign in order to concentrate on the bailout crisis.  He’s asked Barack Uhbama to match him on this one.  I can hear them both now

“It is NOT a bailout, it is a comprehensive economic reform plan.”

“Uh, Present.”

Why am I not feeling relieved and calmed here?

I know I’m just a little old guy in Idaho with an opinion and a keyboard, but I’m not the only one who hates this whole bailout frenzy.  For a graduate level series of links about the mortgage crisis and the bailout, check out Newmark’s Door. Other naysayers?  Newt doesn’t like it.  Michelle has a lot of info and links, and she doesn’t either.  Jonah Goldberg weighs in against it.  An article at ‘naked capitalism’ hits some of the low points of the proposal, including the part I was railing against yesterday myself.  Who does Paulson think he is?

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Oh no you don’t.  Paulson, you are NOT God, and we’re not making you king.  You’re telling us we have to give you, unelected, nearly complete power over a major portion of the economy, with no review, not even by the courts, and we have to do it before tomorrow?  Screw that!  Pardon my French, but you and your Wall Street buddies and the Donkeys they rode in on can go hang.  I like the idea I read earlier this morning (can’t remember where now so no link) that McCain, if he indeed wants to be the Maverick he thinks he is and loves this country as much as he says he does, ought to denounce this obscene bailout bill.  That would make it an Obama-Bush bill, pushed by Dems and Rinos, and would put him clearly in the “change/different” spot.  But Mr McCain has proven himself to be Constitutionally challenged at times himself, so I won’t hold my breath. 

Watch closely folks, if this was happening in a foreign country we’d be hearing about coups and an ‘attempted takeover’.  But it’s happening in America and they’re telling us we need to be saved from the end of the world.  Don’t be afraid of The Great Depression 2.0, be afraid of the men who are involved, who are telling you capitalism is the evil here, who are demanding all your money, and are expecting you to hand over power over the whole thing.  Just say no. 

So, you’re convinced we need a bailout to keep the end of the world from happening, eh?  And you’re believing this because the same incompetents who got us into the mess are now telling you we need it to get out?  Sheesh.  Well then, lets not do it ala carte, let’s just get everything on the menu.

In the dark of night over the weekend when most people were snoozing, the Treasury dramatically expanded its bailout plan to include buying student loans, car loans, credit card debt and any other “troubled” assets held by banks.

The changes, which were included in draft language that also opened the bailout program to foreign banks with extensive loan operations in the United States, potentially added tens of billions of dollars to the cost of the program.

Although it was a major addition to what was already the nation’s largest-ever bailout, it did not become part of the debate between Democrats and the Treasury over details of the program. A Monday counterproposal by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd included such consumer loans as well as mortgages, just as the Treasury’s draft did Saturday night.

Foreign banks too?  Student loans?  Car loans?  You’re kidding me, right?  And this is all figured out by dirty politicians, socialists, crooks, and bozos who together with their Wall Street cronies built the biggest money vacuum on earth, and now they want to flip that switch.  From our pockets into theirs.  Chris Dodd. Henry Paulson.  Charlie Rangel.  Chuck Schumer.  Ben Bernanke.  Barney Frank.

Not the sharpest, or the cleanest, knives in the drawer.  Tell me again why this is the right plan.  Right plan for who?  Sounds to me that “we the people” are going to take it in the shorts no matter what they do, and the pols will come out with more power and more of our money.  And this benefits me?  How?

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. stressed that the additions were needed to ensure that student loans and credit cards - which have become indispensable to the spending habits and career plans of many Americans - do not become victims of the widening credit crunch.

Oooh, I like that.  “Indispensible to the spending habits and career plans of many Americans”…

A statement like that ought to disqualify the man for any position higher than candy store clerk.  Fer cryin’ out loud, you’re all a bunch of socialist morons.  Stop it!  Don’t look now, but I’m afraid the future of America changed over the the last week.  It’s no longer going to be what we thought it was going to be.

Blessed, not bitter.  More video ads here.

The Donks are circling the wagons around the issue of race this week, especially as it applies to Barack Hoping It Changes Obama.  Flipping through the news channels this morning I see the meme is “white people won’t vote for the black guy because they’re secret racists”.

So, trying to guilt trip the rubes into voting for your candidate is the best you’ve got, eh?  It most definitely is NOT about race.  Your candidate for President is an undisguised socialist, big government hack politician, pushing the same old tired mantra of Bigger Nanny Government will save us all.  Higher taxes, more “Programs That Don’t Work And Never Die”, more regulation, and corrupt cronies in high places (can you say Fannie, Freddie, Rangel, and Dodd boys and girls?).  His judgment is not just questionable, it’s laughable… admit it, he picked Joe Middle No Class Biden over Mrs Bill Clinton for his Veep.  Even you Dems can’t figure that one out.

So keep it up Dems.  Keep pushing that tired old race card at us.  You just convince more and more of the everyday folks that you’ve got nothing to offer.

It’s NOT about race!

This is spot on

If Obama loses–and it is still a big ‘if’–too many liberals will fail to heed the message that voters have been sending them since 1981. Seventy percent of the country is tired of 1960s liberalism. Indeed many find the hippie vision frightening: A country too ashamed of itself to fight its enemies, too unsure of itself to praise its own history,govern its children or corral its criminals,and too resentful of the rich to allow the economy to make more of them.

It’s too bad 70 percent is not an accurate number. If it were, the hippies would have been defeated long ago. That our country is so polarized, and the hippie vision still has so many adherents, is evidence that we still have a fight on our hands… a big ‘if’, indeed.  Way too many of our fellow citizens see nothing wrong with the vision of a big nanny government, socialist cartoon dream world, where the U.S. is just another uninspired, nonexceptional, effete player on the world stage.  It has nothing to do with which candidate is too old, or who is black, or which woman is the ‘correct’ woman. 

Yes, it’s too bad that 70 percent is not accurate.  Can you even imagine how great this country could be if it was?!

Bill O’Reilly is a populist idiot.  He’s going on and on about the evil oil companies.  Obvious answer is what Bill?  More government “oversight and regulation”?

Moron.

When did it become wrong in this country to believe in God, to speak of God’s will, and to pray?  I don’t mean for us little people out here in Rubeville.  I mean for politicians.  We’ve had to suffer through the phoney show of Bill Clinton carrying his Bible as he leaves church, the uniquely American Leftist Catholicism of John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden, and even the elevation of Barack I’m The One You Seek Obama to messiahhood.   But the Left is enormously threatened by a politician who talks about God as if they really believe He exists.  Why do you think that is?

The big traditional media is blatantly out in the open with their support for Obama, and the “progressive”, anti-Christian belief system that threatens to do away with the beliefs and values this country was founded on.  There are two holy wars going on right now, and only one of them is against Muslim fundamentalists.

Charlie Gibson, you’re another insufferable elitist putz.  It IS a holy war Charlie, and we’re wise to you.

Hillary Rodham Clinton?  She was influenced by him.

Barack Hussein Obama?  He was hired and trained by his disciples.

But nah, neither of them are the most famous.  And it certainly ISN’T Jesus Christ.

Today’s Democrats, spouting off their talking points about Jesus being a community organizer have it all wrong.  Just ask Saul Alinsky.  Oh sorry, you can’t ask him because the little sonofabitch is dead, and in hell, with his hero, the first community organizer.  Radical.  Progressive.  Community organizer.  What’s in a name?